Dan said, getting irritated, “I didn’t say it was ‘personal.’ Where’d you get that? I’m just saying, Mitscher could hold down the air picture. Why keep us here? And where are these additional orders they mention in para five?”
“I checked the LAN in case something got by ’em in Radio. Nothing there yet either.”
“TAO, air: fast movers, Indian, lifting off from Sirsa. Looks like Mirages and MiG-29s. Eight radars so far.”
Dan spun around to the air picture as symbols materialized. The TAO said, “Captain, from the CTs: lot of chatter in Hindi. Something big’s going up.”
Dan grabbed the radio handset. “Going out Fifth Fleet Secure. ComFifth Fleet, this is Savo Actual. Flash, flash, flash. Savo holds multiple fast movers, possibly Mirages and/or MiGs departing Sirsa. Evaluate as outbound raid. Composition eight. Also a spike in HF voice traffic. Over.”
The secure satcomm speaker squealed as the scrambler circuits synchronized. “Savo, this is Fifth Fleet Ops-O. Admiral is en route to the watch floor. Do you have any further information?”
Dan started to key the handset to reply, but the electronic warfare watchstander shouted, “TAO, EW: Multiple airborne radars equating to Mirage F-1 and MiG-29 Strikers powering up over Halwara. Looks like six radars at this time.” Before he could key to pass that, another alert came in. Multiple fast movers were taking off from Bhatinda, too.
“Savo, this is Fleet. Did you copy my last? Over.”
Dan shook himself out of information overload, and keyed. “Savo Actual. Update follows. Designate flight from Sirsa, Raid 1. Raid 2 is outbound from Halwara, composition six. ELINT holds airborne Mirage F-1 and MiG radars. Raid 3 outbound from Bhatinda. No further information at this time. Over.” He glanced at Branscombe. “Get me a distance to the closest raid. I doubt they’re headed for us, but set condition one if they are.”
More squealing. Someone was calling them, but the circuit didn’t sync. Dan let it warble away as over the next few minutes heavy strike packages lifted off from two other Indian air bases as well.
Terranova, at the Aegis console, kept the readouts small, so Dan could keep his eye on the big picture as more and more aircraft rose and headed west. Data points winked into existence on the west side of the border as well. The track supervisor reported multiple aircraft taking off from Pakistani airbases. “Shit, looks like the whole damn PAKAF is going airborne,” she said over the net.
“TAO, EW: Multiple airborne search radars going active all over eastern Pakistan.”
CIC simmered at a low buzz. Dan leaned back, unable to come up with anything concrete he should be doing. Savo’s Standards had just enough range to reach the southernmost elements of the warring air forces, but he had no orders to take sides. Pakistan was still officially a U.S. ally, though drifting toward China. India and the U.S. had been edging closer, in the same incremental, continental-drift motion, but weren’t formally allied.
Staurulakis closed her terminal and stood. “On the bridge?”
“For now.” Dan didn’t want to stay down here, but this was where he ought to be.
He and Branscombe discussed splitting the watch, having Savo keep an eye on the Pakistani coast while Mitscher focused on India. They had to watch out for naval sorties, and any increased activity in coastal defense and naval airfields. If anything hostile to the task group were to develop, they’d see the first signs there.
Unless, of course, they’d been assigned to a sub. Either Indian or Pakistani… or worst of all possible cases, designated as a target to both submarine forces. Which might have something to do with the threat emitter. He wished he had Pittsburgh back. But Youngblood was far to the west, off Karachi, eavesdropping, with the tip of his sensor mast just barely exposed — the inshore surveillance the JCS message had mentioned. The carrier, of course, was far offshore, where any threat could be detected from hundreds of miles away.
While he was stuck here, sixty miles from a quickly escalating hot war. “Dave, how about you coordinate with the TAO on Mitscher. See how much overlap we can develop, and give me a recommendation.”
“Will do, sir.” Branscombe looked on edge. Dan hoped he could depend on him. Next in line was Amy Singhe, but she wasn’t yet totally qualified. And even if she had been, on paper, he didn’t feel absolutely comfortable giving her weapons-release authority in writing, which was what the CO had to do. Every time something happened, Amarpeet made herself the center of the fray. Good, she was aggressive… but that alone didn’t make a skipper confident about trusting his ship to her. She was smart… but that wasn’t all it took either. Bart Danenhower hadn’t been the sharpest knife in the drawer on Horn, and wasn’t the sharpest aboard Savo, but Dan trusted him. What the chief engineer said, got done. No drama. Just a smooth-running department… except of course for the fucking engine-controls back panel grounding issue.
“Captain?” Chief Toan, blinking at the large-screen displays. “If this is a bad time…”
“Hey, Sheriff. Yeah, things’re a little tense just now. Is it important?”
“Well, about the investigation.”
Dan looked at Branscombe; the TAO was on the line to his opposite number two miles away. “I guess, for a minute… what you got?”
“Well, I told you we had another suspect.”
“I remember. Got a pretty good idea, but want to tell me who?”
“The petty officer you brought aboard. The retired sonarman, I mean. How much you know about him?”
Dan sucked a breath. Not what he’d expected. “Carpenter? Uh, he worked for me at our last duty station. Are you saying you suspect Rit?”
“He’s been showing some pictures around that make us wonder about him.”
“What kind of pictures? Of what?”
Toan said, unwillingly, “Of young girls.”
Dan blinked, but believed it. All too readily. “Hard-core?”
“Well, no… topless… beaver shots… that kind of thing. Apparently he’s got a Polaroid collection. Some of ’em from a while ago, looks like.”
“And he’s showed it to somebody down there in Sonar.” Dan blew out. “Rit’s no angel, Chief. He’s gotten in trouble before, ashore. But I’ve never seen him be violent, or resort to force. Paying a couple hundred for a weekend shack-up, that’s more Rit’s style. Old Polaroids… you really see him as a suspect?”
The Vietnamese-American’s face was carefully neutral. “He owns a knife.”
“I gotta say, Chief, most of the sailors in the Navy own a knife. And all the boatswains have to carry one on the job. That make them suspects too?”
“We’re confining Shah because he had a knife.”
Dan shook his head, noting that fifteen of the Indian strike aircraft were closing on Masroor, a Pakistani strip near the coast. His order-of-battle information showed a suspected strike element of nuclear-capable Chinese-built A-5s based there. The callouts suggested that Masroor had a CAP aloft, identified as F-16s. As Aegis updated, they began clicking east as if to intercept. “Not exactly, Sheriff. I’m confining him because he was sniffing around Colón, by her own testimony, and because he lied to us about the knife. Lied sitting right in front of us, with it in his goddamn pocket.”
Toan lowered his voice still more, until it was all but lost in the background rush of the air-conditioning, the mumble of voices. “So… are you directing that Carpenter not be considered a suspect?”