“On Christmas Day?”
“The missile test goes down tomorrow.”
“What’s the big rush? It’s not like you’re going to war. If there was one Christmas I thought you’d make, it was this year. Your ship is in the dock and you’re being relieved in two months. Why are you going now? Because the chief of naval operations asks and you jump?”
“No. Because Dick Donchez asks and I jump. We still have time for dinner.”
“How long?”
“Two days, maybe three.”
Pacino watched as his wife clammed up and began moving around the room, banging pots and plates. He climbed the stairs and packed a bag, wondering himself why a weapon test was so important that he had to drop everything on Christmas Day to see it.
Ten minutes later he stood in front of the television, the news channel reported on the Coalition invasion of southern Iran. Pacino bit his lip in frustration, wondering for the hundredth time why Seawolf had to sit out the war. If he had to be away on Christmas, he thought, it could at least be to take the ship on a mission. He thought about his old captain, Rocket Ron Daminski, who was now on patrol in the Mediterranean aboard the Augusta, there since Thanksgiving, probably spending the holiday watching old movies in the wardroom and complaining bitterly about being at sea, driving his crew crazy.
Too bad, Pacino thought, there was nothing for a sub to do during the ground war except poke holes in the ocean. Or so it seemed.
BOOK I
ROCKET RON
Chapter 1
Thursday, 26 December
The Javelin cruise missile blew out of the dark water of the Mediterranean, momentarily frozen in space above an angry cloud of spray until the weapon’s rocket motor ignited in a violent fireball, hurling the missile skyward with an agonizingly bright flame trail.
The crosshairs of the periscope view framed the fiery parabola of the submarine-launched missile’s trajectory as it flew to its peak, 1,500 feet into the clear starlit sky, then arced downward on its way to its ground-hugging approach to its target. Commander Ron Daminski trained the periscope view downward until the missile rocket motor cut out, and the flying automaton vanished into the night. Daminski removed his eye from the periscope optic module for a moment, just long enough to look at the battlestations crew surrounding him in the cramped rigged-for-black control room of the Improved Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Augusta. Satisfied, he returned to his periscope and trained it in a slow circle, a surface search, while the crew prepared to launch the second Javelin warshot missile from the forward vertical launch system.
“Missile two on internal power. Captain. Target is locked in and readbacks are nominal,” the executive officer, Danny Kristman, reported, as emotionlessly as if he were commenting on the weather. “Ready for launch in three zero seconds.”
“Open the muzzle door,” Daminski ordered, training his periscope view forward to see the second launch.
“Door open, tank pressurized … Five seconds, sir.
Three, two, one, mark.”
“Shoot,” Daminski commanded.
“Fire!” Kristman barked, the roar of the missile tube the punctuation to the order.
Daminski watched as the second Javelin cleared the water and lifted off toward the east. When it too had disappeared, he lowered the periscope and turned to executive officer Kristman.
“XO, you have the conn. Secure battle stations, take her deep and continue orbiting at the hold point.”
“Aye, sir.”
The deck took on a down angle as Kristman made the orders, the hull groaning and popping loudly from the sea pressure as the Augusta descended into the depths. From the periscope stand Lieutenant Commander Dan Kristman glanced across at Daminski as the captain yawned, stretched, and tried to fight the sleep he’d evaded for the last three nights.
“Rocket Ron” Daminski, so named for his intensity and white-hot temper, had just turned fifty, unusually old for the job of commanding the submarine Augusta. He was stocky and short, his hair beginning to recede from his lined forehead, yet he still carried himself like the athlete he had once been, in spite of bad knees and several dozen old football injuries.
He spoke with a thick Brooklyn accent and frequently referred to himself as an “ignorant New York Polack,” but he dismissed the fact that he had been a brilliant engineer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Still, he was a troubled officer, always passed over for promotion, and had no illusions that his career would have any further surprises.
Daminski had been aboard Augusta four months, ever since the previous captain had run aground and been relieved for cause. The investigation had shown that the ship had become sloppy and poorly trained, and the admiral in command of the Atlantic’s submarine forces had sent out the ultimate sub-fixer, some would say ass-kicker. Rocket Ron Daminski, a ten-year veteran of straightening out ill-performing submarines.
At first, the crew had dreaded Daminski’s arrival, with good reason. Once aboard, the man was a hurricane, sweeping through every department, finding fault with every division, every officer, every chief, and most enlisted men. Each flaw, regardless of significance, was treated by Rocket as a treasonous personal affront. Every excruciating day had brought several dozen of his demanding emotional outbursts, but over weeks, the boat had responded. Even the men who professed to hate Rocket Ron began to give him the credit as the ship began to function smoothly, going from the squad ron dog to the squadron’s best, until they were certain to win any exercise. Daminski’s tantrums became less frequent, his inspiring speeches more frequent, until over the last month he had become almost jovial in his praise for the men and officers. The ship was ordered to the Mediterranean to support the war against the United Islamic Front, a cause for celebration, the notice that Augusta had arrived.
Through the entire ordeal of putting Augusta back on track. Rocket Ron Daminski had never revealed much of his personal life to the crew. It was known that he was married to his second wife, a pretty and voluptuous younger woman named Myra; the two of them had three small children.
Daminski had filled his stateroom with pictures of his family, nearly wallpapering an entire bulkhead with their photos.
Kristman had noticed that not one photograph included Daminski himself. He had on a recent occasion noticed Daminski mooning over a letter from his wife, so deeply in thought that it had taken Kristman three tries to get the captain’s attention. Daminski carried the letter with him everywhere not in his shirt or pants pockets, but against the skin of his chest. In one recent emergency drill, Daminski had rushed to the control room in his boxers and T-shirt which in an emergency was considered normal and the letter from Myra had been stuck in the waistband of the boxers beneath Daminski’s T-shirt. Kristman could now see the slight rectangular bulge in Daminski’s submarine coveralls where the letter was stowed as Daminski yawned again and ran his huge misshapen football-injured fingers through his hair.
As the ship pulled out of the dive, the deck again became flat. Daminski stepped off the raised periscope stand aft to the twin chart tables, a cigarette appearing between his lips as he bent over the chart. Across the landmass to the east, the thin orange pencil lines traced the serpentine tracks of the Javelin missiles. The lines terminated at a city just north of the Iranian border, the capital city of the United Islamic Front of God, Ashkhabad, in a country called Turkmenistan.