"Very good, Mr. McKelsie. I have the con," Amanda replied, dropping into her command chair. "How soon before we know anything more?"
"Pretty quick, I'd guess. Just as soon as those low-riders come over our horizon."
They waited in the blue-lit semidarkness. The Combat Information Center was warm and quiet, the low voices of the systems operators almost soothing. Amanda found her head sinking back against the padded seat rest. Paradoxically, now the urge to slip back into sleep was overwhelming.
No! She snapped her eyes open and gave her head an angry shake. These were the last hours before dawn. The hours when the body's resources were at their lowest ebb. Traditionally, the hours when a military unit was at its most vulnerable to surprise attack. She would not yield to her traitorous biological rhythm now.
Abruptly, the graphics on the Large Screen Display altered. The four possible target hacks of the hypothetical aircraft were replaced by the sharp, red, vee symbols of hostile air targets, each with a yellow conical scan pattern radiating ahead of it.
The patterns overlapped and the Cunningham's position point marker was engulfed by the southern edge of the sweep. Christine and McKelsie stiffened and each peeled off toward their respective subsystems bays.
"Confirm multiple radar-emission sources," Christine called out a moment later. "Confirm aircraft type as Atlantique ANG Two. Confirm radar type as Ignasie B, surface-search mode, maximum output. Frequencies and scan rates appear to be synchronized. The range is closing!"
"Shit!" McKelsie snarled from his side of the compartment. "They're running a bistatic search on us!"
Amanda's jaw tightened. Stealth technology was built around the concept of reducing the target's radar image by either absorbing the incoming radar beam, or by widely and erratically dispersing it so that a clear return or "echo" was not reflected back to the receiver. Hence the Duke's coat of Wetball metallic-polymer paint and her sleekly angle-less design.
However, such a shield could potentially be broken by bistatic radar. Have several powerful radar systems sweep the same block of space while operating on the same frequency and at the same coordinated scan rate. Anything within that block of space would be hit simultaneously by several different beams, all converging at slightly different angles, producing a vastly larger number of fragmentary returns than would be produced by a single beam.
Have multiple radar receivers tuned to pick up these returns, again far more than could otherwise be detected by a single receiver. Data-link your output from all of the systems into a central point where a computer would analyze and reassemble these fragments like a cybernetic jigsaw puzzle until a true, composite image was produced. If your transmitters were powerful enough and your receivers were sensitive enough and your computer processors fast enough, you might just catch yourself a stealth.
"Mr. McKelsie, do they have a return off us yet?"
"Negative, we're still below the limits, but their signal strength is building rapidly."
"Can you phase us in to the wave clutter?"
"I can try, but this is the flattest sea state we've been in for days. I don't have a helluva lot to work with."
"Do what you can."
The Argentines must have had every hacker south of Venezuela working around the clock to cobble together the software for this. The question was what to do about it. Should they make a fight of it now, or should they try to huddle under the rags of their cloak of invisibility? Slowly and deliberately, Amanda tapped the nail of her right forefinger against the plastic arm of the command chair three times.
"Helm, all engines ahead slow. Make turns for five knots."
"Aye, aye, ma'am. Engines ahead slow. Making turns for five knots."
"Left standard rudder."
"Aye, aye. Steering left standard rudder."
Amanda lifted her voice slightly, letting it fill the CIC. "We're going to try and evade. Aegis operator, put a tactical overlay up on the helm's navigational monitor."
The Cunningham paid off in a wide turn to port, her wake fading as her speed bled away, her slowed propellers producing drag instead of thrust. Inboard, Amanda listened as the helmsman called off the bearing of the turn.
"Coming left to one hundred and ten degrees.. one hundred degrees… ninety degrees… eighty degrees—"
"Okay, helm," Amanda interrupted. "I want you to minimize our radar cross-section by holding us bow-on to those search planes. Aim us right at that nearest aircraft and turn with him as they sweep past. If you need more engine, just ring it up. You've got the ship."
"Aye, aye, Captain. Will do."
Reduce speed to reduce contrast and turn bow-on to the enemy to reduce aspect. There was nothing else to be done passively. Amanda caught the eye of the duty tactical officer. "If we have to go active, I want two LORAINs on the nearest ANG and two more on that command-and-control aircraft. Don't wait for a formal launch order. Salvo fire the second you get locks."
He nodded a silent reply. CIC discipline called for the maintenance of a low sound level, but it was going to extremes now. Voices were lowered to a whisper in the ancient, instinctive reaction to the presence of an enemy. Huddled in their blue-lit technocave, the men and women of the Cunningham waited out the passage of the wolf pack.
Amanda looked across to the stealth-systems bay. "How are we doing, McKelsie?" she inquired.
The countermeasures man didn't voice a reply, nor did he take his eyes from his telepanels. Instead he held out a hand, flat and palm down, and rocked it in an ominous so-so manner.
The point of closest approach would be fifteen miles.
Just for an instant, as the Duke's bow came around due north, one of the exterior cameras picked up the distant flicker of aircraft strobes wedged in between the sea and sky. Then they were gone, and on the tactical display the Cunningham passed out of the Argentines' scan zone.
"Enemy radars are no longer painting us, Captain," McKelsie reported.
"Confirm that. No variance in scan rate, course, or commo traffic. They are history and we are livin'!"
Christine's restrained scream broke the tension, and all hands in the CIC unclenched their muscles and grinned at the wonder of being alive.
"For Crissakes, Rendino. Grow up!" McKelsie growled, rubbing the back of his neck.
That was back to normal too.
"Okay, people," Amanda said. "We've foxed them for now, but they'll be back. Helm, very well done. Now bring her back around to three-forty degrees true and bring up all engines ahead standard. Make turns for twenty-five knots. I'm going to park us in the safest place I can think of at the moment-right in the middle of that patch of water they just swept.
"Mr. McKelsie, I'm keeping the con. You get to work with your people and start analyzing this new setup the Argentines have."
"Aye, aye."
"Chris, have intelligence section feed McKelsie's gang anything and everything you picked up on the systems they're using. O Group in one hour. I want a countertactic!"
Amanda rubbed her eyes and settled back into her command chair. Slipping a comb from her pocket, she began to order her tousled hair. "Oh, and by the way, everyone, good morning."
36
"Anything yet?"
General Marcello Arco leaned over the shoulder of the systems operator and peered down into the round, meter-wide screen. Edging in from the other side was the radar specialist from Naval Technical Command. All three men were absorbed in watching the steady trudge of their teamed search planes across the scope.