The Gulf

by David Poyer

She leaned back, wedged her briefcase and tote bag yet more firmly under the seat, and concentrated on not vomiting. She shut her eyes, then opened them. Open was bad, but closed was worse; at least she could see which way was up.

  She’d thought she was used to helicopters. And she’d been aboard ships before. But she’d never been in anything this little and this fast, and she’d never made a landing at sea. She hadn’t realized it would feel this dangerous.

  The seat suddenly dropped away, slamming her dinner against the top of her stomach. The aircraft jolted, then steadied again, closer now to the deck, which every moment grew harder to distinguish from the sea.

  The little helicopter had barely enough room for three. But now, all at once, she was glad it was small, seeing the postage stamp of a flight deck. Distant detail became guns and missile launchers. The ship swelled with steady menace, bigger, bigger, closer, closer—

  She caught a scream, thinking for a moment they were going to fly into one of the square smokestacks. Then came a sudden heaviness, a bump and grate, and they were down.

  The pilot turned, his mouth moving. She leaned forward. “What? I can’t hear you.”

  “Said, go on and disembark.”

  “Oh, right.” She tripped the seat belt, gathered up her belongings, and edged hunched over toward the door. Men in colored jerseys reached up. She balanced, glad she’d worn low-heeled boots, and jumped down into their arms.

  Hands tugged at her head and the cloth helmet came off. Something caught in her hair; she winced as strands pulled out. Then she was being hustled forward. Behind her, much louder without her Mickey Mouse ears on, turbines screamed upward again. A loudspeaker echoed metallically. She didn’t catch the words. She looked anxiously ahead, to where two officers waited.

  “Can I help you with some of that, Ms. Titus?” shouted Jack Byrne, reaching for her bag.

  “Yeah, thanks.” She gave him the tote. The other man reached for the briefcase, but she said firmly, “I’ll keep that, thank you.”

  The helicopter lifted suddenly in a blast of wind. Black-painted, lightless, it was gone as soon as it left the deck. The loudspeaker echoed again, garbled words she couldn’t interpret. Apparently the crew could; they began straggling away, stripping off gloves and gear and lighting cigarettes.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said to Byrne. “Really, how can I convince you people I don’t need to be escorted everywhere.”

  The intelligence officer laughed. Blair noticed he was wearing aviator-type sunglasses despite what was now full night. “Relax. Relax! I’m not here for you. I’m here to set up for Hart. He’ll be out tomorrow to cover the convoy transit. Blair, meet Lee Miller, skipper of Mobile Bay, the newest and hottest thing in cruisers.”

  Miller was over six feet, a gum-chewing Viking with an easy grin and sun freckles on his nose. Blair extended her hand. He almost broke it.

  “This’s a real good time for you to come and see us, Miz Titus. You’ll get a real good introduction to the capabilities of this class ship.”

  “Thanks, I’m glad to be here—safely.”

  Both men chuckled. “C’mon,” said Miller, turning. “Jack tells me you’re cleared to see everything, and everything’s what you want to see. That about right?”

  “Essentially,” she said to his back.

  The passageways were brightly lit, wide, and immaculately clean. She caught looks of surprise and admiration from the crewmen as they hurried past, but their attention was obviously divided between her and the captain. Byrne brought up the rear. “Where’d you get the MH-6?” said Miller, undogging a door.

  “The what?”

  “Your transportation. That’s an Army Special Ops helo.”

  “I really don’t know. The State people arranged it.” She paused as a crowd blocked the passageway; then, at an anonymous shout of “Make a hole!” parted with mystic ease. “The flight was … well, scary. We were about four feet off the water the whole way from Bahrain.”

  “Those are useful people. Considering they’re Army. Those choppers are crammed with night-vision equipment. They’ve helped us spot Iranian infiltration attempts, mining attempts, nip ’em in the bud. Okay, CDC or my stateroom?”

  “Why is that a choice?”

  “Well, stateroom if you want coffee and a talk, or else we could go right into the demonstration.”

  “I can’t stay overnight. Or so they tell me. And it’s getting late. So let’s go right to the operations room.”

  “That’s the command direction center, Navy talk, ma’am.” Miller grinned and took off his cap. To her surprise, he was almost bald.

  The last time she’d been in the operations spaces of a ship—aboard Iowa, one of the recommissioned battleships—they’d been dim, cramped, and ghostly. Mobile Bay’s were huge, and modern as a new operating theater, or the cockpit of a space shuttle. Blair looked around, tossing back her hair.

  Something about the room made her think of Sea World. Computer monitors, radarscopes, display screens flickered in eerie hues. Folding, light-absorbing partitions secreted off alcoves and chambers. There was a subdued susurration of electronics, ventilation, and voices. The air was very cold. It moved steadily over her skin, tasting charged, like the prodrome of a thunderstorm.

  The room was oriented toward three luminescent displays, not as large as one might expect. Between the command level and the displays, officers and technicians sat at plots and computer consoles. They all wore jackets and sweaters. She felt their surreptitious glances, like the wary eyes of night animals. When she caught them at it, their faces went blank and they pretended to be looking at something beyond her.

  “Ever seen anything like this before, Ms. Titus?”

  She said dryly, “I’ve toured the Nuclear Operations Room at the Pentagon, Captain. And the National Command Center. It’s more compact, but the layout’s the same.”

  Miller took her comment in stride; or maybe he hadn’t heard it, had just paused to let her express amazement. He went on, staring at the winking squares, carets, and half-circles.

  “These screens allow us to look at any of the hot spots at the touch of a button. The computers are on the next deck down. At the moment, we have the lower Gulf up, from the Qatar Peninsula east. We network tactical data with all U.S. and British ships in the region, and of course with the Saudis, too.

  “Our primary job is observation and coordination. If we see a threat developing, we’re on an NTDS link with all forces. That’s real time, with high resolution and high capacity. If we’d been here year before last, we could have warned Strong she had a missile inbound. But we can do more than warn people. We have long-range antiaircraft missiles, two types of cruise missiles, and guns for self-defense. There’s not a more capable warship in the world.”

  “I know what NTDS is, Captain Miller. And I’m familiar with the Aegis program.”

  “Uh-huh … here, watch.” He clicked rapidly on a keyboard by his chair and the leftmost screen flickered and changed. Yellow on luminescent blue, a finger of land poked up. At the top, more land curved around it, a gap of sea between. A chain of symbols, flickering and advancing, threaded the gap like a tapeworm in an intestine.

  “That’s surface traffic in the Strait. One of our convoys is transiting Hormuz now. See that highlighted symbol west of Ra’s Sharitah? That’s Turner Van Zandt, one of the escorts.

  “Linking Aegis and AWACS like this, we can keep tabs on a million square miles of airspace. Not only do we have a complete picture of the entire Arabian Gulf, from this room, but this picture as we assemble it is available on every ship in the theater and even back in the Pentagon. As it happens. If we do our job right, there shouldn’t be any surprises anymore.”

  “You’re right, Captain. It’s impressive.”

  She was thinking, but again did not say, that it wasn’t that hard to startle people for a billion dollars. Which was what each Ticonderoga cost. The question was not whether it was a wonderful show. Nor even
, did it work. The questions that came immediately to her mind were: Was it necessary? Was it cost-effective?

  Who could answer questions like that? Not Miller. He was proud of his ship, and rightly so—hardly an unprejudiced source. Not the shipbuilders, nor the electronics manufacturers, nor the admirals.

  From all of them would come an unbroken chorus of praise. Yet, oddly, no matter how proud they were of their capabilities, it was never enough. There was always another incredibly advanced enemy threat. Always another generation of ever more expensive hardware for which to plan.

  Yet none of these weapons, none of the training, none of the intent technicians below them came cheap. It was the taxpayer—worried about his or her job, many without medical coverage, tired of signing over half his income to various levels of government—who paid for ships like this. As well as for aircraft, missiles, turbine-powered tanks, and salaries, early retirements, and free medical care for the people who ran them.

  Who could act as judge and watchdog? Could decide who deserved what share of defense resources that seemed to shrink with every year? Could calculate which program mix would deliver security at the lowest cost, supervise its execution, and change it if it failed to work as advertised?

  Congress was responsible for appropriating the funds and overseeing their use. However, few of the attorneys and businessmen the American people elected to govern them knew the difference between an inertial guidance system and a phased-array radar, could calculate an optimal overhaul strategy, or had time for the Scholastic subtleties of nuclear deterrence theory.

  So it came down to their staffs. Two or three hundred men and women who had to understand the military without being part of it, who had to reconcile the realities of budgets and politics with the dreams and nightmares of those entrusted with the country’s defense.

  Fortunately, she thought, I know what to look for.

  Miller was talking now about patrol areas. She interrupted him: “Yes, I meant to ask about those. Who determines the distribution of our ships within the Gulf, how they’re assigned and employed?”

  “Those orders come from MIDEASTFOR.”

  “Admiral Hart?”

  “His N-Three, I imagine. Commodore Ritchie. Jack?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And how does he determine where to put them?”

  Silence; then Miller said, “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “They’re different types and classes with different sensors and weapons. You have varying areas and levels of threat, which I imagine are constantly changing. How do you determine what areas are patrolled, and who patrols them?”

  “We do that ourselves,” said Byrne.

  “But how, Mr. Byrne, how? How many times do I have to ask the same question?”

  “Well, we just decide which ship ought to be where. Depending on where the threat’s greatest. It’s a complicated process, force allocation.”

  “Is it done by hand?”

  “I don’t see how else you could do it.”

  “I see.” She bit her lip, then turned to the commanding officer, who looked puzzled by the whole exchange. “Captain, do you have a list of the ships available and their capabilities? And the Iranian and Iraqi threats?”

  “Well … yes. We could get that pretty quick—”

  “Please do so. And have them brought over to that computer.”

  She sat down at the PC and asked for a chart of the Gulf, for the threat overlay from the most recent operation order, and for a copy of Jane’s. While Miller sent a master chief scurrying, she organized her thoughts.

  A multi-attribute utility function, containing as a system of linear equations the weaponry and readiness of individual ships, could be set up in a three-dimensional matrix for the assigned force level. Then, after identifying the areas where patrols were required, they could be ranked in a separate matrix by threat sophistication and density. An allocation algorithm and queuing function would be the heart of the program.

  She directoried the hard disk, found Lotus and GW BASIC installed, and set to work.

  Eventually the printer began to rattle. It was a quick first iteration, but she was satisfied with it for demonstration. She tore off the printout and handed it to Byrne. “This is the optimal allocation of ships to patrol areas. High-capability units go to high-threat areas, low-capability to low-threat. Each ship spends a week on patrol and two days off for upkeep. They rotate between the Gulf and the carrier battle group. Every other month, there’s a two-week out-of-area liberty.”

  Byrne and Miller studied it. They glanced at each other, then at the operations specialist who had hovered behind her.

  “It looks reasonable, sir,” said the master chief. “I couldn’t follow some of it, never seen it done that way before, but it sure looks reasonable. This little girl knows her sh—knows her stuff.”

  “Where’d you learn to do that?” said Miller.

  “Operations research degree. And a few years of practice.”

  “It’s pretty much what we came out with,” said Byrne. “See, Mobile Bay still comes out where we are now. We didn’t need a computer, just did it by professional judgment.”

  “Of course, and I don’t know as much about weapons systems and sensors as you do. But if you introduce some simple planning tools, you’ll be able to come up with different options quickly in case a ship reports equipment failure, or you have a new threat emerge.

  “The point is that informed judgment will give you a workable solution, but proper analysis combined with it will give you the most efficient workable solution. You see the difference, in terms of cost and force levels?”

  “Very impressive,” said Miller. “Can I have a copy of this?”

  “It’s on your hard disk now.”

  She looked at Byrne, but he was still examining the printout, an equivocal expression on his tan. She noticed he still hadn’t taken the sunglasses off.

  Someone cleared his throat behind them. It was an enlisted man with a clipboard. Miller handed it to her after initialing it. “Here’s something you might be interested in. Minesweeping plan.”

  “Thank you. Areas to be cleared … this Farsi Channel, it’s up north, isn’t it?”

  Miller reached for a keypad; one of the middle screens changed to show the upper Gulf. “Those green circles are the minesweepers,” he said, highlighting an area. “They’ve just sortied from alongside Coronado. The Channel sweep will start tomorrow morning.”

  She asked a few questions about the antimine patrols, about intelligence collection. It had been obvious to everyone on the Hill that the Iranian mine laying had caught the Navy flatfooted. With the Reserve callup, though, it seemed as if they had a handle on the problem. She handed the message back without further comment.

  “Well, now … how about that coffee?”

  “I’m ready. Oh, and could you direct me to a rest room?”

  “Let’s just go up to my cabin. You can use the head there.”

  She took her time, repairing the ravages of the helicopter trip. When she came out, smoothing back her hair, a servant was laying out silver beneath a painting of Farragut. The officers stood; Miller introduced his exec. Byrne pulled her chair out for her. They can be so polite, she thought. As long as you know your place.

  The steward served out coffee, cream, and pastries. “Now, Captain,” she began, “I’d like to talk about your perceptions of how we’re doing in the Gulf. What else do you need? What shortfalls do you see?”

  Basically, Miller didn’t see any. He talked about the ship’s capability some more, then said, “This is the first high-tempo ops the Navy’s seen since Vietnam. It’s a tactically demanding mission: constrained rules of engagement, very narrow waters, and a dedicated enemy with a wide spectrum of weapons, some highly sophisticated.

  “I don’t think anybody will deny we’ve had setbacks. But when we did, we studied our errors, changed our tactics, and moved forward again. We’ve been flexible. When the enemy intro
duces new tactics, we have to change our warfighting approach to respond. I think Admiral Hart has done that.”

  “What about the speedboats? The Boghammers. They’re small, fast, and have very little radar signature. Can you even pick them up?”

  “We track them every day.”

  “In the Clarence Strait? And out of Abu Musa? But if you’re tracking them, how come they’re still hitting shipping in and out of Hormuz?”

  Miller frowned. “As you said, they’re fast. Since we’re not officially at war, we can’t attack them till they demonstrate hostile intent. So they wait till we’re not around, duck out, hit a tanker or two, then duck back in. Occasionally we can scramble fighters or armed choppers to intercept them, but it’s difficult. If we could go in and wipe them out, the attacks would stop.”

  “But their bases are in Iranian territory.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Miller. He offered her a brownie. She shook her head. “We have responded to the small-boat threat. We’ve tuned our radars for small targets and outfitted Gulf-bound units with heavy machine guns and grenade launchers. I’ve read the ‘experts’ who say we ought to have our own speedboats out here. Pardon my French, but that’s a crock. You don’t fight small boats with small boats unless you have a lot of people to sacrifice. The U.S. Navy doesn’t operate that way. Anyway, they know we’re ready, and they don’t attack our warships.”

  “They don’t attack anyone’s warships. They go after commercial traffic. Insurance rates have tripled this year for Gulf-bound tankers. Did you know that?”

  “It doesn’t surprise me.”

  “I can see it doesn’t impress you, either. The Navy doesn’t pay insurance, does it? But what it means, Captain, is that this multibillion-dollar fleet we’re maintaining here is incapable of protecting shipping. It can deter sorties by what’s left of the Iranian Navy and Air Force, it can escort a few ships at a time, but it can’t stop what essentially is maritime terrorism.”

  “Now wait a minute,” said Miller, suddenly flushing. “You’re holding us responsible for not doing something that we’re specifically restrained from doing. Those are safe havens for the Pasdaran, and it’s Congress that’s holding us back from hitting them.”