Executive orders - Tom Clancy [157]
A pity you never will.
* * *
17 - THE IRAQI TRANSFER
A WHOLE LOT OF NOTHING here, the pilot observed. The Seahawk was circling at a thousand feet, scanning the surface with a search RADAR acute enough to detect wreckage-it was designed to spot a submarine's periscope-but finding not so much as a floating bottle of Perrier. Both also wore low-light goggles, and they should have turned up a slick of jet fuel from the oily shine, but that also was negative.
Must have hit pretty hard not to leave anything, the co-pilot replied over the intercom.
Unless we're looking in the wrong spot. The pilot looked down at his tactical navigation system. They were in the right place. They were down to an hour's fuel. Time to start thinking about landing back on Radford, which was now combing the search area herself. The searchlights looked theatrical in the pre-dawn darkness, like something out of a World War II movie. A Libyan Cub was circling around, too, trying to be helpful but mainly being a pain in the ass.
Anything at all? the controller on Radford asked.
Negative. Nothing, say again nothing, down there that we can see. One hour's worth of gas here, over.
Copy one hour gas, Radford acknowledged.
Sir, the target's last course was three-four-three, speed two-nine-zero knots, rate of descent three thousand foot per minute. If he ain't in this footprint, I don't know why, a chief operations specialist said, tapping the chart. The captain sipped at his coffee and shrugged. Topside, the fire-and-rescue party was standing by. Two swimmers were in wetsuits, with a boat crew standing by the launch. There was a lookout posted for every set of binoculars aboard, looking for strobe lights or anything else, and sonar was listening for the high-frequency ping of the aircraft's emergency locator. Those instruments were designed to survive a severe impact, were automatically activated when exposed to seawater, and had battery power to operate for several days. Radford's sonar was sensitive enough to detect the damned thing from thirty miles away, and they were right over the impact zone predicted by the RADAR crew. Neither the ship nor her crew had ever done a rescue like this, but it was something for which they regularly drilled, and every procedure had been executed as perfectly as the CO could wish.
USS Radford, USS Radford, this is Valetta Approach, over.
The captain lifted the microphone. Valetta, this is Radford.
Have you located anything, over?
Negative, Valetta. Our helo's been all over the area, nothing to report yet. They'd already queried Malta for corrected data on the aircraft's last speed and heading, but it had dropped off the civilian RADAR even before departing the destroyer's more precise coverage. On both ends of the radio link, men sighed. They all knew how this would play out now. The search would continue for a day, no more, no less, and nothing would be found, and that was that. A telex had already gone to the manufacturer, informing them that one of their aircraft was lost at sea. Gulfstream representatives would fly to Bern to go over maintenance records and other printed data on the aircraft, hoping to garner a clue, and probably finding nothing, and this whole case would go into the unknown column in somebody's ledger book. But the game had to be played out, and, hell, it was still good training time for the crew of USS Radford. The crew would shrug it off. It wasn't anyone they knew, however desirable and uplifting a successful rescue would have been.
IT WAS PROBABLY the smell that told her what was wrong. The drive from the airport had been brief. It was dark outside still, and when the truck stopped, both doctor and nurse were still suffering from the lengthy time in movement. They arrived, and the first business was to get Sister Jean Baptiste inside. Only then did both of them remove their plastic garb for the last time. Maria Magdalena smoothed her short hair and breathed heavily, finally taking the time to look