the controls had a tendency to mush somewhat at that altitude.
No problems so far. For the last five or ten minutes, they’d seen no Indian aircraft anywhere … a fact that Tombstone found strange. The F-14s must be registering on Indian ground radar. Where were the IAF interceptors?
There was nothing. They seemed to have the sky to themselves. The other F-14s in the squadron were spread across the sky, three groups of two traveling north at Mach.7. “Okay, Hitman. Whatcha got?”
“Not much, Tombstone,” his RIO replied. “Pretty lonely out … hold it.
Got them! Bearing three-five-nine, range … make it one hundred two nautical miles. Four targets, heading east at four hundred fifty knots.”
“Rog. Feed it to me here.”
His VDI showed the targets painted in the F-14’s AWG-9 beam.
“Victor Tango One-one, this is Viper. We have reached Point Lima. We have four bogies, bearing now … zero-zero-zero. Due north. Range one-oh-two.”
“Roger, Viper. That is your target. Take them down.”
“Copy, Victor Tango. Wait one.”
Time seemed suspended in the cold, thin air almost ten miles above the Thar Desert. Tombstone, Batman, and Coyote readied their Phoenix missiles for launch. Shooter, Ramrod, and Nightmare flew cover for the others. Tombstone and Coyote would loose four missiles. Batman would hold his single Phoenix in reserve.
What were those targets? Judging from their course, they were flying on a straight line from Bahawaipur, a Pakistani city located on the northern fringes of the Thar Desert about seventy miles from the border.
He sketched a line across his map, extending their flight path. The four bogies were flying across fairly empty territory. There was very little of importance along their course. Villages, mostly: Fort Abbas, Mahajan, Rajgarh … Tombstone’s pencil stopped on a city and his blood turned cold. He thought now that he knew what those targets were, where they were going … and why.
“Vipers, Viper Leader,” he said. “On my command, launch AIM-54s.” He studied the VDI screen again. There were no other targets. The Indian air defenses must have been drawn to the south by Jefferson’s strike against the Jodhpur Road.
The Tomcats were far beyond the detection range of the aircraft they were stalking. Targets were already selected, locked in.
“Fire!”
Two RIOS, Hitman and Radar, stabbed their fire control buttons, reset, then fired again. The heavy Phoenix missiles fell through cold, thin air, then ignited. One missile, for reasons unknown, failed to light, and Malibu loosed his remaining Phoenix from Tomcat 216.
At Mach 5, it took them less than two minutes to travel the 102 nautical miles to their targets, which were just crossing the border into India.
All hit.
The reporters had been gathering in the Press Room since the wee hours of the morning, as word circulated through Washington news circles that a major break in the Indian Ocean crisis had occurred. As early as three a.m., word had gone out over the wire services that the President would hold a major press conference at eight o’clock, timed to coordinate with the various morning news shows.
Admiral Magruder searched for a particular face among the sea of reporters, cameramen, and assistants. White House technicians were still adjusting the lighting, and the room was a tumble of confusion and noise as journalists and reporters traded notes and guesses.
He saw her.
It took a moment to attract her attention, but perhaps she remembered where he’d been standing before and looked his way deliberately. Pamela Drake saw him, nodded, and began making her way across the room toward where he was standing.
“Good morning, Miss Drake.”
“It’s Pamela,” she said. “Admiral, I should probably apologize-“
“Nonsense.” He kept his voice low, unwilling to steal the President’s thunder by giving anything away to other reporters who might be within earshot. “Listen, I just wanted to tell you. He’s safe.”
“Matt …?”
Magruder nodded. “They’re all back aboard Jefferson. The battle group left Turban Station about two hours ago.”
Her eyes widened. “Then there was a raid! The rumors have been flying in this town all night-“
“I think I’d better let you get the details from the President,” Magruder said. “But I wanted you to know that Matt is safe. Captain Fitzgerald called me personally to let me know.”
She let out a pent-up breath. “Is it … over then? He won’t be going back?”
Magruder relented somewhat. “India has requested a cease-fire,” he whispered. “Pakistan has agreed to meet with them in Geneva. The battle group did take some heavy damage, so the President has ordered them to return. Ike and Nimitz will be taking Jefferson’s place in the Arabian Sea, just to make certain the cease-fire holds. But yes … it’s over.”
“Thank God.”
“You’d better get back to your seat. We’ll talk more later, if you like.”
“Thank you, Admiral. I would.” He watched her make her way back across the room. There was a lot the President would not be telling her and her peers within the press community. Like how close India and Pakistan had just come to nuclear war. Or how close Tombstone and his squadron had been to running out of fuel high above the Thar Desert when they’d finally rendezvoused with a KA-6D tanker from the Jefferson. The way the admiral had heard it, Tombstone had waited until the other five aircraft refueled, one after the other, before taking his turn. If he’d missed spearing the fuel probe basket, he wouldn’t have made it. It was that close.
But necessary.
He wondered if India’s Minister of Defense shared the relief he felt now. It had been the President’s idea to call the man directly, knowing that he held a unique liaison position between New Delhi’s government and the military. It was the President who’d convinced him, first, that India could not possibly continue its war against Pakistan with their supply line savaged by the A-6 strike, and second, that a PAF flight was already enroute to New Delhi with atomic bombs slung from their undercarriages.
There’d been no time to consult with the government. In another forty minutes, India’s government would have ceased to exist. But he, and he alone, had been in a position to stop the war.
It was Sundarji who had ordered the IAF to stand down, to clear the skies for aircraft the U.S. already had in the skies above the Thar Desert. By shooting down the Pakistani planes, the President had proven America’s determination to stop the conflict from going nuclear. By grounding his aircraft, Sundarji had shown his good faith. At that, it had been a risky gamble. Sundarji might have insisted on scrambling every interceptor he had in the New Delhi area. But one of those Falcons might have gotten through, and the Indian planes had nothing like Phoenix. They would have had to get close to make a kill, “knife-fighting distance” as Navy aviators liked to phrase it.
Sundarji had been convinced. Stay clear, and let the Tomcats shoot the bogies down. They had.
And with India’s defeat in the Arabian Sea, suddenly there was no further reason to continue the war.
Magruder hoped Sundarji would survive the political turmoil that was certain to follow. A career at the Pentagon would seem peaceful by comparison. But Sundarji combined political professionalism and savvy with a realistic view of things as they were … an unusual and refreshing combination in government, from what Magruder had seen so far.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.”
Magruder turned to watch his Commander in Chief walk onto the stage, as applause burst from the audience in a thunderous roar.
The President was about to announce the end to a war that had never officially begun.
