“Oh, Commander.”
Murdock turned.
“Remember, anything you need, let me know.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
Murdock went into the companionway, and headed back to his men.
Now they had something to work with, a possible time for hitting the island. “Yes!” he said, and punched the air with his fist.
Just after Murdock left the admiral, his phone rang. “Yes?”
“Admiral Kenner, we’ve got some action on that Oscar again.
Nothing certain. Want you to take a look.”
“I’ll be right down.”
The call had come from Monasto, the TAO in the Combat Direction Center, CDC, six decks below the bridge. The location made the center more secure in case of an attack.
The CDC was the top nerve center of the carrier. It used to be called the Combat Information Center, but the new name showed how the operations had changed, and how the carrier battle group now controlled all the factors in a wartime situation.
A huge wall-sized blue screen in the main compartment dominated the area. It displayed every contact held by every sensor in the whole task force.
Commander Monasto sat at a desk in front of the bulkhead display.
Beside him was the CDC officer. Enlisted specialists in the rest of the compartment monitored aircraft, and manned radar and data consoles.
The ASW problems were taken care of in another area directly behind the CDC. It coordinated tactics with the DESRON five decks above its location. At the end of the compartment sat two parallel rows of consoles that were used exclusively by operations specialists who correlated and deconflicted radar signals from every ship and plane in the task force.
Every man not on a console snapped to attention when the word came.
“The admiral is on deck.”
“Back to work, people. What’s the latest situation?”
“Sir, the frigate Ingraham had a series of intermittent acoustic contacts that they couldn’t classify,” Lieutenant Jefferson said. He was the top ASW man in the room. “The signals were the same frequency, but kept fading and coming back. The frigate launched a chopper, and dropped twenty sonobuoys on the heading. From the last one they got a steady sounding that the sonar techs described as a Russian Oscar with the right blade count. Before the bird could drop more sonobuoys, the boomer evidently dove, and then went silent. So we lost him.”
“How far from the frigate?”
“A bracket, Sir, of twelve to twenty miles.”
“He moved away from us?”
“Yes, Sir, we think so, but no data on that.”
Admiral Kenner scowled. “What the hell is he trying to do?”
“Sir, put the fear of a Russian OSCAR into us. He could launch in a preemptive strike. By the time we tried to take evasive action it would be too late.”
“I agree, Lieutenant. How old were you during the Cold War?”
“In my teens, Sir.”
“Do you remember living through the time of the feared intercontinental ballistic missile attacks? The Russians could target a hundred of America’s largest cities, and the nukes would rain down before we could much more than launch a retaliatory strike. But by then, half our population and most of our culture would be in atomic ashes. A threat like the OSCAR is only that, a threat. We have the same threat against the Russian carrier with our missiles.
“That OSCAR is there to harass us, not to sink us. Report its actions from now on with an OPREP-3. Get the initial report in my hands within five minutes.”
“Yes, Sir, Admiral Kenner.”
The flag officer went back by way of the Communications Center, and sent messages to the American ambassador, the CNO, and Don Stroh in the CIA. He told them all the same thing. The SEALS on board his ship now had a secret weapon they could use non-lethally, and should be able to attack the Japanese stronghold and capture it within four hours on a night operation. He suggested that the SEALs were ready to move anytime within the next thirty-six hours. He telephoned Lieutenant Commander Murdock.
“I just sent messages to our ambassador to Japan, to the CNO, and to Stroh, explaining that you were ready to go and that you could take down the Japanese in a four-hour night operation.”
“Good, Admiral. Stroh will yell at State, and they will scream at the CNO, and he’ll talk to the President, and then they’ll talk to the ambassador, and who knows, it all might work out.”
“Did the weapons arrive?”
“Yes, but how do we test them? There should be no reaction to a board or chair or a wave if we fire them. Looks like our first test will be on a Japanese sentry when we hit the beach.”
“How many weapons?”
“An even dozen. I’m surprised. We should be able to take down fifty men we expect are at or near the headquarters.”
“Let your people get some rest. I’ve got a hunch the Japanese leaders are going to give you a go for tomorrow night.”
“We hope so, sir. Yes, we’ll get some rest. The instructions for these new rifles are first-grade simple. Take off safety, aim, fire, wait ten seconds to recharge. When the small red light comes on, you aim and fire again. Wish we had a hundred-and-fifty-pound Holstein heifer we could test the weapon on.”
“Afraid we’re fresh out of livestock on board, Commander.”
“If Don Stroh says they work, we’ll have to believe they work. If not, we have our backup weapons. We’ll shoot to disable as much as we can if we have to use our usual weapons.”
“Good enough for me. The Japanese can’t expect to come out of this without breaking a few eggs.”
“My way of thinking too, Sir.”
“I’ll let you know of any developments.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
They hung up, and Murdock went back to his men, who were staring in awe at the EARS. They looked a lot like the old M-1. About the same weight. The stock was made of plastic, and it contained some new kind of high-voltage battery. The barrel of the weapon was two feet long and had an inch-wide smooth bore. It was connected to a chamber between itself and the battery pack.
The chamber was sealed, and the SEALs could only wonder what went on inside. Murdock took one weapon on the flight deck and flipped off the safety. Ten seconds later a small red bulb glowed near the sights.
He followed the instructions, aimed it off the side of the flight deck into the water fifty yards away, and pulled the trigger.
There was a snap, then a whooshing sound that he had long associated with rockets, but not so loud or so protracted. What seemed like only half a second later, the ocean boiled for a moment where he had aimed, then calmed.
Ten seconds later the red light came back on. Murdock pushed the safety on, and two seconds later the ready red light went out.
Ed Dewitt and Jaybird Sterling stood there shaking their heads.
“Looks like it fires, and in ten seconds is ready again,” Jaybird said. “What happens if you have two targets in five seconds?”
“You let your partner take the shot,” Murdock said. “We work in pairs — lead man takes the first shot, backup the second, and alternate at five seconds. We don’t expect that many targets. Also, we’ll have to set up a priority of firing if we’re in a group. We don’t want to waste three shots on the same target.”
They went back down to their room six decks below the flight area, trying to work out any other problems they might have.
“Heavy bastard,” Jaybird said.
They hadn’t weighed it, but Murdock figured it weighed about eleven pounds. If it worked, it would be worth the extra weight. They wouldn’t wear their wet suits or rebreathers. That would save six pounds on the suit and another five on the rebreather. The weight wouldn’t matter, not if the EAR could do the job.
Back in their ready room, Murdock told them what the admiral had said.