Terminal Run

“Admiral Patton? A flash transmission came in on the bypass E-mail circuit marked personal for CNO, sir.” The Navy lieutenant commander handed Patton a tablet computer, and the admiral put down his pen and pushed his reading glasses to the bridge of his nose as he read.

He studied the message, then wandered to the sepia-colored globe in the corner of the Chief of Naval Operations suite and tapped at the Suez Canal, frowning in concentration.

“Draft a reply, with immediate priority,” he said.

“Ready, sir,” the aide said.

“Make it read, “Strongly concur with your plan. Good luck. Admiral Patton sends.” Got that?”

“Yes sir.”

Patton sat back in the chair, a slight smile appearing on his face.

The first Equalizer IV heavy supersonic cruise missiles streaked off the deck of the John Paul Jones at just after three in the morning and climbed to the west. With a missile taking off every minute, it took less than an hour to launch them all.

Five hours later, Admiral Ericcson was called out of his rack to flag plot as the missiles received their targeting instructions. A half hour later the units began to seek their targets in the Suez.

“Turn on SNN London,” Ericcson said to Pulaski. “Let’s see how long it takes for the news to hit the airwaves.”

By the fourth explosion, Satellite News Network London interrupted a business report with a breaking story about violent supertanker explosions in the Suez Canal.

“Any bets they get a camera there to catch the last missile impact live?”

Two minutes after Ericcson spoke, the tanker on the screen was hit from directly above by a descending missile. The explosion rocked the camera. An orange eruption of flames rose from the middle of the ship, and as it grew into a fierce mushroom cloud, the form of the supertanker could be seen in the smoke, clearly broken in half, the bow protruding pathetically vertical while the aft section rolled to expose the huge screw and rudder.

“Holy Christ,” Pulaski muttered.

Ericcson nodded somberly. “Poor bastards.”

A moment of silence passed, until finally Ericcson tossed his cigar away and said, “I wonder what the British admiral is thinking right now.”

The pilot put the supersonic Whirlwind fighter in the approach glide slope, rowing his throttles to full power, back to half throttle, then back to a hundred percent. The deck of the Royal Navy aircraft carrier Ark Royal grew closer in the windscreen, on a perfect calm sunny day in the Mediterranean. The pilot took one last scan of the instrument panel — the landing gear was extended, flaps were at thirty degrees, the arresting hook was deployed, fuel was at thirty percent, engine oil pressure was nominal — and after a tenth of a second had his eyes back on the carrier deck. He jogged the wings level, dipped the nose, pushed the throttles to maximum, and stopped breathing. One second to impact, then a half second, until the twenty-ton jet’s rear gear thumped hard on the steel deck of the carrier. The jet was still at full throttle in case the arresting hook missed the cables and he had to fly back off the carrier deck. The wait for the deceleration of the hook seemed to take a full minute, but suddenly the pilot was thrown against his five-point harness as the hook bit into the arresting cable and the heavy jet came to a full stop. The pilot cut power, retracted the flaps, and opened the canopy, then followed the deck officer’s direction to taxi off the landing area. The wheels were chocked, and the signal came to kill the engines.

The pilot climbed out, feeling both exhilarated and disappointed to be back on the carrier deck. He pulled off his helmet, a full head of salt-and-pepper hair falling over his forehead. The squadron commander ran toward him from the island — that couldn’t be good news.

“Admiral,” the squadron boss called.

The pilot pushed a sweaty lock of hair out of his face and looked at the squadron commander. “What’s the trouble, Commander?”

“Sir, bad news from the Admiralty in London. The Americans have launched an attack on the Suez Canal. There are fully forty hulks blocking the channels, sir.” Lord Admiral Calvert Baines IV, Royal Navy, Commander

British Indian Ocean Expeditionary Forces, bit his lower lip hard, enough to make his mouth bleed, trying to avoid cursing.

“Show me the data,” he said calmly, his sweaty flight suit suddenly making him feel chilled.

“We’ll either have to wait at the mouth of the canal or turn back and go around Africa, sir. We’ve just lost three weeks, maybe longer.”

Baines sighed, handing his flight helmet to the squadron boss. “Let’s get all the facts, then talk to the Admiralty. But first, let me visit the men’s room.”

The admiral ducked into the head, and when he made sure he was alone, he spit blood into a paper towel, then clamped it to his mouth so no one would hear him cursing into it.

Goddamned Americans, he thought.

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