targets. He saw a hardened aircraft shelter which had escaped damage so far.
The second bomb found its mark, but by that time he was too far away and
climbing too fast to get a good estimate of the damage. Photo-recon flights
could assess that later. Right now his first duty was to rejoin the squadron.
He saw the wreckage of the Bofors gun below as he fell into formation
with the other two planes and turned southwest again. That made a clean sweep
for this sortie. It would look good on the squadron’s record, and on Soviet
Naval Aviation’s balance sheets. There truly was a place for carrier-based
aircraft in the Rodina’s arsenal. Heavy bombers could do a great deal of
damage, but strike attacks at short range were more flexible and better able
to obtain accurate hits. The Sognefjorden, less than a hundred kilometers
north of the last major center of Norwegian resistance at Bergen, was one of
several potential landing zones for Soviet amphibious forces, and clearing the
air and artillery defenses was a crucial first step in launching an assault.
The campaign in Norway would never maintain the speed it required to
achieve total victory unless the Soviets maintained the rapid pace of their
advance down the coast. The West had been obligingly sluggish reacting to the
war to date … but the Soviets couldn’t win unless they kept up the momentum.
Sergei Sergeivich Terekhov smiled again as he led his planes back toward
the continuing battle. With their bombs unloaded, they would make short work
of the outnumbered Norwegians. Then it would be back to the Soyuz, refuel,
rearm, and on to the next mission.
It felt good to know that he and his comrades were playing an essential
role in the rebirth of the Rodina as a superpower.
0915 hours Zulu (0715 hours Zone)
Officers’ quarters, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson
The North Atlantic
Tombstone had resisted the temptation to prolong the reunion with Coyote
or even to wait to see Batman and Malibu return aboard. It had been a long
flight from Oceana, and he was tired. He’d attended to the formalities, the
paperwork and a courtesy call to the duty officer in the CAG office to report
himself aboard, and within an hour of touching down on the flight deck he had
been stretched out in his rack, asleep. After a flight of more than two
thousand miles and a late night landing he felt he deserved a chance to rest.
Someone evidently disagreed with that notion. “Come on, buddy, shake a
leg! CAG’s on the warpath!”
Through a fog he thought the voice was familiar, but Tombstone wasn’t
awake enough to place it. The hand shaking his shoulder helped him open his
eyes, at least long enough to get rid of the intruder.
“If You want to keep that arm you’d better take it out of here,” he
growled. “Otherwise I’ll tear it out by the roots and beat you with the
bloody end.”
“That’s the Tombstone I remember,” the voice said mockingly. “Look, I
had late duty, too, but you don’t see me threatening my friends!”
Tombstone rolled over to look at his tormentor for the first time.
“Wayne? If this is one of your goddamned practical jokes, boyo, I’ll
personally see to it they reinstate keel-hauling just for you.”
Batman Wayne grinned. “You would too,” he said cheerfully. “But I swear
I’m not guilty this time, Stoney. There’s some kind of hush-hush staff
meeting this morning, and CAG says you’re supposed to be there. And he wants
to see you in his office first. I heard him chewing out Owens and ducked down
here to save your sorry hide.”
Tombstone rubbed his eyes and swung his feet to the floor. “The CAG’s a
tough one, huh?” he asked.
“Don’t you know?” Batman was looking at him curiously. “It’s Stramaglia.
The Stinger himself!”
Magruder blinked, slow to react to the name. He hadn’t been given much
time to prepare himself for his sudden assignment. He’d known about his
predecessor, Jolly Greene, because a friend in Personnel at the Pentagon had
told him when he’d lost out on the assignment while Jefferson was still