“No gundecking here, Commodore, but I could use some horsepower on those aux gen parts. Plus, we never heard back from Bethesda on assistance on those recurrent infections. Over.”
“You’re sure these aren’t just dust? I get a lot of reports of dust infections when we’re operating in the Gulf. Over.”
“No ma’am. People don’t die from dust. We need some expert advice. Over.”
She’d promised to buck the issue up the line, but said that if it was getting to be an operational issue, he should look to his local chop chain for help.
He’d ended the conversation with a sense of the growing distance between them. He belonged to Roald for spare parts and manning, but out here, his sailing orders came from Bahrain. Commander, Fifth Fleet, directed operations in the Gulf, Red Sea, and Arabian Sea. In theory, parts, manning, and administration followed you seamlessly, no matter who your operational commander was. But in practice, the farther from home port, the more interruptions and delays along the way.
He leaned back, taking advantage of a break before heading back to Combat to review what exactly they were sticking their heads into. The flurry of messages was getting overwhelming, just like before every major flap. He glanced out at Mitscher again. Both ships were coming to a course for the eastern entrance to Hormuz. The destroyer’s station during the first part of the transit would be one thousand yards to starboard of Savo Island. This would place her between the cruiser and the coast. Carrier Strike Group One, centered on Carl Vinson, and Strike Group Nine, with Abraham Lincoln, would take turns providing continuous air cover.
Just that morning, as if to ratchet things up another notch, the Iranians had announced five days of major naval maneuvers. Both sides had put out Notices to Mariners, so it was hard to believe any commercial skipper would sail unaware of the brewing confrontation.
“Captain?” Cheryl Staurulakis, with Mills behind her. “You asked us to scrub down the Fifth Fleet ROEs against our combat doctrine. Got the results, if you have thirty minutes. Or we can give you the thirty-thousand-foot overview, and just leave the marked-up copy.”
Dan accepted the document and relaxed back into the chair, digging at the tension in his neck and back. The sky ahead was smudged and obscured by the nearly invisible dust that in July and August rose from the deserts. The Iranians liked to pull the eagle’s tail. Test American resolve. If it ever flagged, the rickety, artificial structure of monarchies and emirates lining the west side of the Gulf, inherited from the British Empire, would crumble. Iran would control the Middle East, and the world would change.
“Okay,” he murmured. “Let’s get to it.”
They gathered over a chart laid out on the dead-reckoning tracer, in the antisubmarine plot area back of Combat. Staurulakis, Mills, Chief Van Gogh, and Bart Danenhower. Exec, operations, navigation, engineering. Maybe he should have invited Wenck, Singhe, and the ship’s senior cryppie, but he’d always felt the smaller a meeting was, the better. He shuddered in the frigid air and leaned over the paper chart with its soft blues and tans, sea and desert. “I want to hit our most exposed position no later than eleven hundred. I need daylight in the Knuckle, and through the hundred-mile transit.” He waved a hand over the deep Gulf of Oman, their current position; then swept it westward, into the Gulf.
Heading in, the Strait of Hormuz kinked left around the Omani Peninsula. The International Maritime Organization had set up two transit lanes, each a mile wide. The southern lane was for outbound ships, the northern for those inbound to the refineries and terminals of the Gulf. The Knuckle was only twenty miles wide, with the Iranian-garrisoned Qeshm Island to the north and the (more or less) friendly Oman to the south. Then it bent southwest toward Dubai.
Dan had navigated here before. It was another labyrinth, a twisting, obstacle-littered gut of shallow sea dotted with production facilities, pumping stations, onload facilities, desert islands, barely awash reefs, and abandoned, cut-down drill platforms that stuck up to within a few feet of the surface… not to mention a ship every six minutes heading in as a like number exited. Just navigating would be a challenge. Doing so at full alert would test crew and sensors to their limits.
He turned to Van Gogh. “Chief, first thing, make sure we have all the Notices to Mariners entered. Matt, I need the boundaries the Iranians promulgated for — what are they calling it?”
Mills said, “There are actually two exercises. The regular navy maneuvers are announced from the strait to the quote ‘northern part of Indian Ocean.’ Missile live fires and ASW free play. No geographic limits promulgated yet.”
“And the Pasdaran?” Staurulakis asked.
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced the ‘Velayat-e’ Exercises in the southern part of the Gulf. Here.” Mills straight-edged it in.
Dan leaned in. A rough rectangle about twenty miles wide by thirty in depth. But not at the Knuckle. Instead, lodged deep inside the strait, like a pebble in a windpipe. It began at the thirty-meter line off the Forur Shoal and extended seaward, cornered by four islands, all Iranian or Iranian-claimed: Forur, Sirri, Abu Musa, and Kuchek.
Dan swallowed. He knew these desolate sandy islands all too well.
“Right across the shipping lanes,” Van Gogh observed.
The operations officer said, “And they advise commercial traffic to stand clear.”
“Which effectively closes the strait.” Dan straightened, set his palms to his back, and stretched. “All right, that makes it simple. Plot us a course right through the square. We won’t be alone, with dedicated F/A-18 coverage from the carriers. Now… battle orders. This is the last chance we’ll have to look over them. So let’s make sure there are absolutely no holes.”
He didn’t get much sleep that night. Traffic was heavy coming out, as if eager to beat a deadline. Tankers by the dozen, containerships, oceangoing tugs plodding along with rigs in tow, liquid natural gas tankers with bulbous white tanks, like floating bombs. He’d left word to be awakened when they passed 26 degrees north. But when the call came, he was already up and dressed, showered and shaved.
He met his own gaze in the mirror of the sea cabin. Whether he felt up to it or not, men and women would depend on him today. He’d have to make the right decisions. Reach beyond what he felt he could do, and then do even more.
He stared into tired gray eyes mitered by wrinkles. Then closed them, and asked for help.
0500. He stood flipping through the morning traffic on the bridge. Van Gogh had calculated local dawn at 0532, but already the east was brightening and the temperature rising. The swells were gentling as they moved in between the ramparts of land. Mitscher was on station four hundred yards ahead. Oman was off to port, the terrifyingly vertiginous cliffs of the northern peninsula and islands jumping straight up out of the sea. One headland behind the other, they were still dark, but shortly would illuminate in hues of rose and ocher.
The 21MC announced, “Stand by for on top.” A growing roar drew him out on the bridge wing. Two black arrow shapes howled over, no more than three hundred yards up, tail cones glowing bright orange in the half light, and dwindled, peeling off toward the strait.