The Last Ship (23 page)

“Mr. Bainbridge?” I spoke to the communications officer. “The captain speaking.”

“Bainbridge here, sir.”

“No callback?”

“Negative, sir. No callback received.”

“Very well.” I had committed my criminal five seconds. I spoke to the tactical action officer, Lieutenant Commander Coles.

“Commence launch preparation.”

“Aye, sir. Commence launch preparation.”

I could overhear the dialogue between him and Lieutenant Polk, the weapons control officer.

TAO: “WCO, TAO. Select cell number one, aft launcher.”

WCO: “Cell one, aft launcher, aye.”

I looked down at the launcher and watched the armored cell door spring open. I continued to listen.

WCO: “Launcher ready, sir. Missile targeting data entered. Ready in all respects for launching.” Polk’s voice had a Louisiana cadence. “Repeat. Ready in all respects for launching.”

One had trained oneself, and ship’s captains tested exhaustively, brutally, in this respect before being given command of such a ship as this, to block out emotion, even thought itself; that talent as essential in this instance as that of navigation, of shiphandling. If I had chosen to look into some far, submerged corner of my mind, I might have found there a grateful numbness impounding the feeling that something had gone monstrously wrong that it should have come to this: by which I would have meant something not in what had been happening in the past days to bring it about, but rather something a good deal further back; something fundamentally wrong as of a literal species mutation in the mind and in the spirit of man that this should be; beyond that, only the sense of irrefragable inevitability; none of this scarcely worthy of the label of conscious thought. If I felt anything active it was of an immense solitude, a loneliness absolute; perhaps for an instant a dangerous solipsism, at once overpowered by the sense of the needed care upcoming for my men and for the ship—a grim determination already, a kind of inward hardness, that we should make it, should survive—this flashing through my mind in the fraction of a moment, delaying nothing. The voice of the TAO now reaching through to me.

“Request weapons free, Captain.”

“Weapons free,” I said. “Commence launch.”

“Commence launch, aye, sir,” emerged in a clear and steady voice, like an echo, into my ears.

A deafening sound shattered the air as the first Tomahawk emerged from its cell, ascended out of its pool of fire the width of the ship and forty feet high into the radiance fashioned by the cold delicate sunlight of the high latitudes and moved upward over the impassive waters of the Barents into the chaste heavens, its spiraling tail stretching quickly a mile or more high from the ship to itself and topped with its ornament of bright white fire against the satin blue. Then from both launchers a vast eruption, eleven more missiles departing their cells in immense fiery bursts. I followed each with my naked eye until it had disappeared out of my sight and beyond the horizon. I looked at my watch. From first message to execution it had taken just under twenty-four minutes. It was as good as we had ever done in dummy runs.

I stepped back into the pilot house and through the 21MC instructed the communications officer to send a previously prepared message, which I knew he was standing by so to do and the contents of which I knew by heart.

FLASH 211125Z

FM: USS NATHAN JAMES

TO: CINCLANTFLT NORFOLK VA

BT

TOP SECRET

SUBJ: OPERATION ARCHANGEL

A. CINCLANTFLT NORFOLK VA 211059Z

1. (U) MISSION REF A COMPLETE TIME 211123Z,

TWELVE ANGELS EXPENDED

2. (U) UNODIR PROCEEDING IAW

STANDING ORDERS. REQUEST ACK

BT

I turned to the officer of the deck.

“Mr. Sedgwick,” I said, “steady on course two nine zero. All engines ahead flank.”

Even as I returned to the bridge wing, there visually to check empty skies, empty waters, I heard him repeat the series of commands to helmsman and lee helm. The ship, unleashed, leapt forward, flying through the sea at her rated speed of thirty-eight knots, at which nothing that floats could overtake us, the ship racing ahead of a wide and churning white wake on her fleeing westerly course. I returned to the pilot house and instructed the OOD to sound General Quarters, bringing the ship to maximum alert as in expectation of attack: all weapons systems, ASROC, Harpoon, Phalanx; all sensors, radar, ESM, sonar, manned and ready. I was about to go below to CIC when I became aware that the communications officer was standing beside me holding a message form. I took it and read:

FLASH 211130Z

FM: CINCLANTFLT NORFOLK VA

TO: USS NATHAN JAMES

BT

SECRET

SUBJECT: OPERATION ARCHANGEL

A. USS NATHAN JAMES 211125Z

1. (S) REF A ACKNOWLEDGED.

REPORT BY FLASH MSG TIME OF TOUCHDOWN

BT

I proceeded down two ladders to CIC and stood observing at their NTDS consoles the air trackers monitoring the progress of the twelve Tomahawks toward their destinations. All in sailor dungarees; all wearing baseball-type caps, this not an idle fashion whim, rather the bills—the Navy had tested even this matter—serving to shield their eyes, improving concentration on the ever-changing light flashes on their screens; two of the trackers women. At the outset the room was dominated by an implacable silence, the sense of the fixed attention of those at their controls. All enclosed, the blue-darkened portless compartment, its every essence that of a space sacredly intact, paramount to the ship, situated in her most secure part amidships and below the damage control deck, no inessential words to be spoken, in that sense reverential as a chapel; now, with the ship granted a softened sea, the trackers not having to use the seat belts which were provided for these same operations in stormy waters, this sense of hush enhanced, we waited as the twelve fliers headed toward the coastline. The moment arrived.

The first beeping, a signal passed back to us by the first missile’s radar altimeter, announcing to us: It had left the sea and crossed “the gate” into land; was performing its first update; measuring precisely the terrain below its flight path. Presently joined by the identical voices of eleven more also departing the waters and making landfall. They went on as a kind of chorus, not overloud, in the tenor register, metronomic, but holding a complete sway over the blue darkness of the room, as their authors steadily penetrated the land on their ineluctable courses. Launch to target, it would be four hours, this slowish time actually to the good, as mentioned, allowing us as it did to be well on our way out of the Barents by the time they touched down, the missiles ever proceeding even as we got the hell out of there, underway now as we were at flank speed.

Later I was to think of those four hours that they were both as an eternity and seemed to pass in the twinkling of an eye. The missiles guiding themselves in entirety, ourselves mere spectators, as though watching wondrously gifted virtuosos, we heard the sounds, the missiles talking to us, informing us of their positions at all times, the inertial navigation system of each guiding it, putting it through dives, turns, varying rates of climb and descent, zigzaggings, maneuvers designed to decrease still further chances of detection, avoiding known concentrations of enemy defenses, each maneuver followed by a fix to bring the Tomahawk back on its route to target, a precision of navigation determined by using maps internally stored in the missile’s computer’s memory, for accuracy this navigation system updated many times in flight for each, making correction for drift, for winds which would push the missile off the intended path; the missile, radar-avoiding, hugging the earth mile after reiterate mile. All these things I knew to the finest particular were happening, absorbing my technical attention as I followed the flights. The beepings seemed in addition to take on almost a visual quality in some separate part of the mind even as not infrequently does music to the absorbed ear. One’s imagination seeing the implacable procession of missiles, their numbers twelve, keep low over the flatlands, move upward as they approached a hill, climb the hill, then descend as the earth descended, the missiles generally staying a hundred feet above it; followed them as they passed over lonely fields in the oncoming early twilight of the high north; passed now and then (mind’s eye saw) over peasants tending them; over houses nearby where women went about preparations for the night’s supper. One stayed with the missiles.

The TAO monitoring the time-of-flight of each Tomahawk commencing from the moment of its particular ejection from the launcher, if one wished one could look at the various timepieces and see how far a given missile was into its flight, how much farther it had to go; quite as one might, with a trace of anticipation or impatience, glance at one’s watch on a plane to note the time remaining to one’s destination. I found myself disciplining this impulse, not looking too often, just as on a routine plane flight, and for the same reason, to make time pass faster. A certain natural strain in oneself, and silently communicated osmotically from all, in no way excessive, never permitted to take charge; a hoarding of oneself, one’s feelings, one’s thoughts, one’s reserves, out of a stern inner recognition of the absolute urgency of dispassion, chiefly in order that one remain fit to deal with events certain presently to be upon us. Not a hand aboard this ship but who had been tested rigorously for stability, men visceral in the knowledge that where they tread calm itself is the most indispensable quality of all, for success, for preservation, for survival itself; that and a fixed code of conduct, shipmates, held us together. Here again, in the CIC, reigned a quiet and concentrating exactitude of performance, of actions liturgistic, almost sacramental, only those crisp and pulsing sounds returned from the missiles commanding the air as from that pale-lit room the men at the ship’s computers with sure steadiness tracked the Tomahawks’ inexorable progress. As a redundant check, one not of great necessity, on the safe touchdown of the missiles, we had one of our radio frequencies tuned to an Orel civilian station, set on low volume, faintly heard as a backdrop to the other activities in CIC. We had long known the station, listened to it often, a source of entertainment; like many other Russian stations it played an extraordinary amount of classical music. It was in no way unusual that over these hours it was offering a Tchaikovsky program—at the beginning, on air, his symphonic poem
Romeo and Juliet
I recognized. Later the first piano concerto, a portion of the ballet
Swan Lake,
other works.

After the twelve had made landfall I alternated my personal geography between CIC and the bridge, staying mostly in the former and making certain to be there as the fourth hour counted down. As each missile now reached its assigned fix, the digital scene-matching area correlator, with which it was equipped for hard targets, took over: the computer simply comparing a stored “picture” from its memory with the target. Then it came. Came in muteness, an intelligence passed to us by the first missile itself: it ceased beeping. It had found home. The blue dark seemed deepened to an intolerable quiescence as we waited, listening to the remaining beeps, now eleven; soon ceased the second; the third; the fourth; finally, the last. One by one they simply went off the air. At each, nothing but the distinctly articulated reports of the WCO at his console, the repeated word said twelve times in succession over a time frame of approximately four minutes. Impact.

The last beep from the last Tomahawk expired, over the room came a pause, one moment of transcendent stillness. A stillness of realization, felt in oneself, felt equally through a process of transference in those around one, palpable, merciful in not requiring, not permitting, speech. Somewhere in the back of my mind I became aware as an additional verification of success that the civilian radio station had gone off the air, in the middle of a violin concerto, at the impact of the second or third missile, I could not be certain which, only that it was not after the first. Then: I felt from all about only what I would describe as a professional satisfaction, in nature quiet. Men and officers having accomplished what they had been trained to accomplish; so I felt it, too; for them—yes, for myself, as captain of this ship. A natural, unvoiced kind of uplift, outwardly contained, communicating itself one shipmate to another. Just that. Nothing more. Then it vanished, other urgent duties being upon us. Bainbridge remaining all the time at my side, I instructed him to release at once another previously prepared message.

FLASH 211527Z

FM: USS NATHAN JAMES

TO: CINCLANTFLT NORFOLK VA

BT

SECRET

SUBJ: OPERATION ARCHANGEL

A. CINCLANTFLT NORFOLK VA

1. (S) TOUCHDOWN TIME 211523Z. ALL

ANGELS MISSION COMPLETE

2. (S) PROCEEDING AT BEST SPEED TO

NORTH SEA. REQ ADVISE FURTHER ORDERS

BT

I went topside. I do remember with what gratitude I escaped from the imprisonment of CIC into the fresh sea air. I paused on the starboard bridge wing, looking about. Out of the stillness a sudden ululant wind passed over the sea, the ship, like a benediction; a redemptive moment. I heard above me high on the mainmast a flapping of the halyards, the first freshening of wind, seeming strangely a gift of emollience, the clean sea smell it brought clearing the mind, strengthening one. I looked above the mast and saw heavy magenta clouds commence to take command of the heavens, hanging low over a darkening sea to all horizons, and they, too, seemed welcome as though arriving to hide us. I stepped into the pilot house and through it into the chartroom where Thurlow was waiting, leaning over the chart table. Proceeding on the standing instructions, we were now headed into the Norwegian Sea. I was studying our position when I heard a voice behind me.

“Captain.”

I turned to see Ensign Martin holding a message form. I took it, brought it under the light and read:

FLASH 211540Z

FM: CINCLANTFLT NORFOLK VA

TO: USS NATHAN JAMES

BT

TOP SECRET

SUBJ: SAILING ORDERS

A. USS NATHAN JAMES 211527Z

1. (TS) REF A ACKNOWLEDGED. MODIFY

DESTINATION. PROCEED AT FLANK SPEED

TO LAT XY
$
.
9*
AIZ
4
$;/?&

The message stopped there, a garble. As if making some ghastly joke. I turned savagely to the communications officer.

“What is this, Miss Martin?”

“That was all that came in, Captain.” I thought I detected a slight tremor, the faintest modulation of something like fear in her voice. “It stopped there. Sir.”

“Repeat the message. And request a repeat of theirs.”

“We’ve already done that, Captain. Nothing. A blank, sir.”

“Then do it
again,
Miss Martin. And
keep
doing it.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

She turned and was gone as if anxious to get out of my presence. We sent the last message without cessation, sent it over every frequency we possessed, sent it over a stretch of twelve hours, during which time I never left the bridge except to go below periodically to CIC to harangue the communications people. It seemed obvious: There had been an Electromagnetic Pulse blackout of communications. Still proceeding on the standing instructions, we had entered the Norwegian Sea and reached a position of 72°15' N. latitude and 15°30' E. longitude, not far south by southwest of Bear Island. No reply to our unremitting messages having been received, I then detailed the new course with the navigator, Mr. Thurlow, and the officer of the deck, now Lieutenant Bartlett, the three of us in the chartroom looking down on the spotlighted Mercator projection, just behind us Hewlett, the chief quartermaster, as Thurlow applied his dividers and made his cross-penciled marks for the course I had given him. I noted a slight hesitancy of this skilled navigator in the routine procedure. A course S. by S.W., one which would take us through the Norwegian Sea, proceeding down the west coast of Norway, crossing over the Musken Strauen, and continuing into the North Sea. We straightened up.

The two officers looked at me under the shaded light. I could feel their surprise, close to astonishment.

“Not back to Norway, sir?” Thurlow said.

“That’s not what the standing orders say,” I said. These I held in my hand, having obtained them, many hours back now, from yet another sealed envelope in my cabin safe. I indicated but did not show these to the two officers. “The standing orders say the North Sea.”

I heard a sound, a strange sound, something between a croak and a gasp, and looked up to where Hewlett stood in the shadows. The thought flashed across the edges of my mind that he had a wife in Husnes. “Sorry, Captain,” he said. “It’s okay, Chief,” I said quietly.