watch on it, pending a change of course toward the battle group.”
“Shit,” Batman said softly. “Did we interrogate the contact on
International Air Distress?”
The TAO nodded. “No response. And no distress call now 1-on either
civilian air distress or military air distress.”
Batman rubbed his hands over his face, then scratched absentmindedly
under his left arm. The flight suit he’d slipped on as he crawled out
of his rack naked was still new, and the stiff fabric chafed. “Is
anybody saying anything?”
He jerked his thumb at the right bulkhead. “What about the spooks?”
“That would be me,” a short, blond-haired, blue-eyed officer said as he
stepped through the hatch leading into TFCC. “There was a brief,
encrypted transmission from GCI, probably to the Fulcrum, immediately
prior. Admiral.”
Commander Hillman Busby, known as Lab Rat to the other intelligence
officers, shrugged. “Not unusual. They keep their land-based air
patrols under close control. We knew the MiG was there, of course, but
there were no indications of hostile activity.”
“Did the MiG take a shot at it?” the admiral asked. “A small contact
like that, maybe he’s just too low and dropped off our radar.”
Lab Rat shook his head. “We can’t tell. Immediately before the
contact disappeared off radar, we were holding targeting transmissions
from the MiG, but there was no contact on an actual missile launch.
They both just dropped off the screen.”
Batman suppressed a yawn. “Any indications where the aircraft launched
from?”
“The track seems to correlate with a civilian aircraft launched out of
Miami forty-five minutes before. No flight plan, but that doesn’t mean
anything. It’s entirely possible that he launched from a private
airfield. That, or the paperwork just got mixed up. The Coast Guard
is checking on it now.”
“Has SOUTHCOM been notified?” the admiral asked.
The TAO spoke up. “Voice report five minutes ago, and the message is
almost ready to fly.” He held out a single sheet of paper. “Any
comments to add. Admiral?”
Admiral Wayne studied the message, then shook his head “No, we don’t
know anything at this point. Just what the message says.” He
scribbled his initials in the upper right corner of the paper. “Go
ahead and send it.”
The admiral climbed up into the high-backed, elevated leatherette seat
located in the middle of TFCC, his thoughts hundreds of miles away from
the carrier. Ashore, the watch staff would soon be waking the SOUTHCOM
admiral, just as Batman’s staff had awakened him. He grinned,
wondering if his old running mate. Admiral Matthew Tombstone”
Magruder, would like it any better than he had.
Tombstone and Batman had spent practically every tour in the Navy
together on one carrier or another. Together they’d seen most of the
nastiness the world had to offer, fighting wingtip to wingtip. First,
as junior nugget aviators, they’d chased MiGs in all parts of the world
ranging from ; Norway to the South China Sea. Later, as more senior
officers, they’d fallen into a now predictable pattern. Tombstone, two
years senior to Batman, blazed the trail, For his last two tours,
Batman had relieved Tombstone in his billet while Tombstone went on to
scout their next duty station. What had first begun as an odd
coincidence had been elevated to a standing joke within the tight-knit
F-14 Tomcat community.
Distracted, Batman stared at the left-hand seat in front of the TPCC.
He stared for a moment, then grinned. Odd that he could recognize the
back of her head, when she’d spent most of her time in the air staring
at his. He stood up and walked over to the console. Tomboy?”
The diminutive naval flight officer turned around, looked up, and
stood. “Yes, Admiral. Can I help you?”
Batman shook his head amusedly. “As I live and breathe, lieutenant
Commander Joyce Flynn. What the hell are you doing here? I thought
you were still playing test pilot out at Patuxent River in Maryland.”
Following their last cruise, the radar intercept officer, or rio, had
been ordered there to operationally test the latest flying machines the
Navy had to offer. Foremost among them was the JAST bird, an advanced
avionics F-14 Tomcat that featured an augmented look-down, shoot-down