Tipping Point: The War With China - the First Salvo (Dan Lenson Novels) (28 page)

“Steady up on one-zero-zero. Damage reports,” Dan said. His knees were shaking so badly he had to grip the arm of the chair to stay upright. He coughed, head swimming, and again, kept hacking. Once started, he couldn’t stop, couldn’t seem to catch his breath.

“All compartments make damage reports to DC Central,” Nuckols grated into the 1MC.

“You all right, Skipper?”

“Yeah, Chief. Thanks. Good work there.” He controlled his coughing fit with an effort of will, tensing his chest muscles, and focused on the sea again, where another, lower line rose ahead.

A fourth, then a fifth swell, each smaller than its predecessor, rolled past. The water seethed, but it was gentling; patches of creamy spume rocked and swirled as far as he could see. “Seems to be it,” the quartermaster said tentatively.

“Do these things come in groups? Or what?”

Van Gogh mused, rubbing his mouth. “There’s not much in Bowditch, Captain, not that I recall. Mostly, you hear about tsunamis when they hit land. Cause a load of damage there. Low-lying ground, coastal areas … you know the drill.”

Dan nodded. He lifted his voice to include helmsman, lookouts, talkers, the JOOD. “Set condition Yoke. Boatswain, pass ‘secure from collision quarters.’ Engineering … have the Chief Snipe call me when he has a handle on that outage. And the damage-control officer, report when he knows what that did to us.”

He looked out at the sea once more, the unpredictable, dangerous sea. And summoning the very last ounce of energy he possessed, dragged himself up into his chair once more.

*   *   *

THE
messages began to stream in while they were still cleaning up. Repairing the davits, recovering the starboard inflatable, which had gone by the board, and patching four new cracks that had opened in the aluminum superstructure.

A huge tsunami had hit the Maldives, the island chain southwest of India. Fleet had a P-3 on its way there from Masirah with an OASIS II/ASIP upgrade, an electro-optical camera in a ball turret in the nose and the ability to stream pictures by satcomm. Exercise Malabar was postponed until further notice.
Savo
and
Mitscher
were ordered to the capital, Male, to render assistance while
Pittsburgh
took station to northward. Dan would be the initial task group response commander. He closeted with Staurulakis and Mills, going over the humanitarian assistance tacmemo and what would be involved in crossing the chop line to PacFleet’s area of responsibility.

When he was sure everything was being done to get ready, he went below. Male was twelve hours’ steaming at reduced speed, with one engine still off the line for a thorough checkout of the wiring and fuel supply.

He had no doubt that when they got there, they would all be sorely tried.

13

Male, the Maldive Islands

A LOFT
the next morning, he peered down as Red Hawk’s shadow crossed a muddy, littered beach. The seawalls had been overwhelmed and wrecked. A beach road was obliterated. Streets had been turned into streams. Water was even now still draining off, scum- and debris-encrusted whirlpools circling, shimmering with the rainbows of oil and gasoline slicks. Solid columns of inky smoke streamed up to the north. Fallen trees, beached, listing boats, smashed homes, appliances, wheelbarrows, barrels, overturned trucks, uprooted poles and power lines, lay strewn across a rocky, still wave-swept strand, where the receding sea had chewed, battered, torn apart, and discarded them.

From five hundred feet up he could grasp the island’s truly frightening lack of elevation. The wave had hit from the southeast, open sea, where no reefs or other barriers could break its force. For at least a mile inland, everything was gone. Houses, shops, waterfront hotels, had been smashed into a shoal of wreckage that stretched for miles, both on Male and on the other, lower islands that reached north to the horizon. A few buildings still burned; bright orange flames roasted the sky. A beachfront resort, semicircular swimming area strewn with wreckage, smoldered sullenly, one wing slumped in collapse. Puddles the size of ponds gleamed under the cloudy sky, riffled by a light wind. Where the sea had receded, the ground was a parti-color landscape that, as they descended, resolved into a panorama of shattered debris: furniture, wood, paper, metal, and here and there, limp shapes like bundles of discarded laundry.

When he lifted his gaze he could take in nearly the whole atoll, a necklace of reefs and low coral islands. According to the charts, none were more than six feet above sea level. Behind them, to the west, stretched the shallows and reefs of hundreds of square miles of lagoon.

It looked like Paradise after Armageddon. Ahead, on a slight rise, hundreds of tiny multicolored dots became human beings, milling like a disturbed hill of fire ants.
“Central stadium,”
Strafer said over the intercom, pointing to a soccer field a few hundred yards in from the leading edge of the damage.

The airframe jolted, then settled onto its struts. Dan peered out to find the helicopter the epicenter of a stampede of dark-skinned men in long pants and T-shirts, mouths open, screaming. “Keep the blades turning,” he yelled to the pilot, pulling off his cranial as the crewman dropped the exit steps. “Let’s go, Stony, Chief.”

He stepped down carefully, holding to the handgrips. Staggered as he lurched off, still weak; dizzy; panting. The chief corpsman and
Mitscher
’s CO followed. The choking stenches of smoke and water and rot closed his throat. He turned back to help unload boxes of canned food and plastic gallon jugs of water, the first installment of what would be many tons of aid. But the bent backs of the helo crew blocked his way. “We got it, Skipper.” The door gunner waved him off. “Go do what you need to. We got this.”

The crowd didn’t look welcoming. Someone was shouting, over and over, “This is America’s fault. This is America’s fault.” Others murmured, or just looked sullen, only slowly clearing a path. Dan handed out the candy in his pockets, but the children took it doubtfully, gazes lowered. The men shuffled into a queue as the crewmen handed each an MRE and a gallon jug of water. Past them, bodies were piled like logs inside a goal net.

His Motorola beeped. “Captain,” Dan snapped, turning to look across the flattened land to where
Savo
and
Mitscher
rode at anchor, well offshore, just in case whatever subsidence had raised the massive waves hadn’t exhausted itself. Two miles down the coast,
Tippecanoe
was feeling her way in.

Pardees’s voice.
“Sir, First Loo here. RHIB reports they’re starting to see bodies, all around.”

He’d put the boats in the water to patrol back and forth a mile from shore. Partially for security, but with a more grisly task as well. “Right, Noah. Collect, bring on board, be sure to treat with respect. Lay ’em out and cover ’em on the afterdeck. I’ll find out where they go. I’ll be sending the helo back. Maybe he can vector us to more.”

Crisis response had always been a Navy mission, but it called for different skill sets than combat. He was here, the day after the disaster, to evaluate and plan the relief effort, along with providing what support
Mitscher
and
Savo
could muster. There was discussion of diverting
Vinson
to support air operations. Nor would the Navy be alone. The Air Force was planning C-130 missions in from Diego Garcia; they would land at Male International Airport, bringing far more in the way of supplies than Dan had, though the ships would be valuable in other ways—as a source of potable water and as a means, with boats and helos, to transport medical and other personnel elsewhere in the island chain.

More help was en route. PaCom advised that a French amphibious task group
,
and also several Indian ships, were on their way. In the longer term, six ships from Maritime Prepositioning Squadron 3 had gotten under way. They carried equipment and supplies for fifteen thousand marines for thirty days, including road-building materials, generators, and other emergency gear. They could purify a hundred thousand gallons of potable water a day and pump it inshore from miles away. By then Dan could expect to be relieved by a joint task force commander, someone with stars on his shoulders, to be the face of U.S. aid.

For the moment, though, he and “Stony” Stonecipher were on their own. He still felt nauseated, and had to force one boot in front of the other as he pushed toward the tents pitched on the far side of the field. But he had to set weakness aside. Stonecipher, in BDUs, and Grissett, in ship’s coveralls and an armband with a red cross, paced him to the left. Benyamin, in boarding gear and armed with an M4, brought up the rear, just in case.

*   *   *

THE
folding chairs and tables looked as if they’d been dragged out of the school next to the field. Tent fabric billowed in a steady wind. Maps were taped on the tabletops. He was ushered toward three men in camo uniforms and a woman in a bright red sari trimmed with gold. Stonecipher eased a case of MREs off one shoulder; Grissett, a box of medical supplies. Dan shook hands and introduced himself. “So, does anyone here speak English?”

“We all speak English, sir. We were a British colony until 1965.”

He sank into one of the offered chairs. “Um … right. Well, we can provide helo transport, boats, water, and limited food and medical care. The other ship coming in,
Tippecanoe,
has more. And many more ships and planes are on the way. Tell me how we can help, and who we should take orders from.”

The military guys looked to the woman. She said, in flawless Oxbridge, “Yes, sir. I am Mariya Farih, mayor of Male. Colonel Jaleel here, of the Maldives National Defence Force, is in charge of our disaster response.” Jaleel came forward, hand extended. Stocky, with a clipped black beard, he looked sleep-deprived already. “Very glad to see you.” He shook Dan’s hand as if he were never going to let go.

“Just sorry we had to meet like this. Is something wrong? That crowd seemed less than welcoming.”

The mayor said, “We’ve had some internal problems, Captain. Rioting. Unrest. We actually had declared a state of emergency even before the sea rose against us. And, yes, there is resentment against the United States. Over your stance on the Kyoto Protocols.” She forced a smile. “But
you
are not responsible for that. We welcome any assistance.”

“I see. Is this going to be your emergency headquarters, Madam Mayor? Colonel?”

“Perhaps. At least temporarily,” Jaleel said.

They went over a map of the island, to orient him; the ferry terminal, the airport, the local hospital, the petroleum storage facility on another, smaller island to the north. Dan guessed that was where the columns of smoke were coming from.

Shouting outside. He glanced through the tent flaps to see Benyamin fending off a large islander with his carbine at port arms. Dan had set up facilities at Bagram airport, at the beginning of the allied buildup in Afghanistan. Between that and a review of the humanitarian-assistance documentation, he had a fairly clear idea what would be needed. Security first, if the locals were unable to maintain order. Then emergency medical care and water distribution. After that shelter, generators, radios, reuniting families, burying bodies, food service, and water purification. “Well, if you don’t mind some advice—”

”We would be happy to hear whatever you suggest,” the mayor said. “Though of course we must make the final decisions. I will be talking to the president shortly, by the way.”

“Absolutely. Well, to address your location first. It might be desirable to place your headquarters somewhere with better transport, better communications, and isolated to some extent from crowds … to prevent incidents. That would make your choice the ferry terminal, the container port, or the airport.”

“On Hulhule Island,” Jaleel said, placing a finger on the map. The Male International strip was across a narrow strait to the north.

“Um, might be wise. More room to stock supplies. Better security. Better communications. Most of your early relief shipments will come in by air anyway. I can arrange helicopter transport if you like. Shuttle you over, help set up a command post, and let you get a look at the damage.”

Jaleel agreed quietly, saying he’d planned to go there himself, but the island government hadn’t fully executed their disaster plan yet. A policeman in British-style khaki came in and handed the colonel a message. Jaleel sighed, scratching his beard. “We can’t forget the other islands. This is from Kandolhudoo. Apparently it was hit hard, just about destroyed … the plantations, the tourist hotels, fishing villages … we are getting reports in by radio. Would it be possible to assist them as well?”

Dan said they’d do what they could, and repeated that more help was on its way. He laid out what he could do today: send a firefighting team to the oil terminal, supply antibiotics and plasma substitute to the hospital, and send rations and water to a distribution point at the ferry terminal via the ships’ boats. Red Hawk could help the islands’ own aircraft start transferring medical, sanitary, and security personnel. The water depth at the ferry terminal, unfortunately, wasn’t enough for a ship to come alongside, but there was a berth at a small freight-handling facility on the other side of the island that Stonecipher thought they might get
Tippecanoe
alongside.

Dan sipped bottled water, feeling overwhelmed. Outside, the shouting was growing louder, merging with an ominous-sounding chant. “Okay, we’ll head back now. I’m going to leave you this radio, all right? Or you can contact us on—what are you using for your emergency comms?”

“HF only. Everything else has gone down. That is all we have with the mainland and with the southern islands.”

“Uh-huh. Okay, we’ll get to them, but it looks like your main population center here is where we need to do the most work, plus getting things set up over at the airport.”

Jaleel nodded, as did the mayor, and Dan added, “One other thing: we’ve got the Indians en route, the French—but someone’s going to have to be in charge, or we’ll be fighting each other for pier space and use of the landings. I suggest you pick someone to coordinate the naval relief effort.”