The Command

Cassidy’s radio snapped, “Gold, in the boat and cast off. Sound off when you’re on the deck opposite.”

“Senior, you like the looks of this?” Lizard Man muttered. He pointed at the approaching bank of dust.

Marchetti ignored him. Sand, dust, fuck’s the difference. “Let’s go, go, go,” he yelled. Sasquatch levered over the rail and dropped down the jacob’s ladder. Fear rocked as he stepped into it. The coxswain yelled, “Next man,” and Snack Cake let go. Marchetti looked around at the ship, then heard the yell from below. He hitched the Mossberg on its sling, grabbed with both hands, and swung his boots lightly over.

* * *

Dan sat in Combat, scanning the message again.

ZZZZ TTTT 9007WW — WUUUT-RHUALLQ-PZZZZ

Z 200010Z JUL 93

FM COMFIFTHFLT

TO COMIDEASTFOR

CTF 50

USS LABOON

USS HORN

USS PETERSON

USS CARON

USS OKLAHOMA CITY

USS DEYO

INFO USCINCENT MCDILL AFB TAMPA FLA//00/01/J3/J31/J32//

CINCUSEUCOM VAIHINGIN GE//J00/J01/J3/JFACC//

BT

T O P S E C R E T//FLAGWORD-DESERT SCORPION//

MSGID/A L E R T O R D E R/FEB/001//

REF/A/NCA/DOC/31JAN93/NOTAL//

REF/B/USCC/ORDER/312345ZJUN93/NOTAL//

NARR/REF A IS EXECUTIVE ORDER 12349, DIRECTING CINC

OPERATIONS

AGAINST NATION OF IRAQ. REF B IS USCINCENT ORDER

DIRECTING COMUSNAVCENT TO CONDUCT OPERATIONS.//

RMKS/1. (TS/FW-DS) NCA HAS DIRECTED ORIG TO CONDUCT

MILITARY OPERATIONS AGAINST THE NATION OF IRAQ, IN

RESPONSE TO ACTIONS OUTLINED REF A.

2. (TS/FW-DS) CINC AND NCA HAVE DIRECTED TLAM ATTACKS

AGAINST THE FOL TGTS:

TGT ID AND AIMPOINT

TGT NAME

AABN-1Y-02Y4-AB 236

RAS AL GHAZIR MUNITIONS

DEPOT

AALR-4Z-06U7-AB

AL-NUHAYAB,

COMMUNICATIONS FACILITY

ABQV-3D-04Z3-AA

SHALAT AL BAZIR

INTELLIGENCE CTR

3. (TS/FW-DS) DESIRED TIME ON TOP IS NO LATER THAN 022300Z21JUL.

4. (TS/FW-DS) TAKES REF B FORAC.// ENDAT

NNNN

He folded it and slipped it into his shirt pocket, glancing angrily at the clock. Only two hours away. Not enough time to finish the current boarding and reembark the team. The launch window was critical for a simultaneous time on target. Ships in the Gulf would launch later than Horn and Laboon, since they were closer to Baghdad. He had to scoot north to the launch basket. Why couldn’t they stick to the original plan? He told the tactical action officer to come right and bring her up to flank three for the launch box.

“Sir, the MIO team’s still over there. Shall I call them back?”

He reflected. The seas were fairly calm; the sand in the air reduced visibility, but it wasn’t a storm in the sense of high winds and seas. “No. Tell Cassidy what’s going on. Tell him to board and start the search. We’ll be back to pick him up as soon as we launch.”

The original launch order and time and clearance had come in Top Secret just after midnight. Shaken awake by Kim McCall, Dan had passed the word for Condition One, Strike, then gone down to Combat. The mission was now in a control by negation mode, meaning they’d launch on time, unless told not to.

McCall had gotten her strike team together around the chart table. “Okay, this is a real-world contingency strike into Iraq. What we get paid for. Let’s get busy.”

The fire controlmen had rigged the top secret curtain and signs around the consoles. It was hot already in Combat, with the air-conditioning down, and it’d get hotter. McCall and the petty officer at the launch control console had begun entering the verification codes for the mission data already on the hard disk. As the system began retrieving landfall data — what the missiles had to know to cross the coast, so the operators could plan the overwater leg of the flight path — everybody had settled in for a hectic and busy several hours. Since then, he and McCall and the chief fire controlman had validated the launch order, number of missiles targeting, and salvo spacing.