Carrier

CHAPTER 6

The briefing room was called Civic. The name was a Navy contortion of CVIC, CV being the designation for carrier, and IC standing for Intelligence Center. It was a long room aft of Flag Plot with the ever-present grays and off-greens of Navy-painted steel bulkheads relieved by an oil painting of the U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson at one end. Framed prints along other walls depicted scenes from U.S. Naval history: the Constitution and the Guerrier, the Kearsarge sinking the Alabama, the sailing of Roosevelt's Great White Fleet, the firing of the first salute to the U.S. flag, F-4 Phantoms dueling MiGs over Quan Lang. A projection screen mounted on the wall and folding chairs facing a podium gave it the air of an elementary school auditorium.

Admiral Magruder had called the meeting for all squadron commanders, and Marusko was there as CAG.

The Thomas Jefferson carried ten squadrons in her air wing ― CVW-20 ― a total of eighty-six aircraft and over twenty-eight hundred officers and men. The realization that he was in command of that wing still took Marusko by surprise from time to time. The acronym CAG, for Commander Air Group, was a holdover from the years prior to 1963 when the term for an aircraft carrier's striking arm was changed from "carrier air group" to "carrier air wing." Marusko had often gotten a laugh with his explanation of the term, insisting that no self-respecting aviator could go around calling himself CAW! CAW!

He watched the other officers walking in. They were young, most of them, with that curious, bright-eyed mixture of arrogance and aggressiveness which made a good carrier fighter pilot. He saw Matt Magruder enter, talking with Marty French, the skipper of VFA-161. The way he was moving his hands, stiff-fingered, one just behind the other, left no doubt that he was describing his dogfight to French. You could always tell a fighter pilot by the way he used his hands to tell a story.

Commander Richard Patrick Neil trailed in after the squadron skippers. A short, slightly built Boston Irishman from Admiral Magruder's staff, Neil was Carrier Group Intelligence Officer and head of Jefferson's threat team. He came in carrying a slide projector which he proceeded to set up on a stand at the back of the room.

It would be Neil who would conduct the major portion of the briefing, Marusko thought. He didn't particularly like Neil. The man had a grating personality and the irritating habit of always being right, but he'd be the one to best present the spooks' view of the current mess. Several others of the admiral's staff were present as well. A yeoman chief was in one corner, taking notes. A transcript of this briefing would be heloed over to each of the other five ships in the CBG.

"Attention on deck!" Every man in the room came to his feet as Admiral Magruder strode in, walking briskly toward the front of the room.

"As you were," he said before anyone was fully at attention. There was a scraping clatter of feet and steel chairs as the officers took their seats. The admiral took his place behind the podium.

"Very well, gentlemen," Admiral Magruder said as the noise died away. "All of you know by now that yesterday afternoon a patrol from VF-95 was vectored to a point just off the North Korean port of Wonsan. Washington didn't give us much to go on at the time, but the word was that one of our ships was in trouble there.

"Our aircraft did not locate the ship, but they did come under fire from North Korean aircraft. One of our planes was shot down. Commander Neil will fill us in on the background. Commander?"

"Thank you, Admiral." Neil signaled to a staff lieutenant to dim the lights, then switched on the projector. A political map of Korea flashed onto the screen, a blunt, indented finger dangling south from the Asian mainland. It was color-coded, red for the People's Democratic Republic ― the PDRK ― in the north, blue for the Republic of Korea in the south, sundered by the zigzag of the DMZ.

"Korea, gentlemen, the Land of the Morning Calm," Neil said. His voice was high and had a faintly nasal quality underlying the flat, New England twang. He sounded self-assured and somewhat detached, as though he were briefing the men on a routine Naval exercise. "A little background for those of you who don't know their history. After World War II, the country was divided between Soviet and American occupation forces. Korea became, in effect, two countries, the People's Democratic Republic north of the 38th parallel, capital at P'yongyang, and the Republic of Korea in the south, capital at Seoul. In 1950, the PDRK invaded across the 38th parallel. That, of course, began the Korean War."

"Korean Police Action," someone in the front row said. Several men laughed.

Neil ignored the correction. "As far as the PDRK is concerned, the Korean War never ended. They've wanted to… their word is liberate the south ever since, but they haven't been able to so long as we've been backing the Seoul government.

"Now we come to the events of the past several weeks. Those of you who read the newspapers know that there's been considerable saber rattling from both P'yongyang and Seoul. The President has called on both sides for restraint, but the shouting's been too loud lately for anyone to hear appeals for moderation. As a precaution, the President ordered our carrier group into the Sea of Japan last week. The 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade in Okinawa was put on alert, and an ad hoc MEU was prepared for possible deployment. The PDRK has responded by calling for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from South Korea, to allow the Koreans to settle their own 'internal' problems.

"The CIA feels that the escalation in tensions is being deliberately orchestrated by P'yongyang for a purpose, we're not sure why. It was decided that more intelligence on the Communist forces, deployments, and intentions was needed."

The slide projector went chunk-clunk, and the map was replaced by a beam-on shot of what Marusko thought must be one of the ugliest-looking ships afloat. She'd been designed as an LST. The designation stood for Landing Ship, Tank ― a World-War-II-era transport vaguely reminiscent of an oil tanker, long, boxy and flat, with the superstructure and bridge set far aft in order to make room for the tank deck forward. Before completion, her builders had changed their minds and rebuilt her as an ARL, a landing craft repair ship. From blunt stem to squared-off stern, her long forward deck was crammed with a tangled clutter of struts, fittings, masts, booms, and aerials. A raised helicopter landing pad had been dropped onto the deck halfway between the superstructure and the bow almost as an afterthought. The bridge was flanked by whaleboats slung from davits on either side of the deckhouse. A tripod mast rose abaft the bridge, bearing a large radar dish and an array of exotic antennae. Black-shadowed letters and numerals at bow and stern prominently spelled out RL 42.

"This, gentlemen," Neil said in the darkness, "is the U.S.S. Chimera, ARL 42. She's three hundred twenty-eight feet long, with a fifty-foot beam and an eleven-foot draft. Top speed eleven knots. She carries a complement of eleven officers and one hundred eighty-two enlisted personnel. The ship was laid down in 1945 as the LST 1156. Today, she is the last World-War-II-era LST still in service with the U.S. Navy. Chimera served as a light repair ship until 1971, when she was finally mothballed at Bremerton.

"In the early eighties she underwent a full refit. The machine shops, foundries, all the inboard repair ship gear were torn out and replaced by the latest in electronic wizardry from our friends at Fort Meade."

That brought a low buzz of murmured conversation from the men sitting in the darkened room. Electronics and Fort Meade meant the National Security Agency.

"In 1985 she was recommissioned as an AGI," Neil continued, an intelligence collection ship. Six months ago, when the crisis in Korea first began building, she was deployed to the Sea of Japan. Her mission was to remain well offshore, one hundred, one hundred fifty miles at sea, eavesdropping on Korean Communist radio and radar transmissions, recording them for decoding by the NSA. Three days ago, Chimera received new orders from the Navy Department. It was felt… expedient to move her in close to shore, close enough that she could monitor local tactical radio frequencies. The Jefferson's battle group was moving into the area at the time, and Washington wanted a more accurate picture of what the Koreans were up to."

The slide projector chunked again, and the converted LST was replaced by another map, this one a close-up of the peninsula's east coast. "Here's the coastline we're interested in," Neil said. He used a pointer in the shaft of light to throw a shadow on the screen, a black finger lying across the Sea of Japan. "These are the PDRK's major east coast ports… Ch'ongiin up here in the north… the Hamhung-Hungnam complex… and down here is Wonsan, sixty miles above the Demarcation Line. Wonsan is the principal KorCom port on the east coast.

"I think it's important to point out at this point that Chimera was operating in international waters throughout this time," Neil said. "The Koreans have recognized the international twelve-mile limit. Chimera was under orders to approach the Korean coast no closer than fifteen miles at any point.

"For reasons which have not yet been ascertained, North Korean forces attacked Chimera yesterday morning, beginning at approximately zero-seven-thirty. The attack took place here… fifteen miles off the coast, and about thirty miles from the port of Wonsan. Radar intercepts suggest that both air and surface units were involved. One of our Hawkeyes tracked Chimera all the way into Wonsan Harbor, and we must assume she is there now."

Neil signaled for the room lights to be brought up and snapped off the projector. He walked toward the front of the room, hands on hips. "Washington, obviously, is concerned. At zero-two-fifty this morning, Jefferson's battle group received orders through CINCPAC and Seventh Fleet to move to a new operational area, centered one hundred fifty miles east of the North Korean port of Kosong. Our orders as of this time are to hold our position, to take no action which will further inflame the situation until Washington can develop a viable strategy."

Someone muttered something near the front of the room, and Neil turned sharply to face him. "You said something, Mr. Greene?"

"Yes, sir," the skipper of VA-89 said loudly. Lieutenant Commander Greene was CO of the Death Dealers, one of Jefferson's two A-6F Intruder squadrons. Marusko knew the man had a reputation as a bigmouth. Loud he might be, and opinionated, but he was a good pilot… and a good skipper. "I just said, sir, that we could give Washington one hell of a viable strategy. An A-6 strike on Wonsan would be just about perfect!"

"Right on, Jolly," someone else said. "Bomb the SOBs back to the Stone Age!"

"Which is just what we can't do, gentlemen," Neil said, asserting control once more. "Washington wants to keep a lid on the situation here. The intelligence community just isn't sure yet what the Korean Communist intentions are ― why they've provoked this crisis."

"Intelligence, right," muttered Steve Murcheson, commander of the carrier's other Intruder squadron, VA-84. Marusko knew what he was thinking. Neil's reference to "the intelligence community" meant the CIA, the NSA, and military intelligence all working together, organizations that had been wrong at least as often as they'd been right in recent years. They'd been great at collecting information, but analysis was weak. Marusko had known cases where field commanders had actually been hampered by too much raw data, with no way to tell what was important and what was not.

And when it came to guessing what was going through the minds of the enemy, well…

The younger Magruder leaned back in his seat with his arms folded across his chest. "What I want to know is why we weren't allowed to go in and help the Chimera yesterday? If Washington wanted to keep things bottled up, they should have done something to keep the gomers from taking her into port!"

"You got that right," VF-97's skipper said. John "Made it" Bayerly gave Tombstone a cocky thumbs-up. "If we could've gone in across the line, a strafing run or two would've driven off the Korean ships, and-"

"It's a bit late for recriminations now," Neil interrupted. "We just have to play with the hand we've got."

"Some hand," Tombstone said. "Two hundred hostages held in Wonsan. What are we supposed to do, sit here and make faces at the North Koreans?"

"The State Department has initiated action, Commander," Neil said. "While we have no diplomatic relations with the PDRK, we have access through the Military Armistice Commission at Panmunjom. A formal deputation will meet with-"

"A formal deputation?" the younger Magruder exploded. "Those SOBs pirated one of our ships and shot down one of our aircraft! Don't you-"

"Just a moment," Admiral Magruder said, stepping up behind the podium. "May I remind you… may I remind all of you that it is not the Navy's place to tell Washington what to do. We carry out foreign policy. We don't make it. For now, and until further notice, this carrier group is on hold, to be used if and when the National Command Authority deems it necessary."

Marusko sighed. The magic name of the National Command Authority had been invoked. It would be the President of the United States, working through the Joint Chiefs and State, who would handle the responsibility now.

"Any questions?" Neil asked. His manner made it clear he did not expect any.

Paul Larson raised his hand. The lanky commander was CO of VS-42, Jefferson's squadron of antisubmarine Vikings.

"Commander Larson?"

"Just what are we up against? I've never thought much about the North Koreans as Naval opponents!"

Several members of the audience chuckled.

"We shouldn't face too much in the way of direct threat to our carrier group," Neil agreed. "They have four Najin-class frigates, one of which was probably involved yesterday with Chimera's capture. Osa missile boats, patrol craft." He glanced at the admiral. "Their primary offensive arm is their submarine fleet, Whiskey-class boats, and a few Romeos. But they're all diesel jobs, out-of-date and noisy as hell. They won't be a problem."

"What about third parties?" Commander Drexler asked. The skipper of VAQ-143 sounded worried. "Just how big a problem are the Chinese or Russkies going to be?"

Neil gave a small shrug. "Wish we knew. Intelligence doesn't think either Beijing or Moscow is going to come out in support of the PDRK, but at this point, their intentions are anybody's guess."

"There's intelligence again," Murcheson muttered.

"Thank you, Commander Neil," Admiral Magruder said, stepping up to the podium. The look in his gray eyes as he took Neil's place made Marusko think he wanted to head off further comment. None of the aviators in CVIC looked happy, and several wore expressions that were downright belligerent. He remembered an acronym which had made its way through military circles for years, one which had been invented by the raiders who went into Son Tay to rescue American POWs in 1972. Their unofficial symbol had been a mushroom with the letters KITD/FOHS.

Kept in the dark, fed on horse shit. This looked to Marusko like a similar situation, one where American lives were going to be put on the line with inadequate intelligence… and possibly inadequate backing as well.

And the skippers of Jefferson's air wing were beginning to feel the same way.

"Gentlemen," the admiral said. "As of now, this carrier group is on full alert. Within two hours this command can expect the arrival of a Marine Expeditionary Unit. The Chosin and her escorts put to sea from Okinawa last night. They should rendezvous with us by eleven hundred hours this morning, and their presence will give us full amphibious capability, if it becomes necessary to go ashore.

"Our orders are to be prepared to implement whatever policy the National Command Authority deems necessary for resolving this crisis." The admiral's eyes shifted, seeking out Lieutenant Commander Greene. "Obviously, air strikes against North Korean targets are one possible option. I would like to steal a march on Washington and get the planning for such a strike under way at once. Each of you will coordinate with CAG in preparing operational orders for sorties against the North Koreans." A low, chorused groan rose from the seated men. Writing op orders meant hours of paperwork… all in addition to their other duties.

Admiral Magruder held up his hand. "We will assume three levels of response: aggressive patrolling, strikes against selected ground targets, and full amphibious operations. CAG will pass out folders with what we know about KorCom radars, SAM sites, and other installations along the east coast.

"It is my intent, gentlemen, to be fully ready to carry out whatever is asked of us." He paused, giving the room one last sweep with those icy eyes. "Dismissed!"

The officers came to attention as the admiral strode past them and out the door.

CHAPTER 7

They pulled him out of the hole in the ground with shouts and curses. His hands were still lashed behind his back, and Coyote could no longer feel his fingers.

It had been a long night, and a cold one. His flight suit was still wet from his inadvertent swim the day before, and crouching in the mud at the bottom of the pit had left him chilled to the very core of his being.

"You come, imperialist damn sonabichi!" A rifle butt planted hard against his spine sent him sprawling facedown on the ground. A booted foot caught him in the side, sending a blast of pain through his chest and shoulder. "Up, sonabichi! You up!"

"With a kick like that, you oughta try out for the Cowboys," Coyote muttered through clenched teeth. Rough hands grabbed his arms and hoisted him to his feet. Prodded and jabbed by the muzzles of his guards' AK-47s, Coyote was herded toward the low, concrete block building in the center of the compound.

They'd brought him to that building for the first time the previous afternoon. He'd been hauled dripping from the North Korean gunboat which had plucked him from the sea and paraded through the streets of Wonsan while civilians raised clenched fists and chanted unintelligible phrases in which the words "imperialist" and "American" were prominently featured. At some point in the festivities, he'd been tied and blindfolded, slung like a sack of grain into the back of a truck, and transported over rough roads winding up into the mountains which backed Wonsan against the sea.

He was being held in a military base of some sort. Even blindfolded yesterday afternoon, he'd recognized the growl of military trucks and other vehicles, the measured stamp of booted feet marching in formation, the bark of orders and the answering whisk-crash of weapons brought to order arms.

The blindfold had been removed during his first interrogation and his suspicions had been confirmed. This was an Army base, a compound consisting of the drab, utilitarian buildings so prevalent in progressive socialist societies. Many were stained, looking as though they dated back to the Second World War. One, a three-story apartment building, was a barracks, Coyote guessed. Beyond the chain-link fence that encircled the compound he could see the ocean, dazzling under a morning sun. He concluded that the base must be located somewhere in the hills south of the city.

Wonsan was squeezed in between the waters of the bay called Yonghung Man and the mountains of Korea's spine. East of the city, a narrow peninsula reached north from the mainland, almost cutting Wonsan off from the sea. Sprawled across the peninsula, only a few miles north of the camp, he could see a large air base; distant thunder echoed among the mountains and in the sky, MiGs on patrol.

Surrounding the city, crowded onto the narrow shelf of land between sea and mountain, was the tangled sprawl of Wonsan's industrial heart. Coyote could see factories, the cranes and smokestacks of shipyards and industrial plants, the wire-festooned masts of high-tension-line towers bringing hydroelectric power in from the north, and the squat, neatly ordered drums of oil storage tank farms. Wonsan was the second-largest city in the People's Democratic Republic of Korea and one of its most important industrial centers. The camp lay at the edge of Wonsan's southern industrial sprawl, near roads and factory chimneys which poked into the hazy air like fingers. Military traffic rumbled along a nearby highway beyond the compound's outer fence, trucks and flatbed trailers carrying antiaircraft cannon.

His inspection of the city and its surroundings was brutally interrupted as a guard knocked him down with an AK butt once more, then kicked him viciously several times in the ribs and thigh. "Up, sonabichi dog! You up!"

Yanked to his feet again, he was dragged up the steps in front of the concrete building he'd tentatively identified as a security Headquarters of some sort, past a brace of unsmiling guards and into a low-ceilinged passageway that was all gray paint and naked light bulbs. The second office on the right was occupied by a hard-eyed little officer who smoked incessantly and who spoke almost perfect English.

He introduced himself as Colonel Li. The guards made Coyote kneel in the middle of the floor, while the officer rounded the desk and perched on the corner. "Good morning, Lieutenant," he said, taking a pull on his cigarette. "I trust you slept well?"

Coyote did not answer. One of the guards standing unseen at his back kicked him in the hollow of his knee, knocking him to the floor. The other stepped in front of him and kicked him in the face, a light touch which left him blinking away stars. Coyote could taste the salty stickiness of blood in his mouth. He struggled against the ligatures which bound his wrists and elbows. Someone grabbed him by his hair and dragged him upright again.

Li took the cigarette from his mouth, holding it between two fingers. "Name?"

"Willis E. Grant," Coyote replied. He swallowed. The words were muffled through swollen lips and a spreading numbness in the side of his face. "Lieutenant, United States Navy. Service number three-two-"

A rifle butt crashed into Coyote's skull, an explosion of pain which pitched him forward. One of the guards lashed out twice with his foot, catching Coyote in the thigh.

"There are some facts of which you should be made aware, Lieutenant," the colonel said as the guard backed off. "Your country has not declared war against the People's Democratic Republic of Korea. For this simple reason, the rules of war do not apply to you. In the eyes of my government, in the eyes of the world, you are a criminal, charged with various acts of aggression against the People's Democratic Republic, including an unprovoked attack against one of our aircraft."

Desperation clawed at Coyote's reason. "That's bull-"

Another kick silenced him. Colonel Li continued as though Coyote had not spoken. "Your recitation of name, rank, serial number, and date of birth means nothing. Such civilized rules govern the actions of men and officers at war, but this is not war. You are here, you live at my pleasure. No one can help you. No one even knows you are here. We could keep you locked away or working at hard labor for the rest of your life, or take you out this minute and have you shot… and your people would never know." He paused, drawing a long puff on the cigarette. Coyote watched the tip glow bright orange with a kind of helpless fascination.

"So," Li said after a moment. "You will answer my questions. You will not give me more than what I ask for. You will not give me less." He nodded, and rough hands grabbed at Coyote's hair and hauled him upright into a kneeling position once more. "Now then. Once again. Your name."

"Willis E. Grant."

"Willis E. Grant, you have been charged with acts of sabotage, espionage, murder, and reckless provocation against the People's Democratic Republic. You will describe those activities, and the parts played by ships and aircraft of the United States Navy, in full and complete detail."

"Willis E. Grant. Lieutenant, U.S.N. Service-"

The wooden stock of an AK snapped into the back of his head. Pain jolted through him, leaving him sick and retching on the floor.

"Perhaps," the colonel said, "we are being too lenient with you. We know that your CIA employs thugs and gangsters of the very worst stripe for their espionage activities. Men such as yourself are far too tough to break under mild questioning such as this. I wonder what sterner measures we could employ in your case."

"You can go-" This time the rifle butt struck his spine just above the thongs which pinned his elbows.

When he was dragged back to his knees, Li made a show of studying a stack of papers in his hand. "You are a spy, a saboteur, and a provocateur. You have been hired by the CIA. to spy on the peace-loving People's Democratic Republic. You are also a murderer, having shot down one of our aircraft inside the People's sovereign airspace."

"Screw you!"

This time, he almost didn't feel the pain as they pulled his face off the wooden floor. He felt dizzy, light-headed. He wondered if the goon with the rifle would miscalculate and kill him by mistake.

"Lieutenant Grant, you show an annoying lack of sincerity in these proceedings. I think we shall all be better off if we simply take you out and shoot you." The officer barked something at the guards in Korean. Hands closed around his elbows, yanked him to his feet, and held him upright as a soldier opened the door. His flight boots scraped on the floor as they dragged him out.

In daylight once again, Coyote found himself looking up into blue sky. The cloud deck which had covered the area the day before had broken up. The wind, sharp and biting off the sea, burned like flame through his wet flight suit.

There was a parade ground not far from the headquarters building, a clearing of red clay ringed in by storage sheds and the back of a motor pool garage. One of the sheds had a wall of sandbags stacked up ten feet high facing the courtyard, a lone, head-high stake driven into the mud just in front of it.

They were going to shoot him. The reality of the situation was like a black cloud which overrode the pain, the shock of the interrogator's words, the harsh laughter of the guards as they shoved him upright against the stake, looped a leather strap nailed to the wood around his neck, and pulled it snug.

Coyote had made it through the long and sleepless night before by thinking about Julie, calling to mind her face, her voice, remembering in loving detail each moment he'd shared with her during his all-too-brief leave before reporting to VF-95 at the North Island Naval Air Station at Coronado and flying out to the Jefferson. With death a few seconds away, he struggled now to recapture those memories, to hold Julie in his mind as a last conscious thought.

They'd arranged to meet Tombstone in Balboa Park and had a picnic on the grass. Then the three of them had gone to the San Diego Zoo and taken Polaroid photographs of one another mugging in front of the ape house as the yammering howl of a gibbon floated down from the trees behind them.

Later, they'd dropped Tombstone off at the base, then driven north up Highway 5. They'd stopped at a motel overlooking the ocean north of San Clemente, made love on the beach to the rumbling thunder of surf, and watched the sun come up in glory behind the San Jacinto Mountains.

That afternoon he'd reported to Tombstone at Coronado, the scent of Julie's hair still warm in his nostrils.

He found it hard to focus on the memory of her face. It was strange. When he thought of death at all, it was in the context of flying, a flash of exploding fuel and warheads… and it was over. Somehow, he'd never thought death would claim him like this, tied to a stake in front of a firing squad, somewhere inside a third-rate, third-world country thousands of miles from home.

The guard gave the strap at his throat a last savage yank, and Coyote gagged against the unrelenting pressure. He was still so weak from repeated beatings that he could barely stand. His knees threatened to give way as the strap tightened.

An officer, a major this time, led two more soldiers onto the parade ground. The soldiers lined up a few feet in front of Coyote, checking their AK-47 rifles with a busy clack-clack of sliding bolts. The officer stood to one side, a broad smile twisting his flat features as he raised his hand, palm out. "Junbenun!"

The rifles snapped to the soldiers' shoulders, the muzzles three feet away from Coyote's face. He could see their eyes, deadly and glittering on the far sides of each weapon's sights. With something like resignation, he closed his eyes, shutting off the sun, the harbor…

"Chigum!"

The snapping of bolts on empty chambers sounded like the clatter of typewriter keys. Coyote opened his eyes again. The officer burst into screeching laughter. The strap gouged at Coyote's throat, making each breath a struggle.

The officer released the strap and Coyote collapsed to the ground, his arms still cinched behind him, his face pressed down into the wet clay.

Coyote concentrated on breathing, one shaky breath following another. He couldn't say that he'd been ready to die, but pain and exhaustion had conspired to rob him of any real interest in living. Now, though, the air was sweet. Relief flooded his body in a rush which actually set the pain at a distance.

He heard the squish of footsteps in the clay and opened his eyes to see a pair of polished black boots inches from his face. "No, Willis E. Grant." The familiar voice of the interrogator sounded as though it were coming from light-years away. "No, I do not think your death will be so easy. We have a very great deal we wish to learn from you, and you will tell us. It may take time, but you may be very certain that you will tell us!"

One of the boots drew back. Coyote saw the blow coming but could do nothing to avoid it. He closed his eyes as the world exploded in raw pain and the taste of blood pumping from his nose. The kick knocked him onto his back, and when he opened his eyes, the sky appeared alive with light and shadow and a roaring in his ears.

The interrogator turned away abruptly. "Kurul katia!" he barked, gesturing. Two of the soldiers slung their AKs, then bent over to pull Coyote to his feet. He could feel the blood coating his face as they dragged him off the parade ground. He was led back to the hole and thrown in. He heard the guards laughing as they lowered a wooden grate above him and padlocked it shut.

Then he was alone again, with only memories and fear for company.

The KH-12 was the latest in the NSA's long and successful series of imaging spy satellites. In the continuing compartmentalization of U.S. intelligence, any imaging reconnaissance, whether carried out by satellite or by aircraft, came under the code designation KEYHOLE, hence the KH in this satellite's name. Earlier series had included the KH-7, -8, -9, and -11, each remarkably successful, each a jewel of ultra-high technology, of miniaturization, and of the almost magical art of precision lens crafting and scientific engineering.

This satellite was the third of the KH-12 series, launched five weeks earlier from Kennedy Space Center as the top-secret cargo of a DOD space shuttle flight. It weighed twenty-nine thousand pounds, almost a quarter of which was hydrazine fuel which allowed its earthbound masters to change its orbit, permitting its telescopic lenses to focus on selected spots on the Earth's surface. Ultimately, it was planned that four KH-12s aloft at once would give the United States military twenty-four hour, real-time coverage of any place on the planet with twenty minutes' notice, but budget cuts and the changing priorities of a less outwardly hostile world had sabotaged that idea. Still, a new orbit could be calculated and implemented within a few hours, and surveillance of a trouble spot could be carried out once each eighty-five minutes.

Such a change had been carried out the previous day, dropping the satellite from its 175-mile parking orbit altitude to a scant 112 miles above the ground. By expending some of its fuel once during each orbit to correct for the rotation of the Earth beneath it, the satellite could be made to drift over Wonsan once every hour and a half.

At this altitude, the KH-12's long-focal-length imaging cameras and computer-adjusted telescopic mirror had a theoretical resolution of less than three inches, easily enough to read license plates, street signs, and the tail numbers of MiGs. On-board infrared imaging capability let it see in the dark, and radar let it see through clouds and dirty weather, though with much less resolution and more guesswork.

It was the cloud cover which hampered the KH-12 for its first few orbits. On the fourth pass, however, it struck paydirt.

CHAPTER 8

A Marine sentry in full dress uniform stepped through the door. "The President of the United States!" he announced, and the people waiting inside the White House Situation Room came to their feet.

The room was not large ― less than 220 square feet ― and much of that floor space was taken up by a large teakwood conference table. The rich walnut paneling concealed most of the electronic equipment, terminals, and display monitors which made the Situation Room the White House's central headquarters for crisis management. The far wall, twelve feet wide, was dominated by a floor-to-ceiling rear-projection screen normally masked by a drawn curtain. The curtain was open now, revealing an aerial photograph of a city's waterfront district.

The President took his place at the head of the table, sinking into the plush leather chair. The Air Force officer carrying the "football," the briefcase containing the codes necessary for Presidential authorization of nuclear weapons release, took his accustomed place nearby.

"You've got the pictures," the President said without preamble.

General Caldwell gestured toward the wall screen. "Hot off the wire, Mr. President. Vic just brought them in from NPIC personally."

The recon photo showed an aerial view of a port, of docksides, quays, ships, and small craft, with a crispness and clarity of detail which was astonishing. It was like peering down into city streets from the vantage point of some tall building. From where he was sitting, the President could easily recognize vehicles, stacked crates, ships and boats of all sizes, even people working in the dockyard. Date and time notations in the upper right corner showed that the photographs had been taken only eight hours earlier. They had been uplinked by coded telemetry from the KH-12 to an SDS military comsat in synchronous orbit, then redirected to receiving antennae at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. From there, the signals had been relayed to the National Photographic interpretation Center, an NSA facility located in an unremarkable six-story building with bricked-in windows located at the corner of M and First streets in the heart of Washington, D.C.

"Don't we have R-T images yet?"

"Not yet, Mr. President," Marlowe replied. "We expect to have real-time coverage later this morning. But this is the first good look we've had at Wonsan." The DCI stood up, taking a pen-sized object from his pocket which he drew out into a two-foot-long pointer. "This is one part of the Wonsan dockyard restricted for military use," he said. He reached out with the pointer, tapping one of several gray cigar shapes. "Chimera, Mr. President."

The President studied the photo with interest. It showed an oblique view of the Chimera tied up alongside a dock, her ancestry as an LST clearly visible in her bluntly rounded, somewhat box-shaped ends. The designation RL 42 was clear on her hull, and it was possible to pick out individual soldiers standing on her decks and at regular intervals along the quay.

"She's been damaged." There were gashes in her deck, and the tripod mast behind the bridge was lying on its side. One boat alongside the bridge had been smashed, and snaggle-toothed gaps marred the sweep of the bridge windows.

"Yes, sir. She's taken fire from 23-mm cannons and heavy machine guns, as well as several direct hits from a 100-mm Naval gun." The pointer moved to the tangle of piping and machinery between the flat heliport and the bridge. "There is evidence of a fire in this area, probably from a ruptured diesel fuel tank."

"Any sign of the crew?"

"No, sir," Caldwell said. "We've got to assume they were taken off the ship. But whether they're in P'yongyang or still in Wonsan we don't know."

"We'd have heard if they were in P'yongyang," Marlowe observed quietly. "So far, all they're broadcasting is the bare bones… unprovoked American aggression, violation of their territorial waters, that sort of thing."

The President looked sharply at Marlowe. "How about it, Victor? Did we?"

"Did we what, sir?"

"Violate North Korean waters. It's happened before." Pueblo, he knew, had entered North Korean waters several times before she was captured, though she'd been well outside the twelve-mile limit when she was boarded and taken.

"No, sir. Chimera was under strict orders to approach no closer than fifteen miles from the coast. She had good tracking locks on a pair of navigational satellites, and was where she was supposed to be."

"You're certain?"

"Yes, Mr. President." Marlowe used the pointer to touch the screen again at a different place, indicating a second, much larger cigar shape moored to a quay not far from the Chimera. "Up here is our real problem. An unpleasant surprise, I'm afraid."

"A North Korean warship?"

Marlowe shook his head. "No, sir. She's Tallinn, a Soviet Kara-class guided-missile cruiser. Our last report on her was that she was leaving Vladivostok on her way east, probably to Petropaviosk. Evidently, she changed her mind and decided to stop in at Wonsan sometime yesterday afternoon."

"Coincidence?"

"Maybe. Or else her skipper's taking an opportunity to get a close look at the electronics on board one of our AGIS," Marlowe said. "We're not certain how closely the North Koreans and the Russians are cooperating on such matters right now."

The President stared at the Russian ship's sleek and menacing dagger shape for a long moment, then glanced up at one of the clocks mounted in a row along one wall of the room, the one showing Moscow time. A hot-line message had been composed and transmitted five hours earlier. It was eleven-thirty in the morning in the Kremlin now.

"If the Russians are getting in on this-" He stopped. "Anything from Moscow?"

"No, sir," Schellenberg replied. "Nothing over the hot line so far but the usual ready code groups. I'd say they're still trying to decide which way to jump."

"Anything more on the Ukraine?"

Marlowe shook his head. "Nothing, Mr. President. Troop movements in L'vov and Chemovtsy. Bases put on full alert at Kiev, Kharkov, a dozen other places. But whether that has anything to do with Korea…" The DCI shrugged, allowing the sentence to hang unfinished in the air.

"And if the Russians get a close look at Chimera? Any special security threat there?"

"None that we wouldn't have anyway, Mr. President. SOP is to assume that all of Chimera's codes and secret material were compromised as soon as the ship was taken."

"What's more serious is what might happen if you order an attack on Wonsan, Mr. President," Hall said. He drummed his fingers against the polished tabletop, the nails clicking lightly. "Can you imagine the problems if a stray bomb from an American aircraft caught that baby?"

"We'd warn them," the President said. He was thinking of Reagan's warning to the Soviets minutes before F-111s thundered over Libya in 1986. No military operation ever went off without a hitch, and with the world situation as unsettled as it was, it was vital that American and Soviet forces not come into direct confrontation, in Korea or anywhere else.

"Okay. So the question still is what to do about it." He swept his gaze across the other people in the room. "And what the Russians will think. Jim?"

The Secretary of State shook his head. "That's still damned hard to say, Mr. President. The Soviets haven't been saying much of anything since the Irkutsk riots. Now, with things getting tight for them in the Ukraine… that's Russia's breadbasket, Mr. President. And the curtain is down again."

"I know. I know."

The curtain is down again. Meaning, of course, the Iron Curtain. When the Soviet Union's empire had begun to crumble, people had celebrated the Cold War's end, a new chance at world peace. Now, the social forces unleashed by perestroika and glasnost were threatening Mother Russia. Paradoxically, the collapse of Moscow's power structure meant a greater danger for the world than ever. If Russia lashed out in her death throes…

"It doesn't look good, Mr. President," General Caldwell said, echoing the President's bleak thoughts. "This whole affair could be a Russian ploy to unite their people in a common cause, to take their minds off shortages of bread and fuel."

"I don't think we need to fantasize about some dark, deep-laid Soviet plan here," Schellenberg said. "They don't want an all-out war any more than we do."

"But they are opportunists, Mr. Secretary," Caldwell said.

"To be sure. They're certainly capable of using the situation to their own advantage. We're going to have to proceed very carefully indeed, measuring each step against how it might be perceived by the Kremlin. I, ah, have to say that the presence of a Soviet cruiser in Wonsan makes things a lot stickier, Mr. President. If you send in aircraft, the Russians might well perceive that as an attack against their assets in the region… or they might decide to help the Koreans."

The CNO frowned. "You're saying the Soviets would intervene in Korea?"

"It's a possibility," Schellenberg said, nodding. "It's also possible they're getting ready for something bigger." He looked pointedly at the DCI. "Our intelligence hasn't been exactly crystal clear on the point lately, has it? We don't know yet whether these troop movements in the Ukraine mean they're getting ready for more food riots or whether they're setting up to invade Eastern Europe."

"This whole thing could blow right in our faces," the President said. "What is it the North Koreans are after, anyway? Vic, what does the CIA say?"

Marlowe crossed his arms. "All we can offer at this point are guesses, Mr. President. Guess number one is that the leadership in P'yongyang is getting desperate. They see the breakup of the Soviet empire, the internal troubles in Russia and the People's Republic. Remember in Romania in '89? Kim and his cronies must feel pretty damned vulnerable right now, with all their big, powerful socialist neighbors either chucking communism or getting bogged down in their own problems — "

"So why provoke us?" Caldwell asked. "I'd think that would just make things worse for them."

"Desperation move, General. If North Korea can paint us as aggressors on Russia's doorstep, maybe they can wheedle a few billion rubles out of Moscow in aid. Maybe they figure that if we attack Wonsan, the Soviets will be drawn in on their side and they'll benefit-" Marlowe shrugged. "And maybe the bastards are just gambling that we'll be so concerned about world opinion or Russian reaction that we'll back down. They'd perceive that as a real propaganda coup, a way to prove to the world that their brand of communism still works."

"So we're damned if we attack them and damned if we don't," the President said. He leaned back in his seat, fingers drumming on its arms.

"A diplomatic solution is still in our best interests, Mr. President," the Secretary of State said stiffly. "The international repercussions to a military response to the Korean crisis could-"

"Screw international repercussions!" Caldwell snapped. "Damn it, Jim, this is no time for appeasement!"

"Mr. President!" Schellenberg insisted, ignoring the general. "I have a meeting scheduled with the Chinese ambassador this afternoon. I have every reason to expect that we can open talks directly with the North Koreans through the PRC's mediation!"

Caldwell opened his mouth as though to say something further, but the President stopped him with a raised hand. "I wanted options, gentlemen. Options, not argument. Mr. Schellenberg thinks we have a possible shot at a negotiated settlement. What else do we have?"

"The 82nd Airborne is on full alert at Fort Bragg," the general said in a crisp, matter-of-fact tone. "Also the 7th Light Infantry and the 75th Rangers. Military Airlift Command is on standby. The Joint Chiefs are working out plans for full deployment out of South Korea. Marine assaults along the coast, airborne landings at P'yongyang, followed up by the infantry. We'll have to assume full ROK involvement, of course."

The image was not a pleasant one. "We'd take a hell of a lot of casualties."

"I don't doubt it, Mr. President." Caldwell looked down at the table. "But we need a strong military response, or these people will know they can do anything to us they want. There's no other option."

Phillip Buchalter cleared his throat. "Not to disagree with the general, Mr. President, but we may have another option. A less… radical one." He passed a manila folder down the table. "This came through from the NSC Threat Team an hour ago."

The President accepted the folder and leafed through the papers inside. The Threat Team had been assembled under the auspices of the National Security Council the previous afternoon. The folder contained the summary of a plan for an air strike against North Korea, launched from the carrier battle group already on station and directed at military targets: radar stations, SAM sites, and airfields. He looked up. "Operation Winged Talon?"

"Yes, sir. Based on proposals put together by the CO of that carrier group we have out there. You'll notice that none of the targets are in Wonsan itself. No chance of hitting that Russian ship. The Threat Team feels that a measured response will convince the North Koreans that we mean business." He glanced briefly at Schellenberg, who was scowling. "It might induce them to negotiate, sir."

"You think so?"

"It may be worth a try." The National Security Advisor seemed unwilling to commit himself. "Certainly, the threat of hitting that Russian ship by accident is quite low. There's also less chance that we'll hit our own people, since they're probably still in the city proper."

"We don't know that," Hall said. "We don't know where our people are being held!"

Buchalter spread his hands. "No guarantees. But it seems like a good bet."

The President studied the report a moment longer. His own gut feeling was to try for a military option. Anything was better than doing nothing. And yet…

"It looks like we're in a holding pattern then," he said after a moment. He looked up at Schellenberg. "Jim, put some of your people to work on the political ramifications of this thing. I want to know how our allies are going to react if we go in shooting."

"Yes, sir."

He slid the folder back down the table toward Buchalter. "Phil, Winged Talon looks good, but it'll have to go on hold, at least for now. We have to give State their chance at negotiation. But pass on your recommendations to the Joint Chiefs." He looked at Caldwell. "General, your plan is on hold too. We've got to get a better feel for how the Russians will react. Agreed?"

"Agreed, Mr. President." He did not sound happy. There was, in fact, a definite feeling of gloom in the Situation Room, a sense that events were drifting beyond the ken of men who were used to being in control.

It was not a pleasant feeling.

Tombstone lay on his rack, arm thrown over his eyes, trying to sleep. It is never truly quiet on board an aircraft carrier. The aviators' quarters were located forward of the hangar deck and immediately below the flight deck. The pounding, hissing, slamming machinery which drove the Jefferson's catapults was located only a few bulkheads away, and the rattle of chains and cat shuttles, the harsh clang of steel on steel penetrated the small room's overhead almost round the clock. During launch operations, it was actually impossible to hold a conversation in the room, so loud was the boiler room racket from the catapults.

The cats were silent for the moment, though Tombstone was aware of the clatter of chains overhead and the periodic roar, screech, and bang of recovery operations aft. Hornets returning from combat air patrol, he decided.

Aviators were used to the noise, of course, and a tired pilot generally had no trouble sacking out. As exhausted as he was, though, Tombstone couldn't sleep. His mind kept going back to yesterday's dogfight, to Coyote's plane falling from the sky over the Sea of Japan, to the promises he'd made to his friend over the SAR frequency.

He gave up and rolled his feet off his rack. His eyes moved across the narrow room to the empty bunk opposite his.

Coyote's.

His roommate and wingman had left his guitar slung from his rack before he left, and it made small, hollow noises as the ship's motion rocked it back and forth. Gear adrift; Coyote would get an earful if the Captain made one of his periodic inspections.

Except that Coyote wouldn't be coming back. Tombstone wondered just when it would be that some Naval officer would come in and pack up Coyote's gear, clean his uniforms and civies out of his locker, pull down the country music group poster taped to the bulkhead, and clear the way for some fresh-faced nugget from the World. When would they declare Coyote officially dead?

Damn.

Tombstone knew he needed sleep, and he needed it now. This afternoon was prime time, with no duties and no noisy roommates until after chow. Tonight he'd have the duty. CAG had him on the list for standby and Alert Fifteen after 2200, and as sure as he was sitting there, there'd be a scramble. Jefferson was cruising slowly at the eye of a political storm; it was silly to think the tensions unleashed by the Korean crisis weren't going to rise, not now, not after yesterday's engagement.

But sleep was impossible. He rose, splashed water on his face at the stainless-steel basin on the bulkhead, grabbed his leather flight jacket, and left the room. If he couldn't sleep, he could at least lose himself for a bit in sea and sky. All the way aft on the hangar deck, a narrow passageway led from the hangar bay past the ship's engine repair shops to the wide-gaping cavern's mouth which opened across the Jefferson's stern.

This was the ship's fantail. In port, a ladder was rigged to descend from fantail to a floating platform at the ship's stern, allowing the crew to come and go on the liberty boats. Under way at sea, the area was roped off with safety lines, creating a gray-decked pocket of solitude twenty feet above the wash of Jefferson's four big propellers. For Tombstone, it was a place where tension and worry were swallowed by the numbing, rhythmic throb of the engines and the hiss of water boiling into the ship's wake.

Jefferson was cruising slowly eastward now, so the sun was low above the horizon dead astern, a red orb casting ruby reflections across sea and low-lying bands of purple clouds. Korea lay beneath those clouds, one hundred fifty miles distant.

The black silhouettes of three ships stood out in stark contrast against the sky's sunset glory. The largest one must be Chosin, he decided, the Marine LPH which had joined the carrier battle group that morning. Beyond her was the LPD Little Rock and one of the battle group's frigate escorts. Texas City and Westmoreland County, the other two ships of the MEU, were out of sight over the horizon.

It was strange to think that the battle group now included almost three thousand U.S. Marines, as well as Jefferson's air wing and the support aircraft on board Chosin and Little Rock. The carrier group represented a staggering force in terms of conventional arms, yet it was still helpless, dependent on word from Washington to act. Tombstone shook his head. Americans had been captured, had been killed. America ought to hit back.

Yet it all seemed so futile.

A tiny dot in the western sky grew larger. Tombstone gripped the rail, watching as the shape swelled into the blunt, high-winged shape of an S-3A Viking, its huge canopy perched above its nose like a Cyclopean eye. With a rising howl, the Viking rushed toward the end of the flight deck above Tombstone's head, its navigation lights describing brilliant green and red trails in the deepening twilight. He heard the thump of the aircraft's wheels on the steel deck, the rattle and crash of arresting gear snagging the wire, the descending whine as the pilot throttled down after a successful trap.

"Howdy, Commander," someone shouted behind him. "Your uncle's been pushing the ASW patrols."

He turned and found himself face to face with a Navy chief. He recognized the man as part of the deck crew. With over six thousand men aboard the Jefferson, the vast majority were strangers with familiar faces.

"Sub hunting," Tombstone replied. He had to shout to be heard above the carrier's wash. Everyone on board agreed that the only North Korean fleet elements which posed any threat at all to the Jefferson and her consorts were their Whiskey- and Romeo-class submarines, and the ASW Vikings of VS-42 had been up and patrolling around the clock ever since yesterday morning. No doubt the Sea King helos off the various carrier group escorts were patrolling vigorously as well.

The chief struck a cigarette, shielding the flame against sea spray and the eddying wind curling past the ship's hull. "That was a great job you did on the gomers yesterday, sir," he said.

"Thanks, Chief." The man had planted himself against the rail and seemed unlikely to move, so Tombstone turned away and headed back for the cavernous opening leading back into the ship. Usually the fantail was a good place to think. But he didn't want a crowd around when he did it.

Thinking… that was always a bad thing. In Tombstone's experience, aviators who thought too much about their job, about their friends or families, about their responsibilities, were already as good as dead. Maybe it was time he examined his own future as a Naval aviator.

At the moment, it didn't feel like he had much of a future at all.

CHAPTER 9

Admiral Magruder leaned across the radar operator's shoulder, bathed in the eerie green twilight of Jefferson's Combat information Center. "How long have they been airborne, son?"

"Almost an hour, Admiral. But they broke off orbiting their base at Vladivostok and set this new course about five minutes ago. one-seven-five, range three hundred. Speed five hundred knots."

Magruder studied the silent sweep of the radar's beam, watching the pulse of light representing a target in the upper left-hand quadrant of the screen. The display was being relayed from one of Jefferson's Hawkeye patrol aircraft, now on station in the darkness north of the carrier some one hundred fifty miles out. The green blip represented a Tupolev Tu-20, a Russian Bear bomber out of the big Soviet fleet base at Vladivostok, and the aircraft's new heading was one which would take it straight over Jefferson's flight deck in less than forty minutes. or worse. They'd be in range to launch a ship-killer missile inside of twenty minutes, and they were in position to spot for a sub-launched cruise missile now.

Which made Soviet intentions at this point a crucial question indeed. "Who's up on ready aircraft?" Magruder asked.

"Tombstone and Snowball, Batman and Malibu," CAG replied. "Alert Fifteen."

That meant the pilots and their RIOs were standing by, dressed in their flight suits and ready to scramble for a launch within fifteen minutes.

Tombstone and Snowball. After the scene up in Pried-Fly the day before, he'd toyed with the idea of having Marusko take his nephew off the duty roster for a time, but such an order could have destroyed Tombstone's confidence.

On the other hand, Admiral Magruder had recognized the danger signs in Tombstone during that confrontation. His nephew was brooding, probably wondering if he'd been somehow to blame for Coyote being lost at sea. When aviators started to brood… that was when they started to make mistakes.

And there was no room for mistakes in carrier aviation.

All in all, it had seemed best to keep Tombstone in the thick of things, to not allow him time to dwell on his failings.

"Very well," Magruder said, nodding. "Launch the Alert Fifteen."

"Aye aye, sir."

Now his decision was about to be tested. Magruder just hoped to God he was right.

It was dark in the cockpit of his F-14, a pitch blackness relieved only by the red glow from the instrument panel. "Let's have the lights down a bit, Snowy," Tombstone said to his RIO.

The instrument lights dimmed in response as Snowball turned the rheostat control. "How's that, Commander Magruder?"

"Fine. Check your breakers."

"We're all go for launch back here."

In the darkness, it felt as though Tombstone was already somehow isolated from the carrier, suspended in black sky above black sea. But they were still on the carrier's flight deck. Tombstone could feel the ponderous movement of the Jefferson as she moved slowly into the wind, and he could hear the familiar clanks and rattles as the deck crew broke down his aircraft, preparing for the launch.

Pastel-colored light stabbed and flashed in the darkness. Yellow lights signaled "come ahead" as the deck crew guided the second Tomcat onto the number two catapult. Blue lights probed flaps and control surfaces as the red lights of ordnancemen checked the F-14's weapon load.

A green shirt to his left held up a lighted board with 66,000 written on it. Tombstone acknowledged by lifting a penlight to the canopy and waving it in a circular motion. There was a final, decisive clank as the hook-and-cat men finished attaching the catapult hook to the F-14's launch bar. He glanced over his shoulder. The launch light on Jefferson's island was still red.

The catapult officer approached the aircraft, holding a green wand in his right hand, a red wand in his left. He waved the green light briskly from side to side, signaling Tombstone to ease his throttle up to full military power. The fighter trembled in the grip of the holdback bar, ready to hurl itself from Jefferson's deck. Tombstone could feel the power building as he moved his stick, checking the controls.

The launch officer signaled with the green light once more, up and down this time. Tombstone shoved the throttles the rest of the way forward, going to full afterburner. The Tomcat strained even harder at the leash, illuminating the deck in pale light as twin streams of fire screamed from the engines, playing against the raised blast deflector behind them.

Tombstone pulled the control knob that turned on his navigation lights, a final signal to the Air Boss and the launch crew that his Tomcat was ready to go. The light on the island turned green.

In one smooth motion, the cat officer dropped to one knee and touched his lighted wand to the deck.

The seat smacked Tombstone squarely in the back as the burst of steam hurled the Tomcat off the Jefferson's number three catapult. He guided the aircraft through that instant of sluggish hold-your-breath as the F-14 hung suspended off the carrier's bow, then felt the out-thrust wings take hold and the thrust from the twin engines build. "Good shot, good shot," he radioed Jefferson's flight control. He was airborne. Stars surrounded him as the Tomcat clawed its way into the night sky.

"Good shot." That echo over his tactical net was Batman boosting clear of Jefferson's flight deck right behind him. Tombstone held his rate of climb steady, allowing Batman to close on his position, just off his starboard wing.

"Hunt Leader, this is Hunt Two, coming up on your three."

Tombstone glanced to his right and saw the Christmas tree of green and red nav lights marking Batman's Tomcat. "Hunt Leader to Hunt Two," he said. "Ease off and give me some slack, will you?"

"Roger dodger," Batman replied in his headset. The other Tomcat drifted back slowly, opening the distance between them by a few feet.

Tombstone sighed and eased his own stick a bit to the left, increasing their separation still more. Batman had a reputation as a hotdog, and was probably trying to impress his CO with a dazzling display of precision night formation flying.

How much do I trust this guy? Tombstone wondered. While wingman assignments were never permanent, Tombstone and Coyote had paired up more frequently than otherwise. They'd made a good team, knowing with precision each other's techniques and skill. Batman was relatively new to the squadron. Tombstone had flown with him only three times so far, and never at night.

He pulled his mind away from the thought and away from the twisting, inner longing that it would be Coyote flying off his wing tonight, and not Batman. He had nothing against Batman, nothing personal at least, and yet…

Better to concentrate on the mission. He checked his navigational fix again, then opened the F-14's intercom. "Whatcha got, Snowball?"

"No joy on our scope yet, Stoney, but we're still getting a feed from Tango One-three. That Bear's probably about one hundred fifty miles out yet."

"Okay. Keep us vectored on them. Let me know when you get a solid return."

Minutes crawled by in silence. Then his RIO snapped off an excited "Got 'em! Bogie at three-four-niner, course one-nine-five, speed five-zero-zero, range nine-five miles. They're above us, Boss. Angels thirty."

"Right. Pass that to Batman and Malibu. Let's go in for a look."

Long before he sighted the Bear, he could feel it, a shuddering, deep-throated rumble below the limits of hearing as the Bear's four massive Kuznetsov turboprops hammered at the sky. He looked up through the canopy, scanning the night. The sky was clear, the stars far crisper and more brilliant than they ever were at sea level. There was nothing… no! There! He could just make out the distinctive constellation of red and green navigation lights, the flash of a red anti-collision beacon.

"Tally-ho!" he announced over his radio. "Visual at eleven o'clock high."

"We've got him," Batman's voice replied in his headset.

"Hunt Leader to Homeplate," Tombstone said as he eased into a climb that would take them to thirty thousand feet. His words would be relayed to the Jefferson by the circling Hawkeye. "We have visual on the bandit. Closing." He switched to the aircraft tactical channel. "Hunt Two, Hunt Lead. I'm breaking left and going in for a closer look. You break the other way and take point. You're running interference."

"Rog, Hunt Lead. Count his rivets for us, will ya?"

Tombstone pulled his Tomcat into a shallow turn to port, swinging wide behind the Bear, crossing the bomber's slipstream with a rumbling shudder that reminded him of hitting the rumble strips in the pavement in front of a turnpike tollbooth. Moments later, he drew up alongside the Russian's starboard side.

The vibration was much heavier here, flying behind and below the Bear's two thundering right wing engines. He could still see very little, a blackness against blackness which blotted out the stars, outlined by the pulse of anti-collision lights. He knew the Russians were aware of his presence; they'd have had him on their own radar scopes for some minutes now. But how to get them to- A light winked on, a tiny sun bathing the Tomcat's cockpit in a silvery glare.

"What in the hell-" Snowball yelled, "Tombstone, I can't see!"

Tombstone held the F-14 steady, turning his head aside and blinking hard to clear the momentary blindness. For an instant he'd thought the Russian bomber had blown up, but he knew now that what had stolen his night vision was a powerful searchlight mounted in the observation blister near the Bear's tail. Bastards!

The searchlight moved, shifting a white cone of light back and forth between the two aircraft, briefly illuminating the Tomcat, then swinging up to the Bear's own wing, which materialized out of the darkness ahead like a gleaming fragment of a huge knife. Tombstone could see the silvery arc of one of the Russian's outboard turboprops, could see the markings painted on the backswept wing, a huge red star bordered in white.

Obviously, they wanted him to know who they were.

But what were they thinking? This sort of game had been played between Russians and Americans since the first days of the Cold War, and it seemed that the recent thaw had changed none of the rules. In some ways, in fact, the situation now was worse than it had ever been during the seventies or early eighties; at least then, you knew what the Russians thought of you.

Gently, Tombstone nudged his Tomcat closer to the Bear's hull.

The searchlight snapped back from the wing and washed across the F-14 again, but he was ready for it this time, narrowing his eyes and looking to one side, just like meeting the headlights of an oncoming car while driving at night.

"Hey, Tombstone," Snowball said. His voice sounded a bit shaky, but in control. "You think maybe they're trying to tell us to get lost?"

"Could be. Let's see if they'll talk to us." Sliding the Tomcat closer to the Bear's fuselage, Tombstone faced the light and held up three gloved fingers. Using exaggerated motions, he repeated the gesture three times. The searchlight snapped off.

"There's our answer," Tombstone said. "Switch to 333.3 and let's see what they have to say for themselves."

Tombstone held his mask across his face. "Russian aircraft, Russian aircraft. This is Hunt Leader, flying just off your right wing. Do you copy?"

There was a long silence. There were almost always English-speaking personnel on these Bear flights. "Is flight Four-one-two speaking, Hunt Leader. Go ahead."

"Flight Four-one-two, this is Hunt Leader. You are on an intercept course with the U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson. Please come to course… one-five-zero in order to avoid over-flying our ships. Over."

"Nyet, Hunt Leader. Flight Four-one-two is on routine flight, Vladivostok to Cam Ranh Bay. Is international airspace. As Americans say, 'You go to hell.'"

"That's grade-A bullshit, Stone," Snowball said over the intercom circuit. "He stays on that course, he'll fly smack into South Korea. He's gotta change course sometime soon, and it might as well be now!"

"He just wants to see how far we'll bend, Snowy." Tombstone thought for a moment. There was really very little he could do other than annoy the Bear pilot… and risk the mistake which could trigger an international incident. Chances were, the Russian plane was on a routine flight to the big Soviet naval base in Vietnam, but they'd have orders to see how far they could press the American carrier group along the way.

He opened the channel again. "Russian Flight Four-one-two, this is Hunt Leader. The U.S.S. Jefferson is currently engaged in military exercises in the Sea of Japan and is on full alert. Your aircraft could be in danger if you approach too closely."

"Hunt Leader, are you declaring exclusion zone?" In times of crisis, in times of war, a carrier group commander might declare an exclusion zone around his fleet. Any unknown aircraft approaching to within, say, one hundred miles could be fired upon. But things weren't that hot, not yet. "Negative, Flight Four-one-two. There is no exclusion zone. What we're telling you is just for your own-"

"Nyet! Bereegees!" The burst of sled Russian ended the conversation. Tombstone's thumb hovered above the gun selector switch on his stick. What…?

He looked up and saw a pair of sun-bright flares riding close together and side by side just above the dark shape of the Russian Bear. It took a moment for him to sort out what he was seeing, the twin tailpipes of another Tomcat flying just above the Russian bomber's cockpit. The steady vibration Tombstone had been feeling as his F-14 followed in the wake of the Bear's starboard engines changed. The Russian was throttling down, dropping slightly. Batman's F-14 descended with him.

"Like the man says," Batman's voice said over the channel. "Putting your nose in where it's not wanted could be hazardous to your health!"

"Snowball! Patch me through to that idiot on another frequency!"

"You got it, Skipper."

"Hunt Two, this is Hunt Leader! Break off! Get back out there on point!"

Copy, Hunt Leader," Batman said, his tone light, almost bantering. "Will comply. Looks like we showed this Bear who's boss."

The Bear continued to descend, still visible only as a black shape with red and green lights at nose, tail, and wingtips. After a moment, the Russian bomber raised its starboard wing slightly and ponderously swung onto a new heading.

"Target is coming to one-five-five, Tombstone," Snowball said.

Tombstone took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. His heart was pounding beneath his harness, and he could feel the slickness of sweat inside the palms of his gloves. The Russian's new heading was five degrees short of the course Tombstone had told him to take, an obvious declaration of "You can't tell us what to do." But one-five-five would still take the Bear well clear of the American fleet. American aircraft would continue to pace the Bear for a time, escorting it out of the area. Judging from past incidents of this sort, Tombstone doubted that the Soviets would try to approach the carrier group again.

The crisis was over. But not the tension. Tombstone was as angry as he could imagine being, though he kept his voice cool and emotionless as he told Snowball to open a channel to Tango One-three. "Homeplate, this is Hunt Leader. Target has come right to one-five-five. Looks like he doesn't want to play anymore."

"Copy, Hunt Leader," a Hawkeye radio officer replied. "Be advised that Starfire Flight is enroute, ETA fifteen mikes. Homeplate says to tell you 'Well done.'"

Well done, Wayne's hotdog stunt could have killed them all. He would have to have words with that boy, once they were back on board the Jeff.