Cobra

by David E. Meadows

  “Cease fire!” Colonel Cooper shouted. “Cease fire!”

  “Damn!” the soldier nearest Alqahiray said, as brain parts and blood splattered the floor and consoles near him, some hitting his uniform and face.

  “Damn it!” Colonel Cooper said, his lips pressed tightly.

  The sergeant major of the operation walked up to Dusty Cooper. “Think it’s true, sir? Killing him will grow more terror cells? What did he say? Something about cutting off the head only grows more and more serpents.”

  “Yeah, Sergeant Major. That may be true, but they’re smaller serpents and a lot easier to kill.”

  He walked around the still-operating computer consoles to the body of the fanatic who had sent the entire North African coast descending into chaos. The man who started the events that threatened NATO and sent America into another Korean War was dead. He stuck his combat boot under the man’s body and rolled it over. The eyes of the Libyan leader hid in the cavernous shadows of the sockets. Dusty could not tell whether they were open or not. He squatted beside the body to pull the pistol from the dead grip. He reached over and ripped the embossed name tag from the top of the right-side pocket. Dusty stood, looked around the room, then back down at the dead man below him.

  “I guess honor is measured different ways. Colonel.” he mumbled to the dead Alqahiray.

  “Sergeant Major, cut his ear off so our bosses can confirm he’s dead.

  Let’s go home, boys. Between rescuing those Marines the other week and sneaking in the Libyan back door this week, it’s time to go home.

  Captain,” he said, motioning to a thin Ranger standing near the door.

  “Get topside and give headquarters a situation report. Sergeant, you and the other two military intelligence guys take what you need from here, but make it snappy. The longer we remain, the more likely the Libyans may get up the nerve to try to regain their command and control headquarters before we get out. When that happens, we’ll have a chance to see those vintage Mig fighters we heard about.”

  * * *

  Like a broad weather front moving slowing across the sea, the anthrax spores reached sea level. Some fell into the Mediterranean, floating on top of the salt water while most, whipped up and down by the east wind, continued moving west toward the operations area where the USS Hue City and USS Spruance maneuvered.

  Buc-Buc leaned against the captain’s chair in the Combat Information Center, the aroma of the fresh, steaming coffee whiffing around him from the cup the CIC supervisor handed him a couple of minutes ago.

  “Combat, Engineering; is the captain there?” came the call from the 12MC box to the right of the chair.

  Buc-Buc reached over and flipped the Talk lever. “Go ahead, CHENG,” he said, using the familiar Navy acronym for chief engineer.

  “Captain, Circle William set, and we are ready to commence saltwater wash down,” CHENG reported, her North Carolina nasal twang drawing out the word commence.

  Buc-Buc pushed the gas mask to the side. CIC looked as if it was manned by a bunch of clumsy aliens trying to operate human buttons, levers, and handles. The military CBW gear was not made for looks or to wear for a long period. You could stop teenage pregnancy by making military CBC uniforms mandatory wear for high school. The very thing that protected the wearer from exposure — its impenetrable nature — also created a risk of heat stroke.

  He might have jumped the gun on ordering the ship into the gear too early. Setting the ship material condition at Circle William shut down every ventilation shaft, every fan, every air conditioner with a purpose of providing fresh air. The only machinery noises were the small units designed to cool the hot electronics that were the heart of a warship.

  “CHENG, commence saltwater wash down and keep it going until I tell you different.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” “TAO,” Buc-Buc said. “Order Spruance to commence saltwater wash down.

  What is her position, course, and speed?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, grabbing the red phone from its rest. The TAO pressed the Push to Talk button an dover the speaker the electronic tonal oscillations preceding the secure mode filled the immediate area.

  The TAO reached over, rolled the mouse embedded in the metal console, and clicked on the Spruance video return. As he talked with Spruance, he reached over, touched Buc-Buc, and pointed to the overhead display. The information displayed alongside the Spruance video showed the destroyer southwest of the Hue City on a course of one two zero at twelve knots.

  Rather than disturb the TAO, Buc-Buc reached forward and clicked on the Hue City to reveal his own Aegis-class cruiser on a course of one two zero at twelve knots. He ran a distance line from the Hue City to the Spruance. They had a twenty-one-mile separation. Their targets were in eastern Libya, which explained the southeasterly course he had ordered.

  He picked up the coffee mug and took a deep draught of the fresh brew.

  Nothing was finer than a fresh cup of Navy coffee made for no other reason than the person making it wanted to do so. Never order a mess specialist to make a cup of coffee if you were the only one wanting it.

  To do so invited all kinds of abuses to that cup and that coffee. Abuses Buc-Buc made sure he never thought about.

  He put the half cup of coffee back beside his chair. Bucbuc pushed in the bridge button on the 12MC and held the Talk lever down. “Bridge, Captain here; I may have put our crew into the masks too soon. You heard the CHENG. Circle William is set, and we are commencing saltwater wash down. We should be good. Go ahead and have those not on the bridge take their masks off, but be prepared to put them back on at a moment’s notice.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  The bridge activated the saltwater wash down. The wash down system had been designed to rid a ship of nuclear radiation expected to be present in a war-at-sea environment. Since the end of the Cold War, the threat of a nuclear explosion at sea during combat had ceased to exist, but the wash down system continued to be part of every ship design. Though designed for nuclear war, the Navy recognized the wash down system had other applications ranging from cosmetic — washing away dust, dirt, and grime prior to port visits — to practical, such as now. A nondescript civil servant at Naval Sea Systems Command made the right pencil mark on the right design process that kept this capability in the fleet. It was a capability no one questioned and few would have been able to articulate.

  Internal pumps began to pull seawater into the ship and shove it through interconnecting pipes leading to a series of nozzles installed all along the superstructure of the USS Hue City and USS Spruance. A powerful umbrella of seawater enveloped the ships, washing down the exposed gray topside. The sea itself was cleaning the hulls and sweeping anything not tied down into the Mediterranean. The two ships looked as if they were miniature rain squalls sailing slowly across the surface of the sea.

  “Captain, we are twenty minutes until launch. Missiles are prepped and ready to fire.”

  “Sequence?”

  “Spruance has first two firing events; targets near Tobruk and Egyptian border. We have next four. Two at targets northeast of Benghazi, one near the coastal city of Darnah, and the last of this series at Al Bayda. Both Darnah and Al Bayda are located along the coast between Tobruk to the east and Benghazi to the west. Benghazi is a complicated shot. Captain. Danger of collateral damage, if we are reading these coordinates right.”

  “We have any intelligence to support these targets?”

  “Sir, we only have Intelligence Specialist Smith, and he is in the Cryptologic Combat Support Center working with the Cryptology Technicians trying to resolve this one target.”

  Buc-Buc picked up the red telephone. His mission was to take out valid military targets. He had no intention of taking out innocent civilians if it could be avoided, but he knew those missiles had to be stopped or even more innocent civilians would die. He listened to the tonal resonance as the secure telephones between him and Sixth Fleet synchronized. He wanted assurance from his bosses about
the Benghazi shot.

  * * *

  President Crawford thanked Bob Gilfort, secretary of state; and Roger Maddock, secretary of defense; for joining him and Franco Donelli in the White House. On the speakcrphone in front of the four men the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Jeff Eaglefield was speaking.

  “And that’s what we have so far, Mr. President, from Colonel Cooper.

  Alqahiray killed himself at the end of a successful raid. The Tangle Bandit raiding force is already airborne and heading southwest, away from the enemy command post. There are no signs of pursuit nor of enemy reaction.”

  Bob Gilfort leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “General, one problem we will have once the news leaks is the accusation that we assassinated Alqahiray. I doubt if any of the Arab countries will believe he killed himself.”

  There was a momentary pause before the speaker cackled to life. “Yes.

  sir, Mr. Secretary. I understand what you are saying, but in the fog and friction of war, that is what happened. We don’t assassinate or murder.

  Besides, whatever they want to believe, they will, as long as they reach the same conclusion not to screw with us. Never again will America sit back and try to rationalize anti-American rhetoric. We will take it at its face value and respond accordingly.”

  The door opened and the director for Central Intelligence, Farbros Digby-Jones, nervously entered the room. The briefcase he carried was half opened, with ends of papers protruding in a disorganized way. The diminutive political appointee pushed his bifocals back on his nose as he mumbled apologies for being late.

  President Crawford wished his wife was back at the White House. His trip to the Naval Medical Center at Bethesda yesterday encouraged him that she was improving. The world events in Korea and the Mediterranean had kept the press occupied and away from his wife’s depression. The one mistake of his second administration was the appointment of this neophyte to the critical office of DCI, making him in charge of all the federal intelligence agencies in the land. Thankfully, the deputy at CIA was a professional who had moved up through the ranks and knew what the hell he was doing.

  “Farbros, you’re late again,” Crawford said.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. President,” Farbros replied, his voice betraying his nervousness. “But—”

  “No, buts, Farbros. What’s the story?”

  “He has agreed, sir, that we have accomplished our part of the bargain.”

  Farbros grinned. “We have kept the line open on a secure satellite link between Langley and him throughout the night.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Colonel Walid is at Benghazi, Mr. President. He controls the city and the forces within it, but until the news reaches the surrounding countryside, forces loyal to Alqahiray are still in control.

  We expect him to assume full command of Libya within the next two days, at which time he will recall Libyan forces from Tunisia and cut the military ties with the Algerian rebels.”

  “spruance’s missiles are away, captain. three minutes until we fire. Air-launched Tomahawks fired by B-52s and are inbound central Libya.”

  Buc-Buc eased back into his captain’s chair. He pushed the buttons on the 12MC sound-powered phone system. “Bridge, engineering, this is the captain. Cut off the saltwater wash down system until we execute our firings. Then I want to bring it back on line, but wait for me to say so.”

  They both acknowledged the captain’s order. On the bridge, the OOD nodded to the boatswain mate of the watch, who turned the switch off.

  The dozens of wipers on each of the bridge windows continued to work, quickly clearing the trailing water from the windows.

  The bow of the Hue City cut into the invisible anthrax front as the saltwater wash ceased.

  “One minute to launch,” the TAO announced.

  Anthrax spores settled onto the deck of the Hue City. Aboard the USS Spruance, twenty-one nautical miles to the south, the saltwater wash down had recommenced. As the anthrax reached the Spruance, the saltwater umbrella over the ship shoved, pushed, and moved the anthrax away from the aging destroyer. The Spruance moved through the anthrax cloud unknowingly and impervious to the threat.

  “Let’s put our masks back on until we restart the wash down,” Buc-Buc said reluctantly.

  The officer of the deck made the announcement on the IMC.

  The virulent spores began to cover the bow of the Hue City, moving quickly over the exposed signal bridge, across the topside amidships deck, down along the topside walkways that ran along the port and starboard sides of the ship. The cloud settled on the helicopter and the helicopter deck of the USS Hue City before moving on to cover the five-inch, sixty two-gun mount near the stern of the cruiser.

  Circle William kept the deadly spores from penetrating the skin of the ship, but outside the hatches of the Hue City, anthrax had coated the cruiser.

  “Five, four, three, two, one,” the TAO counted down. The roar of the missiles igniting filled the CIC spaces. Throughout the ship, the subsonic sound of the rocket engines could be heard.

  The missiles rose out of the vertical launch cells located belowdecks on the bow of the ship. The doors covering the VLS blew aside to allow the Tomahawk land cruise missiles to exit. One after the other, the hot blast of the rocket engines sent the missiles skyward. Behind each missile, the hot air created by the blast sucked the air out of the cells. The cooler air rushing in to fill the vacuum brought anthrax spores from the deck and air with it, filling each cell with the deadly biological threat.

  “Shut the missile tube doors, TAO.”

  One minute elapsed before the TAO turned to Buc-Buc and reported the VLS doors shut.

  “Good. Bridge, this is the captain. Recommence saltwater wash down.”

  “The masks, Captain?”

  “Give the wash down a few minutes, and then we’ll take them off.”

  Belowdecks in the four empty missile cells, anthrax spores weaved and bopped in the disturbed air of the compartments.

  * * *

  The second missile fired by the USS Hue City arched upward to an altitude of two thousand feet before descending to five hundred feet for its approach. Flying at subsonic speed, the missile straightened its course for the assigned target. In the nose cone, the computerized mapping system used internal radar returns to determine its location. It would be unable to determine exact location until it crossed the coastline in twenty minutes. At that time, the profile of the coast would be compared with a data bank developed from satellite imagery. The comparison technology would allow flight correction to where radar images matched the terrain mapping data in its targeting profile.

  The cruise missile crossed the coastline south of the port city, corrected the navigational error, descending to seventy five feet for its approach, turning northeast toward the Libyan ballistic missile site. A ballistic missile powered up and waiting for the command to launch, a command that was being endlessly cycled by the information warriors of the United States Army Land Information Warfare Command at Fort Belvoir. A command that would never come because it was being held hostage within a computer system in the United States.

  The Tomahawk matched the geographical profile of the city appearing in its scope and began to maneuver through an dover the various man-made obstacles. On the ground, the roar of the rocket engines and appearance of the Tomahawk missile as it weaved through the streets between the huge buildings sent panic into the crowds. The civilians, running for cover, trampled those younger and older in their haste to seek shelter.

  On the other side of Benghazi, the missile terrain mapping technology matched the land profile with its own programmed targeting data, climbed to two hundred feet, and dived on the missile complex in front of it.

  The American Tomahawk hit within ten meters of the Libyan ballistic missile.

  The resulting explosion sent pieces of both missiles high into the air to rain down over an area more than two square miles. The warhead of the Libyan ballis
tic missile tumbled intact upward, crossing the three hundred foot altitude, where its altimeter activated the biological device within it, telling the warhead that the Al-Fatah III missile was airborne, enroute to its target. At four hundred feet, the warhead lost its momentum and began its fall to earth. The computer program of the altimeter recognized the descent and although it was designed to activate at five to six thousand feet while in descent, it activated and exploded at three hundred feet. The anthrax spores rocketed out in all directions. The rolling smoke from the missile explosions below it and the roaring fire of the burning fuel sent the spores upward into the clouds, where westerly winds blew the biological weapon west toward the port city of Benghazi.

  At the naval base, Colonel Wai id informed the person on the other end of the telephone that he could see the results of the American attack against Alqahiray’s missile array northwest of the city. A huge column of black, roiling smoke marked where the Tomahawk missile had impacted.

  He laughed as he and the intelligence officer, Colonel Samir, watched the results of the attack. Switching from French to Arabic as he hung up the telephone, he congratulated both of them for their success in getting the Americans to do their dirty work. With Alqahiray out of the way, there was nothing to stop them from completing Allah’s work in creating a true Islamic government dedicated to the people; A government stretching from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean was gone for the time being, but eventually, they would make the original dream come true.

  Then they would return to their religious purpose of destroying America.

  The French were already moving their ships into position off Algiers to replace the American Marines who were evacuating the city. Americans were funny people. You would think their naivete would have worn off by now, but they still believed everything you told them. He knew Algeria was lost. The Spanish had already restored the former government of Morocco to power, having found some obscure Moroccan cousin to the king to assume power. Tunisia he might be able to salvage.