her four-acre roof, dwindled astern until she was lost against the endless sea.
'Sharpshooter Leader, this is Homeplate.' Tombstone recognized the voice in his headphones as that of Commander Stephen Marusko, known as CAG for Commander Air Group. 'Homeplate' was the call sign designation for the Jefferson.
'Sharpshooter. Go ahead, Homeplate.'
'Just a reminder, people,' CAG said. 'Mind the ROES.'
ROEs stood for Rules of Engagement, and these had been meticulously listed and discussed during the preflight briefing that morning. Jefferson's air wing was flying in support of the Royal That Air Force, a mission which would carry them over a combat zone. They'd been emphatically warned, however, not to become involved in combat. The ROEs for the op established a hard deck of ten thousand feet, a lower limit below which they were not allowed to fly, and established a shoot-only-when-shot-at protocol that required an order from the carrier for weapons release.
That would hardly be a problem. So far, the guerrilla forces fighting the That army and air units were armed with nothing more threatening to aircraft than SA-7 Grails, the shoulder-launched missiles which explained the hard deck rule. Sharpshooter's op plan called for a rendezvous with one of Jefferson's KA-6D tankers north of Bangkok for refueling, after which they were to proceed to the area north of Chiang Mai. Two of Jefferson's Tomcats were already flying cover for That aircraft, though they'd been ordered to stay out of any actual combat. It was thought that the mere presence of American carrier aircraft would reassure the Thais of U.S. commitment to their ally.
So far, everything had gone smoothly since the first patrol had been launched at 0600 that morning.
'Copy, Homeplate,' Tombstone said. 'We'll be good.'
'Uh… Commander?' Dixie's voice was harsh over the ICS. 'We're getting some kind of radar sweep. Intermittent like.'
Tombstone could hear the pulse over his headset, a deep-throated twang like the plucked string on a bass, repeated every few seconds. 'Search radar,' he said. 'Probably the airport at Phu Quoc.'
'Jeez, that's creepy.'
'No big deal, Dixie.' He looked through the canopy to the right. The coastline of Vietnam lay a hundred miles in that direction, lost in clouds and distance. He could see a smear to the northeast which might be Cambodia's Koh Tang Islands. Vietnam. He thought of his father, shot down in a raid over Hanoi. 'They're keeping an eye on us, that's all.'
'Yessir.' He heard the hiss of his RIO's rapid breathing over the intercom. 'I guess this stuff is old hat to you, huh, Mr. Magruder? I mean, after Wonsan and all.'
Tombstone wasn't sure how to answer. Dixon was a newbie. He'd come aboard at Yokosuka, Jefferson's last port of call, only three months earlier, one of the nuggets flown into Japan to replace the men lost during the raid into North Korea. He was eager, brash, and excited by the prospect of flying backseat for Tombstone Magruder, but at times the youngster's hero worship could be a bit much.
Hero. The word tasted sour. He'd never wanted it applied to him, never asked for all the fuss.
Matthew Magruder had seen nothing particularly heroic about his actions over Korea three months before. They'd just… happened. He'd led the Combat Air Patrol which covered Navy helos ferrying the crew of a U.S.
intelligence ship captured by North Korea to safety. There'd been a ferocious dogfight with North Korean MiG-21s. During the turning and burning in the skies above Wonsan, Tombstone's Tomcat had been hit, his RIO badly wounded.
Refusing to eject and lose his backseater, he'd somehow limped back to the Jefferson on one faltering engine, sliding the crippled F-14 into a flight deck barricade in a shower of sparks.
For Tombstone, there'd been no heroism at the time, no question of bravery… only a job to be done and his determination not to drop his unconscious RIO into the gray seas off Wonsan.
The medal they'd given him was a pretty thing, a gold Maltese cross set against a sunburst with the image of a sailing ship in the center. The ribbon was dark blue, bisected by a single vertical white stripe. The commendation that went with it declared that Lieutenant Commander Matthew Magruder had, during the period from 26 September to,30 September of that year, 'distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in military operations against an armed enemy.' It went on to mention his six combat kills and the rescue of the wounded Naval Flight Officer in his aircraft.
The Navy Cross was the highest decoration possible short of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and the CMH was awarded only for actions against a nation actually at war with the United States. The Wonsan strike had not been part of a war, not in the traditional sense; it was typical instead of this new era of international politics, when nations threatened and maneuvered, when ships and aircraft clashed… but when the victories were won or lost by politicians.
Men were wounded or killed for the sake of those victories, though, just as in a real war. That was the tragedy, one which no medal could relieve.
He pushed the thought from his mind. Tombstone decided that his father would have been proud of him. Sam Magruder had racked up an impressive display of fruit salad during his short career, including both the Silver Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross.
But the Silver Star had been posthumous, and the expression on his mother's face when she received it along with the word of Sam Magruder's death haunted Tombstone still. He'd gone on to make Navy flying his life, but he tended to be cynical about the medals that came with it. Personally, he was far prouder of the 'battle E' Viper Squadron had won for its part at Wonsan.
He shook himself free of the dark mood which threatened to close in on him. 'Leader to Sharpshooter Two,' he said. 'You there, Batman?'
'I'm with you, Stoney.'
'Pull out the stoppers. I feel the need for speed.'
'Affirm. Let's do it.'
'Going to burner. On my mark, three, two, one… punch it!'
Tombstone rammed the throttles forward to full military power. The added boost kicked the F-14 forward with a shuddering jolt. As the Tomcat's speed crept up the scale toward Mach 1, the shudder increased… then suddenly vanished as the plane broke the sound barrier. Batman's 232 aircraft kept pace.
Behind them, the search radar at Phu Quoc continued to thrum its lonely, monotonous tune.
Lieutenant Commander John 'Made It' Bayerly, CO of the VF-97 War Eagles, banked his Tomcat for a better view of the action on the valley floor below.
The terrain here was mountainous, forest-shrouded peaks rising in steep folds and humps above the meandering clefts of valleys. The tree canopy ten thousand feet below was unbroken save for the flash of sunlight from a twisting stretch of river.
To the south, Bayerly could see white contrails drawing themselves across the dark foliage covering the ground. Four Royal That Air Force Falcons were making an attack run on suspected guerrilla positions on the banks of the Taeng River ? the Nam Mae Taeng, as it appeared on That maps. Roads in this area were virtually nonexistent, muddy, twin-rut smugglers' tracks for the most part, but the That CIA had reported what might be a truck park and military camp down there. If the rebels were getting help from the socialist Burmese government, they would be stockpiled and distributed from such a camp.
In any case, it was the perfect opportunity for the RTAF to practice with their new purchase. The American F-16 Falcons had been delivered to the That government only recently. The nimble, dual-purpose aircraft could carry over ten thousand pounds of ordnance for ground attack. Their load on this afternoon was considerably less. Each plane carried four Rockeye 11 CBU-59s, cluster bombs designed to scatter hundreds of tiny bomblets in a broad footprint across the jungle. Against unarmored troops, their effect would be devastating.
From this high up, Bayerly could not see the attack well, but he could make out the sparkles of detonating bomblets among the trees, saw the surface of the river thrash as the Falcons rocketed up the valley. A contrail stabbed up from the shore, describing an odd, corkscrew path as it chased the That Falcons. An SA-7, Made It thought. The reason the ROEs were keeping him stuck uselessly almost two miles above the action.
So far as Bayerly was concerned, the ROEs for this op were nonsense.
What good would a show of American support for the That government do when the U.S. aircraft were so far
