Boychenko did not answer immediately. Though something, in his normally impassive expression put Dmitriev on his guard.
“General?”
“It has not been reported, Nikolai Sergeivich. Not yet. I need… I need to discuss something with you first.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Just where is it you stand in the current difficulties?”
Dmitriev thought carefully before answering. “Current difficulties” had become the catchword recently for all that was wrong with Russia… and most especially for the civil war of Red versus Blue.
“I would like to see them ended.”
“A diplomatic answer. And a safe one.” Boychenko sighed. “Perhaps it doesn’t really matter. What I am about to do could not seriously be considered to be treason, no matter which side we stand on. In a way, I will be acting to save the Crimea. For Russia.”
“What is it you intend to do, Comrade General?”
“Nikolai Sergeivich, the Crimea is doomed. A blind man could see that.
Novgorod has been sending us supplies and men, but not enough. Not enough by far.”
“The Ukrainians may not attack us here, sir. Not if they see we are dug in and willing to defend ourselves.”
“They will attack. Intelligence is convinced of that. And so am I.
They have no option, really, if they intend to intervene in our war.” Turning in his padded chair, he gestured at the wall map with its pins and colored flags. “They could invade Russia proper, of course, but Would soon find themselves heavily outnumbered, either by our forces, or by the Blues. With luck, they might make it as far as Volgograd. And what would it profit them? Hitler made the same mistake, you may recall.” Volgograd had once carried another name, before the name had fallen out of favor ? Stalingrad.
“They would be foolish to attack us in any case, with or without Hitler’s example.”
“Perhaps. They would also be foolish to extend themselves too far to the east, leaving the Crimean bastion here, in their rear.” Standing, Boychenko walked to the map. He pointed to the forces near Odessa and the mouth of the Dnieper River. “You’ve been reading the intelligence reports, I’m sure. Two army groups stand ready to attack the Crimea, Nikolai Sergeivich. They have assembled over one hundred landing craft, and a large number of naval vessels … mostly small combatants, true, but enough to cover an amphibious operation on the Crimean west coast, north of Sevastopol. Intelligence believes they will move within a week.”
“A spoiling raid, perhaps,” Dmitriev began. His fleet might be in tatters, but he could still put together a hard-hitting strike force, one that might splinter the Ukrainian invasion fleet before it was loaded and ready to move.
“No. There is another way. A better way.”
“Sir?”
Boychenko hesitated. Dmitriev had the feeling that the general was studying him closely, measuring him.
“I intend,” Boychenko said after a moment, “to surrender the Crimea to the United Nations. And you, Nikolai Sergeivich, must help me.”
The glass slipped from Dmitriev’s fingers and shattered on the general’s parquet wood floor.
CHAPTER 6
Commander Edward Everett Wayne completed the aircraft checkout. He was strapped into the cockpit of his F-14 Tomcat, nose number 201, parked in the early morning shadow of Jefferson’s island, and he’d just brought both engines on-line.
“Clearance to roll, Batman,” the voice of his Radar Intercept Officer, Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Blake, said over his ICS.
“Here we go, then.” He nudged the throttles, and the F-14 nosed forward, following the vigorous hand and arm movements of the yellow-jerseyed plane director who was guiding him out of his parking place, a holding area behind a red-and-white safety stripe painted on the dark gray deck just aft of Jefferson’s island. Their destination was Cat Three, the inboard of two catapults leading across the carrier’s angled flight deck amidships.
“The met boys are still calling for CAVU,” Blake, call sign “Malibu,” said. “Perfect weather over the entire AO.”
“That’s something, anyway,” Batman replied. “At least we’ll be able to see where we’re flying.”
The Tomcat shuddered as another aircraft, an F/A-18 Hornet of VFA-161, cranked up its engines on Cat Four, ahead and to Batman’s left. Hot air roiling back from the aircraft’s twin engines made the air above the deck dance and shimmer. Deck personnel, their duties identified by the color of their jerseys and helmets, moved clear of the Hornet and crouched low on the deck. The launch director dropped to one knee, then touched thumb to deck.
Instantly, the Hornet slid forward, accelerating to flight speed in less than two seconds as steam boiled from the cat track in its wake, a seething, straight line of white fog swiftly dissipated by the breeze coming in over Jefferson’s bow. From Batman’s vantage point in his Tomcat, the Hornet appeared to slide off the end of Cat Four and vanish, dropping off the end of the rail as though plunging toward the waves far below.
Then, as if by magic, the Hornet reappeared, climbing up from behind the edge of the flight deck that had briefly hidden it from view, climbing higher, dwindling in seconds to a speck in the blue sky above the blue horizon.
Launching off a carrier, Batman reflected, was the only time when the aviator didn’t have full control over his aircraft.
Most aviators feared the trap at the end of a mission more than the launch ? night traps or recoveries during bad weather were the worst of all ? and Batman shared that common dislike with all other naval pilots. At least during a trap the aviator was in control of his machine, guiding it down the glide slope, adjusting position and speed and angle of attack in response to the LSO’s radioed commentary, and to his own eye, hand, and judgment. But the launch was the one time during the mission when the man in the cockpit was literally a passenger. Just beneath the carrier’s roof, in the catapult room, steam pressure was fed into two enormous bottles, with pistons attached to the shuttle, which rested in its track on the deck overhead. The FDO ? the Flight Deck Officer ? was responsible for calling for just the right amount of steam, an amount that varied depending both on the type of aircraft being launched and on its launch weight, which might vary anywhere from 42,000 to 82,000 pounds. Too much steam pressure, and the aircraft could be torn apart; too little, and it would not build up enough speed to become airborne and would trundle off the front of the catapult and into the ocean below. There wasn’t much room for error; typically, cats were set to launch aircraft at about ten knots above the minimum speed necessary to get them airborne.
Sometimes ? not often, but sometimes ? something just plain went wrong with the equipment, and the aircraft was given a nudge instead of a kick. Batman had seen it happen more than once. On one occasion, pilot and RIO had ejected as their Tomcat fell toward the sea. The RIO had survived, but the aviator had been recovered from the sea by helicopter later, dead, his neck broken.
Even in peacetime, flying jets off a carrier was one hairy way to earn your paycheck.
It was always a bit unsettling then to sit and wait in line for your turn at the cat. Batman liked being in control; he was very good at what he did ? which was flying a high-performance Navy fighter ? and he disliked just sitting there, strapped into his ejection seat hoping that somebody else got their figures right and pushed the right sequence of buttons.
He’d been giving a lot of thought to control, lately, especially as it related to his future. Aboard the Jefferson, Batman had a playboy’s rep; when he’d first checked in with the VF-95 Vipers, several years earlier, he’d been something of a hot dog, young, brash, and just a bit too eager to bend or break the regs when it suited him,
