Chapter 34
The End Of The Beginning

All is black shadow but the lucid line
marked by the light surf on the level sand,
Or where afar the ship-lights faintly shine
like wandering fairy fires, that oft on land
misled the pilgrim …

Charlotte Smith

Saturday, 24 October 1998
0640 EDT
Hogan's Cafe
Frederick, MD

Harm watched as Mac picked at her breakfast. "Don't you like your omelet? It has two different pork products," he joked.

"I'm not very hungry."

Mac been on edge since they had left DC. The prospect of meeting Sarah Harmon Rabb made her as nervous as she'd been during her meeting with Admiral Chegwidden and asking to return to JAG.

Because Harm consulted with his grandmother on nearly everything of importance, Mac suspected that if Sarah Rabb didn't approve of her, she and Harm had no future.

Mac pushed her plate aside. "Harm, what happens if your grandmother doesn't like me?"

"There's no chance of that."

"But you've said before that she's judgmental. What if she starts asking me personal questions? Or questions about my family."

Harm held up his hand. "Relax. You spent the first few hours in San Diego worried that my mother wouldn't like you, and she adores you. Trust me, Grams will love you, just like I love you."

Mac gave Harm a shy smile. "That's very sweet. How long has it been since you've seen your grandmother?"

"Nearly a year. Grams doesn't like traveling, so I normally fly in with the Stearman on Saturday morning, stay overnight and fly back home Sunday afternoon."

"I'm sorry that we had to drive, but you know how I feel about flying."

"It's fine. By the way, thanks for the use of your SUV."

"I love your corvette, but now and then a girl needs to bring along more than just her purse."

In fact, Mac had been upset when Harm begged off having her staying overnight and then leaving directly from his apartment. Harm's claim of having to take care of some last minute details didn't sit well with Mac.

That was the same lame excuse he used before our trip to San Diego.

Due to the heavy workload that had awaited them at JAG, the pair hadn't spent much time together since their return from San Diego. Even so, Mac had invited Harm over to her apartment for dinner twice, and he'd made excuses on both occasions.

Mac wanted sex; the same passionate, intense and satisfying sex that she and Harm had enjoyed at the Hotel Del. Her greatest fear was that their relationship would return to what it had been before their trip to San Diego.

Right now, that seemed in danger of happening.

"Did your grandmother meet Diane?" Mac asked point blank.

Harm rolled his eyes. When it came to mood swings, Sarah MacKenzie had no equal.

"Why drag up something like that?"

Putting Harm on the spot, whether in or out of court, always gave Mac a certain satisfaction. "I only ask so I can be prepared to hear about the resemblance between Diane and myself."

"Then don't worry. Diane and Grams never met," Harm assured.

Mac was suddenly upbeat. "I'm looking forward to our visit. You always make the farm sound almost magical."

"It's where I feel most at home. I remember the last vacation I spent there with my dad, watching him and Tom Boone in the barn and working on the Stearman. I only wish that I'd been old enough to help them."

"You went on to rebuild the entire the plane, Harm."

"Not without a lot of help from my friends and family. I was still recovering from the Tomcat crash and couldn't do any of the heavy work."

"Diane didn't visit the farm during your recovery?" Mac could not imagine how Diane, Harm's first love, could have been so cruel.

"My mother and Frank were at the farm, and Diane made a point of keeping her distance from my mom."

Mac wondered if Diane actually afraid of Trish? or if she didn't give a damn about Harm's recovery?

As for the crash itself, all that Mac really knew was that Harm had nearly lost his life, and that his RIO had been killed. Had Harm shared the full details with Diane? Or with Kate Pike? Mac looked over at Harm, who appeared to be lost in thought.


It was dark. Not just dark, it was scary dark. It was the same darkness that Harmon Rabb Jr. remembered as a child playing in his grandmother's cellar when the power went out.

"Alone and unafraid," is what naval aviators say among themselves.

Flying at night while over the open ocean has a certain haunting loneliness, but the critical task of landing an aircraft onto a carrier at sea is awarded to a very few. This was where the soul of a naval aviator is forged: at night, alone, and searching for a dirty, grease stained slab of metal, in this case called USS Seahawk.

For Harmon Rabb, that grease stained piece of metal was home. Not so many years ago, Harm had become carrier qualified on board the Hawk while piloting a T-2 Buckeye trainer.

Although the Hawk had a special place in Harm's heart, tonight's mission had not been a "Love Boat" cruise.

The carrier was conducting Freedom of Navigation ops inside Libya's Gulf of Sidra. For the past three days and nights, the "Hawk" moved over and back along the so called "Line of Death" established by Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

Despite much blustering from the Libyans, no MiGs had been scrambled. Now it was time to RTB (Return to The Boat).

Harm provided an "update state" to the Hawk's Carrier Air Traffic Control (CATC). "Marshal, 173 checking in state 4.5."

When an aircraft checks in with the marshal controller in CATC, the pilot provides the aircraft side number (173) along with his fuel state (4.5). Rather than liquid, fuel is expressed in pounds because aircraft weight (basic aircraft weight plus fuel on board) determines the tension setting for the carrier's arresting gear.

"173, expect CV-1 recovery Case III approach, marshal on the 240 radial, 22, angels eight, expected push time 28."

In those few seconds, Harm was instructed to hold position behind the ship (240 radial at 22 miles at 8000 feet), what recovery pattern to use, and when he will have to hit his "push point," which was Harm's position in the landing pattern (28 minutes after the hour).

"173, marshal on the 240, 21, angels eight, state 4.4," confirmed Harm, understanding that this would a full instrument approach that needed all of his skills.

"We're at push point, and on time," announced Harm's backseater, LTJG Billy "Cricket" Mace.

Billy Mace was on his first deployment. Although senior members of the squadron knew that Mace's older brother Vincent and Harm had been bitter rivals in flight school, and in the RAG (Replacement Air Group), it was decided to match Billy with the much more experienced Harmon Rabb.

Harm crosschecked his own watch with the clock in the F-14's cockpit.

Right on time at 28+00 after the hour.

While Billy Mace remained glued to his radar scope, Harm pushed the Tomcat's nose over and began his descent to the carrier.

On a clear night there would be a conga-line of aircraft out in front of Harm, their night lights blinking softly against a backdrop of darkness. Not so tonight. Layers of clouds obscured any real vision Harm might have had of other aircraft in the pattern.

Harm broke out of the clouds at 5,000 and spotted the running lights of a destroyer below him. The little warship broke up the darkness, and while it was nice to see something- anything, the destroyer couldn't do anything to assist him.

Right now, Harm missed his best friend and wingman, Luke Pendry. During the deployment, Luke's wife Annie had suffered some sort of breakdown. With Annie Pendry unable to care for Josh, the couple's young son, Luke had been granted an emergency leave to return to San Diego.

For now, Harm was flying with LT Alexander Ghostley, call sign "Casper," as his wingman. Ghostley flew by the book, and Harm imagined him as being a young Bill Ross.

Harm continued his descent until he was ten miles from the ship and at 1,200 feet, then he reported to Carrier Air Traffic Control.

"Stay clean thru 10," said the female controller who was trying to work out the spacing of multiple aircraft out in front of Harm.

The ship's controllers were enlisted personnel, but for the planes in the air- all of them piloted by commissioned officers, the controller's word was law. If a controller gave an order to the CAG, the most senior aviator aboard the carrier, the CAG would comply without question or comment.

At eight miles from the carrier, Harm and Billy ran through the landing checklist and began transitioning to landing configuration. The landing gear and flaps came down along with the arresting hook.

Harm double checked all of those settings and noted his fuel state. It was low, but there was less than 3 minutes until he trapped.

A piece of cake.

On board the Seahawk, AIROPS had become a tense place.

In addition to the ship's Air Boss and his team, a senior member of each squadron stood watch during the recovery period to monitor their respective aircraft and relay information back to the individual squadrons.

Due to the ship pitching up and down in the rough seas, the last four aircraft had "boltered." Two aircraft remained in the bolter pattern with the other two sent to rendezvous with the primary airborne tanker to receive gas.

AIROPs was still unraveling the resulting mess when the ship's skipper informed them that he needed to turn the ship to find the relative wind. Finding the appropriate amount of wind was a crucial because without wind over the deck, or with too much wind, aircraft cannot land safely.

Because the ship cannot be in a turn while aircraft are attempting to land, the Landing Signal Officers began waving off aircraft, one after the other...including Harmon Rabb.

"Dammit!"

Harm was upset. Never mind having to go around start all over again, his headache had returned, and his eyes were bothering him again.

Harm was seeing shadows where he knew there were none, and what light there was was being reflected back to him in strange sorts of prisms.

This only happened at night. During the day he was fine.

"Looks like we're on a merry-go-round tonight," said Billy.

"The story of my life," replied Harm, who gently pushed the throttles forward and climbed back into the darkness.

The primary flight instrument in US Navy aircraft is the fuel gauge. A jet engine burns twice as much fuel at 1500 feet than it does at 15,000. When Harm got back into the landing pattern he had just enough fuel for one approach.

Harm carefully position his aircraft, using slight stick and throttle movements to gain a good starting position.

Getting a good start was vital. The carrier is a moving target, and as Harm got closer to the ship, there would be no time to make major corrections.

Harm was on centerline, intercepting the glideslope at approximately one mile behind the ship at 300 feet above the water. With a 700 feet-per-minute rate of descent controlled and on-speed, Harm felt comfortable and confident, and why not? Harmon Rabb was considered the smoothest pilot in his squadron. Harm had the gentle touch at the controls which made the often temperamental Tomcat purr like a kitten.

Billy Mace was Harm's biggest cheerleader. No matter what older brother Vincent had to say on the subject of Harmon Rabb, the younger Mace felt that Harm was among the very best pilots in the air wing.

"Harm is so smooth that he could steal your socks without touching your shoe's," Billy had bragged to the squadron's other RIOs.

At ¾ of a mile from the ship, CATC made ready to hand Harm over to the Landing Signal Officers perched alongside the landing area.

"Tomcat 173, on course, on glide path, ¾ mile, call the ball."

"173 Rabb, Tomcat ball, 2.5."

The voice of the LSO now came through Harm's headset. "173 Tomcat, roger, ball. Deck's moving, you're a little high."

An aircraft carrier is large enough so that most waves don't affect it, but tonight was different. As the ship moved through the large swells, the stern falls slowly, pitching the bow up above the horizon. Then the stern rose, stayed at its highest point for 1 to 2 seconds before the slow cycle repeated itself over and over.

Because the human brain has been conditioned to look at a fixed object, such rapid changes to the landing area soon become confusing.

Another swell passed behind the ship. When the Seahawk began to slowly pitch up, Harm was staring at the stern instead of the landing area.

"On center. A little power," the LSO called out as stern began to settle.

With the Tomcat trimmed perfectly, Harm descended over the ramp and into the landing area.

I'm in the groove.

Harm sensed the deck rushing beneath him. The landing gear touched down and Harm automatically went to military power- 100% engine output, but the feeling of violent deceleration when the hook has grabbed a wire wasn't there.

There had been no trap. The Tomcat was still flying, only just above the flight deck!

"Bolter, bolter. Hook skip bolter!" the LSO called,

Harm calmly maintained the Tomcat's attitude, retracted the landing gear, then smoothly climbed away from the carrier and entered into the wave off/bolter pattern.

Inside AIROPS, the sense in the room was that a train wreck was beginning. The tension only increased when Harmon Rabb failed to trap.

Inside his own squadron, Harmon Rabb was "King Of The Greenie Board." If he couldn't get aboard, conditions were serious, and with no bingo (divert) to a friendly land base possible, tonight the only place to land was the ship.

Harm's fuel state was too low to make another pass, so the decision was made by AIROPS to send him to the tanker.

In the meantime, the carrier had found a small patch of calm sea so that Harm's wingman, "Casper" Ghostley, had managed to trap.

As Harm climbed to refuel, he fought off frustration. It seemed that the ship had the innate ability to find the worst possible conditions.

Harm couldn't worry about that now. Plugging into the tanker for a squirt of much needed gas was the only thing that mattered.

Harm spotted the flashing lights of the KA-6D; an A-6 Intruder converted for fuel delivery, above and to his right.

Switching to the "tanker common" frequency Harm slowly joined on the E-6 from the inside and extend his aircraft's refueling probe.

Flashes of lightning in the distance reminded Harm that he had to make this a quick evolution and get back to the boat.

Harm watched as the A-6's drogue hose and the illuminated basket sped out. Strong winds were creating turbulence which was bouncing both the basket and the Tomcat.

Although the weather was bad, Harm had tanked in worse weather near the Shetland Islands in the North Atlantic, where pilots of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm casually call such weather "A bit brisk."

The refueling basket was darting around, seemingly mocking Harm in his effort to plug into it with the refueling probe.

Harm's first attempt was a miss. The probe caught the side of the basket and flipped it away.

"Strike one," Billy joked from the backseat.

What was going on? Harm had never missed the basket so badly. Methodically, Harm put the Tomcat back into position for a second attempt. Success. Harm saw the green light illuminated on the drogue showing he was plugged and receiving fuel.

The tanking evolution gave Harm enough time to catch his breath. There was nothing he could have done about the hook skip, which he had handled perfectly.

Even so, Harm remembered Tom Boone saying that he had never seen Harm Sr. bolter.

The Ticonderoga was off of the Philippines back in 1966 during what must have been a a typhon. Everyone boltered. Hell, I got two wave offs, but on his first pass, your dad caught the three-wire. Hammer was always perfection."

How can I compete with that? Harm thought.

He couldn't.

No sooner had Harm put hook skip out of his mind, he began to worry about his eyes.

At that time, 20/20 uncorrected vision was mandatory for naval aviators. Harm had passed the field of vision, color vision, distant visual acuity, near visual acuity, and depth perception tests. Even so, his own father had better than 20/15 vision and Harm felt that he had been cheated.

Right now, Harm pictured himself wearing the same thick eye glasses as his mother, but only when she was alone and no one would see her.

Harm snapped out of it. Now acting as "hawk", the tanker pilot dictated the amount of fuel Harm would receive. It wasn't much. Everyone needed gas tonight, so Harm would receive just enough fuel for one more pass, or perhaps two.

With refueling complete, Harm disengage from the basket, retracted his refueling probe and waited for CATC to provide him with the direction of the ship and a steering vector.

Now it was time to repeat the entire landing process for a second time.

Methodically, Harm and Billy went through the landing procedures.

"Practice makes perfect," Billy joked from the backseat.

In the Tomcat's front seat, Harm put on his game face.

The carrier had very few lights; just a small outline of a box in the landing area and a few lights off to the starboard side near the tower.

Darkness was the theme, but right now those few lights seemed blindingly bright to Harm. The harder he tried to focus his eyes the worse his vision became.

Three-quarters of a mile behind the ship, and with Harm still trying to pick up the meatball, the Hawk's controller called, "Tomcat 173, call the ball."

Harm couldn't find the ball, which seemed lost among a jumble of lights and shadows.

"Ah...Tomcat 173...ball-Clara, 4.0."

Declaring "Clara" meant Harm did not have the ball in sight. The LSO would now take over, issuing power and line up calls over the radio until touchdown.

Billy was mystified. He had spotted the meatball perfectly. Billy noticed that they were drifting to the right, an area where a line of planes would be parked on the carrier's flight deck.

"Move Left, Harm," Billy cautioned. "Looking good. Hey, it's way past chow and my stomach is growling. What do you say that we trap this time?"

"Why the rush? I kind of like going around with you in the moonlight," Harm answered.

"What moonlight? It's a black as a coal miner's nose up here."

Harm normally made night traps seem routine. Billy suspected that something was very wrong inside of their Tomcat and prayed that the ship would find a moment of a calm sea when they arrived to trap.

"Tomcat 173. Call the ball," the LSO called.

"173 Rabb, Tomcat Clara, 3.7." Harm confirming again he couldn't see the meatball.

"173, you're low," said the LSO.

Harm began making adjustments, but his eyes weren't able to fully focus. By now the entire carrier seemed to be surrounded by shadows. Even so, Harm knew where he was in relation to the deck, he just needed to reach it.

In the backseat, it was Billy's job to handle command ejection and punch them both out of the plane. Until this moment, Billy Mace never considered this a real possibility.

"173, you are below glideslope!"

Harm increased power, though only slightly.

"173, pick it up. Power. POWER!" the LSO shouted.

The ship's stern rose so abruptly that Harm could actually see the carrier's screws (the propellers) come up out of the water.

The LSO hit the pickle switch for a wave off. "Go around!"

Harm saw the wave off. He moved his left hand to shove the throttles forward to military power, but the twin Pratt & Whitney TF30's were slow to respond.

Before the engines had spooled up, Billy initiated command ejection.

Billy went out first, followed by Harm. A heartbeat later, the Tomcat slammed into the ramp and then exploded in flames.

Harm remembered rocketing out of the jet, and then seeing a massive ball of fire beneath him. That's when everything went black.

As the darkness slowly receded, Harm found himself sitting in an overstuffed chair in his grandmother's living room.

Harm had only a vague idea of where he'd been or what had happened, but right now he felt safe and secure, and he was completely at peace.

Harm saw that the table next to him held a plate with a slice of his grandmother's spice cake- his favorite.

Grams always treated Harm like a little prince. No detail of his life was too minor for her to hear about, and she praised Harm lavishly for even his slightest accomplishment.

There was a fire burning in the fireplace where photos of Harm, his father, and his grandfather rested in silent honor on the mantle.

Harm noticed the black ribbon across each of the three frames, including his own.

Harm reached for the spice cake.

If this is death, it doesn't seem all that bad.

Harm was wondering when he'd get to meet his long dead grandfather, when his grandmother came into the room and was carrying a cup of hot tea.

Then it hit. Harm knew that Sarah Harmon Rabb was still living, which meant that he couldn't be dead.

Inside the hospital on board USS Seahawk, Commander Bill Porter MC, the ship's senior surgeon asked, "Can you hear me, Lieutenant Rabb?"

"Yes," Harm whispered, and slowly opened his eyes.

"We've stabilized you. You are going to be airlifted to a hospital in Naples. You will recover, but it is going to take considerable time." The doctor then read off the list of Harm's injuries.

"What about my RIO?"

Doctor Porter shook his head. "Lieutenant Mace's internal injures were severe. He didn't survive the surgery."

"I'm sorry. It was my eyes. I couldn't keep them focused."

The doctor made a note on Harm's chart. "When you've recovered sufficiently, a full examination by an Ophthalmologist will be arranged."

"Will I fly again?"

"That's not my call to make." Doctor Porter gently placed his hand on Harm's uninjured shoulder. "You're lucky to be alive. Right now, try and get some rest."

Lucky? How could Harm explain what had happened? Certainly not Billy Mace's older brother, Vincent. He hated Harm.

"I had you pegged back at Pensacola, but no one would listen to me. Well, 'Mr. Outstanding Graduate,' my little brother not only trusted you, he felt that you were his best friend. I wanted you know that...since you're the one who killed him."

This was a Class A mishap; resulting in the total loss of an aircraft, and with a fatality.

The term "accident" doesn't exist in naval aviation. With lives on the line, to say nothing $30+ million aircraft; there are no Acts of God, or "Shit Happens." Every outcome has a chain of events which will explain how it occurred.

Interviews would drag on for months. There would be safety and mishap board investigations, a Field Naval Aviator's Evaluation Board, and possibly a JAGMAN investigation.

In the end, Billy Mace, who had trusted Harm with his life, had died in the aircraft that Harm had crashed.

I'll never fly a Tomcat again.

Harm still had several months remaining on his five year aviation active duty commitment. Once he recovered from his injuries he'd be pigeonholed to a desk, shuffling papers and filing flight plans.

Harmon Rabb Jr's dream of being a naval aviator began and ended on the flight deck of USS Seahawk.

Inside the café, Mac tapped her water glass with her spoon. "Earth to Harm. You promised your grandmother we'd arrive before lunch. We're running late."

Harm looked at his watch. "I suppose that we should get going." He motioned to their waitress. "Can we get two large black coffees to go?"

"Right away." She had been drooling over Harm since he and Mac walked in, but he'd ignored her, much to Mac's satisfaction.

"I wish you would have allowed me to bring along a gift for your grandmother. I purchased some lovely prints at Trish's gallery."

"Grams isn't an art aficionado. Your visiting will be gift enough."

"It's getting deep in here, Harm."

The waitress brought the coffees and the check.

Harm looked at Mac. "Come to think of it, there is one thing you'll need to worry about with my grandmother."

"What is it? Tell me."

"Sarah Harmon Rabb is 100% Navy, so leave that Marine attitude of yours on her front porch."

"Smart ass. Just for that, you can pick up the check!"


My sincere thanks to "Smokin' Joe" and to Scott, two retired naval aviators who serve as my subject matter experts on carrier operations. Incidentally, the carrier's screws actually coming out of the water while the aircraft was on approach was not a piece of fiction! I also have to thank fictionalmike who worked me through a few rough spots in this chapter. Mike, you are a true English gentleman.