But more important just now: the three ballistic missiles on the way, with only two rounds in his magazines. He pushed sweat off his forehead. His calf muscles were knotting painfully, and he stretched out a leg and flexed it.
Slaughenhaupt leaned across and said past Staurulakis, “Captain? Lahav’s changing station.”
“What’s that, Chief?”
“Dropping back. Still maintaining five miles, but looks like she’s repositioning.”
What the hell? “Which way?”
“South.”
“Okay, keep me informed.” Dan reared back, but couldn’t see over the consoles between him and the electronic-warfare stacks. “And Cheryl, make sure we have the first team back there. This’d be a great time to clobber us from behind.”
A stir in the rear of CIC; someone clunked the door shut and dogged it. At that moment Ammermann hitched his chair forward. “What’s going on? Are you shooting them down?”
“Silence,” Dan snapped, then realized the old powder-magazine command — to freeze in place and shut up — wouldn’t carry much meaning for the civilian. “No time to explain. Keep quiet, or leave.”
The right screen jumped second to second among the three rising missiles. The elevation numbers on the first, Alfa, were still ratcheting upward, but the rate of climb was slackening. At the same time, though, it was gathering velocity westward. Converting the awesome speed accumulated in ascent into horizontal swiftness. Bent, by gravity’s rainbow — Pynchon’s phrase — into a ballistic arc. The others, lagging by a few seconds, had not yet reached that phase of flight.
A cunning tactic. Multiple incomers would saturate any defense, not just his own, but Israel’s. He remembered his computer, but didn’t have time to type. He had to be the consciousness above the action, keeping it all in his head. Savo was nearing the south limit of her patrol box. He’d have to choose. Either turn back, risking the loss of his targets while reorienting the locked-on radars; or increase his launch angle, and reduce probability of kill. All the while keeping in mind the threat from shore; the souls in Red Hawk, hurtling through utter darkness, over rough seas, fighting gusts and snow; and the Israeli frigate close aboard, engaged in some puzzling maneuver of her own device.
He clicked the notebook closed and set it aside.
“Getting a better IPP on Alfa,” Staurulakis murmured. Dan shifted his attention to the center screen, and caught his breath.
The predicted point of impact was still altering shape with successive recomputation. But with each recalculation, the oblate oval was contracting. He’d expected it to center on their defended area. But it wasn’t even over land, much less over Tel Aviv.
The shrinking circle of the first predicted impact point was twenty miles out at sea.
Right over the blue plus-sign-in-a-circle that meant own ship.
16
“COMING right down our throat,” Wenck said. He’d come over to stand behind Dan.
“Uh-huh. Any last-minute ideas?”
“Just one, Captain. Remember, Block 4’s a terminal-phase interceptor. We shoot too soon, the sustainer’ll flame out before it gets there. Or lack the juice to maneuver?”
“You’re saying, whites of their eyes.”
Wenck looked puzzled, then nodded. “Yeah. Whites of their eyes.”
Slaughenhaupt passed it on in a murmur over the voice circuit. Great, it’d be all over the ship in minutes. A few feet away Ammermann, looking scared, had taken out a BlackBerry and was busily clicking something into it.
Okay, it was as good a battle cry as any.
The screens kept changing. He wanted to tell Cher to slow down, but there were only three screens and she had to channel-surf to keep up. The ALIS feed kept flickering too, switching among the trio of incomers now entering exoatmospheric flight. Meteor Alfa was streaking westward now. The impact prediction twitched off Savo Island’s symbol, but then crept back. The oval kept shrinking, contracting, but stayed centered on them.
He murmured, “What’s the plan, Cher?”
“Recommend we take out Alfa, sir. Two-round salvo.”
“What about the other two?”
“Their IPP’s not us.” She toggled and he saw this was true. The second and third ovals were taking shape, vibrating like stranded jellyfish and sort of shaped like them too. The two follow-on warheads would impact well inland.
“They’re targeted on our defended assets.”
“Yessir. But self-defense comes first.”
Something about “self-defense” reminded him they weren’t alone out here. “Get that word to Pittsburgh. He’ll probably be okay, but he doesn’t want to be at ’scope depth right now.”
“And Lahav?”
“I’ll call him.” He dialed to Channel 16, bridge to bridge. “Lahav, this is Savo Island.”
The response took only seconds. “Lahav. Over.”
“For your information, I am taking three incoming theater ballistic missiles under fire. Two are targeted on your capital city. The other’s aimed at me. I’ll be trying to shake it, but it’s possible it may decoy onto you. So be warned, and please stand clear while I’m firing. Confirm. Over.”
“This is Lahav. I understand. Should I clear to the east? Over.”
“This is Savo. Negative, that won’t make much difference before it’s here.”
Another voice, stronger: Marom’s. The Israeli skipper must have been on the bridge, or in the corvette’s CIC. “Copy your launch warning. Thank you for the heads-up. I will continue to guard you.”
Dan exchanged an eyebrows-up with Staurulakis and Slaughenhaupt. “Continue to guard you.” Would’ve been nice if he’d made his mission clear earlier. “Roger, out.”
The hiss of ether, then Marom again. “Savo, this is Lahav. Thank you for protecting our country. Out.”
He socketed the phone, oppressed by the sense of time ticking away, of weapons that would in minutes drill down through the fringes of mesosphere sixty miles up. He reviewed the problem. He’d have to decide very soon now.
Boost phase was over. The lead missile was entering midphase, coasting in that great arc outside the atmosphere. Outside, so despite its terrific speed there was no friction heating. This was the hardest part of its flight during which to maintain track. It was nearly head-on, so not only was it infrared-dim, but its radar cross section was at a minimum.
Thus far, though, ALIS seemed to have a solid grip, to judge from the callouts, which were now registering a high but unvarying speed consistent with ballistic flight. That velocity would remain constant across the crest of the exoatmospheric arc, then build again as it plunged.
Entering the terminal phase, when the gravity-accelerated delivery vehicle hit those first air molecules. Along with a heat signature, the warhead would grow an ionization trail as its ablative sheathing charred away. The cross section didn’t grow much, but the electrically charged ionization plume bounced a radar signal too — actually a bigger one than the warhead at its heart. As with the Scud attacks back during Desert Storm, the challenge then became to discriminate between the payload proper and any debris or decoys reentering along with it.
Since his Block 4s were terminal-phase homers, he had to engage then. At that point — ticking rapidly closer, as the delivery vehicle nosed over, ninety miles above Jordan — his decision time would shrink from minutes to seconds, and not many of those.