The Cruiser (28 page)

“I could try to find out,” Ammermann said earnestly. “Go right from our office to the ambassador. I believe that's possible.”

Dan thought it over. He had his own contact with the Israelis, although he wasn't sure of the man's name: the smooth little diplomat, or spy, who'd surreptitiously slipped him the Israeli Medal of Courage at a party at the vice president's house. Back when he'd worked in the West Wing himself.

How ironic that he was now trying to safeguard the same city for the second time. “Well, that's not actually what's bothering me at the moment.”

“What's eating you, Dan? Fuel consumption?”

A flicker on the status board caught his eye; a missile had gone offline. Daily testing, right. Where had Ammermann heard about their fuel state? “Yeah, that, and other things, but what I'm wondering about is this Iranian, uh, task force, I guess, that's entering the Med. They've never done that before, operated up here, and I'm not clear on what might be the motivation. We're taking on Iraq—their enemy—the Iranians, I mean. Sort of like the Romans took out the … well, never mind that. Any ideas on what they might have in mind?”

Ammermann made a strange side-to-side motion of the head, almost, Dan thought, a gesture he'd seen Indians make. A snakelike weave that conveyed something, but he wasn't sure what. “You think they've got their eye on
Savo
? Or on you?”

“Call me paranoid. We'll know more in a few hours, when we get a reading on their track. But it isn't that far from Suez to here.”

“I could speculate, but it wouldn't be more than that.”

“Okay. What would you speculate?”

The younger man shrugged. “Even if we're taking on one of their enemies, we're still an enemy too. Probably a more hated one, given the history—our support of the shah, the hostage drama, et cetera, et cetera. So if we've made a commitment to defend one of our allies—Israel—and we can't follow through for some reason, we take a pie in the face. How they could do that, how they might interfere—that's more in your area of expertise, Captain. The alternative might be, they're just showing the flag. They do seem eager to assert themselves, since Zhang's been backing them. Especially anywhere we show up first.”

Dan tapped his teeth with a thumbnail. Just the mention of Zhang Zurong brought back bad memories. When they'd first met, at a restaurant near the Gallery Place Metro stop, “Uncle Xinhu” had been a colonel. Ostensibly a defense attaché, he'd actually been a member of the Second Department of the People's Liberation Army, supervising a massive program of technology theft. Dan remembered him as a middle-aged businessman in a dark suit, wearing metal-on-plastic Yuri Andropov glasses. Many years later, he'd suddenly emerged from the deliberate obscurity of the Chinese Politburo as minister of state security. And now, years after that, as the premier, with a new policy: testing and, when possible, displacing U.S. power.

To some extent, it was inevitable; as the U.S. fleet drew down, as the American presence became less imposing, rising powers would be tempted to help push them out. Maybe the Iranians
were
just showing the flag. But as CO of a task force himself, even if only of
Savo Island
and
Pittsburgh
, he was bound to put the most threatening construction on any new player in the east Med.

He glanced up as Ammermann was lighting a cigarette. Dan plucked it from his fingers before the flame from the Zippo could touch its tip. “Not in CIC.”

“Sorry … wasn't thinking. What d'you want me to do?”

Past him Mills was balancing a fresh cup of coffee, listening. Dan nodded to him. “Matt, anything to add?”

“If Mr. Ammermann can find out what's behind this, it could help.”

“Okay, Adam, I'm going to give you a covered line. Work your magic.”

“I can't promise anything, Captain.”

“Just do what you can. If there's any way we can persuade these guys to turn around and go home, or even just tie up someplace until this thing's over, it could deconflict the situation. Especially with Captain Marom on a hair trigger over there.”

“Captain who?” Ammermann asked.

“Skipper of that Israeli corvette. That complicates it too—my chain of command.”

“Sorry, I don't understand.”

“I mean, Iraq's a CentCom responsibility, but Israel's always been a EuCom country. And my opcon, and tacom, as CTG 161 is to Sixth Fleet, which is under EuCom. But I'm supporting a CentCom mission—Infinite Freedom.”

The staffer frowned. Dan got up and stretched. Something cracked in his neck, like a pretzel stick breaking, and he flinched. “Like I said—it's complicated. But don't worry about that.” Ammermann rose too, and extended a hand. Dan shook it. “I'll have Dave Branscombe get in touch. He's the comm officer. He'll set you up. It'll be a secure circuit, but I don't have to warn you not to pass anything classified you don't absolutely have to.”

“Do you still want me recalled? Sent back?”

“Well … I just don't think this is a good use of your expertise and influence, Adam.”

Ammermann grinned, as if recognizing a clumsy attempt at disguising rejection. “I see why they still tell stories about you in the West Wing, Captain. You're not going to make it in politics.”

“I'll take that as a compliment.”

“Though I understand your wife's thinking about a run. She's a brave gal. After all that. The injuries. Don't quote me on this, but good luck to her … even if she's on the wrong side.”

Dan shrugged. He didn't want to talk about Blair with this guy. For a second he missed her, terribly. He had to look away and take a deep breath. Even just talking to her would help. But he couldn't cut off phone comms for the crew, then make personal calls himself. He was starting to say thanks, already tapping the keyboard to go back to the high-side chat, when the 1MC chanted,
“Fire, fire, fire. Class Charlie fire in Aft VLS. Repair Five provide. I say again—”

Not
again
was his first conscious thought. Not
now
. He was on his way out, headed for the bridge, before the word came over again, but doubled back in the doorway, almost knocking down a petty officer. The man backed into the bulkhead, looking alarmed. Dan crossed CIC at a run, barking his shin on the corner of a terminal, and went out the other way, grabbing his Hydra, which he'd socketed into a recharge holder, en route.

13

 

THE
CCS space, which used to be called Damage Control Central and often still was, lay one deck below the mess area. It was already standing room only when he got there. Bart Danenhower was there, along with the top snipe, Chief McMottie, and the damage-control officer, Jiminiz. They and the damage-control technicians were so preoccupied they almost didn't make way for him. But he had no problem with that. They were the ones who were going to have to fight this thing.

A fire in the vertical launching system was a whole other beast than one in the Aegis power supply room. The difference was many tons of high-energy solid fuel and explosive warheads. The aft system held sixty-one missiles, each with its booster, standing vertically in a sealed canister, eight missiles grouped four in a row in a module. The modules were two decks high, separated by shoulder-width metal catwalks.

Standing there, Dan tried to organize his thoughts, but it all felt increasingly fuzzy. Too much. Too fast. The module was normally unmanned. “There's no one in there?” he said, just to get that clear.

Jiminiz shook his head without looking around. “No sir. We've cleared everyone out aft of here. Except for the damage-control teams.”

“No possibility these missiles are going to launch?”

Danenhower said, “No sir. Combat shut down launch control. Those orders come in via a remote enable panel and a status panel.”

Dan was clear on that. Once the fire order came through, the LCUs selected a ready bird and began the prelaunch commands. Part of that algorithm was opening the deck hatch assembly at the top of the selected cells, out on
Savo
's main deck. This not only let the missile emerge, but exhausted combustion gases through a separate plenum that vented vertically through one uptake hatch for each cell. “Okay, but I read a class advisory on magazine authorization. It said something about being able to remove mag launch authorization, but the launcher still being able to fire.”

“You'd have to ask the missile supervisor that. Sorry.”

A picture came up on one of the monitors: the passageway outside the module. The heavy steel red-and-white entrance door was clearly visible. As was the damage-control party, in coveralls, hoods, helmets, boots, and gloves; masked, OBA-rigged, dragging extinguishers, hoses, and axes, manipulating stingers into position. Giving the impression of milling around, but actually, Dan could see, getting ready to unseal that door and go in.

The easiest and safest way to deal with an electrical fire was to get in quick, before it spread, and douse it with CO
2
or a low-velocity spray, so it didn't electrocute someone. Though the power supplies in the modules weren't high voltage, as far as he was aware. He didn't envy those masked crewmen their mission one bit, and they'd have to do it fast, before whatever was going on in there lit off one of those closely packed solid-fuel rocket engines. “Is this on the video recorder?”

The chief engineer said, “Bringing it up now, Captain.”

“Have we got a camera inside the module, Bart?”

“Actually, we do, sir, but we couldn't see anything.”

“Put it up.”

Danenhower was right; the interior camera, aimed down the centerline passageway, showed only gratings and the white-painted, black-stenciled vertical walls on either side of the square-canistered missiles. There
might
be a trace of smoke-haze in the upper field of view. It was hard to be sure.

He crossed to the J-phone and, after some seconds, managed to get the missile system supervisor on the line. The petty officer said yeah, he knew about that advisory, but it didn't apply to
Savo.

“Why not?”

“We got that change in version 2.3, Captain. I tested it and the cue lamp for the VAB blinks right.”

“Does that mean it can't fire?”

“Correct. But that's not exactly the problem occupying us at the moment, Captain,” the petty officer explained patiently.

“So what
is
the problem? Other than that something's on fire in there?”

“We can't open the hatch.”

“Oh, fuck me. Why not?”

“Well, that's the biggest problem with the VLS, sir. The hatches. They get old, the seals fail, or they stick when you try to open them.”

“Wait a minute. We can't open
any
of the hatches?”

“No sir, that's not what I said.”

“What exactly are you saying, Petty Officer?”

“Sir, we can't open
that
hatch.”

Dan told him to keep trying, but the tech said there was no power any longer to the module, so it was no use. So actually, Dan thought, they really couldn't open any of the hatches. Which meant that if a missile caught fire and ignited, he had no way to get rid of it.

Launchers in older cruisers had included provisions for ejecting duds or hot runs, physically booting the round overboard with a big hydraulic ram. But the VLS had no “launcher” as such and no provision for ejecting a contrary missile. He was stuck with it; they had to deal with the thing where it was. He hung up, whispering, “Shit. —Where exactly is the fire?” Danenhower, who was standing in front of the alarm panel, that silly engineer's cap hanging off his temple, didn't answer. Dan jabbed him in the ribs and asked again, louder.

The engineer flinched and pointed to a red indicator. “Module two. The GMMs are saying SCMM.”

“Power's secured?”

“Yes sir. All power aft secured.”

“I guess that's good, except it means we can't open the hatch now.”

“Oh, no sir. We can open them from here,” a petty officer said. “That's hydraulics. As long as we got hydraulic pressure—”

“What's the temperature in there now?” Dan interrupted, getting more anxious by the second.

A console operator said, “Aft module, air temperature ninety-nine, cell two readout, six hundred. And going up.”

On the screen a damage controlman—was that Benyamin under the mask and hood?—pulled off a glove and laid his palm against the heavy steel door. He left it there for only a moment, then jerked it back. His mask turned back and forth; he was shaking his head.

Dan said, “There's obviously a fire. What happens when your team opens that door? Especially if we can't get the deck hatches open?”

“They go in and fight it.”

“Right, but I mean, what happens in the p-way? If that's one of the boosters burning, we're gonna have massive toxic release. All through the ship.”

Danenhower blinked. “The module's sealed, sir.”

“Against blast? From a Standard warhead?”

The engineer grimaced. “We've got Zebra set, but that's a good point—any penetration and we'd get contamination all through the aft end.” He snapped to McMottie, “Chief, tell the team leader to hold up opening that hatch. Have the backup team rig blowers and put positive atmospheric pressure in the firefighting area.”

Dan nodded. “That's good, Bart. Now. We can flood—right?”

“I'd rather not.”

“Me neither. But how many missiles do we lose if we do?”

“Each canister has its own deluge system. We can flood the whole launcher, too.”

“We can't flood by modules? It's either one missile or everything?”

“Correct.”