Carrier c-1

by Keith Douglass

  "And now, Jeffersons, it is my great privilege to welcome the Commanding Officer, Carrier Battle Group 14, Rear Admiral Thomas J. Magruder!"

  Woodenly, Magruder walked into the blaze of stage lights, stepping behind the lectern as Buckley moved out of the way. He placed his notes before him, then looked up into the blank, glassy eye of the camera. The red light was on, putting him squarely at the center of attention for several thousand officers and men on board the carrier.

  "Jeffersons," he said. It was best, he thought, to tell this one straight, without preamble. "As you all know by now, Carrier Battle Group 14 has been directed by the President to take up station at Patrol Point November, pending further orders. Yesterday, CBG-14 was augmented by the arrival of MEU-6, comprised of four Marine amphibious ships.

  "At zero-five-twenty this morning, we received new orders. They were addressed through the Commander in Chief, Pacific, but the authority comes through the President. I will read you the significant parts."

  Magruder pulled his reading glasses from the breast pocket of his uniform coat and perched them low on his nose. "Priority Urgent, to CO, CBG-14, U.S.S. Jefferson, on station at Point November.

  "One. Carrier Battle Group Fourteen, together with Marine Expeditionary Unit Six, will henceforth be designated Task Force Eighteen. CO CBG-14 is directed to assume overall command TF-18 and of all auxiliary and support forces Op area November.

  "Four. CO TF-18 will make such unit dispositions as are consistent with security of the force. CO TF-18 is reminded of recent hostile KorCom activity in op-area, and urged to take all necessary precautions to avoid unnecessary losses to his command.

  "Five. TF-18 will maintain station pending further operational directives of the National Command Authority. TF-18 must be considered to be the primary arm of national foreign policy in the area, and will engage in no activities contrary to national goals or aims.

  "Eight. All tactical commands under TF-18, including both Marine and air wing elements, are hereby directed to prepare final operational orders anticipating possible military interdiction at or near the port of Wonsan, North Korea, in keeping with parameters and directives outlined in op-plan designated WINGED TALON.

  "Nine. Operation WINGED TALON should be considered to be a limited tactical retaliatory strike aimed at securing the safety of U.S. Navy personnel now held by KorCom forces in or near Wonsan, and at securing the release of U.S.S. Chimera seized two days ago in international waters by KorCom Naval and Air Force units. Final authorization for WINGED TALON will be the responsibility of the National Command Authority alone."

  Magruder looked up from the paper and into the camera's eye once more. "These orders are signed by Fleet Admiral Wesley R. Bainbridge, CINCPAC. I needn't tell you, men, that they place a heavy responsibility on all of us, on every man in this task force.

  "I have here a TENCAP photo which should be of interest to all of you." The camera's red light winked out, and Magruder knew the second camera was on, focused on the photo on the easel across the room. TENCAP ― the acronym stood for Tactical Exploitation of National CAPabilities ― was a new military adaptation of satellite technology. For the first time, commanders in the field could use their satellite links to call down up-to-the-minute photos from KH-12s directly, rather than waiting for them from Washington.

  "What you are seeing, men, is the U.S.S. Chimera tied up at a pier in Wonsan Harbor. I'm told this photograph has a resolution of about three inches, which is pretty damn good from over a hundred miles up. You can see soldiers standing on Chimera's deck, wearing steel helmets and carrying AK rifles. There's been quite a bit of damage. One of the whaleboat davits has been shot away, the mast has been knocked over, and there's been some damage to the forward deck and the deckhouse. That blob you see over the taffrail is a flag… the North Korean flag, raised in the place of the Stars and Stripes.

  "This photo confirms that the North Koreans are indeed now holding our ship and nearly two hundred of our men prisoner, a brazen act of modern high-seas piracy."

  The red light flashed on. He was on camera once more. "Task Force Eighteen has been called upon to be the steel behind the President's words when he talks to the North Koreans during the next few hours. He will tell them to release our people and our ship. When the NKs look at us, they'll get a pretty good idea of what will happen if they refuse."

  It was hot under the lights. Magruder tried to ignore the sweat trickling down inside the collar of his uniform. "This one carrier battle group carries more firepower than was expended in all of World War II. It serves as a powerful and highly visible instrument of America's political and foreign policy will. The North Koreans are not crazy, and they are not suicidal. I expect that they will listen to reason and give in.

  "If they do not, then it is our responsibility to do what Congress and the taxpayers pay us to do… defend America's interests wherever in the world they are threatened, defend our people wherever and whenever they are in danger. I know that I can count on each and every one of you to do your duty." He paused. What more was there to be said at a time like this? "That is all."

  He stepped back from the lectern, allowing Buckley to take his place. The master chief was speaking as Magruder strode from the CVIC, but he was not listening. Command responsibility was something Admiral Magruder accepted with the uniform he wore. He'd grown up in a Navy family, he and his brother Sam. Their father had always told them both that command responsibility was something in their blood, that they were born to command.

  Maybe that was so. His father had served on Nimitz's staff in World War II; his great-grandfather had commanded one of Farragut's monitors at Mobile Bay. The honor, the crisp blue-and-gold glory of U.S. Naval tradition had been a part of the very air he breathed when he and Sam were growing up in Annapolis, Maryland.

  He'd talked a lot about command with Sam, back when they were on those heady first rungs of their careers as Naval officers. "I don't mind the thought of dying so much," Sam had told him once over coffee in the flight officers' mess at Pensacola. "But giving the orders that are going to get somebody else killed, that's a real bitch."

  Sam had sealed his place in the family's tradition in the skies above the Doumer Bridge in downtown Hanoi, back in the summer of 1969. He was still officially listed as MIA, though the family had long since given up hoping that he was still alive.

  His brother's words had come back to haunt Admiral Magruder more than once in the years since then, but now they were taking on an urgency ― an intensity ― unlike any he'd ever known. They followed him now as he hurried down the passageway. A sudden crisis, a set of orders from Washington… and he was taking twelve thousand men into combat. The fact that it was what he'd trained to do for so many years, that it was his job, meant less than the fact that they were his men. His responsibility.

  Magruder had not told the whole story during his broadcast, and that, more than anything, was what was bothering him. It was true, for instance, that the carrier group carried more firepower than had been expended in all of World War II, but that was counting the nukes stored deep in Jefferson's belly, down in the forward magazine. No way would Washington authorize a nuclear strike against North Korea; vaporizing P'yongyang wouldn't solve a thing, and the North Koreans knew that as well as he did. Despite his brave words, Magruder wasn't nearly as certain as he'd pretended to be that the Koreans would back down.

  Certainly, no one could count on an air-strike being sufficient in forcing P'yongyang's hand, and it was evident that Washington knew that. The Pentagon was bracing for something more than a quick in-and-out air raid; that much was evident from some of the paragraphs in his orders which he'd not read during the broadcast. Paragraph Seven, for instance, directed him to regard all North Korean ships and aircraft as hostile until further orders, and to take appropriate action as he saw fit.

  Paragraph Ten was worse. It told him that a Naval special tactical team was coming in via COD ― carrier on-board delivery ― sometime after 17
00 hours. That meant SEALS, and SEALs meant that someone in Washington was gearing up for the worst, anything from a hostage rescue mission to a full-fledged Marine amphibious assault. There were over twenty-six hundred Marines aboard Chosin and Little Rock. Suppose Washington decided to send them in?

  Magruder found himself thinking of the two men shot down off Wonsan two days before, Grant and Cooper. He thought about Matthew's anger and shook his head. If the PDRK didn't back down in the next day or two, quite a few more good men could join them.

  Heading back toward Flag Plot, he strode quickly down the narrow, gray-painted passageway, every fifth stride a duck-and-step through one of the openings in the transverse frames the ship's crew called knee-knockers. A sailor approached him coming the other way. Framed by the receding succession of knee-knockers, he looked at first like Magruder's own reflection in a gallery of mirrors. The corridor was so narrow both men had to turn sideways to pass.

  The sailor was uncovered and therefore did not salute, but he looked Magruder in the eye as he stepped aside, grinned, and sounded off with a hearty "Good morning, Admiral." Like the majority of the men who served aboard Jefferson, he looked painfully young, no more than nineteen. "Sounds like we're gonna kick some ass."

  "Damned straight, son."

  His men. His duty.

  CHAPTER 11

  0925 hours

  VF-95 CO's Office, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson

  Tombstone Magruder fed another sheet of paper into the aging IBM Selectric on his desk and began a two-finger hunt-and-peck as he tried once more to write his report on the previous night's Bear hunt. Try as he might, he was finding it impossible to put into words the reprimand he'd wanted to lay on Batman Wayne's record.

  He held the same sour-stomached distaste for this kind of administrative work as he had for filling out quarterly fitness reports. A bad word could ruin a promising officer's career forever… or at least blight it with personal observations which would follow the guy for as long as he was in the Navy. Magruder was still angry with Batman for his hot-dogging with the Bear, but he was less certain now that he should commit that anger to Batman's record. A private talk with the man, maybe a quiet word in CAG's ear in case the situation came up again sometime would be enough.

  Besides, in another few hours, Batman might well be in the air facing MiGs, SAMs, and triple A. He'd need all the self-confidence and concentration he could muster. But damn. If someone didn't curb that boy's hot-dogging pretty soon-

  There was a knock at the door and Tombstone looked up. He'd half expected to see Batman there, but it was Snowball, blinking at him owlishly through his big, round glasses. "Stoney? Got a minute?"

  "C'mon in. Make yourself at home." The invitation was more a matter of polite form than of practicality. The office was the size of a walk-in closet. The chair and desk, the filing cabinet, the tiny book rack on one bulkhead filled it completely. Fitting another man inside was a logistical problem as complex as moving aircraft around on Jefferson's crowded hangar deck.

  Snowball stepped inside the door. "Look… I'm not sure how to say this."

  "Just spitting it out's usually best. Short and sweet."

  "Yeah, I suppose so. Commander, I'm scared."

  Scared. The word lay between them, harsh and unforgiving. Tombstone knew he had a problem.

  Within the fraternity of aviators and flight officers, admitting to fear was acceptable, but only if it was made in a joking, self-deprecating way. The ego, the machismo of combat pilots demanded it. I'm telling you, boys, a pilot might say, with the easy grin and down-home drawl of one who has been through it all. That night trap was so hairy… after that bolter I found out why the flight suits they issue us are brown!

  Never, never did you simply blurt out your fear. That rule held especially true for aviators, but it applied to backseaters as well.

  Tombstone shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "What's the problem? Losing the Coyote the other day? The dogfight?"

  "Oh, shit, Tombstone. I don't know. I guess it's a little bit of everything. I was scared the other day, sure, but I figured I could handle it okay. It got me to thinking though."

  Tombstone waited. Snowball took a deep breath and continued. "It all kind of came apart for me last night, up there in the dark next to that Bear. Look, Tombstone, can I be straight with you?"

  "Shoot."

  "Mostly I've been worried about flying with you."

  "Me?"

  "Yeah. Ever since Coyote went down, you've been so uptight… hell, everybody knows it. It's like your mind's not really on your flying anymore, and that scares hell out of me! When you tucked in close under that Bear's tail last night, and then when Batman pulled that stunt, man, I thought that was it."

  "You came through okay."

  "Sure. But it got me thinking, right? It's like… like I'm trusting you, trusting the guy up front with my life, know what I mean? I'm married, Stoney. Got married two months before this cruise. Right now, I've been away from her more'n I've been with her. It ain't right for me to smear myself all over Jefferson's roundoff because some other guy's not paying attention! And now the scuttlebutt is we're going up against the Koreans and there's gonna be a fight. Man, I just don't know if I can handle that!"

  "Is that all?" He felt ice-cold, as though he'd just been struck.

  Snowball looked like he was about to say more, then reconsidered. "Yes, sir."

  "You want to swap with another RIO? You're not stuck with me, you know."

  "I don't know." He looked away. For a moment, he seemed to be studying the array of papers and notes tacked to the small bulletin board on the office bulkhead. "I don't think it would be any better."

  "You want to stop flying?" For Tombstone, that was the ultimate impossibility. To give up flying would be like dying.

  "No. Yeah… aw, shit. Look, Stoney, right now, I'm so screwed up-"

  "Damn it, that's enough!" Tombstone's palm came down on his desk beside the typewriter, scattering an untidy stack of paperwork. "Listen, mister, I don't give a shit about your piss-ant little problems! You want a shoulder to cry on, go see the chaplain. You don't like my flying, talk to CAG and get yourself assigned to another plane… or get yourself grounded, I don't care!"

  Tombstone regretted the outburst at once. It was too late to take the words back, too late to back down, but he could try to control the anger. Who was he mad at, anyway? Snowball? Or himself? He stood up behind his desk, holding Snowball's eyes with his own, making himself relax. "One way or another, I suggest that you get yourself squared away."

  "Y-yes, sir."

  Tombstone looked down at his desktop, then picked up a neatly typed paper from among the others scattered there. "Know what this is?"

  "No, sir."

  "Cut the kay-det crap, Snowy. This is an order from CAG, telling me to work out the details for CAP cover for Operation Winged Talon, getting ready for, quote air operations against North Korean ground positions and air targets in the Wonsan area, unquote. Right this minute, up on the flight deck, they're arming up on the assumption that this thing is a go! Chances are we'll be launching in a few hours, and when we do, it's really going to hit the fan. I don't want you up there if you're going to freeze up on me!"

  He saw a spark of anger in Snowball's eyes. "I won't freeze, sir!"

  Tombstone sank back into his chair. "Get out of here, then. See CAG if you want a transfer, but don't pester me with this shit, got me?"

  "Yes, sir. Aye aye, sir."

  Snowball backed out of the office, hesitated a moment, then whirled upon his heel and hurried off down the passageway. A moment later, the doorway was blocked again as Marusko stepped in. "What was that all about? We heard the shouting clear down to Admin."

  Tombstone rocked his chair back on two legs, his hands pressed over his eyes. "I don't know, CAG. I probably just screwed it up, that's all."

  "Welcome to the club. When will you have that report on my desk?"

  He sighed. "What do you want fi
rst? Report or op-plan?"

  CAG grinned. "What's the matter, son? Paperwork piling up?"

  "And then some."

  "You should see my desk. Okay, the Bear report can wait. From the way your uncle's talking, we're going in this afternoon. An all-squadron briefing's been called for fifteen hundred, so you can figure it for yourself. I'll need the op-plan by twelve hundred if I'm going to have anything to show the admiral."

  "I love how we fight wars with paper. Okay, CAG. I'll get on it."

  "Good. Oh, and Tombstone?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Take it easy on your people. They'll respond to a light hand, voice of experience and all that, right?"

  Tombstone drew in a breath. "Aye aye, CAG. You're right."

  "That's all, then. See you at twelve hundred."

  Tombstone stared at the empty doorway for several minutes more. He really had let his anger and frustration get away from him with Snowball. But what was he supposed to do, nursemaid the whole squadron?

  He thought back to his five weeks at Miramar. Top Gun training reached more than the handful of students who attended the school. The idea was to rotate Top Gun grads back to the fleet after they completed the course, where they served as instructors with their squadrons. Tombstone had a regular weekly schedule of lectures in ACM tactics ― the high-tech waltz of Air Combat Maneuvers better known as dog-fighting.

  The drill, as he'd pointed out to several other Top Gun alumni on board Jefferson, was to keep a low profile, to not come out and tell the other aviators that he'd been to Fightertown, since that would just breed resentment. It was much slicker, much more in keeping with the aviator's charisma, if he let the information slip out little by little, in the lectures, in the debriefings after missions.

  It's all a part of command, he told himself. And damn it all, that's just what I can't handle. Maybe the promotions have been coming a little too fast… a little too easy.