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Aboard the USS Constitution, Persian Gulf

April 16, 1830 hours

The furthest thing from Lieutenant Thomas Cohen’s mind was war.

As he sat at a radar array aboard the USS Constitution, watching the small blips as they meandered lazily across the screen, he was thinking about Melanie, his girlfriend back home in Pensacola. It was just under three weeks to go before he would rotate home. He already had the ring; he’d purchased it a week earlier on a day pass to Qatar. Thomas doubted there was anyone on the ship he hadn’t proudly shown it to yet.

The sky over the Persian Gulf was clear and sunny, not a single cloud, but Thomas wouldn’t get to enjoy it, tucked away in a corner of the bridge as he was, the thick armored port windows obscured by the radar console. He couldn’t help but feel mildly jealous of the ensign out on the deck that he communicated with by radio, the younger man holding a line-of-sight visual on the ships that, to Thomas, were just blips on the screen.

Sixty billion dollars, he thought with grim amusement. That’s how much the United States spent annually to keep a presence in the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, and the Gulf of Oman. The US Navy’s Fifth Fleet called Bahrain its headquarters, and was comprised of several task forces with specific patrol routes along the coasts of North Africa and the Middle East. The Constitution, a destroyer-class ship, was part of Combined Task Force 152, which patrolled the Persian Gulf from the northern end all the way to the Strait of Hormuz, between Oman and Iran.

Thomas’s friends back home thought it was so cool that he worked on a US Navy destroyer. He let them believe that. But the reality was simply a strange, if not somewhat boring and repetitive, existence. He sat upon a modern marvel of engineering, outfitted with the highest of tech and armed with enough weaponry to devastate half a city, yet their entire purpose basically boiled down to what Thomas was doing at the very moment—watching blips on a radar screen. All that firepower and money and men amounted to a glorified what-if situation.

That wasn’t to say there was never any excitement. Thomas and the other guys who had been around for a year or longer got their kicks from watching how nervous the FNGs would get, the newcomers, the first time they heard that the Iranians were going to fire on them. It didn’t happen every day, but it was frequent enough. Iran and Iraq were dangerous territories, and they had to at least keep up appearances, Thomas supposed. Every now and then the Constitution would get a threat from the Navy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s maritime force in the Persian Gulf. The ships would sail a little close for comfort, and sometimes—on the particularly exciting days—they’d fire off a few rockets. Usually they fired in the complete opposite direction of any US ships. Posturing, Thomas thought. But the FNGs would just about piss themselves over it, and they’d be the butt of the joke for a few weeks after.

The trio of blips on the screen moved ever closer to their location, approaching from the northeast. “Gilbert,” said Thomas into the radio, “how are we looking up there?”

“Oh, it’s a beautiful afternoon. About seventy-four and sunny,” Ensign Gilbert said through the radio, doing his best to keep the laughter out of his voice. “Humidity’s low. Wind is maybe five miles an hour. If I close my eyes, it feels like Florida in early spring. How y’all doing in there?”

“Jackass,” muttered Lieutenant Davis, the communications officer, seated near Thomas at the radar array. He smirked and said into the radio, “Sorry, Ensign Gilbert? Can you repeat that for your lieutenant?”

Thomas chuckled as Gilbert let out a soft groan. “All right, all right,” said the young man from the top deck. “I’ve got visual on three IRGC ships to the northeast, traveling at about fourteen knots or so and looking to be a little more than a half mile out.” Then he quickly added, “Sir.”

Thomas nodded, impressed. “You’re good. They’re at point-five-six. Anyone want to take some action on this?”

“I’ve got a fiver that says they veer off by point-four,” said Davis.

“I’ll see that and raise,” said Petty Officer Miller behind them, swiveling around in his chair. “Ten bucks says they reach point-three. You in, Cohen?”

Thomas shook his head. “Hell no. Last time you guys took me for twenty-five bucks.”

“And he’s got a wedding to save up for,” Davis chided with a nudge.

“Y’all are thinking small,” Gilbert said in the radio. “These guys are cowboys, I can feel it. A certain Mr. Jackson says not only do they come within point-two-five, but we get an Iranian dick pic.”

“Don’t be crass,” Davis scolded Gilbert for his lewd metaphor of the IRGC firing off a rocket.

“That’d be a nice change of pace,” Miller muttered. “Most exciting thing that’s happened around here in two weeks was enchilada day.”

It was not at all lost on Lieutenant Cohen that an outside observer might have thought it insane for them to be making small wagers on whether or not a ship fired a missile. But after so many so-called confrontations yielding nothing, it was hardly anything to fret over. Besides, the US rules of engagement were clear; they would not fire unless directly fired upon first, and the Iranians knew that. The Constitution was exactly as its class implied: a destroyer. If a rocket fell close enough for them to feel the heat of it, they could obliterate the IRGC ship in seconds.

“Point-four and closing,” Thomas announced. “Sorry, Davis. You’re out.”

He shrugged. “Can’t win ’em all.”

Thomas frowned at the array. It looked as if the two ships flanking either side of the third were veering, but the central ship continued on a straight path. “Gilbert, check visual.”

“Aye aye.” There was a moment of silence before the ensign reported back. “Looks like two of the ships are breaking off, south-southeast and south-southwest. But I think that third boat wants to be friends. What did I tell you, Cohen? Cowboys.”

Miller sighed. “Where is Captain Warren? We should alert—”

“Captain on the bridge!” a sharp voice bellowed suddenly. Thomas hopped up from his seat and issued a crisp salute, along with the four other officers in the control room.

The XO entered first, a tall and square-jawed man who looked a lot more serious than he usually came off as. He was followed by a hasty Captain Warren, his slight paunch straining the lowest buttons of his tan short-sleeved shirt. On his head he wore a Navy baseball cap, the dark blue looking almost black in the dim lighting of the bridge.

“As you were,” Warren said gruffly. Thomas slowly took his seat again, exchanging a concerned glance with Davis. The captain was likely aware of the approaching IRGC ships, but for him to be here with three boats looming so close meant that something was going on. “Listen up and listen good, because I’m going to say this quick.” The captain frowned deeply. He normally wore a frown—Thomas couldn’t recall ever seeing Warren smile—but this frown seemed particularly dismayed. “Orders have just come down the pipe. There’s been a change in ROE. Any ships that fire within a half-mile proximity are to be considered hostile and dealt with using extreme prejudice.”

Thomas blinked at the sudden rush of words, failing to comprehend at first.

Petty Officer Miller forgot himself for a moment as he said, “Dealt with? You mean destroyed?”

“That’s right, Miller,” said Captain Warren as he locked eyes with the young man, “I mean destroyed, demolished, obliterated, devastated, wrecked, and/or ruined.”

“Um, sir?” Davis spoke up. “If they fire at all? Or if they fire upon us?”

“The release of a weapon that could result in a loss of life, Lieutenant,” Captain Warren told him. “Whether aimed at us or not.”

Thomas couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The IRGC had fired rockets plenty of times since he had been aboard the Constitution, many of those times within a half mile of them. He found it exceedingly bizarre and coincidental that the rules of engagement would be changed so swiftly—and at the precise moment when an Iranian ship was bearing down on them.

“Look,” said Warren, “I don’t like this any more than you do, but you all know what happened. Frankly, I’m surprised it took the government this long. But here we are.”

Thomas knew precisely what the captain was referring to. Mere days earlier, a terrorist organization had attempted to blow up the USS New York, an Arleigh-Burke destroyer that was moored at the Port of Haifa in Israel. And only two days ago, the same insurgent cell had taken out an underwater tunnel in New York City. Captain Warren had convened the entire crew in the mess hall to tell them the dire news. The CIA had caught wind of the attack just hours before it was carried out and managed to save a lot of lives, but hundreds had still perished and far too many were yet unaccounted for. The scale of the attack was not nearly that of 9/11, but it was still one of the most substantial attacks on US soil in the last hundred years.

“This is the world we live in now, boys,” said Warren, shaking his head in disdain. Clearly he was thinking the same thing as Thomas. They all were.

“It’s veering off,” said Gilbert through the radio, jarring Thomas out of his thoughts and back to his console. The ensign was right; the third ship was just shy of point-three miles and steering toward the west. “Looks like I’ll be out twenty bucks.”

Thomas let out a sigh of relief. In another minute the ship would be gone, beyond a half-mile range, and the Constitution would continue its easterly patrol route toward the strait. Please don’t do anything stupid, he thought as he said, “IRGC cruiser is at point-two-eight, veering east. Doesn’t look like it’s interested in us, sir.”

Warren nodded, though if he was as glad as Thomas, he didn’t show it. The lieutenant could guess why; the rules of engagement had changed, and quite suddenly at that. How long would it be before they found themselves in another situation like this one?

Lieutenant Davis looked up sharply and suddenly. “They’re hailing us, sir.”

Captain Warren closed his eyes and sighed. “All right. Relay this, and be quick about it.” More than just the communications officer, Davis was fluent in Arabic and Farsi. He translated the captain’s message as Warren spoke it, listening and talking at the same time. “This is Captain James Warren of the USS Constitution. The US Navy’s rules of engagement have changed. Your superiors should be aware of this by now, but if you are not, we are fully sanctioned by the American government for the use of deadly force should any vessel—”

“Rocket out!” Gilbert cried in Thomas’s ear.

“Rocket out!” Thomas repeated. Before he even knew what he was doing, he tore the headset from his head and dashed to the port windows. In the distance he saw the IRGC cruiser, as well as the brilliant red streak soaring in a high arc in the sky, a plume of smoke trailing behind it.

As he watched, a second rocket fired off from the deck of the Iranian ship. They were fired on a trajectory parallel to the Constitution, far enough off that they would hardly make waves for the destroyer.

Thomas spun to the captain. Warren’s face had turned a shade whiter. “Sir—”

“Return to your post, Lieutenant Cohen.” Warren’s voice was strained.

A knot of dread formed in Thomas’s stomach. “But sir, we can’t seriously—”

“Return to your post, Lieutenant,” the captain said again, his jaw flexing. Thomas obliged, lowering himself slowly to his seat but not taking his eyes off of Warren.

“This doesn’t come from the admiral,” he said, as if trying to explain to them what he knew had to happen. “Not even from the CNO. This is from the Secretary of Defense. Do you understand that? It’s a direct order in the interest of national security.”

Without another word, Warren plucked up a red phone mounted on the wall. “This is Captain Warren. Fire torpedoes.” There was a moment of silence, and the captain said again, forcefully, “Affirmative. Fire torpedoes.” He hung up the phone, but his hand lingered upon it. “God help us,” he murmured.

Thomas Cohen held his breath. He counted the seconds. He reached twelve before he heard Gilbert’s voice, soft and breathy and almost reverent through the radio.

“Jesus almighty.”

Thomas stood, not leaving his post but gaining a partial view of the port window. They heard no explosion through the thick armor-plated glass of the bridge, designed to sustain heavy ballistic fire. They felt no shockwave, absorbed as it was by the vast Persian Gulf. But he saw it. He saw the orange fireball rise in the sky as the IRGC ship was, as he had predicted, destroyed in seconds by a wave of torpedoes from the US destroyer.

The green blip vanished from his screen. “Target destroyed,” he confirmed quietly. He had no idea how many people they had just killed. Twenty. Maybe fifty. Maybe a hundred.

Davis stood as well, looking out the window as the orange fire dissipated, the ship torn asunder and sinking rapidly into the depths of the Persian Gulf. It might have been the angle, or the reflection of sunlight, but he could have sworn he saw his eyes gloss with the threat of tears.

“Cohen?” he said quietly, his voice almost a whisper. “Did we just start World War Three?”

Five minutes earlier, the furthest thing from Lieutenant Thomas Cohen’s mind had been war. But now, he had every reason to suspect he wouldn’t be making it home to Pensacola in three weeks.