And if either reprovisioning ship was sunk or badly damaged during that time, CBG-14 could be crippled within a matter of days.
He turned and walked the width of the bridge back to his leather swivel chair, stenciled ‘ ‘CO” and set near the port wing where it overlooked the flight deck. To the west, the sun was setting in a glorious burst of golds and reds that spilled across the horizon. Despite the still-heavy seas, the dirty weather appeared to be breaking up. The meteorologists down in the OA division had scrutinized their satellite photos and promised clear weather for the next forty-eight hours.
There’d been no further threats from the Indians since the previous evening’s attack. That didn’t mean the danger was over, but the immediacy of the crisis seemed to have eased somewhat. An hour earlier, CINCPAC had reported over
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Jefferson’s satellite comlink that the diplomatic exchanges were continuing in Washington. Perhaps they were going to find a negotiated way out of this confrontation.
In any case, it was out of his hands. He was on station and on full alert. There was nodiing else to be done until someone else pushed the button.
To the west, Fitzgerald could make out the familiar, boxy mass of the Vicksburg’s superstructure. Somewhere beyond the Aegis cruiser, well over the horizon, the Commonwealth task force was steaming on a northerly course parallel with CBG-14. Fitzgerald still wasn’t certain what he thought of the orders to join the two squadrons into a single, international task force. Even if he trusted the Russians—which he did not, as yet—there would still have been an endless list of details to be worked out before the two forces could act together. And Kontr-Admiral Dmitriev, Vaughn’s opposite number aboard the Kreml, had so far shown little enthusiasm for integrating the two fleets. SOVINDRON was steaming north in a tight-packed bundle, seemingly oblivious to the American ships out around them across a hundred miles of ocean. Nor did the Russians seem willing to make the exchanges of codes, call signs, and radio frequencies necessary for allowing U.S. and Russian ships and planes to work together.
The IFF codes alone were already causing considerable confusion in the fleet. Each aircraft in Jefferson’s air iving possessed a transponder that transmitted a coded signal when it was touched by radar beams from an American ship or plane. The system, called IFF for “Identification Friend or Foe,” caused American radar displays to show the flight number of each U.S. plane in the air. The Russians had the same system, but with different codes responding to different radar wavelengths. So far, Russian planes flying above the Kreml were tagged as unknowns when they were painted by U.S. radar . . . just the same as the Indian aircraft during the attack the night before. If the joint squadron was attacked now, before IFF codes and protocol could be exchanged, the battle would very quickly become an unmanageable free-for-all.
What would Moscow think if some of their Naval Aviation MiGs were downed by American Sea Sparrows? Fitzgerald didn’t even want to think about the consequences.
“Admiral on the bridge.”
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Fitzgerald slid out of his seat and turned to face Vaughn. “Good evening, Admiral.*’
“Captain.”
Vaughn looked terrible. There were circles under his eyes, and he looked pale. He was chewing on something—an antacid tablet, Fitzgerald decided—and his eyes were focused past the bridge windscreen on something in the distance.
The Russians. Of course.
‘ ‘Any problem with the replenishment, Captain?”
“Not a thing, Admiral. Everything’s going smoothly. First stage refueling should be complete before it’s fully dark.” Because of the late hour, it had been decided to transfer fuel in two batches, one this evening, the rest the next morning. The dry stores and refrigerated supplies ticketed for the Jefferson, less critical at the moment than the JP-5, would be swayed across with the second refueling.
The admiral grunted, still staring at the western horizon. “So. What about the Russkies?”
Fitzgerald shook his head. “They don’t seem to be in much of a hurry, do they, sir? Captain Krylenko sent me personal greetings a while ago. And I gather we’re due for a joint conference tomorrow morning.”