But here, looking up at the bulk of the ship jutting up from the sea, it was as though it were an entirely different ship.
“Big bastard, isn’t it?” the general asked.
Tombstone nodded. “She packs enough firepower to get the job done. No more.”
“Well, then.” The general moved over to the side of the small craft and started expertly handling the lines. A couple of the junior officers jumped to assist him, along with a Coast Guardsman. He accepted help from Captain Henry, but waved the others away. Tombstone watched his smooth, sure movements. “Done this before, I take it?”
“I’ve sailed all my life,” the general said.
“Maybe you joined the wrong service?”
The general shook his head. “Even if I thought that, it’s a little bit late in my career to be changing services, don’t you think?”
On board Jefferson, the fantail was flooded with sailors, all of them clad in safety gear. The controlled chaos took shape into a receiving party under the direction of a crusty old chief petty officer.
The Coasties edged the boat in, then tossed the lines to the waiting sailors. Soon the boat was snugged up against the bumpers, and the team prepared to depart.
“Right behind you, Admiral,” the general said, solving the delicate question of who was senior and who would debark first. Tombstone appreciated the courtesy, but reflected that they would have far too little time in the coming weeks to worry about seniority among admirals. Besides, once they were aboard Jefferson, it was all Batman’s show, anyway.
Tombstone climbed handily up the ladder, returned the salutes from the waiting officer, then said brusquely, “No bells. We’ve got work to do.”
The commander standing in front of him nodded. “If you’ll follow me, Admiral.” He saluted each of the more senior officers as they came aboard and then led them forward toward the interior of the ship.
Five minutes later, they stepped into the admiral’s conference room just off TFCC. A meeting was in progress, led by Batman.
“ — until we get some reinforcements,” Batman was saying, then broke off his sentence. He stood, rounded the table, and approached Tombstone, holding out his hand. “Good to see you again, Admiral. I understand you’ve come to help us out?”
Tombstone nodded. “Not that you need it.” He turned and introduced the rest of his team, following in his footsteps like a path of ducks.
Batman nodded. “Find a seat if you can.” He pointed to a ring of chairs around the outer bulkheads of the compartment. “We’re just going over the situation as it stands now. Just got some interesting news from the guys on the ground. There’s a SEAL team in there — you may have heard of them. Second squad from SEAL Team Seven.”
“Man, that was fast,” Tombstone said.
“Fast, no. They were up in the mountains doing some cross-training with the British SAS when the world went to shit.”
Batman looked somber. “It’s a helluva thing, Stony. Who would have thought we’d see it in our day?”
“I’d have thought you already got the story from Tomboy.”
Batman nodded. “She briefed me as soon as she got onboard. But is there something more to it?”
Tombstone shook his head. “Surely you’re not accusing me of planning my honeymoon around national security, are you?”
“No, I guess not. Still, mighty odd coincidence.”
“That’s what it was — a coincidence.”
“Well, like I said — pull up a chair and let’s get started.”
Batman briefly filled in the newcomers on the situation in the air, ending with, “Hard as hell to do anything about it while they’re over the island. We run the risk of killing more Americans than they already have.”
“So I take it the SEALs have some plans?” the general said, the first words he’d spoken since his greetings to Admiral Wayne and his staff. “They usually do.”
“We’re talking to them on SINCGAAR, and comms have been good all day. They’re going in tonight to take care of the hostage situation at the Comm Center. I don’t expect to hear from them during the operation — they’re operating on red signature orders — but we may see some fireworks.”
“And then what?” the general asked, his voice almost demanding.
“There’s an amphibious task force sitting off the coast,” Batman said. “As soon as we get the go order, we’re in.”
“Without air superiority?” Tombstone asked sharply, visions of metal shards in the air, fragments of flesh burning as jet fuel exploded around him, companies strafed into oblivion as they made the beachhead filling his mind. “It’ll be a disaster if we do that.”
“I know. That’s what we’re talking over right now — how to take those damned skies back from those bastards. Any ideas you’ve got, speak up.”
“Let’s see what you’ve got so far,” Tombstone said. “Then we’ll talk.”
THIRTEEN
A submariner from even five years earlier would not have recognized the periscope operations now under way on board Centurion. There was no black pipe protruding from the water, no telltale fan of disturbed seawater or rooster tail behind it. Instead, a tiny black bump barely marred the surface of the ocean, extending up only far enough to clear the tops of the waves.
The boat was equipped with the latest in fiber optics technology, and a single thin thread mounted on a stiffening support rod allowed complete flexibility in periscope operations. There was no more sluing the periscope stand around to take a three-hundred and sixty degree view, no manual changes of the resolution, and no switching between the search scope and the attack scope. Instead, the fiber optic line supplied a highly digitized picture that looked oddly clean to the team in the control room.
“At least we know where the good guys are now,” Captain Tran said. He tapped one slim finger on the profile of the USS Jefferson, now centered in the scope. “I don’t like being this close to her, but it’s not like we have much choice. Not with the other submarine in the area.” He glanced over at the sonar gang, his eyes asking the question he didn’t need to voice.
“Nothing yet, sir, but sooner or later she’s going to have to come up to snort,” the chief sonarman said. “Odds are she’ll run back away from the carrier to do that, and as soon as she does, she’s in our area.”
Tran nodded. The inherent limitations of the diesel submarine made her most vulnerable to detection and attack at nighttime. Still, they’d seen more than their share of unusual capabilities on this contact. And if it was really determined not to be detected, it might find a convenient hole to lie up somewhere for the night, running on minimum hotel power and conserving its batteries. Maybe stretch it to one, two days without snorkeling. More than enough time to creep silently through the clear waters and make a run on Jefferson. And if that happened…
No, it wouldn’t. Because he, Captain Franklin Tran, was going to shove a torpedo up its ass so hard and true that there’d be nothing left of the other submarine except some scattered fragments of metal on an ocean floor already littered with the remains of too many hulks.