water soaring up in tight-bunched pillars around the hurtling missile. Above
the frigate’s hangar, the Phalanx tower slewed about sharply on its axis, the
six-barreled cannon swinging into line as the target came into range. With a
searing, buzzsaw shriek, the barrels spun, spewing depleted uranium rounds at
the rate of fifty rounds per second.
Neither explosive nor radioactive, each bullet killed by throwing a lot
of mass very quickly. They were heavy, two and a half times denser than
steel, and they hurtled into the missile’s path at one thousand feet per
second. The Phalanx’s J-band, pulse-doppler radar simultaneously tracked both
incoming target and projectiles, correcting the aim for each brief burst.
The CIWS fired again … corrected, then fired once more. There was a
flash of light, a flat bang, and chunks of metal splattered into the sea.
Shifting aim to tag the second oncoming contact, the CIWS engaged the
final contact, but there was no more time. Faster than the speed of sound,
the AS-15 flashed past the still-expanding puff of smoke that marked the
destroyed ship-killer, arrowing toward the Hopkins’s stern. The CIWS had time
for a single burst; one round nicked a fin and tore it free, sending the
missile tumbling.
An instant later–and before the Phalanx could correct its aim and fire
again–the warhead slammed into the frigate’s starboard quarter.
It failed to explode immediately but plunged through the hangar
bulkheads, shredding the fuel pipelines that serviced the frigate’s two
helicopters. When the detonation came half a second later, gushing fuel and
vapor mingled with the blast, ripping the hangar apart in a thundering crash
and sending the R2D2 unit spinning into the sky atop a geysering fountain of
orange flame.
The second cruise missile streaked in from starboard seconds later,
striking the frigate in her boxy superstructure twenty-two feet above her
waterline. Designed to explode after penetrating a ship’s hull, the AS-15
punched through bulkheads like a bullet through foil, exploding squarely
beneath the bridge.
In a searing bloom of pyrotechnics, the Esek Hopkins began to burn.
CHAPTER 5
Wednesday, 18 June
1445 hours Zulu (1545 hours Zone)
U.S.S. Esek Hopkins
Viking Station, the Norwegian Sea
Flames broke from the shattered superstructure forward of the ruin of the
mast as Lieutenant Commander DuPont made it out onto the ship’s deck, fumbling
with the snaps on his life jacket. Acrid smoke, made harsh by burning
plastics, propellants, and chemicals, hung thick in the air, making breathing
difficult.
From the starboard railing amidships, he could look forward and see the
gaping, jagged-edged hole in the superstructure where the first missile had
entered the ship. Much of the upper half of Hopkins’s deckhouse forward of
the SPS-49 mast was simply gone, including the fire-control director, the comm
shack, and the bridge. Flames roared into the sky, wreathing between the
shattered struts of radar masts and the peeled-back wreckage of the bridge
deck. A second fire burned aft amid the ruin of the helicopter hangar.
Everywhere, the back-lit silhouettes of sailors moved against the flames,
men pulling comrades from the wreckage, uncoiling fire hoses, playing water
and foam against the blaze, or helping one another stagger away from the fire.
The ship was listing to starboard, and DuPont had to lean slightly to stand
upright.
“Commander DuPont!” From aft, Chief Castellano, enlisted head of
Hopkins’s damage-control department, moved toward him, clinging to the safety
railing. “Commander! I can’t raise the bridge! Who’s in charge?”
DuPont glanced again at the crater where the bridge had once been. Both
the Captain and the Exec had been up there when hell had come calling. “I
guess I am, Chief. What’s the word?”
Castellano pulled himself upright. There was a nasty burn on the right
side of his face, and his khakis and life jacket were oil-soaked and wet.
“Don’t know about forward, sir. I was on my way up there to see. Aft …”
He shrugged. “It’s bad, sir. Major fires. We have fire parties on them.
Mostly burning fuel from the helo inside the hangar. Turbines are shut down.
We’re taking some water. Sprung plates, probably. Watertight doors are
sealed and the pumps are working. We have ten degrees of list now but we seem