“Got it.” Mike proceeded to fill in the anonymous voice on the other end. “Increased troop movements, and ships seem to be gearing up to go to sea. I see black smoke, people moving, and lots of traffic headed into the basebut none coming out.”
“These other facilitiesyou understand we’re quite interested in them.”
“No information,” Packmeyer reported with regret. “Is there a number I can reach you at?”
“Yes.” The officer reeled off a series of numbers preceded by the international code for accessing one particular satellite. “It’ll cost you about nine bucks a minute, but we’ll cover the cost. I think you know where to find us.”
“I do indeed. And from the looks of it, you’re not going anywhere else anytime soon.”
“Thank you, Mr. Packmeyer,” the officer said politely. “We appreciate your assistance in this matter. Rest assured it will not go unnoticed. Or unrewarded.”
“Thanks, buddy, but there’s one thing you people seem to forget sometimes. The rest of us are Americans too.”
Another silence. “Some people have different priorities.”
“Not me,” Mike shot back promptly. “Sure, I want the storybut for now, it takes second place behind this. As soon as I hear something, you’ll hear it from me first. Not on ACN.”
“Good enough.”
The line went dead, hissing static and odd echoes that were so common on cell-phone circuits in this part of the world.
Packmeyer toggled the phone off and set it back down on the table.
Interesting, thata telephone call from, if he were not sadly mistaken, the USS Thomas Jefferson. And just who the hell was Commander Busby?
“And that’s the gist of it,” Lab Rat said, finishing up a summary of his conversation with Mike Packmeyer. “A good source, and it sounds like he knows what he’s doing.”
Tombstone turned to Pamela. “Does he?” he said bluntly.
Reluctantly, Pamela nodded. “He’s been in this area of the world for a long time. He knows the people, knows the normal movementsand what’s not normal. He’s been on a desk for a long time, but Packmeyer has good instincts.”
A guarded expression crept across her face. “Are you going to tell me what he tells you? I mean the next time?”
Tombstone considered the matter. “Maybe. It depends.”
“On what?” Pamela said, pressing the matter.
“On whether or not I decide to at the time,” Tombstone shot back. “No promises, Pamela. I’m not certain about this Packmeyer fellow, but I know what your priorities are. If he’s telling us the truth, then his are a bit different. At the same time, I’m not going to screw him over by feeding his stories to you if it’s going to hurt him.”
Pamela shook her head angrily. “You just don’t get it, do you?”
Tombstone shook his head. “No, I get it. You’re the one that won’t.”
“We’re only five miles from open water,” Batman said. “Five milesdammit, you can see it from the bridge.”
The staff assembled around the table was silent. They all knew what their status was. Surrounded by a potentially activated minefield, the safest course was to simply sit where they were and wait for minesweeping help before proceeding.
But they didn’t have that luxurynot this time. Activating the minefield by itself was an act of war, and that didn’t even take into account the earlier attack on La Salle. Trapped here, not even moving forward at bare steerage, the carrier had lost its most potent weapon, the ability to launch and recover aircraft. Additionally, there were twenty fighters orbiting forty miles ahead over the Black Sea. Sooner or later, the tankers would exhaust their reserves and the fighters would be running on fumes.
Within the next hour, Batman would have to make the decision whether or not to bingo the fuel-starved aircraft to the naval base in Greecethat is, assuming that Greece would grant them landing rights.
Or Ukraine. He frowned, not wanting to consider that possibility.
Ukraine’s offer of assistance with the catapult had seemed wrong to him from the very first, as it had to Tombstone. Had it not been for the insistence of the State Department, the carrier would have remained in the relative safety of the Med, able to turn into the wind and generate enough airspeed across the deck to launch and recover aircraft. With the bare twenty fighters bingoing back and forth from an airfield somewhere, the carrier was almost completely exposed. Exposed, and trapped.
“Admiral, at least the Shiloh is with us,” his Chief of Staff said. “She’s a pretty potent ship.”
Captain Daniel Heather, CO of the Shiloh, who had ferried over by helo for the conference, nodded. “If we let the Spy One run the engagement, we can target and engage more incoming missiles and aircraft than any ship in the Navy.”
He frowned. “Of course, you all know the problem with sea-skimmers. The probability of kill is highbut not that high.”
“And this close to land, the odds go down dramatically,” the Air Operations officer chimed in. “Admiral, we need air coverthere’s no way around it.”
“I know that,” Batman said heavily. “We need our deck back.”
He turned to Captain Heather. “And as much as I hate to say it, there’s only one way I know to do thatbreak out of the Strait and get into the Black Sea.”
Captain Heather was a tall, muscular man. Pale blond hair cropped short topped blue eyes and a genial open face. He stared at Batman for a moment, a puzzled expression on his face. Then he paled markedly. “You’re serious?” he said, reading the admiral’s mind. Heather’s soft Georgia accent made the question sound mild. “We can do it, Admiral, but the cost is going to be hellacious.”
Batman nodded. “I know. But we’ve got no options right now. None at all. We can’t go back the way we camethat’s too far. Clear water lies five miles ahead, and there are no minesweepers around. As much as I hate to say it, the priority at this point is on the carrier. That means Shiloh takes point. You’ve got minesweeping duty, Captain.”
Captain Heather tried for an optimistic look. “It could be worse. Most of these are older mines, tethered near the surface. Some good lookouts, the motor whaleboat going out ahead, sonar will probably pick up most of them. The fifty-caliber-gun crews can detonate some of them, and we’ll vector around them if they can’t.”
Batman recognized and silently applauded the man’s courage. He was overstating the odds by a good deal, but you had to give him credit for recognizing the situation and realizing that Batman had only one possible choice. “You’ll want to get back to your ship soon, Captain,” Batman said gravely. “You have some preparations to make. For starters, I’d recommend having everyone up above the waterline.”
The captain nodded. “We’ll be buttoned up completely, you can count on it. If I may take my leave, Admiral?”
Batman nodded. “Godspeed. We’ll see you in the Black Sea. Be ready to get underway in twenty minutes.”
Precisely twenty minutes after his conversation with Admiral Wayne, Captain Heather began inching Shiloh forward. Two motor whaleboats as well as his own gig were in the water, arrayed in a loose half-diamond formation in front of the Aegis cruiser. They were each manned with a boat crew, and were proceeding slowly ahead, carefully scanning the water in front of them. Gun crews were just inside the skin of the ship, waiting to try their skills on any mines.