mission parameters. AG 706 has the same. AW, I’m prepared to set a track to a designated bingo and tank en route. Request ID on senior officer in the air, and request location of bingo. My card of the day says Mahe Naval Air Station. Over?”
“Wait one, 703.”
Soleck breathed out, relaxed his grip on the controls a fraction. Somebody was in charge down there; the world had not ended; and AW was on the air.
“703, this is AW. I have Air Ops on handheld; I have to transfer fuel data via another line because they have lost their antennas. Copy?”
“Roger, AW.” Soleck tried to imagine the difficulty. Air Ops, if they were in business, would know the fuel needs of every plane—more important, unlike the bridge of a cruiser, Air Ops would be full of pilots who could work the numbers on fuel problems. And Air Ops was where bingo fields were set. But, according to AW, all that information had to flow across a handheld, probably a walkie-talkie.
The AW came back on. “I have Lieutenant-Commander Donitz as senior officer in the air. And 703, just so you know the whole deal, our best information is that Mahe is down or not responding. We have no response from Calicut, either. We’re trying to find you a bingo field, but something is going down in India, over.”
Soleck felt a cold ball form in his gut.
Mahe Naval Base, India
They had picked up the other three Americans from the HQ building’s bottom storey—an ex-SEAL named Fidelio, whom everybody called Fidel; a female petty officer, Dee Clavers, who had been an almost-Women’s NBA center; and a female jg named Ong, an anime princess so small she had barely managed to make the Navy minimum.
There were too many of them now, Alan thought—five Americans and four Indians and the three Indian Marines. Too few with weapons and too many who’d never been in a fight. He muttered to Fidel, whom he’d served with before, “This isn’t any good, Chief.”
Fidel grunted. “What’s the plan?”
“I have to get to something I can communicate with Fifth Fleet on. Everything’s out here, cell-phone system’s swamped.”
“Hotel.”
“Yeah, exactly what I think.” They were staying at a beach hotel ten miles away. The hotel was as close to a home as they had.
Fidel nodded. “Car park, the van, then hotel, gotcha. You any good with that gun?”
“Not bad.”
“I’m a lot better than not bad.” Fidel held out his hand for the gun. “You lead, I shoot, Commander.”
AG 703
“Sri Lanka,” Soleck said quietly. Every airfield he could find and plot, he had entered into a chart on his computer, complete with range rings.
“203 is inbound for gas, figures he has eight minutes of fuel remaining.” Gup still spoke in a monotone, but tracking the fuel for eleven other planes was keeping his mind occupied.
Soleck had walled off the emergency, taken a bite out of his own responsibilities and was chewing hard. He cycled frequencies on the radio until he had AW. “AW, this is 703, over.”
“Go ahead, 703.” Different voice.
“Any luck on a bingo?”
“Negative, 703.” The speaker’s voice went up an octave. “We’re trying to raise anyone in southern India and we’re—”
Soleck cut him off. “Can you raise Trincomalee in Sri Lanka? They’re a little over five hundred nautical miles from us. Different country. Maybe whatever’s going down in India isn’t there. We’re going to splash a Hornet if we don’t start tanking.”
“Wait one.”
Soleck watched his instruments for a few seconds, thinking of the decision process that would have to happen on the bridge of the Fort Klock—the country clearance, the levels of military bureaucracy. He made his decision and turned the plane east, pointing the nose toward the distant island of Sri Lanka. Then he dialed up strike common, which was being used by all the pilots airborne. “203, this is 703, over.”
“703, this is 203, go ahead.” Donitz sounded professional, unhurried, despite the fact that his plane was running on fumes.
“203, am I correct that you are strike lead?”
“703, no one has told me that, but yeah, I think I’m the only el kadar in the air.”
“Sir, I’d like to get the stack moving towards Trincomalee, Sri Lanka. I’m assuming that their field is open and they’ll let us in. The distance is five seven five nautical miles from my position and my best guess is that we can get all of you there with enough gas to land.”
“Soleck, I don’t even have Trincomalee on my bingo card.”
“Me, either, sir. But Alpha Whiskey says southern India is down and it’s the best I can come up with. Every minute we stay here wastes gas. Worst case, we’ll be feet-dry in an hour and someone will give us a vector to an Indian field.”
“Do it. I don’t have the comms or computers to figure this out. You sure?”
“Sure as I can be. It’ll be close. Break, break. All planes, this is 703. 706 will rendezvous on 703 at angels one-one course 110, speed two hundred knots. Planes will tank as called by 703 in fuel priority. Sound off.”
Soleck was pleased to watch Gup making check marks next to the planes he had listed on his kneeboard as they called in.
The thing was doable.
Mahe Naval Base, India
They parted company with the Marines and the Indian sailors outside the headquarters building and then huddled in a window embrasure while shooting sounded in the street. A car had been blown up down the block, maybe by a rocket-propelled grenade, and the Marine sergeant said that a lot of the firing was coming from a security building down there.
“We’ll have to go the back way,” Alan said. He pointed. Down behind the buildings was a chain-link fence and then weeds—grass, scrub bushes, a few trees. “There’s a creek down there somewhere. Wasteland.” He knew what the base looked like on a map, knew that the creek divided it so completely that a bridge had been built over it. The wasteland might give them cover. He looked at Fidel. “Unless you want to hole up inside again.”
Fidel held up the CZ. “With one handgun? Any kid with a weapon could waste the lot of us.” He shook his head. “Lead us to the wasteland, Commander.”
AG 703
A voice in Soleck’s headset said, “This is AG 101, two hundred miles north of your position, will rendezvous en route; I’m good for fuel and can probably make Trincomalee from here, over.” 101 was a Tomcat up north, which rang a bell in Soleck’s head. Two bells, in fact.
