Brink of War

17

As I saw it, there wasn't much choice. I'd been monitoring the problems with the sub on tactical and saw the carrier start its turn into the wind. The word came out that we'd stay in the marshal pattern while the fresh fighters and USW birds were launched. But I could tell from the seas that it was going to take some time to get into favorable winds, and the ice creeping out from the shoreline and down from the north was going to be a problem in sustained operations.

So there we were, flying fat, dumb and happy with a hefty fuel reserve ― what else were we supposed to do?

"Skeeter," I said over our private coordination circuit, you ready?"

Two clicks acknowledged my transmission. "Let's go, then. Combat spread, you take high." Another two clicks, and I saw Skeeter up above me peel out of marshal and head east. I was just a split second behind him.

Skeeter climbed and settled in at the correct altitude, taking his cues from me. I descended to seven thousand feet, with Skeeter maintaining the correct separation slightly behind me.

The submarine was tough to pick out at first. The sea up here was dark, oily black. Gator vectored me in on her LINK position. I finally found a streak of black in the whitecaps and blowing spray. "Got her," I announced.

"Me, too," Skeeter said. "Looks like her playmates are still submerged."

"I'm going down to take a look, maybe reassure her that we're in the area. Stay at this altitude unless I tell you otherwise." Two clicks again.

I descended in a tight spiral centered on the stricken sub. There were people in her sail, three of them that I could make out. No obvious signs of damage, no smoke. They stared up at me. I was at five hundred feet, low enough that they could make out my tail insignia. I wanted to make sure that they knew who we were.

The men in the sail were armed with shotguns. Even from this distance, they looked cold and miserable.

Then I saw why. Barely below the surface, only three hundred yards away, I could see an area of darker water. A feather trailed aft from a periscope poking up from the sea. As I watched, the Russian submarine's sleek sail broke the surface of the water, followed by the bow at a slight up angle and then the stern. An odd conical pod stuck up from the tail assembly.

The Victor, then. But where was the Akula? And just what did they have planned for our sub?

The Victor was edging in, her own sail now filling with people. Two of them were struggling with equipment. They propped it up on the edge of the sail, evidently into a slot built to accommodate it, then stepped back.

Machine guns. Probably fifty cal from the looks of them, or the Russians equivalent. Not much use against anything except a lightly armored craft.

Like a submarine.

Or a Tomcat.

The USW aircraft weren't going to be much use, not unless they had loaded a gun into the slot on the SH-60. I doubted that they had ― using the fifty cal required leaving the side door open, and the wind-chill factor in this climate would be deadly.

The Victor continued to close until she was barely one hundred feet away from the U.S. boat, a deadly close range for ungainly submarines surfaced in open sea. Then I saw the canisters dangling over the Russian sail. Self-inflating rafts, their mechanism activated by salt water.

The Victor's crew lowered one into the water. After a few seconds, it started expanding into a brilliant yellow rescue boat. It wasn't designed as an assault craft ― merely as a lifeboat ― and its rubberized hull couldn't withstand a blast from a shotgun. It would fill quickly and sink within a minute, consigning its crew to the frigid water.

Surely the U.S. sub skipper knew that. But he wouldn't ― he couldn't ― let the Victor's lifeboat approach.

Or would he?

He would. I saw the hesitation in his movements, the arm upraised to hold fire. Did he think that the Russians might simply want to talk to them? Could he possibly believe that after the cat-and-mouse game they'd played for the last week?

Or did he feel what I'd felt with Ilanovich, a kinship of fellow warriors that transcended national boundaries? Could he blast the lifeboat, knowing that that action would condemn men just like him to certain death? Would he hold on to any sliver of hope that there might be an innocent reason for their entirely insane deployment of the life rafts?

The life raft was pitching in the seas, sliding up the side of one swell sideways and coming down bow-first on the other side. Russian sailors were piling into it now, none of them obviously armed. There could have been sidearms, though, and I was certain that there were. Then they cast off from the Victor, and sailors manning paddles steadied the boat in the seas and headed for the U.S. sub.

"We've got company." For a moment, I had the illusion that the sub skipper was talking, then I realized it was Skeeter. "Four MiGs inbound, Tombstone. I think you better grab some altitude before they close on us."

"On my way." I slammed the throttles forward and nosed the Tomcat up into a steep climb. With MiGs inbound I wasn't going to be able to stay at sea level and baby-sit a sub skipper who was about to make a serious mistake.

Gator, Sheila, and the ship all started yelling at the same time.

Launch indications, this time for submarine-based antiship missiles.

Long-range ones, more than capable of reaching the carrier thrashing about in the icy water.

The Akula. Judging from the roiling water I saw ten miles to the north, she was the culprit.

"Tombstone." Batman's voice was deadly. "Get the hell out of there.

You're inside the missile engagement zone, clobbering the Aegis picture.

Get down to sea level, stay out of the way. There's not time for you to clear the area ― now move."

"Tombstone, we can't just-" Skeeter started.

"You heard the admiral," I snapped. "Now head for the deck." Unless we wanted to risk being the unintended recipient of a Standard missile, we needed to be well outside of her targeting area. "Gator, find out where the safe-passage corridor is and get me in it."

"Already on it," Gator said. "Turn right to heading three two zero.

We're two minutes out." "Skeeter know?" I asked even as I was standing the Tomcat on wingtip to comply, all the while descending as well.

"Better. Sheila does."

I pulled us up at barely one hundred feet above the sea, too close under almost any conditions except these. But cold air is thick, easy to fly in. It gave us a margin of safety that we wouldn't have had in warmer climates.

"They're coming after us," Gator warned. "Range, fifteen miles and closing. Descending through ten thousand feet now."

"Tomcat zero zero, maintain present altitude and heading," a new voice said. "It's going to be close, sir, and I need your cooperation. Keep your wingman on your right."

The Aegis then, asserting her rights over this wedge of airspace. I acknowledged the orders and hoped to hell they'd hurry. There's no more helpless feeling than being wings level at sea level with enemy fighters inbound.

The airspace around me felt clobbered with danger. The missiles inbound on the carrier, the MiGs, even my own cruiser launching missiles in my general direction. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be, not for a fighter pilot. It is if the fighter pilot doesn't obey orders.

Yeah, but the submarine ― we were the closest thing to a cavalry around.

You think maybe they know how to manage this war without your help?

No.

I quit second-guessing myself. There was a reason I'd peeled out of the marshal stack, a sound tactical one. If they'd been thinking onboard the carrier, they'd have sent me themselves.

The submarine. What was one fighter compared to that? "Skeeter, stay here," I ordered. "No matter what."

"I don't leave my lead, Admiral."

"Don't argue with me."

"You've got two choices, Tombstone. You talk to me, clue me in on what we're doing and give me a better chance to survive it all. Or you roll out on your own. Either way, you look to the right, you're going to see me. Like I said ― I don't leave my lead." Skeeter's voice made it clear that he had no intention of obeying any orders I gave him that involved leaving him behind.

"We've got to get back to the sub," I said, capitulating to the inevitable. "There's something going on there."

"Roger. The Aegis knows how to break a Mode IV IFF. She does her job, we do ours."

I hoped to hell it would work. I slid the throttles forward, increasing power more gently this time, buying myself time to think, and the Aegis time to react. I thought about explaining it to her, then decided against it. Like Skeeter said, the Aegis could break Mode IV and would be able to distinguish our radar paint from that of the Russians.

"Fire one," the Aegis TAO said. Four more missiles rippled off her rails in short order, the first aimed at the incoming cruise missile and the others at the MiGs.

"You have the missile?" I asked Gator, building the plan in my mind as we ascended.

"Yeah ― still behind us. Come right to zero one zero, altitude two thousand feet. That'll put us at a slight angle to it."

"OK, then." I'd just nosed through angels two thousand, headed upward. Two thousand was fine with me, since the MiGs ― and the Aegis missiles after them ― were still well above that. But for how long?

I edged back down slightly to maintain altitude, and started scanning the airspace around me, twisting around in my ejection seat and trying to get a visual on the missile. Gator was feeding the plan to Sheila at the same time.

"I got it," Skeeter announced. "Tallyho." "Take the shot if you get it," I said, still searching the sky where Gator said the missile was.

"Fox one," Skeeter announced, launching an AMRAAM at the missile.

Then again, "Fox one," as he fired a second AMRAAM.

Then I saw it, the AMRAAM's intended target. It would be massive up close, but from this distance was merely a small gash of white against the sky.

"Where to, lead?" Skeeter asked. "One of those two will get it."

His missiles were streaking across the sky, bright splashes of yellow fire gouting from their tails, much more visible from this angle than their intended target was.

"Stay on the missile," I ordered. "Make sure you've got it ― we can't take a chance. I'm going after the submarine."

Skeeter started to protest, but I ignored him. Too many lives were at stake to simply assume that the AMRAAMs would find their marks. I slid off to the right and turned back around to locate the submarine.

By the time I got there, the skipper had evidently realized how critical his situation was. Skimming the ocean at only three hundred feet above the deadly sea, I could see that he had a megaphone in his hands.

Both his crew and the lifeboat Russians looked up as my Tomcat screamed by overhead. One Russian lifted a three-foot tube to his shoulder.

Stingers. If he could sight in on me and get it off while I was within two miles, he was no less deadly for being low-tech. Each tube was a one-shot anti-air missile, and I couldn't tell whether they had more than one onboard the raft.

There was only one way to find out, and I wasn't going to wait on the submarine any longer. I pushed on past them maybe three miles, and orbited for a moment while I thought through the plan.

"You fly, I'll spot," Gator suggested.

"I'm trying to think of anything we could do to increase our chances against that Stinger. You saw it, I take it?" I said.

"I did." A sigh then. "There's no way through this except straight through it ― we both know that. You handle the evasive maneuvering, keep them from getting a lock. I'll watch and see what else they're pulling.

You're going in with guns, right?" "The only weapon I've got for this," I said.

"The sooner we get it over with, the sooner we're back on the boat."

I turned back in on the sub and life raft. A puff of black smoke wafted out of the sail. The life raft was now only thirty yards from the sub, fighting the swells and the weather.

"Here we go." I dropped down to barely one hundred feet above the waves and started a series of hard zigzags that I hoped would defeat their targeting solutions. My finger rested on the weapons control switch for a moment, then I selected Guns.

I fired a short test burst ― the life raft was far too close to the sub for my liking and I wanted to make sure of the line of fire. The rounds, every tenth one a tracer, bit into the ocean, stitching a ragged line ahead of me.

"Get the hell up! Altitude, altitude," Gator shouted. "Tombstone, MiG inbound!"

I wrenched the Tomcat around to the left and shoved the throttles forward into afterburner. The sky streaked by my windshield, dull and foreboding. "Where is he?" I asked, scanning the sky around me. No contrails, no glint of sun on metal gave away his position.

"Three o'clock, high." I looked in the direction Gator indicated and found him. He was maybe at ten thousand feet, descending rapidly, nose onto us. I turned into him, still in afterburner, then glanced down at my fuel status. This engagement was going to have to be short and deadly.

"He's got a lock, he's got a lock," Gator chanted, his voice cutting through his ESM receiver beeping. "Break right, Tombstone!" I broke and heard the thump as canisters of chaff and flares spit out of our underbelly.

"Looking good," Gator said. "I think it's ― yes, it's going for it!"

I wasn't going to wait around for the fireball. With fuel getting critical and the MiG fast approaching to within knife-fighting range, there wasn't time. As soon as I got tone, I shot two Sparrows and headed back for the submarine. The Russians had managed to make another ten yards of progress toward the sub. Just as I was starting to descend on them, a shotgun blast boiled the water immediately in front of the raft. Then another, even closer this time as the submariner found his range.

"He's got us," Gator said. "The Stinger's ― hold on, he's going to shoot."

"Just inside minimums." I fired a quick burst from the gun.

Or tried to. An angry buzz came from the gun ― but no rounds.

Something jammed it, whether a misfeed or a faulty round or just the brutal weather I couldn't tell. It didn't matter ― trying to keep firing it would only run the risk of blowing off our own wing.

"Tombstone, we got to get out of here. Let the sub handle it," Gator warned. "You've got nothing that'll hit a surface target that size if you don't have guns."

"I've still got an aircraft." I shoved the throttles into afterburner. The force slammed me back into my seat. The speck of the lifeboat grew larger quickly until I could make out the individual expressions on the man's faces. The sub skipper stared up at us, his face cold and angry as he shouted orders to his crew. "Now!" Gator screamed.

I broke right so hard that my wingtip almost grazed the surface of the ocean. The water was so close it seemed to fill the cockpit. Fighting the temptation to pull up, I pulled the turn tighter until we seemed to pivot on one point. The life raft swung out of my view.

But not out of Gator's. He must have been contorted like a pretzel as he watched the action behind us. "Yes!"

I eased out of the turn, coming full circle to face the submarine alone in the ocean. The life raft was overturned nearby. One head bobbed briefly in the water, bracketed by flailing arms, then sank out of view.

The crew in the sail of the Victor scrambled back down into the safety of their submarine. They must have been standing by to dive, because within a minute the sub slipped back down beneath the surface.

"You fellows need some help out here?" a voice drawled over tactical.

"Jet wash ain't gonna help much after they dive."

Rabies Grill. I recognized the voice. "Sure, come on in now that we've got them running scared for you."

"Running's just fine. Makes them noisier than hell. Maybe these passengers I'm carrying can find them."

I pulled the Tomcat up, relieved to be farther from the ocean. "All yours, Rabies. What are you going to do about the U.S. boat?"

"Gonna tell him to stay surfaced. These here torpedoes are set on deep. They won't even look at anything above one hundred feet."

I was breathing easier now that we were climbing back through five thousand feet. Off to my right, two stubby-nosed S-3s were inbound.

Behind them, a couple of helos were scampering to catch up like kids running after an older brother.

"Funny thing," Rabies continued. "Almost flew through a nasty patch of smoke and metal back there a ways. Looks like you got you a MiG while you were trying to horn in on our business." "You got a union now?" I asked.

"You betcha."

I left the USW aircraft to finish off the Akula and the Victor. From what I heard over tactical, it didn't take them long before they had firing solutions on both boats. Seventy sailors on each submarine would be joining their lifeboat brothers in an icy grave before I reached the ship.

The ship. There'd be more music to face back onboard Jefferson.

Running on fumes only, we took a quick plug and chug from the tanker and headed back to Jefferson. I caught the three wire. I hoped it was an omen.

The moment I walked into Batman's office, I could see that it was coming. It was there in the set of his jaw, the hard, cold look in Batman's eyes. I debated pretending not to notice, then gave it up as a lost cause. You don't treat your old wingman like that, even when you're sporting two more stars on your collar than he is.

The ocean floor around us was littered with the remains of MiGs and MiG pilots. The remains of the Victor and Akula were mixed into the brew, and I hadn't even started to worry about the furor that that was going to cause back in the States.

But at least we'd won. And in the end, that's all that matters.

"It's got to stop, Tombstone." Batman fixed me with a hard glare.

"We shouldn't even have to have this conversation, you know." He stood up from his desk and walked around to confront me. "But it has to stop."

Gone were all traces of the smooth, politically astute pilot that I'd grown up with in the Navy. This was sheer, hard warrior. And a pissed-off one at that.

I turned away from him slightly, and walked across the room to sit down on his ugly couch. Not so long ago it had been mine, just as this whole carrier and air wing had been.

Short of the presidency, there was no more powerful position in the world, I thought.

"Well?" Batman's tone indicated he would not take my silence as an answer. He wanted victory, every last bloody shred of it.

I would give him part of it, as much as I could. But there were still things I couldn't tell him. "I assume you are talking about Lab Rat?"

Batman nodded. "You would never have tolerated this from someone else when you were in command of Jefferson. You know you wouldn't."

I nodded in agreement. "No, I wouldn't have. And I probably would have spoken to a senior admiral in exactly the same tones that you're using with me. Nor would I have been any more understanding than you're going to be when I tell you that there are some things I simply cannot discuss with you. So, for what it's worth, I'm sorry the plan had to be executed in this manner. You should have been in the loop ― if it had been my choice, you would have been."

Batman got very still. His face reflected a whole range of emotions, running from anger through suspicion and down to pity. "So that's the end of it. You're not going to tell me the rest of it." He appeared to consider that, then shook his head. "I don't buy it."

"I don't care what you buy, Admiral. That's the way it will have to be." I hated speaking to him that way, I found cold solace in the justification that not disclosing the rest of what had happened in Russia and Ukraine might keep the elite network of MIA informants in place.

Perhaps that would eventually ease the pain for other families, as it had eased it for me. There were facts that couldn't be disclosed, contacts that were put at risk if even their existence was admitted. If that were the price ― an angry friend who believed I no longer trusted him ― then it was one I would have to pay.

I stood up from the couch, now at least at peace in my own mind with what I had to do. "I am sorry. Sorrier than you'll ever know. And, for what it's worth, I wish it could have been otherwise." I turned and walked toward the hatch.

"Tombstone?" Batman called after me. There was an almost pleading quality to his voice as he said my name. "This isn't the end, is it?"

I turned back to him and considered him for a moment. "Of course not.

For some things, perhaps. But not for anything that needs to still be alive. Those things that are ended are those that need to be ended."

"It's about your father, isn't it?"

I kept silent. As was often the case, Batman had made one of those intuitive leaps that marked his brilliant way of conducting his affairs.

"Well, then." Compassion, sympathy, and something much, much deeper.

He was not happy, but he had found a way to live with what I'd told him must be. And for that, I was grateful.

"Where are you going?" Batman asked.

I shrugged. "Right now, I'm going up to the flight deck. Get a little taste of Tomcat fever for a few minutes. In the long run ― well, who knows. There will always be wars, and for the foreseeable future, there will always be a need for carriers. So wherever the Navy needs me, that's where I'll be."

Batman walked over to the hatch to stand next to me. He clamped one hand down on my shoulder and dug his fingers in. "Want company?"