The first man was Rear Admiral Everett "Batman" Wayne, now in command of Carrier Battle Group 14. I'd known Batman since my earliest days in the Navy. We'd gone to Basic together, selected Tomcats out of the pipeline, and started circling around each other about the time I was a lieutenant commander. Wherever I went, Batman was there. As we got more senior ― he by some odd split of his promotion year group, one year junior to me ― the Navy had taken to detailing Batman to relieve me wherever I went. It became something of a joke to us, first when he'd showed up as my replacement as commanding officer of USS Jefferson, then later more seriously when he'd relieved me as commander of Carrier Battle Group 14.
Batman was a little bit shorter than me, not by much, but enough to make a difference in a bar fight. He had my dark hair and dark eyes, but they were set in a face that was as mobile and cheerful as mine was impassive. Or at least that's what I've been told ― I can't see the supposed great stone face that earned me the nickname Tombstone.
Over the past several years, Batman had fought an increasingly difficult battle against fat. Since his assignment to Jefferson, even though he spent countless hours on the Stairmaster, he was starting to thicken up around his waistline. Not enough yet to make him look ridiculous in a flight suit, although God knows he rarely got a chance to wear one of those, but enough to be noticeable to someone who'd known him for a long time.
Batman had in tow a junior aviator, one I knew well and had been expecting to meet me up here. Lieutenant Skeeter Harmon, a fellow Tomcat pilot. I'd been on two cruises with Skeeter now, and I liked what I saw.
He'd gotten off to a rocky start in his first few minutes onboard the carrier after I'd rescued him from a TAD assignment on another ship, and gotten into a fight on the flight deck with a kid who was trying to keep him from getting chewed up inside an inbound disabled aircraft. But he'd more than made up for it by now. There weren't a whole lot of guys who were his equal in the air ― me maybe, although that would have had to have been in my younger days. Now youth and reflexes sometimes won out over age and wisdom. That's the way it is in fighter air.
He was a tall kid, lean and lanky. Maybe three percent body fat, if that. Black, with his hair clipped close to his skull. if his attitude was any indication, he cut a wide swath through the available women when he was ashore. I'd never heard him bragging about it, but gossip travels fast on a ship.
"You out of here, Admiral?" Batman asked.
"Shortly. Now that you've got my wingman here, it's looking like a sure thing. I'm not sure I really believed it before that."
Batman's answering grin told me he understood all too well the difficulties of getting stick time for a flag officer. "I didn't want him getting held up by anything that could wait," he agreed, and gave Skeeter a gentle shove forward. "He's all yours, Admiral. Bring him back in one piece."
Skeeter spoke up. "It's the Russians you ought to worry about, sir."
The cocky, easy grin on his face was his trademark. "Gonna kick some serious Russian ass, I am." I almost smiled in spite of myself. The young pilot didn't even realize how sweet a deal this was. All he could think about was the flying.
Skeeter and I were headed to a small Russian air base located at Arkhangelsk. Relationships between the United States and the former master of the Soviet Union were allegedly a good deal warmer than the weather. It had started with Russian ships making port calls in the United States, a gesture we reciprocated. Cruisers, destroyers, even submarines, all carefully sanitized ― cleared of classified material ― and open to what had once been our bitterest enemies.
The Russians, unable to get their own primitive aircraft carriers under way due to engineering problems and lack of maintenance, had suggested this somewhat lopsided mission that we were on now ― the Jefferson would visit the port of Arkhangelsk, and in exchange, the Russians would host a professional conference aimed at both Russian and American fighter pilots. The conference was to be held at their version of Top Gun, a small, remote airfield located one hundred miles south of Arkhangelsk. A few days of professional conferences, the usual looky-loo demonstrations, then the pice de resistance ― a display of aerial combat techniques using real MiG-29s and -31s versus Tomcats. The outcome would be decided by a panel of judges drawn from other countries, and the engagements monitored by United States Navy fighter training gear, called MILES gear. It's a network of low-power lasers and tiny receptors mounted on the skin of the opposing aircraft. That data, along with cockpit-mounted cameras, would supply a complete record of each engagement.
In addition to two Tomcats, we were taking along a C-2 Greyhound, commonly known as a COD ― Carrier Onboard Delivery ― with some maintenance technicians, radiomen and secure communications gear, and a small security force. Not that we expected to need the latter. Washington had already approved the details of the visit, which included using Russian forces to guard our aircraft. I guess the thinking was that since it was their idea to play, the last thing they'd do would be to foul up their chances of access to American markets by playing games with our aircraft. I wasn't happy about it. The in and outs of diplomacy can be frustrating, particularly when they have the potential to affect my safety in flight.
Well, we had a few surprises for them if they tried to renege on the agreement. Not many ― but a few.
"Let's get going," I said. Outside the steel-cold hatch, freedom waited.
"There's a lot at stake this time, Tombstone." Batman's voice had an odd cautionary note in it that I didn't recognize.
"Sure, baseball, apple pie, and motherhood. C'mon, Batman. This ain't even the real thing." I tried to make my voice light, but something in his voice bothered me.
I stood watching him for a moment, suddenly aware of how much older we'd each gotten. Life at sea takes it out of you. Batman and I had had a few more advantages than the rugged chief behind the desk, but I could still see the effects of too many hours without sleep, too many missed meals, and the sheer, life-sapping stress that we operated under every day.
Batman was shaking his head now, something clearly on his mind. I took him by the elbow and drew him off to a far corner of the compartment.
"Is there something I don't know?" I asked.
Batman shook his head again. "Of course not." But he wouldn't meet my eyes.
"There is, isn't there?" I pressed. I was out of line, even if I did have one more star on my collar than he did. Command of this CVBG was his, not mine. In all probability there were things that JCS wanted him to know, tactical considerations that would make no difference to me on the ground. Still, being out of the loop bothered me.
"What is it?" I demanded, my uneasiness overriding my sense of propriety.
Batman finally looked up at me. "Nothing you need to know."
Shit, I'd made him actually say it.
"If you're certain?" I let the question hang in the air for a moment, then clapped him once on the shoulder. "Fine, we're out of here. Keep our airfield in one piece ― I don't want to get stranded in there."
Batman seemed unwilling to let me walk away. He fidgeted for a moment, then asked, "How much longer, Stoney? What if there aren't any answers this time?"
I considered the question, as out of line in its own way as my earlier one had been to him. "There are answers, I think. Maybe not good ones ― but answers nonetheless."
"He's probably dead." Batman's statement was brutal.
The anger I'd reined in over the last months swept over me now, harsh and demanding. If the Vietnamese and Russians had done what I thought they'd done, someone would pay. All those years of waiting, not knowing, then the final curt announcement by the U.S. that all the missing-in-action aviators that were presumed to be POWs would be reclassified as KIA ― Killed In Action. The assurances from both Vietnam and Russia that none of the men were still alive. The stone wall even a senior military officer ran into, trying to find out the truth.