Free Top Hook by Gordon Kent

started helping check the maintenance inventory with Craw and Campbell.
    â€œWhy isn’t somebody from maintenance doing this?” Alan was looking at lists of parts and numbers that meant nothing to him.
    â€œNot my place to say, sir.”
    â€œFuck that.”
    â€œThe acting maintenance officer is in his rack getting his crew rest.” Alan winced. Rafe had been right: this detachment was a mess.
    The phone rang. The petty officer in Pensacola said that he had Soleck’s leave papers in his hand and read off the Buffalo phone number listed for contact. Alan thanked him to a degree that clearly surprised him and called the new number, looking at his battered Casio. Past four a.m. in New York.
    â€œHello?” The voice was thick with sleep.
    â€œMay I speak to LTjg Evan Soleck?”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œMister Soleck, this is Lieutenant-Commander Alan Craik, your detachment officer-in-charge. I need you to report for duty immediately.”
    â€œHey, Corky, fuck off, okay? You might have woken my parents.”
    â€œMister Soleck, I’m Alan Craik and this is not a prank.”
    Long pause.
    â€œUh, sir? Is this for real?”
    â€œWelcome aboard, Mister Soleck. We flew off from Norfolk thirty-six hours ago and right now we’re aboutto weigh anchor from port Trieste. Do you know how to get travel orders?”
    â€œUhh—”
    â€œGet your ass down to Pax River today and tell the travel section to get you here ASAP.”
    â€œUh, sir? I have these tickets for a concert in Buffalo? And a date?”
    Despite himself, Alan smiled. “Tell her to wait, Mister Soleck. You’ll be at sea.”
    Then he walked down to the hangar deck, getting the feel for his men. No women in the det. Old habit made him start to think, Just as well, and then he remembered what Rose would have said. And that made him think of her, and he felt a pang of absence. All this telephoning, and he hadn’t even tried to reach her, but that had been their arrangement: she would be on the road to Houston, and they would talk when he got to Naples. He glanced at his watch again. Past four in Utica, too, where in another hour she would be waking, saying goodbye, getting the car and heading west. Without a care in the world.
    Down on the hangar deck, he was surprised to find aircraft number 902, due to fly in the first event, with her port engine dismounted and a swarm of maintenance personnel covering her. Several men looked his way; they looked at each other, and then they got very busy. Alan smiled at one he knew.
    â€œHey, Mendez! What’re you doing, still in the Nav?”
    Mendez, Gloucester-born, Portuguese sailors in his genes, smiled a little reservedly and climbed down from the wing. He wiped his hand several times on his coveralls before presenting it to be shaken. Alan had served with Mendez during the Gulf War; Mendez had introduced him to the methods of loading the chaffand flare cartridges in the S-3’s underbelly. Looking at Mendez, Alan felt younger. “You made first class,” he said.
    â€œUp for chief this year, sir.” Alan nodded and pumped his hand. “Still married?”
    â€œYessir, with two kids.”
    â€œIntroduce me, will you?” Alan walked around the plane, and Mendez, always a popular sailor, introduced him to the men working there. Now they weren’t a swarm; now they looked at him with interest rather than—what had it been? Suspicion? Alan could feel their questions, the ones Rafe had warned him about— Why had he lost a posting and got this? What was this guy doing here? Even Mendez seemed wary, but Alan pressed on. “Remind me when your chief’s board is coming up, will you, Mendez?” He looked around. “Okay, help me out, guys—what’s the story here?”
    In spurts, from various men, he was made to understand that 902 had a bad engine, that “everybody” knew that a new engine