EPILOGUE
Tombstone Magruder took down the picture of Stramaglia and his son and put it into the box he’d been using to clear out the dead man’s belongings. It was the first time since CAG’s death that he’d had any time at all to take care of personal effects, and now that Admiral Tarrant had confirmed that Magruder was staying on as CAG, it was time to bury the ghosts once and for all and put his own stamp on the Air Wing.
It didn’t promise to be an easy job, filling Stramaglia’s shoes permanently. The Soviet fleet had withdrawn with a damaged carrier, a pair of destroyers limping from lucky hits by attacking Hornets, and a few battered troopships that had survived their Harpoon strikes, but the damage actually inflicted on their force had been minor. Magruder’s plan had called for concentrating on the transports, but the corollary to that was the basic fact that the striking power of the Soviet fleet was undiminished. It was doubtful that the Soviets would mount another flanking naval landing, but they could still dominate the Norwegian Sea anytime they wanted.
Their land-based and long-range air units were intact too, and that posed a second potent threat to Jefferson and her battle group. By creating multiple distractions, the Americans had managed to even out the inequities once, but they couldn’t count on doing it again. And the cost of the Americans’ success had been almost prohibitive. Galveston had eluded pursuit and reported in, but Bangor had been lost in the strike against Orland, and that was a Pyrrhic victory at best. And the RNAF planes lost in the demonstration against Oslo would be sorely missed when the stalled campaign lurched back into action.
That would come soon enough. The Norwegians were concentrating reserves to eliminate the airhead at Brekke, but the rest of the Soviet forces were in the same positions as before the Alpha Strike, still poised to drive on Bergen. It might not be a blitzkrieg, but eventually sheer weight of numbers would overpower Lindstrom’s army.
Indeed, the defeat of the flanking movement had spurred new efforts by the Soviet military. In the morning intelligence report, Commander Lee had pointed to several signs that fresh forces, land, sea, and air, were mustering in the Baltic, and there was more activity around Murmansk as well. Plainly one lost battle was not going to deter them from continuing their campaign of conquest, and as long as it went on the Thomas Jefferson was liable to be at the center of the action.
But the news wasn’t all discouraging. Good things had come of the Battle of Cape Bremanger too. Bare hours after the Soviet defeat, Britain’s Labour Party had lost a vote of No Confidence in Parliament and resigned. Until elections were held, the Conservatives had been asked to form a caretaker government that would take a harder line against the Soviets under an experienced and uncompromising Prime Minister who could be counted on to support America’s interests. Though it would take time to organize the new British government, military forces were already preparing to join in the effort to support Free Norway.
And there was an American Task Force on the way as well. Now that Lindstrom’s hold on Bergen had been shored up for a while longer, America had a focal point for arms, men, and other assistance to pour into the embattled country. Jefferson still faced the Russian threat by herself for now, but soon she would not be alone any more.
Yes, the cost had been high. Gridley and Bangor lost … Powers and Bannon and Trapper Martin and the other pilots who had died fighting in Jefferson’s private, remote little war. And Stramaglia. But they had all died making sure that the Russians would not turn Norway into another occupied Kuwait. Now all that remained was to turn the respite they had won into final victory.
He turned back toward the desk and noticed the mug with Stramaglia’s cigars there. Magruder picked it up, but stopped before putting it into the box. Stramaglia’s cigars had been the stuff of legend at Top Gun and afterward. Like the man himself, somehow bigger than life.
Back at Miramar Magruder had once made the mistake of protesting that the mock fights weren’t fair. Even though Top Gun used aggressor aircraft that matched their Soviet counterparts, the teachers didn’t fly using Russian tactics or doctrine. It had been bad enough questioning Top Gun policy, but on top of that Magruder had made the mistake of voicing his opinion in front of Stramaglia, who had promptly scheduled an extra exercise for the day in which the instructors did adhere to Soviet fighter tactics … and still beat the students handily. “Doctrine’s only as bad as the pilots who are following it,” Stramaglia had said afterward, stabbing at Tombstone’s chest with the inevitable unlit cigar. “If you get yourself beat playing by the rules, how do you expect to do when the enemy decides not to play fair?”
After the desperate fighting off of the Norwegian coast, Magruder thought he finally understood just what his old teacher had been driving at. Smiling, he put the mug and the cigars back on the desk. They could be a reminder to everyone who saw them to always expect the unexpected … and to never play by the rules.
