monitors suspended from the overhead for a better view. Someone down there had scrubbed the launch.
“Four-oh-seven is down,” a voice called from the monitor speaker.
“Pressure failure to Cat One.”
“Break him down and get him the hell out of there,” the Air Boss said.
“Bridge, we have a downcheck on Cat One.”
Fitzgerald had already picked up the handset of the direct-access telephone known universally as the batphone and punched in Pri-Fly’s number. “Pri-Fly, Bridge. We see it. What happened?”
“Damfino,” the Air Boss replied. “I’ll let you know as soon as I know myself.”
Fitzgerald replaced the handset and studied the organized confusion engulfing the Hornet on Cat One. Almost certainly, the problem was human error … and directly attributable to the strain the men had been under for months. Damn, but that had been close! If the steam failure had occurred as the Hornet was being shot off the deck, the F/A-18 would not have attained airspeed and would have gone off over the bow. Unless the aviator had been both very quick and very lucky and had managed to eject safely, Jefferson would have run him down in the water.
We’d have lost another aviator, Fitzgerald thought. With so many lost already.
The Captain sensed rather than heard a change in the atmosphere around him. Several of the ship’s officers had been engaged in low conversation on the starboard wing of the bridge, but they were silent now, and the enlisted men at wheel and engine-room telegraph were standing a little straighter, a little more studiously correct.
Fitzgerald turned further and saw Captain Henry Bersticer stepping across the knee-knocker onto the bridge deck.
Bersticer was Admiral Vaughn’s chief of staff, a tall, swarthy man with a meticulously groomed black goatee that gave him a somewhat saturnine aspect. He walked over to where Fitzgerald was sitting. “Admiral’s compliments, Captain, and would you join him, please, in CVIC?”
He spelled out the letters, which stood for Carrier (CV) Intelligence Center, instead of pronouncing them “civic” in the time-honored fashion.
Bersticer was, Fitzgerald thought, new to carriers and didn’t yet have the hang of bird-farm language. He wondered if his CO had things down any better.
“Very well,” Fitzgerald said. He slid off the stool. “On my way.”
Admiral Vaughn was waiting alone in CVIC, a pale, heavyset man in his late fifties, with hair that might once have been red but was mostly silver now. Fitzgerald looked around as he walked toward the admiral.
The room, used as a TV studio for the Chief of the Boat’s morning broadcasts over one of Jefferson’s on- board TV stations, had a cluttered feel, and many of the lights and electrical cables had not been struck.
Fitzgerald winced inwardly when he saw it. Vaughn had an oft-stated love for order and the proverbial taut ship.
“Jim,” Vaughn said as Fitzgerald approached him. Bersticer shut the door, leaving them alone. The admiral reached into his shirt pocket and extracted a folded-up computer message flimsy. “This just came up from CIC. Have a look.”
Fitzgerald’s eyes held Vaughn’s as he took the flimsy and unfolded it.
It was a decoded flash priority from the skipper of the U.S.S. Biddle, now steaming some one hundred fifty miles northwest of the carrier.
Quickly, Fitzgerald read the details of the sub contact, now only minutes old. He looked up at the admiral and handed the message back.
“Farrel says it sounds like a Foxtrot,” he said. “Soviet or Indian?”
“God knows,” Vaughn said. “No matter which, I don’t want that damned thing closer than a hundred miles from this carrier, understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” he replied slowly. “If we can’t nail down that sub’s position, though, we’ll have to alter course pretty far west to maintain separation. It’ll mean quite a detour, and a delay in reaching Turban Station.”
“I know that. Frankly, I hope we can ID that sub as a Russkie. If it’s Hindi … God, we don’t know what the Indians are going to do.”
Fitzgerald grinned. “I hardly think they’ll mistake us for the Pakistani navy, sir.” Jane’s Fighting Ships gave the strength of Pakistan’s navy as seventeen ships, not counting patrol craft. The largest was Babur, a former British destroyer of 5440 tons. He’d looked it up earlier that morning.
“Damn it, Captain, this is no joke!” Vaughn scowled, rubbing at his short and bristly mustache with a forefinger. “You saw the latest set of dispatches from Washington. The Indians don’t want us out here. This whole situation could blow up in our faces at any moment.”
“I realize that, sir.” The word from Washington that morning was that a formal protest had been delivered to the White House by the Indian Embassy in Washington, objecting to U.S. warships in their waters during time of war. Accidental attacks were a possibility, the communique had pointed out, especially in the confusion of jamming and electronic countermeasures in the region once fighting started.
“Listen, Jim,” Vaughn said. “I called You off the bridge because I wanted to talk with you about this command. I’ve been following the weekly reports. Performance is way down, you know. And morale.”
Fitzgerald ran one hand through his thinning hair. “That’s hardly surprising, Admiral. They’ve been through a hell of a lot this cruise.”
“That’s no excuse, hey?”
“It’s not intended as one, sir.” Fitzgerald’s lips compressed into a hard, thin line. “This is a good ship, Admiral. And damned good men.”
Vaughn studied him for a long moment. “I want to know I can depend on them, Captain. And on you.”
“That goes without saying. Sir.” Fitzgerald knew his tone verged on the insubordinate, but he was angry now and working to keep the words formal and correct. It was Vaughn’s responsibility to direct the entire battle group; it was Fitzgerald’s responsibility to hand the admiral a ship he could work with, manned by a well-trained and highly motivated crew. When Vaughn criticized the men, he was criticizing him. That might be Vaughn’s right as CO, but Fitzgerald had the feeling that the admiral didn’t really care about Jefferson’s crew or how capable they really were.
And that worried him.
Vaughn did not seem to be aware of Fitzgerald’s anger. “Good. I’ll want you to bring the Jefferson to a new course at once to avoid that submarine.”
“Of course, Admiral.”
“And I want an ASW alert. Get some of your King Fishers up there in case they’re needed.” The King Fishers, VS-42, were Jefferson’s antisubmarine S-3A Viking squadron. “Intelligence briefing at 0800 tomorrow. I want to discuss our options.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“See to it.” Vaughn turned abruptly and strode toward the door. “Oh, and you might speak to your Exec about the mess here in CVIC. I like a taut ship, Captain. Can’t go into combat with gear adrift, hey?” Then he was gone.
Fitzgerald stared after him for a long moment before following. Vaughn, he decided, was still an unknown quantity. An untested quantity.
Well, odds were he would get his testing on this cruise.
“Tomcat Two-oh-one, charlie now.”
Tombstone heard the words and felt the tension ebb somewhat from his shoulders and back. “They’re calling us in, CAG,” he said. He nudged the stick to the left, putting the Tomcat into a shallow, sweeping curve that would roll it out of the holding pattern several miles astern of the carrier.
“Suits me,” Marusko replied. “My safe little office back on the old bird farm is looking better and better.”
“Viper Two, Viper Leader,” he called, opening the tactical channel.
“Batman! We’re charlied. Going in.”
“Roger that,” Batman’s voice replied a moment later. “Save us a cold one. We’re right behind you.” That was almost the literal truth. His wingman was now half a mile behind Tombstone’s aircraft and three thousand feet
