“Perhaps, gentlemen,” Waring said, glancing back and forth nervously between the two men as though he feared they were about to come to blows, “and Madam Secretary, ah, perhaps it’s too soon yet to make any decision at all. I mean, a rash decision now could have unfortunate effects on all concerned, on the President, and on the Jefferson and her escorts. If we wait, the situation may resolve itself.”
“I might remind you all,” Admiral Scott added, “of the service motto of the British Special Air Service, the SAS. “Who dares, wins.” This isn’t a time for halfhearted measures, fixing the blame, or mealymouthed political shenanigans.”
Reed shook her head. “Mr. Waring, I cannot in good conscience recommend any act that will deepen our military involvement in that region.” She looked pointedly at Scott. “We will not send in the Marines and risk this, this incident escalating into a major war.”
Admiral Magruder looked up. “Madam Secretary, excuse me, but you’re suggesting we do nothing? What about our people?”
“There are times, Admiral, when political expediency must take precedence. For the good of the country.”
“You’re suggesting that we abandon them? Let them just, just hang out to dry?”
“There are wounded personnel ashore,” Admiral Scott added, his voice growing harder, angrier. “Including the commanding officer of that battle group. So far, the Russians have not even been willing to discuss allowing us to extract them. That’s a problem quite separate from the larger one of our battle group being trapped inside the Black Sea. Madam, we can’t simply turn our backs on them!”
She drummed her fingers briefly on the tabletop. “I will remind you, both of you, once again, Admiral Magruder, Admiral Scott, that I will happily accept your resignations if either or both of you cannot see things my way. I need team players here, not dissent. Not squabbling. My recommendation will be that we engage the Russians in a meaningful dialogue. Perhaps something can be negotiated. We should tell Dmitriev no right up front, but keep the door open for further bargaining. I think we can work something out, given time.
“We should also, Mr. Heideman, continue our talks with Ankara. If we can secure rights to berth our ships in one of their Black Sea ports, in Sinop, possibly, the entire problem goes away. Don’t you agree?”
“Oh, absolutely, Madam Secretary.”
“In any case,” Waring added, “we can extend those negotiations as long as is necessary. Long enough to see what the Russians do. Long enough for the President to garner support for military intervention, if necessary.”
“That raises an interesting possibility,” Gordon West said.
But Magruder leaned back in his chair and closed eyes and ears alike. He recognized the signs. This discussion was going to continue throughout the rest of the morning, possibly into the afternoon as well, but nothing would be decided, nothing accomplished. A wholehearted advocate of the necessity of separating military from government and keeping them separate, he nonetheless resented it, resented it deeply, when the civilian bureaucrats in charge regarded military men and women as expendable pawns. The same sort of thing had happened time after time in the past. The U.S. government had known there were still POWS in captivity in North Vietnam and Laos when the Paris peace accords had been signed, but in the name of political expediency and a crumbling presidency…
Sometimes Magruder, patriot that he was, felt deeply ashamed for his country.
CHAPTER 22
Medium shot of a large, imposing, white building surrounded by trees. UN troops, wearing bulky flak-jackets and blue helmets, are everywhere in evidence. Cut to medium close-up of Boychenko, speaking earnestly with a U.S. Navy captain and an enlisted woman.
“In the historic city of Yalta today, the chaotic disintegration of the Russian Federation took yet another step into anarchy, as Russian naval forces in the Crimea refused to go along with General Sergei Boychenko’s plan to turn the region over to UN forces.”
Cut to long shot of Russian soldiers moving cautiously along a street, using abandoned vehicles or fallen rubble for cover. Cut to blurry view of a jet aircraft streaking overhead, then back to another long shot of soldiers in the street. Two men drag a wounded comrade to shelter.
“The mutiny has precipitated sharp fighting between army units loyal to Boychenko, and naval infantry and air force units under the command of Vice-Admiral Nikolai Dmitriev. Casualties are reported to be heavy.
“Dmitriev has declared Boychenko to be a rebel in the employ of antigovernment forces and has assumed full command of all military units in the Crimea, this in the wake of the attempted assassination of Boychenko during UN ceremonies here yesterday morning. Authorities believe that attempt was probably instigated by Dmitriev, though spokesmen for the Black Sea Fleet’s commander deny it.”
Medium shot of UN soldiers near the White Palace. Cut to a view of the wreckage of a large helicopter on the palace grounds.
“In the meantime, some one hundred UN personnel, including a contingent from the U.S. Navy’s Jefferson battle group, now steaming offshore, have been trapped in Yalta by the rapidly escalating hostilities. All flights out of the area have been canceled, and military helicopters have been grounded. Dmitriev has threatened to shoot down any foreign aircraft in the region, fearing, perhaps, Boychenko’s escape.”
Cut to long shot of an older Russian woman with a small child, huddled against the side of a building. Zoom in on her age-wrinkled face as she stares apprehensively up at the sky. Cut to medium shot of a wood-frame house burning, then to several long shots of civilians in small, desolate groups. Some look fearful, some angry. Most look bewildered or simply numb. Cut to tight close-up of the first woman’s face. She is crying.
“For the people of Yalta, and the entire Crimea, the war goes on… and the killing… and it doesn’t really seem to matter who is fighting whom.
“For ACN, this is Pamela Drake, reporting live from Yalta.”
Dixie held his Tomcat, his new Tomcat, steady at five hundred feet, a sea-skimming altitude that would put him in a vulnerable spot if the Russians jumped him but that might give him and the seven other Tomcats flying in an extended formation with him a critical few more minutes of evasion from Russian radar. It was fully dark, with sunset having taken place four hours earlier, the sky partly cloudy, and the new moon just two days away. He couldn’t see the water flashing beneath his F-14’s belly, couldn’t see anything, really, except the mingled cool green-yellow glows of his cockpit instrumentation lights, his vertical and horizontal display indicator screens, and his HUD.
His pulse was pounding; he could feel it in his throat, against the collar of his flight suit. It felt good being on a full op again, instead of flying racecourse ovals over featureless spots of ocean on CAP.
Cat Garrity was riding backseat with him again, and that felt good as well.
“Coming up on the way point, Dix,” Cat told him over the ICS. “We have unknown aircraft in the vicinity, at two-seven-oh to three-three-five. No sign that they’ve noticed us yet.”
“Rog. Maybe they can’t see in the dark, huh?”
“Don’t count on it. Our Prowler friends can only jam them so much. When they get close enough, they’ll see us.”
Two separate flights of EA-6 Prowler ECM aircraft had departed from the Jefferson an hour earlier. One had cut inland, flying straight north and crossing the coast near Gurzuf. The other had paralleled the coast, jamming hard and recording any radar sites careless enough to paint them and give away their own positions. The first group was code-named Spoiler, and their job was to literally stir up an enemy response, attracting missile fire and interceptor squadrons, if possible, in order to clear the path to Yalta from the sea. The second group, Pouncer, would provide selective ECM jamming coverage for the rest of the aircraft, as well as loosing deadly AGM-136A
