Still the contact maintained its course and speed, still headed directly for Jefferson.
“Sir,” the watch officer said, “lead Tomcat is requesting weapons free on the contact.” The pilot, the TAO knew, would want to take the contact with his nose gun.
“Range from Jefferson to the contact?” the TAO asked.
“Five miles, sir.”
“No. Tomcats are weapons tight. Gunnery stations, weapons free inside two miles. Have the Tomcats ready to go, but for now, tell them simply to stay overhead. And to make sure that boat knows they’re overhead.”
“Roger, sir.” The stations answered up one by one.
Just who the hell are you and why are you so damned determined to make it out to my ship? the TAO thought. “Where the hell is that signalman?” he asked out loud, his gaze still fixed on the interval between the carrier and the contact. “I want an answer on that flashing light question now!”
“Hey, we got us an escort in,” Major Carlton Early, the KC-135 tanker pilot, crowed. “Couple of Tomcats, right? Nice, real nice of the carrier.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Lieutenant Commander Green said. She turned to Tombstone. “They haven’t acknowledged any of my transmissions, sir.”
“You sure you’re sending right?” he asked, then immediately wished he hadn’t asked. Green’s face went still and cold.
“Yes, sir,” she answered calmly, her voice matching her expression. “I’ve transmitted your message five times with no response.”
“Keep transmitting,” Tombstone ordered. He looked up at the sky, his eyes following the movements of the Tomcats, the way the helos were standing off between his vessel and the carrier, the low altitude wobbles of the Tomcats as they cut tight station-keeping arcs overhead. One broke off and jogged off five miles, then a small geyser erupted underneath it.
“Shit. They’re test-firing nose guns. Green, keep transmitting. General, take another shot at the bridge-to-bridge radio. Try channels eight, nine, ten, and thirteen. Keep trying until someone answers up. The closer we get to the carrier, the more likely they are to hear us through the noise.”
“So what’re they doing now?” Adele asked Jack. She’d just come up from below for another short break only to find her new husband studying the other boat in the area through binoculars.
“Still sending flashing light, still heading toward Jefferson,” he said without taking his eyes away from the binoculars. “I wonder if — hey! The cell phone — you’ve got it, right?”
“Of course.”
“Would you get it, please?”
And that, she thought, as she headed back down to retrieve her cell phone from her luggage, was another thing you could count on with Jack Simpson. A thank-you. Courtesy ran as deep in his bones as the reflex to prepare for potential emergencies.
“Thanks,” he said as he took it from her a few minutes later. “You take the conn for a moment, would you?”
“I have the conn,” she acknowledged.
Jack punched out a series of numbers on the cell phone, and then grunted impatiently as he got a busy signal. He hit redial, then entered another number.
“Who?” she asked finally.
“The Reserve Center first, then a couple of my reserve buddies if I can’t get through. Somebody, somewhere, has a cell phone number for the Jefferson, and I think it’s time we got it.”
“What for?”
He grinned, a devilish look on his face. “Under the circumstances, seeing as we’re mobile and in the area, I want to check in and see what we can do to help.”
“How could we possibly help?” she asked.
The smile faded from his face and he put the cell phone down carefully. “You know, I didn’t mean for it to be like this,” he said soberly. “It’s our honeymoon, after all. And you’re a civilian — you didn’t sign on for any of this. I’m not sure it’s fair to risk you at all, not at all. In fact, I’m not sure I can bear the thought.” He started slowly down the steps to the lower level of the boat.
“Jack Simpson, you get right back up here,” she shouted. “Right now.”
He popped back up, a look of surprise on his face.
“When I married you, I married all of you. That includes the part of you that’s in the Navy. Part time, maybe, but it’s there.”
“No,” he said immediately. “If the Navy had wanted me to have a dependent — and that’s what you are now, my dear; it’s the new politically correct term for wife — they’d have issued me one.”
“To hell with that,” she said forcefully. “The Navy has got nothing to do with it. It’s my country, too, Jack. And if there’s anything we can do to help that carrier out there, then you better count me in. Because you military types don’t have a monopoly on serving your country. You think you do, but you don’t.” She paused for a moment to let that sink in, then said, “Pick up that phone and get us some sailing orders, mister. Now!”
The small boat inbound on the Jefferson had gone from being a minor issue to the primary focus of Bam-Bam’s attention. How many times had they run through this scenario in drills? Not exactly like this, of course. The usual scenario was a new helo flying in too close to forces in combat, and the checkpoint of the exercise was to see how close the TAO would let them get before they’d shoot them down. But always in the scenario, they’d had some way of talking to the inbound helo, of trying to warn them off. Not like now, where he had no way to tell the foolish — or was it treacherous? — skipper of the boat that Bam-Bam was prepared to have him blasted out of the water.
Still, he had to know that, didn’t he? That to come barreling up on an aircraft carrier after everything that had happened ashore was a sure invitation to disaster.
“Range?” Bam-Bam asked.
“Seven thousand yards,” the watch officer said. “Still doing twenty-two knots. Less than a minute before she’s in range of the fifty-five cals.”
Damn it! You’re going to make me do this, aren’t you? For just a moment, he wished that he could see the skipper right in front of him, right now. It would be far easier to strangle the guy himself than order what he was about to order.
“Six thousand yards — no closer,” Bam-Bam said. He felt a cold sense of finality as he heard the order relayed to the aircraft overhead and the other ships around them.
And yet if he’d learned anything at all in the Navy about responsibility and warfare, it was that once a decision was made, it was futile to keep second-guessing himself. There was too much danger that you’d get fixated on one small part of the problem and miss the larger threat developing, and right now he had more than enough on his plate.
“The SEAL team — have we heard from them yet?” he asked.
The watch officer shook his head. “The Marine detachment keeps trying, but they think the team may have secured their radios.”
“And if they’ve done that, then that means they’re too busy to talk. Or it’s too dangerous. Have the Marines continue to monitor the assigned frequency, but cease all callups. We’ll wait for them to call us.” And with another decision on the table, he dismissed the SEAL team from his mind and moved on to the next problem.