Read Online Final Flight by Stephen Coonts - Free Book Online Page A

you been having any
headaches?”
    “Occasionally.”
    “Probably eyestrain. The glasses will cure
that.” Doctor Hartman laid his pencil aside and
turned in his chair to face Jake. “But you’ve been
having some other vision problems.” Jake said nothing.
    Hartman cleared his throat and toyed with the papers
in the medical file. “Captain, I know this is
going to be damn tough for you. It’s tough for me.
I’m sorry I have to be the one to tell you this, but your
flying days are over.
    “Bullshit.”
    “Captain, you flunked the night-vision tests.
Glasses won’t cure that.
    Nothing can. Your eyes are aging and you just don’t
see well enough to fly at night.”
    “Gimme some pills or shots.”
    “I can give you some vitamin A that may
help. Over time.” He shrugged.
    “Everyone’s vision deteriorates as they age, but
at different speeds.
    Yours just happens to have started faster than most
people’s. The nicotine you have been poisoning yourself with for
twenty years may also be a factor. Sometimes it
has an adverse effect on the tissues inside the
eye.” He found an envelope on his desk and
sketched an eye. “When light stops stimulating the
eye, the tissues manufacture a chemical
called liquid purple, and this chemical increases
the sensitivity of the rods inside the eye. In your
case, either the chemical is no longer being
manufactured in sufficient quantity or the rods
are becoming insensitive… .” He droned on, his
pencil in motion. Jake thought he looked like a
flight instructor sketching lift and drag
vectors around an airfoil.
    “Listen, Doc, most people don’t command air wings.
I do, and I have to fly to do my job.”
    “Well, I’ll have to send in a report. My
recommendation is that you be grounded, but maybe we can
get permission for you to just fly during the day.”
    Jake finished dressing in silence and sat in one
of the molded plastic chairs. “That won’t
hack it,” he said at last. “I have to fly at
night and I’m going to continue to do so. This cruise will
be over in four months and I can turn in my flight
suit then. But until we get back to the States,
I have to fly at night to do this job.”
    “They could send another officer out here to replace
you.”
    “They could. But even if they do, he won’t be here
for a while, and I’m the man with the responsibility.”
    Hartman toyed with his pen. “Are you ordering me not
to make a grounding recommendation?”
    “No. I’m telling you I am going to keep
flying at night and I don’t give a damn what
you do.”
    “You can’t fly if I recommend you be grounded,”
Hartman said aggressively. “I know where I
stand.”
    “You know all about sore throats and clap and which
pills are which.
    But you don’t know a goddamn thing about the navy.
How long have you been in? Three years?”
    “Three and a half. But that’s beside the point.”
    “No. That is the point. I was flying navy
airplanes and scaring myself silly coming aboard while
you were still in junior high school. I’ve
been riding these birdfarms for twenty years and know
what naval leadership is and I know my own
capabilities. The navy picked me for this job
because I know how to do it. And I intend to do this job the
best way I know how until I’m relieved
by another qualified officer.”
    “I’m going to send a message to BURNED.”
    “Before you do, I want you to talk to the admiral.
You give him your opinion. I work for him.”
    “And you’re going to keep flying?”
    “Unless Parker says not to, that’s precisely
what I will do. You whip up some of those vitamin
pills. Order the glasses and call me when they
come in.”
    Toad Tarkington was standing by the wardroom door
when Jake approached carrying a helmet bag.
Toad stepped through the door and announced,
“Attention on deck.” The men were still rising when
Jake went by Toad and said loudly, “As you were.”
He still couldn’t get used to officers snapping
to attention when he entered