CARRIER 4: FLAME-OUT By Keith Douglass

“Glad to hear you understand that much,” Vane commented coldly. “We’ll

also need to ferry air units into the Bergen area as quickly as possible so we

have a chance to even out the odds a little.”

“Won’t all this take time?” Connally asked.

“Absolutely. Too damned much time. It’ll take days just to get the

first planes in. There weren’t that many serviceable air bases in Norway when

all this started … it’ll be worse now that the Soviets have had a chance to

bomb Out the runways they’ve still got. And that’s why we need the Jefferson

in those waters now more than ever, Mr. President. Just by being there she’s

a distraction the Soviets will have to deal with. And every day, every hour

she delays the advance on Bergen by keeping the Russians occupied out at sea

makes our intervention more viable.”

Connally looked around the table. His eyes found the “football” at its

place next to him. “So no matter how hard we try, it comes down to all-out

war,” he said quietly. “is Norway really worth the risk of a nuclear

exchange?”

It was Scott who answered him. “If you’re going to ask that question,

Mr. President, then you might as well be prepared to resign now and let the

Soviets have the entire world. It’s easy to argue that a given country isn’t

really worth all that much. Norway’s not that large or that rich. So let it

fall. Then what happens? Will you risk a nuclear war over Germany? Or

France? What about Great Britain? These days they aren’t even our close

allies. Will you risk nuclear confrontation over our right to freedom of the

seas? The Russians want to keep us out of the Norwegian Sea now. What if

they renew their ties with Havana and try to restrict our access to the

Caribbean next?” He pointed to the map. “The only place to draw the line is

at the first victim, Mr. President. Whether you’re protecting oil in Kuwait

or ice and snow in Norway. Because the only alternative is to abdicate our

responsibility. Not as world policemen. As a free part of the world

community. It’s too late to resist a tyrant when he’s knocking on your own

door.”

Scott fell silent, and no one answered him. Finally Connally stood

slowly. “Very well, you’ve made your point. Order DefCon Two, and begin

drawing up a plan to support the Norwegians.” He paused. “And God help us.”

CHAPTER 12

Thursday, 12 June, 1997

0545 hours Zulu (0545 hours Zone)

Wing commander’s office, Soviet Aircraft Carrier Soyuz

The Norwegian Sea

“How could I predict what that fool Terekhov would do, Comrade Admiral?”

Captain First Rank Fyodor Arturovich Glushko asked. He was uncomfortably

aware of the note of pleading that had crept into his voice. “If he had

obeyed his instructions-”

“The transcripts of the radio traffic with Misha show that he did obey

those orders,” Admiral Khenkin said harshly. The heavyset, gray-haired fleet

commander leaned across Glushko’s desk, his bluff peasant’s face flushed. “If

you had spent more time reviewing them, or better yet actually listening to

the transmissions as they occurred, you would be aware of this.”

Glushko stiffened, his face a studied blank that hid the churning

emotions within him. It was almost unheard of for an admiral to seek out a

subordinate in his own office, especially so early in the morning and with so

few minutes left before a major mission briefing. But Khenkin had come to the

air wing office today, and Glushko didn’t need the flag officer’s angry words

to tell him that his career, maybe even his life, hung by a thread this

morning.

It was not fair. For all of his adult life Glushko had played the game

of Soviet Navy politics, and played it well. In the late Eighties he had

commanded a squadron of Yak-38 V/STOL fighters operating from the Baku, but he

had seen where the winds of change were leading the Navy and volunteered for

training with the first wave of pilots at the flight deck mock-up at Saki

airfield in the Crimea. Flying Su-27s off the deck of the fleet’s first true