you might want to read this.”
Tombstone stared at the message, reached out to take it, and then drew his hand back. “Give it to me short,” he ordered. He glanced at his watch. “I have to get back to the goddamned diplomats in a while.”
“Stealth technology,” Lab Rat said. “There’s a possibility that somebody besides the U.S. has it.”
“Who?” Tombstone said, unable to contain his impatience.
“The former Soviet Union had the beginnings of a program at the end of the Cold War. Most of the engineers on it were Ukrainian. National intelligence estimates say they returned to Ukraine after the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, and are probably continuing their work along those same lines there.”
Lab Rat paused for a moment, and his frown deepened. “Admiral, if Ukraine has stealth technology?operational or capable?it changes the whole complexion of this scenario.”
It took a moment for Tombstone to catch on. When he did, the implications stunned him. “Turkey?it wasn’t necessarily Turkey,” he said, not wanting to hear his own words. “That makes even more sense, in one way. There’s not much tactical reason for Turkey to have launched on us?none, as far as I can see.”
He thought back to the initial briefings he’d attended in the conference room. “They certainly don’t seem like they’re culpable, at least in public. They even seemed-” He struggled for a moment to find exactly the right word. “Outraged,” he concluded finally.
“Angry at the United States, justifiably angry. And we know that Ukraine has fissionable materials taken from the long-range warheads that were left on her soil after the dissolution.”
He stared at Lab Rat for a moment. “God, man, I’ve got to have more to go on than this.”
Lab Rat nodded. “I know. I’ve asked for a special intelligence analysis of Ukraine’s nuclear capabilities as well as a complete rundown on their stealth program. I sent the query out this morning, and I’ve already got two very concerned intelligence officers calling on top-secret lines to talk to me. Not with answers?with more questions. Evidently, I’m not the first one to think of this possibility.”
“Then why don’t they tell us this out in the field?” Tombstone raged. “I have lives depending on this sort of intelligence, decisions to make?and after yesterday, if we weren’t in a shooting war with Turkey, we almost are now. I’ve got one man injured, one still in the water somewhere, dead or alive.”
“I’ve suggested we redirect satellite coverage to provide continual surveillance of Ukraine,” Lab Rat added. “In particular, I’m looking for any unusual troop movements, anything out of the ordinary, and most particularly, any indication of nuclear material being moved around on the ground.”
“If that’s all we can get, that’s all we can get,” Tombstone answered. “It had better be enough.”
7
“Lieutenant,” the starboard lookout howled. “I got it, sir?I got it!”
The officer of the deck darted across the bridge and jumped over the combing around the edge of the hatch. His foot caught on it in mid-leap, and he stumbled out onto the bridge wing, fetching up against the alidade.
“What is it, Simpson? Dammit, you keep yelling. Didn’t anybody tell you how to make a proper contact report?”
The lieutenant’s tirade came to a dead stop in midstream.
The lookout grabbed the lieutenant by the left shoulder and turned him around so that he faced out toward the sea. The sky was partly cloudy, and the moon obscured by the overcast. Nevertheless, there was enough ambient light for the surface of the water to be clearly visible.
“Just look, Lieutenant.” The lookout pointed.
The officer stared, his eyes slowly resolving the pattern of shape and motion into the vision that had so excited the lookout. He grabbed the sound-powered phone microphone that hung around the lookout’s neck.
“Combat, OOD. Set Condition Two AS. I’ve got a visual on a snorkel mast, range four thousand yards, bearing zero-four-zero. If sonar’s not holding it, I damned well want to know why.”
The officer dropped the sound-powered phone and leaped back into the bridge, clearing the combing this time handily.
“Ensign Carter, set Flight Quarters. Roust those helo smart-asses out of their racks. I want that bird turning in fifteen minutes.”
The ensign nodded, then turned to the boatswains mate of the watch. “You heard the lieutenant. Set Flight Quarters.”
As the first announcement blared out shipwide over the 1MC, the OOD called his CO, Captain Daniel Heather.
“They had to come up sooner or later,” Gator declared. He pointed at the small symbol now blinking red on the tactical display. “A partly cloudy night, being held down by the helos?man, he’s probably running low on battery power.”
“Helicopters or S-3’s?” his assistant watch officer asked.
In answer, Gator picked up the Batphone that connected him with the TAO in CDC. After a brief discussion, more of a confirmation really, Gator turned back to the watch officer. “Both. This time, that little bastard’s not getting away.”
“I know I should have gone to the carrier,” Lieutenant Commander Rando Spratley grumbled. “You fly the F bird, you go to the carrier and get a dipper. None of this two-crews-and-one-helo bullshit you get on a cruiser.”
He sighed, looking at his copilot for sympathy. “If we were on the carrier, we’d be pulling Alert 15 every fourth day?not every fifteen minutes.”
“So you say. But you sure as hell wouldn’t be officer in charge of a helo detachment. At best, you’d be the senior lieutenant commander in charge of coffee. And pulling a whole lot more duty-standing than you do now.
“Yeah, well.”
In truth, Rando wouldn’t have traded his tour on board the cruiser for duty on the bird farm. No way. Out here, it was just the Shiloh and her two helos, an eight-person aircrew detachment with support personnel along. They went alone and unafraid, and were capable of killing damned near anything that was looking to paint the profile of an Aegis cruiser on its conning tower.
Moreover, much as he hated to admit it, Rando drew a fair amount of satisfaction from his interactions with the black-shoe crew. Surface sailors were a different breed of people, that much was true. But they had their good points as well.
“Get our head back in the game,” his copilot chided. “That submarine went sinker fifteen minutes ago. I don’t know about you, but I want him bad, real bad. He’s a damn sight too close to my stereo for my comfort.”
“And just what the hell do you think I’m doing out here, playing with myself?” Rando snapped back. “If anybody would bother to give me a decent fly-to point, we might manage to get this mission started.”
“Coming at you now.” The copilot transmitted the location for the first sonobuoy to the pilot’s console.
“You’re right?too damned close,” Rando said. His voice was markedly more serious than it had been a few minutes ago. “Think that lookout really saw something?”
“No doubt in my military mind,” the copilot answered. “Besides, it wasn’t only the lookout?the OOD saw it as well.”
“And we’ll see it last.” Rando put the helicopter into a hard turn and headed for the first drop point.
