though on afterburner and started pacing the room. “Something’s going down, and I’m not going to be part of it.
“Settle down,” Tombstone said mildly. He stared at the younger man, seeing himself fifteen — okay, twenty — years ago. “You really think we’re going to bomb the Russians out of Bermuda? A few quick strikes and it’s over? Because I have to tell you, that’s not going to happen. There’s too many civilians there, natives, tourists, everything else. No, this isn’t going to be over quickly, not at all.”
“You mean we’ll just sit here and let them land Russian forces on American soil?” The younger man demanded incredulously. “How can you sit there and watch this?”
An embarrassed silence hung in the room for a moment. Tombstone and his uncle exchanged a telling glance, one that was simultaneously confident and slightly amused. “What?” Greene demanded. “I hate it when you two start the telepathy stuff.”
Finally, Tombstone spoke. “It isn’t our soil,” he said quietly. “We forget that sometimes. We can’t just go storming in there without an invitation of some sort. A United Nations’ resolution, a request from the Bermuda government, something of that sort.”
For a moment, the youngster looked befuddled, but he recovered quickly. “I know it’s not a state. But it’s right off our coast! You mean to tell me that we’re going to put up with that? What about Cuba, or something like that? We didn’t put up with nuclear weapons there. Why should we put up with it in Bermuda?”
“Oh, we won’t,” Tombstone assured him. “You can be sure of that. But it’s not a simple matter when a foreign government is involved. And the question of civilian casualties — well, every nation in the world knows how sensitive we are to that, especially since the Middle East. All they have to do is invite CNN to broadcast pictures of a dozen sunburned tourists being held at the airfield and we’ll back off immediately. We’re not going to risk their lives. And, even if we are invited to take action, there will be some pretty strong restrictions to avoid collateral damage, not only to the tourists and people, but to the tourist industry infrastructure as well.”
The young pilot flung himself into a chair, a look of disgust on his face. “Special forces. Get the hostages out, then bomb the bastards.”
“And that can’t take place overnight,” Tombstone said, striving to keep a tone of reason. “Look, everybody feels the same way you do. But going in without the proper preparation just means people get killed.”
“It’s not like we’ll have anything to do with this anyway,” the pilot said, his voice dejected. “This will be strictly an active-duty operation.”
For the first time, the senior Magruder spoke. “Don’t be so sure.” They all turned to look at him.
“Talk,” Tombstone said. “What do you have in mind?”
“It’s not what I have in mind,” his uncle answered. “But I did talk to Don Stroh early this morning. He has some interesting insights into this, to say the least.”
“Seal Team Six?” Tombstone asked.
His uncle nodded. “As you said, the only way to do this is with special forces. And since its on foreign soil, the CIA is right in the thick of it.”
“Did they know it was going down?” Tombstone asked, a hint of disbelief in his voice. “Because, if they did, and they didn’t do anything to stop it, then—” He stopped, as the full import of his words hit him.
But his uncle was shaking his head. “I don’t think so — at least, not in advance. There may have been some signs of it, in retrospect, but hindsight is always twenty-twenty. No, they didn’t know and decide not to tell the rest of us. It’s not a Coventry situation.”
During World War II, after the Allies had broken the Enigma Code, they had intercepted a message indicating that the Germans planned a bombing raid on the village of Coventry. They were faced with the agonizing choice of warning the village and stopping the attack with air power, or allowing the attack to proceed in order to avoid compromising their intelligence sources. In the end, it had been decided that revealing to the Germans that Enigma had been broken would cost more lives than allowing the attack on Coventry.
“So, now Don Stroh is calling you?” Tombstone asked.
“Who is he, anyway?” the younger pilot asked. Tombstone glanced over at his uncle, who shook his head.
“What?” the younger pilot demanded.
“You don’t have a need to know,” the senior Magruder said bluntly. “For now, let’s just say that Don Stroh is sometimes involved in some military operations. And this time, we may be tasked to support him.”
“How?” Tombstone asked.
“As you said, one of the problems is that a foreign nation is involved. It would seem to be in our interest to avoid having the United States look like it’s the solution to this problem. Rather, we would like for Russia, Bermuda, and the United Kingdom to solve this one on their own. So, any involvement by the United States is going to be in the form of covert operations.”
“Are you saying we’ve been asked to get involved?” Tombstone asked.
“Certain people have certain information about what’s going on behind the scenes. In particular, apparently there is a renegade Russian general in charge of this. He’s holed up in Chechnya, and you can guess how much the Russians want to start a new offensive there. It’s like digging a rat out of a hole — you need a good terrier to do it.”
“I still don’t see what we have to do with this,” Tombstone said.
“You have to remember, the Russian military is in a state of disarray. Many of their officers and enlisted men have not been paid in months. Their loyalty, quite frankly, is questionable. And this man, this Korsov fellow, is a popular officer. But the last thing we want is further instability in Russia. Therefore, this mission has to be accomplished by the Russians — or, at least, it has to appear that the Russians have done it. The objective is to behead the snake. Without Korsov, the entire operation will fall into disarray.”
“I still don’t get it,” the younger pilot said. “What does this have to do with us?”
For the first time since he’d turned on the television, a trace of a smile crossed the senior Magruder’s face. He looked squarely at his nephew and asked, “How you feel about flying a MiG?”
It was only after they were well clear of the channel and in deeper water, running at a depth of 500 feet, that the impact of what they’d done really struck Forsythe. Before that, they’d been running on adrenaline, reacting to the gunshots, frantically struggling to get underway, and then sweating out exiting the harbor channels and avoiding other traffic. Cowlings had proved to be unflappable. It was as though he had done this every day of his Navy life, although Forsythe knew nothing could be farther from the truth. Cowlings had never gotten the ship underway without the captain and the XO on board, and he had certainly not done it without tugs, except perhaps the simulator. And never, ever, with only a third of the crew on board. Yet, to look at Cowlings, you would have thought this was a completely normal and unremarkable operation.
And Forsythe saw how that attitude transmitted itself to the crew. Without even leaving the Control Room, Cowlings seemed to be everywhere at once, keeping track of the engineering configuration, dictating messages to Second and Sixth Fleet, and, in one quick moment, even ordering the senior mess management specialist to conduct an inventory of their supplies, reminding him that they would need to eat at their battle stations if the ship went to general quarters.
Already the ELF, or extremely low frequency, receiver was slowly printing its digitally coded messages. The data rate over ELF was extremely low, and the messages consisted of pre-formatted codes to cram the maximum amount of information into the minimum amount of bandwidth. But after they out-chopped the harbor, once they settled in at normal cruising depth and speed, it wasn’t even the fact that they had no operational orders in hand to tell them what to do next that brought home to Forsythe the seriousness of their situation. No, it was that no one came to relieve him. Normally, at this point, they would have secured the sea and anchor detail, and commenced the normal watch standing rotation. However, with only a third of the crew on board, the reduced manning just blew the hell out of any watch bill ever conceived for the ship.
Cowlings looked over at the chief, and they seemed to reach an understanding about something without a word being spoken. The chief nodded.
