“EMERGENCY breakaway,” Dan told Amy Singhe, and the pilothouse filled with shouting and the drone of the ship’s whistle. Five short blasts. The distance line was hustled in hand over hand. Aft and below, the refueling gang danced their intricate pavane. The boatswain tripped the pelican hook with a clank audible even high on the bridge wing. The heavy black hose through which Savo had sucked as at some massive teat withdrew up its supporting cable in spasms and starts. As the ships began to pull apart, the linehandlers paid out the inhaul line, faster and faster, as it snaked back to the departing oiler.
Two days after the near collision, late in the afternoon, he reclined in the leather chair on the port wing under a cloudy low sky. Ceiling two hundred feet, winds southwest, seas four to six feet. Engines 1A and 2B on the line, generators one and two, steering unit B. Singhe had taken the conn for the replenishment. She’d arrowed in too fast, making them all hinky as the massive swollen stern of USNS Kanawha had loomed too suddenly. At his cautionary murmur, though, she’d slowed, and dropped them into the refueling slot fifty yards off the oiler’s starboard side with seasoned aplomb.
He stole a glance at the strike lieutenant as she crouched, peeping through the bearing circle. “Watch your stern,” he cautioned. “She’s gonna swing fast if you put a hard rudder to her.” Every word sounded like a double entendre.
She spared him one cool glance, eyebrow lifted, full lips curved in an equivocal half smile, then bent to the pelorus again. “Come to course two-seven-zero. Engines ahead standard, indicate pitch and turns for fifteen knots.”
“My rudder is right, coming to course two-seven-zero.” Dan’s gaze locked with the helmsman’s. Was that half a wink, as the seaman suppressed his own chuckle? “Engines ahead standard, fifteen knots.”
He leaned back, opening the focus of his attention as Savo’s fantail, with the outboard-slanted canisters of Harpoon launchers, cleared Kanawha’s bow. The whipped-cream white of her wake frothed a curving path on pristine sea.
A mile away, another leaden shadow lurked in the haze: nearly as large as Savo, but her profile less lofty, more rakish, radar panels set lower on her superstructure. USS Mitscher was an Arleigh Burke–class destroyer. Nine thousand tons full load, five hundred–plus feet long, with much the same sensors and weapons, but without Savo’s antiballistic capability. Slightly faster and more heavily armored, with a stealthier radar profile, Mitscher would be riding shotgun for him as CTG 151.7 penetrated the most heavily traveled, fiercely disputed strait in the world. Dan didn’t know her skipper, Frank “Stony” Stonecipher, but had downloaded his bio and discussed him with Jenn Roald on the “red phone,” point-to-point secure satcomm. Roald said he was a good guy, one Dan could depend on. “My N4 says HM&E and CS are both readiness status one. She has a full ordnance loadout and her Aegis is at 98 percent. If you have to fight your way in, you’re both as ready as we can make you. If, that is, nobody’s been gundecking his reports. Over.”
“No gundecking here, Commodore, but I could use some horsepower on those aux gen parts. Plus, we never heard back from Bethesda on assistance on those recurrent infections. Over.”
“You’re sure these aren’t just dust? I get a lot of reports of dust infections when we’re operating in the Gulf. Over.”
“No ma’am. People don’t die from dust. We need some expert advice. Over.”
She’d promised to buck the issue up the line, but said that if it was getting to be an operational issue, he should look to his local chop chain for help.
He’d ended the conversation with a sense of the growing distance between them. He belonged to Roald for spare parts and manning, but out here, his sailing orders came from Bahrain. Commander, Fifth Fleet, directed operations in the Gulf, Red Sea, and Arabian Sea. In theory, parts, manning, and administration followed you seamlessly, no matter who your operational commander was. But in practice, the farther from home port, the more interruptions and delays along the way.
He leaned back, taking advantage of a break before heading back to Combat to review what exactly they were sticking their heads into. The flurry of messages was getting overwhelming, just like before every major flap. He glanced out at Mitscher again. Both ships were coming to a course for the eastern entrance to Hormuz. The destroyer’s station during the first part of the transit would be one thousand yards to starboard of Savo Island. This would place her between the cruiser and the coast. Carrier Strike Group One, centered on Carl Vinson, and Strike Group Nine, with Abraham Lincoln, would take turns providing continuous air cover.
Just that morning, as if to ratchet things up another notch, the Iranians had announced five days of major naval maneuvers. Both sides had put out Notices to Mariners, so it was hard to believe any commercial skipper would sail unaware of the brewing confrontation.
“Captain?” Cheryl Staurulakis, with Mills behind her. “You asked us to scrub down the Fifth Fleet ROEs against our combat doctrine. Got the results, if you have thirty minutes. Or we can give you the thirty-thousand-foot overview, and just leave the marked-up copy.”
Dan accepted the document and relaxed back into the chair, digging at the tension in his neck and back. The sky ahead was smudged and obscured by the nearly invisible dust that in July and August rose from the deserts. The Iranians liked to pull the eagle’s tail. Test American resolve. If it ever flagged, the rickety, artificial structure of monarchies and emirates lining the west side of the Gulf, inherited from the British Empire, would crumble. Iran would control the Middle East, and the world would change.
“Okay,” he murmured. “Let’s get to it.”
* * *
THEY gathered over a chart laid out on the dead-reckoning tracer, in the antisubmarine plot area back of Combat. Staurulakis, Mills, Chief Van Gogh, and Bart Danenhower. Exec, operations, navigation, engineering. Maybe he should have invited Wenck, Singhe, and the ship’s senior cryppie, but he’d always felt the smaller a meeting was, the better. He shuddered in the frigid air and leaned over the paper chart with its soft blues and tans, sea and desert. “I want to hit our most exposed position no later than eleven hundred. I need daylight in the Knuckle, and through the hundred-mile transit.” He waved a hand over the deep Gulf of Oman, their current position; then swept it westward, into the Gulf.
Heading in, the Strait of Hormuz kinked left around the Omani Peninsula. The International Maritime Organization had set up two transit lanes, each a mile wide. The southern lane was for outbound ships, the northern for those inbound to the refineries and terminals of the Gulf. The Knuckle was only twenty miles wide, with the Iranian-garrisoned Qeshm Island to the north and the (more or less) friendly Oman to the south. Then it bent southwest toward Dubai.
Dan had navigated here before. It was another labyrinth, a twisting, obstacle-littered gut of shallow sea dotted with production facilities, pumping stations, onload facilities, desert islands, barely awash reefs, and abandoned, cut-down drill platforms that stuck up to within a few feet of the surface … not to mention a ship every six minutes heading in as a like number exited. Just navigating would be a challenge. Doing so at full alert would test crew and sensors to their limits.
He turned to Van Gogh. “Chief, first thing, make sure we have all the Notices to Mariners entered. Matt, I need the boundaries the Iranians promulgated for—what are they calling it?”
Mills said, “There are actually two exercises. The regular navy maneuvers are announced from the strait to the quote ‘northern part of Indian Ocean.’ Missile live fires and ASW free play. No geographic limits promulgated yet.”
“And the Pasdaran?” Staurulakis asked.
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced the ‘Velayat-e’ Exercises in the southern part of the Gulf. Here.” Mills straight-edged it in.
Dan leaned in. A rough rectangle about twenty miles wide by thirty in depth. But not at the Knuckle. Instead, lodged deep inside the strait, like a pebble in a windpipe. It began at the thirty-meter line off the Forur Shoal and extended seaward, cornered by four islands, all Iranian or Iranian-claimed: Forur, Sirri, Abu Musa, and Kuchek.
Dan swallowed. He knew these desolate sandy islands all too well.
“Right across the shipping lanes,” Van Gogh observed.
The operations officer said, “And they advise commercial traffic to stand clear.”
“Which effectively closes the strait.” Dan straightened, set his palms to his back, and stretched. “All right, that makes it simple. Plot us a course right through the square. We won’t be alone, with dedicated F/A-18 coverage from the carriers. Now … battle orders. This is the last chance we’ll have to look over them. So let’s make sure there are absolutely no holes.”
* * *
HE didn’t get much sleep that night. Traffic was heavy coming out, as if eager to beat a deadline. Tankers by the dozen, containerships, oceangoing tugs plodding along with rigs in tow, liquid natural gas tankers with bulbous white tanks, like floating bombs. He’d left word to be awakened when they passed 26 degrees north. But when the call came, he was already up and dressed, showered and shaved.
He met his own gaze in the mirror of the sea cabin. Whether he felt up to it or not, men and women would depend on him today. He’d have to make the right decisions. Reach beyond what he felt he could do, and then do even more.
He stared into tired gray eyes mitered by wrinkles. Then closed them, and asked for help.
* * *
0500. He stood flipping through the morning traffic on the bridge. Van Gogh had calculated local dawn at 0532, but already the east was brightening and the temperature rising. The swells were gentling as they moved in between the ramparts of land. Mitscher was on station four hundred yards ahead. Oman was off to port, the terrifyingly vertiginous cliffs of the northern peninsula and islands jumping straight up out of the sea. One headland behind the other, they were still dark, but shortly would illuminate in hues of rose and ocher.
The 21MC announced, “Stand by for on top.” A growing roar drew him out on the bridge wing. Two black arrow shapes howled over, no more than three hundred yards up, tail cones glowing bright orange in the half light, and dwindled, peeling off toward the strait.
“I’ll be in Combat,” he told the pilothouse at large. As the door slammed behind him the boatswain announced, “Captain’s off the bridge.” Then the 1MC, also in Nuckols’s voice but much louder, said all over the ship, “Flight quarters, flight quarters! All hands man your flight quarters stations. Remove all covers topside. The smoking lamp is out on all weather decks. Muster the crash and salvage team with the team leader in the helo hangar. Now flight quarters.”
* * *
COMBAT was frigid, as usual. But this time, anticipating hours in the chair, he’d brought his foul-weather jacket and a pair of uniform gloves. Donnie Wenck waved; Petty Officer Terranova barely glanced up from her SPY-1 console. The rest of the stations were manned, and a murmuration of voices and a rattle of keyboards underlay the constant hiss of the ventilation.
He settled into his seat with a sigh, booted up, and ran through the priority traffic while keeping half an eye on Red Hawk’s launch, clicking to follow comms with the helo through his headset. Aegis was already tracking eighty contacts in the strait area, but he wanted the SH-60B out ahead. The Seahawk had night vision, onboard electronic eavesdropping, and a data link, extending his radar, and ESM horizon, and giving him the option of visual checks on any contacts that seemed threatening. He gave permission for a green deck.
“Helo away,” announced the 1MC. “All hands secure from flight quarters.”
“Clear, coming to zero zero zero,” “Strafer” Wilker drawled, reporting to the air control supervisor eight consoles behind Dan. “Man, it’s just paved with fuckin’ ships out here.” “Storm” Differey was the copilot, with two crewmen. Four souls he had to remember, if things got dicey. “Okay, got a little trouble here … red light on number one DLA.” Wilker and the controller discussed it, concluding that since the forward data link antenna had just gone tango uniform, Strafer would have to keep the nose pointed away from the ship for the data link to work at ranges over thirty miles.
Dan filed that away too. The helo also had some strike capability, with machine guns and laser-guided Hellfires, but it would be dangerous to pit it against anything with a real air defense. Dan planned to keep him in the air for three hours, recover for refuel and rest, and have him aloft again as they approached the IRGC exercise area.
A silent Longley placed a covered tray and carafe on the table. Dan acknowledged with a nod, focusing now on the large-screen displays. The F-18s were just outside Iranian territorial waters, angling west at five hundred knots. Loitering speed, for them. He was noting the commercial air corridors, prominently displayed on the LSDs, when two threat symbols lit. Wilker called in, the display locating him over the entrance to the Knuckle. “Two gatekeepers hanging out here. Look like Combattante fast attack. I’m gonna moon you so you can—”
Dan cut in: “Red Hawk, this is Matador Actual. Don’t let your data link positioning affect your tactics. Just make voice reports. Over.”
La Combattantes, or Kama/Sina–class missile patrol boats, were regular Iranian Navy units. They were fast, displaced about three hundred tons, and were armed with automatic guns and antiship missiles. But they were deficient in sensors and not data-linked. A threat at close range, but with the fighters streaking overhead, Dan figured, they’d stand clear. At least while he and Mitscher went in. Coming out, with magazines depleted, maybe damaged and low on fuel, might be a different story. So far, he didn’t have a port of call inside the Gulf. Manama was apparently leaving that up in the air, seeing which way the cat would jump.
To his right at the command desk was the general quarters TAO, Matt Mills, in the seat Cheryl had used to occupy. Now, as exec, she’d be Dan’s alternate, and supervise on the bridge . Past him Wenck was at the OS chief’s station. Donnie could turn in his chair and talk to the Terror, at the Aegis console behind him. Dan’s antisubmarine staff was behind him to his left; his surface strike team, headed by Amy Singhe, directly behind; to his right, the air control people and his electronic warfare sensor operators.
All in all, almost thirty people in CIC and four more in Sonar, next door through the traditional black canvas curtain.
Dan pulled the napkin off the tray. French toast, scrambled eggs, bacon. He made himself take ten bites, chew, and swallow, to keep the blood sugar up.
Over the next hour they closed the Knuckle. Traffic was light going in, but outgoing was bumper to bumper, ships spaced every mile. Red Hawk gave the Combattantes a wide berth, then orbited over the great sweeping bend in the waterway, relaying back radar that showed small boats maneuvering deeper in the strait. Dan and Mills discussed the enemy order of battle, trying to work out who was where. Dan kept Mitscher and Savo in the middle of the incoming lane, so no one could accuse them of violating territorial boundaries.
Electronic warfare data started coming in, both from Red Hawk and from Savo’s and Mitscher’s own eavesdropping. Aegis correlated them with radar and cross-bearings to show where the Pasdaran was gathering. C-802 batteries were lighting up on Larak Island, and on the Iranian mainland behind it.
Chin propped on his fists, Dan mused on the murky history of the C-802. The missile had originally been a Chinese design, but the Iranians had reverse-engineered it with North Korean help. They were near-supersonic sea-skimmers with a pop-up maneuver at the end of their flight profiles. Dangerous, but his EW team had trained for hundreds of hours to jam them. And when they’d faced Syrian 802s in the Med, Wenck and Dr. Noblos had come up with a way to hijack the missiles’ link to their launching point, and reprogram their targeting. “Backseat Driver” had proven its worth off Israel. And if jamming, spoofing, and chaff didn’t work, he could shoot them down.
But if they overwhelmed him, in dozens stagger-fired from different locations to converge with a single time-on-target …
Lounging in his seat, shivering, he wondered if Savo had been sent in as a deliberate provocation. After all, they’d nearly sunk an Iranian frigate last winter. And Dan personally had tangled with Iran several times.
Or was that paranoia, megalomania, persecution complex? Surely no one cared.
On the other hand, it could be just enough to convince the other side they were being deliberately goaded.
* * *
AS he’d expected, the Combattantes stood off as the U.S. warships passed. Red Hawk reported that the small contacts spaced along the northern boundary of the international strait were dhows. Dan suspected these were transmitting targeting data to the missile batteries, which remained locked on. Wenck asked if they should do some decoying drills, but Dan put a foot down. This was no time for simulations. The potential for misunderstanding, or simple fuckup, was too great. He maintained a steady twenty knots, covering ground while not burning too much fuel.
Unfortunately, after the task group had passed, the missile boats drifted south, then fell in astern, following them in. Staying in their wake, but maintaining a standoff of about ten miles.
If they were the gatekeepers, the gates were swinging shut.
By the time the clock above the LSDs read 0700 he was exiting the Knuckle, passing south of Larak Island with four antiship missile radars locked on Savo Island. The exterior cameras were picturing a gentling sea, a blood-scarlet, cloudy horizon beneath the risen sun, when Lieutenant Singhe leaned on the back of Dan’s chair. “Sir. A word.”
“Shoot. I mean—guess I shouldn’t say that just now.”
She didn’t crack the slightest smile. Just leaned in, dropping her voice. “You wanted us to spin up Tomahawks on every C-802 battery we identified. How about a warning shot?”
This was a surprise. Savo could do limited land-attack mission planning onboard. But he couldn’t “spin up,” or prelaunch program, a TLAM without Fifth Fleet authorization. Still, he had ordered Mills and Singhe to do engagement planning. “Uh … you’re not really spinning up, are you?”
“Well, no. Just building the missions.”
“That’s better. But, you’re proposing a first strike? On the Iranian mainland? I don’t think so, Amy.”
“They’re illuminating us in firing mode. That’s a hostile act, according to our rules of engagement.”
Dan cleared his throat. “There’s something you have to learn about ROEs, Amy. There’s the ‘ought to be’ and ‘what they say it is,’ and then there’s ‘how it’s interpreted.’ And after all that, there’s ‘what we do anyway.’”
“I’m beginning to see that, sir.”
“But regardless of any and all of the above, I’m not out here to kick off a war.”
“Sir, with all due respect, that’s idiotic. As soon as we detect one launch, we should pull the trigger on every site we have localized.”
Dan tensed, suddenly angry. Idiotic? “I’m not disagreeing with you, Amy, but I don’t have that authority. I could release an overwater strike, on a surface unit. But a strike on the mainland, no way. I appreciate your aggressiveness, but you need to stand down. And reread your battle orders.”
She was frowning, those luxuriant eyebrows knitted. Seemed about to say something more, but Dan spoke first. “Let me make something clear, Lieutenant.”
“Yes sir. Listening.”
“We’re not out here alone. Us and Mitscher. Along with our Tomahawks, we have over a hundred more dialed in from the battle group, on every airstrip, tank farm, naval base, and barracks along the coast. Two wings of strike aircraft on fifteen-minute alert, and B-52s out of Diego Garcia behind that. We’re just the cheese on the mousetrap, see? If the Iranians feel like taking a bite, they’ll regret it.” He hesitated, eyeing the long strip of Qeshm. Not for the first time, he imagined how easily the Marines could take the whole island and, with two miles of water between it and the mainland, wall Iran itself off from the strait.
That would mean all-out war, of course. But it might come to that, if both sides kept pushing chips into the pot.
She nodded slowly. “But do they know that?”
“Believe me, they do. This is a ritual dance, Amy. Like bees do, to send a message. It’s complicated. If anybody gets the steps wrong, things can go south fast. But all we have to do is steam in and then steam out. This is a freedom-of-navigation operation. A transit passage. And nothing more. So we’re not going to initiate anything that could be portrayed as an aggressive action. Understand?”
She hesitated, then nodded again. Straightened, and went back to her station, leaving a quick glance of dark eyes and the scent of sandalwood.
* * *
CHERYL Staurulakis came in at 0900. Dan got up and stretched. “XO, I’m going up to the bridge, have a look around. Let me know if anything starts.”
“Yessir.”
He stopped in his cabin and took a leak. Glanced out the little forward-facing porthole at a flat, dusty, light-filled sea. Still shivering; even with the foul-weather jacket, CIC had been freezing. At least on the bridge, it would be warm.
The pilothouse was so quiet he could hear the chronometer ticking over the nav table. Everyone had flash gear ready: hood, gloves, goggles, gas masks buckled to thighs. He paced from the starboard side, where Iran was visible as a low, sere coastline, to port. Where four tankers spaced out toward the west, growing smaller and smaller, like old photos of the Great White Fleet. The sea had smoothed, though the monsoon wind still blew. The sky was still overcast, but now with a queer reddish tinge to the slate, from all the refineries, plus the ever-present sand.
He nodded to the 25mm remote console operators. Wondering if what he’d told Singhe was totally true. About this being a message … that was clear enough. But the part about everyone knowing the steps … that was less self-evident. Especially when the Revolutionary Guard were involved. They were known to act independently of the regular navy, and sometimes, even, of the political leadership.
His Hydra beeped. “Captain,” he snapped.
“Sir, Weps here. Got a train issue glitch in Mount 22 … the port CIWS.”
“What’s up?”
“Not sure yet. Failure in the train mechanism, or possibly the card that controls it.”
Dan tried to keep his voice level. If a C-802 popped over the horizon, near supersonic at twenty feet above the water, and jamming and decoys failed, the Sea Whiz was the last card he could play before seeing what three hundred pounds of armor-piercing high explosive did to an aluminum superstructure. “This is a bad time for gremlins, Ollie.”
“Realize that, sir. Got the first team up there doing fault isolation now.”
“Get it fixed. Report back.” He snapped off, realized everyone on the bridge was watching, and tried to look unconcerned.
But it wasn’t easy.
* * *
BACK in Combat, he juggled a too-hot paper cup at the electronic warfare stacks, reducing the blood content in his coffee stream. The leading EW petty officer was plotting each jammer and fire-control radar that brushed its fingers over them. A golden opportunity to refine the Iranian order of battle. In the intelligence sense, his mission was already a success. The jamming was annoying, but the petty officer assured him it wouldn’t affect their ability to detect launches.
Hoping he was right, Dan strolled to the command seat again. Staurulakis glanced up, looking haggard, hair straggling out of her ponytail. As well she might; she and Dan were standing watch and watch, and the exec had too much to do on her off-hours to waste them sleeping.
“We’re past the Knuckle,” she murmured. “No hostile action yet, but numbers are still building. Think it’s just a bluff?”
Dan stared at the large-screen display, which showed a steady increase in small contacts along the Iranian coast. The exec muttered, “They have to know what we did to their frigate. I wonder if that’s hurt their confidence in their great new missiles.”
“They have more than just 802s,” Dan said. “They’ve got that rocket torpedo. The Shkval-K. And mines. But I worry about all these small craft.”
Staurulakis eyed the screen. “Over two hundred of them … a lot North Korean built … with multiple rocket launchers, missiles, and torpedoes. Plus, yeah, mines, if we let them get in front of us. We don’t have a great detection rate on those.”
“I’ll take it. Thanks, Cheryl.” Dan resumed the command seat, warm where her bottom had just left it, and zoomed in. He keyboarded and moused, pulling out data. Four of the faster contacts might be hovercraft, but as he did the arithmetic his fingers slowed. Sixty contacts out there. Impossible to say which classes without a visual ID from the helo, but he wasn’t sending Red Hawk in among scores of small boats, every one of which probably had Misagh shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles.
If they swarmed him … A Pentagon war game two years before had free-played just that tactic, with horrendous results. He didn’t plan to repeat the mistakes the Blue commander had made. The most essential lesson was that, like a fight in a dark alley, he had to keep the enemy at arm’s length, where better U.S. sensors, data, and long-range weapons could attrite their numbers. In other words, keep them inside his kill zone, while he stayed outside theirs.
The classic strategy against overwhelming forces was to defeat them in detail. Use maneuver and cunning to isolate a portion, wipe that fraction out with superior firepower, then move on to the next engagement with an improved force ratio. Napoleon had used that tactic to perfection.
But two huge ships couldn’t outmaneuver high-powered speedboats and hovercraft skimming over the calm strait. They’d be surrounded, like a wagon train circled by Plains Indians. Then, on signal, all the boats would turn in to attack.
His gaze fastened to the Weapons Inventory screen above the Aegis display. The numbers weren’t tactically satisfying. Even assuming one kill for one shot, and engaging eleven targets per minute, that would leave more than enough boats to overwhelm them … Or, wait … he’d forgotten Mitscher. The destroyer was data-linked and tactically merged with Savo, was for all intents and purposes the same ship, only with double redundancy on sensors and weapons. And he had the F-18s overhead, two low, four more stacked above them, mainly in case the few Iranian jets still operational decided to get into the act, but also on call to help suppress a mass attack.
Okay, things weren’t totally dark. But he couldn’t assume the other side had the same Big Picture, were operating as information-rich as NATO or U.S. forces. Certainly not once Savo and the EA-6B twenty thousand feet up started jamming them. After the Iranian radars blanked, they’d be limited to line of sight, and dust and haze plus comm jamming would make even visual targeting and own-force coordination difficult. He clicked to the air controller’s circuit and asked for each flight of fighter/attacks to make a low pass through the Pasdaran exercise area. And to keep on doing that, to give the impression of endless streams of F-18s screaming in.
“Captain?” Van Gogh, brandishing a rolled-up chart. “You said to keep you posted. See these islands to port? The big one’s Bozorg. The small one past that, Kuchek. Once we pass those, we’re in their op area.”
Dan checked the paper chart against the nav screen, matching longitude first, then latitude. If shots started flying, he had to be absolutely certain they were in the international straits. That would be the first thing the Iranians would accuse him of—violating territorial waters. “Okay, that’s consistent with what I have on the verticals, Chief. Thanks for backing me up.”
“We really gonna call them on this?”
“Absolutely.” Dan wondered why he was even asking.
“So you want this guy now, right?”
The navigator stepped aside. Behind him was SK3 Kaghazchi, the ship’s go-to for translation. Dan murmured, “Hey, Bozorgmehr,” and, after a moment, pointed to the unit commander’s chair. What the hell.
The emigre slid into it, smiling. He was mustached, dark-skinned, in his mid-thirties; his long, closely shaven skull gleamed in the overhead light. Dan was never sure how far to trust him—storekeepers didn’t undergo the toughest clearance requirements—but he had a deep, authoritative bass that sounded like Allah himself on the radio. Dan picked up the Navy Red handset. Time to pimp everybody. Especially Mitscher. “Matador actual for Anvil actual. Over.”
“This is Anvil actual.” Stony’s voice, all right. He must have been sitting by the handset.
“See those small boats ahead? I make sixty of them, in two waves. Over.”
“Copy, concur. I hold them.”
“I’m having the Hornets sweep ahead of us. My intentions are to close up so we can put more fire on target if we have to. Also it’ll make things easier for the air. So move in on me. Interlocked defense.”
“Got it. How close you want me, what direction?”
“Five hundred yards. On a bearing of”—he hesitated—“due north.”
“Coming to station. Over,” Stonecipher said.
“Mitscher’s turning to starboard,” Mills muttered.
Dan signed off and nodded. The enemy had already split his forces, about two-thirds of the boats to the landward of the channel, the other third to port, south of the oncoming Americans.
Time to let them know what he expected, and what would happen if they didn’t comply. He gave Kaghazchi his instructions, making sure the guy understood what he wanted to communicate. Five miles’ standoff. No illumination by fire-control radars. A clear warning he’d open fire if any surface craft closed in. “Tell ’em we want innocent transit, as defined by international law. Let us through, stand clear, and no one has to die for his country.”
The bushy eyebrows lifted, but Kaghazchi nodded. They went over the phrasing, then Dan called Radio and warned them to start taping. He switched to International Call and passed the storekeeper the handset.
As the Persian intoned the warning, Dan concentrated on the twenty miles ahead. The pips to starboard had divided again. That made three groups now, two to starboard, one to port. Like a gauntlet the Americans would have to run.
Now he had to step back. There was always a temptation to fulfill a scenario, to make reality square with what you expected. Like it or not, now he just had to wait. Ceding the initiative, but that was how it had to be.
“Any response?” he asked. The translator shrugged and waggled his head. Dan took that for a no, and reached for the red phone.
“Anvil, this is Matador. Copy us going out to them on VHF?”
“Loud and clear. Over.”
“We’re not hearing anything back. You?”
“Nada. Weapons tight here. Over.”
“Concur,” he said. “But stand by for tactical maneuvering. Matador out.”
He drew a slow breath, running it all through his mind again. Someday computers would do all this. Evaluate, plan, then maneuver ships in battle. Someday soon, most likely.
But not just yet.
Above all, he wasn’t going to the mat with these guys. If they wanted a battle, they’d have it. But on his terms. Only a fool fought a fair fight.
Donnie Wenck leaned over. “Something you wanna see. We don’t have it on the screen, because it ain’t painting regular—”
“What is it, Donnie? I mean, Chief? I’m kind of busy here—”
“Just come over and look.”
At the SPY console he peered over Terranova’s shoulder for several seconds before he saw what she was pointing at. The merest flicker. It didn’t register with every sweep. Sometimes several beams swept past before it painted again, like a luminescent jelly, deep underwater. Only this, if it was there, was way up there.
“How high is this?” he muttered.
“When it paints, I get around seventy thousand feet,” the Terror murmured.
“Holy shit. What the hell is it?”
“A UFO.” Wenck smirked.
“You shitting me?”
“Well, maybe some kind of upper-atmosphere disturbance? There’s something called a ‘sprite,’ but they’re associated with major lightning storms. The course and speed … hard to calculate, and it drifts this way and that, but overall, seems to be about two-two-zero.”
“How fast?”
“Hard to calculate, like I said … sixty knots?”
Two-two-zero was close to their own course out of the Knuckle. Was it following them? Tracking Savo Island through the strait? That seemed unlikely. Seventy thousand feet was where the high-altitude recon birds lived, the U-2, the SR-71. And they were fast burners. That high, that slow, what could it be? “A rogue weather balloon, or some kind of upper-atmosphere physics experiment, is all we could come up with,” Wenck said. “Anyway, figured you oughta know.”
“Pass it to ComFifth. Probably nothing, but they need to know if it’s some kind of local environment thing.”
Dan patted Terranova’s well-padded shoulder, cleared his throat, and pulled himself back to the problem at hand. He couldn’t just wait. On the other hand, he couldn’t pick a fight. He went over it all again in his head, hoping he wasn’t getting ready to really screw up, then grabbed the handset. “Red Hawk, Matador Actual.”
“202, over. Hey, Skipper.”
“Hey. Confirm, you hold altitude limitations on Misaghs. Over.”
“We have angels three on Misaghs. Over.”
“That’s correct,” Mills put in from the TAO’s seat.
Glancing over, Dan saw the redbound book open in front of him. “Um, confirm angels three on this end. Now listen up. We talked last night about maybe trailing some bacon in front of these guys?”
“Coming left, to conform to your base course.”
Dan checked the pip that was Red Hawk 202. Five miles ahead, with the speed vector out front. Good. “Okay. Run the ball up the middle, but stay above angels four. No … make it five. And keep your finger on that flare button.”
“Giving them a sniff?” Donnie Wenck muttered.
Dan didn’t answer. The leftmost screen changed, became hurtling waves: in black and white, jerky, because of the bandwidth limitations, but real-time video from the helo. It flinched right, left, then steadied on four boats skipping white trails across black water. In classic line abreast, like the old movies of World War II PT boats. They looked closer than they ought to from five thousand feet, but that might just be the magnification. Dan murmured, “Matt, get our speed up. Also, pass to EW and the EA-6B, to start jamming their radars and comms.” He picked up the red handset to Mitscher. “Matador actual. Stand by.”
“Anvil, standing by.”
From one of the speeding boats, a point of light ignited. The next frame showed it lancing upward at the tip of a cone of shining cloud.
Dan said, enunciating clearly, because this was being taped and would be gone over many times: “This is Matador. My helo is taking hostile fire. Execute form one. Flank speed. Interval five.” Out of the background noise he registered the CIC watch officer passing the same order over fleet tactical, then over the HF blower to the fleet commander.
“Roger. I see them. Maneuvering now.” And simultaneously over the other circuit, from the destroyer’s OOD, “Form one, speed three zero, roger, out.”
Dan pressed the 21MC lever. “Bridge, CO. Exec, execute Bacon Sandwich. Ahead flank emergency. Left hard rudder, pull us out to port.”
On the screen, the picture jerked, then banked crazily as Red Hawk tilted away. Sky filled the screen, then was replaced by video from the ship’s own forward gun camera. Wenck was thinking ahead, feeding Dan information via the screens. The flat, nearly calm sea. And above it, in the distance, a fleeing speck, striding away on what looked like immense spider-legs of flame-tipped smoke that spiraled slowly downward. “Strafer” Wilker, crapping flares as more missiles climbed after him.
The EW operator called, “Racket, racket. Heavy jamming, R band, correlates with EA-6B.”
Dan said, “Okay, but are we jamming too? I don’t want these guys to be able to coordinate their movements.”
Mills said they were, at the same moment the air controller stated, in Dan’s headset, “SAM, SAM! Red Hawk reports taking fire. Initiating evasive action.”
“Tell him to clear to the west and circle to his port. Pick out a target, but hold fire.”
The order went down the line. Dan studied the screen as Savo Island shuddered as if in orgasm, leaning into the turn, then out again as the rudders bit deep and the engines, full out, pushed her faster and faster. He wasn’t going to outrun a hovercraft, but he could remold the tactical situation. Three small islands lay south of where the leftward cluster of boats milled. He had just enough water to go between two of them. The major unknown was going to be, first, if whoever was in charge of the southern gaggle tumbled to what he was doing, and second, if that commander could communicate his countermove fast enough to forestall Dan’s.
“Matador, this is Anvil. In your wake five-hundred-yards interval. Conforming to your movements. Over.”
Dan acknowledged, and added a sentence explaining his aim. Beside him, Mills was passing the information to Fifth Fleet and Strike One. On the big screen, the southern group were still milling around, not moving in one direction or the other. As if they couldn’t use their tactical radio channel anymore … since the Prowler, far above, was broadcasting enough jamming power to light up a small city.
Time to further isolate the battlefield. “Air Control, CO. Pass to the F-18s. Our helo’s been fired on. He’s clearing to the west. Focus on the boats to the north of a line between the islands Forur and Kuchek. That is, the formation closest to the mainland. If any cross the transit lane heading south: warning shots, then take them out. But weapons tight on anyone moving north.” He made the petty officer repeat that, then clicked his Hydra on. “Cheryl, CO.”
“XO, over.”
“Got the picture here? Between the shoal area to port and the low island bearing about one-niner-zero true. Keep Van Gogh on the GPS. Watch the fathometer, but take us through at flank. Mitscher will follow. When we’re clear, we’ll come right, and weapons free at that time.”
She rogered. Dan made sure Mills had that too, and the orders rippled away. He gripped the chair arms. The whole ship was shaking, vibrating as sheer power wedged the sea apart. The speed indicator trembled just short of 35. “Start designating targets,” he told Mills. The Aegis picture jumped forward as the combat system began selecting targets and assigning ordnance. He checked on the helo. Still out to the west, completing a lazy circle as the first two F-18s dived, their altitude readouts spinning downward, toward the transit lane.
So far, so good. With eight Hellfires hanging off his pylons, Wilker would hit the enemy from the west, while Savo and Mitscher slammed the door to the south. The islands and shoals would pen the Pasdaran in to the west and eastward, and the F-18s would polish off anybody who tried to come to their aid. On the other hand, for anyone who felt like retreating, the back gate was open. He clicked the Hydra again. “Hold the bubble up there, Cheryl. I’m gonna be too busy to talk. Keep an open channel to Sonar for torpedo warnings. Hold speed once you pass the shoal.”
“XO, roger.”
Mills said, “Southern element’s turning toward.”
“I see it,” Dan told the TAO. “Take with Harpoon.” The screen zoomed, and four pips turned red and began to pulse. Missiles weren’t all he had to worry about. Peykaaps and Tirs carried torpedo tubes, too. If they had Shkvals, they could really be dangerous, but according to intel they didn’t have big enough tubes for it. He hoped that was right.
“Matador, this is Anvil actual. Interrogative: Who’s taking these first four? Over.”
Dan told Stonecipher, “Matador will take first wave. Anvil takes second wave. But keep an eye out behind you for those Combattantes. Out.”
Mills said, tone as even as if this were just another drill, “We have a Harpoon solution. Request batteries released.”
Dan nodded, flicked up the red cover over the Permission switch, and clicked it to On. “Batteries released.”
A distant roar signaled departure of the first Harpoon. A moment later the second left. The third. Then the fourth. They came up on the screen, swiftly departing, with the next clicking rotation of the SPY-1 beam. It would be a short-range engagement, no more than twenty thousand yards. “Anybody we miss, designate to guns,” he told Mills. The five-inches would reach out fifteen thousand yards, with seventy-pound shells proximity-fuzed to burst above the oncoming boats.
“Vampire, Vampire, Vampire!” the EW petty officer yelled. “Missile in the air, X-band emitter, correlates with Sackcloth antiship missile … Vampire number two, in the air.”
Two weapons were headed their way. One from the southern group, the other, with farther to travel, from the north. The NATO reporting name “Sackcloth” was the C-801, the version before the 802. So the Pasdaran had inherited the older missiles.
Sharp bangs echoed through the superstructure as the chaff mortars went off. Someone nudged him; held out a flash hood, gloves, goggles. Dan almost pushed them away, then took them, pulling the heavy fabric over his head. If jamming failed, if the chaff and flares and rubber duckies didn’t decoy it, that missile was coming through the side. He donned the goggles, too, but left the gloves off, to be able to address his keyboard.
On the display, twin carets pulsed red, clicking toward the blue cross of Own Ship with each sweep. “Take with Standard?” Mills asked. Dan shook his head. Their EW team should be able to cope with the earlier-version seeker heads.
“What the fuck is he doing?” Mills breathed, beside him.
Dan glanced back up at the screen, to see the TAO’s pointer highlighting the readout for Red Hawk. The SH-60B was in a tight turn to port, down at two hundred feet. “What’s he doing?” Mills breathed again.
“Vampire, Vampire, Vampire. Two more incoming. Tracks—”
Aegis classified threats and assigned weapons without human intervention. Dan didn’t see any need to interfere with the watch team as they ran the intercepts. To Mills he said, “I’m not sure.” He clicked to the helo coordination net to hear Wilker say, “Tell the Old Man—”
“The Old Man’s on the line.”
“Uh, yessir. Danger close. Madman, Madman. Smoke away. Mark, on top.”
“Streaming the Nixie,” Mills said, beside him. The antitorpedo noisemaker. Not totally dependable, but better than nothing.
Dan sat frozen as the screen showed the first C-801 curving to port, away from Savo and Mitscher. Savo’s electronic warfare team had hijacked its guidance, spoofed it to think they were where they weren’t. But the helo, on its way in from the west to attack the southern gaggle, had just detected a magnetic anomaly in the sea beneath. Dan had gone over the chart carefully before the engagement, looking specifically for wrecks, and there weren’t any marked. At the same time, another part of his brain noted that several boats were organizing out of the gaggle into what looked like a wheeling movement. Even in the absence of communications, someone was trying to coordinate a preplanned attack.
But rehearsing it in drills was nothing like executing it under fire, with your comms jammed, missiles headed at you, and five-inch shells going off overhead in instantaneous blooms of black high-explosive smoke that boomed shock waves across the water like the crack of doom.
“This is Red Hawk. Prosecute, or attack? Over.”
He decided. “Attack as ordered. Stay high. Take out the ones turning south. If they turn north, let ’em go.” He clicked to the Sonar channel. “Zotcher. Copy that datum from Red Hawk?”
Instead he got Rit Carpenter. “On it, Skipper. Designate Goblin Alfa. But we got nothing there. If it’s a sub, he’s doggo on the bottom.”
When he looked at the screen again the semicircle that denoted Red Hawk was passing just to the south of the gaggle, low, at two hundred knots … close to never-exceed speed. Spitting out those sixty-pound homing Hellfires. The contact ahead displayed as a possible submarine. If Savo kept on the course he’d planned, north of Sirri Island, she’d pass within range of its torpedoes. If it was a sub. But if he turned to slide south of Sirri, he’d be in among the rigs and pipelines of the Fateh oil field.
“Red Hawk reports: Eight Hellfires expended. Four detonations, one secondary, lots of smoke. Winchester, Winchester. “Which meant, all ordnance expended.
“Sir, do you need me anymore?” the Persian beside him asked, very politely.
Dan flinched; he’d forgotten Kaghazchi was there. “Um, you can stand by … but stay in CIC, please.—Very well,” he said into the helo net. “Clear to the east, but stand by to light off jamming and spoofing as required. Fuel state?”
“Bingo fuel time twenty.”
Christ, he’d have to recover them soon. He’d boxed his enemy in, but now he was getting boxed himself. And time was running out. He was processing this, with the still-turning missile boats next in line, when Mills breathed, “Bandits.”
When Dan looked up there they were: three, then four tracks just winked into existence above the mainland. The callouts went up: Su-24s. Not the latest and greatest jets, but more than adequate to threaten surface ships. The top cover F/A-18s could deal with four, but if their numbers kept building, the situation might turn dire.
“Matador, this is Anvil. Stand by … Salvo. Taking second assault wave. Over.”
“Roger, out,” Dan muttered. Mitscher was taking on a new wave of boats, but to judge by their ragged intervals, and the fact that several were lagging the leaders, the warrior spirit was flagging. One boat was already fleeing, heading north across the transit lane. If the F-18s let it go, as he’d directed, there’d be more.
Mills was blinking at him. “What’cha think, Matt?” Dan asked him. “Something in your eye?”
“The IIRN bases its Kilos outside the Gulf. The navy and the Pasdaran don’t exercise together, according to a brief I heard. Not a lot of mutual trust.”
“Uh-huh. I heard that too. So our contact’s probably not a Kilo.”
“I’d say, doubtful. But the Guard operates those minisubs.”
“I don’t think it’s a sub at all,” Dan said. “There’s all kinds of metal under the water here. Pipelines. Abandoned drilling structures. Wrecks, from Operation Praying Mantis—we hit the Iranians before, right about here.” He clicked to the ASW circuit. “Rit, Dan. Anything yet on that possub? Goblin Alfa?”
“Not a peep, amigo. I’d let you know.”
Dan let the “amigo” go by. For now. “Can you ping him?”
“Tried, but it’s too shallow to get an active return. Suspect shadow zones, too. Like I said, shallow as shit.”
“At only eight thousand yards?”
“Like I said, Cap’n—”
He clicked off, as the screen showed Mitscher’s Harpoons mowing the oncoming boats down one after the other. Savo’s five-inches were slamming away. So far nothing had gotten into range of the 25s or the Phalanx. Dan had expected to expend several Standards, but so far his electronics were proving a better shield.
An antiship missile had to be smarter than the average weapon. It navigated not to a fixed geographic point, like a cruise missile, but to an area where the target was expected to be. It then had to pick a maneuvering warship out of the sea return and surface clutter, select the real target out of perhaps several ships in range, calculate the most survivable approach geometry, and home in. At any point, it could be foxed. Sea-skimmers were particularly vulnerable to having their radar altimeters pulse-doubled, which aimed them into the sea at six hundred miles an hour … fatal to the missile, but to no one else.
But this was an engagement he couldn’t totally win. He’d hoped to take advantage of the enemy’s dividing his force, hit hard and keep going. By and large, that was a done deal. The gun cameras showed smoke plumes on the horizon, along with the puffs of high explosive as Mitscher’s and Savo’s guns planted a hedgerow of shellbursts in front of any renewed attack. The remaining boats in the southern gaggle were roaring in circles, more and more withdrawing to consolidate with the larger group up along the Iranian coast.
He had no interest in taking them on. Right now, he had to extricate, before the air forces got involved. But the only graceful way out led across the possible submarine. The guy didn’t even have to torpedo him. If he’d quietly shat eight or ten mines across their line of withdrawal, Savo and possibly Mitscher too were toast.
The repetitive whump … whump of five-inch rounds going out ceased. The gunnery officer reported all targets beyond effective range, bores clear, forty rounds expended, no casualties. Dan rogered. Then flinched as Mills touched his elbow. “Um, we got a message on chat,” he muttered.
Dan lowered his gaze reluctantly; this wasn’t the time to screw his head into a computer screen. He’d assumed that once the lead started flying both Fleet and Strike One had been monitoring his tactical comms. Mills had been feeding them information too. So he grunted “Huh?” now as he read.
DARK HORSE: Point of this operation is to establish free passage through SOH transit lanes. Is it commander’s intent not to complete transit?
“Fuck,” he muttered. Dark Horse was Fifth Fleet, in Bahrain. From the wording, it was some staff puke assigned to monitor the op, not Fleet himself. But he’d have to answer, and from the phrasing, a simple “yes” wouldn’t suffice.
It had been his intent, given the possible sub contact, and the increasing number of aircraft beginning to swarm like aroused hornets over the mainland, to cut south. From there, he could either put in to the U.S. naval facility in Jebel Ali to refuel, or else proceed, at a lower speed, up the Gulf to Bahrain. He typed back.
MATADOR: Enemy air activity increasing. Intent is to withdraw south out of the transit area and await orders.
DARK HORSE: Your orders are to quote complete passage unquote through SOH transit lanes. You have not completed passage unless you exit via the western entry/exit point of the traffic separation scheme.
“Oh, fuck me,” Dan muttered. Was this guy for real? Wasn’t transiting the Knuckle, and blasting the shit out of the Pasdaran, enough? With a sinking heart, he realized it might not. If Savo and Mitscher didn’t complete the full passage, tomorrow the Iranians would be crowing they’d driven them off, held the ground, and won the battle.
He scanned the displays, making sure he wasn’t fumbling the tactical picture. Two more missiles had been splashed, one by jamming, the other by a Standard from Mitscher. As he watched, a third Vampire continued inbound. They were coming in on the starboard quarter, overtaking, and popping up in such a way that he couldn’t tell even from Aegis where they’d been fired from. They just appeared, about twenty miles out, barely enough time to get EW on them before things got really interesting. He snapped his IC switch to the antiair circuit, to hear his own coordinator speaking swiftly, voice overlain at times by the EW operators’. “Correlates C-802. Jamming ineffective. Seeing a hard turn now to bird’s port. Crossing engagement—”
“Stand by to take with birds.”
“Outside Matador engagement envelope—”
“This is Anvil. We’ll take with Phalanx.”
He tensed as, on the screen, the incomer neared Mitscher, and the babble of voices attained a new intensity. A quarter minute later Mills murmured, “Splash track 8617 … but Mitscher may have damage.”
“What kind? How serious? Get a report.”
“Wait one … They engaged with CIWS. Main warhead exploded prematurely, but airframe elements impacted aft.”
“Roger. Damage assessment as soon as possible.” He contemplated asking Stonecipher for it, but didn’t; the other CO would have enough on his plate without Dan riding him.
He sucked a deep breath, and with it the unmistakable scent of sandalwood. Then hands were on his back, his neck, digging in, loosening the knots locking up his neck and upper back. Despite himself, he leaned back, sighing, closing his eyes. Letting the tension ease, just for a millisecond.
Then opened them again, to catch Mills’s astonished stare, and Wenck’s, and most everyone else’s at or near the command desk, too. He mumbled, “Uh, thanks, Amy. I mean, Lieutenant. But you … It felt great, but that’s enough of that, I think.”
“It’s Healing Touch. Looked like you needed it, Captain.” She patted his shoulder, then headed back to the Strike console.
Jesus. Okay, back to business … check the display again. He rubbed his face as the display flickered and renewed, as GCCS and the SPY-1 and Sonar and NTDS and the aircraft overhead flooded him with seamless torrents of data. His opponents didn’t have anywhere near this information, this fast, but it was overwhelming him. The southern group had broken. Boats were streaming back across the lane. The northern group, on the other hand, seemed to be holding position, absorbing the fleeing units and turning them around in a chaotic, uneven, but partially reorganized line.
If he was going to go past again, he couldn’t give them time to re-form. If an enemy starts to buckle, you don’t let him catch his breath. He murmured to Mills, “Maintain course, but drop speed to twenty. Make sure Mitscher gets that.”
Four seconds later, the 21MC clicked on. “CO,” he snapped. At his elbow, Longley was trying to pour fresh coffee. Dan waved him away impatiently. Then changed his mind as the CS set a plate with two doughnuts beside it. Plain but sugared, just the way he liked them.
“Captain, exec, on the bridge. Just got the order to drop to twenty. We still headed south?”
Everybody was a step ahead of him today. Well, that was good. “Reconsidering that decision as we speak, XO. Why d’you ask?”
“Got a merchie coming down the pike toward us. Still on the horizon, but looks like he’s headed outbound.”
Dan checked the vertical display again. Astonished, first, that he hadn’t picked it up. Second, that some idiot was so far out of the loop he hadn’t gotten the word that war was breaking out in the strait. But there it was, fifteen miles out, a fat, dumb, doubtlessly happy tanker bopping along at eight knots toward the outbound traffic lane. Which lay empty at the moment, except for the pulsing diamond of the still-stationary suspected submarine. Dan keyed Sonar again. “Rit, I really need an updated classification on that fucking datum.”
This time he got Zotcher’s voice, though. “Working on it, Captain. It’d help to have another MAD pass, though. And a sonobuoy drop.”
“We don’t have time for another pass.” He had to decide. As if goading him still further, when he looked down again, lines had popped up on his chat.
DARK HORSE: Please advise intentions re completing assigned mission.
Dan typed,
MATADOR: Prefer to divert to Jebel Ali. Possible submarine contact in southern TSS.
Stonecipher came up on the voice circuit. “Anvil here. Okay, back in business. Debris impact aft took off one of the comm antennas and the starboard Harpoon launcher. Fortunately the canister was empty. Two guys with minor burns from fuel splash. Redundancy on the antenna. Ready for combat. Over.”
The computer screen scrolled up to read,
DARK HORSE: Clear transit corridors of hostile forces. Use necessary means.
“Did he really say that?” Mills breathed, beside him. “‘Use necessary means’?”
Dan shook his head, hesitating for one more second. Blew out, shaking his head again. Then typed,
MATADOR: Coming NW to 310. Flank speed. Will reenter inbound lane E of Bani Forur and exit at established western check-in point.
He repeated this over the red phone to Stonecipher, adding, “Follow in my wake.” Then spun in his chair and shouted across the compartment, “Bingo fuel, Red Hawk?”
“Bingo, ten minutes.”
“Plant a sonobuoy on Goblin Alfa. Then vector back here for hot refuel.”
The antisubmarine coordinator told him 202 had launched with a full loadout of ordnance but no sonobuoys. “We didn’t expect ASW, Captain. Made the decision to load up with extra bullets instead.”
“That’s okay—well, fuck.”
“Another run isn’t going to tell us anything we don’t already know,” Mills said.
“Skipper, Sonar,” the 21MC at his desk blared, deafeningly loud. Dan turned it down and pressed the Transmit key. “CO.”
“Rit here. A MAD run’s not gonna tell us anything we don’t already know about this turkey.”
“Mr. Mills was just saying the same thing.”
“He’s right. But instead of charging on in, how about we squirt a couple 46s out on that bearing? Let the fish do the work?”
Dan rubbed his chin. The Mark 46s were lightweight homing torpedoes, their digital brains programmed to hunt down submarines in shallow water. Ticos carried them down on the damage-control deck, aft of Medical, to eject with compressed air though tube doors just above the waterline. “What’s the speed differential? Those aren’t fast torpedoes, Rit.”
“They’ll get there ahead of us. And if that’s a minisub sitting on the bottom, he’s gonna do something when he hears those high-speed props headed his way. Pop a bubble decoy, at least.”
“Makes sense. Join us on the ASW circuit, Rit.” Dan snapped his selector. To the ASW officer, Lieutenant Farmer, and out of the side of his mouth to Mills, he muttered, “Okay, waterspace management. There’s not the slightest chance this could be a friendly?”
Mills shook his head. “We don’t operate subs in the Gulf. Nor do any of the trucial states.”
“Uh-huh. Winston?”
The ASW officer agreed with Mills. Dan rasped, “All right, set up. Two Mark 46s out along the bearing, set for circular search around the datum. Get ’em out there ASAP.”
“Copy weapons free, two-shot salvo.”
He confirmed, then leaned back, easing a breath out, looking up at the display. The never-sleeping beam swept over the southern Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the eastern Indian Ocean. He saw and knew with the wisdom of Athena. Wielded the thunderbolts of Zeus. Yet still, obeyed the iron commands of Mars.
Through the fatigue and fear a sudden disenchantment surfaced. Out there, his shells and missiles had torn men apart. Burned and drowned them. His side called them fanatics. They called themselves patriots and believers. But the ineluctable realities of the energy markets meant they had to die, and that sailors had to risk their lives killing them.
He could almost hear Nick Niles grunting Above your pay grade, Lenson. Eyeing him with that amused disgust the vice admiral reserved for him alone, it seemed. He imagined Blair shaking her head too. He took another deep breath and scrubbed his face with a palm, stubble and grit and oil grating on his skin.
The double thud of compressed air shuddered the compartment. “Fish one away … fish two away. Mark, start of run. Time to target, time one five.”
The Mark 46 ran out at over fifty knots. Savo would arrive at the datum twelve minutes after the torpedoes began a circle search, pinging and listening. Either they would sense a submarine and attack, or declare the area clear.
A third possibility existed, of course. That the other skipper could fox or evade his weapons, and loose his own as Savo and Mitscher passed close aboard.
A shiver ran up his back, and his neck knotted. Each breath took an effort, drawn against a narrowing in the throat, a weight on his chest.
But he had his orders. To throw the dice, and let the god of war decide.
He told Mills to have Mitscher open the interval, lag back two miles, and directed Red Hawk to vector to the destroyer for a hot refuel. If the worst happened, they’d be safe, at least. Then he clicked to the General Battle circuit and tried for a confident tone. “This is the Captain. All ahead flank. Indicate turns for thirty knots. Come to course for the Western Entry Point. And stand by.”
* * *
TWO hours later he sagged in his seat, soaked with cold sweat turned to liquid ice by the air-conditioning. Wenck had the helo deck camera up on one of the displays. Black columns of smoke stained the dusty horizon: the sinking, burning boats they’d hit during the first attacks.
His torpedoes had completed runout, circled, but detected nothing. Then, ending their brief consciousnesses, had self-detonated, raising huge plumes of white water to port and then starboard as Savo and, miles astern, Mitscher passed through. Either there was no submarine, or it was keeping its head down. The northern gaggle had made short threatening dashes as if to charge, but were turned back each time by low passes of the carrier air. They’d launched no more missiles, and taken no action as the huge, deep-laden tanker, a Chinese flag, as it happened, churned past. Maybe they’d already made their point: that they could close the strait anytime they liked. And weren’t afraid to die doing it.
He remembered how during previous interferences with navigation, the Iranian state oil company had sold heavily as the price of oil futures peaked, then sold short as the West cleared the sea lanes again. Cashing in as the price rose, then again on the fall.
As corpses drifted in the warm Gulf, tossed by the waves, their sightless faces caressed by the dust-laden wind.
“Secure from general quarters?” Mills asked. Glancing at him, Dan saw awe. Respect. Saw the same expressions around him, from the consoles and watch stations. How strange, that they should look at him this way, while he himself felt only relief they’d survived.
Without a word, he nodded. Unbent, and lurched to his feet. Staggered once, weaving, as his calves cramped. Then stalked silently through his silent crew, until he could dog a steel door between him and them.