least they could put eight or ten planes in the air on short notice … although it would give the Air Boss headaches to keep so many aircraft ready for a quick launch.
“That’s it for now, Grant,” Stramaglia said after a moment. “But make sure you have a little talk with your people about what happened today. Because if Powers or any of those other hotdogs runs wild again, I’ll have your hide!”
Coyote left hastily, looking pale. He wouldn’t meet Magruder’s eyes on his way out.
When he was gone Stramaglia steepled his fingers on his desk and looked at Tombstone through narrowed eyes. “You think I was too hard on him, Magruder?”
“He’s a damned good man, sir,” Tombstone said. “And he can’t nursemaid every nugget up there.”
“And he’s also your friend.” CAG shook his head. “There’s no room for friendship in a job like this, Magruder. Think about that. Someday you might have to treat a friend that way.”
“But-“
“From where I’m sitting the important thing about what happened this morning is the fact that we just shot up two Russian airplanes. If by some miracle the Russkies don’t treat that as an act of war, we’ve got to make damned sure there aren’t any repeats. And if they do come after us I’ve got to make sure those damned hotdogs are on a short leash. Your buddy Grant’s the one who’s responsible for the Vipers, so he’s the one I have to land on with both feet. If you don’t like it, mister, then you’d better not plan on ever sitting in this chair.”
Tombstone swallowed and nodded slowly. He didn’t like it, but CAG was right … as far as he went. But surely there was a better way to handle it. “I understand, sir.”
“Good. Lesson over. Now get the hell out of here so I can start figuring out how to save a squadron commander’s neck when I file my report.”
Magruder was halfway out the door before he realized what Stramaglia had said. Perhaps the man really did care about the officers in his outfit after all.
Coyote met him in the passageway.
“Thanks a lot for all the support, buddy,” he said bitterly, blocking Magruder’s path. His face was flushed, and his eyes were angry. “You could’ve said something to get that bastard off my back. Instead you just sat there and let him dish it out!”
“C’mon, Willie-“
“Never mind! I guess that’s what happens when you get the big promotion, huh? All of a sudden keeping your own nose clean is more important than helping out your friends.” Coyote turned away abruptly and started down the corridor.
“Coyote-” Magruder began. Then he shrugged and turned away. It was no use arguing with Coyote now anyway. Maybe when he calmed down …
How could he think I wouldn’t stand by him? Magruder wondered, hurt and angry. He’d gone to bat for Coyote after Grant had left, even knowing that Stramaglia was likely to come down on him just as hard as he had on Viper Squadron’s commander. Didn’t Coyote realize that he’d never let a friend down that way? Or was the friendship too strained by time and distance now to hold up any longer?
He was beginning to think Stramaglia was right. There was no room for friendship in his job now.
“The President of the United States!”
The men and women gathered in the underground chamber surged to their feet at the announcement from the Marine guard at the door, but President Frederick Connally waved his hand in a dismissive gesture as he entered, impatient with the ritual. Didn’t these people realize there were more important things to worry about than observing the formalities?
He looked around the small room with its walnut paneling and the massive teakwood conference table that dominated everything. The expressions his top advisors wore told him the news wasn’t good.
With a sigh he settled into the leather chair at the head of the table. An Air Force officer carrying an innocuous-looking briefcase took up a position nearby.
Connally hated that briefcase and everything it stood for. It was the “football,” holding the codes that would grant Presidential authorization for a nuclear weapons release. The football had been much on his mind these last few days.
“All right, gentlemen, let’s hear it.” The message requesting his presence in the Situation Room had been brief and vague. His Chief of Staff, Gordon West, had framed it carefully to avoid giving away details to any of the senators attending the morning conference in the Cabinet Room. His eyes met West’s for a moment, but the former governor of Minnesota looked away.
It was Admiral Brandon Scott who spoke. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had a reputation for bluntness and was an outspoken critic of the new Administration’s defense policies, but Connally also knew that the man understood his business.
“The Soviets have advanced their front to link up with the amphibious and desant forces around Trondheim,” Scott said. He touched a button on the table in front of him and the curtains blocking off the rear-projection screen at the end of the room opposite the door rolled back. A map of Norway appeared, showing Soviet positions astride the center of the country in red. A second blob of red marked their bastion around Oslo, so far supplied and reinforced entirely by air.
“How the hell did they move so far, so fast?” Connally asked. “I thought the plans for the defense of Norway were solid. Haven’t they been working on them for the past fifty years, for Crissakes?”
“Not quite, Mr. President,” Secretary of Defense George Vane responded. “The planning that was put in motion fifty years ago was based on having a strong NATO alliance. Most of them became obsolete the day the Berlin Wall went down and everybody started scrambling to make friends with the Russians.”
“I’ve had about all the anti-Communist bullshit I need for today from the Senate delegation that was just upstairs, George,” Connally snapped. “I don’t need rhetoric. I need results!”
“It isn’t just rhetoric, Mr. President,” Vane said quietly. “The simple fact is that the end of the Cold War era left us behind. It’s a classic case of being ready to fight the last war when the next one rolls around.”
“Just what’s that supposed to mean?” the President asked him coldly.
“It means that we didn’t evolve new strategies fast enough to keep pace with the new political realities,” Scott amplified. “For better than forty years we were all geared for one thing — the big conventional war in Europe, with Russian tanks pouring through the Fulda Gap and the NATO allies rallying to hold them off. The situation changed, but we didn’t change with it.”
“We counted on a couple of divisions attacking the Norwegian frontier,” Vane added. “So far we’ve identified six divisions on land and the equivalent of another one operating by sea, plus a pair of divisions providing desant troops for paradrops and airmobile attacks. There are at least twice as many tactical air units available in Scandinavia as we ever projected. Without the need to support operations in Germany or elsewhere the Soviets can overwhelm Norway without even trying very hard.”
The National Security Advisor, Herbert T. Waring, spoke for the first time. “There’s also the matter of our preparedness. If this had been happening in the seventies or the eighties we would’ve been on full alert the first day of the crisis, back when it was still just a lot of saber-rattling. We would have been shuttling Marines over there as fast as we could round up the flights to carry them, and the prepositioned supplies we had around Trondheim would’ve been worth something. Norway could’ve gone just like the buildup in Saudi before Desert Storm … but we let it slip by until it was too late to act.”
“Damn it, Herb, we just can’t keep on playing policeman to the world anymore,” West said harshly. “The last Administration tried that and ended up screwing around with the budget so much that we may never get the deficit under control again. And we came within a gnat’s whisker of an all-out war in Korea … not to mention the mess in India.”
“And if we hadn’t been out there pounding the old beat,” Scott said quietly, “India and Pakistan would’ve bombed each other back to the Stone Age with nukes. The world’s too small a place for isolationism to work any more.”
“Gentlemen, this isn’t getting us anywhere!” Connally said loudly. “I didn’t ask for a political debate.”
“You wanted to know why the Russians were able to push so far,” Vane said. “You’ve just heard a few good
