Tipping Point: The War With China - the First Salvo (Dan Lenson Novels) (32 page)

“That’s a pretty damn low P-sub-K,” Noblos put in.

Wenck flattened his cowlick in a familiar gesture, staring at the screen. Lost, obviously, in the numbers. “Ain’t gonna get much better, Doc. No matter what, it’s gonna be a crossing engagement, unless they’re shooting right at us. P-sub-K goes down, ordnance expended goes way up.”

Despite himself, Dan’s gaze went to the Ordnance status board. It would tell him, moment by moment, what and how much he had left in his shot lockers.

But defending Indian military airfields wasn’t really his mission. Unless the U.S. and India were allies, a change he didn’t think he’d have missed. The Indians hadn’t been exactly welcoming to the U.S. Navy since independence, though the chill had lessened since China’s rise. He tapped on the glass. “So what you’re saying is, we can’t count on knocking many warheads down. And, goddamn it, that limited range is really hurting us.” Depending on geometry, again, the Block 4A intercept envelope extended out to a little over 120 nautical miles. He rubbed his chin. “Okay, that’s Pakistan. How do we look against an Indian launch?”

“Still a crossing shot. Intercept about a hundred and fifty kilometers up.” Wenck circled the suspected deployment area, and drew lines from there to various ground and air bases. All five people regarded them silently. “We could knock down anything headed for Karachi,” he added, sounding as if he was trying to be helpful.

“What about own-ship defense?”

Mills said, “In BMD mode, of course, we’re peeking through a soda straw … almost blind. We’ll have to depend on
Mitscher
for protection. Mainly because of that, I’d like to stay at least sixty miles offshore. That keeps us out of range of both sides’ coast defenses, and gives some warning of any incoming surface or air threats.”

“Shit, that really cuts down our coverage.” Wenck blinked at the screen. “We can’t crowd the goalposts any closer? We’re gonna be way, way off base on this one. Especially if they launch against northern India.”

“Exactly so,” Noblos put in. “That will be a ninety-degree ground path crossing angle, and you’ll have to intercept at apogee. As flyout times compress, acquisition and track, initialization and launch, all get more critical … probably beyond the skill level of this team, given your manning, documentation, and training deficiencies, and your interfacing problems as documented in my previous reports to you, the ISIC, and COMNAVSURFOR.”

Crap, Dan thought. He said, half hopefully, “Did you actually recommend decertification?” If ALIS and the Block 4 were no longer mission capable, he could report that and withdraw. The capability was still experimental, after all. Probably ending his own career, such as it was, but at least pulling his sailors out of a quickly narrowing crack.

Noblos quirked his eyebrows. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Captain. I’m not at all happy, but your technicians are barely—just
barely
”
—
the rider glared at Wenck, who smiled back—“keeping it in spec. Patched and baling-wired together. So far, at least.”

Dan rubbed his face, unutterably weary. What the hell were they doing here? Putting American skin in the game, if the subcontinent erupted into war again? Giving the diplomats a tiny bit of leverage over two opponents that had never actually been very responsive to outside pressure? The two nations were fixated on each other. Like two wrestlers in a cramped ring, they had no attention to spare for spectators.

Noblos sniffed. “Well, if no one else will, I’ll sum up.”

Dan sighed. “Please do, Doctor.”

“We can intercept Pakistani launches slightly more easily than Indian, but they’ll all be crossing engagements, and our chances poor. We only have twelve rounds, so at those P-sub-Ks, we
might
take down two warheads. Not enough to have any conceivable impact. So my recommendation is, Mr. Mills is correct. We should stay well out to sea, out of harm’s way. If ordered, lob our rounds in there, but don’t encourage Washington to expect much in the way of results.”

Dan blew out and straightened. His knees shook. Had to get off his feet, before he fell down. “All right, I think we’ve got to the bottom line. Thanks for your inputs. I’ll take them into consideration in deciding on our patrol footprint. Remember to pass to your division officers and chief that scuttlebutts and showers are secured until further notice. The XO will pass the word on a limited freshwater issue for personal use.”

They broke, and each left in a beeline. Dan was left leaning on the DRT. Looking down into the glass, wishing it were a crystal ball.
Savo
was nearly helpless in TBMD mode, especially if she had to continually scan the immense arc from Karachi to the Gulf of Kutch. That meant high duty factor at peak power, a combination guaranteed to generate a high failure rate. If it wasn’t for
Mitscher,
he’d have serious doubts about own-ship survivability. She’d be the shield to
Savo
’s arrows, but how were those all-too-few arrows expected to be employed? And against whom?

Pakistan?

India?

Whoever struck first?

Or both sides, equally?

He lowered his head. Doubts and questions belonged in a message. And maybe he ought to do just that. Right after he got his head down for a few minutes …

*   *   *

ONCE
again he was awakened, in the dark, this time by a tap at the door. It was the chief master-at-arms. “Captain, got a major problem.”

“What?” he grunted, rubbing grit from his eyes. Was he ever going to get an uninterrupted hour of sleep again?

“Sir, one of the storecreatures, I mean storekeepers, reports she was grabbed from behind, blindfolded, taken into a void, and assaulted.”

“Oh, Christ.” He felt sick, and not just from the aftereffects of the crud. As they’d all feared, the steel beach ejaculator had escalated. He sat up and coughed long and hard. Finally choked out, “Who? Is she hurt?”

“Celestina Colón, sir. Seaman storekeeper. She’s in sick bay, but doesn’t seem to be injured, aside from bruises. At least not that I could see before Chief Corpsman shut the door.”

Dan sagged back, panting, coughing. His scarred trachea spasmed, and closed. He gagged, rolling on his side, trying desperately to clear his airway. He reached for the emergency escape breathing device, clipped to the bulkhead. It was charged with oxygen. But pulled his hand back, got the inhaler instead, and triggered a cold burst of vapor down his windpipe. Tried to calm himself. Tried to
breathe
 …

“You all right, Skipper?”

“Yeah … yeah.” He coughed some more, finally got a full breath, and rolled out. Planted his bare feet on the deck tile.

Then reached for his coveralls, and got dressed.

15

Tropic of Cancer

AN
unpleasant sense of déjà vu that wasn’t déjà vu at all. Once again he was interviewing a female crew member. But this time, in sick bay instead of the exec’s cabin. And this time, she hadn’t just been fondled, threatened, and ejaculated on.

The victim was a stony-visaged crewwoman sliding back and forth on the leatherette of Grissett’s examining table as
Savo Island,
rolling and surging in the swells thirty knots of wind from the south-southwest were pushing up, creaked and groaned deep in her steel bones. Colón didn’t look shocked, or numb. Her coveralls were pulled down to the waist. She wore a white uniform-issue T-shirt sweat-stained under the pits. Chief Toan, the master-at-arms, stood behind her; Cheryl Staurulakis leaned in the corner, arms folded; Dr. Schell, who’d apparently been called in, was snapping off green latex gloves by the sink. He started to reach for the tap, but diverted in midmotion to a plastic gallon jug, to pour the rinse water from.

Dan cleared his throat and sank onto a vacant stool. “Is she all right? I mean, physically?”

“I gave her a sedative,” Schell said. “Examined her. Slight bruising. No permanent physical injury.”

“Thank God for that. Celestina. I’m so sorry this has happened. But we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

He took a deep breath. This had to be done right. “One question first. It’s a formality, but the regs say I’ve got to ask it. We have to report all sexual assaults, but there are two kinds of reports we can make. Restricted, and unrestricted. Restricted is when you, the victim, don’t want your name used, and don’t want command or law enforcement involvement. That protects your name and privacy. The other is unrestricted. That triggers a full NCIS investigation.” He paused. “We’re going to ask you to sign a paper, specifying your choice.”

“She wants an unrestricted report,” Staurulakis murmured.

“XO, I need to hear it from her.”

“Unrestricted,” Colón said.

Dan nodded. “I think that’s the right decision. All right then, I file the reports for the full investigation. So, tell me what happened. From the beginning.”

He knew Colón by sight, had eaten with her on mess decks visits and greeted her in the passageways. She worked in Supply. Slight, brown-haired, with smooth olive skin and a tiny mole near her upper lip. She reported now in spare sentences of careful school English that seemed somehow separate from whatever emotional process was going on behind dark eyes. She’d been in the aft supply passageway when the lights had suddenly gone out. Someone had grabbed her from behind. She was shoved into one of the spaces—she wasn’t sure which—and pushed down onto something soft.

“Then he undressed me,” she said. “And used his fingers.”

Dan looked at Schell, who shook his head no almost imperceptibly and held up a plastic bag containing a swab and gauze. The rape kit, Dan guessed, though he’d never seen one before. But unless there’d been penetration …

“Was there more than one assailant?”

“No sir. Only one.”

“Did you see, or feel, a weapon?”

“I felt a point in my back. He said he had a knife, and would use it if I left before the lights came back on.”

“So he spoke. What did he sound like?”

“Gruff. Deep. But it sounded false. Like he was not using his regular voice.”

“And you say you weren’t actually, uh, penetrated? Even slightly?”

“He had his fingers in me, Captain. I heard him grunting. But I didn’t feel a dick. Then there was a clanking noise. He told me to stay where I was until five minutes after the lights came on.”

Dan looked at the overhead, then to the master-at-arms. “Did you search the compartment yet?”

“Yessir, we conducted a quick search. Whatever this asshole jacked off into, he took it with him.”

“I’ll expect a complete statement by noon. What else, Chief?”

Toan looked away. “We’ll search the compartment again, Captain. See if we can get fingerprints. And yes, we will take a complete statement.”

“Not
nearly
enough, Chief. This is the second incident. And even worse than the first. You and Lieutenant Singhe were investigating that. I saw one follow-up report. Then nothing. No mess decks scuttlebutt? Nobody bragging to his buddies?”

“We have our eyes on a suspect.” Toan glanced sideways at Colón, who was staring at the door as if hypnotized.

“We’ll talk about that offline. Celestina, what about you? Anyone been stalking, annoying you?”

“I did have one guy.”

“And who was that?”

“The Iranian. Shah.”

“Behnam Shah,” Dan said. One of the castaways they’d picked up in the Arabian Sea. A religious refugee, if you believed their story; an escaped murderer, if you believed the Iranian news agency. Actually, Shah was the one who’d been hanging around outside CIC, before Wenck had told him he wasn’t going to be admitted. “He works in the galley, right? So he’d know the layout back there. He was stalking you?”

“Not exactly. But he kept trying to talk to me.”

“Attempting to get you alone?” Staurulakis asked her.

“No, just to talk.”

“Friendly? Or in a threatening way?”

“I didn’t want to talk to him. I got a boyfriend back in Caguas. I don’t think it was Shah. The man who did this, he did not have an accent.”

Which might mean nothing, if the guy knew more English than he was letting on. Dan asked Toan, “Was Shah one of your suspects in the groping, with Petty Officer Terranova?”

“Not particularly. No sir.” Toan hesitated, then added, “Let me point out one thing, sir. The fact that her attacker turned off the lights.”

“So?”

“He turned off the lights in the helo hangar passageway, too. When the Terror got groped.”

“Which … I’m a little slow today, Chief. Enlighten me as to what you’re saying.”

Toan said, “There’s no topside access from the interior passageway on the Supply Department level. So the lights are always on, and there’s no easily accessible switch. Unless someone knows how to turn them off back at the lighting panel.”

Staurulakis stepped forward, arms still crossed. “So you’re saying, an electrician? Or someone in charge of the compartments?”

“Could be,” Toan said. “Remember, if it’s the same guy, he fiddled with the darken ship switch up on the hangar deck level, too.”

Dan hesitated, then patted the woman on the shoulder. “One more question, Seaman Colón.”

“Yes sir.” A soft voice, but with steel under it. “It isn’t the first time.”

He blinked. Had been about to ask if she’d smelled anything like lime aftershave or cologne, but now said, “What? Not the first … he’s done this to you before?”

“Not him. But it isn’t the first time it’s happened to me. Shit like this.”

She stared ahead as the ship groaned around them. “I was in a foster home … my foster brothers. Both of them. I thought, when I joined the Navy, things would be different. But maybe it’s never going to be.”

Staurulakis stepped forward and put her arm around the girl’s shoulders. Looking up at Dan, she said, “We’ll get this guy. And put him away for a long, long time. I promise you that, Celestina.”

*   *   *

CLIMBING
to the bridge level, Dan had to stop to catch his breath again. The ladderwell reeled. Weird thuds and moans echoed through the steel. With the monsoon, this wind wasn’t going to stop. And given the layout of their patrol areas, they’d be steaming beam to almost all the time. Ticos didn’t have fin stabilizers, like smaller ships, and were tender anyway; she’d roll nonstop.