DARK HORSE: Please advise intentions re completing assigned mission.
Dan typed,
MATADOR: Prefer to divert to Jebel Ali. Possible submarine contact in southern TSS.
Stonecipher came up on the voice circuit. “Anvil here. Okay, back in business. Debris impact aft took off one of the comm antennas and the starboard Harpoon launcher. Fortunately the canister was empty. Two guys with minor burns from fuel splash. Redundancy on the antenna. Ready for combat. Over.”
The computer screen scrolled up to read,
DARK HORSE: Clear transit corridors of hostile forces. Use necessary means.
“Did he really say that?” Mills breathed, beside him. “‘Use necessary means’?”
Dan shook his head, hesitating for one more second. Blew out, shaking his head again. Then typed,
MATADOR: Coming NW to 310. Flank speed. Will reenter inbound lane E of Bani Forur and exit at established western check-in point.
He repeated this over the red phone to Stonecipher, adding, “Follow in my wake.” Then spun in his chair and shouted across the compartment, “Bingo fuel, Red Hawk?”
“Bingo, ten minutes.”
“Plant a sonobuoy on Goblin Alfa. Then vector back here for hot refuel.”
The antisubmarine coordinator told him 202 had launched with a full loadout of ordnance but no sonobuoys. “We didn’t expect ASW, Captain. Made the decision to load up with extra bullets instead.”
“That’s okay — well, fuck.”
“Another run isn’t going to tell us anything we don’t already know,” Mills said.
“Skipper, Sonar,” the 21MC at his desk blared, deafeningly loud. Dan turned it down and pressed the Transmit key. “CO.”
“Rit here. A MAD run’s not gonna tell us anything we don’t already know about this turkey.”
“Mr. Mills was just saying the same thing.”
“He’s right. But instead of charging on in, how about we squirt a couple 46s out on that bearing? Let the fish do the work?”
Dan rubbed his chin. The Mark 46s were lightweight homing torpedoes, their digital brains programmed to hunt down submarines in shallow water. Ticos carried them down on the damage-control deck, aft of Medical, to eject with compressed air though tube doors just above the waterline. “What’s the speed differential? Those aren’t fast torpedoes, Rit.”
“They’ll get there ahead of us. And if that’s a minisub sitting on the bottom, he’s gonna do something when he hears those high-speed props headed his way. Pop a bubble decoy, at least.”
“Makes sense. Join us on the ASW circuit, Rit.” Dan snapped his selector. To the ASW officer, Lieutenant Farmer, and out of the side of his mouth to Mills, he muttered, “Okay, waterspace management. There’s not the slightest chance this could be a friendly?”
Mills shook his head. “We don’t operate subs in the Gulf. Nor do any of the trucial states.”
“Uh-huh. Winston?”
The ASW officer agreed with Mills. Dan rasped, “All right, set up. Two Mark 46s out along the bearing, set for circular search around the datum. Get ’em out there ASAP.”
“Copy weapons free, two-shot salvo.”
He confirmed, then leaned back, easing a breath out, looking up at the display. The never-sleeping beam swept over the southern Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the eastern Indian Ocean. He saw and knew with the wisdom of Athena. Wielded the thunderbolts of Zeus. Yet still, obeyed the iron commands of Mars.
Through the fatigue and fear a sudden disenchantment surfaced. Out there, his shells and missiles had torn men apart. Burned and drowned them. His side called them fanatics. They called themselves patriots and believers. But the ineluctable realities of the energy markets meant they had to die, and that sailors had to risk their lives killing them.
He could almost hear Nick Niles grunting Above your pay grade, Lenson. Eyeing him with that amused disgust the vice admiral reserved for him alone, it seemed. He imagined Blair shaking her head too. He took another deep breath and scrubbed his face with a palm, stubble and grit and oil grating on his skin.
The double thud of compressed air shuddered the compartment. “Fish one away… fish two away. Mark, start of run. Time to target, time one five.”
The Mark 46 ran out at over fifty knots. Savo would arrive at the datum twelve minutes after the torpedoes began a circle search, pinging and listening. Either they would sense a submarine and attack, or declare the area clear.
A third possibility existed, of course. That the other skipper could fox or evade his weapons, and loose his own as Savo and Mitscher passed close aboard.
A shiver ran up his back, and his neck knotted. Each breath took an effort, drawn against a narrowing in the throat, a weight on his chest.
But he had his orders. To throw the dice, and let the god of war decide.
He told Mills to have Mitscher open the interval, lag back two miles, and directed Red Hawk to vector to the destroyer for a hot refuel. If the worst happened, they’d be safe, at least. Then he clicked to the General Battle circuit and tried for a confident tone. “This is the Captain. All ahead flank. Indicate turns for thirty knots. Come to course for the Western Entry Point. And stand by.”
Two hours later he sagged in his seat, soaked with cold sweat turned to liquid ice by the air-conditioning. Wenck had the helo deck camera up on one of the displays. Black columns of smoke stained the dusty horizon: the sinking, burning boats they’d hit during the first attacks.
His torpedoes had completed runout, circled, but detected nothing. Then, ending their brief consciousnesses, had self-detonated, raising huge plumes of white water to port and then starboard as Savo and, miles astern, Mitscher passed through. Either there was no submarine, or it was keeping its head down. The northern gaggle had made short threatening dashes as if to charge, but were turned back each time by low passes of the carrier air. They’d launched no more missiles, and taken no action as the huge, deep-laden tanker, a Chinese flag, as it happened, churned past. Maybe they’d already made their point: that they could close the strait anytime they liked. And weren’t afraid to die doing it.
He remembered how during previous interferences with navigation, the Iranian state oil company had sold heavily as the price of oil futures peaked, then sold short as the West cleared the sea lanes again. Cashing in as the price rose, then again on the fall.
As corpses drifted in the warm Gulf, tossed by the waves, their sightless faces caressed by the dust-laden wind.
“Secure from general quarters?” Mills asked. Glancing at him, Dan saw awe. Respect. Saw the same expressions around him, from the consoles and watch stations. How strange, that they should look at him this way, while he himself felt only relief they’d survived.
Without a word, he nodded. Unbent, and lurched to his feet. Staggered once, weaving, as his calves cramped. Then stalked silently through his silent crew, until he could dog a steel door between him and them.
8
Jebal Ali, in the United Arab Emirates, was a gigantic commercial port, larger than Norfolk or Long Beach, with square miles of baking asphalt, mountains of containers, dozens of offload cranes. Then more square miles of petrochemical tanks, all shimmering in a baking sun that hit Dan like a red-hot bullet as soon as he stepped outside the skin of the ship. In deep summer, everything was shrouded in the shamal-borne dust, fine as triple-X sugar, that at times made it hard to see a softball-throw distant.