It was a poor start as CAG. A frigate destroyed, Jefferson put in danger, all because he’d let his impatience with sub-hunting convince him that he was the indispensable man aboard the carrier now.
Matthew Magruder didn’t feel indispensable any longer.
A fresh-faced junior grade lieutenant from the admiral’s staff met Magruder before he could take three steps across the flight deck. “Sir,” the young officer shouted over the roar of a helicopter’s rotors — probably one of the SAR choppers returning from the search for Gridley survivors. “Sir, the admiral’s compliments and would you please come to the Flag Bridge right away?”
Magruder nodded dully. If Admiral Tarrant wanted to see him for the reason Magruder expected, his tenure as CAG was likely to be the shortest one on record.
Admiral Douglas Tarrant looked into his half-empty mug, staring at the coffee inside without really seeing it. The past few hours had been shattering, but he fought to keep his features impassive. Things were bad enough now without letting the crew see that their top brass had come close to breaking.
He’d never expected the Russians to launch such a blatant attack on American forces. His Soviet counterpart, or his bosses in the Kremlin, had raised the stakes a long way over the limit. Tarrant had spent too long learning the rules of the game in the Cold War. This new post-Cold War era wasn’t anything like that. Now the Russians were playing for keeps, and none of the conventional wisdom of past confrontations seemed to apply.
In hindsight it was easy to see. Over a decade the new Russian leadership had seen first-hand that hesitation and half-measures were worse than useless. Hesitation had lost them Eastern Europe, had left the abortive coup of ‘91 in tatters before it ever got off the ground, and had condemned the federal government in Yugoslavia to a long, bitter civil war nobody could win. By contrast, a swift, decisive, ruthless strike had driven Iraq out of Kuwait, and the Russians watching that war from the sidelines had taken the lesson to heart. The fall of Yeltsin’s Commonwealth to the reactionaries of the new Union had been the result of the same kind of decisiveness. They had exploited the weaknesses of a disorganized government and a broken economy and brought back Communism where their clumsier Cold Warrior predecessors had failed before.
This had been the same kind of operation. The ambush set for the Tomcat squadron had been bad enough, but on top of that the Russians had dealt very effectively with Keflavik. Following up their initial missile strike, Soviet bombers had made a close-in bombing attack on the American base. Even though most of them had fallen prey to defending Eagles, SAMs, and Phoenix missiles, a few had made it all the way in. And those few had dropped enough five-hundred-pound BETAB retarded antirunway bombs, the Russian equivalent of America’s Durandal, to make the airstrips there totally useless for the foreseeable future.
The destruction of Keflavik and the loss of half of Viper Squadron together put Jefferson’s battle group in serious danger. The carrier and her consorts were sailing into hazardous waters, with each mile putting them closer to Russian land-based air forces that could overwhelm Jefferson’s defenses easily. The Americans would be hard-pressed to survive, much less do anything substantial in support of the embattled defenders. Under those circumstances, was it worth the risk to go on?
But the alternative was turning back, and if they did that the President might as well concede defeat. As long as Europe was staying neutral, Keflavik had been the only possible staging area for American forces flying into Norway. Without it, all support would have to be by sea, and by the time any of the ships preparing off the East Coast could make it to Bergen the fight for Norway would be over. A modern amphibious operation needed a close base of operations for any hope of success, and that was precisely what the United States would face if Bergen fell. Unless Bergen could hold out a few more weeks, the Soviets would soon be sitting pretty in a secure bastion.
Tarrant looked up as a pair of officers entered. One was young Lieutenant Craig, from his own staff. The other man he knew mostly from news reports and magazine stories, though he’d seen him among the CAG staff on the day of the briefing. Commander Magruder had a haunted look. He seemed older than Tarrant had thought, and didn’t look much like the reckless hero aviator depicted in the media.
“Magruder. Good.” Tarrant gestured for him to join him at the chart table. “Sorry to fetch you up here so soon after you touched down, but this is important.”
“I understand, sir,” Magruder replied slowly. Close up, the haunted look was even more noticeable. Tarrant couldn’t help but wonder if he was as capable as his reputation claimed.
“You know about Captain Stramaglia’s death by now, of course,” Tarrant went on, studying him carefully. “Losing him was a blow we couldn’t afford. He was a good man, and one of the best tacticians I’ve ever seen in action.”
“Yes, sir.” There was no spark of energy in his words or his eyes. It was as if he had died, not Stramaglia.
“You’re the next in line in the Air Wing, and you’ve got the experience to make a good CAG. I don’t envy you the job, though. It’s a killer under ordinary conditions, and what we’ve got is a situation that’s anything but ordinary.”
“Sir?”
That seemed to get a rise out of him. For a moment Tarrant couldn’t help but think that Magruder hadn’t expected the advancement. That was silly, of course. As Stramaglia’s deputy Magruder was the automatic replacement.
He put the thought out of his mind. Probably young Magruder was still a little bit dazed by everything that had happened. Viper Squadron … Gridley … Stramaglia. It was a lot to take in all at once.
“Your immediate concern is the defense of this ship,” Tarrant told him. “Viper Squadron’s at half strength, and that’s going to put a crimp in our CAP umbrella. Do what you have to, but make sure we’re covered. Next time the bombers could be headed our way.”
Magruder nodded slowly. “Yes, Admiral.”
“I also want ASW tightened. I don’t want another Gridley.” Magruder seemed about to say something, and Tarrant paused, but the new CAG didn’t speak after all. “The real problem, though, is bigger,” he went on after a moment. “After what’s happened this morning we need to husband our resources. I don’t know how we’re going to defend the carrier and still project any kind of substantial offensive power, but if we don’t come up with something pretty damned quick we might as well call off this whole cruise and go home. So we need some ideas, Magruder. Some way to hit those Russian bastards where it hurts and slow down the offensive against Bergen.”
“That’s a tall order, sir,” Magruder replied, still thoughtful but less distracted than before. “I don’t know if there’s anything we can do.”
“That’s not what I want to hear, mister,” Tarrant snapped. “Stramaglia would have come up with something. I expect you to do the same. Because if you don’t, Commander, this war is over.”
The new CAG stepped back, looking stricken. “I’ll … do what I can, Admiral,” he said.
Tarrant nodded. “That’s what I want. Get on it, Commander. Dismissed.”
Captain First Rank Glushko regarded his subordinate with distaste. “Well, Terekhov, it seems your victory was less than complete.”