memorizing the location in relation to where it was and heading directly for it. Second, it began exchanging data over the airwaves with the carrier itself, slipping into the LINK just as though it were an independent aircraft. While in flight, it could be retargeted by either the watch officer on the carrier or by Barry.
Once it was clear of the Tomcat, the missile would make certain of its bearings, then descend rapidly to a preprogrammed altitude above ground — or sea, in this case. From there, it would home in on the site, hopefully sliding under the radar envelope and using terrain to hide itself. The altitude could be preset or altered from the cockpit, allowing for maximum flexibility in cases of high sea states. The lowest possible setting was nearly five feet, and any sea state at all could easily result in waves knocking it out of the air.
“Got it,” his RIO snapped. The new target appeared on Barry’s HUD. “Just where she’s supposed to be.”
“Range?” Barry asked.
“Release in three seconds,” his RIO answered. “Two, one — release!”
Barry toggled the weapon off, feeling the aircraft jolt slightly as it left the wing. It shot out in front of them, then arced away, a slender white streak against the dark blue sea.
“Fox One, Fox One,” Barry snapped over tactical.
“Looks good,” the E-2 Hawkeye commented from overhead, overseeing the engagements a safe distance away from the shore stations.
“Damned right it does,” Barry muttered. Nothing worse than having a critique offered by somebody who was well out of harm’s way.
“Come left ten degrees,” his RIO suggested. “I think I’ve got another — yes, there it is.” He toggled another target onto the HUD, adding, “Your dot.”
“Like shooting fish in a barrel,” Barry said. “With the other fishermen standing on the bank afraid to get their feet wet.”
There was a moment of puzzled silence from the backseat. Barry’s fondness for homespun metaphors was exceeded only by his willingness to combine them in new and interesting ways, often to the confusion of his listener.
“Well, their bank is going to get a little crowded after we’re through,” his RIO said finally, having deciphered the mixed metaphor and simply trying to go with it.
“That’s right,” Barry said. “Bank walkers, all of them.” Leaving his RIO to puzzle that one out, he toggled off another weapon.
“Torpedo in the water, torpedo in the water!” Greenberg said, drowning them out. “Two torpedoes — no, three! Probable targets, carrier and cruiser.” Even as he spoke, the tactical circuit was springing to life as the symbols he entered on a screen classifying the new contacts as torpedoes were immediately transmitted to everyone in the data link. The cruiser began a series of sharp evasive maneuvers, intending to throw the torpedo off track. The carrier began its own long, slow turn, popping out noisemakers and decoys in the water like confetti.
“Targeting solution — now,” Greenberg snapped, sending the data to the TACCO, who promptly entered the point and sent it to Rabies.
“One fish away — two,” Rabies reported, toggling off two torpedoes. “Greedy little shit, isn’t she?”
“For now,” Greenberg said, his voice grim. “But the carrier’s blasting out so much noise off the water from her propellers and her noisemakers that I’m having a hard time holding contact on passive sonar. Recommend we go active immediately.”
“Concur,” his TACCO said crisply. They activated the dual-purpose sonobuoys, the ones capable of both passive detection and active ranging. Each one had a small sonar transmitter in it as well as a receiver — the transducer. They started pinging, and immediately acquired contact on their target.
“I got her!” Greenberg reported. “She’s heading for the drilling rig, sir. The torpedoes are in active mode, search pattern now — man, she’s putting out some noise! No way our fish will miss her!”
Rabies chewed his lip thoughtfully. Once the torpedoes acquired the contact, they would head for it at speeds in excess of forty knots. Minisubs themselves were not capable of much over ten knots, if that. Still, the torpedoes were mighty close to the drilling rig, and there was always a chance that they would nail one of the supports to the rig rather than the submarine.
“You keep an eye on them,” he ordered, aware that it was unnecessary, but feeling he had to do something. “They head under the drilling rig, you pull the fish off. You got it?”
“Yes, sir. I got it.” Greenberg’s answer was almost offhand, as he was already working the intercept solution himself.
Two hours into his watch, Hamish was already exhausted. The constant stress, the midnight alerts, and the imminent prospects of being attacked, coupled with little food and less water, were enough to do anyone in. The Stinger missile on his shoulder, the business end resting on the sandbag wall behind him, was increasingly heavy. It had not seemed to weigh that much when he’d first hefted it onto his shoulder, but over the hours, its weight had increased geometrically.
He patted the canteen at his side, and thought longingly about taking another sip of the water. But the thirst would be worse later on, and he’d better save it for then. Besides, the temperature of the water was near one hundred degrees now, and it would be better to wait until he went below and it had cooled off a bit. No point in wasting it.
Not that it was that much cooler below. The hasty construction of the series of antiaircraft posts along the coast had left little time or resources for creature comforts such as air-conditioning. The emplacement was little more than an antiaircraft battery position, surrounded by sandbags, with a control station hastily installed in a concrete-walled dugout below. In theory, the control station below was sufficiently fortified and reinforced to withstand most attacks, but nobody really believed it. Placing it all in the dugout did keep the computers somewhat cooler, and provided a little shelter from the sun for the crew.
For not the first time, Hamish wondered exactly why he was standing this watch at all. With the radar in operation, surely the detection would come first from that, not from the naked eye, wouldn’t it? He had started to ask the question, but in his top sergeant’s expression saw his father’s face. Hard, cold, tolerating no disagreement or questions. It was, Hamish thought, what he hoped he would look like to his own sons one day.
Again he patted the canteen, reassured by its weight that it was almost full, and wondered if somewhere down the coast one of his brothers was at that moment doing the same thing. He thought longingly of his younger brother, younger by only fourteen months, who was still at home.
Sweat was gathering in his eyebrows, trickling down his forehead, and stopping there, waiting until it gathered sufficient mass to break the surface tension. Every five minutes, he was rewarded with a deluge of hot, salty water in his eyes. He ran a hasty, damp hand across them, feeling absurdly like a windshield wiper. It didn’t seem right that his own sweat would sting him that much.
Suddenly, a horn sounded. He heard an excited jumble of voices rise up from the bunker below him before the trapdoor leading down to it slammed shut. What was it — what had they seen? He scanned the sky frantically, searching for a target, hoping against hope that the antimissile missiles in the battery would do what they were supposed to.
Then he saw it, lower on the horizon that he would have thought. Had his eyes not been staring at exactly the right position, he would have missed it. If it had been anywhere else, it would have taken longer to find. He raised the binoculars to his eyes, searching the sky for it, dropped them long enough to find that it had moved significantly, then refocused.
There was a small puff of smoke and a sliver separated itself from the wing. A contrail tumbled behind it, stark and startling against the clear night sky, illuminated by the full moon.
