Show of Force (33 page)

“Perfect, Spy. . . . Hold it for a second.” It appeared to be a type of tender, huge, but it did not move as a heavy ship of that size should. The bow wave was higher and the stern from the rear of the deckhouse was of unusual construction. “Spy Two, can you get a closer look at the stem? Over.”

“Roger, how's that?”

“What do you make of it, Bill?”

“Never saw anything like that.” He turned to one of his assistants. “Get a photo of that down to my boys in the Rumpus Room.” He turned back to David. “We'll see what my experts have to say. It has a hell of a high stern, like an amphib, but there doesn't seem to be any well deck.”

“Nope, no sign of doors either. But I sure don't like that.” He picked up the radio phone, “Spy Two, this is Top Dog One. Thank you for your effort. We have some photos for analysis . . . take care of yourself. Out.”

“Five Rigas through the intercept.” It was a report from another officer. “Looks like they just jammed the stick forward and dropped like a rock.” On the screen, Bill Dailey could see that they were also separating, each now independent as they moved into five different sectors.

Dailey punched a series of buttons. The screen in front of them identified the firing ships defending each of those sectors. Even now electronic information was flowing from the acquisition radars into the fire-control system that would shortly be launching missiles at the intruders.

But already, smaller dots were emerging from the attacking planes as they released their own weapons. And on the screen, they could see their own ships firing at the Rigas in return.

“They did it again,” a voice replied. “Increased speed after we had a solution.” He was referring to the Soviet missiles that seemed to have a two-stage engine. The second stage, faster than the first, was a problem to a fire-control solution.

“Did you get that speed problem into the system the other day, Bill?”

“Right. I just hope it works.” He pushed another button on his console. After studying the screen for a moment, he added, “I don't know, Admiral. We caught it but it delayed our firing time. We're shooting at those missiles on a new solution now.” As they watched, a couple of the missiles fired from the Rigas winked out, but others got past the antimissile fire.

David looked at the screen. Two missiles seemed headed for the same ship. “Who's that?” He pointed at the apparently bracketed ship on the display board.

“Halsey,”
Dailey responded instantly.

“Oh, shit, no!”

On board the guided-missile cruiser
Halsey,
her captain had already put the ship into a tight turn to present as little target as possible, but the missiles were closing at a tremendous speed.

Men on the deck were deafened by the loud chatter of the 20-mm. close-in weapon system (CIWS),
Halsey's
last-ditch effort to bring down the attackers. Bursts of several hundred rounds were streaking out at the incoming missiles, the radar desperately tracking both the stream of uranium bullets and the targets to correct the aim. But it was too late.

One of the missiles might have been hit just before it came in contact with
Halsey,
for the explosion blew off both the fire-control radars on the stern, rather than going off inside the hull. The second missile exploded behind the bridge, after it had penetrated the ship's CIC, destroying the nerve center of the vessel and blowing the forward mack over the side. Her captain rushed to the starboard wing of the bridge to assess the damage visually. For a moment, he saw the aft section of the ship in flames, the damage-control party motionless on the deck. Then the smoke from the forward mack covered the ship as the fires in the forward boilers burned out of control. As it toppled from the superstructure, the forward exhaust stack had forced a rush of air down to the fireroom.

Halsey
was immediately ineffective, the forward fireroom useless, the after missile system inoperative, and the control center of the ship, the combat information center, destroyed. She could neither receive information nor fire a weapon, and she was already at half speed.

Julius A. Purer
was a much smaller ship than
Halsey,
smaller by 150 feet and over four thousand tons. Her captain briefly saw the missile before it hit, possibly because he was horrified watching the bullet stream from his own CIWS system sweep forward as he unfortunately presented his port beam to the attack. The explosion of the missile coupled with that of the forward magazine were simultaneous as far as the men in the aft section were concerned. Those up forward were unaware of the bow breaking off about where the magazine had been. The captain and his GQ team disappeared in a flash of white, along with most of the crew in the forward section of the ship.
Purer
veered to starboard, already beginning to settle in the water, along with more than one hundred of her crew.

When GQ sounded on
Blandy,
Quartermaster Third Class Charles Goddard relieved at the wheel of the old destroyer. It was not as if a junior man were taking such a great responsibility, since Goddard had been in the Navy for more than ten years. He was one of the finest helmsmen in the fleet and a good quartermaster when he was sober. But his liberty hours were always spent finding trouble where others had already looked.

His escapades were legend on the ships he had ridden. Even though he could talk his way out of trouble with the civilian authorities, he too often found himself reduced in rank by an unsympathetic commanding officer.

No matter how many times he appeared at captain's mast, his lovable grin seemed to save him from courts-martial he deserved. Only days before, the captain had threatened to send him to the brig for his latest stunt and again he found himself a third class for the fifth time. Now he was where he belonged, at the helm of
Blandy,
as she steamed toward the enemy.

One missile was Hearing
Blandy
when her 20-mm. shells contacted it. It exploded a good fifty yards from the ship, but the explosion and shrapnel showered the forward part of the vessel, killing most of those in the bridge area. Charlie Goddard, the only one left uninjured, was left in command of
Blandy
as she continued cutting through the ocean at high speed. The flying metal had torn through the pilothouse, cutting down every man but Goddard. The captain lay at his feet, a gaping hole in his chest. Those still alive were moaning or crying for help, but none were left standing. Goddard jammed the wheel in place just for a second and turned to the ship's PA on the bulkhead behind him. His voice boomed out over the ship as he asked the XO to call the bridge. He returned to the helm, a phone tucked under his chin. In a moment, the executive officer called him, learning of the loss on the bridge. Before the man arrived to take over, Goddard had already begun a zigzag course of his own, the headphones to main control lopsided on his head as he called for more speed. As the XO came through the pilothouse door, he found Quartermaster Third Class Goddard in control of the
Blandy
amidst the carnage of the bridge, grinning like a depraved elf as he often did when describing his exploits ashore.

The Rigas had dropped down almost to the surface to escape, and David could see them streaking through the formation. They were helpless, no longer armed, and maneuvering wildly to evade attack.

“For Christ's sake, isn't anyone going to fire?” David called out.

Silence for a moment. Then, “I can't yet, Admiral.” The voice was Bill Dailey's. “They're still too close to other ships in the formation. They're using them to hide behind. We'll get them when they get out to the perimeter.”

“Right. . . very logical. . . it's your baby, Bill. Sorry again.”

“That's all right, Admiral. But that's not my biggest problem. Look at that.” He was pointing at the ASW board. “Those leftover Forgers are going after the helos, trying to free those submarines.” He turned to a man behind him speaking quietly into a headset. “Vector some of those Tomcats to help those helos. Goddamn, they're sitting ducks.”

“Admiral, request permission to release
Valdez
to pick up
Purer
survivors. She's sinking fast.”

Without looking up, Charles answered, “Granted. Bill, send some of those frigates out where the helos are going down. Tell 'em to use anything they've got to fill the water with high explosives. They're the ones who are going to be firing at us.”

“Yes, sir. Perimeter ships have identified Soviet surface-ship radar. They're getting into range, too.”

“We've got longer ranges. We should be attacking now.”

“We are, sir. We've already had some hits, but the group commander reports that Russians are using something to explode our warheads before impact.”

“Sub-launched missiles in the air!” The report cracked out over the enforced silence sharply.
“Nimitz
is the target!” As the report was coming in, an American Tomcat jet was diving on one of the firing submarines, from the stern. Before it could escape below the surface, the sail of
Virona
was hit by two rockets. Fires in the sub's control room had incapacitated its hydraulics and the crew was unable to keep their craft from making a last furious, uncontrolled dive.

The Samson missile, an advanced version of the older Soviet Shaddock, travels at speeds in excess of Mach 2 and carries a warhead containing a thousand pounds of TNT. This was how Kupinsky intended to soften up
Nimitz.
One of the sub-fired missiles was misdirected to the wrong target and managed to blow off the hanger and flight deck of the destroyer
Moosbrugger.
The ship's LAMPS helos had just loaded torpedoes and their detonation left her after section in flames.

The two missiles that hit
Nimitz
created as much damage, but it wasn't as incapacitating for the great ship. One hit near the waterline up forward, blowing a tremendous hole in the hull, but this damage, which would likely have sunk a frigate, barely managed to impede
Nimitz'
speed. The damage-control parties easily isolated the flooding by sealing off the affected compartments. The second hit aft of the bridge, just below the main deck.

The staff damage-control officer soon reported, “No fires forward. Flooding isolated.”

The second blast had been felt in flag plot. It had been much closer. “What about the hit aft,” questioned Dailey, but he halted as he saw the man's hand in the air for silence.

He listened for a second. “Missile penetrated hanger deck just below and abaft the island. . . .” his hand still in the air, listening, “. . . radar tower hanging over the edge ... no aircraft in the area at the time . . . small fires.”

“That's what you call lucky,” added Bill Dailey, but the DC officer's hand was still in the air as more damage was reported.

“After starboard elevator is buckled. Damage Control Central reports it inoperative.”

“Not so lucky,” Admiral Charles added.

“No, sir, but it could have been a hell of a lot worse if we'd been fueling or loading weapons in the area.”

“You're right, of course, Bill.” He grimaced. “But that's only the beginning, I'm afraid.” He gestured at the status board directly in front of them. It was becoming more confused. The forward surface ships had been exchanging missiles since they had been within fifty miles of each other. The first ones were relatively easy to counter. As the ranges drew closer, there was less time to act individually if computer-controlled antimissile systems failed to do their job. The screen was a melange of blinking dots that would occasionally stop on the solid color of a surface ship.

What David Charles was pointing out to Dailey was the acceleration of missiles aimed at
Nimitz.
She was surrounded by ships whose sole duty was to protect the great carrier from just such an attack. The computer's target-designation system was doing a superb job, not to mention the unseen electronic war silently protecting
Nimitz.
The first missile from a surface ship to hit the carrier landed on the forward part of the flight deck, penetrating into the chief's quarters. No one was there while the ship was at GQ. The second missile was not to be confused, nor was it ever intended to land on
Nimitz.
Instead, it settled, rather than fell, in the water less than a mile to starboard.

Nimitz'
commanding officer wasn't fooled. Frank Welles was standing on the starboard wing while his OOD conned the ship. The lookout next to him saw it, too. “'For pedo to starboard, Captain.”

“I see it,” he answered shrilly. “Emergency port,” he bellowed into the pilothouse. “Emergency port, aye,” came the instant answer.

But the giant ship was never designed to turn as quickly as they all hoped. It takes a long time for ninety-three thousand tons and almost eleven hundred feet of ship to turn, even in an emer gency. A mile at sea is only two thousand yards and a high-speed homing torpedo travels that distance quickly. To Frank Welles it took an eternity for
Nimitz
to respond and an instant for the torpedo to arrive just forward of the bridge. It would have made little difference anyway, since it was a homing torpedo, set to explode at a depth of fifteen feet. Captain Welles's last impression before impact was the reaction on the lookout's face when he finally realized they would be hit. His eyes were like saucers, his mouth wide in an “O,” his binoculars swinging from his neck as he dropped them to look down to the water's surface.

The detonation was felt by the whole ship's crew, and it was as if she had just passed over a reef. Those above it, especially on the bridge, felt their knees buckle. Then a column of water leaped "well above the flight deck. As the geyser reached its maximum height, the noise rolled over them, again shaking the ship. It was the largest warhead the Russians could put on a torpedo and still fire it as a missile. The inward explosion was unlike anything anyone had ever read about, for there had never been one like it before. It had to be a new type of explosive. The hole torn in the side was forty feet across and half as high, completely underwater. The ocean poured in, causing the great ship to veer to starboard. Bulkheads weakened by the explosion fell under the rush of the ocean. There was no fire.