Pacific Siege

15

That evening, after chow, Murdock got his men together in the training room. He looked around until he spotted Jaybird. “Sterling, did you bring that little laptop of yours along?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did I tell you not to bring it?”

“Not this time, Commander.”

“Get it, let’s plug it in and see what we can find on the Internet.”

“We playing war games, Commander?” Jaybird asked.

“In a way. I’m smelling non-lethal here, and I know that NAVSPECWAR back in Coronado must have a half-dozen things on the shelf.

Before I ask them for some of them, I need some nomenclature, some ideas, some names. Hope you have a good search engine.”

“Yes, sir, Netscape. I can find anything.”

Ten minutes later, they had the laptop computer plugged in to the 120, and hooked up to a phone line. Somebody said that more than sixty percent of the men and women on the ship used computers and E-mail to keep in touch with the home folks.

“Okay, do a search on non-lethal weapons. Must be a lot of stuff.”

“You mean we might actually have to go into that island without our weapons?” Jaybird asked.

“If things go from bad to worse, and Russia gets frisky, and the Japanese Diet holds its position, and the Japanese give us permission to go in at all, it could be with kid gloves and no bang-bang.”

“Great, just what I signed on with the SEALs for, some combat wrestling and judo practice,” Jack Mahanani said.

“Got something,” Jaybird said. “It’s about the S. I.P. E. system tested by the Army back in ninety-two. Enhanced and secure infantry protection equipment. Here’s a rifle with a sensor on it for infrared imaging, laser sight. A helmet with built-in night vision, and heads-up displays like on jets.

“One evaluator said the elements of the system would be too heavy for the average GI, would be too awkward, and hard to maintain.”

“That’s their idea of non-lethal?” Murdock said. “Try something else.”

Jaybird clicked on another location, typed in the key words again, and yelped.

“Yeah, here’s about twenty of them. This one is interesting. It’s from the Department of Peace Studies in England. Says there’s a whole new generation of non-lethal weapons from battlefield lasers which blind enemy troops, to acoustic weapons designed to disorient and demoralize.

They say an entire battalion can be disabled without the attackers firing a single shot.”

“I’ve heard about some of the enhanced acoustic weapons,” Murdock said. “Wonder if NAVSPECWAR would have anything like that?”

“I’d ask them if I knew their E-mail address, Skipper.”

“Didn’t you tell me once that you had Don Stroh’s E-mail address in D. C.?”

“True, in my little file.”

“Dig it out and let’s send him an E-mail.”

“Let me get out of the Web, and to the good old Internet.”

Twenty seconds later, he grinned. “Got it. DStrohaol. COM. What do you want to ask or tell our spook buddy?”

“Subject non-lethal. Don. Does NAVSPECWAR section have any non-lethal weapons we might be able to use if we have to go into that island sans bullets? Any other non-lethal devices, ultrasound, chemical, or biological, that you know about you can airmail to us in two days? Must know soonest. Use Jaybird’s E-mail address for reply.

Hope you read your E-mail often. If no reply in twenty-four, I’ll phone you.”

Murdock used the phone in the room, called his liaison commander, and got the name and number of the top ordnance man on the ship, a Lieutenant Commander Rawlins. Murdock called him. He had a quick answer.

“Commander, I don’t have any of that fancy stuff you’re talking about in non-lethal. All I have are rubber bullets for NATO-sized rounds, and six stun guns the master-at-arms sometimes checks out to handle unreal wild men. You know, they’re good only for three or four feet, not much more, and are attached to wires. Only other thing remotely in that field is the flash-bang grenade, which I’m sure you know about.”

“Yes, we use them. You don’t have any of the ultrasonic guns that I’ve heard about?”

“I haven’t even heard about them. Wish I could help you. Maybe NAVSPECWAR in Coronado could do you some good.”

“Good idea, Commander, thanks.”

Jaybird kept working the Web.

“Some crazy ones here, Commander,” Jaybird said. “How about this one. It’s a rifle that shoots a thin nylon webbing out and over a guard or sentry, tangling him up in it so the attackers can go up and cuff him.

“Or this one that shoots out a sticky substance like a flamethrower would, only this is so sticky the target can’t use his weapon, or even walk out of the stuff.”

“We need something off the shelf,” Murdock said. “Keep looking.

I’m going to see if I can get a call through to Don Stroh. We don’t have the time to wait twenty-four.”

Murdock called Don Stroh’s office. The call went through encrypted, bounced off two satellites, and then de-encrypted before Murdock heard the response. The sound of Stroh’s voice was a little strange, but it was him.

Murdock laid out the idea for non-lethal weapons.

“Yeah, we thought about that. Not much you have. You aren’t even supposed to know about the ultrasonic acoustic weapons.”

“Sure, sure, but can you get us some? Do we have to carry a fucking generator with us? Are they portable or worked from a chopper?

Give some information here, Don. Otherwise we could be going in and arm wrestling these guys for control of the chunk of rock just about the time the Russians let loose half a dozen big rockets on it.”

“Easy, down, boy. It’s still in the talking stage.”

“Yeah, Stroh, talking. Like ultimatums and deadlines and threats.

How about NAVSPECWAR in Coronado? They have anything we can use?”

“Murdock, you’re a pushy bastard.”

“That’s why I get along so well with an asshole like you.”

They both laughed.

“Okay, we have what is now called an enhanced acoustic rifle,” Stroh said. “It’s self-contained, has a range of five hundred yards, and can slam a sound blast into a room or against a sentry that he’ll never hear, and it’ll put him down and unconscious for up to six hours.

After that, he returns to normal with little or no damage.”

“Sounds perfect. Can you get us twenty of them in two days?”

“I can scrounge up two, if I’m lucky. We have one out at Langley for testing, and I’ll get one or maybe two more. But don’t tell anybody you have them, or the NAVSPECWAR guys will roast me head-first over an open campfire.”

“Colorful, you’re colorful. You mean they were right there in my front yard and I didn’t know about them? How many shots to a weapon?”

“They work off a high-charge special battery. It takes up the whole stock. I don’t even know how it works. We’ve used one ten times before having to plug it into one-twenty for four hours to recharge.”

“Great, so we’d have twenty to thirty shots, and maybe a hundred Japs running around the island.”

Hey, be politically correct. That’s Japanese Home Guards. We lost “Japs’ back in World War II. Now, one blast of the acoustic into a room will knock out everyone inside. They are especially effective in a contained space. They are ultimately directional, line of sight. They won’t go through a house, but will go in a window or an open door. Some guys could bounce them off trees and walls like you do a beeper for your car lock. Anyway, you just cut off the head of that Self Defense general over there, and the rattlers won’t do much harm.”

“Talking in riddles now. I get it. Might be enough to get us onshore and to find the headquarters. Which comes to my next question.

Do you have any satellite shots yet of this island? You’ve had plenty of time.”

“We can’t shift orbits of those babies in a few seconds, you know, laddie. Takes some time. We’re working on it. As soon as we get anything on that little town on that first island — Kunashir, I think it is — we’ll fax them to your little boat.”

“Thanks, and the blowguns in forty-eight?”

“Faster if I can find the right aircraft connections.”

“Put them in one of those business jets and scoot them across the pond. How are things in Korea?”

“Settled down a little. Your task force will still sail down that way when you clean up the Japanese problem. Anything else?”

“Just wondered when the Christmas bonus checks will arrive from our favorite uncle.”

“Wrong uncle, swabby. And I still say I caught the most fish that we could eat.”

“Good night, David.”

“Good night, Chet. You’re not old enough to have heard them, Murdock.”

“I’m a student of TV history.”

Murdock hung up the phone. Three acoustic rifles. Better than what they had now. He forgot to ask if anyone else would hear the sound the weapons made. If the target didn’t hear anything, it was reasonable to extrapolate that no one else would hear it either.

Back in the SEALs’ room, Jaybird was still on the computer. He looked up and grinned. “All sorts of weird shit on this thing. One guy keeps yelling that the non-lethal weapons are a sham. The military wants them to knock out the defenses of an enemy, then they roll in unopposed and massacre the stunned or blind defenders. They say that the non-lethal weapons will help kill more people than ever in any war that they are used in.”

“Yeah, he’s probably right. Anything we can use?”

“Nope. Two more kinds of sticky-sticky-goo stuff that is dropped out of airplanes and covers a whole battalion of dug-in troops, freezing them in place so completely that they can’t even move a trigger finger.”

“Jaybird, take the men out of here and get some sleep. Tomorrow we see who can do a thousand push-ups. You’ll all need your rest.”

“A fucking thousand,” Kenneth Ching asked. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“You’ll find out tomorrow.”

Ed Dewitt fell into step with Murdock as he left the room. Murdock told him about the acoustic rifles.

“Great if they work,” Ed said. “if we have to go in there non-lethal, it’s gonna be a hell of a mess.”

“It already is, Ed. See you in the morning.”

Twenty miles almost due south of the American task force, Russian Captain Barsoloff Natursky brought his killer submarine down under the thermal layer, and cut her speed to five knots. The RNU Shark, SMN-23, had been shadowing the American task force for the past week. It was only an hour ago that his people had the first indications that the Americans had spotted him.

He had become too bold, he realized now. He had crept too close to the screening ships around the huge nuclear carrier, and one of the frigates on the perimeter had heard his nearly silent screws. Some lucky sonobuoys had taken good readings on him before he slipped away through the thermal layer where the hunters would get his signal confused with the surface noise.

Now the Shark was far out of their range. It was a record nonetheless. No other Russian Oscar-class boat had ever done what he had done in the masterful shadowing of an American task force.

Now the confrontation.

An hour ago he had gone nearly to the surface, and extended his communications antenna above the water for the regular signal transmissions. To his surprise he had three messages from the carrier Ataman in the Sea of Japan. Now he knew of the takeover of the small Russian island north of Hokkaido, and what it meant. He had been put on a Level Three Alert — to be combat ready in fifteen minutes, and to stand by for later information. A Level Four meant impending military action was imminent. An Alert Five was the call for an all-out war.

He had fallen too far behind the American task force.

“All ahead two thirds,” he ordered.

“All ahead two thirds, aye,” the watch officer said.

Captain Natursky left the attack command center, and went back to his cabin. The smallness of his quarters satisfied him. He had been on submarines for thirty years. He felt at home here. These quarters were much larger than any he ever had at sea before. It was simply a larger boat, over 13,900 tons standard, and 18,300 tons submerged. He had a crew of 107 men, and could stay at sea for over a year if the food supply held out. He had so much firepower it shocked and amazed him.

But it never awed him. He had at his total and complete individual command 24 tubes to launch the largest rockets ever fired from the sea.

Each with twelve independently targeted nuclear warheads. A total of 268 targets that he could aim at, hit, and totally destroy with nuclear holocausts. He could target cities anywhere in this half of the hemisphere.

Captain Natursky smiled grimly at the idea that he could totally annihilate an enemy. He, Captain Barsloff Natursky. No one else in the whole world had this much firepower. He took a deep breath, then picked up a book of Russian poetry written in the nineteenth century, and was at once lost in the rhyme and meter of the glorious verse.

A knock sounded on his door. He waited. The knock came again.

When it sounded the third time, he bellowed for the person to enter.

A lieutenant walked in, and held out an envelope. It was a sealed, yellow Top Secret envelope. The captain nodded at the officer, who handed him the message and retreated, probably glad not to be verbally thrashed for disturbing the captain.

Natursky opened the envelope, and unfolded the yellow paper, which was always used on the machine that printed out the messages that came in encrypted.

“Captain Natursky. Continue to shadow the American task force.

The carrier is the USS Monroe, CVN-81. She has eighty-five aircraft on board, including high-tech antisubmarine planes, and ASW ships. Be cautious. We are speeding to the Russian island of Kunashir. The invasion by the Japanese rebels still holds. We will talk them off or blast them into eternity so they can visit with their ancestors.

“Stay on Alert Three. There may be no problem, but we prefer to have you ready and waiting in case things get out of hand and we need to destroy the carrier.

“Outstanding work in trailing the task force so long and going undetected. Do they know that you’re there yet? Make any reply, comments, and suggestions during your next regularly scheduled transmission time.”

The message was signed by Admiral Vladimir Rostow.

The captain smiled. He marked his place in the book of poetry and put it down. He was no longer in the mood for it. He left his quarters, and moved to the combat plotting room, where he had laid out a normal pattern of the ships that surround an American nuclear aircraft carrier. He knew precisely what ships were used, where they would usually be stationed in a screening maneuver, and what weapons and ASW devices they carried.

More importantly, he knew the total capability of the carrier’s ASW planes and ships. Understanding them, and how the Americans worked with them, was vital to his own survival.

Now he studied the board, and moved some ship symbols. He knew what he would do in command of such a task force if attacked by a submarine. But what would the Americans do?

He laid out several scenarios, plotting exactly how he on the Shark would respond. He smiled again, the second time that day. Yes, he had worked out two problems, memorizing precisely what action he would take for each one.

Before he realized it, the three hours were gone and the lieutenant from communications was back asking if he had any messages to send during their short communications window. The captain said he did, and went forward to the commo center to write out his messages for the encrypting computer.