Music from Iron Man, the last movie the crew had watched on the big screen in the enlisted mess, began to pour out of the speakers over the entire ship.
Peck nodded to the captain. “You have the com.” He tapped the XO on the shoulder. “You, come with me.”
The two men burst from the bridge hatch, heading for the Ready 5 Ospreys and FAST Marines. With the intercoms down, none of the sailors on the ship were aware anything was amiss. They were startled to see the XO and the admiral running.
Peck hated to be an asshole with men and women who didn’t know any better, but he growled as he shoved them aside.
As the old Navy saying went: “Gangway or sickbay.”
Someone was piping Black Sabbath over the intercoms, which was odd, Captain Goodrich thought, but pretty great for morale.
There was always good-natured ribbing between Marine FAST platoons and SEAL detachments. SEALs seemed to have classes of instruction on scrounging and were known to huddle around small camp stoves boiling water for coffee while they waited on Ready status. A few of them joked that FAST stood for Fake Ass SEAL Team, but calmed down after they worked together a few times. For his part, Captain Goodrich was content to sit along the sides of the Osprey with his eight-man squad, while the SEALs lounged on the tarmac, half submerged in big plastic tubs that were normally used to clean aircraft wheels — cooling off in their wet suits.
The FAST assistant platoon commander’s voice buzzed on the Sonitus Molar Mic. He was sitting under similar circumstances on an adjacent Osprey with his squad. “Goodrich, Arthur. You have commo with PRIFLY?”
“I’m not hearing anything.” Goodrich was seated up front, forward of the “hellhole” just aft of the cockpit. He glanced toward the open hatch.
As in most rotary-wing aircraft, the pilot in command sat in the right seat. Her name was Captain Avery Denny, call sign Scooter. She’d flown Goodrich and his platoon before. They’d sat together at dinner a couple of times. She was an extremely capable Marine — which, in Goodrich’s estimation, was about as high a compliment as he could give a person. She was engaged in an animated conversation with her copilot, tapping the side of her headset as if she, too, was having trouble reaching primary flight control.
Goodrich leaned forward in his seat, looking out the open aft ramp. The SEAL Det commander was out of his tub, braced at attention, his black wet suit draining water onto the deck.
Captain Goodrich unfastened his seat belt and, motioning the rest of his platoon to stay seated, made his way aft.
Something was happening.
Admiral Peck met him at the ramp. “Follow me, Captain,” he said, striding toward the cockpit in the way peculiar to a man who had zero doubt that his order would be followed.
Captain Avery glanced up in time to see the admiral. She started to get out of her seat but he shushed her back down with an open hand before waving Goodrich forward so he could talk to them both.
He took thirty seconds to give them a thumbnail sketch of the situation — the details of which were meager at best — then looked Goodrich in the eye. “The Chinese must be denied that missile. Are we clear?”
“Aye, sir,” Goodrich said.
“Do you have explosives on board?”
“Breaching equipment is with the second squad on the other bird.”
“You have commo with each other?”
“We do, sir.”
“Very well,” Peck said, gathering himself up to get off the Osprey. “Destroy the missile. Captain Denny, if Captain Goodrich and his men fail, send the trawler and the missile to the bottom. The Chinese will just go down and pick her up, but some of the tech might be destroyed.”
“Due respect, Admiral,” Denny said. “I know the MH-60s are in the air, but why do we not send the 35 to drop a torpedo down the trawler’s smokestack?”
“I’m moving on to that crew next,” Peck said. “With no commo on board we have to do it all in person. Nine-tenths of the people on this ship still believe everything is hunky-dory right now. But here’s the deal. The virus or whatever it is has infected the ship and both F-35s. I’m not a hundred percent sure you won’t fall out of the sky as soon as you leave the ship.” He bounced a fist on the back of the pilot’s headrest. “Now go! And Godspeed.”
Goodrich took his seat as the rear ramp began to close, and began to brief his men, including those on the adjacent Osprey. They had trained with the SEALs for this very thing and at the back of the bird, the lieutenant in charge of the SEAL Det was briefing his men as well. The Ospreys would come in low, pooping out the inflatable that now occupied the center of the hold. The SEALs would follow their boat out, then approach the trawler low from the water. FAST Marines would come in by air, fast-roping onto the deck as the Ospreys went into a hover, squad two covering squad one with the GAU .50-caliber from the second Osprey above.
“So,” Goodrich said, finishing the mission brief. “We destroy the missile or die trying!”
“Oorah!” his men said, as the Osprey’s engines spooled up.
Captain Avery “Scooter” Denny was oddly at ease, considering the gravity of her mission. She understood the admiral’s orders completely. If Captain Goodrich and his men were not able to destroy the missile, she was to destroy the Chinese ship — even if FAST Marines were still on board.
Correct takeoff procedures had to be followed, even under austere or emergency conditions. She and her copilot had already performed the necessary checks. She had no way to speak to PRIFLY, so she coordinated her takeoff with her wingman — the second V-22 she referred to as 12. As the lead aircraft, she was 11.
She turned to her copilot. “You ready to get this plopter in the air?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She spoke to her wingman again, advising her status and fuel state. “Eleven is ramps up. Ten-point-eight.”
“Twelve is ramps up. Ten-point-six.”
Captain Denny used her left thumb to set the nacelles on either wing to 90 degrees, then turned to the sailor on deck. The sailor, who’d received instructions from Admiral Peck, saluted. Denny returned the salute and increased power to eighty percent to pick up into a hover. She checked to ensure that her gauges were in the green, then looked out her cockpit window directly at the sailor on deck. He pointed forward. Cleared for takeoff, she input left cyclic and full thrust control lever to slide out over the water.
The instruments looked good. She still had commo. Relieved, she set the nacelles to 75 degrees, then checked the airspeed indicator.
“Gear is up,” she said. “Lights out. Doors closed. Cleared fast.”
69
Aboard USS Fort Worth, Ding Chavez used the satellite telephone to call Mary Pat Foley — and, as suggested by IT2 Richwine, see what “big things” were going on in the world. If anyone was in a position to have that information, it would be the director of national security. She mentioned the LRASM missile test off the Makin Island right off the bat. PACOM had lost radio contact with the ship. Someone was talking to them via satellite phone at the moment, and Foley was waiting to be briefed so she could brief the President.
Chavez got the number for the sat phone and hung up, turning to Commander Akana.
“You know anyone on the Makin Island?”
“I know the XO.”
Chavez passed him the satellite phone and then tapped the Faraday bag. “Sounds like this baby has infected their boat.”
Akana did not need to be told what he needed to do. He punched in the number Chavez had written down and called IT2 Richwine over.