“Amber light,” the voice of Pri-Fly said over the speaker Behind Fitzgerald’s head. “Stand by. Stand by.”
Admiral Vaughn seemed competent enough, but Fitzgerald had a suspicion that it was his political connections more than his seamanship that had brought him to the Jefferson. At the very thought of politics, Fitzgerald’s stomach knotted. It was impossible to look at Vaughn and not remember the man he’d replaced.
Admiral Thomas J. Magruder had been the carrier group’s commanding officer throughout the roughest deployment Fitzgerald could remember . . . and his memory included three tours off the coast of Vietnam. Nothing he’d seen then or since matched what the Jefferson had experienced in this one Single tour.
In eight months, CBG-14 had twice seen combat. In September Jefferson had been deployed in support of a combined Navy-Marine operation to rescue the crew of the Chimera, a Navy intelligence ship captured on the high seas by the North Koreans. Three months later, Jefferson’s battle group had been deployed to the Gulf of Thailand to support the Bangkok government during a coup attempt. ‘ Immediately after the Thailand crisis Admiral Magruder had
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Keith Dougtass
ARMAGEDDON MODE
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been hurriedly summoned to Washington, and Vaughn had come aboard to replace him.
There was a hint of scandal in that summons, and the threat of a Senate inquest. The operation in Thailand had not violated the War Powers Resolution—U.S. participation had been limited to two Marine actions ashore, air support, and two alpha strikes off the Jefferson—but it had a number of Congressmen operating in full Administration-bashing mode. Since it had come hard on the heels of Jefferson’s intervention in North Korea, some of the President’s sharpest critics were accusing him of being trigger-happy, an accusation that had trickled down to the man in charge on the scene as well. Admiral Magruder had enjoyed a distinguished and rewarding career, but if Washington needed a scapegoat he would be elected. His advice to the White House had led directly to the Presidential order to send in die Marines and the air strikes.
Admiral Vaughn had been tapped in his Pentagon office to fly to the Far East before the last of the rebels had been rounded up, arriving only a few days after the formal awards ceremony in Bangkok. He remembered Magruder* s face during the full-dress muster on Jefferson^ flight deck that muggy afternoon while the battle group was still anchored in Sattahip Bay. The man had looked drawn, worn, possibly a little subdued as his replacement stepped off the Sea Knight helo in his crisp and spotless dress whites. Only then had Fitzgerald realized how old Admiral Magruder looked, old and . . . beaten.
Fitzgerald had known then that Magruder was being sacrificed in the name of Washington politics.
Something was happening on Cat One. The Safety Officer was making sharp motions with his hands, and the orange glow of the Hornet’s afterburners was fading. The captain turned in his seat to watch one of the bigPLAT monitors suspended from the overhead for a better view. Someone down there bad scrubbed the launch.
“Four-oh-seven is down,” a voice called from the monitor speaker. “Pressure failure to Cat One.”
“Break him down and get him the hell out of there,” the Air Boss said. “Bridge, we have a downcheck on Cat One.”
Fitzgerald had already picked up the handset of the direct-access telephone known universally as the batphone and punched
in Pri-Fly’s number. “Pri-Fly, Bridge. We see it. What happened?”
“Damfino,” the Air Boss replied. “I’ll let you know as soon as I know myself.”
Fitzgerald replaced the handset and studied the organized confusion engulfing the Hornet on Cat One. Almost certainly, the problem was human error . . . and directly attributable to the strain the men had been under for months. Damn, but that had been close! If the steam failure had occurred as the Hornet was being shot off the deck, the F/A-18 would not have attained airspeed and would have gone off over the bow. Unless the aviator had been both very quick and very lucky and had managed to eject safely, Jefferson would have run him down in the water.