The captain appeared slightly taken aback at the lack of response to his introduction of Skeeter. He nodded uncertainly and led the way forward to the admiral’s cabin.
1400 Local
Rome, Italy
“What do you mean the transport’s not arranged?” Tiltfelt demanded. “God, manI believe our message was quite specific.”
The attache nodded uncomfortably. “We received the message, of course, Sir, but no clearance from the Navy yet.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s only been eight hours, Sir. I imagine they’re a little busy out there right now.”
“We’re all busy, mister. And one of the things you’re supposed to be busy with is assuring that requests from senior State Department officials are acted upon in a somewhat timely and occasionally correct fashion. It appears that neither has happened in this instance, Mr.Mr. Peals. I take it this is typical of your performance in your post here?”
“No, not at all. It’s just thatif you could excuse me for a few moments, Sir, I’ll follow up on that request.”
Tiltfelt turned to his aide. “This is just the sort of thing you must expect from the military. Delays, excusesany reason to run amok on their own rather than working as part of a coherent national strategy.”
Tiltfelt was pleased to note that the aide looked suitably attentive.
Ten minutes later, the attache returned. “Sir, the last flight cleared out to the carrier left eight hours ago from Gaeta.”
“Why didn’t you have it held? You knew when I was arriving.”
“We couldn’t, Sir. The new Sixth Fleet, Admiral Magruder, was manifested on the flight. And the Navy owns the aircraftI’m sure you understand that.”
“What I don’t understand is why you appear to be taking the Navy’s part in this, young man,” Tiltfelt said acidly. “I will give you ten minutes to make alternate arrangements and obtain the appropriate clearances. After that point, you will find that a permanent reprimand will be placed in your file. Unless you are quite eager to participate in the demanding professional duties at an embassy in some southern African country, I suggest you try to impress me in the next few moments.”
1400 Local
Istanbul, Turkey
“Well, well, well,” Pamela said, holding her binoculars steady to her eyes. “Isn’t it nice of them to commence the off-load out in the open like this?”
The cameraman didn’t respond, she noted with satisfaction. Evidently, she’d managed to appropriately convince him of his place on the food chain for this assignment. “You’re getting all this?” she asked.
“Getting it,” he replied shortly. And she was. The telescopic lens zeroed in on the figures swarming around the Aeroflot flight. He panned slowly away from them, and focused on the tail insignia. “Did you notice that?” he said as Pamela looked at the monitor.
“Notice whatthat it’s Aeroflot?”
The cameraman experienced a brief moment of satisfaction, then shuddered at the prospect of being permanently assigned to this woman for the duration of her stay in Turkey. Reluctantly, he divulged the one bit of information he had that she needed. “It’s not Russian. It’s Ukrainian.”
“You’re certain?”
He nodded.
“Even more interesting,” she said softly, speaking more to herself than to him. “Ukrainenow what did theyof course.”
She immediately made the connection between the nuclear weapon fired in the proximity of the USS La Salle and the Ukraine’s own experience in Chernobyl. “It takes a thief to catch a thief.”
“What? Was something stolen?”
The cameraman subsided into silence at her glare.
4
Tuesday, 4 September
1400 Local
USS La Salle
Tombstone went immediately to TFCC, the nerve center of the flagship.
No matter that the admiral’s cabin was merely fifteen or twenty paces down the passageway. With the eastern Mediterranean in an uproar, his first priority was maintaining a complete tactical picture.
There were other reasons to delay his meeting with the current Sixth Fleet as well, not the least of which was to give his own temper time to cool. While many of the officers who served under him would not have believed it, Tombstone Magruder possessed an incendiary temper, not often ignited, but an almost overwhelming force when it did. Sixth Fleet had tripped that trigger by sending the young Naval aviator down to take the full brunt of the relieving admiral’s displeasure.
We tell them that people are our most important asset, but do we really believe it?
A surface guy eating his young like thatI can believe it. But a pilothe should know better. It was his call, his watchand he blew it by putting this youngster on the console by himself. I’ll be damned if I’ll validate that mistake by executing this nugget at dawn.
Finally, when he felt he’d regained control of himself sufficiently, Tombstone said, “Let’s go see the admiral.”
The Chief of Staff nodded, relieved that the burden of following his new boss around was about to be lifted. The new Sixth Fleet was pissedthat much was clear. But at whom? Ascertaining that at the very earliest opportunity was essential.
“This way, sir.” The Chief of Staff led the way out into the flag passageway and down toward the admiral’s cabin. At the door, he knocked once, opened it, and stepped aside to let Admiral Magruder precede him.
The Chief of Staff hesitated at the door frame, wondering whether or not his presence was required in the compartment, desperately hoping it was not. When elephants dance, captains get out of the way.
Vice Admiral Dan Latterly was seated behind his desk, contemplating a stack of folders poised uneasily at the edge of it. He looked up at Tombstone, his face set in a hard mask of outrage. “Military courtesy is a dying tradition.”
He’s older than mebut not by that much. That gut, those bags under his eyeshe looks greasy, unkempt, like a junior officer coming off a three-day drunk. No senior aviator should look like that. And this ship looks worse than he does. Grimyand it smells.
The anger Tombstone had struggled to get under control flashed into fiery incandescence. He stood at attention, snapped his hand up to the brim of his cover, and said, “I relieve you, sir.”
The abrupt entry into the traditional words of change of command startled Latterly out of his truculence. His scowl faded into dismay, then down a new path to annoyance. “Just like that? I’m aware of your reputation, Admiral, but even you might find it useful to have a brief turnover period. I had thought perhaps tomorrow-“
“Not acceptable,” Tombstone snapped, still holding the salute. “Get your ass up and do one thing right before I call the Master of Arms to remove you from this cabin.”
“Just who the hell do you think you are, mister?” Latterly shouted, surging to his feet. “You can’t come onto my ship and threaten me like this!”
“It’s not your ship anymore, Admiral,” Tombstone responded. “Not after what you’ve done to her.”
“This attack-“
“on a nugget who should never have been left alone by himself on a console, not even for a moment.”
“This change of command-“
“Will take place right now. The only choice you have in the matter is whether you reach deep down inside of yourself and find some shred of military honor and do this gracefully, or whether you force me to use stronger measures. Now which is it?”
Latterly deflated like a target-practice balloon taking a direct hit from a five-inch fifty-four Naval gun. The hard angry mask of his face sagged into despair. He reached behind him, retrieved his hat from its place on the credenza, and placed it slowly on his head, pausing to adjust it so that it was straight. His hand came up slowly to the brim. “I stand relieved.”
Tombstone dropped his salute, as did Latterly.
“Under the circumstances, I’m sure you’ll excuse me if I make immediate preparations to depart the ship,” Latterly said. �
��If that meets with your approval, Admiral.”
The man was beaten, no doubt about it. Normally, Tombstone would have granted him some final shred of dignity with which to leave the scene.
Even now, he sought a reason to do so, wondering if he was really lacking in compassion, as Pamela had always said.
But this was a matter beyond emotion, beyond the normal rules of relationships that governed human beings. Tombstone hadn’t beaten himLatterly had done it to himself. He had endangered his ship, his crew. Had Sixth Fleet had any claim to honorthe former Sixth Fleet, Tombstone corrected himselfit might have been different. But by abdicating his responsibility, by taking incoming fire in a way that never should have happened, he’d voluntarily set himself outside military traditions. “I don’t object, Admiral,” Tombstone said slowly. “Under the circumstances, it’s best for all concerned. I consider you a hazard to navigation, no different from undetected reefs or shoal waters. The sooner you’re off my ship, the better.”
The now-relieved Latterly nodded once. “Easy words, Admiral.”
He pointed to the high-backed leather chair sitting behind a solid wood desk.
“I hope they come as easily to you when you’re sitting in that chair instead of standing in front of it.”
1415 Local
Tomcat 301
Eight Thousand Feet
Lieutenant Commander Jake “Snake” Wells found his imaginary point in the sky and put the Tomcat into a lazy, economical orbit around it. In the backseat, Lieutenant Tom “Kraut” Germany fiddled with knobs, refining his radar picture and tweaking the data link with the carrier.
Keeping on station allowed a pilot some degree of latitude, and Snake generally chose fuel efficiency over fun. Not as compulsively as the Marines, howevergive them a CAP station and they damn near stood their Hornets on wing tip in tight, anal-compulsive circles.
The Tomcat was one of two F-14s assigned for carrier air patrolCAPover the La Salle. The other Tomcat was far to the north, controlling the approaches from Istanbul and the Black Sea. Tomcat 301 took station between the crippled flagship and Turkey’s western coast.
The Tomcat carried a standard anti-air missile loadtwo Phoenixes, two Sidewinders, and two Sparrowsalong with a full load of rounds for its nose gun. The fever-pitch tensions generated by the Turkish attack the previous day were already starting to dissipate as the routine and monotony of guarding the air approaches to his ship displaced the initial shock.
“Got one of those insects departing in ten mikes,” Snake reported.
The enlisted air intercept coordinator on board Jefferson had just notified him that Admiral Latterly would be departing La Salle shortly. “Wanna go in closer and take a look?”
“Negative,” Kraut answered. “I lose too much radar horizon if you go any lower. Besides, we know what those ugly little bastards look like,” he said, referring to the CH-46 that would be ferrying Admiral Latterly to Gaeta. “One million parts flying in close proximity to each other. It’s a crime against nature if you ask me.”
The pilot chuckled. “Yeah, but the guys at the bottom of the class out of flight basic have to fly something, don’t they?”
He curled his fingers appreciatively around the Tomcat’s controls. It was well known that the top officers graduating out of basic flight school received priority slotting to the most demanding airframes, and were often given their choice of which aircraft they wanted to fly. Nobody ever chose helos. Not if they could help it.
Besides, who wants to ferry the big dogs around?
That or fly cargo back and forth during UNREP?
Snake shuddered, as much from the possibility that he might have to someday execute an UNREP maneuver in one of the ungainly workhorse helicopters as from the prospects of being a helicopter pilot at all. During UNREP, the CH-46 would drop down low over the deck of the replenishment ship, snag a load of pallets with a hook-and-wire contraption, and then ferry the dangling cargo back over to the receiving ship. It was tedious, monotonous work that was likely to get you killed quickly if your attention wavered.
“What else is in the area?” the pilot asked, glancing at his own heads-up display.
“Nothing much on the schedule. A COD flight due out from Gaeta. Old friend of ours on it. Remember Bird Dog Robinson?”
“Hell, yes, I remember Bird Dog! That crazy motherfucker, I thought he was safely stashed away in Newport for a year,” Snake said.
“I don’t know how he did it, but he’s on his way out here. I saw his name on tomorrow’s manifest.”
“You want to fly with him?”
“Not on your life. I don’t know how the hell Gator puts up with him.”
“I think Gator deserveswhat’s that?”
Snake broke off his running commentary on the reputations and foibles of Bird Dog’s RIO as a new blip popped into being on his scope. “Contact?”
“One of the interesting kind,” Kraut said tightly, his fingers flying over the differently shaped knobs that comprised the Tomcat’s radar controls. “Based on its radar, I’d call it an F-16. And not one of ours.”
“Turkish?” the pilot asked.
“I’d say so, based on where it’s coming from. Other than that…” The RIO let the sentence trail off.
Both men knew that an aggressive manufacturing program by General Dynamics had equipped more than sixteen nations with the versatile lightweight fighter. Turkey had been a leading proponent of the program, and had an inventory of over 140 F-16 Falcons that were manufactured at its plant in Ankara. Peace Onyx, the program was called. The coproduction agreements had made the F-16 Falcon a mainstay of military aviation in countries ranging from Israel, Bahrain, Egypt, and South Korea to Venezuela.
“Definitely a Falcon,” the RIO said. “I’m getting APG-68 radar off it.”
“What’s she doing out here? They haven’t been flying for a day and a half now, and all at once they put a fighter up just as Admiral Latterly is leaving the ship? I don’t like the sound of this.”
“Neither do I,” Kraut said uneasily. “Talk to Homeplate, see what they want us to do.”
1417 Local
TFCC
USS Jefferson
“Admiral, Intel confirms the launch of one Turkish F-16. It’s currently on an intercept course with USS La Salle at seven hundred knots.”
“What’s her altitude?”
“Thirty-one thousand feet. Admiral, she made a high-speed run up to that altitude. It’s an unusual flight profile.” Lab Rat’s pale eyebrows beetled together.
Batman took in a deep breath, and felt the beginnings of an adrenaline surge. That altitude was reserved for commercial flights, but since all traffic in and out of Turkey had ceased since yesterday, it wasn’t out of the question for a military aircraft to use Angels 31. But given the prior attack, with the enemy aircraft evidently hiding itself as a commercial flight, the profile was more than unsettling. It was downright dangerous.
Tombstone turned to the TAO in TFCC. “Get that Tomcat on its ass. Weapons free if he sees any hostile intent, but for now just VIDvisual identificationand escort. I want to know the second he can tell whether or not the wings are dirty.”
If the Turkish Falcon wings were clean, devoid of the Sidewinders, AAMRAM, and Sparrow missiles that made it a deadly air-to-air adversary, he would feel a good deal more comfortable than he felt now. However, until CAP got a good look at it, the only safe tactic was to assume that the Falcon was armedand deadly.
1418 Local
Falcon 101
31,000 Feet, Four Hundred Miles East of USS La Salle
“Tomcats,” the Falcon pilot reported back to his base in Ankara. “Two of themone to the north, one directly ahead. Instructions?”
“Continue mission as briefed. You are merely to assert our right to use international airways, not to challenge or otherwise provoke the American forces. Is that clear?”
The pilot sighed and kicked the nimble single-seater F-16C
in the ass.
The single General Electric turbofan responded immediately, the muted growl that was a continual background noise in the small cockpit climbing up into a higher octave and increasing the vibration slightly.
These freedom-of-aviation operations were a pain but a necessity. The attack on the American flagship had horrified him, along with most of his colleagues. Rumors were exploding around the base, ranging from one story claiming that the Americans had taken the first shot at a Turkish commercial flight to a barely credible fantasy centering around Kurdish rebels gaining control of Turkey’s nuclear arsenal. It seemed highly unlikely, if not absolutely impossible, that the Turkish government would have authorized such an attack. That fact alone gave credence to some of the more mythical rumors abounding.
On the other hand, the fundamentalist Islamic government certainly had less use for their American protectors than did their predecessors. While such political maneuverings might be far out of his scope of responsibility, the pilot was worried about the consequences of such a trend. Fewer spare parts, perhaps even an end to the coproduction facility with General Dynamics that had done so much to improve his country’s military aircraft inventory. After three years flying Falcons, he dreaded the possibility of being forced to fly an older aircraft. And the Falcon was, without a doubt, one of the finest, most versatile all-weather night-and-day military aircraft in the world.
“He’s turning toward me,” he radioed back to his ground control intercept, or GCI.
“Maintain level flight.” The order was curt, abrupt.
At least he was flying, not sitting in a classroom listening to interminable lectures on wars they’d never see. Or safety lecturesGod, he hated those worst of all. It was bad enough that you had nightmares about punching out, but to see the realities of shark attacks during experiments, the effect that blood in the water had on the predators, was enough to distract you. And that was the last thing he needed, distractionsnot while flying the Falcon.
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