The Cruiser: A Dan Lenson Novel Read online

  You are in fucking command, boy, he told himself. Get a grip.

  He skimmed his message queue, reading the header on each, then either deleting or filing it. CTF 61 had acknowledged last night’s question, about backloading Ammermann at the first opportunity. It wasn’t an answer, just acknowledging receipt. The Early Bird carried Iraq’s defiant response to the forty-eight-hour deadline. In the next article, Israel’s prime minister announced that if attacked with WMDs, his country would retaliate in kind.

  Dan forwarded those to Almarshadi for the daily news summary, then studied the fleet weather forecast. Up to twenty-knot winds and high seas for the rest of today. A high-latitude ridging event over Germany could lead to cyclogenesis over the east Med. A cold air surge over the region could drop temperatures to 10°C, and bring high winds and heavy snow. Snowfall-affected regions could spread out from southern Turkey to the coast of the Levant.

  “Shit,” he muttered. They really didn’t need bad weather just now. Well, maybe it’d miss them.

  He blotted surreptitiously at the now icy-cold remnants of the spilled coffee that had dripped down onto his crotch, and pulled up the message he’d started to draft the night before. It was to both his “masters”—CentCom and EuCom, info to CNO and State.

  “Captain?”

  He looked up at Bart Danenhower’s broad, blank face. The engineer nodded, taking off the locomotive driver’s cap and wiping his forehead on one sleeve. He shuddered. “Jesus, it’s cold in here.”

  “How you doing, Bart?”

  “Okay, sir. I did the math you wanted. On fuel.”

  “Yeah, we got to talk about that. Drills going okay?”

  “DCA’s running them. Concentrating on fire and flooding.”

  “We still seeing water in the CRP system?”

  “No more than usual.”

  “Engine control consoles? Any more groundings?”

  “Not so far.” The CHENG laid out xeroxes of their fuel-consumption curves and positioned a calculator. “We refueled to 100 percent two days ago. Fast transit to patrol area, so we’re down to 95 as of today. Our bottom’s clean so I’m going to use the class manual for consumption curves. Here’s our options. Our quietest patrol speed is thirteen knots.”

  Dan lifted his eyebrows. “That high?”

  “Yeah, not what you’d expect, but we’re actually quietest with both shafts powered and both props at 100 percent pitch. Got to realign the masking system, but that’s the way we put the least noise in the water. See, below 100 percent, your props cavitate. Slowest we can go at full pitch on both shafts is about 12.8 knots.”

  “That’s going to cut way down on our on-station time.”

  “I get six days to 50 percent. Factoring in electrical load, with the radar going full power.”

  “Damn it, Bart. I just don’t know if they’ll be willing to break me out a tanker six or seven days from now. Anything could be happening by then.” At 50 percent fuel he had to holler for help. At 30 he had to leave station, unless ordered to remain. He grimaced, remembering the weather report; heavier seas would increase fuel consumption too. Jamming him tighter and tighter into a very narrow corner. He sighed. “You said there’s another option?”

  “Kind of out there, but I can shift to a one-shaft, nonstandard-configuration low-speed mode. That gets me down to six knots. Not as quiet, but close.”

  “How many days does that buy us?”

  “Eight days to 50 percent, ten days to 30.”

  “Not great, but better. What’s the downside? Of this nonstandard configuration?”

  “Got to run everything from Main Control. Not the bridge. So if you suddenly need to crank on the knots, it’ll take longer.”

  “How much longer?”

  “Depends on how much faster you want to go, but it won’t be that long. Maybe five, ten minutes.”

  Dan blew out and scratched his head. “I don’t like it. But I guess we have to. At least until we get some clue how long we’ll be out here. —Cheryl, d’you hear that? We’re going down to six knots, but—”

  “I have it, sir.” Staurulakis rattled her keyboard.

  Danenhower didn’t linger once a discussion wasb over; he nodded and left, taking the calculator and graphs but leaving a one-page summary. Dan folded it into a pocket. “Shit,” he muttered. Then went back to the message he was writing. He read the last paragraphs on the screen once more.

  4. (S) IN VIEW OF THE FOLLOWING:

  A) INADEQUATE TBMD LOADOUT (ONLY 4 SM-2 BLOCK 4A WEAPONS)

  B) MARGINAL CREW TRAINING AS EVALUATED BY BOTH JOHNS HOPKINS CONTRACTOR RIDER AND OWN SHIP TEAM

  C) AEGIS REDUCED REDUNDANCY FROM SPY-1 DRIVER-PREDRIVER FIRE (CASREP REF C)

  D) POSSIBLE MUTUAL INTERFERENCE WITH ISRAELI PATRIOT AND ARROW

  E) SEVERELY LIMITED SELF-DEFENSE CAPABILITY IN ABM MODE

  CO CONCLUDES SAVO ISLAND’S MISSION CAPABILITY FALLS BELOW ACCEPTABLE READINESS.

  5. (S) IN VIEW OF POSSIBLE GEOPOLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF A FAILED INTERCEPT ATTEMPT, IT MAY BE PREFERABLE TO RETRACT WHATEVER COMMITMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE, AND RETURN SAVO ISLAND TO TASK GROUP DEFENSE OR TOMAHAWK STRIKE ROLE RATHER THAN CONTINUE AS INDEPENDENT TBMD GUARD.

  6. (S) IF MISSION JUDGED POLITICALLY NECESSARY, REQUEST ADDITIONAL SURFACE ESCORT FOR ASCM OWN SHIP DEFENSE.

  BT

  He stopped typing, hunched over the screen. As if, he realized, trying to shield what he was writing from everyone around him. Up on the readouts, the ship’s speed was already dropping.

  He wasn’t just saying I don’t think we can do the mission, but also Should we even have been committed? If he’d sent it the day he took command, it would’ve looked bad enough. To send it now, when he was actually on station, would make him look … negative. Even craven.

  No, they probably wouldn’t think that. Not with his record.

  And it was the truth. If anything, he was overestimating their capabilities.

  But it wasn’t the kind of message any commanding officer wanted his name on. His cursor hovered over the Send button. Then dropped to Save As and filed it as a draft once again.

  Beside him Cheryl murmured, “Sir, sending the revisions to the steaming orders you asked for. Incorporating the lowered patrol speed discussed with the chief engineer. Warning and exclusion zone. No approach within two miles. Random course changes at least every twelve minutes. Doubled lookouts, with focus on threat bearings to landward. Anything more?”

  “Sounds good.” It was sobering that their first warning of a sea-skimming cruise missile might be a distant glint between the waves, observed by a sharp-eyed seaman with binoculars. But antiship missiles were designed for minuscule radar signatures. The types they were facing out here—the C-802s, the Bastions and Onyxes the Russians had supplied their Syrian client state, the sea-launched Styxes Syrian Komar boats carried—could target them from over the horizon, if their quarry had its radars on.

  Which Savo definitely did. Electronically, they were standing out like a lighthouse, with the huge pulses of power they were putting out. And now, of course, they’d be poking along, with five to ten minutes’ lag before they could come back up to full speed. “Which reminds me. Phalanx is in automatic?”

  “Sea Whiz has been in auto mode since we arrived on station, Captain. I briefed you that yesterday. Like our chaff system and the rubber duckies. I’d like to do a program reload soon, though. We’re overdue on that.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I remember now. Not just yet. Unless you think there’s some kind of software corruption going on … No, wait a minute … it might be better to do it now rather than later. Yeah.” He was starting to babble. Was she looking at him differently than usual? Was that a suspicious squint? He should just buckle the fuck down, and stop obsessing. Okay, slow deep breath. Another. On the display the spokes glittered. Faces hovered green-lit above screens.

  Waiting.

  Which was all he, too, could do now.

  * * *

  AT a little aft
er 0900 Sonar came up on the 21MC. It was Rit Carpenter. “Hey, Dan, you there?” Staurulakis frowned. Dan had to remind himself the old submariner was a civilian now. He thumbed the worn Transmit lever. “Here, Rit. Whatcha got?”

  “Voice call from Pittsburgh. Reporting in. She holds us one-zero-zero at about six thousand yards. Want me to answer up?”

  “Got her on sonar?”

  “Yeah, now. But we didn’t, coming in. Our fucking tail is on the rag down here, and we’re getting more self-noise since we slowed down.”

  Not good, that a nuke boat could get that close without being detected. But maybe it also meant its submariners were sharp enough to protect Savo from any undersea enemy. At the moment, though, he was more worried about air and missile attack. Which even the most modern sub was impotent against, save for its own invulnerability beneath the waves. “Yeah, Rit, roger her back. Ask if there’s a chance the CO can crossdeck for a gam.”

  Carpenter clicked off. Staurulakis murmured, “You want him to come aboard? Is that really necessary?”

  “Sometimes it’s good to make personal contact.”

  “There’s always a risk involved in boat ops. Especially in winter.”

  Dan regarded her. Quiet, short blond hair, always kempt, always competent. Her great-great-grandfather had served aboard a monitor during the Civil War. He’d never asked a question she hadn’t had the answer to, usually to a depth well beyond what she needed to know as a department head. “Cheryl, I imagine you’ll be a CO someday. So you have to learn you can’t run a ship by this ‘accept no unnecessary risk’ doctrine. That mind-set comes out of DoD. Mainly, I guess, to cover their ass in case we screw up. I agree with part of it—think ahead, assess the hazards, plan to meet them, commit the resources, communicate. No-brainers, every good skipper does that. But just going to sea puts us at risk, and we’re out here to fight. You can’t be guided by fear.”

  She cocked her head. “I guess it’s a balancing process.”

  “Balancing what you gain against what you put on the table. Sure. And in this case, doing boat ops—that’s something I expect my crew to take in stride.” He waited, but she didn’t seem to have anything to add.

  “CO, Sonar.” The 21MC again.

  “Go, Rit.”

  “Got Pittsburgh actual on the line. He says okay to a boat transfer, but he wants to stay at least a mile away. Oh, and he says he’s picking up a set of high-speed screws out to the east of us we might want to keep an eye on.”

  Dan shook his head, recalling from the SATYRE exercises he’d conducted how terrified nuke skippers were of getting anywhere near what they called “skimmers.” As if everyone on a gray ship’s bridge was incompetent. “Tell him that’s too far to send a boat in these conditions. I’ll put my RHIB in the water and head west. He can move in from the east as we clear the area, and the boat will essentially stay in the middle. Clear that with him.”

  Carpenter rogered, and Dan called the bridge to get them ready.

  * * *

  PITTSBURGH surfaced well over a mile distant. Through his binoculars, he watched the black sail cut the slate sea like a hammerhead’s fin, throwing white water to both sides. She was making about fifteen knots, ballasted down to minimize rolling in the five-foot swells. From atop the black blunt tower tiny figures studied him back.

  It had rained during the night and the wing was still filmed with a sheen of dampness, and bright water slid back and forth beneath the gratings. Clanking and shouting from below; he swiveled in his chair to monitor the RHIB crew swinging out their gray burden. He could wish for calmer seas, but he’d told Cheryl the truth. Any destroyer crew worth its salt had to be ready to do small-boat ops, in case of a man overboard, a helo crash, or own-force protection in port.

  The silvery swollen bulk of the rigid inflatable swayed as the ship rolled. Red-helmeted seamen staggered at the ends of steadying lines like handlers trying to manage an unruly elephant. A surge broke along the side and spray blasted up the hull-sheer and drenched them like rain. The rest of the crew mustered aft, at a Jacob’s ladder. Dan set his glasses on each man, making sure his life preserver was properly fastened and secured to his safety line.

  Amid hollering and gesticulating, the engines snarled and the boat dipped, yawed to a wild wave, slammed its stern into Savo’s steel, and sheered aft. Another shout, and the crew scrambled down. It curved away, gaining speed and jumping crests awkwardly like a baby dolphin as the crew crouched. Only the coxswain stood erect, boots rooted wide, leather gloves steady on the chromed wheel. The OOD put on hard left rudder and the cruiser’s massive bow came around deliberately, pushed by the single screw on the line now, and accelerated away from the glow of the hidden sun.

  Dan’s Hydra beeped. “CO,” he muttered.

  Staurulakis. “TAO here, sir. Got an E-band air search radar active on zero nine five. Out where you told us the sub reported high-speed screws. Okay to notify?”

  Dan rubbed a bristly chin. That was a military radar. So anything carrying it was prima facie a threat. Notify, query, and warn were the ascending levels of communication with an unknown. After that came defensive action, if the contact continued to close or demonstrated hostile intent. “Range?”

  “He’s out of the beam for the Aegis. I can get you a range, but we might have to put the gun radar on him.”

  “What’s wrong with the surface search?”

  “Offline for maintenance.”

  “I should’ve been told.”

  “Sorry, Captain. Was about to.”

  “Don’t use the gun radar. Notify on Channel 16.”

  “On it, Captain. TAO out.”

  The RHIB shrank behind them. Dan watched it bob and reappear between corroded-looking waves. The black tower in the sea had altered course toward it. Gulls skimmed the wavetops, vanishing between the swells, then reappearing. Like sea-skimming missiles … What was Ammermann doing? He really ought to stop by and see the staffer. At least tell him there wasn’t any answer yet to the offload request. It didn’t cost anything to extend due courtesy.

  Minutes later the OOD came out, clutching his cap against the cold gusts. “Skipper, contact at zero nine five, twenty thousand and closing . Designated Skunk Kilo. Looks like a constant bearing.”

  “EW has him too. He’s still on a closing course?”

  “According to the surface search, Captain.”

  “It’s back up again?”

  “Yes sir.”

  He hit the Hydra again. “Cheryl, CO. Did your E-band answer up to the notification?”

  “Stand by … Sir, our surface search is back up. Also, yes, they replied. INS Lahav requests permission to close.”

  He dropped his bootsoles to the wet gratings with a thud. Lahav … memory supplied a Sa’ar-class corvette. U.S.-built, but Israeli flagged. Smaller than Savo but heavily armed, with guns and Harpoon. Actually, he remembered seeing them being built down in Pascagoula, their superstructures slab-angled to reduce radar signature. That might explain why she’d not popped up earlier; at twenty thousand yards she was already inside missile range. They’d actually detected her, or at least the sub had, farther away by sonar than by radar.

  Which raised another question. Any ship with an electronic-warfare stack could detect the side-lobes of the invisible yet massive beam of microwave radiation those big octagonal panels above him were projecting over the horizon. Why had the other skipper approached on a bearing he had to know, or at least suspect, he wouldn’t be readily detected on? Was that some sort of message? Or even, threat? Aloud Dan asked, “Permission to close us? Why?”

  “No reason given.”

  “Says he’s Israeli?”

  “Consistent with the EW. Checks out against GCCS.”

  Dan rubbed his chin. The Israelis were normally happy to see a U.S. ship. They only shadowed what they weren’t sure of. Something wasn’t kosher. So to speak. “We should have known about this dude as soon as he cleared port.”

  “Yessir. Backche
cking on that. Do we want to hold him outside five miles?”

  He paused in the pilothouse, catching the Troll’s eye again as he keyed the Hydra to answer. “Tell him … no, request him to halt at five miles. Make sure he’s clear on who we are. Again: don’t illuminate him. I’m on my way down.” He didn’t want to give offense, and so close to Israeli territorial waters, no wonder they were being checked out. But he didn’t want to take any chances. Unnecessary chances, he reminded himself ironically.

  The officer of the deck. “Captain, RHIB’s picked up Pittsburgh’s CO. Sub is retiring; permission to reverse course.”

  “Affirmative. Go in and get ’em.” He looked past the helmsman at the choppy sea, reflecting on how their course reversal would affect the five-mile radius he’d asked the corvette to stay outside. And what if he didn’t respect the request? “Make it fast. I want that boat back aboard, and us to be ready to maneuver.”

  * * *

  THE submarine commander more than filled the chair in Dan’s in-port cabin. He looked Hispanic, or perhaps Indian; his name was Youngblood, not noticeably non-Anglo, but not giving any clues to his ancestry. Dan checked the other man’s left hand. No Academy ring. The large bruise beginning to darken the side of his face didn’t seem to dampen Youngblood’s spirits; he was practically bouncing in the chair. “That? Got it during the boat transfer. Slipped on the curve of the hull.”

  “Been there, done that,” Dan said, remembering boarding another sub in the Korea Strait. The only time, actually, he’d sailed under a flag of truce. “Glad you weren’t badly hurt, Jack. We could get some ice for that—”

  Youngblood grinned and waved the offer away. “Picked up a hard roll, that’s all. Hey, I think we got a friend in common. Andy Mangum? Had San Francisco, out in Westpac, couple years back?”