Brink of War

10

The last message I'd gotten from our submarine hadn't been reassuring.

The Akula and Victor still had her pinned down, and she had made no progress in repairing her engineering casualties. As a result, she had only a small fraction of her normal electrical power available to operate the ship, and had reduced her electrical load to a bare, life-sustaining minimum. The sonar, the air purifiers, and the heat ― that was about it.

The sub's skipper was convinced that the Akula had their range, and, reading between the lines, I could see he was worried. Real worried, as bad as I'd ever heard that cool Georgia Tech grad ever get.

Still, if anyone could pull it off, it was him. There are no certainties in the delicate game of USW, but there were few people who played it better.

That had been thirty minutes ago. Since then, nothing.

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have worried. After all, submarines usually maintain radio silence except for once or twice a day when they come to communications depth and query the satellite for the broadcast. So not being able to talk with him immediately, not following his evasion of the two attack submarines play by play, was nothing out of the ordinary. But couple that with an engineering casualty, and the increasing tensions ashore, and I didn't like it. Not a bit.

"But what's not to like?" Captain Smith asked me, leaning against my bulkhead in that calm, casual way he had. "Just playing the devil's advocate here, you understand. Remember, we're here for a friendship mission." He waved one hand vaguely in the air, intending to indicate the entire former Soviet Union. "Those MiGs-training opportunities. Nobody got hurt, did they? Airmanship, some good friendly competition ― that's what this is all about."

"And you buy that?" I asked, immediately regretting the sharp note in my voice. Captain Smith was nobody's fool. He knew what was going on, had played this game during the Cold War, when the stakes were so much higher.

"Sorry, sir. I know what you're trying to do," I said. "But I think there's plenty to worry about right now. Those air games ― pretty suspicious how everything has gone wrong during them. Wouldn't you say so?" I'd have been suspicious even without Tombstone's message the night before. I wondered if Captain Smith had noticed those bland phrases, the ones that seemed to contribute nothing to the message's content. Seen them, and thought of our earlier conversation on the secrets of admirals.

The captain said nothing, his eyes boring holes in me.

"And those two attack submarines," I pressed, "the Russian ones.

Awful odd that the first major engineering casualty we have onboard our battle group submarine, they show up, don't you think? If I could figure out a way to blame them for it, I'd begin to suspect that they'd even caused the main coolant pump failures. But that would be stretching it a bit far, wouldn't it?"

Captain Smith nodded, still saying nothing.

"So I guess what I'm recommending is a heightened state of readiness," I finished. "There's no reason to suspect we're going to war with the Russians ― not under the circumstances. After all, there's a reasonable explanation for everything that's happened."

Captain Smith finally stirred. "If you say so. I would say so, of course ― in public." He shot me a sardonic, half-amused, half-worried look.

"But in private?" I asked.

He shook his head. "This is the way it always starts," he said softly. "You go at it too long, you start thinking about it as a game.

But it's not, it never really was. Even this airdale stuff ashore ― just another way to show the flag a bit, for both sides. If the Russians win, you think they're going to let us forget it? Remember, just as much as we're trying to scope out their capabilities, they're looking at us."

I stood up and carefully brushed at the front of my trousers, wishing there were some way to do something about the wrinkles. Not that it mattered, really ― after as long as we'd been at sea, the cotton fabric seems to take on a life of its own. Still, it's always good to try to look one's best when going to see the admiral.

"You going somewhere?" Captain Smith asked.

I nodded. "You didn't come down here just to shoot the shit with the spooks. Call it a little intelligence at work, but I think Admiral Wayne sent you down here to get me. And, since there was no particular hurry or time frame expressed in the admiral's orders, you decided to take the opportunity to go on a little fishing mission of your own. Kind of see how the spooks feel about things, get a lay of the land before you drag me back down the corridor with my head up my ass." I saw by the expression on the captain's face that I wasn't far off the mark. "And maybe, if I'm way off base, set me straight before I go in to see the admiral. That about it?"

There was a grudging look of respect in the captain's eyes. "You figure things out pretty good for an intelligence officer."

I shoved open the heavy security door that led to my private office.

"There's a reason they call us that."

We found the admiral in TFCC, slouched down in his brown leatherette elevated chair, staring dully at the giant-screen display before him. A cup of coffee that looked to already be cool was in one hand. From what I could tell, Admiral Wayne was seriously short on sleep. Conducting antisubmarine warfare is like watching grass grow ― the pace is almost as fast and exciting, except when things are going really, really wrong. But the tension in a situation like this is nonstop ― you know that the second you leave, something will happen. It's a fact of life.

"Sir, Commander Busby wanted to brief you on the latest intelligence," Captain Smith said quietly. He motioned me forward.

This was news to me. From Captain Smith's cryptic comments, I had had the impression that Batman wanted to talk to me, not vice versa. God knows I had nothing new or exciting to offer, no arcane insight into the tactical scenario. It was just what it looked like ― an uncertain, unclear situation in which judgment calls would have to be made. And those would be made by Admiral Wayne, not me.

Nevertheless, the captain had gone out of his way to make sure I understood what was going on. It wouldn't do to fail to support him. I cleared my throat and stepped forward to the side of Batman's chair.

"Admiral?"

Batman turned to stare at me, and I almost started at his expression.

The lines in his face looked deeper, his eyes tired and worn. In the last eighteen months that he'd had command of the battle group, we'd been on the front lines almost continually. I'd seen him go from a jovial front runner with a booming voice to a quieter, leaner, and more deadly appearance. It was unsettling, as though conflict had burned away the polish and smooth political veneer that Washington had laid down, exposing the heart of the true man. For some reason, I had a flash of insight. This was what he'd looked like when he first started out, when he was still flying combat air patrol missions and bombing runs.

If the Russians and Ukrainians had counted on encountering something besides a fully qualified and deadly serious flag officer on this ship, which Batman's reputation ashore may have led them to believe, then they were wrong. Real wrong.

"Talk to me, Lab Rat," Batman said. Despite his appearance, there was no trace of tiredness in his voice. "You got any good news for me?"

I shook my head, wishing that I did. "No magic answers, Admiral.

It's just what it looks like ― problems." Briefly, I summarized the intelligence reports of the last several hours, emphasizing that all our summaries, assessments, and conclusions were mostly speculation. Finally, I said, "And as for our submarine, Admiral ― the last report was thirty minutes ago. He doesn't appear to have suffered a fatal engineering casualty, at least according to the acoustic sensors we have in the area.

Nothing on sonar to indicate that he's putting out a lot of noise or that he's had to light off any emergency gear." "I think he's OK for now," Batman said slowly. He gestured at the large-screen display. "Sure, those two bastards hunting him are deadly.

But this skipper ― I know him from way back. If I had to guess, I'd say he's searching for somewhere to hole up for a while, maybe an underwater canyon of some sort. Somewhere that he can have a little protection from the sensors of our two bad asses out there, take some time to think through the situation. That's what they do, you know ― submariners. The ballistic missile guys more than the fast attack, but they're all of the same breed.

Quiet, cautious, and absolutely deadly once they've made their minds up.

No, I'm not immediately worried about him ― when he needs our help, you can be sure that he'll let us know, one way or the other."

I nodded, relieved in some undefinable sense I could not describe. As closely as I'd worked with submariners in the past, I knew that Batman had a better sense of how they fight their own silent wars beneath the waves.

"Then we sit and wait?" Batman smiled slightly. He pulled himself up to sit straighter in his chair. "I don't think so. I think we can give our friend a little help, maybe he's had something he hadn't planned on. TAO," he said, raising his voice slightly so that it carried to the flag tactical action officer, "how long does that S3 have on station?"

"Another two hours, Admiral," the TAO replied immediately. "Plenty of gas, plenty of sonobuoys ― hell, he's bored out there."

The years seemed to slip away from Batman as his face grew animated.

He hopped off the pedestal his chair was perched on, and walked forward in the small compartment. He stood immediately behind the TAO, one hand resting lightly on the man's shoulder. "Then let's give them something to think about. Have the S3 lay a pattern of DICASS buoys as close to on top of that Akula as he can. And I want them all pinging, constantly. I want him convinced we can nail his ass to the bottom of the ocean floor anytime we want to. And I'm willing to bet that we'll see him and his little playmate bug out real shortly thereafter."

"But our orders are to avoid USW operations," Captain Smith said, once again acting as devil's advocate.

"I know what my orders are," Batman said calmly. Judging from his reaction, the admiral was used to Smith voicing the objections no one else had the balls to. "I also know what my inherent right of self-defense encompasses. In my judgment, a unit under my command is in imminent danger. I'm justified in taking all reasonable and appropriate measures to protect here. Under the circumstances, that means letting the Russians know that we know they're there. No more safety-of-navigation ops bullshit. They've taken this to a new level with those MiGs." "Admiral?" the TAO asked, his face stunned. "You want to give away our hand like that?"

"You bet I do!" Batman said. He rolled back to look at me, pointed one finger at me. "You tell your boys back there that I want to know the second there's any increase in radio traffic or communication with this submarine. Or any hint that the Russians are objecting to us making a lot of noise out here, you hear?"

I nodded. "I'll just head back to CVIC and-"

The sudden blare of the bitch box cut me off. "TFCC, CVIC. Sir, we have indications of MiG31 launch ― looks like four aircraft ― sir, they're just taxiing now. As soon as they rotate and get to altitude, I'll know which way they are headed."

"Get our Alert Five aircraft airborne," Batman snapped. "And spin up four more Hornets and two Tomcats on the deck ― I want them at Alert Five now. A tanker, too ― and an E2. I want gas and eyes in the air the second we need them."

"TFCC, CVIC. TAO, those MiGs are headed in our direction. They're just clearing ten thousand feet and already starting their turn, sir."

"Roger, copy all." The TAO's fingers were flying over the keyboard as he orchestrated all the firepower of the battle group. He stabbed a button on the bitch box, got the bridge, and said, "Launch the Alert Five aircraft. And get six more birds on alert, including a tanker and an E2."

Seconds later, I heard the raucous blare of the 1MC announcing emergency flight quarters. Overhead, the Alert Five aircraft were already turning, their hard, screaming engines rattling the overhead fixtures.

"If CAG doesn't have them off the deck in six minutes, I'm going to have his ass," Batman muttered. From what I could hear over the bitch box, it sounded like CAG might break his own record for setting flight quarters.

Sure enough, four minutes after Batman had given the order, the first F/A-18 ripped off the catapult and into the air. I suspected that CAG and the air boss had stashed a couple of people up in the tower just in case of this very event.

In short order, all the fighters, along with the SAR helo, a tanker, and an E2, were airborne. They clustered in the sky overhead, the Hornets taking a quick top-up off of gas from the tanker before vectoring out toward the inbound Russian fighters.

The TAO was fielding calls from the lead fighters now, and he turned to the admiral and asked the million-dollar question "Do we shoot first?"

"Not yet," the admiral answered. "Tell them to continue to close the MiGs and keep their fire-control radars in search mode only. Let's see how serious they are about this. And put another section of Hornets in Alert Five." By now, the ones he'd ordered into an alert status earlier were already fully fueled and armed, just waiting for their turn. Another aircraft shot down the deck and into the air, shown in deadly menacing shades of gray on the plat camera. The first of the on-station Hornets started howling for fuel. The afterburners chugged it down like it was beer.

"They're turning," the lead Tomcat reported. Seconds later, our tactical display confirmed what his eyes saw first. The MiGs were peeling off, heading back the way they'd come. By the time the second section of Hornets launched, there were no more MiGs to deal with. Overhead the E-2C Hawkeye kept an anxious eye on the entire arena but there were no more indications of MiG launches or other hostile activity from our Russian friends.

"Harassing action, just like last time," Captain Smith announced.

"Seen it before ― it's an old Soviet standard ploy to get us to expose our hands." "But why now?" I asked.

Batman evidently overheard our conversation, and turned toward us and away from the screen. "You think it has something to do with the submarine?"

I nodded. "I don't know what they'll try, Admiral, but nothing else makes sense. Why did they launch on us? And why only four MiGs? That's not the Russian style, not the Russia I know. They deploy air assets in waves of overwhelming numbers ― you know how they are, they always have to have numerical superiority. So why just four? That's not enough to do any damage to an aircraft carrier that's on the alert. And they have to know we're on alert ― those submarines are talking to their masters, too." The Admiral frowned. "You may be right," he said slowly.

"The other thing that's odd is that there's no indication that they were prepared to launch missiles, other than from the aircraft. A real Soviet-style attack would come from all quarters and from all platforms," Smith said. "That's why I think it was intended solely as harassment."

"I'll keep that in mind, sir, when I debrief the pilots. See if they saw anything odd about the weapons load-out, about the formation, anything that might suggest that this was intended to distract us from the submarine problem," I said.

Admiral Wayne nodded gravely. "You do that, Lab Rat. And I want to know immediately what you find out. In the meantime, I'm going to keep an eye on things in here." He turned back to the screen and studied the positions of the three submarines. They were moving with glacial slowness compared to the air contacts we'd watched fight it out just moments earlier. "I don't like this ― I don't like this one little bit."

"Expand the range," Batman ordered. The TAO complied immediately.

A new chart sprang into being on the wall in front of us. I sucked in a hard breath, and realized that Batman had already suspected what we all now knew. To the south, still well inland, were four blood-red inverted V's. They were flying in sets of twos, the symbols so close together that sometimes they merged.

Behind them were three more sets of fighters, giving us a total of ten enemy aircraft inbound.

"MiG-31s by the looks of them," Batman muttered. "Shit. What the hell do they think they're doing?" He turned to me. "I'm open to ideas."

I shook my head, now fairly well at a loss. The admiral wasn't asking me what he should do about the incoming MiGs. The well-oiled machinery of the Jefferson's combat watch team was already swinging into motion, vectoring the aircraft now airborne toward the new threat and launching additional Hornets and Tomcats.

What the admiral wanted from me was something much tougher. Why? was his real question. Why were the Russians after our submarine, and why this air attack? Why now?

The compartment filled with the hard, shuddering roar of a Tomcat on the catapult. It built up, vibrating deep in our bones, until the deceptively gentle whoosh and thud of the catapult indicated that it had launched. Seconds later, another Tomcat spooled up.

"They're not going to attack, Admiral," I said, thinking furiously.

"You're right ― not with that few aircraft. The Russians' intelligence network is almost as capable as ours, and they know they don't stand a chance with an Aegis cruiser in our battle group and with our own air support. Therefore, there's something else behind this."

"Nuclear weapons? Maybe they're going for the EMP again," Batman said, pulling the fire-retardant flash gear over his hands. "Like when we were going into the Black Sea that time."

I shook my head. "I don't think so. Too close to their own soil.

The Russians have a real thing about ever risking exposure to radiation within their own population. Not after Chernobyl."

"Chernobyl is exactly my point." Batman pointed at the large-screen display. "And their history in submarine operations. The Russians have been none too careful to make sure that their crews weren't exposed to serious radiation hazards from their own nuclear reactors onboard. And that's the only way that I can think of that they'd be able to hurt us.

Same argument," he continued, "against a chemical or biological attack.

We're not that far out ― too much danger of any biohazard drifting in and affecting their own population."

"Then what are they trying to do? Send a message of some sort?"

Batman nodded. "Probably. But like they say in the movies, ' you want to send a message, use Western Union.'" He slid into the brown leatherette chair mounted in the center of TFCC. "My bet is they're not gonna wait around for a reply to it, either. Not with what I'm about to hit them with.

"Now, get over to SCIF and get me some warnings and indications. I want to know two seconds before those bastards light off any fire-control radar."

I darted next door into the SCIF and pulled on the rest of my General Quarters gear. I was the last one to arrive at my General Quarters station, and the watch officer dogged down the hatch after me. So far, nothing. The sensitive electronic spy gear and national asset receivers we had were silent. The MiGs were inbound without radar, without jamming, without any electronic indication that they were doing anything besides conducting routine training operations.

Except for the submarines. And except for the fact that they were inbound on our location.

I picked up the white phone and punched in the number for TFCC.

Although they were just next door, we stayed closed up during General Quarters.

"Admiral, I think I might have it," I offered. "It's just an idea, but ― well, given that we're running the flying competition on the mainland with our people and theirs, maybe they're going to claim that this is just an expansion of that. There was that paragraph, you know. The one about other opportunities for training as they arise? Well, I think that's going to be their explanation for both launches."

"So what happens when I light off a fire-control radar on the Aegis?" Batman asked when I was finished. "We lose this game of chicken?"

"And if we don't-" I glanced forward at our own tactical display, and saw the MiGs closing to within weapons range. "And if we don't, we're sitting ducks." technicians shouted. The screen in the forward part of our compartment was identical to that in TFCC, and I still had the admiral on the line.

"You see that, Lab Rat?" Batman demanded. "Talk about a game of chicken ― Jesus, I hope these people know what they're doing. Unless I have a Russian flag officer on the horn in the next two seconds, I'm giving my aircrews weapons free."

I stared in horror and disbelief at the battle unfolding before me on the screen. The Russian submarines had increased their speed to flank, and were rapidly closing the location of our own. The MiGs were just at the edge of their firing envelope, although they were still radiating no hostile emissions. Our own Tomcats and Hornets were poised midway between the carrier and the MiGs, in combat spread, waiting and ready. They had their normal air-search radars lit off, but were not yet in targeting mode.

"Aegis has a firing solution, sir," my electronics technician announced. "Is the admiral going weapons free on them as well?"

I turned to face him. "I don't know."

"All units in the battle group, this is the Alpha Bravo." I heard Batman speaking simultaneously over the radio-circuit speaker and the telephone. The two seconds were up. He was going to go weapons free.

But before the admiral could get the words out, the MiGs did what they'd done before ― turned away from the battle group and headed back toward Russia. Captain Smith shot me a knowing look.