The Cruiser (42 page)

Getting ready for the ultimate test.

Lahav
was opening, but she was still between
Savo
and the Syrian radars, the truck-mounted launchers. The Israeli Corvette had ceased illuminating them during the drama with the exec. Which he did not have time to think about any more just now … “
Pittsburgh?
”

Cheryl flinched and rattled the keyboard. “Almost forgot about them … They're out of torpedo range, but locked on to the missile boat with sub Harpoon.”

“Okay, that leaves
Alborz
for us—”

“Can I get a word in?” said the staffer.

Dan forced his tone halfway toward courtesy. For a second he couldn't remember what he'd sent him to do. Then did, and coughed into a fist. “Uh, Adam. Any luck on what I asked you to look into? Intentions of the Iranians? Whether the West Wing can get Israel to hold off striking back?”

“I talked to the national security adviser. Dr. Szerenci said you know each other.”

“Uh-huh. He was my professor at George Washington. A long time ago, when we … anyway, a long time ago.”

“Well, he couldn't give me anything on the Iranians. We don't have a window there, apparently. There are a lot of different factions, too. The regular navy. The Revolutionary Guards. Not a unitary actor. If you know what I'm talking about—”

“Don't talk down to me, Adam. Yes, I know unitary-actor theory.”

“Sorry … Captain.” The staffer shook his head like a boxer shrugging off a hard punch. “He said he'd call Sharon. A personal call—apparently he can do that if it's important enough.”

“That's all? He's going to call?”

Ammermann shrugged. Dan stared for a moment longer, then sighed. He'd tried. More and more, it was looking like that was all he was going to be able to do. Just try … but fall further and further behind rapidly cascading events.

“That missile boat's a Thondar-class,” Staurulakis murmured. “Could be a Guards unit. Like he says.”

“It's getting a little late to speculate on who exactly's who,” Dan told her. “These guys are in an attack profile. The only question is at what point we hit them. Range?”

“Thirty-four thousand yards.”

Outside the warning range from his ROE, but hostile maneuvering trumped range. “Warn them,” Dan snapped. “Break off, or I will open fire.”

“You said you can't shoot first,” Ammermann said.

“I sure as hell can in this situation,” Dan told him. “And I will, but I don't really have time to explain it.”

Staurulakis called something from the desk and a man Dan didn't recognize came toward him. Tall, mustached, swarthy, in his mid-thirties, he inclined a long, closely shaven skull with grave politeness.

“Who's this, Commander?”

“This is SK3 Kaghazchi, Captain. A native Iranian speaker.”

The man's large eyes were burning, unsettling. Where had this guy been until now? Dan didn't remember seeing him about the ship. SK meant storekeeper, one of Hermelinda's people. He probably worked in some tiny office. It did seem that whatever language you needed, someone in your crew could be found to speak it. Still, he thought he'd met everyone aboard. “Excellent. Okay, Kag … Kag
haz
chi, right? Where are you from, Petty Officer?”

“Sanandaj, sir. In the west.” He had an astonishingly deep voice, almost an operatic bass. Good, they'd sound authoritative as hell going out over ship-to-ship.

“And what exactly do you speak? I know several languages are current in Iran—”

“Farsi, that is my father's language. And some Urdu as well. From my mother.”

“I see. Well, I know you're in Supply, but consider yourself under the commander's orders now. Convey what she tells you, but use your head. I'd rather avoid a confrontation than have to win one.”

“I understand, Captain. I will attempt to do that.”

Ammermann said, “Are you sure about this, Dan?”

“My ROEs are pretty clear in this situation,” Dan told him mildly. “So's the LOAC.”

LOAC was the law of armed conflict. The staffer started to expostulate further, but Dan waved him to silence and leaned back, listening as their warning went out, first in English, then in the staccato notes of Farsi. It sounded familiar to him from repeated deployments in the Gulf, though he knew only “hello” and “thank you” himself. He doubted words would have much effect if whoever was commanding the task group had orders to clobber him, or somehow thought this would be a good time to try. But in this case, for once, as he'd told Ammermann, his rules were clear. He had the right to defend his ship in the face of attack, imminent attack, or demonstrated hostile intent. The maneuver he was seeing constituted that. But first he had to issue a warning. “If they don't cease illuminating and don't open the range, I'm taking
Alborz
out with Harpoon,” he told Staurulakis.

“Warning shot, sir?”

“Not at this range. If we have to hit, hit hard.”

“Copy that, sir. Three-round engagement?”

“Set it up. Make sure
Pittsburgh
gets that word.” He coughed and ran his gaze over the displays again. A cup clanked down next to his elbow. He sucked the black scalding liquid down almost in one breath. Hot and thick, the strong dark blood the Navy ran on. As long as they had fuel, ordnance, and coffee, they could stay on station forever. For whatever reason, adrenaline, caffeine, the confrontation with Almarshadi, the abruptly cut-off note of the GQ alarm, all the displays glared more brightly. His brain seemed to have shifted into high gear.

When Ammermann cleared his throat Dan remembered him. “Uh, Adam, find yourself a seat if you want. Chief? Chief Slaughenhaupt? Need a helmet here. And flash gear.”

“On it, sir.”

“Are you serious?” Ammermann gaped. “I thought this was armored—”

“Just wear it, Adam.”

“Uh … okay. Can I smoke now?” He had the pack out already, was tapping a cig out with trembling amber-stained fingers.

“No. So, no joy from Jerusalem?”

“Tel Aviv. I told you, Ed's calling Sharon.”

Dan bet it wouldn't be “Ed” if the junior staffer were face-to-face with Dr. Edward Szerenci. The guy had been nothing to trifle with even back when he'd been a professor in defense analysis at George Washington, moonlighting from the War College. Szerenci was a hard-liner, a numbers man, dealing in megadeaths as coolly as Dr. Strangelove.

Dan was opening his mouth with some sort of joke about Szerenci when a chime sounded from over by the Aegis console. The same high insistent note as once before. All speech in CIC ceased. Someone had turned on audio from the SPY-1: a familiar crackle, like popping popcorn. The beam going out, five times a second.

“Sir, we have cuing from Obsidian Glint,” Donnie Wenck called. “Suspected launch.”

Next to Dan, Staurulakis riffed the keyboard, bringing up the radar output on the large-screen display. The spokelike beam yawed, then switchbladed back toward the coast. The Terror was shifting to the location the satellite had just downloaded to them. It locked into its new position and clicked back and forth, the spectral amber fans tracing ancient mountains like a blind man fingering a face. They all stared up, skin sallow and corpselike in the nectarine light.

Dan squinted. “I don't see anything.”

Then he did.

A white dot had blinked on in the center of the screen. The hook darted in and snagged it. A callout flickered on. Terranova said, loud enough so everyone could hear, “Profile plot, Meteor Echo: altitude, angels thirty. Climbing at angels five per second.” Already well into boost phase, then. Possibly even post–first stage separation.

“Matches alert script on the Jericho,” Wenck called. The symbology was already a red caret, but he added, “Designate hostile?”

Dan nodded. “Designate hostile.”

“That's an Israeli missile?” Ammermann murmured.

“Correct,” Staurulakis snapped when Dan didn't answer.

He was watching the horizontal velocity on the callout. So far, it was nearly zero. But wouldn't this be the best time to take it? Nearly a dead-on angle? The P-sub-K numbers in the tests had dropped fast with a negative velocity vector. He eyed the screens again, and decided. It would put her stern to the Iranians, but
Savo
's close-in stingers, her canister-mounted Harpoons, were canted up back aft.

He hit the worn lever on the 21MC. “Bridge, come to course zero nine zero. Speed fifteen. Set Circle William. Launch-warning bell aft.” He snapped the dial to Helo Control. “To Red Hawk: Reposition to the north. Stand by on flares and jamming. Remain alert for 802s from northwest, west, and northeast.” Two seats away, Slaughenhaupt was readying the ship for self-defense with chaff and decoys.

Dan groped into the neckline of his coveralls and came up with the firing key. “Cher? Take Meteor Echo. Two-round salvo.”

Ammermann reached for his arm. “Captain! This is crazy. You can't do this.”

“It's what my orders specify, Adam.”

“Not taking out a friendly missile!”

Dan turned his head. Sweat sparkled on the staffer's bulging brow. A lock of dark hair hung over his forehead. He looked more frightened than when an Iraqi Al-Husayn had had them boresighted. “Adam,” he murmured, “there's no such thing as a ‘friendly' ballistic missile. Not when it's targeted at a city.”

Beside him Staurulakis was continuing the litany, gaze welded to her screen, chanting like an acolyte in a liturgy as the responses came back. “Launchers to operate mode.… Set up to take Meteor Echo … two-round salvo. I say again, two-round salvo. Sound warning alarm aft. Deselect safeties and interlocks. Stand by to fire. On CO's command.”

“You can't mean to actually…” Ammermann's outrage-swollen visage hung in front of him, then turned away. He straightened and raised his voice, addressing the others. “Listen to me! I'm countermanding that order! You—you people can't
let
him! Don't you understand what he's doing?”

Amy Singhe, behind them. “Sir? Shall I call the master-at-arms again?”

Dan shook his head, very slightly, gaze averted. He was holding back, reviewing exactly what he was doing and why. He was going to use up the last two shots in his locker, taking down the Israeli counterstrike against an enemy that had struck first, and struck grievously. Nearly two hundred dead. Women and children.

No. He was executing his orders. Priority Three:
Offensive missiles targeted against civilian populations.

He couldn't say he was sure this was the right course of action. He really wasn't.

But that was why there
was
a captain. To make the decisions that had to be made, under whatever conditions of stress and uncertainty, deep in the murky swamp of war and politics.

Then paying the piper, if that decision turned out to have been the wrong one.

He spared a quick glance around, trying to read body language. It was rare anyone openly contradicted a skipper, but if he was too far off track, that could give you a clue. Staurulakis, Slaughenhaupt, Singhe, Wenck, Terranova, Kaghazchi, were all looking at him, but their expressions varied. Some looked horrified; others, inspired. Donnie Wenck was smiling, blue eyes crazy, mashing down a cowlick of spiky blond hair.
Go for it, Skipper,
he mouthed.

“
Don't,
” groaned Ammermann. “I'm warning you—”

“To hell with it,” Dan whispered under his breath. He fitted the key. Hooked a nail under the clear plastic cover of the switch, flicked it up, and snapped the toggle to the Fire position.

*   *   *

ONCE
again, that agonizingly stretched-out pause, no more than three seconds, but seemingly without end. The vent dampers
whunk
ed shut. The ventilation sighed to a stop, and
Savo
moaned and popped as she rolled, the turbines thrumming through the steel and rubber beneath his feet like distant war drums.

A thunder from aft. Brightness like a welding arc burned on the cameras. “Bird one away. Stand by … bird two away.”

The bright symbols left
Savo
's circle-and-cross, quickly blinking into blue semicircles as they tracked east. Dan said, “TAO, inform Iron Sky we've fired our last two TBM-capable rounds against a presumed Jericho launched from northern Israel. Add that we're now engaging two Iranian surface units executing an attack profile. Warnings were issued.” His gaze nailed the Iranian-American, who stood holding a mike near the Aegis console. “That's right, isn't it, Petty Officer Kaghazchi? We warned them, on bridge-to-bridge?”

“
Baleh, agha
 … yes sir. But they never answered, Captain.”

“Transmitting loud and clear,” Slaughenhaupt said. “Confirmed with Radio. They heard us, all right.”

“Good, Chief. Thanks for the backstop.”

“No problem, sir.”

Terranova chanted, “Stand by for Block 4 intercept, Meteor Echo.… Stand by.…”

“Seeker profile on X-band!” the EW operator yelled, and Dan winced. “Bearing … bearing two six four. Seeker correlates with C-802 terminal radar seeker. Designate Goblin Alfa.”

He nodded. What he'd half expected, and would have preempted, given thirty more seconds. But the other side had thrown the first punch, after all. Muffled thuds came from outside. In the cameras, smoke trails smeared the sky, tipped with flame-hot pinpoints. “Chaff away,” someone reported. “Duckies deployed.”

Dan put his hand between Staurulakis's thin delicate shoulder blades. The cotton of her coveralls was damp and hot. “Take 'em, Cher.”

“Stand by on Harpoon. Three-round engagement, target
Alborz,
salvo fire,
batteries released.
”