Beside him Staurulakis was continuing the litany, gaze welded to her screen, chanting like an acolyte in a liturgy as the responses came back. “Launchers to operate mode.… Set up to take Meteor Echo … two-round salvo. I say again, two-round salvo. Sound warning alarm aft. Deselect safeties and interlocks. Stand by to fire. On CO’s command.”
“You can’t mean to actually…” Ammermann’s outrage-swollen visage hung in front of him, then turned away. He straightened and raised his voice, addressing the others. “Listen to me! I’m countermanding that order! You — you people can’t let him! Don’t you understand what he’s doing?”
Amy Singhe, behind them. “Sir? Shall I call the master-at-arms again?”
Dan shook his head, very slightly, gaze averted. He was holding back, reviewing exactly what he was doing and why. He was going to use up the last two shots in his locker, taking down the Israeli counterstrike against an enemy that had struck first, and struck grievously. Nearly two hundred dead. Women and children.
No. He was executing his orders. Priority Three: Offensive missiles targeted against civilian populations.
He couldn’t say he was sure this was the right course of action. He really wasn’t.
But that was why there was a captain. To make the decisions that had to be made, under whatever conditions of stress and uncertainty, deep in the murky swamp of war and politics.
Then paying the piper, if that decision turned out to have been the wrong one.
He spared a quick glance around, trying to read body language. It was rare anyone openly contradicted a skipper, but if he was too far off track, that could give you a clue. Staurulakis, Slaughenhaupt, Singhe, Wenck, Terranova, Kaghazchi, were all looking at him, but their expressions varied. Some looked horrified; others, inspired. Donnie Wenck was smiling, blue eyes crazy, mashing down a cowlick of spiky blond hair. Go for it, Skipper, he mouthed.
“Don’t,” groaned Ammermann. “I’m warning you—”
“To hell with it,” Dan whispered under his breath. He fitted the key. Hooked a nail under the clear plastic cover of the switch, flicked it up, and snapped the toggle to the Fire position.
Once again, that agonizingly stretched-out pause, no more than three seconds, but seemingly without end. The vent dampers whunked shut. The ventilation sighed to a stop, and Savo moaned and popped as she rolled, the turbines thrumming through the steel and rubber beneath his feet like distant war drums.
A thunder from aft. Brightness like a welding arc burned on the cameras. “Bird one away. Stand by … bird two away.”
The bright symbols left Savo’s circle-and-cross, quickly blinking into blue semicircles as they tracked east. Dan said, “TAO, inform Iron Sky we’ve fired our last two TBM-capable rounds against a presumed Jericho launched from northern Israel. Add that we’re now engaging two Iranian surface units executing an attack profile. Warnings were issued.” His gaze nailed the Iranian-American, who stood holding a mike near the Aegis console. “That’s right, isn’t it, Petty Officer Kaghazchi? We warned them, on bridge-to-bridge?”
“Baleh, agha … yes sir. But they never answered, Captain.”
“Transmitting loud and clear,” Slaughenhaupt said. “Confirmed with Radio. They heard us, all right.”
“Good, Chief. Thanks for the backstop.”
“No problem, sir.”
Terranova chanted, “Stand by for Block 4 intercept, Meteor Echo.… Stand by.…”
“Seeker profile on X-band!” the EW operator yelled, and Dan winced. “Bearing … bearing two six four. Seeker correlates with C-802 terminal radar seeker. Designate Goblin Alfa.”
He nodded. What he’d half expected, and would have preempted, given thirty more seconds. But the other side had thrown the first punch, after all. Muffled thuds came from outside. In the cameras, smoke trails smeared the sky, tipped with flame-hot pinpoints. “Chaff away,” someone reported. “Duckies deployed.”
Dan put his hand between Staurulakis’s thin delicate shoulder blades. The cotton of her coveralls was damp and hot. “Take ’em, Cher.”
“Stand by on Harpoon. Three-round engagement, target Alborz, salvo fire, batteries released.”
“Stand by for intercept on Meteor Echo … now,” called Wenck.
Dan jerked his gaze up to the display as the blue and the red callouts merged. The brackets locked on the hurtling missile. Jerked, tracked back. Then hunted back and forth, as if unclear what they were supposed to be looking for. They slewed away, then hunted again, at the same moment as a roar rattled the deckplates and the helo-deck cameras went the off-white of booster smoke.
“Radar return getting mushy … may be body separation—”
“Sir, we can’t wait on this incoming—”
He tore his gaze away. Blinked. “Got it, Cher. Secure from TBMD mode! Shift SPY-1 to self-defense. Sea Whiz released. Standard released. Take incoming Goblin with birds.”
“Self-defense mode, aye. Salvo alarm, aft and forward.” She sounded relieved, and a wave of commands and responses moved away down the consoles, along with buckling and adjustments as flash gear got tightened.
The picture on the rightmost vertical screen blinked. Then the pie wedge, the closed fan, suddenly spread, opening like the Argus-eyed tail of a peacock. The amber traces probed outward, 360 degrees, clicking deliberately yet with wonderful rapidity all around the horizon. Shorelines and islands, contacts and callouts, sprang up. Savo’s awareness was suddenly total, a godlike gaze of perfect knowledge within a three-hundred-mile radius. Some contacts were red and blinking, others amber, yet others green. Two were the red vertical carets of hostile missiles, jumping rapidly inward at near-supersonic velocities. With the next sweep, another popped up, this one closing from the east.
But, that suddenly, he could see. He could fight. It felt like being underwater, wound tightly in heavy chains, and feeling them fall away. As the helo controller reported Red Hawk dumping chaff and flares, Dan cycled the Fire Auth switch, leaving it in the up position. Called back to Singhe’s team, “Strike, stand by for TLAM mission. Salvo of four. Where we marked those truck-mounted launchers.” He reached for his helmet, and found himself face-to-face with Ammermann.
“That was a stupid move,” the staffer said in a low voice. “And believe me, you’ll pay for it.”
Dan felt for the lever and reclined his seat. Cleared his throat. “You do actually understand what’s going on, Adam? Right?”
“Oh yeah, I do. You just shot down—”
“No. Forget that. What I mean is, we’ve got mail. Three inbound antiship missiles. An 802 from the Syrian coast. Two 801s, the ship-to-ship version, from seaward. Over a thousand pounds of high-energy armor-penetrating warheads on the way, at .8 mach, fifteen feet above the water. The first one, roughly two minutes out.” He lifted his eyebrows. “So maybe I won’t have to worry about justifying myself. Or paying for anything.”
A commanding officer got a lot of practice masking his emotions. But the staffer obviously hadn’t. His mouth sagged; he looked terrified. Dan himself felt tense, yet eager, even vengeful, here at the end. When it would all come down to whether all their shit worked, and how fast he could make decisions. Not to mention how deep their magazines would prove, compared to those who’d just declared themselves America’s enemy.