Terror At Dawn

EIGHTEEN

Despite what Air Force pilots thought, pulling Alert Five on board an aircraft carrier was considerably more unpleasant than sitting in an F-15 ashore. The black tarmac nonskid reflected up the heat, assaulting the aircraft with shimmering waves from every direction. The smaller huffers, rarely used in the Navy, were overwhelmed almost immediately trying to provide cooling air. The pilots sweated inside G-suits, silently damning the Iraqis who had forced them to bake in their own sweat. It was one thing to want to fly, to risk being killed on a combat mission — another matter entirely to sweat to death on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

Fastball was probably the least patient of any of the pilots of the squadron, Rat reflected. He had been bitching for the last twenty minutes, complaining about everything possible on board the ship, and had now regressed to reciting indignities he had suffered while in Navy ROTC. Given enough time, she was sure she would hear all the details of how unfair his potty training had been.

She tried to concentrate on the book she’d brought with her, but his whining voice interfered with her concentration. Finally, when she could stand it no longer, she snapped, “Is it at all possible you could maintain radio silence long enough for me to finish this chapter? I’ve read the same page five times.”

“Well, excuuuuuuuse me,” Fastball said, seriously aggrieved. “Pardon me for assuming that perhaps some light conversation would make time go by faster. I guess I should never have assumed thought that the RIO I fly with every day would be interested in talking to me.”

“Talking, maybe. Listening to you whine, no.”

“Doesn’t Commander Busby ever whine?”

She had wondered how long it would take him to get to the heart of it. Every time she disagreed with him, he began making sardonic remarks about her possible relationship with Busby. It had been going on for a week now, and she was getting damned tired of it.

“Well, doesn’t he?” Fastball asked again, unaware of how dangerously close he was to the edge of her temper.

“No, now that you should mention it. He doesn’t. I suppose he has better things to do with his time than complain about every detail of Navy life,” she snapped.

“I knew you were seeing him,” Fastball said, satisfaction in his voice. “Don’t bother denying it anymore.”

“And just how the hell do you ‘see’ someone on board an aircraft carrier?” She snapped.

“I guess you should tell me. He’s senior enough to rate a private stateroom, right? And senior enough to be able to manage his own schedule.”

“You got something to say?” Rat demanded.

From behind, she could see him shrug. Then he turned back to glare at her, turning as far as the ejection harness would allow him. “I’m not the only one, you know. Everybody sees you two at chow. Busby’s showing up in the dirty-shirt mess all the time these days. Before, you never saw him outside of the flag mess. And you two all chummy, sitting by yourselves — you’re a helluva cheap date, Rat.”

She loosened her harness and reached forward to smack him on the side of his helmet. He let out a yelp and tried to turn to reach her, but the seat blocked his movement.

“Who I eat with is none of your business. And neither is what I do in my off hours. Not unless and until it begins affecting my performance in the cockpit. And if you got a complaint in that department, I suggest you take it up with CAG.”

“Jesus, Rat. I’m just trying to look out for you.”

“What are you, my big brother?”

“No. Just a guy who knows how other guys talk. And there’s a lot of talk going around, Rat. You may not be doing anything, but when you come out of his cabin late at night with that stupid shit-eating grin on your face, it doesn’t help matters any.”

“You’re jealous.” She stated it as a fact, not a question.

He shook his head. “No. Don’t flatter yourself. But you might keep in mind that what you do reflects on me, too. We’re a team. Or at least I thought we were.”

Not just jealousy. She realized that in a flash. No, she been closer to the mark when she’d called him a big brother. She had a sudden flash of insight. Sure, he would have heard the remarks — she’d overheard some of them herself. But she’d let them pass, not deigning to acknowledge them. Fastball wouldn’t — he was constitutionally incapable of avoiding a fight. He would stick up for her, and probably had taken a lot of crap over it. No matter that nothing inappropriate had happened between her and Lab Rat. Nothing would, not while they were on the ship. But someday, when liberty ashore was a reality again, when they were both sure about how they felt, there was a very good chance that—

“You’re right,” she said finally. “I ought to avoid the appearance of impropriety, too.”

Stunned silence from the forward seat greeted her admission.

“And you know there’s nothing going on.” Again, she stated it as a fact.

“Yeah, I know,” he muttered. “You’re too much of a tight ass to get laid on the ship, aren’t you? Or maybe anywhere?”

She bit back a sharp reply, recognizing the outburst of testosterone for what it was. A few moments later, she was greeted with, “Sorry about that.”

Petty Officer Carl Ellison loved his job. He was a tall, well-built man with broad shoulders that had carried him through a stellar career as a high school quarterback. He stayed in shape working out with the Marines in the gym. He had large, bold features, the overall impression of sheer physical prowess muted only by a full, sensitive mouth.

Despite his appearance, Carl was at heart a bookish fellow. As one of the more junior members of the intelligence team, he read all the incoming traffic, picking out messages of immediate importance and arranging the others for the watch officers who prepared their daily briefs. Most traffic readers simply glanced at the subject line and tossed them in the appropriate pile.

Not Carl Ellison. He read every detail, savoring the feeling of being on the inside of the war, looking forward to when he would be the one on the other end generating those reports. He could already imagine the tight, crisp, and understated phrases he would use in place of the sometimes wordy prose he was required to file.

It was his habit to skim through all the messages first, noting the subject lines, so he could pull out anything of urgent importance. This time, one third of the way through the two-inch stack, he froze. The subject line struck immediate terror into his heart, and all thoughts of his later career drafting messages went out the window.

Possible biological weapons use, confidence medium. Confidence medium — that meant they had more than a mere rumor. At least one fact or background or history to back it up. He took the message out of the stack, absorbing it in one large gulp, then going back to read it more carefully a second time. By the time he started reading it the third time, he was already on his feet and headed for the commander’s office.

Commander Busby felt his gut tense when he saw the look on Ellison’s face. He had been pleasantly surprised to find out that his temperament and that of the petty officer were closely matched, despite the disparity in their physical appearances. He was nurturing the young man along, hoping someday soon he would apply to one of the number of college education programs the Navy sponsored.

“Biological weapons,” Ellison said as he passed the message to Busby. “Medium-confidence report.”

That was all Busby really needed to know, but he scanned the message anyway for the details. This particular weapon came in the form of a two-ton truck abandoned in the middle of the desert, discovered by an Army patrol that had inspected the contents. In it, they had found twelve bodies, black and swollen in death, the features distorted. A bit of canny work by an intelligence specialist had given the warning before the situation could become disastrous — and later, blood samples taken from the patrol who’d investigated it brought terrifying news.

The black plague. Certain death in the Middle Ages, somewhat treatable these days by modern methods, but by no means always curable. It spread rapidly from airborne exposure, symptoms coming on quickly, its victims almost immediately debilitated by raging fever and painful muscles and bleeding.

“They caught them in the chow line,” Busby said softly, horror in his voice. “My God, the close quarters — they must have infected another fifty people, minimum.” He scanned the remainder of the message, looking for the details of the evacuation plan, and saw that anyone exposed to a member of the squad was currently on a large transport headed for the States. But for some it would be too late.

A buzzer sounded, capturing their attention. Busby picked up the red phone on his desk, the one that connected him directly to TFCC.

“Intelligence, Combat. We’ve received a Warning Order, sir. We’re to stand by to conduct precision strikes again suspected Iraqi biological-weapons sites. They’re requiring a preliminary plan within the next six hours.”

“Roger,” Busby responded. “Assemble the rapid-response team in the admiral’s conference room. I’m on my way.”

He pulled out the folder that contained the contingency plans already drafted, thankful that they had done their homework. The bare bones of such a mission were already sketched out, accompanied by a floppy disk containing the details formatted as a message. Manning, missions, cycles, and requirements — it was all laid out, merely waiting to be tinkered with to fit the particular targets designated. He silently thanked Senior Chief Armstrong’s foresight, since he had been the one to make sure all the plans had been updated.

By the time he got to the conference room, the rest of the team was assembled. Strike, operations, supply, maintenance, and representatives from each squadron, generally the squadron commanding officer. There was a brief flurry as they discussed the message among themselves, and then a sharp, “Attention on deck,” that brought them all to their feet as the admiral walked in.

“Carry on,” Coyote said immediately, indicating they should return to their seats. He walked to the front of the room, passed a scribbled piece of paper to the operations officer and said, “These are the initial targets from JCS. This is being handled at the highest level. I don’t have to tell you that the intelligence that brought us this information cost several lives.” He glanced over at Busby, as though he might have additional information on the deaths. “So, let’s get on it. I’d like to see strike details in an hour and have the completed answer ready to go out half an hour later. Any problem with that?” He glanced around the table, confirming that there was not. “Very well.” He turned and stalked out of the conference room, barely giving them time to come to their feet again.

It took the team only forty-five minutes to put together the first draft of the plan. Exactly 106 minutes after they had received the initial order, their response to the warning order left the ship.

To their credit, the watch team at JCS was no slouch, either. After a brief phone conference with Fifth Fleet, the response came back: Execute.

Fastball and Rat’s argument was interrupted by word of a possible mission. It had not come over a radio circuit from the Air Boss or over the 1MC. Instead, a young airman had climbed up the boarding ladder, motioned to them to undo the cockpit, and filled them in on the details. The more informal channels moved far faster than the official ones.

From the moment he heard the news, Fastball was ready to go. Rat, the more experienced, began her preparations as well.

Finally, when the order came, they were ready.

“We’re going first,” Fastball crowed as he increased power to the engines and waggled the control surfaces for a final check. The catapult officer stepped forward and made a motion with his hands, indicating that Fastball should cycle all of his control surfaces. He did so, circling the stick, and was rewarded with a thumbs-up, indicating that all control surfaces appeared functional. There were a final few details on the radio, and then the catapult officer snapped off a sharp salute. Fastball returned it, immediately dropping his hand back to the controls and increasing the engines to full military power. Seconds later, a massive force shoved him back in his seat.

The bone-rattling run down to the end of the catapult always seemed to go on for far longer than it actually took to launch that much metal into the air at a speed capable of sustaining lift. As they shot off the bow, the Tomcat sank momentarily, fighting to remain airborne. Fastball dealt with the familiar clutch of panic that he always suffered at this point as he contemplated the possibility that insufficient pressure at the catapult had given them a soft cat shot and insufficient airspeed.

Seconds later, the Tomcat caught the air, fought her way back above the bow, and gained speed steadily in response to the full throttle. Fastball heard Rat’s sigh of relief and echoed it. He let the Tomcat gain more speed and made sure they were going to continue flying, then slid her into a steep climb. She was now fully under his control, responsive to the slightest twitches of his fingers, a melding of man and machine. In the back, he heard Rat grumbling, but he ignored her. Later, when they had targets to destroy, what she had to say might be important. For now, she was just a passenger.

“All flights airborne,” a voice over the speaker announced.

“Good hunting, ladies and gents,” Lab Rat said softly. “Good hunting.”

“Skeeter, get over here,” Fastball ordered. He heard a sigh over the circuit he shared with his wingman, and then the other Tomcat slid snugly into position.

“That close enough for you?” a slow drawl asked.

“That will do. Now stay there,” Fastball ordered. “Rat, give me a vector.”

“First target, bearing three-two-zero, range forty-five miles,” she answered. Even as she spoke, Fastball was putting the Tomcat into a hard turn, coming to base course.

It was a site they knew well, one that they had briefed countless times. It had been on the top of their list of potential biological-weapons facilities for the last month, and small bits of information continued to increase the probability that that was what it was.

And why do we wait until people die to destroy it? We knew what it was — why didn’t we take it out?

He shrugged, putting the question out of his mind. Those decisions were made way above his pay grade, but someday… Fastball viewed their failure to destroy this target as the sort of cowardly behavior that he’d come to expect from most Administrations. Maybe they were afraid they’d hit a baby-food factory instead of a real biological-weapons site. Maybe they did know more than he did about the targets, about what could go wrong with a preemptive strike. Well, to hell with them. When he was senior enough to be making the calls, he’d call the strikes like he saw them.

“Two,” Skeeter acknowledged, following suit at Fastball’s command. His Tomcat appeared to hang motionless in the sky at exactly the right distance from Fastball.

Five minutes later, Fastball announced, “Feet dry. Visual on target.”

The facility was located just off the coast, a complex of concrete buildings and piping that resembled a refinery. Rat had studied its outlines hour after hour, committing its shape from every angle to memory. Now, as she craned forward to get a look at it, she felt a reassuring sense of familiarity.

“Concur, target,” she acknowledged. “Descend to angels two on approach.”

“I know, I know,” Fastball muttered. “Didn’t we brief this enough times?”

“Just follow the checklist, Fastball,” she said wearily.

“Why don’t you just leave the flying to me? If you want to do something useful, watch for antiair missiles,” he said sharply, putting the Tomcat into a sharp descent.

There was always a wild card, wasn’t there? Intelligence could do a lot, but they could not keep up with every single movement of small weapons on the land. There was no intelligence about fixed antiair weapons sites, but there was every possibility that there could be a man stationed on the roof with a Stinger tube or a mobile air setup. Even a few machine guns could exact serious damage if they manage to connect with the fuel tank. No bombing run, not even the ones conducted at the training range, was ever entirely safe.

Fastball kept his gaze fixed on the target, at the exact position that he wanted to nail. He absorbed the information displayed on his HUD unconsciously, integrating it with what his eyes told him and correlating the two pictures.

“Five seconds,” Rat announced. “Four, three, two — mark!”

The heavy jet jolted upward as the five-hundred-pound bomb left the wing, lofted into the air on a trajectory destined to take it right into the center of the complex. Moments later, Skeeter released his weapon as well, and the two Tomcats peeled away from the approach path in opposite directions to avoid mutual interference. They went buster at right angles to the target for a few moments, gaining maximum distance, and then converged back on base course.

“Good hit,” Rat shouted, turning around to watch the fireball behind them. “Secondaries, too, I think.”

“Nice job,” Skeeter’s RIO agreed.

“Then it’s back to the barn, boys and girls,” Fastball announced, self-satisfaction in his voice. “I think we earned ourselves the couple days off Alert Five.”

“I want some answers, and I want them now!” Admiral Jette swore, slamming his fist down on the heavy conference room table. “Jefferson’s got her strikes already launched, weapons in the air, and you people haven’t even finished up the answer to the warning order. Anyone mind explaining this little discrepancy to me? Is there a really damn good reason that we can’t be first off the mark?”

No one spoke. Every officer seated at the admiral’s table knew the answer, but they had learned from hard experience that the emperor did not appreciate being told he had no clothes on.

“What about it, Strike?” the admiral asked, directing his comments to the air strike officer. “What’s your excuse?”

Of all the officers there, Strike was the most experienced. He’d been on numerous cruises in this area, served on Fifth Fleet battle staff and as the force operations officer on board a command and control ship, and had forgotten more about the Middle East than most of the others had ever learned. Additionally, he had just decided to retire. His oldest daughter, age ten; had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and was not doing well. In all good conscience, as much as he loved flying, he could not leave his wife to bear the burden alone. This was his last cruise, although no one knew it yet.

“The problem is, Admiral, that we weren’t ready,” he said bluntly, locking his gaze on the admiral’s angry eyes. “If we had a notional flight schedule ready to go, if we left a little bit of flexibility in our plans, then this whole thing would have run much more smoothly.”

“Are you telling me you can’t do your job?” the admiral demanded, his voice low and menacing. “Would you like me to relieve you now or shall I wait for a court-martial to decide your incompetence?”

“I’m not incompetent, sir. With all due respect, I’m probably the most competent strike officer you’ll ever see. And it is my considered professional opinion that the staff is not up to speed.” Strike’s voice was firm as he spoke. He could feel the waves of shock and apprehension surging out from the other officers, but he ignored them. Sure, he could have used some moral support, but why ask them to sink their careers along with his? They were good men and women, most of them, and the Navy would need them to balance out idiots such as the man wearing the stars in front of him.

“I want aircraft in the air within thirty minutes,” the admiral said. “No excuses. Thirty minutes.” He held up the two sheets of paper he’d been handed, the staff’s first cut on their commander’s plan. “I am releasing this. You want flexibility, you’ll get flexibility. Get those aircraft in the air now and you can make changes as need be while they’re en route. Think your pilots can handle that, or do they need to have their hands held all the way to the target?”

“My pilots can handle anything,” the senior commanding officer present said. “We’re ready, sir.”

And fuck you, too, buddy, Strike thought. Go ahead, suck up. But see who has to pull your ass out of the fire. And in the end, you won’t be the one that suffers. Your pilots will, and God help them all.

The admiral’s answer came back just as promptly as Coyote’s had, although with a cautionary note to verify all intelligence prior to launch. Fifteen minutes later, the first of the Alert Five aircraft of United States launched.

Commander Lauren took the first flight himself. His motivation was not an avid desire for attaboys or a greedy grab for more stick time. Lauren had had more than his share of combat missions, and was second only to Strike in number of traps on board a carrier. He chose a less experienced pilot-RIO team for his wingman.

Lauren was a tall, stocky man with a shock of silver hair that made him easily visible in any crowd. A sprinkle of freckles across his nose, coupled with bright blue disingenuous eyes, often led people to underestimate him. No one who had ever served with him or flown with him ever made that mistake more than once.

“States, this is Renegade Leader,” he said, toggling his mike on. “Be advised we are feet-dry and ten miles from designated target. You have any intel updates for me?”

“Renegade One, States. We’re working on it, sir. If there’s a modification, we should have it to you in about five minutes.”

Five minutes. Thanks, fella. I’ll already be in range if there are any new antiair sites in the area. “Roger, States, acknowledged.” But I’ll be damned if I let you hear me sweat it out.

A small red symbol began blinking on his HUD, and the ESM warning gear in the rear seat simultaneously erupted with incessant beeping. “Fire control radar,” his RIO announced. “I think we got a SAM site dead ahead.”

“It figures,” Lauren said. Generally, you could detect a hostile radar at about one and one half times the range that the radar could detect you. They gave him some time, if not a lot, to try to turn and make his way around the edges of the radar’s detection envelope. “That’s it, bearing zero-six-zero?”

“Affirmative. I think if you—”

“Already on it,” the pilot said laconically, swinging the Tomcat ninety degrees off base course. “Let me know when we start losing signal strength.”

“Roger.” The ESM beeping stopped as the Tomcat opened range from the site.

“Renegade One, States. Be advised there’s a possible SAM site to the northeast of your current location.”

“Roger, got it.” Thanks a lot, guys. Too little, too late. “Interrogative our target status?”

“Renegade One, new target designation to you.” And a new symbol popped into being on his HUD, labeled with bearing and range information. “Intelligence confirms probable biological-weapons site, with possible warhead capabilities. No known antiair defenses in the area.”

“No known? That’s not very reassuring.”

A new voice came on the circuit, one he recognized immediately as the admiral’s. “Nothing about combat missions is supposed to be reassuring, mister.”

Just what I need, him sitting in TFCC and micromanaging the final run. Wonder if he’ll give a weapons-release countdown for me?

“Got it,” his RIO said. “Come right to about ten degrees. That shit is coming in from the side. We can make a hard turn, come in right over it, and get out of that radar’s range before they get a handle on us. The range should be long enough for a spoof to work.” The ESM system had active countermeasures, ones that could intercept a targeting radar and transmit a return signal that would convince the threat radar that its target was somewhere else.

“In theory, at least,” the pilot noted.

“Yeah. In theory.”

I remember this target. Not a lot to look at. It’s on the side of a hill, built back into it. A helluva target for a five-hundred-pound dumb bomb. Something like that, we need a daisy-buster. But it’s a come-as-you-are fight and what we have will have to do. Maybe we can damage the entrance enough to hole up anybody back in the buried part of it.

“Commencing final run,” he said, turning the aircraft to put it on the path indicated on his HUD. From here on in, it was a matter of coordinating electronic information and visual, using his experience to release the dumb bomb exactly at the right moment to loft it onto the target. Sort of like throwing a softball, he mused. And in this case, he would have to rely on his eyes and experience to tell him what alterations in the flight plan he had to make to compensate for the hill. The plan called for him to nail the center of the target, but that clearly wasn’t going to work. He needed to strike near the entrance.

“I’ve got a visual,” he announced a few seconds later, as the dull brown before him resolved into a sloping hill with a concrete building set on the side. It merged into the hill, but his eyes recognized the setup from the intelligence photos.

“Roger, concur,” his RIO said.

“Two,” his wingman acknowledged.

In a few words, Lauren sketched out additional instructions for his less-experienced wingman, hoping that the other pilot was enough of a stick to do some fine-tuning to the release point.

All once the ESM gear erupted into warnings. “SAM site, SAM site,” his RIO shouted, his voice tight and under control. “Drop it and get us out of here!”

“No,” the pilot said. “We’re not close enough, and I’ll be damned if I’m going home with these babies on my wings. Five more seconds — now!”

The aircraft jolted as the five-hundred-pound bombs left the wings, heading down toward the target, following the aircraft’s course and descending in a parabolic arc. Lauren broke off to the right, his wingman following, and kicked in afterburners to clear the area.

“They’re launching, they’re launching,” his wingman shouted over the circuit. “I have a visual on two — no, three missiles!”

“Settle down,” the pilot ordered sharply. “Keep your eyes opened, you’ll be okay. The SAMs are slow and clumsy — you can avoid it if you stay on your toes. Just like in school, Joe.”

He rolled his Tomcat inverted and stared back the way they’d come. Yes, he could see them now, his vision preternaturally sharpened by the knowledge that they were there. Two long, white telephone poles rising up from the ground, beam-on to them now but already turning to follow them, the third one not yet visible. At least they didn’t have fighters. Ground-based missiles were a helluva lot easier to handle.

“It’s got me, it’s got me,” his wingman shouted as the ESM gear stuttered into a harder, faster tone, indicating that one of the missiles had detected him on its own radar and was locking on. “Chaff, flares — commencing evasive maneuvers.”

The air around them was suddenly cluttered with strips of metal foil and burning flares, all designed to throw the missile off its target. The countermeasures gear kicked in automatically, intercepting the radar signals from the missile seeker head, delaying them, and transmitting them back, attempting to fool the small computer mind into thinking that the aircraft was somewhere else.

“It’s got us, too,” his own RIO said. “Wait for it, wait for it — break right, break right!” The pilot did as the RIO ordered, popping out chaff and flares as he did.

“I lost it — no, it’s reacquiring, coming back on me — break right, break right,” his wingman shouted, swinging his Tomcat around as the missile turned away from the chaff and flares. For whatever reason, this particular missile was tenacious. Lauren had his own problems to deal with, though. His own nemesis had reacquired and was turning to meet him.

There’s something to be said for the Hornet. Damn, I wish I had their turning radius right now. He jerked his Tomcat around almost in midair and was rewarded with, “It’s falling off,” from his RIO. Evidently their maneuvers had exhausted the missile’s fuel and it was tumbling back to earth. Be damned fine if it fell back on that bastard target.

“Come on, come on,” he heard his wingman chanting. The G-forces were distorting his words. The pilot was fighting to stay conscious as he put his aircraft into a hard, diving turn. “Joe, easy!” Lauren said. “Change altitude, increase closure without so many Gs — acknowledge!”

“I’m trying,” the voice said, even more sluggishly. “It’s not—”

Suddenly, below Lauren and to his right, a fireball exploded where moments before had been a Tomcat. “Joe,” he shouted, as though raising his voice to reach across the distance between them and save his junior wingman. “Answer me!”

“That was him,” his RIO said softly, shock in his voice. “Those weren’t that hard to avoid.” He began to swear softly.

Shit, double shit. I’ve got to go see.

He put his Tomcat into a hard turn that headed directly for the fireball. He had to see if there were any parachutes. The odds of it were slim to none, but as long as there was a chance that his wingman and his RIO had gotten out just before the hit, that somehow he had managed to eject them in the moments before the missile hit, Lauren had to check.

The air below the fireball was already littered with burning pieces of fuselage that fell through the air like a shower of meteors. Lauren stayed around the edges, careful to avoid the secondary explosions and shrapnel, and rolled inverted to check the air below them. “Anything?” he asked his RIO, already knowing what the answer was. “Anything at all?”

“Renegade One, States,” the TAO’s voice said over tactical. “Interrogative the status of your wingman?”

“No chutes,” the pilot said shortly, his voice emotionless. “I’m coming back for another check, but I don’t think he made it.”

Silence on the circuit, and then the admiral came back on. “Get your ass back here, mister. Now.”

“Just a few more minutes, sir. Just in case—”

“Don’t you people understand what orders are? I said now!”

The silence that followed on the normally busy circuit had an entirely different quality to it. Shock, horror, even more than the death of his wingman had occasioned. It was unthinkable that a pilot leave a wingman before he was absolutely and morally convinced that there were no parachutes in the air. It violated every tenet of the warrior’s code, the one that both he and the admiral had been raised on.

That could be no explanation, no justification. This was not the time for an argument. Instead, the pilot simply ignored the man with the stars and began his futile orbit once again.

The intelligence specialists and officers listen to the exchanges closely, each one secretly glad he did not have to deal with the admiral. They saw what the pilot was doing — everyone in the LINK saw Lauren continue his search of the airspace for his wingman or a parachute. They saw and applauded him, hoping that they themselves would have the courage to do just that if it ever came down to it.

Just then, the telephone rang. The specialist picked it up and passed it to the intelligence officer. “Met, sir.”

The intelligence officer took the call, saying, “We’re a little bit busy right now for a weather report.”

“Not for this one,” a grim voice announced. “You guys have any idea what surface winds are doing right now?”

“No,” the intelligence officer said, dismay on his face. He was no dummy — there was only one reason for the meteorologist to be calling up right now with that particular inquiry. “But—”

“But, nothing. You better get this aircraft carrier turned around and headed south right now,” Met said. “Because, according to my calculations, if there was any biological agent released in that strike, it’s going to be coming across our deck in about fifteen minutes.”

Even if he had not known it from Admiral Jette’s voice, by the time the pilot was on final, he knew he was in serious trouble. But he was fresh from a combat mission and losing his wingman, and the kind of trouble he was facing didn’t bother him all that much. Sure, the admiral could shaft him on his fitness reports, recommend that he never be promoted, and even try to relieve him of command. None of it was mortal danger — except to his career. And that seemed a very unimportant matter compared to losing his wingman.

He could hear the tension in the air boss’s voice as he turned onto final, traced its echo in the LSO’s terse orders, and saw it in the strange, rebellious face of the plane captain who helped him out of his ejection harness. By now, the entire story would have made the rounds throughout the ship. And, as far as he knew, there was not a single aviator — strike that, a single sailor of any type — who would have done anything other than what he did. Oh, maybe some of them wouldn’t speak up, worried about the effect on their own careers. But inside, where it counted, he knew that each one desperately hoped that if their situations were reversed, he would have made the same choice that Lauren did.

Once the post-shutdown checklist was complete, he leaned back against the ejection seat, breathing deeply. The real world came crashing back in. In a few moments, he would have to face the admiral and accept responsibility for disobeying the admiral’s orders.

But damn it, he never should have asked me to leave. I wasn’t in immediate danger. There was no reason to order me to leave the scene.

Unless there was something you didn’t know. Maybe he had some intelligence about another attack, maybe there was some reason for his outrageous order.

No. Because if he had, I would have heard it in their voices now. Nothing stays secret for long on a carrier.

The plane captain, her face almost completely obscured by goggles and her cranial helmet, was deftly unfastening his ejection harness and inserting the cotter pins into the ejection seat, which would prevent it from accidentally being activated while the aircraft was on the deck. He noticed her in ways that he normally wouldn’t have. The slight curl of hair that escaped from her cranial to hang down over her forehead. The smooth, unlined skin below the goggles, the quick smile that threatened to break out into a full grin at any second. Her mouth was delicate, a deep red color that no cosmetic could mimic. He was seized by the sudden urge to grab her hands in his and kiss her, to feel contact with a woman. It was a natural aftermath of combat, particularly when you’d lost someone.

She seemed to sense his interest, and a slight flush rose on her cheeks. Her hands moved more slowly, lingering over the straps as she unfastened them. She paused for a moment, then pulled her goggles away from her eyes and settled them on the top of her cranial helmet. Her eyes, he saw, were ringed with red circles where the rubber from the goggles pressed into delicate skin. Her eyes were a dark, tawny brown, deep and full of sympathy. Her face was unmarked yet by life, other than by what the Navy had taught her. Purplish circles under her eyes reflected the long hours she kept.

“Sir,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Sir?”

“Yes, Airman Carmichael?” he asked, proud that his voice was kind and level. He remembered her now, the details of his interview with her when she checked on board and reported to the squadron. A smart kid, one with a lot of potential. Her A school had been aviation electronics, and she would soon rotate out of the line division and into her rating work center. He remembered that she seemed to be shy, exceptionally reserved, and he’d thought her rather sweet at the time.

“Sir, I just wanted to say — what happened up there—” Her voice trailed off. He held up a hand to stop her.

“What happened up there was—” He stopped suddenly, unable to make the party-line explanation come to his lips. He couldn’t lie to her, not to those dark brown eyes gazing into his, hurt, wanting to know why the world wasn’t working the way it ought to. “What happened up there,” he began again, even more gently but with a tremendous sense of release, “was really shitty.” Both of them knew he wasn’t talking about the loss of his wingman. “We lost two good men today. I searched every bit of the area — there was no sign of them. They never even knew what hit them.” For some reason, that seemed to ease her mind. He wondered whether he could have lived with himself if he had not stayed on station to look one last time for his wingman.

“It’s hard, isn’t it, sir?”

For one insane moment, he thought she was talking about his dick, which was indeed demanding to be heard. “Yes, it is,” he said gravely, fervently grateful that he had paused before answering. “It’s always hard when you lose someone.”

“The admiral is a shit.” Something had changed in her voice, a hard note at odds with the delicate face in front of him. She flushed immediately, all too aware that she was way out of line, and looked away.

“I won’t tell him you said that,” he said gravely, deeply gratified at some level that even this young airman understood the difference between right and wrong. “As long as you promise not to tell him that I think he’s a shit, too.”

Her face snapped around to his, a look of shock on her face. Then a hard, tight mile smile crept across her full lips, aging her immediately by a decade. “Our secret, Captain.” Somehow even her voice seemed deeper.

“Agreed.” Then he looked down at the ejection harness, and said, “Now help me get this damn thing off, okay? I’ve got an execution to attend.” He gave her the same tight smile she’d proffered just moments earlier, cementing the bond between them.

Later, waiting in the hallway passageway outside the admiral’s office, he held her face in his mind, drawing strength from her expression.

Lab Rat stared at the speaker overhead, listening to the horrific details coming across it, each one spoken in a flat, neutral voice with no trace of emotion. The winds across the Persian Gulf had shifted, and now traced a direct line from the recently destroyed biochemical site to the USS United States. Given that the bunker had been lodged in the side of a hill, and that there was no indication of secondary explosions or complete destruction that might have incinerated any biochem weapons, it was possible that whatever hell had been housed there was now being carried by the wind toward the ship.

“Of course, there are civilian cities along the dispersal path as well,” the admiral continued in a flat, detached voice. “Should there in fact be Iraqi chemical or biological weapons being dispersed, my medical staff advises me that we can expect significant collateral damage. I have already released an OPREP-3 report to JCS summarizing those attacks.”

“Dear God,” Coyote said, disbelief in his voice. “What do you need? Medical support? I’ll have that coordinated if there’s anything you need.”

“The offer is appreciated,” the admiral said. His tone deepened and he began to sound even more formal. “The ship has drilled very extensively for this very possibility, and is currently buttoned up as tight as she can get. The captain has every confidence that between the saltwater wash-down system and the positive pressure maintained inside the hull, there will be no danger of exposure.”

The captain — now why did he say it that way? He should have said that he was confident. Let the troops hear it in his voice, feel it in their bones from the way he talked. That’s why you get paid the big bucks, Admiral — to stand out there in front and give your troops something to follow.

“Under the circumstances, we have commenced a precautionary emergency destruction of some older material,” the admiral continued, his voice still unnaturally calm. “However, most of the corporate knowledge resides inside the minds of our more senior officers. Rather than risk losing that experience, I have decided to—”

No. He can’t be thinking that. He wouldn’t dare. He wouldn’t dare.

“—to evacuate senior staff from the ship’s company and my own staff. There will be three CODs departing in approximately forty-five minutes en route to Kuwait, where we will check in with Fifth Fleet. I would expect that we will refuel and transfer to the USS Jefferson, leaving a portion of the officers at its fleet headquarters.”

There was dead silence on the circuit. Coyote struggled for words, fighting down his disbelief. Diplomacy had never been his strong point, and any traces of it that he had managed to acquire now deserted him. “You mean you’re going to run?” he asked over the circuit, his voice incredulous. “You’re going to leave your battle group there while you get your own ass to safety?” More silence. Coyote thought that he really ought to be wishing he had not said that, but couldn’t convince himself of it.

The man was a coward. He had just announced it on a secure circuit that was broadcast to every command center and every commanding officer and captain in his battle group. Faced with the unthinkable, the admiral was going to run.

“Pending other orders from Fifth Fleet staff, expect our COD on board early tomorrow morning.” It was as though Coyote had not spoken.

“No way, asshole,” Coyote said, all traces of civility gone from his voice.

“I can still coordinate the movements of my battle group, given access to sufficient communication circuits, and—”

“It will be a cold day in hell,” Coyote said, his voice burning with outrage and scorn, “when I let a coward on board my ship to direct his people from a safe position. When you get ashore in Kuwait, you better plan on staying there, because if you or your aircraft approach USS Jefferson, I will have you shot down. You read me?”

“Admiral?” Coyote’s TAO said, disbelief in his voice. “I think we have a problem.”