Tipping Point

by David Poyer

  “I’m listening,” Dan said. “I’d really like to not have to report another fatality. But even the aftereffects are hurting our readiness. In some watch stations, we’re in port and starboard when we should be in four sections. Over time, that’s gonna wear everybody down.”

  “Providing fertile ground for opportunistic infections, like pneumonia … which was the final cause of death in your first case, and I suspect in your second, too.” Schell deliberated, looking at Dan’s screen, which still read TOP SECRET at the top and was an appreciation of Indian nuclear doctrine.

  “I should have turned that off,” Dan said. “Aim the monitor away from you, please.”

  “I wasn’t reading it, Captain.”

  “You said you had suggestions.”

  “He wants to secure the showers,” Grissett said, and just the way his arms were folded conveyed doubt.

  “Secure the showers,” Dan repeated. “You think it’s in our freshwater systems? Chief, didn’t we already hyperchlorinate? I remember, the water tasted like a Y pool.”

  “Yessir, we did,” Grissett said. “Charged it all the way up to 50 ppm.”

  “Hyperchlorination may not be effective in rooting out a stubborn infection, with certain organisms,” the major said. “But we don’t know the incubation period, and I understand from your chief of staff that you’re on a fairly important mission out here.”

  “We call them executive officers. Yeah.”

  “Ordinarily, I’d recommend putting into port, debarking your crew, and tenting for a full-scale disinfection regime.”

  “We can’t leave station,” Dan said.

  “How many have to die before you can?”

  He sucked air. Schell didn’t mince words. “I don’t want to lose anyone, Doctor. But the decision to call off a mission isn’t mine. I’ll report anything you want me to. Endorse your recommendations. But if things go down like they might, having us out here could save a lot more lives than we have aboard.”

  Schell gave that a beat, then rose. “Fair enough. I’ll have something more concrete as soon as the results are in. Meanwhile—”

  “Secure the showers,” Dan told Grissett.

  “Sir, I don’t think—”

  ”Better safe than sorry, Chief. Let’s go with Leo’s call. I’ll tell the CHENG to secure the supply. Instruct the compartment petty officers to placard them off-limits. What about cooking water, drinking water, Doctor?”

  “Cooking should sterilize any organisms. But, yes, I’d avoid drinking the water for the present.”

  “Secure the scuttlebutts, too,” Dan told Grissett, who looked stone-faced. “How are we set on bottled water?”

  “Offloaded it all in Male, Captain.”

  “Crap,” Dan muttered. “Okay, look, get your heads together and figure out how to sterilize enough so we can get everybody a gallon a day, anyway. We can use the feed water, too; it’s made from the steam evaporators and stored in separate tanks from the potable water. It’s deionized, distilled. Ought to be fine to drink.

  “But we can’t run long that way, Doctor. Find out what’s making us sick, and tell me how to fix it.”

  Schell just looked thoughtful. Dan glanced at his bunk. Then at the bulkhead clock, and sighed. Time to get on the 1MC and tell everybody what was going on. No showers. That certainly wasn’t going to help morale.

  * * *

  THE setup conference convened at 1300 in CIC, back by the digital dead-reckoning table, where they could spread out references and argue in something like a roundtable format. Though the DRT was rectangular. Present were Dr. Noblos, Chief Wenck, Lieutenant Mills, Lieutenant Singhe, and Cheryl Staurulakis. Dan opened with, “Okay, everyone’s read the messages. I want to position for the best chances of an intercept, against missiles from the deployment areas the DIA specifies. But before that, I asked Matt to speculate on how this thing’s going to unfold, if it does.” He hesitated. “Which of course we hope it doesn’t. Matt?”

  Mills passed out printed slides. “I’ll start with the naval picture. The Indian navy, with overwhelming numbers and the Viraat carrier battle group, dominates the green-water zone. But their force-projection capabilities are limited. Even if they clean-sweep the Pak navy, it doesn’t win the war.

  “Ground capabilities are more evenly matched. India’s armored forces are larger, but their ground options are limited by two factors: first, Pakistani bases are closer to the border, so they can deploy faster. Second, India has to guard its northern border as well, against China, which is allied with Karachi. If they coordinate their threats, India won’t have enough divisions to hold both borders. Especially in the Himalayas, which function as a force sponge.

  “Bottom lines. First: whoever mobilizes faster gains an advantage. Second: if ground forces stalemate, the next step is vertical escalation. Third: if China weighs in, things get hairy fast. That’s when a conflict could spread.”

  A chill harrowed Dan’s back. It sounded like the Europe of 1914. Split between hostile blocs, with interlocking alliances meant to deter, but that had actually only pulled one country after another into war, like shackled-together slaves being dragged helplessly overboard to drown.

  But Mills was passing around another slide. “The air order of battle clearly favors India. The Pakistanis emerged from a sanction regime two years ago. They’ve taken delivery of new Chinese fighters, but not enough to counterbalance the Indian air force’s MiGs.

  “As to how a conflict might go…” The blond lieutenant half shrugged, rolling his eyes toward the black-painted overhead.

  “Go ahead and speculate, Matt,” Dan told him.

  “Yessir … Well, if a flare-up lasts longer than a couple days, the Indians will achieve air superiority. But it’d be bloody. Meanwhile, both air forces would be unable to support their armor, which each side depends on to gain ground.

  “Depending on how things kick off, there might be limited air strikes against command and control, training areas, or nuclear weapon storage facilities. The risk here, again, is escalation.”

  “India will push back,” Singhe put in. Dan wondered how attached she was to what had been, after all, her parents’ home.

  Noblos put in, “Actually, either side has the capability to escalate. You’ve left that out.”

  “We’ve seen that dynamic in a number of recent conflicts,” Staurulakis said.

  Mills nodded. “Correct. But the danger isn’t escalation, in and of itself.”

  The civilian scientist said, “It isn’t? Yes it is.”

  “No sir. Beg to differ. What’s really dangerous is when the inferior side—in this case, the Pakistanis—run out of counter-escalatory responses. If they lack air power to respond to an Indian deep penetration, the next step up’s their ballistic missile forces. There’s been some indication this is their plan, if they lose the air war. India has no defense again conventional TBMs. So their only step left on the escalatory spiral would be nuclear.”

  Mills waited, but no one else commented. He nodded, then passed around the final slide. It was headed COMPARATIVE NUCLEAR FORCE POSTURES and showed that both Pakistan and India possessed airdropped bombs and theater-range missiles, though India was working on an ICBM, mainly to deter China’s growing arsenal.

  “That’s about all I have,” the operations officer concluded.

  “All right, thanks,” Dan said. He tried to fake a strength he didn’t feel. “Now, if you’ll all recall, we got a DIA appreciation after we exited the Gulf that spoke to this issue. They said India was abandoning its defensive orientation along the western border. Exercise Divine Weapon tested its new strategy: to rapidly destroy Pakistan’s military, without a lengthy period of mobilization or warning.

  “I don’t know if anyone here is familiar with the opening moves of World War I, but the Germans had something called the Schlieffen Plan. They depended on speed and shock to occupy territory, and encircle and destroy the French.

  “But the plan was brittle. When the
German army didn’t hit hard enough, the French and British wrecked the whole strategy.

  “The Pakistanis have held counterexercises, attempting to block any Indian blitzkreig. But they also drilled own-force protection procedures on a tactical nuclear battlefield.” He let that hang, then added, “So we anticipate a race to mobilize, then a series of escalatory–counter-escalatory moves. Karachi’s not ruling out a nuclear counterstrike if the ground battle goes against them. It’s an unstable situation. And we’re going to be within range of both sides.”

  Staurulakis spread her hands on the glass surface of the tracer. “Captain, what exactly do they expect us to do there? Any insight, from your time in DC?”

  He couldn’t stifle a sardonic grin. “I don’t get much insight into anything in Washington, XO. Our orders are clear as mud. Station ourselves in a position to intercept, then stand by. We have three geometries to worry about. First, that of nuclear deterrence. Second, our own geometry vis-à-vis what we’re guessing to be the most likely launch sites.”

  “And third?” Mills prompted.

  “That, I guess, is political … what message having us here is supposed to convey. If I had to guess, that might be something like reducing Pakistani confidence that they can carry through a nuclear first strike on Indian command and control.

  “Uncertainty’s always been a big part of deterrence. And it’s in the U.S. interest to keep anyone from using nukes first … because as soon as someone does, it becomes that much easier for the next country.” He hesitated, thinking about that in the context of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. What if no one had ever used such weapons? Would the world be safer, or more dangerous? Then shook his head and went on. “Of course, that assumes we come down on India’s side, if the balloon goes up. But let’s see if there’s a geoposition where we could intercept launches by both sides.”

  “That’d be a strategic node,” Mills ventured.

  Dan nodded tiredly, taking his point: that such a location, if it existed, would be easy for both sides to compute. Most likely, Savo was already getting built into the target set for both countries. If taking her out meant their missiles would have a better chance, it would only be logical to make her the first target. “Yeah, we’ll talk own-ship defense, too. But first, the geometry. Bill? Why don’t you kick off. As the resident expert.”

  Dr. Noblos sat back on his stool, arms crossed, tilting his nose at the overhead. He looked like a large gray heron. “It isn’t an attractive situation,” he observed.

  “Tell me more,” Dan said, though he didn’t like the guy’s attitude. Never had, actually.

  Noblos closed his eyes, as if bored with explaining the obvious to dunderheads. “Assume we pick up a launch as it clears our radar horizon. We’ll have less than eighteen seconds to lock, track, evaluate, and fire. We might get a few seconds more downcuing from Obsidian Glint. But the handoff procedures aren’t synchronized yet, and I don’t have much confidence in the contractor.

  “The Defense Support Program satellites … all you have is text from the joint tactical ground station. You’re still not on automatic distribution from the Space and Missile Defense Command Operations Center. AWACS … we’re on the ragged edge for Rainbow, out of Saudi. They might pick up an ascending booster out of western Pakistan, but India’s out of their range.”

  Dan said, trying to keep his temper, “So, all in all, our probability of a successful intercept?”

  “Negligible,” Noblos said, not without relish.

  Dan turned to Wenck. “Donnie, your take?”

  Wenck agreed their response time would be counted in seconds, but seemed less pessimistic than the physicist. “Depends on the launch site. I’m guessing, for both sides, back a good distance, out of range of tacair. So … I calculated the baskets.”

  He keyboarded on a notebook, and like magic, the center LSD at the far end of CIC changed to show two pulsating hoops hanging in space. “I ginned this up with the UYQ-89 TBMD-scenario planning module. Not accurate down to the decimal point, but it illustrates the choices … which ain’t great. I’m mainly looking at airfields here. Figure they’ll hit them first. There’s three down south, inside our footprint. This up here, Uttarlai, that’s right on the hairy lips of our effective range. You can see here, the target body launch site, our interceptor platform position on a UTC grid, and the oval overlay is where that generates reasonable engagement conditions … defined as an intercept-slash-kill probability of intercept above 20 percent.”

  “That’s a pretty damn low P-sub-K,” Noblos put in.

  Wenck flattened his cowlick in a familiar gesture, staring at the screen. Lost, obviously, in the numbers. “Ain’t gonna get much better, Doc. No matter what, it’s gonna be a crossing engagement, unless they’re shooting right at us. P-sub-K goes down, ordnance expended goes way up.”

  Despite himself, Dan’s gaze went to the Ordnance status board. It would tell him, moment by moment, what and how much he had left in his shot lockers.

  But defending Indian military airfields wasn’t really his mission. Unless the U.S. and India were allies, a change he didn’t think he’d have missed. The Indians hadn’t been exactly welcoming to the U.S. Navy since independence, though the chill had lessened since China’s rise. He tapped on the glass. “So what you’re saying is, we can’t count on knocking many warheads down. And, goddamn it, that limited range is really hurting us.” Depending on geometry, again, the Block 4A intercept envelope extended out to a little over 120 nautical miles. He rubbed his chin. “Okay, that’s Pakistan. How do we look against an Indian launch?”

  “Still a crossing shot. Intercept about a hundred and fifty kilometers up.” Wenck circled the suspected deployment area, and drew lines from there to various ground and air bases. All five people regarded them silently. “We could knock down anything headed for Karachi,” he added, sounding as if he was trying to be helpful.

  “What about own-ship defense?”

  Mills said, “In BMD mode, of course, we’re peeking through a soda straw … almost blind. We’ll have to depend on Mitscher for protection. Mainly because of that, I’d like to stay at least sixty miles offshore. That keeps us out of range of both sides’ coast defenses, and gives some warning of any incoming surface or air threats.”

  “Shit, that really cuts down our coverage.” Wenck blinked at the screen. “We can’t crowd the goalposts any closer? We’re gonna be way, way off base on this one. Especially if they launch against northern India.”

  “Exactly so,” Noblos put in. “That will be a ninety-degree ground path crossing angle, and you’ll have to intercept at apogee. As flyout times compress, acquisition and track, initialization and launch, all get more critical … probably beyond the skill level of this team, given your manning, documentation, and training deficiencies, and your interfacing problems as documented in my previous reports to you, the ISIC, and COMNAVSURFOR.”

  Crap, Dan thought. He said, half hopefully, “Did you actually recommend decertification?” If ALIS and the Block 4 were no longer mission capable, he could report that and withdraw. The capability was still experimental, after all. Probably ending his own career, such as it was, but at least pulling his sailors out of a quickly narrowing crack.

  Noblos quirked his eyebrows. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Captain. I’m not at all happy, but your technicians are barely—just barely”—the rider glared at Wenck, who smiled back—“keeping it in spec. Patched and baling-wired together. So far, at least.”

  Dan rubbed his face, unutterably weary. What the hell were they doing here? Putting American skin in the game, if the subcontinent erupted into war again? Giving the diplomats a tiny bit of leverage over two opponents that had never actually been very responsive to outside pressure? The two nations were fixated on each other. Like two wrestlers in a cramped ring, they had no attention to spare for spectators.

  Noblos sniffed. “Well, if no one else will, I’ll sum up.”

  Dan sighed. “Please do, Doctor.”
>
  “We can intercept Pakistani launches slightly more easily than Indian, but they’ll all be crossing engagements, and our chances poor. We only have twelve rounds, so at those P-sub-Ks, we might take down two warheads. Not enough to have any conceivable impact. So my recommendation is, Mr. Mills is correct. We should stay well out to sea, out of harm’s way. If ordered, lob our rounds in there, but don’t encourage Washington to expect much in the way of results.”

  Dan blew out and straightened. His knees shook. Had to get off his feet, before he fell down. “All right, I think we’ve got to the bottom line. Thanks for your inputs. I’ll take them into consideration in deciding on our patrol footprint. Remember to pass to your division officers and chief that scuttlebutts and showers are secured until further notice. The XO will pass the word on a limited freshwater issue for personal use.”

  They broke, and each left in a beeline. Dan was left leaning on the DRT. Looking down into the glass, wishing it were a crystal ball. Savo was nearly helpless in TBMD mode, especially if she had to continually scan the immense arc from Karachi to the Gulf of Kutch. That meant high duty factor at peak power, a combination guaranteed to generate a high failure rate. If it wasn’t for Mitscher, he’d have serious doubts about own-ship survivability. She’d be the shield to Savo’s arrows, but how were those all-too-few arrows expected to be employed? And against whom?

  Pakistan?

  India?

  Whoever struck first?

  Or both sides, equally?

  He lowered his head. Doubts and questions belonged in a message. And maybe he ought to do just that. Right after he got his head down for a few minutes …

  * * *

  ONCE again he was awakened, in the dark, this time by a tap at the door. It was the chief master-at-arms. “Captain, got a major problem.”

  “What?” he grunted, rubbing grit from his eyes. Was he ever going to get an uninterrupted hour of sleep again?