The Command

The men were still waiting. He had to say something. “Good reaction, good work,” he said to them all. “Especially the Mark 86 and the Harpoon Targeting team. Herb, give the OOD a course and run us over where those missiles hit. We’ll see if there’s anybody in the water who can tell us what this was all about.”

But Camill was looking up from the big scope again, puzzlement clear in his furrowed brow. “What is it?” Dan asked him.

“That third contact,” the ops officer said. “It’s still on the scope.”

“What third contact?”

“The one you told me to check for. Out behind them.”

Dan slid out of his chair.

The radar return was faint. It was probably either smaller or lower than the Osas. When he put the ESM operators on its bearing, they picked up a weak emission on a VHF band. When they put it on the speaker, it sounded like Arabic. But by the time they got a translator to Combat, the transmission had ceased. The bands hissed like an empty conch shell.

“Give them a call,” he told Camill.

“Unidentified craft, this is U.S. Navy warship. Identify yourself.”

No response. They called again, then put Barkhat on. No one answered him, either. One of the trackers reported the contact was coming right. After a smooth wide turn, it steadied up. Running its new course out, Dan saw it was heading for Egyptian territorial waters. Where neither he nor any other U.S. unit could follow. From there it could merge back into the coastal traffic and vanish.

What could it have aboard so valuable men would kill and die to protect it?

“Sir, are we headed over where the Osas went down?”

“No,” he told Camill. “Get Brinegar on the line. Vector Moosbrugger over there to pick up any survivors. If this is what I think it is, I’m not letting this guy go.”

32

He could have intercepted in under an hour at flank speed. But he didn’t want to go in blind, at night. So for the remainder of the hours of darkness he paralleled the third contact’s slow course, remaining some miles to the north. Updating Vigilant Dragon every half hour, and each time requesting permission to cross the line, if necessary, in hot pursuit. Permission denied, permission denied. At first he took it calmly. After almost getting hammered with Styxes, he was just glad to be alive. Then, as the distance separating the fleeing craft from safe haven shrank, he started to heat up.

At the first sign of dawn he launched Richardson and Conden in Blade Slinger and vectored them southward.

As the light grew over the sea, they made a long-range pass, then checked the fleeing contact out from a mile away. Finally the aircraft made a low pass. They reported a trawler-type with two men on deck waving.

Listening in Combat, Dan had a moment of doubt. Was the attack by the Osas unrelated? Coincidental? No, the tactic, the offensive, had to have been meant to protect this innocent-looking craft.

He couldn’t help recalling the dhow attack. It had looked innocent, too. Built around a small craft. They’d never have suspected a thing, if Ar-Rahim hadn’t blown the whistle from shoreside. This could be the same tactic. Maybe even the same organization.

His phone, by his chair. “Skipper.”

“Sir, XO here.”

“Claudia?”

“We need a decision about breakfast.”

Horn was still at general quarters, though he’d let the men relax on station. Where there’d been two hostile Osas, there might be more. But it had been hours now. He said reluctantly, “All right, secure. I want to stay at condition three on the bridge and Combat, though.”

When the word came over the 1MC, the crew began stretching and stripping off their helmets. Dan sat brooding. Blade Slinger reported another low pass, crew still waving on deck. Estimated speed twelve. Richardson said it was pushing a bow wave. Twelve was probably as fast as it could go.

Which Dan thought strange for a fishing boat. The others had tacked and veered at low speeds, seeking their piscine prey. He went back to the chart table. Camill stood by silently.

“So where’s he going now? A straight course, top speed?”

“Home?”

“You think so?”

“You know what I wonder,” Camill said.

“What?”

“Not where he’s going now. Where he was headed before.”

Dan cursed himself. He should have thought of that. He headed for the chart of the eastern Med, rolled out and taped down. Called back, “Read me off the first detected position, backtracking on the JOTS.”

He plotted it. Ran a straight line from the posit Camill read off.

Straightened, feeling a chilled knife-edge trace his spine. “You seeing what I’m seeing, Camel?”

“Yessir, sure am. They were running straight for Tel Aviv, till we got in their way.”

He picked up the sat phone once more. Now he was going to have to explain he’d sent his embarked helo into the standoff zone dividing his patrol area from Egyptian waters. And that Horn herself would be leaving her patrol area in the next few minutes. This time he asked to speak to Vigilant Dragon actual. An older, more deliberate voice came on.