Time for the kill.
CHAPTER 43
United States Navy warships never sleep. From well before the fanfare and flag waving of her commissioning ceremonies until the moment she’s stricken from the service registry, every U.S. combatant vessel hums with unceasing activity.
At sea, tied to a pier, or lying in the cradle of a shipyard dry dock, her decks, passageways, and compartments are alive with officers and sailors. Sometimes the activity is readily apparent, as crewmembers go about the business of maintenance, training, cleaning, and conducting combat or non-combat operations. Other times, the action is more subdued and less obvious. But even cruising late at night during those rare intervals when most of the world considers itself to be in a state of peace, at least twenty percent of a warship’s crew is awake and working. Standing watch on the bridge, in the engineering spaces, at the damage control consoles, at the radar displays and other sensors in CIC and Sonar Control. Roving watch personnel, patrolling for signs of fire, flooding, and security threats. A continual pulse of wakeful attention that ebbs and flows, but never stops.
USS Walter W. Winterburn was no exception to the principle. At a little after 3:00 a.m., while two-thirds of her crewmembers lay resting in their bunks, more than a hundred men and women were awake and on duty. Collectively, their job was to guard the ship and protect sleeping shipmates from harm.
Keeping the watch is a practice that predates most other functions of human civilization. Long before the discovery of fire or the earliest tools, Australopithecus (or some equally remote ancestor of man) had undoubtedly learned the importance of standing guard against hostile bands of fellow hominids and the predators of the night.
It’s a sacred trust that remains as crucial to modern life as it was at the dawn of humanity — although many people today have only a hazy awareness of the men and women who are sworn to protect them from harm.
The Mid Watch team of the USS Winterburn knew their jobs and they kept the ancient tradition with all the care and solemnity that such a vital responsibility demands. They did not shirk from their duties. Nor did they lack in skill or diligence.
Unfortunately, skill and diligence are not always enough. Sometimes, luck outweighs the best of intentions and preparations.
Fortune was not with the Winterburn in the pre-dawn hours of March the first. The ship’s initial bit of bad luck took the form of simple refractive physics. The thermal profile of the ocean created a refraction zone that bent sound energy away from the destroyer’s acoustic sensors, sending all possible target signals into deeper water where they could not be detected.
Not a trace of the approaching submarine appeared on any display screen in Winterburn’s Sonar Control. There was never a single moment in which the Mid Watch sonar team could have spotted the imminent threat. There was no opportunity for them to take the appropriate actions.
Their first clue was also their final one: the sudden detection of hydrophone effects off the port stern. Unlike the deep and quiet running submarine, this new sonar contact was incredibly loud — blasting across the broadband and narrowband displays like a runaway rocket. And that’s exactly what it was.
The Sonar Supervisor quickly identified the blaring acoustic signature as a supercav torpedo. His hasty classification was absolutely correct and of no tactical use whatsoever. It was already too late. The incoming weapon was too close and much too fast.
The end came in seconds.
Guided into position by a GOLIS internal navigation system (Go-Onto-Location-in-Space), the torpedo reached a preprogrammed waypoint beneath the keel of its target. The final arming criterion for the warhead was satisfied. Two hundred twenty-five kilograms of plasticized RDX detonated with a destructive force more than one and a half times as powerful as an equal mass of TNT.
USS Walter W. Winterburn’s second bit of bad luck was even more deadly than the first. The epicenter of the exploding warhead happened to be directly below the forward ammunition magazine.
The Winterburn was not merely devastated. She was obliterated.
When the reverberations of the shockwave had subsided and the last droplets of spray had fallen back to the wave tops, all that remained of the 9,200 ton destroyer was a spreading oil slick and a field of thinly scattered debris floating under the stars.
United States Navy warships never sleep.
But sometimes they die.
CHAPTER 44
A poke in the ribs jolted National Security Advisor Frank Cerney out of his first decent sleep in nearly a week. He swatted drowsily at the intruding hand, but the poking assault was renewed.
“Wake up, Batman,” Heather said in his ear. “Your double-secret bat phone is ringing.”
“Tell ‘em I quit,” Cerney groaned. “Better yet… tell ‘em I’m dead.”
Heather poked his ribs again. “You tell them, Hubby Dear. Lowly wives do not speak on the bat phone.”
Frank’s response was preempted by another string of low beeps from the secure telephone unit on the bedside table.
He groaned and fumbled the handset out of the cradle, nearly dropping it before he could align receiver to ear. “Cerney.”
The voice on the other end was crisp and wide awake. “Good morning, sir. This is Lieutenant Colonel Buchanan, the Sit Room Duty Officer. Sorry to disturb you so early, but we’re going to need you in the Situation Room.”
“Give me the two-cent version,” Frank said, “and let’s keep it unclassified because I’m too cross-eyed to diddle this phone into secure mode.”
“There’s been another naval engagement, sir.”
“I take it that things didn’t go well for our team?” Frank asked.
“No, sir,” the Duty Officer said. “Things didn’t go well at all.”
Frank rubbed his eyes. “I’ll be on my way as soon as I can get some pants on,” he said. “Make sure there’s coffee.”
He returned the handset to the cradle and sat up on the edge of the bed, looking over his shoulder to tell Heather about the abrupt cancellation of their plans for a lazy Sunday morning.
She was already burrowed under the comforter and snoring softly. He’d leave a note instead and call her later in the morning if he could.
His eyes traced the curve of her cheek and the tangled mass of her red-gold hair, faintly visible in the feeble illumination of the bedside clock. Listening to the gentle rhythm of her breathing, he wondered for the millionth time what he had done to deserve the love of this woman.
He stood there for perhaps a minute, reluctant to look away from his sleeping wife. Then he blinked, sighed, and shuffled toward the bathroom to wash up.
The Frank Cerney who straggled into the Sit Room forty minutes later was not a good match for the photo on his security badge. The man pictured on the badge was nattily turned out, with a charcoal Armani suit and a perfect Double Windsor in his striped Princeton necktie.
This alternate version of the national security advisor was bleary-eyed and pasty of complexion. His hair was badly combed, his shave was spotty, and his necktie was askew.