Choke Point

“Down scope.”

With flight instructions for each missile in the computers, Rorke initiated what would be a ripple launch. The first missile fired would be one of the outermost of the six-tube configuration on the starboard side, followed immediately by the corresponding missile of the portside six.

“Commence launch,” said Rorke. This was for the crew’s benefit, as the countdown the weapons officer had already initiated was an automatic, computer-controlled function.

The crew heard the explosive charge that, along with an enormous whoosh of compressed air, ejected the cruise missile, thrusting it through the thin plastic membrane at the top of its launch tube into the sea, from sixty feet below the surface. The boat lurched slightly as the 2,650-pound Tomahawk exited the boat, seawater immediately rushing into the empty launch tube, the Tomahawk’s booster firing underwater, twenty-five feet above the sub. The missile, broaching the sea’s surface, shivered with the tremor of the booster’s fiery exhaust, the missile’s protective wing cover popping off, tailfin shrouds also discarded, four tailfins extending to steady the Tomahawk’s angle of flight.

At a thousand feet, only seconds after launch point and as another missile left Encino, the first Tomahawk’s solid-fuel booster fell away, its job done, the turbofan jet taking over, stubby wings extended. Its terrain control matching system helped to guide it, the missile flattening out at ninety feet above sea level en route to its target, virtually skimming the sea, the radar cross section no more than eleven square feet. Its approach was doubly protected by the Encino jamming the PLA radars. Traveling subsonically at plus or minus 500 mph, this small radar signature of the Tomahawk should be lost in the post-typhoon sea clutter, the missile and the eleven other Tomahawks following — a six-million-dollar “train” of explosives that Rorke’s crew, many ardent followers of the old Six Million Dollar Man, dubbed the “Six Million Dollar Slam”—scheduled to reach Penghu in approximately twenty-four minutes.

Admiral Crowley was bitterly disappointed upon hearing that Encino was given the job of “missiling” Penghu. Why hadn’t they given it to him? He’d played it smart, very smart, conducting the burial at night in blackout conditions so he’d be ready in the event any Bizarro/terrorist/kamikaze attack was launched at him in the morning when an enemy would assume the ship would slow for such a burial. Or didn’t Washington think McCain’s battle group was up to it because of the kamikaze hit?

The padre, a good friend of the battle group commander, tried to soften the blow. “God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform,” he reminded the admiral.

“Is that so?” Crowley retorted churlishly. “Where was he when that kamikaze holed my roof?”

The padre assured the admiral that the Almighty had a plan.

“Well, I’m damned if I can discern it, Padre,” Crowley said, his tone softening for the sake of friendship, if not because of religious belief.

The rain of cruise missiles on Penghu brought shock and awesome devastation, the huge billows of copper- red smoke rising, reeking of burning Avgas and atomized fish fertilizer from the once picturesque stony-bordered farms, the clouds of war obscuring the island clearly visible to satellite reconnaissance. The problem was, Typhoon Jane’s residual tail winds had “increased the CEP,” as the Pentagon put it.

“In English, please,” Eleanor Prenty demanded.

“Circular error probable, ma’am. It means the diameter centering on the target within which there is a fifty percent chance of hitting.”

“Error probable?” said Eleanor. “My God, you’re telling me that they didn’t hit Penghu?”

“No, our missiles did hit Penghu. No question about—”

“But not the runway and all the radars?”

“No, ma’am. I mean that’s right, you’re correct. We—”

“Give me a percentage, Commander. What percent did you hit? Eighty? Sixty?”

“ ’Bout forty to fifty.”

“What’s the Encino’s load-out?” she asked, knowing that sometimes the subs carried extra cruise missiles, housing them in the torpedo racks.

The Pentagon man didn’t know if the twelve Tomahawks were the Encino’s full load of cruise missiles or whether there were some in reserve.

“Well, find out,” she told him abruptly.

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Use my phone.”

It was very highly classified information, and the Pentagon messenger, albeit a commander, had to have written authority from the Chief of Naval Operations to be given one of America’s launch platform’s precise “load- out.”

Eleanor Prenty waited impatiently. If Encino didn’t have reserve Tomahawks, then someone else would have to be tasked to finish what Encino had begun and to pulverize the Penghu runway before the PLA could use it as a base from which clandestine attacks could be launched against Taiwan — even during an official cease-fire that the Secretary of State was hastily trying to broker between Beijing and Taipei, both Chinese capitals sticking firmly to their positions that the other one had reopened hostilities.

The commander from the Pentagon had the answer to Eleanor’s question twenty minutes later. SSN Encino’s multiple launch, as ordered by the President, had exhausted the submarine’s load-out supply of twelve Tomahawks.

The President didn’t hesitate. “Draw up orders,” he told the Chief of Naval Operations, “for McCain’s battle group to take out that runway.”

“How about vertical launch from the Aegis cruisers?” asked Eleanor. “McCain’s pretty badly—”

“No.” The President was adamant. “It’s important politically as well as for the Navy’s morale — which is the lowest I’ve ever seen — to have McCain do it. Have the carrier’s air wing launch the attack. Stand-off weapons. If we can take Makung out as their forward air base, we’ll have a lot more leverage to force Beijing to the table.”

“Makung?” asked Eleanor.

“Penghu’s city. Where the runway is.”

“Oh,” said Eleanor. “Yes, of course. Mr. President, do you think Beijing’s got anything to do with this sub attacking us in the Northwest?”

The President had obviously thought a lot about it, as he had about the myriad fronts going on in the war, clandestine and overt, all over the world as the U.S. struggled to keep the upper hand. “I don’t think so, Eleanor. Nor do the Joint Chiefs. It seems more like a terrorist group to me. Trouble is, we Americans have — let’s face it — a lot of difficulty accepting the fact that a bunch of Muslims could develop a weapons platform so quiet, so able to pierce our defenses — like this midget sub the Navy’s hydrofoils are now finally closing in on.”

“Finally” seemed a bit rich to Eleanor. Admittedly, it had felt like months and months dealing with the Northwest attack, along with everything else, but crises always seemed longer at the time. In fact, it had been much shorter, and the Navy had done darned well to get the hydrofoils on their way, because the new craft had barely finished sea trials.

“Problem is,” the President said, “we think of Muslims, we think of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan. Desert and oil.” The Chief Executive paused. “Had you ever imagined Arabs as submariners?”

“No. Well, I knew some Russian submariners who were Muslim, but no, not further than that.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

As Freeman and Aussie neared the bow of the sub, the snorkel pipe stopping then beginning to inch up again — its slow ascent no doubt an attempt to keep its rasping to a minimum — the two wondered if the sub’s sonar had picked up the noise of their paddling. The fogbound sea was considerably calmer now than when they had shot at the sub much earlier that day. Or was the sub’s scope sliding up for a visual check? But what was there to see in the fog, besides the Skate’s dying firelight?