For those of you that are interested, a peek at the first chapter of my next Naval Investigative Service murder / suspense novel, 'Hole in the Bottom of the Sea'. I expect this out in ebook format in September-October 2019

Cheers

Bill  

ONE

23:17 Hours

August 21, 1975

CV-62, USS Independence

215 Nautical Miles South Southwest of Catania, Sicily

DRUGGED-UP LIKE ON SHORE leave and naked as the day he was born, Earle Jack Hadley stumbled up out of the catwalks, wobbled across the flight deck, and was sliced into cutlets by Clem Button’s port propeller.  Chief Warrant Officer Button had just pounded his ancient, twin-engined cargo plane onto the flight deck.  The Trader’s tail hook even hit the ‘sweet spot’ – the third of the four arresting cables – a feat the overweight, cigar chomping old man hadn’t managed in weeks.  Washed-up, am I?  Take that, you motherfuc- 

The windscreen turned red.

Clem knew what the red meant.  Button was a thirty year man, a lifer, one of the Navy’s last non-commissioned pilots.  He had had his share of accidents over those thirty years, but this was the first time he’d ever by God actually managed to kill anybody.  The unlit stogie fell from his mouth.  He stood on the brakes.  The ensign in the copilot seat did the same before leaning forward and throwing up on the instrument panel.  Neither raised the aircraft’s tail hook.  The petty officer in charge of the arresting gear stood shock-still in the catwalks while the retraction motor kept grinding away, trying to roll up the thick steel cable.  The combination of locked brakes, snagged hook, and moving wire forced Button’s tail down and his nose up, all the while dragging his aircraft back over what remained of E. J. Hadley.

The petty officer finally hit the emergency switch.  The cable went slack.  The Trader’s nose gear slammed down onto the deck, bounced back in the air, came down a second time and collapsed.  Button’s engines were still at full military power.  The propeller tips splintered as they hit the deck, sending angry shards of aluminum slashing away into the dark sky.

Sixteen crewmen worked the flight deck that night, another thirty one stood on Vulchers Row high on the ship’s island.  A few of the people up on the Row were air wing staffers grading the night’s recoveries, but most of them were there because the ship’s air conditioning had crapped-out again and it was too goddamn hot below decks to sleep.  Nine men were wounded, three seriously.  The others spent the next several moments crouched behind flight deck tractors or face down on the deck plates thanking Christ, Jehovah, or some sainted ancestor that they had survived in one piece. 

Lieutenant (junior grade) Patrick Chase was particularly fervent in his thanks.  His cheek was pressed hard against the dirty steel decking of Vulchers Row.   He was horrified by what he had seen, and grateful unto the heaven he didn’t quite believe in for not having been sliced to bits by flying shrapnel.  But most important, Patrick had recognized the naked boy who stumbled into Clem Button’s propeller.  It was difficult not to – three nights earlier, he and Airman Apprentice Hadley had together violated whole chapters of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Patrick had barely slept since.  He knew enough to keep his mouth shut, but Hadley?  Patrick was up on the Row trying to come up with a plan - any plan - that might save his career, or at the very least keep him out of the Portsmouth Naval Prison.    

And now, with his face rubbed raw against the deck plates, a lieutenant commander’s bony knee grinding into the small of his back, and the horror that was E. J. Hadley still lying on the flight deck, a small but insistent voice in the back of Patrick's head told him he no longer needed to worry about Hadley’s big mouth.  He no longer needed a plan.  His nightmare was over.  Over. 

That voice couldn’t have been more wrong.