THE bonging went on and on, echoing the length of the ship. The boatswain leaned to the 1MC. “Now general quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations. General quarters traffic route, up and forward to starboard; aft and down to port. Set material condition Zebra throughout the ship. Now general quarters!”
The pilothouse burst into a frenzied bustle. Watchstanders grabbed for GQ gear, bowing to tuck and tape the cuffs of coveralls into socks. They pulled heavy padded flash gear, hoods and gloves—standard issue since USS Horn’s nuclear destruction not far from these waters—on over the coveralls, leaving only eyes peering out. They strapped gas masks rigged for quick donning on their thighs. Petty officers broke out sound-powered phones, in case comms went down. They passed out the same heavy steel helmets the Navy had issued in World War II, and banged open lockers of flotation devices and emergency breathing gear.
Dan was out on the wing, polishing his binoculars with lens paper, when the officer of the deck brought him out his helmet. The letters CO were stenciled in red on the front. He settled its weight on the crown of his skull. The wind gusted cold. Dawn was just breaking, a dull illumination that barely limned a charcoaled horizon, hardly distinguished sea from clouded sky. The stern light of a cargo ship glowed like a distant comet. Savo Island rolled slightly, charging through wind-ruffled onyx swells at twelve knots. Not all that fast, but he had to balance a desire not to present a stationary target with the need to conserve fuel.
Yeah, fuel. He frowned. Need to get with Bart Danenhower about that. He had no idea how long they’d be out here, and the Navy might not want to risk a tanker close inshore during a hot war.
Which might start any day. Any hour.
“Time: plus one minute,” the 1MC announced.
So he’d decided on an old-fashioned general quarters drill. From the expressions around him, especially on the faces of the younger troops, they hadn’t heard that pulse-pounding gong often since the last week of boot camp. But if Savo was as vulnerable as he feared, every man and woman aboard had to be ready to survive blast, flooding, fragments, and fire. As he glanced in at them through the window, for just a fraction of a second memory intruded.
He’d been looking away when it had happened. Fortunately. But even looking away, everything around him—sea, steel, cloth—had turned the brightness of the noon sun. The starboard lookout had screamed, dropping his binoculars, clutching his eyes. But the dreadful, burning light had gone on and on, as if someone had opened the scuttle to Hell.
Dan hadn’t actually thought about what was happening. Drill alone had driven him across the bridge, slamming into the chart table, to shove the quartermaster aside and shout into the mike, “Nuclear detonation, brace for shock!”
The deck had jolted upward as he’d crashed down onto it, whiplashing him back up into the air. Dust and paint chips had leaped out of cable runs to fog the pilothouse. An instant later the windows had come in on them with a crack like lightning tearing an oak apart. Only the sound had gone on, and on.…
He came back now to find himself staring white-eyed into his own reflection, kneading his neck. The old fracture. Then, as he blinked, his gaze suddenly plunged through, past the wing window he was looking into, to meet the puzzled eyes of a slight young seaman manning the remote operating console for the port 25mm. The squished-together, almost toothless-looking old man’s face was familiar.
Downie. “The Troll.” The goofball who’d left his pistol unattended on the quarterdeck just long enough for it to be stolen. The compartment cleaner who’d discovered a corpse cold in its bunk. They stared at each other for what seemed like a long time. Then Downie half-grinned, dropped his gaze, and squatted to adjust his gas mask carrier.
Almarshadi bustled up in flash gear and flotation vest, carrying a rolled-up sheaf of bond. Dan beckoned him closer. Trying to control suddenly ragged breathing, a racing heart, reaching for the cool impassivity everyone expected of him. Trying to forget Horn, and what had happened to all too many of her crew.
Under his command.
“Fahad, good morning. Fine Navy day, right?”
The exec shivered. He cast a doubtful eye at the clouds. “Absolutely, Captain. Spectacular Navy day.”
“Built the training package?”
“Bart and I got it written up last night.”
“Good. Couple of issues on the bridge team. I want protective goggles for them too. Have them wrap a pair in the flash gear hood so they get them on at the same time as the hoods. Second, aren’t they supposed to have flak jackets? Do we have those?”
“Hermelinda might have goggles in stock. And we … not flak jackets … we have, um, ballistic protection gear for the boarding party.”
“Move it up here. We won’t be doing any opposed boarding. I’d rather have the bridge team ready to keep fighting if we take a fragmentation hit.”
“Time: plus two minutes.”
The OOD leaned out. “Captain, XO: General quarters set. All stations report manned and ready. Time, two minutes and fifteen seconds.”
Dan gave Almarshadi the gimlet eye. With a ready time like that, someone had leaked the drill. He got a shamefaced grin back. “All right,” he told the OOD. “Have the bo’s’un pass, ‘Work center supervisors, now carry out EBD and emergency egress drills.’” Almarshadi waited, tapping the rolled-up papers against his thigh. Dan looked aft, then up, giving the crew a few more minutes to get set. But something was missing. After a moment he realized what. “Get our battle colors up!” he yelled into the pilothouse, and added, to Almarshadi, “And leave them up, as long as we’re on station out here.”
“Aye sir. Goggles, ballistic vests, battle colors.”
A quartermaster—there were no signalmen anymore—double-timed to the flag shack and began breaking out the oversized Stars and Stripes. When it was snapping free against the gray sky, huge and bright and crackling in the cold wind, he looked up for a long time. Filling his sight with red and blue and white like some essential nutrient he’d been short on for too long.
Reynolds Ryan was gone. Van Zandt was gone. Horn was still radioactive, but he’d brought her back. Less than half as many ships out here now as when he’d stepped aboard his first destroyer so many years before. But the U.S. Navy was still on station.
Still on station.…
He took a deep breath, wondering why he was suddenly fighting tears. Fuck. Fuck! What would happen to these kids? Was Savo doomed too? He’d just left the Navy command center when Flight 77 had punched through the limestone skin of the Pentagon, blasting the space and everyone in it with fuel-flame and razor-sharp metal, turning everything in the C ring into fire and collapsing concrete.
Niles, and the others who’d called him a Jonah, a curse, a doom—were they right?
No. They couldn’t be. He’d never have taken this command if he’d really believed that.
So why was the imp of self-doubt still whispering in his ear that he wasn’t good enough, wasn’t competent enough? That when the chips were down, he’d lack what it took.
He’d always come through before, true. Oh, sure, the imp sneered. But one of these days.…
A clearing of the throat beside him. Dan looked down from the streaming colors to find the XO regarding him. He dragged himself back into the present, into the bite of a frigid wind. And told Almarshadi, “Okay, that your drill schedule there? No, I’m sure it’s fine. Take charge, Fahad. Go ahead and take charge.”
* * *
“CAPTAIN’S in Combat” passed mouth to mouth. The lights were dimmed. Every seat was occupied. Everyone in CIC was in flash gear too, but their helmets lay on the deck beside them. He’d told Cheryl she could relax her battle dress if she wanted, once she was satisfied.
He settled into his command seat with a sigh, unbuckled his own helmet, and set it aside. His neck, injured in that nuclear whiplash aboard Horn, was grateful for the lessened weight. He kneaded it as he took in the screens. They shifted as Staurulakis tested inputs and cameras. Only the Aegis picture stayed constant. A gimlet gaze, but so exquisitely honed that as the spokes clicked back and forth, refreshing forty times a second, every desert wadi and ridge glowed green and gold.
Fractured neck, scarred airway, burn tissue in one shoulder from a hellish night in the Irish Sea … his body was a palimpsest. Niles had offered medical retirement. He could still run a mile in nine minutes, but he could envision a day when pelting through a ship, sliding down ladders, would be just too much.
What would he do then?
Agonize about that later, Lenson. Just now his ship, his ship, throbbed and whined around him. The turbines buzzed through the rubber-coated steel under the flight deck boots he wore for GQ. The ventilation whooshed, and keyboards clattered. The high lilting whalesong of the sonar trilled through alloy before hurtling out into miles of chilly sea. His elbow jerked and a paper cup of coffee he hadn’t noticed being placed there spilled over the gray metal desk-shelf. He mopped the keyboard with a paper towel that Staurulakis, eyes narrowed, handed him.
You are in fucking command, boy, he told himself. Get a grip.
He skimmed his message queue, reading the header on each, then either deleting or filing it. CTF 61 had acknowledged last night’s question, about backloading Ammermann at the first opportunity. It wasn’t an answer, just acknowledging receipt. The Early Bird carried Iraq’s defiant response to the forty-eight-hour deadline. In the next article, Israel’s prime minister announced that if attacked with WMDs, his country would retaliate in kind.
Dan forwarded those to Almarshadi for the daily news summary, then studied the fleet weather forecast. Up to twenty-knot winds and high seas for the rest of today. A high-latitude ridging event over Germany could lead to cyclogenesis over the east Med. A cold air surge over the region could drop temperatures to 10°C, and bring high winds and heavy snow. Snowfall-affected regions could spread out from southern Turkey to the coast of the Levant.
“Shit,” he muttered. They really didn’t need bad weather just now. Well, maybe it’d miss them.
He blotted surreptitiously at the now icy-cold remnants of the spilled coffee that had dripped down onto his crotch, and pulled up the message he’d started to draft the night before. It was to both his “masters”—CentCom and EuCom, info to CNO and State.
“Captain?”
He looked up at Bart Danenhower’s broad, blank face. The engineer nodded, taking off the locomotive driver’s cap and wiping his forehead on one sleeve. He shuddered. “Jesus, it’s cold in here.”
“How you doing, Bart?”
“Okay, sir. I did the math you wanted. On fuel.”
“Yeah, we got to talk about that. Drills going okay?”
“DCA’s running them. Concentrating on fire and flooding.”
“We still seeing water in the CRP system?”
“No more than usual.”
“Engine control consoles? Any more groundings?”
“Not so far.” The CHENG laid out xeroxes of their fuel-consumption curves and positioned a calculator. “We refueled to 100 percent two days ago. Fast transit to patrol area, so we’re down to 95 as of today. Our bottom’s clean so I’m going to use the class manual for consumption curves. Here’s our options. Our quietest patrol speed is thirteen knots.”
Dan lifted his eyebrows. “That high?”
“Yeah, not what you’d expect, but we’re actually quietest with both shafts powered and both props at 100 percent pitch. Got to realign the masking system, but that’s the way we put the least noise in the water. See, below 100 percent, your props cavitate. Slowest we can go at full pitch on both shafts is about 12.8 knots.”
“That’s going to cut way down on our on-station time.”
“I get six days to 50 percent. Factoring in electrical load, with the radar going full power.”
“Damn it, Bart. I just don’t know if they’ll be willing to break me out a tanker six or seven days from now. Anything could be happening by then.” At 50 percent fuel he had to holler for help. At 30 he had to leave station, unless ordered to remain. He grimaced, remembering the weather report; heavier seas would increase fuel consumption too. Jamming him tighter and tighter into a very narrow corner. He sighed. “You said there’s another option?”
“Kind of out there, but I can shift to a one-shaft, nonstandard-configuration low-speed mode. That gets me down to six knots. Not as quiet, but close.”
“How many days does that buy us?”
“Eight days to 50 percent, ten days to 30.”
“Not great, but better. What’s the downside? Of this nonstandard configuration?”
“Got to run everything from Main Control. Not the bridge. So if you suddenly need to crank on the knots, it’ll take longer.”
“How much longer?”
“Depends on how much faster you want to go, but it won’t be that long. Maybe five, ten minutes.”
Dan blew out and scratched his head. “I don’t like it. But I guess we have to. At least until we get some clue how long we’ll be out here. —Cheryl, d’you hear that? We’re going down to six knots, but—”
“I have it, sir.” Staurulakis rattled her keyboard.
Danenhower didn’t linger once a discussion wasb over; he nodded and left, taking the calculator and graphs but leaving a one-page summary. Dan folded it into a pocket. “Shit,” he muttered. Then went back to the message he was writing. He read the last paragraphs on the screen once more.
4. (S) IN VIEW OF THE FOLLOWING:
A) INADEQUATE TBMD LOADOUT (ONLY 4 SM-2 BLOCK 4A WEAPONS)
B) MARGINAL CREW TRAINING AS EVALUATED BY BOTH JOHNS HOPKINS CONTRACTOR RIDER AND OWN SHIP TEAM
C) AEGIS REDUCED REDUNDANCY FROM SPY-1 DRIVER-PREDRIVER FIRE (CASREP REF C)
D) POSSIBLE MUTUAL INTERFERENCE WITH ISRAELI PATRIOT AND ARROW
E) SEVERELY LIMITED SELF-DEFENSE CAPABILITY IN ABM MODE
CO CONCLUDES SAVO ISLAND’S MISSION CAPABILITY FALLS BELOW ACCEPTABLE READINESS.
5. (S) IN VIEW OF POSSIBLE GEOPOLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF A FAILED INTERCEPT ATTEMPT, IT MAY BE PREFERABLE TO RETRACT WHATEVER COMMITMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE, AND RETURN SAVO ISLAND TO TASK GROUP DEFENSE OR TOMAHAWK STRIKE ROLE RATHER THAN CONTINUE AS INDEPENDENT TBMD GUARD.
6. (S) IF MISSION JUDGED POLITICALLY NECESSARY, REQUEST ADDITIONAL SURFACE ESCORT FOR ASCM OWN SHIP DEFENSE.
BT
He stopped typing, hunched over the screen. As if, he realized, trying to shield what he was writing from everyone around him. Up on the readouts, the ship’s speed was already dropping.
He wasn’t just saying I don’t think we can do the mission, but also Should we even have been committed? If he’d sent it the day he took command, it would’ve looked bad enough. To send it now, when he was actually on station, would make him look … negative. Even craven.
No, they probably wouldn’t think that. Not with his record.
And it was the truth. If anything, he was overestimating their capabilities.
But it wasn’t the kind of message any commanding officer wanted his name on. His cursor hovered over the Send button. Then dropped to Save As and filed it as a draft once again.
Beside him Cheryl murmured, “Sir, sending the revisions to the steaming orders you asked for. Incorporating the lowered patrol speed discussed with the chief engineer. Warning and exclusion zone. No approach within two miles. Random course changes at least every twelve minutes. Doubled lookouts, with focus on threat bearings to landward. Anything more?”
“Sounds good.” It was sobering that their first warning of a sea-skimming cruise missile might be a distant glint between the waves, observed by a sharp-eyed seaman with binoculars. But antiship missiles were designed for minuscule radar signatures. The types they were facing out here—the C-802s, the Bastions and Onyxes the Russians had supplied their Syrian client state, the sea-launched Styxes Syrian Komar boats carried—could target them from over the horizon, if their quarry had its radars on.
Which Savo definitely did. Electronically, they were standing out like a lighthouse, with the huge pulses of power they were putting out. And now, of course, they’d be poking along, with five to ten minutes’ lag before they could come back up to full speed. “Which reminds me. Phalanx is in automatic?”
“Sea Whiz has been in auto mode since we arrived on station, Captain. I briefed you that yesterday. Like our chaff system and the rubber duckies. I’d like to do a program reload soon, though. We’re overdue on that.”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember now. Not just yet. Unless you think there’s some kind of software corruption going on … No, wait a minute … it might be better to do it now rather than later. Yeah.” He was starting to babble. Was she looking at him differently than usual? Was that a suspicious squint? He should just buckle the fuck down, and stop obsessing. Okay, slow deep breath. Another. On the display the spokes glittered. Faces hovered green-lit above screens.
Waiting.
Which was all he, too, could do now.
* * *
AT a little after 0900 Sonar came up on the 21MC. It was Rit Carpenter. “Hey, Dan, you there?” Staurulakis frowned. Dan had to remind himself the old submariner was a civilian now. He thumbed the worn Transmit lever. “Here, Rit. Whatcha got?”
“Voice call from Pittsburgh. Reporting in. She holds us one-zero-zero at about six thousand yards. Want me to answer up?”
“Got her on sonar?”
“Yeah, now. But we didn’t, coming in. Our fucking tail is on the rag down here, and we’re getting more self-noise since we slowed down.”
Not good, that a nuke boat could get that close without being detected. But maybe it also meant its submariners were sharp enough to protect Savo from any undersea enemy. At the moment, though, he was more worried about air and missile attack. Which even the most modern sub was impotent against, save for its own invulnerability beneath the waves. “Yeah, Rit, roger her back. Ask if there’s a chance the CO can crossdeck for a gam.”
Carpenter clicked off. Staurulakis murmured, “You want him to come aboard? Is that really necessary?”
“Sometimes it’s good to make personal contact.”
“There’s always a risk involved in boat ops. Especially in winter.”
Dan regarded her. Quiet, short blond hair, always kempt, always competent. Her great-great-grandfather had served aboard a monitor during the Civil War. He’d never asked a question she hadn’t had the answer to, usually to a depth well beyond what she needed to know as a department head. “Cheryl, I imagine you’ll be a CO someday. So you have to learn you can’t run a ship by this ‘accept no unnecessary risk’ doctrine. That mind-set comes out of DoD. Mainly, I guess, to cover their ass in case we screw up. I agree with part of it—think ahead, assess the hazards, plan to meet them, commit the resources, communicate. No-brainers, every good skipper does that. But just going to sea puts us at risk, and we’re out here to fight. You can’t be guided by fear.”
She cocked her head. “I guess it’s a balancing process.”
“Balancing what you gain against what you put on the table. Sure. And in this case, doing boat ops—that’s something I expect my crew to take in stride.” He waited, but she didn’t seem to have anything to add.
“CO, Sonar.” The 21MC again.
“Go, Rit.”
“Got Pittsburgh actual on the line. He says okay to a boat transfer, but he wants to stay at least a mile away. Oh, and he says he’s picking up a set of high-speed screws out to the east of us we might want to keep an eye on.”
Dan shook his head, recalling from the SATYRE exercises he’d conducted how terrified nuke skippers were of getting anywhere near what they called “skimmers.” As if everyone on a gray ship’s bridge was incompetent. “Tell him that’s too far to send a boat in these conditions. I’ll put my RHIB in the water and head west. He can move in from the east as we clear the area, and the boat will essentially stay in the middle. Clear that with him.”
Carpenter rogered, and Dan called the bridge to get them ready.
* * *
PITTSBURGH surfaced well over a mile distant. Through his binoculars, he watched the black sail cut the slate sea like a hammerhead’s fin, throwing white water to both sides. She was making about fifteen knots, ballasted down to minimize rolling in the five-foot swells. From atop the black blunt tower tiny figures studied him back.
It had rained during the night and the wing was still filmed with a sheen of dampness, and bright water slid back and forth beneath the gratings. Clanking and shouting from below; he swiveled in his chair to monitor the RHIB crew swinging out their gray burden. He could wish for calmer seas, but he’d told Cheryl the truth. Any destroyer crew worth its salt had to be ready to do small-boat ops, in case of a man overboard, a helo crash, or own-force protection in port.
The silvery swollen bulk of the rigid inflatable swayed as the ship rolled. Red-helmeted seamen staggered at the ends of steadying lines like handlers trying to manage an unruly elephant. A surge broke along the side and spray blasted up the hull-sheer and drenched them like rain. The rest of the crew mustered aft, at a Jacob’s ladder. Dan set his glasses on each man, making sure his life preserver was properly fastened and secured to his safety line.
Amid hollering and gesticulating, the engines snarled and the boat dipped, yawed to a wild wave, slammed its stern into Savo’s steel, and sheered aft. Another shout, and the crew scrambled down. It curved away, gaining speed and jumping crests awkwardly like a baby dolphin as the crew crouched. Only the coxswain stood erect, boots rooted wide, leather gloves steady on the chromed wheel. The OOD put on hard left rudder and the cruiser’s massive bow came around deliberately, pushed by the single screw on the line now, and accelerated away from the glow of the hidden sun.
Dan’s Hydra beeped. “CO,” he muttered.
Staurulakis. “TAO here, sir. Got an E-band air search radar active on zero nine five. Out where you told us the sub reported high-speed screws. Okay to notify?”
Dan rubbed a bristly chin. That was a military radar. So anything carrying it was prima facie a threat. Notify, query, and warn were the ascending levels of communication with an unknown. After that came defensive action, if the contact continued to close or demonstrated hostile intent. “Range?”
“He’s out of the beam for the Aegis. I can get you a range, but we might have to put the gun radar on him.”
“What’s wrong with the surface search?”
“Offline for maintenance.”
“I should’ve been told.”
“Sorry, Captain. Was about to.”
“Don’t use the gun radar. Notify on Channel 16.”
“On it, Captain. TAO out.”
The RHIB shrank behind them. Dan watched it bob and reappear between corroded-looking waves. The black tower in the sea had altered course toward it. Gulls skimmed the wavetops, vanishing between the swells, then reappearing. Like sea-skimming missiles … What was Ammermann doing? He really ought to stop by and see the staffer. At least tell him there wasn’t any answer yet to the offload request. It didn’t cost anything to extend due courtesy.
Minutes later the OOD came out, clutching his cap against the cold gusts. “Skipper, contact at zero nine five, twenty thousand and closing . Designated Skunk Kilo. Looks like a constant bearing.”
“EW has him too. He’s still on a closing course?”
“According to the surface search, Captain.”
“It’s back up again?”
“Yes sir.”
He hit the Hydra again. “Cheryl, CO. Did your E-band answer up to the notification?”
“Stand by … Sir, our surface search is back up. Also, yes, they replied. INS Lahav requests permission to close.”
He dropped his bootsoles to the wet gratings with a thud. Lahav … memory supplied a Sa’ar-class corvette. U.S.-built, but Israeli flagged. Smaller than Savo but heavily armed, with guns and Harpoon. Actually, he remembered seeing them being built down in Pascagoula, their superstructures slab-angled to reduce radar signature. That might explain why she’d not popped up earlier; at twenty thousand yards she was already inside missile range. They’d actually detected her, or at least the sub had, farther away by sonar than by radar.
Which raised another question. Any ship with an electronic-warfare stack could detect the side-lobes of the invisible yet massive beam of microwave radiation those big octagonal panels above him were projecting over the horizon. Why had the other skipper approached on a bearing he had to know, or at least suspect, he wouldn’t be readily detected on? Was that some sort of message? Or even, threat? Aloud Dan asked, “Permission to close us? Why?”
“No reason given.”
“Says he’s Israeli?”
“Consistent with the EW. Checks out against GCCS.”
Dan rubbed his chin. The Israelis were normally happy to see a U.S. ship. They only shadowed what they weren’t sure of. Something wasn’t kosher. So to speak. “We should have known about this dude as soon as he cleared port.”
“Yessir. Backchecking on that. Do we want to hold him outside five miles?”
He paused in the pilothouse, catching the Troll’s eye again as he keyed the Hydra to answer. “Tell him … no, request him to halt at five miles. Make sure he’s clear on who we are. Again: don’t illuminate him. I’m on my way down.” He didn’t want to give offense, and so close to Israeli territorial waters, no wonder they were being checked out. But he didn’t want to take any chances. Unnecessary chances, he reminded himself ironically.
The officer of the deck. “Captain, RHIB’s picked up Pittsburgh’s CO. Sub is retiring; permission to reverse course.”
“Affirmative. Go in and get ’em.” He looked past the helmsman at the choppy sea, reflecting on how their course reversal would affect the five-mile radius he’d asked the corvette to stay outside. And what if he didn’t respect the request? “Make it fast. I want that boat back aboard, and us to be ready to maneuver.”
* * *
THE submarine commander more than filled the chair in Dan’s in-port cabin. He looked Hispanic, or perhaps Indian; his name was Youngblood, not noticeably non-Anglo, but not giving any clues to his ancestry. Dan checked the other man’s left hand. No Academy ring. The large bruise beginning to darken the side of his face didn’t seem to dampen Youngblood’s spirits; he was practically bouncing in the chair. “That? Got it during the boat transfer. Slipped on the curve of the hull.”
“Been there, done that,” Dan said, remembering boarding another sub in the Korea Strait. The only time, actually, he’d sailed under a flag of truce. “Glad you weren’t badly hurt, Jack. We could get some ice for that—”
Youngblood grinned and waved the offer away. “Picked up a hard roll, that’s all. Hey, I think we got a friend in common. Andy Mangum? Had San Francisco, out in Westpac, couple years back?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know Andy. What’s he doing now?”
“He had DevRon Five, after San Fran; now he’s the chief of staff at ComSubPac. Ran into him at a technology conference in Bangor. He told me some … sea stories. About you and the North Koreans.” Youngblood winked broadly, then chuckled, as if he knew Dan couldn’t comment. “Course, I didn’t believe a word. Anyway, this is my formal inchop, right? Or do I need a message, too?”
“No message necessary. I’ll just include that you checked in, in my daily report.”
A tap at the door. “Come in,” Dan called.
Ammermann was in khaki slacks, running shoes, and a dark green silk polo. He blinked and gave Dan a tentative half-salute. Dan cleared his throat. “Jack, this is Adam Ammermann. We’re not really sure how long he’ll be staying, but he’s a sort of public affairs staffer out of the West Wing. Adam, Jack Youngblood, USS Pittsburgh. Uh, a nuclear submarine. She’ll be in company with us over the next few days. I thought we’d have lunch, the three of us, and get acquainted.”
The big submariner and Ammermann shook hands, and they moved to the large table, which Longley had set for three. Not with the formal silver service, which was reserved for VIP or diplomatic guests, but regular wardroom china. It was Chinese day, with pork lo mein, somewhat crooked spring rolls, and steamed rice. Dan glanced again at the other CO’s profile, hoping he wouldn’t take the menu as some kind of insult … no, shit, he was getting paranoid again. “So … looks like we’re going to have a war on our hands in the next couple of days.”
“Never good.” Youngblood shook his head. “I think we’re ready. But let’s hope they can find some other way.”
“The president gave them forty-eight hours to leave,” Ammermann said. “Him and his sons.”
Youngblood frowned. “And why exactly are we doing this now?”
Ammermann smiled, laying a finger on the submariner’s arm; Youngblood stiffened. “We have absolute proof they have chemical and biological weapons, maybe even a nuclear device. You don’t wait around to be attacked. That was our mistake on 9/11. They’ve lied and threatened us long enough. We can bring democracy to Iraq, same as we brought it to Germany and Italy and Japan and Russia.”
Dan applied himself to the lo mein while it was still hot and let them argue, but he couldn’t help remembering what Freya Stark had written about Rome wanting only weak states on her periphery. The Romans had followed a policy of crushing any bordering state that seemed likely to become powerful. But when she’d destroyed these prospective buffers, far more dangerous barbarians, pushing through the chaos and debris, had eventually brought down the empire.
When Ammermann ran out of steam Dan put in, “Not to change the subject, but—Jack; that Israeli corvette, to the east. He’s parked five miles out, where we asked him to respect our safety zone. Any idea what’s on his mind?”
Youngblood chewed for a moment. The broad head cocked. “Maybe he’s wondering the same about us.”
“Adam, what do you think? The Israelis must know what we’re doing here. Wouldn’t somebody from the West Wing, or State, have notified them? Officially, or…?”
“I can make a call and find out. If you’ll give me a secure hookup.”
“That’d be awkward. I’ve put my entire crew, and myself, on personal comm restrictions.” That wasn’t why he didn’t want this guy on the horn, but he wasn’t about to say, “I don’t want you reporting back on me.”
“He actually might be here to protect you,” said the submariner.
“Yeah, I wondered about that.” Lahav might be his missing “shotgun” … his escort when Savo Island was so focused on her mission she couldn’t defend herself. It might make sense. The administration was wooing Arab states to join the Coalition of the Willing. Few had, but at least they weren’t joining the other side. In that case, keeping any U.S.-Israeli military cooperation covert would be smart. “But I can’t even talk to their ABM side, to deconflict. That doesn’t sound like cooperation.”
A beep. Dan said, “Excuse me,” and unholstered his Hydra. Turned away from the table. “Captain.”
“Cheryl here, sir. INS Lahav is calling CO-to-CO on uncovered voice.”
He swallowed one more forkful of lo mein and wiped his lips with a napkin. “Gotta take this. It’s from Lahav.” To Staurulakis he said, “Be right there. No—on second thought, I’ll take it on the bridge. But stay on the circuit taking notes. And see if you can get Radio to record it. Just in case.”
* * *
THE voice was clear, hard, accented but perfectly enunciated. “Good afternoon, Captain. This is Captain Gabi Marom of INS Lahav. I am recording this conversation. Over.”
Dan peered out. The corvette was barely visible, a dark speck on a ragged horizon shrouded in overcast. A plume of white spray leaped up as Savo’s bullnose burrowed into a steely sea. It wavered across the forecastle and forward gun, and clattered down against the window. Damn, blowing harder already, and they were picking up a nasty roll. “Good afternoon. Dan Lenson, CO, USS Savo Island. We’re taping on this end too. What can I do for you this fine day at sea, Captain?”
“This is Lahav. I am respecting your eight-kilometer safety zone. At the same time, you are within the hundred-kilometer exclusion zone my country has declared. I must ask you to declare your intentions and how soon you intend to return to international waters. Over.”
Dan trapped the handset between shoulder and chin as he hunted around on the nav console to zoom out. “Captain, I hold us well outside your country’s twenty-mile Maritime Exclusion Zone. And also outside your twelve-nautical-mile coastal zone. Therefore, we are both in international waters. Suggest you check your navigation. Over.”
“Captain, you are speaking of the standard MEZ. I am referring to the special security zone Israel announced one week ago. Over.”
Okay, great … He made sure his finger was off the Transmit button and keyed the Hydra with his free hand as Savo reeled. He twisted to wedge himself in next to the nav console. This put his thigh against the bridge’s heater element, but it wasn’t quite hot enough, through the fabric of his coveralls, to burn. “Cheryl, any input?”
“The official position: We don’t recognize any claim to limit innocent passage beyond twelve miles. Including unilaterally declared exclusion zones, like Libya and China keep trying to impose.”
“So the question is, are we on innocent passage?”
“No sir. The question actually is whether you’re going to let him bluff us out of where our orders clearly place us.”
Well, that was pretty clear-cut. He double-clicked her off and told the Israeli, “Lahav, this is Savo Island. I say again, we are in international waters and exercising right of innocent passage. Please respect our safety zone while conducting military operations. Out.”
“This is Lahav. Interrogative: What type of military operations are you conducting? And what is their termination date? Over.”
Dan frowned. He couldn’t blame them for being hinky about foreign ships off their coast. But had no one told the Israelis he was shielding them from hostile missiles? Or was that information stovepiped somewhere in the political-military bureaucracy, and just hadn’t trickled down to their navy yet? He started to answer, then socketed the phone. Let the other guy buck his beef up his own chain of command, until it hit the bona fide skinny coming down.
At the same time, he couldn’t just pretend a missile-armed warship with an inquisitive—no, actually somewhat hostile-sounding—commanding officer wasn’t within striking range. Off the Sinai, inside a declared security zone during the Six-Day War, USS Liberty had been attacked and badly damaged by Israeli jets and torpedo boats. If the State of Israel felt threatened, Savo had better look to her defenses. He lifted the portable radio again, then changed his mind and used the 21MC. He wasn’t sure how far outside the skin of the ship someone could eavesdrop on Hydra transmissions. “TAO, CO: Fifteen seconds’ illumination of INS Lahav with SPQ-9.”
“Shine her with the gun radar?”
“Affirmative.”
A minute later she was back on the intercom. “Bridge, TAO: Incoming threat emitter, I-band radar, bearing one one five.”
He squinted along the gyrocompass repeater, just to confirm it was Lahav, beaming back the same challenge he’d just aimed at her. The corvette lay under a gray storm-cloud, menacing, holding her distance, neither closing nor opening. “Threat emitter ceased, time five one,” Staurulakis added.
He checked his watch. “Very well. I’m going to need a message—”
“Already up on high-side chat with CTF 61 TAO. Keeping them informed in real time, sir.”
“Good. Real good, Cheryl. Let’s double up on our EW watch, one on three sixty, one on this guy—”
“Manning up Console Two now.”
“Okay, Cher. Good work.” He signed off, almost resenting the calm rational voice that was always a step ahead. Looked out to the distant speck once more. Beyond it lay a land embattled, and beyond that, one about to be invaded. Somehow he had to share intel with the Israelis. Or at least get their watchdog off his back. But how? If only he had a genie aboard. He’d wish Savo Island and her crew far from here. No, he’d wish war itself and the eternal suspicion between nations, classes, and those of different hues of skin, over and done, existing only in a past of myth and legend. Something you read about in the history books, like the centuries-long duel between the Romans and the Parthians …
“Captain?” Almarshadi’s thin, nervous features were shadowed like a foretaste of dusk. “Boat crew’s wondering, it’s really looking like it’s going to kick up, they’re not sure they can stay out much longer. Got a call from the XO on Pittsburgh, too. What’s the plan? When’s Captain Youngblood heading back?”
“Call the whaleboat in, Fahad. We’ll call him away before it blows any harder. I’ll come down to see him off.” He turned away, gripping the overhead cable as Savo leaned into a roll that seemed to have no end.
But war wasn’t going to end. Not as long as men were men, and contended each against the other on a steadily eroding sphere compounded of the dust of the dead. Wish all he liked. There’d still be violence. Still be war. Most relentless of the Four Horsemen. And doubly bitter because Man, along with the ants, was a species that inflicted its greatest plague on itself.