The Cruiser (39 page)

“Captain, course from here?”

“What do you recommend, Ensign? Remember, we're going to have to recover the bird shortly.”

“I think we ought to … head south? Back toward Point Adamantine?”

“Sounds good.” He rebraced himself and this time managed to half-jump, half-lever himself up. Coughed hard, then relaxed back into the cool padded leather, like a softball into a well-worn glove, and closed his eyes.

The beep of his Hydra, as he was slipping away. Just as the vividness of dream began to supplant a heaving sea, the whistle of the wind in the antennas, the squeak and murmur of the helm console. He grunted, then resubmerged. The radio beeped again. He fought to the surface like a drowning man, groping for it. “Unh … Captain.”

“
Skipper? TAO here
.”

“Hey, Cher, you back on already?”

“
Afraid so, sir. I'm bringing us to flank and heading south.
”

“Why? What's going on?”

“Monitoring the chat. Israel's taken enough. That two hundred dead was the last straw. They've decided to retaliate. Just sent us a warning message.”

He opened his eyes. For a moment what she'd said didn't make sense. But it must have been just some open circuit in his own brain, because the next moment it did.

All too horrifyingly. The Israelis had shown over and over again they wouldn't take aggression lying down. Entebbe. The Osirak reactor. Lebanon. You could debate whether armed reprisal was a tactic, or a mind-set, that could ever lead to permanent peace. But certainly, striking back in the name of the dead of the Tel Aviv bunker was consistent with their previous policies.

He cleared his throat, still trying to get his head around what it would mean. “Uh—retaliate. Did they say how, Cher?”

Before she could answer, the scarlet bulb strobed above the Navy Red handset.
“Matador, this is Iron Sky. Stand by for flash traffic from Iron Sky actual. Over.”

Iron Sky was CTF 60, the task force to the west. He got it with his left hand while he asked Staurulakis again, on the Hydra fisted in his right, “Retaliate? How? —This is Matador actual. Over.”

“There's speculation. A missile counterstrike seems to be the consensus. But of course they don't say. Just warning us to stand by. So we can be ready. For the consequences, I mean.”

The Navy Red circuit said,
“Matador actual, this is CTF 60 actual. Flash traffic follows.”

“What kind of missile? —This is
Savo,
uh, Matador, ready to copy.” He jerked his head at Van Gogh, at the nav console. “Get this down, Chief.”

“They don't say. And no one knows. They have a nuclear capability. Whether this is a case where they'd use it…”

“This is CTF 60 actual. Dan, we have a flash notification about Israeli plan to retaliate for the Tel Aviv hit this morning. We need you back in your defender position ASAP.”

He gestured again, angrily, to Van Gogh. Snapped into the handset. “This is
Savo.
Copy your flash notification. Coming to flank speed at this time. Uh, just to make clear: I have only two Block 4s remaining. And limited self-defense capability.”

“Understand limited capability. Remain alert for counterstrikes. Review your op order. Let me know if you need a frag on your ROEs. Iron Sky, out.”

The light died. Decoded, the task force commander had just advised him to be perfectly clear that he understood under what circumstances he could fire first. And to let him know if the rules of engagement seemed too restrictive. Too late, Dan cursed himself; he hadn't brought up the question of air cover, either. They'd be out here naked if the Syrians decided to vector a couple of MiGs his way.

When he went to rub his mouth his hand jerked, and a cup of cold coffee he hadn't even realized in the dark was there tipped and spattered. Damn it! It was happening again. Strike and counterstrike. Reprisal and counterblow, and a steady descent into bloody chaos.

But what should anyone have expected? This was the Middle East. Any fuze you lit was tangled in among a dozen others. And would light them all as it crept toward its own bomb.

Why did it seem like mass killing was the default option for every international quarrel? As if human beings didn't have enough to deal with:… No, they still had to throw themselves beneath the entrails-bedecked chariot of Mars. Or was he thinking of some other god, equally bloody-handed? And why did all the gods, it seemed, come from a three-hundred-mile radius around where he rolled through this black sea?

But what he wondered made no difference. His duty, and that of every other man and woman aboard, was plain as if engraved on bronze tablets. The ship reeled. Somewhere steel banged hollowly, and the wind sang in
Savo
's thirty-eight antennas like a mourning chorus in a Greek tragedy.

18

Oparea Adamantine

WHIRLING
snow, again.

The booming sea.

They echo through deserted caverns as he feels his way. Unsure of any destination. With the white thing, which he'd only glimpsed from the corner of his eye, following him. Still back there, somewhere. And only a little air left on his gauge …

Then, somehow, Wenck was down in the watery caves with him. What the hell? “What are you doing here, Donnie?” he asked the electronics technician.

“How about waking up, Dan? Uh, Skipper?”

He woke with neck cricked, curled awkwardly in his chair. The air-conditioning made a rushing clatter like a flock of blackbirds taking wing. Someone coughed, the dry hacking stirring a tickle in his own scarred trachea. He stirred, gaze pulled to the screens. “Cher … Matt,” he croaked. “Where the hell are we?”

“Five miles from the oparea boundary,” Staurulakis murmured. When he glanced over, her face was Wicked Witch green. For a moment he didn't know if he was awake or still dreaming. Then realized she'd only changed the display; the emerald hue was from her terminal.

Wenck again, murmuring close to his ear. The bright blue, off-kilter eyes glittered as if he were on some nonregulation chemical, but that was just Donnie. “We gotta talk a minute, Skip.”

“Tell me what you've got, Donnie. It can't be anything Commander Staurulakis hasn't heard before.”

“Maybe so, maybe not. Over in the corner, okay?”

Back in the dark under the comm status displays, Wenck bent to the scuttlebutt. It was seldom used now, since most of the crew bought bottled Aquafina from the soft-drink machines. The water came up under high pressure in a thin stream, almost a spray. He straightened, drops glittering on his cheeks, and wiped his mouth on one sleeve. A heavy book was clamped under his arm. “Sir, I'm reading the backroom chat. That missile hit Tel Aviv? You know they're gonna react to that, right?”

“That's why we're heading back south, Donnie. Wasn't that message in your queue?”

“Sir, don't take this wrong, but by the time you zeros get shit through Radio, it is
long
past the sell-by date. Me and the Terror, we're following the chatter on one of the Israeli nets. Got in through a back door. She's crooked, that girl. Don't let that quiet act spoof you.”

“Who—Terranova? Are you serious, Donnie?”

“Serious as shit. Since they approved coordination, we said, we gotta have some way to coordinate, right? Most of it's in some other language, Israeli I guess, but they use English for the technical discussions, and we can see the numbers, and all the code's in Ada. Like, when they're talking about range-gate anomalies, or whatever—I guess Hebrew doesn't have the words, or it's easier because that's what their Patriot manuals are printed in. Anyway, they got the heads-up. Counterstrike. Beth and me worked the target out from the ascent trajectory.”

But before he could ask, the chief went on. “It's Baghdad. Baghdad for Tel Aviv. Eye for an eye, I guess.”

“What kind of missile? What's the payload?”

Wenck unelbowed the blue-backed copy of
Jane's Missile Systems
Dan remembered seeing racked with the other CIC reference works. “What they call the Jericho. Like our old Pershing. One-ton warhead. Four-thousand-klick range. Nuclear or conventional warhead.”

Dan ran his eye down the page. An idea was germinating. But he needed more data. “Couldn't you ask them a question?”

“Who?”

“The guys on this chat you and Terranova're lurking. The Israeli techs.”

“We could
ask
. Whether they'd answer … What you want to know?”

“Tell them we need to deconflict, too. When do they intend to launch? And what's the payload?”

Wenck snorted. “They're not gonna tell us
that.
I'm not even gonna ask.”

“Okay, but we have to know
when,
at least. That's a reasonable request.”

The chief went away behind his eyes, gaze vacant. Then bent to the bubbler again. “Okay.”

When he left, Dan paced back and forth, took a drink from the scuttlebutt himself. It sprayed his face too. He wiped it with his palms and went to the J-phone on the bulkhead and punched in his own in-port cabin.

“Ammermann here.”

“Adam? Dan Lenson. You cooled off any?”

“What choice have I got?”

“Come back up to CIC. I might have a job for you.”

“Oh, you need me now? After having your goons haul me out?”

“I'm sure Chief Tausengelt was perfectly respectful, Adam. But get in my face during combat operations, and you get the ‘goons,' as you put it. Just stay on your side of the line and we'll get along fine.”

A grumpy “Right,” and the staffer hung up.

Dan socketed the handset and paced the width of the space, beam to beam, looking at each screen and acknowledging each man or woman at his or her station. A nod, a shoulder pat, an encouraging word. Singhe, by the Aegis console, was doing some kind of yoga pose, one leg held up with an arm behind her back, the other arm extended toward the overhead. She dropped it as he neared, and returned his nod with a cool smile.

On the aft camera Red Hawk was coming in for a hot refuel. Snow—snowing
again
?—drove across the screen like confetti, and beyond it the black waves heaved. Mytsalo had altered course to improve the wind. Strafer would hover five to fifteen feet above the slanting, pitching deck, and tank up through a dangling hose. Dan watched the SH-60 grow larger. It seemed to sway from a string. He didn't envy the pilot. The helo crew had one of the most dangerous jobs on the ship. And if a C-802 came over the horizon, their station put them between it and
Savo Island
. Not a healthy place for a low-flying aircraft squawking a signature mimicking a cruiser.

He ducked into Sonar, where as usual Zotcher and his boys seemed to be doing absolutely nothing, but was back in his chair when Ammermann's wide-cheeked face loomed out of the dim. The staffer caught a stanchion as the deck slanted. Dan pointed to a chair.

The West Winger perched, scowling, dark hair lank over his forehead. “Okay, I'm here. What do you want?”

“First, some advice.” Dan described the Iranian task force closing from the southwest. “What do they intend to do up here? Especially now, when we're breaking into the house next door—they've got to mean that as a provocation. If not a threat.”

“We'll deal with them next. They've got a WMD program too.”

“Okay, whatever, but … Are you saying this is their way of warning us off? In case we're thinking exactly what you're saying?”

“I can't speculate on what they think.”

Dan frowned. “But that's exactly what we
have
to do, Adam. They can't like having four U.S. divisions and fifteen air wings right across the Shatt al Arab. Which is where the endgame's gonna leave us.” Ammermann didn't answer, just scowled at the deckplates. “Okay, you haven't thought about it, but I'm asking you to. Reach back. Find out what the national security adviser—Dr. Szerenci—what his gang thinks they're doing. Because once that task group gets here, I've got to figure out if they're enemies, or just front-row spectators.”

“Okay.” The staffer sighed. “Is that all?”

“No.” Dan coughed hard, feeling like something wanted to come up but couldn't. Christ, he was tired. “Want some coffee?”

“No. What's that noise?”

“That's our helo refueling. And when he's done, he's going to go out again and fly back and forth between us and some Syrian missile batteries that have been shining us. In case they decide to go hot. This is the real deal, Adam. We need you on the team. We've all got to set ego aside.”

The staffer grimaced. “Want me to call back? Then give me a phone. Or a circuit. Whatever you call it. What else?”

“We just got word Ariel Sharon's approved a retaliatory missile strike. Apparently, on Baghdad. A population center.”

Ammermann paled. “Christ!”

“Correct. I don't need to tell you how hard that's going to make it with our Arab allies, do I? How that's exactly what Saddam hopes Sharon'll do? If you have any pull with Ed Szerenci, or any channel to the president or State, this'd be the time to use it.”

“When? When are they planning to—”

“I'm trying to find out. But we don't have long.” The hovering helo's engines were the thunder of drums from aft, diminished by steel and Kevlar armor, but perfectly audible. He twisted in the chair. “Matt, tell Branscombe to set Mr. Ammermann here up with hicomm voice to whoever he wants to talk to.”

“Got it, Skipper.”

Staurulakis stood next to Mills, hands on her hips. Getting ready to take over the watch, apparently. Dan glanced from her to the vertical displays.
Savo
was crossing the northern boundary of Adamantine. Mills was on the line to Main Control, discussing dropping their speed once more. Dan sighed. He didn't have much fuel left, after the sprint north, then south again. They'd have to request a tanker.… Maybe Adam could actually do some good. If he had the ear of someone in the White House, they could put the screws to the Israelis, convince them it really wasn't in their best interest to strike back.