It appeared on the video screen without warning: a brilliant wedge of jittering green static that dominated the lower left quadrant of the SPY radar display. Operations Specialist Third Class Angela Hartford stared at the flickering green triangle with disbelief. She had been tracking three air contacts in that sector, and now she couldn’t see any of them. They were totally eclipsed by the pulsing wedge of static. It was an equipment malfunction or maybe a software error. It had to be. Because the only other possible explanation was impossible. At least it was supposed to be impossible.
Hartford glanced across Combat Information Center to the Radar Control Officer’s console, to the left of the Tactical Action Officer’s station. She punched the channel selector on her communications panel, patching her headset into the Radar Control Officer’s circuit. “RCO — Air. I’m getting some kind of weird system artifact on my air tracking display. It’s gobbling up about a sixty-degree sector of my radar coverage. Can you run a quick diagnostic on SPY and check it out?”
The AN/SPY-1D(V)2 phased-array radar formed the heart of the ship’s Aegis integrated sensor and weapons suite. With a power output of over four million watts and a high — data-rate multi-function computer control system, the most recent generation of SPY radar was capable of detecting and tracking nearly two hundred simultaneous air and surface contacts. In Aegis ready-auto mode, SPY could detect a contact, classify it as friendly or hostile (based on its radar signature, movement characteristics, and approach profile), prioritize it in relation to other threat ships or aircraft, and — if necessary — assign and launch missiles to attack it. Following a missile launch, SPY could even assess the target for damage and decide whether to launch additional missiles to finish it off.
But with such technological power came complexity, and the need for continuous human attention and frequent adjustment. That was the job of the Radar Control Officer: monitoring the condition of the SPY radar and keeping it tuned for optimum performance based upon atmospheric conditions and the types of ships and aircraft operating in and around its detection envelope.
The Radar Control Officer answered Hartford’s call almost immediately. “Air — RCO. Copy your suspected system artifact. Running SPY diagnostics now. Stand by for updated system status.”
Hartford was about to key her mike to acknowledge when another voice broke in on the circuit. “RCO — Surface. I’m getting it too. A big section of my scope is getting creamed. I can’t see squat off the port side of the stern. Somebody’s jamming us.”
The RCO’s reply was sharp. “Surface — RCO. Watch your professionalism on the comm net! Didn’t they teach you anything in school? SPY frequency-hops about a hundred times a second. You can’t jam SPY without jamming the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Now stand by while I run SPY diagnostics.”
Hartford nodded. The RCO was right. Everybody knew it was impossible to jam SPY, and not just because of the frequency-hopping. At four megawatts, SPY was powerful enough to burn through any jamming signal known to man.
Hartford watched the brilliant triangle of static on her screen. It couldn’t be a jammer, but it sure looked like one.
She punched her channel selector, patching her headset into the Electronics Warfare circuit. “EW — Air. Are you showing any sort of electromagnetic interference off the port quarter?” She shied away from the word jammer. Better not to get people spun up over nothing.
The Electronics Warfare Technician was obviously trying to stifle a yawn as his voice came over the comm circuit. “Air — EW. That’s a negative. I’m tracking a couple of APG-79s and a WXR-2100 down in that sector. Slick-32 shows no interference in any sector. The EM spectrum looks nice and clean.”
“EW — Air. I copy no interference and a clean electromagnetic spectrum. Thanks.” Hartford released her mike button. The APG-79s would belong to the two F-18s she’d been tracking prior to the appearance of the artifact, and the WXR-2100 must be weather radar for the Saudi airliner she’d been tracking. Whatever the strange interference was, it was not a jammer. If it had been, the Electronics Warfare Technicians would have picked it up on their SLQ-32, or as they called it, the Slick-32.
Hartford frowned. If it wasn’t a jammer, then it had to be a SPY malfunction. Either hardware or software. Hartford shrugged and turned her attention to the three hundred degrees of her scope that were not being blown away by the video artifact. Whatever it was, the RCO would find it.
CHAPTER 14
President Chandler laid both palms flat on the polished mahogany tabletop and let his eyes travel down one side of the long conference table and back up the other. The seven men and five women gathered around the table ranged in age from thirty-four to sixty-eight. Some were in military uniform, and some were not. A few wore suits, but most were dressed casually, in whatever they’d been wearing when the call had gone out for an emergency meeting. The single visible characteristic common to all of them was the grim expression they shared.
Seated directly across the table, Vice President Dalton Wainright nodded once when the president’s eye caught his.
Veronica Doyle sat to the president’s immediate left, in the spot traditionally reserved for the White House chief of staff. She leaned over next to him and whispered. “SecState is still shuttling back and forth between Beijing and Taipei, trying to nip the China situation in the bud. She’s got Undersecretary Mitchell covering for her.”
The president nodded and said quietly, “I don’t see SecNav either.”
“Secretary Larribee called from his car,” Doyle said. “He’s stuck in traffic on the beltway. I’ve got police escorts in route, trying to make a big enough hole to get him out of there, but it’ll probably be at least an hour.”
She nodded toward the Chief of Naval Operations. “In the meantime, the CNO is ready to cover the Navy angle.”
“Good enough,” the president said. He looked at the CNO and said in a louder voice, “Bob, I understand that your boss probably isn’t going to make it. Are you ready to proceed?”
Admiral Robert Casey stood up and nodded toward his commander in chief. “Yes, Mr. President.” He picked up a small remote control and ran his thumb across a dial. The room lights dimmed and, at the far end of the conference table, a large projection screen scrolled down from a recess in the ceiling.
The admiral’s summer-white uniform fairly glowed in the semi-darkened room. The contrast between the immaculate twill fabric and his tanned, weather-beaten face made his skin seem the color of old leather.
He pressed another button and an image filled the screen. It appeared to be an aerial view of a large industrial seaport. A good deal of the picture was obscured by cloud cover, but — judging from the clarity of the image — the shot appeared to have been taken from low altitude with a very good camera.
“This photograph was taken on the seventh of this month by a U.S. Air Force Oracle III series surveillance satellite, during a covert medium-altitude orbital pass over Western Europe. The area under surveillance, in this case, was the Deutsche Marine Naval Arsenal in Kiel, Germany.”
The admiral pressed a button on the remote, and the image was replaced by an enlargement of a section of the photo. The picture was somewhat grainier than the first image had been, but the clarity was still very good. Several dark cylindrical shapes could be seen in the waters adjacent to a series of parallel docks, each attended by a large yellow crane. Workmen were clearly visible on the docks and on and around the dark cylinders.