“Sir, hard to say. Should be narrowing down pretty quick, though, once it’s free of the atmosphere. Like I said, a humongous big return. Solid track.”
Dan sat back, casting his consciousness outside the box ALIS kept trying to cram it into. Should he have Red Hawk aloft? A glance at the gyro told him they were still headed for the coast. No, Mitscher’s bird would provide a sensor package between them and the coast. Both the Pakistani and Indian naval air forces would be on strip alert, if not already aloft in the land strike role. Diverting to hit Savo and Mitscher would offer their opponent an opening. He couldn’t let his guard down to seaward. A sub coming in from patrol, and finding a U.S. task group between it and a widening war, might not even need specific orders to attack. He clicked the IC selector to ASW and monitored. Should he prod them? He decided not to.
He looked back up at the center screen, and straightened in his chair.
The AOU was still vibrating, still shrinking with each succeeding recomputation. But with each quiver, the impact point crept west, leaving the airfield behind. “What the hell are they aiming at?” he murmured.
Mills cleared his throat. “Right now, looks like… Jodhpur.”
“The city? The population center?”
“I’m showing the city center west of the strip.”
Dan smoothed back his hair, glancing at the clock. His scalp was wet, which wasn’t surprising. Two minutes since detection. They were locked on, but it was still too soon to fire. Standards had limited range. With a crossing engagement, far inland, their window would be very narrow. If he fired too soon, the Block 4 would run out of kinetic and maneuvering energy, fall back into the atmosphere, and self-destruct. But if he fired too late, the incoming warhead would reach its target ahead of its pursuer.
If he couldn’t be sure of an interception, it was probably better not to fire at all.
But the moment he thought this, a countervailing doubt spoke up. If the Pakistanis had actually aimed the opening salvo of a nuclear war at a population center, wouldn’t it be better to attempt an intercept, even if it would most likely fail?
The Lenson Doctrine, they’d called it in Washington: If the U.S. possessed the capability to prevent a nuclear strike, it was morally bound to do so.
But if it failed, who would be blamed? If he intervened, it had to be successful. Attempting an intercept, and failing, would degrade the credibility of the system as a deterrent.
And was it countervalue? Or were they aiming at the airfield… a valid military target, after all, even if it was only a couple of miles from a heavily populated urban center?
He wandered in a different labyrinth now. Not of dark sunken passageways, seething with the dust of ages, but of branching decision trails obscured in risk and uncertainty. He squinted at the screen. The impact prediction had halted, midway between airfield and city. It vibrated, but didn’t move either way.
“TAO, what’s your take?”
“If we’re gonna shoot, sir, I recommend a two-round salvo.”
“Concur with that. Tactically.”
“Then we have weapons release?”
“I didn’t say that.” He half turned and caught Wenck’s gaze over the Aegis console. “Donnie? No sign of another launch?”
“No alerts, no detections.”
He covered his face with his hands and scrubbed. What was the Pakistani intent? One single missile, targeted on either an airfield or a city. Was it nuclear-tipped? They’d threatened just that. Was this the follow-through? Some sort of warning? Or merely display?
Mills said tentatively, “The question is, should we get involved at all.”
Dan thought of calling Stonecipher. Then, Jenn Roald. But there wasn’t time. And this wasn’t their responsibility, but his. “That’s the question, all right. But we’re here. Why? Just to stand by and watch? We have to assume worst-case. That this is a nuclear weapon.”
On the screen, the altitude callout pulsed nearly unchanged from second to second. The projectile was midphase, at the peak of its great parabolic arc. Weightless. Cold; despite its terrific speed, there was no atmosphere up there to heat it through friction. But ALIS seemed to have an iron grip on the heightened radar return from its beam-on aspect.
In another minute, that would change, as the warhead headed back down. Its speed would increase even more, accelerated by remorseless gravity. Temperature would climb. It would radiate in the infrared. Then, as its ablative sheathing charred away, the warhead would grow an electrically charged ionization trail, much bigger than the weapon at its heart. The challenge then would be to pick it out from debris, detached stages, or decoys, accompanying it along the downward path through reentry.
He had to decide by then.
“Captain… hadn’t we better let somebody know about this?”
Dan blew out. In blackshoe-speak, it was always a bad idea to be the senior guy with a secret. He unsocketed the red phone and selected satellite high comm, the voice circuit that would connect Savo to the highest levels of command. Took a deep breath, and keyed.
“Sit Room, CentCom, Fifth Fleet. This is Savo Island Actual. Flash, flash, flash. Savo has received launch cuing from Rainbow. Aegis holds Pakistani missile launch. Missile profile, consistent with Ghauri-type. Current IPP is very close to the city of Jodhpur. Savo has warhead track and engagement computed. Can engage, but only within a short window. Estimate time to engage is two minutes. Over.”
The circuit indicator light went red, and a squealing screech was followed by a garble. Someone was trying to answer, but the scrambler circuits weren’t synchronizing. He keyed again “Sit Room, CentCom, Fifth Fleet: Dropped sync. Did you copy my last? Over.”
The circuit dropped sync again. “Fuck,” he muttered. Waited two seconds, then hit the button again. “Any station this net, Savo Island, over… Screw it, we’re not getting any joy here.” He turned to yell past Mills, “CIC Officer: get on Fifth Fleet Secure. Start calling them and the battle group. Try until you get a response. Then put me on.”
Terranova broke in, loudly but without any stress evident in her South Jersey accent, “Meteor Alfa at apogee. Terminal phase commence. Lock-on remains solid.”
Mills cleared his throat. “Captain. Request permission to engage.”
Dan didn’t answer. He was still staring at the area of uncertainty. A pretty accurate description of where his own mind was parked right now. In neutral. Idling.
The return blurred and began to stretch out. The ionization trail. It looked like a comet, hearted with a harder dot that must still be the warhead itself.
Behind him Wenck said, “Skipper?”
Dan stared at the geo display. Had the quivering oval started to move? Yes. It had.
Only about ten miles across now, it was slowly, slowly tracking northwest.
Directly over the city.
Mills touched his arm. “Permission to engage? Roll FIS to green?”
The Firing Integrity Switch. Essentially, the safety catch on the ship’s main battery. Dan muttered, “Not yet… not yet. CICO, joy on the Sit Room? CentCom?”
“No joy, sir. Circuit keeps dropping sync.”
Dan said, “Stand by on permission to engage. Set Zebra.”
Mills said into his mike, “Bridge, TAO. Pass Material Condition Zebra throughout the ship. Launch-warning bell forward and aft.”
“IPP’s moving again,” Terranova noted.
“I hold it,” Dan said. “Moving away from the airfield, toward a population center.”