There was no irrationality in fear. All of them were afraid, every man in the squadron, and there was no shame in that, not when tomorrow could find them in a war unlike any that had been fought in history.
But Vaughn’s manner worried Fitzgerald. It was almost as though the man was trying to line up the excuses before his failure, find a way to divert the blame. “It wasn’t my fault because the Russians were no good.”
“It wasn’t my fault because I wasn’t given the intel I needed.”
Fitzgerald shook himself mentally and tore his gaze from Vaughn’s face.
He would get nowhere thinking thoughts like that.
He signaled to an enlisted watch-stander nearby. “Have some coffee, sir?”
“Eh? Oh, thanks. Thanks. Everything else quiet?”
“Absolutely.” He kept his tone light, confident, and unworried. “I’d say our Indian friends have decided to bug out. Maybe the skirmish yesterday made them think twice about all this. Or maybe it was the Russians joining us. Attacking us now would be sort of like taking on the whole world, wouldn’t it?”
“No, Captain. No, it’s not like that at all.” Vaughn spoke softly, his eyes still on the horizon as though he were trying to reach out and touch the mind of Admiral Dmitriev, out there on the bridge of the Kreml. He accepted a mug of coffee the sailor handed him without looking away. “Those bastards will be back, and from where we’re sitting, it’s going to look like World War III.”
“How do you know that, sir?”
“Logistics.” He blinked, then turned away from the window. He seemed to really see Fitzgerald for the first time. “The laws of logistics, Captain. The guy with the longest supply line has his head in a noose.”
“Oh, I think we’re set all right. Peoria and Amarillo are with us now.
They have enough bullets, beans, and black oil to keep us going for quite a while.” But he knew the admiral’s thoughts were traveling the same ruts his own mind had been circling a few minutes earlier. Lose the UNREP ships and the squadron was crippled, their mission … The realization hit Fitzgerald like a blow. It was the mission Vaughn was worried about … and his image back in Washington. That fit with the little he’d heard about the man prior to his assignment to CBG-14.
He was worried about what would happen to his career if the carrier group failed to carry out its mission.
“A drop in the bucket,” Vaughn said, responding to Fitzgerald’s comment about the UNREP ships’ provisions. He raised the mug and sipped noisily. “You know as well as I do how quickly we’ll run through that stuff once the shooting starts, hey? Hell, we’re twelve thousand miles from home. Twelve thousand miles! The Russians are five thousand from their nearest port, and they don’t have our experience in long-range blue-water ops. The Indians’ supply bases are right over the horizon.
We’re dangling on a limb out here, Fitzgerald. And the Indians are going to whack it off.”
“Hell, I thought that dangling was what we’re here for, Admiral.” He laughed, trying to make it sound like a joke. “We’re what the President calls for when he needs to reach out and touch someone.”
Vaughn’s mouth quirked in what might have been a smile. “Well, we’d better hope the President decides in favor of talking instead of touching. You know damn well we can’t match the Indians plane for plane.
Count their planes ashore and they outnumber us ten to one at least.”
“No,” Fitzgerald agreed, serious now. Vaughn’s mood was gnawing at him, and he didn’t know how to reply. “No, we can’t match their planes. But we can match their pilots. I’m willing to bet we could match them ten for one in that department any day!”
“Maybe.” Vaughn sighed. “But it’s not the men who count. Not anymore.”
The words chilled Fitzgerald. He glanced at the enlisted watch-stander who was still standing a few feet away, face expressionless and his eyes fixed on the horizon forward. “How can you say that, sir?”
“God. You heard how the fight went last night. Out of control … Most of that battle was fought by computers, Captain. Do you understand that?”
“I think so, sir. But men were directing the battle, controlling the computers.”
“No, Captain. Things happen too fast for humans to manage a modern battle. All humans can do is screw things up. Remember the Stark? And the Vincennes?”
“Of course.” Stark was the Perry-class frigate that had been hit by an Iraqi Exocet in ‘87 because her combat crew had failed to take certain defensive preparations at the time. Vincennes was the Aegis cruiser that had misidentified an Indian airliner and shot it down by mistake.
“But I think we learned some things from those episodes.”
“What’s to learn? That your ship can be under attack before you even realize it. That any human decisions are going to be made too late to help when you only have seconds to react. No, Captain. If we fight, we’re going to find that it’s our mistakes that shape the battle more than our decisions. And we … we’re at a disadvantage.”
“How is that, sir?”
“Because we have the more complicated electronics, the faster computers, the more sophisticated gadgetry. That’s more stuff to break down. And because we have to haul those … what’d you say? Beans, bullets, and black oil halfway around the world, while the Indians have everything they need right here.” He shook his head. “Damn it. Washington expects the impossible. The impossible …”
The sun slipped beneath the horizon at that moment, the fire fading from the sky. The admiral drained the coffee mug and set it on a console.
“Good night, Captain.”
Fitzgerald watched him go with black misgivings.
2135 hours, 24 March
Crew’s Lounge, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson
Seaman David Howard sat at the round table with three friends, accepting the face-down cards as RD/2 Benedict dealt them out. Once he glanced up at the paneled bulkheads and their neatly framed prints of various scenes out of the Navy’s history and repressed a slight shudder. He remembered sitting in this same lounge two months earlier, with three other friends who now were all dead.
“Whatsa matter, Tiger?” the second-class radarman asked. “Lose something’?”
“Nah.” Howard scooped up the cards and fanned them. “Just thinking.”
Tiger. He still wasn’t used to the handle they’d dropped on him. Short in stature, still three weeks shy of his nineteenth birthday, he didn’t look much like a hero. His part during the Bangkok affair had won him a Silver Star; he still couldn’t remember much of what had happened, still didn’t feel heroic.
In fact, he didn’t feel any different now than he had then. Perhaps the only real change beyond his raise in rank and pay was the new nickname.
He liked “Tiger” a lot better than “Howie.”
“Ah, leave the thinking to the fuckin’ brass,” Air Traffic Controlman Third Francis Gilkey said. “Gimme two.”
“Make it three,” YN/3 Reid said. “Thinking too much don’t pay. Not on this boat.” Unlike Howard, Benedict, and Gilkey, all of whom were assigned to Air Ops as part of Jefferson’s OC Division, Reid served on the CAG staff and, therefore, was technically part of CVW-20 rather than the ship’s crew. As such, the third-class yeoman referred to the carrier as “boat” rather than “ship,” to the good-natured derision of the others.
“That’s ‘ship,” airhead,” Benedict said. He chewed a moment on his cigar. “Whatcha want, Tiger?”
“One.” Howard glanced at Reid. “What about this ship?”
“I got a friend.”
“Yeah.” Gilkey chuckled. “It’s called your right hand.”
“Up yours. He’s a quartermaster third. Had the duty up on the bridge tonight.”
“Yeah? They let him drive? Shit. What a crappy hand. Gimme three.”
“Raise you ten.” Benedict studied his cards. “So what’s the gouge?”
“Gouge” was Navyese for straight information, shipboard sc
uttlebutt that carried the ring of authenticity.
“Ah, he was standin’ by when Admiral Gone let slip what he really thinks of us.”
Gilkey laughed. “Going, going, gone.” The rhyming play on Vaughn’s name was a popular one with the enlisted men aboard. “So? What’d he say?”
“Only that we don’t count for shit. Raise you a quarter.”
“See you and another two bits too. Shit. That’s officers for YOU.”
“In.”
“All officers aren’t bad,” Howard said. “See you and raise you four bits.”
“Hey, the hero’s gettin’ serious.”
“Heavy bettin’, yeah. Just remember, Tiger. Officers don’t care a rat’s ass about you or anybody else with thirteen buttons on their blues.”
“What about Commander Magruder?”
“Who?” Benedict squinted over his cigar. “Oh, the other hero. Our ace of aces. What about him?”
“He seems like a good guy.”
“Yeah, an’ you notice he got canned,” Reid said. “Scuttlebutt is he shot before he got permission. Bad move for the upwardly mobile career-minded, y’know?”
“The good ‘uns always get the short end.” Gilkey sighed. “Crap. What kind of fuckin’ cards you handin’ out over there, Ben?”
“My own special brand. So what do the airedales say, Reid? We gonna fight the Indians or not?”
“Shit, I’m not mad at anybody,” Gilkey said. “Aw, fuck. I’m out.
Anyhow, what the Indies ever do to me?”
“Shot at us, is what,” Reid replied. “Raise you a quarter, Ben. Word is, they’re gonna hit us again. Soon.”
“Ah, bull crap,” Howard said. He’d become more adept during the past months at separating fact from fancy during interminable enlisted discussions that ranged from sex to Navy life to liberty ports to sex again. “No one knows that. Not even the officers. Raise a quarter.”
“What I heard was the Russkies have it all planned.” Gilkey leaned forward, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “They’ve been working undercover-like, to get close to us. Then … bam!”
“Shit,” Benedict said. “What for?”
“I hear they’d like a close look at one of our Aegis ships,” Reid said.
“And there’s ol’ Vicksburg, just sittin’ over there.”
Howard shook his head. “You guys are full of shit. They might like a good look at how she works in action, sure, but it’s the Indies who are out to get us, not the Russkies!”
“Aw, just jerkin’ your chain, kid. Call it. What you got?”
“Two pair,” Benedict said. “A pair of queens … and another pair of queens.”
“Son of a bitch.” Reid dropped the cards. “Fuckin’ conspiracy, man.”
“Nah.” Benedict raked in the change. “Just teachin’ Tiger there how to make his way in the world. Watcha say. Again?”
“Do it.” Reid started shuffling. “My deal this time. Maybe it should be my cards.”
“All I can say is that this deployment is royally fucked,” Gilkey observed. “I don’t think one gold stripe on this ship knows what the hell he’s doing.”
“Too long at sea,” Benedict agreed. “You can feel it, man. Every guy aboard is stretched out like a piano wire.”
“Shit,” Howard said as Reid began thumbing cards off the deck. “So what do you care? We don’t count, remember?”
Gilkey’s observation about the ship’s officers, though, was unnerving.
Despite the company of the others, it left Howard feeling very much alone.
CHAPTER 13
1500 hours EST, 25 March (0130 hours, 26 March, India time)
White House Press Room
Admiral Magruder stood backstage with a number of other presidential aides and advisors, as well as the ever-present Secret Service men with their wire microphones and searching, emotionless expressions. From the off-stage wings behind the curtains, he listened and watched as the President conducted his press conference. He’d already delivered his speech, announcing to the world the Indian attack on U.S. Navy ships, and now he was fielding questions from the reporters who packed the press room. Batteries of lights flooded the President and the banks of microphones on the stage lectern before him with their glare.
Steadicams, each bearing a different logo of a TV networks or news service, were trained on him, and there was a steady whirr and click in the background as camera shutters were triggered.
“Mr. President,” a reporter from ABC was asking. “Does the attack on our ships mean war with India?”
“As I said before,” the President replied. “The United States of America will not tolerate any abridgement of our freedom of the seas, anywhere in the world. We will not tolerate attacks on our vessels or against our people. I think we amply demonstrated that resolve, that commitment in the military action against North Korea last year. It doesn’t matter who the aggressor is; an attack upon the military forces of the United States will be met by an appropriate response.
“Now, this certainly does not mean that a state of war exists between the United States and the Indian Federation. It also does not mean that we are unwilling to talk … in fact, we are more than willing to open negotiations that could lead to a clarification of this problem and, I might add, a reduction of tensions throughout the region over there. The United States is capable of defending its interests without resorting to outright war.” He pointed at an upraised hand. “Yes? Here in front?”
“Bob Rutherford, NBC. Mr. President, you said in your speech that a Russian naval force has joined our carrier group off the Indian coast.
Does this mean that Russia and the United States are considering unilateral military action against India, without waiting for the final UN Security Council vote? And if you are considering a military response, what form might that action take?”
The President gave his best self-deprecating smile. “Well, Bob, you know I can’t give you any specifics on a question like that. All I can say is that this Administration will not rule out any action at this time, and that includes a military response. The leadership of the Commonwealth of Independent States has gone on record as saying that they support our declaration of the rights of shipping in international waters. The UN vote supports that declaration, and both of our countries stand ready to enforce those rights in whatever way seems appropriate. Yes? Over there, the lady in blue. Yes?”
“Linda Bellows, Associated Press. Mr. President, what about Pakistan’s threat to use atomic weapons against India, and India’s declaration that they will meet nuclear weapons with nuclear weapons of their own? Is there any danger in our military forces becoming involved in a nuclear war in the Indian Ocean?”
“I’m glad you asked that question, Linda. It is our position, and, I might add, the position of every other nation engaged in the debate in the UN, that the use of nuclear weapons in this conflict is unthinkable and must be discouraged by every means at the world’s disposal. Now, I don’t think I need to add that a nuclear escalation at this stage of the game is extremely unlikely. While both India and Pakistan have a nuclear capability, being able to build a bomb and being able to assemble one small enough to deliver by plane or missile are two very different things.”
Magruder listened as the President continued to answer the questions. We will defend our rights, the world is with us, and the situation is under control: those were the three dominant themes running through each statement he made.
Abruptly, the President said, “Thank you very much,” and strode from the stage.
“Mr. President! Mr. President!” A chorus of calls followed him, as a forest of waving arms tried to signal for his attention. “Mr. President! What about …”
The President brushed past Magruder as he stepped off the stage, and the admiral heard his low-voiced mutter to an aide. “Thank God that’s over with.”
Magruder watched the man vanish around a corner with his entourage and smiled to himself. There
’d been considerable worry among the President’s advisors about how the press conference might go, but it seemed to have come off well. By now, the Washington correspondents of each of the networks would be recapping the speech before the camera, repeating the President’s message. We will defend our rights. The world is with us. The situation is under control.
He turned to follow the Presidential party. “Admiral!” a woman’s voice called from behind him. “Admiral Magruder!”
Magruder looked around, already choosing his words for a firm refusal to add anything to the President’s statements. He believed in a free press but was less than enthusiastic about the persistence with which that press sometimes pursued their duties.
Then his eyes widened. He knew the woman.
She was tall and attractive, with shoulder-length blond hair and dark eyes that seemed to mirror some inner worry. A portable tape recorder was clutched in one hand, and she wore her press badge and White House admission ID pinned to the lapel of a smartly tailored beige business suit. “Admiral Magruder? Do you remember me?”
“Certainly, Miss Drake,” he said, smiling. “It’s a small world, isn’t it?”
She flashed a smile, though her eyes still held a dark and haunted look.
Pamela Drake, a reporter for ACN News, had been a guest aboard the Jefferson two months before, while she was covering the political unrest in Thailand. Magruder’s nephew had become involved with her there.
Admiral Magruder had known Pamela was in Washington. He’d seen her often enough on the ACN Evening News. But Washington was a big city.
He’d not expected to run into her in person.
Matt had written once since Magruder had been transferred to Washington.
In the letter, he’d mentioned the possibility of marrying the woman.
Looking at her now, Magruder could certainly understand Matt’s feelings.
For a moment, Magruder thought that Pamela was following her reporter’s instincts and was about to ask him something relating to the press conference. The question she did ask caught him by surprise. “Admiral, have you heard anything from Matt? Do you know if he’s all right?”
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