before him on the desktop blotter, very carefully. “Things could have gone very wrong for us at Wonsan. Or at Bangkok too, for that matter. We could have lost ships there. We did lose men.”
“Maybe the question is whether the men die for nothing. Or if it means something.”
The President looked up at Magruder. “I should hire you to do my speeches. You have my speech writer beat all hollow.”
“I only get passionate when I’m telling the truth, Mr. President. All I know, sir, is that if those big carriers of yours are to have any credibility in the future, you have to use them. Seems to me if you don’t, you risk losing the whole damn fleet, simply because they’re no longer a threat.”
Magruder paused and swallowed hard. He was thinking of Matt. What he was saying now was going to have a very direct bearing on Matt’s future, maybe even on whether he lived or died, and the knowledge was a searing pain in his breast. The irrepressible Tombstone would be in the forefront of the fight, no matter what. Winner of the Navy Cross at Wonsan, of the Raniathepbodi — the Thai equivalent of the Medal of Honor — at Bangkok, the hero … But he had to say what he believed.
“Mr. President, you know as well as I do how important the credibility of our fleet is in the world. You also know as well as I do how much we lose when the world sees us sacrifice principle for … for convenience.
If the Indians attack, we fight. We have to. And if there’s any way on God’s Earth to get in there and separate those two before they start throwing their nuclear toys at each other, well … I think we should.
We have to.”
The President studied Magruder for a moment that dragged on and on. Then he nodded. “I know, Tom. And I agree.”
“Testing me, Mr. President?”
“No, Tom. Testing myself.” He reached out and pressed a button on his desk. A Secret Service man appeared in the door seconds later. “Yes, Mr. President?”
“Ed, would you take the Admiral down to the Situation Room? Log him through on my say-so.”
“Yes, Mr. President.” Magruder looked at the President, who grinned.
“Go on down. I’ll see you there after my meeting with His Excellency, Mr. Nadkarni, who’d better not be late. Then we’ll see how the battle goes.”
Magruder frowned. “Are you … managing the battle from there?” He remembered past attempts by Washington-based politicians and generals to manage fights halfway around the world. Carter had been in that same room while the helicopters were refueling at Desert One in Iran.
“Hell, no,” the President said. “I’m no tactician. That’s Vaughn’s job. But we’ll sure as hell be the first to know if he screws up.”
On the PLAT monitor, a pair of VF95 Tomcats squatted side by side on the forward catapults. Tombstone did a fast calculation. All six of the current CAP aircraft, including the Alert Five, were from Viper Squadron: Army Garrison and Batman Wayne, Nightmare Marinaro and Ramrod Kingsly, Shooter Rostenkowski and Coyote Grant. Only two more Vipers remained to be launched in the dance on the deck, Tomcat 220 piloted by Lieutenant Hardesty—”Trapper” to his squadron mates — and number 208, Lieutenant “Maverick” Bowman.
Trapper and Maverick were both replacement pilots, kids on their first blue-water deployment with a squadron. They’d flown in with Coyote on the COD aircraft, and Tombstone had not yet had an opportunity to get to know them well.
He grimaced. How many “Trappers” and “Mavericks” were there in the Navy? Or “Slicks” and “Ramrods” and “Shooters.” The men — the boys — came and went. The running names never seemed to change … or the grinning faces and cocksure attitudes.
He watched as red-shirted ordies completed their checks of each Tomcat’s weapons load, pulling the safing wires from the missiles’ fuzes, then holding them up so that the pilot could count the red tags affixed to the wires and verify that his ordnance was ready to arm and launch.
Unlike the BARCAP, which had been armed strictly for long-range interdiction, Trapper and Maverick were carrying standard interception warloads: a mix of four Phoenix, two Sparrow, and two Sidewinder missiles. The Tomcat had originally been designed as a stand-off interceptor, little more than a weapons platform for the Phoenix, but recognition that modern air combat demanded close-in weapons for down-and-dirty dogfighting had quickly led to the adoption of mixed loads.
They would need that range of distance and adaptability when the Indian horde closed with them. There simply were not enough Phoenix AIM54-Cs for every Indian target … or enough planes to launch them. Unless the Indians got cold feet and backed off at the last moment, this was going to be one nasty, toe-to-toe fight.
The JBDS rose ponderously from the deck, and the Cat Officer stepped back from the Tomcats, vigorously cycling his hands above his head. The F14’s tailpipes glowed orange as their afterburners engaged.
Safe behind the shelter of the raised jet-blast deflectors, the Tomcats of VF97, the War Eagles, were lining up to take their place at the catapults. First in line, he saw, was number 101, Lieutenant Commander Chuck Connelly’s bird. “Slick” Connelly had been given the vacant squadron CO slot after the death of the War Eagles’ previous skipper in Thailand. Tombstone heard Costello mutter something under his breath.
“What was that, Hitman?”
“Just wishing the skipper luck,” Costello replied. “Damn, I wish I was going with them.”
Tombstone knew the young, black-haired j.g. wasn’t in hack the way he was. Someone had to draw CATCC duty, and today it was Costello’s turn.
But Tombstone could sense the kid’s eagerness, his impatience.
“So do I, Hitman,” he said. “So do I.”
Tahliani was in position. With his eyes on the radar returns indicating both the American Tomcat and the more distant U.S. carrier, he moved the targeting pipper on the screen, locked on, then pressed the launch button. With a whoosh of smoke and flame, one of the two bulky, black-and-red-painted missiles dropped from the Sea Harrier’s underwing ordnance pad and ignited.
The Sea Eagle was a product of British Aerospace. Four meters long, four tenths of a meter thick, it had a range of well over a hundred kilometers. Far superior in every way to the small French Exocet, it had a 227-kilogram warhead that was believed capable of disabling even the largest warship.
But Tahliani was less interested in the Sea Eagle’s target than he was in that target’s guardian. As the missile dropped to its programmed flight altitude and reached its cruising speed of Mach.85, the Indian pilot could see in the movements of his opponents the consternation the launch had caused.
Sensing the right moment, he pulled back on his throttles, letting the missile skim ahead.
“Victor Tango One-one, this is Viper Two-oh-one! We have a launch, repeat, launch. Probably ASM, bearing one-seven-one, range thirty miles.”
“Copy, Army Dixie. We are tracking.”
“Victor Tango, Viper Two-oh-one is engaging.”
Batman had managed to knock down a ship-killer earlier using guns alone.
Perhaps Army could do the same. As Dixie fed him speed and course updates from the backseat, he became convinced that the missile he was tracking was not another Exocet. This one was larger and slower … possibly a Brit-made Sea Eagle.
That fit with the notion that the air targets to the south and southeast were Sea Harriers off the Indian carrier. Well, there’d be time enough later to take them on.
First things first. His course and speed were all wrong for a guns-only approach on the ship-killer. Working for maximum economy of time, he swung the Tomcat into a broad turn to starboard, one that allowed the missile to cruise past at six hundred fifty miles per hour. He checked his course and position. Jefferson was fifty miles ahead … four and a half minutes at the missile’s present speed.
He cut back on the throttles and settled into the slot squarely behind the missile.
“Army!” Dixie called. “I’m getting a radar signature from our six.
