“How many!” Bird Dog heard Gator sigh.
“About twenty so far. And the E2 says there’s a second wave behind them. It looks like the six inbound from the east were just a diversion.”
Bird Dog toggled his tactical circuit on. “Red Dog Might, this is Red Dog Leader. You see it now, guys MiGs, dead ahead. We’ve got time just enough. Dump your ordnance, then combat spread. All flight leads acknowledge.” A quick flurry of acknowledgments followed.
“No one flinches,” Bird Dog said, a hard, deadly tone in his voice.
“We finish their base, then we finish them.”
FOURTEEN
“Damn it!”
Tombstone slammed his hand down on the arm of his battle chair. “How the hell did they get away with that? And where did all those aircraft come from? That’s more than Cuba has in her entire inventory!”
Batman clenched his fists and glared at the large-screen display.
“Libyans. It’s got to be. Five years ago, you and I would never have fallen for that feint.”
“Five years ago, we wouldn’t be on some wishy washy presence mission constrained by political considerations in our own backyard,” Tombstone snapped. “Damn it. Batman, we blew it. Face it.”
Batman shook his head. “Not yet, we didn’t.” He pointed at the flight of Tomcats and Hornets inbound on their objective. “Do the time-distance problem. They’ve got time to dump their ordnance and engage. It ain’t over until it’s over. Admiral.”
The use of his title snapped Tombstone back to reality. He shifted out of his emotional reaction to the sudden appearance to the inbound raid and focused strictly on the tactical scenario. What Batman said was true. And, with their ordnance dumped, he’d match his flight of tomcats up against any raid of MiGs.
That the Cubans had surprised him frustrated him no end.
Perhaps what he’d said in anger was true maybe he was too old to be in command of operational forces. God knows he’d certainly had his taste of combat, in missions ranging from fighting the Soviets during the Cold War in the skies of Norway to his most recent foray against them, repelling a missile launch crew from the Aleutian Islands. Maybe it was time to step down, give the younger men a chance.
Maybe it was “Admiral Wayne. We need to talk now.” Tombstone drew his old friend aside to a quiet corner of TFCC. He steepled his fingers in front of him and gazed at his old wingman, his dark, unreadable eyes now backlit with frustration. “What’s the first principle of command.
Batman?”
“Lead from the front,” Batman said promptly. “Don’t ask your troops to do something that you aren’t willing to do yourself.”
Tombstone nodded. “I’m glad you remember that. Maybe you won’t think I’m completely crazy, then. Listen, it’s your air wing can I borrow a Tomcat?”
Batman’s jaw dropped. “Hell, no, you can’t have an aircraft! How long has it been since you’ve been behind the controls, anyway? Two years?”
Tombstone shook his head. “Not that long.” He managed a grim smile.
“A three-star draws enough water to catch an occasional refresher FAM flight, even in SOUTHCOM.
Two weeks, max.”
“But what the hell for?” Batman’s voice had ratcheted up three notes.
What his old lead was proposing was crazy absolutely insane. Admirals didn’t fly combat flights they stayed in TFCC and kept the big picture, drawing on their experience and training to coordinate the many measures that could and often did go wrong in combat. “You’re of more value right here than you are in the air.”
Tombstone shook his head again. “No. We’ve got two admirals on board as it is. You and I both know that I should never have been ordered out here as task force commander.
You’re more than capable of running your own carrier group, whether or not it includes an Arsenal ship.”
“But what do we gain by putting you in the air?” Batman asked, tacitly acknowledging the truth of Tombstone’s statement. “I’ve got a dozen pilots sitting in ready rooms ready to man up those birds. I hate to say it, old friend, but they’re a helluva lot sharper in the cockpit than you are now.
You could have taken them back when we were both flying regularly, but not now.” Batman shook his head. “No. I can’t see any justification for this. With all due respect. Tombstone, no.”
“Think about this. Batman.” Tombstone pointed back toward the large-screen display, then fished in his pocket and pulled out a laser pointer. He toggled it on and then circled the symbols for the incoming raid aircraft with a red dot. “We’ve got what looks like Cubans inbound, right?
Only you and I both know that they’re probably Libyans.
How the hell our satellite surveillance missed them is something we’ll puzzle out later. But for now, there’s a lot more on the line than merely air battles and losing aircraft.
We’ve got a whole new foray by a foreign nation into our bathtub down here, and however this ends up, it’s not going to be pretty. I’m not having my men and women face it alone not when I can be out there with them. If there’s going to be some shit hitting the fan over this, it’s going to have to go through me to get to them. They’re all good pilots, every last one of them, and they don’t deserve to put up with the political bullshit that’s going to be falling out from this.
That’s why I need to be there. I’m a shit shield, if it comes down to that in the aftermath.”
Tombstone’s face looked hard, weary. He was making sense. Batman had to admit, but not in a way he’d ever heard a three-star make sense before. They both knew that fighting a war and winning it tactically was only half the solution. It was the news reporting and diplomatic interpretation of the battle afterward that really made American foreign policy. But still, was the solution to risk a senior officer on a swan-song combat flight? He didn’t think so.
Tombstone took a step closer to him. “I’m retiring after this tour.
Batman. I’ve got three stars now, three more than I ever planned on.”
His voice took on a wistful note. “All I ever wanted to do was fly.
The promotions, commanding a carrier battle group that was the pinnacle.
There’s just more paperwork, more D.C. tours after this. I’m going to punch out while it’s still fun.”
“But Tombstone, there are other operational commands.
And there’s always JCS.” Batman struggled to find more arguments to present to his old lead.
“Not for me.” Tombstone’s voice and face suddenly lightened, as though some terrible tension had been released inside of him. “This is it-one final mission, putting it on the line one last time and hopefully doing some good for this country. I owe the country that and you owe me an aircraft.”
Batman’s throat seemed to close up slightly. “What’s your mission?”
“bda bomb damage assessment. We need a firsthand look at it, from somebody who’s got enough background to know what they’re seeing. And those missile launchers hell, these pilots are all too young to have seen the real thing. You and I would know what they were.”
“I’ll go with you.” Batman was surprised to find how exciting the prospect was. to be back in the air, to feel the smooth surge of twin engines pounding under his butt, facing off against the adversary in a nimble, deadly fighter he wanted it, too.
“You can’t. Someone has to stay in command here.” What might have been a smile tugged at the corners of Tombstone’s mouth. “And I’m senior, buddy. This is your battle group you stay here and command it like I had to do in the Spratlys. I’ll go out and get the BDA, help us plan our next move.”