The nine-foot Mach-two missile exploded off the Hornet’s wing, streaking out for the Macedonian. The rollerons stabilized it in the air as the guidance system detected the irresistible lure of the Tomcat’s engines pumping heat out its ass. Thor pickled off another missile, wary of the first Sidewinder falling for the alluring flares now gyrating in the air in front of it, but there was no need for it. At this range, the first Sidewinder barely had time to clear Thor’s wing before it was trying to climb up inside the Tomcat’s tailpipe. Thor broke hard right, barely clearing the massive fireball of detonating warhead, unexpended aviation fuel and metal shards from the Tomcat. The second missile exploded inside the fireball itself, throwing the metal debris out at an even faster speed.
“Scratch one Greek,” Thor howled, breaking circuit discipline as well as Marine Corp cool to announce his victory. It was payback, and it felt good. Real good.
The harsh warning of his ESM gear broke off his Rebel yell in midcry. A radio call from his wingman confirmed the danger—“Thor, on your ass! Get the hell out of my line of fire.”
Thor dropped the nose of the Hornet down and headed for the deck. In his pursuit to wreak vengeance on the Tomcat, he’d forgotten the primary rule that every aviator learned early on, or paid for with his life — the scan. Even with the HUD, it was possible to get so fixated on a particular target that the pilot forgot to watch the rest of the battle or neglected to fly his aircraft. And Thor had done exactly that. While he’d been stalking the lead Tomcat, the other one had managed to slip by his wingman and turn into Thor, waiting until the right moment to slip in behind him.
“Get him off me, get him off me. He’s got a lock!”
“Thor on my mark — break right. Mark!” his wingman shouted over tactical.
Thor slammed the Hornet into the hardest turn he’d ever experienced, standing the Hornet on wingtip and continuing his downward path toward the ground. His HUD showed two missiles clobbering the air above him, their tracks marked with elongated speed leaders pointing directly at the Tomcat on Thor’s six.
Thor continued the turn through one hundred and eighty degrees, knowing there was no way the Greek Tomcat could keep up. As he reached the reciprocal of his previous course, he pulled the aircraft up. The ground was coming up far too fast, craggy and foreboding in this part of the country. Not that Marines minded flying nap of the earth — hell, they lived for close air support to the guys on the ground! — but doing it at damned near max speed on a steep angle of descent bordered on suicidal. He had to have some altitude, and had to have it now.
“Goddamn it, Thor, you’re right back — left, break left! You can’t shake him, but you can get the fuck out of the way!”
Suddenly, Thor was fed up. Allies that turned into enemies, allies shooting down Marine fighters, the ribbing from Lobo and his wingman — enough was enough. Yes, by gaining altitude, he’d put himself squarely back in the path of the oncoming Tomcat, right. His wingman should have taken the shot — Thor would find out later why he hadn’t. But since he hadn’t, it was time for a little on the job training.
“Back off, asshole,” Thor snarled. “Let me show you how this is done.”
“Thor, you can’t — he’s almost on you!”
“I said, back off!” Thor nailed the Hornet into the afterburner zone, then cut hard back to the right. The Tomcat — the HUD said it was right behind him, closing hard and fast. The ESM warning buzzer confirmed it.
NINETEEN
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stared down the folder on his desk. One last problem to wrap up with Greece and Macedonia — and one that should be fairly simple to solve. He turned to the chief of naval operations, who was sitting off to the side on a long, low leather couch that graced one wall. “You know what you have to do.”
“Dammit, I don’t like it,” the CNO said. “It sends the wrong message. We can’t have sailors disobeying orders whenever they feel like it.”
“Nor can we afford to look like complete and utter idiots to the rest of the world,” the chairman observed. He flipped quickly to the pages, searching for anything that would make him change his mind.
In theory at least, he agreed with the chief of naval operations. In theory. But when it came to getting things done in Washington, to managing the health and well-being of the armed services, to representing their interest to congress, to molding the forces into groups that could try to fight the wide range of missions they were given these days, all the while juggling the current perceptions of the American public — well, sometimes theories just didn’t cut it.
He knew the chief of Naval operations understood that. He had to, or he would not have risen to his current position. The CNO was right — it did send a wrong message, both to the American public and to the military in general.
But the alternative was even worse.
“This youngster — Airman Smith — he’s come up absolutely clean on the extended background investigation I ordered. There’s no political agenda, nobody behind him. Not as far as we can tell.”
“I know. I saw the same report.”
“Then you understand why it has to be this way?”
“Of course I do. It’s just that I don’t like it. I don’t like it one damned little bit.”
“A good thing that’s not the requisite for this job. Liking everything we have to do, I mean.”
The CNO stood, sighed, and headed for the door. He paused, turned back to the chairman, and said, “One day this will come back to bite us in the ass, you know.” The chairman nodded. “Better an ass biting in the future than a castration at present, don’t you think?”
Airman Smith stood at attention in the flag passageway. He flexed his knees, trying to ignore the aching starting in his feet. His hands were down by his side, his thumbs along the seams of his dress white uniform. He stared straight ahead, in best boot camp tradition, holding his eyes locked on some point far off in the distance. He had been standing there for thirty minutes, studiously ignoring and being ignored by everyone that walked by.
They probably all knew who he was. They had to, didn’t they? He got mail from everywhere around the world, had seen his own face on CNN and ACN, and had read the carefully filtered reports that were allowed on-board USS Jefferson.
A hot sense of shame coupled with righteous indignation swept through him. Some letters bothered him more than most, and oddly enough, they were from people who were on his side. For the most part, they congratulated him on standing up to the evil empire that was the United States Navy.
They didn’t get it. They just didn’t get it. There was nothing wrong with the Navy, nothing at all. Given a choice — a choice he might not have now — he’d stand a Navy for at least twenty years. Hell, maybe even go for thirty. For one fleeting moment a few months back, he even entertained the idea of commission. Being an officer in United States Navy — now that was something to be proud of.
It wasn’t going to happen that way now. He tried to do the right thing, follow orders, obey the Greek officer under whose command he’d been placed. But didn’t they see how wrong this was for America? Nobody, not one single person, not even the fancy defense attorney they’d appointed to represent him had appeared to understand that.