Warriors (9781101621189) by Tom Young Page B

picked up the animal and said, “Hello, mate.”
    Behind the RAF crewmen, Webster and Cunningham came through the door. Parson waved, and the two pulled up chairs and joined him and Gold.
    â€œAnything new?” Webster asked.
    â€œI was about to ask you that,” Parson said.
    â€œYou first.”
    â€œWell, the lab reports confirmed what we already knew. Dumb son of a bitch flew a perfectly good aircraft into a microburst and didn’t have the power to get out of the downdraft.”
    â€œA jet fighter might not have had enough power to recover from that downdraft.”
    â€œI know it. And our Captain Careless should have known it, too.”
    â€œDamned shame.”
    â€œSo what have you two been so Secret Squirrel about today?” Parson asked.
    â€œCan’t talk about it here,” Webster said, “but I think they’re sending me some help.”
    â€œReally?” Parson said. He started to ask what kind of help. But before he could even begin the sentence, Webster shook his head. The commander apparently would not discuss it in public, even in the vaguest terms. Cunningham changed the subject.
    â€œHow long have you been flying?” he asked.
    Parson explained how he’d begun his career as a C-130 navigator back in the ’90s, then cross-trained to pilot and flown C-5s. He left out a lot of what came in between. Gold said nothing, only met his eyes and gave that half smile of hers.
    â€œMy grandfather was a pilot,” Cunningham said.
    â€œAir Force?” Parson asked.
    â€œCivil Air Patrol.”
    The Air Force’s civilian auxiliary. They wore Air Force–style uniforms and flew light airplanes for stateside emergency services such as search and rescue. The CAP also ran cadet programs to educate kids about aerospace.
    â€œGood program,” Parson said. “Did your granddad work with young folks?”
    â€œActually, no.”
    Then Cunningham described a corner of military history Parson never knew. Most people believe World War II combat never touched American shores, the OSI agent explained. But it did, quite literally. During the long-running Battle of the Atlantic, German U-boats targeted Allied shipping. Partly due to the course of the Gulf Stream, shipping lanes ran close to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Perfect hunting grounds for the
Kriegsmarine, where sub commanders could silhouette freighters and tankers against the lights of shore. Punch off torpedoes and vanish into the depths.
    Cunningham said his grandfather recalled seeing fires burning offshore at night. Not just a distant glow but towering flames fed by diesel or crude, flickering as the stricken vessel flooded, heeled over, hissed and groaned through its descent to the continental shelf. By day, oil, life jackets, even corpses, would wash up onto the sand. CAP pilots patrolled from the air, reporting any sightings of the German wolf pack. In a move unimaginable today, the military even gave live ordnance to a civilian auxiliary, and the CAP destroyed or damaged at least two subs by itself. All for defending home turf, as his granddad had put it.
    â€œAfter the war,” Cunningham said, “my grandfather joined the North Carolina Highway Patrol, and he flew helicopters for them. That sort of led me into law enforcement.”
    Webster raised his eyebrows, apparently impressed. So was Parson. A lot of people told a story about how family history brought them into their careers, but few told a story like that. Family had also influenced Parson’s career. His father had flown as an Air Force navigator, too. Not on big transports, but as a backseater in fighter jets. The elder Parson died in the first Gulf War, in the crash of his F-4G Wild Weasel. Never got to see his boy wearing wings.
    Parson spent the next two days writing his report on the C-27 accident. He interviewed three more witnesses, just for the sake of completeness. But their statements