“No, thank you, Admiral.” Smith found his voice was working again.
“As I was saying — do you still think you did the right thing?”
Smith thought for a moment, then said, “It seemed like the only thing I could do, Admiral. Things were going wrong, real wrong. I thought about it a lot before, and even more afterward. I guess there might have been ways — maybe request Captain’s Mast or something like that. The lawyer said I should have tried that.”
Magruder nodded. “But it’s always easier to think of alternatives afterward, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. I guess it is.”
“Which brings us to my point,” Admiral Magruder continued. “The charges against you are being dismissed. You understand why?”
“It all goes back to people looking stupid,” the admiral said. “If they court-martial you now, your defense attorney is going to thrash this out in every newspaper and on every television station in the world. Bad enough that we made the wrong call on the Greek forces. Even worse to be seen persecuting some young sailor over it. People will think that you knew this would happen and that we’re trying to cover it up. So you see, there’s not much else they can do to make this go away.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
“But I don’t want you thinking that it was the right thing to do,” Magruder continued. “I keep wondering, what if you were on the flight deck while I was getting ready to launch? What if you decided you didn’t want to obey an order from the catapult officer? Would you simply walk away? Because that’s the heart of the problem, Airman Smith. There are times it is correct to disobey orders, but those times are damned few. If the order’s illegal, unlawful, something like that. But what you did was make a judgment call. And I’m not sure that’s something we want our airman doing until they get a little bit more senior, you understand?”
From somewhere deep inside, courage trickled back into Airman Smith’s heart. “But what if you’re on the cat and something was wrong, sir? But everyone else said it was okay, you should launch anyway. What if I was the only one who saw something bad, wrong, something that might kill you?” He hesitated for a moment, searching for an example. “Like I think the steam pressure on the catapult is wrong, that somebody’s made a mistake. You would want me to speak up then, wouldn’t you, sir?”
A thin look of amusement crossed Tombstone’s face. “Indeed I would. So, as you see, sometimes there aren’t any simple answers. For what it’s worth, I think you were wrong this time. And I also think it took a hell of a lot of courage to take the stand you did. The wrong stand, but a stand nonetheless. So the question is not really what we’re going to do with these charges — that’s already decided. The question is what the Navy does with you now. What do you want?”
As Tombstone watched the young sailor leave, he tried to decide how he himself felt about the entire matter. Allied missions were nothing new to him, and he wasn’t bothered at all by the possibility of working with the Greeks again someday. Indeed, shifting political alliances so often proved that today’s enemy was tomorrow’s friend. That’s why it was always better to plan out the desired end state in any conflict.
But this business about placing U.S. forces under UN command — well, that was another matter entirely. Even a young airman had been able to see that, and had done what he could to stop it.
There was a rap on the door, and Batman poked his head in. “All done?”
Tombstone nodded. “And guess what the kid wants?”
“A medal?” Batman asked sarcastically. He walked into the admiral’s cabin, and slumped down in the seat that Smith had just vacated. “I tell you, we lost too many men and women out there. I’m going to be signing too many posthumous recommendations for awards as it is.”
“I know. I wonder if we had all followed Airman Smith’s path if we could have saved any lives?”
The two admirals were silent for a moment, each considering the possibilities. Each examined his own soul, trying to decide whether or not a young airman had had the courage to do something he wanted to do and hadn’t.
Finally, Batman spoke. “For what it’s worth, he was right… and wrong.”
Tombstone nodded. “That’s exactly what I told him.”
“So what does he want?” Batman asked, returning to Tombstone’s original question. “A meritorious promotion?”
“Nope. You’ll never guess. He wants to go back to his division and forget about this. That’s all.”
Batman beyond. “It figures. That’s what the good ones always want, isn’t it?” And what about you, old friend? What do you want?” Batman’s voice was suddenly serious.
“A tougher question, that.” Tombstone leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes, letting the tension flow out of his body. “You don’t get asked that very often in this business, you know? What it is that you want, I mean.”
“I know. If someone asked me the same question, I’d be hard put to think of anything that. Well, maybe the CNO’s job. Or the chairman’s.”
Tombstone opened his eyes. “Is that what you really want, Batman? Or is that just what you’re supposed to want? Can you even tell the difference anymore? I wasn’t sure I could, not until recently.”
“I don’t know.” Batman sounded honestly puzzled. He spread his hands in a gesture of resignation. “I mean, it’s what you’re supposed to want, right?”
“But you know what it is that we both really want, don’t you?” Tombstone pressed. “We want to be back in the cockpit, lieutenant commanders, maybe even lieutenants. Flying missions, just worried about getting the missiles on target. All the rest of this, the political stuff — none of it mattered back then, did it?”
“You’re right about that. But you get promoted, things change. But, sure… if I had my choice, I’d be back in the cockpit. Just like you would.”
“Well, then. That’s not going to happen, we both know that. And as for CNO, that’s not in my future anymore. My uncle laid it out for me. But this new job he’s given me, sort of troubleshooter admiral — it might turn out to be interesting, you know? I mean, if I can’t fly.”
“You’re getting in more stick time than I am lately,” Batman said. “So what’s your next mission, Admiral Troubleshooter? Going to solve the energy crisis? Bring about world peace?”
Tombstone laughed. “No, the interesting thing about this is I don’t know what I’ll be doing next. That’s what’s good about it, you know? It feels like a weight off my shoulders. No staff, no aircraft. Sure, I miss the flying, but I don’t miss the tons of paperwork. And it sounds like I’ll be going to some interesting places fixing problems. Batman, I think it’s a chance to make a difference, just like I did back then.”
Batman stared at him for a long moment. “You always did make a difference, Tombstone. Whether you knew it or not, you made a difference. And in the end, that’s all any of us really want, isn’t it?”
“I told him no,” Tombstone said suddenly. “Airman Smith, I mean. No way he was going back to his division after that. I have something different in mind for him.”
Pamela scanned the crowd, looking for Xerxes. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been covered with grime and filth, wearing a field uniform he had had on for days. In the days that had passed since her evacuation to
But wasn’t that true about any conflict? Wasn’t the media as much a part of it as the forces fighting on the ground and in the air? Look at the role that CNN had played in Desert Storm and Desert Shield — today, every world leader monitored their transmissions continuously. The international news networks were often the first to report breaking stories and the initial stages of any conflict.
So how to maintain objectivity if she was by default part of the story? It was a question she had yet to resolve in her own mind.
Pamela spotted him then, standing apart from the rest. He looked oddly uncomfortable in a full dress uniform, shoes shined and softly gleaming, and new rank insignia on his collar. A promotion — two grades, she knew, automatically filing the information away.
