The patrol boats were Osa Us, purchased from the Soviet Union in 1976. Their primary armament consisted of four Russian-built SS-N-2b antiship missiles that carried the NATO designation “Styx.” The Osas could spring ahead at thirty-five knots, but for the time being they were barely making way, riding with the heavy, following seas at just eight knots. It would have been far better, the lieutenant thought, if they could have blasted ahead at full speed, taking the waves, riding them, instead of this incessant up-and-down wallowing.
The Pralaya crested another wave, angled forward, then
began the long slide into the trench. Chaudry clung tighter to
V the railing as his stomach suddenly twisted with a gut-
?!-. wrenching pang that brought him to the very edge of being
-£, explosively sick.
^ For one desperate moment, he thought he was going to suffer ”*K the humiliation of vomiting in front of his men. Then, as Pralaya ;.» halted her plunge, he managed to look around at the other men on ^” deck or on the bridge. Judging from the expressions on some of v. their faces, he wasn’t the only one suffering. The thought steadied
him.
:”- The heavy seas were a blessing, Chaudry told himself. The tiny squadron was only the advance element of the Indian navy, which was trailing eighty miles astern. The Indians were under no illusions as to the sensitivity of American radar. Sneaking
-~ up on a Yankee carrier would be next to impossible.
But it might—;just might—be possible to mislead the Amer-.;i icans by a critical few minutes. The American radar would not ^ immediately be able to pick the Osas from the clutter of the
•i-” surrounding waves. They would continue their stealthy ap-j:; proach, their own radars off but their receivers tuned to warn TV them at the first touch by a hostile beam. Soon, very soon now,
: they would be close enough to loose their missiles.
? And then it would be a fast turn and a run for home, safety,
• and solid, unmoving ground.
The thought cheered Lieutenant Chaudry immensely.
CHAPTER 15
0727 hours, 26 March
Right deck, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson
Admiral Vaughn held his cap to his head as the Russian Helix gunned its rotors and lifted from the American carrier’s flight deck. His free hand clenched into a fist-at his side. Damn Washington for ordering him to transfer to the Vicksburg. And damn the Russians! Rather than fly across in their Aeroflot Helix, he’d snagged one of Jefferson’s HH-60 Seahawks to transfer himself and several aides to the Vicksburg.
As if an American admiral could consent to be flown aboard an American command ship by the Russians, for God’s sake! But the use of two helos would mean a delay. The Russian helo would drop off the three liaison officers on the Vicksburg first, then return to the Kreml with Rear Admiral Dmitriev. Vaughn’s helo would hang back until the Helix cleared Vicksburg’s fantail.
Every time he turned around, it seemed, the Russians were in his way. It was almost as if Moscow was carrying on some monstrous, clandestine plan to personally frustrate the plans and career of Rear Admiral Charles Lee Vaughn.
It was early in 1980 when he’d first run afoul of the bastards. Oh, he’d crossed swords with the Russians plenty of times during his rise up the Navy’s command pyramid. It was impossible to command any American ship anywhere in the world during the ’60s and ’70s without meeting Russian Bear bombers and Soviet trawlers, aggressive sub contacts and games of chicken . . . “chicken of the sea,” as the encounters were called. It was all part of the global muscle-flexing of
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the Cold War, a way for each side to test the other’s defenses, and to polish its own.
But in 1980, Vaughn had just made rear admiral, and his first deployed command had been a Navy carrier group operating in the Pacific. The temper of the U.S. Navy had been dismal then. It was not a good time for men, like Vaughn, with strong military aspirations. The Carter Administration had been hellbent on slashing defense spending, and some members of a short-sighted Congress had been pushing for virtual disarmament. The American public, still wallowing in the post-Vietnam mire, had cared little about the need to maintain a strong guard against the communists.