"So it is, Sam. But at least you can sit around and keep me company while I make it. Pull the ramrod out of your spine and take a seat."
Hanson obeyed. Childress returned to the desk and sank into his own chair. A single folder bearing the diagonal red slash of a confidential-materials cover lay centered on the blotter in front of him. He elected to ignore it for a moment.
"Sam, have you ever thought about running for this office?"
"Can't recall as anyone has ever asked me." Childress smiled and removed his glasses. "Well, if the topic ever comes up, you're going to have one critical decision to make. Whether you are going to be a man damned for doing, or not doing."
252 James H. Cobb Drawing a handkerchief from his suit pocket, the president slowly began to polish the lenses. "You're going to be damned no matter what, but you do get to pick the flavor of the damning."
"I guess that's something."
"But not much," Childress replied, redonning the glasses.
"If I choose to do nothing about this Stormdragon affair, I could be leaving the door open for humanity's first nuclear war. Millions of people will die. A large section of the planet will be ravaged. The aftereffects will haunt us for centuries.
"On the other hand, if I authorize this strike, I could precipitate the same chain of events that I'm trying to prevent.
Either way, this nation will be held responsible, as will I."
Hanson had no reply for that, and silence dominated the room for a long minute. The president drew a silver pen from a desktop holder and rolled it between his fingers. Then, abruptly, he slammed it down.
"This wasn't in the god damned job description!" Childress said savagely. "I gave my oath of office to the people of the United States, not to the people of China. They didn't elect me! When did they become my responsibility!"
Sam Hanson settled a little deeper into his chair and met Childress's eye.
"Sir, a little while ago, you wondered if anyone had ever asked me about running for president. If anyone ever did, I'd tell them to go directly to hell. I wouldn't have your job for all the money they could print."
A brief, low chuckle escaped from the president's throat.
"Thanks a lot, Sam."
Childress flipped open the cover of the folder. Reclaiming his pen, he signed the strike authorization with a single, swift scrawl of his name.
"Inform the Speaker of the House that I would like an immediate meeting with a senior congressional delegation.
Then you may inform the Joint Chiefs that Stormdragon is a go."
"Very good, Mr. President."
"If I'm going to hell, Sam, it's not going to be for sitting on my ass."
THE WORLD 0001 HOURS ZONE TIME; AUGUST 26, 2006
The word came down--"Initiate Stormdragon"--and the labor began across an arc of time and space that stretched from the shores of Asia to the corridors of the Pentagon.
Meat had to be put on the bare bones of the mission outline.
Intelligence had to be collected and collated: satellite, aircraft, seaborne, surface, Elint, Sigint, Imagint, Humint ... "Goddamn it! Will you please inquire of those paranoid sons of bitches over at Langley that if the Joint Chiefs of Staff aren't authorized to have access to that data, who is?"
Targeting lists had to be assessed, proposed, rejected, and assessed again ... "Okay, gentlemen. We've got six major transformer stations here in the Shanghai regional power grid. Which ones do we have to kill to pull the plug on the entire east side?"
Layer upon layer of strategic, operational, and tactical planning intermeshed into a single, composite whole. Scores of flight paths for cruise missiles and aircraft alike had to be planned, plotted, and timed to the second ... "This is no good, Commander. You can't bring that Tomahawk stream in over that high-density residential district.
You know the mission parameters. Minimize collateral risk to all civilian areas. Replot it, expedite!"
Weather, fuel loads, weaponry ... "Do we go with the laser-guided or do we load the GPUs?
Desperate Jesus, Lieutenant! We got to start uploading ordnance in another forty-five minutes!"
Plan the perfect mission. Then plan for the mission that was not so perfect. What would happen if a carrier catapult failed with only half the strike in the air? What would happen if the Communists had a BARCAP
up? What would happen if the first plane back crashed and fouled the deck?
What would happen if ... 254 James H. Cobb Stormdragon's planners struggled mightily to cover every possible eventuality, to cover every possible untoward event that could affect the outcome of the mission.
It was impossible, of course.
In the rush to prepare the strike, a single small, yet critical, planning error was made. Overlooked, it lay like a ticking time bomb within the operation plan, waiting for its moment to ignite disaster.
EAST CHINA SEA 2141 HOURS ZONE TIME; AUGUST 26, 2006
There was only a single occupant in the wardroom. Christine Rendino was stretched out comfortably on the couch; her deck shoes were kicked off and she was reading a thick, garishly covered paperback.
Amanda smiled. Chris would be good company just now.
"How's the book?"
"Pretty good. The Lady Morwena is in just one hell of a mess. Lord Dalton, her dishy but distant france, is off putting down the Jacobite rebellion. She's falling seriously in lust with Ian, the new head groom, and her evil uncle, the Baron Fitzhurbert, has convinced the local villagers that she's a werewolf."
"That sounds like quite a yarn," Amanda replied. "I might want to borrow it."
"You're welcome. Just give me another day, or so, on it."
"It'll have to be after the operation, then."
Christine had stopped reading and had come up on one elbow. "Anything new on the op?"
"Not particularly." Amanda dropped down on the couch at Christine's feet. "We're getting updates from Seventh's planning staff, but they seem to be pretty much following our outline. It's out of our hands now."
"At least until the shooting starts."
"There will be that." Amanda kicked off her own shoes and leaned back, closing her eyes.
SEA STRIKE 255
Christine studied Amanda for a moment, then carefully marked her place in her book with a folded page corner.
Tossing the paperback onto the end table at the head of the couch, she returned her attention to her commanding officer and friend.
"Hey, Boss Ma'am, can I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"How long have you and Arkady been lovers?"
That brought Amanda's eyes open again.
"How long have you known?"
"Well, I didn't know for sure until just now."
"Damn!"
"Oh, take it easy." Christine sat up and swung her feet down onto the deck. "It's not as if I'm going to be taking out ads or anything." "I know, I know," Amanda said, rubbing her temples.
"This was bound to happen sooner or later. Who else knows?"
"I doubt anyone. You make a pretty good bedroom commando, Skipper. I didn't think you had it in you."
"I'm serious, Chris. How obvious have we been?"
"You haven't been obvious at all. Like I said, I don't think anyone else knows. And if it weren't for the fact that I'm an instinctive snoop, I probably wouldn't have noticed anything either."
"How did you figure it out?"
"A lot of little things," Christine replied, sitting back onto the couch. "Like, for one, you aren't a nun."
"What does that mean?" Amanda demanded, settling on the couch arm.
"It means that ever since we got back to Pearl, you haven't been spending time with any of your old and available male acquaintances. And when you have gone out of an evening, you've been butter-won't-melt-in-your-mouth cryptic about it.
"Same thing with our Mr. Arkady. Big rep as a lady's man, and yet, to the public eye, he hasn't been doing any action either."
Christine shrugged
her slim shoulders. "Heck, I'll play truth or dare, and even admit that I was tempted to try and toss a line in that particular pool myself. Never even got a nibble, though. For the sake of my own ego, I have to think that he's either gay or he's playing cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die with somebody pretty special."
"How did you tie us together?"
"Mmmm, that sounds like fun."
"Chris!"
' '. You guys were careful to never let yourselves be seen together, but you let yourselves not be seen together as well. First at Norfolk, and then back in Hawaii, the two of you developed a tendency to drop out of sight at the same time. You'll need to watch that."
"But there hasn't been anything aboard ship?"
"Well, just a couple of things. But that's only because I knew what I was looking for. You two tend to gravitate together in quiet little corners now and again. And a couple of times of late I have seen you exchanging glances that damn near make the air crackle. Jeez, 1 wish 1
could be a little fly on the bedroom wall when the two of you get back into port.
"Chris. Damn it all! This is serious." Amanda stood up again, trying to pace off her growing agitation. "Do you have any idea how much trouble I can get Arkady and myself in over this?"
"Oh, theoretically, a nice big blot on your copybooks," the blond Intel replied, her chin cupped in the palm of her hand. "Stern warnings to both of you guys from the Powers That Be. Conceivably, even the loss of your ship. And your point?"
"The point is that I shouldn't have let this happen. This affair is my responsibility, mine and Arkady's, but primarily mine. I should have been strong enough to walk away from it. But I didn't want to."
"Oh, good grief." Christine sprawled back on the couch.
"Do you guys think that you are the only couple going at it hot and heavy aboard this ship? Do you know why that exercise mat happens to be stored down in the number-four ventilator room? Or what it means when a towel's hung on the outside door handle of the Enlisted Women's Showers?
Men plus women equals sex. It happens. Get over it!"
"I can't just ' over it,' Chris. And I am not just another member of this crew. I'm the captain of this ship."
SEA STRIKE 257
"And that means that you're supposed be something other than a human being? Well, guess fuckin' what!"
"I know. I know! This job would be a lot easier if I wasn't so damned human." Amanda dropped onto the couch beside her friend. The two women sat in silence for a moment, then Christine sighed and rested her hand on Amanda's.
"Look, can you tell me one time when your relationship with Arkady has affected your judgment, or made you alter a command decision, or made you do anything that could have adversely affected the operation of this ship or the accomplishment of its missions? God's honest now." Amanda smiled wryly. "Well, I can't actually put my finger on anything specific. But I will say that I've had to do some heavy thinking at times."
"Thinking doesn't count. Now, how many times recently has it been easier for you to keep going because you've had a shoulder to lean your head on?"
"A number."
Christine shrugged. "Hey-ho. There you go. Nature abhors a vacuum, and you've been walking around with a big empty space inside you for a long time. Filling it up doesn't make you any weaker. Just the opposite."
Amanda closed her eyes and let her head sink back.
"Maybe not, Chris. I just wish that I knew where this was all taking me," "You're just going to have to live it out and see."
UNITED STATES NAVY TASK FORCE 7.1
200 MILES EAST OF THE YANGTZE APPROACHES 0010 HOURS ZONE TIME; AUGUST
28, 2006
"CINCNAVSPECFORCE, arriving." The call over the carrier's loudspeakers was nearly lost in the thundering propwash.
With its engine pods tilted up and its huge propellers serving as lift rotors, the VC-22 Osprey eased in over the landing spot on the Enterprise'?, forward flight deck. Smoothly, it 258 James H. Cobb settled onto its undercarriage trucks. By the time Commander Nolan Walker had reached it, the VTOL's tailgate had lowered, allowing the sole passenger to disembark.
"Admiral Macintyre," Walker yelled over the declining wind roar, "I'm Commander Walker, Admiral Tall man's chief of staff. The Admiral sends his compliments and welcomes you to Task Force 7.1. The Admiral also apologizes for not having you piped aboard properly. However, we are spotting the strike to launch at this time."
"Forget it, Commander," Macintyre yelled his reply in return, handing the cranial helmet he had worn back to the Osprey's crew chief.
Redonning his officer's cap, he continued, "We don't need to worry about protocol just now."
As the Osprey's engines spooled down, the operational clamor of the carrier's deck was beginning to come through: shouted orders, the wind and sea rush of the carrier's passage, the howl of the deck-edge elevators as the strike birds were lifted topside.
With warloads beneath their wings, a row of big F/A-22 Sea Raptors hunkered down along the flattop's deck edge, their plane handlers and aircraft captains paying attendance to them in the dimmed red glow of the work lights. Each was being meticulously positioned to feed into the catapults like bullets into the chamber of a gun.
"The Admiral is waiting for you up in Pri-Fly, sir."
"Very good. Commander. Let's go."
"Welcome aboard, Eddie Mac." Tall man gave Macintyre's hand a quick, solid shake. "Glad you could make it in time for the show."
"Yeah, well, that's one of the advantages of setting up a new command--you get to set your own doctrine. With me, that includes sitting in on any major op involving my people.
I hope you don't mind having an observer cluttering up your decks."
Macintyre was careful to emphasize the word "observer."
NAVSPECFORCE had a critical role to play within Storm dragon. The Cunningham and her people were at the very heart of this operation; however, Seventh Fleet would be providing the guts and the muscle. This was Jake Tall man's
SEA STRIKE 259
show, and there was no time for playing any power game.
Tall man gave an acknowledging nod. "No problem. You want to take a break before we get into it?"
"No. I'm set. Let's go."
Tall man led the way back into Primary Flight Control, the aviation operations center that circled the rear of the Enterprise's island structure. This was the home of the carrier's air boss and his staff, now illuminated only by ranked CRT screens and the starlight filtering in through the big observation windows that overlooked the flight deck.
Those windows were buzzing in their frames as the men entered. An SH-60
Oceanhawk was just lifting off the flight deck. With its running lights flaring, the ASW helicopter payed off to clear the carrier and climbed away to the northwest.
"The clock has started on the operation and we have initiated the Stormdragon time line," Tall man said. "That was our Combat Search and Rescue helo launching now. She'll top off her tanks aboard the Cunningham and be in position off the beach when our air strike goes in over Shanghai."
"Where is the Duke currently?"
"Moving into the Yangtze approaches." Tall man nodded toward a computerized chart table that carried the graphics of the strike zone.
"She's scheduled to go full stealth in about an hour, and to open fire in about two."
"Thanks."
Macintyre stepped across to the chart tank and gazed down at the lone position hack hovering just outside the gaping dragon's jaws of the Yangtze.
"May I send a message out to her, Jake?"
"Sure. Nolan, set him up. '
The Chief of Staff spoke quietly to a radio operator seated at one of the communications consoles.
"All right, sir. Go ahead."
"Thank you, Commander." Macintyre thought for a moment, recalling a conversation.
"From CINCSPECFORCE. To Commander A.L. Garrett, C. O., USS Cunningham.
Good luck out on the forefront of battle."
14 MILES EAST OF THE YANGTZE ESTUARY 0131 HOURS ZONE TIME; AUGUST 28, 2006
"Any situational changes, Dix?" Amanda asked.
"Nope. Of the eight radar arrays we're tasked to take out with our first missile flight, five of them are up and radiating.
We've got active bearings on them. We've also got solid GPU fixes on the other three. Two of those, the Silkworm batteries, are mobile, but the last Darkstar pass gave no indication that they were planning to go anywhere."
"Good enough." Amanda nodded. "The Reds are giving us a different reception this time, aren't they."
"I'll tell the world, Captain. You'd think they were worried about company coming."
Amanda and her TACCO studied the active Elint display currently filling the Alpha screen. The Communist garrison of Shanghai had manned their electronic ramparts. No longer concerned with drawing undue attention to the city, they had set its radar defense net fully alight. Multiple, highpowered search beams now swept the sea and sky in all directions, straining to detect the first hint of an inbound attacker.
The Cunningham's first task this night would be to blind those searching eyes. Ghosting along just outside of their perimeter of protection, she awaited her moment to strike.
"Any new variables to consider?"
"They've got two guard ships outside of the mine barrier.
Looks like a Shanghai-class gunboat and a minesweep. I've already got a couple of flights of Harpoons dialed into the first launch template.
Skriiick!" Dix descriptively drew his thumbnail across his throat.
"Okay, good enough." Amanda paused, running over her mental checklists to see if there was anything else left to be said. There wasn't.
"I've decided to hold the con on the bridge for tonight's operation.
Commander Hiro will be covering things down
SEA STRIKE 261
here. Remember your mission priorities, Dix. Provide what cover you can for our helos so they can find that boomer, then take the boomer out.
I'm putting you guns-free at this time. I'll trust in your judgment to do whatever it takes to get the job done." Beltrain smiled and gave a quick nod of his head. ' ', ma'am. We'll take ' all down."
Amanda nodded with a smile of her own. "That we will, Dix."
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