The storm had cut visuals to a minimum, and the puddle hopper down
there was still not responding. Morton figured if giving the guy a
flyby didn't get his attention, then Command would want to hand him a
little heat, say a tracer from the Tomcat's 20mm cannon. He prayed it
wouldn't come to that, because that might well cause the guy to pee in
his pants and go down for sure.
What the hell was going on, anyway? The wing had shipped out of Souda,
battle-ready, with less than an hour's notice. There still hadn't been
a briefing. The whole thing was some top-secret exercise nobody could
figure. And now this bullshit.
He thought again about the rumor going around the flight deck of the
Kennedy that an AWACS had been brought up from Saudi to monitor all air
traffic in the area. What the hell was that about? Command had dropped
a hint about terrorists, but this whole mobilization seemed like using
a Phoenix missile on a mosquito.
Then, just as he had feared, the radio crackled again. "Birdseye, this
is the TAO. I've just got you authorization to lay a tracer alongside
that bogey if he refuses to acknowledge your flyby."
"Please repeat for verify." Morton had expected it, but he wasn't about
to jeopardize his career over a misunderstood radio transmission.
"You have positive authorization to lay one tracer in the vicinity of
Icarus Delta One. Monitor her response and we will advise follow-up
procedure."
"Roger. But first let me try to raise them on the radio one last time."
That cooks it, Morton told himself. Guess they want to play hardball
with these assholes. Whatever this so- called "exercise" is all about,
somebody upstairs is taking it all very seriously.
But then who knew? Maybe those guys down there were terrorists. Word
had already reached the Kennedy's lower decks about the Glover being
shot all to hell in a false-flag attack, which meant caution was the
byword. The rumor mill also had it that terrorists had seized one of
the small Greek islands in this area. Was that it? Was the Navy's
quarantine intended to keep them from bringing in reinforcements? To
interdict them if they tried to get away? Had the U.S. Navy been made
into a watchdog?--a pretty lowly station after the glories in the Gulf.
He spoke over the cockpit intercom, the ICS, advising Brady of the
authorization. It was a formality, since Frank had monitored all the
radio talk.
Brady said, "Shit," then flipped on the F-14's weapons station and
armed it.
"We're hot."