Tombstone forced a feeble smile and broke the long, awkward silence. “Hey, look, the least you can do is try to bribe me to give you a good efficiency report. I mean, what’s the good of being best buddy to your new CAG if you don’t use it, huh?”
“Damn it, Stoney, leave me alone!” Coyote exploded. “Just leave me the hell alone!”
Magruder took a step back, as if recoiling from a blow, and his face grew hard. “I would if I could,” he said harshly. “I’m sorry you seem to think I’ve suddenly become the enemy or something. I never wanted that.” He paused. “I came down here because I needed you. I was thinking about Korea, and I realized how much our friendship always meant to me, how it helped keep me sane sometimes. But even if I can’t have your friendship anymore, I still need you. We’re up against it, Will, and I need help sorting out what to tell the admiral.”
“I can’t help you with that,” Grant said quietly. He wanted to say something more, to try to explain or apologize, whatever it would take to get past the empty look in Tombstone’s eyes. But Magruder didn’t give him the chance.
“That dogfight yesterday … it was a good trap, but it didn’t work. The Russians screwed up and didn’t finish you guys off when they probably could have. I want to know why. If we end up going up against them again, I need to be able to make them screw up again and give us a chance to win. Without some kind of edge we’ll never pull it off.”
“What do you want from me?” Coyote asked. “We fought, we got our asses kicked, the cavalry showed up. That’s all I know.”
“Come on, Will. You were up there in that dogfight. In command, for all intents and purposes. I wasn’t there, and all I’ve got to go on are the reports from the Hawkeye and a few vague ideas. Why did the Russians pull those planes out?”
He shrugged, unable or unwilling to come to grips with the question himself. “Ask Batman. Or Ears.”
“God damn it, Will, I’m asking you! It’s your instincts I need. Your nose for tactics. The Hawkeye report makes it look like they pulled those planes out because our Hornets were forming up over Jeff. Was that it? Were they screening their carrier, or did they just think they didn’t need the overkill to take you guys out? Come on, you must have had some kind of feel for how they were doing. If they were screening their carrier, that means there’s at least one bastard out there who can be bluffed into pulling in his horns on cue. But if it was just a miscalculation of how much strength they needed up there …”
Grant sat up slowly, frowning, forcing himself to relive the dogfight. “They were doing pretty good,” he said. “They frightened off Tyrone and nailed Trapper. Then the Sukhois bugged out …” He hesitated. “But we’d been doing okay ourselves. If I’d been in charge I wouldn’t have sent off a third of my planes then. Not unless I had to.”
Magruder looked animated for the first time since he had appeared. “You don’t think it was just a mistake then?”
“Hell, no,” Coyote answered, trying to muster a smile but failing. “Whoever was in charge up there knew what the hell he was doing. No doubt about it. That bright boy wouldn’t just let go of a whole squadron unless some bigger boy made him. And the only reason I can see for that would be to cover their carrier.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Magruder said. “Thanks, Will … and, uh … I’m sorry. But I needed to know, and you’re still the one whose judgment I know I can trust.”
“I wish I could,” Coyote muttered. But Magruder was gone, leaving him alone with bitter thoughts.
“It still doesn’t sound good, Commander,” Tarrant said heavily. Across the table, Magruder seemed to slump. The man was plainly dead on his feet, and even though he looked freshly shaven and was dressed in a crisp new uniform, it was obvious he’d been up all night.
That made his report that much more disturbing. Tarrant knew Magruder had done his best, but he just didn’t have enough of a safety margin in his calculations to convince the admiral that they could do any good.
It was frustrating. Magruder and his Intelligence Officer had some good ideas for pinning down a large chunk of the Soviet air arm to allow an Alpha Strike to get through, but the carrier’s slender resources just wouldn’t support it. After all, the only way to draw off the Soviet air carrier involved a convincing diversion against the carrier itself, so that meant spreading American resources among at least three different missions.
“If we could just deal with Orland,” Magruder was muttering darkly. “We might manage it then …”
Tarrant shook his head. “That’s easy enough, Commander. I don’t even need your planes to take out Orland. No, the real problem is getting enough of a strike in on both the carrier and the landing ships without leaving us so vulnerable that we can’t hold out. We can’t count on hitting them with surface-launched missiles, because Red Banner Northern Fleet’s got enough missile defenses to handle whatever we throw their way. Our only real hope of getting to either target is to get in close with manned aircraft that have a shot at evading their ship-mounted SAMs. But if we keep a squadron to cover the battle group I just don’t see enough planes left to cover two strike forces and carry enough Harpoons and bombs to do any damage.”
Magruder was nodding slowly. “That’s what I was afraid of, Admiral. If we just had a few more planes … Tomcats to cover the Jeff, one squadron of Hornets to bomb the troopships, one to ride cover …”
“And you end up sending the Intruders in on Soyuz without an escort. It’s suicide.” Tarrant shook his head. “No, unless you can come up with another squadron by magic, we’re stumped. I think our only choice now is to steer toward Iceland, make it look like we’re trying to skirt their fleet and get in behind them or something. Maybe that’ll draw off Soyuz and enough of Red Banner Northern Fleet to give the Norwegians a shot at doing something themselves.” He sighed. “It was a good effort, Commander. Don’t blame yourself over circumstances beyond your control.”
“Yes, sir,” Magruder said dully.
“If we’re going to head any further north I’ll want the ASW patrols increased. We’ll be moving out of the SOSUS net soon and I want the sub threat covered. That means more work for your Vikings, but-“
“Vikings?” There was a gleam in Magruder’s eyes. “Hold on a minute, Admiral. There’s one idea we didn’t explore …”
CHAPTER 21
The folding chairs in CVIC had been taken down this morning, replaced instead by television cameras and a team of technicians from the OE Division. Admiral Tarrant watched them checking over their equipment one last time as he waited to one side of the lectern for the closed-circuit broadcast to begin.
The director, a first class petty officer, stepped forward and started the countdown. “Ten seconds, people,” he said, pausing and glancing at his stopwatch. “And five … and four … and three …” Then he stepped back and pointed at Master Chief Petty Officer Mike Weston, Jefferson’s grizzled Command Master Chief. As Chief of the Boat Weston was a crucial link between officers and enlisted men. He hosted a daily program of announcements and general information … but today he was giving it up so that Tarrant could make his own announcement.