The Bear and the Dragon - Tom Clancy [451]
Winters checked his weapons display. No missiles left. How had all that happened? He was the United States Air Force champ for situational awareness, but he'd just lost track of a combat action. He couldn't remember firing all his missiles.
"Eagle Two, this is Boar Lead. I'm Winchester. Do you need any help?" "Winchester" meant out of weapons. That wasn't entirely true. He still had a full magazine of 20-mm cannon shells, but suddenly all the gees and all the excitement were pulling on him. His arms felt leaden as he eased his Eagle back to level flight.
"Boar Lead, Eagle. Looks like we're okay now, but that was kinda exciting, fella."
"Roger that, Eagle. Same here. Anything left?"
"Negative, Boar. Rodeo Lead got the last two. I think we owe that major a couple of beers."
"I'll hold you to that, Eagle," Rodeo Lead observed.
"Ducky, where are you?" Winters called next.
"Kinda busy, Bronco," a strained voice replied. "I got a hole in my arm, too."
"Bronco, Ghost Man. Ducky's got some holes in the airframe. I'm going to shepherd him back to Suntan. Thirty minutes, about."
"Skippy, where you be?"
"Right behind you, Leader. I think I got four, maybe five, in that furball."
"Any weapons left?"
"Slammer and 'winder, one each. I'll look after you, Colonel," Lieutenant Acosta promised. "How'd you make out?"
"Two, maybe more, not sure," the squadron commander answered. The final tally would come from the AWACS, plus a check of his own videotape. Mainly he wanted to get out of the aircraft and take a good stretch, and he now had time to worry about Major Don Boyd—Ducky—and his aircraft.
"So, we want to mess with their heads, Mickey?" Admiral Dave Seaton asked.
"That's the idea," the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs told the chief of naval operations.
"Makes sense. Where are their heads at?"
"According to what CIA says, they think we're limiting the scope of operations for political reasons—to protect their sensibilities, like."
"No foolin'?" Seaton asked with no small degree of incredulity.
Moore nodded. "Yep."
"Well, then it's like a guy holding aces and eights, isn't it?" the CNO thought aloud, referring to the last poker hand held by James Butler—"Wild Bill"—Hickok in Deadwood, South Dakota. "We just pick the mission that's sure to flip them out."
"What are you thinking?" Moore asked.
"We can slam their navy pretty hard. Bart Mancuso's a pretty good operator. What are they most afraid of … ?" Seaton leaned back in his swivel chair. "First thing Bart wants to do is take out their missile submarine. It's at sea now with Tucson in trail, about twenty thousand yards back."
"That far?"
"It's plenty close enough. It's got an SSN in close proximity to protect it. So, Tucson takes 'em both out—zap." Moore didn't get the terminology, but Seaton was referring to the Chinese ships as "it," meaning an enemy, a target worthy only of destruction. "Beijing might not know it's happened right away, unless they've got an 'I'm Dead' buoy on the sail. Their surface navy's a lot easier. That'll be mainly aircraft targets, some missiles to keep the surface community happy."
"Submarine-launched missiles?"
"Mickey, you don't sink ships by making holes that let air in. You sink ships by making holes that let water in," Seaton explained. "Okay, if this is supposed to be for psychological effect, we hit everything simultaneously. That'll mean staging a lot of assets, and it runs the risk of being overly complicated, having the other guy catch a sniff of what's happening before we do anything. It's a risk. Do we really want to run it?"
"Ryan's thinking 'big picture.' Robby's helping him."
"Robby's a fighter pilot,"