Chain of Command

1

I didn't intend to kill the first one. Not really.

It was fifteen years ago, almost to the day. The Soviet MiG had a hard-on for me and my ass was nailed into the cockpit of an F-14A Tomcat by a four-point ejection harness. The conclusion was intuitively obvious. One of us was going to make an uncontrolled descent to the ground and impact at an angle completely outside of our aircraft's performance envelope.

The second that I heard the ESM warble telling me the MiG had me illuminated, I knew it wasn't going to be me.

U.S. Navy fighter-pilot training is as realistic as it can get. By the time I met my first real live MiG, I had two peacetime cruises under my belt, as well as Top Gun training. But ten weeks playing laser tag with adversary aircraft isn't the real thing. It isn't until you get cockpit-to-cockpit with someone who wants to kill you that you know what you're made of. Then the training kicks in, the reflexes they build into you. In my case, I killed the MiG before I ever really thought about it.

Something about seeing the coastline of Vietnam now materializing green-brown out of a swath of fog and clouds brought back the memories of my first kill as an F-14 pilot.

The coastline ― or maybe remembering just what else that canopy of green hid underneath it. And how it must have been for my father during his final mission over it. The one he never came back from.

Sunlight glinted off metal to my right. I jerked the Tomcat left by reflex, opening the gap between my Tomcat and my too-eager wingman. What the hell was he doing so close in anyway? You fly as my wingman, I want two hundred feet of vertical and forty-five degrees of separation.

The Vietnamese MiG honor escort knew that. I'd briefed them before we left the ship, actually talked to the pilot in slow, precise English, making sure he understood. He rogered up for the entire formation brief, assured me that his flight of two was experienced in formation flying, and damned near promised me he could build one of those sleek babies from the ground up.

Not that I'd believed him. I've flown with foreign air forces often enough over the past twenty-four years to know that nothing equals U.S. Navy aviation training ― nothing.

But I at least thought I'd made it clear that he was to stay out of my way.

The MiGs just off either wing knew that too. For an escort service, they remained a respectable distance off my wings, within visual but politely outside of my immediate envelope. I appreciated that, although God knows what they thought I'd do if they got too close.

That first kill We were over Norway, on a routine patrol off USS Jefferson. Lieutenant j.g. Dwight "Snowball" Newcombe was in the backseat, a brand-new fresh-caught Radar Intercept Officer, or RIO. He started off shaky that day, but I never could figure out whether it was because he was flying with his skipper or because he was new. Hell, I hadn't been in command much longer than he'd been on board, and I'd been fast-tracked into the CO slot at that. Knowing that, I was probably just as nervous as he was.

Fortunately, my old buddy Batman was on my wing to keep me straightened out. He's two years behind me and it seems like he's been following me around my entire career. Right now, in his final months as Commander, Carrier Group 14, embarked on Jefferson, he's finishing up his tour just as I did ― with one last foray into harm's way before he's relieved. With the reputation he's making for himself, I wouldn't be surprised if he puts on that third star before I do.

Every man needs somebody like Batman around. He's more outgoing than I am, with a quick, easy laugh and an even faster temper. You always know where you stand with him ― there's never any guessing, although a few tours in D.C. shepherding the Joint Aviation Strike Technology ― JAST ― birds through the acquisition and purchasing cycles seem to have taught him a hell of a poker face. I doubt that it'll ever rival mine, but he's running a close second.

Batman. Rear Admiral (upper half) Edward Everett Wayne, if you want to get official. It was that "upper half" that was about to really screw him, just as it had me. Batman was getting promoted and the slot of CarGru 14 was a (lower half) billet.

This has always struck me as one of the oddest facets of the Navy advancement system. You start off doing what you love, practicing it, living it every day until you know the envelope of your aircraft and fighter tactics so well that they're more reflex than conscious thought. You get better and better at it until they send you to Top Gun school ― then you really get good. You go back to the squadrons, fly your ass off, and move on up the promotion ladder, getting more and more responsibility until you end up damn near tied to a desk managing other pilots more often than you're airborne with a Tomcat strapped to your ass.

You get good enough and you never get to fly again. A hell of a good deal, right?

The second and third kills are easier. I remember them too. At least I think I do. After that, the details run into a blur of technical details ― altitude, fuel state, the weather that day.

Maybe when you can't remember that first kill anymore, it's time to retire from the military. In the last two years, I'd had plenty of job offers from the Beltway Bandits that have the Pentagon surrounded. I knew enough people, still drew enough water with them to be a hell of a defense contractor. But I wasn't ready to retire, not just yet. There was something I still had left to do in the Navy ― and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what it was.

Tomboy was the one who finally nailed me on it. I had unfinished business with the Russians and with my dad.

A couple of years ago, during one of the innumerable conflicts that seem to spring up around the world, I learned something that shook me to my very core. A Cuban radical told me that there was a very good chance that my father had not died on a bombing run over Vietnam. Before he left, he as much as said that Dad had been captured alive but seriously injured, and taken to Russia for further interrogation.

Russia. The very thought of it made my blood run cold.

I have a few memories of my dad ― nothing very specific, just fragments of memories, more like quick snapshots than specific sequences of events. I remember a pair of cowboy boots, my first attempts to hit a foam softball with a plastic bat, a birthday party here and there. He was gone so much during the early years, deployed with his squadron and doing what he knew was important to do for the country ― fighting the war that no one was very sure we were winning.

For thirty years plus, I've believed he died over that godforsaken land. Even though he was officially listed as MIA ― Missing in Action ― we knew he was gone. When the word finally came changing his status to KIA ― Killed in Action ― it was more a confirmation of something we'd tacitly accepted for years rather than any real change. It wasn't until I married Tomboy that I realized how very much I missed him.

My uncle, Dad's brother, did what he could. A damned fine job, most of the time, filling in for his younger brother as the father figure in his only nephew's life. Mom seemed to appreciate it. I did too, but not to the extent that I do now.

Uncle Thomas thought I was getting suckered on this. He believed with all his heart that his younger brother died over that bridge. He tried to talk me out of this mission, but in the end, when all else had failed, he came through with the goods.

Not that it was that tough. When you're Chief of Naval Operations and a front-line candidate for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you draw a lot of water. If once in a while you use it to do something for your family, how wrong can that be?

It's not like the Jefferson wasn't going to be here anyway. This cruise was billed as part of a new strategy in U.S. international relations, a mission of building strong military forces in new democracies in Asia. Maybe it's a good idea ― maybe not. Too far above my pay grade for me to say. Uncle Thomas says it will just make them stronger allies. I worry that it makes them stronger enemies.

At any rate, while I was deciding whether to finally retire or to accept another assignment, Uncle Thomas held out the ultimate carrot ― a chance to fly off a carrier through one more cruise. He knew I couldn't refuse the offer. He was right.

I ended up attached to Jefferson as sort of an admiral without portfolio, ostensibly a military liaison officer en route to work with the Vietnamese government in transitioning to an all-volunteer military service. I would end up doing just that, I knew, but along the way I would have the opportunity to develop the contacts and resources that might help me to track down the rumors that were now starting to float about my father.

By March, the argument was OBE ― overtaken by events. Tomboy went on cruise, now the Commanding Officer of VF-95 on board Jefferson, and I went to Vietnam to look for him. My father, I mean. Dad ― the one and only that I'd been hearing about for so many years. Odd, this strong connection I felt to a man I barely even remembered.

Below me the Gulf of Tonkin, just as my father must have seen it so many years ago when he was flying off the USS Saratoga. Dark blue shading to almost white along the coast, and shortly past the unsightly jungle of the city, the real jungle. Green, overwhelmingly so, from the air seeming to impinge on the city as though to reclaim the land man had settled. Aside from the fresh color to it, there were few signs of the war that had raged there for so many years. Land defoliated by Agent Orange, craters gashed in the fertile soil by thousand-pound bombs, all that absorbed back into the ecosystem of this thriving jungle. There was little that man could do to make a permanent mark on this land, not when all the forces of nature were arrayed against him.

"Want to run through the missed-approach procedures again?" a tinny voice in my ear said.

"Do you know something I don't?"

"Not at all, Admiral." My RIO was pointedly respectful. Far be it for a mere junior lieutenant commander to remind the famous Admiral Magruder of standard in-flight procedures.

Not unless he needed it. I took quiet pride in the fact that she'd mentioned it, performed one of the vital functions of any RIO on board a Tomcat ― keeping the guy up front honest.

"Roger," I said, letting her know by the tone of my voice that she'd done the right thing. I began reading from the checklist, avoiding the temptation to try to do it from memory. I could, after this many years flying this airframe, but no doubt my ever-vigilant GIB ― guy in back, except that he was a she this time ― would call me on it.

Her responses were quick, professional as she read down her own list. Finally satisfied that we were prepared for final, I heard her snap her checklist shut and the small rasping sounds as she inserted it in the side pocket.

"You volunteer for this mission?" I asked, more out of curiosity than any real need to know. Put her on the spot a bit, maybe, as she'd done me by reminding me of the missed-approach checklist. It was an opportunity many junior officers would welcome, the chance to fly with a senior admiral. A little face time, a good first impression, and some sharp airmanship skills might stick in a powerful admiral's mind, sufficiently so to bless the RIO's career in carrier aviation.

"No, Admiral," she replied, her voice cool and incurious. "Skipper asked me to take it. We're in workups right now, and aren't even scheduled to go out for carrier quals for another two months."

Now that set me back a bit. If she hadn't asked for it, then there was some reason her captain wanted her in this backseat? I thought I knew the answer. "My wife have anything to do with that?"

A small hesitation, then a slightly warmer tone of voice. "I wouldn't know anything about that, Admiral. They schedule them, I fly them."

I nodded, now trying not to laugh. As big as the Navy was, the Tomcat community was a small, elite part of it. The best part, as far as I was concerned. And my wife, as CO of VF-95, now stationed on board USS Jefferson, undoubtedly knew well the skippers of every other squadron around, including the CO of VF-125, my backseater's home turf. A little quiet, off-the-record conversation ― maybe a small discussion over the characteristics she desired in the RIO that flew with her husband ― and bingo. One female lieutenant commander slated for my backseat.

I suspected Lieutenant Commander Kames was probably a damned fine RIO. Smart, almost telepathic with her pilots, and so competent that she didn't need the long-standing partnership that arose in regular pilot-RIO pairs in order to be impressive.

That, and she was probably married. I doubt that was a conscious factor that played into Tomboy's decision, but I'd bet my right nut on it.

And Tomboy also knew for a certainty that I wouldn't ask my RIO about her marital status. No, that would have been entirely inappropriate. If it had been a guy, I probably would have, but in the paranoid atmosphere of political correctness that now permeated every portion of the combat Navy, such a question would be entirely out of line for a female RIO.

I checked in with the area air-control facility on the listed frequency, and two minutes later got a hand-off to ground control. The MiGs on my wings were now glued into position as though connected to my airframe by metal straps. Good formation flying ― like Tomboy, the Vietnamese would have sent only the best. I forgave them their earlier crowding.

I had the runway now, the cold, white strip of concrete stretching through the outskirts of the city. If there'd been any real benefit to the war, it was this ― we'd left them with some damn fine airfields.

Over-confidence is a factor that will kill a Tomcat pilot faster than any mechanical malfunction. Being sure you can catch the three-wire if you just tweak it a bit more, wanting to look good in front of your tower flower and just plain ego. And though a landing aboard the carrier at night in bad weather was far and above the most challenging feat of airmanship one could attempt, making the same approach on a fixed, unmoving airfield posed a different kind of threat ― just as deadly, but far more subtle. Out on the carrier, you knew what the possibilities were, had seen too many of your mates crash and burn, juggernauting down the floating airfield in a ball of flame. Or seen them hit the ramp, coming in too low and ignoring the frantic pleas of the LSO ― Landing Signals Officer ― to pull up, up, up.

Ashore, over-confidence was the real danger. Just because it didn't move didn't mean it wasn't dangerous.

I trimmed the aircraft carefully, quite aware of the fact that I didn't do this every day for a living anymore. I'd just come out of the RAG ― the Replacement Air Group ― after a quick one-month refresher course, requalified on carriers, but that didn't mean I had the reflexes I did when I was twenty-two and just starting to fly this magnificent bird. Experience may win out over reflexes most of the time, but it's better if you have both.

We touched down gently, right where the three-wires would be at the field if it were configured for carrier landing practices. I let her run out a little, slowly applying the speed breaks until our forward speed had decreased to a gentle taxi roll. The landing signals fellow was already out there, fanning the air with slow movements like a bird trying to take off, attracting my attention. I waved, turned the aircraft toward him, and decreased my speed even more.

We followed him in to the VIP ramp, and I slid the Tomcat onto her spot. Kames and I went through our shutdown checklist, and the last noises of the engines faded away as they spooled down.

I popped the canopy, and eased myself over the side of the bird, climbing down the handholds. Kames followed a few seconds behind me. It was a seniority thing ― last in, first out.

A small delegation awaited me on the ground. I returned the salutes politely, and held out my hand to shake hands with the guy who looked like the most senior.

"Welcome to Vietnam, Admiral Magruder." The English was clear and fluent, only a slight trace of accent tingeing the vowels. I felt my hand tighten around his.

"I appreciate your cooperation," I said. It had taken me a long time to decide on those words, to figure out how to phrase my gratitude for what the Vietnamese were evidently willing to do.

That is, what they said they were willing to do.

"I am Bien Than, chairman of the Military Affairs Committee. I will be your primary contact during your time in our country for these matters." He glanced from side to side at the rest of the delegation and the reporters, and his face took on a slightly guarded expression. "We should talk. Perhaps I can assist you in refining your plans."

Now, this was curious. What was it that Than evidently wanted to say to me that he didn't want to advertise to the members of the media crowding around us?

"It would be my pleasure." I started to elaborate on that, but then followed his lead and fell silent.

After we posed for a few pictures, Than led us away from the gabbling horde. I heard a few voices call out, some almost unintelligible and others were clear American accents. I smiled, waved, and followed Than off, repeating the magic phrase "No comment" as though it were a mantra that would carry me through their midst.

"Tombstone." That one particular voice stopped me dead in my tracks. Kames, following close on my heels, bumped into me, and I heard her mutter a quick apology.

I turned to scan the crowd. There she was, at the forefront of the mass of media now being held back by security forces. As stunning as ever, with the years adding a patina of grace and confidence that was missing in her younger counterparts. She held the microphone down low, an indication that she knew her viewers would be at least as interested in her words as anything I'd have to say. This was in sharp contrast to the others, who thrust the foam-covered mikes at me in some sort of phallic symbolism.

Pamela Drake, star reporter for ACN News. She'd dogged my path for the last twenty years, first as a news reporter, later as friend and lover, then as an adversarial representative of the media that refused to admit that there was any reason that they should not be present for every second of every military maneuver. Our disagreements over the First Amendment versus the safety of my people had escalated to the point where we'd broken off our engagement.

Lucky break, that. After being married to Tomboy for one and a half years, I knew that there was no way that Pamela and I could have ever had a life together.

Pamela had always insisted that I give up my career in the military. Tomboy, with her own career skyrocketing, would never even have considered such a thing. She knew how important flying was to me ― almost as important as it was to her.

"Hello, Tombstone," Pamela said. Her voice reached me even over the clamor of the rest of the crowd. It was an odd, deadly sensation starting at her. Like watching sharks circle your underwater cage. Dangerous, deadly dangerous, both for me and my people ― but somehow still so compelling, so hard to look away from.

I don't know how long I would have stood there. I felt a sudden, sharp pain in my back. A jab, an elbow if I weren't mistaken. The momentary pain, not to say the sheer shock that a junior lieutenant commander would attempt such a thing, broke the spell. I looked away from Pamela and back at Lieutenant Commander Kames. She just stood there, her eyes calm and staring. "Sorry, Admiral. I slipped." The expression on her face bore no trace of guilt.

Pamela faded back from a foreground figure into just one of the reporters, yapping like baying hounds after the stories that were their life's blood.

Pamela had intruded too often in my military operations for me to believe her presence here was anything but an extremely well-planned example of her almost psychic nose for news. She'd capitalized on our relationship several times in the recent past, most notably during the last conflict in the Mediterranean. There she'd counted on my good graces to provide access to the story, and had gone so far as to throw herself into the ocean from the deck of an old fishing vessel nearing the carrier, knowing that the sea-air-rescue helicopters would undoubtedly pick her up.

That had been a mistake. A big one. She hadn't realized how much of one until I'd placed her under armed guard in a stateroom. How her lawyer had ever managed to finagle her out of the criminal charges that had been pending, I'll never know.

"Let's get going," I said to Than, who had stopped to watch this side play with an expression as inscrutable as Kames's. I swore silently to myself, uncomfortable at being on the receiving end of a stone-faced expression.

That's how I got my nickname, of course. It had had nothing to do with the fight at the OK Corral. No, my orderly squadron mates had decided that my face was so expressionless that it reminded them of a tombstone. It had stuck all these years, as first call signs usually do. My friends abbreviated it to "Stoney."

It was a short walk into the icy air of the terminal building. Than led us around Customs, through a few side passageways that were luxuriously carpeted and decorated. A moment later, we were at the VIP Conference Room located immediately in the front of the airport terminal building. Than opened the door, and stepped aside to let me precede him in.

I stepped into a conference room much like any other. There was a certain ineffable sameness to these rooms, characterized by heavily draped windows ― when windows were even allowed ― gleaming wooden tables, and relatively comfortable chairs. The obligatory water pitcher and coffee urn stood in the center of the table, and a stack of brown folders at the head of it.

I slung my flight bag onto the table, not worried about how out of place the battered green canvas satchel would look amongst the trappings of power. I wasn't in the mood for courtesies, formalities, and the other rituals that had been handed to me along with my first set of stars. Then, I had not been senior enough to reject them. Now I was. I turned to Than. "It's been a long flight, sir."

Than nodded, and a grave smile crossed his face. "And a long time. I am hoping that the material I have for you will make it seem that much more worthwhile."

He picked up the top folder, and handed it to me without comment. I opened it, started to take a deep breath, and felt the air catch in my lungs. It was as if all power to make even the slightest voluntary motion had left me, like a deep sucker punch to the gut. I stared down until basic instinct took over and I found myself sucking in another deep, shuddering breath. I looked up at Than. He was concerned now, more than he had a right to be. He must have known how it would affect me.

"Where did you get this?" I asked.

"From a resistance fighter, a very old one. He says he has more ― hard evidence, he says. Not just photos."

I glanced back at the photo, a face I thought I'd forgotten. It was so like my own, even more so now that the passing years had carved their marks on me. Was this how I would look in later years?

The photo showed three men in cut-off shorts and T-shirts, standing comfortably together. The man in the middle had his arms slung over the two on either side, and was grinning for the camera. The man to the left held up a newspaper, printed in English, with the words "Clinton Wins Second Term" emblazoned across the front of it.

There was no mistaking that face, not even after all these years. The skin was darkly burnished by the sun, rough and shiny on the nose as though peeling from a recent sunburn. The eyes were dark, maybe gray ― I couldn't tell from the photo. Even with a smile for the camera, there was a sense that deep secrets hid behind those eyes, more eons of experience than any one man could have had. The eyes were alert, keen, confident without being arrogant. It was my father.