Love or Liberty Read online

  Bobby Mehdwan

  Love or Liberty

  First published by 60 Strategies Ltd 2022

  Copyright © 2022 by Bobby Mehdwan

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Bobby Mehdwan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  Bobby Mehdwan has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

  Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

  First edition

  ISBN: 978-1-7398131-3-0

  Editing by Anne Brewer

  This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

  Find out more at reedsy.com

  For Nisha, Serena and Amar.

  For the adventurer inside each of us.

  For NASA and the other space programs which inspired us.

  Keep looking up.

  Contents

  LOVE OR LIBERTY

  About

  Glossary

  CHAPTER 1 - BLOCKADE

  CHAPTER 2 - STONEWALLED

  CHAPTER 3 - STARS

  CHAPTER 4 - SPECIALS

  CHAPTER 5 - RACE

  CHAPTER 6 - THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

  CHAPTER 7 - THE PANEL

  CHAPTER 8 - SPACEMAN

  CHAPTER 9 - ESCAPING GRAVITY

  CHAPTER 10 - BBQ

  CHAPTER 11 - DUNKING

  CHAPTER 12 - RIGHTS

  CHAPTER 13 - VOMIT COMET

  CHAPTER 14 - IMPALED

  CHAPTER 15 - KING

  CHAPTER 16 - GAME OVER

  CHAPTER 17 - PORT HURON

  CHAPTER 18 - AMBUSHED

  CHAPTER 19 - MENTOR

  CHAPTER 20 - PENNY

  CHAPTER 21 - SUSIE

  CHAPTER 22 - DOWNFALL

  CHAPTER 23 - THE TYRANNY OF BEING SELECTED

  CHAPTER 24 - SOUL SEARCHING

  CHAPTER 25 - SIDELINED

  CHAPTER 26 - LANDING

  CHAPTER 27 - PANTHER

  CHAPTER 28 - POWELL

  CHAPTER 29 - TROUBLES

  CHAPTER 30 - EVE

  CHAPTER 31 - AREA 50-SOMETHING

  CHAPTER 32 - TEACH IN

  CHAPTER 33 - BOMB

  CHAPTER 34 - ACTIVIST

  CHAPTER 35 - MILLER

  CHAPTER 36 - MR GUM

  CHAPTER 37 - GO WEST

  CHAPTER 38 - NUTS

  CHAPTER 39 - VEGAS

  CHAPTER 40 - 38TH PARALLEL

  CHAPTER 41 - POLYOT

  CHAPTER 42 - EVA

  CHAPTER 43 - MISSION

  CHAPTER 44 - VANDENBERG

  CHAPTER 45 - MOLNIYA

  CHAPTER 46 - WALK

  CHAPTER 47 - DEATH

  CHAPTER 48 - LIFE

  CHAPTER 49 - SO LONG

  CHAPTER 50 - HOME

  CHAPTER 51 - SNOWBALLS

  CHAPTER 52 - NEEDLE

  CHAPTER 53 - JEWEL

  CHAPTER 54 - OUT OF THE PAN

  CHAPTER 55 - FIRE

  CHAPTER 56 - DEAD

  CHAPTER 57 - RELATIONS

  CHAPTER 58 - NEWS

  CHAPTER 59 - RED HANDED

  CHAPTER 60 - END OF THE LINE

  CHAPTER 61 - TRUST

  Your Opinion Really Counts

  Exclusive For Subscribers

  About the Author

  LOVE OR LIBERTY

  BOBBY MEHDWAN

  About

  A fictional story inspired by real events, people and places. See the history at: 60strategies.com/LoveOrLibertyWorld

  Then scroll to the back and join the newsletter for great free exclusives.

  * * *

  Some timings have been adjusted for story-line integrity.

  * * *

  Written in American English.

  * * *

  The terms ‘negro,’ ‘nigger,’ ‘oriental,’ ‘ChiComms,’ ‘Chink,’ and ‘gook’ are used to depict prevailing points of view of characters during the period of the story.

  * * *

  For all mankind: We find peace through conflict.

  Glossary

  1-A Draft card designation: Available for military service

  CAPCOM: NASA Capsule Communication

  CCCP: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union before 1991)

  CIA: Central Intelligence Agency

  CO: Commanding Officer

  CNO: Chief of Naval Operations

  DCI: Director of Central Intelligence

  EAFB: Edwards Air Force Base

  EVA: Extra Vehicular Activity (spacewalk)

  Excomm: Executive Committee of the National Security Council

  FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigation

  FLIGHT: NASA Flight director

  G4/5: NASA Gemini 4/5

  HHMU: Handheld Maneuvering Unit

  ICBM: Intercontinental Ballistic Missile

  JFK: President John F Kennedy

  KGB: Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnost

  LBJ: President Lyndon B. Johnson

  LEO: Low Earth Orbit

  LK-3: Russian lunar lander

  LLRV: Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (Flying Bedstead)

  LOI: Lunar Orbit Insertion

  MLR: Main Line of Resistance (Korean war)

  MOL: Manned Orbiting Laboratory

  MSc: Master of Science

  N1: Soviet Soyuz N1 rocket

  NAS: Naval Air Station

  NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

  OKB-1: Experimental Design Bureau in Russia

  PoW: Prisoner of War

  SAC: Strategic Air Command

  SAM: Surface to Air Missile

  SDS: Students for a Democratic Society

  SEAL: US Navy Sea, Air, and Land special operations

  Simsup: NASA Simulator Supervisor

  TEI: Trans Earth Injection

  TELEMETRY: NASA flight tracking desk

  TLI: Trans Lunar Injection

  TNT: Trinitrotoluene explosive

  U2/G: US Reconnaissance aircraft. G-variant for carrier operations

  CHAPTER 1 - BLOCKADE

  North East of the Bahamas, Tuesday October 23rd, 1962

  ‘Landing a fighter at slow speed on a carrier deck on a stormy night feels like throwing a brick at a moving postage stamp ten feet ahead of you.’ That’s how the instructor put it to Jim during his Field Landing Carrier Practice, back at Barin in his training days. ‘The A-4 Skyhawk, the US Navy’s light attack workhorse, is unstable, so you can throw it around the sky; but it’s really just a pig with wings when you slow it down,’ the instructor had said.

  Jim Cobb glanced down through a break in the billowing cloud, brought on by hurricane Ella, and caught a glimpse of the USS Essex just below, lit up by shafts of shifting moonlight somewhere off the coast of Cuba. The hole closed again and he co
ntinued on through the white and grey tufts in search of the Enterprise, desperately needing to land his plane.

  The instrument panel threw a faint glow across the dark cramped cabin. ‘One hundred and sixty knots and around fifteen miles on the glide path. Low cloud,’ he muttered, tapping a gloved finger on the fuel gauge, though it no longer gave a reading.

  ‘Erh, Big-E this is Eagle Three. I’m outta fuel here, and it’s, well … it’s getting rather hot inside the cabin right now.’ Jim paused to think about his words then took off his gloves to stay cool.

  He pressed his mic again and pronounced his words more deliberately. ‘The cabin heat is jammed on and it’s blasting hot air inside. I’m going to have to land this thing before I’m toasted alive up here …’ He listened again for a reply, then looked out to check if he could see the vast North Atlantic Ocean through the thick cloud cover, adding, with a sinking tone, ‘… or broiled in the seat down there in the water.’

  ‘Roger Eagle Three, we see you on the glide path now,’ came the reply. It was the familiar deep Texan voice of Captain Powell from the behemoth, Enterprise, a floating nuclear-powered island of giant steel plates. She’d just returned from the Mediterranean after a world tour and gone straight out of Norfolk again, on her first real job: to keep Soviet nukes away from Cuba. Powell spoke again. ‘It looks like you’re still caught in that storm tail, Eagle Three. Don’t screw up when you get here. I’ve got something important to tell you.’

  Jim felt hot engine air bleeding into the Skyhawk’s cabin through its vents. He twisted the knobs to turn it off and glanced around his little cocoon for a malfunction, something, anything, he could switch that would make a difference.

  The problem had to be down to the two single rifle shots fired from the Soviet container ship which he’d just run, low and starboard, virtually on the water, though closer than he really needed to be. But it yielded a perfect glimpse at the payload—giant tubes, perhaps missiles, laid out under cover across the long deck. He’d gotten so close that he’d seen the patriotic crewmen under their little hats, not soldiers, one of whom had swung a rifle and pulled the trigger at him like he was a giant clay pigeon. Were they careful or careless shots? He couldn’t tell. It was nothing immediately fatal and he was still in the air, though he wouldn’t be doing that again in a hurry. He’d encroached their space and they’d beaten their little commie chests at him. The bullets themselves had pierced the tail somewhere he couldn’t see and must have hit an air duct, a valve, or a gyro—something on the environmental control system. The plane flew on into the gusts of storm Ella over the Atlantic. Two minutes later, the cabin had begun to get unusually warm.

  Now, the heat just kept coming and was more than just tepid—the blasting air was already scalding hot. He wondered if he should just bail out into the sea; Big-E could always come fish him out of the soup. The Commies would be rolling around their deck in laughter or terrified they’d started mankind’s final war. Still thinking, he nudged the stick gently to keep the nose on point. The plane bobbed in the air against raging gusts and lashing rain.

  ‘Left a bit … straight … left again, then … up,’ he muttered quietly to gee himself up. ‘Now … straight,’ he added, his left hand on the stick. He took a quick glance down at his horizon and airspeed then yelped, ‘Ouch. Dammit!’ whipping his hand back from the hot stick like a rattlesnake’s head after a bite. He should have known not to take his glove off. He placed it gently back over the stick’s head and continued to jab it to steer the plane with his fingertips. He took a deep breath and loosened his zipper then opened a small cold air vent in the glass canopy. The cabin began to roar with wind noise.

  ‘You should be there, somewhere,’ he muttered with a piercing gaze through the cloud, now high up again. A clearing suddenly opened and cool blue moonlight flooded the cramped cockpit, giving him an immediate sense of space and calm.

  At once, ships from the terrifying floating firepower of the US Atlantic Fleet became visible below, stretching some five hundred kilometers in a long arc across the ocean in front of the Caribbean islands to guard against Soviets ships reaching Cuba. Essex, which he’d just seen, was parked in a long line with Lake Champlain, Wasp, Intrepid, Randolph, Shangri-La, Boxer, Okinawa, Thetis Bay, Canberra and Independence. Anti-submarine warfare groups, which he had seen earlier, were stationed at the southern and northern tips of the line.

  It was just two weeks ago on October 14th when an American U2 spy plane had detected Soviet medium-range nuclear ballistic missile launchers in Cuba. They were right on America’s doorstep and pointed straight at it. Only just posted to the Enterprise, which led the blockade, Jim was on a long reconnaissance sortie over the ocean to find several Soviet Foxtrot submarines. They had remained submerged and out of sight, presumably with combat systems ready for an almighty nuclear war.

  But now he’d blown his fuel reserve, having taken a very long route back to the ship around a storm head. He glanced down at the instruments again to see if any pointers had moved, thinking that he’d better not fall out of the sky into the sea, only to embarrass himself and the might of the US Navy in front of Soviet eyes.

  The de-icing vent continued to blast super-hot air against the canopy’s metal frame and Jim got a nose-full of burnt glove the instant he touched it.

  ‘Eagle three, we have a visual,’ said Big-E’s controller to Jim’s immediate relief. He pictured binoculars on the bridge, trained on him like an insect in the sky with his landing gear down.

  With greater relief, he saw the ship’s pulsating landing lights in the distance. ‘Big-E, you’re like a beacon in the dark. I see you now. You could not have come too soon.’

  He flicked the gear lock into place, set the flaps and pushed the throttle just a touch, as a third vent, right behind his legs, began to cane his calves with hot air. He splayed them as wide as he could while his feet were stuck on the rudder pedals. He began to worry that his suit might actually melt or catch fire.

  With only a mile to go, a giant hook dropped under his tail like the hind legs of a mosquito about to drop in for a bite. He pictured the trip wire and giant tennis net twanging into place on the ship’s deck and gently nudged the throttle again. He re-set the flaps. The plane slowed and bounced in the air, picking up extra wind noise and dropping again as a headwind relented for a split-second.

  ‘Don’t want to hit the front of that ship there, do we?’ he muttered, holding the glove up against the stick, just as a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead and stung his right eye. He leaned forward and winced, feeling that his suit was already glued to his back.

  Without warning, the glass on the altitude display shattered. He ducked as though his seat had been pulled from under him and looked up and around frantically. Small shards of glass remained around the edges of the dial and some of it had fallen around his feet. One especially long piece had lodged itself between his splayed legs. He put out a hand to the display but recoiled again, feeling super-hot air venting straight on it.

  ‘Great! Guess the descent rate now, Jim … just when guessing’s the least useful thing to do,’ he muttered. His mind raced around the prospect of aborting the flight again, but now with only several hundred feet to the deck, there was only one choice.

  Damn Soviets. He sighed and said to himself, ‘Too late for that.’ His eyes searched for a fixed reference in the dark, though the sea itself looked like a vast grey plain with the moonlit silhouette of Big-E bobbing around like a corkscrew. ‘Land this thing, or hit the carrier, or the drink. Take your pick, buddy.’

  With just a hundred feet to go, a headwind buoyed the plane left from the glide-path. Jim corrected it quickly, pushing the nose down hard and aiming at the landing lights. The plane crabbed right into the headwind as the left wheel dropped. He pulled the nose up again and maxed the flaps which buoyed the plane again.

  The final countdown began in his head. Three … two … one. He saw the Landing Signal Officer’s cut engines sign. The plane
flared as the left wheel touched first, smoking and spinning violently as it skidded on the deck. The right wing snapped down hard and jolted the whole plane as though it had been dropped from a great height. It bounced again with the headwind and began to float along the deck.

  ‘Come on, catch the wire! Catch the wire!’ Jim panicked, thinking he’d come in too high and missed the line, but the plane dropped and skidded across the deck like a crab.

  ‘Net? Come on! Where are you?’

  He put a hand back on the throttle for an emergency lift off. ‘Big-E, I’m going round!’ He slammed the lever forward but nothing happened. ‘Come on!’ he urged. He released the throttle and pushed it again, then began to pump it, but the engine simply spluttered.

  Just as it looked like he would surely careen over the edge, Jim was thrown forward into his harness. The giant net and arrestor wire had brought the plane from the speed of a bullet to a standstill in an instant.

  Jim quickly unharnessed and glanced outside into the darkness. It was like staring at a charcoal painting with inky black objects on the foreground. Nothing moved for a moment and he couldn’t even tell if he was somehow falling or sinking. He glanced around the cabin for seeping water but there was none. ‘God damn net—thank you!’

  Barely able to breathe, he became aware of the cabin temperature again, pushed off his harness and released the canopy, pushing it back like the soft top on a fancy car. To his relief, there was definitely no water. He tore off his mask and stopped for a lungful of cold air, then thanked the final gust of wind for lifting the plane on approach. But his thoughts were interrupted by a ramp man who waved a glowing orange wand in a throat slit on the darkened deck. Jim reached down to flick the engine kill switch, but it had already stopped and the fuel gauge was sitting on empty.

  ‘They’re dead. Dead!’ he hollered to the wand man. He stood up in the cabin and saw new landing lights approaching in the sky on final through the corner of his eye. Clambering out quickly, he hobbled away towards the ship’s tower under the moonlight, glancing back to see if he could see any bullet holes. A tug emerged from a dark corner and clamped onto his plane as he stumbled through an arch at the base of the tower and over a low step into a cold grey stairwell. When he turned back, his battered plane was already being hauled into the shadows by a set of multi-colored wands and newly lit spotlights on the deck.