Armageddon Mode

CHAPTER 19

“You sent for me, Mr. President.”

“Yes, Admiral. Come in.”

Admiral Magruder approached the enormous desk. He’d never seen the President looking this worn. The crisis of the past two days had drained the man.

As it had drained him, he admitted to himself. Magruder had not slept well — or long — these past few nights. He didn’t expect to sleep this night either, not with the latest reports coming out of the Arabian Sea.

“I thought you should know, Tom,” the President said. “The battle group is now under full attack.”

Magruder felt his stomach knot. Matt … “No hits, no casualties that we know of yet,” the President continued.

“But once the storm breaks, it’s going to be bad. I’ve … I’ve requested the presence of the Indian ambassador. He’ll be here in another fifteen minutes. Maybe we can still work something out … a disengagement, a cease-fire. But …” He left the rest unsaid, and Magruder nodded his understanding. If Indian warplanes were already airborne, the chances of recalling them were slight.

The President leaned forward, his hands clasped on his desk. “Matt, this is the crunch. The reason I brought you here. I need your help.”

Magruder couldn’t tell if the President was referring to his summons to the office now, or the whole purpose of his transfer from the Pentagon.

Perhaps he meant both. “I’ll help anyway I can, Mr. President.”

“We still have one chance, you know.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Disengage. Break off and run for it.” The President held up one hand as Magruder’s face showed his surprise. “No, don’t say it, Tom. Wait until I’m through. The whole question is whether our claim to those waters ten thousand miles from this desk is worth the lives of several thousand of our boys.”

Magruder tried to smile, and failed. “Mr. President, it’s a little late to reconsider now, isn’t it?”

“Admiral, the man who sits at this desk thinks of carrier battle groups as a tool. A way to reach out and influence other parts of the world, other leaders. Okay, threaten, if you prefer. But in international politics, a threat is generally a lot more effective than a plea. It’s the way the damned system works.”

“Granted. You used us a time or two, remember? At Wonsan? In Thailand?”

“That’s why I called you, Tom. Your battle group is really up against it this time. When I sent you into Korea, we both knew you’d be outnumbered, but it was a quick, sharp action. Get the Marines in, get our people, get them out. And the Koreans didn’t have much to threaten your ships with beyond some outdated strike aircraft armed with free-fall bombs.”

“Those were dangerous enough, sir.”

“It was also a controlled response. If the North Koreans pushed too hard, well, we still had the U.S. air units stationed in South Korea and in Japan. We could keep things at a relatively low level, without escalating.”

It certainly hadn’t seemed that way at the time, Magruder remembered.

They’d been worried about the Soviets, worried about Korean reinforcements. And at the end, the Korcoms had launched a desperate attack on the invasion fleet with a number of low-level bombers.

Sometimes, he thought, politicians could have remarkably selective memories. “Yes, sir.”

“This time, it’s totally different. Jefferson and the other ships with her, they’re all we have in the region. All. And the Indians have just called our bluff. My bluff.”

“Nimitz and the Ike will be in the region within another few days.”

“By which time it will all be over. No, I’m beginning to wonder if our best bet might not be to pull back. I feel sure that if I told Ambassador Nadkarni that we were disengaging, breaking off and heading back for Diego Garcia, well … I doubt that New Delhi wants to be perceived as aggressors. It’d be in their best interests to turn back and let us sail away, a bloodless, diplomatic victory.”

“Not quite bloodless, Mr. President,” Magruder reminded him. “There’s the crew of that Indian sub that went down a couple of days ago.”

“True. But if an Indian air strike hits our ships, that will be just the beginning. Maybe now is the time to stop the killing.” The President rose suddenly from his chair. He turned and faced the tinted window, looking out past the Rose Garden toward the up-thrust spike of the Washington Monument. “The point is, I could stop it. Now.”

“But at what cost, Mr. President?”

He chuckled. “It would be political suicide, that’s for damn sure.” The President reached up and pressed his hands over his eyes. “After Grenada … Panama … the Persian Gulf … Wonsan? If I back down in front of the world and some nut starts tossing nukes over there … But I think I’m beyond caring about that anymore.”

“I wasn’t talking about the next election, sir. I think you know that.”

Magruder considered for a moment. “What’s happening with the Russians right now? The ones at Turban Station.”

“Some of their officers are aboard our Aegis cruiser now. There … there’s no word from the Russian carrier. Kremlin is southwest of the Jefferson, farther from the Indian mainland and not in the direct line of fire. I’ve been talking with the Commonwealth representative today.

Reading between the lines, I’d guess they’re still trying to guess which way to jump on this one.” He returned to his chair and slumped back into it.

“What do you think they’d do if we packed up and left? If we left the Indian Ocean to the Indians?”

“Lovely thought. My other military advisors don’t think they could handle the Indians alone. The Kremlin isn’t in the Jefferson’s league.”

“My guess, sir, is that they’d follow through with what they’re there to do. Continue the mission.”

“Which is …?”

“Two-fold, Mr. President. Extend Commonwealth power into the Indian Ocean, if for no better reason than to convince the world that they are still a world power. And, maybe more important, to try somehow to stop a nuclear holocaust near their borders.”

“Holocaust. Such a heavy word. Such an evocative word.”

“That’s still our mission, isn’t it, sir? To stop that holocaust?”

“Doesn’t make much sense if we don’t have a prayer of pulling it off in the first place, does it? I’m running the risk of plunging the United States of America into that same holocaust … beginning with nine thousand boys in CBG14.”

“There’s another reason we’re there, Mr. President.”

“What’s that?”

“Freedom of the seas. Our commitment to our allies in the region, to open sea lanes and right of free passage.”

“I wonder how valuable that really is.”

“It’s principle, Mr. President. How important is a principle? Like freedom?” He took a deep breath. “You know, sir, the Navy has faced this same sort of thing before. The Gulf of Sidra, 1986.”

“That was hardly the same as this.”

“I don’t see how it was that much different, Mr. President. Qaddafi decided the Gulf of Sidra was exclusively his, and he set out to prove it at the point of a gun … or at the point of some Su-27s and Nanuchka corvettes, if you prefer. The Navy challenged him on that, at the orders of one of your predecessors.

“The point was, it’s foolish to lay claim to waters that you can’t control. There was never any question that we could smash the Libyans.

They gave us the provocation by threatening our ships and aircraft. We responded. The Gulf of Sidra is considered to be international waters, case closed.”

The President gave a grim smile. “This is different. We could lose!”

“Could be. We could take the history lesson back farther if you like.

The Mayaguez. World War I and unrestricted U-boat attacks. The War of 1812. The Barbary Wars when Moorish pirates captured our ships and people and held them for ransom.”

“We won those too.”

“Yeah, but they weren’t foregone conclusions at the time. Hell, the odds against us in 1812 weren’t that much better than we’re facing now, and in the case of the Mayaguez, we lost more Marines killed than the number of merchant seamen we rescued. In each case, the only thing that pulled us through was the willpower to finish what we’d set out to do … or what others forced on us in the first place.”

“This thing goes beyond principle, Admiral. Or finishing what we started. A lot of reputations in this town are riding on the big carriers. You know that, don’t you?” When Magruder nodded cautiously, the President went on. “Critics of the nuclear carriers have been saying for years that a single missile could sink one, that they’re big, slow, vulnerable … and expensive. Can you imagine the uproar if Jefferson is sunk or disabled by an Indian attack?”

“And is that why you’d have them pull out, Mr. President?”

The President sighed. “No. Once, maybe. Not any longer.” He appeared to be studying his hands, clasped before him on the desktop blotter, very carefully. “Things could have gone very wrong for us at Wonsan. Or at Bangkok too, for that matter. We could have lost ships there. We did lose men.”

“Maybe the question is whether the men die for nothing. Or if it means something.”

The President looked up at Magruder. “I should hire you to do my speeches. You have my speech writer beat all hollow.”

“I only get passionate when I’m telling the truth, Mr. President. All I know, sir, is that if those big carriers of yours are to have any credibility in the future, you have to use them. Seems to me if you don’t, you risk losing the whole damn fleet, simply because they’re no longer a threat.”

Magruder paused and swallowed hard. He was thinking of Matt. What he was saying now was going to have a very direct bearing on Matt’s future, maybe even on whether he lived or died, and the knowledge was a searing pain in his breast. The irrepressible Tombstone would be in the forefront of the fight, no matter what. Winner of the Navy Cross at Wonsan, of the Raniathepbodi — the Thai equivalent of the Medal of Honor — at Bangkok, the hero … But he had to say what he believed.

“Mr. President, you know as well as I do how important the credibility of our fleet is in the world. You also know as well as I do how much we lose when the world sees us sacrifice principle for … for convenience.

If the Indians attack, we fight. We have to. And if there’s any way on God’s Earth to get in there and separate those two before they start throwing their nuclear toys at each other, well … I think we should.

We have to.”

The President studied Magruder for a moment that dragged on and on. Then he nodded. “I know, Tom. And I agree.”

“Testing me, Mr. President?”

“No, Tom. Testing myself.” He reached out and pressed a button on his desk. A Secret Service man appeared in the door seconds later. “Yes, Mr. President?”

“Ed, would you take the Admiral down to the Situation Room? Log him through on my say-so.”

“Yes, Mr. President.” Magruder looked at the President, who grinned.

“Go on down. I’ll see you there after my meeting with His Excellency, Mr. Nadkarni, who’d better not be late. Then we’ll see how the battle goes.”

Magruder frowned. “Are you … managing the battle from there?” He remembered past attempts by Washington-based politicians and generals to manage fights halfway around the world. Carter had been in that same room while the helicopters were refueling at Desert One in Iran.

“Hell, no,” the President said. “I’m no tactician. That’s Vaughn’s job. But we’ll sure as hell be the first to know if he screws up.”

On the PLAT monitor, a pair of VF95 Tomcats squatted side by side on the forward catapults. Tombstone did a fast calculation. All six of the current CAP aircraft, including the Alert Five, were from Viper Squadron: Army Garrison and Batman Wayne, Nightmare Marinaro and Ramrod Kingsly, Shooter Rostenkowski and Coyote Grant. Only two more Vipers remained to be launched in the dance on the deck, Tomcat 220 piloted by Lieutenant Hardesty—”Trapper” to his squadron mates — and number 208, Lieutenant “Maverick” Bowman.

Trapper and Maverick were both replacement pilots, kids on their first blue-water deployment with a squadron. They’d flown in with Coyote on the COD aircraft, and Tombstone had not yet had an opportunity to get to know them well.

He grimaced. How many “Trappers” and “Mavericks” were there in the Navy? Or “Slicks” and “Ramrods” and “Shooters.” The men — the boys — came and went. The running names never seemed to change … or the grinning faces and cocksure attitudes.

He watched as red-shirted ordies completed their checks of each Tomcat’s weapons load, pulling the safing wires from the missiles’ fuzes, then holding them up so that the pilot could count the red tags affixed to the wires and verify that his ordnance was ready to arm and launch.

Unlike the BARCAP, which had been armed strictly for long-range interdiction, Trapper and Maverick were carrying standard interception warloads: a mix of four Phoenix, two Sparrow, and two Sidewinder missiles. The Tomcat had originally been designed as a stand-off interceptor, little more than a weapons platform for the Phoenix, but recognition that modern air combat demanded close-in weapons for down-and-dirty dogfighting had quickly led to the adoption of mixed loads.

They would need that range of distance and adaptability when the Indian horde closed with them. There simply were not enough Phoenix AIM54-Cs for every Indian target … or enough planes to launch them. Unless the Indians got cold feet and backed off at the last moment, this was going to be one nasty, toe-to-toe fight.

The JBDS rose ponderously from the deck, and the Cat Officer stepped back from the Tomcats, vigorously cycling his hands above his head. The F14’s tailpipes glowed orange as their afterburners engaged.

Safe behind the shelter of the raised jet-blast deflectors, the Tomcats of VF97, the War Eagles, were lining up to take their place at the catapults. First in line, he saw, was number 101, Lieutenant Commander Chuck Connelly’s bird. “Slick” Connelly had been given the vacant squadron CO slot after the death of the War Eagles’ previous skipper in Thailand. Tombstone heard Costello mutter something under his breath.

“What was that, Hitman?”

“Just wishing the skipper luck,” Costello replied. “Damn, I wish I was going with them.”

Tombstone knew the young, black-haired j.g. wasn’t in hack the way he was. Someone had to draw CATCC duty, and today it was Costello’s turn.

But Tombstone could sense the kid’s eagerness, his impatience.

“So do I, Hitman,” he said. “So do I.”

Tahliani was in position. With his eyes on the radar returns indicating both the American Tomcat and the more distant U.S. carrier, he moved the targeting pipper on the screen, locked on, then pressed the launch button. With a whoosh of smoke and flame, one of the two bulky, black-and-red-painted missiles dropped from the Sea Harrier’s underwing ordnance pad and ignited.

The Sea Eagle was a product of British Aerospace. Four meters long, four tenths of a meter thick, it had a range of well over a hundred kilometers. Far superior in every way to the small French Exocet, it had a 227-kilogram warhead that was believed capable of disabling even the largest warship.

But Tahliani was less interested in the Sea Eagle’s target than he was in that target’s guardian. As the missile dropped to its programmed flight altitude and reached its cruising speed of Mach.85, the Indian pilot could see in the movements of his opponents the consternation the launch had caused.

Sensing the right moment, he pulled back on his throttles, letting the missile skim ahead.

“Victor Tango One-one, this is Viper Two-oh-one! We have a launch, repeat, launch. Probably ASM, bearing one-seven-one, range thirty miles.”

“Copy, Army Dixie. We are tracking.”

“Victor Tango, Viper Two-oh-one is engaging.”

Batman had managed to knock down a ship-killer earlier using guns alone.

Perhaps Army could do the same. As Dixie fed him speed and course updates from the backseat, he became convinced that the missile he was tracking was not another Exocet. This one was larger and slower … possibly a Brit-made Sea Eagle.

That fit with the notion that the air targets to the south and southeast were Sea Harriers off the Indian carrier. Well, there’d be time enough later to take them on.

First things first. His course and speed were all wrong for a guns-only approach on the ship-killer. Working for maximum economy of time, he swung the Tomcat into a broad turn to starboard, one that allowed the missile to cruise past at six hundred fifty miles per hour. He checked his course and position. Jefferson was fifty miles ahead … four and a half minutes at the missile’s present speed.

He cut back on the throttles and settled into the slot squarely behind the missile.

“Army!” Dixie called. “I’m getting a radar signature from our six.

Looks like Blue Fox multi-mode.”

That meant a Sea Harrier on their tail. “Range!”

“Twelve miles. Closing.”

No problem. A Sea Harrier could barely manage Mach 1, if that. There was lots of time. “Ah … Batman, this is Army,” he radioed. “Where are you?”

“Your two o’clock and high,” Batman replied. “Range five miles.”

“Batman, I’m after this missile, but I’ve got a problem closing on my six. Can you brush him off, over?”

“Roger, Army. The Batman’s on the way.”

Army searched the horizon ahead for the enemy’s missile. The range was down to two miles now. He’d have to be a bit closer before he could spot it with the naked eye. For now, the radar-directed target box drifted from side to side on his HUD, marking an empty patch of blue just below the horizon.

Gently, he eased his throttle forward, straining to catch up.

Lieutenant Commander Tahliani watched the small, drifting box on his HUD that marked the position of the enemy plane. Another computer-generated graphic marked the second American plane, now approaching nearly head-on from the northwest.

He continued to concentrate on the first target, pushing his throttles full forward, picking up speed.

His plan had worked well, but now he had to take advantage of the setup he’d created. By launching the missile at the American carrier, he’d drawn the enemy F14 into a chase, forcing his opponent to slow and turn in order to position himself behind the speeding ship-killer. As long as the American stayed behind the slower missile, trying to line up his shot, Tahliani had a chance — a small and very brief chance — to get close enough for a Magic Kill.

Unfortunately, the second American Tomcat was vectoring in to cut him off. It was going to be close, either way.