general’s guests. We can stay here at the palace, or return to Yalta.”
“Somehow,” he said, “I don’t think that’s going to be good enough. If it
was Dmitriev who tried to knock the general off here, he must know by
now that he didn’t succeed.”
That, in fact, was the best explanation Tombstone could think of for the
attack on the helicopter. Abdulhalik had said the would-be assassins
were Tatars; had they killed Boychenko, the murder could have been
blamed on Tatar nationalists. There would have been watchers, however,
who would have reported by now that Boychenko was still alive. The air
strike had probably been set as a backup plan, a way of keeping the
general from escaping Yalta for the relative security of the Thomas
Jefferson.
But that meant that hostiles were probably already on their way to
finish the job the Tatars had botched.
“Tell the general,” Tombstone said, “that we don’t have much time. I’m
going to round up the Americans and UN people. Tell him to get his army
personnel assembled. I figure we have an hour, maybe less, before all
hell breaks loose.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sir,” the aide, Fedorev, said, as Natalie spoke to the general. His use
of the honorific was immediate and natural, unthinking. “Is there
anything special you need?”
“Access to a radio,” Tombstone replied. “I’d better talk this over with
the Jefferson.”
He was beginning to formulate an idea, but he couldn’t develop it
further until he knew what was happening at sea.
One thing he did know: The Jefferson battle group and the men and women
aboard were in a war zone once again, and God help anyone who tried to
get in their way!
CHAPTER 20
Thursday, 5 November 1041 hours (Zulu +3)
Tomcat 218 The Black Sea Dixie frowned. “Hey, Badge? I got another
problem here.”
“What is it, man?”
“My wings won’t swing forward. Can’t tell whether it’s the computer or
the wing hardware, but they won’t budge.”
The F-14 Tomcat’s variable geometry wings were designed to fold back at
higher speeds to increase maneuverability and decrease drag, and swing
forward at low speeds to provide additional lift for takeoffs and
landings. Normally, the aircraft’s central air data computer, or CADC,
began swinging the wings forward when the plane’s speed dropped below
three hundred knots. They were at 275 knots now as they circled in the
Marshall stack, but Dixie’s wings stubbornly remained folded in the
full-back position.
“Try the override.”
“I did. No go.”
“Shit. How do you feel about a negative-turkey landing?”
Dixie chuckled nervously. “I think I can handle that.”
Some Tomcat pilots overrode their computers during the final approach to
the carrier, subscribing to the popular and loudly voiced belief that a
Tomcat with its wings extended forward looked like a big, ugly,
long-necked bird–“turkey mode,” as they called it. A Tomcat could land
with its wings folded back but had to maintain a landing speed of 145
knots on the approach and touchdown instead of the 115 knots of a
wings-out landing.
“Two-one-eight” called over his headset. “Deck clear. Charlie now.”
That was the signal for him to break from the Marshall stack formation
and start his approach for the trap. They’d kept him in the
racetrack-shaped loiter course for nearly twenty minutes while they
brought other aircraft down; now it was just him, Badger, and Batman
still up, with the other two Tomcats staying aloft both to provide
security for the ship and to help talk him down if necessary.
God, he wanted to be down. His Tomcat had begun shuddering ominously
during the long flight back, the vibration growing worse and worse as he
descended to five thousand feet and becoming especially pronounced when
he worked the flight controls, opening the flaps or spoilers. Normally,
his CADC handled all such minor flight adjustments from moment to
moment, as well as controlling his wing geometry, but he was having to
make all corrections by hand now. According to his instrument readouts,
his CADC was still operational, but its commands weren’t reaching his
wings. .. and each manual input seemed to increase the vibration from
his left control surfaces. Sweat was pooling inside his oxygen mask now;