Not many. But then again, not many uncles were Chief of Naval Operations, one of the most powerful positions inside the Pentagon.
The captain replaced the telephone receiver and gestured toward the door. “He’s got a few minutes, Admiral.”
A small frown crossed his face.
“I need him back in ten, if that’s convenient for you.”
“Having trouble keeping him on schedule?” Tombstone asked.
The Chief of Staff shrugged. “Well, he’s been better than most, but you know how it is?any problems that reach his desk are tough ones. In the last six months he’s been here, he’s never had to make one single easy decision. And now…”
Tombstone nodded. “And now it just got tougher. I’ll do what I can, Captain.”
Tombstone turned the knob on the heavy door, tapped lightly, and shoved it open. He took one step into the room and waited for his uncle’s greeting.
“Stoney,” Admiral Thomas Magruder said. “Come on in.”
He gestured at the piles of ubiquitous red folders already crowding the edge of the credenza. “I was looking for you. Come on, have a seat.”
He pointed at the leather chair positioned in front of the desk.
“Good morning, sir. What can I do for you?”
The CNO grimaced. “You can tell me why the hell the Turks took a shot at us, for starters. And after that, explain the theory of general relativity, the quantum physics in a black hole, and what the hell it is that women really want from us. Is that enough for starters?”
His uncle’s wry, self-deprecating voice coupled with his self-assured gestures touched something ancient in Tombstone. It was a feeling of deja vu, as though he?
Of course. His father. Tombstone’s father, like most of the Magruder men, a Navy pilot.
Tombstone stirred uneasily in his chair, uncomfortable with the memories that came flooding back. He’d been young, so young, the last time he’d seen his father. Could he even have comprehended at that age that it would be the last time?
Military service was more than a career choice for a Magruder. It was a way of life, the hard lessons and dangers that came with it the backbone of their family traditions. His grandfather had served on Nimitz’s staff during World War II. His great-great-grandfather had commanded one of Farragut’s monitors at Mobile Bay. His father and the man sitting behind the massive desk had continued the tradition, both attending the Naval Academy. They’d both been fast-tracked?both, at least, until his father had been shot down above the Doumer Bridge in downtown Hanoi in the summer of 1969. Sam Magruder had finally been listed as killed in action, and the family had long since given up hope that he was still alive.
“I’m relieving Sixth Fleet,” the CNO said bluntly, interrupting his nephew’s reverie. He fixed Tombstone with that somber, unreadable stare that all of the Magruder men possessed. His slate-gray eyes, a shade lighter than Tombstone’s, revealed no trace of emotion.
“Loss of confidence?” Tombstone asked, referring to the standard Navy reason for relieving officers of command absent cause for disciplinary action.
“Yes. The early reports indicate he damn near pulled a Stark,” the senior admiral said.
Stark. One of the most critical failures of naval leadership in the last several decades. Coupled with the USS Vincennes shoot-down of an Iranian airbus, the two incidents neatly book-ended the delicate line a commander was required to walk between caution and recklessness.
In the case of the Stark, an Iranian P3 Charlie in an overflight had approached the vast frigate in a threatening posture. The Stark’s TAO had treated it as a routine mission, relying on their past experience with Iranian maritime patrols. The captain, in fact, had been in the head during the actual first attack on Stark.
Closing to within tactical range, the Iranian P3 had fired an antiship missile at the USS Stark. With the close- in weapons systems masked by her aspect to the attack, the Stark hadn’t had a chance. The missile had plowed into the ship’s midsection. The resulting explosion had killed a number of men, and the Stark herself had managed to stay afloat only through the superb professionalism and damage control of the remainder of her crew.
“How bad is La Salle?” Tombstone asked. “The EMP is something we’ve been worried about for a long time. Were there any personnel casualties?”
The CNO sighed. “It’s bad. Real bad, I suspect. Every bit of electronic circuitry on the ship is fried. She’s underway?just barely?en route to Gaeta for full damage assessment.”
He shook his head gravely.
“We’re looking at a full refit of all combat systems, of every bit of twidget equipment on board La Salle. Fortunately, Shiloh’s EMP hardening worked like it was supposed to, and Jefferson was out of range. We’ve got fifty-one sailors with either complete or partial loss of vision from the nuke flash. Which brings us to the critical question?why?”
“It makes no sense whatsoever, sir,” Tombstone said immediately.
“Turkey is an ally?an uneasy one at times, perhaps, especially since the fundamentalist Islamic forces began dominating her politics. They’ve always been hard to figure out?a primarily Muslim country that elects a female, Tansu Ciller, as Prime Minister. As a practical matter, they’re heavily dependent on the foreign aid we provide, both militarily and in the civilian population. Aside from our disagreement with them over the Kurds?and we’ve been damned weak-spined about that?we tend to see eye to eye on things. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
The CNO nodded. “The Intelligence wienies agree with you. It makes no sense?yet they’ve opened a Pandora’s box of tactical nuclear weapons as a first strike. That seems to indicate that everything we know or think we know about Turkey misses the mark. Quite frankly, my immediate inclination is to order a devastating counterforce strike against them. But that’s going to meet with some resistance from both State Department and the president.”
Tombstone leaned back in his chair and stared at the world map dominating the wall behind the CNO. The intricate politics, the ebb and flow of loyalties and alliances, all driven by the vast machine of religious fervor in that part of the world?how were a couple of pilots supposed to make sense of it?
The State Department sure as hell didn’t have the answers.
But there’d been an attack on American forces at sea. Aside from any other political considerations, that matter had to be dealt with.
Decisively and immediately. To do less would simply open the flood-gates, encourage every tin-pot dictator anywhere in the world to take his best shot at American forces, lulled into security by the United States’ failure to retaliate against Turkey. He shook his head. No, that would never do.
Many more would make similar attempts in the years to come if America demonstrated any lack of resolve or inability to avenge herself. That must not be allowed to occur.
“Any word from State?” Tombstone asked, knowing he was not going to like the answer.
The CNO sighed. “Assholes have got a better intelligence network than we do,” he said bitterly. “I’ve already had two calls from them urging restraint, moderation, some sort of nonsense that sounds like healing the wounded bastard child of Turkey’s psyche.”
Fury rose in the admiral’s face, transforming his normally impassive expression into a mask of anger.
“Those assholes shot at my ship! And they’re going to pay for it.”
“As they ought to,” Tombstone said crisply, uncomfortable immediately with the strong ebb and flow of emotion in the room. “How can I help?”
“Tombstone, what I’m about to tell you?you can decline if you want to, son. I’m hoping you won’t, but I’ll leave you that option. I’ve got to have somebody on the scene whom I trust absolutely, an officer in command whose view of the situation mirrors mine exactly. If Turkey is committed to using tactical nuclear weapons, we could lose communications with our forces there at any point. At the very least, we’re going to lose ground-support capabilities from our base in Turkey.”
He shook his head. “I can’t risk putting an unknown quantity on the front line. Hell, if I could get away from this desk, I’d go myself. But I can’t. Unless you have some objection, as of this second, you’re Sixth Fleet.” The CNO fell silent and waited for his nephew’s response.
“Sixth Fleet? Admiral, I’m flattered at your confidence, but-“
“Don’t give me any crap, Stoney,” the CNO said quietly. “I want you there, partially for reasons I can’t even tell you about. The only question is, how fast and for how long? I know you’re due to turn over with Southcom in a
