by Jeff Edwards
The ship began to slow.
Rising water reached an electrical junction box and shorted it out in a shower of sparks, igniting the fuel slick, and instantly converting the huge compartment into an inferno.
The ship’s firefighting systems were more than adequate to handle the blaze. Fifteen cylinders of compressed halon gas stood ready to suppress the flames with a combustion-inhibiting chemical reaction. An extensive network of piping and sprinkler nozzles stood ready to spray hundreds of liters of firefighting foam throughout the massive engineering compartment, blanketing the fuel slick with a layer of chemical bubbles that would smother the flames and form a vapor barrier against reflash.
Neither system was activated, because neither system was automatic. Both systems required manual activation, either from control panels located inside the engine room or from duplicate control panels in the passageway outside the main entrance. Bloodied and dazed by the explosion, neither of the escaping engineers had thought to activate the fire suppression systems.
Fed by the still-gushing fuel pipe, the fire grew larger, stronger, and hotter.
* * *
On the bridge, the captain shouted, “Hard right rudder! Get us around so the port Phalanx can cover us!”
“Helm, aye! Sir, my rudder is right thirty degrees, no new course given!”
A dazzling ball of flame lit up the sky as a Sea Dart missile swatted a German fighter jet out of the air. Kensington’s heart jumped in his chest. His pulse was racing, and every explosion brought another involuntary flinch. Some primal part of his brain was screaming at him to run, to get away from this place. To escape this worthless stretch of water that the God of death had staked out as a playground. But there wasn’t anywhere to run to …
“Kensington!” the captain said. “Find out where we were hit!”
The young sub lieutenant stared out the window. In the distance, he could see that the aft superstructure of their escort, HMS Chatham, was burning. They’d been hit too, then. Maybe they were all going to die.
“Goddamn it, Kensington!” the captain yelled. “Don’t make me repeat every order!”
Kensington flinched again. “Yes, sir!” He leaned over the comm box and punched up the damage control circuit. “Damage Control—Bridge. I need a damage report.”
There was no answer. Kensington tried again. He paused to wait for a reply, and that’s when he saw them: two streaks of fire boring through the night. Coming right toward him. He had just enough time to scream before the first one slammed into the ship one level below the bridge. A millisecond later, the deck under his feet erupted into a volcano of fire and molten steel.
* * *
U-307:
Through the lens of the Zeiss-Eltro Optronic 19 attack scope, Kapitan Gröeler watched the British destroyer surrender to the sea. Clouds of steam rolled skyward as fire and melted steel drowned themselves in the dark waves. Oily smoke mingled with the steam, creating billowing black columns against the white vapor. After a few moments, the waves closed over the old ship, leaving only a burning oil slick and a handful of floating debris to mark the destroyer’s grave.
Gröeler’s hands tightened on the grips of the attack scope. What were the fools doing? The fighters were supposed to keep the British ships occupied, not attack them! Some idiot of a pilot had pissed his pants and squeezed off a missile. And now look at this …
The plan called for keeping the British out of the conflict. Gröeler felt his jaw tighten. That wasn’t going to happen now, was it?
He swung the scope ten degrees to the right and centered the other ship in his crosshairs. The frigate had a heavy list to starboard, and her guns and missile launchers were motionless. Her active sonar had fallen silent as well. Probably she was without power.
For the briefest of seconds, he considered throwing the mission out the window and ordering his boats to the surface to mount a rescue operation. His country would try him for treason, of course, but that wasn’t such a high price to pay for averting a war.
But his men would pay the price with him, wouldn’t they? The economy of his country would still collapse into ruins. And, even then, it might not be possible to prevent war.
Gröeler flipped up the handles of the attack scope and stood back as the burnished metal cylinder lowered itself into its recess beneath the deck. He kept his face carefully neutral. It would not pay to allow his crew to see the doubt that he was feeling.
He turned to his Officer of the Deck. “Make your depth one hundred meters.”
“Sir, make my depth one hundred meters, aye!” the Officer of the Deck said. He pivoted on his heal. “Diving Officer, make your depth one hundred meters.”
The Diving Officer acknowledged the order and repeated it back. Almost without pause, he issued his own order to the Planesman. “Ten degree down bubble. Make your new depth one hundred meters.”
Gröeler watched his men only long enough to verify that they were carrying out his order with their usual efficiency; then he turned his mind back to the British ships. He almost couldn’t believe it. With the flick of a switch, some fool had dragged the British into this—a development Gröeler was certain the all-seeing strategists of the Bundeswehr had not foreseen. One stupid, reflexive squeeze of a trigger and the plan had gone to hell. And, who knew? Maybe the world would go to hell with it …
Like nearly all senior naval officers, Gröeler was a student of history. Twice in the last century, his country had traded fire with the British. And both times, the entire world had stumbled blindly after them into war. He suppressed a shudder. Please, God, do not let history repeat itself.
CHAPTER 13
USS TOWERS (DDG-103)
NORTHERN ARABIAN GULF
SUNDAY; 13 MAY
1601 hours (4:01 PM)
TIME ZONE +3 ‘CHARLIE’
It appeared on the video screen without warning: a brilliant wedge of jittering green static that dominated the lower left quadrant of the SPY radar display. Operations Specialist Third Class Angela Hartford stared at the flickering green triangle with disbelief. She had been tracking three air contacts in that sector, and now she couldn’t see any of them. They were totally eclipsed by the pulsing wedge of static. It was an equipment malfunction or maybe a software error. It had to be. Because the only other possible explanation was impossible. At least it was supposed to be impossible.
Hartford glanced across Combat Information Center to the Radar Control Officer’s console, to the left of the Tactical Action Officer’s station. She punched the channel selector on her communications panel, patching her headset into the Radar Control Officer’s circuit. “RCO—Air. I’m getting some kind of weird system artifact on my air tracking display. It’s gobbling up about a sixty-degree sector of my radar coverage. Can you run a quick diagnostic on SPY and check it out?”
The AN/SPY-1D(V)2 phased-array radar formed the heart of the ship’s Aegis integrated sensor and weapons suite. With a power output of over four million watts and a high–data-rate multi-function computer control system, the most recent generation of SPY radar was capable of detecting and tracking nearly two hundred simultaneous air and surface contacts. In Aegis ready-auto mode, SPY could detect a contact, classify it as friendly or hostile (based on its radar signature, movement characteristics, and approach profile), prioritize it in relation to other threat ships or aircraft, and—if necessary—assign and launch missiles to attack it. Following a missile launch, SPY could even assess the target for damage and decide whether to launch additional missiles to finish it off.
But with such technological power came complexity, and the need for continuous human attention and frequent adjustment. That was the job of the Radar Control Officer: monitoring the condition of the SPY radar and keeping it tuned for optimum performance based upon atmospheric conditions and the types of ships and aircraft operating in and around its detection envelope.
The Radar Control Officer answered Hartford’s call almost immediately. “Air—RCO. Co
py your suspected system artifact. Running SPY diagnostics now. Stand by for updated system status.”
Hartford was about to key her mike to acknowledge when another voice broke in on the circuit. “RCO—Surface. I’m getting it too. A big section of my scope is getting creamed. I can’t see squat off the port side of the stern. Somebody’s jamming us.”
The RCO’s reply was sharp. “Surface—RCO. Watch your professionalism on the comm net! Didn’t they teach you anything in school? SPY frequency-hops about a hundred times a second. You can’t jam SPY without jamming the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Now stand by while I run SPY diagnostics.”
Hartford nodded. The RCO was right. Everybody knew it was impossible to jam SPY, and not just because of the frequency-hopping. At four megawatts, SPY was powerful enough to burn through any jamming signal known to man.
Hartford watched the brilliant triangle of static on her screen. It couldn’t be a jammer, but it sure looked like one.
She punched her channel selector, patching her headset into the Electronics Warfare circuit. “EW—Air. Are you showing any sort of electromagnetic interference off the port quarter?” She shied away from the word jammer. Better not to get people spun up over nothing.
The Electronics Warfare Technician was obviously trying to stifle a yawn as his voice came over the comm circuit. “Air—EW. That’s a negative. I’m tracking a couple of APG-79s and a WXR-2100 down in that sector. Slick-32 shows no interference in any sector. The EM spectrum looks nice and clean.”
“EW—Air. I copy no interference and a clean electromagnetic spectrum. Thanks.” Hartford released her mike button. The APG-79s would belong to the two F-18s she’d been tracking prior to the appearance of the artifact, and the WXR-2100 must be weather radar for the Saudi airliner she’d been tracking. Whatever the strange interference was, it was not a jammer. If it had been, the Electronics Warfare Technicians would have picked it up on their SLQ-32, or as they called it, the Slick-32.
Hartford frowned. If it wasn’t a jammer, then it had to be a SPY malfunction. Either hardware or software. Hartford shrugged and turned her attention to the three hundred degrees of her scope that were not being blown away by the video artifact. Whatever it was, the RCO would find it.
CHAPTER 14
WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM
WASHINGTON, DC
SUNDAY; 13 MAY
9:16 PM EDT
President Chandler laid both palms flat on the polished mahogany tabletop and let his eyes travel down one side of the long conference table and back up the other. The seven men and five women gathered around the table ranged in age from thirty-four to sixty-eight. Some were in military uniform, and some were not. A few wore suits, but most were dressed casually, in whatever they’d been wearing when the call had gone out for an emergency meeting. The single visible characteristic common to all of them was the grim expression they shared.
Seated directly across the table, Vice President Dalton Wainright nodded once when the president’s eye caught his.
Veronica Doyle sat to the president’s immediate left, in the spot traditionally reserved for the White House chief of staff. She leaned over next to him and whispered. “SecState is still shuttling back and forth between Beijing and Taipei, trying to nip the China situation in the bud. She’s got Undersecretary Mitchell covering for her.”
The president nodded and said quietly, “I don’t see SecNav either.”
“Secretary Larribee called from his car,” Doyle said. “He’s stuck in traffic on the beltway. I’ve got police escorts in route, trying to make a big enough hole to get him out of there, but it’ll probably be at least an hour.” She nodded toward the Chief of Naval Operations. “In the meantime, the CNO is ready to cover the Navy angle.”
“Good enough,” the president said. He looked at the CNO and said in a louder voice, “Bob, I understand that your boss probably isn’t going to make it. Are you ready to proceed?”
Admiral Robert Casey stood up and nodded toward his commander in chief. “Yes, Mr. President.” He picked up a small remote control and ran his thumb across a dial. The room lights dimmed and, at the far end of the conference table, a large projection screen scrolled down from a recess in the ceiling.
The admiral’s summer-white uniform fairly glowed in the semi-darkened room. The contrast between the immaculate twill fabric and his tanned, weather-beaten face made his skin seem the color of old leather.
He pressed another button and an image filled the screen. It appeared to be an aerial view of a large industrial seaport. A good deal of the picture was obscured by cloud cover, but—judging from the clarity of the image—the shot appeared to have been taken from low altitude with a very good camera.
“This photograph was taken on the seventh of this month by a U.S. Air Force Oracle III series surveillance satellite, during a covert medium-altitude orbital pass over Western Europe. The area under surveillance, in this case, was the Deutsche Marine Naval Arsenal in Kiel, Germany.”
The admiral pressed a button on the remote, and the image was replaced by an enlargement of a section of the photo. The picture was somewhat grainier than the first image had been, but the clarity was still very good. Several dark cylindrical shapes could be seen in the waters adjacent to a series of parallel docks, each attended by a large yellow crane. Workmen were clearly visible on the docks and on and around the dark cylinders.
“These are satellite photos?” asked Undersecretary of State Mitchell. “From the quality, I would’ve thought they were shot from an airplane.”
Admiral Casey smiled briefly. “Yes, sir, they’re satellite shots. I have to give those Zoomies credit; their equipment is top-notch.”
“It certainly is,” Mitchell said in a nearly reverent tone.
The admiral pressed a button. Four bright red ovals appeared on the screen, each of them enclosing one of the dark cylindrical shapes. “These are German Type 212B diesel submarines. The Office of Naval Intelligence believes that they are hull numbers U-304 through U-307. Barring the new German Type 214s, which are not operational yet, these are the most sophisticated and deadly diesel submarines on planet Earth. Intelligence analysts at ONI and the Central Intelligence Agency have examined these photographs in detail and are confident that we are witnessing a complete missile and torpedo load-out for all four submarines.”
The admiral looked around the room. “Under ordinary circumstances, we wouldn’t be even slightly concerned by this. Our allied nations are entitled to arm their submarines, and we wouldn’t expect them to do otherwise. But we believe that these particular submarines have been earmarked for delivery to the government of Siraj.”
Eyebrows went up around the table, and a few people sat up straighter in their seats.
Undersecretary of State Mitchell said, “Obviously, any such delivery is in clear violation of standing United Nations resolutions.”
“Obviously,” Admiral Casey said.
“The repercussions would be staggering,” the vice president said. “The government of Germany wouldn’t dare …”
The admiral keyed the remote. “I’m afraid they already have dared, sir.” The image changed to a split-screen picture of two warships. “The ship on the left is—or rather was—HMS York, a destroyer belonging to the British Royal Navy. The ship on the right is her escort, HMS Chatham, a Royal Navy frigate. Approximately twenty-two hours ago, while attempting to blockade the Strait of Gibraltar, these ships gained sonar contact on what they believed to be the four German submarines. While HMS York and HMS Chatham were attempting to divert the submarines, a flight of approximately six German warplanes appeared. Based upon their performance characteristics, we believe they were the German Air Force variant of the EF-2000S EuroStrike-Fighter. We don’t know who pulled the trigger first, but the encounter escalated into a missile shoot. HMS York went down with a loss of nearly all hands. HMS Chatham was severely damaged and is currently being rigged for tow back into port. According to their reports, the Bri
tish shot down four of the jets and may have damaged a fifth.”
The admiral looked directly at Vice President Wainright. “The Royal Navy has search and rescue helicopters out combing the water for survivors, but as of their last situation report, two hundred ninety-four British Sailors are either dead or missing.” He paused for a second. “Sir, I humbly submit that our German allies have already dared one hell of a lot.”
“Where does that put us now, Bob?” the president asked.
The admiral looked at the screen and pressed the button again. The ships were replaced by a color map of the Mediterranean Sea. “The German subs are somewhere in the Med by now. Assuming that they are moving at their maximum possible speed, they should still be west of this line.” He pressed another button, and a curved red line appeared on the map. “In all probability, they are somewhere between the Spanish island of Balearic and Sardinia—off the Italian coast.” He turned to look at the president. “It’s a big stretch of water, Mr. President. But not so big as to be unmanageable. I’ve got the Abraham Lincoln strike group steaming west at top speed, and a half-dozen P-3s in the air as we speak.” He keyed the remote again, and a series of small black silhouettes appeared on the map: six ships at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea and six airplanes at the western end.
“Excuse me,” Undersecretary Mitchell said. “P-3s? Those would be some sort of aircraft?”
“Yes, sir,” the admiral said. “Lockheed Martin P-3 Orions. Long-range, prop-driven planes. Specially designed for Undersea Warfare, or what we call USW.”
Mitchell nodded.
The admiral continued. “The plan is to blanket the western end of the Med with sonobuoys. By the time the P-3s have the subs localized, the carrier and her escorts should be on station.”