Stephen Coonts - Combat

“I’m, ah, I don’t think I should say over the phone, darling. We’re safe for now, and we’re keeping out of sight. But they’re guarding the parking lot.”

“Have you called the police?”

“No, I called you first.”

“Jane, honey, there’s nothing I can …”

“God damn it, Terry! Listen to me!” The venom in her voice silenced him like a piano smashing a Walkman. “Are you listening?”

“Yes.” His voice was muted.

“One of the ordnancemen is with us, Ron. He saw the Chinese loading ammunition in two A-4s, and we heard them taxi out.”

“Oh, no …”

“There’s more.”

“They’re arming more A-4s?”

“No, honey.” She inhaled. “The Russians kept the Flankers fueled, and Ron said they were hanging missiles on the rails.”

Peters’s eyes widened, saucerlike. “Call me again in ten minutes.” He broke the connection, belatedly regretting not asking about Skip Ottmann, about the security men who might be dead — and not telling her that he loved her. But now, sorting priorities, he flipped the switch to the communications division.

“Radio, this is the captain.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Call Papa Flight and tell them at least two A-4s are launching from El Toro with live ammo. Our people are to assume they’re hostile. Get an acknowledgment — to hell with EmCon.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Wait, there’s more. Tell them … tell them the Flankers are spooling up, too. And they’re armed with missiles.”

“Yes, sir !”

Peters sat back in his chair, sorting through the phone numbers stored in his Powerbook. He scrolled down the listings until he reached NavAirPac, then punched in the number.

It was forty seconds before he got a tone, and the phone rang four times before the watch stander finally answered. “GoodmorningComNavAirPacPettyOfficerStroudspeakingthisisanonsecurelinemayIhelpyou?” Peters barely understood the rapid-fire babble that seemed mandatory in the modern Navy. He wanted to scream, “Shut up, you bitch!” Instead, he did a fast three count.

“This is Captain Peters, commanding the aircraft carrier Santa Cruz, steaming off Long Beach. I am declaring an emergency and I need to speak with Admiral Paulson. Right now .”

Petty Officer Stroud seemed taken aback; she had never heard of USS Santa Cruz and had no idea of the protocol involved in a ship declaring an emergency. “Sir, the admiral’s at a conference.”

“Then I’ll speak to the senior watch officer. Immediately.”

“Sir, what shall I say is the nature of the emergency?”

“Listen to me, Petty Officer! You have about twenty minutes before a backpack ‘nuke’ detonates under your rosy red ass. Now, what part of ‘nuke’ don’t you understand?”

“Lieutenant Commander Paglia. What is your emergency, sir?”

“This is Terry Peters. I’m in command of the Santa Cruz, conducting CarQuals off Long Beach. Listen carefully, son.”

“Yes, sir?”

“I have four A-4s airborne with live ordnance, operating under orders from the national command authority. Their mission is to sink a Malaysian freighter carrying nuclear weapons into this country.” He paused for effect. “Do you understand, Commander?”

Peters could almost hear Anthony Paglia swallow hard. “Yes, sir. Ah, may I request verification …”

“Commander, I have no verification. And there’s no time for you to call the White House and get it. Is there?”

“Well, I suppose …”

“Fine. Here’s the situation. My flight is about to be intercepted by two Chinese-flown A-4s trying to prevent us from sinking the Penang. Okay? That’s not the problem — my guys can take care of themselves. But the Russians who’re here to CarQual their Flankers are loading missiles at El Toro this minute.”

“Ho-ly …”

“Right. So here’s what I need you to do, Commander. I assume there’s an alert flight on the pad at Miramar.” Please tell me there is! “I need you to scramble them, get ’em up here at the speed of heat, and contact my mission commander on Baker Channel. He answers to Papa One. Your flight can talk to me on 308.2. Tell your people that under no circumstance are they to shoot a Skyhawk. Any Flanker — I repeat, any Flanker in the air or on the ground at El Toro is a legitimate target. The ROE is: shoot on sight.”

“Sir, are you authorized to establish rules of engagement?”

Peters did not even blink. “Absolutely. Definitely. You can check with CNO. But for now, you have your orders, Commander Paglia. Acknowledge.”

“Uh, yessir.”

“Fine. Call me back as soon as you know about the Hornets.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Robbins appeared at Peters’s side. “How bad, Terry?”

“The Oscar Sierra Factor just kicked into afterburner.”

A low whistle escaped the LSO’s lips. “What else can we do?”

Peters slumped into his swivel chair. “Wait.”

“What do you think about Miramar? Will they scramble or will that O—4 go through channels?”

Peters tipped back his cap, biting his lip. “I don’t know, Rob. He seemed like a good kid, but …”

“But his career’s on the line in a situation that’s not covered in the Watch Officer’s Guide .” Robbins folded his arms, leaning against the thick glass overlooking the flight deck. “And initiative’s been bred out of the system. The ‘zero defect’ mentality just stifles risk taking, doesn’t it?”

Peters closed his eyes. “It doesn’t get this way under good leadership.”

“Yeah,” Robbins replied, “and look who’s been ‘leading’ us recently.” He etched quote marks in the air with both hands.

“Bridge, Radio.”

Peters leapt to the console. “Captain speaking.”

“Captain, we just heard from Papa One.”

“Yes?”

“Sir, they can’t find the target.”

In Papa One, Zack Delight ran his precombat checklist, still savoring the memory of the kick in the small of the back as the catapult threw him off the deck, accelerating the A-4 from zero to 120 knots in three seconds. He confirmed the mil setting on his sight, ensured that his master arm switch was off, and scanned his gauges in one practiced sweep of his eyes. He was, as he liked to say, an all-up round.

Delight raised his right leg and withdrew the chart. After nearly a century of powered flight, the human thigh remained the best map holder yet invented.

The Los Angeles area navigation chart was folded to show Penang Princess ’s most likely location, given her expected arrival time. Delight had bounded the search sector in red crayon — a twenty-mile-by-ten-mile rectangle beginning five miles offshore. At two thousand feet altitude, he could see fifty-five miles in any direction, haze and smog permitting.

Delight glanced down again, taking in the multitude of ships and vessels approaching or departing the Middle Breakwater. Even allowing for the possibility that her company’s green hull and beige deck had been repainted, none of the aged thirty-thousand-ton freighters matched his target’s configuration.

With a rising flush of ambivalence, Zachary Delight felt frustrated and proud. I’m like Wade McClusky at Midway , he thought. I’ve got Heinemann-designed airplanes at my back, looking for a target that’s not at the briefed intercept point . The kinship he felt with the Enterprise air group commander nearly sixty years before was diluted by the growing doubt that the mission could be accomplished — and bandits were inbound.

He made a decision and keyed his mike. “Papa Three, look north and west of the track. I’ll swing south and west.”