Kulagin looked acutely uncomfortable. “I really don’t-“
“Come, come! You may speak freely here. It’s not as though I’m about to ship you off to some gulag, eh?”
“Comrade Vice-Admiral, General Boychenko is a popular officer.”
“One of the few. Yes, I know.”
“The men and junior officers trust him. They trust him to get them home.”
“And what of the officers and men whose homes are here, Anton? In the Crimea?”
“Ah.” He seemed surprised at the question, but he nodded. “They…
they are not so eager to leave, sir. Most worry about what will happen to their families when they are ordered to leave, to go back to Russia. The Ukrainians are not known for their forgiving natures.”
“And what about you, Anton Ivanovich?”
The aide hesitated a long moment before answering. “I will tell you the truth, Comrade Vice-Admiral. I worry about my family, my wife and two daughters. They live in Volosovo. That’s a town not far from St. Petersburg, a very great distance from here. The war inside Russia threatens them directly, far more than what happens to us here in the Crimea.” He spread his hands, helplessly. “If the Crimea falls to Ukraine, how does that hurt them? How does it take bread from their mouths… unless, of course, I should die here. That would cause them hardship.”
“You don’t wonder if Ukrainian aggression might be encouraged by a display of cowardice in the Crimea?”
“I don’t think any reasonable person expects the Ukrainians to invade Russia proper! In any case, their border is much closer to Moscow than to St. Petersburg.” He sighed. “In any case, sir, I would feel much better if I thought my service, my actions, were protecting them directly. This, here… the Crimea… may I speak bluntly?”
“Of course.”
“I feel, sir, that it is a lost cause. Nothing we do, nothing we can even consider doing here, will keep the Ukrainians out in the long run. Even the Crimea’s population is divided over its loyalties.”
That was certainly true enough. During the last free elections held here, a slight majority had voted to remain with Ukraine, rather than be readmitted to Russia. The region’s current status, as an autonomous district loosely tied to Ukraine but still administered by Russia, by the Russian military no less, satisfied no one.
Dmitriev studied his subordinate’s face for a moment. Kulagin’s expression was that of a man who expected to be struck. Dmitriev only nodded, however, and gave the aide a reassuring smile. “I appreciate your candor, Anton. And I understand your concern. You must trust me, however, when I say that Operation Miaky is the one hope we have now. It will be our salvation, not a mass retreat, not abandoning our duty, and certainly not Boychenko’s treason.”
Miaky, was the local name for a cold wind that blew south across the beaches near Yalta, sweeping down out of Angarski Pass in the chain of mountains that created a stone wall across the southern Crimea. That wind, though, was not so cold as the sound of the word “treason,” as it hung there in the room between them for long seconds after Dmitriev spoke it.
“Is that how you believe Krasilnikov’s people will see it?” Kulagin asked. “As treason?”
“Certainly. General Boychenko was tasked with the responsibility of defending the Crimean Military District against all enemies, against all threats, whether they be Blues, Ukrainians or Americans. He proposes to abandon that responsibility, to turn it all over to the United Nations. To foreigners. What is that, if not treason? You might mention that to those personnel you speak with who are so eager to return to the Rodina. They seem to think Krasilnikov’s people will receive them back gladly. It could be that they would be seen back there as accessories to Boychenko’s crime.”
Kulagin swallowed. There was a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. “I, I see, sir. I understand.”
His veiled threat, Dmitriev knew, was exaggeration, almost certainly.
The days were long gone when an entire military unit numbering some tens of thousands of men would be rounded up and imprisoned or shot en masse because of its commander’s inadequacies. Terror might have worked as a means of inspiring men in Stalin’s day, but the breakdown in command authority within the former Soviet military hierarchy, from top to bottom, made such measures counter-productive at best. Besides, trained manpower was too scarce within the Rodina these days to carelessly squander it to satisfy ego or wounded vanity.
But he desperately needed to hold his command together for a short time longer. Operation Miaky had been scheduled for two days hence… as soon as final preparations could be made for readying the Black Sea Fleet for what would probably be its final sortie.
Miaky would be a cold wind indeed this time, one that would make its chill felt clear across the Black Sea… and beyond to the rest of the world.
“ETA six minutes, gentlemen.” The noise of the helicopter’s engine made it hard for Tombstone to hear the pilot even over his headphones. “I’ve got clearance from the Russkis to land at the airport.”
“Then take her the hell on in,” Captain Greg Whitehead shouted into his headset mike. “The faster we get out of the air, the better I’ll like it!”
Tombstone leaned back in his hard seat. He had to agree with Whitehead’s assessment of the situation. This whole idea of accepting the surrender of an entire Russian military administrative district had come up on such short notice that no one really knew what was happening… and if that was true for the Americans in the battle group, it must be even more so for the Russian forces. The chance of yet another accident in this deployment ? this time of Russian antiaircraft downing an incoming unidentified helicopter ? was greater than Tombstone really cared to think about. He would have infinitely preferred flying in on an F-14 to this slow, bumpy, and terribly exposed approach in one of Guadalcanal’s CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters. At least he could have distracted himself by concentrating on the controls.
But he wasn’t an aviator today, or even CAG. He was ? God help me ? a diplomat and a news media liaison, and neither diplomats nor media liaisons came roaring into hostile territory in an F-14 with afterburners blazing, however attractive the image might be.
Magruder looked around the compartment, studying the other passengers ? all bundled up in flight suits and life jackets and bulky Jefferson-issue cranials. Most of the others in the group looked as uncertain as he felt. Captain Whitehead was Admiral Tarrant’s chief of staff, and as such was the man in command of the shore party. He looked collected enough, but the faces of the rest showed a mixture of worry, nervous expectation, and emotions rigidly held in check. He wondered if he was as transparent as the others.
Commander Sykes was present, of course, and four other staff officers, ranging from another full commander named Sedgwick to a lowly lieutenant j.g. from Jefferson’s OZ division named Eugene Vanyek. Enlisted personnel included Chief Radioman Joseph R. Geiger, a short, thickset man with heavy features and the indestructible look of chiefs throughout the Navy, and seven Marines in full battle dress who’d been asked to come along to provide security. All together, counting Magruder, there were fifteen men and two women on the flight, which meant that the huge transport helo’s cargo bay was about half-full. The CH-53 wasn’t normally carried aboard the Jefferson, which relied on the smaller Seahawks for most of its helicopter needs, but with so many people going ashore at once, Jefferson had borrowed the CH-53 from the Marine carrier, which had joined the Jeff on station the afternoon before.
He glanced across the Stallion’s huge cargo compartment and caught Joyce Flynn watching him. She grinned at him, with perhaps a trace of nervousness behind her dark eyes, and winked. The enlisted woman sitting beside her, an ordnanceman second class named Natalie Kardesh, had her arms folded across her chest and appeared to be asleep, though the front of her cranial was down so far Tombstone couldn’t see her eyes. She’d been included on this flight because she spoke fluent Russian.
It was Flynn who concerned him, though. Why, why had it been Tomboy who’d volunteered for this party?
Tarrant, he knew, had specifically wanted some women along on the flight, especially one of fairly senior rank with flight status, and Tomboy certainly qualified on both counts. The admiral’s reasoning, Tombstone assumed, was that there would be lots of news personnel ashore ? including ACN’s Pamela Drake, of course ? and he wanted to be sure that the U.S. Navy’s progressive attitude concerning women in combat roles was well documented. The coming negotiations with Boychenko’s people would have a high profile in the media, and Samantha Reed and her cronies back Stateside would see and approve. Politics, pure and simple… and it grated
