The Med

by David Poyer

  It was Flasher who had humiliated him in front of the whole task group that afternoon. Sundstrom grimaced at a pang above his navel. That was what made it maddening: It looked as if he had been wrong and the fat lieutenant right. It was not his fault; it was the fault of the gunnery officers on the ships; they had panicked and loaded with live ammo. That was evident. But even Lenson had stared at him, after canceling the order to fire, as if he was in the wrong.

  He lay in the dark, eyes open, and his mind spun in tight circles of rage and humiliation. Over and over he retraced the day, ending always with the moment when his own staffer had countermanded his order, and the others had gone along.

  That must not happen again.

  At last, it seemed like hours later, his anger ebbed, and he drifted toward sleep.

  The phone buzzed. He slammed his knuckles on the steel fixture getting it free. “Commodore,” he snarled. “What is it?”

  “Staff watch officer, sir. Sir, we have a crossing merchant vessel, range thirty thousand, no sidelights. Course is one-two-zero, six knots. Closest approach will be—”

  “What’s our course?”

  “We came to westerly leg at 0130, Commodore; we’re on two-seven-zero.”

  “Go on.”

  “Closest point of approach will be two thousand yards astern of Bowen, at 0210. Recommend turning the formation right to three-two-zero, that will clear—”

  “Wait a minute,” Sundstrom said. Sitting up, alone in the dark, he passed his hand over a sweat-slick forehead. The ship creaked and vibrated as a trough passed beneath. He tried to visualize the sea, courses and speeds, but it had deserted him. He could not recall the course of the incoming ship. “Wait … wait … oh, negative,” he said. “How far ahead of us is the escort?”

  “Ten thousand yards, sir.”

  “What is that goddamned AGI doing?”

  “Snoopy’s still in his usual station, sir, four thousand yards ahead of us.”

  “Maintain base course. Tell Bowen to maneuver independently to avoid,” he said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and this guy will hit the Russian.”

  “Aye, sir.” The receiver clicked. Sundstrom replaced it and lay back, sweating. His hands curled tightly into the sheets.

  This was useless. He was not going to sleep. Work? He had worked all day, but it was all there was left in the end. He swung his legs to the deck and shoved his feet into slippers. He turned on the light over his desk and sat, pulling a chart toward him.

  He had studied it briefly the day before, after Lenson had brought in the first draft oporder. He had doubted, then, that it would amount to anything. Now, with the twin shocks of the Turkish sortie and the embassy seizure, the probability of Urgent Lightning being executed was growing by the hour.

  The thought made his stomach tighten again. Carry out an amphibious landing … he’d practiced, but he felt all too little confidence. Either in his own skills, or in those of his staff.

  He sat at the desk, listening to the cries of the ship, and tried to imagine how the situation looked to Roberts, and above him CINCUSNAVEUR, and above him the CNO, the Secretary of the Navy … and higher; a decision like this would go all the way up the line. A long hostage crisis was out of the question. This administration couldn’t afford it, not now, with the elections warming up. It had too many bad echoes. If it wasn’t resolved quickly by the local authorities there would be enormous pressure to move in, and fast.

  Sundstrom propped his chin on his hands and stared at the chart. There were only two ways to get troops into the Eastern Med. One was by air. If he was in charge he would consider the 101st Airborne, based in Germany. The range was too great for helos, but a conventional parachute jump from transport planes would be the fastest way to put a force on the ground. Drawbacks to that … he pulled down the Navy-issue atlas and measured miles clumsily with his fingers. No, damn it, the range made air assault marginal. One-way, maybe, but not even that if the southern rim allies refused refueling facilities. And in this case, they might.

  There would be political drawbacks to an airborne landing, too. He couldn’t remember the last time one had been carried out, other than in Vietnam. It had an unpleasant flavor of war, that was sure.

  The other possibility was the MARG.

  He imagined himself sitting in the War Room, judging alternatives. In favor of the Ready Group: They were on station; they had mobility and light armor and helicopters. Again in favor, there was plenty of precedent. The Sixth Fleet had gone ashore dozens of times, all the way from police operations up to near wartime situations. It was almost routine, and the press was used to it. The fact that the troops were sea-supported guaranteed their transience in a way that the Army and Air Force, with their penchant for giant supply depots and bases ashore, could not. Send in the Marines … it had a solid ring to it. This was just the kind of operation the Corps was designed to do.

  The trouble is, he thought, the Task Force just isn’t strong enough.

  One Marine Amphibious Unit was too small for a full-force intervention, even facing Third World armies. Their weapons were too light. Two thousand men with a handful of armor might be adequate for an unopposed landing as a peacekeeping detachment, or at most a coastal raid. With two-carrier air cover they might even hold a stretch of beach against counterattack for a few days. But it was not an invasion force, not at all.

  All true … but looking at it objectively, Sundstrom had a nasty feeling that it might happen. Roberts might pin the rose on him. If he did, he hoped that at least one aircraft-carrier battle group came along with it.

  Sixth Fleet’s attitude worried him. The contretemps about getting underway from Italy had been a bad precedent. He did not know Roberts as well as he pretended. (If he was honest, he doubted if the admiral remembered him: They had met only once, at a Navy League dinner in Alexandria.) Without air cover, the MARG could find itself in real trouble.

  And the big question, lurking in the back of his mind and he had no doubt in Roberts’ as well, was the Soviets. Their Mediterranean fleet, like a rogue queen on a chessboard, inhibited the use of American force. Especially now, with the inexplicable increase. Some day, if this continued, the Sixth Fleet would attempt intervention in support of America’s allies, and the Russians, moving in support of theirs, would say, very quietly, “Check.”

  The thought made him shiver. He had no idea what would happen then. He pulled his bathrobe around him, adjusted the lamp, and bent to the map, trying to see it objectively, tactically, as the commander of an amphibious task force should see a beach.

  The best landing areas were on the southern coast. Lenson had recommended Larnaca. Sundstrom found it in the southeast, on a shallow bay. Behind a wide stretch of beach the land was flat for ten miles, then began a slow rise. The principal road ran back and forth across a hill range. Not too bad, maybe … the alternative was a road to the west, cutting across country. Still, it would be worth keeping in mind.

  Christ, he thought, but which one is better? The direct one—but any enemy would expect them to use that. The indirect one, but—

  For a moment he considered calling Haynes. The colonel knew land fighting; he knew terrain and the capabilities of his troops. Nominally the task-force commander was in charge of all aspects of an assault, but Sundstrom had no idea what marines did ashore. He trusted Haynes, so far anyway. His hand hovered near the phone, then dropped to the desk. He would get to him first thing in the morning.

  His mind moved off the map, into the blue that ringed the green and tan of the island. That was another world, and another set of worries. Could he get the MAU ashore, if he got the word to go? The weather worried him. The seas were building, barometer still dropping at last report, and Fleet Weather was not optimistic about an early clearing. The rain and wind he did not care about, except as they impacted helo operations. The rough part would be carrying out a landing in heavy surf. He might still be a tyro at this amphib work, but the exercises had taught him how critical surf con
ditions were in those all-important first hours. The LCM-6s, LCM-8s, LVTs, and LCUs all had different characteristics. Each step downward in size increased their vulnerability to broach and capsize. At the same time, if he sent in only the largest craft the movement ashore would be intolerably slow—days instead of hours.

  And once they started ashore, he’d be committed. A landing could not stop halfway. He would have to continue, even if the weather degenerated beyond the safe point.

  Another worry occurred to him. Byrne. What had he meant in the briefing today, bringing up Lebanon? He almost wished he had let him go on. But no, he thought, that was rambling, just hot air, just ostentation. The man had nothing to offer.

  No, there was no way to solve this in advance. He would have to ad-hoc it. He hated doing that, postponing the planning process. He hated to depend on things he could not influence—weather, the orders of higher authority, the decisions of unknown men ashore. On the whim of chance. Once the operation began he would have to make decisions in seconds, without adequate information, without proper staff support.

  Yet he, the commander, would still be responsible for success or failure, measured by a yardstick of human lives.

  Ike Sundstrom had never enjoyed responsibility. He had heard those above him, the golden ones, say they enjoyed it. He did not believe them. He had never found it other than a worry and a burden. Fortunately, up to now he had always found someone above him more than willing to assume it for him. For that was the way of the bureaucracy the peacetime Navy had become.

  He switched off the lights and climbed back into the bunk. Lying in the darkness, he wondered if he should reach for the telephone. The corpsman could bring him something to make him sleep.

  But then it would be all over the ship the next morning. No. He did not intend giving them ammunition like that. He would be cautious; he would keep himself in check. No more snap decisions, like the Quickdraw mistake. He had to bear down, concentrate, and lead. He had to make up for all the inefficiency, the slackness, the plotting against him. He had to do it alone.

  My head is on the block, he thought.

  He saw himself midway on a ladder reaching from obscurity to power. He had climbed it tenaciously and without joy for over twenty years, without love, without laughter. He had never laughed at the idea of a career. It would take all he had, and all he could do. He knew that. He accepted that.

  But I’m scared.

  Commodore Isaac I. Sundstrom turned on his side, anchoring himself against the roll with an outstretched arm. Staring into the darkness, he waited rigidly for the dawn.

  V

  THE STORM

  18

  U.S.S. Guam

  During the night the wind increased. Dawn broke gray and lifeless, gradually illuminating lowering clouds over a ragged formation. Task Force 61 was no longer a unit, a uniform, compact body of steel. Instead it was scattered individuals, each struggling to maintain course into twenty-foot seas.

  The rain that lashed at his face was surprisingly cold. Wind snapped at the collar of his foul-weather jacket as Lenson, on Guam’s bridge wing, raised his glasses to search for Barnstable County. He found her at last, far astern. Smallest of the amphibious ships, built shallow-draft for beaching, the LST was making heavy weather. From twelve thousand yards away he shivered to see her horned bow dip as if to gore an oncoming sea. It boarded green and leapt foaming along her foredeck, shooting spray high as her bridge. But then she lifted, shaking off the water, and his heart rose too as she steadied herself for the next line of seas that marched in from the east.

  He hunched to mop water from his binoculars, and looked next for Bowen. The frigate was hidden for long seconds by the swells but at last he caught her, tossing a wavering streamer of white as she rose on a crest. It would be no fun aboard her, either. His attention moved round the ragged ring of warships. Coronado was riding well, her higher freeboard keeping her decks dry save for rain. Newport, making as heavy a time of it as her sister LST. Charleston and Spiegel Grove both looked good. The attack transport moved behind the trailing skirts of a squall as he watched, and a few minutes later the wail of her foghorn came faintly across the wind.

  He turned, and searched the horizon astern for Ault, their crippled duckling. Captain Foster had reported the propulsion casualty at 0330. Sundstrom had reluctantly given him permission to slow as necessary for repairs. Since the MARG was simply maintaining station, running legs west and east while waiting for orders, they would find her again on the next westerly course, later in the day.

  As he had expected, she wasn’t in sight. Christ, he thought, I hope she catches back up; we’ll need those six guns if we go in … something else about her absence gnawed at his mind. Something else was missing too … he made another quick sweep, identified all the ships. But still the feeling nagged. He rubbed salt spray into morning stubble, hard, and the sting woke him a little. He tried to squeeze whatever it was out of his brain. Nothing came. Coffee … he wanted caffeine with all his soul, but with the commodore in the state he was in he didn’t dare send a petty officer below. No, he had to stay awake by pure will, and frequent trips to the wing to lash his face with cold spray.

  Was it possible, in seas like this, that they would be ordered to land? He felt divided between eagerness and fear. The eagerness, because this was their reason for being: to put the troops ashore. The fear because they would have to do it under so many handicaps. The sea. The impending war. And of course, Sundstrom.

  But if we do, and pull it off, he thought, that would be a coup for everyone involved. Maybe even wipe out the stain of the Ryan. He felt guilty thinking of it that way. But there it was, and it was why he’d volunteered for sea duty again after the disaster.

  Nodding into the wind, he slid off into remembrance of a warm bed, warm sheets, the softness of a loving body.…

  “Lieutenant,” said Stan Glazer, from the wing door.

  “Yuh!” He opened his eyes behind the eyepieces, frightened at himself; he had almost been asleep.

  “You better get in here. They’re calling us on HF.”

  He jumped for the hatch that Glazer held open against the roll. He had never used the red phone before. The high-frequency command net was for FLASH-precedence traffic, where seconds counted. A speaker above his head made it audible to everyone on the bridge. As he wiped sea from his face and picked up the handset, the distant whine of atmospheric static sent a thrill along his spine.

  “Denver George, Denver George, this is True Dream, True Dream. Over.”

  “True Dream, this is Denver George, over,” he said rapidly. To Glazer he muttered, “Stan, get the commodore up here right away. And Flasher, too.”

  “Right.”

  “This is True Dream Actual,” said the distant voice, calm over the hiss and scream. “Is Denver George Actual on this net?”

  “Denver George Actual on the way up, sir. Over.”

  “Will stand by for him. True Dream out.”

  “Denver George out,” said Lenson, but at that moment Sundstrom took the handset from him. He had come up from behind, fast and noiseless in stocking feet.

  “True—what is it?” he said.

  “True Dream, sir. We’re Denver George.”

  “I know that!—True Dream, this is Denver George Actual. Hello, Tony!”

  “Hello, Ike,” said the distant voice. “Can you copy me all right?”

  “Loud and clear, Admiral,” said Sundstrom. His demeanor had changed the moment he picked up the handset, his voice going crisp, his back straightening. Behind him, Lenson smiled at Red Flasher, who was tucking his shirt around his gut. He looked like he had just rolled out of his rack. Flasher nodded back, but for once he didn’t grin.

  “I’ll make this brief, Ike, because there’s a message en route, but I wanted to get you the word as fast as I could. Two developments. First, we’ve got some word from the authorities in Nicosia. About the hostages. They’re being moved.”

  “Oh shit,” mu
ttered Flasher.

  Sundstrom shot him a look of mortal warning. “Moved, Admiral?” he said into the handset.

  “Right. We have a tentative ident on the terrorists as a PLO splinter.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Uh oh is right. They’ve demanded a plane. TWA or El Al. They want it at 0800. So they may be out of Cyprus before you can land.”

  “What’s their destination, sir?”

  “They won’t say, Ike, but the jet they want could get them to Teheran. Or any place in the Med, basically. I’m putting up a radar bird to track it. We’ll know when they set down. But for the moment, all I can say is, keep it hard; we may need you fast, or we may not need you at all.”

  “Understood, sir, and I want to assure you that TF 61 is ready now.”

  “Good … also, we’ve got names on the hostages. Mixed bag, U.S., Brits. One’s a military dependent, appears to be one of your men. I forget the name, but it’s in the message that’s going out to you now.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Okay. Second development: This weather is putting a crimp in our reconnaissance assets, but we’ve spotted the Turkish invasion force. They’ve jogged south, a little over a hundred miles northeast of your last reported position.”

  “Yes sir,” said Sundstrom, and Lenson watched his head hunch into his shoulders.

  “What’s your heading, Ike?”

  “Zero-nine-zero, sir.”

  “How are the seas? Can you get your formation around?”

  “State four, bow on. I think I can get them around, though.”

  “Good. Open the Turks as far as you can while staying within range of your original objective.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  A sudden roar of water beat against the windows. The squall. Lenson missed the next few words as he flicked on the wipers. They flailed against the rain, motors whining. For a moment the glass cleared; he saw Coronado lifting her stern far ahead, and then the world dissolved again into a solid wall of rain.