Chapter 61
Situation Room
The White House
Washington, D.C.
Mary Pat read the message aloud. “ ‘Landed Al-Jaghbub. Taking heavy fire from larger force. Holding position, but unable to move. One man down, critical. Any help appreciated. Advise.’ ”
“Shit!” SecDef Burgess blurted.
Ryan had the same sentiment. What he said was “John Clark does not ask for help lightly.”
“How far out is the Ford?” Mary Pat asked.
Admiral Kent referenced a laptop. “She’s south of Malta, four Hornets ready on deck. If they launch now, it will take roughly an hour for them to reach the airfield.”
Ryan smacked an open palm on the conference table. “Too long! I should have put the Hornets on airborne alert.”
“Do you want them to launch?” Kent asked.
“Yes, put them in the air.” As Kent typed out the order to Sixth Fleet headquarters, the President said, “I need better options. What about Cyber Cell 6?”
Mary Pat replied, “They can’t do much without data. This airfield is a digital wilderness.”
“There is one other possibility,” the SecDef said. “Although, it is a silver bullet.”
“A what?” van Damm asked.
“A one of a kind weapon.” Burgess addressed Kent once he was finished issuing the order to the Ford. “You and I talked earlier about the Zumwalt. Where is she?”
“Central Red Sea.”
“How far is that from our target area?”
Kent studied a map. “Looks like about…seven hundred miles to Al-Jaghbub.”
“What exactly are we talking about?” Ryan asked.
The two defense experts exchanged a glance. Burgess took the reins.
“The destroyer Zumwalt is carrying a system called Hyperion.”
“Hyperion?” Ryan remarked. “I thought that was still in development.”
“It is. Three prototypes were built and two have been tested. The results were remarkably positive, and it was decided to install the final test vehicle on the Zumwalt. It’s the only ship with compatible launch tubes.”
“What exactly can Hyperion do?” Mary Pat asked.
“It would take a long time to cover everything, but right now we’ve got people in the middle of a raging firefight.” Burgess gave a fifteen-second overview. Some in the room were awed, others skeptical. Ryan, who had gotten an early briefing on the program, nodded knowingly as details came back.
Burgess ended with “It’s a silver bullet because we’ve got only one missile—essentially, one shot. But it could be a difference maker for Task Force 99.”
“Could Hyperion reach the airfield faster than the Hornets?” van Damm asked.
“The baseline delivery system, Conventional Prompt Strike, is a hypersonic boost-glide missile. It flies at Mach 5–plus. Given where Zumwalt is at the moment, from the time we launch…the payload will be on target in less than fifteen minutes.”
Jaws around the room dropped. War at hypersonic speed was an adjustment for everyone.
“Launch it,” said the President without hesitation.
“Yes, sir. It’ll take a few minutes to program the mission. And I will have to upload one dataset from your section, Mary Pat.”
“What do you need?”
“Full facial profiles for every one of our people on the ground.”
It was an unusual, even unnerving request to prepare a weapon for launch.
She said, “I’ll have that for you in two minutes.”
Central Mediterranean
While most Americans were sitting down to dinner, four U.S.
Navy pilots guided their F/A-18 Hornets across the deck of the USS Gerald R.
Ford in the dead of a Mediterranean night.
With the ship turned into the wind, they taxied toward the catapults.
The deck crew checked each jet one final time as the battle group around them maneuvered with symphony-like precision.
One by one, the Hornets shot into the night sky like they’d been fired from a gun. Which, in effect, they had been. The Ford’s advanced EMALS catapult didn’t operate using steam but rather electromagnetic force—an aviator’s rail gun.
The jets were loaded for bear, each carrying two tons of guided munitions and a full load of four hundred and twelve rounds in their internal gun. They joined up quickly in loose tactical formation and took up a southeasterly course.
With the rush of launch behind them, Commander Dale “Lava” Harrison pushed the throttles to the first detent and then squeaked them back a fraction. Maximum thrust without afterburner, but with a small margin for his wingmen to hold formation.
Harrison had earned his call sign early on in his career when he’d landed a Hornet at Navy North Island, in San Diego, with a serious flap problem.
The high-speed stop after landing had ended with hot brakes and a wheel fire.
The fire department handled it like the professionals they were, but for Harrison a new call sign was born: Lava Man.
“Check silent,” Lava said.
The other three jets acknowledged.
Once clear of the Ford, electronic emissions would be kept to a minimum. All transponders were turned off and radars went to standby. Only essential radio calls would be made until reaching the target area.
The pilots knew little about the mission ahead of them. They hadn’t been told the exact nature of their target, nor what threats could be expected. Time was critical, and more details would be forwarded en route. None of the four pilots had ever operated under such orders.
As they would soon find out, however, tonight would be a night of many firsts.