Joint Operations

SIXTEEN

Jack Simpson stared at the khaki-clad Navy doctor leaning against the bulkhead. “I’m not willing to agree to that.”

The doctor shook his head patiently. “I’m sorry, but it’s standard procedure. You and your wife took a pretty nasty spill out of that boat. I’m going to insist that you stay in Sick Bay at least overnight.”

Jack glanced over at Adele and could see that she was starting to do a slow burn. Despite their weariness, they’d come through too much, done too much, to be confined to sick bay now.

“If there’s nothing wrong with us, then we’re not staying here,” Adele said firmly. She started stripping off the hospital gown they’d put her in as soon as they’d arrived in sick bay and reached for her own wet clothes. “I’m not injured, I’m not taking up a bed. And that’s, that.”

“You don’t seem to understand, Mrs. Simpson,” the doctor said slowly. “I know you’re not on active duty, but you are on board a U.S. warship. And, in my judgment, your failure to agree to a reasonable request is just further evidence of your mental instability at this point. Under the circumstances, I have no doubt that the admiral will support me in this.”

“Who’s the admiral?” Jack demanded.

The doctor gazed at him thoughtfully. “Admiral Wayne commands the battle group. Admiral Magruder has just arrived on board to take charge of the joint staff.”

“Tombstone Magruder?” Jack asked. A slow smile spread across his face. “Tomcat jock?”

“Admiral Magruder is a naval aviator,” the doctor said stiffly, “and I believe his aircraft of choice is the F-14 Tomcat.”

Jack’s smile broke into a broad grin. “Not so fast with that hospital gown, honey.” He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. Then he looked over at the doctor and pointed at the pile of wet clothes on the deck. “Have someone take those down to the laundry, do a freshwater rinse on them, dry them, and get them back up to us. Either that or route us out the appropriate uniforms from the lucky bag,” he said, referring to a slush fund of clothes normally maintained by the welfare and recreation committee. “And let Admiral Magruder’s chief of staff know immediately that Commander Jack Simpson and his new wife are on board and, at his earliest convenience, would be honored if they could pay their respects in person.”

The doctor paled slightly. “You know Admiral Magruder?” he asked, deep suspicion in his voice.

Jack nodded. “That I do. And believe me, if it’ll get me bailed from this joint, I’m not above capitalizing on it. The admiral and I spent a fair amount of time together at the flying club — he owns a Pitts Special, I believe.”

No, I don’t believe at all — I’m damned well certain of it. Stony and I have gone around too many times just admiring that baby for me to be mistaken about that. “Let’s get a move on, Doc,” Jack said briskly. “I’m not going to want to keep the admiral waiting.”

Lobo shot Hot Rock an ugly look full of venom and distaste. “How the hell did I ever let you talk me into this?” she demanded.

Hot Rock shook his head and smiled at her. “You’re loving it, and you know it, babe,” he said easily. “Hold on, let me settle another one of these around your shoulders.” He hefted a twenty-pound tie-down chain, doubled it, then settled it firmly over her neck draping down her front. “Too much?”

“Fuck you, Hot Rock,” Lobo said, venom dripping from her voice. “I’ll match you tie-down chain for tie-down chain any day of the week.”

Hot Rock patted her affectionately on the shoulder. Weighted down with a hundred extra pounds of sheer iron, she probably wouldn’t be able to catch him if he had to make a run for it. “There, there, little girl. We’re just doing our part to win the war, aren’t we?”

He could hear her teeth grinding over the noise on the flight deck. Two F-14s were already taxiing up to the catapult, and the noise was deafening.

He surveyed her slim, muscular form, now clad in a nondescript coverall rather than the Nomex flight suit he usually saw her in. With her hair tucked up under a cranial, goggles over her eyes, and no rank or name insignia anywhere on her coveralls, she was one of a dozen sailors hustling gear belowdecks. A damned fine attractive woman at that, but still just another sailor on the flight deck.

He ran his hands down his front, felt the oily fabric under his fingers. Well, they had to look the part, didn’t they? After all, it wasn’t like they were going to go flying anytime soon.

After pitching their case all the way up the chain of command, Lobo and Hot Rock had finally given up. The admiral was too pissed at them, too terminally pissed, to ever consider any promises they could make to be on their best behavior in the air from now on as worth anything at all. In fact, the CAG had informed them, they’d be lucky not to face a board of inquiry and have their wings stripped. As it was now, they were both off flight status, at least pending resolution of the current hostilities.

And after all, it wasn’t like the battle group really needed them right now. There was to be no anti-air activity over the island, and the Jefferson’s flights thus far had been limited to CAP and ASW. There were more than enough pilots — pilots willing to obey orders, Batman pointed out coldly — to fill the required slots. So, until further notice, the admiral had suggested that Hot Rock and Lobo, along with their RIOs, get their sorry little asses out of his stateroom and find some way to make themselves useful.

It hadn’t taken them more than three hours of pacing the passageways of the ship to feel utterly useless. All around them, activity continued at a heightened tempo, everybody seemingly hurrying to an operationally important task. Only the four aircrew were walking slowly and looking for something to do.

Finally, after three hours, Hot Rock had come up with this. He’d purloined four sets of dirtied and weathered coveralls from the maintenance chief, presented them to them, and made his pitch.

“Listen, we’re not going to be flying,” he began bluntly. “I think that should be pretty obvious to all of us. So, the question is do we sit on our hands and be pissed about it or find something to do?” With that, he held up the coveralls.

“Flight deck?” Lobo asked. “Come on, you want me to be a plane captain?” She laughed incredulously.

Hot Rock shook his head. “Nope. We’ve got qualified plane captains. What we need to do is some of the other stuff that you don’t have written quals for. There’s no way the handler would let us on his flight deck as a plane captain. We don’t have the sign-off card.”

“So we wander around incognito?” Lobo said.

“We work incognito,” Hot Rock corrected. “You know how much there is to do up there — or maybe you don’t,” he corrected. “If you don’t, it’s about time you found out. Believe me, an extra pair of hands shows up to do unskilled labor, there aren’t going to be too many questions asked.”

“Like what?” Lobo asked.

Hot Rock shrugged. “I don’t know. But whatever it is, it beats sitting on our asses down here, doesn’t it?” He surveyed the other two faces, then nodded. “I thought so. Come on, let’s go find something to do.”

As soon as they’d made their way out to the flight deck, they’d noticed a group of sailors near the stern hustling tie-down chains. They’d been on deck earlier to secure the aircraft during the weather but were now just cluttering up deck space. Each sailor carried four tie-down chains, approximately eighty pounds of extra weight. A few of the larger men carried six to eight tie-down chains.

“Where are they taking them?” Lobo asked, as Hot Rock unceremoniously draped the first tie-down chain around her shoulders.

“Just follow the crowd,” he said. “Just follow the crowd.”

The crowd, as it turned out, was heading down three ladders to the line shack compartment for an S-3 squadron. No one questioned the appearance of four extra nonrated sailors helping out with the workload, although the leading petty officer did seem faintly surprised at how quickly restowing the tie-down chains went. He stared at Hot Rock for a moment, started to ask something, and then was overcome by another crisis almost immediately.

The four made their way back up to the deck. “Well, what next?” Hot Rock said, looking around the flight deck for more opportunities. “Let’s face it, guys, if we ain’t flying, we ain’t qualified to do shit up here, are we?”

Tombstone stared at the bedraggled figure standing in front of him. He surveyed the wet hair slicked back from the broad, smiling face, the freshly scrubbed though haggard face, and then swept his eyes to the woman standing next to his friend. He took two steps forward and held out his hand. “You must be Jack’s wife. Tombstone Magruder — pleased to make your acquaintance.”

She took his hand gravely, and he noted how cool it felt. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Admiral. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, although I’m sure we both wish the circumstances could be different.”

“Of course.” Tombstone shook his head, bemused. “If I’d had any idea it was you and Jack on that boat, life would have been a lot simpler.”

“The question is, what can we do now, sir?” Jack asked, a sudden shift in his voice indicating this was now a question posed by a junior officer to a very senior one.

Tombstone studied them both for a moment longer, then glanced at the doctor standing next to them. “Status?”

“As I told the Simpsons, I’d like to keep them overnight in Sick Bay. Just to make certain,” the doctor started. Jack and Tombstone exchanged a cynical look. “After what they’ve been through…”

“We weren’t in the water that long, Admiral,” Adele broke in. “We exited the vessel before the impact, and there’s certainly no danger of hypothermia in these waters.” She left unspoken the other very real threat, that of sharks.

Batman spoke up then. “Admiral, that situation we were discussing — do you suppose…?” He broke off, and shot a significant look at the Simpsons.

“Just so,” Tombstone said. “Very well, then — Commander Simpson, I do have one mission that you and your wife might be especially suited for. Things are about to get real busy out here. You can imagine the constraints we’re operating under.” Briefly, Tombstone sketched in the restrictions on air combat and missile employment. “Now, I notice that civilian traffic has fallen off some, but there’s still a number of lookie-loos out in the harbor, trying to figure out what’s going on. The Chinese don’t seem to be doing anything about them. If you’re willing, I have a boat that you could take — the same one that brought me in, the Lucky Star. Civilian marked and pretty damned fast, for all that she might have a bit of a gimpy engine. But at least she’s not a military vessel. Any chance you could cruise over by the Chinese battle group and take a look at what’s going on?” He pointed at Lab Rat. “Commander Busby can fit you out with another cell phone so we can stay in contact.”

“Of course, sir,” Adele said.

Lab Rat held up a cautionary finger. “Admiral, there’s every chance that the Chinese took note of the markings and the hull configuration of the vessel that brought you to the carrier. And they were pretty damned intent on shooting it while you were enroute. I’m not so certain it would make an effective spy boat.”

“There’s that.” Tombstone gazed levelly at the Simpsons. “There’s some risk, to be sure. And you’d be operating as civilians, not military prisoners of war. But I think that the Chinese are probably a little too busy to keep any permanent records of that engagement, not with the air battle that was going on. If you look out in the harbor, I think you’ll see another ten or fifteen boats that could be mistaken for this one. So there’s some risk, but I don’t think it’s that substantial.”

“Neither do I,” Adele said. Both carefully ignored the fact that Heaven Can Wait had been shot out from under the Simpsons. “In truth, Admiral, we welcome any opportunity to get back into battle. And if this is how you think we can most effectively support the battle group, we’d be honored to undertake this mission.”

A rare smile split across Tombstone’s face. “I kind of figured you’d say that. We’ve just met, but I’ve flown with this guy before, and I know how he operates. I figure any woman who could put up with him would have to be twice as ballsy.” A slight red flush spread up Tombstone’s cheeks as he realized how politically incorrect he’d been. But damn it all to hell, did it really matter? Adele Simpson knew what he meant, knew it was a compliment of the highest order. If some politically correct hack wanted to bitch about an admiral’s choice of words under these circumstance, then to hell with him.

“When can we leave?” Adele asked.

The chief of staff spoke up. “Your boat’s tied up on the far side of the carrier. I’d like to take about half an hour, get it fully stocked up, let you and Lab Rat work out the coordination and code. That’ll give the boson’s mate time to run a couple of stripes down it, maybe disguise it just a little bit. So I’d say thirty minutes, no more than an hour.”

“We’ll be ready,” Adele said. She turned to her husband. “Won’t we?”

“You’d better believe it.”

Forty-five minutes later, the small vessel was ready to go. Under Adele’s direction, Jack piloted away from the massive carrier, careful to steer away from the sea chests, the giant suction intake inlets that sucked seawater into the ship for a variety of purposes. Jack appreciated the clean, hard thrum of the engines, the feel of the helm vibrating under his hands. Tombstone — correction, Admiral Magruder — had been right about the boat’s qualities. He’d have to keep an eye on the diesel engines, but the mechanics on board the carrier said that they thought they’d corrected the problem.

An hour later, Jefferson was merely a dark smudge on the horizon, while the first outlines of the massive Chinese ship were already visible. As he piloted, Jack kept up a steady scan for any aircraft, but the only contacts he could see were F-14s. A few jump jets made routine takeoffs and landings on the Chinese ship, but evinced no curiosity in the Simpson’s boat.

“So how do we look like a pleasure craft?” Adele asked. “It’s about time we started trying to maintain our cover, don’t you think?”

“Break out those fishing rods and the cooler,” he directed. A couple of sailors had raided the MWR compartment to provide them with evidence of their reasonable cover story.

Jack backed the boat off to a more than reasonable ten knots, and felt the motion of it change as the swells took it more heavily. He maneuvered around to get the waves on the quarter bow, then set the small boat on autopilot. In the stern, Adele cast out the first line.

“The way the set and drift is running right now, we should start easing up on her,” Adele said as she reeled in the line and rebaited her hook. “Let’s keep an eye on the rest of the boats, see what they’re doing. We’ll make like fat, dumb and happy tourists, out for a little fishing and a good look at the invaders. Just look at them — nobody looks like they’re taking this too seriously, do they?”

From what Jack could tell, there was very little evidence that most of the boaters took any notice of the invasion at all.

“Something’s happening,” he said suddenly, staring uneasily at the massive ship. “Something about the stern — hold on, where are those binoculars?”

Adele handed the binoculars with a cautionary, “Watch the angle of the sun, and get down behind the cowling — no point in their seeing us staring at them with binoculars.”

“I’ll bet most of the boaters are, though,” Jack muttered, but still ducking down behind the cowling. He tweaked the binoculars into focus, and stared at the stern of the ship. Something about the angle… “A well deck,” he said. “Get on the horn, let Lab Rat know — that damned thing is not only an aircraft carrier, it’s an amphibious assault ship as well.”

“How long have we got?” Adele asked as she punched the speed dial button for Lab Rat’s direct line.

“If it’s anything like an American ship, it will take them at least thirty minutes to get the well deck flooded and the ships deployed. Maybe less — we don’t know what technology they’re using. But I’m betting it will take them even longer, since we’re dealing with a converted merchant ship of some sort.”

He studied the ship and watched her settle in the water while he listened to Adele report their facts to Lab Rat. If the Chinese were sending troops ashore, it was going to be damned difficult to dislodge them once they were in place. With a sinking feeling, he found himself wondering just how long this siege would last.

“You’re certain of this?” Lab Rat said, his expression mirroring the doubt in his voice. “An amphibious ship?”

He listened carefully while Adele Simpson ran through the details of what Jack was observing. Finally, he said, “Stay on the line for a moment — I’m going to get the admiral on the other circuit.” Still holding the cell phone against one ear, he picked up the white phone and punched in the number for TFCC.

Batman’s reaction was even more incredulous than his own, but the wealth of detail in Adele Simpson’s report quickly convinced both of them. Batman heard Lab Rat put the call on the speakerphone, then the dark, somber tones of Tombstone Magruder joined in the conversation.

“Tell them to get the hell out of the way,” Tombstone said finally. “If we let those troops go ashore, it will be like trying to dig out gophers dislodging them from the island. Whatever else, we’ve got to stop those transports.”

Just then, the phone mounted on the table leg, out of sight just to the right of Batman’s chair, buzzed. He picked it up, said, “Admiral,” and then listened. A look of consternation crossed his face. “I see. Very well, I’ll be there immediately.”

Batman placed the phone back in its hanger, then turned back to the assembled joint staff. “We have another problem. The stern of the second ship just let down in back. There’s a well deck inside, according to the helo pilot.” He gazed around the assembled crowd, making sure they understood what he was saying. “They’re disgorging small boats. Each one looks to be carrying around a hundred and twenty men. And they’re heading for the coast.”

Batman turned to Bam-Bam. “Break off one of the S- 3’s to get as close in as she can and take a look at what’s going on. The Simpsons are riding pretty low in the water — there’s a chance they’ve misinterpreted what they’ve seen.” But as he listened to his TAO give the orders, Batman had a sinking feeling that he was not going to like the report coming from his S-3 any better.

Commander “Rabies” Grill put the S-3B Viking into a gentle turn to the right. The airspace immediately above the Chinese aircraft carrier was abuzz with MiGs, but they seemed to take no notice of his surveillance patrol at this distance. The ship was maybe eight miles away, her structure clearly visible, especially through binoculars. His copilot kept up a careful scan, noting the activity on the deck, the configuration of the ship, and the direction and size of its wake.

“What’s that mother doing?” Rabies muttered. He hummed a few bars of “Love Me Tender,” then said again, “What is that mother doing?”

Without dropping his binoculars, the copilot replied, “Not much. But if you start singing again, I swear I’ll pitch these binoculars right through the windscreen.” Rabies chuckled quietly. His love of country music was well known among all the S-3B Viking aircrews. In a moment of undeniable malice, the VS-29 operations officer had assigned only those individuals with perfect pitch to Rabies’s aircrew. A betting pool had already been started among the rest of the squadron, wagering on which of the other three occupants of the aircraft would be the first to crawl sniveling on his knees to the operations officer. Himself, Rabies had ten bucks on the copilot.

“Can you get around the stern of her again?” the copilot said. He leaned forward slightly in his seat, oblivious to the ejection seat straps holding him in place. “Because I think I see — hell!”

“What is it?” Rabies goosed the S-3B up to top speed of four hundred and twenty knots, and everything in the cockpit started rattling.

The copilot yelped, dropped his glasses momentarily, and shot an angry look at Rabies. “She was designed for this speed twenty years ago. Don’t press your luck, asshole.”

Rabies refrained from rejoinder.

“Sir, you’re going to be out of range of the sonobuoys,” the AW in the backseat complained. “I’m already starting to lose contact — damn.”

“Well, it’s not like you were holding contact on anything, was it?” Rabies replied, a practical note in his voice. “That diesel’s gone sinker, and you’re not going to see her until it gets dark.”

“You never know,” the AW muttered darkly. “If she takes a shot at the carrier and we’re not on station — ”

“Our primary mission is to keep an eye on that bastard conceived-in-hell aircraft carrier,” Rabies replied. “And if my beloved copilot wants a closer look at her ass, then that’s where we’re going.”

“Holy shit. I’m not believing this,” the copilot said, stark horror in his voice. “Not the carrier, but the ship next to it. It’s a fucking amphibian transport.”

“What?” demanded Rabies.

“The stern just levered down into a ramp, and seawater’s flooding the back of it. You know what that means, don’t you.”

Rabies nodded glumly. He did indeed. It meant the ship was equipped with a well deck, which meant that she had a covey of nasty little target boats inside of her capable of transporting men and equipment to shore. Easy targets for the most part — the max speed, unless they were hovercraft, was usually well under twenty knots. Not even with a harpoon — he’d get in close and take them with guns.

“Any boats coming out?” Rabies asked.

“Negative. It’ll take them a while to flood the well deck if they’re anything like our transports,” the copilot replied.

Rabies picked up the mike. “Homeplate, this is Dragon Zero Seven,” he said. An answer came back from Jefferson immediately.

“Roger, Jefferson, got a visual on the second big bad boy. My copilot reports that it’s an amphibious transport. The well deck’s flooded — once they get it stabilized, I suspect we’re going to see mama laying some eggs. What do you want me to do about it?”

“Dragon Zero Seven, wait. Out.”

Rabies sighed. Typical of the new Navy. If he had his way, he knew what he’d do — make an approach on the boat immediately and start strafing those little bastards as soon as they got spit out the ass end. Waterborne turds, that’s what they were — might as well kill ’em at sea before they had a chance to make landfall.

He glanced up at the airspace over the carrier and revised his plan. Might not be such a good idea to wander into the middle of that cluster fuck of fighters while he was armed with torpedoes and harpoons. He doubted if any of the nimble MiGs would stand still long enough for him to take them with guns. Still, he was willing to give it a try if Jefferson said so. He’d never had a chance to use the ejection seats in the Viking, and it might be interesting to —

“Dragon Zero Seven, this is Homeplate. Weapons tight — I repeat, weapons tight. Maintain briefed distance and continue observations. We’re sending you out some playmates.”

There were two sighs of relief from the backseat as it became clear that Rabies would not be allowed to enter the airspace around the Chinese aircraft carrier. Even the copilot looked relieved. Rabies’s tendency to shoot first and ask questions later was well-known amongst the community.

Rabies sighed and tapped impatiently on the throttle cluster. “Damn. And I was hoping to be an ace.”

Batman listened to the report from the translator with a grim expression on his face. “A full division crammed inside those amphibs? He was certain? And a submarine in the area, too?”

The translator nodded. “He was certain, Admiral. Especially about the submarine. He’s the equivalent of one of our sonar technicians, and he knows that they’ve anticipated having to deal with at least one U.S. submarine.”

Batman was silent for a moment, then said, “So why’s he talking? Does he think we’ll torture him?”

“As I understand it, he’s planning on asking for political asylum.” The translator pursed his lips for a moment, deep in thought. “As there’s something more that’s motivating him, I’m certain. He kept mentioning a senior pilot by the name of Chan. Chan Li. Evidently this fellow thinks Chan is out to get him.”

“Okay by me,” Batman answered. “I don’t care why he’s talking, as long as he’s talking.” He turned to Bam-Bam. “Get a message to Centurion. She’s been holding contact intermittently on something, and if we give her an exact classification, it’ll help her localize it.”

Lab Rat broke in with, “In these waters, ASW is going to be difficult, sir. Especially near the harbor. The water’s not bad, but the ocean floor is littered with metal. It’s going to be difficult for the airborne assets to depend on their MAD contacts.”

They all fell silent for a moment as history hit home. That the remnants of that gallant fleet on the seabed should make their problem now more difficult seemed cruelly ironic.

“The floor’s charted,” Lab Rat added. “There’s no area that’s been mineswept more thoroughly. That’ll help.” He left unspoken the last thought — it would help, but it might not be enough.