make ‘em, Stoney. I just read ‘em. The word I got was that you’re off the flight line until they can pull a full investigation of the battle. There … may be some problem with your interpretation of the ROES. May be, I said.”
Tombstone knew that they meant Admiral Vaughn. “Court-martial?”
“I don’t think it’ll come to that, Stoney.”
It was very quiet in the office. Despite the fact that each department in a supercarrier was manned and fully operational around the clock, it was always quieter in the admin and other office spaces during the late hours. Indeed, Tombstone knew that many men went back to their offices in the evening to read, to strum guitars, or just to be alone and escape the crowding and noise of their quarters. For a long moment, the only sounds Tombstone heard were the whir from the air vent high up on the bulkhead and the never-ceasing, usually forgotten throb of the ship’s engines through the deck.
Court-martial. Tombstone thought back to the chain of decisions he’d made that night over the ocean and knew that there was nothing he would change now. But he’d also been in the Navy long enough to know that the wisdom of any decision or order can be picked apart by some higher authority.
“I’m assigning you to Air Ops, Stoney,” Marusko said, breaking the silence. “We’re getting some new aviators in tomorrow, and we’ll need some experienced hands looking over their shoulders up in CATCC.”
There were always several aviators assigned to the Carrier Air Traffic Control Center. Sometimes they could read impressions or emotions in a squadron mate’s words as they came in over the speaker that the men manning the consoles would miss. More often than not, though, the Air Ops watch standers were Me Jo types, the ensigns and newer lieutenants jokingly referred to as marginally effective junior officers. By watching operations in CATCC and Ops, new flight officers could get the feel of the electronic network that would be backing them up once they were in the air.
“So I’m a Me Jo now, huh?” Tombstone felt the growing anger, tried to keep it out of his voice … and failed. “Do they trust me with that much responsibility?”
“Getting a damned attitude isn’t going to help, Stoney,” CAG said.
“We’re both stuck with this, and there’s not a thing we can do about it.
Not now anyway.”
Tombstone looked around the tiny room. It was cluttered with bits and pieces of Steve Marusko’s life: a photograph of his family, a plastic model from the ship’s store of an F/A-18 Hornet, books from the ship’s library. Tacked to a bulletin board was a crudely rendered crayon drawing of an aircraft carrier with huge stars scrawled on the wings of each misshapen airplane. As much as he wanted to lash out at someone, Tombstone found it impossible to be angry at CAG. The decision had not been his.
“Right, CAG.” He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice. “I’ll accept this as a paid vacation.”
“That’s the stuff. Now haul ass out of here.”
As Tombstone stepped into the deserted passageway outside CAG’s office, he wondered if his getting grounded might not actually be a twisted kind of blessing. It would give him a chance to think about his role as a career fighter pilot, about his decision to quit the Navy.
He glanced at his watch. He could still get a bite to eat at the Dirty Shirt Mess. He turned and started down the passageway, endlessly alive.
How much did he really love carrier flying? These next few days might tell him.
“Thank you for coming, Admiral.” The President gestured to the upholstered chair in front of the desk. “Please, have a seat.” The Oval Office was brilliantly lit by the early afternoon light streaming through the Rose Garden window.
“Thank you, Mr. President.” Admiral Magruder took the offered chair and watched the man behind the desk with a guarded expression. George Hall, who had brought him from his new basement office, had told him nothing about the reason for the summons. The White House Chief of Staff took a seat across the room but said nothing. Something was bothering Hall, but Magruder didn’t know what.
“Things are hotting up over there,” the President said. He looked drawn and tired, as though he’d been up the entire night before. Magruder noticed that a large map of western India had been mounted on an easel set up in front of the Oval Office’s north wall. There were a number of new marks and notations off the coast near Bombay, and a heavy red line threading south through the Red Sea, then turning sharply toward the northeast, bearing on Turban Station. From where he sat, Magruder could not make out the cryptic notations next to the line.
The President cleared his throat. “Tom, as usual, this is all confidential.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Three hours ago, the Jefferson battle group was attacked off Bombay. It seems evident that the Indians were trying to punish us for sinking their sub by launching a strike at Biddle, the frigate involved in that incident. It was also intended as a clear warning. An ultimatum, if you will.” The President swiveled his chair until he was facing the Rose Garden window. He was silent for a long moment. Magruder waited.
“The Indian ambassador was in here again this morning,” the President said at last. “They’re pushing their version of the IOZP, and they want us to comply. Now.”
The tangle of international politics that laid conflicting claims to the various oceans, straits, and sea lanes of the world was a basic part of every admiral’s formal education. The Indian Ocean Zone of Peace concept had been presented to the UN by Sri Lanka — at India’s urging — in the early seventies. It called for the exclusion of all extra-regional powers from the Indian Ocean, a measure aimed principally at the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain.
Most of the nations around the Indian Ocean basin supported the IOZP, though the usual interpretation called for a reduction of all naval forces in the region, including India’s. But of all of the regional maritime powers, India had by far the most powerful navy and was the country best able to project her military power from Bombay to the Cape of Good Hope, from the Gulf of Oman to the west coast of Australia.
India was determined to become a truly global power by the twenty-first century. Her detonation of a nuclear device in 1974, her launch of communications and military satellites, her race to build up her air force, army, and navy had all been carried out with that single goal in mind.
By comparison, Great Britain had largely dismantled her presence in the Indian Ocean during the seventies, leaving her base at Diego Garcia to the Americans. Australia, once a significant naval power in the region, had largely turned her back on the sea. The Labor Party government elected in 1983 had stricken Australia’s one carrier, the Melbourne, canceled the construction of another, and transferred all fixed-wing naval assets to the RAAF. By the early nineties, Australia’s entire navy consisted of six submarines, three U.S.-built guided-missile destroyers launched in the early sixties, and ten frigates, plus a handful of coastal patrol boats, mine-warfare ships, and survey vessels.
If India succeeded in excluding outside forces from the region, she would be the logical nation to fill the power vacuum.
And that brought New Delhi squarely into conflict with the United States. Freedom of the seas, free access to international waters. Those principles had always been high among the missions tasked to the U.S. Navy. More than that, though, defense of the West’s sea lanes from the Persian Gulf to the rest of the world lay almost entirely with the U.S. The tanker routes from the Gulf were vital to the U.S., to Europe, to Japan, and no Western policymaker was ready to concede their control — or the responsibility for their defense — to New Delhi.
Magruder understood what the President was saying. The missiles exchanged in the Arabian Sea so far had less to do with mistaken perceptions or tit-for-tat retaliation than with a clash of mutually opposed national policies. The excuse for the attack on CBG-14 might well be the sinking of an Indian submarine; the reality was less well defined but far more vast.
“They want us out of the Indian Ocean then,” Magruder said simply.
“That’s it. They’re phrasing it oh-so-politely … but it amounts to an ultimatum. All foreign naval forces are to clear out of their War Exclusion Zone at once. Foreign national military vessels or squadrons still in the Arabian Sea, or not clearly on a course leading out of the WEZ, will be subject to attack after noon tomorrow, our time.”
“God.”
“Other military squadrons, those not within the Exclusion Zone, are, ah, ‘strongly urged’ to honor the IOZP declaration by leaving the Indian Ocean entirely. The question of Diego Garcia is to be settled at a future
