“Look at the map, Dan. And let them have it good. We stomp these snakes in the nest, maybe more civilians won’t die.”
“Aye aye, ma’am.”
Roald signed off. Dan socketed the handset and swung down. The bridge was suddenly full of many more people, all busy. He debated staying, but his strike station was in Combat. Still, he stood over the chart for a moment, frowning. Then noticed the international boundaries, and suddenly understood.
If they launched from the position Roald had just assigned him, the low-flying cruises could follow the Lebanese-Israeli border east, allowing both countries to deny they’d granted overflight rights. Past that it got more complicated, with Jordan and Syria still between the sea and western Iraq. But Jordan generally cooperated with the U.S., and Syria might need the unmistakable threat a dozen missiles violating its airspace would provide.
All that was beyond his pay grade, though. The kinds of things he’d worried about when he was in the West Wing.
Past the bustle he caught a glimpse of Longley. His steward lifted a covered tray, eyebrows raised. Dan shook his head at him—not now—and brushed past.
He was intercepted on the ladder down by the chief corpsman. Grissett was lugging a heavy black tome with a scarlet-and-gold-embossed cover. “Skipper, got a minute?”
“Not really, Doc. But if it’s important—”
“It might be. Yeah. I think it could be.”
“Quick download. We’re getting ready to launch a Tomahawk strike.”
“This won’t take long. We got an autopsy and lab reports back on Goodroe.”
Dan coughed into a fist, experiencing a bad second before he remembered who Goodroe was. Then it came back. A peaceful-looking, heavy-jawed face, nude chest. Dried foam at the corner of a livid mouth. A flaccid, purplish penis, and the thin tube of the catheter going in … And nobody seeming to have much idea why the sailor had died. It felt like it had happened months ago, but of course it had been only days since they’d helo’d the body out. Grissett said, “This is from Bethesda, but looks like they got Fort Detrick in on it too.”
Dan took a fast breath. Fort Detrick was Army, infectious disease. And not only that, biological warfare. He’d spent time there himself. Locked in a negative-pressure Maximum Biocontainment Patient Care suite while they’d waited to see if he, and the rest of the Signal Mirror team, would sicken and die. “Give me the — no, just tell me. It wasn’t drugs, was it?”
“No sir. No trace of any drugs.”
“The anthrax shot?”
“Probably not, although they can’t rule it out. They think it’s fungal.”
Dan turned at the landing and started down the next ladder, head turned to keep talking to Grissett, who followed. “Huh. Fungal? Not viral?”
“No sir. They list the organisms they suspect. Question is where he could’ve picked them up. Also, we got two more guys down.”
He stopped in the passageway, staring at Grissett. “Two more dead?”
“No sir, no — I meant, two more on sick call. Cough, elevated temperature, torpor. I dose ’em with cipro, but I’m stumped as to what we’re actually seeing.” The corpsman opened the tome, a heavy medical reference. Started to hold it out, then closed it again as Dan waved it away. “Actually, the cipro may not even be helping. Which might explain why some of them don’t seem to be getting better.”
Dan lowered his voice, though they were alone in the echoing narrow ladderwell that slanted as Savo rolled. “Are you saying there’s something infectious aboard? Something Goodroe died of?”
“That might be one conclusion.”
“Can it be bacteriological? I mean — obviously it’s bacteriological — I mean—”
“A deliberate attack?” Grissett looked grave. “If so, it’s too late to fend it off. I’m seeing cases all over the ship. At first just one. Now I’m getting four, five at each sick call. Not all bad enough to sick-bay. But it’s definitely building.”
“Christ.” He sucked a breath, then remembered where he’d been heading. “Give me the message.… Is it on the LAN? I’ll read it right away and get back to you. Is there anything we can do?”
The 1MC came on, hissed, then said, “Captain to CIC: Now set Condition Two, Strike. All strike personnel report to CIC.”
Grissett said, “Researching it, sir. Can I see you later with that?”
“Yeah, but if we need to take action, let’s do it before more of our troops go down.”
The corpsman nodded, and stood aside.
In Combat, with the air-conditioning whooshing and the whole ship vibrating around them as they drove north at flank speed, Dan sighed. Someone brought him coffee. Without conscious thought he updated himself from the displays. The Iranian strike group was closer. Pittsburgh had left them behind, headed for the same MODLOC as Savo. The weapon-inventory summary, above the large-screen displays, showed his last two Block 4As operational again aft. The eight Tomahawks aft and eight forward, evenly divided among the C and D TLAM versions, indicated green mode, ready to launch.
Not the stuff of his nightmares, but rather, a ship ready to fight. He checked his watch: a few minutes before the strike team meeting at noon. Mills was in the TAO chair, talking urgently at the same time he typed. Apparently bringing Lahav up to speed, in both senses, on their sprint north. A glance at the surface picture told Dan the corvette was accompanying him.
The TAO saw him. “Captain’s in CIC. — Sir, TSC just called and told us to power up eight C3s and stand by for tasking. This came in unexpectedly—”
“Yeah, I just got a heads-up from the commodore. They got eyes on target and intel they think’s solid. We’ll get a short-notice update and shoot as soon as the missions are validated.”
Dan folded himself into his seat, reflecting on how much had changed since he’d coordinated the very first Tomahawk strike, for Operation Prime Needle. The “flying torpedo” had been an untested concept then. And a clumsy one, its targeting entailing hand-transporting bulky hard drives that contained the route points, and long hours spent hand-programming the seeker heads.
Now routes and targeting came down via satellite. The shift to GPS navigation meant he didn’t have to sweat the problems they’d had with flat terrain. Tomahawk was the cornerstone of the fleet’s ability to project power inland, either clearing the way for air strikes from the carriers or, the way they were going to use it now, to hit high-value command, control, and communications nodes, and possibly enemy missiles as well, before they rolled out on their transporter-erector-launchers and fanned out to fire.
He clicked from voice circuit to voice circuit, then spent a couple of minutes on high-side chat. Twisted in his chair to see who was at the Aegis console. He had to call three times before Wenck snapped out of his mesmerized fixation on the screen. The chief turned it over to Eastwood and ambled over, scratching until spiky blond hair stood straight up. “Sir?”
“Look like you need some sleep, Donnie.”
“You too, Skipper. Why’re we heading north? We’re gonna constrain our geometry.”
“We’re already constrained. But they’re pulling us north to spit some Tomahawks. See the message about high-level coordination with the Israelis?”
Wenck picked up Dan’s cup and drank from it. Dan would’ve been taken aback, except by now he knew the guy was totally unconscious of doing it. Donnie didn’t multitask, but his powers of concentration were terrifying. In the Gulf, he’d read binary code from the callout lights while it was loading into a Russian MVU-199 fire-control computer. “Yessir. We got a freq set up. But you know, it’s uncovered.”