The Bombay naval squadron had been stopped cold. Kalikata was sinking, and both Viraat and Vikrant were limping into port. Damage was so bad that they’d not yet been able to recover Admiral Ramesh’s body. He thought of the dark, intense naval officer etched by the pain of his dead son, wondering if he’d found peace before he died.
So much suffering.
The telephone on his desk buzzed, and he stared at it. An earlier message had warned him to expect the call, and he’d been able to guess much when he learned who the caller would be. He had to will himself to pick up the receiver.
“Sundarji,” he said.
He listened to the voice on the other end for a long while. “You’re sure of your information?” he finally asked. “Yes, I suppose you would be. I … I agree. There is no other way.”
He listened some more. “I cannot speak for my government,” he said. “I will see what I can do with the Air Ministry. I have some small influence there.” He allowed himself a smile. “Or at least, I did before this morning.”
He hung up without ceremony, thought for several minutes, then picked up the phone again. “Get me the Air Ministry,” he said. “Quickly. There is little time.”
They had reached the point on Tombstone’s map, twenty-five miles southeast of Bikampur. The desert nine and a half miles below was barren and trackless, though sun flashed from the waters of the Rajasthan Canal far to the west.
Tombstone moved the stick experimentally. Fifty thousand feet was close to the Tomcat’s service ceiling, and the controls had a tendency to mush somewhat at that altitude.
No problems so far. For the last five or ten minutes, they’d seen no Indian aircraft anywhere … a fact that Tombstone found strange. The F-14s must be registering on Indian ground radar. Where were the IAF interceptors?
There was nothing. They seemed to have the sky to themselves. The other F-14s in the squadron were spread across the sky, three groups of two traveling north at Mach.7. “Okay, Hitman. Whatcha got?”
“Not much, Tombstone,” his RIO replied. “Pretty lonely out … hold it.
Got them! Bearing three-five-nine, range … make it one hundred two nautical miles. Four targets, heading east at four hundred fifty knots.”
“Rog. Feed it to me here.”
His VDI showed the targets painted in the F-14’s AWG-9 beam.
“Victor Tango One-one, this is Viper. We have reached Point Lima. We have four bogies, bearing now … zero-zero-zero. Due north. Range one-oh-two.”
“Roger, Viper. That is your target. Take them down.”
“Copy, Victor Tango. Wait one.”
Time seemed suspended in the cold, thin air almost ten miles above the Thar Desert. Tombstone, Batman, and Coyote readied their Phoenix missiles for launch. Shooter, Ramrod, and Nightmare flew cover for the others. Tombstone and Coyote would loose four missiles. Batman would hold his single Phoenix in reserve.
What were those targets? Judging from their course, they were flying on a straight line from Bahawaipur, a Pakistani city located on the northern fringes of the Thar Desert about seventy miles from the border.
He sketched a line across his map, extending their flight path. The four bogies were flying across fairly empty territory. There was very little of importance along their course. Villages, mostly: Fort Abbas, Mahajan, Rajgarh … Tombstone’s pencil stopped on a city and his blood turned cold. He thought now that he knew what those targets were, where they were going … and why.
“Vipers, Viper Leader,” he said. “On my command, launch AIM-54s.” He studied the VDI screen again. There were no other targets. The Indian air defenses must have been drawn to the south by Jefferson’s strike against the Jodhpur Road.
The Tomcats were far beyond the detection range of the aircraft they were stalking. Targets were already selected, locked in.
“Fire!”
Two RIOS, Hitman and Radar, stabbed their fire control buttons, reset, then fired again. The heavy Phoenix missiles fell through cold, thin air, then ignited. One missile, for reasons unknown, failed to light, and Malibu loosed his remaining Phoenix from Tomcat 216.
At Mach 5, it took them less than two minutes to travel the 102 nautical miles to their targets, which were just crossing the border into India.
All hit.
The reporters had been gathering in the Press Room since the wee hours of the morning, as word circulated through Washington news circles that a major break in the Indian Ocean crisis had occurred. As early as three a.m., word had gone out over the wire services that the President would hold a major press conference at eight o’clock, timed to coordinate with the various morning news shows.
Admiral Magruder searched for a particular face among the sea of reporters, cameramen, and assistants. White House technicians were still adjusting the lighting, and the room was a tumble of confusion and noise as journalists and reporters traded notes and guesses.
He saw her.
It took a moment to attract her attention, but perhaps she remembered where he’d been standing before and looked his way deliberately. Pamela Drake saw him, nodded, and began making her way across the room toward where he was standing.
“Good morning, Miss Drake.”
“It’s Pamela,” she said. “Admiral, I should probably apologize-“
“Nonsense.” He kept his voice low, unwilling to steal the President’s thunder by giving anything away to other reporters who might be within earshot. “Listen, I just wanted to tell you. He’s safe.”
“Matt …?”
Magruder nodded. “They’re all back aboard Jefferson. The battle group left Turban Station about two hours ago.”
Her eyes widened. “Then there was a raid! The rumors have been flying in this town all night-“
“I think I’d better let you get the details from the President,” Magruder said. “But I wanted you to know that Matt is safe. Captain Fitzgerald called me personally to let me know.”
She let out a pent-up breath. “Is it … over then? He won’t be going back?”
Magruder relented somewhat. “India has requested a cease-fire,” he whispered. “Pakistan has agreed to meet with them in Geneva. The battle group did take some heavy damage, so the President has ordered them to return. Ike and Nimitz will be taking Jefferson’s place in the Arabian Sea, just to make certain the cease-fire holds. But yes … it’s over.”
“Thank God.”
“You’d better get back to your seat. We’ll talk more later, if you like.”
“Thank you, Admiral. I would.” He watched her make her way back across the room. There was a lot the President would not be telling her and her peers within the press community. Like how close India and Pakistan had just come to nuclear war. Or how close Tombstone and his squadron had been to running out of fuel high above the Thar Desert when they’d finally rendezvoused with a KA-6D tanker from the Jefferson. The way the admiral had heard it, Tombstone had waited until the other five aircraft refueled, one after the other, before taking his turn. If he’d missed spearing the fuel probe basket, he wouldn’t have made it. It was that close.
But necessary.
He wondered if India’s Minister of Defense shared the relief he felt now. It had been the President’s idea to call the man directly, knowing that he held a unique liaison position between New Delhi’s government and the military. It was the President who’d convinced him, first, that India could not possibly continue its war against Pakistan with their supply line savaged by the A-6 strike, and second, that a PAF flight was already enroute to New Delhi with atomic bombs slung from their undercarriages.