enough to paint.”
“Hell of a way to run a war,” the copilot muttered. “Bad enough when we can’t see the bad guys, but now the good guys are invisible too!”
“Be advised the Spooks will be taking high station on you,” the OS said, a note of puzzlement in his voice.
“High station? What the heck for? Can’t we get someone down here close and personal?” the pilot demanded. “What dope-smoking idiot came up with that one?”
“I think that would be me,” a too-familiar voice said. “Any problem with that, son?”
The pilot swallowed hard. “No, sir, Admiral. High station sounds just fine.”
“Good contact on the inbound bogeys,” Tomboy said tersely.
“Man, those guys have got to be sweating it,” Batman answered. “What’s the range?”
“Three hundred miles and closing. We going in to take a look at them?”
“I’m going to try. Let me know what you’re getting off them when we get closer. I don’t want them to know we’re there. With any luck at all, they’d have to get a visual on us to know we’re here, if intell is right about their radars.”
Spook Two was nose-on to the intruders, presenting its least detectable aspect. Batman made a minute adjustment in his course, pointing the JAST bird’s oddly configured nose at the Chinese fighters. No point in giving them any better a target than they deserved. While Batman still had a number of tricks up his JAST sleeve, he wanted to keep them in reserve.
“Nothing spectacular, Batman. Low-grade air search radar. Not much chance of them seeing us,” the backseater said after a moment. “Don’t think we can make it into visual range without being detected, though.”
“I kinda figured that,” Batman said. “Sure would like to get a look at their wings, though.”
“Roger that. I’ll yell the second I even smell fire control radar.”
“That’ll have to do. Don’t know that I like it, but it’s how we planned it.”
And if I don’t like it, Batman thought, it’s for damned sure that E-2C Hawkeye doesn’t. Nothing like being tied to a stake as a sacrificial lamb to make a pilot feel unwanted and unloved. Damned smart plan of Tombstone’s. He knows the Chinese would never expect us to leave the Hawkeye up here alone. Ergo, they’ll come to one of two conclusions. Either we’re not worried because we know we’re not responsible for the attacks, and we’re proving it by putting the E-2C up alone — or they’re not alone. And with the JAST low observability characteristics, Batman didn’t expect to be detected by any damn Soviet-built airborne radar!
A cold smile crossed his face, hidden by his oxygen mask. Now let’s just let them try to figure out which it is, he said to himself.
“We execute our orders,” the pilot commanded. “You see how this was all planned out? Our advisers knew exactly what we would encounter near the American battle group.”
“I admit that I doubted their assessment. Leaving one of their six surveillance birds unprotected did not seem reasonable,” his backseater admitted.
“Which is why we’re just paid to fly. Just ensure that your fingers stay off the targeting functions. We are to give them no cause for alarm.”
“Understood. How close will you approach?”
“Just to the edge of our weapons envelope.”
“But tell me — what would we have done if their fighters had appeared? Four Flankers against all the aircraft that they can launch? It would be a difficult tactical position, to say the least!”
The pilot smiled, a cruel edge to his mouth. “They will not attack us, that much is clear. They cannot risk starting a war so close to our homeland. Should their fighters appear, we will do exactly what we are doing now. Fly straight and level, in a nonthreatening fashion, and proceed toward their Hawkeyes. We would simply fly the same escort pattern on their Hawkeye that they would intend to fly on us.”
After all, the pilot thought, it was their sea. Not the Americans’.
CHAPTER 20
“Homeplate, they’re getting mighty damned close!” Batman radioed.
“Roger, Spook Two. No deviation from authorized plan,” Tombstone’s calm voice replied.
Batman clicked his button in acknowledgment. He’d rather be up here, where he could fight and maneuver as necessary. Whatever they paid a rear admiral — and Batman had a good idea of what that was — it wasn’t nearly enough. To have to stand by and watch fighters approach an unprotected aircraft, praying that you’d read their intentions correctly and that you wouldn’t lose aviators and an aircraft on a stupid hunch — could he have done it himself? As much as he’d disliked it initially, the political infighting and maneuvering at the Pentagon rarely got anyone killed. A career or two, maybe. It was too easy to forget, trapped in the massive rings of the Pentagon, that men and women were still out here on the front lines.
Did the Navy know somehow? he wondered. Know which aviators had the guts to make the kind of calls Tombstone was making this very second? Did they test us somehow? And have I got what it takes to risk the lives of men and women on a plan like this? Tombstone does.
This year, Batman’s record would go before the rear admiral promotion board. For years, he’d dreamed of putting on those broad gold stripes and silver stars. Now, for the first time, he wondered whether he was ready for it, and whether he’d accept it if the promotion were offered. Listening to Tombstone’s calm voice on the tactical circuit, he tried to convince himself that he would have been able to maintain the same solid presence that brought reassurance to the crew of the carrier and the Air Wing.
“They’re joining on us, Homeplate,” he heard the E-2C copilot say.
“Straight and level, Snoopy,” he heard Tombstone reply. “They’re not here to start a war — they just want a good look-see. Too close to use anything except guns where they are, if that helps.”
“Roger,” the Hawkeye aviator replied, a trace of relief in his voice.
“Watch them,” Batman growled at his RIO. “The second they look tactical, we’re on them.”
“Got them solid, sir. They’re going to know we’re here, picking up our radar, but they won’t know exactly where. We’re ready.”
For fifteen excruciating minutes, Batman watched as the Chinese fighters flew formation on the E-2C, close enough for the Hawkeye pilot to wave at his Chinese counterpart. Finally, without ever acknowledging the greeting, the Chinese fighters broke off. Batman breathed a sigh of relief and heard a few quiet oaths on the tactical net.
“Keep an eye on them, Spook Two,” he heard Tombstone say. Batman marveled at the even tone of the Admiral’s voice. The gamble Tombstone had taken with the lives of his aviators had paid off.
Could I have sounded like that? Like everything had worked out exactly as I’d planned?
Somehow, Batman doubted it.
The TAO let out a deep sigh as the Chinese Flankers turned north, and glanced at the captain at the next console. The captain ripped off his headset and tossed it on the narrow desk. “Ghosts, huh? I don’t think so! We let those bastards push us around like we were the fucking Vietnamese!” the captain snarled. “What the hell do they
