a risk when you serve aboard a carrier.”
Bannon didn’t answer, but he’d fixed a wide-eyed stare on Magruder’s
face.
“Now the way I see it, son, you’ve got a couple of choices. If you want
to turn in those wings, that’s your business. The Navy doesn’t want men
flying who don’t have the confidence to pull it off. But once you do it,
there’s no second chance. You won’t fly for the Navy again. And chances are
you’ll find out, somewhere down the line, that it was a mistake to run away
from the problem. But you’ll never be able to face it down, because you
quit.” He paused. “Your second choice is to try the old ‘get back on the
horse’ philosophy. A lot of people think that’s the best way to handle this
kind of thing. Me, I’m not so sure.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Magruder?”
“Push too hard and you could end up getting into more trouble. Now what
I think you need to do is have another little talk with CAG. Keep your wings,
but see if you can get assigned as an LSO or something like that. Take it one
step at a time. When you’re ready, you’ll know it … and then you’ll be able
to get back in the cockpit and show yourself and everybody else that it really
was an accident. A fluke.”
“Do you think Captain Stramaglia would let me do that, sir?” Bannon
asked, sounding eager for the first time.
“Give it a try. I’ve served with him before, and underneath the tough
shell there’s a tough guy inside … but he’s fair. And I’ll recommend it to
him if it’s what you decide you want.”
“Th-thanks, Mr. Magruder.” Bannon started to say more, but Tombstone
held up his hand.
“Don’t make the decision right now. Think about it. Maybe see one of
the chaplains and talk it over with him. When you make any choice, make sure
it’s one you can live with.”
“I will, Mr. Magruder. Thanks again.”
When Bannon was gone Magruder let out a long, ragged breath. Had he done
the right thing? What if the kid really had been at fault, despite what the
inquiry had found?
He decided he’d have to look into the story further before he could make
any final decisions himself. That meant research, interviews, the whole
wearying round of investigation.
It was hard to believe that it had been less than twenty-four hours since
he’d been exalting over his liberation from paperwork and Pentagon
bureaucracy, his return to the freedom of carrier life.
1554 hours Zulu (1654 hours Zone)
Flag Plot, Soviet Aircraft Carrier Soyuz
Off North Cape, Norway
Like a mother duck surrounded by a gaggle of ducklings, the Soyuz led a
handful of escort ships through the angry gray waters off the northern coast
of Norway, heading southwest into the Norwegian Sea. Displacing
sixty-thousand tons and measuring a thousand feet from ski-jump bow to stern,
Soyuz represented an entirely new concept in the USSR’s naval thinking. The
multipurpose aircraft carrier of the type employed so successfully by the
Americans for over five decades was now an integral part of the Red Banner
Fleet.
Admiral Vasili Ivanovich Khenkin winced as an aircraft thundered from the
deck, probably one of the navalized MiG-29D fighters that provided aerial
patrol and protection for the carrier. Khenkin was still not used to his new
kind of ship, part of the legacy of Admiral Gorshkov’s bold naval expansion
program. Soyuz was the second of his class–Soviet ships, unlike American
vessels, were always regarded as “he”–and probably the last. Together with
his predecessor, Kreml, Soyuz had blazed the way, but the latest aircraft
carrier, just finishing sea trials in the Black Sea, was larger, the size of
the great American supercarriers. The sixty airplanes crowded aboard Soyuz
would give way to carriers with ninety or a hundred planes before long.
Khenkin looked around the cramped confines of Flag Plot at the staff of
officers and seamen who managed the fleet’s operations under his command. How
many of them realized the significance of this operation? He wondered if any
of them realized that they were not merely embarked on the extension of Soviet