Target Lock

by James H. Cobb

  These were the VGAS (Vertical Gun for Advanced Ships) mounts, 155mm ultra range cannon designed to take advantage of the revolution in precision-guided munitions.

  Why go to all the trouble of aiming the gun when one could simply tell the shell where it was supposed to go?

  By taking advantage of a fixed mount braced and set within the hull, the big pieces could be autoloaded from their magazine, giving them a hands-off rate of fire of fifteen rounds per minute per barrel. Likewise, the recoil of a fixed mount could be more readily dealt with, permitting propellant and chamber pressures far in excess of a turreted weapon. Today’s mission could be fired with reduced charges and no RAP rocket boosters for the shells. The range was only thirty miles, point-blank for the 110-mile potential reach of the VGAS system.

  Directly beneath the Cunningham’s bridge, the gun tube of the axblade stealth turret whined as it elevated. The forward turret mount was a fleet-standard ERGM (Extended Range Guided Munitions) five-inch 64. A little brother to VGAS, it could only hurl a 120mm round to sixty-three miles.

  Ken Hiro wondered at how things ran in cycles. In the Navy he’d enlisted in, the guided missile was king and the cannon only a feeble auxiliary. Now he was partaking in the return of something once thought to be extinct, the big gun cruiser.

  “Captain, the ship is at all-stop and is station-keeping.”

  “Very good, Helm. Stand by to hand off bearing alignment to Fire Control.”

  “Captain, the ship is at general quarters. All battle boards read green. All battle stations manned and ready.”

  “Very good, Quartermaster.”

  “Captain,” a third voice sounded in Hiro’s command headset, “this is Air One. We have just received a Seawolf departure order from Task Force AIRBOSS. Aircraft are spotted and ready in all respects for launch. Request permission to proceed.”

  “Carry on, Air One. Launch your aircraft. State the status on our spotter drones.”

  “Drones Able and Bravo are responding and functional and are holding at Waypoint Jolly Roger. T minus twelve minutes forty-five seconds to advanced deployment by the time line.”

  “Understood.”

  As the rotor thunder grew from the helipad aft, Ken crossed to the captain’s chair at the corner of the bridge. Faking the appropriate relaxed demeanor for “the Old Man,” he lifted himself into the chair and dialed up the MC-1 circuit.

  “All hands, this is the captain. We will be commencing fire shortly. This shoot is going to be for my old boss, and the Duke’s old skipper. Let’s show the Lady we can do it right.”

  Flight Deck, USS Carlson, Corsair Station

  35 Miles West of Crab’s Claw Cape

  0721 Hours, Zone Time: August 25, 2008

  Lieutenant Commander Michael Torvald, the CO of ASW/Support Squadron 24, still looked uneasy as Cobra Richardson leaned in through the cockpit door of the SH-60 and draped his arm over the pilot’s seat.

  “I still don’t know about this shit, Co,” he yelled over the moan of his helo’s idling turbines.

  “Mike, trust me,” Cobra screamed back with the confidence of a used-car dealer explaining away that mysterious squeak. “We got this wired. I got the ballistic charts and manuals downloaded from the Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker. The Special Aviation pukes from the 160th have proved the Hydra pod on the Blackhawk airframe and my ordnance guys have set up the igniter harnesses for you. Piece o’ cake!”

  Torvald inhaled deeply to bellow. “But my outfit’s not rated for this kind of thing. We’ve never done anything like this before! No Navy helo outfit’s done this before! Hell, the friggin’ Army hasn’t even done this since the seventies!”

  “Details! Just do the drill, Mike. Follow my guys in to the firing line.

  Establish a hover on your designated GPU fix. Set your bearing on target, set your aircraft angle by your B charts, and pull the trigger when I give the word! It’s going to be fantastic, my man!”

  “I hope you know what you’re talking about, Cobra!” The SH-60 driver tilted his head, listening to a voice in his helmet earphones. “That’s it! We got departure!”

  “See you on the firing line. You’re going to love it!”

  Cobra slammed the Oceanhawk’s door shut and hunkered out from under the rotor arc. When clear, he stood erect and watched as the four helicopters of Heloron 24, the two SH-60 Oceanhawk subchasers and the pair of CH-60 Cargohawk utility aircraft, lifted sequentially into the sky.

  As an adjunct to the task force’s antisurface defenses, Amanda Garrett had insisted that all four of the 24th’s Hawk-series helos be equipped to carry and launch both the Penguin and Hellfire air-to-surface missiles. All four had their antishipping snubwings mounted now, but each carried a weapons load different even from what Amanda Garrett had imagined.

  Instead of single Hellfire guided missiles on each hard point of the multi racks, the Hawks now carried a seven-round pod of unguided 2.75-inch Hydra bombardment rockets. Four pods per multi rack, four clusters per aircraft.

  When Cobra Richardson had assumed command of the Navy’s reactivated Seawolves, he had recognized the squadron’s links with the old HAL-3 of the Vietnam era, not merely as a matter of sentiment and tradition, but as a possible source of tactics and doctrine as well. He began an in-depth study of Seawolf operations over the Mekong Delta. This, in turn, had grown into a voracious appetite for the entire history of rotor winged warfare in the Southeast Asian conflict.

  One of the more fascinating discoveries he had made had involved the single Hellfire of aero-artillery.

  Modern gunship-warfare doctrine called for helicopters to be used as a precision, direct-fire weapon on specific targets. Aero-artillery called for their use as a fast, mobile platform for area bombardment, a “flying howitzer” versus a “flying tank.”

  To a man of Cobra’s inventive nature, this presented all sorts of interesting possibilities. He’d spent the bulk of his spare time this cruise drawing up an operational outline for the use of aero-artillery within the task force order of battle, and working out the technical problems with his ordnance hands. The chance had come to move from theory to reality faster than he had hoped.

  He jogged across the antiskid to where Wolf One awaited him. His crew was aboard, his copilot was already running the preflight, and the pad apes were standing by to roll the Super Huey out of the hangar to its launching spot on the flight deck. The smaller helo carried only two of the quad multirack clusters.

  As he harnessed up, his copilot looked up from the checklist to watch the larger aircraft of Heloron 24 form up overhead for their first mission as part of a siege train.

  “Co, you sure this rocket artillery shit is going to work?”

  “Of course it’s going to work—” Richardson paused for a second, running the scenario over in his mind one more time. “I mean … it should.”

  Bridge of the Frigate Sutanto

  15 Miles Southeast of Crab’s Claw Cape

  0721 Hours, Zone Time: August 25, 2008

  MacIntyre looked over as Stone Quillain stepped out onto the starboard bridge wing.

  “Got your riggin’ inside, sir,” the Marine said. “Flak vest, a MOLLE harness with a set of radios, and an M-4 carbine. You got half a dozen magazines in the pouches and one in the well. I could get you a spare SABR if you want one.”

  MacIntyre shook his head, allowing the binoculars to drop to the end of their neck strap. “No, the carbine will be fine, Stone. I wouldn’t know what to do with a SABR if I had one. Too many gadgets.”

  “Yeah, that’s the truth. But they’ll sure be the ticket for this show.” Quillain dug into his shirt pocket and produced a yellow packet of Beechnut Juicy Fruit. “Stick of gum, Admiral? Good for keeping the thirst down, don’t you know.”

  “Thanks. Why not?”

  Quillain took up a lean on the rail beside MacIntyre and the two men stripped the foil from the confection and chewed in silence for a moment. Below them on the forward gun deck, a Marine
work detail, bare to the waist in the growing sultriness of the day, labored to strip the shells out of the turret magazine of the frigate’s bow autocannon. A bucket brigade of men led to the rail, a steady stream of brassy 57mm rounds going over the side into the sea.

  The main Magazines had already been emptied. Likewise jettisoned had been the Exocet in the Sutanto’s missile cells and the torpedoes in the deck tubes. The bulk of the frigate’s fuel supply had been pumped overboard as well, to reduce both her draught and the chance of fire and explosion.

  Other preparations were going on inside the wheelhouse. A spalling curtain. a thick multilayer sheet of bullet- and fragmentationproof Kevlar fabric armor, had been crossdecked from the Carlson. Now double-folded, it was being bolted into place across the front face of the Sutanto’s bridge below the windscreen.

  “Shouldn’t be too far now, should it, sir?” Stone remarked.

  “No, not far at all. We should pick up Crab’s Claw visually when we clear this next headland.”

  MacIntyre pointed ahead along the coastline. The Sutanto was steaming at good cruise with the verdant and heat-hazy shore passing some three miles to starboard, the ship striving to look like a routine Indonesian naval patrol.

  Christine Rendino had learned that such interdiction operations were commonplace against the Morning Star rebels, a factor that shouldn’t arouse excessive concern at the pirate base. At the moment, of all the fleets in the world, Makara Harconan had the least to fear from Indonesia’s.

  Quillain paused between chews. “Good enough. Admiral, this really isn’t a question for a company commander to put to a flag officer, but would you mind if I asked you something?”

  “Stand on, Stone. Go ahead.”

  “Thank you, sir. Then, would you kindly explain to me just what the hell you’re doing here? I mean a three-star on a special operation just isn’t common, Admiral. In fact, it just doesn’t happen unless there’s something dang odd going on. If this is the case, as the landing force commander, I’d appreciate knowing about it now before we commit.”

  That was just the question Elliot MacIntyre had hoped no one would ask, at least until this operation was over.

  “It’s a matter of command-rated officers, Stone. I can’t pull Carberry off the Carlson, and Ken Hiro’s the new TACBOSS, now that we’ve lost Captain Garrett. We need a ship driver out here.”

  Leaning on the rail, the Marine considered for a deliberate moment before replying. “Yeah, I can see the admiral’s point, except that you’ve got an SB officer at the con in there who could put wheels under this tub and drive it to Atlanta without getting a parking ticket. And at the rush hour at that. And if it wasn’t Lieutenant Nichols, you got a dozen other deck officers in the task force who could do this run just as well. If you’re running this operation from up front like this, there has got to be a better reason than that.”

  There was another reason, but as to how much better it was was open to skeptical interpretation, even by MacIntyre himself. But, given who was asking the question, and why, MacIntyre had to answer.

  “Request permission to speak off the record, Captain.”

  Quillain returned the wry grin. “Permission granted, sir.”

  “You’re absolutely right, Stone. It’s decidedly not SOP for a flag officer to lead this far forward. By all rights and sound and sensible doctrine, my place is back in the flag plot on the Carlson, calling the shots from the rear. That’s how I’ve been doing things for a long time now. I commanded the entire Second Fleet from LANTFLEETCOM in Norfolk and I’ve commanded NAVSPECFORCE from Pearl Harbor.

  “It’s the way things are done, Stone, and I’m good at it. But that isn’t the only way I’ve ever done it.” MacIntyre removed the battered lieutenant commander’s cap he wore. Turning it in his hands, he studied it intently. “Like Steamer Lane and Lieutenant Nichols in there, I got my start in the Special Boat squadrons, Mark IVs in the Persian Gulf, SEAL HSBs in the Adriatic, Cyclones off Colombia for the drug wars. When I first caught duty with Amanda’s dad on his destroyer, I thought the old Charley Adams class was the size of a battleship.

  “That’s where NAVSPECFORCE got its start, in my head anyway. I’ve done quite a bit of special-operations work in one place or another. Things that nobody heard about at the time. Some I can’t even talk about now. The point I’m getting around to is that once I did things like this, from up front—leading—and not just making suggestions from a glorified television studio.”

  MacIntyre found himself lightly tracing the anchor insignia on the cap badge with his fingertip. “For a variety of reasons, I want to see if I can still do it, from up front.”

  Eddie Mac donned the cap again and tugged it down over his eyes. “There’s the stark truth, Stone. I’m coopting this entire military operation to get me through a goddamn midlife crisis. Why can’t I just buy a red Corvette like everybody else?”

  A soft rumbling laugh rolled out of Stone Quillain’s chest. “You know, sir, back when I was a boot, I could do five hundred sit-ups in an hour?”

  “No. Stone, I didn’t know that.”

  “Well, I could. I still can, too, just not as easy and I walk funny for a while longer. The point I’m makin’ is that when things start to pile up on me or whatever, I find myself sayin’, ‘Shit, I can do five hundred sit-ups in an hour; how bad can this be?’”

  MacIntyre laughed aloud. “Thanks for the gum, Stone.”

  “My pleasure, sir. I’m glad you’re up here with us. This is going to be a great day, Admiral. We’re going to kick ass and take names.”

  MV Harconan Flores

  0721 Hours, Zone Time: August 25, 2008

  “Professor Sonoo will be breakfasting with us this morning. I trust you won’t stress the gentleman too greatly this time.”

  Harconan sat on the disarranged bunk, already dressed and admiring as Amanda toweled herself dry from her shower. “I had a great deal of difficulty talking the poor man out of his heart palpitations from the last time around.”

  “How did you manage that?” Amanda inquired, pressing the water from her hair. “We know him and we know his friends. I can guarantee that Interpol will be waiting for them all when they surface.”

  Harconan chuckled softly. “That is the marvelous thing about the world’s judicial systems. They all work on the concept of proof, and proof can be subjective. Between my own organization and Sonoo’s employers, we will be able to provide ample evidence to any police agency in the world that the good professor was nowhere near here nor doing anything in the least bit illegal. As for Sonoo and his colleagues personally, their tongues are bound by the fact that if they ever speak up about what they’ve done, they’re finished professionally.”

  “You’re very sure of yourself,” Amanda replied softly. She drew open a cabin drawer and removed a pair of cotton panties, drawing them on unself-consciously. The return of underwear was the latest welcome amenity her captor and lover had provided.

  “You have to be sure of yourself when you are attempting great things. He who hesitates is lost. You know that as well as I.”

  Amanda sensed him standing behind her and felt his fingertips resting on her shoulders. “That’s why I didn’t hesitate with my plans for you. When I saw you stepping down from your royal barge at my headquarters, I knew that here was a great thing to be done, a great challenge to meet.”

  Amanda felt the brush of his lips along her shoulder blade, and the inescapable frisson he could trigger ran through her once more. She forced a hint of scorn into her voice. “Well, you succeeded in bagging me, I’ll give you that. What do I have to look forward to? Are you going to have me stuffed and mounted, or are you content with hanging my head over the fireplace?”

  His palms flowed over the curve of her shoulders. “Amanda, I know you are unhappy with this situation. I can’t blame you. But in the face of all things, be just with me. You know why I brought you here. You can feel it, as I can. Be honest with yourself as I am being honest with you
.”

  She took a shuddering breath. “Makara Harconan, I am a prisoner here, held against my will. There is no justice and no honesty in that.”

  His sigh brushed lightly against her bare skin. “Then strive for some honesty within yourself.” His fingers closed over her shoulders more firmly. “Are you really any more of a prisoner now than you have been for the past twenty years of your life?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked cautiously.

  “How many times have I told you that I have studied you, Amanda?” He spun her around to face him, those gray penetrating eyes drilling into hers at point-blank range. “All of your life you have played by the rules made by someone else. You have worn your uniform and the chains that went along with it, at the beck and call of an ungrateful government and populace.

  “I know about the United States, Amanda. In your nation, they pay sports figures who play children’s games in front of television cameras millions; yet, they begrudge you and the other warriors who defend them the pittance you are paid.”

  “I was never in it for the money, Makara!”

  “Of course you weren’t. But what about respect? What about a degree of honor? Even a simple thank-you for risking of your life? They don’t openly throw dog excrement at you in the streets anymore or scream ‘Baby killer!’ into your face quite so often, but still your media and your citizenry look upon you as either a brass-hatted buffoon or a cold-blooded murderer in a uniform. Where is the justice in that? What do you owe them?”

  “I never did it for a thank-you, either.”

  “I know you didn’t, Amanda.” His hands slid down her arms and his grip firmed. “You were the bright warrior, the guardian. You wanted to right the wrongs, to protect the helpless. But how many times have you been kept from doing just that? How many times have you seen an evil that needed to be destroyed, that was within your power to destroy, and yet your lords and masters held you back? And why? Because of some popularity poll or the fear of what some political pundit would say or because their particular party hacks disapproved.”