“The first thing I want to do is see the La Salle,” Tombstone said.
“I’ve read the reports, but I want to see the damage myself. Got a helo I can borrow?”
Batman smiled. “Lots of’emeven got some people who know how to drive’em. When do you want to leave?”
“As soon as possible.”
Batman smirked. “Somehow, I thought you might say that. Got a crew standing by for you right now.”
Tombstone nodded curtly. “The sooner I see what happened, the faster we can get to work on a solution.”
He shot Batman a somber glance. “This one isn’t going to be easy.”
0900 Local
Naval War College
Newport, Rhode Island
“An unusual request, Commander.”
The Dean of Academics sounded thoughtful. “I’m not prepared to approve it immediately, but I certainly see the merit in your position.”
Bird Dog tried again. “Captain, the entire focus of my studies here, including my Advanced Research Projectmy ARPhas been on crisis response. What could be better than marrying up the academic with the practical, with basing my final paper on an actual honest-to-God crisis?”
The Dean nodded. “As I said, it’s a good point. We’re always in favor of kicking our students out of the ivory tower and exposing them to the real world. But truthfully, haven’t you already had quite a bit of that?”
Bird Dog had to admit that was true. On his first cruise, he’d been on the pointy end of the spear in the Spratly Islands when the Chinese made a grab for the oil-rich islands off the coast of Vietnam. Later, he’d taken part in ejecting Ukrainian Cossacks from the Aleutian Islands, and had started to learn some of the harder realities of war. And there had been more confrontations after that.
This tour at the War College was supposed to be a time of decompression, a reward for a job well done. Even though he was drawing flight pay, it didn’t feel like it. It had been months since he’d flown anything other than the single-engine owned by the local flying club. And as crazily gratifying as he found his relationship with Callie, he felt part of his soul was missing without access to the cockpit of a Tomcat.
Maybe, just maybe, if he could get back aboard Jeffno, don’t let the Dean even guess that was what he was thinking of. Concentrate on the academic benefit, not the chance that he might get to do a little bit of flying.
“I’ll discuss it with the admiral,” the captain said. “We can let you know in another day or so. That okay?”
Bird Dog nodded. “Thank you, sir. I promise you, you won’t be disappointed with the final result.”
As he left the Dean’s office and headed back to the parking lot, a sudden conviction hit him. The Dean would approve himhe knew he would. He couldn’t wait to tell Callie.
Unfortunately, Callie was not as excited about his taking part in the Turkish conflict as he’d thought she’d be. Surely she could see what an opportunity it was!
After all, if she’d had a chance to get on board Shiloh, she would have jumped at it and he wouldn’t have begrudged her that opportunity.
Would he?
Suddenly, the full implications of his deepening relationship with a hot-running surface-warfare officer in the United States Navy started to hit him. How would he feel if it were Callie who was out on the front lines, if she were the one in the middle when missiles started flying?
The thought was a sobering one. Bird Dog considered himself a model of equal opportunity, and certainly he’d flown with women in his squadron. Commander Flynn, for instanceTomboy to her squadron mates. One of the finest RIOs he’d ever met, and an aviator he’d be proud to have in his backseat.
But that was different, wasn’t it?
He wasn’t dating Tomboy FlynnAdmiral Magruder was, although that particular fact was a well-kept secret within the Tomcat community. But if it were Callie instead of Tomboyall at once he wasn’t so certain.
“You’d just walk away from us?” Callie asked acerbically. She tossed her notebook and a few reference sources down on the couch. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Bird Dog felt himself go on the defensive, although for the life of him he couldn’t figure out exactly why.
“It’s the C word, isn’t it? Commitment.”
Callie spat the word out as though it tasted foul in her mouth. “We start getting serious, and all at once you’re afraid I’m going to tie you down. Well, hell, buddy, you can just forget it.”
She stormed out of the room, leaving a puzzled and confused Bird Dog in her wake. Just what the hell had he said?
1200 Local
Istanbul, Turkey
“The American embassy,” Pamela ordered. She leaned back against the rich leather cushions, keeping a tight grip on the center console as the car darted and weaved through Istanbul traffic. Mike had provided her with the car, as well as a driver and a cameraman. He’d tentatively broached the possibility of occasional updates, but had quickly shut down that line of inquiry when he saw the cold gleam in her eyes.
“We talk to the embassy every hour or so,” the cameraman offered hesitantly. “Do you really think we’ll learn anything there?”
Pamela turned slowly toward him and impaled him against the seat with a cold glare. “What are you, some sort of cub reporter? Or a spy for Mike?”
The cameraman stuttered and stammered, “No, not at all, Miss. Drake. I was justI mean sometimes it’swe know the way things work around here, you know. I was just trying to be helpful.”
She held the glare until he looked away. “Thank you. When I need some help, I’ll let you know.”
She turned to face forward again, and was quickly lost in her own thoughts.
Of course, the cameraman was right. There would be nothing new to be learned at the American embassy, not without some personal contacts who would be willing to work off the record with her. But it had been too long since she had been in this area of the world, and she tried to summon up the faces and names of the last two men she’d known at the embassy. How long had it beeneight, maybe nine years?
There was little chance they would still be there.
Nevertheless, she resolved to at least ask if they were. Hell, they’d remember her. Who wouldn’t?
“Where is the USS La Salle headed?” she asked suddenly. She turned to the cameraman. “Do you know?”
Sensing a chance to redeem himself, the cameraman said, “I heard it was Gaeta. There’s no official word, but that would make sense.”
Pamela nodded. “It does make sense.”
She filed this bit of information away as a potential lead, or as possibly a sidebar assignment for one of the lesser lights with ACN.
How to cut to the heart of this conflict?
When Ukrainian Cossacks had seized the Aleutian Islands, she’d hired a commercial helicopter pilot to ferry her out from Alaska to the location of the USS Jefferson, then convinced him to simulate engine problems. The Jefferson had been forced to let her land, and she’d been privy to a good firsthand look at the United States Navy’s operations. It hadn’t hurt anymore, now that she’d reflected on it, helpedthat her old fiance, Tombstone Magruder, had been in command of the carrier battle group.
Tombstone. Now there was a subject best left untouched. If she’d had the slightest doubts that their engagement was fully and finally terminated, they’d been dispelled in the Aleutians. Never had she seen him so cold, so completely focused on his job to the exclusion of even her best efforts to distract him. In a way, she’d come to admire him more during those days than she had at any time in the past. Admire him, and realize he was lost to her.
No matter. Rumor had it that he’d taken up with some female chippy off the ship, an aviator at that. She mulled that over for a few moments, contemplating with some satisfaction the thought of Tombstone hitched up with someone just as driven and career-oriented as he was himself.
“Take me to the airport,” she said suddenly. In thinking about Tombstone and his new chick, an idea had occurred to her. A relationship with two people so alike could lead to bitter battles. Who, then, was Turkey’s equivalent in international politics?
The Islamic nations to the east?
Possible, but she had her doubts. Turkey had spent too many centuries as an open, internationalized society with close ties to the United States to revert so easily to the social tenets of fundamentalist Islam. And certainly not Greece to the west. No, the border skirmishes between the two countries had created too much permanent ill will. But there was one other option, one she hadn’t heard discussed publicly yet, though certainly some think-tank pundit had floated it in closed meetings.
The northUkraine, the fertile breadbasket of both Eastern Europe and Asia. For centuries battles had been fought over Ukraine and her resources, and since the fragmentation of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had been increasingly vulnerable to outside influences.
But what could an attack by Turkey on U.S. forces have to do with Ukraine?
She didn’t knownot yet. But something was niggling at her, insisting that she look at the relationship between Turkey and Ukraine more closely. There was no rhyme or reason for it, not reallyyet some of her most insightful forays into investigative reporting had come from just such strange connections as the one she’d just made.
She quelled the questioning look the cameraman shot her with a glance.
The cameraman repeated her request to the driver.
Twenty minutes later, the car pulled up outside the Istanbul International Airport. Guards ringed the perimeterset every two hundred yards or so, she estimated. There was no traffic, none, and the parking lot surrounding the airport held only a few civilian cars, scattered amongst several platoons of drab official-looking cars and police vehicles.
“Nothing comes in or goes out,” the cameraman said finally. “The Prime Minister announced that yesterday.”
“Oh, really?” Pamela said scathingly. “Then what’s that?”
She pointed at the horizon, at the commercial cargo ship now on final approach.
As it swept by them, touching down lightly on the runway into its roll-off, she noted the name emblazoned in Cyrillic letters on the tail finAeroflot.
1300 Local
Kiev, Ukraine
“A good job, Yuri.”
The Naval Aviation commander gave him an approving look. “Superb flying in a difficult platform. Your tactical decisions were entirely appropriate.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Yuri tried to relish the compliment, but felt only a sense of mounting frustration. The endless hours and days of familiarization flights, tactical drills, and training for the mission were over. Consequently, with fuel always in short supply in Ukraine, he was grounded. There was no longer any need for him to maintain flight proficiency, so scarce resources were allocated to other units. The possibility that he might be given another mission to fly was almost nonexistentnot until his superiors decided they needed his special talents again. Then, and only then, would they waste fuel bringing him back into currency.
“You have proven most reliable,” his commander continued. He gave him a long, appraising look. “You are that, are you not, Yuri?”
Yuri stiffened. “Of course, sir. Is there any question?”
The commander shook his head. “None. That is why you have been selected for another mission. One that requires a good deal of skill of perhaps a different type than you demonstrated in the air.”
The feeling of freedom he’d felt in the air flooded him. To have that back for just a while, to escape the drab walls and shoddy construction of this office buildingto go anywhere, to just be outside again. And if at all possible, to be airbornehe’d do anything.
“What mission is that, sir?” he said, forcing his voice into a calm, professional tone.
His commander extended a set of orders. “You’re going to Turkey. Again.”
“To Turkey? But-“
A shiver of fear scampered up his spine. If they ever found out what he had done…
“As part of an assistance mission,” his commander continued calmly. “We have, as Turkey knows, a degree of experience in dealing with nuclear matters.”
He grimaced slightly. “The Chernobyl affaira prime example of Russian engineering if anything is. Those bastardswell, no matter. In any event, the tragedy makes us all experts, does it not?”
“But what does Chernobyl have to do withah.”
Finally, comprehension dawned. With the prevailing winds in this part of the world running west to east, Turkey would be worried about the aftereffects of a nuclear detonation that occurred off her west coast. While the Americans could provide technical support, it was unlikely that they would be willing to extend much assistance given the attack on their forces. The next logical source of assistance would be Ukraine herself, rife with hard-won lessons born out of desperation. In the early days of Chernobyl, they’d all become experts, learning about the pituitary uptake of strontium, the basic sanitary precautions to make sure that nuclear fallout was not ingestedtoo many hard changes in a daily routine that was defined by poverty and deprivation.
“I am primarily an aviator, of course,” Yuri began carefully. “However, if the State believes I can be of assistance, I would like to do so.”
1315 Local
Seahawk 101
Immediately, thought Tombstone. Back when he’d been a lieutenant, that meant as fast as you could get your ass up the ladder into your aircraft for launch. But when you got to be an admiral, life got more complicated. Even given Tombstone’s best intentions and Batman’s willing support, getting off the carrier had taken longer than he’d planned on. It hadn’t been Batman’s fault, nor the aircrew’s, but simply that the life of a two-star admiral who was heading for command of Sixth Fleet was so much more amazingly complicated than anyone thought.
In the time that he’d been en route from Gaeta to Jefferson, the carrier had fielded six op-immediate calls for him, two P4personal formessages addressed eyes-only to him, and six inquiries from the news media requesting either embarkation on Jefferson or La Salle, or in-depth personal interviews. He’d tossed those to Jefferson’s public-affairs office and turned his attention to other matters.
Nothing, he determined, that couldn’t wait a little while. But advising the centers of those messages took a little time, as did ironing out the chain of command and operational responsibilities between his new staff, still on board the La Salle, and the Jefferson. Most of the Sixth Fleet staff would have to transfer to Jefferson, and finding everything from working spaces and technical consoles to staterooms and quarters took time.
Tombstone scribed his initials on the last op-immediate response and tossed it toward the waiting communications officer. “Anything else comes in, hold it for me until I return.”
The communications officer nodded. “I’ve got one circuit up with La Salle, and if anything truly immediately comes in, I’ll see that it’s relayed to you.”
Tombstone nodded sharply. “Stay in touch with CVIC,” he said, referring to the Carrier Intelligence Center. “I’m more interested in information coming into the carrier than demands that we send data out. There’s too much we don’t understand about this situation, and I need to know immediately if there’s the slightest indication of another attack.”
And that, Tombstone thought as he strode down the passageway, was the six-million-dollar question. Not only was there going to be an attack, but why did the first one happen?
Maybe there would be some answers aboard La Salle.
Three ladders later, he pushed through the hatch and out onto the flight deck. Bright autumn sun beat down on him, the sky radiant blue. He took just a second to look around him, breathe in the familiar salt air, linger in the feel of hot tarmac under his boot and the familiar weight of his cranial on his head. He pulled his goggles down from their pos
ition on the headgear, and settled them over his eyes.
Now, two hours later, USS La Salle’s ungainly profile loomed on the horizon. She was underway, steaming slowly toward him, generating favorable winds for the helicopter across her deck.
The helicopter’s pilot brought the Seahawk around smartly, and settled neatly onto the flight deck at the direction of the LSO. Before the rotors had even stopped turning, two officers in flight suits darted across the flight deck to greet him. Salutes were foregone since they weren’t wearing headgear, and introductions were postponed until they were inside the skin of the ship. Tombstone stood in the narrow compartment and waited for the door to the flight deck to close. He peeled off his cranial and goggles while the officers waited.
There was an awkward moment. Then the senior officer said, “Welcome aboard, Admiral. I’m Charlie Baker, Chief of Staff. The admiral’s expecting you.”
“I wish the circumstances could be better, Captain,” Tombstone said. “How’s the ship?”
“Still steaming, sir. Just barely. We have tugs alongside. We think we may have one of the radars operational by this evening. The technicians are working miracles with it.” He gestured toward the other officer. “Lieutenant j.g. Harmon, Admiral. He was on watch when we took the shot. The admiral thought you would want to speak with him immediately.”
Tombstone turned to the very junior aviator standing before him, and let his eyes run over him. A pilothe could see that by the wings on the man’s flight suitand not a very experienced one at that. Probably straight out of the RAGwhat the hell had he been doing on watch here by himself?
I’ve got more time in the chow line than this youngster’s got in the cockpit. And they sent him down like a sacrificial lamb for me to devour the moment I step on board?
Maybe they’re hoping I’ll chew him up and spit him out and calm down before I reach the admiral’s quarters. Sort of a symbolic bloodletting, if you will.
“Good afternoon, Lieutenant. I’m sure we’ll have time to talk later.”
He turned back to the captain. “I’d like to see the admiralimmediately.”
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