Tomahawk (60 page)

 

 

 

At five minutes past midnight, the keen of a boatswain's pipe sounded all over the ship. He heard it in the combat evaluation center, where he'd gone after making sure everything was bedded down on the mission programming. The 1950s-vintage 1MC hissed and popped, warming up before it announced in a hollow crackle, “Good morning. This is the captain speaking.

“Sorry to interrupt your sleep, but in five minutes we will be going to general quarters. This will not be for drill. We are making preparations to launch Tomahawks. Our target is Libya, in support of a major air strike going in at oh-two hundred local time.

“We will launch twelve live missiles from the oh three level aft. If you are not involved, stay inside the skin of the ship. We will carry the launching live on channel five,
New Jersey
TV.”

Dan drew half a cup of coffee into a paper cup and stirred in powdered creamer. He found a stool and set it just inside the black curtain that screened the Tomahawk launch and track control station off from the rest of the space. Close enough to see and hear what was going on, far enough away not to be a player. He wasn't one, not anymore. It was the ship's show now.

After he'd told Kyriakou the system was back on line, the crew had gone to work, building each mission from launch to landfall. Since that route had to avoid ships and islands, it had to be plotted aboard the launching platform, minutes before firing. Only when it made landfall did the
missile's TERCOM programming wake. He'd been impressed with how fast the crew worked. What was that old saying—Practice daily with the guns? They'd practiced, and it showed. They had their missions complete and sent up to the launch control group twenty minutes before midnight. Now all that remained to do was to load it into the missile's computer, align it, and they could start the launch sequence.

Piece of cake.

If
everything worked.

Squatting uneasily, he saw in his mind's eye what was going on all over the ship. Down and aft, armed marines would be standing by in the passageway while Kyriakou and the ship's exec unlocked and deactivated the alarms on the “wizzly box” and FTs inserted the plugs that completed the firing circuits. Other fire control technicians would be standing by at the computers that ran the launchers. Below them, damage-control teams would be buckling on breathing apparatus and checking their fire-fighting gear.

“Engagement plan, sir,” said a radioman, thrusting a clipboard at him. Dan ran his finger down the hard copy.

“The original Topaz message?”

“Underneath, sir.”

He flipped to it and compared the tasked missions in the engagement order with the ready-to-fire ones line by line. As he'd recommended, Kyriakou had retargeted the rounds earmarked for the intelligence building to a hardened command center outside the city. Captain Foster, the tactical action officer, and the surface-subsurface weapons coordinator had signed off. He initialed it, too.

The general quarters alarm began bonging, and he swallowed the last gulp of acid coffee and crumpled the cup. Despite the fact he actually didn't have anything to do, his heart started to race. He bent to tuck his pant legs into his socks, then exchanged his cap for a battle helmet.

In a way, it was just like all the hundreds of other GQs he'd gone through in his career. But in another, it was different. For the first time, a surface ship was going to strike an enemy four hundred miles away. Submarines, too, would be carrying the war inland.

It was something that for fifty years only carriers had been able to do. If it worked, it would revolutionize naval warfare, and the balance of power at sea.

Looking at the closed-circuit TV monitor above the consoles, he saw figures moving around among the ABLs. Damage controlmen, unrolling and laying out fire hoses. In case something went wrong.

Foster pushed through the curtain, waving everyone back down again before they could rise. “Carry on Perry, we ready to pump these things out? I heard something about a glitch.”

“Mr. Lenson took care of it for us, sir. Some super-secret procedure of his.”

“Okay… We're on launch course,•one-zero-zero at

eight knots. Fifty miles to go on this course before we're out of the basket. No crossing contacts. The flight path is clear of aircraft, but be sure and check again before you execute final launch command. If you're ready—”

Kyriakou said he was, and Foster slid his tobacco pouch out. He held up a key. The missile officer took it wordlessly.

“Okay, I'm gonna get out of your hair now. Let me know if any alligators stick their heads up.” The captain left, passing through the curtains.

Kyriakou was passing the fire enable key to the chief when metal rang down by their feet. Everyone in the control area stiffened. “Sorry—”

“Look out. Everybody back, goddamn it!”

“Don't kick it between the deck plates.”

The chief was on his knees, arms extended, searching. A petty officer was shining a battle lantern into the corners, under the equipment. Almost immediately the chief stood again, holding the key high. “Got it. Jesus Christ, sir! Back in your seats, goddamn it. Back in your seats.”

Kyriakou stepped back, leaving the final preps to the launch controller. He muttered to Dan, “I was shaking the tobacco off it. Slipped out of my fingers. They ought to make that sucker bigger.”

Dan's mind drifted, but his ear stayed tuned to the litany of commands and responses. He couldn't hear everything that was going on. Comms were going back
and forth with the computer room, damage control central, hydraulic power rooms, the tactical action officer, the bridge. Throat mikes linked the console operators, and sound-powered communicators stood at their elbows. The white-backed binders he'd sweated over for so long sat stacked on the deck, yellow stickies marking emergency procedures: what to do in case of a hang-fire, a misfire, a 28-volt power loss, a booster-not-safe error, a restrained firing.

He hoped they didn't need them. But if they did, he was pretty sure he'd covered all the bases.

Two of the four display terminals were manned; the others were dark, but the seats in front of them were occupied by assistants holding pubs, huddled toward the active screens. Right now, they were deep in the initialization process, loading the complete missions into the missiles' computers.

Yeah, he'd done the best he could. But he just couldn't shake—and maybe he never would—the thought that, just maybe, he was devoting himself to the service of something that was by its very nature morally equivocal. He'd made his decision, that night beside the canal. But that didn't mean he'd never doubt or question it.

Maybe someday there would be a world where men could settle their differences peacefully. Where they could share, and be brothers.

But he just couldn't see how renouncing the ability to strike back could help them all get there.

The only way he could justify it was to make sure, to the best of his ability, that when force was applied, it was as limited, effective, and as just as tactics and technology could make it.

It wasn't a neat solution. It didn't satisfy his soul. It was a compromise.

But in the end, it was the best he could do.

Sometime later, he was recalled by Kyriakou's exhalation of relief. Tuning back in, he remembered the last thing he'd heard. It had been “OFP load complete.”

“Going down smooth,” the Tomahawk officer muttered. Dan got up and stood behind the console operator,
who gave him a glance, then concentrated again.

“Start missile alignment.”

“Watch the INS switch-over. WSN-five in manual switch-over mode.”

“Hold on. I need to let the screen catch up here.”

The 1MC crackled and intoned, “Now set material condition Zebra throughout the ship. I say again, set material condition Zebra throughout the ship. All personnel topside, lay within the skin of the ship.”

Dan sat musing. Here he was again, watching the preparations to fire. He remembered the other times. In the Arctic, aboard
Ryan.
In the Med, trying to coerce a cowardly commodore. Aboard
Barrett,
looking across a calm sea from her bridge at the silhouette of a
Krivak-class
destroyer….

“TUL fifty seconds,” said the phone talker.

“Call Radio. Confirm all whip and fan antennas silent.”

“Launcher control remote mode. ABL unlock and elevate.”

The monitor showed the marine sentries double-timing off the afterdeck. Now the aft flat lay empty, the long clamshells rising to point into the star-studded sky.

“Check ABL status.”

“ABL green. Confirm blast exhaust doors open.”

“Alignment complete.”

“TUL thirty seconds.”

“Vent closure warning. Status of Zebra?”

“Bridge, Tomahawk control. Status of Zebra?”

“Zebra set throughout the ship.”

“TUL fifteen seconds.”

Kyriakou reached out. He flipped up the cover of the salvo warning switch and held the switch down. The siren would be screeching its lungs out aft, but through the mass of armor between them and it, Dan couldn't hear a sound.

“TUL ten seconds.”

“Booster arm command.”

Past the shoulder of the men at the console, he saw the final prompt flicker onto the screen. It read RECOMMEND CLOSE VENTS/EXECUTE PLAN ( ).

“Give it Plan One and hit the execute,” the missile officer said softly.

Dan got up and stood, hugging himself as his vision narrowed to the TV monitor. It was a good picture for a low-light environment. It showed the clamshells pointed upward, the sea rippling past. Even tiny pinpoints of light were visible, low against the horizon.

“Captain, we're ready.”

Foster's voice came through the curtain. “Tomahawk released.”

“Shoot,” said Kyriakou.

“Salvo firing commence,” said the chief. The petty officer reached out, hesitated for a moment, curling his other fingers carefully out of the way; then tapped the screen lightly.

One second, two seconds …

A white flash blotted out everything on the monitor. Simultaneously with the loss of picture came an angry roar from aft. It didn't shake the superstructure the way it had on
Merrill.
There was too much steel for that. But they could hear it, a drumming waterfall of noise that gradually increased, then reached a peak.

“Missile in flight,” said one of the petty officers. They stared at the screen, which showed nothing but eddying smoke. Then another brilliant glare wiped out the picture again.

Dan turned and pushed his way through the curtains. Everyone in the larger space, including Foster, had his eyes glued to one or the other of the TV remotes. He undogged the door, went forward, and ran up the ladder to the bridge.

He got there just as the fourth missile went off. Reaching the starboard side of the pilothouse, he was instantly dazzled by the incredible brilliance of the booster ignition.

Four off. He gripped the splinter shield, ignoring the ringing in his ears and the burning writhe of afterimages. He counted seconds, then realized the first ABL was empty. He was on the wrong side…. He ran across, almost colliding with the officer of the deck.

The fifth round emitted a blinding flash, emerged from the launcher, and hung in the air off the port side, a hundred
meters up. It illuminated the sea beneath it like a star shell, lit the whole ship, made gnomons of the five-inch barrels, casting stark shadows on their slanted shields. He could see the booster firing, but, strangely, he couldn't hear anything. Just like when he'd fired a pistol into the darkness. He raised his fists, urging it into the air. “Fly, you son of a bitch!” he screamed.

The missile began turning to the right. With horror, he realized it wasn't correcting. Its drift was bringing it back over the ship.

Beside him, the officer of the deck and the quartermaster of the watch stood frozen, openmouthed, faces lifted like shepherds to the descent of fiery angels as the missile rolled farther and began to spin.

“Left hard rudder!” Dan yelled, grabbing the man's arm and shaking him. “Come left!”

“Left emergency rudder!” yelled the OOD, coming out of his trance. “Port engines back full. Starboard engines ahead full. Take cover!”

Dan snapped himself out of disbelief. He spun, ducked, and joined the others inside the armored conning tower.

Slowly, almost immovably, the bow swung left. The missile hovered as if fixed in the sky, throwing light through the windows, where it fell in burning squares on the deck. He leaned against the citadel, peering out through a view slit, suddenly and enormously grateful for the shelter of seventeen inches of homogeneous steel. The officer of the deck and the boatswain stood at the armored doors, ready to pull them closed.

Burning in the sky like a nova, the missile drifted to starboard, passing directly over them, two or three hundred yards up. Then its rate of turn increased. It arched off into the night, obliterating the stars, and vanished from sight behind the overhang of the pilothouse.

They pelted out of the citadel. “Where's the escort?” he yelled. The lieutenant pointed, wordless, and Dan spun, to see her riding safely in their wake. He panted, feeling sweat break out all over him. A nonflier. One out of five. How many more—

“All ahead standard. Right hard rudder. Resume one-zero-zero.”

“My rudder is right hard, resuming—”

With a flash like the end of the world and a howl like the heart of a typhoon, another two-ton round emerged from the aft ABL, climbed past them, balanced in that tail-heavy attitude that was a holdover from the days when it had been designed to climb not through air but through water. He stared, waiting for it, too, to overcorrect, but instead it gradually gained speed, pitched over, and shrank, climbing, till the fiery marigold eye of the booster winked out He looked around for binoculars; the petty officer handed him a set. He searched the starry sky but saw no evidence of engine start.