erations officer, replied. “They cycled them pretty fast, sir.”
“So they just went in for a quick fill-up. How much gas do they carry?”
“Bunker fuel, about thirteen thousand tons each, another fifteen hundred
each of JP. Sister ship Deepak has detached from the battle group and is
heading northwest, probably for Trivandrum as well, after conducting un-
rep operations yesterday.”
“So they’re working extra hard to keep their bunkers topped off. Interest-
ing. Go on,” Jackson ordered.
“Four submarines are believed to be accompanying the group. We have
rough positions on one, and we’ve lost two roughly here.” Harrison’s hand
drew a rough circle on the display. “The location of number four is un-
known, sir. We’ll be working on that today.”
“Our subs out there?” Jackson asked the group commander.
“Santa Fe in close and Greeneville holding between us and them. Chey-
enne is in closer to the battle group as gatekeeper,” Rear Admiral Mike
Dubro replied, sipping his morning coffee.
“Plan for the day, sir,” Harrison went on, “is to launch four F/A-i8
Echoes with tankers to head east to this point, designated POINT BAUXITE,
from which they will turn northwest, approach to within thirty miles of the
Indian battle group, loiter for thirty minutes, then return to BAUXITE to tank
again and recover after a flight time of four hours, forty-five minutes.” For
the four aircraft to do this, eight were needed to provide midair refueling
support. One each on the way out and the return leg as well. That accounted
for most of Ike’s tanker assets.
“So we want them to think we’re still over that way.” Jackson nodded
and smiled, without commenting on the wear-and-tear on the air crews that
such a mission profile made necessary. “Still tricky, I see, Mike.”
“They haven’t gotten a line on us yet. We’re going to keep it that way,
too,” Dubro added.
“How are the Bugs loaded?” Robby asked, using the service nickname
Cor the F/A-iS Hornet, “Plastic Bug.”
“Four Harpoons each. White ones,” Dubro added. In the Navy, exercise
missiles were color-coded blue. Warshots were generally painted white. The
Harpoons were air-to-surface missiles. Jackson didn’t have to ask about the
Sidewinder and AMRAAM air-to-air missiles that were part of the Hornet’s
basic load. “What I want to know is, what the hell are they up to?” the
battle-group commander observed quietly.
That was what everyone wanted to know. The Indian battle group-that
was what they called it, because that’s exactly what it was-had been at sea
for eight days now, cruising off the south coast of Sri Lanka. The putative
mission for the group was support for the Indian Army’s peace-keeping
team, whose job was to ameliorate the problem with the Tamil Tigers. Ex-
cept for one thing: the Tamil Tigers were cosseted on the northern part of the
island nation, and the Indian fleet was to the south. The Indian two-carrier
force was maneuvering constantly to avoid merchant traffic, beyond sight of
land, but within air range. Staying clear of the Sri Lankan Navy was an easy
task. The largest vessel that country owned might have made a nice motor
yacht for a nouveau-riche private citizen, but was no more formidable than
that. In short, the Indian Navy was conducting a covert-presence operation
far from where it was supposed to be. The presence of fleet-replenishment
ships meant that they planned to be there for a while, and also that the Indi-
ans were gaining considerable at-sea time to conduct workups. The plain
truth was that the Indian Navy was operating exactly as the U.S. Navy had
done for generations. Except that the United States didn’t have any ambi-
tions with Sri Lanka.
“Exercising every day?” Robby asked.
“They’re being right diligent, sir,” Harrison confirmed. “You can expect
a pair of Harriers to form up with our Hornets, real friendly, like.”
“I don’t like it,” Dubro observed. “Tell him about last week.”
“That was a fun one to watch.” Harrison called up the computerized rec-
ords, which ran at faster-than-normal speed. “Start time for the exercise is
about now, sir.”
On the playback, Robby watched a destroyer squadron break off the main
formation and head southwest, which had happened to be directly toward the
Lincoln group at the time, causing a lot of attention in the group-operations
department. On cue, the Indian destroyers had started moving randomly,
then commenced a high-speed run due north. Their radars and radios
blacked out, the team had then headed east, moving quickly.
“The DesRon commander knows his stuff. The carrier group evidently
expected him to head east and duck under this stationary front. As you can
see, their air assets headed that way.” That miscue had allowed the destroy-
ers to dart within missile-launch range before the Indian Harriers had leaped
from their decks to attack the closing surface group.
Ill the ten minutes required to watch the computerized playback, Robby
knew that he’d just seen a simulated attack on an enemy carrier group,
launched by a destroyer team whose willingness to sacrifice their ships and
their lives for this hazardous mission had been demonstrated to perfection.
More disturbingly, the attack had been successfully carried out. Though the
tin cans would probably have been sunk, their missiles, some of them any-
way, would have penetrated the carriers’ point defenses and crippled their
targets. Large, robust ships though aircraft carriers were, it didn’t require all
that much damage to prevent them from carrying out flight operations. And
that was as good as a kill. The Indians had the only carriers in this ocean,
except for the Americans, whose presence, Robby knew, was a source of
annoyance for them. The purpose of the exercise wasn’t to take out their
own carriers.
“Get the feeling they don’t want us here?” Dubro asked with a wry smile.
“I get the feeling we need better intelligence information on their inten-
tions. We don’t have dick at the moment, Mike.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me,” Dubro observed. “What about their in-
tentions toward Ceylon?” The older name for the nation was more easily
remembered.
“Nothing that I know about.” As deputy J-3, the planning directorate for
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Robby had access to literally everything generated
by the U.S. intelligence community. “But what you just showed me says a
lot.”
All you had to do was look at the display, where the water was, where the
land was, where the ships were. The Indian Navy was cruising in such a way
as to position itself between Sri Lanka and anyone who might approach from
the south to come to Sri Lanka. Like the U.S. Navy, for example. It had
practiced an attack on such a force. To that end, it was clearly prepared to
remain at sea for a long time. If it was an exercise, it was an expensive one. If
not? Well, you just couldn’t tell, could you?
“Where are their amphibs?”
“Not close,” Dubro answered. “Aside from that, I don’t know. I don’t
have the assets to check, and I don’t have any intel on them. They have a
total of sixteen LSTs, and I figure twelve of them can probably operate as a
group. Figure they can move a heavy brigade with them, combat-loaded and
ready to hit a beach somewhere. There’s a few choice sites on the north coast
of that island. We can’t reach them from here, at least not very well. I need
more assets, Robby.”
“There aren’t more assets to give, Mike.”
“Two subs. I’m not being greedy. You can see that.” The two SSNs
would move to cover the Gulf of Mannar, and that was the most likely inva-
sion area. “I need more intelligence support, too, Rob. You can see why.”
“Yep.” Jackson nodded. “I’ll do what I can. When do I leave?”
“Two hours.” He’d be flying off on an 8-3 Viking antisubmarine aircraft.
The “Hoover,” as it was known, had good range. That was important. He’d
be flying to Singapore, the better to give the impression that Dubro’s battle
group was southeast of Sri Lanka, not southwest. Jackson reflected that he
would have flown twenty-four thousand miles for what was essentially a
half hour’s worth of briefing and the look in the eyes of an experienced car-
rier aviator. Jackson slid his chair back on the tiled floor as Harrison keyed
the display to a smaller scale. It now showed Abraham Lincoln heading
northeast from Diego Garcia, adding an additional air wing to Dubro’s com-
mand. He’d need it. The operational tempo required to cover the Indians-
especially to do so deceptively-was putting an incredible strain on men and
aircraft. There was just too much ocean in the world for eight working air-
craft carriers to handle, and nobody back in Washington understood that.
Enterprise and Stennis were working up to relieve Ike and Abe in a few
months, and even that meant there would be a time when U.S. presence in
this area would be short. The Indians would know that, too. You just