Cauldron
Page 49
When the French planes banked away, heading for home, the German Tornados dove for the deck, barreling in only fifty meters above the water. While the ASMP had a range of 150 nautical miles, the Kormoran antiship missiles they carried had to be launched within thirty miles of their intended target.
USS DALE
Dale’s skipper had already decided to fire before Admiral Ward’s order came over the circuit. He was not the sort to stand on formality where enemy aircraft were concerned.
The Leahy-class missile cruiser and Klakring, her Perry-class frigate escort, occupied a missile picket station thirty miles out in front of George Washington.
Those thirty miles could be added directly to the range of her SM2ER missiles. She was the first line of the carrier’s defense.
Dale’s crew had been at general quarters for hours. Since then her well-drilled CIC team had monitored every stage in the air battle — watching carefully as the fight moved closer. Their radars had shown the surviving EurCon attack jets break out of the dogfight. Now they saw several small contacts appear in front of one group of enemy planes.
The cruiser’s tight-faced captain watched the new blips just long enough to be sure they were real. His missile engagement controller reported, “They’re still climbing and accelerating, Skipper. They won’t be in our SAM envelope for another minute. I count five.”
“All right, Steve. What’s the threat?”
“Unknown, sir.” The lieutenant paged rapidly through a loose-leaf book with red plastic covers. “Supersonic, high altitude, doesn’t fit any French or German antiship missile.
No radar signal from them yet.” Half to himself, he wondered, “An ARM targeted on our radars?”
Still leafing, the lieutenant glanced up at his display. “Speed’s up to Mach three, Skipper.”
He looked down at the book again and stiffened. Then he carefully studied the page, comparing the data there with the numbers on his screen. The blood drained from his face.
USS GEORGE WASHINGTON
They were tracking the same inbound missiles in the carrier’s flag command center, and Ward’s staff recognized them the same instant that Dale’s lieutenant did.
His voice tight with control, the antiair warfare coordinator reported, “Admiral, inbounds are probably nuclear! Evaluated as ASMPs… about two minutes out.”
Ward fought the impulse to panic. He had too much to do. “It’s too late to disperse the formation. Emergency turn. Put every ship stern-on to them, and order all ships to individual maximum speed. Get all exposed personnel belowdecks! And send a flash message to the NCA!”
Facing away from a nuclear detonation would offer his ships limited but still significant protection. A blast wave running down a ship’s long axis would meet less resistance and hit its stronger stem first. Going to full speed might give each ship enough extra maneuverability to ride out the explosion and resulting sea surge.
He looked around and found his chief of staff. “Anything I missed, Harry?”
“Turn off and isolate nonvital radars. It might help with EMP effects.”
“Do it,” Ward confirmed. “That’s about all we have time for.”
Under his breath, he muttered, “Those bastards. I’ll make them regret this day.” But another voice ghosted through his brain reminding him he might not live long enough to keep that promise.
“Dale reports she’ll engage in thirty seconds.”
TORNADO FLIGHT
Under the original attack plan, Germany’s Tornados were expected to attack all American missile defense ships ahead of the ASMPs — clearing a path for the nuclear-tipped missiles. Now, instead of saturating the carrier’s defenses, the three surviving planes aimed for the keystone, and hoped that would be enough.
While the Germans had been passing information to the French planes, they had also used their radars to locate the picket missile cruiser. With its location, course, and speed locked into their computers, they’d plunged to the deck. Howling in only fifty meters above the waves, the Tornados were below Dale’s radar horizon — out of sight and out of the line of fire. Of course, they couldn’t see the American cruiser, either.
Their computers knew where she was, though, and guided them toward the target. Just over thirty miles out, HUD indicators prompted the crews to fire. The Tornados popped up, climbing to five hundred feet. First one missile, then a second, left each Tornado.
Gratefully the Germans turned away, beginning a long and perilous journey back to base.
A dozen miles overhead, the five ASMPs sped on.
USS DALE
“New raid, bearing one six three, correlates with the Tornados we saw earlier. Probable prelaunch maneuver.”
Dale’s tactical action officer turned toward the captain. The cruiser would launch her first pairs of Standard 2ER SAMs in a few seconds.
The captain turned his head to look at the TAO, but his attention was still concentrated on coping with the first threat they’d detected.
“If they’ve fired Kormorans, Skipper, we won’t see them until they’re twenty miles out — about one minute from now. Klakring’s the only other ship in range.”
“Then tell Klakring to unmask and engage.”
The TAO replied, “I estimate five-plus missiles, sir. She probably can’t do it alone.”
Dale’s captain turned and gave him his full attention. He nodded slightly. “Understood, Tom.”
Protecting George Washington took precedence over self-defense.
The lieutenant at the missile console announced, “Birds away.” A rippling roar from fore and aft confirmed his statement.
At each end of the ship, a massive twin-armed missile launcher swung back down to near level. In the metal skin of the ship just behind them, small doors opened up and needle-nosed missiles slid out quickly, belying their ton-and-a-half weight. Now carrying a three-ton load, the launchers slewed up and out again.
It took about thirty seconds for each launcher to go through its reloading cycle. In that time, Dale’s first four SAMs were halfway to the rapidly closing targets.
Klakring fired as well. Her single-arm launcher fired a shorter-range, older version of Dale’s missile, but the smaller launcher was quicker — pumping out a missile every ten seconds. The frigate’s deck and launcher were soon black with scorched paint and missile exhaust.
Her SM1 missiles had a hard time with the sea-skimming Kormorans. The German missiles hugged the wavetops, only a man’s height above the water. At that height, the water itself returned an echo to the missile’s seeker.
The first salvo of Dale’s long-range SAMs reached the ASMPs just as the first of Klakring’s missiles missed one of the Kormorans. Both sets of targets were difficult. One high-flying and very fast, the other not so fast but very low.
Dale’s missiles were newer and had a clearer view of their targets. Two of the four connected, shredding the ASMPs’ airframes and their warheads.
Klakring’s second SM1 struck a Kormoran, slamming it into the water in an explosion of spray. The third, intended for the same target, missed and the frigate’s missile director quickly shifted to another missile in the same group.
The German seaskimmers were much closer now. As Dale’s third group of four missiles left her launchers, chaff blossomed over both ships. At the same time, the frigate’s three-inch gun opened up, pumping out round after round at one-second intervals. A puff of black-gray smoke marked each shell as it burst.
The second group of four SAMs from Dale intersected the ASMPs’ track. Two more nuclear missiles died, leaving just a single attacker.
So far Klakring’s launcher had spat out eight missiles, but she’d only been graced with a single hit. Now, as the Kormorans converged on the cruiser, the frigate’s last shot missed. She still carried plenty of SAMs in her magazine, but the German missiles were too close. If she fired again, she would be more likely to hit her larger companion.
The Kormorans were only seconds from impact.
Two missiles hit, slamming into her port side — one in the after deckhouse, the other near the bridge. Each carried nearly five hundred pounds of explosive moving just under the speed of sound.
Sections of Date’s superstructure were torn out, while red-hot fragments slashed through her interior. In seconds, Dale was a pyre. The last four SAMs she had fired, deprived of their guiding hand, flew harmlessly past the remaining ASMP.
Ships in the inner screen were now in firing range. In a ragged salvo, an Aegis cruiser on the far side of the carrier, a Perry-class frigate, and a Kidd-class missile destroyer all launched SAMs.
Twenty miles out, at thirty thousand feet, one of the American missiles hit home.
Unlike the other French missiles, this ASMP had gotten close enough to arm itself. “Salvage-fused,” it sensed its own death and detonated.
Sailors who hadn’t yet taken cover belowdecks saw a bright sphere, the size of a small coin, appear in the sky — glowing like a weak red sun.
There wasn’t any real danger at that distance. After averting their eyes from the initial flash, everyone stared at the angry symbol of Armageddon. Twenty seconds later, a sudden puff of warm wind swept past — the only tactile sign of temperatures and pressures that had briefly rivaled the sun itself.
Admiral Gibierge’s masterstroke had failed.
USS GEORGE WASHINGTON
Ward was busy with the search-and-rescue efforts and the air battle’s aftermath. The fireball had almost dissipated by the time he stepped outside. Off to the southeast, the sky was littered with shredded white smoke trails, while a black column of smoke closer in marked Dale’s demise.
They’d been damn lucky, he thought. He’d made an unexpected move, caught the enemy off guard, and come out relatively intact. They’d lost one cruiser, about twenty fighters, but they’d decimated EurCon air power. It had cost the lives of about five hundred sailors and airmen, he reflected sadly, but without the victory they could have lost many times that number.
Another missile ship was already steaming over to take Dale’s position. His fighter squadrons were recovering on board the two carriers. Once his pilots had time to rest and eat, each bird farm would launch the first in a long series of Alpha Strikes aimed at French and German air and naval bases. He planned to make sure EurCon paid dearly for what it had done.
Better yet, the carrier Vinson would arrive in the area in several more days, allowing him to keep two carriers on the line continuously while the other pulled back to replenish and rest its air crews.
In the meantime, Ward had some serious planning to do. EurCon’s step across the nuclear threshold presented him with new military challenges. For a start, formations that had been closed up to offer better protection against conventional air attack would have to be dispersed to prevent multiple losses if another nuclear weapon got through.
He’d leave the bigger issues to the politicians in Washington and London. But one thing was already clear. The whole nature of this war had changed in the blink of an eye.
CHAPTER 23
Shifting Fortunes
JUNE 15 — NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL MEETING, THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Ross Huntington sat in a chair and let the heated argument flow over and around him. This was one time he planned to let the NSC’s official membership handle things without the somewhat dubious benefit of his advice. The military ramifications of the abortive French nuclear attack on George Washington were beyond his scope. He was a political advisor, not a defense expert. In any case, he already had more than enough on his plate. He felt worn down and about fifteen years older than he really was.
Huntington spent most of his waking hours out at Fort Meade — watching over the team of NSA analysts assigned to monitor EurCon’s internal governmental and diplomatic communications. Although they’d been digging deep, looking for disagreements and disputes, his SIGINT gophers hadn’t come up with much hard data.
The pandemonium in official and unofficial Washington more than made up for the European hush. For the past two days, pundits and politicians had swarmed over the nation’s airwaves and newspaper op-ed columns — each with his or her own slant on what should be done, and done now.
Dovish liberals issued impassioned appeals for a cease-fire, a negotiated settlement, and above all for talks, talks, and more talks. Furious conservatives argued for unrestricted bombing across France and Germany. Some even urged the retaliatory use of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons against EurCon ground targets. Isolationists of both stripes contended that the incident showed the folly of American involvement in Europe’s “petty” quarrels.
The spectacle seemed absurd to Huntington whenever he surfaced from scanning decoded radio and microwave intercepts — another manifestation of the Beltway freak show in full swing. As always, it pissed him off to see journalists and news anchors paying respectful heed to “experts” who’d been wrong so many times in the past. Why give airtime to people who had once solemnly assured anyone watching that KAL 007 had been a CIA spy flight, that the Soviets would never use chemical weapons against civilians, or that economic sanctions alone would force Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait?
Still, he had to admit that the TV talking heads seemed to represent every imaginable segment of American public opinion.
Not surprisingly, the administration’s own inner circle split along somewhat the same lines. The cabinet officers who had first opposed energy aid to Eastern Europe saw the nuclear attack as further proof that Poland and the others weren’t worth the potential price in American lives and treasure. Lucier, Scofield, and Quinn were among those scornfully rejecting any idea of retreating under EurCon military pressure. Thurman wobbled between the two factions, trying to sit on both sides of the fence at the same time. As always, the military chiefs were among the most cautious when it came to the lives of the men and women they commanded. That didn’t mean they backed withdrawal, but it did mean they wanted assurances that the nation’s political leadership wouldn’t leave them high and dry if the conflict escalated.
For the moment, the President seemed content to keep his own counsel.
He turned to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “What’s the latest word on our troop deployment, General? Are you still on schedule?”
“Yes, sir.” General Reid Galloway nodded. “We’re almost ready to start flying both the 101st and the 82nd to Gdansk. It’s going to take a lot of time and a lot of planes, but we’ll get there.”
Huntington had seen the figures. Moving just one brigade of the 101st Airborne and its associated aviation task force by air meant lifting 2,800 troops, over one hundred helicopters, and nearly five hundred other vehicles. During the Desert Shield buildup, more than a hundred giant C-5s and C-141s had taken thirteen days to accomplish a similar feat. Two things had helped them cut those times somewhat. First, two of the 101st’s brigades were already packed and ready for movement to the U.K. for summer exercises with the British Army when the war broke out. Second, Poland was closer than Saudi Arabia and that cut flight times and wear and tear on crews. But it was still an enormous task.
“And our first two heavy divisions?”
The chief of naval operations, a slender, wiry man with salt-and-pepper hair and a pronounced Boston accent, answered that one. “We’re still assembling the transports we need, Mr. President. Once that’s done, it’ll take several more days to load them. Right now, our best guess is the first convoys can sail in a week to ten
days.”
Carefully seated beside the President, Thurman cleared his throat.
“Yes, Harris?”
The Secretary of State folded his hands together and adopted his most serious expression. “I believe we should hold those ships in port, sir. At least until we have a better handle on the situation.”
“Explain that.”
“Well, Mr. President, it seems foolish to put such a slow-moving, high-value target within reach of French nuclear weapons. Before we let this convoy sail, we need a firm commitment from Paris that they won’t use those weapons again. Until we have their solemn pledge in hand, we would only be tempting the French and unnecessarily exposing our ships and military equipment to destruction.”
Members of the NSC’s isolationist faction murmured their agreement with the Secretary of State.
“Unnecessarily?” Despite his best intentions, Huntington found he couldn’t let that pass unchallenged. His pulse accelerated, driven by anger and irritation. “You’ve seen the same battlefield reports I have, Mr. Secretary. Poland needs help as quick as we can send it! We should…” Pain tore through his chest. Oh, God. He shivered, feeling cold sweat trickling down his forehead and under his arms. Breathing was difficult. He stared down at the table, panting rapidly.
“Ross? Ross? Are you okay?”
Huntington made an effort and lifted his head. He saw the President staring down the long table at him in sudden concern.
“Jesus, Ross! You look like shit.”
“So I’ve been told, Mr.…” Huntington doubled over in his seat, fighting to pull air through lungs that felt like they were being squeezed by red-hot pincers. The room started to gray out.
Through the roaring in his ears, he heard the President snap, “Get a medical team to the Situation Room! Now, goddamn it!”
An hour later, Huntington sat upright on a chilly examination table in the White House infirmary, acutely uncomfortable in a thin, sterile paper gown. Raw, stinging patches on his chest showed where a nurse had yanked hairs off along with a set of taped-down EKG leads.