Tombstone had only one question at the moment, though.
"What in God's name would the Russians think of all this if they could see us now?" he asked the bulkheads of his office.
With no reply forthcoming, he returned, scowling, to the waiting expendables report. A moment later, his phone rang. "CAG."
"This is Lieutenant Commander Delano," the voice said. Delano was on Captain Brandt's staff. "The Captain's compliments, and he wonders if you could join him for an ops briefing in Flag Plot at fifteen hundred hours."
"Very well, Commander." Tombstone checked his watch. Despite the polite wording, this was not a request. "I'll be there."
"Very good, sir. I will inform the Captain."
Tombstone sighed. If it wasn't one thing, it was another. He decided he just might be able to complete the expendables report before he had to be up in Flag Plot.
CHAPTER 6
Tombstone leaned over the plot table, studying the cryptic symbols and geometric shapes marked with wax pencil onto the glass top overlying the navigational chart of the North Cape-Murmansk Coast area. "But what's it mean, Admiral? Is Washington actually giving us a shoot-first order?"
"Hell, no. You know it's never that simple with them." Admiral Douglas E Tarrant, tall, slender, and aristocratic-looking with his head of silver hair, was the carrier group's commanding officer, and he was holding court in Jefferson's Flag Plot. His uniform, as always, was immaculate and razor-creased. "The orders are to shadow neo-Soviet fleet units, particularly their ICBM subs. Starting Friday when we reach our patrol station, gentlemen, we are going to begin making Class-A nuisances of ourselves."
"Off the Kola Peninsula?" Tombstone said. "That's going to be like taking on the whole damned Russian military!"
"CAG's got a point, Admiral," Captain Jeremy Brandt said. Brandt was Jefferson's captain. As hound-dog ugly as Tarrant was good-looking, he was short and fire-plug-built, with his blond-to-gray hair shaved to a stubble.
The three of them, Tombstone, Brandt, and Tarrant, were standing about the plot table, hemmed in by a number of senior aides and staff officers.
Tarrant and his entourage had arrived by helicopter aboard the Jefferson a few hours earlier from the Shiloh, the Aegis cruiser Tarrant used as his headquarters, and the lot of them had crowded into the carrier's Flag Plot to consider the latest set of orders from Washington.
Reaching out with the stem of an unlit pipe, Captain Brandt pointed out a line of red symbols on the map stretching down the jagged slash of the Kola Inlet. Sayda Guba, Polyamyy, Severomorsk, Murmansk. "Wasn't it some CNO who called this stretch the single most valuable piece of real estate on Earth?
Hell, the Russian SAM operators alone must be tripping over each other there."
"Secretary of the Navy John E Lehman said that," Tarrant replied. "He was referring to the whole Kola Peninsula, and he was dead right. Over here, in this strip of what was Finland before World War II, is Pechenga, just eighteen miles from the Norwegian border. It's both a commercial and a military port. And down here, just above where the Tuloma and the Kola rivers come together, is Murmansk. That's the largest city north of the Arctic Circle. Population about a half million. Ten miles further northeast is Severomorsk, headquarters for the whole Russian Northern Fleet. Enormous naval support facilities, shipyards, ammunition depots, that sort of thing."
"There was a big explosion there a while back, wasn't there?" Tombstone asked.
"Correct. May 1984. Most of the Northern Fleet's missile reserves went up in one big fireball. We never did learn the number of casualties, but the damage was extensive.
"Anyway, the Tuloma River starts to open up here, becoming the Kolskiy Zaliv, the Kola Inlet. Eight miles north of Severomorsk is Polyamyy, on the Polyamyy Inlet. It's a major base for both surface ships and submarines.
Nine miles further to the northwest is Sayda Guba. Important submarine support facilities there.
"Right here in this region, between Polyamyy and Sayda Guba, are four massive, underground facilities, tunnels cut right into the solid rock, with blast doors thick enough to protect what's inside from a nuclear blast. The first was completed, we think, in the early 1980s. Satellite photos show enormous structures against the hillside, with obvious submarine support facilities outside. Our submariners call them 'the barns.""
"Typhoons," Brandt said.
"That's right. The Polyamyy complex is their primary Typhoon basing facility. They don't keep them all in one basket, of course. Way down here, a good one hundred sixty miles east along the Kola Peninsula from Polyamyy, is Gremikha. They base and supply Typhoons there too, as well as at ports in the White Sea, but their main PLARB center is at Polyamyy. The Russians, remember, like a tight, centralized administration, especially when it comes to their nukes, and the Polyamyy complex is nice and handy to Severomorsk.
"Altogether, the Russians have some forty air bases on the Kola Peninsula, as well as hundreds of SAM sites, radar installations, supply depots, bases for two motorized rifle divisions, and the headquarters, barracks, and training center for the Northern Fleet's Naval Infantry brigade.
All of that is not counting their fleet facilities on the White Sea, at Arkhangelsk and Severodvinsk."
"So where the hell does Washington get off telling us to 'close with and shadow neo-Soviet fleet units,' eh?" Brandt shook his bulldog head. "What do they think, that CBG-14 is going to scare the Russkis into being peaceful?"
"After the Battles of the Fjords, I imagine they'll be a bit more circumspect," Tarrant said, his eyes twinkling. "And we'll be backed by CBG-7, the Eisenhower and her group, as well as Navy and Air Force squadrons coming out of Norway. But we're first-string this time. If the Russkis want to play, we'll be up to bat first."
"Just like last time," Tombstone said. "When we were up first against two Soviet carrier groups. Does someone in Washington have it in for us?"
"Political, Tombstone," Brandt said. He made a sour face. "DACOWITS wants a report on how their girls ― excuse me, their women ― stand up to combat."
Brandt had fought bitterly against the decision to use Jefferson as a test case for female flight officers, Tombstone knew. He'd lost, though, because the Jeff, in Norfolk for repairs, was the only carrier immediately available when the decision was made. Tombstone had heard rumors that Brandt had threatened to resign over the issue. If they were true, he was glad the skipper hadn't carried out the threat. He was a damned good officer, and a good ship captain. Jefferson was almost certainly his last command at sea ― how did a naval officer top command of a CVN? ― and it would be tragic if he was forced to go ashore under a cloud.
"I doubt that DACOWITS had anything to do with this, Captain," Tarrant said gently. "Jefferson is up to full strength with the new units brought on board at Norfolk. She also has the best combat record in the fleet. I'm sure that was quite enough to recommend us to the CNO."
"Don't get me wrong, Admiral," Brandt said. "I'm not trying to wiggle out of this. But merciful God in heaven…" He surveyed the map, as though in amazement. "One CBG can't possibly blockade the entire Murmansk coast!"
"We won't have to, Captain," Tarrant said. "Washington already has it blocked out."
Tombstone listened intently as Tarrant laid out the plan as proposed by the Pentagon in their latest orders. It was simple and direct, but required considerable support from other fleet elements.