by David Poyer
Which jumped from one burning-white dot to the next in abrupt disorienting lurches. As Terranova, or maybe ALIS, switched attention from one contact to the next, the data beside each vibrating bracket laddered upward faster than the flickering numbers on a gas pump.
ALIS settled on the first missile. Its elevation callout, in angels, or thousands of feet, passed five hundred. That number kept climbing, but the white dot, gripped by the pulsating brackets, which up to now had seemed stationary relative to the ground return around it, began to drift. It oozed slowly, but with a steady increment of acceleration, to the left.
The display jerked, shifting to the second missile. Then the third.
A shuddering roar penetrated the armor around them. Dan tensed, then recognized it.
“Combat, Helo Control.”
He pressed the lever on the 21MC. “Go, Control.”
“Red Hawk wheels up. Request initial vector.”
Had he given them a green deck? Maybe he had. “Between us and the coast. Execute skimmer barrier. Get vectors from your controller. We’re busy here.” He signed off, then hit the lever again and said rapidly, “Pass to Strafer, I want him to conserve fuel. I may not be able to come to a recovery course for a while.”
They rogered and he exhaled. At least one minute gone of their allotted eight. Maybe more. But he didn’t feel quite as blind with the helo between them and the shore. The SH-60’s armament was useless against a sea-skimming C-802. But the onboard radar would give a heads-up, and the aircraft could provide decoy coverage. Actually, he had more confidence in the decoys than in anything else, though Sea Whiz, their last-ditch defense, was a robust system. The last barrier any missile had to make it through was its nearly solid storm of 20mm depleted-uranium slugs, fired so fast it sounded like a continuous note from a very loud bass viol.
But more important just now: the three ballistic missiles on the way, with only two rounds in his magazines. He pushed sweat off his forehead. His calf muscles were knotting painfully, and he stretched out a leg and flexed it.
Slaughenhaupt leaned across and said past Staurulakis, “Captain? Lahav’s changing station.”
“What’s that, Chief?”
“Dropping back. Still maintaining five miles, but looks like she’s repositioning.”
What the hell? “Which way?”
“South.”
“Okay, keep me informed.” Dan reared back, but couldn’t see over the consoles between him and the electronic-warfare stacks. “And Cheryl, make sure we have the first team back there. This’d be a great time to clobber us from behind.”
A stir in the rear of CIC; someone clunked the door shut and dogged it. At that moment Ammermann hitched his chair forward. “What’s going on? Are you shooting them down?”
“Silence,” Dan snapped, then realized the old powder-magazine command—to freeze in place and shut up—wouldn’t carry much meaning for the civilian. “No time to explain. Keep quiet, or leave.”
The right screen jumped second to second among the three rising missiles. The elevation numbers on the first, Alfa, were still ratcheting upward, but the rate of climb was slackening. At the same time, though, it was gathering velocity westward. Converting the awesome speed accumulated in ascent into horizontal swiftness. Bent, by gravity’s rainbow—Pynchon’s phrase—into a ballistic arc. The others, lagging by a few seconds, had not yet reached that phase of flight.
A cunning tactic. Multiple incomers would saturate any defense, not just his own, but Israel’s. He remembered his computer, but didn’t have time to type. He had to be the consciousness above the action, keeping it all in his head. Savo was nearing the south limit of her patrol box. He’d have to choose. Either turn back, risking the loss of his targets while reorienting the locked-on radars; or increase his launch angle, and reduce probability of kill. All the while keeping in mind the threat from shore; the souls in Red Hawk, hurtling through utter darkness, over rough seas, fighting gusts and snow; and the Israeli frigate close aboard, engaged in some puzzling maneuver of her own device.
He clicked the notebook closed and set it aside.
“Getting a better IPP on Alfa,” Staurulakis murmured. Dan shifted his attention to the center screen, and caught his breath.
The predicted point of impact was still altering shape with successive recomputation. But with each recalculation, the oblate oval was contracting. He’d expected it to center on their defended area. But it wasn’t even over land, much less over Tel Aviv.
The shrinking circle of the first predicted impact point was twenty miles out at sea.
Right over the blue plus-sign-in-a-circle that meant own ship.
16
Point Amphitrite
“COMING right down our throat,” Wenck said. He’d come over to stand behind Dan.
“Uh-huh. Any last-minute ideas?”
“Just one, Captain. Remember, Block 4’s a terminal-phase interceptor. We shoot too soon, the sustainer’ll flame out before it gets there. Or lack the juice to maneuver?”
“You’re saying, whites of their eyes.”
Wenck looked puzzled, then nodded. “Yeah. Whites of their eyes.”
Slaughenhaupt passed it on in a murmur over the voice circuit. Great, it’d be all over the ship in minutes. A few feet away Ammermann, looking scared, had taken out a BlackBerry and was busily clicking something into it.
Okay, it was as good a battle cry as any.
The screens kept changing. He wanted to tell Cher to slow down, but there were only three screens and she had to channel-surf to keep up. The ALIS feed kept flickering too, switching among the trio of incomers now entering exoatmospheric flight. Meteor Alfa was streaking westward now. The impact prediction twitched off Savo Island’s symbol, but then crept back. The oval kept shrinking, contracting, but stayed centered on them.
He murmured, “What’s the plan, Cher?”
“Recommend we take out Alfa, sir. Two-round salvo.”
“What about the other two?”
“Their IPP’s not us.” She toggled and he saw this was true. The second and third ovals were taking shape, vibrating like stranded jellyfish and sort of shaped like them too. The two follow-on warheads would impact well inland.
“They’re targeted on our defended assets.”
“Yessir. But self-defense comes first.”
Something about “self-defense” reminded him they weren’t alone out here. “Get that word to Pittsburgh. He’ll probably be okay, but he doesn’t want to be at ’scope depth right now.”
“And Lahav?”
“I’ll call him.” He dialed to Channel 16, bridge to bridge. “Lahav, this is Savo Island.”
The response took only seconds. “Lahav. Over.”
“For your information, I am taking three incoming theater ballistic missiles under fire. Two are targeted on your capital city. The other’s aimed at me. I’ll be trying to shake it, but it’s possible it may decoy onto you. So be warned, and please stand clear while I’m firing. Confirm. Over.”
“This is Lahav. I understand. Should I clear to the east? Over.”
“This is Savo. Negative, that won’t make much difference before it’s here.”
Another voice, stronger: Marom’s. The Israeli skipper must have been on the bridge, or in the corvette’s CIC. “Copy your launch warning. Thank you for the heads-up. I will continue to guard you.”
Dan exchanged an eyebrows-up with Staurulakis and Slaughenhaupt. “Continue to guard you.” Would’ve been nice if he’d made his mission clear earlier. “Roger, out.”
The hiss of ether, then Marom again. “Savo, this is Lahav. Thank you for protecting our country. Out.”
He socketed the phone, oppressed by the sense of time ticking away, of weapons that would in minutes drill down through the fringes of mesosphere sixty miles up. He reviewed the problem. He’d have to decide very soon now.
Boost phase was over. The lead missile was entering midphase, coasting in that great arc outside the
atmosphere. Outside, so despite its terrific speed there was no friction heating. This was the hardest part of its flight during which to maintain track. It was nearly head-on, so not only was it infrared-dim, but its radar cross section was at a minimum.
Thus far, though, ALIS seemed to have a solid grip, to judge from the callouts, which were now registering a high but unvarying speed consistent with ballistic flight. That velocity would remain constant across the crest of the exoatmospheric arc, then build again as it plunged.
Entering the terminal phase, when the gravity-accelerated delivery vehicle hit those first air molecules. Along with a heat signature, the warhead would grow an ionization trail as its ablative sheathing charred away. The cross section didn’t grow much, but the electrically charged ionization plume bounced a radar signal too—actually a bigger one than the warhead at its heart. As with the Scud attacks back during Desert Storm, the challenge then became to discriminate between the payload proper and any debris or decoys reentering along with it.
Since his Block 4s were terminal-phase homers, he had to engage then. At that point—ticking rapidly closer, as the delivery vehicle nosed over, ninety miles above Jordan—his decision time would shrink from minutes to seconds, and not many of those.
Along with that, he had to keep in mind the other systems presumably locked on the incomers as well. The battery at Ben Gurion, for one. Israel’s other ABM defense, the Arrow, he knew very little about. A midphase interceptor, though. By the time he had to make his call, he shouldn’t have to worry about it.
He’d have to watch for the Patriot launch, though. Savo and the Israeli army battery might be firing nearly simultaneously. That was another terminal homer, and it was closer to the enemy. Savo would be shooting over its shoulder.
Which would not be good for either’s P-sub-K. He called, “EW: Sing out if you see a Ku-band homer from that Patriot site.”
“Roger, sir.”
A touch at his elbow. Ammermann, the broad earnest face sallow now. “Captain. Do I understand one of those missiles is aimed at us?”
“The first one. The intent being to take us out first. Then the Patriot battery, is my guess. The third, and the ones after that, can strike undefended targets.”
“Can you take that missile out?”
Dan said, “The question is, do we want to.”
“What do you mean? You have to!”
Terranova said, loudly but without any stress in that Joisey accent, “Meteor Alfa, apogee. Hundred and forty kilometers up. Fifteen thousand miles an hour. About to commence terminal phase. Lock-on is firm.”
Wenck added, “Request permission to engage Track Alfa with SM-2.”
Dan waved the staffer away. Said to the TAO, “Where are we in the launch basket, Cheryl?”
“Damn near at the hairy edge, Captain. But I don’t think we want to initiate a turn right now. Two-round engagement?” She hesitated, carefully dressed nails poised over the keyboard. No color, as per regs, but they were neatly manicured and shiny with clear polish.
“Permission to engage?” Wenck asked again.
“Not yet,” Dan said.
She turned, and those wide blue eyes searched his. “Two-round engagement,” she repeated, this time without the question mark. “At least, can we roll the FIS to green?”
The firing integrity switch wasn’t really used as a safety, but it ended up being used that way by default. He said slowly, “FIS to green. But negative on permission to engage.”
Another tug on his arm. “That’s against the first missile, right?”
“Mr. Ammermann, I’ve asked you before. Now I’m telling you. Keep out of my way! —Stand by, Cheryl. Donnie.” He tore his gaze from her and nailed it onto the rightmost screen, where the quivering brackets held the center of the picture as the mountains and wadis across which the armies of Egypt and Babylon and Assyria, Rome and Britain, had marched, clicked past with each sweep-and-refresh of the beam.
The Eye of Sauron. If only he could reach out with that demonic entity’s power to destroy. It seemed counterintuitive, that the assemblages of metal and solid fuel, electronics and explosives, sleeping umbilicaled in Savo’s deep-racked womb could in mere minutes be hurtling through space. To hit a bullet with a bullet … it seemed impossible.
And judging by the tests to date, the probabilities weren’t all that high.
He rubbed his face, creepy with déjà vu, recognizing the nightmare scenario he’d dreaded. His magazines were almost empty. Should he take the most imminent incoming threat? Increase his probability of kill? And leave the pair following in its comet trail down through the troposphere to impact in their defended area?
Or: Fire one on the first incomer, and the second on the first Israel-targeted warhead?
If only he knew their payloads. Explosives? Nuclear? Chemical? Poisonous isotopes, with half-lives in the centuries?
Or worst of all, the secret horror he and the Signal Mirror team had discovered years before, in those silent tunnels beneath Baghdad. He shuddered, remembering blanket-wrapped bundles, infected technicians hidden away to die … shivering, feverish, unconscious, faces and hands scabbed with horrendous lesions.…
Dr. Fayzah al-Syori—“Doctor Death”—had started with the most deadly disease in history. Then engineered it to increase its virulence, enhance its lethality, and enable it to jump from host to host on the wings of touch, breath, even the wind.
Classic smallpox killed 40 percent of an unvaccinated population. The death rate from the hemorrhagic variant was double that. And, an Army doctor had told him then, it wouldn’t stop at national boundaries.
He shook his head, finding it hard even to breathe. If what he feared was true, only his last and final alternative made sense. He should use both his weapons on the delivery vehicles targeted on the city.
But that would leave Savo naked to what had to be some kind of homing weapon, even now screaming down, less than a hundred miles away, closing at twenty thousand miles an hour. When his gaze sought the IPP oval again, it had shrunk to a pinpoint.
Meteor Alfa was still aimed right at them.
“Sir. You still haven’t given permission to fire,” said Staurulakis. Her lips stayed parted. Her pale thin face hung abeyant, staring at him. The CIC itself seemed to have grown larger, the steel around them thin as the shell of a blown egg. Dan was sweating. His mind was cold, the way it always, or almost always, got when things became really tense. But his body didn’t agree. He pressed his palms down on the desk, so no one could see the CO’s hands shaking.
“I know. Whites of their eyes, Cher,” he said again, as calmly as he could manage.
“It’s inside our outer engagement envelope.”
“Captain, what’s going on here? Aren’t you going to fire?”
“Mr. Ammermann, one more word and I’ll have you removed. —I know, Cher. But like Donnie says, the later we shoot, the more maneuverability the homer has. We’ve got another, what, fifty seconds? Just stand by. Just stand by.”
“Very well, sir.” She closed her mouth and turned back to the screen.
Suddenly, he made his decision. Though it really hadn’t been a choice. Just remorseless logic. He reached for the 21MC. “Bridge, CO: Come left, steady on zero seven zero, bring her up to flank. Pass Circle William throughout the ship. Launch-warning bell forward.” He clicked to Helo Control. “Pass to Red Hawk: Remain to our east and stand by to dispense flares.” As Savo began to lean, he told Slaughenhaupt, “Deploy the rubber duckies. Stand by to launch chaff.”
The orders clamored away, repeated down the line. Circle William shut down ventilation, sealing them off from outside air. Ticonderogas weren’t designed to endure chemical- or biological-warfare conditions. They didn’t have filtered air supplies or positive ventilation. But securing blowers and dogging every access topside would at least give them a few minutes’ grace, during which, perhaps, they could steam out of a wind-carried contaminant plume. The “rubber duckies” were decoys.
An array inside the inflatable tetrahedron simulated the cross section of a ship, presenting a radar-guided missile with a simulacrum of Savo. With any luck it would select the wrong one … that is, if the incoming homer was radar-guided.
“You’re going to take it head-on?” Staurulakis murmured. “We sure about this, Captain?”
He wanted to say, Duh … Hell no, but muttered, “That’s what we’re here for, Cheryl. What do cruisers do? When they’re in the screen, protecting the high-value unit.”
“Exhaust our magazines. Then absorb the last salvo ourselves.”
“Exactly. If we can sacrifice ourselves to shield the carrier, we damn sure can go down protecting a city.”
“Wait a minute—Captain—”
Dan nodded to the chief master-at-arms, who with a grim-visaged Master Chief Tausengelt had been standing behind the White House staffer for the past few minutes. He didn’t know who’d called them, but it was time. “Mr. Ammermann, I’ll ask you to leave now. But stay inside the skin of the ship. And don’t try to interfere again.”
“You can’t—you can’t just … just sacrifice us. This is insane. You have to—”
“Take him out, Sid,” Dan told Tausengelt. The old machinist’s oversized hands closed on the staffer’s shoulders. Ammermann’s face went white, and he gave a grunting squeak.
The chiefs hauled him to his feet and led him away. Dan squinted after them, then back at Staurulakis. “Cher? I gave an order.”
Her face seemed to waver, and finally, set. “Got it. —Shift fire gate selection. Launchers into operate mode. Set up to take Meteor Bravo, one-round salvo. Next salvo, Meteor Charlie, also one-round salvo. Salvo warning alarm forward. Deselect all safeties and interlocks. Stand by to fire. On CO’s command.”
Her fingers raced; he leaned in his seat, body-Englishing Savo into the turn as she heeled harder, bringing her bow on to the incoming payload. Making herself as small as possible, like a dueler turning sideways to his opponent’s pistol.
Time slowed. He lifted his head, attention flicking from screen to screen, which seemed to strobe more and more slowly. A camera picture shutter-flicked past; the black sea, gleaming as it heaved; the drive of snow sideways like a white wall. Cold outside. Air-conditioned cold within.
