Admiral Carson was due on station in those tense, somewhat unpredictable seas eight days from now. His massive presence there, at the very gateway to the Gulf of Iran, served as a warning to all who might challenge the right of the world’s tankers to ply their trade along the sprawling crude oil terminals which stretch from the Strait of Hormuz to Iraq. His presence would also, unavoidably, deepen the already simmering hatred toward the United States by much of the Islamic nation. But that goes with the territory of a Battle Group Commander. And the six- foot-four-inch Kansan Zack Carson, at the age of fifty-six, had long since accepted that not everyone flew a flag of pure joy when his giant ship hove into sight along the horizons of the Middle East.
At his command were cruise missiles, guided weapons of all types to attack targets above, on, and under the water, a small all-purpose Air Force, whole batteries of artillery, to send in thousands of shells per hour. And stored deep in the bowels of this great ship, and in his two nuclear submarines, other missiles — missiles of such colossal destructive force, not even Zack Carson was comfortable contemplating the consequences of deploying them. The admiral, and his masters in the Pentagon, could, if instructed, damn nearly destroy much of the world. In very short order.
That was not an actual part of his plan, but a U.S. Battle Group must, at all times, be right at the peak of the warfare efficiency curve, which heads steeply upward according to the value of the hardware. The view of the Chiefs of Staff, not to mention the hard-nosed Southwestern Republican currently occupying the White House, was, broadly, “at that price it better work, and it better work real good, right on time, no bullshit.”
Thus, at this particular moment, in deep conversation with his fellow Kansan, Captain Jack Baldridge, Admiral Carson was making doubly sure that the previous month’s intense battle training programs had transformed this ship, and all of the six thousand men who sailed in her, into the best it was possible to be. From the cooks to the navigators, from the sonar men to the guys in the print room, from the firefighters to the fighter pilots, the radar wizards to the missile loaders — the Battle Group commander could afford no weak link in his chain of command, no suspect system, no indecisive officer, zero inefficiency. This was the very frontier of warfare, the bottom line of the U.S. offense and defensive charter. The admiral, reverting easily to the more relaxed vernacular of the prairies, often reminded his closest staff officers in the following way, “A long time before the buck comes to a stop in the Oval Office, someone’s gonna shove it right up my rear end.”
For weeks on end, the admiral had driven the entire Battle Group to the heights of their abilities. Twice a day he sent out communications detailing exercises which ultimately involved all sixteen thousand of the men serving in the dozen ships in the group.
There was endless training for the Aegis missile cruisers — training which ensured they really could knock out any incoming missiles, even traveling at twice the speed of sound.
The submarine commanders, ranging far out in front of the Battle Group, were made firmly aware of the admiral’s special interest in their work. He believed not only in the offensive capability of these search-and-strike underwater killers — but in their critical role as the group’s frontline anti-submarine weapon; the destroyer of their own counterparts. After several weeks out here, practicing and patrolling endlessly in the deep waters of the Indian Ocean, the phrase “deadly accurate” really did apply to all of their systems, but especially the lethal wire-guided torpedoes, equally effective against ship or submarine.
Zack Carson, a surface ship man and, in his youth, a former aviator, had often wished he had been a submariner. He was just never sure he could have passed the searching examination process these sailor-scientists require before taking command of a U.S. Navy SSN…the degree in marine engineering, the electronics, the mechanics, the hydrology, the deep navigational skills, and the nuclear engineering courses. These days the underwater commanders represented the elite of all Western navies, and Zack Carson was kind of uncertain that he possessed quite the academic grasp the submarine service required of its captains.
He had made his name as a battle line strategist, an expert in aviation, missiles, and gunnery, a tactician on the grand scale, a commanding officer who painted in broad, sure strokes, but never strayed too far from the minutiae of his trade. Everyone liked Admiral Carson, because he still sounded like some kind of a gunslinger from the High Plains of Kansas — as indeed a couple of his direct ancestors had been — and he displayed a deliberate, laid-back nonchalance under pressure that was plainly deceptive, but nonetheless an enviable quality in any ship’s operational center.
All of which was pretty impressive from a Midwestern farm boy who had grown up in the little town of Tribune, in the middle of the endless wheat prairies of Greeley County, hard by the western state border where Kansas joins Colorado. These lands summon up the true meaning of the word “nowhere.” Flat, sprawling Greeley County contains only two small towns in its entire 620 square miles. Both of them are set along the little local highway, Route 156, which starts 180 miles to the east near the great bend of the Arkansas River.
These are the remotest American lands, with populations of about one hundredth the average for rural U.S.A. Miles and miles and miles of wheat and grassland, flat, windswept, and, in an uncluttered way, made glorious by the sheer absence of spectacle. Out here, under the big sky, untouched by modern intrusion, names like Elija, Zachariah, Jethro, Willard, Jeremiah, and Ethan were commonplace. Zachariah Carson was the tall, lean son of Jethro Carson, who farmed thousands of acres of the prairie, as his immediate forefathers had also done.
Perhaps it was a young lifetime spent watching the wind sweep across the endless acres of gently waving wheat which gave Zack Carson his early longing for the ocean. But for as long as he could remember, he had an uncomplicated yearning to join the United States Navy. There were two other brothers in the family to carry on farming the wheat, but it almost broke old Jethro Carson’s heart when his oldest boy packed his bags at the age of eighteen and set off across the country from the most landlocked state in America for the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. His entry into the historic Navy school represented the biggest teaching triumph in the entire history of Tribune High.
With his gangling walk, crooked grin, and down-home way of expressing himself, Zack Carson proceeded to stun successive Navy examination boards with his grasp of the most intricate details of warfare at sea. He gave up Navy aviation after ditching a faulty jet fighter over the side of a carrier, when he was just twenty-six, and he commanded a frigate before his thirty-sixth birthday. He had charge of a guided missile destroyer at thirty-nine, and by the time he was forty-eight, Zack was captain of the giant carrier
They promoted him to rear admiral within four years and in the year 2000 awarded him the honor of the newest U.S. aircraft carrier, the
Baldridge was a barrel-chested disciplinarian who reacted swiftly and decisively to any possible threat or danger to his ships. Admiral Carson was more inclined to give a few “Uh-huhs.” Under pressure, Admiral Carson was cautious, thoughtful, cynical, and superstitious. He was also absolutely decisive.
They made a truly formidable team. When either of them spoke, the Combat Information Center jumped. Because when Captain Baldridge issued an order, that was an order from the admiral himself. And in a big-deck carrier that was an order that was seldom questioned.
Right now the two of them were discussing the possibility of yet another heavy night-flying program, as part of the major upcoming war game against the U.S. Battle Group they would soon be replacing in the Arabian Sea. The battle lines were now being drawn, and as ever these apparent practice sessions were taken with immense seriousness by all concerned. Because this was their opportunity to hone their battle skills in a theater of almost real war.
These exercises are both career breakers and makers. They are blisteringly expensive, and represent the only way the U.S. Navy has to simulate battle conditions, and to assess various key players and how they will react to the heightened speed and danger of the exercise. In the forthcoming combat zone, the
A time is set for the “attack” to begin and from then on the aggressor will use every piece of electronic guile, cunning, and naval hardware to get in close to the opposing carrier and “kill” her. No one actually fires a shell, or
