“CAG,” Tombstone said, turning to Captain Cervantes. “Let’s talk about that flight schedule. I want to make damned sure we’re not sending the wrong signals at any point. And make sure your pilots understand how critical the twelve-mile limit is. Under no circumstances are they to go wandering off inside it — in fact, just for safety’s sake, let’s set the limit at fifteen miles for aircraft. We can creep up to the twelve-mile limit a lot more safely at fifteen knots with surface ships than at four hundred knots with an aircraft.”
The CAG looked slightly put out. As I would in his shoes, Tombstone thought. Still, he was not prepared for what followed.
“I’ll brief the aircrews personally, Admiral. But we’ll also need to make sure the surface ships are just as careful. Not all of the battle group,” CAG said, picking his words carefully, “has always understood how critical that limit is. A shoot-out is the last thing we need.”
For a moment, Tombstone was tempted to dismiss CAG’s remarks as simply evidence of the rivalry that had always existed between aviators and the “shoes.” He glanced around the room and saw a number of officers studiously examining the deck. Then it hit him.
Vincennes. Early on in her career, the cruiser had shot down that airbus in the Persian Gulf. Evidence was now surfacing that Vincennes might have been inside Iran’s territorial waters when she’d fired. If the real truth about her location had ever been fully determined, it was classified at the highest levels.
“All of our assets will be very clear on my orders, CAG. And thank you for bringing up that point.”
And now I know what it was I was trying to recall. The shoot-out at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. Wyatt Earp’s last battle. The diagram I saw last night had those same double lines marking off the boundaries of the corral, tracing out Earp’s path to the showdown.
Tombstone had never been superstitious, and he wasn’t about to admit that the strange coincidence of the graphics in a book and the diagram of a FON box had anything in common. This was no calculated warning, no psychic premonition. It was merely more evidence that the human brain was hard-wired in ways that might never be fully understood.
Just the same, whatever else he could roll downhill to his staff and the COS, the matter of the Vincennes required his personal attention and the weight of the stars on his collar to back up his orders. Sometime in the next sixteen hours, Rear Admiral Magruder was going to have to have a very serious talk with Vincennes.
CHAPTER 7
The moment came eventually, as Tombstone knew it would. He stepped out of his cabin and into the Flag Mess. Pamela was standing next to the coffeepot, carefully pouring the thick, hot brew into an insulated plastic coffee cup, holding the lid wedged between two fingers.
“Care for a cup, Admiral?” she asked politely. Her eyes took him in carefully, noted his discomfort, and flashed amusement.
“Thank you, Miss Drake.” He held out his own mug, emblazoned with the VF95 squadron insignia. He dreaded the moment when she would finish pouring the coffee, when he would have to decide whether to stay and talk with her or retreat to his cabin.
Damn it! It’s my ship, my battle group! My world, the one she wouldn’t share me with. If anyone ought to be squirming, it’s her. He took a deep breath, finding some nerve in his anger. “Miss Drake is an old friend,” he remarked to no one in Particular. “I think we have a lot to catch up on, don’t we, Miss Drake? Care to join me in my cabin for a few minutes?”
“Thank you, Admiral. Yes, it has been a long time, hasn’t it?”
Tombstone opened the door to his quarters and held it for her to enter. He glanced back into the Flag Mess. The four staff officers seated there pointedly had other things to do, other places to look, than at their admiral.
Great. So much for my reputation. If she leaves in less than five minutes, they’ll say she turned me down or I was after a quickie. And any longer than five minutes will assuredly make the grapevine just as quickly.
Well, there was no avoiding it. Hadn’t been since the moment Pamela had set foot on his flight deck. And he would be damned if he’d let himself think about her in any way other than strictly professional.
Pamela was a senior correspondent for ACN. If she hadn’t wanted to come on this assignment, she wouldn’t have. Wondering about whether or not she’d known he was here, and whether or not there was any personal motive behind her presence, wasn’t acceptable. It had to be cleared up here and now.
The last time they’d seen each other, they’d finally come to the realization that there was no future to their relationship. That understanding, along with Tombstone’s growing attraction to Tomboy, had seemed to end it. Then what was Pamela doing here, he wondered. Just another assignment? Or second thoughts?
He followed Pamela into his cabin and let the door click shut behind them.
Pamela was already seated on the couch in the starboard side of his cabin. Her coffee cup sat on the table in front of it.
“I can offer you a real coffee cup, if you prefer,” he said, for lack of anything else to say. “Something without a lid and a football team logo on it.”
“Thanks, Stoney, but this is fine. I went to a lot of trouble to remember to bring it. Those paper ones the Flag Mess usually has — I always spill something somewhere.”
He sat down in the comfortable chair that sat at right angles to the couch. “It’s good to see you again,” he said, slightly surprised at himself. He somehow expected that breaking their engagement would have miraculously broken the compelling attraction that had always existed between them. It hadn’t, though. He felt the familiar sense of urgency and expectancy, a taut, demanding urge to bridge the gap between them. His fingers remembered silky hair slipping through his hands and cascading over his chest, the delicate texture of skin on skin, and the lush curve of her body from hips to chest.
“How’s the admiral business?” Her voice, casually friendly, contained no hint that she was remembering him in the same way. He forced himself back to reality, abandoning the memories almost regretfully.
“Busy. I haven’t flown in months. And ACN — you’re still their star, from what we see out here,” he said, matching her conversational tone. Just two old friends who’d once been something more, catching up on old times, he decided. He decided to relax. He could do this — he could.
“I have my moments with them. It’s a full-time commitment still.” Her eyes met his, and he felt her carefully assess his mood. Damn, he’d almost forgotten how she always could seem to read his thoughts!
Despite his best intentions, he felt the first tinges of a flush creep up from his neck toward his cheeks and heard a voice that sounded exactly like his own ask, “That answers my question, then. I was wondering if there were any other reason for you taking this assignment.”
Her answer came quickly, as though she’d rehearsed an answer. “Like getting a chance to see you? That was part of it, I admit. I’ll never turn down that opportunity.”
“You already did,” he said. He heard the anger and hurt in his voice and swore silently. “I turned down marriage and commitment, not you. Oh, Stoney, we’ve been through this a thousand times! It never would have worked! My schedule with ACN keeps me on the road at least half of the year. Between trips, I’m either trying to recover from jet lag or fighting off the latest foreign bug I’ve caught.”
“Alone.” It was almost a question.
“Alone, yes. But not obsessed with wondering when the chaplain is going to knock on my door and tell me I’m a widow. Stoney, the places you go, the flying, the killing, what you do for a living — it’s too much. I could deal with the flying, if it were for a civilian airliner, but not the continual combat. Every time some pissant little spot on the globe decides to act out its fantasies of world domination, you’re in the middle of it. I’d never be able to do what I do for worrying about you.”
“And you don’t worry now?”
“You know I do. But for the most part, I simply try to forget you exist. But pass up the chance to see you again — no, I couldn’t do that.”
