“If we stay on our present course, we’ll be right along the edge of this warning area,” his navigator said, tapping the chart in the center of an area outlined in red pencil. “And I think we’d like to stay well clear. Last night they were doing those random zigzags they like to practice — no talking to us, even though they saw us on the radar, no warning. We were never too close, but it’d be nice to know when they’re going to do something like that. Then all at once—wham. One of them, the Russians or the Americans, starts shooting lasers up in the air.”
Gaspert chuckled. “Bet that scared the crap out of the night crew.”
“I was down in the engine room and I heard the deck officer yell. Wonder what it was.”
“The NOTAM says they’re doing some Kernel Blitz missile testing exercises today,” Gaspert said. “It’s probably related to that, and if it’s missile testing, we won’t have to worry about staying clear. They’ll be all over us to clear the area before they take a shot.”
“Yes, of course,” the navigator said. “But this time, it may be a bit more complicated. The Russians are keeping a close eye on them. And they’ve been keeping station just to the east of the operating area.”
“They know something we don’t?” Gaspert asked.
The navigator nodded. “Probably. No less than we do, anyway.”
Wonder why the Russians are so interested in this exercise? Sure, they conduct surveillance on most military operations, but normally with one of their spy trawlers masquerading as a fishing boat. Hardly ever with a complete battle group including one of their own operational carriers. “They must be making the Navy nervous,” he said out loud. Gaspert had started his own career at sea in the United States Navy, and had a good idea of what was probably going on within the American battle group with the Russians so close. “INCOS is getting a workout.”
INCOS, or the International Concord to Avoid Incidents at Sea, was an agreement signed by both Russia and the United States. It covered conduct between the navies when meeting in open ocean and was designed to prevent misunderstandings that could escalate into conflicts. Prior to INCOS, there had been many instances where posturing and seemingly innocent but fairly hostile acts had almost led to tragedy. Recognizing the need for stricter rules between enemies during the Cold War, the Concord had been developed with the help of military and civilian law-of-the-sea experts. Since nobody wanted a war, particularly not now, both sides respected its provisions.
“Well, they’re big enough that we’ll see them on radar,” Gaspert said, checking the formations one last time. “But put a note in the night orders to notify me if we come within twenty miles of either group.” INCOS might cover Russian and U.S. military forces, but it said nothing about conduct toward cruise ships.
“Aye-aye, sir.” The navigator proceeded to brief the weather, which looked exceptionally pleasant. No hurricanes, not even a low-pressure system between the ship and her final destination, nor was one expected to move in. This was good news. The Montego Bay lacked the advanced stabilizers of more modern hulls, and although she rode the seas well, she could not provide the rock-steady deck that many passengers seemed to expect under all conditions. “We’d hate to interfere with shuffleboard, wouldn’t we?”
There was nothing more of particular interest in Gaspert’s morning brief. A few emergencies involving the passengers. One now in sick bay for a possible heart attack. A twisted ankle, a few cases of seasickness — and how was that possible, in this most gentle of seas? One case of what looked like the flu. The ordinary run of accidents and illnesses expected on any trip.
Captain Gaspert followed his usual sequence of dealing with paperwork, approving engineering and maintenance requests, making his rounds among the passengers, seeing and being seen and providing a sense of presence that reassured the most nervous of them. By the time he went below to tour the ship’s engineering plant, he had every reason to feel confident that the voyage would proceed uneventfully.
The morning brief on board the carrier was proceeding according to plan. Each department head ran through the status report of the areas under his or her responsibility, the remarks backed up by slides projected from a computer onto a large screen. Engineering, operations, intelligence, and so forth, each one bringing Coyote current on what had transpired since the previous evening brief.
The very last department to report was always the oceanographer, who also served as the meteorologist. Coyote had decreed the order of the briefers, saying the weather and the ocean environment were of critical importance to every department on the ship. Privately, Lab Rat suspected that the admiral had scheduled it as a show closer because the presentation was always boring enough to convince even the most gung-ho brown-noser present that it was time for the brief to wrap up.
“Another four days of this weather,” Lieutenant Commander Mason Wyatt said, entirely too chattily for Lab Rat’s taste. Whenever Wyatt briefed, Lab Rat got the distinct impression that he was auditioning for a spot on the Weather Channel. “Looks like terrific weather for the steel beach planned for the Fourth of July.” Wyatt beamed as though personally guaranteeing good weather for the gigantic cookout and celebration planned on the flight deck, the steel beach.
He proceeded to run through a number of graphs depicting the sound velocity profile of the ocean, the major weather fronts and high- and low-pressure areas across the Pacific, maintaining the same informal, breezy tone so at odds with the no-nonsense seriousness of every other department. Still, Lab Rat reflected, Mason was a hell of a meteorologist. If he said they were in for good weather, there would be good weather. Personally, Lab Rat thought that the Jefferson was due for some decent weather just to make up for the rest of the cruise.
Jefferson, along with her escorts, had departed San Diego six weeks ago. They were supposedly deployed to participate in a major war game staged for the Pacific theater, known as Kernel Blitz. At least, that was the story put out to all but a few with the need to know.
Lab Rat was one of those with a need to know.
It wasn’t as if it were a complete cover-up. There was an exercise named Kernel Blitz under way, and Jefferson was in the data link with units around the world, as was the Naval War College. Most of the ship’s crew was frantically planning and executing theoretical strikes and amphibious landings as well as other evolutions designed to ensure that every part of the battle group had a chance to practice the skills they’d need in actual war.
But a small group located in the bowels of Lab Rat’s department was engaged in something far more critical to the nation’s defense: the operational test of a new theater ballistic missile defense system.
Lab Rat had been chosen to head up the operation on board Jefferson, partly because he possessed the necessary clearances and it fell within his areas of responsibility as intelligence officer for the ship. Additionally, he was all too familiar with lasers and ballistic missile defense. During the last cruise, Senior Chief Armstrong, Lab Rat’s right-hand man, had showed him just how potent a land-based defense system could be. Only three weeks before, the senior chief had retired from the Navy and left Jefferson to begin his new civilian career with Omicron, the defense contractor with the primary contract for the TBMD laser.