He flipped the switch for launcher power. Above it, a green LED came one.
A switch for missile power. He threw it, also, and digital readout promptly came to life with numbers that were meaningless to him.
GUIDANCE LINK. What the hell, he switched it on. Green light-emitting diode there, too.
“Did you see anything happening up there?” McCory asked on the intercom.
“I didn’t know I was supposed to be watching for something. I don’t think so, though.”
McCory closed the small door, left the cargo bay, and closed that door. On the deck of the port cross-corridor was a small bundle. He bent down to open the duffle and pull out an old rubber raft.
“Okay, Ginger, all stop.”
She pulled the throttles back.
McCory opened the hatchway, slid the raft outside, and while holding its line, pulled the CO2 cartridge. The raft inflated quickly, and he dropped it over the side. He leaned back for the duffel bag and dug around in it for the two rolls of aluminum foil he’d brought along. Ripping off long sheets, he wrinkled them and tossed them in the raft. When the bottom of the raft was full of crumpled foil, he let go of the painter.
He thought it looked like a pretty good target.
“All right, full ahead.”
The boat leapt forward before he could get the hatch closed.
Replacing the headset on its hook, McCory went back to the main cabin and sat in the radarman’s seat.
“You think it’s going to work?”
“Of course it’s going to work,” he told her, mentally crossing his fingers.
Between the helm and radar positions on the bulkhead was a small control panel. It was contained in a box about three inches deep, as if it had been added as an afterthought. The face was flat black, translucent plastic except for one red switch. He tried it, but it wouldn’t move.
Leaning forward, he examined the box more closely and discovered a key slot on the side.
Ah, hah.
He went to the captain’s desk, found the key ring, and brought it back. The second key he tried in the slot fit, and he turned it.
Nothing happened.
He tried the red switch button again.
The panel lit up. Blue lettering.
On top, it read: “ARMAMENT: ACTIVE.” Next to the designation “AVAILABLE,” was one green LED.
He had a guidance selection. Radar, infrared, or optical. He pressed the pad for radar.
Missiles were not new to McCory. He had observed firings of several types while aboard naval ships. Personally, he had used the handheld Stingers and Redeyes a number of times.
He had a choice of computer-controlled or manual launch and tracking. He selected the former.
In the middle of the panel was a set of five pads, the center one marked “CNTR” and the others marked with arrows for the four cardinal compass points. It was obviously used for manual control of a missile in flight.
Below the direction controls were four more buttons, and he assumed they were all interlocked with one another. One controlled the opening of the cargo hatch, another the elevation of the launcher. The third armed the missile, and the fourth was ominously named “LAUNCH.”
He went back and selected optical as the guidance system, then pressed the number seven pad under his monitor. He had a sudden view of the front of the cargo bay.
“Try number seven on your CRT, Ginger.”
“All right! That’s a view from the missile?”
“Yes, but we’re not going to use it now. I’m just experimenting. Bring her back to thirty knots.”
There was no way to select one of four missiles that could be mounted on the launcher, so McCory presumed that, due to stresses on the launcher itself and maybe the mounting to the boat, only one could be launched at a time.
As the boat slowed and steadied in the water, McCory went back to the radar mode on the missile, then opened the cargo doors and pressed the button to raise the launcher.
He was rewarded with two green LEDs. Which he didn’t trust, so he got up and went aft to check for himself. Opening the cargo hatch, he found the doors retracted and the launcher fully extended. The missile head was about five feet above the upper deck. It looked menacing as hell. The cool night air poured into the bay.
He went back to the cabin.
“It’s up.”
“Great! Shoot it.”
“Don’t get antsy.”
On the radar panel, he selected the radar mode for the monitor, then found a switch for armaments-to-radar link and activated it.
An orange target circle appeared on the screen. He found that it was controlled by a set of keypads similar to the guidance pads on the armaments panel.
He went active on the thirty-mile scan.
On the screen a dim blip showed him his target about four miles behind them. He moved the orange circle until its cross-hairs were centered on the target, then pressed a pad labeled, “TARGET LOCK.”
The sound of electric motors came through the deck. The launcher was rotating, aiming the missile aft.
Blue letters appeared in the upper right corner of the screen, “LOCK-ON.”
McCory heard something droning, looked under the instrument panel, and saw another headset. He put it on and heard the long-ago sound of a missile’s message to its operator. The low tone sounding in his earphones told him the missile’s brain had locked onto the target selected by the radar.
“Ready?” he asked.
“I’m ready.”
McCory looked to the armaments panel and pressed the launch keypad.
Nothing happened.
For one second.
All he had done was commit the launch. The computer selected the optimum launch time.
WHOOSH!
The ignition and launch could be heard through the skin of the SeaGhost.
But only for an instant. Outside the windows, the night went white for a second, then winked back to black.
The missile was gone, gone, gone.
“Look, look, look!” Ginger shouted.
McCory glanced at her primary CRT, still on the optical view. All he saw were dancing stars.
Back to his own screen. Close in, the radar sweep left two blips behind it. Four miles away was his poor rubber boat. A mile away was a streaking dot.
Two miles away.
Three.
“God! Look!”
McCory flicked his eyes to the helm screen. Out of the night, a yellow blur appeared.
Grew.
And grew into a real yellow rubber boat.
Expanded.
And disappeared into blackness.
On the rearview screen, he saw a momentary blossom of red-yellow light. The image remained on his retina for several seconds.
“We got it!” Ginger said.
“Yeah. Maybe we did.” He had no way of knowing if he’d hit the target. From the optical view delivered by the missile, it seemed certain, however.
It seemed like a puny explosion on the direct rearview screen, but then it was over four miles away.
Ginger sighed. “Now, I’m tired. Us night people have to get our sleep.”
“Did you want to sleep alone?”
“Of course not.”
McCory retracted the launcher and cargo doors, then supervised as Ginger set up a course for the mainland on the automatic pilot. She left the throttle settings for thirty knots of speed.
He set up the radar computer for random search and alarm.
And they went aft to the port bunk cabin to see if they both fit in one bunk.
They did.
At moments like this, making phone calls like this, Ted Daimler remembered going to Harvard Law School. He and McCory were just out of the Navy, and McCory was going back to Fort Walton Beach to work with his father. Daimler had been accepted to several law schools, and he very much wanted Harvard. His accumulated Navy education benefits, however, were insufficient for Harvard. He told McCory about it.