The Engagement Control Station was the only manned station in a Patriot Fire Unit. It could communicate with any M901 Launching Station and with other Patriot batteries, and it also had direct communications to the higher command facilities, in this case Admiral Gillmore’s Coronado.
Three operators had two consoles and a Communication Station with three radio-relay terminals. The digital Weapon Control Computer was located next to the VHF Data Link terminals. One of the C-17 Globemasters had brought in the trailer-mounted Raytheon MPQ-53 phased-array Army radar unit, a band-tracking radar capable of identifying one hundred targets at a time. It was a superb component of any top-of-the-line shore missile batteries, and it would carry out search, target detection, track and identification, missile tracking and guidance, plus electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM) functions.
Its radar was automatically controlled, via a cable link, by the digital weapons control computer in the Engagement Control Center sited farther up the hill. The radar had a range of up to 55 miles, and could provide guidance data for up to nine missiles at any one time. Its wideband capability provided target discrimination never before achieved.
In normal circumstances, this overwhelming piece of electronic equipment might have been considered overkill in the search for one or possibly two incoming “birds.” However, in this case, by express orders of Admiral Morgan, there was no such thing as overkill.
As the Patriot missile came flashing into its target, the TVM guidance system would be activated, and the weapon could scarcely miss. And it would not require a midair collision to blow Admiral Badr’s Scimitar clean out of the sky. The Patriot just needed to be close enough for a proximity fuse to detonate the high-explosive warhead, in this case, an M248 91kg—200 pounds — TNT blast fragmentation.
The MIM-104E was over 17 feet long, 16 inches in diameter, and weighed 2,000 pounds. At Mach 5, its range was 43 miles and, if necessary, it could fly to a ceiling of 80,000 feet. Arnold Morgan had estimated a very high trajectory from the Barracuda’s missiles, which, he thought, would aim to lance down very steeply at the crater of the Cumbre Vieja.
Major Gill had a copy of that shrewd assessment from the Supreme Commander folded neatly in his breast pocket, as he prepared the U.S. Army’s ring of steel around the volcano’s black heart. As he watched the mighty Chinook flying the Patriot launcher trucks right over the crater and into position, he knew that if the frigate’s batteries were not in time, out in the open ocean, his own guided missiles would be the United States’ last line of defense.
Five hundred feet below the surface, the Barracuda had cut its speed from six knots to five, after a very slight swing to the south. Its course would take it 14 miles south of the flashing light on Point Restinga, the southernmost headland of the Canary Island of Hierro. Right now they were a little under 40 miles to the west, and several days out of satellite contact with General Rashood.
Ben Badr was in the submarine’s control room with his XO, Capt. Ali Akbar Mohtaj, who was coming to the end of the First Watch.
The Admiral ordered the submarine to periscope depth for a swift GPS check and a visual look at the surface picture.
In the clear autumn night skies they could see that the ocean around them was devoid of shipping. The GPS numbers were accurate, according to their own navigation charts meticulously kept by Lt. Ashtari Mohammed, Shakira’s old colleague.
“DOWN PERISCOPE…MAKE YOUR DEPTH 500…SPEED FIVE…” Admiral Badr wore a soft smile as he felt the ship go, bow down, 10 degrees. He felt safe — so far as he could see — no U.S. Navy dragnet was trying to hunt him down.
The time was 11:30 and 15 seconds. What he didn’t know, as the Barracuda glided back towards the ocean floor, was that in precisely 24 hours, 29 minutes, and 45 seconds, the world’s GPS systems, U.S. and European, were shutting down. Ben Badr was proceeding to a long-range launching, which could not work. First blood to the United States.
He and Captain Mohtaj sipped hot tea with sugar and lemon and stared meditatively at the charts. They would be inside the grid of the seven islands shortly after dawn, and he would now head east, according to their original plan, to launch 30 miles south of Fuerteventura, 30 miles off the coast of Western Sahara.
“If we can launch long-range,” said Ben, “we’re bound to hit. The missile takes longer to get there. We have longer to get into shelter, and our chances of being detected are close to zero. So far, I like it very much.”
By the time they finished their tea, and Captain Mohtaj had retired to his bunk, the GPS was still transmitting. But in twenty-four hours, there would be a mind-blowing change to their plan.
Worse yet, the U.S. guided missile frigate the Nicholas was still in the area, and Captain Nielsen’s ops room had very nearly picked them up when they put up a mast for that last GPS check. The U.S. frigate was less than 20 miles away, and it caught a slight paint on two sweeps of the radar. It had disappeared on the third, but the ops room of the Nicholas was very sharp, and the young seaman watching the screen had called it immediately. His supervisor had logged and given it a numbered track. It was now on the nets, circulating to the rest of the fleet. Of course, it could have been anything — a flock of birds, a rainsquall, a breaching whale or a dolphin. But the operator was not so sure, and the Nicholas hung around for an hour, wondering if the “paint” would return.
But nothing unusual occurred, and Captain Nielsen proceeded on slowly through the night down the coast of Hierro, before making for Tenerife. He was steaming only a little faster than the Barracuda, which was traveling in the same direction, 20 miles off their starboard quarter, deep beneath the waves.
13
The Barracuda, still making only 6 knots, steamed quietly past the flashing light on the stark southern headland of Hierro’s Point Restingo shortly after 0700. They remained 500 feet below the surface, 14 miles south of the lighthouse, on a bright, sunlit morning.
Twenty miles to the north, moving slowly south, four miles off the rust-red volcanic eastern coastline of the island, was the gunmetal-gray 3,600-ton U.S. frigate the Nicholas. She was on a near-interception course with the Barracuda, but Capt. Eric Nielsen would turn east for Tenerife 10 miles north of the submarine.
On the west coast of the island, Capt. Josh Deal’s Kauffman was combing the Atlantic depths electronically, searching, searching for the telltale whispers that may betray the presence of the lethal underwater marauder.
If Captain Deal held his course, he too would eventually reach the submarine’s track, but he was also under orders to swing east for Tenerife. Both ships were proceeding with caution, not too fast to miss anything, but with enough speed to cover the wide patch of ocean allotted them by Admiral Gillmore.
The tiny island Hierro, only 15 miles wide, used to be about three times the size. But a massive eruption around 50,000 years ago blew it asunder and, according to modern volcanologists, dumped about 100 square miles of solid rock onto the bottom of the Atlantic.