French sub skipper had seen
He nodded. That hypothesis fit the facts.
So somebody had jumped the gun. If that was the case, EurCon’s senior commanders would be almost as flummoxed as he was. Once a decision came down from Paris and Berlin, they would move quickly enough, but they weren’t ready to launch a massive strike — not just yet. And that meant he had a few precious minutes to make some final crucial preparations.
Ward started at the top — reacting to what he believed to be the most immediate threat. A submarine had attacked his southernmost convoy. Well, submarines were also the best way to sink an Aegis cruiser, especially one steaming in restricted waters and crappy sonar conditions.
He punched keys on the pad to his left. The image on his primary display shifted as numbers and curved lines, representing depths and bottom contours, glowed to life. The screen also showed his own group’s planned track. It ran slightly east of straight north.
At twenty-two knots, an hour’s travel would put them abreast of the Groves Flak and Fladen banks, two shallow spots on the seafloor that would make perfect hiding places for small diesel submarines. And the already narrow channel narrowed even further near there. That was bad. Very bad.
Ward called his helicopter coordinator on the intercom. “Mike, I want somebody up checking both those two banks for lurkers. Stick to a passive search only for now. If there are French or German subs up there, let’s see if we can find them without tipping anybody off.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
He listened as the lieutenant quickly issued orders to launch one helicopter each from
Working in tandem, the two SH-60 Seahawks would sweep back and forth across the areas he’d tagged, using their MADs and dropping dozens of LOFAR sonobuoys to hunt for EurCon subs lying doggo. The only trouble was that he still wasn’t sure what he could do if they actually found any. Under the existing rules of engagement, he could only fire if fired upon. The Kattegat wasn’t wide enough to enforce a declared exclusion zone.
While listening to the radio chatter in his headset, he checked the display more closely.
Symbols crawled across the screen as his units responded to their new instructions. The minutes passed slowly while Ward ran through his limited options over and over again. Waiting like this was the hardest part of any naval commander’s job. In battle, supersonic missile speeds left very little time for thought — and no time at all for worry.
Shapiro came up and stood quietly behind Ward’s chair, waiting. His news wasn’t urgent, then. The admiral took another moment to examine the display before swiveling around.
“Washington says stand by. No changes to the rules of engagement.” The chief of staff saw Ward’s reaction and added, “Admiral Macmillan said to shoot when you have to, and he’d sort it out later.”
Ward sighed. It was nice to have CINCLANT’s support, but now was the moment to strike, while EurCon was still trying to —
“Sir!” The lieutenant coordinating his helicopters broke in, his voice climbing rapidly. “401 reports several streaks of light moving from west to east, heading straight for us!”
Too late. We’ve missed our chance, Ward realized. EurCon had decided to throw the first punch.
Lieutenant (jg.) Bill Alvarez, piloting Seahawk 401, looked over at his sensor operator in shock. Lieutenant Tom Calhoun was on his fifth cruise. He had over five hundred hours in Seahawks. This was Alvarez’s first deployment, and things were moving a little too fast for him. “What will
“Open up, my friend.” Calhoun’s eyes never left his instrument console. “Turn port, new course three three zero, speed seventy knots. Take us down.” Even though Alvarez was the pilot, Calhoun was the mission commander. He had the sensor displays, and the experience to know what he was looking at. Alvarez, like any other helicopter pilot, was kept busy enough just keeping the Seahawk in the air.
Wheeling the big machine to the left, Alvarez juggled his cyclic stick, collective, and throttle, smoothly losing altitude and slowing until Seahawk 401 clattered only thirty feet above the Kattegat’s dark waters.
As Alvarez maneuvered, Calhoun amplified his initial report. “Negative radar contact on vampires. Visual and FLIR only. Estimate ten plus, low altitude. Negative ESM.”
EurCon’s stealth missile technologies were getting another battlefield test — a successful one. The Seahawk’s APS-124 radar wasn’t powerful enough to spot the incoming missiles against all the clutter created by the Kattegat’s short, choppy waves.
Calhoun broke radio contact with
“They’ll find out the rest for themselves. We’ve done our bit for Uncle Sam, we’re on our own time now. Turn port again, new course two two five.”
Automatically Alvarez complied. He was trained to obey orders immediately, and Calhoun’s orders were eminently sensible. The planes that had launched those missiles at the convoy could still be somewhere close by. And the best way to avoid attracting their unwanted attention was to throttle the Seahawk’s engines back, lay low, and pretend to be nothing more than night air. Throttling back would also conserve fuel — giving them up to an extra hour of flying time. With their parent ship under attack, it might be a long while before 401 could land. Just as important, the new course kept them well clear of both
Neither man wanted to be shot down by their own side in all the confusion.
Repeated flashes shattered the darkness off to the right. He automatically closed one eye trying to preserve his night vision.
A blinding flare signaled the first launches. For a moment, the ship’s bulky shape was outlined in a flickering orange-red light. Then rocket exhaust covered her bow and stern in billowing smoke clouds, lit from within.
The first pair of SAMs leapt up out of the roiling smoke clouds, their own smoke trails also glowing. Even from twenty miles away, their exhausts looked like giant-sized highway warning flares soaring high overhead, almost too bright to look at. It was a spectacular and frightening sight.
A second later, with the first two missiles already high overhead and starting to arc over, a second pair thundered out of the expanding clouds. Then another pair and yet another roared skyward, until the cruiser, moving through the water, had built a towering arch of missile smoke trails.
Looking aft, Alvarez waited for their own ship to launch. Nothing. “Where’s
Calhoun shook his head. “She doesn’t have a fancy radar like the Aegis.” He sucked in his breath a little, figuring. “Against stealth missiles, it’s going to be close. There,” he said finally. “She’s firing now.”
A new pair of fiery streaks leapt up from the horizon and leveled out, seemingly headed straight toward them. After a few seconds,
Then it happened.
An enormous explosion lit the sea between the two American warships. An image flashed against the darkness, so quickly and so blindingly bright that Alvarez realized what he had seen only after the flash faded. He’d seen a merchant ship’s hull, dark against a brilliant white and yellow and orange light that backlit but also enveloped its victim.
Blinking away the dazzling afterimages, Alvarez scanned the horizon. A dull orange glow remained. On the
