Tomahawk (56 page)

“Anyway, as we're getting all that mensurated topography and intel, we're thinking about the specific route. That part of it, you can't automate. We've actually got aviators who sit at the console. They're the ones who get you down under nap of the earth. When we have the approach route nailed down, we start rolling the ball. The system converts that into digital way points the missile can bump the actual terrain contours with as it overflies.”

“Where are they?” said Dan, looking around. “The aviators?”

“We'll have them here when we're ready for them.” Honners was at a terminal, tapping keys. “Then we get to the DSMAC attack profile. That's where we're not so smart right now.”

“Why not?”

“Don't need that fine a terminal guidance for a nuke,” Powell said. “Three hundred feet, that's close enough. But

if you're handing us a conventional mission… well,

suddenly we need images. Photos. The more detailed, the better.”

“I sent you a lot of that stuff. Before they scrubbed the raid the first time. It had impact points. Damage overlays. What happened to that?”

“You weren't listening. You're talking attack planning; I'm talking what the seeker head's got to
see.
We've got to come up with a reference image. That brings our final accuracy down to thirty feet or so.”

Honners said, “But there's another problem with that. Smoke, dust, bad weather. No see, no hit. Are these going
to be the first strikes in? Or will there be air strikes previous?”

“These are the first weapons in. There shouldn't be any smoke.”

“Dust? Rain? Sandstorms?”

“If his weather-guessers tell Admiral Kidder there're going to be storms, he'll postpone the whole operation. Nobody can bomb in a sandstorm.”

Dan thought of something else. “What about DMA? They're supposed to give you digitized maps. Can't they help?”

“Not on Libya,” said Powell. “Not now. Maybe three years down the road. We're gonna have to do those ourselves.”

“North African section,” Honners murmured. “We don't have it…. But I could get it.”

“How fast?”

“That depends.” Powell put his hands in his pockets. “You said something about getting priority. Come through on that, and we'll do your targeting for you.”

He left a head-to-head with the commanding officer with a promise that if it was physically possible, FIC would deliver five TLAM-C route profiles. Two would be drawn on the targets near and inside Tripoli, two on the targets near Benghazi, and one on Sidi Garib. If time permitted, they would do an additional route to Sidi Garib, then an additional one on Tripoli.

He wasn't entirely satisfied with this. Using one route for multiple missions would make it easier for guns and surface-to-air missiles to target the follow-ons. But it was a start. Also, he suspected FIC was holding back on being too optimistic, for fear of falling on their face. In that case, he might get more than they first promised, especially if he could turn up the heat a little more.

Back in the lobby, Sakai asked him, “Now what? Back to D.C.?”

“We need to make some secure calls…. Let's do it now, while we're here.”

Dan checked in with his new boss, at JCM, then placed a priority call to Sixth Fleet on the commanding officer's
red phone. He checked his watch while the call was going through the switchboard in Germany. It would be eleven at night in Gaeta. A voice he recognized answered on the first ring. “Sixth Fleet, N-thirty-eight”

“Captain Friedman? Commander Lenson here.”

“Roger, go ahead. Over.”

He spoke slowly, so the scrambler could keep up. “We got your tasker. I am at FIC getting the missions planned.” He brought him up-to-date on the number of routes. He asked Friedman to rate his top ten targets in terms of priority, and to get him as much planning data as he could.

“Can do. Give you a call back in about an hour?”

He keyed, then waited for the beep as the scrambler synced. “Yes, sir, I'll stand by. Also, I think some personal flag-level interest would turn up the heat here. Over.”

Friedman said he'd see what he could do, maybe arrange a chief-of-staff to chief-of-staff call. “It's got to be done back-channel, though, because CINCLANT is dual-hatted to NATO. And this is not going to be a NATO strike, because everybody but Maggie Thatcher told us to fuck off. Over.”

“Roger. Over.”

“This whole thing would carry a lot more weight if we all hit Khaddafi together. Anyway, I'll see what I can do on that issue. Anything else? Over.”

Dan said there wasn't, and signed off. He told Sparky, “I'm going to stand by here, wait for a call back. How about some pizza or something?”

The FICLANT commander said, “I heard you talking about the inter-CINC coordination thing. Your best bet might be just to walk down there. CINCLANT headquarters is right down the street. Big gray concrete building. I'll send an escort down with you. Current Ops is the guy you want to see.”

Friedman didn't call back till late that night, but when he did, he had latitude and longitude on the launch baskets, complete UTS-coordinate way points, and prioritizations for the top targets. Dan passed those to Powell's people, gargled some coffee, and split a Chanello's with Sparky.
The green peppers made it the closest thing he'd had to a balanced meal in days.

Alix Honners came in with a question while they were eating. One of the missions plotted out in a densely inhabited area. Dan said crankily, “They probably built it there for exactly that reason.”

She stared at him. “What precisely does that mean, Commander? That we can feel free to kill all the civilians around it?”

He was instantly sorry. “No. You're right. What's the target number?”

“B54.”

That didn't tell him anything, but when he looked at the coordinates, he blinked. It was the intelligence building in Benghazi, the one that had been 3-C in Gaeta. “I thought that was scrubbed.”

“Well, it's here on the list.”

“I'll check on it,” he said.

But shortly after that, he got a call from Captain Grady that made him think about something else. They wanted him back in Stuttgart for a command brief the next day. So at 0730 the next morning, Powell dropped him at the Military Air Command terminal at NAS Norfolk and he caught a C-5 to Frankfurt.

“We're here, sir. Sir?”

An official Mercedes and driver had met him at the airport this time. He stretched and grunted—he'd been asleep in the passenger seat—and checked to make sure his briefcase was still attached. Literally. The intel types insisted it be shackled to his wrist, just like in the movies. Sakai had stayed in Norfolk, getting smart on the mission-planning system in case they needed some last-minute expertise.

“Need a hand, sir?”

“No. Just… is there anyplace I can shave? Before the briefing?”

The aide, apparently used to such requests, shuttled him into a head, loaned him a disposable Good News, and sent the driver to the PX for new underwear. Dan hoped he was at least fifteen feet from General Stahl, out of
smelling range. The aide stood inside the door the whole time he was shaving and changing. Then he took him up the back steps to the grandstand level of the Fishbowl, to join the other briefers for that afternoon.

Gen. Roland Stahl, U.S. Army, had a gray buzz cut on a wide, bony head, making him look like Emperor Vespasian. The other flag and senior officers came to attention as he charged in. Dan, standing in the rear, wished he'd had time to check in with Grady, see how the land lay before he extended his crank onto the railroad tracks. He fingered the still-damp photocopies of his briefing slides. He'd grease-penciled them on his way across the Atlantic.

Stahl took a seat in front. The deputy CINC, General Auer, sat to his right. To his left was an admiral in blues. The chief of staff sat to his left. The rest of the front-row seats the staff left empty.

“Let's get started,” said Auer, turning in his seat to give Dan a hostile look.

A colonel in greens and a sweater kicked off. “Good morning, General, Admiral, members of the staff. This will be a quick brief to bring you up to date on COM-SIXTHFLEET's plan for the operation now called Arroyo Gold.”

Dan stood at the rear, noting how the strike had evolved. More had changed than the name. It was larger in numbers of aircraft, in numbers of targets. It was a major effort. Stahl took most of it in silence, though occasionally he interrupted with a softly voiced question.

Then it was Dan's turn, too soon, and he stepped up and arranged his notes. This time, he was looking at the audience's backs; they were looking down at the screens and not back at him. He took two deep breaths and pressed the slide button.

“Sir, I'm Lcdr. Dan Lenson, Joint Cruise Missile Project Office. I will brief the Tomahawk segment of the strike. We are currently planning between five and ten missions, with between one and three missiles assigned to each—”

Auer asked sharply, “You don't know how many?” Dan explained the bottleneck at the mission-planning center.

“You're planning this back in Norfolk?”

“Yessir. Right now, that's the only operational mission-planning activity.”

A question from Stahl, unfortunately in such a low voice, he didn't catch it. “Sir, could you repeat that, please?”

“I said: Why aren't my people briefing this?”

“Uh, sir, they requested I brief due to my familiarity with the—”

“If we're going to employ this weapon, I want someone knowledgeable on it on my staff.”

“This is not yet a fully operational system, General,” one of the colonels behind Dan said.

Stahl said sharply, “Why are we using an experimental system?”

Because you asked for it, Dan thought, but he didn't say that aloud. Stahl might have forgotten his remark to Niles. He said, “Admiral Kidder's people asked me to do this brief, sir. I'm also helping set up the mission planning, to grease the skids and make the strike date.”

“Go on,” said Stahl after a moment. Sweating, Dan bent to the mike. “Second slide, please.”

Stahl listened without comment as Dan described how Tomahawk had been integrated into both the Air Force and Navy plans. He asked one question about retargeting, and Dan said it was essentially nonexistent. What the planning activity put out was what the missile would fly. He reached back to his supporting-arms experience in the Med to put the message across in Army terms. “These are like planned artillery fires, General.”

“Oh, like planned fires?” Stahl remarked. “I'm starting to get this. All right.”

“Yes, sir. Eventually, we'll have a satellite-transmitted update capability, but right now we're limited to canned missions.” He waited, then went on sketch out the routes and then the lay-down. He finished, “There's one target I want to bring to your attention. The intelligence agency building. It's located in the center of downtown Benghazi.”

“How many rounds are you targeting against it?”

“Two, sir, currently, but—”

“Two. Is that enough?”

“Sir, that's not the point I want to make. Due to its location, I would like to delete it from the list. Not strike it at all.”

A moment of silence and then General Auer said, his voice ringing out, “That's an important target from the psychological operations point of view. I think we should retain it on the target list, sir.”

Several other voices murmured, then subsided. “I hear your objection,” said Stahl slowly. “But it's apparently something we need to hit.”

“Sir, I think that's a mistake,” Dan said. “It's in a densely populated area. Fleet Intelligence Center concurs with that recommendation.”

He felt the heightening of attention around him. Auer twisted in his seat to examine Dan. So did several other staff officers. Stahl sat without moving. “Go on with your brief, Lieutenant Commander,” said the deputy CINC.

Dan hesitated, then said to the motionless green-clad back, “General Stahl?”

“I heard your recommendation. I don't repeat myself, Commander. Retain it on the target list.”

“Aye aye, sir…. That concludes my brief.”

He stepped back from the podium, smelling his own stink, glad to be finished, but also feeling doomed. Stahl had taken the responsibility. That was his job, and he'd stepped up to the plate.

The bottom line was that as much as he thought it was the wrong decision, there wasn't anything more he could do. As the others came to attention, he did, too, watching Stahl's iron profile as he passed them by, paused for a moment at the top of the spiral ladder for a low-voiced comment to his deputy, then disappeared from view.

36

 

 

 

He bounced from Andrews to Norfolk on a twin-engine Learjet assigned to the Vice Chief of Naval Operations. Meaning he napped uneasily in what passed for military luxury, a padded seat with a reading light. His body had lost track of time on the way back from Europe, so it had compromised on never being either fully asleep or fully awake. When his eyes came open again, he couldn't remember where he was. Then he saw the sail-dotted expanse of Hampton Roads sliding by below, succeeded by the bristling ranks of pier-nestled ships.