Tomahawk (48 page)

When the congratulations died down, he went below to the equipment room. Both Sakai and Burdette were there, studying the hard-copy printout. “What's the matter?” he asked them.

“Nothing. They done real good,” Burdette muttered.

“It's the rest of the figures that don't exactly happy face,” Sakai reminded him. “We came out here to shoot six rounds. Out of that, one fizzled, one headed for Hollywood, two flew good, one was a can't count because of the fire, and the last one flew great. Overall, a sixty percent success rate. And that's under ideal conditions—nice weather, fresh missiles, scads of technical help.” The engineer gnawed his lip. “Plus, the follow-on to this ma-chine's
got to go faster and do some terminal weaves. That hulk wasn't shooting back or maneuvering. It's not gonna be that easy against a
Sovremenny.”

“We can fix that.” Dan patted his shoulder, remembering when all Yoshiyuki Sakai had wanted was to get back to his research. “Let's see if we can get together after dinner, rough out the after-action report, okay? Maybe back here, where it'll be quiet.”

Shortly after, the ship came around to a southeasterly course, headed back toward San Diego. He was out running, in the third mile and pushing it as hard as he could on the rolling helo deck, when the 1MC announced, “Commander Lenson, call the bridge.” He walked into the hangar, sweaty and loose, and punched the aiphone. “Lenson here.”

“Junior officer of the deck, sir. Captain'd like to see you, sir. In his cabin.”

“I was running. Take me a couple minutes to change.”

“Maybe you better just go on up, sir.”

He said he was on his way. He jogged through the passageway, then climbed the ladder. He knocked and let himself into Cannady's sea cabin. The air conditioning made his sweaty clothes clammy. “Lieutenant Commander Lenson, sir.”

“Hi, Dan. Sorry to interrupt your jog. This just came in.” Cannady handed him a message board. “Sit down, take a look, and then we'll discuss it. Wait a minute—I'll throw a towel down there first.”

The message was from JCM, classified “Secret.” The subject line read: “Modifications to travel arrangements.”

1. (S) ON COMPLETION TASMEX, JCM RIDERS MR. Y. SAKAI AND LCDR V. BURDETTE RETURN TO JCM WASHINGTON DC IN ACCORDANCE WITH PREVIOUS ARRANGEMENTS.
   
2. (S) THIS MESSAGE CONSTITUTES ORDERS FOR LCDR D V LENSON. ON COMPLETION TASMEX AND DEBARK, CONTACT SATO NAVBASE SAN DIEGO TO EXCHANGE CURRENT AIR TICKETS FOR COMMER-CIAL
   AIR TRAVEL TO STUTTGART FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY.
   
3. (S) YOU ARE HEREBY DIRECTED PROCEED AND REPORT TEMDU ASSIGNED TO: CAPT V. L. GRADY USN, US NAVAL FORCES EUROPE, BUILDING 2358, PATCH BARRACKS, VAIHINGEN GERMANY. FOR ADMIN PURPOSES REPORT TO: COMMANDER IN CHIEF US FORCES EUROPE.
   
4. (S) IT IS CERTIFIED THAT YOU HOLD A TOP SECRET CLEARANCE FROM THIS COMMAND BASED ON NATIONAL AGENCY CHECK COMPLETED 241180 BY DODMAC CENTER.
   
5. (U) MEMBER AUTHORIZED TO TRAVEL AT OWN EXPENSE SUBJECT TO REIMBURSEMENT.
   

The rest of the message was accounting data.

“So, you're off for Germany,” Cannady observed, lighting his stogie. “Couldn't help seeing that. Can I ask why? Or shouldn't I?”

“You can ask, but I'm afraid I don't know. Any chance of using a covered phone when we get in? I'd like to call the boss, find out what this is all about.”

“Sure, soon's we're pierside. Or we can set up a secure voice circuit right now, patch you via Point Mugu.”

“Thanks, sir, but pierside should be soon enough. When are we getting in?”

“We always seem to go faster heading home. I'm figuring ten hundred tomorrow.”

When they got in, the captain drove him personally over to squadron headquarters. Dan asked to use the red phone. Eventually, he was talking to Colonel Evans. The deputy said, “Lenson? Hi. How'd the shoot go?”

“Mixed results, sir. But we passed the OPEVAL.” “

Good. I assume you're calling in regard to that message you just got directing you to Vaihingen. Here's the background. Admiral Niles saw General Stahl in London.”

“Who's General Stahl, sir?”

“Gen. Roland Stahl, U.S. Army, four stars, is Commander in Chief, U.S. Forces, Europe. He and Niles bumped into each other in the rest room after a meeting at the Ministry of Defence. He asked the admiral, ‘What have you got in the bag that can help me do a strike?' The admiral said, Tomahawk.' Stahl's curious. So you're gonna be our salesman/Admiral Niles wants you to go there, brief him, and sell him on including the BGM-one oh nine in his plans.”

“What are his plans?”

Evans cautioned him on security, then said, “There may be a strike coming up in North Africa.”

“That's not in Europe.”

“The North African littoral's in CINCEUR's area of responsibility.”

He was having trouble believing this. “And he wants me to ‘sell' this four-star, this General Stahl, on using GLCM?”

“No, no, no. Not GLCM! But that familiarity will help; you're the only guy we've got with joint experience. Right now, Stahl's thinking either F-one elevens out of England or a carrier strike off the
Coral Sea
and
America.
Niles wants to use the land-attack rounds aboard
New Jersey
instead.”

Dan felt his skin creep. “Sir, what we've got out there in the Med is a box with missiles in it We could probably do an antiship strike. But not land attack. We don't have a mission-planning cell, or a targeting infrastructure, or—”

“That's why we're sending you, to whip one together if we need it. Niles already called the Sixth Fleet commander. Report to Vaihingen. Get briefed in. Call me back before you go in to see Stahl.”

“Sir, we're not ready for this. If we shoot craps, it'll kill the program.”

“I think your orders are clear,” said Evans, the western twang for some reason coming through very clearly.

There wasn't really any comeback possible to that, so he didn't try to make one. He hung up and sat there, appalled. Was this how forces got assigned at the CINC
level? Flag officers running into one another in the can? They weren't ready for this.
New Jersey's
software was a bastard of the contractor and in-house versions, with more patches than a hobo's pants. “Jesus H. Christ,” he muttered, rubbing his face with both hands.

Cannady poked his head in. “Done? I had the chief shoot over, pick up your tickets. Flight leaves at twelve-thirty. We better run.”

Still numb as a tooth prepped for extraction, he picked up his luggage and followed the skipper out.

V

THE STRIKE

30

 

 

 

The flight stopped in Chicago for fuel, then made the long leap to Frankfurt. From there he caught a Lufthansa hop to Stuttgart. He'd wondered how he was going to get to the compound, but the worry was wasted. The USO desk at the airport told him he had an hour to wait for transport to Patch Barracks. He had coffee and pastry at a shop with menus in German, English, French, and Italian. Then shouldered his carry-on and followed a group of Army enlisted onto a military bus.

The “barracks” turned out to be a huge base on the outskirts of a city. The bus dropped him on a square surrounded by enormous Teutonic-styled gray concrete blocks. Everything was meticulously landscaped, but the place gave him the creeps. Maybe it was just the feeling of foreignness. Not just Germany, but Army in Germany.

Building 2358 was the most unimaginative structure he'd ever seen, a blank-faced three-story puce concrete warehouse. Antennas protruded from the peaked roof. He crossed a courtyard of pink asphalt and cobblestones, enclosed by concrete walls that looked like tank barriers, and headed toward a beige steel door with a plaque that read HQ US EUCOM COMMAND CENTER.

Inside, further passage was blocked by a sergeant in a white helmet liner sitting at a desk. After examining his orders, the soldier picked up a phone. When a female Navy lieutenant showed up, the sergeant signed him in. Dan clipped on a bright yellow ESCORTED badge.

The lieutenant took him down a narrow corridor and
then up a concrete and steel stair so tight they had to go single file. The stairwell smelled moldy and ancient. At the top, he followed her down another corridor. The tiles on the overhead we
re
missing, revealing beams coated with asbestos. Finally, she punched a combo lock and held the door.

The NAVEUR office was big enough for a metal desk and two filing cabinets. It opened off another, not much bigger, but with four desks. The lieutenant said Captain Grady was at the morning brief. She got Dan coffee and a copy of
Stars and Stripes.
He cleared his throat and asked, “I know what EUCOM is. European Command. But what's NAVEUR doing here? I thought he was in Naples.”

“He is. But he works for General Stahl, so he's got a liaison here, too.”

Grady came in at 0845, looking tired. He was about fifty, with startlingly white hair in a widow's peak and round gold-framed John Lennon glasses. He wore submariner's dolphins and a command pin. “Lenson?” he said, looking him up and down. “Okay flight? Where you bunking?”

“Nowhere yet, sir. Just got off the bus.”

Grady yelled into the outer office, telling the lieutenant to call over for a room. Closing the door, he said to Dan, “First time at Patch?”

“Yes, sir.”

“This is actually an old panzer facility. Built as Kur-märker Kaserne in ‘36. We bombed the hell out of it in ‘45, then moved inj. We'll get you installed over at the Q. That's in Craig Village.”

“Walking distance, sir?”

“Oh, yeah. Ten minutes. Go back toward the main gate, where you came in, then turn right. Head down Katzenbacherstrasse till you come to the loop.” Grady's face twitched. “Wish you'd have gotten in last night. We could have had you sit in on the commander's brief. But I can tell you most of what you need to know. You're set up for ten hundred in the Fishbowl. If everything goes okay, you'll get asked to go along to the planning meeting.”

“Ten hundred.” Dan started to feel nervous. “Will General Stahl be there?”

“I don't know if you're actually going to see the CINC himself. There's limited personal availability. The DCINC and the COS—”

“Uh, sir, what are those?”

“Deputy commander in chief, and chief of staff. General Auer's the DCINC.” He pronounced it “d-sink.”

“Okay, got that.” He noted it in his wheelbook. “But the word I got was that General Stahl had asked Admiral Niles a question personally.”

“Regardless, you'll still have to impress Auer first. He's the wicket keeper around here…. Let me bring you up-to-date on what we got going.”

Grady slid open a filing cabinet. His face contorted again, and this time Dan saw it was involuntary. The first briefing slide was classified “Top Secret SPECAT.” It was captioned “Operation Prime Needle.” Looking over his spectacles like a nineteenth-century professor, the captain said, “We've gotten a warning order to plan a strike against Libya.”

“Against Libya.” North Africa, terrorist bombings, rumors swirling around; it wasn't a surprise, but it was the first time he'd heard it specified as a target. “When?”

“No date yet, but on short notice. There's a diplomatic solution working, sanctions, but I don't know if it's going to result in anything that will satisfy this administration.”

Dan turned the pages slowly. The concept of operations was clear from the charts and target lists. The “forces to be committed” area was still blank.

“The rationale's to make Khaddafi close down his support of terrorists. The target list is the facilities, training camps, and transport airfields they use.”

“Are we sure of that, sir? That he's the sponsor?”

“We're pretty sure he's behind the airport massacres, both support and direction; but on the most recent bombing, we intercepted messages from his embassy, reporting first that the operation would be carried out and then that it was a success. It's him all right.”