Someone was going to pay.
But not Batman. He was on my side if anyone was, trying to shield me from the pain of too much hope.
I put aside the anger and nodded. "Probably. But if there's a chance-"
It was Batman's turn to nod. He sighed, then said, "I know, I know.
In your shoes, I'd be doing the same thing. Listen, either way ― and on both counts ― good luck. We'll be waiting for you when you're done."
Skeeter was fidgeting impatiently behind me when I turned back to him.
"Let's go," I said.
"I send the RIOs on out ahead, sir," Skeeter answered. "You want to get any useful work out of them, YOU got to stay on them."
I laughed at that, hearing the classic arrogance of a pilot, letting it sweep away the last vestiges of my anger. A good RIO ― Radar Intercept Officer ― in the backseat had kept my ass from getting shot down more than once. You like to fly with the same one in combat all the time, because you get attuned to each other's moves. Skeeter was taking his usual partner, Lieutenant Commander Sheila Kennedy, along for the ride. Since it'd been years since I'd had a running mate, the skipper of VF-95 had loaned me his XO, Commander Gator Cummings. Gator was a sharp fellow, one of the best. He'd jumped at the opportunity to go. As XO, he'd be fleeting up to skipper in a year or so, and then he'd be fighting for stick time like the rest of us.
I pushed open the hatch, stepped out into the freezing air, and shut everything else out of my mind as we preflighted the aircraft. You don't want to make mistakes when you're launching off a carrier, particularly not in weather like this. The sea that surrounded Jefferson was only a few degrees above freezing, and our survival time if anything went wrong would be counted in seconds rather than minutes. The Sea-Air Rescue ― SAR ― helo was launching while we finished up the preflight, a bit of bravado if I ever saw it. If anything went wrong, all SAR could do was recover the bodies.
Finally satisfied, I motioned my RIO over and we climbed up into the cockpit. Two enlisted technicians heavily bundled in foul-weather gear followed us up, made sure our ejection harnesses were securely fastened, then pulled out the cotter pins that disabled the ejection seats. After they withdrew, we buttoned up, and my RIO began reading through the pre-start checklist.
I went by the book, double-checking each step as we worked our way through the standard procedures. Finally, the comforting spooling sound of a Tomcat engine starting, the massive turbofan engines that were going to kick some serious MiG ass.
Off to my right, Skeeter finished up a few seconds after I did. I released the brake, taxied forward slowly in response to the yellow shirt's direction, and positioned the Tomcat on the catapult. Skeeter waited behind the JBDs ― the Jet Blast Deflectors. The COD was queued up farther back waiting for the fighters to launch before she taxied forward for her cat shot.
I followed the hand signals from the yellow shirt, cycling the stick for a final check of control surfaces, sliding the throttles forward to full military power, and finally taking one last visual check of my wings.
I gave the yellow shirt a thumbs-up ― he responded with a sharp, precise salute, releasing control of the aircraft to me. I returned the salute, checked on my backseater, then braced my back and head against the seat.
The noise from the engines was deafening, far past mere sound, acoustic fury that flooded the cockpit, seeping in through flight suit and Nomex to penetrate my very bones. It was urgent, demanding, all-encompassing, binding my flesh to the airframe and melting us irrevocably into a single fighting force.
The acceleration began slowly as always, a thump, a small jar, then the sensation of sliding forward on the catapult. We picked up speed quickly, accelerating up to 134 knots in a matter of seconds. There was a final, shuddering jar as the steam piston reached the end of its run ― and the end of the ship.
Tomcat double nuts staggered into the air, her wings grabbing for lift. There was, as always, that single sickening moment in which we were falling, plummeting ever closer to the sea black as ice while the sheer power of the Tomcat's engines fought to overcome the pull of gravity. A soft cat, one that had launched us off the end of the ship with insufficient airspeed to maintain airworthiness, was every Naval aviator's worst nightmare.
I felt it immediately, the slight pull upward as the Tomcat caught the air and fought for altitude, nose slightly up but concentrating on speed rather than altitude for the first couple of moments. Finally, that steadying sensation that told me we were going to stay airborne. As soon as it was safe, I eased back on the yoke and started gaining altitude.
I climbed to seven thousand feet and waited for Skeeter. I could see him below, climbing rapidly, then he circled and joined on me from behind and above, settling into a rock-steady position to my right.
I keyed the tactical circuit. "Good to go?"
"Roger."
I had a feeling Skeeter would have added something to that laconic comment if we hadn't been on tactical near the Russian coast and I hadn't been an admiral. I nodded approvingly ― at least the brash young pilot was starting to show some good head work.
Jefferson was still clearly visible below us, a massive, floating fortress that represented the bulwark of America's military power. Even after spending so many years on carriers, launching off carriers, and recovering on them, I could still marvel in her impressive appearance. A floating office building, turned on side, her hull plunging down far below the surface like an iceberg.
Icebergs ― involuntarily, I scanned the water around her. No, that wasn't a probable danger here, not in this part of the North Sea. However, the ice forming on the surface of the waters was.
The Russians were used to this. Ever since their earliest days as a blue-water Navy, they'd spent an enormous amount of time and money developing special ice-breaking ships to keep their seaways open. With most of their ports clobbered by deep layers of winter ice for up to four months out of the year, ice-breaking ships were essential to their being able to maintain a worldwide presence with their navy.
That was something that bothered me about this mission, had from the first moments it was described to me. Why couldn't a goodwill mission take place in the summer months? It would still be cold but not this bitterly brutal. The ice, always the ice ― during the winter, we were completely dependent upon Russia's ice breakers as winter closed in on the port.
It wasn't solid yet, not as far as I could see. Nearer the coast, where the cold was already seeping into the deep heat sink of the ocean, ice was forming, barely indistinguishable from the frozen, snow-covered ground around it. It was thin, a sickly black-and-gray coating, one with no regular consistency to it. But another storm blowing through, the meteorologist had assured me, would soon turn the tide. Within three to four weeks at the very latest, Arkhangel'sk and all the other ports lining the Kola Peninsula would be iced in. This whole fiasco ― for that's how I'd started to think of the mission from the very beginning ― started with the institution of a new American national security strategy. The President called it "cooperative engagement." It meant that we were supposed to win the post-Cold War competition by cozying up to the former Communist nations, letting them get a taste of good old capitalism and converting them to our way of life by sheer attraction. A number of hoary adages were cited in support of this concept ― that democracies don't start wars, that free trade decreases the need for conflict. We'd taken it to ridiculous lengths a couple of years ago by actually trying to buy up the world's supply of combat aircraft, starting with a gaggle of MiG-29s from Moldovia.