When the United Nations had passed Special Resolution 1026 five weeks ago, they’d turned to the United States to provide the military and technological expertise necessary to enforce the newly imposed no-fly zone over Georgia. The United States, in turn, had begun pressuring Turkey to allow the basing of U.S. warplanes on her soil in order to support UN activities. That pressure, as Tombstone had heard it, had damned near caused a complete and final break in Turkish-American relations. Ankara feared that American aircraft and personnel based on Turkish soil would cause an explosion in the country’s Moslem fundamentalists, and they’d refused, point-blank. There’d followed several days of acrimonious exchanges, until at last a deal to allow the entry of a carrier battle group into the Black Sea had been hammered out.
Tombstone didn’t know what deals had been struck or what kind of markers had been called in to induce the Ankara government to permit the Jefferson battle group to traverse the straits to the Black Sea, but he imagined that the promises made had been considerable, something bordering on extortionate. The Montreux Convention of 1936 specifically prohibited foreign aircraft carriers from transiting the Dardanelles and Bosporus. In earlier years, the Soviets had gotten around that restriction with their light carrier Kiev by identifying her as an antisubmarine cruiser; presumably they’d made other arrangements for passages by their larger, more recently built carriers.
What had Washington promised the Turks to get them to permit Jefferson’s transit? Or had the promise been something more on the order of a threat?
He glanced again at Ecevit. He seemed a decent enough sort, if somewhat restrained. Tombstone wondered what he thought of the political storm suddenly howling across his part of the world.
At last the shorelines of the Bosporus were passing abeam, little more now than gray smudges on the horizon. “We’re out of the channel, Captain,” the helmsman called. “Clear to navigate.”
“Very well, Chief,” Brandt replied. “We’ll be heaving to while Mr. Ecevit transfers to the pilot boat.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Commander Hadley?”
Jefferson’s executive officer had been waiting in the wings for his cue.
“Sir!”
“Perhaps you would be good enough to escort Mr. Ecevit to his boat.”
“Aye, aye, Captain!”
“It’s been a pleasure to have you aboard, Mr. Ecevit.”
“Thank you, Captain,” the civilian said in a thick accent, facing Brandt.
“Permit me to say that this, this vessel of yours is truly remarkable. I’ve never had such a view of the water ahead.”
“We like her,” Brandt said.
Tombstone chuckled. “Conning a CVN has been compared to driving Manhattan Island from the top floor of the Empire State Building.”
“I have never been to Manhattan Island,” Ecevit said. “But this ship of yours does have the feel of an island.” He hesitated, then licked his lips, a nervous gesture. “You should be careful out here. An island is an easy thing to find. It would be a pity if the wrong people found it.”
“Just who do you mean, Mr. Ecevit?” Brandt asked casually. “Our status here will be as peacekeepers.” He grinned broadly for a moment, showing clenched teeth. “See? We’re friendly.”
It was a variant on a joke popular aboard the Jefferson, but Ecevit either missed the point or ignored it.
“There are many in this part of the world who do not want peace. To them, this floating island of yours would be a most tempting target. And a vulnerable one.” He shook his head. “I was directed not to discuss politics with you gentlemen. I’ve said too much as it is. But I… I admire this wonderful ship of yours and would hate to see her destroyed.”
“A modern carrier takes one heck of a lot of destroying,” Tombstone said.
“The Jeff’s been through a few scrapes already and come through in one piece.”
“That’s right,” Brandt said. “You should’ve seen the other guy.”
“Well, I wish you good fortune. Allaha ismarladik.”
“Giile giile,” Brandt replied with carefully rehearsed formality. He’d been practicing the line on Tombstone; Turkish good-byes were two-part exchanges, with the person leaving saying “God remain with you,” while the person staying behind replied with “Go with happiness.” The phrase could literally be interpreted as “Go smiling.”
As the pilot and the XO left the bridge, Tombstone wondered if Ecevit had been trying to deliver a message with his concern, perhaps an unofficial warning from people in the Turkish government or military who were unwilling to risk making an official one. More likely, Ecevit knew nothing specific beyond what everyone knew, that the Black Sea was a bomb with a short, lit fuse.
The officers and men of CBG-14 were under no illusions about the danger they faced inside the Black Sea. It was part of the duty of the U.S. Navy ― and the tradition ― to go in harm’s way.
This was something different, however. In the past, “going in harm’s way” meant stopping an enemy threat as far from the coasts of the United States as possible, but America’s role as high-tech policeman for the United Nations was threatening to change that. The Republic of Georgia offered no threat to the United States at all, not to her population, not to her trade or even to her foreign policy, nor did it matter to American policy which of several Russian factions might be in control of the country at any given moment.
Russia, of course, was still a threat; they still possessed ICBMS that could obliterate most of the cities of North America, and with the accelerated fragmentation of order it had become impossible to know which faction in the civil war possessed how many working nukes ― or to know where they were pointed. American peacekeeper operations in the Black Sea were certain to attract Russian attention for any of a number of reasons, and Tombstone wondered whether the UN mission was worth the inevitable clash.
Tombstone had been in the Navy long enough to know that the politicians back in CONUS too often either overestimated the ability of forces in the field to carry out the often vague, scattered, and mutually contradictory directives issued by Washington or else underestimated the ability, the strength, or the sheer resolve of a potential enemy. They’d already decided to send a Marine MEU into the Black Sea, and now some dim bulb in Foggy Bottom had decided that CBG-14 ought to be there as well. It was often said that any time there was a crisis, any time the United States needed to project military power to any part of the world, the first thing the American president would ask was “Where are the carriers?”
Well, now one of America’s handful of precious CVNS was inside the Black Sea, with no certainty that they would be able to leave freely once the balloon went up in Georgia. Politicians who made the decisions responsible for getting their country’s military forces into this kind of pocket ought to be made to serve alongside the service men and women who bore the risks and the hardships those decisions entailed.
Stupid, Tombstone thought again, and with deep and sincere bitterness.
Stupid… stupid… stupid…
CHAPTER 2
Lieutenant Commander Tricia Conway, “Brewer” to the other members of her squadron, stood in the shower stall, dripping and half-covered with soap. She looked at the snake in her hand, gave it a frustrated shake, and swore. The water was coming out, but in a weak and lukewarm trickle instead of a hot, dashing spray.
They called it a snake… and other things, most of them obscene. All of the showers aboard the Jefferson were equipped with the devices now, white plastic shower nozzles on flexible hoses designed to spray water only when the button on the side of the handle was held down. It was a means of saving water, but for Brewer it was one more way that the Navy was intruding itself into her life, her private life. Even that wouldn’t be so bad, though, if the damned plumbing worked.