“Bridge, Gun Control. One round illumination to the transfer tray.”
Dan said, “Mount 51 in local control. One round illumination. Load. Thirty degrees left of his bow light. Double-check bearing. Report when ready.”
“Mount 51, ready and standing by.”
“Batteries released, one round,” Dan said.
The gun thumped and flashed, and a red-hot comet arched out into the night. It ignited into a magnesium brilliance that illuminated the undersides of the clouds and glittered white off the waves, so bright he had to squint. As the rays gleamed across the water he brought the binoculars up until he was looking at the pilothouse. Through one window, just for an instant, he made out the cutout of a human figure. And behind it, what looked very much like an armed man pointing a rifle at the back of its head.
The flare declined slowly, and the pilothouse grew dark again. He lowered the night glasses, frowning. “Did you see that, Cheryl?”
“No, what?”
“Rounds complete,” said the 21MC. “One round expended. Bore clear. No casualties. Refire?”
“Negative, cease fire,” Dan said. He fingered the binoculars. Had it really been someone being held at gunpoint? Or had he taken the outline of some piece of equipment for a human figure? If there were armed men over there, this wasn’t a situation he wanted to send his boarding team into without some more advantages: such as daylight, his helo in the air, and reinforcements on tap.
All of which meant delay. He didn’t like it, but sometimes you had to do what was prudent. He coughed. “All right… open the range, about a thousand yards. Take position off his port quarter.”
“We’re backing off, sir?” Staurulakis sounded disbelieving.
“Until dawn. Tell Ops we need a message to Fleet, to see if there’s an M/V Patchooli in the Pakistani registry. Maybe they sold it, or transferred flag… but I’m not sending guys over at night, into a possibly hostile environment, without backup.”
He sneezed. Someone murmured, back in the darkness of the bridge, and men stirred. The OOD gave the helm orders in a subdued voice. “Secure from general quarters, sir?” someone asked. And slumping back into his seat, bone tired, but resigned to staying there all night, he muttered, “Yeah, go ahead. Secure.”
11
He snorted himself awake several times during the night. Each time, he muzzily thought of going below, but stayed in the chair instead. Each time he woke he peered out, checking the freighter’s stern light. It rode always in the same place, a yellow star low off their bow, glittering and reeling beneath clouds that were closing down again.
The last time he woke the sky was gray. A little after 0500, and Hermelinda Garfinkle-Henriques, wilted in the half-light, was at his elbow, the radio messenger beside her. They murmured good mornings. Dan grunted and coughed, hitched himself up, glanced out — the freighter was still there. He sighed, and reached for the clipboard.
It was from Fifth Fleet, info everybody on earth. Karachi had returned no response to the inquiry about registry. In the absence of confirmation, Dan was directed to carry out a noncooperative boarding, having regard to the warning provisions of References A through F and his ROE. He was also reminded to carry out a risk analysis of the boarding process.
“One more thing, Captain,” the supply officer said. “We have a closing contact from the east. You might want to check it out in CIC.”
“It’s on GCCS?”
She said stubbornly, “You might want to check it out for yourself, sir.”
There was hot coffee in Sonar. He got a cup and a sticky bun en route to the command desk. CIC felt deserted with only a steaming watch. Empty consoles, and half the lights on, while a compartment cleaner jockeyed a broom across the deckplates and progressive jazz warbled from the EW console. He blinked up at the displays. Highlighted the contact, and studied the callout. Its extended track met Savo’s later that day. He powered up his work station and scrolled through the intel.
PLANS Wuhan was a Type 052B Guangzhou-class guided missile destroyer, attached to the South Seas Fleet. Brand-new, displacing almost seven thousand tons, it was the first multirole, antiair-capable destroyer the Chinese had built. It reminded him of a Sovremennyy, and had a lot of the same Russian sensors, along with Grizzly surface-to-air missiles and YJ-83 long-range antiship cruise missiles. She had one 100mm automatic gun and a CIWS. Also a hangar, though his sources didn’t say if a helo was routinely embarked. His only clear advantage was Aegis. Wuhan’s E-band radar had neither the reach nor the multiple-tracking capabilities of the SPY-1.
Still, in a medium-range engagement, it would be even-steven, YH-28s against Harpoons. Whoever fired first would have the advantage. He cut and pasted, added his own thoughts, and forwarded the collage to his TAOs, the EW chief, the exec, Chief Wenck, and Dr. Noblos. He queried GCCS for other Chinese units and got PLANS Haikou, another destroyer, farther west, near the Gulf.
Cheryl came in and he told her what they had. Sniffling, she blew her nose into a tissue. Black smudges circled her eyes. “Are we still boarding?”
“As directed. Nobody seems to want to own up to these guys.”
“Black flagged?”
“Could be. Pulled out of a scrapyard someplace.” He keyboarded around. Cameras fore and aft on the missile decks could be pivoted via joystick from the TAO’s station, but they weren’t stabilized, which made them not too useful at sea. He could look through the port or starboard CIWS cameras, but the mount had to point at what it was looking at, which could be misconstrued as a hostile act. He settled on the starboard 25mm gun camera. It was stabilized and he could move it independently of the gun.
Patchooli rode steadily in the gunsight, the crosshairs riding just above her fantail. He zoomed in, looking for a flag, but again saw none. The ship name was so spotty and half-obliterated he could make out only the double O, but there seemed to be another beneath it, maybe outlined with a welding stick. At magnification the image dissolved into the blurry, heaving speckles of digitization. “Let’s make it after breakfast. Say, 08. Plenty of light by then. Tell Strafer we’ll need Red Hawk in the air. And we’ll go back to GQ.”
He was on the boat deck, talking to Mytsalo before lowering the RHIB. The teams didn’t load there; there weren’t enough safety lines for everyone, and they’d make it too heavy for the davit. They’d drop the boat in the water, and then the coxswain would drive it to the stern. The boarding team would climb down via a Jacob’s ladder. His Hydra beeped and he keyed. “CO.”
“Sir, XO here. VHF transmission from Wuhan. In the clear.”
“Read it to me.”
“‘Request delay boarding until PLANS Wuhan is on station to assist.’”
He let up on the Transmit key. Politely phrased, but what lay behind it? He held up a restraining hand to Mytsalo, who seemed too eager to get into the boat. “Did we acknowledge receipt, Cheryl?”
“Uh, yessir, we did.”
“Anything more from upstairs? Fifth Fleet?”