It was Lobo’s turn to fight back tears.
NINETEEN
The small compartment was a cacophony of inbound pilot calls, reports from the Air Boss on deck status, complaints from the handler on the staging of the aircraft, and surveillance reports from the CAP and SAR already airborne.
For Tombstone Magruder, after two and a half decades of naval service, keeping track of the different threads and progress of all phases of the launch sequence was completely automatic. He gave it no more thought than he did breathing, as his mind sifted through the information, evaluated it, and automatically assigned it a priority in his thinking.
But when a little-used speaker directly behind his elevated command chair crackled to life, he lifted his head up sharply. He turned to look at Batman, whose face was grim.
“The SEAL team on the ground,” Batman explained. “We’ve got them patched through the Marine SINCGAARS gear.”
“Go ahead and talk to them,” Tombstone said. “They’re already used to your voice.”
Batman nodded and picked up the mike. He motioned to the TAO to hunt down the SEAL team representative and have him standing by. “This is Homeplate, go ahead.”
“Bad news, Admiral. We found the bomb, but we can’t get to it right now. It was disguised as a beer truck, and the Chinese airlifted it out with a helicopter. We followed them, but they planted it in Caneohe Bay with the bomb still on board. Can’t get down with my current draeger closed system rebreathers, so I’m going to need an assist here.”
Batman swore quietly, then keyed the mike and asked, “What do you need from us?”
“Minesweeper for starters, sir. I’ve got a pretty good idea of where it went down, but I’m going to have to localize it.”
“No problem. The USS
“Sure can, Admiral. I’ve got some special gear for us ordered in as well. Just in case we have to make the deepwater dive.”
“I suspect you’ll have to do that,” Batman answered.
“So do I. But what I can’t figure, Admiral, is how they’re planning on detonating this. I mean, the thing’s down in at least a hundred feet of water.”
“Transponder on that submarine,” Tombstone said. He turned to look at Batman, his face turning pale. “When’s the last time we held contact on her?”
“Murdock, Admiral Magruder is suggesting it’s submarine activated. We’ve got one in the area, unlocated for the past four hours. Any indication you’ve seen of her?”
“Negative, Admiral, but we’ll keep an eye out. For now, I think we just need to localize it and worry about the detonation sequencing of it later.”
“Roger, the
Navy Red crackled to life just then, and Tombstone immediately recognized the voice. It was his uncle, Admiral Thomas Magruder, the Chief of Naval Operations.
“
A cold, still silence settled over TFCC. Tombstone glanced back up at the screen, saw the waves of fighters and surface tac aircraft sweeping in on the Chinese invasion and calculated the odds. “This is Vice Admiral Magruder, sir. Any indications that they can detonate it right now?”
“No one’s certain, but the intelligence folks seem to think not. I take it you’re in contact with Murdock?”
“That’s affirmative, sir. He’s just updated us on the probable location on the special weapon and we’ve dispatched the USS
“Good. I suspect it won’t be hard to find. The question is how do we defuse it at that depth?”
“We’ve got other problems here right now, Admiral,” Batman chimed in. “I know we’ve got orders not to provoke the situation over land, but we’ve got to stop the incoming infantry deployment. Once they’re ashore, it’s going to be hard as hell to dislodge them.”
“Agreed. We’ve got less than twelve hours, gentlemen. Let’s make this work.”
As the CNO clicked off, Batman switched over to the SEAL circuit. “You’re current on the deadline requirements?” he asked Murdock.
“We are now, sir.” There was a new, grim note in Murdock’s voice. “We’ll make it happen, sir.”
“Madman, Madman,” the TACCO called from the backseat. “Smoke now!”
In the forward righthand seat, the copilot blasted out a smoke flare. This would mark the spot where the Viking had had its first detection of an underwater metallic mass. Later passes over the same area would serve to triangulate the exact location of the suspected target.
Rabies toggled his ICS switch on. “You sure about that?”
“It’s a hard data point,” the TACCO said, his voice excited. “Let’s get some sonobuoys in the water, see if we can locate this bastard.”
“I dunno,” Rabies muttered. He glanced over at the copilot. “You know what I’m thinking, don’t you?”
The copilot nodded glumly. “It’s right below us.”
And that, Rabies reflected, was the essential problem with Madman detections. The Magnetic Anomaly Detector, or Madman, could locate a large metallic mass a significant depth under the water, based on the distortions such a mass would cause in the earth’s magnetic field. It was fairly precise, with the main inaccuracies induced by the aircraft’s motion over the target and local variances in the earth’s magnetic field.
For all its precision, however, it couldn’t tell you what the mass below you was. Shipwrecks, ore deposits, and underwater pipelines could all lead to false results. Most of the known ones were well charted, and ASW experts always double-checked a chart before putting weapons on target.
“I know what we’re over,” the TACCO broke in. “Believe me, I’ve been over her a thousand times, maybe. This is different.”
Rabies and the copilot exchanged a disgusted look. “Yeah, yeah,” Rabies said. Still, he put the S-3 Viking into a hard righthand turn, glancing down to check the location of the smoke, and brought the S-3 in low over it at right angles to his previous course.
“Madman, Madman,” the TACCO sang out again. Another smoke flare was punched out of the underbelly of the potent little torpedo bomber.
“You’re sure about this?” Rabies asked. “Because I gotta tell ya, I’ve got this gut feeling that tells me we’re about to look awful silly.”
“No way.” The TACCO’s voice was confident. “I’ve got a live one. The sonobuoys will confirm it.”
“Unless he’s lying dog-o on batteries,” the AW pointed out. “We might not get any acoustic signals at all.”
“All right, all right,” the TACCO said. “I know that. And believe me, I also know where the
The
