She felt his presence before smelling the coffee, and she turned to see Master Chief Ivy handing her a steaming ceramic mug. She accepted the coffee and brought it to her lips, savoring the subtle taste of chocolate, citrus, and brown sugar, as she looked up at the clock and noted the time. She knew it was running out but wasn’t sure how many more grains of sand could fall.
“How much longer?” Ben asked, reading her thoughts.
“It will be close,” she said.
“The crew are at their battle stations, material condition Zebra has been set, and all weapons are green,” he said, giving her the confidence that if it came to a shooting war, the Mobile Bay was ready. She would have every available tool at her disposal.
“Very well.”
He sipped from his own mug adorned with a fouled anchor and two inverted silver stars, then nodded in quiet contemplation. Much to the Master Chief’s delight, the former warship turned floating target had been given a brief stay of execution, though Beth suspected he would have preferred seeing his former ship at the bottom of the ocean instead of the circumstances that saw them racing south to find the stealth fighter on their radar.
But now, finding the stealth fighter had taken on stakes far greater than a friendly wager she had made with the Master Chief.
“Captain, Combat,” came the voice over Net 15.
She set the mug down and lifted the handset to her lips and pressed the button to reply. “This is the captain. Go ahead.”
“New contact, Track Number One Eight Four Five, bearing zero zero five for eighty miles, altitude between ten and twenty thousand feet.” Lieutenant Schaeffer’s voice echoed the fear she felt but still sounded hopeful.
Beth plotted the contact on her chart, then turned to Ben. “That’s our target.”
“How do we know it’s him?”
“He’s in the heart of the missile test complex,” she said. “Other than Raptor Two Four, there have been no other aircraft in that airspace all day.”
“We can’t engage unless we’re certain.”
Even though his words echoed her own sentiment, she still resented the reminder. “Combat, how certain are we that this contact is our guy?”
“Fairly. The flight profile is too erratic for commercial traffic, and we are receiving jamming indications along that line of bearing. We only pick him up for a few seconds before losing him again, and it almost appears as if he’s jumping around.”
“Probably a result of the jamming,” Beth said. “Designate Track Number One Eight Four Five as the primary target.”
“Aye aye, ma’am,” the TAO replied.
Beth set the handheld radio down and turned to Ben. “I don’t like this. We need to find out what the hell is going on before that contact gets within range of—”
The TAO’s voice interrupted her. “Captain, Combat!”
She felt a chill running down her spine at the panicked voice of the normally unflappable lieutenant. “Go ahead.”
“We have two air contacts now, heading directly toward Abe!”
“Slow down, Martin,” she said. “Give me details.”
“Second contact designated Track Number Two Four One Eight is in close proximity to the first contact,” Martin said.
“Designate Track Number Two Four One Eight as secondary target,” Beth said, leaning forward in her chair as Ben reached over his head and turned on the speaker to listen in as their sailors in the Combat Information Center tried reaching the aircraft over both UHF and VHF Guard frequencies.
“…thirty-three decimal seven three degrees north, one nineteen decimal five one degrees west, you are approaching a US Navy warship and will be fired upon. Fly north immediately and identify yourself.”
Beth furrowed her brow and held her breath as she waited for a response. Again, she reminded herself that they were off the coast of Southern California and not deployed downrange where the enemy probed the strike group’s defenses in hopes of catching them with their guard down. She shouldn’t have been in a position where she needed to employ her weapon system to defend the Abraham Lincoln from an air attack.
Beth brought the handset to her mouth again, “Combat, did you say the two contacts were in close proximity to each other?”
He replied immediately. “Yes, ma’am. Their track numbers appeared to swap contacts, but one broke away and headed directly for Abe. The track numbers are stable now.”
She didn’t like the sound of that, but she needed more information before she could act. As a cruiser skipper, she was intimately familiar with the errant shoot-down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes in 1988. Though there were several technical factors that had contributed to misidentifying the Airbus 320 for an Iranian F-14 Tomcat, and all of those had been remedied through upgrades to the Aegis system, she couldn’t discount the simplicity of the fog of war. No matter how much the technology or training had changed, it still came down to a human being making the decision.
You are the captain, she reminded herself.
Like the night before, she knew the burden fell on her to make the best possible decision to protect her crew and those aboard the Abraham Lincoln from a potential threat. She chewed on her lip as she listened to the speaker squawk with another attempted query of the unidentified aircraft streaking through the night sky toward the aircraft carrier.
“Unknown rider, unknown rider at thirty-three decimal seven three degrees north, one nineteen decimal five one degrees west, you are approaching a US Navy warship and will be fired upon. Turn north immediately and identify yourself.”
She could hear the fear in the sailor’s voice and knew she was running out of time. If an enemy force had hijacked the test aircraft loaded with air-to-surface missiles designed to sink large ships, they were an imminent threat to the carrier. But now there were two jets instead of the one she had expected. Was one friendly? Were both hostile? I don’t like it, she concluded.
Beth pressed the button on the handset. “Maintain targeting track,” she said. “But do not do anything else. I’m on my way there.” She jumped off her chair. “TAO, contact Abe and tell them we are tracking two unidentified aircraft heading in their direction and will provide minute-by-minute updates.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
She spun away from her chair and left the ship in her executive officer’s capable hands. As a ship driver, there was no place she would rather be than on the bridge. But as the captain, she knew she was needed in the Combat Information Center, where she would face the greatest challenge of her career.
As she raced through the door, she felt Master Chief’s hulking presence trailing her. “Master Chief, have the Weapons Officer get in touch with China Lake and find out what the fuck is going on. If something doesn’t happen soon, I’ll be forced to engage.”
Her stomach turned at the thought.
48
Punky crested the ridgeline in a combat crouch, counting her breaths as she inhaled slowly through her nose to calm her racing heart. She scanned in both directions along the trail, suddenly unsure which way she should turn to meet the threat. To her left, the trail descended toward the butte where she had crashed Colt’s plane, but to her right, the terrain rose higher to a clearing with what looked like a small utility building supporting the radio antenna that had drawn her to that spot. She turned right.
She walked quickly in a smooth heel-toe motion, deftly placing her feet on the narrow trail as she ascended to the clearing with her pistol held low and ready. Even aided by the night vision goggles, she strained to see into the darkest shadows beyond the glowing tritium night sights while orienting herself to what she had seen from the helicopter. As best she could tell, the ground fell away into narrow valleys on either side, and the ridge continued south from the antenna, sloping gradually to the southern shore.