learning the rules of the game in the Cold War. This new post-Cold War era
wasn’t anything like that. Now the Russians were playing for keeps, and none
of the conventional wisdom of past confrontations seemed to apply.
In hindsight it was easy to see. Over a decade the new Russian
leadership had seen first-hand that hesitation and half-measures were worse
than useless. Hesitation had lost them Eastern Europe, had left the abortive
coup of ’91 in tatters before it ever got off the ground, and had condemned
the federal government in Yugoslavia to a long, bitter civil war nobody could
win. By contrast, a swift, decisive, ruthless strike had driven Iraq out of
Kuwait, and the Russians watching that war from the sidelines had taken the
lesson to heart. The fall of Yeltsin’s Commonwealth to the reactionaries of
the new Union had been the result of the same kind of decisiveness. They had
exploited the weaknesses of a disorganized government and a broken economy and
brought back Communism where their clumsier Cold Warrior predecessors had
failed before.
This had been the same kind of operation. The ambush set for the Tomcat
squadron had been bad enough, but on top of that the Russians had dealt very
effectively with Keflavik. Following up their initial missile strike, Soviet
bombers had made a close-in bombing attack on the American base. Even though
most of them had fallen prey to defending Eagles, SAMs, and Phoenix missiles,
a few had made it all the way in. And those few had dropped enough
five-hundred-pound BETAB retarded antirunway bombs, the Russian equivalent of
America’s Durandal, to make the airstrips there totally useless for the
foreseeable future.
The destruction of Keflavik and the loss of half of Viper Squadron
together put Jefferson’s battle group in serious danger. The carrier and her
consorts were sailing into hazardous waters, with each mile putting them
closer to Russian land-based air forces that could overwhelm Jefferson’s
defenses easily. The Americans would be hard-pressed to survive, much less do
anything substantial in support of the embattled defenders. Under those
circumstances, was it worth the risk to go on?
But the alternative was turning back, and if they did that the President
might as well concede defeat. As long as Europe was staying neutral, Keflavik
had been the only possible staging area for American forces flying into
Norway. Without it, all support would have to be by sea, and by the time any
of the ships preparing off the East Coast could make it to Bergen the fight
for Norway would be over. A modern amphibious operation needed a close base
of operations for any hope of success, and that was precisely what the United
States would face if Bergen fell. Unless Bergen could hold out a few more
weeks, the Soviets would soon be sitting pretty in a secure bastion.
Tarrant looked up as a pair of officers entered. One was young
Lieutenant Craig, from his own staff. The other man he knew mostly from news
reports and magazine stories, though he’d seen him among the CAG staff on the
day of the briefing. Commander Magruder had a haunted look. He seemed older
than Tarrant had thought, and didn’t look much like the reckless hero aviator
depicted in the media.
“Magruder. Good.” Tarrant gestured for him to join him at the chart
table. “Sorry to fetch you up here so soon after you touched down, but this
is important.”
“I understand, sir,” Magruder replied slowly. Close up, the haunted look
was even more noticeable. Tarrant couldn’t help but wonder if he was as
capable as his reputation claimed.
“You know about Captain Stramaglia’s death by now, of course,” Tarrant
went on, studying him carefully. “Losing him was a blow we couldn’t afford.
He was a good man, and one of the best tacticians I’ve ever seen in action.”
“Yes, sir.” There was no spark of energy in his words or his eyes. It
was as if he had died, not Stramaglia.
“You’re the next in line in the Air Wing, and you’ve got the experience
to make a good CAG. I don’t envy you the job, though. It’s a killer under
ordinary conditions, and what we’ve got is a situation that’s anything but