CARRIER 3: ARMAGEDDON MODE

Tom Magruder’watched her slim back and blond hair receding with the crowd of reporters. Then he shrugged, turned, and followed after the President.

0625 hours, 26 March

Flight deck, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson

Rear Admiral Vaughn stood with Captain Bersticer and other members of his staff just inside the open door leading from the island onto the flight deck, a scowl creasing his face. All of the officers wore their dress whites instead of khakis to mark the formality of the occasion, but Vaughn chaffed at the ceremonial trappings. The stupidity, the wrongness of his orders still stung, and he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to pull off the coming meeting without getting angry.

Correction, he thought. He was already angry. What was going to be difficult was not letting that anger show.

A staff officer standing at Vaughn’s elbow was wearing one of the ubiquitous Mickey Mouse headsets worn by deck personnel who needed to stay in touch with the ship’s radio network. “They’re inbound, Admiral,” the officer said. “Five minutes.”

He nodded, his scowl deepening. Admiral Vaughn did not like this at all.

142

Keith Douglass

“It is imperative that a close working relationship with your counterparts in SOVINDRON be established as quickly as possible,” his orders, received at 0300 that morning, had read. ‘ ‘To facilitate the exchange of necessary battle codes and communications protocols, you are directed to receive Rear Admiral Nicolai Sergeivich Dmitriev aboard your command at the earliest practical opportunity.

Fine. He would welcome the admiral, shake the bastard’s hand even. What had followed in the orders was worse.

‘ ‘Effective 26 March, you are further directed to shift your flag to CG-66, t/.S.S.Vicksburg, the better to monitor ship deployments and possible air threats to your command. Commonwealth naval liaison officers will be assigned by Admiral Dmitriev as observers aboard CG-66, to facilitate joint tactical and strategic operations between vessels of CBG-14 and SOVINDRON. …”

Micromanagement. It had doomed military operations before this one. Somehow, the Washington bureaucracies, both military and civilian, always thought that they knew how to fight the war from the safety and comfort of the Potomac better than the men who were actually in die field. How many times had narrow-minded, fuzzy-headed, point-by-point direction from the rear screwed up an operation better left to the man in charge on the spot?

Vaughn had hoped to deal with the Russian presence at Turban Station by ignoring it. It wasn’t as though the battle group needed the Russians. If anything, die Russians would be a definite hindrance in any upcoming conflict. Their ASW was more primitive, their ships noisier than their American counterparts. They had no weapon system at all like Phoenix and nothing like Vicksburg’s Aegis or SPY-1 radar. The entire history of Soviet big-carrier operations was only a few years old, and Vaughn had no confidence in their abilities to handle blue-water air operations with so-called “navalized” Frontal Aviation aircraft and inexperienced pilots.

But he was being forced to work closely with the sons of bitches, and he didn’t like it, didn’t like it at all. His orders were specific and to the point, signed by Admiral Fletcher T. Grimes, Chief of Naval Operations, and originating with the National Command Authority. That meant the President

ARMAGEDDON MODE

143

himself, and the National Security Council, and you couldn’t get any more high-powered than that

It also meant that the decision was as much a political one as something born of military necessity. In this case, the politics far outweighed the military practicalities. Mixing the two naval squadrons, Vaughn thought, was a recipe for certain disaster.

But Charles Lee Vaughn was a flag officer of the United States Navy, and questioning the orders did not even occur to him. Grumbling about orders, however, was the Navy man’s ancient and inalienable right. “What do you want to bet the Soviets worked all this out just to get a good look at Aegis?” he asked.

Captain Bersticer was standing between him and the open door leading out to the flight deck. “Could be, sir. The Russians have been wanting to look inside a Ticonderoga-class cruiser for a long time now.”

“Well, diey won’t get a look now. Not at my expense. Did you pass my message to Cunningham?”

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *