“Oh yeah?” Dan hitched up in his chair, suddenly angry. “What the fuck is it you’re hearing? That we’re parked in a war zone without clear orders? Exactly… what?”
A steadying hand on his arm. “Take it easy. Easy! When’s the last time you got any sleep?”
“I don’t know what business that is of yours. And who’s telling you I’m no longer fit to command?”
Schell tilted his head. “Actually… you’re the first to say anything remotely like that. Which is interesting, don’t you think?”
Dan gripped the desk edge. “Who’s feeding you this bullshit? Who’ve you been talking to?”
“I’d be breaking confidence to say.”
“And I’m ordering you to tell me.”
“I must refuse to do so, Captain. Remember, I’m not under your command.”
“Wrong, Major. Anyone on my ship’s under my command.”
“Listen to yourself.” Schell stood. Shifted a hand to Dan’s shoulder. “Some free medical advice? Don’t push yourself too hard. Or when your people really need you, you won’t be there for them.”
The really bad news arrived that afternoon. Around lunchtime, the EWs reported increased radar and jamming, associated with a major Pakistani strike package out of the air base at Peshawar. Dan followed it southward. Over thirty aircraft. They avoided Indian interceptors forward-staged over the border, doglegged west, angled back east. Then crossed the battle lines south of Multan.
Twenty minutes later a Navy red flash message forwarded a CIA appreciation that “national sensor assets” had indicated detonation of three or possibly four kiloton-range nuclear devices in south central Pakistan.
“It’s started,” Mills murmured.
Dan blinked, coming out of a daze. Maybe Schell had a point. “Matt. Where are we? I mean, what’s our status?”
“In our oparea. Speed six. Course three-one-zero. Two Block 4As active and green. Aegis at 92 percent. Mitscher riding shotgun. Red Hawk in the air, currently to seaward monitoring sonobuoy laydown.”
“Uh-huh. Okay. The Iranians… where are they?”
Mills dropped his gaze. “Iranians, sir? You mean the prisoners, in the breaker?”
“No, no. Never mind. Just a little brain fart, for a minute. I meant Indians. Indians and Pakistanis.” He got up and paced, digging fingernails into eye sockets, from the gun fire control console aft to the tactical data coordinator station at the forward end of the compartment. The rubber-covered metal plates grated under his boots. Savo rolled, and something cracked far away, eased with a metallic moan, cracked again. Not more fractures, he hoped.
Sleep backed away a step. Was he being stupid? Cheryl was qualified to command. No man could stay alert forever. He could take an hour. Put his head down and close his eyes… He fought it back once more and grunted, “Why the hell did this have to start on our watch?”
“We did all we could,” Mills said, watching him with an expression Dan didn’t much like. “Hey, Skipper, you okay? You look… tired. Sure you don’t want to take a break? I can handle it here.”
“Sure you can. I know. I just can’t be out of the loop right now.”
“Yes sir.” The operations officer returned his attention to his terminal.
Wenck, at his elbow, pushed a lined tablet toward him. “Don’t fucking poke me with that,” Dan snapped. “What is it?”
“Just took it down. Mumbai television. You might want to look.”
He scanned it with irritated apathy, then bewilderment. The Indian minister of defense had released the information that a ballistic missile had been fired at the city of Jodhpur. It had disintegrated during descent, but enough radioactive debris had been recovered to make clear it had carried a nuclear warhead. The Indian government had announced this to make clear that their actions henceforth would be undertaken in retribution.
“Zero kudos to us for shooting it down,” Wenck observed.
“A lot gets overlooked in war, Donnie,” Dan told him. “And to be fair, they might not even know it was us. But this isn’t good. They’re saying the gloves are off. From here on, anything goes. And it’s interesting they’re withholding the news about the Pakistani nuclear strike on their armored forces.”
Terranova called over her console, “Ya think it really was a nuke that we shot down? Sir?”
“Dunno, Terror. But that’s what the Indians are saying.”
Another ET came through the door from forward. Wenck bent to listen, then turned to Dan. “They’re putting that out now. On Mumbai news. Three air bursts, over the 33rd Armored Division. No numbers yet, but heavy casualties.”
Dan sagged into the chair, the realization hitting at last through the fatigue and apathy. It had started. The first theater nuclear war. Not in Europe, the way everyone had expected during the Cold War, or even on the Korean Peninsula, but on the subcontinent.
After all, not unlike the war that had started in the Balkans, with the assassination of an Austrian archduke.
He was still trying to take it in when the cuing signal chimed. Mills read off from his screen, “‘Defense Support Program Sat detected launch bloom, Thar Desert.’”
“Cuing, Obsidian Glint,” Terranova called. “Suspected launch.”
On the LSD, she steered the beam to the location the satellite had just downloaded. It clicked back and forth, searching desert, then quivered as the brackets snapped on, snagging the dot that had suddenly materialized at the center. “Pefect fucking handoff,” Wenck muttered. “Doesn’t get any sweeter than that.”
Terranova stated, “Profile plot, Meteor Bravo. Matches alert script. Matches cuing. Altitude, angels fifty. Correlates with Indian Agni medium-range ballistic missile. In boost phase. Designate hostile?”
Dan nodded. “Make it so.” He picked up the red phone again. Tried it. Then hit the worn lever of the 21MC. “Radio, Combat. Why isn’t the satcomm syncing?”
“You heard it, right? It almost syncs, at first. But then there’s like a microsecond delay that cuts in. That scrambles the rest of the transmission?”
“Okay, so where’s the problem? Can you retune?”
The voice turned patronizing. “It’s not a tuning issue, Captain. It’s like there’s an extra bit in the transmission somehow? Anyway, it’s not on our end. Sir.”
“I’ve got to talk to Fleet. There’s no way to get through?”
“Not on a covered circuit. We checked with Mitscher. Their RTs can’t break it either. Which means it’s on the transmitting end, or somewhere in between.”
Dan double-clicked off, and caught a worried glance from Mills. “Captain… you planning to take this one, too?”
He didn’t answer right away. Squinted up at the LSD. But a silhouette loomed between him and the displays. A tall, angular, birdlike silhouette.
Dr. Noblos’s. The Johns Hopkins rider was professorial in slacks and a white shirt with a knitted vest. He leaned over the console. “You’re blocking my view, Bill,” Dan said.
“I understand the Indians are saying that was a nuke you shot down, Captain.”
“Can we have this discussion later? Right now we have a cuing incoming.”
Noblos half turned, to stare at the geo plot, then the Aegis picture. “Out of our geometry,” he observed dismissively.
“You can tell that by one look at the screen?”
“Of course. It’s perfectly obvious.”
“Captain?” Mills, beside him, looking anxious. “I need an order.”
Dan studied the screens. From where he sat, true, it didn’t look good. The Thar Desert, western India, was far inland. Too soon to tell what the target was, with the missile still in the boost phase, but it would have to be aimed either west or north.