Читать книгу Damage Control - Gordon Kent, Gordon Kent - Страница 7

For Commander Alan Craik, Fleet Exercise Lord of Light was the culmination of six months of work, and, with six minutes to startex, he was angry because he, as umpire, could see that one side was already cheating—the US side. He looked around the large room that housed exercise planning and control—banks of computers, a central console that blocked his view of part of the room, ratings and a couple of officers in Indian naval khakis, and his own two US personnel.

“Sir?” Benvenuto was a skinny kid from the boonies of northern New York, a long way from home in this Indian naval headquarters. “Admiral Rafehausen’s on the net for you, sir.”

Craik walked around the big console. In front of him was a bank of encrypted radios that kept him linked to the US forces at sea, four hundred miles to the west. He grabbed a head mike with earphones. “Good morning, sir.”

“You’re late.” He knew Admiral Rafehausen’s voice—an old friend, pilot of the first aircraft he ever flew on. “You sleep in, Al? Leaving Rose for a nautch dancer?”

“I don’t think they even have nautch dancers anymore.”

“You should get out more often, Commander. What you got for me?”

“I have startex minus six, and you have an S-3 way out of exercise start parameters, sir.” He trailed the mike cord so he could lean over the JOTS terminal—the Joint Operational Tactical System, which showed the entire exercise and could, if asked, show US and other forces all over the world—watching a lone S-3 Viking move at low altitude along the eastern edge of the Lakshadweep Islands. Paul Stevens, Alan thought to himself. Hotdogging. “I see him, Al. I guess he didn’t get the message.”

“I have to hold exercise start until that aircraft is within start parameters, sir.”

“Hey, Al, lighten up. I got my beach recon teams in the water now. I’ve got my decks full of guys waiting to launch and I can’t exactly call them off. My Combat Air Patrol is up and already needs fuel from the tankers on the deck. You know the drill, Al. Let’s just say I’ll ignore AG 702 for a while, okay? Can we get this thing underway?”

Alan ran the trackball over the American and Indian battle groups. The JOTS on Rafehausen’s carrier would show only the Fifth Fleet units, and the Indian admiral on board the Indian light carrier Vishnapatingham would see only his. It had taken weeks of computer work by the two nerds in Alan’s exercise detachment to make this mutual blindness happen, and now one pilot was screwing it all up. He wanted to argue, even to use his supposed power as umpire to stop the exercise, but the big point was to cooperate with India and make diplomatic points. Canceling would be really bad diplomacy.

Alan sighed. “Okay, we’ll go for startex. But you’re on your honor about reports from that S-3.” In fact, Rafe probably wouldn’t be forced to his honor; the S-3 was a long way south of the Indian battle group, and if Stevens turned on his radar before startex, he’d be admitting he was cheating.

The hell with it. Get it over with and go home. He was touchy because the umpire’s job had been wished on him only forty-eight hours ago. He had been supposed to honcho the intel side for the US and then go home, where right now he could be enjoying his wife’s birthday. For once.

“Four minutes to exercise start, then,” he said into his mike. Then Rafe, knowing Alan was angry, maybe feeling guilty, made small talk for forty seconds, and they ended the conversation as friends.

Alan turned to Benvenuto. “Three minutes to exercise. Start the message traffic feed.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Across the room, Indian ratings were feeding the scenario setup into the two comm nets.

Everything was going to be fine.