The other part of the solution was a very special radar, a low frequency set that used a strange phenomena called ‘surface adhesion’. At certain frequencies, radar pulses would actually stick to the surface of the sea and travel far over the horizon. The information they got back wasn’t accurate but combined with the radars in the missiles, it gave an over-the-horizon capability nobody had achieved before.
Somewhere out there was an American task group. A few days earlier, they’d sunk a Caliphate missile craft with 19 men on board. Wiping out that task group would be a fair exchange. And if these six missiles couldn’t do it, there were six more in a battery further south that would help.
USS “Thomas Jefferson” CC-3, Command Flagship, US Mediterranean Fleet
She was the oddest-looking warship in the world, looking as if an aircraft carrier had raped a passenger liner late one night and the offspring had been so frightened that her hair was standing straight up from her scalp. She had the multiple decks and cabins of a passenger liner but the flat top deck and offset island of an aircraft carrier.
Only what looked like a flight deck had never known the beat of wings and there was no hangar inside the strange-looking hull. The deck was to provide optimum positioning for the big radio and radar antennas. Instead of a hangar there were conference rooms, combat information centers and a worldwide data display system, truly the most elaborate and secure communications equipment money could buy. Thomas Jefferson could download information from satellites, from SACs reconnaissance aircraft, from anywhere the command staff chose.
There were only three other ships like the Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, CC-1 was with the Atlantic Fleet, CC-2 Abraham Lincoln was in the Pacific and Ulysses Grant, CC-4, was in the Indian Ocean. Two more were being built to cover times when one or more of the others were in dock.
Thomas Jefferson had been built at enormous expense so that one man could have the finest command facilities in the world. Here, now, that man was Admiral Mahan, Commander of the Mediterranean Fleet.
“Admiral Sir, there is some sort of major activity going on along the coast of the Sinai peninsula and Palestine. We have a mass of radio traffic, reports of heavy movements, all consistent with a major build-up. There is a massive base area under construction around Gaza. We’re picking up surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missile sites being built, airfields are going up and air units moving in. There are extensive reports of troop movements into that area. In all, Sir, it appears that the Gaza Area is becoming the primary base for Caliphate forces in the eastern Mediterranean. “
Admiral Mahan looked out across the sea. One of Thomas Jefferson’s, escorts was visible, the USS Fargo. She was barely recognizable as the same ship he’d commanded so many year before, her guns had gone, replaced by surface-to-air missile launchers, Talos fore and aft, Tartar on each beam. Times had changed, technology was unrecognizable but somehow it all seemed the same. One thing was certain, he wasn’t going to make the same mistakes that had broken Admiral Spruance and Captain Madrick.
“Sinking that FAC stirred them up, but there’s much more to this than that. Put the fleet on ready alert, Tell Shiloh and Enterprise to put up Hawkeyes for airborne command and control and link us through to them. I want to see their radar picture. CAP is to be up at all times, a mix of Missileers and Super-Crusaders. That takes priority over everything. And make sure both carriers have strikes ready to go if needed.
“Then, get through to Aviano and patch me through to the commander of the 357th, I want Chuck Larry’s F-108 drivers fully briefed as well. Finally, get through to Washington. We need to do a recon run along that coast, find out just what is going on over there. A U-2 would be nice, or an RB-58.”
Mahan looked out to sea again. He had one thing that Spruance and Madrick hadn’t, the deadliest naval weapon ever devised. A lethal piece of equipment that Thomas Jefferson had been built to exploit. The Naval Tactical Data System, otherwise known as NTDS.
CHAPTER SIX: CASUALTIES
Office of the Secretary of Defense, Washington DC
It was an outrage. He was the Secretary of Defense and he was being treated like a doormat. Nobody was giving him the respect and deference he deserved. Nobody would listen to him or pay any attention to his ideas. Today’s cabinet meeting had been an example. The matter of reconnaissance flights along the coast of Palestine had arisen. There was some sort of military build-up in the area and Commander Sixth Fleet had demanded more information. McNorman despised the senior military officers, all they cared about was buying the latest, most expensive toys to play with. Even worse, they were set in the past, they ignored the prospects that only those who understood the new wave of the future could appreciate. The hidebound fool didn’t want information anyway, he was hoping for an incident so he could shoot his shiny guns at things.
The President had approved the U-2 and RB-58 flights without even consulting him. McNorman seethed at the memory. He’d tried to re-establish his authority by laying down course and coverage orders for the aircraft. After he’d finished, LB.I had just looked at him and said “Yes Robert” in the same tone of voice he’d have used to a small child who had claimed to have seen fairies in the back yard. And his input had been completely ignored.
The door opened and Ramsey Chalk walked in. Unannounced and without the courtesy of a knock. That was another thing that infuriated McNorman, The Attorney General had been assigned one of the legendary Executive Assistants supplied by the contractors yet McNorman hadn’t. Dean Rusk had asked for one and they’d recruited his assistant within a few hours, a young woman called Inanna. Rusk never stopped singing her praises. When he wanted something, it was organized for him, when he went somewhere, the itinerary was timed and arranged to perfection. Yet, he, Robert McNorman still had a secretary rather than an Executive Assistant. It was an insult, McNorman thought, a deliberate insult.
“Robert, I have been considering the implication of today’s decision to fly reconnaissance flights over the Palestine coast. It is my ruling as Attorney General that the planned flights constitute a breach of International Law and by carrying them out, the United States will be committing a war crime. Since it is your department that will be responsible for these illegal flights, you also will be committing a crime.’
McNorman stared at Chalk with disbelief. He knew that the man had developed a habit of going well beyond his departmental remit in his search to place the United States under the control of international legal systems and organizations but this was going too far. The President himself had cleared the flights and, anyway, everybody knew SAC flew where it wanted, when it wanted, and woe betide anybody who tried to interfere.
“Robert, it is my decision to establish a series of rulings that will mitigate the severity of our criminal activities. I call them Rules of Engagement.” SAC already had those, McNorman reflected, as a rule, if somebody engaged SAC, they ceased to exist shortly afterwards. “I have written these out as a series of instructions for your crews. Distribute them before the flights tomorrow.”
McNorman looked at the list “Restricting the flights to subsonic speeds?”