by David Poyer
As the Persian intoned the warning, Dan concentrated on the twenty miles ahead. The pips to starboard had divided again. That made three groups now, two to starboard, one to port. Like a gauntlet the Americans would have to run.
Now he had to step back. There was always a temptation to fulfill a scenario, to make reality square with what you expected. Like it or not, now he just had to wait. Ceding the initiative, but that was how it had to be.
“Any response?” he asked. The translator shrugged and waggled his head. Dan took that for a no, and reached for the red phone.
“Anvil, this is Matador. Copy us going out to them on VHF?”
“Loud and clear. Over.”
“We’re not hearing anything back. You?”
“Nada. Weapons tight here. Over.”
“Concur,” he said. “But stand by for tactical maneuvering. Matador out.”
He drew a slow breath, running it all through his mind again. Someday computers would do all this. Evaluate, plan, then maneuver ships in battle. Someday soon, most likely.
But not just yet.
Above all, he wasn’t going to the mat with these guys. If they wanted a battle, they’d have it. But on his terms. Only a fool fought a fair fight.
Donnie Wenck leaned over. “Something you wanna see. We don’t have it on the screen, because it ain’t painting regular—”
“What is it, Donnie? I mean, Chief? I’m kind of busy here—”
“Just come over and look.”
At the SPY console he peered over Terranova’s shoulder for several seconds before he saw what she was pointing at. The merest flicker. It didn’t register with every sweep. Sometimes several beams swept past before it painted again, like a luminescent jelly, deep underwater. Only this, if it was there, was way up there.
“How high is this?” he muttered.
“When it paints, I get around seventy thousand feet,” the Terror murmured.
“Holy shit. What the hell is it?”
“A UFO.” Wenck smirked.
“You shitting me?”
“Well, maybe some kind of upper-atmosphere disturbance? There’s something called a ‘sprite,’ but they’re associated with major lightning storms. The course and speed … hard to calculate, and it drifts this way and that, but overall, seems to be about two-two-zero.”
“How fast?”
“Hard to calculate, like I said … sixty knots?”
Two-two-zero was close to their own course out of the Knuckle. Was it following them? Tracking Savo Island through the strait? That seemed unlikely. Seventy thousand feet was where the high-altitude recon birds lived, the U-2, the SR-71. And they were fast burners. That high, that slow, what could it be? “A rogue weather balloon, or some kind of upper-atmosphere physics experiment, is all we could come up with,” Wenck said. “Anyway, figured you oughta know.”
“Pass it to ComFifth. Probably nothing, but they need to know if it’s some kind of local environment thing.”
Dan patted Terranova’s well-padded shoulder, cleared his throat, and pulled himself back to the problem at hand. He couldn’t just wait. On the other hand, he couldn’t pick a fight. He went over it all again in his head, hoping he wasn’t getting ready to really screw up, then grabbed the handset. “Red Hawk, Matador Actual.”
“202, over. Hey, Skipper.”
“Hey. Confirm, you hold altitude limitations on Misaghs. Over.”
“We have angels three on Misaghs. Over.”
“That’s correct,” Mills put in from the TAO’s seat.
Glancing over, Dan saw the redbound book open in front of him. “Um, confirm angels three on this end. Now listen up. We talked last night about maybe trailing some bacon in front of these guys?”
“Coming left, to conform to your base course.”
Dan checked the pip that was Red Hawk 202. Five miles ahead, with the speed vector out front. Good. “Okay. Run the ball up the middle, but stay above angels four. No … make it five. And keep your finger on that flare button.”
“Giving them a sniff?” Donnie Wenck muttered.
Dan didn’t answer. The leftmost screen changed, became hurtling waves: in black and white, jerky, because of the bandwidth limitations, but real-time video from the helo. It flinched right, left, then steadied on four boats skipping white trails across black water. In classic line abreast, like the old movies of World War II PT boats. They looked closer than they ought to from five thousand feet, but that might just be the magnification. Dan murmured, “Matt, get our speed up. Also, pass to EW and the EA-6B, to start jamming their radars and comms.” He picked up the red handset to Mitscher. “Matador actual. Stand by.”
“Anvil, standing by.”
From one of the speeding boats, a point of light ignited. The next frame showed it lancing upward at the tip of a cone of shining cloud.
Dan said, enunciating clearly, because this was being taped and would be gone over many times: “This is Matador. My helo is taking hostile fire. Execute form one. Flank speed. Interval five.” Out of the background noise he registered the CIC watch officer passing the same order over fleet tactical, then over the HF blower to the fleet commander.
“Roger. I see them. Maneuvering now.” And simultaneously over the other circuit, from the destroyer’s OOD, “Form one, speed three zero, roger, out.”
Dan pressed the 21MC lever. “Bridge, CO. Exec, execute Bacon Sandwich. Ahead flank emergency. Left hard rudder, pull us out to port.”
On the screen, the picture jerked, then banked crazily as Red Hawk tilted away. Sky filled the screen, then was replaced by video from the ship’s own forward gun camera. Wenck was thinking ahead, feeding Dan information via the screens. The flat, nearly calm sea. And above it, in the distance, a fleeing speck, striding away on what looked like immense spider-legs of flame-tipped smoke that spiraled slowly downward. “Strafer” Wilker, crapping flares as more missiles climbed after him.
The EW operator called, “Racket, racket. Heavy jamming, R band, correlates with EA-6B.”
Dan said, “Okay, but are we jamming too? I don’t want these guys to be able to coordinate their movements.”
Mills said they were, at the same moment the air controller stated, in Dan’s headset, “SAM, SAM! Red Hawk reports taking fire. Initiating evasive action.”
“Tell him to clear to the west and circle to his port. Pick out a target, but hold fire.”
The order went down the line. Dan studied the screen as Savo Island shuddered as if in orgasm, leaning into the turn, then out again as the rudders bit deep and the engines, full out, pushed her faster and faster. He wasn’t going to outrun a hovercraft, but he could remold the tactical situation. Three small islands lay south of where the leftward cluster of boats milled. He had just enough water to go between two of them. The major unknown was going to be, first, if whoever was in charge of the southern gaggle tumbled to what he was doing, and second, if that commander could communicate his countermove fast enough to forestall Dan’s.
“Matador, this is Anvil. In your wake five-hundred-yards interval. Conforming to your movements. Over.”
Dan acknowledged, and added a sentence explaining his aim. Beside him, Mills was passing the information to Fifth Fleet and Strike One. On the big screen, the southern group were still milling around, not moving in one direction or the other. As if they couldn’t use their tactical radio channel anymore … since the Prowler, far above, was broadcasting enough jamming power to light up a small city.
Time to further isolate the battlefield. “Air Control, CO. Pass to the F-18s. Our helo’s been fired on. He’s clearing to the west. Focus on the boats to the north of a line between the islands Forur and Kuchek. That is, the formation closest to the mainland. If any cross the transit lane heading south: warning shots, then take them out. But weapons tight on anyone moving north.” He made the petty officer repeat that, then clicked his Hydra on. “Cheryl, CO.”
“XO, over.”
“Got the picture here? Betwee
n the shoal area to port and the low island bearing about one-niner-zero true. Keep Van Gogh on the GPS. Watch the fathometer, but take us through at flank. Mitscher will follow. When we’re clear, we’ll come right, and weapons free at that time.”
She rogered. Dan made sure Mills had that too, and the orders rippled away. He gripped the chair arms. The whole ship was shaking, vibrating as sheer power wedged the sea apart. The speed indicator trembled just short of 35. “Start designating targets,” he told Mills. The Aegis picture jumped forward as the combat system began selecting targets and assigning ordnance. He checked on the helo. Still out to the west, completing a lazy circle as the first two F-18s dived, their altitude readouts spinning downward, toward the transit lane.
So far, so good. With eight Hellfires hanging off his pylons, Wilker would hit the enemy from the west, while Savo and Mitscher slammed the door to the south. The islands and shoals would pen the Pasdaran in to the west and eastward, and the F-18s would polish off anybody who tried to come to their aid. On the other hand, for anyone who felt like retreating, the back gate was open. He clicked the Hydra again. “Hold the bubble up there, Cheryl. I’m gonna be too busy to talk. Keep an open channel to Sonar for torpedo warnings. Hold speed once you pass the shoal.”
“XO, roger.”
Mills said, “Southern element’s turning toward.”
“I see it,” Dan told the TAO. “Take with Harpoon.” The screen zoomed, and four pips turned red and began to pulse. Missiles weren’t all he had to worry about. Peykaaps and Tirs carried torpedo tubes, too. If they had Shkvals, they could really be dangerous, but according to intel they didn’t have big enough tubes for it. He hoped that was right.
“Matador, this is Anvil actual. Interrogative: Who’s taking these first four? Over.”
Dan told Stonecipher, “Matador will take first wave. Anvil takes second wave. But keep an eye out behind you for those Combattantes. Out.”
Mills said, tone as even as if this were just another drill, “We have a Harpoon solution. Request batteries released.”
Dan nodded, flicked up the red cover over the Permission switch, and clicked it to On. “Batteries released.”
A distant roar signaled departure of the first Harpoon. A moment later the second left. The third. Then the fourth. They came up on the screen, swiftly departing, with the next clicking rotation of the SPY-1 beam. It would be a short-range engagement, no more than twenty thousand yards. “Anybody we miss, designate to guns,” he told Mills. The five-inches would reach out fifteen thousand yards, with seventy-pound shells proximity-fuzed to burst above the oncoming boats.
“Vampire, Vampire, Vampire!” the EW petty officer yelled. “Missile in the air, X-band emitter, correlates with Sackcloth antiship missile … Vampire number two, in the air.”
Two weapons were headed their way. One from the southern group, the other, with farther to travel, from the north. The NATO reporting name “Sackcloth” was the C-801, the version before the 802. So the Pasdaran had inherited the older missiles.
Sharp bangs echoed through the superstructure as the chaff mortars went off. Someone nudged him; held out a flash hood, gloves, goggles. Dan almost pushed them away, then took them, pulling the heavy fabric over his head. If jamming failed, if the chaff and flares and rubber duckies didn’t decoy it, that missile was coming through the side. He donned the goggles, too, but left the gloves off, to be able to address his keyboard.
On the display, twin carets pulsed red, clicking toward the blue cross of Own Ship with each sweep. “Take with Standard?” Mills asked. Dan shook his head. Their EW team should be able to cope with the earlier-version seeker heads.
“What the fuck is he doing?” Mills breathed, beside him.
Dan glanced back up at the screen, to see the TAO’s pointer highlighting the readout for Red Hawk. The SH-60B was in a tight turn to port, down at two hundred feet. “What’s he doing?” Mills breathed again.
“Vampire, Vampire, Vampire. Two more incoming. Tracks—”
Aegis classified threats and assigned weapons without human intervention. Dan didn’t see any need to interfere with the watch team as they ran the intercepts. To Mills he said, “I’m not sure.” He clicked to the helo coordination net to hear Wilker say, “Tell the Old Man—”
“The Old Man’s on the line.”
“Uh, yessir. Danger close. Madman, Madman. Smoke away. Mark, on top.”
“Streaming the Nixie,” Mills said, beside him. The antitorpedo noisemaker. Not totally dependable, but better than nothing.
Dan sat frozen as the screen showed the first C-801 curving to port, away from Savo and Mitscher. Savo’s electronic warfare team had hijacked its guidance, spoofed it to think they were where they weren’t. But the helo, on its way in from the west to attack the southern gaggle, had just detected a magnetic anomaly in the sea beneath. Dan had gone over the chart carefully before the engagement, looking specifically for wrecks, and there weren’t any marked. At the same time, another part of his brain noted that several boats were organizing out of the gaggle into what looked like a wheeling movement. Even in the absence of communications, someone was trying to coordinate a preplanned attack.
But rehearsing it in drills was nothing like executing it under fire, with your comms jammed, missiles headed at you, and five-inch shells going off overhead in instantaneous blooms of black high-explosive smoke that boomed shock waves across the water like the crack of doom.
“This is Red Hawk. Prosecute, or attack? Over.”
He decided. “Attack as ordered. Stay high. Take out the ones turning south. If they turn north, let ’em go.” He clicked to the Sonar channel. “Zotcher. Copy that datum from Red Hawk?”
Instead he got Rit Carpenter. “On it, Skipper. Designate Goblin Alfa. But we got nothing there. If it’s a sub, he’s doggo on the bottom.”
When he looked at the screen again the semicircle that denoted Red Hawk was passing just to the south of the gaggle, low, at two hundred knots … close to never-exceed speed. Spitting out those sixty-pound homing Hellfires. The contact ahead displayed as a possible submarine. If Savo kept on the course he’d planned, north of Sirri Island, she’d pass within range of its torpedoes. If it was a sub. But if he turned to slide south of Sirri, he’d be in among the rigs and pipelines of the Fateh oil field.
“Red Hawk reports: Eight Hellfires expended. Four detonations, one secondary, lots of smoke. Winchester, Winchester. “Which meant, all ordnance expended.
“Sir, do you need me anymore?” the Persian beside him asked, very politely.
Dan flinched; he’d forgotten Kaghazchi was there. “Um, you can stand by … but stay in CIC, please.—Very well,” he said into the helo net. “Clear to the east, but stand by to light off jamming and spoofing as required. Fuel state?”
“Bingo fuel time twenty.”
Christ, he’d have to recover them soon. He’d boxed his enemy in, but now he was getting boxed himself. And time was running out. He was processing this, with the still-turning missile boats next in line, when Mills breathed, “Bandits.”
When Dan looked up there they were: three, then four tracks just winked into existence above the mainland. The callouts went up: Su-24s. Not the latest and greatest jets, but more than adequate to threaten surface ships. The top cover F/A-18s could deal with four, but if their numbers kept building, the situation might turn dire.
“Matador, this is Anvil. Stand by … Salvo. Taking second assault wave. Over.”
“Roger, out,” Dan muttered. Mitscher was taking on a new wave of boats, but to judge by their ragged intervals, and the fact that several were lagging the leaders, the warrior spirit was flagging. One boat was already fleeing, heading north across the transit lane. If the F-18s let it go, as he’d directed, there’d be more.
Mills was blinking at him. “What’cha think, Matt?” Dan asked him. “Something in your eye?”
“The IIRN bases its Kilos outside the Gulf. The navy and the Pasdaran don’t exercise t
ogether, according to a brief I heard. Not a lot of mutual trust.”
“Uh-huh. I heard that too. So our contact’s probably not a Kilo.”
“I’d say, doubtful. But the Guard operates those minisubs.”
“I don’t think it’s a sub at all,” Dan said. “There’s all kinds of metal under the water here. Pipelines. Abandoned drilling structures. Wrecks, from Operation Praying Mantis—we hit the Iranians before, right about here.” He clicked to the ASW circuit. “Rit, Dan. Anything yet on that possub? Goblin Alfa?”
“Not a peep, amigo. I’d let you know.”
Dan let the “amigo” go by. For now. “Can you ping him?”
“Tried, but it’s too shallow to get an active return. Suspect shadow zones, too. Like I said, shallow as shit.”
“At only eight thousand yards?”
“Like I said, Cap’n—”
He clicked off, as the screen showed Mitscher’s Harpoons mowing the oncoming boats down one after the other. Savo’s five-inches were slamming away. So far nothing had gotten into range of the 25s or the Phalanx. Dan had expected to expend several Standards, but so far his electronics were proving a better shield.
An antiship missile had to be smarter than the average weapon. It navigated not to a fixed geographic point, like a cruise missile, but to an area where the target was expected to be. It then had to pick a maneuvering warship out of the sea return and surface clutter, select the real target out of perhaps several ships in range, calculate the most survivable approach geometry, and home in. At any point, it could be foxed. Sea-skimmers were particularly vulnerable to having their radar altimeters pulse-doubled, which aimed them into the sea at six hundred miles an hour … fatal to the missile, but to no one else.
But this was an engagement he couldn’t totally win. He’d hoped to take advantage of the enemy’s dividing his force, hit hard and keep going. By and large, that was a done deal. The gun cameras showed smoke plumes on the horizon, along with the puffs of high explosive as Mitscher’s and Savo’s guns planted a hedgerow of shellbursts in front of any renewed attack. The remaining boats in the southern gaggle were roaring in circles, more and more withdrawing to consolidate with the larger group up along the Iranian coast.
