Ted Bell - Phantom

They needed to talk through the last remaining obstacle.

The huge Iranian Vosper MK5 destroyer escort with massive firepower that blocked Blackhawke ’s escape.

“H ere’s the problem, Laddie,” Hawke said once they were alone in the captain’s quarters. “My view, at any rate. You think I’m wrong, speak up. That destroyer skipper is no fool and he’s got us in a box. He knows his big guns have much longer range than our cannons. He knows our missiles probably can’t do enough damage to a vessel his size to stop him. He’s just witnessed what a JDAM can do, but he has no idea of its range. So he just sits out there and waits us out.”

“I’m not sure just one stogie could sink him, anyway,” Laddie said. “But that’s all we’ve got left.”

“If we can hit him amidships below the waterline we could get lucky. But we’ve got to go inside his range radius to have a decent shot.”

“What choice do we have, then, skipper? We go in, light a stogie, and get the hell out of Dodge. Right?”

“It’s all we’ve got. I’ve got an idea. Please hand me that battle radio on the bulkhead.”

“SIGINT, this is Hawke, do you copy?”

“Aye, sir, Signal Intelligence copies loud and clear,” the young officer, on loan from the CIA, said.

“Tell me about this Vosper MK5 that’s in our way.”

“The Alvand. British built, delivered before the Iranian revolution. Originally there were four. One, Sahand, was sunk by U.S. forces during Operation Praying Mantis in 1988. It fired on an A-6 Intruder flying off the USS Enterprise. It was then struck by Harpoon missiles fired by the damaged A-6 Intruder, and then sunk by a coordinated Harpoon attack from its wingman and a nearby surface ship.”

“Armament?”

“Four C-802 antiship missiles, one 114mm Mark 8 gun forward, two 35mm cannons fore and aft, two 81mm mortars, two. 50-caliber machine guns, one Limbo ASW mortar, and three triple 12.75 torpedo tubes.”

“Roger that. SIGINT, you think Langley’s got any aerial sat photos of this thing?”

“Scrapbooks full of ’em, sir.”

“Thanks. I need to see them up here on the bridge ASAP. I want to get a very close look at what we’re up against.”

“Consider it done, sir. I’ll have them on the helm monitor within five. Over.”

Hawke then thumbed the command radio and contacted Stokely Jones, who was still manning one of the two 30mm cannons on the bow.

Stoke and Harry had returned to their battle stations in the bow after the briefing with Hawke, each of them manning a 30mm cannon. They were getting lashed with driving rain, the skies having finally opened up with a vengeance. Their barrels were so hot, they were steaming in the rain, and heavy water was coming over the forepeak where their turret mounts were located.

Stoke heard Hawke in his earpiece.

“You’re wasting ammo at this range, Stoke.”

“I know. But we got more ammo than sense up here. We’re pissed and we’re letting them know it.”

“Stoke, listen. We’re out of options. We’re forced to make a dash inside the range of their big guns. It’s going to get hot in a hurry. Time to launch our last JDAM and pray. You and Harry put your trigger fingers in your pockets and wait for my signal. When you get it, give ’em hell. You saw the photos of the Alvand. Concentrate on her primary weapons fore and aft. Got it?”

“Got it. Good shooting with that last fish, boss.”

“Better be. Over.”

“Ain’t over till it’s over,” Brock piped up, earning a look from Stokely. He hoped for Harry’s sake that Hawke hadn’t heard that dumb-ass remark.

But Alex Hawke was in the zone. Total focus. Total determination to secure victory, whatever it took. These were the moments he lived for, what he’d been born to do.

“All ahead full! Right full rudder!” Hawke said. His voice had assumed a grim finality, the flat quality of emotionless decision. You fight or you don’t fight. You go in with the bow of your ship pointed directly at your enemy and you go well inside his range. Keeping your bow on him gives his radar and sonar a whole lot less to look at, but if something goes wrong and you have to get the hell out of there, you’ve got to change course. Then you give him your broadside, setting yourself up for a devastating counterattack on his part. That’s why starting in is the crucial decision.

“Rudder is right full, sir, coming to course zero-two-zero!”

“Maintain course and speed.”

The big yacht surged ahead, smashing through the oncoming waves as the twin gas turbines spooled up and delivered power to the four enormous bronze screws churning beneath the stern. She had steadied on a course calculated to take her right into the teeth of the Vosper MK5’s guns. It was weird traveling at this speed on something so enormous but it was a good weird, Stoke thought. The enemy wouldn’t have as much time to react to a sudden incursion into their space. They were closing the distance to the destroyer escort rapidly.

“Helm, Sonar. Target is on course bearing three-one-zero, speed twelve.”

“Range two thousand yards, for’ard gun platform, commence firing now,” Stoke heard Laddie say.

“Forward guns, commence firing, aye,” he replied.

“Shit,” Harry said, opening fire.

“What?”

“We’re it. Our two puny 30s against a goddam battlewagon like that? We’re dicked, pal.”

“Good attitude. I like that. Leadership in a crisis.”

“Honesty in a crisis.”

“Shut up and shoot.”

“I can talk and shoot at the same time.”

“Incoming!” Stoke said as a huge shell whistled high overhead and splashed harmlessly some five hundred yards aft of Blackhawke. And then a second sent a geyser of water a hundred feet in the air fifty meters from their starboard quarter. The Iranian gunners behind the long-range cannons were bracketing them, dialing them in. Geysers were erupting all around them now, and small-arms fire was pinging off their armored turrets and the superstructure behind them.

Launch the damn JDAM, Stoke thought to himself, and let’s get the hell out of here before we get — an enemy shell struck Blackhawke ’s foredeck barely twenty feet behind them. Boom, a big hole with fire coming out of it. The damage control guys were on it in an instant. It wasn’t a fatal wound, but it was the first real wound they’d suffered and he realized that, for all its high-tech armor, Blackhawke was not invulnerable. Stoke concentrated his fire on the winking muzzles of the enemy’s big guns, hoping to get lucky.

“What the hell are you doing now?” Stoke said, looking at Harry.

“Taking off this fucking plastic sport coat. I’m burning up in this thing.”

“You can’t take your body armor off up here, man. We’re almost totally exposed.”

“Who says I can’t take it off? I got along without it before they invented it and I can get along without it now.”

“On top of everything else, he’s suicidal. Great comrade in arms I’ve got.”

“Mind your own business, okay? How about that for a change?”

Five minutes later Harry Brock spun around like he’d been kicked by a horse. He went down and Stoke saw the blood pumping from his right thigh. Stoke whipped off the scarf around his neck and did a quick tourniquet above the gunshot wound. He thumbed his radio.

“Man down. I need a medical corpsman on the bow right this second.”

“Aye-aye, sir. On his way.”

“Great, Harry. Really, really good. You spend the rest of this fight lying in bed down in sick bay and leave me alone up here by myself.”

“Gimme a fuckin’ break,” Brock said through gritted teeth. “You think I did this on purpose? Goddamn round took half my leg off. You can see the damn bone! The femur. It hurts like a bitch.”