Red storm rising - By Tom Clancy Page 0,225

figure that we're going to be in close. And we might be teamed with a Brit for the convoy mission."

"Fair enough. If you want my opinion, we have a pretty solid ASW team here. We might just give the bad guys a hard time. Weren't you on Rodgers a few years back?"

"When you were working with the Moose. We worked together twice, but never met. I was 'X-Ray Mike' when we exercised against Skate."

"I thought I remembered you." O'Malley came closer and dropped his voice. "How bad is it out there?"

"Bad enough. We lost the G-I-UK line. We're getting some pretty good SURTASS info, but you can bet Ivan's going to be gunning for those tuna boats pretty soon. Between the air threat and the sub threat--I don't know." His face showed more than his voice did. Close friends dead or missing. His own first command blown in half. Morris was tired in a way that sleep alone would not cure.

O'Malley nodded. "Skipper, we got us a shiny new frigate, a great new helo, and a tail. We can hold our end up."

"Well, we'll have a shot soon enough. We sail for New York in two hours and take a convoy out on Wednesday."

"Alone?" O'Malley asked.

"No, we'll have Brit company for the New York run, HMS Battleaxe. The orders haven't been confirmed yet, but it looks like we'll be working together all the way across."

"That'll be useful," Ernst agreed. "Come on aft, skipper, I'll show you what we're up to." The sonar room was aft of CIC, closed off by a curtain. Here real lighting was on, as opposed to the darkened, red-light world of Combat.

"Jeez, nobody ever tells me anything!" growled a young lieutenant commander. "Good morning, Captain. I'm Lenner, combat systems officer."

"How come you're not at your scope?"

"We froze the game, skipper, and I wanted to check out the display on playback."

"I brought the game tape myself," O'Malley explained. "This is the track of a Victor-III that faked out one of our carriers in the eastern Med last year. See here? That's the pump-fake. You'll notice that the contact fades out, then brightens up. That's the noisemaker inside the knuckle. At this point he ducked under the layer and sprinted inside the screen. Would've hit the carrier, too, because they didn't get him for another ten minutes. That"--he jammed his finger at the display--"is what you look for. This tells you you're up against a driver who knows his stuff, and he's out for your ass." Morris examined the screen closely enough to recognize the pattern. He'd seen it once before.

"What if they use the maneuver to break clear?" Lenner asked.

"Because if they can break contact, why not break contact toward the target?" Morris asked quietly, noting that he had a very young combat systems officer.

"That's right, skipper." O'Malley nodded ruefully. "Like I said, this is a standard tactic for them, and it rewards a sharp driver. The aggressive ones will always bore in. The ones who break off--that's effectively a kill. We have to reacquire, but so do they. With a twenty-knot speed of advance, once we get past them, they have to play catch-up. That means making noise. The guy who runs away probably won't run the risk, or if he does, he'll do it badly and we'll get him. No, this tactic is for the guy who really wants to get in close. Question is, how many of their skippers are that aggressive?"

"Enough." Morris looked away for a moment. "How's the helicopter complement?"

"Only one flight crew for the bird. My copilot's pretty green, but our on-board systems operator's a first-class petty officer who's been around the block a few times. The maintenance guys are a pickup bunch, mostly from the readiness group at Jax. I've talked to them, they should do just fine."

"We got berths for them all?" Morris asked.

Ernst shook his head. "Not hardly. We're packed pretty tight."

"O'Malley, is your copilot deck-qualified?"

"Not on a frigate. I am--hell, I did some of the first systems trials back in '78. We'll have to do workups on the way to New York, both day and night to get my ensign in the groove. Scratch team, skipper. The bird doesn't even belong to an operational squadron."

"You sounded confident a minute ago," Morris objected.

"I am fairly confident," O'Malley said. "My people know how to use the tools they got. They're sharp kids. They'll learn fast. And we even get to make up our own call signs." A wide grin.