damage to the deck hadn’t been a lot more serious. As it was, the only damage
had been the snapped arrestor cables, easily replaced.
But it could have been a lot worse. And apparently it was Coyote’s
disobedience that had caused all the problems in the first place.
Tombstone sighed, swinging his feet off the desk and setting the coffee
cup aside. Best to confront the problem head-on.
“All right, Coyote. Let’s hear it.”
“Hear what, sir?”
Damn the man. He seemed determined not to make this easy.
“An explanation. You were clearly ordered to pursue and ID Contact Bravo
and bring it down. You popped two Phoenix missiles at the target, then broke
off. Why?”
“My wingman was in trouble, sir. The MiGs were all over him. I …
after the Phoenix launch, we realized that it would take too much time to
close with Bravo. In my judgment, Scorpion and Juggler didn’t have the time,
not at four-to-one odds. I thought that I would still have time enough for
both of us to go after Bravo together. Sir.”
“Uh-huh. You disobeyed orders. Scorpion and Juggler bought the farm
anyway. There was nothing you could do about that. But as a direct result of
your judgment, that Blackjack had time to launch its antiship missiles.
Because of your judgment, the Esek Hopkins is burning right now, as we speak.
We may lose her. No word yet on casualties, but the butcher’s bill is going
to be a big one. Because of your judgment-”
“Sir!” Coyote interrupted. “That’s not fair! You can’t blame me for the
strike against the Hopkins!”
Tombstone spread his hands above the desk top. “It could damned easily
have been the Jefferson in flames. The way I heard it, Don Strachan
deliberately seduced those missiles onto himself. Very likely he saved this
carrier.”
“They could have launched at any time. They could have waited until I
got close enough to worry them and then launched no matter what I did!”
“Maybe.” Tombstone had already considered the possibility. Coyote was
right. The range of the surface-launched version of the AS-15 was suspected
to be in the neighborhood of eighteen hundred miles. If true, the Soviets
could have launched them at the Jefferson from bases in the Kola
Peninsula–hell, they could have popped those things from Moscow or the
northern coast of the Caspian Sea–and dispensed with the bomber entirely.
“Maybe,” Tombstone said again. “And I can’t even say I wouldn’t have
done the same thing in your shoes. But you disobeyed my orders and men died
because of that. You got your Tomcat so badly chewed up you almost didn’t
make it back. Lieutenant Nichols didn’t make it. Your RIO’s down in the
sick-bay morgue right this minute.”
“That wasn’t my fault either!”
“Mmm.” Tombstone crossed his arms. “If you’d engaged the Blackjack at
long range, maybe those Fulcrums wouldn’t have jumped you.”
“Maybe, maybe! Damn it, Stoney, I m not a wizard. I can’t see the
future. What … you’re yanking me from flight status?”
“I’ve been considering it.”
But Tombstone had already made up his mind on that point. Coyote was
skipper of VF-95, the same command that Tombstone himself had once held. He
knew that the individual members of the squadron, from aviators and RIOs to
the enlisted plane crews, tended to close ranks against outside authority,
whether that authority was CAG, the Captain, or the admiral in command of the
battle group. There was nothing mutinous or seditious about this resentment;
it was simply a reflection of human psychology, and of the realities of men
working closely together in situations that daily risked life and limb.
If Tombstone grounded Coyote or relieved him as skipper of VF-95, the
wing’s morale would suffer. In other circumstances, in peacetime, Tombstone
might have done it anyway, but Jefferson was locked now in a war in all but
name. The men had been driving hard for over a week, morale was already
shaky, and what they certainly did not need right now was the sense that Big
Brother was looking over their shoulders, second-guessing their officers,
looking for reasons to find fault. The United States Navy worked as well as