Along with that, he had to keep in mind the other systems presumably locked on the incomers as well. The battery at Ben Gurion, for one. Israel’s other ABM defense, the Arrow, he knew very little about. A midphase interceptor, though. By the time he had to make his call, he shouldn’t have to worry about it.
He’d have to watch for the Patriot launch, though. Savo and the Israeli army battery might be firing nearly simultaneously. That was another terminal homer, and it was closer to the enemy. Savo would be shooting over its shoulder.
Which would not be good for either’s P-sub-K. He called, “EW: Sing out if you see a Ku-band homer from that Patriot site.”
“Roger, sir.”
A touch at his elbow. Ammermann, the broad earnest face sallow now. “Captain. Do I understand one of those missiles is aimed at us?”
“The first one. The intent being to take us out first. Then the Patriot battery, is my guess. The third, and the ones after that, can strike undefended targets.”
“Can you take that missile out?”
Dan said, “The question is, do we want to.”
“What do you mean? You have to!”
Terranova said, loudly but without any stress in that Joisey accent, “Meteor Alfa, apogee. Hundred and forty kilometers up. Fifteen thousand miles an hour. About to commence terminal phase. Lock-on is firm.”
Wenck added, “Request permission to engage Track Alfa with SM-2.”
Dan waved the staffer away. Said to the TAO, “Where are we in the launch basket, Cheryl?”
“Damn near at the hairy edge, Captain. But I don’t think we want to initiate a turn right now. Two-round engagement?” She hesitated, carefully dressed nails poised over the keyboard. No color, as per regs, but they were neatly manicured and shiny with clear polish.
“Permission to engage?” Wenck asked again.
“Not yet,” Dan said.
She turned, and those wide blue eyes searched his. “Two-round engagement,” she repeated, this time without the question mark. “At least, can we roll the FIS to green?”
The firing integrity switch wasn’t really used as a safety, but it ended up being used that way by default. He said slowly, “FIS to green. But negative on permission to engage.”
Another tug on his arm. “That’s against the first missile, right?”
“Mr. Ammermann, I’ve asked you before. Now I’m telling you. Keep out of my way! — Stand by, Cheryl. Donnie.” He tore his gaze from her and nailed it onto the rightmost screen, where the quivering brackets held the center of the picture as the mountains and wadis across which the armies of Egypt and Babylon and Assyria, Rome and Britain, had marched, clicked past with each sweep-and-refresh of the beam.
The Eye of Sauron. If only he could reach out with that demonic entity’s power to destroy. It seemed counterintuitive, that the assemblages of metal and solid fuel, electronics and explosives, sleeping umbilicaled in Savo’s deep-racked womb could in mere minutes be hurtling through space. To hit a bullet with a bullet … it seemed impossible.
And judging by the tests to date, the probabilities weren’t all that high.
He rubbed his face, creepy with déjà vu, recognizing the nightmare scenario he’d dreaded. His magazines were almost empty. Should he take the most imminent incoming threat? Increase his probability of kill? And leave the pair following in its comet trail down through the troposphere to impact in their defended area?
Or: Fire one on the first incomer, and the second on the first Israel-targeted warhead?
If only he knew their payloads. Explosives? Nuclear? Chemical? Poisonous isotopes, with half-lives in the centuries?
Or worst of all, the secret horror he and the Signal Mirror team had discovered years before, in those silent tunnels beneath Baghdad. He shuddered, remembering blanket-wrapped bundles, infected technicians hidden away to die … shivering, feverish, unconscious, faces and hands scabbed with horrendous lesions.…
Dr. Fayzah al-Syori—“Doctor Death”—had started with the most deadly disease in history. Then engineered it to increase its virulence, enhance its lethality, and enable it to jump from host to host on the wings of touch, breath, even the wind.
Classic smallpox killed 40 percent of an unvaccinated population. The death rate from the hemorrhagic variant was double that. And, an Army doctor had told him then, it wouldn’t stop at national boundaries.
He shook his head, finding it hard even to breathe. If what he feared was true, only his last and final alternative made sense. He should use both his weapons on the delivery vehicles targeted on the city.
But that would leave Savo naked to what had to be some kind of homing weapon, even now screaming down, less than a hundred miles away, closing at twenty thousand miles an hour. When his gaze sought the IPP oval again, it had shrunk to a pinpoint.
Meteor Alfa was still aimed right at them.
“Sir. You still haven’t given permission to fire,” said Staurulakis. Her lips stayed parted. Her pale thin face hung abeyant, staring at him. The CIC itself seemed to have grown larger, the steel around them thin as the shell of a blown egg. Dan was sweating. His mind was cold, the way it always, or almost always, got when things became really tense. But his body didn’t agree. He pressed his palms down on the desk, so no one could see the CO’s hands shaking.
“I know. Whites of their eyes, Cher,” he said again, as calmly as he could manage.
“It’s inside our outer engagement envelope.”
“Captain, what’s going on here? Aren’t you going to fire?”
“Mr. Ammermann, one more word and I’ll have you removed. — I know, Cher. But like Donnie says, the later we shoot, the more maneuverability the homer has. We’ve got another, what, fifty seconds? Just stand by. Just stand by.”
“Very well, sir.” She closed her mouth and turned back to the screen.
Suddenly, he made his decision. Though it really hadn’t been a choice. Just remorseless logic. He reached for the 21MC. “Bridge, CO: Come left, steady on zero seven zero, bring her up to flank. Pass Circle William throughout the ship. Launch-warning bell forward.” He clicked to Helo Control. “Pass to Red Hawk: Remain to our east and stand by to dispense flares.” As Savo began to lean, he told Slaughenhaupt, “Deploy the rubber duckies. Stand by to launch chaff.”
The orders clamored away, repeated down the line. Circle William shut down ventilation, sealing them off from outside air. Ticonderogas weren’t designed to endure chemical- or biological-warfare conditions. They didn’t have filtered air supplies or positive ventilation. But securing blowers and dogging every access topside would at least give them a few minutes’ grace, during which, perhaps, they could steam out of a wind-carried contaminant plume. The “rubber duckies” were decoys. An array inside the inflatable tetrahedron simulated the cross section of a ship, presenting a radar-guided missile with a simulacrum of Savo. With any luck it would select the wrong one … that is, if the incoming homer was radar-guided.
“You’re going to take it head-on?” Staurulakis murmured. “We sure about this, Captain?”
He wanted to say, Duh … Hell no, but muttered, “That’s what we’re here for, Cheryl. What do cruisers do? When they’re in the screen, protecting the high-value unit.”
“Exhaust our magazines. Then absorb the last salvo ourselves.”
“Exactly. If we can sacrifice ourselves to shield the carrier, we damn sure can go down protecting a city.”