hydraulics line. There’s no telling when we may need her back in the air.” A flurry of increasingly frantic calls over tactical provided an unintentional emphasis to his words.
Batman grimaced. “Okay.” He turned to the TAO. “Send her in.”
“One other thing, Admiral,” Lab Rat continued. “The Macedonians — we may not be able to choose up sides in this fight just yet.” He paused for a moment, and Batman understood what he was asking.
“I’m going to enforce status quo for now. Nobody dies, not if I can help it. No Greeks, no Macedonians, and most of all, none of our people. And if that means shooting down Greek aircraft while we’re waiting for word from Washington, I’ll do it.”
Lab Rat nodded, an almost cursory motion as though he’d already known what his admiral would decide.
And of course, Batman thought, he did.
EIGHTEEN
Sarah Wexler gazed across the desk at the man she’d come to regard as a friend and mentor over the years. She could see the tension in his eyes, the toll this was taking on him. For a moment, she felt the surge of sympathy.
But hadn’t it been that way for them all? The waiting, knowing something was terribly terribly wrong, the eternal waiting — it seemed to her at that moment that waiting was at the crux of any career in politics.
The president was leaning back, his hand interlaced in front of him and resting on his stomach. He had gained weight since the college days, not much, but it showed in his midsection. The middle finger of his right hand was tapping out a rhythm against the knuckles of his left hand, and she tried to discern the order to it. The president was a particular fan of jazz music, and on occasions that she caught him humming in time to the tapping, she was generally able to recognize the song.
He caught her staring at his hands, and smiled sheepishly. The index finger stopped its tapping.
“What was it?” she asked. Because of their long friendship, the president knew exactly what she meant.
“Rhapsody in Blue,” he answered. “I can hum a few bars to help pass the time.”
Sarah shook her head. “No, it won’t be much longer now.” She was certain of that, although she could not have explained how she knew it. Perhaps it was from years of keeping her finger on the pulse of the communications between nations, of weaving these webs of intrigue and competing interests that made up the body politic. Whatever it was — call it intuition if you had to — she could feel things moving to a head. And so could the president. She could see it in his eyes, in the slight tensing of his muscles as he steeled himself for the decisions he must make.
“They’re all airborne,” she said softly, repeating the fact that they both knew. “It is just a matter of time.”
“Time for us. Fuel for them.” Suddenly, he seemed to reach a decision. He reached for the telephone on his desk, paused for moment, and looked across at her. “There will be hell to pay for this, you know.”
She nodded. “There always is.”
The president drew in a deep, slow breath, and punched in a two digit number. “Mr. President,” he said without preliminaries. “You have two minutes to order your forces to return to base. Otherwise, it is weapons free.” He listened for moment at the angry babble of words spewing out of the receiver. Then he moved the telephone away from his ear and replaced it gently in the cradle without further comment.
“When was the last time you hung up on anyone?” the president asked. “It’s been years for me.” He leaned back in his chair again, looking suddenly years younger. “I’ll have to try that more often.”
Thor kept the Hornet in a tight spiral, heading up to assigned CAP altitude. To the south, clusters of radar returns merged, split apart, and then circled about each other. Gradually, out of what looked to be a massive circle jerk, the Greek aircraft were splitting off into pairs, transitioning from a bombing run formation into combat spread high-low fighting sets.
They had the right idea, he supposed. But they were damned slow about it. The possibility had been briefed, he knew, and the Greek formation ought to have been ready for it. After all, they had guys on the ground that knew what the hell was going on, that had to have known that this friendly joining of forces with the Americans was all for show.
And they’d shot down his buddy. That, more than anything else, made it personal.
“Hey, Thor, you’re going to screw yourself into the stars, you make that orbit any smaller.” It was Hot Rocks, riding wing on Lobo. “Pay attention, swabbie. I’ll show you how to maintain a CAP station.” Thor heard the double click of the microphone, signifying Hot Rocks had copied his last. For a moment, he wondered about Hot Rocks, then shrugged. Whatever problems Golden Boy had had during his first cruise, he’d worked them out. Or Lobo had beat them out of him — frankly, he wouldn’t put it past her to smack him around a little bit, if only to get his attention.
No matter. Kid was one hell of a decent aviator now, and that was all that mattered.
“Blue Flight, interrogative status?” Thor asked. One by one, in flight order, the Hornets checked. Each one was on station, had adequate fuel reserves, and was copying the LINK loud and clear. “Roger, Lead’s on station. Weapons tight for now — but don’t take the first shot.”
“Blue Lead, Green Lead,” Lobo’s voice said over tactical. “They’d be a fool to try anything right now, with everything we’ve got in the air.”
“Roger. I ain’t relying on their smarts, though,” Thor answered. “I seen men die for dumber reasons.”
Just then, the milling Greek aircraft formed into two waves of strike aircraft. Just for a moment, the lines of blips ran straight and true across the screen, then the pairs broke off and vectored off in all directions, but primarily heading north.”
“Like I said,” Thor said. “Blue Flight, take the western flank. Green Leader, you got the east?”
“Roger,” Lobo replied, and Thor thought he could hear the adrenaline beating in her voice. “We’ll clean up our set them come bail you out.”
“In your dreams, sweetheart.” Thor punched the Hornet into afterburner, let the sweet howl of the engines seep into his bones. It was time for some payback.
“What are they doing?” the pilot snapped. “Ground, I need answers now.”
“Stand by — wait, out.”
“Wait, out, hell. What the hell are the Americans doing?”
“Weapons tight on American forces,” a new voice replied, and the pilot realized it was Xerxes. “All Greek forces are declared hostile, weapons free. But don’t target the Americans, not now.”
“They’re working with the Greeks,” the pilot howled. “They bombed us!”
“The rules just changed,” Xerxes replied, and his tone of voice indicated that the discussion was concluded. “I say again, weapons tight on American forces. Weapons free on Greek forces. God be with you, my men.”
Thor listened to the other aircraft in his flight announcing their targets and watched their decisions reflected in the symbology on his HUD LINK display. As each pilot designated a radar blip as a target and assigned a missile
