Arctic Fire

CHAPTER 9

“A fucking invasion,” Bird Dog breathed. “Oh, deep holy shit, Gator.”

“Don’t get happy with the weapons yet,” Gator said tightly. “Mother’s having a fit on the other end. A MiG they know what to do with. Same thing with a Bear. But an amphibious landing — or an airborne one — is a little outside of our marching orders. The admiral’s on the circuit, yelling that if we so much as twitch wrong we could start an international incident.”

“Like the Russians haven’t?” Bird Dog asked. “Putting paratroopers on American soil seems to be a hell of an unneighborly thing to do. Not to mention shooting at our P3 aircraft.”

The Tomcat was circling at seven thousand feet, monitoring the progress of the paratroopers down to the ice. They blended quickly with the landscape, and were invisible after they landed to the aircraft above.

“Hell, I wish we had some Rockeyes,” Bird Dog said, referring to the ground munitions missile that carried a payload of tiny bomblets that exploded on the ground. They were the weapons of choice for use against enemy troops.

“You think you’re gonna get permission to drop bombs on U.S. soil?” Gator demanded. “Think, man, think! For once in your life, just consider the consequences.”

“We drop bombs on American soil at the range,” Bird Dog argued. “What, you want us to sit up here and watch these bastards invade?”

“And just who the hell are they, do you think?” Gator snapped. “What insignia did you see on that aircraft they jumped out of?”

“You know who they are.”

“When are you going to understand that your gut-level instinct isn’t enough, not in today’s world, Bird Dog. You’ve got no proof that that was a Russian aircraft — nothing at all. No transponder, no aircraft insignia, no Russian being spoken on International Air Distress — IAD. Just how do you think we’re going to look?”

“They shot at our aircraft. What more do you want?” Bird Dog exploded. “Am I the only one in this battle group that’s getting tired of every terrorist in the world taking a shot at American troops?”

Gator’s voice turned colder than Bird Dog had ever heard it before. “If you can’t get it through your thick skull that we follow orders first, then you’d best find some other way to make a living. This isn’t about barrel rolls and Immelmanns, you asshole. This is about a very nasty situation and a world the rest of the country thinks is at peace. Hold it-” he said suddenly. “Mother’s talking.”

Bird Dog leaned forward against his ejection harness, feeling the straps cut into his shoulders. The pain gave him the feeling that he was doing something, which he desperately needed right now. The sight of invaders tromping across American soil — American soil, even if it was ice and frost and rime — touched some fundamental core of his being. It was one thing to watch the Chinese invade the Spratlys, the Russians take on the Norwegians, or any one of a number of nations attack a neighbor, but this was different. Different for him, at least. Along with the cool iciness and pounding adrenaline he had come to expect in battle, he felt an outrage so strong as to border on rage. Invaders, tromping across American soil — the battle group had to do something.

“Get a trail on that transport,” Gator said finally. “High and behind, in position for a shot. But weapons tight right now — unless it’s in self-defense, you don’t even think about touching the weapons switch. You got that?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” Bird Dog snapped. He jerked the Tomcat back, standing her on her tail and screaming up to altitude. Over the ICS, he heard Gator gasp, and then the harsh grunt of the M1 maneuver. Bird Dog’s face twisted. Served his RIO right if he felt a little uncomfortable. Who the hell was he, anyway, taking an amphibious landing so casually? What did he think this was, the Spratlys?

“Cut this shit out,” Gator finally grunted.

“Cut what out, shipmate?” Bird Dog snapped. “You told me to gain altitude — I gained altitude. And if you and the rest of the pussies on that carrier had any balls, you’d let me do something about this.”

Batman stared at the tactical symbol on the large screen display, watching the hostile contact turn north and head away from the Aleutian chain. “That fighter jock is sure about this?” he asked. “Who’s in Two-oh-one, anyway?”

“Yes, Admiral, they sounded certain. It’s Gator and Bird Dog from VF95,” the TAO answered. He turned and gave the admiral a questioning look as he heard a sharp snort behind him.

“Bird Dog,” Batman muttered. “I should’ve known. Anytime something starts happening, that youngster’s in the middle of it. Damnedest luck.”

He looked up and saw Captain Craig’s face twitch. “You got something on your mind, COS?” Batman demanded.

“No, Admiral,” the chief of staff said quietly. “You’re right, that young pilot does seem to be in the middle of every tactical situation he’s been near since he’s been in the Navy.” COS stopped and carefully assessed the man standing before him. “I was just thinking about someone else, that’s all.”

Batman stared at him. “Why, you old fart. Are you saying-?”

The chief of staff nodded.

Batman stared at the COS for a second, then turned back to the screen. “Maybe I won’t court-martial his ass after all. TAO,” he said, raising his voice, “get those Alert-Five Tomcats in the air. And move four Hornets and four more Tomcats to Alert Five. I want asses and cockpits on the deck and metal in the air. Now.”

The TAO nodded, and picked up the white phone to call the CDC TAO. His counterpart twenty frames down the passageway would automatically add tankers and SAR support to his revised flight schedule.

Moments later, the full-throated growl of a Tomcat engine ramping up shook TFCC, which was located directly under the flight deck. Batman stared up at the overhead. “Damn, those bastards are getting faster every day.”

“How many of you are with me?” the old Inuit demanded. He gazed around at the circle of faces arrayed before him. To an outsider, the men would have seemed impassive, but he could read the subtle emotions as easily as he could distinguish between new-fallen snow and ice. He frowned. “There is a problem?”

One of the older men stirred. “This mission — we are not young men anymore,” he began. He glanced around the circle, saw heads nodding in support.

“Not all of us are old,” the elder argued.

“This is your war,” a younger man piped up. “What have these men ever done for us? Let them kill themselves out there on the ice, for all I care.”

“You forget your place,” the older man said softly. “You are here at our tolerance only — you have no say in these matters.”

“The old ways.” The young man looked disgusted. “What have they gotten us?”

“You forget who you are at a price,” the old man responded sharply. “If you have no honor, then you are nothing — do you understand, nothing. You would no longer exist to me.”

“All this talk about honor is a fine thing, but what have the mainlanders done to our people?”

“And you would rather live under the heels of these others? Have you not listened? Those men are Cossacks. Cossacks, I say.” He saw a stir of uncertainty ripple across the faces. “Don’t the stories mean anything to you?” he pressed.

An uneasy silence fell over the group. Men avoided each other’s eyes. The women, standing in the back of the room, murmured quietly among themselves. Finally, the eldest woman spoke up. “Stories are kept safe for a reason,” she said quietly. “The things I know — the things my mother taught me, and her mother before her, and on and on, are true. Above all, we must not let these invaders stay on our soil.” Around her, the women moved closer in support.

The elder whirled on the circle of men. “Even the women remember,” he said, disgusted. “And who would know better than they? Murder, rape, killing as the whim seizes them — this is what the Cossacks would bring to us.” He made a motion as if to spit on the floor. “And you complain about the mainlanders? Pah! You know nothing.”

Finally, one elder spoke into the silence. “Better mainlanders than Cossacks,” he said, his conviction growing as he spoke. “Though it last happened centuries ago, that people has not changed. I would rather live with sickness and disease than under the Cossack hand. We should go.”

The mood shifted in the room, as one by one the men nodded assent. The women looked even graver than they, knowing that many of them would be widowed or would lose a son in the weeks to come.

“It is done, then.” He turned to a younger man. “Your army experience — it will come in handy now. Begin assembling all the weapons that we have here, including all of the portable communications systems. Hand-held radios, GPS — all here as soon as you can.”

The younger man looked grim. “Be all that you can be,” he said finally. A tight smile crossed his face.

“How many men?” Admiral Wayne asked again.

The young SEAL petty officer looked haggard and drawn. “At least thirty, maybe more. Maybe forty, I don’t know for sure,” he said. His fatigue was evident in his voice.

“Could you see whether your teammates were shot?” Lab Rat asked. He stared at the man before him, wondering at the combination of strength, training, and sheer courage that had brought the SEALs back alive.

“I don’t know. We were too far away. I heard gunfire — a Kalishnikov, I’m certain of it. One burst from an M16, that’s all. I thought I saw a SEAL on the ground, but I couldn’t be sure.”

Batman turned to Lab Rat. “I suggest you start talking to the other SEALS, Commander,” he said. “We’re going to have to get them out.”

“Let me go, sir,” the SEAL they were interrogating said suddenly. A look of desperation crossed his face. “We don’t leave our men behind — never.”

Batman regarded him carefully. “This mission isn’t going in the next five minutes, son,” he said quietly. “You let the commander finish up with you, then you hit the rack for a good solid twelve hours. After that, we’ll see what you and your shipmates look like. If you’re up to it, there’ll be a spot on the mission for you.”

The younger man looked relieved. “Thank you, sir,” he said.

“I think I’m done with him, Admiral,” Lab Rat said. He turned to the SEAL. “Hit the rack, sailor. If you need something to help you sleep, see Doc. But if you want to be part of this mission, you’d better be asleep in the next fifteen minutes.”

The young sailor left quickly, his eyes already half-lidded at the thought of sleep.

Lab Rat turned to the admiral. “This will be a bastard of a mission,” he said quietly. “The SEALs will want to do their own planning, of course.”

Batman nodded. “They always do. Anything they want — anything intelligencewise, or any other form of support, we get it for them.”

USS Coronado

“She’s on final, sir,” the TAO said. Tombstone studied the plat camera mounted in one corner of TFCC.

“Doesn’t look like she’s having problems to me,” he said shortly. “Airspeed good, hover is stable — no, I can’t see a damned thing wrong with that bird.” The helicopter gracefully settling onto the deck above him confirmed his suspicions. “Get them down here,” he snapped at the chief of staff. Then he turned to the lawyer behind him. “In my stateroom, Captain. You’ve got ten minutes to make me real smart on what my options are. Let’s start with treason and work our way down from there.”

The moment the weapon left his hands, something slammed into Sikes’s back. The force sent him flying through the air like a linebacker, and he landed facedown on the hard ice, the grooves and ridges in it scraping the protective gear away from his face and smashing one lens of his protective goggles.

For a moment, he thought he’d been shot. He felt a deep ache starting in his back, and he wondered which would kill him first — bleeding from the wound or hypothermia from lying on the ground. A few moments later, he realized that he’d been body-blocked rather than shot. The familiar oozing of blood was absent, although the ache below his left shoulder blade remained. He lay on the ground motionless, not daring to move.

A harsh voice barked out a short pause, evidently a command of some sort. Sikes turned his head slowly, aware now of the ache in his neck, to look at the man who had spoken. Something about the phrase — he tried to remember if he had ever run across it in his language schools. No, but it was tantalizingly close to something he did know.

The man barked out another sentence, and two of the paratroopers approached him from either side. One pointed the barrel of his Kalishnikov along Sikes’s head, while the other jerked his arms around him and bound his wrists with something rough, slipping it under his gloves and white parka. Even with that brief exposure to the frigid air, the skin on his wrists started to ache.

The man who’d bound his arms then yanked him to his feet, pulling the arms almost out of his shoulder sockets. Sikes repressed a groan. To show weakness this early — that couldn’t help.

A phalanx of men surrounded him, pressing close in. The urge to strike back, to lash out with his legs, was almost overpowering. He forced himself to stay calm and think. To attack any one of them now would be fatal. He might kill or seriously disable one, but the other multitudes would kill him. Quickly, he hoped, although he suspected that would not be the case after looking at their faces.

From the little he could see under the heavy-weather gear, the men bore a striking resemblance to each other, almost as though they were from the same family. High, bronzed cheekbones, narrow, almond-shaped eyes, and dark coarse hair peeking out from under their caps were the common denominators. They were alike in physique as well, broad in the shoulders, slightly shorter than the average American, and giving the impression of being heavily muscled.

Who the hell were these fellows? he wondered. He studied them again, trying to find any identifying mark, but each man wore the same solid white anonymous gear that he had on himself. A few differences in the manufacturing, perhaps. He saw metal zippers poking out along several pockets, a few ragged tears and rips that would have been immediately repaired in American forces, but evidently these men were not as careful with their gear. For what it was worth, that was a mistake. Above all things, SEALs are fanatical about their equipment. Too often their lives hang in the balance, depending on the reliability of a boat engine, the tensile strength of a nylon rope, or on the comprehensive and completely updated information on a routine chart. Had Sikes seen similar signs of wear on his own men’s gear, he would have had serious doubts about their qualifications to be a Navy SEAL.

He filed the fact away, along with the observation that there were no identifying marks of any kind on the clothing — not names, unit insignia, or even a country flag. Curious, but clearly indicative of the fact that these men were professionals. Wherever they came from, however they were trained, at least that much they had in common with the American forces.

A few of the men exchanged short phrases, but for the most part the group maintained tactical silence. Seeing that he did not understand, one motioned Sikes forward with his rifle, supplementing his instructions with another shove in the back. Sikes stumbled, then fell into a slow walk. A rifle butt prodded him in the ass, urging him to hurry. He feigned a stunned, disbelieving face, and stumbled slightly as he walked, hoping to convince them that he was in worse shape than he was. In reality, except for the now-fading ache under his shoulder blade, and the strength-sapping cold, he was in adequate shape.

The man who was in charge snapped out another set of orders, and three of the men traded a look universal to all military men — the look of disgust and disbelief when assigned some task they believe is below their capabilities. Without argument, they turned and walked back to SEAL 3’s body. The tallest of the three men handed his own pack over to a comrade, then slung the SEAL’s body over his shoulder. The ease with which he moved indicated massive upper body strength, a fact concealed by the heavy winter clothing. Another fact in the database, Sikes thought. He walked for fifteen minutes toward the base of the cliffs he’d seen from sea. Just when he was actually beginning to feel the chill he’d been feigning for those minutes, they all arrived at the base. Sikes studied the scree line at the base of the cliff, and then noticed the dark rectangle set into the base. He shook his head, wondering if he were in worse shape than he thought — that should have been the first thing that leaped out at him.

Sikes was hustled inside. After shoving him down to the far end of the room, one of the paratroopers kicked his feet out from under him. Sikes tried to twist in midair and land in a judo stance on his side, but he caught his shoulder wrong as he hit. He winced, showing no outward emotion.

He did not resist when two of the men came over and bound his feet with nylon rope.

The leader of the group walked over and studied him while he was lying on the ground. After a few moments, he motioned for a chair. One of the paratroopers provided it, then hauled Sikes to his feet and slammed him roughly into it.

“Kak vas zavoot?” the man said.

Russian. Memories of long hours spent at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, came flooding back to him. An elementary phrase, one he’d learned his first day there — What is your name?

Sikes shook his head and let a bewildered look settle on his face. Whatever language they spoke among themselves, they also spoke Russian. Knowing that, he might be able to puzzle out a few phrases in the other language, and it was best not to let his captors know that he had any knowledge of either language.

The leader snorted in disgust. He turned and shouted something almost incomprehensible to another man, who stopped what he was doing and quickly approached. Sikes thought he recognized some corruption of the Russian phrase “Come here,” but couldn’t be certain.

A hurried conversation ensued between the two. The second man nodded several times, asked two questions, and then turned to face Sikes.

“What is your name?” the second man enunciated carefully. The heavy Slavic accent rendered the words harsh and guttural.

“Sikes.” Better to give them no information unless they ask for it, he thought, glancing down at his foul-weather gear. Although there was not much chance of hiding what his true occupation was, given the nature and quality of his clothing. And the M-16—no point in even trying to pretend he was a civilian.

“You are SEAL?” the man asked.

Sikes shook his head in the negative. Under the Geneva Convention, he was required to provide only name, rank, service, and military I.D. number. While it might be obvious to both parties that he was a SEAL, the Code of Conduct required him to stick to just that information for as long as it was humanly possible. Under extreme torture — well, that was another matter entirely. Experience during Vietnam had taught the United States Navy that even the finest officer held his or her limits, a point beyond which the body overrode the mind’s convictions in a form of self-preservation instinct. After reading the memoirs of many POWs, Sikes knew that the point came earlier for some, later for others, but for every man, there was some such breaking point.

And of course they knew what a SEAL was, he thought. Just as he knew what Spetsnaz were, and the names of the special forces of twenty other nations he could name immediately. They all knew of each other, the small, secret bands of men — and, in some countries, women as well — that fought the unconventional war, taking conflict deep into the heart of enemy territory by skill and deception, laying the groundwork for the arrival of conventional troops and gathering intelligence critical to the success of every mission. American soil, a man dressed like he was — there were only two possibilities. Russian or American. And since they hadn’t even bothered to ask about the first, he had a sinking feeling he knew who they were.

The other man stepped forward and landed a solid punch on the left side of his face. The force knocked him out of the chair and sent him sprawling on the damp ice floor. He felt the skin scrape off the other side of his face, and his previously uninjured shoulder was now screaming in protest. As before, he lay motionless. The man walked up to him and kicked him solidly in the crotch.

While the layers of arctic clothing and padding must have cushioned the blow somewhat, Sikes could not believe the agony that coursed up his body, paralyzing his breathing and starting a gag reflex that threatened to turn into the real thing. The pain, oh, God, the pain. He tried to suppress a groan and couldn’t as his body curled into a fetal shape. His consciousness dimmed out at its edges, his eyesight losing color and going gray. While he was still lying on the deck gasping for breath, the man walked around to his other side and kicked him solidly in the kidney. Sikes felt tissue rupture, the incredible pain radiating down his other leg, and the nausea now forcing him to vomit. He tried desperately to hold on to consciousness and failed.

Rogov stared down at the man on the ground. A SEAL, no doubt about it. He recognized the look in the man’s eyes as easily as he saw it in his own troops. A field interrogation would be unlikely to yield anything of interest, he decided. No, not on this one.

“When is our next communication break with the submarine?” he asked.

The communications officer glanced at his watch. “Eighteen hours.”

“Very well. Make the necessary arrangements. We will transport him back to the boat for further interrogation. The drugs, the other techniques-” Rogov glanced around the ice cave. “A nice outpost, but it lacks certain essential equipment. You understand?”

His communications officer nodded. “If the weather holds, we should be able to transport him in twenty-four hours. That will give them time to come to communications depth, receive our message, and make preparations for receiving this.”

Rogov fixed him with a glare as cold as the weather outside. “Ensure that that happens. And as for the weather — after centuries of exile in Siberia, do you really think that we should worry about that?”

The communications officer nodded again.

Rogov turned and snapped out a command for his operations officer. A man detached himself from his comrades and walked over, still chewing on a high protein, calorie-rich field ration he had taken from his pack.

“You understand, this is an American SEAL?” Rogov asked.

“Of course, sir,” the operations officer said after swallowing the chewy mouthful. “Obvious from his gear, isn’t it?”

“And what else is so very obvious?” Rogov sneered.

The operations officer looked uncertain. “That when there is one, there are more,” he said tentatively. Seeing the expression on Rogov’s face, his voice took on a more confident note. “And the SEALs do not leave their comrades behind. Never.”

“Ah. Then you’ve already made preparations for an adequate defense of this entire area, have you not?”

“Indeed. But I will review them once again. It might be a wise idea to supplement certain positions.”

The operations officer glanced over at the crumpled body of the SEAL, tossed carelessly in a far corner of the ice cave. He pointed to it. “You know the other thing we have learned about SEALS. They do not leave their dead behind.”

Rogov sneered. “They have this time.” But the expression on the operations officer’s face made him add another phrase silently — for now.

Sweat streamed down Bird Dog’s face, stinging his eyes. He reached for the towel draped across the frame of the Stairmaster and glanced down at the LCD display. Fifty minutes elapsed, and two more steep hills coming up. Already his legs were burning, the lactic acid buildup turning them heavy and wooden. Still he pounded, increasing his stepping rate until he could no longer feel his feet.

“You can’t kill us in the air, so you’re trying to do it on land, is that it?” Gator gasped from the other machine.

“No pain, no gain,” Bird Dog grunted. He reached out and touched the level display, increasing the difficulty from seven to nine. Immediately, he felt the added resistance of the stairs as he struggled to force each one down. Those next two hills — he groaned, then made himself work for it.

“I quit.” Gator ground to a halt, then spent a few moments stepping gently on the machine to cool down. He picked up his towel and wiped his face off, then snapped it at Bird Dog. “And you would, too, if you had any sense.”

“Ten more minutes,” Bird Dog grunted.

Gator dismounted his machine and walked around to stand in front of Bird Dog. “Don’t you think this is about enough?” he asked quietly. “I know it’s frustrating, being up there and not being able to do anything, but pushing yourself to the point of exhaustion isn’t going to help any. Hell, you end up all stiff and muscle-bound tomorrow, you’re not going to be able to pull that turkey out of a tight turn if you want to.”

Bird Dog didn’t answer, keeping his eyes fixed on the numbers ticking off on the time clock. Finally, when the minutes display reached sixty, the machine started beeping at him. The queue of sailors waiting for the machine started protesting.

“Okay. That should do it,” Bird Dog said finally, stepping off the machine and grabbing his towel. “Maybe at least I can get some sleep tonight.”

“You’re not sleeping?” Gator shot him a worried look. “You okay, man?”

“Sure, I’m fine. Just needed to work off some energy, that’s all.”

But it wasn’t, and Gator knew it. Bird Dog knew that his RIO knew him better than anyone else on the ship. The communications between the two men was almost psychic. And Gator knew that the idea of foreign soldiers tromping over American soil was eating at his pilot like nothing he’d ever seen before.

If pressed, Bird Dog admitted, he wouldn’t have expected to have that strong a reaction. Sure, he’d taken numerous oaths since he’d joined the service, reciting gravely the words about protecting and defending the Constitution against all powers both foreign and domestic, swearing allegiance and obedience to his superiors. But in the last four years, even though he’d seen conflict over the Spratly Islands, he’d never really understood what a secret trust those words imposed on him. It bothered him, and it was even worse that no one else seemed as upset as he was. Hell, if he were the admiral, he would have nuked those sons of bitches to kingdom come by now rather than tolerate what amounted to an armed invasion on American soil. Even if it was just a rocky outcrop of ice and snow in the middle of the godforsaken North Pacific.

“A shower, maybe something to eat,” Gator said. He glanced at his pilot appraisingly. “Sound good?”

Bird Dog tried to smirk. “Are you asking me on a date, Gator?”

“In your wildest dreams, asshole,” the RIO said promptly. “Even if you had boobs, you wouldn’t be my type.”

Bird Dog contemplated a sharp rejoinder, then thought better of it. To be arguing with his RIO over whether or not he would have made a good date was the height of idiocy. Besides, there were other things on his mind at this point.

Gator saw his change of mood. “Oh, come on, lighten up,” he said, disgusted. “A hell of a lot of pilots go through a whole tour without seeing as much combat as we did over the Spratlys. You know that?”

Bird Dog shrugged. By now, they’d reached the corridor that housed the VF-95 pilots. Bird Dog paused at his door, his hand on the knob. He gazed at Gator for a moment, then said haltingly, “It just doesn’t make much sense to me sometimes. You know that?”

Gator nodded. “I know that better than anyone else on this boat, shipmate,” he said. “And I also know that there’s not a damned thing we can do about it right now. You stick around this canoe club for a while, you start to understand it. You don’t have to like it, but that’s the way it is.”

Bird Dog shoved his door open. “Ten minutes, I’ll meet you down in the Dirty Shirt,” he said by way of response.

Gator nodded. “The tactical scenario always improves on a full stomach, asshole,” he said lightly. He snapped the towel again, catching Bird Dog on the butt.

“Thank you, Commander,” Tombstone said gravely. “I’d like for you to remain while I talk to them.”

The lawyer nodded. He wondered how much the admiral had retained, since it felt like he’d dumped four years of law school and two years of postgraduate study into the man’s lap in the last ten minutes.

“COS, send them in,” Tombstone said.

The chief of staff walked over to the door to the conference room, opened it, and motioned to the four people seated around the large rectangular table. They filed into the admiral’s cabin, not speaking.

Tombstone did not ask them to sit. Instead, he glared at them from a seated position behind his desk, assessing each one carefully.

“Your licenses are gone,” he said finally, pointing at the pilot and the copilot of the helicopter. He turned his gaze on Pamela. “And if you had one, yours would be, too.”

Pamela took one step forward. “The icing wasn’t their fault, Admiral,” she said quietly, her voice betraying no quaver of nervousness. “I admit, I pressed them hard to fly in this weather, even though they said they’d rather not.” She shrugged. “Not a smart move, in retrospect. But there was certainly no attempt to-“

“Shut up,” Tombstone said levelly. He turned his back on her to face the JAG officer. “Read them their rights before we proceed.”

The lawyer stood and recited the Miranda warnings to the four people. By then, the pilot and copilot were starting to turn pale. Yet nothing appeared to affect Pamela Drake, ace correspondent from ACN, Tombstone thought bitterly.

“Do you understand these rights as I’ve explained them to you?” the lawyer concluded. All four nodded.

“I can’t hear you,” Tombstone said neutrally, pointing at the recording equipment. One by one, the four people said yes.

“And, having these rights in mind, do you desire to speak to an attorney,” the lawyer continued, “or do you wish to discuss this matter now?”

“As I was saying, Admiral,” Pamela began.

Tombstone cut her off again. “I didn’t ask for a narrative yet, Miss Drake,” he said coldly. “This is the way this matter will proceed — I will ask questions, you will answer them. At the conclusion, I will permit you a brief — and I mean very brief — period in which to add any amplifying material that you might wish to. And, for the record, I’m not interested in your conclusions at this point.”

Tombstone turned his gaze to the pilot. “There was no malfunction on your helicopter,” he said bluntly. “That is true, is it not?”

The pilot cleared his throat and glanced uneasily about the room as though trying to find the answer to the question. He looked at his copilot, who shrugged. Finally, the pilot settled for staring at the deck. “No, there wasn’t.”

“Are you aware that it is a federal felony to falsely utilize the seven-seven-seven-seven emergency squawk?” Tombstone demanded.

The pilot nodded.

“I can’t hear you,” Tombstone said again.

“Yes.”

“The next question will require a yes or no answer only. Did you falsely report an emergency condition in order to land on my ship, knowing that had you asked permission through normal channels I would’ve said no?”

“Yes, but I-“

“Thank you. That answers the question. Finally, did you take this action at the instigation of Miss Pamela Drake from ACN?”

The pilot, now thoroughly cowed, looked over at his former employer. Perhaps his last employer, he thought bitterly, trying to remember why in the world he’d ever been convinced this was a good idea. If he answered the admiral’s question, no news organization would ever hire him for a charter flight again. But if he didn’t, that would be the last time he was ever allowed landing rights or any other courtesy from any military installation. At this point, he wasn’t even sure that he would have a license. “Yes.” He continued staring at the deck, waiting for the explosion he was sure was coming.

“Admiral, I-“

“Miss Drake. One more outburst and I’ll have you gagged. If you do not understand the full extent of my power on board this ship, then I suggest you consult with an attorney before disobeying any more of my orders. Is that perfectly clear to you?” And why should it be now, my dear? he wondered bitterly. It never was before. In all our years together, you never understood how absolutely compelling my power is over every bit of this ship. If I wanted to have you locked up overnight and held incommunicado, I could do it. There’d be hell to pay eventually, but until someone outside of my world heard of it, you’d be in jail. He stared at her face and noted with grim satisfaction she was starting to understand.

Tombstone directed his gaze to the copilot. “Do you agree with the answers your pilot has given?” he demanded.

“Yes.” The copilot took less time to make up his mind.

Finally, Tombstone turned his gaze to Pamela. “And did you ask these men to commit this deed, knowing full well that I expressly said I did not want you on board this ship?”

“Me, in particular, or the news media in general?” Pamela snapped. “Honestly, Stoney, this has gone on long enough.”

“My name,” Tombstone said quietly, “is Admiral Magruder. Please bear that in mind from now on, Miss Drake. Do you desire to answer the question, or is it your wish to remain silent?”

“Of course, I hired them to fly me out here,” she stormed. “You can’t cut the news media off from an event like this. It’s not fair.”

“Fairness has little or nothing to do with conflict, Miss Drake.” Tombstone studied her carefully, watched the color rise in her cheeks. Pamela had never been particularly good at accepting no for an answer. Now it appeared that her insatiable desire to get the story at any cost had finally landed her in serious trouble. How serious, she would find out shortly. “I’ve spoken with our JAG attorney on board, and he advises me that you three have committed several serious felonies. As I said in the beginning, the least of the penalties will be the loss of your pilot’s license.” He smiled, a trace of bitterness at the corners of his mouth. “Not that that matters to you, Miss Drake. Even if you’d thought about the consequences to these two men before you decided on this course of action, I doubt it would have stopped you.”

“Damn Stoney — all right, Admiral Magruder, if you wish — you can’t do this,” she stormed. “I demand-“

“Gag her,” Tombstone said simply. He watched horror and shock chase each other around Pamela’s face as two master-at-arms stepped up to her side.