by David Poyer
“You want to try and stop it?”
“Get a line on it—the men—”
“It’ll mash a man like a fly.”
Another scream burst from the far side of the compartment, followed by the crash and snap of buckling metal and electrical short circuits. With the steam in the air, neither of them could see who it was.
Wronowicz looked around the compartment. He could see Mason lying face down at the forward end, Polock throwing a terrified look his way from beside him. Steam, blue smoke, and sparks blotted out the men forward. The ship rolled again, and a rumbling noise came from forward. All over the ship it must be havoc. But right here was the worst. If they didn’t get this thing stopped it would batter its way right through the hull into the sea. With a flooded engine compartment there would be no reserve buoyancy—no power to keep nose to sea, no power for pumps—
He moved forward warily, in a crouch, watching the top of the pendulum, the chainhoist. It ground and rattled as the weight under it shifted direction, gathered momentum for another pass. He had to stop it, but he did not yet see how. Get a line on it? One would never stop it. They’d have to get several on at once … or else stop it swinging.…
Yeah. Stop it swinging. He saw now. It would be dangerous. But there was no other way.
The casing reappeared, rushing toward them. He crouched, then caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. Callin was moving forward, too.
“Get back, sir!”
“What are you going to do, Chief?”
“Drop it on the deck, by the compressor. Get back.”
“I’ll help you. I—”
Wronowicz shoved him. Callin staggered back, recovering quickly, but a second was all that Wronowicz needed. The casing reached the limit of its portward arc, hesitated, and he stepped forward and jumped.
“Chief!”
He thought for a moment that he’d missed, slid scrabbling down the side of the casing; then his hand caught in the chain. Panting, he hauled himself upward as the casing gathered momentum, carrying him with it, a man on the back of a bull. He had a confused sensation of speed, the blur of vision and nausea of a carnival ride, and he hauled himself upright onto the mass of steel. He crouched there, reaching upward, swinging dizzily faster and faster, the engineroom rotating around him. His groping hand found the trip line of the chainhoist. The engineroom swayed. His head snapped back, searching for a clear spot. Had to time the swing, drop it away from the naked gear. There—coming up—
Now—
He yanked down on the trip. The lever clacked over, the jaws of the hoist opened with a snap; and suddenly he was weightless, riding tons of metal in its short free-fall toward the tilting deck.
In that second, short as it was, he thought of his first day at sea, so long before; of the swell of breasts, the dark eyes of a woman he would never see again; and he began to think something else, something that made sense of it all, put it all together into something shining and meaningful.
It was a machine. It was a machine. And the point, the goal, the product of it was—
In the middle of his thoughts came a shock and the clamor of steel. And quite suddenly Chief Kelly Wronowicz found himself lying dazed on the deckplates, watching helplessly as the immense mass of metal reconsidered, decided, and began its irresistible and savage roll toward and over him.
25
U.S.S. Guam
Thirty miles ahead of the rolling destroyer, sixty thousand yards closer to the moving point toward which now the darkened ships arrowed inward to rendezvous, Dan Lenson lowered his head and rubbed at the knotted muscles around his eyes.
The lamp hummed above the litter of paper that covered his foldout desk. Its white monotone spilled over the tiled deck, strewn with shoes and pencils by the motion of the ship, over the khaki shirt that swayed from a hook, over his down-turned face. The man in the lower bunk, dead asleep, had turned his back to it to escape the glare. He was Lenson’s roommate, one of Guam’s officers, catching a catnap before going on watch again.
No naps for Ike Sundstrom’s staff, Lenson thought. Behind him a radioman leaned waiting against the bulkhead. He dropped his hands from his eyes, sighed, and reached for the next stack of paper. It was like an all-nighter back at the Boat School. He saw for a moment his room in Bancroft Hall, just like this at night, compact, Spartan, his old Tensor humming just like this.
Only now he was at sea, where everyone at the Academy had known he would be some day. Where they would have to measure up, not for grades, but for real. At sea, and on his way to action.
He picked up the first sheet and bit his lip, concentrating. There was no time for polishing. This would be final, this scribble in pencil.
SECRET
FM: CTF 61
TO: All Units TF 61
Info: CTF 60
CTF 62
COMSIXTHFLT
CINCUSNAVEUR
JOINT CHIEFS WASH DC
Subj: Revised Operation Plan, Operation URGENT LIGHTNING
1. (S) Situation. The hostages taken at the U.S. Embassy in Nicosia have been moved by their captors to Ash Shummari, Syria, approximately twenty miles inland and five miles north of the Lebanese border. Electronic intercept of Syrian traffic suggests that the terrorists, with covert support of Syrian authorities, will play out hostage drama from there. Fulfillment of their demands is being explored, but may not be possible due to loss of influence with new Turkish government.
2. (S) Mission. To resolve the crisis and rescue the hostages, National Command Authority has directed Task Force 61 to carry out an amphibious raid into Lebanon and a land penetration of Syrian territory. This assault will begin on signal this morning.
3. (S) Execution. American intervention may be opposed by either indigenous or separately landed forces, including Soviet troops or warships. For this reason, upon receipt of this operation order all units will make preparations for a fully supported, combat-prepared landing, although armed force will be used only in response to attack.…
He read through it once more and handed it to the radioman. The opening part of most operation orders was boilerplate. He had lifted the tone, if not the specifics, from the dozen others he had collected during the cruise.
What followed was harder, much harder, and more complex. He had to rewrite the schedule and movement order for the opposed approach, with units spaced for mutual protection against land-based missiles or gunfire; the combat air patrol (CAP) coordination plan, for local vectoring of the fighters that America might or might not be there to provide, in case there was an air threat to the amphibious group; the antisubmarine patrol plan; the electronic emission plan, to foil any jamming or radar-homing missiles; and the most technically confusing, the communications plan.
And all that was before the first man put foot on the beach. When they moved from sea to land things got a lot more challenging. To do, and to plan for.
And he had to do it all. Not Red Flasher. Him. He rubbed his eyes again, reached for a cold cup of coffee, and set to work again.
After a hasty midnight consultation with Colonel Haynes’ staff, he had decided that the best approach would be two-pronged: a heliborne advance party, to prevent surprise by hostile forces, followed by the main, seaborne strike, carried in the amtracs and landing craft. The air-landing zone they had placed three miles inland, on a rise where the advance party could command the road leading east. They would lift off from Guam and Spiegel Grove two hours before dawn. A half-hour before first light the seaborne strike would follow. For this the amphibs would do a “turnaway,” racing in to drop the assault force and then retiring out to sea. Byrne said both the Lebanese national army and the Christian militias had U.S. howitzers, and the Shi’ites—largely armed by Syria—had corresponding Soviet equipment up to and including tanks. There was no predicting the reactions or dispositions of any side, and if they expected gunfire from the beach, the thin-skinned ships would have to be in and out again in a hurry.
The L
STs, with the shallowest draft, would close at flank speed until the bottom shoaled. He pulled the chart out to confirm the depths. They’d have to slow when they got close in, or the screws would suck the sterns right into the sand. They would steer by radar bearings on a small group of islands to the south, off Tripoli, and visual bearings on the light at Kleiat. Three miles from the El Aabde beach they would turn and parallel it at a course of 020 degrees true.
At that moment, H minus thirty, six thousand yards from the edge of land, the first wave of amtracs would roll into the sea. The amphibious tanks would form up in lines on guide boats, and then, on command, head for the shore.
Meanwhile, a mile or two farther out, the larger ships would be dropping boats. Already filled with marines, the landing craft would be floated, still safe inside the hulls, as the ships ballasted down. At H minus twenty-five, as the ’tracks began their swim ashore, the “mike boats” would move out of the wells and form for the second wave.
If all went well, they would hit the beach ten minutes after the first amtracs waddled ashore.
An amphibious landing, he had been told, was the most complex thing the Navy did. He believed it. It took exquisite timing, long practice, and fanatic adherence to plan. As the first waves moved ashore, the ships would continue out to sea in a long loop, readying the reserve boats. And then they would come back. The same maneuver, again—no, better use different courses for the second run, in case shore batteries got the range. Yes. He plotted with pencil and dividers, then covered a sheet of yellow paper with coordinates and turn bearings.
The second drop would hit the water twenty minutes after the first. Another ten boats, eight more amtracs. The third and fourth waves would carry supplies, the heavier communications gear, and the rest of the raiding force.
Lenson wrote furiously, glancing from time to time at an exercise oporder, pulling out a pub for reference, punching the phone to the marines, who were working in Haynes’ cabin. How many armed troops did an LCM-8 hold? How often could you shut down and bring up a radar without destroying the magnetrons? How many tons of water, fuel, food would the MAU need per day in ninety-degree heat? He knew basically what he was doing, but he would have liked Flasher and Hogan to check it when he was done, to avoid any boners. Unfortunately Sundstrom had them both on the flag bridge, standing lookout watches. So it was all up to him; they were going in this morning, plan or not, and as if to remind him of that, his door opened and the radioman stuck his head in. Dan handed him five more pages and he disappeared again.
He no longer believed, as he once had, that Sundstrom knew what he was doing. But recrimination or protest would only get in the way. Best for the job or not, he had been ordered to get the force ashore. And that he would do.
His roommate snored on, the ship creaked around him as steel bent under the impact of the sea. The lamp hummed. He worked on.
At last he finished the basic oporder. He stapled the scribbled pages and they followed the rest into the ready maw of Radio. Next: the schedule of fires. He stretched in his chair and grinned. At last, something he was supposed to be doing.
The warning order from Admiral Roberts had said, prepare for an “opposed” landing. That meant, against hostile forces, ready and waiting on the beach. If you did that right, he thought, if you really expected the landing to be resisted, Sixth Fleet should have ordered preparatory fire. Destroyers and cruisers, standing offshore, would begin pounding that unlucky section of beach two hours before the first amphib came over the horizon. Gun after gun would spout flame and smoke, sending tons of explosive in to carpet the beach, destroying emplacements and driving any defenders deep to earth. The barrage would be continuous, and carefully calculated to make it impossible for anyone to move or aim a gun for the whole time the boats and tanks churned their clumsy way in from the sea. Only when the first marine was a hundred yards from land would the curtain lift, draw back, moving ahead of the troops at a walking pace to keep a wall of fire and steel between them and the enemy.
And overhead, at intervals, aircraft would come in to strafe and bomb any pockets of resistance.
That was the way it was supposed to go. In reality, a World War Two-style landing was impossible for the Mediterranean Fleet to support anymore. The gun-heavy old destroyers and cruisers were all but gone. Their replacements were missile escorts or antisubmarine units, not gunfire-support ships. Their high superstructures were crammed with electronics and computers, not weapons. They carried one or at the most two automatic five-inch rifles, with a high rate of fire, but too complicated for the hours of continuous bombardment you needed to soften a heavily defended beach.
But in the Navy you got used to making do with what you had. He had two escorts, and if the raid got into trouble ashore, he had best be ready to use them no matter what Roberts’ message said about limited force. Then he remembered: Ault was no longer with them. Christ, he thought, I hope she gets here in time. She’s ninety percent of my fire support.
Pulling the chart toward him, he subdivided the landing areas (“green” and “gold”) into sixty-four rectangles of varying depth. These would be the target areas. Checking the coordinates of each corner, he cleared off another part of the desk and transferred the numbers to a fresh sheet of paper. This would be the beach blowup, included in the oporder as direction to the destroyers’ gunnery plots.
That done, he began the tedious process of calculating how many shells per square meter per minute would suffice to keep the beach neutralized. That took half an hour, even skipping the finer points, but when it was done he had five columns of figures, each subdivision broken out by number of shells, projectile type, fuze type, and providing ship.
The radioman took it out of his hands and Lenson went on. Byrne had given him the locations of known militia forces and observation posts in Northern Lebanon, areas along the road where ambush was possible, and the disposition of the Syrian Army between Homs and the coast. These he began translating into preplanned targets, assigning numbers and coordinates so that fire could be called down instantly. Dan sweated. One wrong number could mean firing on their own troops. When it was done, that, too, followed the rest into the roaring teletype-writers.
He was working on the last section, communications, when the phone buzzed. He jerked it from its rack. “Lenson here,” he said rapidly, continuing to write.
“Red, on the bridge. Commodore wants to know how you’re doing.”
“Well, kind of hurried, but almost finished. They’ve been typing it up as I went so tell him he’ll be able to sign it off for transmission in about ten minutes.”
“Okay, will do.” Flasher paused for a moment, then said, in a lower voice, “Dan, you might be interested in a flash priority we just got. Sixth Fleet and Naval Forces, Europe just went to ReadCon Orange.”
He searched his dulled mind, then remembered. “Nuclear alert?”
“You got it. First time since the Six-Day War.”
“Somebody’s taking this seriously.”
“That’s a no shit, Charlie.”
“Okay, got it.” He hung up and thought for a moment. Then he began writing again.
The ship pitched and vibrated around him, fighting its own battle with the sea. But his mind was not with her. His mind was forty miles ahead, on the dark coast that now waited, silent under the overcast. In a few hours the southern sky would flicker with the light of gunfire, the ships, darkened, would begin their approach. He did not think of this. He did not think of hostages, of terrorists, or of hostile militia. His attention was on the numbers. They had to be done now, and they had to be done right. Only after that would there be time to wonder whether the raid would succeed.
As to what might happen if it failed, he did not dare think at all.
26
Ash Shummari, Syria
They waited through that evening for the promised food. Susan was worried. Nan had rested since their confrontation with the terrorists. Quietly; but this quietude she did not like. For ho
urs the little girl lay motionless on her side, hugging the pillow, eyes open yet unresponsive to the fading light from the window. She did not speak, even when Moira told her stories and tried to play.
The bread came finally well after nightfall. Hard, round loaves several days old. The hostages had no idea where it came from. They knew only that two of their guards went from room to room, tossing them out from a blanket as one feeds animals. They left, too, a basin of water at the end of the corridor. Susan gnawed at a chunk and drank as much water as she could. It had been a hot day, despite the overcast, and the small reserve in the toilet was exhausted.
“Look, Bunny!”
Nan turned her head listlessly to see her mother, cheeks stuffed full.
“I’m a chipmunk. Want to be a chipmunk, too?”
But she only turned her face wordlessly back to the window. It was all Susan could do to make her eat a little soaked bread from the center of the loaf.
She went into the bathroom, alone, when she could put off crying no more.
After the meal they gathered near the window. Open now, it admitted a cool wind, doubly welcome after the day’s heat. Silently they looked out over desert hills shrouded in night. The distant, sad rumble of artillery had come from them all afternoon, on and off, nearer and farther away. Tricks of the wind? They did not know. A campfire glowed where Cook had seen the Syrians. To the south, from time to time, they could make out flashes, like distant lightning.
“Sure sounds like a war,” muttered Cook.
Susan sat with Moira on the bed. Nan lay between them, asleep at last. Susan had given her the last dose of aspirin, rinsing out the powder in the bottom, and the bottle lay empty on the floor.
“Moira…”
“Yeah?”
Her roommate’s voice—funny, they were roommates again, half a world away from Georgetown—was soft in the darkness. Comforting. She reached out a hand to touch her shoulder. “I was wondering … do you think anyone will be able to get us out of here? Will they do anything?”
