Tipping Point

by David Poyer

  He had no interest in taking them on. Right now, he had to extricate, before the air forces got involved. But the only graceful way out led across the possible submarine. The guy didn’t even have to torpedo him. If he’d quietly shat eight or ten mines across their line of withdrawal, Savo and possibly Mitscher too were toast.

  The repetitive whump … whump of five-inch rounds going out ceased. The gunnery officer reported all targets beyond effective range, bores clear, forty rounds expended, no casualties. Dan rogered. Then flinched as Mills touched his elbow. “Um, we got a message on chat,” he muttered.

  Dan lowered his gaze reluctantly; this wasn’t the time to screw his head into a computer screen. He’d assumed that once the lead started flying both Fleet and Strike One had been monitoring his tactical comms. Mills had been feeding them information too. So he grunted “Huh?” now as he read.

  DARK HORSE: Point of this operation is to establish free passage through SOH transit lanes. Is it commander’s intent not to complete transit?

  “Fuck,” he muttered. Dark Horse was Fifth Fleet, in Bahrain. From the wording, it was some staff puke assigned to monitor the op, not Fleet himself. But he’d have to answer, and from the phrasing, a simple “yes” wouldn’t suffice.

  It had been his intent, given the possible sub contact, and the increasing number of aircraft beginning to swarm like aroused hornets over the mainland, to cut south. From there, he could either put in to the U.S. naval facility in Jebel Ali to refuel, or else proceed, at a lower speed, up the Gulf to Bahrain. He typed back.

  MATADOR: Enemy air activity increasing. Intent is to withdraw south out of the transit area and await orders.

  DARK HORSE: Your orders are to quote complete passage unquote through SOH transit lanes. You have not completed passage unless you exit via the western entry/exit point of the traffic separation scheme.

  “Oh, fuck me,” Dan muttered. Was this guy for real? Wasn’t transiting the Knuckle, and blasting the shit out of the Pasdaran, enough? With a sinking heart, he realized it might not. If Savo and Mitscher didn’t complete the full passage, tomorrow the Iranians would be crowing they’d driven them off, held the ground, and won the battle.

  He scanned the displays, making sure he wasn’t fumbling the tactical picture. Two more missiles had been splashed, one by jamming, the other by a Standard from Mitscher. As he watched, a third Vampire continued inbound. They were coming in on the starboard quarter, overtaking, and popping up in such a way that he couldn’t tell even from Aegis where they’d been fired from. They just appeared, about twenty miles out, barely enough time to get EW on them before things got really interesting. He snapped his IC switch to the antiair circuit, to hear his own coordinator speaking swiftly, voice overlain at times by the EW operators’. “Correlates C-802. Jamming ineffective. Seeing a hard turn now to bird’s port. Crossing engagement—”

  “Stand by to take with birds.”

  “Outside Matador engagement envelope—”

  “This is Anvil. We’ll take with Phalanx.”

  He tensed as, on the screen, the incomer neared Mitscher, and the babble of voices attained a new intensity. A quarter minute later Mills murmured, “Splash track 8617 … but Mitscher may have damage.”

  “What kind? How serious? Get a report.”

  “Wait one … They engaged with CIWS. Main warhead exploded prematurely, but airframe elements impacted aft.”

  “Roger. Damage assessment as soon as possible.” He contemplated asking Stonecipher for it, but didn’t; the other CO would have enough on his plate without Dan riding him.

  He sucked a deep breath, and with it the unmistakable scent of sandalwood. Then hands were on his back, his neck, digging in, loosening the knots locking up his neck and upper back. Despite himself, he leaned back, sighing, closing his eyes. Letting the tension ease, just for a millisecond.

  Then opened them again, to catch Mills’s astonished stare, and Wenck’s, and most everyone else’s at or near the command desk, too. He mumbled, “Uh, thanks, Amy. I mean, Lieutenant. But you … It felt great, but that’s enough of that, I think.”

  “It’s Healing Touch. Looked like you needed it, Captain.” She patted his shoulder, then headed back to the Strike console.

  Jesus. Okay, back to business … check the display again. He rubbed his face as the display flickered and renewed, as GCCS and the SPY-1 and Sonar and NTDS and the aircraft overhead flooded him with seamless torrents of data. His opponents didn’t have anywhere near this information, this fast, but it was overwhelming him. The southern group had broken. Boats were streaming back across the lane. The northern group, on the other hand, seemed to be holding position, absorbing the fleeing units and turning them around in a chaotic, uneven, but partially reorganized line.

  If he was going to go past again, he couldn’t give them time to re-form. If an enemy starts to buckle, you don’t let him catch his breath. He murmured to Mills, “Maintain course, but drop speed to twenty. Make sure Mitscher gets that.”

  Four seconds later, the 21MC clicked on. “CO,” he snapped. At his elbow, Longley was trying to pour fresh coffee. Dan waved him away impatiently. Then changed his mind as the CS set a plate with two doughnuts beside it. Plain but sugared, just the way he liked them.

  “Captain, exec, on the bridge. Just got the order to drop to twenty. We still headed south?”

  Everybody was a step ahead of him today. Well, that was good. “Reconsidering that decision as we speak, XO. Why d’you ask?”

  “Got a merchie coming down the pike toward us. Still on the horizon, but looks like he’s headed outbound.”

  Dan checked the vertical display again. Astonished, first, that he hadn’t picked it up. Second, that some idiot was so far out of the loop he hadn’t gotten the word that war was breaking out in the strait. But there it was, fifteen miles out, a fat, dumb, doubtlessly happy tanker bopping along at eight knots toward the outbound traffic lane. Which lay empty at the moment, except for the pulsing diamond of the still-stationary suspected submarine. Dan keyed Sonar again. “Rit, I really need an updated classification on that fucking datum.”

  This time he got Zotcher’s voice, though. “Working on it, Captain. It’d help to have another MAD pass, though. And a sonobuoy drop.”

  “We don’t have time for another pass.” He had to decide. As if goading him still further, when he looked down again, lines had popped up on his chat.

  DARK HORSE: Please advise intentions re completing assigned mission.

  Dan typed,

  MATADOR: Prefer to divert to Jebel Ali. Possible submarine contact in southern TSS.

  Stonecipher came up on the voice circuit. “Anvil here. Okay, back in business. Debris impact aft took off one of the comm antennas and the starboard Harpoon launcher. Fortunately the canister was empty. Two guys with minor burns from fuel splash. Redundancy on the antenna. Ready for combat. Over.”

  The computer screen scrolled up to read,

  DARK HORSE: Clear transit corridors of hostile forces. Use necessary means.

  “Did he really say that?” Mills breathed, beside him. “‘Use necessary means’?”

  Dan shook his head, hesitating for one more second. Blew out, shaking his head again. Then typed,

  MATADOR: Coming NW to 310. Flank speed. Will reenter inbound lane E of Bani Forur and exit at established western check-in point.

  He repeated this over the red phone to Stonecipher, adding, “Follow in my wake.” Then spun in his chair and shouted across the compartment, “Bingo fuel, Red Hawk?”

  “Bingo, ten minutes.”

  “Plant a sonobuoy on Goblin Alfa. Then vector back here for hot refuel.”

  The antisubmarine coordinator told him 202 had launched with a full loadout of ordnance but no sonobuoys. “We didn’t expect ASW, Captain. Made the decision to load up with extra bullets instead.”

  “That’s okay—well, fuck.”

  “Another run isn’t going to tell us anything we don’t already know,�
� Mills said.

  “Skipper, Sonar,” the 21MC at his desk blared, deafeningly loud. Dan turned it down and pressed the Transmit key. “CO.”

  “Rit here. A MAD run’s not gonna tell us anything we don’t already know about this turkey.”

  “Mr. Mills was just saying the same thing.”

  “He’s right. But instead of charging on in, how about we squirt a couple 46s out on that bearing? Let the fish do the work?”

  Dan rubbed his chin. The Mark 46s were lightweight homing torpedoes, their digital brains programmed to hunt down submarines in shallow water. Ticos carried them down on the damage-control deck, aft of Medical, to eject with compressed air though tube doors just above the waterline. “What’s the speed differential? Those aren’t fast torpedoes, Rit.”

  “They’ll get there ahead of us. And if that’s a minisub sitting on the bottom, he’s gonna do something when he hears those high-speed props headed his way. Pop a bubble decoy, at least.”

  “Makes sense. Join us on the ASW circuit, Rit.” Dan snapped his selector. To the ASW officer, Lieutenant Farmer, and out of the side of his mouth to Mills, he muttered, “Okay, waterspace management. There’s not the slightest chance this could be a friendly?”

  Mills shook his head. “We don’t operate subs in the Gulf. Nor do any of the trucial states.”

  “Uh-huh. Winston?”

  The ASW officer agreed with Mills. Dan rasped, “All right, set up. Two Mark 46s out along the bearing, set for circular search around the datum. Get ’em out there ASAP.”

  “Copy weapons free, two-shot salvo.”

  He confirmed, then leaned back, easing a breath out, looking up at the display. The never-sleeping beam swept over the southern Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the eastern Indian Ocean. He saw and knew with the wisdom of Athena. Wielded the thunderbolts of Zeus. Yet still, obeyed the iron commands of Mars.

  Through the fatigue and fear a sudden disenchantment surfaced. Out there, his shells and missiles had torn men apart. Burned and drowned them. His side called them fanatics. They called themselves patriots and believers. But the ineluctable realities of the energy markets meant they had to die, and that sailors had to risk their lives killing them.

  He could almost hear Nick Niles grunting Above your pay grade, Lenson. Eyeing him with that amused disgust the vice admiral reserved for him alone, it seemed. He imagined Blair shaking her head too. He took another deep breath and scrubbed his face with a palm, stubble and grit and oil grating on his skin.

  The double thud of compressed air shuddered the compartment. “Fish one away … fish two away. Mark, start of run. Time to target, time one five.”

  The Mark 46 ran out at over fifty knots. Savo would arrive at the datum twelve minutes after the torpedoes began a circle search, pinging and listening. Either they would sense a submarine and attack, or declare the area clear.

  A third possibility existed, of course. That the other skipper could fox or evade his weapons, and loose his own as Savo and Mitscher passed close aboard.

  A shiver ran up his back, and his neck knotted. Each breath took an effort, drawn against a narrowing in the throat, a weight on his chest.

  But he had his orders. To throw the dice, and let the god of war decide.

  He told Mills to have Mitscher open the interval, lag back two miles, and directed Red Hawk to vector to the destroyer for a hot refuel. If the worst happened, they’d be safe, at least. Then he clicked to the General Battle circuit and tried for a confident tone. “This is the Captain. All ahead flank. Indicate turns for thirty knots. Come to course for the Western Entry Point. And stand by.”

  * * *

  TWO hours later he sagged in his seat, soaked with cold sweat turned to liquid ice by the air-conditioning. Wenck had the helo deck camera up on one of the displays. Black columns of smoke stained the dusty horizon: the sinking, burning boats they’d hit during the first attacks.

  His torpedoes had completed runout, circled, but detected nothing. Then, ending their brief consciousnesses, had self-detonated, raising huge plumes of white water to port and then starboard as Savo and, miles astern, Mitscher passed through. Either there was no submarine, or it was keeping its head down. The northern gaggle had made short threatening dashes as if to charge, but were turned back each time by low passes of the carrier air. They’d launched no more missiles, and taken no action as the huge, deep-laden tanker, a Chinese flag, as it happened, churned past. Maybe they’d already made their point: that they could close the strait anytime they liked. And weren’t afraid to die doing it.

  He remembered how during previous interferences with navigation, the Iranian state oil company had sold heavily as the price of oil futures peaked, then sold short as the West cleared the sea lanes again. Cashing in as the price rose, then again on the fall.

  As corpses drifted in the warm Gulf, tossed by the waves, their sightless faces caressed by the dust-laden wind.

  “Secure from general quarters?” Mills asked. Glancing at him, Dan saw awe. Respect. Saw the same expressions around him, from the consoles and watch stations. How strange, that they should look at him this way, while he himself felt only relief they’d survived.

  Without a word, he nodded. Unbent, and lurched to his feet. Staggered once, weaving, as his calves cramped. Then stalked silently through his silent crew, until he could dog a steel door between him and them.

  8

  The United Arab Emirates

  JEBAL Ali, in the United Arab Emirates, was a gigantic commercial port, larger than Norfolk or Long Beach, with square miles of baking asphalt, mountains of containers, dozens of offload cranes. Then more square miles of petrochemical tanks, all shimmering in a baking sun that hit Dan like a red-hot bullet as soon as he stepped outside the skin of the ship. In deep summer, everything was shrouded in the shamal-borne dust, fine as triple-X sugar, that at times made it hard to see a softball-throw distant.

  It was also only about twenty miles from Dubai City. But after a talk with the husbanding agent—and how Mr. Hamid loved to talk, droning on eagerly about all the flag officers he knew, all the U.S. ships he’d serviced—Dan decided, reluctantly, against granting liberty. The crew deserved R&R, and he wouldn’t have minded seeing the fabled city himself. But there was just too much to do—inspecting the damage to Mitscher, then getting his after-action report sent off. After that, arranging for sewage disposal, fresh food, currency exchange, line handlers, fenders, refueling, repainting the scorch marks from the launches, and offloading garbage and onloading ammo. Plus taking generators and pumps down for maintenance and maybe getting a freshwater washdown, if they could get enough water pierside.

  Not to mention a thousand other details … all to be completed in forty-eight hours. Fifth Fleet wanted them under way again as soon as possible for a transit the other way, outbound. He didn’t look forward to that. The Revolutionary Guard had been able to study his tactics. Now they could game it out and, maybe, come up with something unexpected.

  Also, after what had happened to USS Cole in a supposedly safe port, Dan was loath to leave his command half-manned, no matter how secure the locals assured him the place was. Aside from a UAE gunboat, he and Mitscher, moored on the far side of the basin, were the only two gray ships there. The security net, and the RHIB patrols both ships had out, made him feel a little safer. But if a terrorist decided to kamikaze alongside in a speedboat loaded with explosives, Savo wouldn’t be hard to find.

  After a talk with Cheryl, he’d agreed to let the guys and girls spend down time in the Sand Pit, a fenced, air-conditioned, U.S.-only facility where they could phone home, listen to music, and play video games. Surrounded on three sides by oil field supply yards, tank farms, and container warehousing, it was unglamorous, but there was a pool, a shaded picnic area, a volleyball court.

  And a bar, with American and local beer, below even commissary prices. That should cheer them up a bit.

  * * *

  HE went over the last evening in port, maybe for a burg
er and fries that didn’t come off the mess decks. It was only three hundred yards from pierside, but he stopped a few steps up the shore and stood with fingers tucked under his belt, watching the water. Under the frosting of dust and scum it looked inviting. Small silver and black fish flickered in and out of the riprap. Familiar, but he couldn’t put a name to them. He lingered for several minutes, sweating, mind echoing as hollowly as a house after the movers have left. Just watching the fish.

  By the time he got to the Pit his khakis were soaked and the airborne grit sticking to the sweat made every step a chafing torment. Rit Carpenter was sprawled with several chiefs and first class in lounge chairs in the bar. Some he didn’t know, likely Mitscher men. They fell silent as he came in. The yeasty, malted smells of booze and beer didn’t feel entirely comfortable. He’d had to stop drinking years before. But he didn’t feel out of place, the way he had when he’d first gone on the wagon. The idea of voluntarily ingesting a toxic chemical just seemed weird now. He said, only half joking, “Telling on me again, Rit?”

  The old sonarman waved a longneck. “Hell, Skip, we been through some shit, right? I can’t tell a sea story, what’s a deployment for? Hey, guys, it’s oh-beer-thirty. What say, let’s buy the skipper one.”

  “Maybe in a minute. After I check out the store.”

  “We’ll be here.” Chief Slaughenhaupt looked drowsy, already half in the bag. “Hey … Lois says she got your message out to the dependents. They appreciate it.”

  Dan nodded. “Thank her for me, Chief. I’m gonna check out the store, then grab a burger. Join you after, if you’re still here.”

  “Where else could we go?” Carpenter muttered. He drained the longneck and signaled for another. Dan took the slender, ponytailed bartender for a girl at first, then realized at a second glance he wasn’t.