Piranha: Firing Point

An SNN news crew had been aboard as he shot down more than forty supersonic jet fighters, most of them intent on firing missiles at the landing force that came ashore in southern Iran.

That news crew had made him a household face, on par with the commanding general of the invasion. General Pinkenson. His ship was likewise immortalized, the SNN reporters calling it the “Robocruiser.” Henri had never forgotten his taste of the limelight. His offices and sea cabins were decorated with several dozen pictures of him on the bridge of the Robocruiser. He had risen without further media attention, and the loss of it had seemed to sour him. His ambitions seemed fueled by one thing — to get back in front of the television cameras, hopefully as the Chief of Naval Operations.

In addition, for reasons unknown, he’d always been less than cordial to Pacino. He had gone on camera after the Japanese blockade to criticize the way Pacino had handled the submarine war. Pacino had always been convinced that he had found something that would get himself on television, and that he hadn’t really meant what he said. Still, Pacino could feel his stomach tensing as Henri’s face came up.

He wore large, square, wire-rimmed glasses that made his eyes seem bigger than they were. His puffy face was red from years of drinking, his jaw fleshy, his jowls growing by the year. He was ten years older than Pacino but looked much older. He grimaced as he said: “Hello, Pacino. I can just guess what you’re calling about. I heard all about your wild ideas to make us spend a week getting to the beach when we’re seventeen hours away.”

Wild, Pacino thought, the same term Wamer’d used to describe Donchez.

“You’re in deep trouble, JeanPaul. I thought I’d let you know. You’d best put your fleet in an ASW formation and get your Blackboards in the air.”

“Yeah, right. Anything else?”

“The 688s. Where did you deploy them?”

“They ran on ahead about five hours ago to scour the East China Sea. They’re going about four knots faster than us, so they should be about twenty miles ahead.

That should be sufficient to warn us of anything out there, if you’ve trained those guys right. And so far, no enemy submarines.”

“What about the P-5s out of Japan? Are they searching yet?”

“Urn, no.” Henri’s jaw was jutting out pugnaciously.

Pacino imitated him, feeling an uncharacteristic sarcasm surfacing. “Um, why not?”

“Urn, because there’s no threat, and UAIRCOM has some problems with them, maintenance and staffing and other nonsense. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Pacino, we’re on full air-attack alert, and we may be getting paid a visit by a real threat — enemy fighter jets. Flicker fighters, unlike ghost submarines, are somewhat lethal, and they’ll be coming in at Mach 1.2, giving us only a few seconds to react. So if it’s acceptable to you, I’d like to be getting back to the tactical problem at hand. Oh, and one more thing, Pacino. Don’t call me again.”

He hung up. Pacino smashed his hand on the darkening screen in frustration, cursing at Henri.

“The Pearl subs? Where are they? Are they up to emergency flank?”

White sighed. “They left within an hour after your call, when we were on the way to Andrews Air Force Base. That’s 400 miles down. 4,200 to go.”

“Almost four days at max speed.”

“The world is damned big. Geography is a killer.

Which is why Wamer stationed this huge an army in Japan.”

“Paully, what’s your gut feeling?”

“Sir, I think that’s the last conversation you’ll ever have with JeanPaul Henri. I think he and his force are going down. We’ve done every damned thing we could, and it’s not enough.”

“There’s one thing we haven’t done. Get a message out to the Santa Fe and the Annapolis.”

“Careful, sir, that JeanPaul’s turf.”

“Hell with him. Send those two subs a message and don’t bother copying JeanPaul. Tell them USUBCOM suspects the presence of possible Destiny or Rising Sun-type submarines under the control of the Reds. Tell them they could be reverse-engineered copies or copies made from stolen Japanese plans. I don’t know, think of something and make it sound credible. And when you’re done with that, call ahead to the shipyard. I want to lower the SSNX’s floating dock and go waterborne tomorrow. Make sure you tell them to get the SSNX out of dock under maximum security. That will mean something to them. I’ve got a way to sneak it to sea no one will believe.”

“How?”

“You’ll see. Just tell them. Max security.” “Okay,” White said doubtfully. “No problem, I can do that. Uh, can I ask why?”

“You did ask. We’re putting the SSNX in the water because we’re getting the SSNX underway. Give me the file on the crew.”

White smiled. This was the Admiral Pacino he knew.

He clicked through the Writepad until he reached the SSNX personnel file, then handed it to Pacino.

Pacino frowned, drumming his fingers on the table, wishing he could figure out what to do next.

NAZE — YAKUSMMA GAP

USS JAMES WEBB, CVN-80