Simko had grimaced. “Yeah. I stonewalled, Dan. And not just because you were a good midfield back at the Boat School, or because we have the same class number on our rings. I’ve absolutely got to have Savo at 4.0 readiness if the shit hits the fan. Anyway, if this situation goes hot, they’ll have a lot more on their plates at JCS than disciplining one trigger-happy officer.”
He’d sat forward, gripping his knees. “Trigger-happy, Tim? I took down those missiles to protect civilians. Just like it says to, in my ROEs.”
“Take it easy! I’m not saying I think that. Or even that it’s DoD. Just that certain elements, I gather on the congressional side, have a real hard-on for you.”
He’d known then exactly whom Simko meant. Who was behind the push for his disciplining and recalclass="underline" Sandy Treherne. And probably others who hadn’t liked his response at the congressional hearing. The hard-liners. Like Ed Szerenci? Maybe. His old professor had always believed in overkill. “The last side to make the rubble jump will be the winner.” Had he really said that? Well, something a lot like it. “Tim, I heard you saying the administration expects the other side to back down. And those terms you mentioned — they sound like an ultimatum.”
“They do, don’t they.”
“I worked in the West Wing. I’ve seen the disconnects there, between what they wish they could do, what they eventually persuade themselves they can do, and what we can actually pull out of the fire for them. Just between us old Second Batt guys, how realistic is it that the Chinese will just… roll?”
Simko had just lowered his head. Not said anything. Until Dan had gotten the message, and stood. “Thanks, Tim. Guess I’d better catch that helo. Thanks for the vote of confidence. Savo will be there if you need her.”
Simko had risen too, and shaken his hand, and said he was confident she would be. And wished him well. But in a tone Dan wasn’t sure he liked. There’d been that ever-so-faint, yet unsettling, the-lights-are-going-out-all-over-the world ring to it.
Now he lifted his head, scalp baking in the burning sunlight, to survey distant clouds over islands that shimmered like fever dreams, with names from a Joseph Conrad tale. Pulau Mapur. Pulau Repong. Kepulauan Anambas. The morning sun slanting down to the east illuminated what looked like more of them, though these weren’t really there. Just mirages. Illusions. Quivering chromium islands afloat on molten, glittering gold.
The Sunda Sea. The Asiatic Fleet had died here. USS Houston and her aged cruisers and four-pipe destroyers, the cobbled-together ABDA command. Poorly prepared, badly led, outnumbered, outgunned, and outmaneuvered, they’d gone under in a hail of fire. So completely wiped out that even their fates had been matters of conjecture, until the few surviving POWs had emerged from the hell-camps at war’s end.
He looked back at ship after ship emerging between low, shockingly green islands. Destroyers, cruisers, and far behind them, like a thundercloud, the immense square bulk of the carrier. Specks glittered and swam around her; helicopters, searching the shallow seas as they negotiated the channel out. A submarine could lie doggo, hugging the bottom, to all intents and purposes part of it. Until it rose, and struck.
But so far, the screen had discovered nothing. Strike One had threaded the strait at full alert, but detected no threat. Now Savo’s Aegis, reaching out three hundred miles north and east, over one and a third million square miles of the South China Sea, outlined a watery prairie as empty as if they were the only navy that existed.
He’d steamed these tropic seas before. In the old Oliver Gaddis, when an order that hadn’t really been an order had sent him to find, and destroy, a ship most said didn’t exist—
“Captain?” The exec was rubbing her eyes and studying her ever-present BlackBerry.
“Cheryl. What’ve we got?”
“I’d like to put Amy on the watch bill. I know she’s not school-qualified, but she’s studied hard. And served six tricks under instruction, during the transit. She’s ready.”
Dan cleared his throat, searching for a reason why not, but couldn’t come up with one. At last he said that was all right. Staurulakis made a note. “Next, our urinanalysis quota—”
“Drop it,” Dan told her. “No more pee tests. Administrative requirements, reports, inspections — draw a line through them. Fully manned watches, essential maintenance, last-minute training. That’s all I want on tomorrow’s plan of the day.”
“Yessir. We got a response on those extra eductor fittings you wanted. None in the system.”
He grimaced. “Just great. Okay, a complete check of the firemain system. Isolation valves, auto and manual, and drill each of the repair parties on bridging them in case of rupture. Check all the jumpers—”
“Banca boat to port, Captain.” The JOOD, binoculars to his eyes.
One of the small craft native to these seas. Dan twisted, to make sure the remote operating console on the 25mms had it hooked up. The operator met his eye and winked. “Keep him outside a mile,” Dan told the OOD. “Warn him off with the loud hailer if he looks to be headed this way.” Then went back to discussing the schedule. “That’s what we want to drill. Damage control, dewatering, restoring power. And medical — get Dr. Schell to help Doc Grissett update our first aid and battle dressing training. With particular attention to burns. Everything else, we drop. From here on in, it’s real world.” The exec jotted again, then shifted to her Hydra.
“Bridge, CIC — Radio. Skipper there?”
He leaned to depress the 21MC lever. “Lenson.”
“Captain, flash message. Warning order from PaCom. Message board to the bridge, or will you take it on the LAN?”
“I’ll take it in CIC.” He sucked air and swung his legs down. What now? Staurulakis stepped aside, still on the Motorola, but shot him a worried frown as he brushed past.
In Combat again, in the same worn chair. The same displays, the same flicker from the rightmost status board, which seemed to be slowly dying. Dan told Mills to have it checked out, and logged into the CO’s terminal.
The news wasn’t good. USS George Washington had hit not one but two mines coming out of Yokosuka, warping her shafts and shutting down one of her reactors. The carrier was experiencing power loss and was limited to five knots. No one had claimed responsibility, though it was easy to assume the mines had been submarine-laid. The Japanese were resweeping the channel.
The second flash described a civilian airliner crash on the main runway at Osan Air Base, effectively shutting down Seventh Air Force operations in South Korea.
The third raised U.S. readiness condition to DEFCON 3, with PaCom and CentCom at DEFCON 2, immediate readiness for nuclear war. He read this three times, incredulity deepening with each perusal. U.S. forces hadn’t gone to condition two since the Cuban missile crisis, when SAC had been placed on fifteen-minute standby.
The final flash was to Savo Island. Halfway through, he twisted in his chair. “Donnie. Chief Wenck!”
“Present!”
“You read this, Donnie?”
“The SAR? Just got through it, boss. Writing up the ack message. The Terror’s setting up the laptop.”
It was a satellite acquisition request, directing the SPY-1 to steer its beam to a given volume of space, setting up its sensor parameters… in essence, telling it where to look and what to look for. In this case, according to the tasking order, that “something” was nearly a hundred miles up and moving at an ungodly speed. He scanned down the rest of the message. “What’s the nomenclature on this? Let’s get Bill Noblos down here. We may need him on this one.”