The senator’s voice was suddenly harsh and vicious.
“You won’t think so when I get that pilot’s grieving widow plastered across every major network, complaining about how the Navy’s not taking care of its people. How will that look?”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I would.” The senator began attacking his pie, glancing up only once to assess the impact of his statement on the admiral. “Do it, Keith.”
“What’s in it for you?” the admiral asked suspiciously.
“Subcontracts,” the senator said promptly. “Every small business in my state is going to have a piece of this.
Building them at Newport News was a masterstroke.”
I don’t like this man. Admiral Loggins thought suddenly.
Don’t like him, don’t trust him. Even if what he’s saying makes sense.
But a safety stand-down isn’t that off an idea.
It’s what we might do anyway.
“I’ll think about it,” the admiral said finally. “No promises.”
“Think fast, Keith,” the senator said, his voice almost a whisper.
“There are plenty of admirals where you came from.”
Batman’s face was colder than Bird Dog had ever seen it before. Something savage lurked just under the surface of the admiral’s dark brown eyes, the harsh, demanding look.
“Any idea why he called the meeting?” Bird Dog whispered to Lab Rat.
The intelligence officer shook his head and motioned for the pilot to keep quiet.
“The chief of staff is passing around a message I want each one of you to see. You’ll notice it’s marked P4a ‘personal for’ message for me from AIRPAC. I think once you read the message, you’ll get the gist of it.” Batman paused, watching twenty sets of eyes glance quickly at the text of the message. “This is bullshit.”
“A safety stand-down?” Bird Dog blurted out. “Sure, we’ve had some mishaps, but” An angry glare from the ACOS Ops assistant chief of staff for operations made him break off in mid-sentence. Batman’s eyes pinned him to his chair.
“That’s exactly what it i san order to stand down.
Evidently, AIRPAC is concerned about the way I’m leading this battle group and decided to give me rudder orders. It doesn’t set too damned well with me, I can tell you that.”
The admiral sighed. “But, of course, we’ll comply. There’s no choice in the matter.”
Lab Rat cleared his throat pointedly. The admiral glanced across the table at him. “You have something to say. Commander?” the admiral asked.
“Yes, Admiral. I understand the need for safety first, but things in Cuba are going to get a lot worse before they get better.” The intelligence officer shook his head. “I don’t understand why Washington would stand down an entire battle group for at least one day of training in the middle of this. Too many desk drivers, if you ask me.” Lab Rat flushed as he belatedly remembered how many Washington assignments the admiral had under his belt.
“He suggests I shift my flag to the Arsenal ship. Out of the question, of course,” Batman continued as if the intelligence officer hadn’t spoken. “No space, and not enough communications-band width.” An odd smile crossed his face momentarily, replaced immediately by the anger churning under the surface. “Sometimes I think a battle group runs more on antennas than it does on aviation fuel.
Nevertheless, effective immediately, every aircraft in this squadron is grounded. No logistics flights, no mail runs, nothing. And tomorrow we start bright and fresh with a safety stand-down. I want to see those NATOPS manuals in every aviator’s hand for at least eight hours tomorrow. If Admiral Loggins thinks this will keep people from getting killed, then I’ll go along with it.”
The admiral surveyed the room. Apparently satisfied with the response he saw in every officer’s face, he turned a cold glare on Bird Dog.
“We’ve also been directed to develop a targeting list for D.C. that will maximize the use of the USS Arsenal. There’s some thought back there that the president may wish to exploit Arsenal’s remote control capabilities to allow more direct control over any potential conflict.”
Bird Dog felt a surge of vindication. Maybe his own admiral didn’t agree with him, but evidently somebody in D.C. saw the true potential of the Arsenal ships. Hell, with them in the battle group, a number of logistic and resupply problems were solved. An Arsenal ship carried more missile sand of more different kinds than any three surface ships combined. And if the admiral didn’t see that, then thank God somebody in D.C. did.
“Admiral, I” Bird Dog broke off suddenly, remembering the unpleasant session he’d had with the chief of staff earlier. COS had made it plain that what the admiral expected was results, not some esoteric bullshit theorizing from a junior officer with too much education and not enough experience to make use of it.
“You have something on your mind. Bird Dog?” Batman asked softly, warning in his voice. “More wisdom from Clausewitz to share with me?”
“No, Admiral, it’s just that sir, with the Arsenal ships,” Bird Dog plunged on, trying to feel the raw confidence he always felt in the air, “maybe part of our problem is simplified. This conflict with Cuba-it’s a political issue, not a military one. If JCS-hell, even the president does the actual launch planning and weapons firing, doesn’t that take us off the hook for some of this?”
Batman stood, his face livid. “Ask Major Hammersmith if this is a political problem.” He strode out of the room and slammed the door behind him.
COS glared at Bird Dog again. “You just don’t listen, do you?”
50 Miles North of Cuba Thor was riding low in the water, his body sprawled out across the barely inflated flight suit, his face just out of the water. After six hours of trying to catch the life raft, he’d given up. He was floating on his back, the hard summer sun beating down on it as it had earlier on his front. Saltwater licked at the cuts on his face and body, the sting now fading below the level of perception.
The sea was still boisterous, throwing him up and down in a sickening seesaw over broad, flat roller snot the angry lashing of a storm at sea, but more like the exuberant playfulness of a child much larger than its peers.
He heard it before he saw it, a harsh, mechanical pounding at odds with the natural sounds of the wind and the waves. He tried to prop himself up, plunging his hands deep into the sinking flight suit, straining to see over the swells. A ship, it had to be. For a moment, he felt an irrational surge of hope that it was one of the American destroyers, detached from the battle group. It was possible, wasn’t it? Surely they’d been looking for him for at least twenty-four hours.
Even as he thought it, he realized it couldn’t be. A destroyer close enough to hear would have been easily visible, even for a man plunging from trough to crest over the waves.
A smaller boat, then any boat, he didn’t care. Anything to get out of the ocean. In the last four hours, he’d seen a dorsal fin pop up at irregular intervals in the surrounding water. Once, he’d thought he’d felt something brushing at his leg, and it was only by the most forceful act of will that he had not panicked.
One moment the sea was empty, the next he had company. The fishing boat was hardly impressive by any standards, but to Thor it was the most wonderful sight in the world. The hull had been white once, although it had faded to some colorless shade speckled by seagull droppings and scars. The superstructure looked rickety, as though it were shifting back and forth independently of the hull. Two large booms trailed out from behind, supports for the massive fishing nets the boat would be dragging behind it.
“Hey! Hey, over here!” Thor raised himself as far out of the water as he could and started waving his arms frantically, pumping his legs to lift his upper torso out of the water. Damn the sharks if he didn’t get this boat’s attention, in another couple of days it wouldn’t matter.
At first he thought they hadn’t seen him. The boat continued on a steady course, the noise of its diesel engines growing louder. Thor sucked air into his lungs, took another deep breath, and then screamed with all of his might, “Over here!”
Some vagary of the wind picked up his words and wafted them over to the fishing boat Just before he slid down into another trough, Thor saw one of the men look up sharply, then approach the rail to scan the ocean in his
