Terror At Dawn

TWO

On board the Jefferson Admiral William “Coyote” Grant was listening intently to every report that the United States made over the classified circuits. Coyote commanded Carrier Battle Group 14, comprised of the aircraft carrier USS Thomas Jefferson and her air wing, two Aegis cruisers, three destroyers, and two frigates. They’d been on station in the Med for two weeks now, and had just returned to sea following a three-day port call in Italy.

Fire at sea was every mariner’s worst nightmare, and for it to happen to an aircraft carrier was simply unthinkable. That such a massive and powerful ship, the acme of sea power, could be damaged by such a small boat from man’s earliest days of going to sea — albeit now with an outboard motor instead of oars — was almost too much to contemplate.

But then again, nobody had believed that terrorists would have — or even could have — crashed commercial aircraft into the World Trade Center. Although there’d been some intelligence, some early warnings of terrorist agents and aviation warnings, nobody had really though such a thing could happen. They’d focused on the possibilities of crop dusters and biological weapons, dismissing those dangers by pointing out the difficulties of deploying the proper aerosol and deployment systems. The terrorists, when they’d struck, had relied on a far more primitive and effective method, transforming commercial airliners laden with fuel into suicide bombing runs.

Stingers, though — this scenario was one that aviators had been kicking around for decades. The ubiquitous weapons were the poor nations’ answers to almost every problem. Easily transportable, simple to operate, and relatively cheap, they could be brought to bear in almost any scenario.

Recent intelligence reports had done nothing to allay his worries. There were indications that Pakistan had developed a faster, longer-range version of the ubiquitous weapon, which was now making its way into the international arms scene. If that were true, the Middle Eastern nations, with more money to burn than any other region, would have them first. Not even being in the Med instead of the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea made him feel any easier.

If they could reach out and touch the United States, they could get us. It’s a little cooler here than in the Gulf, but even staying buttoned up the whole time in the Med ain’t gonna be pleasant. But what other choice have we got?

Just as the United States reported securing from General Quarters, Coyote’s patience with the crowded compartment reached an end. He snapped, “OK, folks. Show’s over. Everybody back to work. You know what happened — now figure out how we’re going to keep it from happening to us.” People shifted uneasily and began moving out of the compartment, heading back to whatever they’d been doing when they’d heard about the fire.

“Admiral?” a low-pitched female voice said at his side. “I’m going to set condition-two antiair in about five minutes.”

His gaze still fixed on the large-screen display in front of him, Coyote nodded. “Not antisurface?”

“No, Admiral. I don’t think it’s going to be the same thing twice in a row. Besides, after what happened, the full antisurface team is going to be in Combat whether I set the condition or not.”

Coyote gritted his teeth and groaned inside. Captain Jackie Bethlehem, Jefferson’s newly appointed commanding officer, was well within her rights to make that decision. He appreciated her informing him of the change before it occurred, and in principle he agreed — but why, oh, why, did every word she speak grate on his nerves?

Bethlehem was a tall woman with dark hair and ice-green eyes. Her hair was short and curly and most days, like today, it had a tousled, just-stepped-out-of-the-shower look. She looked as though she was in her early thirties, but for that to be true she would have had to have been commissioned almost before puberty. Not that Coyote had any indication that she’d ever actually gone through puberty. Her uniforms, while trim and neatly cut, were just generous enough in certain places to hide most of her figure. And her personality — well, Coyote was reasonably certain she probably had one, but her military bearing and command presence were pretty damned near impossible. He’d cracked a couple of jokes during their presail conferences, and even bought her a beer after one meeting, but he was no closer to knowing the woman behind the title than he had been the first day. Maybe she wasn’t even human — a robot of some sort, put on his ship—his ship — solely to annoy him.

Stop it, he told himself sternly. This is your problem, not hers.

When he’d heard Bethlehem had won the highly coveted billet as skipper of his flagship, Coyote had been taken aback. Sure, he knew who she was — everybody in the tightknit Naval Aviation community did. She’d been first in her class in Basic Flight, first in her Hornet class, first in damn near everything she’d attempted. The word on the flight line was that she wasn’t just another bow to political correctness. She was a cold, tough pilot, a superb aviator, and a natural leader. If she’d been born male instead of female, she would have ended up in a command billet eventually.

Eventually. But maybe not so fast. And maybe not as commander of the most battle-tested aircraft carrier in the fleet. My carrier, my Jefferson.

Even though she’d managed to resist his considerable personal charm, Coyote had been prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt. After all, since he’d commanded Jefferson himself, he’d be around to give her a few pointers. He’d succeeded in convincing himself that Captain Bethlehem was going to work out just fine.

And so far, she had. The ship—her ship—was in the highest readiness condition he’d ever seen. Every combat system, every measurement of personnel performance, was breaking records in the fleet. Hell, even the food was better.

So why was it that she was such a thorn in his side? Was he just a tad bit pissed off that her statistics in command of Jefferson were higher than his had ever been?

He’d talked it over circumspectly with an old friend, Admiral Batman Wayne, not getting right to the heart of it but edging around the issue. Batman, as usual, had nailed the heart of it. “You’re a Texan and she’s a good-looking woman.” Batman had cocked one quizzical eyebrow at him. “You see any reason for this problem you’re having?”

“I don’t,” Coyote had replied stiffly, aware that the back of his neck was itching, as it always did when he strayed from the truth.

“Ah. So it’s like that, is it?” Batman smirked.

“No, it’s not,” Coyote snapped. Then belatedly. “Like what?”

Not that he’d had to ask. As soon as he’d seen that snide expression on Batman’s face, Coyote had known the truth. Captain Bethlehem, a tall woman with striking blue eyes and blue-black hair, was indeed one of the most attractive women he’d run across in a long time. And not just physically — there was something about her presence, her command presence, that attracted him in a way he didn’t understand.

Pushy women weren’t his type.

“I’ve doubled the lookouts as well,” Captain Bethlehem continued, apparently oblivious to the fact that her admiral had yet to turn and look at her.

“Good.” Finally, his innate sense of courtesy and good manners shaming him into action, he turned to face her.

Seated, his face was level with hers, although he had a good six inches in height on her when they were both standing. Once again, he was conscious of the fact that they were built along similar lines, both lean and smoothly muscled, both taller than most people around them. On her, however, the overall impression was one of a competitive swimmer, while Coyote had always verged on an awkward lankiness.

“Any new word from United States?” she asked. For the first time, Coyote could see the strain in her face, and he felt a moment of shame for his earlier surliness.

“No. Fire’s out, reflash set. I imagine we’ll hear from them when things settle down. This is bound to change things,” he answered.

Coyote was itching to grab the mike and call his counterpart on board United States to see how it was going. But he resisted the urge, knowing that the captain and admiral on board the other ship had far more important things to do than talk to him. Eventually, when they got out the required alert messages, treated all the casualties, and made sure that the area around the ship was cleared of potential threats, they’d have time to talk. But not until then.

“We’re ready,” she said simply, knowing as well as he did what was coming. The Jefferson would be ordered into the Red Sea and would take part in any retaliatory strikes. It was only a matter of time.

“I know you are,” he said, and was only slightly surprised to realize that he meant it.

The call, when it came, was simple and straight to the point. Admiral Blair Jette, call sign Jetson, sounded tired and unusually candid. “It could’ve been a lot worse, Coyote. A lot worse. If the fire had spread to the helo, we would’ve been fighting a Class Delta fire.”

Coyote shuddered. “Not a good thing.”

“You got that right.”

“So. Any damaged operational capabilities I should know about?” Coyote asked.

“Nothing that should affect you. We’ve had to reroute a few fire lines, but that’s about it. Nothing we can’t handle with ship’s crew. But what worries me is the larger situation here. That small boat — we never held it on radar at all. It was all visual.” Jette’s voice held a note of wonder, as though he still wasn’t able to understand how a small wooden craft had posed such a danger to his carrier.

“That worries me, too,” Coyote admitted.

“Listen, the intelligence indications we’re getting down here — if I were you, I’d be standing by to inchop the Red Sea. Things look like they’re heating up again, and you may want to be in position to strike.”

“That bad?”

“Potentially. Nothing we can’t handle, of course.” The cocky note that Coyote had come to associate with Jette was back, as though he hadn’t just fought a fire on board his ship. “Take a look at your intelligence circuits — you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

Coyote glanced to his right, and Commander “Lab Rat” Busby, Jefferson’s intelligence officer, stepped forward. He was a short man, barely topping five feet six inches in height, perhaps 130 pounds soaking wet, and most of that was devoted to brainpower, Coyote believed. Lab Rat’s pale blue eyes, light hair, and light eyes had earned him his nickname in his early days of aviation training.

Without keying the mike, Coyote asked, “What’s he talking about?”

“Four more violations of the no-fly zone, this time with some fairly serious aggressiveness. There was one strafing run on a group of refugee trucks. Also, we have some human intelligence, not of high confidence, but still, that there are some new developments in Iraq’s biological-warfare program.”

“What sort of developments?” Coyote asked. The strafing runs, the no-fly zone — normal stuff, even if detestable. But anything having to do with biological weapons really got his attention.

“No one knows for sure, Admiral. The report may have been sanitized pretty heavily before it was sent to us, but if you read between the lines, you can tell what’s going on. Whatever it is, the folks back at the CIA are worried about it.”

“Ebola? Something like that?”

That diminutive intelligence officer shook his head. “I don’t think so, nothing but a few details. If I had to guess — and mind you, it’s just a guess — I’d say black plague.”

A shudder ran through Coyote. The name alone conjured up apparitions so horrible that he hated to contemplate them.

“Coyote, you still there?” Jette asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Coyote answered as he tried to sort out the implications of what Lab Rat had just told him. “Catching up on a few things with my intelligence officer. And I agree with you, it looks like the stage is set for another major play. But under the circumstances, I’m not inclined to move into the Red Sea immediately. The waters are little bit too constrained for my taste.”

“Exactly so, but there’s no reason to be too concerned about that.” The other admiral’s voice sounded, if anything, even cockier than before. “This time of year you get a good wind across the deck — no problem launching and recovering.”

“Constrained waters,” Coyote began again, but Jette cut him off.

“The only reason a carrier needs much water is to launch and recover aircraft, and the prevailing winds are right along the whole length of the Red Sea. So you’re a little closer to land — big deal. Nothing that your close-in weapons systems can’t deal with.”

Like yours just dealt with the Stringer?

Jette should know better. Sure, he was new to his battle group and had spent more time in Washington than on cruises, but that was no excuse. The constrained waters were something to worry about, and it had nothing to do with a man’s guts or courage. It had to do with good, prudent seamanship.

“Well, we’ll stand by for orders,” Coyote said finally. “I’ve been in the Red Sea and know that we can deal with shorter reaction times.” The Silkworm sites — I guess I better brush up on those. There’s no telling what else they have in the area now.

The Silkworm was a powerful, short-range antiship missile that packed a wallop. It could do far more damage than a little Stinger could, penetrating hulls and strakes to detonate deep inside the ship. It didn’t have to look for an open hangar bay to kill.

“Just keep your boys and girls on their toes and you won’t have any problems,” the other admiral advised, oblivious to the reaction he was producing in Coyote’s command center area. “And when you get ready to come in where the action is, let me know. We can update you on the situation.”

“I’m in the Mediterranean, not San Diego,” Coyote snapped. Sure, he was willing to make allowances for Jette’s arrogance, given what he’d just been through, but tolerance would go only so far.

“Right, right. Well, catch up on your liberty ports and maybe we’ll see you on the front line eventually. United States out.”

Coyote replaced the microphone in its holder, grinding his teeth in frustration. Why, oh why, did he have to be deployed with that particular admiral on this cruise?

The order came later that night. Unless otherwise directed, the USS Jefferson was to inchop the Red Sea and stand by for additional orders. She was to remain in a heightened state of security, particularly in regard to threats from shore-based installations and small boats.

Coyote scanned the orders, then passed his copy to the Chief of Staff. “I’ll be in Medical, if anyone needs me.”

“Anything wrong, Admiral?” his chief of staff asked.

Coyote shook his head. “Nope. Just antsy about the biochem thing. I’ll feel better when I know exactly what we’re doing to plan for it, that’s all.”

He trudged down the ladders and passageways toward Medical. All around him, the crisscrossing lines and pipes were evidence of Jefferson’s intricate, self-contained life-support system. Potable and firefighting lines, electrical junction boxes and compressed air lines and steam lines, all meticulously labeled, surrounded him. Not for the first time, he marveled at how self-contained the Jefferson was. The nuclear power plant provided virtually unlimited energy, sufficient for the ship to make all the fresh water she needed, run the pumps and filters that cleaned her air, provide power to everything from ovens to power tools, not to mention the lights and the air-conditioning. If threatened by nuclear fallout or biological and chemical weapons, Jefferson could button up and put a positive pressure gradient on her interior spaces, making it virtually impossible for any foreign material to enter the ship.

But every strength had its corresponding weakness. Setting Dog Zebra, the material condition that isolated Jefferson’s interior from the outside world, could make her a safe haven in a dangerous environment — or turn her into an incubator. And that little nightmare was just what he wanted to talk to Medical about.