Carrier

CHAPTER 1

"Tango Seven-niner, this is Rodeo Leader. Say again your last."

Golden morning light exploded through the canopy of the F-14 Navy Tomcat, riding high above the overcast which blanketed the western arc of the Sea of Japan. Lieutenant Commander Matthew Magruder, "Tombstone" to his fellow officers of the Vipers, VF-95, wasn't entirely certain he'd heard the order right the first time.

"Rodeo, Tango Seven-niner," the radio repeated. "Come left to two-eight-seven and go to buster."

"Copy, Seven-niner," he replied. That was what he thought they'd said. Now what in the hell…? New heading two-eight-seven buster. "Coyote, you copy?"

"Copy, Boss." The voice of his wingman, Lieutenant Willie Grant, sounded a lot more carefree than Tombstone was feeling at the moment. "We're with you."

A glance to the right showed Coyote's F-14 off Tombstone's starboard wing, the early sun edging the aircraft's sleek gray hull with quicksilver. He could make out the masked and helmeted heads of Coyote and his backseat RIO easily. Tombstone's wingman looked across the gulf between the two aircraft and shook his head slowly back and forth in an exaggerated, rueful gesture.

"Tango Seven-niner, Rodeo," Tombstone said. "What the hell's going on?"

"Hang tight, Rodeo. Will advise. Please comply, two-eight-seven buster."

"Roger, Tango Seven-niner. Rodeo coming to two-eight-seven."

Tombstone brought his stick left, nudging the Tomcat onto the new heading, and pushed the throttles forward to full military power. He felt the familiar shudder, the drag of acceleration as the twin GE engines shoved the aircraft toward the sound barrier.

West, toward Wonsan. Why? The two Tomcats were on BARCAP ― Barrier Combat Air Patrol ― maintaining their station at angels thirty some three hundred miles in advance of their carrier group. Somewhere ahead, less than a hundred miles distant now, lay the coast of North Korea, an unseen, menacing presence. To the north, closer even than the U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson, lay the Soviet Naval base at Vladivostok. Flying west toward Wonsan, Tombstone felt like they were heading directly into a dragon's gaping jaws.

"Hey, Tombstone!" The voice of his Radar Intercept Officer, Lieutenant j.g. Dwight "Snowball" Newcombe, sounded a bit shaky over the intercom, but that could have been the effects of the mild buffet as the Tomcat trembled at the spear-point of its own vapor trail. "Tombstone, what's going' on, anyway?"

"Damned if I know, Snowball. They'll tell us when they want to, I guess."

The buffet increased until they passed Mach 1, and then the rise was silk smooth and silent, arrowing through an endless blue heaven above a ruffled cloud deck that boiled and churned beneath the Tomcat's keels. Twin aircraft shadows raced ahead of the F-14s, rippling across the uneven surface of the clouds.

"Rodeo Leader, Rodeo Leader, this is Tango Seven-niner."

"This is Rodeo Leader. Go ahead, Seven-niner."

"Be advised that we have airborne targets, bearing two-seven-seven your position, range one-zero-four."

"I got 'em, Tombstone!" Snowball called. Magruder heard the young RIO's breath rasping over his earphones, his breathing quickening. "Confirmed two-seven-seven! I make it… two targets. Looks like they're vectoring for us."

"Keep on them, Snowball." He opened the radio frequency. "We copy, Seven-niner. Have two bogies on scope. What's the gouge, over?"

"Rodeo, Seven-niner. Wait one."

He waited. The "gouge," Navyese for hot information, was obviously being withheld for the moment. The tension was palpable, a smothering closeness in the F-14's cockpit.

Tango Seven-niner was a Navy E-2C Hawkeye a hundred miles behind them, one of the five twin-engined radar planes of VAW-130 flown off the Jefferson to provide long-range radar surveillance for the CBG… and to provide up-to-the-minute tactical information for carrier group and fighters alike during combat.

Combat. Behind his oxygen mask, Tombstone's mouth went dry. Somewhere up ahead, just over that white sea horizon, an unfriendly someone was scrambling MiGs, and the two Tomcats were hurtling to meet them at better than Mach 1.5.

"Hey, Tombstone!" Coyote called. "Think they're sending us in to hassle the November Kilos?"

"More likely they're sending us in to hassle us," he replied. He hoped his voice sounded as confident over the air as Coyote's did. His heart was hammering in his chest, beneath the snug pressure of his harness. He shifted to intercom. "Talk to me, Snowball. What are our friends doing up there?"

"Still closing, Tombstone! Range niner-three. And we're picking up all sorts of radar crap from up ahead. Broad band. They're watching us…"

"Rodeo Leader, this is Homeplate. Rodeo, Homeplate. Do you read, over?"

"Read you, Homeplate." Here it comes, he thought. Homeplate was the call sign for the Jefferson. The voice, static-ragged, was Commander Marusko's. The Commander Air Group, better known as CAG, was overseeing the mission from the electronic arena of the Jef's Combat Information Center.

"Rodeo, we've got a problem. One of our ships has been reported under attack off the Korean coast. We've been directed to investigate."

"One of ours?" Tombstone wondered if they meant one of the ships of Jefferson's carrier battle group. None of the CBG's escorts was anywhere near the Korean coast, however, and that was sure as hell where they were headed now. "Which ship?"

"Rodeo, be advised ship in distress is U.s.s. Chimera, ARL 42, over."

Which made things even more confusing. ARL was the Navy designation for a small repair ship, probably a converted WW II landing ship held together by rust and good wishes. What the hell was an ARL doing alone off the coast of North Korea?

"Ah… copy, Homeplate. Understood." There was no use trying to get more information out of CIC, not when eaves-droppers might be listening in. The thought of eaves-dropping reminded Tombstone of another attack on a Navy ship in these waters, some twenty-five years earlier.

Could Chimera be a spook ship? It was possible. Spook ship or not, Washington wouldn't be happy at the thought of another Pueblo incident. The capture of an American spy ship by the North Koreans in 1968 was still widely viewed as a classic failure of American will.

"Tango Seven-niner will vector you on radar target at coordinates three-three-niner, zero-one-four. Be advised hostiles may be operating in area. Homeplate out."

Advised… right. Right now, the two Tomcats were flying into the dark, with no clear idea of what to expect. If Chimera was a spy ship, there was precious little F-14s could do about it, advised or not.

"Tombstone, Coyote. Sounds like we're getting' into deep spooky shit here."

"Could be, Coyote. Tell you what. Let's take 'em down on the deck. I'm starting to feel a bit chilly up here, aren't you?"

"Copy. Rodeo Leader, that's affirmative. After you."

The two Tomcats edged forward into a shallow dive, plunging into misty twilight. Clouds closed around the plastic canopies, shutting off the morning sun like a door. Moments later, they broke through the floor of the clouds and into the dim clear air between cold gray sea and leaden gray ceiling at thirty-five hundred feet. Magruder could see whitecaps on the water, a tatter-edged choppiness ruffling the smooth swell of the ocean. The two F-14s continued to descend until they were two hundred feet above the water, burning through the gray sky as they chased Mach 2. Tombstone felt a bit safer, knowing he'd just compounded the problems of any North Korean radar operators trying to sort his flight out from the clutter of wave caps and spume.

"Tombstone!" his RIO shouted into the intercom. "Two bogies just became four! They're havin' a party over there!"

"And we weren't invited. Maybe we'll get to crash their little party, Snowy."

"If you say so, Mr. Magruder."

Tombstone heard the tightness in his RIO's voice. Snowball Newcombe was a nugget, a rookie posted to the Tomcat's backseat in keeping with the Navy's policy of learning new men with experienced officers. That, Tombstone thought, made him the experienced officer, the old hand who knew what he was doing. At the moment he didn't feel experienced, though, just old.

Three hundred miles east of the two Tomcats, the U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson, CVN-74, newest of America's nuclear-powered carriers, plowed steadily through gray seas. Over one thousand feet long, with four and a half acres of flight deck and carrying some ninety aircraft, she and her sister Nimitz-class carriers were by far the most Powerful warships history had ever seen. The Jefferson and her five escorts comprised Carrier Battle Group 14, a Naval force wielding power unthinkable only forty years earlier.

Within Jefferson's bowels, on the 0–4 level starboard, was the red-lit dimness of her Combat Information Center. Commander Stephen Marusko leaned over a console and scowled at the demon-green eye of a radar screen displaying a real-time feed from Tango Seven-niner, the Hawkeye orbiting between the CBG and Rodeo, the carrier's far-flying scouts.

"We're getting' a ton of ground clutter here, Mr. Marusko," the first class radarman sitting before him said. "But the gomers must be scrambling everything they got."

Marusko nodded as he picked up a microphone. "Admiral? CAG, in CIC. Looks like it's breaking."

The reply was a voice of hard gravel. "You're ready to launch?"

"Four aircraft on Alert Five, Admiral. Call sign Backstop."

"Right. I'm on my way." The admiral sounded like he'd been rubbed raw.

Hardly surprising, Marusko thought. Admiral Magruder knew that his nephew was flying CAP.

More than once, Marusko had felt caught between the two Magruders: Matt, the young skipper of VF-95, and Rear Admiral Thomas J. Magruder, CO of CBG-14… the younger Magruder's uncle. Hangar deck scuttlebutt had it that Tombstone Magruder owed rank and career both to the influence of the CBG's admiral.

That was one opinion Marusko could not share, He'd seen young Magruder fly, had been the one to recommend him for the skipper's slot when VF-95's last boss had exchanged his squadron for a billet with United Airlines. A recent graduate of the Top Gun school in Miramar, Tombstone Magruder was without doubt one of the hottest aviators on board Jefferson, a guy who wouldn't need his uncle's political influence until he struck for admiral himself a few years down the way.

But there were times when Marusko wondered just how closely young Magruder's high-powered relative looked after his dead brother's son.

His scowl deepened with the thought. Korea was getting hot again. The police-action war of the early fifties had never ended, never for real. Both Koreas had been armed camps since the armistice, the south supplied by the United States, the north by the Soviet Union and, to a lesser extent, by the PRC.

A steel door at the end of the darkened compartment opened. "Admiral on deck," the watch announced, but the men bending over CIC's radar displays remained unmoving, their faces stage-lit by the green and amber smears on their screens.

Marusko indicated the screen he'd been watching. "They're trying to jam us, Admiral, but it looks like they've got at least ten in the air. Rodeo is sixty miles out and on the deck. They'll be over Chimera's last plot in two minutes."

Admiral Magruder gave a small sigh. "We'd better get Backstop airborne, CAG," he said slowly. "Our people are pretty naked out there."

"Aye, sir." Marusko reached for a telephone handset. The orders from Washington, relayed down the line through the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific, and the 7th Fleet, had directed the admiral to vector a combat air patrol over Chimera's last reported position. It was the admiral who'd elected to put the battle group on alert… and mount the Alert Five as backup.

Now he wanted the backup launched as added insurance.

"And keep me posted," Magruder added. "I want to know if those NK bastards even give a sour fart in our direction." He jerked his head sideways, indicating the flag bridge. "I'll be topside, waiting for Washington to make up their goddamned minds." He patted for the omnipresent pipe resting in the pocket of his khaki uniform shirt and rolled his eyes toward the overhead. "God only knows what'll happen when those bureaucratic bastards put their oar in. Call me if there's a change."

"Aye aye, sir."

The admiral appeared to be carrying a weight slung across his shoulders as he turned away, and in that moment Marusko decided that he wouldn't exchange places with Pops Magruder for anything on God's green earth. Sometimes, the price was just too damn high.

Lieutenant Edward Everett Wayne, call sign "Batman," shifted in his seat, trying to work the cramp out from under his left shoulder blade. He'd been on Alert Five ― sitting in the cockpit of his F-14, ready to launch from Jeff's number two catapult on five minutes' notice ― for the past hour and a half.

His point of view from twelve feet up gave him a splendid panorama of the carrier's flight deck, of the other three Tomcats set and ready for launch, of the crewmen in their color-coded shirts milling about in what looked like confusion but was actually a precisely choreographed ballet. Beyond, endless gray ocean merged with soot-gray overcast. Up there above that lowering ceiling was air and light and the golden glory freedom of airborne speed… he wanted to go!

Batman twisted far enough around to the right so that he could glimpse Jefferson's Pried-Fly, the glassed-in structure overlooking the carrier's flight deck from high up along the inboard side of the island. The shadowy figures glimpsed there gave no indication that launch was imminent or even that they would launch at all.

His RIO grinned at him past the tangle of cables and equipment separating their ejection seats. Lieutenant Kenneth Blake's helmet was decorated with stars and bore his call sign, "Malibu," picked out in red. "Holy hemorrhoids, Batman," the RIO said, bantering. "I think I'd rather be surfing."

Batman Wayne chuckled. "I just wish they'd get this show on the road!"

As if in answer, his radio headset crackled in his helmet. "Backstop, Backstop, this is CAG. Time to wake up out there and earn your pay. Immediate launch. You are clear for engine start."

About damn time, Batman thought, fastening his mask across his face. "Roger, CAG. Let's go for it. Starting engines."

The Tomcat's port engine thundered to life, followed a moment later by the starboard. Outside, the deck crew completed their last-minute checks. "AWG 9 light is out, circuit breakers OK."

A green shirt standing off the port side of the aircraft held up a signboard on which he'd scrawled the numerals 66,000, and Batman nodded confirmation. The exchange was crucial, since the catapult officer had to make certain the catapult was set to deliver steam enough to hurl 66,000 pounds of Tomcat and fuel to a take-off speed of one hundred seventy miles an hour. A pair of red shirts scooted from beneath the wings after a final check of the ordnance slung there.

Batman grasped the stick, moving it forward, backward, left, and right, murmuring the traditional "Father, Son, Holy Ghost" mnemonic as he did so. Next he moved the rudder pedals with his feet, first left, then right, finishing the litany with "Amen." Outside, a pair of yellow shirts watched the aircraft's control surfaces and signaled thumbs up. Everything was working properly.

"All set, Malibu?"

"We've got the green light. Go for it!"

Batman glanced back over his right shoulder at the carrier's flight deck island. The green light there showed he was clear for launch. The voice in his headphones confirmed it. "Backstop Leader, you are go for launch. Good-bye and good luck."

"Copy, Homeplate." He opened the throttle to full afterburner, dumping torrents of raw fuel into the twin infernos in the aircraft's tail. He saluted the yellow-shirted launch officer, confirmation that they were ready to go. The launch officer gave a final all-round check, then executed a ballet-perfect gesture, leaning over and to the side, one leg extended, touching the deck with his hand. Somewhere out of sight, a catapult officer's finger came down on a red button, releasing an avalanche of steam against a huge piston buried beneath the flight deck.

A giant's hand closed over Batman's face and chest, squeezing. He kept himself hunched forward, the better to keep his eyes on his instruments in the critical first seconds of launch. His eyes felt flattened in their sockets. The sharp rattle of wheels on steel below blended with the shriek of engines behind as sound, sight, and sensation were compressed into a single, nerve-jarring event. They hurtled forward and sailed an instant later into comparative silence, a gentle feeling of sinking as the acceleration which had slammed the Tomcat from zero to one-seventy in two seconds flat died.

"Good shot!" Batman radioed, announcing that he had control of the aircraft and was airborne. The Tomcat seemed to hang in midair off the Jefferson's bow for one dizzying instant, then began to pick up speed. The shock of the catapult's launch was replaced by the gentler surge of acceleration as the fighter began to climb.

Voices buzzed over his headset, announcing a second Tomcat airborne, then a third, then a fourth. Air Ops began feeding him vector information. Batman noted the figures, but automatically, without real interest. His attention, his heart was on the sky as the Jefferson's bow dwindled astern and the universe became nothing but sea and sky and airplane. His Tomcat was moving now, wings folding back along her flanks as she leaped toward the cloud deck, plunging into the leaden, prison-wall barrier between him and the crystal blue beyond. It turned dark, and then he was bursting through into morning light, free of the ship, free of the world, hurtling north toward Mach 1.

Tombstone eased back slightly on the stick, bringing his nose up as gray water whipped past a scant hundred feet beneath his feet. This should be the place.

He glanced to starboard at Coyote, who shook his head and gave an elaborate shrug. They'd reached their destination but the spook ship was nowhere to be seen.

"Anything, Snowball?"

"Clutter, Tombstone. Damn, lousy clutter. I think they're jamming us!"

"Easy does it, son," he said. He didn't like the urgent shiver that edged his RIO's voice. "Everything's green."

"Yeah, but it's getting' worse, Mr. Magruder! I don't think-"

"Try to get through it. Ho, Coyote!"

"Copy, Tombstone."

"Coming right to triple zero."

"Triple zero it is. Mind the sharp corners."

"Tango Seven-niner, this is Rodeo," he called. "On target and no joy. Bogie dope! What can you give us, over?"

"Rodeo, this is Tango Seven-niner. We're picking up heavy jamming, broad band. Suggest new heading, one-eight-zero."

"Rog, one-eight-zero. You copy that, Coyote?"

"Back the other way. Lead the way, Boss."

"Here we go." They began their turn. "Tango Seven-niner, this is Rodeo. Confirm ROEs, over."

There was a pause as his question was relayed back to the CBG, which by now was below Tombstone's radio horizon. The ROE ― Rules of Engagement ― for his patrol had been set for Hotel-Two: fire only if fired upon. It was the worst possible situation for a fighter going into possible combat since it meant the other guy had a free first shot.

His compass reading steadied on one-eight-zero, due south. He could hear the rasp of Snowball's heavy, rapid breathing in his headset. "Right, Snowball. Keep your eyes peeled now for-"

"Skipper!" Snowball's call was a ragged burst of noise over the intercom. "I got 'em! I got 'em!"

"What…?"

"Bandits, Mr. Magruder!" His voice was urgent. "MiGs! MiGs! MiGs!"

CHAPTER 2

The MiGs dropped like hawks stooping on their prey, four silver-gray aircraft with backswept delta wings. Tombstone had only a glimpse of the odd-looking cone-in-open-cylinder cowlings before he was on the radio. "Tango Seven-niner! Blue bandits! Blue bandits!" The code phrase had origins in the air war over Vietnam, identifying the attackers as MiG-21s.

"Four blue bandits, three o'clock and high!" Coyote echoed.

"Punch it, Coyote! Go to burner!"

"I'm out of here!"

Tombstone hauled back on the stick and his Tomcat clawed for sky, twin-throated torches of flame stabbing aft as he kicked in the afterburners. Down on the deck was no place for a dogfight, not if he expected to keep his airplane in one piece. MiG-21s had been around since the years right after the Korean War, but the modern versions were fast and mean, able to better Mach 2 and as good at dog-fighting as any fighter in the sky. His instant's glimpse had caught sight of the pair of air-to-air missiles slung under each wing.

"Rodeo Two! Rodeo Two!" The sky went gray as they plunged into the cloud deck. "Where are you?"

"Right with you, Boss, at your five!"

"Level at nine point one!"

"Rog!"

They burst through the cloud deck and into the light. Heaven arched above him, achingly beautiful. At ninety-one hundred feet, the twin-tailed Tomcats rolled into level flight and turned west, away from the Korean coast. They were close to the twelve-mile limit here. Most likely the MiGs had been buzzing them to scare them off, and yet…

"Tally-ho!" Coyote called, the warning for enemy in sight. Like silver arrows, the four MiGs snapped up through the clouds a mile to the east.

"Got 'em, Coyote. Talk to me, Snowball!"

"Yeah! I have them!" the RIO yelled. At this range the heavy jamming would have little effect and his backseater would be able to tag them on radar. "Bearing two-three-five, range twelve hundred…"

There was a flash and an unraveling thread of smoke.

"Launch! Launch!" Coyote yelled.

The surprise was almost paralyzing. For all of Magruder's hours of training, his eight weeks at Top Gun school, the concept of someone actually shooting at him seemed too strange to be believed.

The paralysis lasted only fractions of a second. "Tango, Tango! We are under fire. Engaging!" The air-to-air missile swept up from the cloud tops, moving too quickly for the eye to follow. "Coyote! Break right! Break right!"

"Rog!"

That single launch might have been an accident… or the result of inexperience. A mile was long range for a decent heat-lock, and with a broadside shot at the Tomcats, there was little hope for it to latch onto the hot flare of a fighter's tailpipes. The latest intel stressed that the North Koreans were still using old-style Atolls, missiles which had to be looking up the enemy's tailpipe to get a lock. If G2 was right, the November Kilos had just thrown away their first shot.

But then, Intelligence had been wrong before.

By breaking right, both F-14s had swung to face the oncoming missile. That would break the lock, unless the Atoll was an upgraded all-aspect heat-seeker like the deadly AIM-9Ls slung beneath his own wings.

Tombstone watched the oncoming MiGs and turned cold. Those pilots were not inexperienced. There was nothing he could point to, no specific clue which gave it away, but Tombstone knew aircraft and he knew good pilots. There was something about that rock-steady, welded-wing approach which told him that these four MiG drivers, at least, were the North Korean's first team. And that meant…

"Right break, Coyote! Break, break, break!"

"Rog, Boss!"

Tombstone was already leaning on his stick hard to the left, cutting away from the oncoming missile as Coyote broke in the opposite direction. If the pilots were good, he had to assume the decision to fire was good… and that meant an all-aspect missile at least as sharp as his own AIM-9Ls.

"Hang on!" he yelled to Snowball. "I'm gonna make you bleed!"

Hard maneuvers by the Tomcat driver, felt more in the backseat than in the front, had more than once burst blood vessels in his RIO's nose, and his words were less threat than warning. The G-forces piled on as the Tomcat twisted away in a seven-G turn, then slipped into a dive to pick up speed.

He'd lost sight of the Atoll, already past him by now. The question was whether it could turn tightly enough to stick with one of the Tomcats. "I can't see it!" Snowball yelled. "I can't see it, man!"

"Forget it!" If the heat-seeker hadn't hit them by now, it wasn't going to. "Stay on the scope! Tell me what the bandits are doing!"

"Closing! Range seven hundred!"

A close-knit pair of shapes rocketed past, silver against deepest blue, and Tombstone caught a glimpse of the red star painted on each of the Korean fighters' tails. The enemy formation had split, two and two, and suddenly the sky seemed to be filled with aircraft, rolling, twisting, and jockeying for position. His first assessment had been right. These fighter jocks were good… and he and Coyote were in for a rough time.

The enemy was too close now for the Tomcat's radar-guided Sparrows, which suited Tombstone perfectly. To guide them to their targets, the Tomcat had to fly his own aircraft straight and level and pointed at the enemy, which struck Tombstone as a silly way to enjoy a dogfight. Besides, the Sparrow had been dogged by problems since its inception, and he didn't trust the missile to hit anything it was aimed at.

The four AIM-9L all-aspect Sidewinders slung from his wings, though, those were something else again. Given the choice, Tombstone always preferred a Sidewinder kill.

"Rodeo Two! Rodeo Two! Coyote, you've got a pair closing on your six!"

"Rog, Tombstone. I see 'em!"

"Hold on. Ready to break right, on my word. I'll brush him off!"

"Pedal to the metal, man! This guy's all over me!"

"Break! Break!"

Coyote's F-14 sheered off sharply to starboard, the MiG on his tail hauling back in an attempt to hold the turn. Tombstone dropped in behind one MiG, leading him, too close now for missiles. "I'm on him! Going for guns!" His finger closed on the trigger, and tracer rounds drifted like glowing, angry hornets toward the MiG-21.

"Tombstone!" Snowball called. "They're behind us! Behind us!"

MiG cannon fire floated above his canopy, each round an orange-white flare hanging a few yards above his head and drifting closer. His initial surprise swallowed now in icy detachment, his hands and mind guided by training and countless hours of practice, he dropped his Tomcat's nose, plunging forward and down, knowing that if he twisted left or right one wing would snap up into that deadly train of fire.

Ahead and to the left, he could see the MiGs on Coyote's tail breaking left and right as Coyote hauled back and climbed, twisting his aircraft into a three-quarters turn and rolling out in an Immelmann which carried him clear of the immediate threat. Another burst of 23-mm cannon fire probed past his right wingtip.

"Coyote! Where are you? I need a brush-off!"

"Copy, Tombstone. Cavalry to the rescue!"

Since Vietnam, American Naval aviators had trained and refined the "loose deuce" formation for dog-fighting, a system allowing far greater flexibility than the old wingman-on-his-leader concept. There were greater dangers… but advantages as well. A pair of aggressive pilots could confront a traditional wingman pair with two dangerous attackers instead of only one.

But the odds here were still two to one, no matter what tactics the Americans employed. Two MiGs clung to Tombstone's tail, following him down toward the cloud deck. Tombstone kicked the throttle, going to full burner, and the Tomcat lunged forward like a living thing. The MiGs lagged but kept on coming.

"Tombstone! Tombstone! I've got a set! Hit the brakes and get clear!"

"Rog, Coyote! Take your shot! Take it!"

He feinted left, then broke hard right, killing his burner and dragging back his nose until he felt that first mushy sensation that warned him of a stall. Two MiGs dropped past him like stones, one to the left, one to the right. Tombstone pushed his nose over again, working now to win back the speed he'd lost.

"I'm on the left one," Coyote called. "Fox two! Fox two!" The cry was a warning they'd launched the heat-seekers.

For a long moment, Tombstone hung suspended in the sky, his eyes following that twisting, flaming point of light as it raced toward its target. The MiG was turning hard now, aware of the missile and throwing everything he had into a frantic break high and left. The Sidewinder closed the range in a steady march.

Then the burning flare of the heat-seeker merged with the MiG, eating its way up his jet exhaust. The explosion, even though expected, was startling, a blossoming fireball of orange and black which seemed to unfold, layer upon layer as the stricken plane disintegrated in flame and spinning, burning chunks of metal.

"Yow! Splash one MiG!" Coyote called.

"Great shot! Watch your six, now!" Another MiG was closing, dropping onto Coyote's tail.

"I see him!"

"I'm on him!" Tombstone rolled to port and kicked in afterburner, hurtling down across the sky, the Tomcat's wings folding back like the wings of a diving eagle. The MiG drifted across his forward field of vision, left wing high as it angled away from him, intent on Coyote's aircraft. He toggled his fire selector to Sidewinder, listening for the steady tone in his headset which told him the missile had a solid target lock. There! He pulled back on the stick, leading slightly to compensate for the target's hard turn without breaking his lock. "Fox two! Fox two!"

With the warning, Coyote's aircraft broke left and rolled in a split-S maneuver to port. The MiG followed, the maneuver dragging the MiG's tail around to give Tombstone a better shot, straight up the MiG's tailpipe.

His finger closed on the trigger and he felt the shooshing lurch of the Sidewinder arrowing off its rail. He followed the missile's flight as it closed on its target, a bright orange-white flare of light which dwindled, trailing smoke, closing… closing…

An explosion filled the sky as the rear half of the MiG erupted in a cloud of burning debris. Tombstone watched the nose of the aircraft twist into a fiery plummet. There was a tiny flash, and a moment later the pilot's canopy blossomed. "Splash another one!" he announced. "Score tied, Coyote. One and one!" He turned in his seat, searching the sky. Two down, two to go…

The remaining two MiGs were dwindling into the distance, running for home.

"Tally-ho, Tombstone! Two gomers at one-niner-three! I'm on 'em!" Coyote's Tomcat twisted right, angling toward the fleeing MiGs.

Magruder almost ordered Coyote to hold position. Those MiGs had a long head start. This close to the Korean twelve-mile limit, he didn't want to risk breaking the ROEs by crossing that invisible barrier in hot pursuit.

But there was another danger as well. They'd been vectored to this spot in the ocean to locate an American ship, a ship somewhere down there beneath that unbroken floor of snow wisp clouds.

"Copy, Rodeo Two. Hold the fort while I drop to the deck. I want to find our people."

"I hear you, Stoney. Mardi Gras and me are gonna make the score two-one while you're loafing."

"ROEs set to Hotel-Two," Tombstone reminded him. "Don't cross the line."

"Copy, Boss."

"You still with me, Snowball?"

"Y-yeah, Tombstone. But check your fuel!"

He glanced at the gauge. They were down to less than four thousand pounds of fuel. Dog-fighting and full burner on those twin GE engines gulped down JP-5 at a prodigious rate. He checked his clock and felt a dull thump of surprise. The air battle had lasted less than six minutes.

"We've got time." The Tomcat was already pulling negative Gs as it nosed over and dropped toward the clouds. "The Jeff'll be sending us a Texaco."

Once more between sea and clouds, Tombstone pulled up, leveling off at five hundred feet and angling southwest toward the coast. Radar interference had slackened, and Snowball reported two large, strong targets close together in that direction.

"Tango Seven-niner, this is Rodeo Leader. We're tracking two surface bogies, bearing two-zero-three, range about four miles. Do you have them, over?"

"Rodeo Leader, Tango. Affirmative." They triangulated the position of the targets. The two were well inside the twelve-mile limit, on the surface and moving slowly west. One of those blips had to be the Chimera.

Homeplate, Homeplate, this is Rodeo Leader." The people in Jefferson's CIC were following the situation as it was relayed to them by the high-flying Hawkeye. "Request permission to cross the line, over."

"Rodeo Leader, this is Homeplate. Negative. Break off and return, over."

"Homeplate, Rodeo. Believe Chimera inside twelve-mile limit, repeat, inside twelve-mile limit. Request permission to overfly, over."

"Rodeo, Homeplate. Denied. RTB immediately."

And that, Tombstone reflected, was most distinctly that. RTB… Return to base. He brought his Tomcat into a shallow climb, as Snowball searched for Coyote. He should be off to the northwest, no more than four or five miles away.

"Rodeo, Rodeo, this is Tango Seven-niner. Be advised, we have bogies bearing three-two-one, your position."

"Snow?"

"Got 'em, Mr. Magruder. They're all over the place! I see six… no, eight…"

Heedless of fuel, Tombstone went to full burner and blasted back up through the clouds. Sunlight dazzled from the blue glory of the sky, a panorama of eerily peaceful beauty. He rolled the aircraft, the sun dazzle in the cockpit replaced by shadow as the Tomcat went belly-up.

"Rodeo Two, Rodeo Two! Do you copy, Coyote?"

"I got 'em, Tombstone." Coyote's voice was charged with excitement or fear. "Your ten o'clock, and high. God damn, where'd they come from?"

He saw them then, a ragged line of dots against the western sky. For one hopeful instant, Tombstone wondered if they might be friendlies off the Jefferson. But no… not from that direction.

"Negative on IFF," Snowball said. "Tombstone, let's get out of here!"

He hesitated.

"Skipper," Snowball insisted. "We gotta! Our fuel's going' critical!"

"Not without Coyote and Mardi Gras!" Just where the hell were they, anyway?

Coyote heard the eerie, high-pitched warble in his headset which told him his aircraft had been tagged by someone's radar weapons lock. "Tone!" he yelled to his RIO. "I got a tone! Shit, Mardi Gras, where are they?"

"On our ass, Coyote!" said Lieutenant j.g. Vince Cooper, "Mardi Gras" for his New Orleans hometown. "There's a million of 'em!"

"Shitfire! We're going' ballistic!"

The Tomcat kicked him in the small of the back as he went to full burner, then rocketed past twenty thousand feet in a chest-crushing climb that made his eyes blur.

"I see 'em, Coyote! Five o'clock and low!"

Coyote looked aft. He saw a deadly white line drawing itself across the sky, the contrail of a radar-homing missile. He punched the Tomcat's chaff dispenser, then twisted away from the missile to give it a smaller radar profile.

"Bandits! Bandits!"

They were climbing to meet him from the cloud deck far below. He counted three… no, four. He checked the missile again and saw it still arcing toward him, undeterred by the rapid-fire barrage of chaff.

"They're locked on us, man!" Mardi Gras yelled. "They're locked on us!"

"Good night, Mardi!" Coyote killed the afterburner, then snapped the Tomcat into a wingover which sent the heavy aircraft plunging toward the cloud deck in an inverted dive. They fell for a mile through clear cold air before he hauled back the stick and kicked in full burners once more. Fuel was becoming a problem, but bingo fuel was a worry he would gladly live with later if they survived the next sixty seconds.

The Gs built up as he continued to pull out of the inverted dive. He felt his mask, his skin dragging at his face as they pulled eight… nine… nine point five Gs. He felt the odd mixture of light-headedness and crushing weight. The Tomcat was easily capable of pulling Gs enough to put both Coyote and Mardi Gras to sleep. The trick was to pull just enough to stay awake, to stay in control.

His vision distorted, bluffed by a nebulous disk of black fog as though he'd stared hard into the sun, then looked away. The blackness spread…

… and he came out of the dive, pulling up at nine thousand and continuing to climb as he rolled upright. "Mardi Gras! Are you with me?"

No answer. His RIO was out for the count. He continued his climb with a half roll to starboard, searching. Where was that damned gomer missile…?

The explosion came like a hard punch to his stomach, slamming him in his seat, then forward against his harness in a vicious one-two jolt.

He glimpsed silver fragments of high-tech aircraft hurtling past his canopy, felt the off-center surge as fuel ignited in a fireball a few feet behind him. What was left of the Tomcat rolled to the right as white flame swallowed the sky.

Coyote was functioning on pure, raw instinct as he reached down between his legs, grabbed the black and yellow ejection loop, and yanked it toward him. There was no time to think as ejection charges blew the F-14's canopy up and back. A second blast rocketed his seat up the rails and into cold blue sky, followed an instant later by a third explosion which sent Mardi Gras hurtling from the cockpit as soon as Coyote's seat was clear.

The ejection slammed Coyote's tail like a hard-swung baseball bat. Wind smashed against his face and chest. His head whipped to one side and he felt himself flung against his harness. He was tumbling. For a moment, he glimpsed his F-14 suspended above him, sleek nose protruding from a devouring monster of flame, the empty cockpit staring down at him like a huge, blind eye.

Then he was clear of his seat, falling through space with the clouds rising like a glaring snowfield to strike him in the face.

His parachute opened with a yank that whipsawed his body around, feet down, a sensation at once terrifying and wonderful, as though God himself had plucked Coyote from above. It felt as though he were whooshing skyward again, but that was illusion. He looked up to check his chute and was rewarded by what was at that moment the most welcome sight in the universe ― the full, undamaged expanse of his white canopy blocking his view of the sky.

Dropping through the clouds was like entering a heavy fog. Then he was in the clear again, the water rushing up to meet him.

Grasping the beaded loops at the waist of his life jacket, Coyote jerked them out, then down, and was rewarded by the hiss of gas inflating the vest. His feet hit the water with a jolt, and an icy shock engulfed him. Working on automatic, his hands fumbled at the Koch fittings which secured the parachute to his harness as he broke the surface. He took a breath and choked on salt water. His mask was filled with water and he tore at it, yanking the straps free and gulping cold, wet air.

He could still die very, very easily, if the parachute dragged him down, if the shrouds tangled his arms and legs before he could get free… if no one could find something as small as a man adrift in a wide and empty sea.

A stiff wind was blowing the chute clear as he finally freed the harness fittings. Gently, he reached down and pulled some shrouds clear of his legs, letting the canopy collapse downwind as he worked his way free. He felt the stiff collar of his life jacket pressing against his neck, holding his head above water as he bobbed in the icy gray sea.

There was no sign of Mardi Gras. Only then did Coyote realize how very much alone he was.

CHAPTER 3

"Tango! Tango! Rodeo Two is down!" Tombstone had seen the explosion as he clawed for altitude above the cloud deck, but he was so far away that he'd lost sight of Coyote as he hauled the Tomcat around to close with his wingman's aircraft. With mounting desperation, he searched the sky, praying for even a glimpse of parachutes.

"Tango, this is Rodeo Leader! Rodeo Two is down. I've lost him, over."

"Copy, Rodeo Leader. What's the situation with your bandits, over?"

Tombstone put his F-14 into a shallow port turn. "Situation clear, Tango. I think the bandits have decided to get out of Dodge, over."

"Copy, Rodeo Leader. Be advised, help is on the way. Call sign Backstop, four aircraft, ETA mikes one-three."

"I've got them on my scope," Snowball reported. "Bearing zero-eight-four, range one-seven-oh miles. The bad guys are breaking off and heading west."

More than likely, the North Koreans had picked up the incoming flight of Tomcats from the Jefferson and decided a one-for-two kill ratio for the day was just fine. Rodeo had been jumped at close range, but in a situation such as this, the incoming F-14s could mark targets and launch long-range Phoenix missiles from well over one hundred miles out. The MiG pilots knew that and would not care to linger.

"We've got them, Tango," Tombstone reported. "And the bandits are definitely running for home. Over."

"Copy, Rodeo. Can you orbit your station to cover Rodeo Two, over?"

Tombstone checked his fuel again, the scowl behind his mask deepening. There was no escaping the grim reality of those numbers. "Negative, negative, Tango. I'm going to be burning fumes in a minute."

"Understood, Rodeo Leader. Homeplate advises that a Texaco is on the way."

"Texaco" meant one of Jefferson's four KA-6D tankers, an aircraft designed for air — to-air refueling operations. But he wouldn't be able to wait for the tanker to come to him. He would have to leave now if he wanted to rendezvous before his tanks went dry.

"Tango Seven-niner, this is Rodeo Leader. I'm going to have to boogie now to make it to the Texaco."

"Copy, Rodeo Leader. The word from Homeplate is: break off and RTB."

"Affirmative, Tango. Rodeo Leader, RTB."

But there was time for a quick check first.

The Tomcat stood on its portside wing and dropped, arrowing down into the clear, cold space between clouds and sea. The swells and whitecaps of the ocean surface whipped past as he brought the aircraft level at five hundred feet and throttled back. His Tomcat's wings extended, reaching forward as his airspeed fell.

"This is Rodeo Leader, switching to SAR frequency," he reported. In the backseat, Snowball clicked the F-14's radio over to the search-and-rescue channel and began sending out a call.

"Rodeo Two, Rodeo Two, this is Rodeo Leader. Do you copy, over?"

Tombstone, listening in over his own headset, heard the empty hiss of static, felt tightness in his chest.

"Rodeo Two, Rodeo Two, this is Rodeo Leader. Do you copy, over?"

The silence stretched on through the crackling static.

The radioman raised one hand to his earphones, narrowing his eyes as he listened to words filtered through static, "One aircraft down, Admiral. No chutes. Rodeo Leader is still calling on the SAR frequency.

"Damned idiot," Admiral Magruder muttered. "Didn't CAG flash him an RTB?"

"Yes, sir. I guess he's stretching it a little."

"I'll stretch him." The words sounded angrier than he'd intended. He was feeling an inner, guilty tug of relief that his nephew had come through the dogfight in one piece, and he was covering his emotions with an acid manner. A yeoman handed him a mug of black coffee from the Flag Plot mess. He kept his face impassive as he raised it to his lips, sipped it, accepting its scalding heat. "What about his wingman?"

"There's been no more contact with Coyote or Mardi Gras, Admiral. Backstop will be over that area in another ten minutes now."

"Captain on deck," a marine sentry announced. Magruder glanced up, acknowledging Captain Fitzgerald with a nod and a tight smile.

"Hello, Jim."

"Admiral." Fitzgerald's voice was tight, rigidly in control. "What's Tango Seven-niner say about our gomer friends?"

"Seems they've had enough. Hightailing back to Wonsan and a nice, safe bed."

The captain nodded. He looked worried ― for his ship, for his men. "So. What now, Admiral?"

"We've engaged." He sighed. The responsibility was a yoke across his shoulders. Fitzgerald wasn't the only one who was worried. Magruder's responsibility extended to five other ships of the carrier group besides the Jefferson.

Worse, what he did or didn't do in the next few minutes might well start a war ― a real war.

Magruder turned to his chief of staff, who stood nearby. "Brad, get me CINCPAC. Secure net. FLASH for Admiral Bainbridge."

"Aye aye, Admiral."

Flag Plot grew quiet. The seizure of a U.S. ship on the high seas was an act of piracy by international law, but now the situation had escalated drastically. Shots had been exchanged between the military forces of two countries. The dogfight off the Korean coast might well touch off a domino-chain of events which would end… where?

Tensions in East Asia had been running high for weeks. Rioting students in the streets of Seoul, calls by the United Korean Democratic Faction for a withdrawal of American troops from South Korea, a steady barrage of propaganda from the North Korean leadership in P'yongyang, all had served to create the hottest world crisis since the Gulf War. The clash of political wills between Washington and P'yongyang could have far-reaching implications. By attacking American aircraft over international waters, Kim II-Sung had just raised the ante in that eyeball-to-eyeball poker game. It was time to see him, and raise.

"I have CINCPAC on the secure net, Admiral."

Magruder accepted the red phone.

Jefferson's captain looked as though he wanted to say something more but seemed to think better of it. "I'll be on the bridge, Admiral."

"I'll keep you posted, Jim." He brought the phone to his ear and pushed the handset button. "This is Admiral Magruder, sir. We have a situation here."

Coyote spat brine and fought for air as he rode the swell. The skin along the angle of his jaw already felt raw where the collar of his life jacket ground against him with each surging mountain of cold, dark water. A wave passed and he rode the slope of water into the trough. Momentum carried him down, plunging his head for one icy instant under water, and he felt the shrill jangling of panic in the back of his mind.

The shock of ejection, of hitting the cold water, had left him stunned, his thinking cloudy. Somehow, Coyote pushed the panic aside. Survival now depended on a cool head, and on his training.

His life raft had deployed from his seat on impact and inflated automatically. He managed to throw himself across the side and cling to it, gasping for breath. A SAR radio was strapped inside a vest pocket of his life jacket. Coyote pulled it free and opened the channel.

There was a hiss of static, and then he heard Tombstone's voice, faint and faraway, but clear despite the slap and slosh of water against his raft. "Rodeo Two, this is Rodeo Leader. Do you copy, over?"

"Rodeo!" he called. His mouth filled with salt water again and he choked. He spit, drew a wet and ragged breath. "Tombstone! This is Coyote!"

"Rodeo Two, this is Rodeo Leader." Tombstone's voice crackled with excitement, as though he'd been calling for long minutes with no answer. Coyote's own emotions soared as well. "I hear you, Coyote! Are you okay?"

Coyote did a mental inventory. He could move his feet… both arms. He felt bruised from head to toe from his rough ride during the ejection and numb… numb from cold more than anything else.

"I'm okay!" he called back. He managed to roll the rest of the way into his raft. "Wet, but okay!"

"That's great, Coyote. SAR's on the way."

"Roger that." It would take time for the rescue chopper to reach him, but at least he was in contact with friendly forces. He'd be warm and dry on the Jefferson before lunch.

The thought of food brought a sour taste to his mouth, an unpleasant twist to his stomach. Oh, God, he thought. Don't let me be seasick…!

"Coyote, give me thirty seconds of beeper."

"Rog." He shifted the selector on his radio. After a minute he switched back to the voice channel.

"We've got you, Coyote," Tombstone said after they'd reestablished contact. "You're south of us."

But how far? "Copy, Leader. Do you want smoke?"

"Not yet, Coyote. Let's make sure we're in the same county before You pop your flares. Do you see Mardi Gras?"

"That's negative. Do you have him on radio?"

"No joy, Rodeo Two. But we're looking."

Coyote thought he heard a distant growl now, a far-off and muted thunder that might be almost anything. He fumbled at his life vest, checking by touch that his flares were in easy reach. He didn't want to show smoke until Tombstone was closer… and he'd need to save one for the search and rescue helo when it arrived.

Only then did the real danger of his situation hit him. He was in contact with friendlies, but the nearest ship of Jefferson's battle group capable of launching a search and rescue helo was still a couple of hundred miles to the east at least. SH-60B Seahawks had a top speed of 145 mph, which meant he was going to be bobbing around in frigid water for hours before a helo could get to him.

And the cold was already penetrating his flight suit. He was shivering as he spoke again. "Rodeo Leader, Rodeo Two. It's going to be a while before anyone gets here."

"No sweat, Coyote. We'll mount CAP for you until the SAR helos get here."

"Copy, Tombstone. Uh… what's your fuel look like, over?"

There was a long pause, and Coyote's worry grew. "We've got enough to find you first, Coyote. Stay cool."

Stay cool, yeah. Very funny. Coyote twisted, trying to face the rumble of sound he could now hear quite plainly. The movement brought with it another cold slap of water, the biting taste of salt. "Tombstone, you've got to be running pretty lean right now. Better break off and RTB."

"Copy, Two. A Texaco's on the way."

Yeah, and you'll never make rendezvous if you don't break off and didi for the Jeff, Coyote thought.

"Rodeo Leader, this is Rodeo Two," he said after a long, cold moment. "Listen, Stoney, with this cloud ceiling you're never going to spot me down here." He felt the hard truth of those words even as he said them. He'd overflown pilots down in the water before. Glimpsing something as tiny as a raft in the middle of all that water was next to impossible despite dye markers and signal flares; it got worse when low clouds kept you close to the sea. Even idling along with the wings full out, a Tomcat simply could not move slowly enough to give her crew a decent look at the water. He swallowed, tasting salt. "Suggest you break off and make for Homeplate. I'll be okay."

This time, Tombstone's hesitation seemed to drag on forever. "Rodeo Two, Leader. I… yeah, you're right. If I lose this airplane, we're going to have some very sore taxpayers on our case. You sure you'll be okay?"

"Affirmative, Rodeo Leader. I'll put on some light music, relax a bit-"

"Copy that, Two. Listen, you'll have Backstop overhead in… ten minutes. They'll orbit until the next relay gets here. It shouldn't take more than an hour or two for the SAR boys to get here. Think you can hold out that long?"

"No sweat, Tombstone. Tell 'em to keep me a warm spot by the fire." He listened again. Was the thunder closer now? He couldn't tell.

"Put your radio on beeper, Coyote. I'll tell 'em you're waiting. See you at home!"

"Roger that. See you… back home."

Home. The word brought a rush of thoughts, of memories, and the nostalgia was so surprising it momentarily crowded out of his mind thoughts of survival, of cold, of being abandoned in this vast expanse of water. For a moment, he could see Julie's face as clearly as if he could touch her. She was in San Diego now, with Jimmy.

Something caught his vision, tugging at his awareness just as he slid down the back slope of another ocean swell. What was it? Helplessly, he waited out the approach of another swell, felt himself rising… rising…

At the peak of the wave, he strained his eyes toward the something he'd glimpsed before and felt a thrill of recognition. A parachute! At first he thought it might be his, but then he realized the lines were still caught on something, that the canopy was still partly inflated and billowing in the stiff, chill wind.

Mardi Gras! That was his chute! After setting the radio to send out its steady, homing beep-beep-beep, he secured it to a strap on his shoulder, then began to paddle with clumsy strokes toward the chute. It was at least a hundred yards away, and he lost sight of it every time he slid into the trough between one wave and the next.

But if he could reach Mardi Gras, the job of the search and rescue choppers would be one hell of a lot easier. Grimly, he kept stroking and slowly closed the range.

Yes, the thunder definitely sounded a little louder now.

Batman Wayne looked from side to side as his Tomcat roared low over the Sea of Japan. The ocean was gray and empty, with a heavy swell under a stiff northeasterly breeze. "Well, are we getting closer or what?"

"Try south," Malibu replied from the fighter's backseat. "Uh… make it one-eight-five. We're close, but I don't know how close."

"Can you get a triangulation with the other aircraft?"

"Affirm. We've got him to within a couple of miles. Wait one."

"Rog." Batman dropped to four hundred feet, trying to focus on the water rushing past his aircraft's belly at better than three hundred knots. He was ashamed of himself for snapping at Malibu, but the pressure was on for some high performance. MiGs he could handle, he thought, but how the hell was he supposed to spot a couple of guys swimming in all that ocean? The string of beeps his RIO was listening to would vector them in. The only question was how long it would take.

"Surface contacts," Malibu said. "Three miles, bearing two-five-oh. Inside the line."

"Shit. Maybe Homeplate'll let us go have a peek. Raise 'em, will you?" Batman wanted to concentrate on flying, on the gray swell of sea and whitecap below.

"We'll have to go through Tango," Malibu replied. "Too low to hit the Jeff… Tango Seven-niner, Tango Seven-niner, this is Backstop. Do you copy, over?"

"Backstop, Tango Seven-niner," the familiar voice answered. "Go ahead."

"We have multiple surface targets at two-five-zero, range three miles. Request fly-by, over."

Batman shut out the radio chatter as he brought the Tomcat around in a low, slow turn, wings fully extended, streamers of white contrail blasting from the trailing edges in the humid air. Far to the east, sunlight spilled through a rare break in the cloud deck, then flashed from an aircraft canopy. That would be his wingman, Nightmare Marinaro, quartering another piece of the ocean. The other two aircraft of Backstop Flight were searching behind them, further to the north.

Even with the damned beeper, this was going to take some looking. The fact that the invisible line marking North Korean territorial waters now lay only a mile or so off his starboard wing didn't make it any easier. What if Rodeo Two had gone down on the wrong side of the line?

"No go, Batman," Malibu said over the Tomcat's ICS. "We're stuck with the ROES."

"Aw, shit!" Batman replied. "They already shot one of our people down! We gotta go through that ROE crap every time we meet gomers?"

"Don't take it out on me, amigo! I'm right behind you, all the way."

"Yeah." Batman stifled the surge of emotion ― it wasn't anger he was feeling so much as excitement, a keyed-up, high-pitched eagerness to come to grips with an unseen enemy. There were MiGs out there, damn it, and he wanted one so badly he could taste it.

That realization only fanned the flames hotter. Every aviator in the Navy lived his whole career for one thing, and one thing only… the chance to come up head-to-head with an enemy MiG, to engage in combat and prove that mix of skill, training, and ego which made a combat fighter pilot.

It wasn't that he'd forgotten about Coyote and Mardi Gras. He hadn't… couldn't. But pilots went for unscheduled swims in the peacetime Navy too. It was a part of duty aboard a carrier that every aviator trained for… and kept as far to the back of his thoughts as was possible. Ditchings happened.

Turning and burning with real live MiGs, now, that was something else! The last time an American aircraft had tangled with MiGs had been during the Gulf War, and the dogfights over Iraq had been Air Force victories, more often than not. But how he would have liked to have been a part of that set-to!

Lieutenant Edward Wayne was a victim of one of the paradoxes of modern Naval service… especially service with a carrier air wing. He'd spent eight years of his life so far training for only one thing: meeting an enemy pilot in air-to-air combat and shooting him down. It wasn't that he wanted a war; nobody did. But air-to-air combat, real combat, and not the mock dogfights aviators engaged in with one another on an almost daily basis, was the crowning test of any fighter pilot's career.

And Tombstone and Coyote, those lucky sons-of-bitches… it had been handed to them on a plate!

He dropped the Tomcat a little lower, his eyes watering as he tried to focus on the water rushing past, searching for smoke, for parachutes, for anything. "Ho, Malibu," he said. "How about doing the radio for a while? Maybe he'll tune in."

"Sure thing, man. Rodeo Two, Rodeo Two, this is Backstop. Rodeo Two, this is Backstop…"

CHAPTER 4

Coyote was exhausted. The struggle to make his way toward the other chute through the heaving sea had left him so tired he could hardly move his arms. After almost fifteen minutes of paddling, he still wasn't sure whether he was getting closer to Mardi Gras… or whether his RIO's chute was dragging Mardi Gras closer to him.

"Mardi!" he shouted. Water slapped him in the face again and he spat it out. "Mardi! You okay?"

There was no answer, no indication that Mardi Gras was even there, that he was still connected with his chute. Somehow, Coyote found the will to keep going. His hand closed on wet nylon and he began pulling hand-over-hand, dragging fistfuls of guideline as he pulled himself and the raft past the collapsing parachute and toward the dark form he could now see each time it rode to the top of another ocean swell.

Vince Cooper's helmet was blue with white stripes, the call sign Mardi Gras picked out in red letters on either side of the visor knob. The RIO's head sagged back against the collar of his life jacket, completely limp with the roll and swell of the waves. Unconscious, Coyote decided. Their life preservers were designed to inflate automatically when they hit salt water. Fortunately, Mardi's had functioned as advertised.

"Mardi! It's gonna be okay!" He dragged himself closer. "You hear me, Mardi?" His hand closed on Mardi Gras's life preserver, dragging the bobbing form against his body. "It's gonna be okay, Mardi! Just…"

Mardi Gras's head lolled sideways with sudden movement, and Coyote saw the shattered side of the helmet, the crimson color staining the water. He pulled Mardi Gras partway onto the raft, clinging to him as he searched for signs of life.

Coyote could feel the sickly crackle of bone fragments grating as he touched the RIO's head. Mardi Gras was dead, the left side of his skull crushed within the damaged helmet. "Oh, God, Vince!" He peeled off one of his gloves, probing his RIO's throat searching for a pulse. "Don't die on me!"

For the first time in some minutes, Coyote was again aware of the deep-throated rumble of an engine in the distance. Numb with cold and exhaustion, with one arm still thrown across Mardi Gras's chest, he fumbled with his free hand for a flare. His radio squawked, the words thin and indistinct. He couldn't reach it, not and still hold onto Mardi. No matter. They sounded close now. They'd see his smoke. The rumble was too throaty and deep to be jet engines. It was more like the heavy thud-thud-thud of a helo. Hell, that was fast work. If the SAR helo could pull them from the drink in time, they might still do something for Mardi back on board the Jeff.

By feel, he found the end of the flare for day use and twisted savagely at the cap. Red smoke spilled from the end, boiling across the water in a thick, churning cloud. With the last of his strength, he waved the smoke marker back and forth. Where was the helo? The engine noise was much closer now… and behind him.

"They'll have us back aboard Jeff in no time, Vince!" he told his RIO. Clinging to the man's body, he twisted around so that he could watch the helicopter's approach.

The shock of recognition brought bile to his throat. It was not a helicopter approaching him with the deep-throated growl of triple diesels, but the angled gray bow of a missile boat. The turreted, automatic 30-mm gun on the forward deck, the huge, blunt canisters on either side housing Styx anti-ship missiles identified the craft as a Soviet-built Osa 1.

The flag whipping from its mast was North Korean.

Coyote clung tighter to Mardi Gras's body, still unwilling to accept his friend's death, unwilling to accept the gray specter which was drawing closer now on throbbing, idling engines. North Korean seamen were lining the Osa's rail, AKM rifles pointed directly at Coyote.

"Oh, Vince," he said softly. "We are in one hell of a world of shit."

"Rodeo Leader, Charlie now." The voice of Jefferson's Air Boss sounded over Tombstone's earphones, signaling him to leave his holding pattern ahead of the carrier. He brought the stick over, dropping the Tomcat into a 4-G turn. He throttled back until the further engines were barely idling and popped the speed brakes to slow the craft. At 300 knots, the F-14's computer decided to slide the wings forward.

Normally, Tomcat pilots overrode the automatics and kept the wings folded back, holding that a wings-forward position made them look like a goose as they went into the break. This time, though, Tombstone left the wings forward. He was angry and he was worried, and somehow the aviator's concern with looking good on the landing simply didn't seem as important as it did normally.

"We are now in goose mode," Snowball said from the backseat. "Training wheels activated."

Tombstone ignored him and concentrated on the turn. His left hand flicked the control to lower his landing gear. At 230 knots he dropped the wing flaps, slowing the aircraft still further as he maintained the turn. His eyes flicked to the console. Rate of descent… 600 feet per minute. Turning at 22' angle-of-bank. Range from the ship now three-quarters of a mile. He was coming up on Jefferson's wake now, sweeping out of the turn and lining up with her flight deck from astern. The carrier was plowing northeast into the wind at twenty knots. The swells had gotten stiffer in the last half hour, and Tombstone caught a glimpse of white spray bursting over Jefferson's bow. From here he could make out the squat tower of the ship's Fresnel landing system, the "meatball" on the carrier's port side which let him judge his glide slope.

He called the ball. "Tomcat Two-oh-five ― Six point four, ball." That told Jefferson's landing signals officer ― the LSO ― that he had the meatball lined up, and that he had sixty-four hundred pounds of fuel on board. He'd not taken a full load from the KA-6D, since he needed only enough to get back to the ship. Excess fuel would have to be dumped before landing anyway.

"Roger ball," the LSO replied over his headset. "Deck going down. Power on."

In these rough seas, Jefferson's deck was heaving up and down, changing altitude beneath Tombstone's wheels by ten feet with the passage of every wave. The LSO's warning let him increase speed enough during the last second of his approach to keep from touching down short on the deck. Tombstone caught his breath and held it. It was in these critical seconds that the LSO would wave him off if he'd screwed it up.

Large as she was, Jefferson never looked tinier to Tombstone than when he was dropping toward her deck for a trap. The deck was rising now to meet him… fast… faster. As the wheels touched steel he shoved the throttles forward; if his tail-hook missed the arresting wire, he needed full power for a "bolter" ― a touch-and-go that would send him off the forward deck and around for a second pass.

The hook caught hold with a savage jolt that flung Tombstone against his shoulder harness. "Good trap!" he heard over his radio, as he brought the throttles back and the whine of the engines dropped in pitch. Ahead of his aircraft, a yellow-shirted deck director waved a pair of wands, guiding him onto his taxi pass. He backed the F-14 slightly to spit out the wire, then folded the Tomcat's wings and crept forward, following the yellow shirt.

He'd already killed the engines in the designated space when he realized something was different. As the F-14's canopy raised up and he pulled the oxygen mask clear of his face, he saw that there were more men than usual gathering about the aircraft… and more were arriving second by second. Normally, the color-coded crewmen seemed segregated, each with their own kind, but now purple-shirted fuel handlers mingled with red-shirted ordnancemen, shoulder to shoulder with green-shirted hook and catapult men, safety monitors and corpsmen in white, crew captains in brown. The noise which assaulted his ears as he unfastened his harness and hitched himself up was deafening. Chief Walters, 205's crew chief, unfolded the ladder from the Tomcat's side and was there to congratulate Tombstone as he stepped from the cockpit and onto the deck. "Welcome home, sir! Number one job! Number one!"

"Thanks, Gabe."

The crowd was all around him, pounding him on his back. A red-shirted ordnanceman beamed up at him. "We got us a MiG, didn't we, Commander?"

"We sure did," Tombstone replied. He tried to grin and failed. He felt keen disappointment. He'd just experienced what every peacetime Navy aviator dreamed of, engaging MiGs air-to-air and scoring a kill, but worry about Coyote and Mardi Gras dampened his joy.

Besides, Coyote had made a kill as well.

But the enthusiasm of the flight deck crew was wildly contagious. Those men regarded the MiG kills as no less theirs than his. He found himself laughing despite the pain as he and Snowball were hoisted high and carried in triumphant procession toward the carrier's island.

If only Coyote and Mardi could have been there to share it.

"Admiral on deck," a seaman barked out, as Magruder stepped across the hatch combing and into the glassed-in brightness of Primary Flight Control. Captain Fitzgerald was there, the inevitable blue ball cap with Jefferson's name and number inscribed on it low over his eyes, an unlit cigar clenched in his teeth. He was looking through the windows aft, watching the flight deck where a rainbow of colored shirts was closing in on the pilot and RIO who had just made their trap.

Fitzgerald turned and met Magruder's eyes. "Your boy's done well for himself, Admiral. A goddamned hero."

"That he has, Captain." Inwardly, he wondered what he should say… or should not say. More than ever, Magruder questioned the wisdom of allowing Matthew to be stationed aboard this carrier, out of all the carriers in the Navy.

He knew Matthew had the same questions. Having an admiral for an uncle could cause more problems than it was worth.

"You look worried, Admiral. What's the gouge?"

Magruder sighed. Better to say it right out. "I've already talked to CAG. Backstop is RTB. And the carrier group is to stay put for the time being."

Captain Fitzgerald was silent for a long moment. Behind him, through the Pried-Fly windows, Magruder could see one of Jefferson's angels, a rescue chopper holding station half a mile off to port. That was routine during launch and landing ops, a safety net against the chance that a plane might have to ditch. So many flight op procedures were designed to safeguard the men who launched, flew, and recovered the carrier's planes, to give them the best possible chance of returning from a mission alive.

Magruder's words might well have just condemned Coyote and Mardi Gras to death. He couldn't escape that fact… but it was damned hard to look at it too.

"Washington?" Fitzgerald asked. There was the slightest curl to his lip as he spoke the word.

Magruder looked at his watch. "Fourteen fifty-six," he said. "They've been in the water for almost an hour. Backstop lost the beeper signal forty minutes ago. How long do you think they'll survive in that cold water, Captain?"

Fitzgerald's cigar worked up and down in his mouth, the muscles in the lean face working furiously. "I'd say we still have to give it a try, Admiral. We can't just leave our boys out there, can we?"

Magruder looked away as he handed a teletype printout to Fitzgerald.

The reply to his call to CINCPAC had been routed back down the line with startling swiftness. Admiral Bainbridge had assured him that the Joint Chiefs were closeted with the President at that very moment, discussing this latest twist to the Korean crisis.

In the meantime, though…

Jefferson's carrier battle group consisted of six ships spread across nearly one hundred miles of ocean. Closest to the Korean coast was the Spruance-class destroyer John A. Winslow, now steaming north some forty miles west of the Jefferson. Even at top speed, it would be hours before the Winslow could launch her two Sea Kings, hours more before the helicopters would reach the waters where Rodeo Two had gone down.

They'd be better off getting help from the Republic of Korea. The ROKs kept helos ― Blackhawks and Sea Kings ― stationed at Yangyang and Kangnung on South Korea's east coast. Hell, they might even have a few up at Kansong, and that was only seventy-five miles south of where the action was. Seventy-five miles was thirty minutes for a Blackhawk. They could have been there already!

Fitzgerald looked up from the teletype. "Washington is sitting on the ROKs?"

Magruder nodded. "Somehow, they seem to feel the North Koreans are going to feel threatened by a fleet of South Korean helicopters coming at them up the coast." He gestured at the message. "Quote, it is imperative that no actions which can be construed as deliberately provocative be taken, unquote."

Commander Wheeler, Jefferson's Air Boss, looked up from his chair across the compartment. "And shooting down one of our Tomcats isn't provocative," he said in disgust. "Shit."

Magruder ignored him. "We've been ordered to hold our position while the Joint Chiefs study the situation," he said quietly. "We're too far out to launch a SAR of our own, and a sortie by the ROKs is out of the question. I'm afraid we've lost our people."

"You want to explain that to our aviators?" Fitzgerald asked. The faces of the other officers in Pried-Fly wore the shock which the Captain's words lacked.

"Want to? No. But there's not a hell of a lot else to do, is there? Except wait for CINCPAC and the Joint Chiefs to get off their asses and make up their minds."

"We'll be sitting out here until this time next year."

Magruder walked over to the window and looked down on the aft flight deck, forty feet below. The procession of deck crewmen had vanished with Tombstone and Snowball beneath the overhang of the island's superstructure. Matthew would be coming up shortly. The Admiral had passed the word for his nephew to meet him here.

The Air Boss walked over to stand beside him. "Pardon me, Admiral, but we can't leave those boys out there."

"What do you want me to do, Commander? Invade North Korea?"

"If that's what it takes." The muscles at his jaw worked for a moment before he added, "Sir."

There was a stir of emotion by the Pried-Fly entry, and Tombstone walked in. Lieutenant Commander Pete Lepke, the Assistant Air Boss ― "mini boss" to Jefferson's aviators ― was the first to shake his hand. "First class, Matt."

"Thanks, Pete." Tombstone turned to face Magruder and Fitzgerald. "Admiral. Captain. Reporting as ordered."

The admiral couldn't look at Matthew Magruder without seeing the boy's father ― his brother. Tombstone was tall for an aviator, as tall as Sam had been, with the same unruly brown hair, the same dark eyes. The somber, almost brooding features which had given the boy his running name were Sam's too.

"So you chalked one up for the wall at Miramar?" the admiral asked. There was a wall in a passageway at the Top Gun school at Miramar where the dates of Navy air-to-air victories are recorded on red-painted silhouettes of the kills. "Well done, Matthew."

"Thank you, Admiral. Is there any word yet about Coyote and Mardi Gras?"

The admiral kept the smile frozen in place. The older man shook his head, a slight, jerking movement. "Negative, Matthew. Backstop lost the SAR beeper forty minutes ago." He paused, unwilling to say the rest. "I've ordered Backstop RTB."

"For God's sake, why? Coyote is still alive out there somewhere! I talked to him!"

Admiral Magruder looked away. "They're out of range for SAR helos. And we're being dangled by those bastards in the five-sided squirrel cage."

"The Pentagon? What-"

"It's a touchy situation, son," Captain Fitzgerald said. He gestured with the teletype flimsy. "Coyote may have gone down inside North Korean territorial waters."

"So? They shot him down. They shot first. We go in and get him."

"I wish it were that simple," Admiral Magruder said. "But with tensions running as high as they are up here, the word is to play it with a low profile. No hostile acts."

"It was the NKs who started with the hostile acts, damn it!" He caught a warning glint in his uncle's eye, and stiffened. "Yes, sir."

"I know how you feel, Matthew, but right now our hands are tied. There's a chance the North Koreans picked him up. If so, it will be up to the State Department boys to get him out, not us."

"And if the November Kilos didn't pick him up?"

The admiral walked over to one of the windows. A rainbow of colored shirts spilled across the flight deck a telephone pole's length below. A pair of F-14s were being nudged into position on catapults two and four. Green shirts ran the cat shuttles back, locking them in place to each aircraft's nose gear as steam boiled from the deck around them. "Then it's probably too late already. That water out there is damned cold."

"Yeah," Tombstone said after a moment's silence. "And the water's not the only thing that's cold. Sir."

He turned and strode from Pried-Fly. Admiral Magruder could feel the younger man's anger like a white heat.

CHAPTER 5

Tombstone spent the next hour surrounded by sea and sky on Vulture's Row, the railed walkway high up on Jefferson's island, trying to come to grips with the knowledge that Coyote wasn't coming back. The sight and jet-engine shriek of Batman and the other Backstop aircraft coming in for their traps onto Jefferson's stern were like nails driven into the coffin. They'd lost Coyote.

Numb, he made his way down the number two island ladder and into the gray maze of passageways and corridors branching out beneath the flight deck. His destination was the mess area known as the dirty shirt wardroom. In the formal wardroom below the hangar bay he'd be expected to change into the uniform of the day, but things were more relaxed here. He was still wearing his flight suit, and he felt sticky, dirty, and ripe enough to peel paint off a passing battleship, but his squadron was still on alert, and he didn't want to risk the luxury of a shower and a clean uniform. Not yet.

He was stopped along the way by an explosion of noise from the VF-95 ready room. "Tombstone!" Batman Wayne and Malibu Blake burst from the open doorway, still wearing their flight suits and carrying their helmets.

"What happened out there?" Tombstone said, cold fury moving beneath the words. "How'd you guys lose the Coyote?"

"Take it easy, Stoney," Batman said. "We didn't lose him. He just stopped transmitting."

Other officers stepped into the passageway behind him. Lieutenant Gary Ashly, "Dragon," gave Tombstone a tight grin. "Congratulations on your kill, Tombstone! Nice job."

Dragon's RIO was Lieutenant Commander Henry Whitridge. He took a hard look at Tombstone and shook his head. "Lay off the guy, Dragon. Can't you see he's shot?"

Malibu seemed to read the misery in Tombstone's face. "Look, Tombstone," he said. "We're all real sorry about the Coyote and Mardi. I know you guys were close-"

"That has nothing to do with it!" The words were out before he could stop them, driven by the pent-up anger and frustration he felt inside. He reined himself in, looking from Batman to Malibu and back. "Coyote and Mardi Gras were two damned good men. I hate the thought of losing them… that's all."

But he knew that that was a lie as he said it. He'd flown with Coyote before, off the Kennedy, and before that they'd been stationed together at San Diego Naval Air Station. Both of them had dated Julie Wilson until she finally decided to marry Coyote, and then Tombstone had been best man at their Navy wedding.

"You know, Stoney," Whitridge said. "We all miss those guys. But we can't bring 'em back. All we can do is go back in, right?"

"Snoops is right," Batman said, using Whitridge's running name. "Rack 'em up and zap a few black hats for Coyote and-"

"Damn it. Wayne, I don't want to hear your damned hot-dogging patter!"

He turned away and strode off, lifting his feet as he stepped through the knee-knocker partitions where bulkheads crossed the passageway. After a moment's silence, he heard a burst of laughter from behind.

"Ah, he'll be okay," he heard Batman say as the officers filed back into the ready room. "Just shook, is all. Man, I hope those gomers come out again. I just wish I could've had one of 'em in my sights-"

Tombstone walked away, feeling as though he'd lost his brother. It wasn't that his running mates were insensitive, he knew. Sometimes it was the bravado, the aviator's mystique of the right stuff, that helped a man handle sudden death. Or maybe the idea of Coyote's death hadn't touched them yet, hadn't sunk in.

Coyote, dead. He forced himself to face that word, to say it in his mind. And how would he ever know for sure that Coyote's death had not been his fault? He, Tombstone, had split the formation after the first dogfight. It had been his command responsibility, his decision. And Coyote was dead because of it.

The question gnawing at his thoughts now was, would he be able to make that kind of decision again? As squadron commander he would have to, but could he? It was possible that they'd be in combat again within the next few days in the skies over Wonsan.

He didn't know. The uncertainty was as keen an agony as the loss of his friend.

The President of the United States had been up the entire night. His Chief of Staff had pulled him out of the formal reception for the OAS representatives early the previous evening, and he'd been on the firing line ever since.

He sat at the end of the long hardwood table which dominated the Cabinet Room. The other men who ringed that table had also been at it all night, and they looked it. Most had abandoned suit jackets or uniform coats for shirtsleeves, and the room's ventilation system was having difficulty with the cigarette smoke collecting under the ceiling's soundproofing tiles. The Secretary of State looked worried; the Director of Central Intelligence looked tired. Most of the others showed varying mixtures of fatigue and worry as each came to grips with this latest piece of bad news from the Far East.

At the far end of the room, a Pentagon action officer tapped a pointer against a series of photograph enlargements mounted on cardboard and propped up on easels. The pictures were almost abstract, black disks flecked with white and cryptically annotated with meaningless letters and numbers.

"We have here repeaters off the radar screens pulled from the Hawkeye's transmissions and downloaded to the NSA at Fort Meade," said the officer, a lieutenant colonel in an immaculate dress uniform. Like most Pentagon briefing officers, he had the good looks and articulation of a TV news anchor, but this one at least seemed to know what he was talking about. "As you can see here… here… and here, Chimera was being almost constantly shadowed by what we presume was a North Korean task force, a frigate and eight to twelve light patrol craft. At zero-seven-thirty-six local time ― that was seventeen-thirty-six hours last night ― two military aircraft provisionally identified as MiG-21Fs of the North Korean air force strafed the Chimera. At the same time, the Korean Communist surface units closed in." The pointer moved, touching featureless blobs of light. "We see them here… and here.

"At zero-seven-thirty-nine local, Fort Meade received a portion of a message by teletype, indicating that Chimera was under attack. The message was interrupted. It is possible that the sending antenna was damaged or destroyed."

One of the men at the table shifted uncomfortably, then removed his glasses and polished the lenses with the end of his tie. Secretary of State James A. Schellenberg had already made his position quite clear. A military response in this crisis was the last thing the United States wanted at this time. "Excuse me, Colonel, but, ah, there was nothing to indicate that this, uh, Chimera was destroyed, was there?"

"If by 'destroyed' you mean sunk, no, sir." The action officer shuffled the stacks of photos to reveal a new series. "Okay, fifteen minutes later you can see this large Korean vessel ― radar intercepts indicate it to be a Najin-class frigate ― moving close alongside Chimera. Here, they get so close that the two blips merge into one.

"At eleven-fifty hours local time, we have two blips again, underway at eight knots and moving toward Wonsan, some twenty-four miles to the west." He lowered the pointer and turned to face his audience. "We can only assume, Mr. President, gentlemen, that Chimera was boarded by hostile forces and taken by force into Wonsan."

"Taken by force," the President repeated. He watched as the action officer gathered his photographs. "Options, gentlemen," he said at last. "Give me options."

General Amos Caldwell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, looked up from the yellow tablet on which he had been making notes. "How many options are there in a situation like this, Mr. President? Seems to me we simply can't allow this deliberate and premeditated provocation to go unpunished."

"Are the Joint Chiefs in full agreement on this?"

"I would have to agree with General Caldwell, Mr. President." Admiral Fletcher T. Grimes was Chief of Naval Operations, a crusty, lantern-jawed man who twenty years before had commanded an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin. "This is the Pueblo all over again. We can't let those bastards get away with piracy, damn it!"

"So? What are we going to do about it, Fletch?"

"We have a carrier battle group less than twelve hours from Wonsan. Use it!"

"How?"

"Air strikes… backed up by amphibious landings, if necessary. The Marines in Okinawa are on alert already. If we show the Koreans we mean business…"

"I'd go one further, Mr. President," Caldwell said. "This calls for full-scale intervention, right down the line. Army. Air Force. Special Forces."

"Invasion."

"We'll look pretty damned silly if we don't use every means at our disposal to bring about a resolution of this… this crisis, Mr. President. These people mean business. I suggest we show them we mean business as well."

"Good God," Schellenberg said. "Don't you think we ought to take the diplomatic approach first? The days of head-to-head military confrontation are over!"

"Who says?" The Director of Central Intelligence leaned forward at the table, hands clasped. Victor Marlowe, head of the entire American intelligence community, had personally brought word of Chimera's capture to the White House the night before. His voice carried a quiet, almost bantering tone which fooled no one at the table. They all knew how important Chimera was to him. "Mr. Secretary, you know as well as I do that gabbing with those people isn't going to get us anywhere."

"How do you know unless we try?" George Hall, the White House Chief of Staff, said from the other side of the table. "Mr. President, this could really backfire on you in the polls. There's time for a military option later."

"I'm aware of the polls, George," the President said. "Let's leave them out of this for the moment — "

"It's not just politics, sir. Korea was not a popular war in 1950, and it won't be popular with the people now."

"Popular!" General Caldwell scowled. "Since when are issues like this settled because of their popularity?"

Ronald Hemminger, the Secretary of Defense, smiled. "You haven't worked inside the Beltway long, have you, General?" There were subdued chuckles from around the table. General Caldwell was new to the position, having received his appointment to the JCS after his predecessor's recent retirement. His intolerance for Washington politics was well known.

"But he's right, you know," the CIA Director said. The bantering was gone from his tone now. "We let the Koreans get away with Pueblo in '68. They held our people… what? Eleven months? We let the Iranians get away with the embassy seizure, and they kept things boiling for four hundred forty-four days! This is a chance for P'yongyang to dirty our faces on every front page in the world."

"Hell, you're just pissed that they snatched your spook ship," Schellenberg said.

"That has nothing to do with it. They've snatched close to two hundred Americans! You want to see them paraded on the evening news every night for the next year or two? You want another Lebanon? Mark my words: we let them get away with this, they'll be all over us. A military option is our only option here!"

The President looked at the Secretary of Defense. "Ron, what do you think?"

Hemminger looked unhappy. "Protest at Panmunjom won't win us a damned thing, Mr. President. Hell, every year or two some KorCom border guard kills one of our people on the DMZ. We protest, they counter-protest, we take it up with the Military Armistice Commission, and nothing gets done. This'll be the same goddamned thing. But a military assault… Shit, we're gonna have to cover our asses until we know how the Russkies are gonna react."

Phillip Buchalter, the President's National Security Advisor, shrugged. "What are we gonna do, hit North Korea with trade sanctions?"

No one bothered to laugh. The United States already had no direct contact with North Korea at all.

"There are ways of dealing with them," Schellenberg said. "Ways short of starting a war. We could approach them through a third party which has diplomatic relations with P'yongyang. The People's Republic of China, for instance."

"That'll look just great in the Washington Post," the DCI said. He turned to face the President. "You wanted options, Mr. President. Well, you've got plenty of them, soft to hard." He began ticking points off on the fingers of his left hand. "We bring the matter up at the next MAC meeting at Panmunjom. We put through a formal diplomatic protest through another government… the PRC, or a clear neutral like India or Sweden. We hit 'em with carrier air strikes at selected targets, try to shake 'em up. B-52 raids mounted out of the ROK, same thing. Covert ops… use Delta or someone to go in and bring our people out." He held up a sixth finger on his other hand. "We send in the Marines." He opened all of the fingers on both hands. "Or we hit 'em with every goddamned thing we have. Full invasion."

"Hell, Vic," Schellenberg said. "Why'd you leave out nuking the bastards?"

"Be serious."

"No, you be serious! Good God, what do you want, a new Korean War?"

"I wasn't aware that the old one was over," said Grimes.

"We go in full-scale and we'll never be free of it! And the Russians, man, the Russians! We have half a dozen new trade or disarmament treaties on the line right this minute, and they'll all be up for grabs if something like this blows up!"

"Speaking of treaties, we could have some real trouble with Tokyo over this," Buchalter pointed out. "Our basing agreements with them clearly prohibit our launching offensive missions from their territory."

"Wonderful," the defense secretary said. "Three squadrons of Falcons in Japan, and we can't use 'em."

"There's always South Korea," Marlowe said. "They won't mind rubbing North Korean noses in it."

"You really do want a war over there, don't you?" Schellenberg said wonderingly. "Haven't you guys at Langley heard? The Cold War's over!"

"And haven't you people at Foggy Bottom heard there are American lives at stake here? I'd like to get our people back, damn it, and talking Kim II-Sung and his cronies to death is not going to do it!"

The battle positions around the table were being drawn along predictable lines. The DCI wanted Chimera back and wanted to avoid the sort of intelligence tar-pit they'd been trapped in during the Iran crisis. State wanted a political settlement. There were disarmament treaties and foreign obligations which would be jeopardized by a fresh round of military saber rattling. Defense was worried about the Russians. The Navy wanted to use the carrier group they already had in the area. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs wanted a full invasion with combined arms.

The President was himself an old Navy man, and his own, deep-down gut feeling was to send in the carrier group. The threat of carrier-borne air-strikes against North Korean targets ― fuel tank farms, military bases, airfields ― might be enough to make them back down.

"Here's the way we'll play it," he said at last. The bickering around the table ceased at once, each head turning to face the President. He looked at the Director of Central Intelligence. "Vic, we can't go into this blind. I'll want you people to step it up with the intel. We have to know where our people are being held and what the North Koreans are up to."

"Yes, sir."

He turned to the Defense Secretary. "Ron, I think we can raise the alert status for all our bases over there without stirring up the Russians much. Or the Japanese."

"The Russians will up their status too, sir, but… I guess that's all we can do."

"Not quite." The President looked at the CNO. "Fletch, I want you to cut orders for the Jefferson. I want them and the Marines in position to do something ASAP. What have we got in the way of covert capability out there?"

"We could have a SEAL team on board the Jefferson in eighteen hours."

"Mr. President," General Caldwell said, "under the circumstances, wouldn't it be prudent to put the entire military on alert, sort of start things rolling?"

The President sighed. "I want to avoid an all-out invasion, Amos," he said. "You're right, of course. At least you can put the 82nd on alert, start getting ready to go in if we have to. But I think I want to gamble on the Navy for this one. They're there, and they're ready. If they can't handle it, we'll have to work some other angle."

Schellenberg started to say something, but the President held up his hand. "All of this is just in case, gentlemen. I won't mind at all being all dressed up with no place to go on this one… but I sure as hell don't want to be caught naked if the doorbell rings."

As the Security Council meeting broke up, it struck the President just how much was riding on the carrier group commander. That poor SOB may just find himself on the point of the spear, the President thought. And I thought my job was a bitch.