Hellfire

TWO

Pamela Drake’s first thought upon meeting Cary Winston was that her boobs couldn’t possibly be real. Nature simply didn’t make them that rounded and jutting. Nor did nature, in Drake’s experience, ever couple that attribute with exceptionally translucent skin, sky blue eyes, and gold hair. Nature wouldn’t: it simply wouldn’t be fair.

“Hi.” Cary’s voice was low and warm. “What an honor to meet you, Miss Drake. I’ve been a fan of yours since grade school. And now to have a chance to work with you — well, it’s more than I could have ever dreamed.” Winston fluttered her improbably long lashes at Drake, her expression one of complete awe.

“Thank you, I’m sure,” Drake murmured, seething. Since grade school. And that would imply precisely what? That Drake herself had been knocking around different parts of the world since before Winston was potty trained?

“I hope you don’t mind if I’ve got a lot of questions,” Winston continued, apparently oblivious to the effect she was having on Drake. “Gosh, I don’t even know where to start.” Her blue eyes looked up with hero worship shining.

But it was true, wasn’t it? Winston had been drafted deep from the ranks of regional news programs in the Southwest, after only two years’ experience on network. Two years, plus four for college, plus four for high school — yes, ten years. She could easily have been in grade school, or at least middle school, when Drake had started at ACN.

“Of course,” Drake said, not allowing her emotions to show in her voice. She was acutely aware of the rest of the newsroom crew watching, and could almost feel the effort it was taking for them to choke back snorts of laughter. Winston may not have known what impact her remarks had, but none of it was lost on the rest of the cynical, world-weary reporters there.

Or maybe, Drake thought, scrutinizing Winston more closely, the young woman did know exactly what she was doing. She couldn’t be a completely brainless idiot, could she? Not and have risen that quickly through the ranks of regional news organizations. No, she had to have more on the ball than Drake was seeing right now.

Give her some time and see what develops. Maybe it’s just nerves.

Then again, if the bitch was going to declare war on anyone, she’d better watch out. Drake had not survived in this bastion of male superiority without developing a few guerrilla combat techniques of her own. And foremost among them was niceness.

“Anything I can do to help,” Drake said, her voice suddenly sweet. She put one arm around the younger woman’s shoulders and gave her a warm hug, only accidentally throwing her off balance in her high heel shoes. “Of course, it was such a long time ago that I was as — well — new as you are, wasn’t it?” Her green eyes ringed with gold bore in on Winston’s blue ones, and just for a moment, the new reporter looked shaken. “And there is so much to learn, isn’t there? The technical information, how to get around in the world — not to mention contacts. Even learning to get along with the rest of the staff can be a challenge, don’t you think?” Drake stepped up the intensity of her stare that was quickly turning into a glare. “After all, it’s all a matter of teamwork, isn’t it?”

Winston smiled uncertainly. “Of course. And with all your experience—” she started, evidently setting up for another jab, but Pamela leaned forward and accidentally stepped on her toe. Winston yelped and drew back. Pamela reached across her to pick up a catalog. She handed it to Winston and smiled. “Oh, I’m sorry. I do hope I didn’t hurt you.”

“Not at all.” Winston drew herself up to her full height, her face hard. The steel beneath the attractive exterior was now showing.

“Because the smallest injury can really set you back,” Pamela said, her gaze locked on the other woman’s eyes. “I mean, a broken toe or something — well, it’s not like you can do much traveling if you can’t run, is it? The sort of places we go, you never know when you’ll need to get out of the way.”

“I wouldn’t let a broken toe slow me down.”

Drake shook her head, amused. “Ah, no. You wouldn’t. But first off, Hank would never allow you out of the country until you had medical clearance. And second, even if he did, it would be very dangerous. You never know when the shit is going to hit the fan and you have to be able to run for your life. If it comes down to it. And it sometimes does.” She turned back to survey the other reporters, now watching them enjoy the interaction. “Isn’t that right, guys?” A chorus of nods and agreement answered her. Sure, they were enjoying the tiff, but they knew which side their bread was buttered on. Drake was a powerhouse and Winston was just the new kid on the block.

Besides, Drake was right. The cameramen would have enough to do with getting their own gear clear of trouble without worrying about a reporter with a bum leg.

“So, for starters,” Drake said briskly, her point made, “you need more comfortable shoes for around here.” She tapped the catalog she’d given Winston. “I ordered from these guys. Spring for the steel-toed field shoes — they come in handy, particularly if you’re on a ship.”

“Thank you, I will,” Winston said. For a moment, all the fight seemed to have gone out of her. Then her temper flared again. “So tell me, Miss Drake — Pamela — is there any truth to the rumor that you’ve picked up where you left off with Admiral Magruder? After all, I understand he’s available now.”

There was a moment of shocked, appalled silence, and Winston immediately saw that she’d overstepped her bounds. But there was no way to recover, not with the entire newsroom staring at her. Drake herself was a model of icy composure.

“First off, as you should know, he’s no longer an admiral. He’s just a civilian now. And no, I am not quite ill-bred enough to, quote, pick up, unquote, as you put it with a man whose wife is missing in action.”

“It’s been a year,” Winston said. “Surely he’s preparing to go on with his life and accept the inevitable. After all, she hasn’t been heard from at all since she was shot down.”

Pamela did not move. “A parachute was sighted when she ejected. While the conclusion that she was killed in action may seem the only correct one to you, I can assure you that all of us — and I mean all of us — are hoping and praying that she is eventually found. To do less would be rather despicable, don’t you think?” Behind her, the rest of the newsroom murmured its agreement.

Winston considered that for moment, then a flush crept up her cheeks. “You know,” she said, a new note in her voice, “I wonder if I could ask you an enormous favor. Just this once.”

Drake shrugged, her anger boiling white hot inside her. “Besides advice on your footwear?”

Winston nodded slowly. “Yes.” She was still speaking loudly enough for everyone in the newsroom to hear. “I seem to have this really awful tendency to make a complete and utter ass out of myself when I first meet people.” Her blue-eyed gaze locked on Pamela’s, the eyes calm but with a hint of defiance. “I think that’s something I need to get over. Perhaps you could give me some pointers.”

Drake regarded her for a moment, her expression softening only slightly in the face of the other woman’s apparently sincere embarrassment. She could sense the mood of the newsroom swinging behind Winston now, and to hammer Winston again in the face of an attempted apology, however oblique, would be to concede the round to her.

“I think I just did,” Drake said calmly. She stuck out her hand, taking the sting out of her words with a genuine smile. “Welcome aboard, Cary.” This time, her words were warm. “What are you doing for lunch today?”

Airman Lance Irving enjoyed midwatches. It was the only time he was certain he would be left alone.

The USS Jefferson was steaming through the warm night air. Irving knew they were somewhere between Hawaii and San Diego, but he wasn’t sure exactly where. The other Navy ships and commercial vessels were mere specks of light on the horizon, the Navy ships in the battle groups spaced out around the carrier at twenty-mile intervals, the civilian ships wandering in and out between them, oblivious to the formation. In a few hours, the opening evolutions of an exercise known as Kernel Blitz would begin.

Irving saw the lights of the USS Lake Champlain shift slightly. The cruiser was the closest Navy ship to the carrier. From what Irving could see, it was changing course slightly to move away from a cruise ship blazing with lights, lit up like a carnival. Smart move. If the cruise ship was dumb enough to be in the vicinity of a naval exercise, then it was probably dumb enough to collide with the minimally lit Lake Champlain.

Irving was reasonably certain that the operations specialist in CDC would have already noticed the change in the cruiser’s course, but standing orders called for him to report his observations. With all the electronics and link systems in use, the Navy still relied on the old Mark One Mod Zero eyeball for a sanity check on radars and computers. Irving keyed his sound-powered phone. “Surface Plot, Port. Aspect change on the cruise ship.”

A laconic “Roger, got it” came back immediately. “That cruise ship is the Montego Bay—bet they’ve got better food than we do, you think?”

“Yeah, I bet.” Got it. These guys don’t sweat the load, not the way the airdales do. I could get used to being a surface sailor real easy. Irving’s division officer, division chief, and a leading petty officer all seemed to have it in for him. Day in and day out, they were on his back, and all because he hadn’t yet finished his basic qualifications as plane captain.

Oh, sure, he was trying. He spent numerous hours on the flight deck, trying to pick up what was going on. But everyone was moving so fast in so many directions at once! And the aircraft — in his most private moments, he would admit that being around them on the flight deck terrified him. The stories of sailors who got caught up in the jet blast and went overboard, or, even worse, were sucked into the jet engines and ground up like chopped liver, kept him awake at night. The nightmares were becoming increasingly terrifying. As much as he wanted to be part of the gang, he found himself more and more often thinking longingly about the quiet office jobs on the ship — a disbursing clerk, a yeoman, perhaps an aviation supply rating — something civilized, a job that dealt with people instead of tons and tons of hot, screaming metal.

Irving scanned his sector of the ocean, his binoculars focused and attentive. Although he might not have been suited to be a plane captain, that didn’t mean he was a slacker. No, someday soon he would screw up his courage and tell the chief just how he felt about being on the flight deck. And, from the expression he’d seen on the chief’s face today, his confession might not be that much of a surprise.

Groshenko stood in the center of the ship’s command center, one deck below the flight deck. Much of the tactical chatter around him made little sense, but the calm professional tones were evidence of a highly trained and competent crew. Unprepared crews, like soldiers, either panicked or got belligerent. There was a peculiarly distinctive tone of voice that walked the line between tension and confidence that was the hallmark of anything done well.

Despite his personal dislike of the ship’s commander, Captain First Rank Bolshovich, Groshenko had to admit that the man appeared to be competent. A command was always a reflection of its commander, an infallible window into the inner workings of its most senior officer. Perhaps they would never be friends, but they would be comrades in arms.

Finally, the last checklist was completed, the last pre-operational test performed. The circuits fell silent. The tactical officer turned to look at Bolshovich. “All systems ready, sir. Request weapons free.”

The silence was palpable. Every warrant officer at a radar screen seemed to be holding his breath. Bolshovich let the tension build for a few moments, and Groshenko felt a familiar flash of irritation. It was one thing to take time to consider one’s decision, another entirely to grandstand.

“Weapons free.” Groshenko’s voice was pure confidence, and the bracing effect on the crew was immediately evident, the surge of adrenaline palpable.

“Weapons free, aye-aye.” The tactical officer turned back to his console and clicked his communications circuit. “Special units, you are weapons free. Execute operational test two three.”

Groshenko thought he could hear a hum build within the hull of the ship, but it was so faint as to be virtually undetectable to his untrained senses. He glanced at Bolshovich and saw him nod.

Two indicators on a small makeshift panel flashed yellow, then green. The monitor mounted high in one corner of the compartment flashed a line of light so brief in duration that at first Groshenko thought it was his imagination.

“Again,” Boshovich ordered. The panel lights flashed again, and this time Groshenko was certain he saw the spear of light on the monitor.

The hum stopped. The compartment was silent.

To the men and women who monitored her, the satellite was known as Betty Lou. She was located at an altitude of five thousand miles and maintained a geosynchronous position just north of Hawaii. She was an older satellite, one not equipped with some of the newer downloading capabilities of later ones, but she had been in place for fifteen years and had proved to be exceptionally reliable.

Just before dawn, Betty Lou’s sensors picked up a flash of light lancing upward from the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It was a blue-green spear, its beam tight, focused, and unusually stable. It pulsed just once, the duration measured in milliseconds.

Betty Lou recorded the event, buffered it, and squirt it out to a monitoring station located at Naval Station Pearl Harbor. There, the satellite data was digitally transformed into a picture, given a quick look by both the duty officer and a photo-intelligence specialist, then sent out to the numerous civilian and military units that relied on the data daily.

Four microseconds after Betty had downloaded the data, the laser pulsed again, this time sweeping a tight beam across her outer shell. The effect was instantaneous and disastrous. The beam of light smashed into Betty Lou’s solar panels, instantly disrupting the delicate crystalline layers. It heated up the metal casing of the satellite, destroying control circuits designed to work in the subzero temperatures of outer space, then proceeded to fuse the delicate, if antique, circuitry inside her. Within the first few moments of the light striking the pitted and dull hull of the satellite, Betty Lou was reduced to a chunk of space debris.

Just as Irving was starting to sweep the forward segment of his area, the sky cracked in half. An arrow of blue light shot up from the horizon and divided the sky into two equal parts. It seemed to go on and on forever, as high as the eye could see. The light stunned his dark-adapted eyes. Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone.

He grabbed the sound-powered phone hanging around his neck and depressed the transmit button. “Deck, port lookout, reporting a blue light in the sky,” he said, his words tumbling over one another. Just what the hell had it been? There had been nothing like that in his lookout indoctrination training.

“Port, we saw it!” a voice said sharply. “Keep your eyes peeled, okay?”

It had looked like one of the lasers he’d seen at a concert recently, except that the ones at the concert had been red and yellow. Had there been blue or green lights? He wasn’t sure. But it had been the same sharply defined beam, the same blinding brilliance. He keyed his mike again. “Deck, port. It looked like a laser.”

“That’s what we think it was,” the voice said. “And for future reference, the—”

The man’s voice cut off abruptly. There was a chorus of clicks on the line, as others listening waited for the rest of the explanation. Finally, the voice said, “Wait. Out”

Yeah. Like I’ve got anything else to do.

Groshenko waited, again irritated at Bolshovich’s predilection for the dramatic. If the navy captain had been working for him, this nonsense would have been put to a stop immediately. But he wasn’t, was he? At least not completely.

Finally, Bolshovich broke the silence with “Well done!” He turned to his executive officer, grinning broadly. “Exceptionally well done.”

The executive officer visibly relaxed, tendering his own small, tight smile. “It seemed to go well,” he said self-consciously.

Gorshenko kept his face carefully impassive. How could they tell it went well? There had been little to see on the screen, and not much more from outside on the weatherdecks. One brief flash of blinding light, gone before you could be entirely certain it was there. That was all. Had he blinked at the wrong moment, he would have missed it entirely.

“We will, of course, have to wait for final confirmation of the success of a shot.” The captain glanced at the general, checking to see if he understood the difficulty. “We have no capability for evaluating whether or not there was a hard or even soft kill on the satellite. She is old, of course. Our intelligence people who monitor such things may be able to tell when she does not transmit her downlink at the usual time. Then again, the opportunities for detecting her downlink are relatively narrow.” The captain shrugged, dismissing the matter. “I suspect we will know more quickly from the American reaction and the press.”

“Unless they decide not to say anything,” Gorshenko said.

“Always the possibility. But even if they do, their defense establishment is full of leaks. Sooner or later, we will know.” Bolshovich was ebullient now, triumphant, and the crew was picking up his mood.

“We will know even more quickly if the American carrier opens fire on us,” Gorshenko observed.

“Exactly. That is the reason we’re still on alert, General.” Bolshovich managed to be simultaneously condescending and nominally respectful. “I imagine they will have seen the flash of the laser, even if they’re not exactly certain what it is. They will report it, of course. How much they are told by their superiors in response is anyone’s guess.”

Just as how much you’ll be told is my decision. And under the circumstances, I don’t think it will be much. Gorshenko allowed his face to relax into a congratulatory smile, knowing that the navy captain would never know exactly what was behind the test.

Coyote had just dozed off when he heard a gentle tap on his door. He blinked hard twice, sat up in bed, and switched on the light. The admiral’s cabin was a large one and was between TFCC and the flag mess. His duty officers had had instructions to wake him under certain specified conditions or if anything unusual happened, and he had always emphasized that he would rather be woken up in error than surprised later. Thus, though he silently swore as he heard the door open, he kept his thoughts to himself.

Commander Brian Hanson stood there, a worried look on his face. Hanson was an experienced officer, and one whose judgment Coyote trusted. If he thought it was worth waking the admiral up, it probably was.

Coyote swung his feet to the deck and reached for the shirt hung neatly over the back of a chair. “Talk to me.”

“The lookout and officer at the deck reported seeing a blue laser over the horizon,” Hanson said. “All reports are consistent with a laser. I sent the messenger to wake up Commander Busby.”

“Good move.” Coyote started to button the shirt as he slipped on his shoes. He stopped, kicked the shoes back off, and pulled on his pants. “And?”

“And the position is consistent with the position of the Russian carrier,” Hanson finished.

“And why am I not surprised?” Coyote muttered. “Some sort of show of force, it has to be. It’s not like they’d sit quietly while we test ours. They just had to show us, didn’t they?” He shot Hanson a sharp look. “The Russian carrier, though…” He let Hanson finish the sentence.

“The Russian amphibious transport,” Hanson said, correcting his earlier terminology.

In terms of warfare capabilities, it was largely a distinction without a difference. The Admiral Kurashov amphibious transport was the Russian equivalent of an aircraft carrier, although carrying only vertical launch fighter/attack aircraft and helicopters, and fewer of those than her American counterpart. Still, it was important for international political repercussions to characterize the ship correctly — amphibious transport, not an aircraft carrier. God knows why it made a difference, but it did, and Coyote and his staff tried to remember to use the politically correct terminology.

“Okay, get Lab Rat on it. You already got the message drafted?”

Hanson nodded. “The watch officer has started on it. We made an initial voice report to Third Fleet and CINCPAC before I came to wake you up.”

And that’s what I like to see. Hanson is aggressive, professional — he already knows what I’m going to ask them to do and he’s got his watch officer completing the action checklists while he briefs me. Good man. Aloud, he said, “Any information back from either of them?”

“No, Admiral. Then again, I suspect if they have anything, it needs to be on the intelligence circuits.”

“You’re right about that.” Now completely dressed, Coyote headed for the door. Hanson held it open and stepped back to let the admiral precede him.

A funny thing, that there’s information you can’t even say over a top secret encrypted circuit. But that’s the way the world is these days. More and more stuff is secret, and more highly classified. Hell, I bet next our toilet paper usage report is moved up to secret. As it is, it’s confidential, since it’s logistic data. They’re worried that the Russians can figure out how many people are on board from how much toilet paper we use. Like they couldn’t find out by looking at Jefferson’s web page.

Inside TFCC, there was no panic. The watch officer, Lieutenant Bailey Kates, appeared calm and in control. He maintained control of the flow of information, juggling ten or fifteen actions at once, all the while keeping his gaze glued to the tactical screen. He said, “Good evening, Admiral,” almost without taking a breath as he monitored the lookout reports and checked the message that awaited the admiral’s signature.

Not bad. Not bad at all. Coyote made a mental note to keep track of the lieutenant and make sure he got the mentoring he needed to move up quickly. Hanson was a good man to start Kates under.

Lab Rat burst into TFCC, still buttoning his shirt. “Evening, Admiral. Anything else?” he asked, already edging back for the hatch, heading for the compartment next to TFCC. The SCIF, or specially compartmented information, was staffed by sailors with stratospheric security clearances. It was the equivalent of TFCC in the top secret intelligence world.

“Nothing new, sir,” Kates said. There was a lull in the action, and he swung his chair around to face Hanson. He handed him a clipboard. “Rough on the message, sir.”

Coyote resisted the impulse to read over Hanson’s shoulder, and instead followed Lab Rat to SCIF. Any explanation might never make it out of that black hole. Frustrating sometimes, but officers were used to not always getting the full story.

Inside SCIF, the air of frustration was immediately evident. Sailors spoke softly over four radio circuits, murmuring into their headsets. Another two ran queries through databases, searching for anything similar. In a few words, the watch officer briefed Lab Rat. “Nothing yet, sir, Admiral. CINCPAC is looking into it as is Seventh Fleet. It’s already gone up to JCS — the JCS watch officer just notified the JCS TAO.”

“Wonderful,” Coyote muttered yet again. There was nothing like having DC and JCS maintain an electronic presence on board the ship. They’d been pinging on Jeff and Coyote particularly hard as the date for the laser test approached.

Trust the Russians to want to beat us to it. It’s Soyuz all over again.

Well, no matter. Even if the Russian system worked, Coyote had no doubt that the American system would be far more accurate and deadly. And on balance, it wasn’t a bad idea if the Russians had one as well, was it? Wasn’t that the whole point of missile defense systems, that they would eliminate the insane race for offense arms in the world?

One of the sailors turned to Lab Rat and peeled off his headset. “Sir? They’d like to speak to you.”

“Who is it?”

“JCS.”

Lab Rat slipped the headset on. He identified himself, and fell silent as he listened. He motioned to the sailor, who passed him a clipboard and pencil. Lab Rat began taking notes. Finally, after about sixty seconds, he said, “Aye-aye, Admiral. I will pass it on to Admiral Grant.”

There was another silence, then Lab Rat said, “Yes, Admiral. I understand.”

With a sigh, Lab Rat pulled off his headset and handed it back to the sailor. “They want to finish up the coordination issues with you.” He turned to Coyote and continued with “JCS says they have no information on this. However, they want complete silence maintained. Not a word anywhere. I’m to personally debrief each lookout and have him sign a nondisclosure agreement.”

“Wow. And they’re not saying anything about it?” Coyote asked.

“Zero, Admiral. That was Rear Admiral Larson I was speaking to. He’s the duty officer.”

“Better you than me,” Coyote answered. Larson was a surface sailor and had a reputation for being exceptionally acerbic with battle group commanders.

“This doesn’t change anything, does it, Admiral?” Lab Rat asked. “We still solid on our test schedule?”

“Yeah, as far as I know. They want it all kept secret, though.” Coyote sighed, contemplating the improbability and sheer lunacy of trying to keep the Russian laser test a secret. That would be only slightly more improbable than keeping their own tests secret. “Okay, make it happen. Everybody signs the damned paper, but make sure the lookouts know what they’re looking for, okay?”

Fifteen minutes after Irving had first reported the laser, a new voice spoke up on his sound-powered phone headset. The voice was older, more authoritarian than the officer of the deck, and for a few moments Irving couldn’t exactly place it. “All stations, listen up. Some of you reported seeing a blue flash in the sky. It was simply a helicopter searchlight at an odd angle to the ship. Nothing unusual. Forget you even saw it. And all lookouts and bridge watchstanders are to report to Commander Busby in CVIC immediately after being relieved.”

A helicopter searchlight? Irving shook his head. Not likely. Besides, they had secured from flight quarters several hours ago, and there were no helicopters airborne. Perhaps off the cruiser or something — no, they would’ve known that, too, as one of the lookouts would have seen it launch and reported it.

What, did they think he was stupid? A searchlight — yeah, right. What a bunch of horseshit. Some of the officers couldn’t even use a computer, and had never been to a laser light show, and they expected him to believe that story? Well, he wasn’t blind. He knew what he had seen, and it wasn’t a searchlight.

The remaining hours of his watch passed quickly as he kept alert for anything else in the sky. He fully expected to see the laser again. Any second now, and he would miss it if he blinked at the wrong time. He kept up an excellent watch, but no matter how hard he stared, the light did not reappear.