Each squadron ready room on the carrier had a television monitor tied into the closed-circuit network. Moments after Fleming turned it on, the Air Wing 20 logo was replaced by the face of CAG Steve Marusko. With a wry flash of humor, Tombstone thought to himself that CAG looked none the worse for wear after the harrowing trap the day before. He remembered that he’d been supposed to go down to CAG’s office and talk things over. Somehow, there’d been no time since yesterday afternoon.
Well, the talk wouldn’t change his mind now. Tombstone’s mind was made up.
“Good morning, men,” Marusko said briskly. He was standing at the CVIC podium. By broadcasting his address over the CCTV system, he could speak to all of the aviators aboard Jefferson simultaneously. It saved time.
“I should start off by saying that there’s been a big change in the green sheet.” The “green sheet,” named logically enough for its color, was the daily schedule of air operations put out by OX Division, Ops Admin. “As of 0800 this morning, this carrier battle group will go to full alert.”
“Yesterday afternoon at 1655 hours, the U.S.S. Biddle was fired upon by a Foxtrot-class submarine of the Indian navy. Biddle evaded and returned fire. The Foxtrot is believed to have been lost with all hands.”
The stir grew to a subdued murmur of voices. “Knock it off, people,” Tombstone said, raising his voice. “Let’s listen up.”
“As a result of this incident,” CAG continued on the screen, “diplomatic relations with India have become seriously strained. Yesterday evening, our time, their embassy in Washington delivered a formal protest to the President and threatened retaliation if we stay within what they describe as their military interdiction zone.
“That zone, incidentally, extends three hundred miles south from the mainland to latitude twenty degrees north. That describes a line from just above Bombay clear across the Arabian Sea to the island of Masirah, off Oman. Washington has responded by declaring that we do not recognize that zone, which includes the approaches to the Persian Gulf. The Navy’s mission includes insuring free passage through those straits, something we can’t give up without serious repercussion among our allies.
“Jefferson is now well inside the exclusion zone, and we’re not leaving.
A message to that effect has been delivered by our State Department to New Delhi.
“At 0435 hours our time this morning, Jefferson received an alert order from CINCPAC.” CAG picked up a sheet of paper from the podium and began reading.
“”CBG-14 is hereby directed,”’ he read, “‘to assume a defensive stance commensurate with full combat readiness in order to safeguard the vessels of CBG-14 from possible attack by hostile forces. COCBG-14 is urged to take every precaution to avoid conflict with potential hostile forces in the area within the framework of his operating orders. Ships and aircraft of CBG-14 will fire only if fired upon. Aggressive operations which could be construed as hostile gestures are to be terminated.’”
CAG put the paper down and looked back up at the camera. “In keeping with these orders, Admiral Vaughn has directed the battle group to close up once we reach our assigned patrol station. Fighter CAPS will go as scheduled, but the patrol radius will be reduced from three hundred to two hundred miles. The strike exercises scheduled for VA-84 and VA-89 are canceled. Catseyes and King Fishers will continue their patrols as briefed. Every effort is to be made to avoid further contact with Indian forces.”
That made sense. Practice bomb runs by the Intruders of the carrier’s attack squadrons could be dispensed with. The Hawkeye radar planes of the VAW-13 °Catseyes and the sub-hunting Vikings of VS-42 would be needed more than ever to alert the battle group to an approach by hostile planes or subs. He wasn’t sure he understood the order to shrink the CBG’s perimeter, though. An aircraft carrier was an extremely large and tempting target. The best way to hide it was to spread the battle group over as much area as possible, making it harder for hostile patrols to pinpoint the carrier.
The televised briefing continued, covering other, more routine matters, but the big bomb had already been dropped. Strained diplomatic relations with India? Possible combat with Indian forces? It seemed impossible, but wars had begun over smaller things than the loss of a submarine. What made this situation deadly was the fact that the Indians were already at war with Pakistan. Any hostile U.S. move would make New Delhi think that the Americans had sided with their old ally, Pakistan.
It was even possible that the battle group could be attacked by accident.
And what the hell am I doing here, anyway? he thought. I’m not mad at the Indians, I sure as hell don’t want to get into a war with them.
His thoughts strayed to Pamela’s letter. Maybe she was right, and it was time for a change. Four more weeks and the Jefferson would be returning to San Diego. At that time, Tombstone’s current commission period would be up and he would have the option of resigning from the Navy.
Resigning from the Navy. The words carried an eerie feel to them.
For the better part of ten years he’d thought he’d known precisely his career’s future course. The Academy, flight school at Pensacola, each decision along the way had led naturally and inevitably to the next.
Memories of his father — a carrier pilot killed over Hanoi in 1969—had been one strong factor in those decisions. His uncle, Admiral Thomas J. Magruder, had been another.
If he stayed in, promotion would come within a year, and with it confirmation of his rather tenuous position as skipper of VF-95. Usually the COS of air wing squadrons were full commanders; he’d been made skipper because of a shortage of qualified aviator commanders with the fleet and, he still strongly suspected, a word or two in the right quarters from his uncle. The title of squadron skipper had rested uneasily on his shoulders for eight months now. Once he got his promotion, it would ride there a bit more naturally.
And after that? A few more years and he’d have had his shot at a CAG slot with the ultimate goal of skippering a carrier of his own.
Yeah, his whole future had been planned out in year-by-year, step-by-step detail. And now the whole thing had been wiped away. It left him feeling shaky.
But he couldn’t keep going with it, not this way. He’d lost his edge.
He was starting to hold on too tight, maybe because of Pamela … maybe because he’d come too close too many times. The air-to-air refueling incident yesterday and the near-crash on the deck afterward had convinced him that it was time to pack it in.
Usually when an aviator faced that kind of personal crisis, he had the option of turning in his wings. That meant accepting some other Navy flyer’s billet — piloting COD aircraft or transports, for instance — but escaping the deadly day-in, day-out stress of combat flying. Such a move was usually looked upon as a kind of death by the aviator’s former comrades. It excluded him from that special, inner circle that was so much a part of the mystique of carrier aviation. He knew all about that. He’d wrestled with the decision several months earlier, had nearly turned in his wings because he’d been having a rough time with the responsibility of running a fighter squadron … with giving the orders that could get other guys, his friends, killed.
He’d managed to resolve that one. This was something different, a problem that couldn’t be solved by something as simple as asking for a different assignment. What it came down to was the realization that he could have his career … or Pamela.
What kind of money was United paying for experienced pilots? Better than Navy pay, that was for sure, even with flight pay, combat pay, and Navy perks thrown in.