The Cruiser: A Dan Lenson Novel

by David Poyer

  HE’D kept Savo Island at close to full speed. Past Greece and then, to the north, Crete. Point Hotel, their rendezvous with the task force, was about 170 miles south of Rhodes and 150 miles north of Egypt. Halfway between Europe and Africa, in the empty reaches of the central Med.

  So far, there’d been no significant problems with shafts, props, or plant, and the rest of the coolant hoses had checked out. In CIC, Wenck and Dr. Noblos had been drilling the team by tracking the commercial airlines that arched between Europe and the east Med: Beirut, Haifa, Tel Aviv, Cairo. Noblos admitted they were shaping up. “But they’re still marginal,” he’d grumbled. Marginal was better than substandard, but Dan had asked him to keep pressing.

  The bridge door opened on an opalescent glow. “Captain’s on the bridge,” the boatswain sang out.

  “Good morning, Captain. I mean, good afternoon.” The OOD saluted, binoculars in his other hand. “We’re on zero niner niner, speed twenty-five. GTM 1A and 2B on the line. Eighteen contacts on the screen—”

  “Thanks, good. Resume your watch. The XO can update me.” Dan bent to the radar scope, noting the cluster of bright pips ahead. Noting, too, the absence of chatter from the Navy Red and Fleet Tac speakers above his head. Ten years before, the ether would have been loud with voice comms as the destroyer screen maneuvered within their sectors and the carriers sought the wind. Now most interaction had gone to satellite-mediated chat.

  He swung up into his leather-covered chair, reclined it, and let Almarshadi bring him up to speed. The day was bright with a curl of high cirrus. The seas were heavier, five to six feet, but the air was clear and hard as sharp ice. He sat with ankles crossed and boots propped, musing as one by one masts and upperworks porcupined the distant rim of sea. Destroyers. Frigates. Closer to the center of each formation, the cruisers, like Savo Island herself.

  Last, slowly lifting deck on deck, majestic, broad, implacable … the carriers. Twelve miles apart, but he could see both at once, far to left and right, looming like gray islands. He glanced from the call-sign board to the formation diagram Almarshadi handed him, then out the window, trying to match names to distant specks. To port, Theodore Roosevelt, Anzio, Cape St. George, Arleigh Burke, Porter, Winston Churchill, and Carr. To starboard Harry S Truman, San Jacinto, Oscar Austin, Mitscher, Donald Cook, Briscoe, Deyo, Hawes, Mount Baker, and Kanawha. Three submarines were also attached to Task Force 60, though, of course, they weren’t showing on radar. Point Hotel was at just about the deepest part of the eastern Med. No doubt carefully selected, to give the subs the best sound channels. His gaze returned to the oiler; they’d be going alongside shortly.

  As mast after mast grew around him, as he penetrated to Savo’s station aft of the tanker, he couldn’t help feeling proud of the country that could send such power halfway around the world. This assemblage of gray ships, these aircraft, missiles, guns, and those who knew how to use them, assured peace. Or as much of it as the world would know in this twenty-first century after Christ. For sixty years now, inheriting the task from the Royal Navy, the U.S. Navy had stood guard between the continents. For sixty years it had deterred and influenced, backing the word of the U.S., the UN, and international law. For what was law without power? What was justice without the means to enforce it, or compassion without the means to discipline those who massacred whole populations?

  Not to mention guarding a trade that undergirded and sustained that world. He’d heard a man say in a bar once—some loudmouth drinking a Dutch beer, cooled by a Japanese air conditioner, no doubt wearing clothes made in Thailand or China and driving a truck fueled by Saudi crude, and wearing the logo on his jacket of one of the biggest exporters of American agricultural equipment—“Why the hell do I have to pay taxes for a fucking navy? I live in fucking Kansas.”

  “… scheduled to go alongside at 1430,” Almarshadi finished.

  Dan cleared his throat, retrieving the last few sentences from memory. “Are we ready to go alongside?”

  “I believe so. First Division is laying out the gear. I’ll inspect it with the first lieutenant.”

  “Safety,” Dan said, though he felt stupid having to say it. “Safety is para … I mean, did Captain Imerson practice emergency-breakaway procedures? When’s the last time we unrepped?”

  “The week before Naples. We reviewed emergency breakaways, but—”

  “Reviews are good. But from now on, we’ll end every refueling with an emergency breakaway. So everyone knows it cold. Hard hats and life jackets at all times. Safety observers. Muster the boat crews, make sure the RHIB’s ready to lower, and test our comms with search and rescue aboard the carrier.” He lowered his head to peer out at the sky. “Next item: the helo folks’ll be coming aboard right after the Vertrep brings their heavy gear over. We’re ready for them, berthing, messing, watch bills?”

  “Yes sir. I inspected their spaces, made sure they were clean.”

  “FOD walkdown? On the flight deck?”

  “Did it this morning with the helo PO.”

  “Okay, good, XO. You’re ahead of me. Oh, and also … something else … how often do we lift the hatches on the vertical launch systems?”

  “Uh, I think we cycle ’em once a month.”

  “You think. When was the last time we definitely did it?”

  “Uh, I’ll have to find out from—”

  “If it’s longer than three weeks, do it again. Check the gaskets. And the timing. The last thing we want is to try to fire a bird and find the hatch is locked down, or leaks, or sticks halfway.”

  Almarshadi thumbed busily on his BlackBerry. “Aye, sir. Should we … should we not be reporting in?”

  “Jesus! Good point.” Dan sucked air, a jolt of Annapolis-instilled panic; then relaxed. A couple of minutes late in a routine formality, that was all. Still, first impressions … He spun the dial at his elbow to the Command Net, double-checked—it did not do to make your report on the wrong channel—and verified his and the task force commander’s call signs on the board. Again, this was a satellite net, and he felt uneasy again. The Navy was growing all too dependent on its servants in the sky. If they went down, or fell silent … He depressed the Transmit button and waited for sync. “Iron Sky, this is Matador. Over.”

  “That’s for us,” the OOD said, and Almarshadi wheeled, correcting him even as the junior officer of the deck was making for the phone. Mytsalo jerked his hand away as if it were red-hot.

  The overhead speaker: “This is Iron Sky. Over.”

  “Iron Sky, Matador actual. Reporting in and conveying respects. Over.”

  Another, different voice. Either the admiral or the chief of staff. “Dan? Good to have you with us. We’ve got priority freight for you after your unrep. That’ll come via Vertrep before dusk. Report to the screen commander and antiair coordinator for night screening station. How long do you plan to steam with us? And is there anything we can do for you while you’re here?”

  “Sir, thanks for the welcome. I could benefit from some tactical exercises. But as soon as possible after refueling, my orders have me heading farther east. Over.”

  “Roger, copy. We’ve got a Mayfly tonight we can slot you into. That should help with your divtacs. Possibly can break you out a couple of F-18s if you need air services. Anything else?”

  “No sir, that should do it. Many thanks. Heading in to unrep.”

  “Iron Sky, roger, out.”

  “Matador, out.” He rattled the handset back down, looked around the horizon; then focused on the stern of the tanker, looming larger and larger as they slid into their slot astern.

  * * *

  SAVO put in the remaining hours until dusk refueling and replenishing, first alongside Kanawha for an hour, drinking down forty tons of JP-5. The sky got cloudy and the seas came steadily in, the same dark bluegreen as spruce boughs, as they headed into the prevailing wind. Dan sprawled in his chair, watching the black rubber hose sway between the rolling hulls. When refueling was complete, he ordered the emergen
cy breakaway.

  Well clear, Savo Island took station five thousand yards to the south. The vertical replenishment—by helicopter, from the carrier—took considerable time, as there were quite a few netted loads for them, equipment boxes, fresh stores, spare parts and equipment for the SH-60 bird that was coming aboard later that day.

  Meanwhile he studied the twenty-page letter of instruction, scenario, and tasking message for that evening’s exercise. “Mayfly” was a generic proword, or shorthand, for at-sea missile-firing exercises. Tonight’s was called VANDALEX. He’d already reviewed the standing OPGEN for the battle group’s general warfighting guidance. For the most part, it followed the Med readiness standards and procedures he was familiar with from Horn’s deployment.

  Scenario T-03 was based on Country Orange attempting to seize an island chain from Country Green. Scenarios no longer used real nations’ names, though usually they were fairly transparent. But he couldn’t quite see who this one was designed to emulate. At any rate, the task force commander had fragged Savo Island in place of Oscar Austin as the assistant fleet antiair warfare coordinator. This meant he’d be the fallback in case of any equipment failure or damage. His station was twenty miles east of the main body, making Savo part of the outer screen—those units most likely to be engaged first.

  Which meant he and Cheryl Staurulakis had to have these twenty pages essentially memorized by midnight. Arleigh Burke was designated firing ship, an artificiality, but you had to have some sort of setup when playing with live targets. Which they would be. The Orange navy was being simulated by a mixed force, two Turkish subs currently some sixty miles to the southeast, and a surface action group of two Dutch Provincien-class frigates to the north.

  He flipped through the red-bound references, then through the heavy blue volume of Jane’s, mentally marking the frigates for a Harpoon strike, if they ventured close enough. His main worries were the two German-built Type 209 submarines, and the Kormoran antiship missiles that Turkish F-5 fighter-attacks out of Izmir, playing the Orange air force, would be carrying.

  In the dimly lit confines of Sonar, an oddly spacious compartment just off CIC, the lead sonar technician, Albert Zotcher, was coughing into a tissue when he looked up from the display. He grabbed the armrests and started to rise before Dan pressed his shoulder down. “Got a copy of tonight’s scenario, Chief?”

  “We’re running tapes on 209/1400s now, Captain.” Zotcher, a studious-looking little guy who Dan thought looked like old pictures of Grossadmiral Karl Doenitz, nodded at the sonarmen on the stacks. They glanced incuriously at Dan, then back to the patterns that played spellbindingly before their eyes, like ripples on tangerine silk. “We’ll have to watch them. There’s a fifty-mile danger circle on the Sub-Harpoon.”

  Dan pinched his lower lip between thumb and forefinger. Cruisers weren’t traditionally that hot at the antisubmarine skill set. Usually stationed close to the carriers—the “1 shell,” if the carrier was the nucleus and the screening ships were electrons—their primary responsibility was stopping air threats. But once on her lonely station to the east, Savo Island would be on her own. For sheer self-defense, he wanted the ship as sharp as possible in every area. Unfortunately, looking over the last combat systems assessment report, he hadn’t been impressed. Savo Island’s ASW gang had graded in the bottom 30 percent.

  “What’s this the XO’s telling me about water vapor in the transducers, Chief?”

  “Could be, sir. It’s not easy to tell.”

  “Could that be grounding damage?”

  Zotcher said, “It might be, sir. Then again, it might not.”

  O-kay, Dan thought. “Is Rit Carpenter any use to you? Where is he anyway?”

  “Should be up in an hour, sir. Yes, he’s pretty … old-school, right?”

  “That’s one way of putting it. Yeah.”

  “Like the crusty old guys I learned from. But he knows his way around a sonar stack.”

  Dan nodded. “Yeah, he does that. And how about … Lieutenant Singhe?”

  He got a dull-eyed glance. “How about her, sir? What do you mean?”

  “She seems to have some new ideas. I wondered if you had an opinion on them.”

  “I’m not sure I get what you’re asking me, sir. She hasn’t discussed nothing with me.”

  “Okay, just thought I’d ask. What can I expect for detection ranges?”

  They discussed mixing layers and propagation for some time, doing several runs on the sonar mode assessment system, before Dan felt he had a solid fix. The two U.S. subs attached to the TF, both Los Angeles–class nuke boats, would be running submerged, at slow speed, ahead of the task force. It was plain they’d have to depend on them, and ASW air from the carrier, for long-range detection. Dan rubbed his forehead. “What’re we getting from the array?”

  “The TACTAS? I’d like to stream it as soon as we can, Captain.”

  The towed array was a mile-long cable studded with very-low-frequency hydrophones that spooled out of the stern. Deployed, it not only could pick up a sub’s pumps, motors, prop, and flow noise from many miles away, but could even provide an approximate range. Once it was trailing, though, the ship’s maneuverability was severely restricted. More than one skipper had forgotten it was out there, turned too sharply, and cut the tether, irretrievably shitcanning four million dollars’ worth of microphones into the tender custody of Davy Jones. But not using it wasn’t cost-effective either. “I thought it was out there already. That should be standard operating procedure in ASW play. Check with the bridge and let’s get it deployed. You’ll need to stabilize and background before COMEX.”

  Zotcher nodded, fingers kneading a tissue as he sniffled, already back into the patterns the sea wove before his eyes. Dan watched him for a minute, then another. And at last, realized the man had nothing further to say.

  * * *

  HE watched from the hangar as the helo lined up, grew, hovered above the slowly tilting flight deck, then finally settled to squat its tires nearly flat as the turbines whined down. The lead pilot and detachment commander, Lieutenant Commander Ray Wilker, nicknamed “Strafer,” introduced himself and his crew. Dan showed them their spaces and gave the “welcome aboard” talk. The SH-60B, call sign Red Hawk 202, had as its main mission the extension of its host ship’s sensor range. They had night vision and electronic eavesdropping equipment, sonobuoys, and a data link, along with a limited selection of weapons. Dan felt reassured having a helo aboard. It would be a definite boost to his own-ship protection capability, once they were close inshore.

  * * *

  HE grabbed a green tray, trying to remain impassive amid the curious glances of those around him in the serving line.

  “You go on ahead, Captain,” one young man said, waving him on into the mess decks. His dark hair was cut very short on a bumpy, long, rather unattractive skull. His coveralls, of the exact same fabric as Dan’s, were worn sky blue at the knees; his rolled-up sleeves showed the pale blotches of lasered-out tattoos. A ripple went down the line to the steam tables as one sailor after another turned to see what was going on. Every word Dan said in this line would be over the ship by morning.

  “That’s all right. I’m in no hurry.” He pushed out a hand. “Dan Lenson.”

  “Oh. Yessir! DC3 B-Benyamin,” he stammered.

  Dan kept smiling, recognizing now the man whose cap had blown off as his new captain was being piped aboard. “That’s right, I remember you. So, how’s it going in Repair Three?”

  Benyamin gaped. “You know I work in…? Sorry, sir … I was just surprised to hear you…”

  “Relax. I see your name every day in the POD. Junior sailor of the month? Too bad that reserved parking space isn’t doing you any good in the Med.”

  “Yessir. Uh, nosir.” Benyamin looked right and left, as if seeking someone else to step in and help him out. None of his shipmates did. “Uh, where’d you serve before, sir?”

  “My last ship was USS Horn. Then I was at the Tactic
al Analysis Group before coming out here.”

  “Horn,” someone murmured, and the name fizzed down the queue like a burning fuze. The faces changed, as if confronted by some figure they’d considered up until now mere legend—the dog-wolf of Minnesota, or Vlad Dracula himself.

  He wondered exactly what they’d heard. But no one seemed to want to ask anything more, and if they had, he couldn’t have elaborated. So he just nodded in what he hoped was a friendly way and slid his tray along stainless rails. Mexican day: chicken fajitas, enchiladas, beef and bean burritos, Spanish-rice-and-tortilla soup. He carried his meal out into the dining area and found a table at random, noting the mess decks master-at-arms heading his way. A flash of memory: the first day in junior high, or maybe high school, looking for a place in the clattering shouting throng. A metaphor for life itself, maybe. Each man and woman had to … not so much find, or discover, or be given that spot in the world, but rather elbow and pry one out from amid the seething multitude of those already here.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  Startled faces looked up. “Captain,” one sailor said. Benyamin hesitated, then put his tray down opposite.

  A heavyset black man muttered, “Come down to sample the chow, Skipper?”

  “It’s exactly the same in the wardroom, Seaman Goodroe. Except cold, since they have so far to carry it up.” He started on the enchilada. Not bad.

  The master-at-arms set a glass of bug juice the color of brake fluid beside him. Dan nodded thanks. Benyamin murmured tentatively, “They say, Captain—they say you have the Medal of Honor.”

  “That’s what’s in the official bio,” Dan said, trying to make a joke out of it. “But I still can’t walk on water.”

  The buzz of talk, the jangle of silverware, gradually welled up again to fill the low compartment. Up in front a row of crewmen watched satellite-televised basketball as they ate, abstracted gazes six thousand miles distant.

  A slight pale kid with the beginning of a mustache cleared his throat. “So, Captain, I hear we’re gonna pull into Haifa for a week.”