Jihad
3.1 America
by Red MacDonald
Copyright © 2013 Red MacDonald
All Rights Reserved.

The Faithful, North African and Middle Eastern Islamic nations, are plotting to seize the oil resources of the Middle East. By controlling the earth's oil and its major trade routes, they plan to bring the world to its knees. Then, when the entire world is kneeling, the Faithful of Allah will read to them from the Koran, preaching the message of Islam, the True Faith. The Faithful will stop at nothing to achieve their goal. But how far will they go? And how many lives will it cost?

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3 Gambits

3.1 America

* * * * *

3.1.1 Halsey at Gibraltar

If they’d been tourists on a pleasure cruise such a clear, cloudless day would have been perfect. They’d have run up to the bow, cameras in hand, and roll after roll of pictures would be developed to remember the day they came to "The Rock". Instead, it was a day of dread. The worst part was the not knowing. Even as they were approaching the coast, they had no idea of whether the Moroccans would fire at them or not.

Lt. Commander Muriel MacDonald had the frigate FFG 89 Hiram Jones squarely in the middle of the channel, exactly where she was supposed to be. But, the current flowing out of the briny, virtually land-locked lake was fighting her old FiG.

'Hell!'she bitched to herself, 'Jonesy is the oldest FiG in the fleet! If this thing hadn’t blown up, Jonesy would be on the scrap heap, and I’d have a nice, new FiG with a nice new engine, that might maintain 30 knots against the three knot current.'

As it was, she was losing headway and had dropped to twenty-five knots, far below the speed Vice Admiral Duncan had ordered. And, there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it. Once again, she ordered her signal "person" to flash the message to Commander Taylor on Carson that Hiram Jones was doing twenty seven knots and that was it! 'Oh, well,' she thought, 'It was a good career while it lasted.'

Onboard Carson, Charley Taylor was fuming. He hadn’t wanted Old Jonesy leading them through the Straits in the first place. He’d wanted her on the port flank where her lack of speed wouldn’t make any difference if she fell behind. So, what if it didn’t look pretty? It made sense.

He’d been overruled. Therefore, instead of steaming through at thirty knots, they were plodding through at twenty-five. Over the course of 100 miles, that’d mean almost half an hour longer in the danger zone. That meant there would be an extra thirty minutes for someone, either at sea or on the shore, to make a mistake. Reluctantly, he ordered the same signal back to the Halsey.

"It’s just as you figured, Admiral," Captain Edward Teegin reported. "Jonesy just can’t make thirty. I’ll bet Mac has them rowing just to maintain twenty-five."

Admiral Duncan smiled. Under other circumstances he might have laughed, but he was too nervous. Commander Taylor had argued well and forcefully to put the old FiG on the safe port side. Yet, even at thirty knots, it’d take the fleet over three hours to be out of danger. If Jones fell behind at a rate of three knots an hour, she’d be ten miles behind and easy pickings.

'No,' he reiterated to himself, 'better to travel at twenty-five with a powerful strike group than to lose a ship for fivelousy knots.' He turned back to the captain. "Acknowledge signal. Signal to all ships: Proceed at two-five knots."

He turned quietly and went below to the Command and Communications center and its big board. He entered CIC quietly, so as not to disturb the officers and crew. They had enough problems without his three stars hanging over them.

CAG was in his usual chair watching his air groups flying lazily above them. The Admiral slid into the empty chair beside him and whispered, "How’s it going, CAG?".

The admiral’s quiet question startled Buck Henry. He splashed coffee on the deck, but stammered, "Ah, fine."

After a moment to compose himself, Buck pointed to his screen. "We've got everybody up and in position. The flashes in the four corners are the Eyes. You can see that they have their Tomcats with them. The other flashes you see are Regulators and Snoopers. They aren’t steady signals because of their stealth characteristics. So, we have a built-in query sequence in the Aegis systems. Whenever it gets a tickle, it flashes an ultra-high speed, scrambled signal in the direction of the twitch. That sets off an answering signal which is also scrambled and fast. So, we can keep track of them even though we can’t see them. Of course if they don’t give the right answer, the computers identify them as targets, and then it can get a little tricky. So, we’re always real careful with our codes.

"Those are Cassey’s T-2s between us and the coast. They’re flying right along the twelve mile limit. Actually, I told them to stay at thirteen, just to be on the safe side. As you said, Admiral, we don’t want to start a war. You can see that they’re at 25,000 feet, ten thousand below our Eyes and Ears. Any high or medium altitude stuff will be easy for the Phoenixes.

"This cloud here, just north of us and above us," he pointed to the screen, "is Betz Chapiro’s Hornets. They’re at 10,000 to take care of the medium to low altitude stuff. You see two are breaking away? They are going for a light snack. The Holsteins are those three up there. We’re keeping three up, while the fourth ducks in for more Moo-Juice. We can keep this up all day if we have to. I’ve also got four Vikes on deck set up for refueling. We’ll launch them in fifteen minutes, and begin another three out of four rotation. So, at any one time, we can refuel a dozen thirsty jets if we have to.

"Now here’s the trickiest bit of all. Look right up there." He pointed to a position twenty miles northwest of the Halsey. "That’s our A-29s! Spooky isn’t it? We’ve got nine attack planes up there. Each of them has eight thousand pounds of ordinance in their internal bomb-bays, and you can’t see a damned thing.

"Pepe is playing with us. You can bet on it. He’s pushing the envelope as far as he can, waiting for one of our ships to detect his movement on the Doppler. If we do, he loses. If not, we’ll never hear the end of it. You can hear him now, 'Gringo! I gotcha!'

'The air side of this thing seems to be in good hands,' the admiral grunted to himself, "Now, what about the ships?" He looked first to his FiGs and Muriel’s tired old boat. He chuckled as his mind’s eye saw a hundred sailors, fifty to a side, rowing like hell, with Mac standing on the bridge, shouting into her bullhorn, "Stroke! Stroke!" The funniest part was if she’d thought of it, they’d be doing it.

Charley Taylor had Carson edging up on the FiGs and easing to the starboard side of the formation. Lt. Commander George Jones had the Elrod half a mile behind the Jones and three miles to starboard, while Lt. Commander Myron Patkowicz had Klakring exactly opposite him. All three had their helos up, and the admiral could see from their movements that they were dipping actively and aggressively.

It was the logical time for active sonar. The choppers dipped to use their variable frequency sonars to provide a reasonable scan for the FiG’s sonar detectors. The three widely separated signals, the cascading frequencies and the separate detectors gave a wonderful detection scenario. All it needed was massive computing power, and Carson had it. She could count the individual shrimp, scare the hell out of porpoises or detect a submarine with consummate ease. But, once again, the problem was time. A forty or fifty-knot "fish" could ruin your day.

Duncan looked to starboard where Commander Floyd Albertson’s guided missile destroyer Neill and Captain Grigory Yuhovitch’s guided missile cruiser Bunker Hill had taken up the anti-air role. Grig was the AA Screen Commander responsible for defending the fleet against any enemy air or missile attacks. There was nobody in the US Navy that was better at that job than Grig. He had written the book, titled "Fleet Air Defense", which was required reading at the Academy.

Suddenly, Halsey rumbled. A loud crash reverberated through the ship as though a Richter scale seven earthquake had just struck. Instinctively, Duncan hunched over before he realized that air operations had recommenced. He looked sheepishly towards CAG, but Buck didn’t appear to have seen his JT flinch.

CAG glanced at his watch. Turning to the admiral, he announced, "There go the Viking Cows. They’ll head out to the four corners and refuel the T-2s flying AirCAP first. Then, they’ll come back and take the rest of the fighters in order. That way we’ll be able to build the rotation and make the Air Boss’s job a little easier. By the way, we’re also getting Tiny’s Hornets on deck, so there’ll be a lot of elevator noise and such for the next half-hour or so. So, Admiral, don’t go digging any fox-holes in my deck."

* * * * *

3.1.2 Hornets in the Air

Lt. Commander Betty "Betz" Chapiro and her Mad Dogs were just hanging around north of the carrier, waiting for something to happen. Like all talented, skilled and well-trained people will, when bored out of their minds, she was day-dreaming.

Well, not really. Her pilot’s eyes wandered over the sky, past her instruments, and over at Tubby, her wing. He was the newest and greenest in the squadron, so she had taken him under her wing, as the most experience officer and best flyer in the squadron should. Like herself, the other six Mad Dogs were paired up, flying big clover leafs at ten thousand feet, burning fuel.

She shook off her lethargy, and yelled at herself, "That’s how good pilots become dead pilots." In her moment of Time Off, she’d lost it: her Situational Awareness.

It was like a civilian driving down a busy highway and suddenly realizing that he doesn’t know quite where he is or where any of the other cars on the road are, either. Except in this case, she was in 3-dimensional space, and the other guys could be armed and ready to smoke her tail!

She looked around quickly through what to the rest of the world was a bubble canopy, but through the tricks of optics and superbly fast, tiny computers her Hornet’s "Sun Roof" was much more. Her Hughes APG-75 "Mini-Aegis" and her Forward Looking Infra-Red were enhanced and optically mapped onto the curvilinear surface surrounding her. Wherever she looked she saw what she would normally should see plus whatever either of the detection and tracking systems saw. This not only enhanced her visual range but also her acuity. If trouble should arise, these systems would qalso alert her aurally and visually to any dangers.

Of course, no system was perfect. The Hughes APG-75, for instance only "saw" through a 270 degree arc. Anything in front or beside her, whether above her or below was easily detected, tracked and shown on her canopy. Similarly, her FLIR searched in a cone of ninety degrees, while sweeping circularly through seventy. It gave her a new, one hundred and sixty degree view every second. But, there was always that one vulnerable spot directly behind her. The Hornet had a couple of cute gadgets back there including a radar detector and an IR detector that could tell her approximately where and how close an enemy was. There was only one way to be sure, and every pilot learned about "The Six" early at tactical training school. So, her first reaction on coming out of her daze was to snap around and check between her big tail fins for any sign of trouble.

Quickly, she returned to her job of maintaining control of her air space. Off in the distance were the two nearest Hawkeyes and their escorts. Although she couldn’t actually see them, her Integrated Optical Cockpit System let her know where they were and who they were just by looking in their direction. She craned her neck back to both sides to find the rest of her squadron. "Bleeper" Bulkowski and "Higgy" Higginbotham were east of the carrier, right on station. "Shiner" Samuelson and "Button" Bouton were between them and slightly to the north just coming out of their loop. But, where were "Dilly" and "Candy"? Dilly was an experienced pilot and the leader of her flight. Where’d she disappeared to?

Then, it dawned on her. 'That’s what woke me up! They’ve gone off to the big Moo Cow in the sky.' Sure enough, there was a big, lumbering Holstein with two little heifers in tow.

She keyed up her mike, and the scrambled, compression transmitter was instantly ready. "Mad Dog One to Junkyard. Who’s next to put on the feed bag? Count off!"

The replies came in quickly. "Mad Dog One, Mad Dog Two. We’re at twenty-two hundred and feeling just a little peckish."

"Mad Dog One, Mad Dog Three. We’re good for a while. We’re just under three thousand. I told Bleeper not to guzzle his JP, but he just won’t listen."

Shiner always had an answer for everything, except for the time Babs got him. "OK, Bleeper and Higgy are next. Tubby and I will follow, and the redoubtable, resourceful and pecunious team of Shiner and Button can take up the rear. As usual."

The "Little Guard" channel sputtered to life. The real Guard Channel was the frequency that anyone in the air group could use to talk to anyone else, but was only used for emergencies and really important stuff. Little Guard was the channel that "Big Brother" or the package commander used to talk with everyone. "This is not a Sunday social. Cut the chatter or some rag-head will flame your ass." It was "DJ" Duncan, their boss, and he wasn’t happy!

A few minutes later, Dilly and Candy rejoined the formation, sliding in behind Bleeper and Higgy. The two pairs of fighters rocked their wings in greeting, and Mad Dogs Two and Seven turned to head for the KS-3. The round trip took twelve minutes. By that time, Betz and Tubby were down below a thousand pounds of fuel. It wasn’t panic time by any means, but at their low fuel state they wouldn’t be able to fly for more than two or three minutes on afterburner before they flamed out and took a little swim. Bleeper and Higgy waggled their wings signifying that they were ready to take over the watch station. Betz and Tubby waggled back a thank you and turned slowly away towards the northeast.

The tanker sent out a short range homing signal that allowed the Hornet drivers to put their planes on autopilot for the initial approach. They eased up at about two miles from the slower, twin engine tanker, and reverted to manual flying. Then, they began a battle of nerves, almost as great as when landing on a heaving deck.

The objective of the exercise was to sneak up on the Holstein so that by the time you got there you were going at exactly the same speed. Then, you flew formation for a long time and finally left. In between, however, you had to extend a pipe-like probe from the starboard side of the Hornet’s nose, and place it delicately within a small basket that looked like a badminton shuttle-cock. Of course, all this was done at 400 miles per hour and at 12,000 feet. The drogue bounced around like a dervish. The wash off the big jet’s wings knocked your small Hornet around like a leaf in a hurricane, and your formation flying had to be perfect or you disconnected and had to try all over again. Refueling demanded exacting flying. Real pilots loved it, and performing it well was worth "style" points, too.

At one mile, Betz had slowed so much that the variable Leading Edge Root Extension, which ran along under the cockpit and led into the wing root, began to buckle. Her forward slates and rear flaps cranked out a few degrees. With all that extra lift, she had to bring the nose up to maintain forward progress, so that the little plane flew forward even though it looked like it was zooming skyward.

When she was within half a mile, she opened her communications with the Holstein. "Mad Dog One on your port with seven hundred." She heard her wing announce, "Mad Dog eight on your starboard with 600." 'Shit! Is he low! Why didn’t he say something?'

Having announced themselves, they were no longer in charge. The tanker was. "Roger, Mad Dog One, Mad Dog Eight, this is Udderly Wonderful at your service. Mad Dog Eight you are cleared to plug in on the starboard drogue. Check our lights, Mad Dog Eight. Do you read?"

Tubby leaned forward in his seat to see the indicator signals under the wing and belly of the tanker, as if those two or three inches would make a difference. "Roger, Udderly Wonderful, I see the Tree, I see the drogue. I have a green light on my probe." Tubby eased his throttles forward just slightly. The increased speed created greater lift. As the lift increased, Tubby’s Hornet lowered its nose while increasing its altitude. That is, he missed the drogue by about a foot. He backed off and was about to try again, when the tanker interrupted him.

"Mad Dog Eight, you are fencing with the basket. You can’t win that game. Just ease up on me really slow and cool-like. Watch my signals. Take it slow and easy, and ... there!" Tubby had put the probe right into the middle of the drogue and they had coupled. "Now doesn’t that feel better?" the jocular tanker asked. "I haven’t forgotten you Mad Dog One. You are clear on the port, I repeat port drogue."

"Roger, Udderly Wonderful. I see the Tree. I see the drogue. I have a green light on my probe." She eased her flaps just a skosh and gave her bird a tiny squirt of power. Her radar told her that she was closing at half a meter per second, which was too fast. She’d shoot right by before she could adjust if she kept that up.

But, Betz had done this before. After giving her Hornet a quick nudge, she dropped back to her previous control settings. It took a short time for her speed to drop off, bringing her within inches of the drogue. For a second or two it seemed as though she wasn’t going to make it as the probe and drogue hovered inches apart. Barely touching her throttle, she willed her engines to deliver just a tad more thrust, and "Clink", she was there.

One of the nicest parts about refueling was that there was time to talk "in private". On the radio, someone was always listening. However, the physical connection between tanker and fighter allowed them to communicate like two kids could talk over a string telephone.

"Hi, Betz!" a strong, motherly voice said through the earphones. It was the Cow Boss, herself!

Chief Warrant Officer Barbara "Babs" Radnovitch was the chief maintenance officer for all the "cows" and the heart and soul of VK-8. Her door announced to the world, in four inch letters, that she was the "Cow Boss". Even their CO, a tall lanky Texan, call-sign "Wrangler", agreed. She cared for the planes and their crews. In special evolutions, like this one, where regular Vikings had to be quickly refitted to handle refueling operations, Cow Boss always got the job done on time. Babs was also upstairs quite a lot, not only to keep up her flight status, but to check out tanker crews and to train new ones. That had led to a story that had been going around the fleet for years.

Babs enjoyed the standard joke of all tanker drivers. She’d wait for a youngster to plug in, and then in her naturally sulky voice, say, "Ooh! That’s nice! Keep it up big boy." Later, as the plane was leaving after refueling, she’d call, "Was it as good for you as it was for me?" Of course, young pilots would come back red in the face and be totally embarrassed for a week around her. The most recent one on the receiving end had been Shiner, and he was still trying to live it down.

The story went that one day, the pilot was a gal who was married to one of the base’s secretaries. But, Babs didn’t know about that. So, as the plane plugged in, Babs said, "Ooh! Baby! More! More!" The gal, not to be outdone, replied in an equally sultry voice, "Spread ‘em a little more, my tongue’s as deep as it can get!" The conversation went dead, and the other pilot, who was listening in, laughed so hard he disconnected and had to come around! After that, Babs was a little more reserved, but not much more.

Babs was the one who had named the tanker squadron the "Air Cows" and made their squadron symbol an udder with wings, which had to be painted over every time they got to port. It was she who named the four tankers, Udderly Wonderful, Horney Four Q, Tits Up and Milk Maid.

"Hi, Babs. Have you met my new wing, Tubby?"

Babs was thoroughly gracious, and business-like. The refueling went smooth as silk. But, as they were readying to depart, Babs reverted to form. "Tubby, you can come back anytime, and I’ll show you a real good time!"

Betz could almost feel Tubby turning red. Instantly Cow Boss was back to being the true professional she was, "Mad Dog Eight, you are clear to depart. Down and to the right." Fifteen seconds later, "Mad Dog One, you are clear. Down and to the left."

Six minutes later, Betz was back on station over the carrier. She had barely regained her situational awareness when a white cloud erupted from the cliffs just north of Seghir near point Almina. She saw it, and reacted instantly, "Mad Dog Leader to Junkyard Dogs. Missile attack from ‘See-Gar’. Attack formation. Go!"

Eight Hornets lunged forward, prepared for battle.

* * * * *

3.1.3 Avengers at Play

Just as CAG had imagined, Commander Pedro "Pepe" Gonzalez, was pushing the Tequilas of VA-8 to the edge of the detection envelope and having a ball doing it. It wasn’t often that his squadron had the chance to practice their stealth techniques with their brand new A-29 Avengers. This was an opportunity not to be wasted.

The hard part of the exercise was the geometry. The Avengers were designed to be extremely stealthy from a head-on attitude when they weren’t loaded with external ordinance. The A-29’s internal bomb-bay was just one of the big changes in naval aviation thinking brought about by this new generation of aircraft. They could carry up to four tons of bombs internally which maintained their stealthiness. The Avenger had also reverted to an old idea that originally had come out of Martin’s B-45 program and had also been used in the American Canberras. The entire bomb-bay rotated. There were no doors or other surfaces, which minimized radar reflections and drag at the same time. Of course, when the A-29’s four external wing mounts were in use, they generated a large cross-section even with the new, low-drag, stealthy GBUs.

From the side, the Avenger was not as stealthy, nor were they really good from either the top or bottom. They were a lot better than most planes, that was true, but their "invisible protective shield" broke down from greater angles. From the rear, Avengers were pigs.

In large part this was because A-29s were naval aircraft. They had to land on carriers for a living. That meant there were tail hook assemblies, all sorts of extra bracing and everything else that went with the job. The second source of emanation was their exhausts. They had sacrificed stealthiness from the rear quarter to gain performance.

Avengers were supersonic with high-bypass, vectored-thrust engines giving them a top speed of around 1,000 knots. The thinking was that they didn’t have to particularly stealthy from the rear because they were fast, maneuvered well for a big plane, and had a few ECM tricks up their sleeve if all else failed. So, the objective of Pepe’s training was to approach and turn away, but never show the radars his tail. That’s where the geometry came in.

Pepe began his approach from the carrier’s stern quarter. During that time, he treated Halsey as though it were an enemy ship. He set up the bombing runs, simulating a variety of missiles, laser guided bombs and standard iron bombs, approaching her as close as he dared. He would know instantly if he was discovered, because either Bunker Hill’s or Halsey’s Aegis would twitch and query his black box. The box would respond automatically with the identifying IFF code, and the Tequilas’ game would be over.

Once an Avenger reached the nearest point of closure, it’d turn away towards the northeast, gradually showing the Aegis ships its front quarter and then its side as it flew further away. It would fly just beyond the Aegis system’s detection threshold of about twenty miles and then turn to angle away for about forty miles. Yet, even then, it couldn’t turn directly west. Its vulnerable exhausts would cause the Aegis radars to twitch. Therefore, the plane turned east, maintaining its turn through 235 degrees until it was headed back to its starting point.

Pepe reveled in his little game. Nobody knew he was there, and the Tequilas’ computers had scored hits on each of the ships. If it had been real, and not a game, Pepe’s Tequilas would have sunk the whole fleet. Of course, he was cheating just a little. If the fleet had been actual adversaries, their air coverage would have been very different, and Pepe would have had to deal with swarms of T-2s and Hornets. No matter how stealthy his planes were on radar, the Mark One Eyeball was a superb optical tracking and detection device especially suited for seeing motion. Regardless, Pepe knew that it was critical to understand how to accomplish this type of mission first. After that, he could worry about Alternate Plan A.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, Pepe saw motion where there hadn’t been anything before. A missile popped out of the cliffs, dropped low and was skimming across the sea towards the fleet!

"Tequilas!" he shouted, "Attack formation. Prepare targeting systems. Hold at Final Departure Point. Wait for my release!"

Another voice came over their headsets on Guard, "Assume attack formations. Hold for further orders."

'Good,' Pepe thought, Bull O’Connor sees it.'

In fact, Captain Byron "Bull" O’Connor had been the very first to see the missile. As the CO of all the Eyes, Ears and Snoops on Halsey, he could fly whenever he wanted. On top of that, he was the senior ranking Air Control Officer. When Admiral Duncan decided to push through the Straits with a full show of force, Bull decided that he wanted in on the action. So, he was in Leprechaun 1, on the hot corner, southeast of the Halsey.

For two hours plus, he’d sat there watching, waiting and trying to figure out the games each of the air squadrons were playing. The Hornets had been up a while and were refueling. Four Vikes had launched as Ersatz Cows to refuel each of the eight alert Tomcats directly attached to the four Hawkeyes, before going back north to feed Cassey’s Knights.

Bull’s job could have been boring, if it weren’t for the intensity. It was as though he was watching a no-hitter in baseball. A no-hitter should be boring because nothing was happening. Yet, it was terribly exciting because something could happen at any moment. He concentrated on his wrap-around display, feeling jumpier by the minute.

The E-29F Hawkeye was performing beautifully. The wrap-around Aegis system had eliminated the "flying pancake" that had adorned radar surveillance aircraft since the 1950s. Instead, the Hawkeye’s outer skin had been replaced by composites which housed a magnificent phased-array, pulsed radar. The radar housing made the Hawkeye look like a pregnant guppy, but this plane wasn’t designed to win beauty contests.

Its job was to see anything and everything, and then allow Bull O’Connor to control a complex air mission over a territory that extended for two hundred miles in any direction. He had to receive all the processed data from all his air assets, including the four Hawkeyes, the four Regulators and the two Snoopers. Then it was up to him to direct and control all the fleet’s aircraft to create a single great war machine.

Bull’s first indication that something was happening occurred when a portion of the cliff face some fifteen kilometers northeast of Seghir moved. At first, he thought he might have seen a rock slide, but there was no other movement as would have been consistent with dirt and debris falling several hundred meters down the side. He ordered an intensified search of the area. Sure enough, there was a hole in the cliff face.

'Odd,' he thought. He was about to report it when a huge white object leapt out of the hole followed by a big burst of steam and smoke!

He knew instantly what it was, and keyed his microphone with the alert warning. It was a skimmer, a low-level cruise or anti-ship missile, which his computer tentatively identified as a French Dragoon. He watched the missile intently, making sure of its speed and altitude. A one thousand-pound warhead was streaking at the fleet at fifteen hundred miles per hour. He had only seconds to do something about it.

* * * * *

3.1.4 Bunker Hill

Captain Grigory Yuhovitch sat with Commander Eugene Halbertson, his Missile Boss, in Bunker Hill’s large but crowded CIC. Their integrated tactical display was alive with ships and planes. The data came primarily from Bunker Hill’s four, large phased-array panels that crowned the ship’s superstructure. They also received a fully integrated signal from Leprechaun 1, which gave them a simultaneous view from all the Eyes, Ears and Regulators. Their computers integrated it and presented it to them in living color and in three dimensions. It was almost like being there.

Then, all hell broke loose. A missile appeared out of nowhere, with Bull O’Connor’s warning immediately on its heels. The news startled everyone in the Combat Information Center. Within seconds, it was obvious that this was a skimmer, probably one of the advanced versions of the infamous Exocet. What mattered most was that it was below the 5000-foot deck assigned to the aircraft. That made it Halbertson’s target.

Gene Halbertson leaned over and quietly spoke into his microphone, "Designate target." A box appeared around it.

"Track target." A reticle bleeped onto the image.

"Activate SAM Four." The vertical launch array readied its first available NATO SM-4, responded with a green light on the Air Boss’s panel and confirmed it with a "Ready" on the screen.

"Fire!"

The long white SM-4 missile was blown straight up out of its vertical box by a blast of compressed air. At twenty-five feet off the deck its engines fired. A column of white smoke leapt into the air faster than the human eye could follow to a height of five hundred feet. Then, the Mark-117 guidance radar took over, redirecting it towards the target. The missile accelerated through the sound barrier and continued towards its terminal velocity of twenty-five hundred miles per hour.

As the distance closed, Bunker Hill’s Mark-117 sent its final instructions to the missile, which turned on its own radar and pointed it at the designated point where the target should exist. The SM-4 detected it and queried it. Receiving no answer, the SM-4 characterized it as "enemy" and prepared to destroy it.

The geometry was tricky. The two missiles were closing each other at a speed of four thousand miles per hour, while the SM-4’s kill radius was only one-hundred feet. Furthermore, it took time for the shaped charge to propel the 217 tubular, explosive "bullets" out to their optimum radius. The SM-4 had to fire at exactly the right instant to create the killing zone. But, it was a "smart" missile designed for just such a high-speed encounter.

As the SM-4 accelerated towards its target, Gene Halbertson was still very much in the game. He knew full well that in this kind of an engagement, anything could go wrong. Just after the first SM-4 was fired, he re-ran his sequence just in case. The "Ready" light on his display indicated a second SM-4 could be launched with just a single word.

They saw a brilliant, white flash as the first SM-4 exploded, sending "Death Darts" out in a cone ahead of its flight path. Almost simultaneously, they saw a second flash as the enemy Dragoon missile ran into three cubes which tore out its vitals, exploding its warhead and sending shards of burning metal raining into the sea.

"Check!" the Missile Boss commanded, halting all firing processes. His command, "Stand down," completed it. The readied SM-4 went back to sleep along with the other 180 missiles still in the Bunker Hill’s missile arrays.

* * * * *

3.1.5 Duncan's Conference

Admiral Duncan had also been watching. When the enemy missile appeared and the warning sounded, his heart almost leapt into his throat! It was only after the missile blew up that he realized that he had jumped to his feet and was holding his breath. As pieces scattered across the surface of the Mediterranean, his only thought was, 'Shit!'

Halsey’s Air Boss was too busy for conversation. When the missile warning came in, he ordered the two Hornets sitting in the bow catapults to be launched. He was taking no chances and was launching while he still had the opportunity.

Just seconds after the missile exploded, Halsey shuddered as the "cat" hurled Tiny Small and Sonny Liu off the bow. The tremendous pulse of noise rumbled through the ship at the wrong time for everybody aboard. Even CAG ducked! Everyone in CIC heard him mutter, "Damned Air Boss!"

Buck leaned over and began to hammer "Go Codes" into his transponder to be sent to each of the squadron commanders. Without them, and without either the captain’s or the admiral’s confirmation, the planes would hover at their departure points, but go no further.

Admiral Duncan was perplexed, and wondered aloud, "Why only one missile?" When he asked CAG and his staff, none of them had a good answer. It was obvious to Duncan that if the Moroccans had one missile, they had more than one. The entire world knew that they had big guns buried deep in those cliffs that could have been firing. Something was wrong, and JT Duncan wanted to know what.

He called Captain Teegin on the bridge, "Ed, raise Tangiers Military District for me. I want to talk with whoever’s in charge."

"Aye, Aye, Sir," came the standard Naval reply.

Five incredibly tense minutes passed before the call came in, "Sir, I have a Colonel Rahmid on the radio. I’ll patch him through to you now."

"Colonel Rahmid, this is Vice Admiral James Duncan aboard the United States warship Halsey presently off your northern coast. Do you hear me?"

"Indeed, Admiral Doon-kind, I am hearing you clearly and well. In what way can the Royal Moroccan Army assist such an august person as yourself"

"May the blessings of Allah fall upon you this fine day, Colonel. I have called you today to make an inquiry of the Royal Moroccan Army. It is my hope that you will be able to assist me in finding the answer." He continued, "Approximately six minutes ago, we were attacked upon the high seas. Do you understand what I have said, Colonel?"

"You were attacked, Admiral? By whom?"

"Apparently, Colonel, by the Royal Moroccan Army!"

"What did you say, Admiral? Did I hear you correctly?"

"I’m sure you did, Colonel, but I shall repeat myself. Approximately seven minutes ago now, a missile was fired from Moroccan territory from a site approximately twenty kilometers northeast of the city of Ksar-es-Seghir. The missile was destroyed by elements of my battle fleet.

"I am considering several courses of action at this time. However, before I make any decisions regarding the actions this battle fleet will take, I am asking for your cooperation and for your assistance. Why, Colonel, did the Kingdom of Morocco attack a United States’ battle fleet in international waters?"

"Ah, Admiral ...," the Colonel’s voice trailed off. "I do not know what to say to you. No orders have been given to attack any ships sailing off the coasts of Morocco. And, we surely would not strike such a large and powerful battle fleet as yours. It was a mystery to me why you contacted Royal Moroccan authorities, and it is even more of a mystery when I hear what you have said to me. Are you sure that this missile was launched from Moroccan territory, Admiral?"

"Indeed, Colonel. I can have the exact launching point marked by one of my aircraft if that would be of help to the Royal Moroccan authorities, or I could send video tapes to you which show the entire launch sequence and pinpoint the exact location of the missile’s launch. Would either of these alternatives be more helpful to you, Colonel?"

"Thank you for your kindness, Admiral. It would be my opinion that a video tape of the entire regrettable incident would be preferable to my superiors. Would it be possible to fly it to Tangiers in one of your helicopters, or would some other means of conveyance be preferred?"

"Yes, we can do that, however, the helicopter will not be able to stay and enjoy your hospitality. It will have to depart immediately after the crew have delivered the video tape to you or your representative. Would that be convenient, Colonel?"

"Indeed, Admiral. You are most kind. Is there any other way in which the Royal Moroccan Army can assist you or the American Navy?"

"No, Colonel, I don’t think so. Is there some other way that my battle fleet can assist the Royal Moroccan Army?"

"Once again, you are all kindness, Admiral. No, today we do not need any help from the American Navy. May Allah be with you on your journey."

"And, the blessings of Allah to you, too, Colonel. Admiral Duncan, out."

Duncan asked Halsey’s captain and her CAG, "Well, Buck, Ed, what did you think?"

Teegin spoke first on the "horn" from the bridge, "JT, that colonel seemed to be totally in the dark. It was almost as though he’d swallowed his chewing gum when you told him about the missile. And, I think I heard a tinge of fear when you offered to mark the spot."

"Yah!" CAG interjected, "He had no idea! Somebody’s head will roll over this, and it sure won’t be that colonel’s. I’ll bet he’s on the horn right now and salivating at the thought of wiping out a few terrorists who tried to start a war with the United States."

Buck Henry was right on both counts. By the following day, Colonel Rahmid had not only found the offending missileers, but also had Major Ibram Sultouni in custody. Within just a few hours, the ex-major had implicated two Imams and several other distinguished worshippers at his mosque. Two days later, most of the conspirators were dead. Only one survived, and he lived only because he Colonel Rahmid's mole.