The Cruiser: A Dan Lenson Novel by David Poyer

Author:David Poyer [Poyer, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Sea Stories, Thrillers, Military, Action & Adventure, General
ISBN: 9781250020598
Google: zL_CAwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00IW3MR6C
Barnesnoble: B00IW3MR6C
Goodreads: 21408354
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2014-12-09T06:00:00+00:00

12

War Day

DAN was napping in his chair in Combat when the message came in. He woke to Cher Staurulakis shaking his arm. “Captain. Captain!”

“Yeah!”

“The Air Force is hitting downtown Baghdad.”

His first instinct was to check his watch. 0440 local, Bravo time, one hour earlier than it was over what was now, officially, an enemy capital.

The warning order had come down several hours before. They’d gone to darken ship and full battle readiness. Everyone on the bridge was in flash gear, with goggles handy. Here in CIC, gas masks, life preservers, and helmets were stacked in neat piles or slung from consoles. He ran his eye over displays and status readouts. The starboard bow array wasn’t operating as well as it should. The chill-water flow was still a problem.

Other than that, and the slow engine response due to their artificially low patrolling speed, Savo was as ready as he could make her. Right now they were on a southeasterly course, which pointed the port quarter array out along the main threat bearing, but they were nearing the southern limits of their area. He’d have to turn north again in another hour or so, or lose geometry on the acquisition basket.

He’d come to visualize this as a circle hovering sixty miles above and slightly north of Amman. Ezekiel saw that wheel, way up in the middle of the air.… Donnie and Mills were down trying to improve the numbers on the other array. If they couldn’t get it above 80 percent, he’d have to head west rather than north. Which would gradually open the range, and thus reduce their probability of kill.

Stuck to them like a tick, the bright pip of Lahav rode five miles off. During the night the Israeli corvette had repositioned to the north. Staurulakis had interpreted that positively. “He’s clearing our downrange bearing. Letting us do what we’re here for,” she’d murmured, typing rapidly. She was monitoring the chat from the U.S. and British ships that had slammed open the doors of Iraq’s defenses with salvos of Tomahawks from the Gulf and the Red Sea. “There won’t be a long air campaign before the land assault this time. The Army and Marines are already crossing the Kuwaiti border.”

“They’ll burn the oil fields again,” Dan said. Remembering the stench of burning hydrocarbons that had hung over that land, like smoke over Mordor, during the last war.

“Maybe not, if we can take them down fast enough. SpecOps are mounting an amphibious assault on Basra. It’s going to hang on what happens when the Army hits the Republican Guard.”

“Good luck to ’em,” Dan said. When it came to war, the football-field enmity, always half a joke anyway, vanished, and the services rolled as one.

Terranova came out of the darkness holding a thermos and a plate. “Coffee, Captain? And they sent us up some cinnamon buns. Special, for the tracking team.”

“Nice. Thanks, Beth.” He took two; his mirror had been telling him he could afford some empty calories. He winced as the fresh charge of java burned his tongue.

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