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."