“As you’ve been told, we are out here conducting battle group operations,” Coyote said, reaching the decision as he spoke. He would pay for this later, perhaps, but he was going to do it. “The classified part of this is that we are also testing various defensive systems.” Briefly, Coyote outlined the capabilities of the missile defense system, concluding with “And of course, the Russians were keeping an eye on us as well. In fact…” For the first time, Coyote hesitated, aware that he was stepping over a line he could never withdraw from. “In fact, they were testing their own capabilities as well. Probably a laser defense system, perhaps targeting just missiles. Perhaps not.”
Gaspert appeared to absorb the information impassively. “That was no laser that hit us.”
“No, it wasn’t. It was a missile. The question at this point is whether it was ours or theirs. Just prior to the attack on
“And so what does this have to do with
“At some point, the Russians were apparently convinced that a fire control radar had locked onto them. Under the circumstances, they believed that we were targeting them.”
“And they launched a missile. And hit my ship.” A little life crept into Gaspert’s face, but it was ugly.
“You were well outside the exercise area, way outside of it,” Coyote continued. “There was no reason to suspect you would be in danger.”
“I know that. I was on the bridge when it happened. We were opening the distance even more. But it sounds like a whole ocean wouldn’t have been far enough.”
“Once the Russians launched a missile at us, we activated our anti-air defense systems. The cruisers are quite different from the ones you remember. In full automatic mode, they can ripple off missiles almost as fast as you can fire a forty-five.”
“So they fired, then you launched and brought their missile down. And—” Gaspert’s voice broke off suddenly. The beginning of anger in his eyes was replaced by horror. “Oh dear god,” he whispered. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re saying that it might be your missile that struck rather than theirs.”
“It’s a possibility,” Coyote said gently. “And the reason that I’m telling you this is that the media will no doubt began to speculate on that. They have so many satellites of their own, so many. Weather satellites, communications — we aren’t the only ones watching this part of the ocean. And the resolution of some of the civilian satellites is even superior to our earlier ones. We use their information part of the time instead of our own.”
“And they’ll have people that know how to read those photos, too.”
Coyote nodded. “Exactly. So I wanted to talk to you before you began hearing about it on ACN.”
Gaspert’s face was blank. He sat impassively, not moving. His eyes were only half-open. Coyote considered calling Medical. Surely Gaspert had been under such a strain that he was beginning to crack.
Suddenly, Gaspert spoke. Fire blazed in his eyes. “You attacked me.” His voice was cold and implacable. “You killed my people, the passengers — you. You.” He looked around the admiral’s cabin as though he had forgotten where he was. Then he turned back to Coyote, and his voice cracked as he said, “I want my people off this ship. Now. I don’t care when the company is coming out, I don’t care about the investigation. I’ll never go to sea again anyway. But if you don’t arrange to get us off this ship within the next hour or two, what I agreed to on that piece of paper won’t mean shit. I will not be responsible for my actions, do you hear? I will not.” Gaspert’s voice was rising now, his fury evident. For a moment, Coyote thought the admiral might come across the desk at him.
“Of course,” Coyote said, making his voice brisk and professional. “Completely understandable. I will make the arrangements immediately. Now, is there anything else I can do for you or your passengers?”
Gaspert started for the door. He paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Yes. You can all go fuck yourselves.”
Coyote stared at the door that Gaspert slammed behind him. There were moments when he felt the true, crushing weight of his responsibilities, and this was one of them. Men and women—
Coyote jabbed out the extension for CVIC. When a junior sailor answered, he said, “Tell Commander Busby I want to see him. Now.”
Coyote leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. There had to be an answer hidden somewhere in the mounds of data
FIFTEEN
Lab Rat and Lieutenant Strain divided up the data between them. Or, more correctly, they divided up the task of watching the experts, their enlisted people, go over the hours and hours of data. If the admiral was right, the answer to what had happened lay somewhere in the stream of raw data contained both on the disks and in the printouts.
The key, Coyote believed, was in the raw data. Not in the smooth tracks and histories displayed in Combat. Not in the correlation the computer assigned to a series of radar hits. Not in the final product displayed on the electronic warfare console. No, somewhere in the down and dirty was an anomaly, one that the computer had considered and then either discarded or merged with the wrong sequence of detections. It had to be that way, Coyote insisted, if one started with the premise that the American combat systems were inherently superior to the Russian ones. And nobody wanted to dispute that with him, did they?
Lab Rat’s leading chief petty, Chief Abbyssian, Senior Chief Armstrong’s replacement, had assigned his two best people to lead the reviews. The new chief had already gotten a good feel for his people’s capabilities. He gave a thick sheaf of computer printouts to one petty officer, and the analog records to another. Then, with a couple of quiet suggestions, he arranged for Strain to work with the digital data and his commander to review the analog data. His reasoning was that he paired each officer’s strength with the weakness of his technician. Then, the chief suggested, after each team had completed its review, they would swap data. The chief himself would review a CD that ran a scroll of numerical data next to its analog equivalent.
“I’m not sure what we’re looking for,” the chief said.
“Neither am I,” Lab Rat answered. “But there’s got to be something there — something. We don’t know what happened out there, but whatever it was, it left traces in the electromagnetic spectrum. We’ve got gear sensitive enough to record the noise a gnat makes farting a hundred miles away. Whatever happened, we’ve got a record of it.”
“That’s the thing, sir,” the chief said. “We’ve got too much data — tons of it. Pulling out the significant events from all the noise is going to take some time. Not to say we can’t do it,” he added, seeing Lab Rat’s expression cloud up. “But you know what I mean.”
Lab Rat sighed. He did, indeed. That was the problem with recording absolutely everything that happened at every frequency. It was not recorded as a set of discrete frequencies. This backup record was raw data, a complex waveform that would have to be broken down by the computer into its component frequencies. Okay, sure, it went pretty quickly. And in reality, there was only about five minutes of data that they needed to focus on.
But the broader question was what had led up to the fatal exchange of missiles. Why had the Russians fired?
