After half an hour's futile pursuit of sleep, Amanda gave up. Rolling over onto her stomach, she tucked her pillow under her chin and stared into the darkness. Damn, damn, damn, just what was the best way to go about killing a convoy? Maybe she should consult with some experts on the subject.
Those experts would be men like "Red" Ramage, Otto Kretschmer, and Gunther Prien, the great submarine aces of both sides of the Second World War. In her search for doctrine that could be applied to stealth-ship operations, Amanda had studied them extensively. She knew what they would say.
"You have to get inside! Maneuver directly into the convoy's line of advance, then dive. Go deep and rig for silent running. Lie doggo and let the convoy run over the top of you. Then surface right in the middle of them and open up with everything you've got, torpedoes and deck guns both. Fire on anything and everything that moves! Flow with the developing tactical situation. Take advantage of the confusion. Blow them to hell!"
"A proven and valid way to do the job, gentlemen," Amanda replied to the shades of the men who shared the darkness with her. "The only problem is that I can't dive this damn barge."
Get in close without being spotted, yes. Fifteen, maybe even ten miles, on full stealth and with a good sea running. Just close enough to get caught cleanly between the convoy and the distant covering force.
Figure eight Exocet cells on each of the five big Argentine warships and four on the two smaller ones. Forty-eight heavy antiship missiles, not counting gun mounts and torpedo tubes — too many. Amanda might have been willing to match her countermeasures and point defenses against one group of escorts or the other, but not both simultaneously.
Well, what about trying to lure some of the escorts off somehow?
Not likely. Amanda had already played the decoy gambit once before with the Aeronaval patrol planes. The Argentines were angry and aggressive, but not stupid. They must know that the Duke had to come to them sooner or later. They wouldn't readily abandon a sure thing to go off chasing will-o'-the-wisps.
Okay, then what about a diversion? Something that would scramble the Argentine defenses just long enough for the Cunningham to get across that last ten miles and inside the convoy perimeter. Maybe the helos? Configure them for surface attack with Hellfire and Penguin missiles and send them around to hit the far flank of that covering force…
No. Drop it. Too risky.
Wait a minute. Was it really all that risky, or was it so just because a certain Lieutenant Vincent Arkady would be flying one of those helicopters?
Examine that thought, Mandy. Turn it over in your mind and look at it carefully from all angles.
Somewhere over the past few hectic days, Arkady had become a larger presence in her mind. More so than any man had in a long time. Twice she had sent him out, and twice he had nearly died carrying out her orders. Was the thought of doing it a third time making her freeze?
This is why you aren't supposed to cross the line, the risk to your objectivity and professionalism.
With great deliberation, she closed her eyes and played it out like a hand of cards. The hard outline of the mission parameters against his knowing touch. The grim risk probabilities versus his relaxed, lazy-panther slouch against a convenient bulkhead. The cold consideration of the gains and losses against his comfortable and comforting presence when the load was on.
When she opened her eyes again, she was pleased to find that her soul was still her own. The simple truth was that it was irrelevant who might be flying the mission. No helicopter, not even a Sea Comanche, could hope to survive inside the area defenses of a modern surface warship, and Amanda Garrett did not believe in suicide missions, not for anyone.
She rolled back onto her side. For the first time she wished that the old Boone had been invited along on this cruise. What she really needed was another ship to provide a diversion while the Duke made her run in on the convoy. Either that, or a way for the Duke to be in two places at the same time.
Well, why couldn't she be?
Amanda abruptly sat upright. For almost five full minutes she stared into the darkness, her mind functioning with sudden crystal clarity. Then she reached for the interphone at the head of her bunk.
"Ken, this is the Captain. Cancel the schedule I gave you. I want all operations officers in the wardroom immediately. We're going to do this thing right now!"
45
"Fire twelve!"
The warning horn blared and the last Stealth Cruise Missile punched out of its launch cell. Holding the peculiar tail-down attitude of its breed, it arced away from the Cunningham, booster pack streaming a curtain of golden flame. Its razor-blade wings snapped open and the small turbojet power-plant spooled up to power. Completing conversion to flight mode, it kicked free of its exhausted booster, leveled out, and raced for the horizon.
Onboard the SCM, an almost miraculously precise guidance system began tracking on the distant impulses of a NAVSTAR satellite. The cruise missile had been carefully programmed to swing wide along a circular course and to deliver itself to an exact point in space at an exact moment in time. Nothing short of a massive systems failure or total destruction could stop it.
"All SCMs launched, Captain. All missiles running hot and straight on designated headings," Beltrain reported from the tactical console.
"Very well, Dix. Give us a time to target."
In the bottom right corner of the Alpha Screen, a second digital readout flashed into existence over the standard time hack and began counting down.
"There you go, ma'am. First missile estimated in over point item in T minus fifty-one minutes and thirty seconds."
"Okay. Helmsman, are we ready to initiate the speed run?"
"Yes, ma'am," the seaman called back over his shoulder from the battle helm station. "Course to point item is up and in the system. Navicom and autopilot read green and ready to engage. Projected time to point item, fifty minutes."
"Very well. Helm, you will engage on my mark."
Amanda leaned forward in the captain's chair, regarding the time hack through narrowed eyes.
"Stand by to take departure. Coming up on T minus fifty… three… two… one… mark! Engage!"
The helmsman keyed in the autopilot and the light patterns on his console shifted. Without human influence, the helm controller spun to a new heading, and smoothly the Cunningham's bow began to come around in response. On the lee helm pedestal, the power levers and throttles flipped forward against their stops with an audible click. On the propulsion system's repeaters, the glowing green bars of the engine-output gauges crawled up their scales until they reached their limits and flared bloodred.
A soft rushing roar with shrill metallic overtones began to fill the background. The Duke's huge gas turbines were spinning up to their peak RPM, sucking a tornado of cold air down the intake ducts and into their shimmering blades. Like the cruise missiles she had just unleashed, the destroyer herself was now a computer-guided projectile aimed and launched at a specific target.
Amanda pushed herself up and out of the captain's chair and joined her tactical officers at the chart table. A moment later, Arkady ducked through the aft hatchway and joined the group. He'd watched the SCM launch from the weather decks and he wore a heavy navy parka over his flight suit. As he brushed past her, she could feel a clean trace of the topside cold caught in its fabric. He moved into his slot around the table and gave her a nod and a sober smile.