It all would have been a moot point if the tanker had not arrived, of course. Sometimes, the fate of whole nations hung upon the unlikely, the incredible.
Like the decision by the SNA staff at Dushanbe to dispatch the Tupolev.
Or by a Russian squadron commander to defend an American nuclear carrier.
“Agreed, Lieutenant Lavrov. Reply: “Will redeploy when fueling is complete.’ They cannot expect us to attack Indian fighters when willpower alone keeps us aloft!”
Ahead, Tower Five began maneuvering toward the refueling boom suspended from the gigantic, swept-wing Tupolev. Kurasov’s orders were to cover the American ships during the strike against India. In a sense, though, he was fighting less for the Americans than for the others of the squadron. If Jefferson was burning, there would be few helicopters to spare for fishing wet Russians from the sea!
He hoped that there would be time.
For Admiral Magruder, the evening had dragged by with unmerciful deliberation. It had been four hours since the first report that Jefferson had been struck by a missile. An hour later the communications net had gone down, and for ten suspense-filled minutes, no one in the White House or the Pentagon had known what was going on half a globe away.
Then communications had been reestablished with Jefferson, and Washington learned that Vicksburg and Kreml had both been badly hit.
The President had come close to ordering Mongoose aborted. Magruder knew that, had seen it in the President’s face. When Captain Fitzgerald had come on the line, however, informing the President and the Joint Chiefs that Mongoose was still on, the admiral had watched some measure of tension ease from the President’s face. “I have this problem with my field commanders,” he’d said, grinning at Magruder. “They always tell their Commander in Chief what to do.”
“A piratical lot, Mr. President.”
“Indeed.” The President picked up a mug filled with steaming coffee, a potent brew concocted in the Secret Service office outside for just such occasions as this. “What do you think, Tom? Can they pull it off?”
“There’s a chance, sir. A good one.”
That had been two hours ago. The Indian aircraft had been beaten off.
The catapults on Jefferson had been repaired.
Now the strike force was over Highway 101, wreaking a special kind of hell on the Indian supply lines.
Members of the National Security Council had been coming and going all evening, most working in offices within the NSC complex in the White House basement. Victor Marlowe walked in, a folder in his hand. “Mr. President? These just came in from NPIC.” He glanced uncertainly at Magruder. “I … thought you’d better see them.”
“Do you want me to leave, Mr. President?”
“They’re T-K clearance, sir,” Marlowe said.
“That’s okay, Tom,” the President said. “Just excuse me a moment, will you?”
Magruder sat back, watching as the President leafed through what appeared to be a series of photographs. NPIC, Magruder knew, was the National Photographic Interpretation Center, the agency tasked with processing and producing photo intelligence from America’s chain of reconnaissance satellites. T-K, short for “Talent-Keyhole,” was the level of clearance necessary just to look at some of the photo imagery possible with the new breed of KH-12 satellites now in orbit. Magruder had heard the stories of reading newspapers over a man’s shoulder from two hundred miles up. Ridiculous, of course. And yet … “Oh my God.”
“Mr. President?”
The President looked up, his face ashen. He looked first at Magruder, then at Marlowe. “These were taken when?”
“Within the hour, sir. These are rushes. The tapes and the finished processing are on their way over now.”
“Mr. President,” Magruder said. “Perhaps I’d better wait outside while you-“
“He’s got T-K clearance, Vic. Now. Damn it, I need him!”
“Of course, sir.”
The President slid a photograph across the conference table to Magruder.
He picked it up, careful not to touch the glossy finish.
It looked like a black-and-white photograph taken, perhaps, from the roof of a building. Several men in obviously military uniforms were gathered around a bulky, oblong something partly blocked by the wing of an aircraft.
Magruder squinted at the part of the plane he could see. “It looks like an Air Force Falcon,” he said.
“Very good, Admiral,” Marlowe said. “An F-16 Fighting Falcon. But it’s not Air Force. Not our air force, at any rate.”
Magruder looked at the photo again. “Pakistan.”
“Bingo,” Marlowe said. “The weapon being loaded onto that aircraft is a fair imitation of a B-57 five-to ten-kiloton atomic bomb.”
“My God in heaven.”
“Why now?” Magruder asked. “In the middle of-“
“The battle has drawn Indian planes south,” Marlowe said quickly.
“Stripped their defenses. The Pakistanis probably see this as their one chance to get something in without having it be shot down.”
The President gestured toward the picture. “Where is this?”
“That was taken at a PAF base outside of Bahawaipur from one hundred seventy-five miles up,” Marlowe explained. “I have ground sources checking over there now, getting more data. I expect to hear more shortly.”
“I want to hear it the second you do, Vic. The second.”
“Yes, sir.”
The President took the photo from Magruder and stared at it. “Damn them,” he said. “Damn them!”
“I thought the Pakistanis promised to hold back on this,” Magruder said.
“Promised?” The President’s fist hit the desk. “You’re damn right they promised! Assurances were given-“
“They are fighting for their survival,” Marlowe said. He shrugged. “Or it may be a bluff. Another ‘message.’”
“I’ll give them a message,” the President said. “And her name is the Thomas Jefferson.” He looked at Magruder. “It seems, Admiral, that we must assume that the Pakistanis are loading an atomic device aboard one of their aircraft … and that they intend to use it.”
“Yes, sir.”
The President was quiet for a long moment. He rose from his chair, walked to the window, and stared for a time out across the Rose Garden, at the street lights of nighttime Washington. “Vic,” he said at last.
“I might have something we can try. Who do you have on tap at the American Embassy in New Delhi? Fast? I need to get a message passed on to the right person over there.”
“I think I have the man, Mr. President.”
The President turned to Magruder. “And I think now we’re going to need your people more than ever now.”
CHAPTER 28
Lieutenant Commander Greene held the stick steady as warm air currents above the desert set the A-6 Intruder to bumping and shuddering. They were traveling at 400 knots, less than 500 feet above the hot gravel of the Thar Desert.
“Gold Strike Five-double-oh,” he called. “Coming up on Point Charlie.
The clock is running.”
“Copy, Gold Strike, Five-double-oh,” the airborne controller on board the Hawkeye circling a hundred miles to the south replied. “Roger your Point Charlie. Good hunting, Jolly!”
“Roger, Victor Tango. Thanks. Five-double-nuts out.”
Point Charlie was the village of Naya Chor itself, a collection of whitewashed walls and low buildings sprawled along the straight slash through the desert, marking the railroad and highway that crossed the Thar Desert from Jodhpur in India to Hyderabad on the banks of the Indus. Jolly banked the Intruder left, following the road that, in most places, was nothing more sophisticated than packed gravel.