by Robert Gandt
Another image appeared. Babcock sat upright in his chair and stared at the screen. It was a still shot of a man on the bridge of a Navy vessel, grinning and looking like a young MacArthur in his starched khakis and aviator sunglasses. In the background, Babcock could hear the voices of Claire Phillips and Langhorne Fletcher.
They were talking about him.
“. . .while the marines were under fire from terrorists, you say this National Security Council staff member, Whitney Babcock, refused to authorize the use of deadly force?”
Fletcher was shaking his head. “That’s essentially correct.”
“While at the same time he was communicating secretly with the terrorist leader?”
“Yes.”
Claire Phillips looked thoughtful. “Admiral, wouldn’t you call that an act of disloyalty?”
“No,” said Fletcher. “I would call it an act of treason.”
“If so, won’t it lead to a congressional investigation of Mr. Babcock? An indictment, perhaps?”
“So I have been informed,” said Fletcher. “I have offered the investigators my full cooperation.”
At this, Babcock rose and walked away from the television. For a while he stared out the window. Washington was in the thrall of late summer. The canopy of foliage covered the sidewalk on either side of the street. In the deepening shadows he could see joggers and roller-bladers and a couple pushing a pram.
He pulled open the drawer of the antique writing desk. The oiled .38 Smith & Wesson lay in its felt-lined box. It had five rounds in the cylinder.
He picked up the revolver, hefted it, peered into the muzzle. The pistol both fascinated and repulsed him. He had never actually fired the thing, though he had rehearsed it many times in his imagination.
It had been so close. Almost within his grasp. Yemen and its oil deposits and a new order in the Middle East. He would have been hailed as the rising star of global politics.
No more. He wouldn’t appear on the cover of “Time” magazine as Whitney Babcock—Warrior-Statesman. Instead, he would forever be Whitney Babcock—Traitor.
With that thought he raised the pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger.
<>
The USS Reagan headed into a fifteen knot wind. It was a classic Virginia coastal summer morning—milk-hazy sky, the sea sparkling like a field of jewels.
On the forward flight deck, clouds of steam billowed over the parked warplanes, giving them a ghostly, preternatural appearance. Helmeted deck crewmen scuttled beneath the jets like crabs in a mist. The howl of a hundred jet engines resonated over the steel deck. One after the other, every ten seconds, fighters hurtled down the catapults.
Poised on the number one catapult, Maxwell shoved both throttles to the full thrust detent. At the center of the deck, between the two catapults, he could see the shooter. One last look inside his cockpit—no warnings, no lights. He tilted his helmet against the headrest and gave the shooter a curt salute—the ready signal.
Two and one-half seconds later, he felt the acceleration ram him back in the seat. In his peripheral vision, the gray mass of the USS Ronald Reagan swept behind him.
It had taken nearly four weeks for the shipfitters to appy the temporary patch to the carrier’s punctured outer hull. Escorted by a flotilla of protective vessels, which this time included two Los Angeles class submarines, the Reagan passed through the strait of Hormuz, around the shore of Yemen, northward through the Red Sea to the Suez, then westward beyond Gibralter and into the Atlantic. The voyage took thirteen days.
Maxwell could see the shoreline of Virginia. After joining up his fifteen Super Hornets of VFA-36 overhead the ship, he waited another ten minutes while all the squadrons of the air wing aligned themselves into a seventy-five-ship gaggle.
With CAG Boyce leading in a VFA-35 Bluetail Hornet, the massive formation swept over the beach below False Cape, then turned north toward the Oceana naval air station. Roaring low over the sprawling base, the armada passed in review.
It was a ritual of carrier aviation. At the end of a long cruise, the jets of a carrier air wing catapulted for the last time from their ship and flew home. Waiting ashore were wives, children, parents, lovers, well wishers—and mourners. Not all who sailed on the Reagan were coming home.
Fifteen seconds apart, the jets screeched down on the concrete of Oceana’s long runways. As Maxwell led his squadron to their assigned parking row, he noticed the hangar closest to the flight line. An entire side of the building was covered with a giant yellow ribbon. Then he saw the crowd—at least a thousand— gathered in front of the hangar. They were waving yellow ribbons. A valiant squad of Shore Patrolmen was trying to hold the crowd back.
As the pilots climbed out of the jets and started across the ramp, the crowd stopped waiting. They surged through the restraining ribbon. Children squealed, women yelled, and the pilots broke ranks and sprinted toward them.
The two groups melded together like a confluence of flooding streams. Women and kids and girl friends were swept up, whirled and kissed and squeezed. Gallons of tears gushed down all their cheeks, held back during six months of separation and pain and worry.
Maxwell worked his way through the crowd. He knew no one was there to meet him. He had no wife, no children, no immediate family, at least none who bothered with such things. Claire was in Washington, tied up with the Babcock story.
How many homecomings like this had he been through? The Gulf War had been the mother of all homecomings. That was before Claire, before Debbie. His father, of course, had been away.
That was a lifetime ago. Now Debbie was gone. So was his father, at least in spirit. Claire had her own life. The world had changed.
When he’d nearly reached the hangar with the yellow ribbon hanging from the side, he looked back. The crowd resembled celebrants after a World Series victory. Yellow ribbons, hugs, kisses, grinning faces everywhere. It was a special moment.
“Welcome home, sailor.”
The voice came from behind him. He turned, and a smile spread over his face. “You’re supposed to be in Washington.”
Claire was clutching a yellow ribbon. Around her neck was the scarf he had bought for her in Dubai. The easterly breeze ruffled her chestnut hair, sweeping the thin linen skirt around her legs. Maxwell had never seen her look more beautiful.
“I told them I had something more important to do.”
He took her in his arms, pressed her to him. He could think of nothing to say. For a long while he held her, closing his eyes against the bustle and the tumult of the crowd around them.
Finally he looked at her and said, “I love you, Claire.”
She smiled. “Took you long enough. You said it without being coached.”
“I’m a slow learner.”
“It must run in the family.”
He was looking at her, puzzling over her words, when he became aware of another presence. A tall figure, ramrod straight, familiar and formidable.
“I think she means me,” said Vice Admiral Harlan Maxwell.
The deep voice triggered a flood of memories, good and bad. “Dad?”
The older man was clutching his own yellow ribbon. “If you and Claire would rather be alone. . . then I understand.” He looked awkward, unsure of himself.
That was different, thought Brick. One thing Admiral Harlan Maxwell had never been was unsure of himself.
Brick thought for a second, then it came to him. He looked at Claire. “You brought him.”
“It was your father’s idea. He called last night and suggested it.”
“I’m the one who’s the slow learner,” said the admiral. “I’ve been a damned fool. I almost lost you in Yemen, and I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if. . .” Harlan Maxwell’s voice cracked, and he struggled to keep his composure. “. . . if I hadn’t told my son how. . . how proud I was of him. That I loved him.”
Brick was stunned. He felt as though he were dreaming. For most of his life he had wanted to hear those words.
> His father hugged him, then kissed him on the cheek. Through the cotton shirt Brick could feel the thin frame, the bony shoulders. His father was showing his age. The years had slipped away from them.
They had both been fools, thought Brick. Prideful and stubborn and wrong. They had a lot of catching up to do. This was as good a place as any to begin.
“I love you, Dad,” he said.
# # #
ROBERT GANDT is a former naval officer, international airline captain, and a prolific military and aviation writer. He is the author of thirteen books, including the novels The Killing Sky and Black Star Rising and the definitive work on modern naval aviation, Bogeys and Bandits. His screen credits include the television series Pensacola: Wings of Gold. His acclaimed account of the Battle for Okinawa, The Twilight Warriors (Broadway Books, a division of Random House) was the winner of the 2011 Morison Award for Naval Literature. He and his wife, Anne, live in the Spruce Creek Fly-In, an aviation community in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Connect with Robert Gandt online at:
Robert Gandt Author’s web site; Facebook fanpage; Amazon’s Robert Gandt Page ; Smashwords Author Page; Random House Author’s Page
Here is an excerpt from
BLACK STAR
next in the naval aviation series by Robert Gandt
CHAPTER 1 — DYNASTY ONE
South China Sea
1515, Wednesday, 10 September
Something isn’t right.
The thought kept buzzing like a gnat in Captain Laura Quimby’s head. Again she peered into the monochrome green display.
Nothing. The sky was still empty. No one out there except Dynasty One and the shooters flying cover for him.
Quimby removed her glasses and tossed them onto the console. She was getting a bad feeling about this. Something didn’t compute.
“He’s transmitting again,” said First Lieutenant Pete Clegg, the Raven sitting at the console next to her. “Same guy, south coast of Hainan.”
“What are the linguists getting on him?”
“It sounds like ground controlled intercept stuff. Like he’s vectoring an airborne client.”
Intercept? The thought sent a rush of uneasiness through Quimby. “What client? What are we missing? Do you see anything out there?”
Clegg stared at his own display and shook his head. “Nothing in Dynasty’s threat sector. A couple of bogeys over Hainan—looks like Flankers out of Lingshui. Too far away to be a factor.”
Quimby nodded. She was seeing the same thing. Flankers were Russian-built SU-27 fighters. They were fast and dangerous, but this pair was out of range. There were no radar targets in the South China Sea except the four Navy shooters from the Reagan, and the jetliner—Dynasty One—carrying Li Hou-sheng, the President of the Republic of China.
On Quimby’s display they looked like symbols in a computer game, little yellow triangles all pointed northwest toward Taiwan. The four F/A-18 Super Hornets were in a wide combat spread above and on either side of the Airbus A-300.
Nothing else. No intruders, no uninvited guests.
She tilted back in her high padded stool and gazed around the red-lighted cabin. Pete Clegg and First Lieutenant Matt Ricchi, her two fellow Ravens—electronic warfare officers—were hunched over their consoles. All thirty crew members of the RC-135 Rivet Joint reconnaissance jet— Ravens, linguists, mission coordinators, air intelligence analysts—were preoccupied with tracking Dynasty One.
Another wave of uncertainty descended over Laura Quimby. How many surveillance missions had she flown along the coast of China? Thirty-some, and they had all been predictable, routine. Sometimes the Chinese liked to put fighters up just to let you know they could tag you when they wanted to. They might make a couple of head fakes with their Flankers, or even with the old F-7 fighters, variants of the Russian MiG-21 Fishbed. It was a game they played, nothing more.
Or so it had been until this morning at 1115 hours.
That was the moment when Li Hou-sheng took the podium at the Southeast Asian Nations conference in Kuala Lumpur and delivered a shock to all of Asia. Henceforth, he declared to the delegates, Taiwan was a free and sovereign country. Reunification with the communist government of mainland China was no longer a consideration.
Li’s announcement had the approximate effect, Quimby decided, of sticking a lighted cigar up a bull’s ass. Anyone with a memory knew that Beijing would never accept the notion that Taiwan was anything but an unruly province of mainland China. Despite their differences, Taiwan would always be a part of the People’s Republic of China. If necessary, the PRC would use force to make it happen.
The United States, which had long urged both sides to work toward a peaceful reunification, was caught in the middle. To discourage any overt action against Li’s jet, the USS Ronald Reagan, deployed in the South China Sea, was ordered to supply fighter escort for Dynasty One during its flight back to Taipei. For four hundred miles, the route paralleled the Chinese coastline. When the jet was within fighter range of Taiwan, ROC F-16s would take over and escort the Airbus the rest of the way into Taipei.
“Did you see that?” asked Clegg.
“Did I see what?”
“A contact. Zero-four-zero from Dynasty One, about seventy miles.”
Quimby slid her glasses back onto her nose and peered into her display. She didn’t see anything. Spurious traces were nothing unusual for these sensors. The scanners on the RC-135 were so sensitive, crews liked to say, they could detect birds crapping on a power line.
Clegg was new, still on his first deployment to Kadena. As the senior Raven, Quimby was the tactical coordinator on this mission. It was her job to sort out the spurious stuff from the real.
“Did you get an electronic ID?”
“No. One sweep, very faint, and it was gone.”
“Sun spots. You get that sometimes in late afternoon.”
Clegg looked dubious. “Think we ought to alert the shooters?”
Quimby thought for a second. Everyone was jumpy enough. No sense in transmitting alerts if you didn’t have data.
“No. Not unless we have a valid target.”
<>
“Deep Throat, this is Runner One-one. What’s the picture?”
“No change, Runner,” came the voice of the controller in the RC-135. “Picture still clear. You guys are alone out there.”
From the cockpit of his F/A-18E Super Hornet, Commander Brick Maxwell acknowledged. It was the third time in the past twenty minutes he had checked. From his perch at 35,000 feet, he could make out the dark shadow of the Vietnamese coastline. A patchwork of puffy cumulus lay between his flight of four Hornets and the gray surface of the South China Sea.
Nearly a mile below, silhouetted against the clouds, was the slim, swept-wing shape of a jetliner.
Picture still clear. A dry run. Maybe the Chinese fighters really were staying on the ground.
“Runner One-one,” said the controller on the discrete UHF frequency. “Do you still have a visual on Dynasty One?
“Affirmative,” answered Maxwell. “Nine o’clock low, three miles.”
“That’s your guy. He’ll switch to Manila Control now, maintaining flight level 350.”
It was a pain in the butt, flying fighter cover for an airplane with whom you weren’t talking. The Airbus had only commercial VHF—very high frequency— radios. Though the Hornets were equipped with VHF in addition to the standard military UHF—the ultra-high frequency band—they were deliberately not communicating with the Airbus. Without question, the Chinese were eavesdropping today on the VHF band.
Watching the jetliner carve through the afternoon sky toward Taiwan, Maxwell wondered what would happen next. Would China try to take Taiwan by force, as they had long threatened?
God help us, he thought.
Another war. And the worst kind—a Hatfield-McCoy feud between people of the same blood—who hated each other’s guts. Each equipped with enough high tech weapons to obliterate the other. T
he USS Reagan was in the line of fire from both sides.
The thought made Maxwell uneasy. He kept his eye on the Airbus as it continued along the airway northward. Another five hundred miles, then the Taiwanese F-16s would show up to escort Dynasty One the rest of the way. He’d be off the hook.
<>
Li Hou-sheng wasn’t much of a drinker. Seldom did he take more than a sip of wine at dinner or a glass of champagne on a special occasion. Today was such an occasion. He turned to the others in the forward cabin of the jetliner and raised his glass. “To Taiwan,” he said in a hearty voice. “To the sovereign Republic of China.”
The others—three cabinet ministers, the Vice Premier, a dozen members of the legislative Yuan, and Madame Li, his wife of eighteen years—all raised their glasses, but not with enthusiasm. In muted voices they repeated, “To the sovereign Republic of China.”
Li could see the uneasiness in the legislators’ faces. They looked like witnesses to an execution. He had deliberately kept them uninformed about his plan to declare Taiwan’s independence at the SEA conference. Now they were indignant, angry, frightened.
In particular, Li could feel the antagonism of George Tseng, the former leader of the opposition Kuomintang party. Tseng had gone through the motions of toasting, but he quickly set his glass aside. Now he was giving Li a baleful look. His champagne was untouched.
Tseng was a problem, Li reflected. It had been a mistake naming him to the post of Vice Premier—the second most important job in the Yuan, Taiwan’s legislative body. After the bitterly close election, Li wanted to demonstrate that he was reaching out to all the factions in Taiwan. Even quarrelsome opposition members like Tseng.
Now Tseng was one of Li’s most virulent critics. It was Tseng and the Premier, Franklin Huang, who led the noisy pro-Beijing faction—those who wanted to negotiate Taiwan’s return to the stewardship of mainland China.