Cobra

by David E. Meadows

  Duncan walked up the bank. Chief Wilcox, Bud, Gibbons— without his radio — Mcdonald and Monkey, the two M-60 machine gunners, stood watching from below. A couple of Marines stood nearby. “Let’s move out, HJ.

  Beau,” he called. “Let’s go.”

  Within a couple of minutes, the SEALs were crouched below the lip of the pipe. Mcdonald and Chief Wilcox bracketed the dark opening. The chief nodded at Mcdonald, and with the machine gunner covering him, Chief Wilcox swung the heavy flashlight beam into the tunnel. The beam revealed rusting ripples of metal along the sides of the ancient pipe before the darkness swallowed the light into the distant gloom. A small, fetid stream splashed around an dover rotting debris before spilling out the worn end of the pipe. Wilcox nodded. Mcdonald slung the machine gun over his back, pulled the thin gloves tighter on his hands, and then pulled himself into the pipe. Chief Wilcox followed. Bud Helliwell hoisted himself up into the pipe, turned, and helped the others up. Duncan first, after he tugged his gloves tighter, followed by Gibbons, HJ, Beau, and Monkey. The flight gloves, loaned to the team, helped protect their hands from the sharp metal edges and the fetid matter that seemed to cake the interior of the pipe.

  Ahead, at the very edge of the darkness, Mcdonald waited until everyone was inside before turning on the small miner’s light on his helmet. The low-power light gave Mcdonald about six feet of visibility. Low visibility marked the way in grades of gray and black. Just enough for him to avoid most of the human waste and rotting material stuck or flowing along the fast-moving stream. But nothing stopped the horrid smell of decaying and fresh sewage that washed across the tops of their combat boots and filled the closed atmosphere of the Algiers sewer.

  Colonel Bulldog Stewart turned to Bashir. “I hope for your sake they come back alive.”

  Bashir’s eyes widened. He grabbed the tail of his thobe and wiped a fresh wave of sweat from his face. The large rings of perspiration under his arms stuck the garment to his skin.

  Monkey, the last inside the pipe, glanced at the Marines and waved lightly before turning and disappearing after the others.

  Bulldog turned to the Marine Corps officer standing slightly behind and to the left of him. “Captain, I want a squad here to guard that pipe. No one is to come out or go in with the exception of—”

  The explosion knocked him into the captain, throwing both of them to the ground, sending them rolling partway down the bank.

  Bulldog pushed himself up. His head hurt from the concussion, but he was conscious. Feeling no pain other than the ringing in his ears, he pulled the captain up. “You okay, son?”

  The captain blinked his eyes a couple of times and nodded.

  Bulldog left the recovering Marine and ran back to the top of the bank.

  Across from him, clouds of dust rose from where the explosion had covered the pipe, burying it beneath a ton of rock, sand, and man-made debris. The explosion blocked the stream, creating a dam that stopped the water flow.

  The Marine Corps captain appeared at the side of Colonel Stewart.

  “Captain, get men down there and start uncovering that pipe. Call headquarters and tell them I want another platoon, right now!” He shouted, his finger emphasizing the order. Bulldog turned, searching for Bashir. Bashir had disappeared. “Where is that fat bastard?” he shouted as he unsnapped the holster, his fingers curling around the handle of the pistol.

  NINE

  “I overheard an operations specialist at the surface console in the Combat Information Center call him Lucifer,” Rear Admiral Devlin said softly to Captain Dick Holman, former commanding officer of the USS Stennis and now the commander of Fleet Air Mediterranean. “Fits when you consider his high and tight haircut, hook nose, and those angry eyes he has, plus continuously shouting ” to punctuate his sentences.”

  “Well, Admiral, the Marines use ‘.’ “

  “Yeah, and the Air Force uses ‘.’ Guess it goes well with that bottleneck waist and bull-size chest. I would submit that this is not the first time troops have stuck that moniker on him.” Devlin chuckled and then let out an audible sigh. “Even so, Dick, pass the word to cut it out. As much as the nickname seems suitable, it’s inappropriate for the commander of our Joint Task Force. Besides, there’s not much difference in his haircut and mine.” Devlin ran his hand over his close-cropped hair. “Of course, the chest measurements are a little different,” he said, grinning. The lean physique of the new commander of the United States Sixth Fleet was more a runner’s profile than the weight-lifting physique of General Lewis.

  Dick pushed his chair away from the desk, leaning back on two legs. “Aye, aye, Admiral. Speaking of our Army leader, General Lewis, where is he?” Dick glanced at his watch. “Not much danger of anyone confusing me or Kurt of being physical fitness gurus.” He patted his stomach.

  Captain Kurt Lederman, the Sixth Fleet intelligence officer, moved impatiently at the lectern, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. Kurt was slightly shorter than Dick Holman. Dick still had a full head of hair. Kurt kidded that his baldness was due to fast turns under the sheets. The image of the short, chubby intelligence officer’s legs kicking for those fast turns drew laughter when the statement was first heard. Unfortunately, it was the only joke he knew, so it drew less laughter with each telling.

  The commander. Joint Task Force African Force, moved to his own schedule, expecting everyone to be in place if and whenever he arrived.

  Seeing Dick glance at his watch, Kurt did the same — twenty minutes late.

  The average wait was fifteen minutes.

  “I take it the USS Hue City and USS Spruance are well on their way east?” Dick asked the admiral. The Hue City was an older Aegis-class cruiser, while the USS Spruance had the distinction of being the oldest active-duty destroyer in the Navy. The first chief of Naval Operations in the twenty-first century had been one of her commanding officers in the mid-1980s. That was how old she was.

  “I detached them when Kurt briefed me on the missile threat being deployed along Libya’s coast.” He glanced at the huge Navy clock on the bulkhead. “That was over ten hours ago. I suspect they are near the Strait of Sicily, since they were transiting at thirty knots plus. My orders to Captain Mcteak, skipper of the Hue City, as the officer in tactical command of this Surface Action Group, is to establish an operating area fifty miles south of the Strait and wait for us.”

  “Leaves us with only the USS Hayler, the Arleigh Burke Guided Missile Destroyer, for surface-to-air protection if we are attacked.”

  “Well, Dick, that is why you have this big, shiny carrier with over ninety fighters on it — to shoot down anything that’s flying our way.

  Besides, you can close up with the Nassau Amphibious Task Force, combine the Carrier Battle Group with it, and take advantage of the USS Yorktowns coverage.”

  “The Hue City is the only Aegis cruiser I have available without pulling the Yorktown away from the Nassau Amphibious Task Force. Couldn’t do that and destroy Task Force integrity.” Pete Devlin leaned forward with Dick and continued in a low voice, “The Hue City is the only cruiser with the Linebacker theater ballistic-missile defense capability.”

  The Aegis-class cruisers of the United States Navy were the mainstays of defensive action against a ballistic missile launch by a rogue party.

  Developed over the 1990s, the United States Navy and the United States Air Force led the cooperative effort to develop a theater ballistic-missile-defense capability to detect and destroy a theater ballistic-missile launch. The United States Sixth Fleet had led the exercising of this tactical plan, but this would be the first time a TBMD action had been authorized and the first time it would be implemented without the Air Force side by side with them. The Aegis cruisers were total weapons systems designed to operate the full war-at-sea spectrum from detection to kill. The heart of its man-monitored/computer controlled war fighting capability was the highpowered AN/SPY-1 radar system. The AN/SPY-1 was an advanced multifunction phased-array radar sy
stem. Every year saw the Navy fighting for funds to keep it fully modernized by changing and upgrading its capabilities as new, improved technological advances occurred. It was a twenty-first-century weapons system on an aging, twentieth-century platform.

  “It’s got the extended range Standard Missile on it, I believe.”

  “You believe right, Dick.”

  “For an airdale, Admiral, you’re getting pretty good on this surface warfare stuff.”

  “I believe, Captain, those are wings on your chest, also.” Admiral Devlin grinned as he pushed his chair back slightly, glancing at his shoes. “We both still have brown shoes on, Dick,” he chuckled.

  Until the late 1990s, the aviation branch of the United States Navy was the only war fighting branch allowed to wear brown uniform shoes, separating the aviators from the surface warfare officers and submariners who wore black. At the turn of the century, the Navy modified uniform regulations to permit every officer the option of wearing either black or brown shoes, but the tradition persisted with few surface warfare officers or sub mariners opting for brown. The option made black shoes prestigious.

  “Hue City has the extended-range Phase II Standard Missile on her. The SM-3 replacement for the SM-2.”

  Dick shook his head. “You’ve got me, Admiral.”

  Devlin grinned. “I had a great teacher the past hour with Captain Derek Wild Cloud, the Sixth Fleet surface operations officer.”

  The admiral turned to the side and scanned the faces in the shadows behind him. “Derek, come here,” he said, motioning a broad-shouldered Native American up from one of the metal armchairs shoved against the back bulkhead.

  Dick grinned as the native Cherokee wrestled a moment with the chair trapped around the man’s broad hips. No-Neck Wild Cloud was the nickname given by the wardroom to the former Naval Academy fullback.

  “Yes, sir. Admiral,” Wild Cloud answered as he approached.

  “Tell Captain Holman the capabilities of the SM-3 missile.” “Morning, Dick,” Wild Cloud said. “The SM-3 began replacing the extended surface-to-air SM-2 Standard Missile last year. As you know, the old SM-2 extended-range missile had a max range of a hundred nautical miles.

  The new SM-3 has taken advantage of new technology, a new propulsion system, and a smaller but more effective warhead to extend the range to nearly double that. The Hue City, but not the Yorktown, has the new SM-3 missile.” “I thought Yorktown had it, too,” Admiral Devlin interjected.

  “No, sir. She’s still outfitted with the SM-2 extended-range missile, Admiral. The Hue City and USS Hayler have the SIN3. With this newest Standard Missile incorporated into the Aegis weapons system, the Hue City and Hayler should be able to detect, track, target, and destroy any ballistic missile coming within range of the SM-3.”

  “What does the USS Spruance have? Can she do anything?” Dick asked.

  “Would it be a good idea to shift our F/A-18 Hornets farther east to reduce time if the two ships need them?”

  “Dick, I’ve been working with Commander Steve Cloth, the air operations officer, and we have been orienting the locations of both the Surface Action Group with the Combat Air Patrol fighters. Right now, if we had a TBMD launch, those two ships are our first lines of defense. The Hornets are the second. As for the Spruance, she has a limited number of SM-2 extended range missiles within her vertical launch system, but her air search radar capability is not much better now than when she was commissioned back in the ‘70s.”

  The command master chief standing near the Stennis commanding officer, Tucson Conroy, answered the telephone installed on one of the beams running from the deck to the overhead. He mumbled a couple of words, hung up, and whispered something to Captain Conroy.

  Tucson took a few steps forward and tapped Dick Herman on the shoulder.

  “Captain, that was the general’s aide. He’s on the telephone and will be a few minutes longer. He passed on that he would like everyone to wait, that he wouldn’t be much longer.”

  “Thanks, Tucson.”

  Admiral Devlin overheard the comment and nodded in acknowledgment to Dick. He turned back to White Cloud. “Thanks, Derek. Just needed a black shoe to enlighten us brown shoes on what we had out in front of us.

  Where is the Surface Action Group right now?” Admiral Devlin asked.

  “As of a few minutes ago, they were entering the Strait of Sicily.

  Should be east of the Italian island of Lampedusa within the next couple of hours.” “Thanks, Derek,” Devlin said, turning his attention back to the front and to Dick Holman. Derek White Cloud eased away from the table and fought his chair to sit down again with the crowd in the rear of the compartment.

  “Have you heard anything from Admiral Cameron?” Dick asked.

  “Not from him, but his aide, Clive Bowen, called from Washington on the STE secure line this morning. He needed some papers from Sixth Fleet to support the Board of Inquiry hearings scheduled to start next week.”

  Dick shook his head. He let the chair come down on four legs, resting his arms, hands clasped, on the metal desk where the two sat. Two empty chairs remained pushed beneath it to the right of Rear Admiral Pete Devlin. “They are really going to do this? We have a major conflict going in Korea, even if it does appear to be winding down. North Africa is seventy miles to the south and we — the Navy — are holding hearings about the events in Gaeta.” Dick was referring to the terrorist car bombing attack against the USS Lasalle and the USS Simon Lake. The semtex-laden Mercedes sedan had hit the two Mediterranean moored — tied sterns to the docks — warships, blowing large enough holes to cause both to settle stern-down on the bottom of the Gaeta, Italy, harbor.

  Sixty-eight sailors were killed, an dover two hundred were injured during the attack. At the same time the car bomber was attacking the two ships, a terrorist team had attacked Admiral Cameron and the Sixth Fleet wardroom at a social gathering in a nearby bistro. The terrorists had killed eleven staff and family members while wounding several others.

  Admiral Cameron’s wife Susan had died in the attack. If it had not been for the quick actions of the Marine Corps colonel attached to the Sixth Fleet staff, Walt Ashworth, more would have died.

  “It was not a pleasant conversation, Dick. Clive tells me— and keep this between us — the admiral has decided to make this board as short as possible. Gordon wants to limit the negative press the Navy will suffer from this, so he intends to preempt the long-drawn-out Q and A by accepting full responsibility. While we talked, Admiral Cameron was in the next office filling out retirement papers, asking the Navy for immediate retirement.”

  “Doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Life isn’t fair, Dick. We both knew — Admiral Cameron knew — that eventually he would go before the green table. Navy tradition and all that.”

  “I would think they would have waited until everything settled down. He, more than anyone else, is responsible for our fast response to this crisis. It’s not like they left us with much to work with. If we had kept more foreign presence, we probably wouldn’t be fighting this North African action now.”

  Devlin nodded. “You’ve hit the nail on the head about foreign presence.

  As for Admiral Cameron, he was responsible. He wasn’t at fault, but fault and responsibility are two different things, though few people are able to separate them. Back in the 1980s, I remember a cruiser in the Caribbean accidentally launching a Harpoon cruise missile. The thing whipped up out of its canister on the amidships deck, arched over another warship sailing less than a mile away, and headed for the horizon, never to be seen again. It just disappeared into the sunset.

  The investigation revealed that two groups of electronic maintainers were conducting two separate preventive maintenance checks: one in the Combat Information Center and the other on the Harpoon deck. For some unexplained reason, the two maintenance checks being done simultaneously caused a Harpoon missile to fire. No one’s fault on board that ship, but the skipper, who was in the head at the tim
e, was held responsible.”

  “Little bit different from this, Admiral.”

  “Same principle, Dick. You and I know that regardless of what happens, if we are the ones at the helm when it occurs, it is our responsibility.

  Admiral Cameron was the commander of the United States Sixth Fleet when the car bomb sank the two ships in Gaeta; when the USS Gearing was conducting a freedom of navigation operation and was sunk by the Libyans; and when the evacuees, guarded by the Sixth Fleet, were captured by Algerian Islamic fanatics. Not his fault, but Navy tradition and regulations place every one of those events under his responsibility. Being a Navy or Marine Corps officer is not for the fainthearted.”

  “I think it’s a little different from what you say, Admiral.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I think we are reaping the seeds sowed over decades of cutting Defense budgets and now they need a scapegoat to divert the news media from them. This cuts across party lines. The Defense Department has always been the cash cow for the administration in power to fund whatever petty — or not so petty — project they come up with. Look how the president’s chief of staff led the effort to cut our funding a few years back so the president could have his national health plan.” Dick paused.

  “Sorry, Admiral. I know that a mishap board is a necessity to assess what went wrong and how our own performance and readiness affected events. But a Board of Inquiry? That’s a little harsh, I think, which makes me believe the timing is political. One keyed to the negative press and drop in popularity that the administration is experiencing over its handling of the Korean and the North African crises.”

  “It’ll work out in the end, Dick. I know Admiral Dixon personally, and I cannot see him standing idly by and allowing a Navy Board of Inquiry to become political.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Of course, who knows what pressures he is under. With less than a three hundred ship Navy, there isn’t much he can do.”

  “Admiral Cameron is an outstanding leader, an iron man in the Navy. He had a way of chewing you out, and instead of you feeling as if your career was over, you felt as if you had disappointed your father. Not many who can bring off that type of leadership.”