Vice Admiral Joshua Painter was the current Assistant Chief of Naval Operations for Air Warfare, known to insiders by his "designator," OP-05, or just "oh-five." His three-star rank was a miracle. Painter was first of all an honest man; second, an outspoken one; third, someone who thought the real Navy was at sea, not alongside the Potomac River; finally and most damagingly, he was that rarest of naval officers, the author of a book. The Navy does not encourage its officers to commit their thoughts to paper, except for the odd piece on thermodynamics or the behavior of neutrons within a reactor vessel. An intellectual, a maverick, and a warrior in a service that was increasingly anti-intellectual, conformist, and bureaucratized, he thought of himself as the token exception in what was turning into The Corporate Navy. Painter was a crusty, acerbic Vermont native, short and slight of build, with pale, almost colorless blue eyes and a tongue sharp enough to chip stone. He was also the living god of the aviation community. He'd flown more than four hundred missions over North Vietnam in several different models of the F-4 Phantom, and had two MiGs to his credit - the side panel from his jet, with two red stars painted on it, hung in his Pentagon office, along with the caption, SIDEWINDER MEANS NOT HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY. Though a perfectionist and a very demanding boss, he deemed nothing too good for his pilots or his enlisted crews, especially the latter.
"I see you got the message," Josh Painter observed, reaching a finger out to tap Robby's bright new shoulder boards.
"Yes, sir."
"I also hear your new tactics were a disaster."
"They could have worked out a little better," Captain Jackson admitted.
"Yeah, it does help if the carrier survives. Maybe a CAG slot will reinforce that in your mind. I just approved you for one," OP-05 announced. "You get Wing Six. It chops to
"The 'Russians' cheated," Robby answered. "They were smart." That earned him a laugh from his boss. Though crusty, Painter did have a lively sense of humor. The discussion took care of the drive to flag quarters at the Naval Post-Graduate School on the California coast at Monterey.
"Any more on the news about those drug bastards?" Painter asked while his aide carried his bags in.
"We're sure giving them a hard time, aren't we?" Jackson observed.
The Admiral stopped dead in his tracks. "What the hell do you mean?"
"I know that I'm not supposed to know, sir, but I mean, I was there, and I did see what was going on."
Painter waved Jackson inside. "Check the fridge. See if you can put a martini together while I pump bilges. Fix whatever you want for yourself."
Robby made the proper arrangements. Whoever set up flag quarters for them knew what Painter liked to drink. Jackson opened a Miller Lite for himself.
Painter reappeared without his uniform shirt and took a sip from his glass. Then he dismissed his aide and very close look.
"I want you to repeat what you said on the way in, Captain."
"Admiral, I know I'm not cleared for this, but I'm not blind. I watched the A-6 head for the beach on radar, and I don't figure it was a coincidence. Whoever set up security on the op could have done a better job, sir."
"Jackson, you're going to have to forgive me, but I just spent five and a half hours sitting too close to the engines on a beat-up old 727. You're telling me that those two bombs that took druggies out fell off one of
"Yes, sir. You didn't know?"
"No, Robby, I didn't." Painter knocked off the rest of his drink and set the glass down. "Jesus Christ. What lunatic set up this abortion?"
"But that new bomb, it had to - I mean, the orders and everything - shit, for this sort of thing, the orders have to chop through -05."
"
"Some kind of plastic, fiberglass, whatever, some kind of new bombcase. It looks like a stock, low-drag two-thousand-pounder with the usual attachment points for the smart-bomb gear, but it's not made out of steel or any other kind of metal, and it's painted blue like an exercise bomb."
"Oh, okay. There has been a little work on a low-observable bomb for the ATA" - Painter referred to the new Stealth attack plane the Navy was working on - "but, hell, we've just done a little preliminary testing, maybe a dozen drops. Whole program's experimental. They don't even use the regular bomb filler, and I'm probably going to shit-can the program, 'cause I don't think it's worth the money. They haven't even taken those things off China Lake yet."
