PROLOGUE CARRIER 3: ARMAGEDDON MODE A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author PRINTING HISTORY Jove edition /June 1992 All rights reserved. Copyright © 1992 by Jove Publications, Inc. Excerpted material from Stormrider copyright © 1992 by Victor Milan. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016. ISBN: 0-515-10864-2 Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016. The name "JOVE" and the "J" logo are trademarks belonging to Jove Publications, Inc. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 10 987654321 0735 hours, 23 March IAF Fulcrum 401, nearing Hyderabad, Pakistan Lieutenant Colonel Munir Ramadutta peered through his canopy, watching tan desert sand and gravel blur past a hundred meters below. Power surged against his spine through his ejection seat, the muted thunder of twin Tumansky R-33D turbofans, and the morning sun flashed brilliant from his wingtips. He grinned behind his oxygen mask and helmet visor as a verse from the Ramayana came to mind: "... golden in its shape and radiance, fleet as Indra 's heavenly steed.'' The ancient Hindu epic's description of Prince Ravanna's celestial car could easily have applied to his own aircraft. The MiG-29, code named "Fulcrum" by NATO, was almost identical in size, looks, and performance to the American F/A-18 Hornet and was considered by most observers to be more than a match for any fighter interceptor in the world. The Indian fighter was brand-new, fresh from the production lines at Nasik. Forty-five Fulcrums had been purchased directly from the Soviets, and another one hundred fifty were in licensed production now, sleek and deadly weapons certain to give the Indian air force crushing aerial superiority over India's old foes. Pakistan. The barren, dun-colored desert was giving way to the patchwork green of the river-laced Indus Valley. There was still no sign that Wind Strike had been spotted by the Pakistani defenses. They were coming in hard and low on the deck, avoiding radar sites and villages. Even the date—Pakistan Day, anniversary of the 1940 decision to separate from India—had 1 2 Keith Dougtess been chosen as a time when Pakistan's defenses would be at less than one hundred percent. Operation Paschim Hawa— West Wind—had been carefully planned, and the planning was paying off. They were now one hundred fifty kilometers inside the Radcliffe Line, the border between India and Pakistan. Hyderabad, second-largest city in the Sindh, lay one hundred twenty kilometers ahead. "Green Wind One, this is Green Wind Three," a voice said in Ramadutta's headset. "Something on the threat indicator. Might be an APG-66." Ramadutta's grin broadened. A signal from an APG-66 pulse-doppler radar almost certainly meant F-16s, Two of Pakistan's eleven air defense squadrons were outfitted with F-16 Falcons purchased from the Americans. The Fulcrum's abilities as an air superiority fighter were about to be put to the test. "Roger Three," Ramadutta answered. "I have it." His HUD was showing targets now, two of them, fifty kilometers ahead and closing. They were probably part of an air patrol out of the military air base at Kotri. "Full power now!" He pushed his throttles forward, and the Fulcrum's thunder escalated to an avalanche of noise and power. There was a moment's rattling vibration as he pressed toward Mach 1, then the sudden, silk-smooth transition to supersonic flight. At low altitude, the Fulcrum could manage Mach 1.2, faster by twenty percent than either the Hornet or the Falcon. Three more Fulcrums paced Ramadutta's MiG, hurtling westward in tight formation. Behind them, another four Fulcrums escorted the squadron of ground-attack MiG-27 "Flogger-Ds." When Wind Strike completed its mission over Hyderabad, Pakistani air power in the Sindh would have all but ceased to exist. ' 'No reaction from the targets," Green Wind Three reported. "Is it possible they have still not seen us?" "It is possible," Ramadutta said. "This close to the ground, our radar returns may be lost in ground clutter." The Indian air force planes had been operating under strict radar silence to avoid alerting Pakistani receivers. Radio silence was less critical, so near the Indian border and the vast armada of IAF planes preparing the way for West Wind. "Range thirty kilometers." ARMAGEDDON MODE 3 "Pakistan air defense is going on alert," another voice warned. "I think they have us." "It doesn't matter now," Ramadutta said. "They still won't be sure whether or not we're IAF or Pakistani. Active radar!" Information was more important now than stealth. His Fulcrum's powerful pulse-doppler radar painted the sky ahead, pinpointing the two targets. "Arm weapons!" His Fulcrum carried R-23 and R-60 missiles, the AA-7 and AA-8 air-to-air killers designated "Apex" and "Aphid" by NATO. For this attack, they would stick to infrared targeting as long as possible, die better to keep the Pakistanis in the dark. He selected an Apex for his first launch. With a range of over thirty-three kilometers, it already had the targets within range. He kept his eyes on the paired blips on his radar screen. The range was down to twenty-four kilometers, still closing. A warbling tone sounded in his ear, his missile informing him that he had a solid IR lock. "I have lock," Three reported. Wind Two and Four would hold back, in reserve. "Northern target." "Targets breaking off,'' Ramadutta snapped. "Launch!" His thumb caressed the trigger on the Fulcrum's stick, and he felt the bump as the AA-7 cleared the launch rail and arrowed toward the target on the end of a streaming plume of white smoke. The F-16s were veering sharply toward the south. Whether they'd identified the intruders somehow or were simply changing course for the next leg of their patrol was immaterial now. At better than Mach 1, the Apex homers would reach the targets in a little more than a minute. The dazzling blue of a canal exploded beneath Ramadutta's MiG. He glimpsed blurred details on the ground that might have been grazing cattle. The thought struck him with unexpected force. Such a peaceful scene . . . and the war has already begun. War! Somehow, Munir Ramadutta had given little thought to the reality of that word. He'd thought his training—and the long expectation of war's coming—would have braced him for this moment. They had not. Since Pakistan had separated from India in 1947, there had been four major wars between the countries and almost continuous sniping and artillery duels in the barren and 4 Keith Dougtess ruggedly mountainous districts of Jammu and Kashmir in the far north. The most serious clash had been in 1971, when a Pakistani attack led to the Indian conquest of East Pakistan and the subsequent creation of a new nation, Bangladesh. The 1971 war had proved that India was now the preeminent military power of the region, with an air force, navy, and army that dwarfed anything Pakistan could bring against her. But still, Pakistan had continued the skirmishing and the border incidents, railing against India for her silence during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, steadfast in her refusal to allow the Moslem separatist movements of the Kashmir to settle their long-standing dispute with New Delhi. Lately, Pakistan's jingoistic tirades had taken oa a new and ominous tone; of all the Islamic nations of the world, Pakistan was perhaps the most technically advanced . . . and the closest to the development of a working nuclear device. India already had the bomb, of course, but that was scant comfort when facing a nation of ninety million Moslem fanatics. Kashmir was the flashpoint for this war . . . and the war's excuse, but the New Delhi government had already decided to settle things now, before India's troublesome western neighbor became too dangerous to deal with, before the anti-Indian rioting and violence in the Sindh, the Pakistani agitation and terrorism in the norm went out of control. Operation West Wind would end the Pakistani threat once and for all. He picked out the tracings of the AA-7s on his radar screen. The gap between targets and missiles narrowed. . . . Far ahead, through the transparency of his canopy, he glimpsed a telltale flash, and the northernmost blip on the screen seemed to expand, then broke into pieces. "Hit!" Green Wind Three exalted. "Kill!" A moment later, Ramadutta's missile merged with the southern target. A second tiny flash announced the explosion of a forty-kilogram warhead. He lost the blip when it merged with the ground return. "Two kills!" Wind Three called over the radio. "Our first two kills of the day!" , "There will be more, my friend," Ramadutta reminded him. "We have aircraft airborne now over Kotri. Range . . . fift^ kilometers." ARMAGEDDON MODE 5 "This is Red Wind Leader," a new voice said. Red Wind was the MiG-27 squadron. Their first target was the air base at Kotri. Their second was a munitions factory north of Hyderabad. "Breaking off for target run." "Roger," Ramadutta replied. He was surprised at how easily the words came. "Good hunting." The Pakistanis were rising now like hornets from a nest prodded by a small boy's stick. It didn't matter. Their destroyers were upon them. Fleet as Indra 's heavenly steed . . . As the silver arrowhead shapes of Pakistani Falcons and IAF MiGs clashed, swirled, and loosed their deadly payloads, Ramadutta thought briefly of the Americans. They had been much in the news of late, with their aircraft carrier battle group in the Arabian Sea off the west coast of India. The Americans had been trying to interfere with Indian interests in Kashmir, or so the news reports had claimed, and there were rumors mat the Americans had threatened to attack India if their Pakistani allies were invaded. At close quarters now, Ramadutta pulled back on his stick, following a Pakistani Falcon in a steep-climbing roll into the cloudless skies above Hyderabad. An AA-8 leaped from his wing, curving to meet the enemy interceptor in a white flash and a shower of debris. If the Americans decided to go to war in defense of their Islamic friends, so much the worse for them. Ramadutta had no illusions about American military might . . . but he had no illusions either about the problems of fighting a war halfway around the world. India could deploy over nine hundred combat aircraft. The Indian navy boasted two aircraft carriers, purchased from Great Britain along with a number of Sea Harriers. It seemed unlikely that the Americans would risk intervening in a war so far from their own borders. And if they did, that carrier battle group now lying over the horizon to the south would be a tempting target A nuclear super-carrier, the U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson . . . now she would be a worthy target for some eager Indian pilot! Lieutenant Colonel Ramadutta watched the Pakistani Falcon burn as it tumbled toward the blue waters of the Indus River far below. CHAPTER 1 0945 hours, 23 March Tomcat 201 Lieutenant Commander Matt Magmder, running name "Tombstone," eased the throttles back on his F-14D Tomcat and put the aircraft into a gentle, twelve-degree port turn. Sunlight glared off the surface of the water thirty thousand feet below, a dazzling blaze of white light mirroring the tropical sun above the vast emptiness of the Indian Ocean. The sky overhead was as huge and as empty as the sea, a piercing blue impossible to describe to anyone who'd not seen it from the vantage point of an interceptor's cockpit To starboard, a second F-14 hung suspended between sea and sky, its modex number 216 visible on its nose just ahead of the cockpit and the American star-and-bar insignia. Lieutenant Commander Edward Everett Wayne, "Batman" to his squadron mates, was Tombstone's wingman for this patrol. "Viper Two, Viper Leader," Tombstone called over his radio, using the tactical frequency. "What do you say, Batman? Let's tank up." "Roger that, Stoney," Batman's voice replied. "It's going to be a long, dry morning." The two Tomcats had been catapulted from the deck of the U.S.S. Jefferson only minutes before. Their operational plan called for them to top off their tanks from a KA-6D, then assume BARCAP—BARrier Combat Air Patrol—between the ships of the carrier battle group and the unseen coastline a little more than five hundred miles to the north. They would be airborne for about four hours. 7 8 Keith Douglass Bringing the stick back to center, Tombstone switched channels and spoke into the helmet mike once more. "Home-plate, Homeplate, this is Viper Leader," he said. "Do you copy, over?" "Viper Leader, Homeplate," a voice replied in his helmet phones. "Go ahead." "Homeplate, we're on station Bravo Sierra four-niner at angels three-oh. We could use a drink right about now. Whatcha got in the way of a Texaco, over?" "Viper Leader, Homeplate. Come to heading two-seven-four at angels two-seven. We've got some guys up there with a six-pack waiting for you. Call sign Tango X-Ray One-one." "Roger dial, Homeplate." He dropped the Tomcat into a new turn, Batman's F-14 pacing him a hundred feet off his starboard wing. "Viper now coming to two-seven-four." "Ah, Homeplate," Tombstone's Radar Intercept Officer added. "I have a single contact bearing two-seven-four at fifteen mites. Confirm that's our target, over." "Roger. That's your Texaco, boys. No other traffic. Have a cool one on us." The voice from Jefferson's Carrier Air Traffic Control Center sounded calm, almost bored. CATCC—the acronym was universally pronounced "cat-sea"—was tasked with keeping track of everything going on in the skies around the supercarrier beyond the radius commanded by Pri-Fly and the Air Boss. The way things were going now, Tombstone thought, that job could quickly become more important than ever. That morning's situational briefing had not been encouraging. "Affirmative, Homeplate. Viper out." Tombstone switched his mike to the Tomcat's intercom system. "Well, CAG? How's it feel to strap on an airplane again?" "Pretty good, Tombstone," Commander Stephen Marusko replied over the ICS from the back seat. "I thought I was going to forget what it was like." Marusko was the officer in charge of Jefferson's air wing, CVW-20, over ninety aircraft and three thousand men. His title of CAG was a holdover from the days when it stood for Commander Air Group. Recent changes in die way the Navy ran things had emphasized the administrative part of the job at the expense of flying. Nowadays, a CAG started off as an aviator, like Tombstone, in command of a carrier fighter ARMAGEDDON MODE 9 squadron, then was rotated stateside for a tour in Washington, becoming, as Marusko put it, a prime, Grade-A desk jockey. After that he went back to sea as a carrier's CAG. Administrative duties or not, he was still expected to fly with his men, but the press of work—paperwork for the most part—always seemed to get in the way. Tombstone's usual RIO, a young j .g. named Jerry Dixon, had been given a medical downcheck the day before, and Tombstone had offered CAG a ride as backseater at morning briefing. Marusko had been almost embarrassingly eager for the chance. Contrary to popular belief, Navy RIOs were neither permanently assigned to a specific aviator, nor were they "failed pilots." Experienced aviators took the back seat of Navy Tomcats from time to time to log out some flight time, or simply to keep their hand in running the F-14's complex radar and communications systems. But it might not be much longer before airborne CAGs were a thing of the past The Navy was experimenting with a new way of running things, introducing the "SuperCAG" concept that would make CAG a captain's billet and let him share responsibilities with the carrier's skipper. And won't that be fun, Tombstone thought with an ironic grin beneath his oxygen mask. The poor bastard might never get to fly anything but his desk. All of this had set Tombstone to thinking. He was the CO of the Tomcat squadron designated VF-95, socially known as the Vipers. Almost thirty years old, Tombstone had lived for carrier aviation since the day he'd shown up for flight training at Pensacola. Before long he'd be up for promotion to commander, and that Stateside billet on his way to a CAG slot of his own. All along, he'd been moving up the Navy career ladder, the goal of CAG clearly in sight. And after that . . . well, to be skipper of an aircraft carrier, you had to have served a stretch as CAG. There were only fifteen carrier command billets in the whole U.S. Navy and openings were rare, but Tombstone had never really entertained doubts that he would make it ... some day. But die doubts were with him now. Not whether he would make it, but whether he should even try. He had some tough decisions coming up. 10 "Viper Leader, Viper Two," Batman said over the tactical frequency. "Tally-ho! Tanker ahoy at twelve o'clock low." "I see him," Marusko said. Tombstone glanced up from his controls and caught the flash of sun glint off an aircraft canopy far ahead. "Got him, Batman. We'll take first crack. Breaking left." "Copy, Leader." Tombstone slid the F-14 into a left-hand barrel roll while CAG was still speaking, going inverted and following his starboard wing over in a long, sideways fall that bottomed out at 27,000 feet. Ahead, the KA-6D tanker plowed toward the horizon at a steady 250 knots. "Tango X-ray One-one," he called. "Viper Two-oh-one. Coming in for some of your basic I&I." "Affirmative, Two-oh-one. Come on in. We're sweet, hot, and willing." I&I, intercourse and intoxication, was the Navy man's reworking of die more traditional R&R. Much of the slang and banter associated with air-to-air refueling carried a strongly sexual content, for obvious reasons. Sweet meant they had fuel. The KA-6D was a conventional A-6 Intruder converted into a fuel tanker, a "Texaco" in Navy jargon. With 500-gallon drop tanks slung beneath wings and fuselage plus what was carried on board, it could transfer up to 21,000 pounds of fuel—over 3,200 gallons—to other aircraft. As Tombstone approached the tanker from the rear, the tanker extended a fifty-foot boom from its belly, a slender hose tipped by a basket that resembled an iron mesh shuttlecock. Tombstone pulled a selector switch and the Tomcat's fuel probe swung out of the right side of the nose with a small whine of hydraulics. He eased the F-14 forward until the broomstick-thick snout of the probe stabilized about six feet behind the trailing basket. Turbulence buffeted the F-14 and its small target. At this range, the tanker loomed overhead, an enormous gray whale precariously suspended just beyond the canopy. Tombstone needed every ounce of concentration to keep the F-14 steady, easing the aircraft gently forward, countering the rumbling vibration of the tanker's slipstream. Since he had to concentrate on the other aircraft only yards away, his RIO ARMAGEDDON MODE 11 watched the relative positions of probe and basket and gave him the instructions to drive the plug home. "Left a tad," Marusko said over the ICS. Tombstone corrected gently, still concentrating on the tanker. "And up. Three feet. Looking good ..." Tombstone was sweating beneath his oxygen mask and helmet, despite the cool, dry air in the cockpit Air-to-air refueling was a routine part of any patrol, with the aircraft topping off their tanks after they'd catapulted from the deck and reached cruising altitude. The procedure was not nearly as nerve-racking as, say, landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier in a heavy sea at night . . . but there was a definite pucker factor involved in the maneuver that had very little leeway for error. Tombstone could feel his heart beating faster as he studied the relative positions of the two aircraft and the slowly closing gap between them. Both planes were traveling now at 375 knots, and die rate of closure was down to less than a foot per second. Sweat blurred his vision . . . "Back out!" Marusko shouted. "Abort! Abort!" Tombstone tried to correct . . . too late. One hundred pounds of iron basket smashed into the canopy like a sledgehammer. The noise was so loud, so sharp, that for a second Tombstone thought the cockpit had been blown. The Tomcat shuddered again as the basket rebounded, then snapped back into the aircraft's side with a jarring thump. The danger was as sharp as it was sudden. The loose basket could easily splinter the F-14's canopy or get sucked down an intake and shred turbofan blades, engine, and fuel lines. "Damn it, Stoney," Marusko shouted again. "Back out!" Tombstone's thumb was already nudging the thumbwheel on his stick to raise his lift-control spoilers, dumping some of his plane's lift. The Tomcat sank several feet, as the basket skittered above the canopy and threatened to rap the F-14 on the port side as well. Gently, Tombstone dropped the throttles back a notch, letting the tanker slip farther away. "Sorry about that, Tango X-ray," he said. "Bitch got away from me." "No sweat, Two-oh-one. Have another go." Carefully, he urged the Tomcat up and forward once more, positioning himself six feet behind the recalcitrant basket. He braced himself, took a deep breath, and willed his aircraft ahead. 12 Keith Douglass "Looks good," Marusko said. "Four feet . . . two . . . no!" The Tomcat's refueling probe struck the rim of the basket, sending it dancing aside. "Abort!" "Shit!" The basket swung back and hit the probe, then bumped and clattered across the canopy inches above his head. Tombstone eased back again. "Let's clear out and let Batman have a shot," Marusko said. "Rog." Tombstone let the Tomcat continue to slide astern of the tanker, until he had room to pull away to port. "Viper Two, Leader. You chase the damned thing for a while." "Right, Tombstone." Tomcat 216 edged forward, taking 201's place astern of the Texaco. "Okay, Tango X-ray One-one, this is Tomcat Two-one-six. Let's show those old men how it's done. Spread 'em!" "Come ahead, Two-one-six." From a hundred feet astern and to the left, Tombstone watched as Batman's refueling probe slid smoothly into the basket. Automatic locks snapped home when the basket had been driven forward six feet. "That's contact," Batman said. "Gimme a thousand of high-test." "Capture confirmed," the tanker pilot replied. "She's coming." It was an odd sight. The Tomcat was seven feet longer than the KA-6D and had a much larger wing area, especially now with the variable-geometry wings swung forward to improve lift and handling at low speed. Size and the twin tail fins made the F-14 look far more massive than the tanker, though in fact the fully loaded takeoff weight of both aircraft was about the same, thirty tons. To Tombstone, the sight of a Tomcat refueling from a KA-6 always reminded him of a big dog nosing a smaller dog's tail. He took the time to force relaxation into his arms, his hands. He felt weak, as though his hands were shaking, though when he held one gloved fist up it was rock steady. What was wrong with him? "You okay, Stoney?" Marusko asked from the backseat. "Yeah, CAG. No problem." But there was a problem, and Tombstone knew what it was ... or rather, who. The thought of Pamela came unbidden, a flash of memory, an image of her the last time he'd seen her in Bangkok. That had been two months ago, just after the ARMAGEDDON MODE 13 coup attempt dial had nearly overthrown the government of Thailand and involved Carrier Battle Group 14 in a short, sharp air and ground action against rebel forces. Pamela Drake was an ACN News reporter who had been covering the turmoil in Bangkok. Tombstone had gotten to know her pretty well during the crisis, well enough that they'd managed to fall in love with each other. She was back in Washington now, but her letters had been coming with each COD mail delivery to the Jefferson, and Tombstone, never much of a correspondent, had answered them all ... all but the last two. "Tango X-Ray One-one, this is Two-one-six." Batman's voice sounded steady over the radio. "Best lay we ever had. Slam, bam, and thank you, ma'am." "Our pleasure, Batman," the tanker captain replied. His dry chuckle rasped in Tombstone's headset. "Two-oh-one, Tango X-ray One-one. How's it looking for you now, Stoney?" , Tombstone's eyes scanned his instrument panel one last time. He'd been concerned that the impact of the basket might have damaged his fuel probe, but there were no signs of fuel or hydraulic leaks, no warning telltales on his caution advisory board. "Green all the way," he replied. He took a deep breadi. "Two-oh-one, in for another take." "You know what they say, Tombstone," Batman said over flic headset. "Just try to imagine hair around it." "Roger." The basket neared his canopy once more, closer . . . closer . . . Tombstone felt a tremor and glanced down. His hand was shaking now. Damn, he thought. Not now! Not now! Teeth grinding, he fought down the feeling of :weakness, blinked through the sweat that pricked at his eyes. He focused his concentration on the belly of the KA-6, aware of the basket's jostling dance just beyond the canopy's right front side out of the corner of his eye. "Three feet, Stoney," Marusko said, his voice emotionless. "Two feet. You're right in the groove, guy. Left . . . left a bit more . . . Keep it coming . . ." The refueling probe speared the basket dead center, with a thump and a jolt as the catches snapped home. ' Two-oh-one, contact," Tombstone said. He snapped up die switches that opened the F-14's tanks. "Ready to receive." 14 Kctth Dougbss ARMAGEDDON MODE 15 "Capture confinned," the tanker pilot said. "Here it comes." Fuel rushed down the narrow hose, greedily devoured by the Tomcat Tombstone kept his mind on maintaining the interval between the two aircraft. Mercifully, both CAG and Batman kept their silence. Shit, Tombstone thought Sooner or later the odds are going to catch up to me. And when they do ... "We read you full, Two-oh-one." "Roger, Tango X-ray." He snapped the switches closed. "Ready to disengage to port" "We're clear." Tombstone backed clear of the drogue, then broke left. The two Tomcats flew in formation with the KA-6D for a moment Then (he tanker began dropping away toward the sea, angling into a turn that would take him back toward the Jefferson. ' 'It's been grand, guys. Look me up again when you feel the need." "Thanks," Batman radioed. "Just put it on Tombstone's MasterCard, okay?" Tombstone's hand was no longer shaking. He flexed it a couple of times, then grasped the stick firmly. Pamela's last letters. What was he going to do about them? They'd arrived only three days earlier, both of them on the same COD flight in from Diego Garcia, and they were eating away at him. He'd not answered them because he didn't know how, didn't know the answer to what Pam was asking. Pamela was as sharp as she was attractive. Was she right? Was it time for him to leave the Navy and find a saner job? He wondered if he'd lost die edge. it wasn't the problem spearing the basket Hell, there was nothing wrong with his two-time failure to engage the tanker's drogue. That sort of thing happened all the time in the day-in, day-out routine of Navy aviation. Danger, as the aviators said, went with the territory, was as much a part of their issue gear as flight suit and helmet. But that was just it That sort of thing did happen routinely. There were so many ways to screw up in the cockpit . . . most of them deadly. Navy aviators needed an incredible blend of skill, training, reflexes, and luck to make tasks like snagging a fuel drogue in flight or making a night trap on a pitching carrier deck seem routine, to do them again and again and again as though mere was nothing to them. It wasn't that Tombstone was afraid, but he was tired. Every man on board the Jefferson was tired, with eight months of the CBG's nine-month deployment down. And tired men make mistakes. Tombstone said nothing as he took up the Tomcat's patrol zone and throttled back for a long orbit. Sooner or later, something had to give. The question was whether or not to get out now, before it did. 1206 hours, 23 March Bridge, U.S.S.Bttfle Captain Edward Parrel turned in his high-backed chair to take the phone handset from one of the bridge watchstanders. t(Captain speaking." "CIC Officer, Captain," Lieutenant Commander Mason's Voice replied. "We have a passive sonar contact, towed array, bearing zero-five-four to zero-five-six." , Parrel's eyes shifted toward the windscreens on the bridge's starboard wing. The U.S.S. Biddle, one of Carrier Battle Group 14's two Perry-class guided-missile frigates, was scouting far ahead of the Jefferson. Her primary duty was as part of the carrier's ASW screen, searching for submarines that could pose a threat to the CBG. The horizon was empty under a brassy, gopical sky. The impulse to keep looking, to try to see X&nething out there against the featureless skyline, was irre-fttfitible. "Can you manage an ID yet?" "Chase thinks it sounds like a Foxtrot, sir, but not one he's heard before. They're running it through the library now." Antisubmarine ships and aircraft either carried or had access to a tape library of underwater sounds, everything from the gtunts and squeaks of fish and other marine life to the Characteristic noises made by various undersea vessels. It was '•often possible to match a particular set of sounds not only with a general class of submarine, but with the acoustical profile of It particular boat. Good Navy sonarmen could sometimes pick 16 Keith Douglass ARMAGEDDON MODE 17 out old friends by ear alone, and Sonarman First Class Chase was one of the best. Parrel came to a quick decision. "Ping him. I want to know if we're on top of him." "We'll give it our best shot, sir. Conditions aren't very good below, though." "Understood. Call me when you have him nailed." He handed the phone back to the waiting sailor. Passive sonar was listening only, using sensitive underwater listening devices to locate a submarine by the sounds of its engines, pumps, and the rush of water across its hull. Biddle's SQR-19 was a towed array, hydrophones trailing behind the ship that could pick up underwater noises as much as thirty nautical miles from the ship. Biddle also mounted sonar equipment in her keel. Designated SQS-56, it could either listen passively or broadcast sharp pings of sound, then pick up the echoes from any subsurface targets. Unfortunately, passive sonar could give direction—at least to within a few degrees—but not distance. Active sonar gave distance but was limited both in range and by conditions in the water. The SQS-56 could pick up a submarine if it was within perhaps six nautical miles of the ship . . . but the range could be sharply reduced by shallow, warm, or highly salty waters, and all three of those conditions applied to this part of the Indian Ocean. Worse from a tactical point of view, active sonar would alert the submarine to the fact that it had been spotted. Parrel would feel a lot better knowing just where that sub was and where it was going. Peacetime or not, international waters or not, tensions were running hot in the Arabian Sea just now. Since early that morning, war had engulfed the India-Pakistan border, and these waters could become a shit-hot war zone any time now. Every man in the CBG knew how easy it would be for an attack to be launched by accident—the missile strike against another Perry-class frigate, the U.S.S. Stark in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War, was a case in point— and one hell of an expensive target was trailing Biddle a hundred miles astern. Foxtrot was the NATO code name for a class of diesel-powered attack subs first produced by the Soviets in the 1960s. Three hundred feet long, with a complement of seventy-eight men, it was designed to hunt and intercept hostile task forces. The Russians had built sixty of them between 1958 and 1962, and most were still active, though some had been reported lost at sea. During the '70s, the Soviets had manufactured nineteen for export: three for Cuba, eight for Libya ... and eight for India. In these waters, the contact could be either Soviet or Indian. Either way, the battle group's new admiral was not going to care for potentially hostile subs getting too close to his command. Minutes dragged by. Parrel was beginning to wonder what Mason was playing at when the CIC Officer called again. "No joy on the pinging. Captain," Mason said. "He may be out of range." Parrel scowled. "Understood. Alert the Air Officer. I want a LAMPS up ASAP. Maybe we can peg the contact with sonobuoys. And have the comm shack raise Jefferson, Admiral Vaughn's going to want to know about this." "Aye, aye, sir." Parrel replaced the telephone handset, then walked to the starboard wing. He raised his binoculars and scanned the horizon toward the northeast. There was nothing there, no periscope wake, no oil slick, only endless blue water under a cloudless sky. Submarines these days could launch homing torpedos from ten miles away ... or pop a sea-skimming cruise missile from three hundred miles out. A Foxtrot would not be carrying SSMs, thank God, but the threat was serious nonetheless. "Now hear this, now hear this," the shipboard loudspeaker brayed from the afterdeck. "Stand by to launch helo. Stand by to launch helo." Farrel heard the mutter of the LAMPS III helicopter as its engines revved to takeoff rpms. Then the SH-60 Seahawk lifted from Biddle^ fantail with a roar, its shadow momentarily flicking across the bridge. He turned his binoculars on the gray insect shape as it angled off toward the northwest, low above the water. Biddle''s two Sikorsky SH-60B Seahawks were LAMPS III helos designed for ASW. The LAMPS designation stood for Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System, a computer and sensor array that integrated surface ships and helicopters to extend the 18 Keith Dougtess reach and effectiveness of antisubmarine warfare. Each Sea-hawk was equipped with dipping sonar and air-dropped sonobuoys. Foxtrots were antiquated diesel-electric submarines, neither quiet nor nuclear-powered. Whoever this one belonged to, it should be easy enough to pinpoint by checking along the general direction of the contact. Who did the Foxtrot belong to, India or Russia? With the outbreak of war between India and Pakistan, it was important that they know. The threat of war with the Soviet Union had receded for the past several years, as Russia's internal economic and political problems grew worse. But if that was an Indian sub out there . . . Just how close was the battle group to becoming caught in the crossfire between two waning powers ... the way Stark had been caught in 1986? Parrel continued to study the ocean surface with a growing sense of unease. CHAPTER 2 1318 hours, 23 March Bridge, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson Captain James Fitzgerald shifted in the high-backed, leather-covered seat on the bridge. Golden light spilled through the broad, slanting windscreens, highlighting wiring conduits in the overhead and the gleaming brass handles of the engine-room telegraph. The enlisted men in whites, the chiefs and officers in khakis, went about their duties with the calm efficiency Fitzgerald had come to expect of them during these past, grueling eight months. His gaze went outside the bridge and to the deck forward, Where the jet-blast deflector was rising behind an F/A-18 Hornet of VFA-161. The deadly little multi-role fighter was squatting over the slot of Cat One as deck handlers in their color-coded jerseys moved about, poking, prodding, checking, readying the aircraft for launch. Steam from the last catapult launch still swirled about the handlers' legs. A second Hornet shuddered on one of the waist cats further aft as its engines blasted against the unyielding steel of its JBD. The voices of the Air Boss and his assistants aft in Pri-Fly could be heard over a monitor. "Cat Four, Four-oh-one, stand by!" "Thirty seconds. Red. Green on fifteen." "Deck clear. Stand by! Stand by!" "Green!" A throbbing roar sounded from the carrier's waist, and the F/A-18 on Cat Four vaulted forward, sweeping past the first Hornet still waiting on Cat One. 19 20 Ketti Dougtes ARMAGEDDON MODE 21 "Four-oh-one airborne." "That's three to go." The dance on the deck continued, ponderous, complex, and deadly. Aircraft carrier flight decks were the most dangerous workplaces on Earth. Everything was in motion: men, machines, the deck itself. There were no guardrails if a jet blast caught a man, or if he took a careless step backward. Engines shrieked continually, making speech possible only through the bulky Mickey Mouse ears the directors wore. Jet intakes could suck a man to his death in an instant ... or thirty tons of aircraft could break free from an improper tie-down and crush him like a runaway truck. Fitzgerald worried about his command, about his men. This cruise had strained all of them to the breaking point, and he feared that worse was on the way. Tired, he thought They're all tired. He reached up, cocked the ballcap with U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson, CVN-74 emblazoned in gold above me bill to the back of his head, then removed his aviator's sunglasses so he could nib his eyes. And I'm tired too. The international situation was worsening . . . fast The cold war between Pakistan and India had just flashed hot Was this their fourth major war, or their fifth? It was easy to lose track, and it depended, Fitzgerald decided, on just how the skirmishes were counted. This current clash along the Indian-Pakistan border looked like it might blow up into something as nasty as the war of '71. There were reports of Indian armor gathering along the rim of the Thar Desert, and air strikes at Pakistani Air Force unhs as far west as Karachi. Tensions in me region had been mounting for weeks, the situation serious enough that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had ordered CBG-14 norm from the tiny reprovisioning base on British-owned Diego Garcia to patrol the waters west of the subcontinent of India. Such orders were typical enough for a U.S. carrier task force, charging the battle group with the protection of American lives and property. Similar orders had taken Jefferson into Sattahip Bay two months earlier during an attempted coup in Thailand. There were thousands of American citizens in both Pakistan and India, everything from diplomats and their staffs to businessmen to guru-chasing remnants of the '60s at Goa and Kovalum, the "heepies" as native Indians called them. Jefferson's presence in international waters was a warning to both governments that the United States could consider military options in order to protect U.S. citizens. The special orders received four days earlier had diverted Jefferson and the five other vessels of CBG-14 to an imaginary circle on the Indian Ocean three hundred miles south of Karachi, and about one hundred miles southwest of India's broad, fan-shaped Kathiawar Peninsula. Jefferson would reach that spot, informally labeled "Turban Station," in another twenty hours. After that . . . well, then things would be up to the Indians and the Pakistanis, and to the new CO of Carrier Battle Group 14. Fitzgerald made a face as he replaced his sunglasses. He still cfidn't know what to make of Rear Admiral Charles Lee Vaughn. On the forward deck, the Hornet was revving its engines to fall afterburner, sending waves of heat shimmering above the ifeck. The white-jacketed Safety Officer was making his final check, signaling the Catapult Officer with an upraised hand. "Amber light," the voice of Pri-Fly said over the speaker Behind Fitzgerald's head. "Stand by. Stand by." Admiral Vaughn seemed competent enough, but Fitzgerald had a suspicion that it was his political connections more than his seamanship that had brought him to the Jefferson. At the very thought of politics, Fitzgerald's stomach knotted. It was impossible to look at Vaughn and not remember the man he'd replaced. Admiral Thomas J. Magruder had been the carrier group's commanding officer throughout the roughest deployment Fitzgerald could remember . . . and his memory included three tours off the coast of Vietnam. Nothing he'd seen then or since matched what the Jefferson had experienced in this one Single tour. In eight months, CBG-14 had twice seen combat. In September Jefferson had been deployed in support of a combined Navy-Marine operation to rescue the crew of the Chimera, a Navy intelligence ship captured on the high seas by the North Koreans. Three months later, Jefferson's battle group had been deployed to the Gulf of Thailand to support the Bangkok government during a coup attempt. ' Immediately after the Thailand crisis Admiral Magruder had 22 Keith Dougtass ARMAGEDDON MODE 23 been hurriedly summoned to Washington, and Vaughn had come aboard to replace him. There was a hint of scandal in that summons, and the threat of a Senate inquest. The operation in Thailand had not violated the War Powers Resolution—U.S. participation had been limited to two Marine actions ashore, air support, and two alpha strikes off the Jefferson—but it had a number of Congressmen operating in full Administration-bashing mode. Since it had come hard on the heels of Jefferson's intervention in North Korea, some of the President's sharpest critics were accusing him of being trigger-happy, an accusation that had trickled down to the man in charge on the scene as well. Admiral Magruder had enjoyed a distinguished and rewarding career, but if Washington needed a scapegoat he would be elected. His advice to the White House had led directly to the Presidential order to send in die Marines and the air strikes. Admiral Vaughn had been tapped in his Pentagon office to fly to the Far East before the last of the rebels had been rounded up, arriving only a few days after the formal awards ceremony in Bangkok. He remembered Magruder* s face during the full-dress muster on Jefferson^ flight deck that muggy afternoon while the battle group was still anchored in Sattahip Bay. The man had looked drawn, worn, possibly a little subdued as his replacement stepped off the Sea Knight helo in his crisp and spotless dress whites. Only then had Fitzgerald realized how old Admiral Magruder looked, old and . . . beaten. Fitzgerald had known then that Magruder was being sacrificed in the name of Washington politics. Something was happening on Cat One. The Safety Officer was making sharp motions with his hands, and the orange glow of the Hornet's afterburners was fading. The captain turned in his seat to watch one of the bigPLAT monitors suspended from the overhead for a better view. Someone down there bad scrubbed the launch. "Four-oh-seven is down," a voice called from the monitor speaker. "Pressure failure to Cat One." "Break him down and get him the hell out of there," the Air Boss said. "Bridge, we have a downcheck on Cat One." Fitzgerald had already picked up the handset of the direct-access telephone known universally as the batphone and punched in Pri-Fly's number. "Pri-Fly, Bridge. We see it. What happened?" "Damfino," the Air Boss replied. "I'll let you know as soon as I know myself." Fitzgerald replaced the handset and studied the organized confusion engulfing the Hornet on Cat One. Almost certainly, the problem was human error . . . and directly attributable to the strain the men had been under for months. Damn, but that had been close! If the steam failure had occurred as the Hornet was being shot off the deck, the F/A-18 would not have attained airspeed and would have gone off over the bow. Unless the aviator had been both very quick and very lucky and had managed to eject safely, Jefferson would have run him down in the water. We'd have lost another aviator, Fitzgerald thought. With so many lost already. The Captain sensed rather than heard a change in the atmosphere around him. Several of the ship's officers had been engaged in low conversation on the starboard wing of the bridge, but they were silent now, and the enlisted men at wheel and engine-room telegraph were standing a little straighter, a little more studiously correct. Fitzgerald turned further and saw Captain Henry Bersticer stepping across the knee-knocker onto the bridge deck. Bersticer was Admiral Vaughn's chief of staff, a tall, swarthy man with a meticulously groomed black goatee that gave him a somewhat saturnine aspect. He walked over to where Fitzgerald was sitting. "Admiral's compliments, Captain, and would you join him, please, in CV1C?" He spelled out the letters, which stood for Carrier (CV) Intelligence Center, instead of pronouncing them "civic" in (he time-honored fashion. Bersticer was, Fitzgerald thought, new to carriers and didn't yet have the hang of bird-farm language. He wondered if his CO had things down any better. "Very well," Fitzgerald said. He slid off the stool. "On my way." Admiral Vaughn was waiting alone in CVIC, a pale, heavyset man in his late fifties, with hair that might once have been red but was mostly silver now. Fitzgerald looked around as he walked toward tbe admiral. The room, used as a TV 24 Keith Dougtass ARMAGEDDON MODE 25 studio for the Chief of the Boat's morning broadcasts over one of Jefferson's on-board TV stations, had a cluttered feel, and many of the lights and electrical cables had not been struck. Fitzgerald winced inwardly when he saw it. Vaughn had an oft-stated love for order and the proverbial taut ship. "Jim," Vaughn said as Fitzgerald approached him. Berstieer shut the door, leaving them alone. The admiral reached into his shirt pocket and extracted a folded-up computer message flimsy. "This just came up from CIC. Have a look." Fitzgerald's eyes held Vaughn's as he took the flimsy and unfolded it. It was a decoded flash priority from the skipper of the U.S.S. Kiddle, now steaming some one hundred fifty miles northwest of the carrier. Quickly, Fitzgerald read the details of the sub contact, now only minutes old. He looked up at the admiral and handed me message back. "Parrel says it sounds like a Foxtrot," he said. "Soviet or Indian?" "God knows," Vaughn said. "No matter which, I don't want that damned thing closer than a hundred miles from this carrier, understand me?" "Yes, sir," he replied slowly. "If we can't nail down that sub's position, though, we'll have to alter course pretty far west to maintain separation. It'll mean quite a detour, and a delay in reaching Turban Station." "I know that. Frankly, I hope we can ID that sub as a Russkie. If it's Hindi . . . God, we don't know what the Indians are going to do." Fitzgerald grinned. ' 'I hardly think they'll mistake us for the Pakistani navy, sir." Jane's Fighting Ships gave the strength of Pakistan's navy as seventeen ships, not counting patrol craft. The largest was Babur, a former British destroyer of 5440 tons. He'd looked it up earlier that morning. "Damn it, Captain, this is no joke!" Vaughn scowled, rubbing at his short and bristly mustache with a forefinger. "You saw the latest set of dispatches from Washington. The Indians don't want us out here. This whole situation could blow up in our faces at any moment." "I realize mat, sir." The word from Washington that morning was that a formal protest had been delivered to the White House by the Indian Embassy in Washington, objecting to U.S. warships in their waters during time of war. Accidental attacks were a possibility, the communique had pointed out, especially in the confusion of jamming and electronic counter-measures in the region once fighting started. "Listen, Jim," Vaughn said. "I called you off the bridge because I wanted to talk with you about this command. I've been following the weekly reports. Performance is way down, you know. And morale." Fitzgerald ran one hand through his thinning hair. "That's hardly surprising, Admiral. They've been through a hell of a lot this cruise." "That's no excuse, hey?" "It's not intended as one, sir." Fitzgerald's lips compressed into a hard, thin line. "This is a good ship, Admiral. And damned good men." Vaughn studied him for a long moment. "I want to know I can depend on mem, Captain. And on you." "That goes without saying. Sir." Fitzgerald knew his tone verged on the insubordinate, but he was angry now and working to keep the words formal and correct. It was Vaughn's responsibility to direct the entire battle group; it was Fitzgerald's responsibility to hand the admiral a ship he could work with, manned by a well-trained and highly motivated crew. When Vaughn criticized the men, he was criticizing him. That might be Vaughn's right as CO, but Fitzgerald had the feeling mat the admiral didn't really care about Jefferson's crew or bow capable they really were. And that worried him. Vaughn did not seem to be aware of Fitzgerald's anger. "Good. I'll want you to bring the Jefferson to a new course at once to avoid that submarine." "Of course, Admiral." "And I want an ASW alert. Get some of your King Fishers Up there in case they're needed." The King Fishers, VS-42, were Jefferson's antisubmarine S-3A Viking squadron. "Intelligence briefing at 0800 tomorrow. I want to discuss our options." . "Aye, aye, sir." "See to it." Vaughn turned abruptly and strode toward the door. "Oh, and you might speak to your Exec about the mess here in CVIC. I like a taut ship, Captain. Can't go into combat With gear adrift, hey?" Then he was gone. 26 KeHh Dougtass ARMAGEDDON MODE 27 Fitzgerald stared after him for a long moment before following. Vaughn, he decided, was still an unknown quantity. An untested quantity. Well, odds were he would get his testing on this cruise. 1423 hours, 23 March Tomcat 201 'Tomcat Two-oh-one, charlie now." Tombstone heard the words and felt the tension ebb somewhat from his shoulders and back. "They're calling us in, CAG," he said. He nudged the stick to the left, putting the Tomcat into a shallow, sweeping curve that would roll it out of the holding pattern several miles astern of the carrier. "Suits me," Marusko replied. "My safe little office back on the old bird farm is looking better and better." "Viper Two, Viper Leader," he called, opening the tactical channel. "Batman! We're charlied. Going in." "Roger that," Batman's voice replied a moment later. "Save us a cold one. We're right behind you." That was almost the literal truth. His wingman was now half a mile behind Tombstone's aircraft ami three thousand feet higher, locked into the aerial racecourse of the carrier's traffic control holding pattern, called a Marshall stack. They'd been circling there twenty-one miles from the Jefferson while the Air Boss brought in some S-3A Vikings that had been out on a sub patrol. Tombstone leveled off. He could just make out the Jefferson's stem far ahead, a gray rectangle nearly lost on the ocean. The flight decks on Nimitz-class carriers covered four and a half acres, but they looked ridiculously tiny from the cockpit of a fighter plane positioning itself for a trap. As they got closer, his eyes shifted to the carrier's port side where a yellow speck of light, the "meatball," or Fresnel optical landing system, appeared centered like a bull's-eye above the LSO platform. "Two-zero-one," the voice of the Landing Signals Officer said over Tombstone's headphones. "Call the ball." "Two-zero-one," Tombstone replied, identifying his aircraft by number. "Tomcat ball, three point one." By "calling the ball," Tombstone was letting the LSO know he had the landing signal in sight, that the incoming plane was a Tomcat with 3,100 pounds of fuel left on board so Jefferson's recovery crews would know how to set the tension on the arrester cables stretched across the deck, and that he was properly aligned for a trap. "Roger ball," the LSO confirmed. "Looking good." Tombstone felt his heart begin to race. It was always like this during a carrier landing, day or night, fair weather or foul. Naval aviators without exception rated recovery on the deck of a carrier as having a higher pucker factor than air-to-air combat or an enemy SAM launch. He lowered his arrestor hook, cut back on die throttles, and fet the Tomcat sink toward the Jefferson's deck. The carrier's Stem appeared much larger now, swelling rapidly as he dropped from the sky. 1415 hours, 23 March VBdng 704, flight deck, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson Lieutenant Commander Christopher Goodman had the throttles ifilhe way back on his ungainly S-3A Viking as he spit out the jfcrestor cable and retracted his tail hook. Gently, he eased the throttles forward again, using the rudder pedals to steer the aircraft off the part of the flight deck delineated by broad white stripes and make way for the next incoming plane. A yellow-sbirted handler backed away just ahead of the aircraft, arms extended forward, jacking them up and down, up and down as he signaled Goodman to come ahead. He taxied slowly toward the line of planes along Jefferson's starboard side, aft of the island. His crew—Lieutenant Hyman @old, the co-pilot; Lieutenant j.g. Roger Kelso, the tactical Coordinator; and AX/1 Bill Rocco, the systems operator—all .were already relaxing now that the trap was successfully completed, unstrapping their seat harnesses and preparing to Shut down the bird and log out. There was very little swell this afternoon, and the Jeff was riding the sea almost rock-steady. That was always a blessing on the rare occasions when it happened. An airplane, any airplane, might be sheer poetry in motion in the sky, but on an aircraft carrier's deck it was transformed into a bulky, clumsy, 28 Keith Dougtes ARMAGEDDON MODE 29 and barely manageable beast. With a pitching deck made slippery by ice or rain, things were just that much worse. The handler gave a two-handed pushing movement to the side, indicating a particular parking space with the aircraft lined up along the starboard side, aft of the island. Goodman swung the foot pedals farther, maneuvering toward the narrow slot. A long line of aircraft noses swept past the cockpit as he turned, all painted in dull pale grays: F-14D Tomcats, wings angled sharply back along their flanks; a pair of bulky E-2C Hawkeyes with their wings rotated sideways and back to avoid the flat, saucer shapes of their radomes mounted above their fuselages; A-6F Intruders with their wingtips nearly meeting above their backs. Space was always at a premium at sea, both on the flight deck and down below, on the carrier's cavernous hangar deck. Planes were parked side by side with folded wings nearly touching. Easing the fifteen-ton aircraft toward the target, he gently applied pressure to the tops of the rudder pedals, engaging the wheel brakes. Nothing happened. Goodman felt a sinking, mushy sensation through his flight boots, then nothing at all. The Viking's brakes were gone, and Goodman was rolling across the deck toward a narrow cul-de-sac lined with multi-million-dollar aircraft. There was no time to speak, even to give warning. With one hand he cut the throttles all the way back, then flicked on the Viking's external lights and dropped the arrester hook to signal the deck crew that he was in trouble. His momentum was too great to allow the plane to roll to a stop, and if he kept going he was going to roll with irresistible momentum squarely into the side of a Hawkeye. Working the foot pedals, he swung the Viking hard to the left, turning away from the flight line and back onto the one patch of clear flight deck within reach. . . . 1426 hours, 23 March Pri-Fly, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson Commander Dick Wheeler was Jefferson's Air Boss, a bald, sour-faced man with a football player's physique and a voice to match. He was already in motion when he saw Viking 704's tail hook hit the steel deck in a shower of sparks. If his brakes were gone, the pilot would have no choice but to swing back onto the main flight deck ... and squarely into the path of incoming Tomcat 201. It was a disaster in the making. "Fouled deck!" Wheeler barked over the Pri-Fly frequency that connected him with the deck crew and the LSO. "Fouled deck!" The Tomcat was already drifting toward the carrier's roundoff, scant yards from touchdown. . . . CHAPTER 3 1426 hours, 23 March .$;•** Wave off! Wave off!" The words shrilled in Tombstone's ~fy helmet just seconds from the deck. To port, the bull's-eye of tf tfce Fresnel lens lit up red as the LSO triggered the pickle ^(twitch te held in one hand. c, The warning caught Tombstone completely by surprise. •-|:', Until that moment he'd been squarely in the groove, with only •if- tlte slightest of corrections necessary to keep the Tomcat I^EISating gently toward the three wire stretched across the deck ?^i«|;ftont of him. I*: ^Tombstone's left hand was resting on the F-I4's throttles, ^ffiiteady to provide small adjustments to power and set to engage %'^p afterburners the instant his wheels touched the deck ... a ||; standard precaution in case his tail hook missed the arrester •ijpctibtes and he needed to get airborne again in a hurry. Now he "fesltoved the throttles to full power and brought the Tomcat's up. The wings were already extended to provide maxi-lift at low speed. As the Tomcat's twin engines blazed afterburner, the plane accelerated, passing over the carrier's jff and straight down the flight deck, twenty feet above the gray steel. "He caught a blurred image of motion below him, of men , heads down, of a pale gray aircraft with engine pods beneath each wing lumbering into his path. r'-tf--;. Tombstone thumbed off the spoilers and eased back on the ^ Jtick, willing the Tomcat to miss the sharp, skyward thrust of ||Jflie other plane's tail. Acting on instinct alone, he brought the 31 32 Keith Dougkss ARMAGEDDON MODE 33 F-14's right wing up, narrowly missing the Viking's rudder. Afterburners thundering, he flashed past the island, across the waist catapults, and out over the open sea once more. "Wbeee-oh!" Marusko said from the back seat. CAG had not said a word during the final approach and near-collision, but his relief now was heartfelt and enthusiastic. "Goddamn it, Stoney! You didn't have to do that to impress me!" Tombstone found he couldn't reply, didn't trust himself to speak. He brought the aircraft into a shallow port turn, circling back for another pass. The S-3A Viking's tail extended about twenty-two feet above the deck. He'd not seen the actual clearance but doubted that his wingtip had missed the sub-hunter by more than a foot or two. In all the time that Tombstone had been flying Navy jets, he'd been shot at and shot up. He'd engaged in dogfights, ejected from an aircraft suddenly gone dead, and trapped aboard a carrier deck at night with heavy seas running. Never, he thought, had he been closer to buying the farm man that near-miss. If he'd connected with the Viking, at least six men would have died right there: himself, CAG, and the S-3's crew of four. God atone knew how many deck division people would have been caught in the fireball as plane after plane ignited, turning Jefferson's waist into an inferno. Deck crashes were always bad. When they involved more than one plane . . . He took a deep breath. "CAG?" he said. "I think that one just about did it for me." There was a long silence. "Wait before you make any decisions, Stoney. We'll talk in my office." "Sure." But Tombstone's mind was already made up. 1S30 hours, 23 March FtagPtt Admiral Vaughn leaned over the chart table with other members of his flag staff, studying the grease-penciled markings and time notations that plotted the paths of each of the vessels of Carrier Battle Group 14. Currently, Jefferson was cruising eastward at thirty knots, the hub of a circle spanning two hundred miles. The destroyer John A. Winslow was one hundred twenty miles ahead, the DDG Lawrence Kearny following a hundred miles astern. The frigate Gridley patrolled Sj the CBG's flank to the south, while Biddle continued searching 'Mi for the lost sub contact to the north. The group's Aegis cruiser, '!si U.S.S. Vicksburg, lay thirty miles off Jefferson's port quarter. |« One last member of the carrier group prowled far ahead of •^ the Winslow, two hundred meters beneath the surface. The ;* ral at the plot table. "His last message stated that the contact H might be lying low, hiding on the bottom." JP|. Vaughn reached down and traced the line marking the limits •p. of the continental shelf south of Kutch and Kathiawar. 8;.. "What's the depth up there . . . about fifty fathoms?" "1*4-.? "Yes, sir. That's probably what's limiting their sonar." ||p- "You'd think he could find something as big as a god-'jjj^ damned submarine in water three hundred feet deep," Vaughn <$$•• muttered. "How about we send Galveston in to help Biddle