by David Poyer
“Yes sir. I hear you.”
He lowered his voice again. “And something else. If you don’t think you’re up to the job? Neither do I.”
“Yes, you made that very—”
“No. I mean I don’t feel, deep inside, that I’m up to mine either.”
Almarshadi’s eyes widened. They came up and locked with his.
“That’s right,” Dan said, still keeping it low, between them, his grip on the guy’s shoulder digging to thin bone beneath the slight musculature. “I feel like I’m going to fail and give way. Like I’m making it up as I go along. And I’m never sure I’m doing the right thing.”
“But … you are the captain,” the little man whispered. “You have the … you have the Medal of Honor. You mean you do not…”
“No,” Dan said. They stood there face-to-face for a second, then another. Then he added, turning on just a little anger again, “So get used to it, and grow the hell up. We’re at war. Do your duty. Get us ready to fight. Press on. Then you’ll do everything I expect of you, and you’ll be a leader, Fahad.”
He opened his hand, releasing his grip. The little man held his gaze, still looking as if he did not quite believe, but in that moment unguarded as Dan had not seen him before. He nodded, once, then again. Stepped back, and turned away, catching himself with an outstretched arm as Savo rolled.
He vanished down the ladderway, leaving Dan, soaked with sweat and feeling as if he’d run many miles, listening to the hissing whisper of the snow.
* * *
HE was back in Combat when GCCS and high-side chat came up more or less at the same time. He narrowed his eyes at the screens, then called up the DIA classified site and looked up the ship.
A premonitory—no, a remembered—chill trailed cold fingers up his spine.
A Vosper Mark V frigate. Fourteen hundred tons. And heavily armed, including Chinese-supplied antiship missiles.
He knew this ship. Had sweated under its prosecution before, scraping the keel of a stolen submarine across the shallow sands of the eastern Gulf. Had fired his last and only weapon at its consort as it charged in to destroy him. It had connected, but the sister frigate, this one, had swung in next. Only an unexpected intervention had saved him.
Now INS Alborz was exiting As-Suwys—the mouth of the Suez Canal—accompanied by a second combatant and a supply ship. A small Iranian task force, according to the intel summary. Heading in his direction?
“A hundred and forty miles,” Matt Mills murmured from the TAO chair. Damn, Dan thought, am I getting that transparent? Or was it good that he and his TAOs were thinking along parallel lines? He sucked the inside of a cheek, replaying bad memories about that area of the Egyptian coast. That was where he’d patrolled with Moosbrugger and Horn, and intercepted the battered trawler that had turned out to be carrying something the West had dreaded for years.
He sighed, and reached for the phone.
Ammermann answered on the first ring. Dan asked him if he could come to CIC. While he was waiting, he researched the rest of the task force. The second combatant was a Sina-class missile boat, built to a French design in Iran. It too carried antiship missiles. The third must have been a support or logistics ship, or even civilian general cargo. His references didn’t list it, though the intel report gave a name. “Make sure the EW team has the specs on their emitters,” he told Mills.
The West Wing staffer looked around, as if impressed, when he let himself in. But the guy surely was used to large-screen displays if he’d ever been in the Situation Room. Dan motioned him over. “Matt, give Adam your seat for a little while. Take a pee break, or whatever. I’ll watch your screen.”
“Yes sir. Remember, Weps is starting morning systems-operability tests. You might see the ‘missile ready’ numbers going up and down as they take them off the line.”
“Okay, thanks. —Adam, sorry, we’ve sort of neglected you.”
“That’s perfectly okay, Dan. I know things must be getting tense for you.”
Was that a dig? He couldn’t read this guy. He acted sincere, open, but what political animal, from either party, didn’t have layer beneath layer, motivation beneath motivation? Maybe this one just had a better poker face, but his smooth, wide, roughly shaven visage looked guileless and eager to please. Dan noted a simple yellow-gold ring with a deeply embossed crest he couldn’t see well enough in the subdued light to identify. He tapped it. “Harvard?”
“Yale.”
“Like the president.”
Ammermann looked humble. “Oh, sure. But years later, of course.”
“You know, Adam, I keep feeling like I should recognize your name. Why is that?”
“The heavy-equipment manufacturers. My family.”
“Oh yeah, sure. Close to the administration?”
“We’ve been supporters, over the years. What did you need me for, Captain? Some way I can help?”
Dan explained the tight quarters of the launch box; the window they had to hit; the Israeli, still guard-dogging them to the northeast. “He’s staying clear of our firing bearing, which is good. But I’m not entirely sure what he’s doing out here.”
“I could try to find out,” Ammermann said earnestly. “Go right from our office to the ambassador. I believe that’s possible.”
Dan thought it over. He had his own contact with the Israelis, although he wasn’t sure of the man’s name: the smooth little diplomat, or spy, who’d surreptitiously slipped him the Israeli Medal of Courage at a party at the vice president’s house. Back when he’d worked in the West Wing himself.
How ironic that he was now trying to safeguard the same city for the second time. “Well, that’s not actually what’s bothering me at the moment.”
“What’s eating you, Dan? Fuel consumption?”
A flicker on the status board caught his eye; a missile had gone offline. Daily testing, right. Where had Ammermann heard about their fuel state? “Yeah, that, and other things, but what I’m wondering about is this Iranian, uh, task force, I guess, that’s entering the Med. They’ve never done that before, operated up here, and I’m not clear on what might be the motivation. We’re taking on Iraq—their enemy—the Iranians, I mean. Sort of like the Romans took out the … well, never mind that. Any ideas on what they might have in mind?”
Ammermann made a strange side-to-side motion of the head, almost, Dan thought, a gesture he’d seen Indians make. A snakelike weave that conveyed something, but he wasn’t sure what. “You think they’ve got their eye on Savo? Or on you?”
“Call me paranoid. We’ll know more in a few hours, when we get a reading on their track. But it isn’t that far from Suez to here.”
“I could speculate, but it wouldn’t be more than that.”
“Okay. What would you speculate?”
The younger man shrugged. “Even if we’re taking on one of their enemies, we’re still an enemy too. Probably a more hated one, given the history—our support of the shah, the hostage drama, et cetera, et cetera. So if we’ve made a commitment to defend one of our allies—Israel—and we can’t follow through for some reason, we take a pie in the face. How they could do that, how they might interfere—that’s more in your area of expertise, Captain. The alternative might be, they’re just showing the flag. They do seem eager to assert themselves, since Zhang’s been backing them. Especially anywhere we show up first.”
Dan tapped his teeth with a thumbnail. Just the mention of Zhang Zurong brought back bad memories. When they’d first met, at a restaurant near the Gallery Place Metro stop, “Uncle Xinhu” had been a colonel. Ostensibly a defense attaché, he’d actually been a member of the Second Department of the People’s Liberation Army, supervising a massive program of technology theft. Dan remembered him as a middle-aged businessman in a dark suit, wearing metal-on-plastic Yuri Andropov glasses. Many years later, he’d suddenly emerged from the deliberate obscurity of the Chinese Politburo as minister of state security. And now, years after that, as the premier, wit
h a new policy: testing and, when possible, displacing U.S. power.
To some extent, it was inevitable; as the U.S. fleet drew down, as the American presence became less imposing, rising powers would be tempted to help push them out. Maybe the Iranians were just showing the flag. But as CO of a task force himself, even if only of Savo Island and Pittsburgh, he was bound to put the most threatening construction on any new player in the east Med.
He glanced up as Ammermann was lighting a cigarette. Dan plucked it from his fingers before the flame from the Zippo could touch its tip. “Not in CIC.”
“Sorry … wasn’t thinking. What d’you want me to do?”
Past him Mills was balancing a fresh cup of coffee, listening. Dan nodded to him. “Matt, anything to add?”
“If Mr. Ammermann can find out what’s behind this, it could help.”
“Okay, Adam, I’m going to give you a covered line. Work your magic.”
“I can’t promise anything, Captain.”
“Just do what you can. If there’s any way we can persuade these guys to turn around and go home, or even just tie up someplace until this thing’s over, it could deconflict the situation. Especially with Captain Marom on a hair trigger over there.”
“Captain who?” Ammermann asked.
“Skipper of that Israeli corvette. That complicates it too—my chain of command.”
“Sorry, I don’t understand.”
“I mean, Iraq’s a CentCom responsibility, but Israel’s always been a EuCom country. And my opcon, and tacom, as CTG 161 is to Sixth Fleet, which is under EuCom. But I’m supporting a CentCom mission—Infinite Freedom.”
The staffer frowned. Dan got up and stretched. Something cracked in his neck, like a pretzel stick breaking, and he flinched. “Like I said—it’s complicated. But don’t worry about that.” Ammermann rose too, and extended a hand. Dan shook it. “I’ll have Dave Branscombe get in touch. He’s the comm officer. He’ll set you up. It’ll be a secure circuit, but I don’t have to warn you not to pass anything classified you don’t absolutely have to.”
“Do you still want me recalled? Sent back?”
“Well … I just don’t think this is a good use of your expertise and influence, Adam.”
Ammermann grinned, as if recognizing a clumsy attempt at disguising rejection. “I see why they still tell stories about you in the West Wing, Captain. You’re not going to make it in politics.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Though I understand your wife’s thinking about a run. She’s a brave gal. After all that. The injuries. Don’t quote me on this, but good luck to her … even if she’s on the wrong side.”
Dan shrugged. He didn’t want to talk about Blair with this guy. For a second he missed her, terribly. He had to look away and take a deep breath. Even just talking to her would help. But he couldn’t cut off phone comms for the crew, then make personal calls himself. He was starting to say thanks, already tapping the keyboard to go back to the high-side chat, when the 1MC chanted, “Fire, fire, fire. Class Charlie fire in Aft VLS. Repair Five provide. I say again—”
Not again was his first conscious thought. Not now. He was on his way out, headed for the bridge, before the word came over again, but doubled back in the doorway, almost knocking down a petty officer. The man backed into the bulkhead, looking alarmed. Dan crossed CIC at a run, barking his shin on the corner of a terminal, and went out the other way, grabbing his Hydra, which he’d socketed into a recharge holder, en route.
13
THE CCS space, which used to be called Damage Control Central and often still was, lay one deck below the mess area. It was already standing room only when he got there. Bart Danenhower was there, along with the top snipe, Chief McMottie, and the damage-control officer, Jiminiz. They and the damage-control technicians were so preoccupied they almost didn’t make way for him. But he had no problem with that. They were the ones who were going to have to fight this thing.
A fire in the vertical launching system was a whole other beast than one in the Aegis power supply room. The difference was many tons of high-energy solid fuel and explosive warheads. The aft system held sixty-one missiles, each with its booster, standing vertically in a sealed canister, eight missiles grouped four in a row in a module. The modules were two decks high, separated by shoulder-width metal catwalks.
Standing there, Dan tried to organize his thoughts, but it all felt increasingly fuzzy. Too much. Too fast. The module was normally unmanned. “There’s no one in there?” he said, just to get that clear.
Jiminiz shook his head without looking around. “No sir. We’ve cleared everyone out aft of here. Except for the damage-control teams.”
“No possibility these missiles are going to launch?”
Danenhower said, “No sir. Combat shut down launch control. Those orders come in via a remote enable panel and a status panel.”
Dan was clear on that. Once the fire order came through, the LCUs selected a ready bird and began the prelaunch commands. Part of that algorithm was opening the deck hatch assembly at the top of the selected cells, out on Savo’s main deck. This not only let the missile emerge, but exhausted combustion gases through a separate plenum that vented vertically through one uptake hatch for each cell. “Okay, but I read a class advisory on magazine authorization. It said something about being able to remove mag launch authorization, but the launcher still being able to fire.”
“You’d have to ask the missile supervisor that. Sorry.”
A picture came up on one of the monitors: the passageway outside the module. The heavy steel red-and-white entrance door was clearly visible. As was the damage-control party, in coveralls, hoods, helmets, boots, and gloves; masked, OBA-rigged, dragging extinguishers, hoses, and axes, manipulating stingers into position. Giving the impression of milling around, but actually, Dan could see, getting ready to unseal that door and go in.
The easiest and safest way to deal with an electrical fire was to get in quick, before it spread, and douse it with CO2 or a low-velocity spray, so it didn’t electrocute someone. Though the power supplies in the modules weren’t high voltage, as far as he was aware. He didn’t envy those masked crewmen their mission one bit, and they’d have to do it fast, before whatever was going on in there lit off one of those closely packed solid-fuel rocket engines. “Is this on the video recorder?”
The chief engineer said, “Bringing it up now, Captain.”
“Have we got a camera inside the module, Bart?”
“Actually, we do, sir, but we couldn’t see anything.”
“Put it up.”
Danenhower was right; the interior camera, aimed down the centerline passageway, showed only gratings and the white-painted, black-stenciled vertical walls on either side of the square-canistered missiles. There might be a trace of smoke-haze in the upper field of view. It was hard to be sure.
He crossed to the J-phone and, after some seconds, managed to get the missile system supervisor on the line. The petty officer said yeah, he knew about that advisory, but it didn’t apply to Savo.
“Why not?”
“We got that change in version 2.3, Captain. I tested it and the cue lamp for the VAB blinks right.”
“Does that mean it can’t fire?”
“Correct. But that’s not exactly the problem occupying us at the moment, Captain,” the petty officer explained patiently.
“So what is the problem? Other than that something’s on fire in there?”
“We can’t open the hatch.”
“Oh, fuck me. Why not?”
“Well, that’s the biggest problem with the VLS, sir. The hatches. They get old, the seals fail, or they stick when you try to open them.”
“Wait a minute. We can’t open any of the hatches?”
“No sir, that’s not what I said.”
“What exactly are you saying, Petty Officer?”
“Sir, we can’t open that hatch.”
Dan told him to keep trying, but th
e tech said there was no power any longer to the module, so it was no use. So actually, Dan thought, they really couldn’t open any of the hatches. Which meant that if a missile caught fire and ignited, he had no way to get rid of it.
Launchers in older cruisers had included provisions for ejecting duds or hot runs, physically booting the round overboard with a big hydraulic ram. But the VLS had no “launcher” as such and no provision for ejecting a contrary missile. He was stuck with it; they had to deal with the thing where it was. He hung up, whispering, “Shit. —Where exactly is the fire?” Danenhower, who was standing in front of the alarm panel, that silly engineer’s cap hanging off his temple, didn’t answer. Dan jabbed him in the ribs and asked again, louder.
The engineer flinched and pointed to a red indicator. “Module two. The GMMs are saying SCMM.”
“Power’s secured?”
“Yes sir. All power aft secured.”
“I guess that’s good, except it means we can’t open the hatch now.”
“Oh, no sir. We can open them from here,” a petty officer said. “That’s hydraulics. As long as we got hydraulic pressure—”
“What’s the temperature in there now?” Dan interrupted, getting more anxious by the second.
A console operator said, “Aft module, air temperature ninety-nine, cell two readout, six hundred. And going up.”
On the screen a damage controlman—was that Benyamin under the mask and hood?—pulled off a glove and laid his palm against the heavy steel door. He left it there for only a moment, then jerked it back. His mask turned back and forth; he was shaking his head.
Dan said, “There’s obviously a fire. What happens when your team opens that door? Especially if we can’t get the deck hatches open?”
“They go in and fight it.”
“Right, but I mean, what happens in the p-way? If that’s one of the boosters burning, we’re gonna have massive toxic release. All through the ship.”
Danenhower blinked. “The module’s sealed, sir.”
“Against blast? From a Standard warhead?”
The engineer grimaced. “We’ve got Zebra set, but that’s a good point—any penetration and we’d get contamination all through the aft end.” He snapped to McMottie, “Chief, tell the team leader to hold up opening that hatch. Have the backup team rig blowers and put positive atmospheric pressure in the firefighting area.”
