The real question was what Washington would think. Winged Talon had been aborted minutes before the Navy aircraft had hit Korean air space, and since that time there had been no explanation, no word at all save that the SEALs should be sent in and that TF-18 should hold station at Point November. It seemed unlikely that they would approve a full-fledged Marine landing one day after calling off a far simpler, far cheaper air strike.
Magruder was still angry about that call, angry with a simmering, barely restrained resentment which needed little to boost it to white-hot fury.
'Recap it, then,' Magruder said at last. 'Air strikes to take out KorCom radar, SAM sites, and guns. A heliborne Marine assault on Nyongch'on to support the SEALs and secure the prisoners. Marine assault at Kolmo to give us a secure base from which to support the Nyongch'on op. Why not just go straight in from the task force with helos? Why have the Marines go ashore at all?'
'Too many things could go wrong, with nothing in reserve,' the Marine colonel said. 'We only have two large flight decks, Jefferson's and Chosin's… and Jefferson is going to be busy with CAP and ground strikes. We have no guarantee that all of our helos will arrive at Nyongch'on intact, and we might have to reinforce before we evacuate. It'll help to have a shore-based helo pad, and the airfield will provide us with just that. Any helos that are damaged on the ground at Nyongch'on will have a friendly place to set down and off-load only a few miles from the DZ and won't have to make it all the way back to Chosin, eight, ten miles out at sea.'
Magruder nodded. 'Makes sense.'
'Besides, the beachhead will help divert enemy attention away from Nyongch'on. Our boys are gonna have their hands full in there, no matter what, but we can help 'em take some of the heat off.'
'Okay. Bill? How long before you have a detailed working plan?'
Simpson pulled at his lower lip. 'My staff's already working on it. I can have a preliminary on your desk in three hours. Your boys'll have to work out the air ops and fire control.'
'A preliminary's all I'll need for right now… to sell Washington on the idea.'
Simpson grinned. 'I'm glad that's your department, Tom, and not mine. I'd get mad and want to kick bureaucratic ass.'
'Who says I won't?' He looked at the map again, at the small forest of red triangles, SAM sites and hardpoints. This was going to be lots more expensive than Winged Talon, in men, money, and aircraft. But then, from the look of things, Washington was going to ignore the military option in favor of the diplomatic one.
And how long, he wondered, before those boys at Nyongch'on came home? How many wouldn't come home at all? He wondered if Washington would even let them take the first, necessary steps. He felt a stab of fire in his gut, an old ulcer burning anew. Sometimes it was hard to know who the real enemy was.
CHAPTER 19
Batman queued up with other officers to buy a meal ticket from the cashier, picked up a tray, and started down the cafeteria-style line. It wasn't that he was hungry ? quite the contrary, in fact ? but the mechanical actions of moving through the chow line were a piece of mindless routine that allowed him to put off the thoughts that had been troubling him since the party the night before. Finding an unoccupied table in the corner of the wardroom, he slumped at the seat and began picking at his food without interest. His thoughts kept returning with a kind of morbid fascination to the subject of death.
Kill or be killed. There was no other way to look at aerial combat. All of his training, all of his preparation, all of the lectures and classes and maneuvers he'd gone through during his Naval career had been directed to one end and one end only: to place Lieutenant Edward Everett Wayne on the six of an enemy combat aircraft so that he could destroy it. During the actual dogfight, he'd not thought of the MiGs as anything other than targets in a kind of video game in the sky where machines exploded in flame and debris, jacking up the victor's score.
The sudden shift in his mind, from thinking of them as targets to thinking of them as men with families, wives, children…
Through much of the previous night, he'd wrestled with those thoughts, wondering if he should go talk to one of Jefferson's three chaplains. There was an inner reserve which made him hold that idea at arm's length. He respected the chaplains, respected their experience and the Navy traditions which stood behind them but what could they tell him that he didn't already know? None of the carrier's sky pilots were aviators themselves, none had been in combat.
How could they address what he was feeling now?
Besides, Batman had heard stories of chaplains who'd gone to the ship's captain with what otherwise would have been considered confidential information… if that information was potentially dangerous to the man, the ship, or the crew. He suspected that CAG would ground him so fast it would make his head spin. Navy combat aviators had to have their heads screwed on straight at all times.
So maybe he should ground himself… or turn in his wings. Every part of Batman's background, his whole being rebelled against that idea. It would be an admission of weakness, of failure. An admission that he no longer had the right stuff.
But Batman felt that if he didn't talk to someone he'd blow his stack. The only people with whom he had enough in common were other aviators, the very men for whom he had to maintain the facade, the band-of-brothers act that all was well.
There was no one, not even Malibu…
Across the wardroom, an officer in khakis rose from his table and carried his tray toward the galley window. Batman recognized the lanky gait, the pale, pale blond hair of Tombstone's RIO.
Tombstone! There was a man who had never made a point of maintaining the machismo of the aviator brotherhood. The guy's got problems of his own, Batman thought… but possibly it was the fact that Tombstone was having problems that made him seem like the right man to see.
Batman picked up his unfinished breakfast and hurried from the wardroom.
A lieutenant informed him that CINCPAC was on the line. 'I'll take it here,' Admiral Magruder said. He picked up the handset and stabbed a button. The hollow-sounding hiss of a satellite-relayed signal sounded in his ear. 'Task Force Eighteen,' he said, using the time-honored Navy tradition of identifying himself by the name of his command.
'Tom?' the voice at the other end said. It had the faintly artificial quality of a security-scrambled transmission. 'This is CINCPAC. I'm afraid the answer is… sit tight. Washington wants you to take no action at all until further notice.'
Magruder had expected as much, but the disappointment was keen nonetheless. 'Understood, Admiral,' he said.
'We appreciate your situation, Tom,' the voice continued. Magruder had spoken with CINCPAC several times during the past few days and knew Admiral Bainbridge shared his own feelings of helplessness… and anger. What did Washington think it would accomplish, screwing around this way?
But to voice those feelings would be unprofessional and would change nothing.
'A diplomatic initiative is under way,' Bainbridge continued. Even through the scrambling it sounded as though the words had a bad taste in his mouth. 'The White House crisis team has high expectations for a successful resolution.'
'Very well, sir.'
'Your plan has been code-named 'Righteous Thunder.' It is to be held in reserve, pending a breakdown in negotiations… or the decision by the Command Authority to proceed with a full military option.'
CINCPAC's stress of the word 'full' meant an all-out invasion, Magruder knew. They could all well be standing at the verge of a new Korean War… and with 1990's weapons, this one would make 1950 look like kindergarten.
Hell. Washington couldn't want that.
