Donchez propped his feet up on the huge desk, put his hands behind his bald head and looked out the windows at the snowy landscape of the Potomac River below, the familiar Washington skyline, the vista lonely on Christmas, the town’s workers and lawyers and politicians home with their families. In another half hour, the operation would commence, starting with the liftoff of a cargo jet full of Navy Sea/Air/Land commandos and the firing of sea-launched Javelin cruise missiles at Sihoud in his headquarters bunkers.

By early afternoon Thursday, Donchez expected to hold a press conference reporting the death of General-andkhalib Mohammed al-Sihoud, and with him, the end of a war that had the potential to kill millions of Americans.

Donchez stared out the window for some moments, deciding to wade through his urgent paperwork during the time he must wait before the decapitation assault against Sihoud kicked off. He took his feet off the desk and rifled through a file marked vortex missile test — exercise BONECRUSHER — AUTEC SUBMARINE VS. SUBMARINE LIVE FIRE. After he read it, he put it back on the desk, ran his hand across his bald scalp, his face an annoyed frown, and picked up the phone.

* * *

Michael Pacino sat back in the deep recliner in front of the fireplace, the Virginia Beach weather finally cool enough to justify lighting the fire. For the last hour he had dozed, waiting for Christmas dinner, falling into a deep sleep. His face twitched and beaded with sweat as he dreamt, his sleeping visions obviously troubled.

When the phone jangled he sat up, his eyes wide, the room slowly coming into focus, Janice’s low Southern accent distant as she answered the call. By the time she asked him to pick up the phone, his heart rate had slowed to its normal rhythm. He climbed out of the easy chair and walked to the phone, wondering what his duty officer wanted on a slow holiday afternoon. His submarine, the USS Seawolf, sat inert and helpless in a shipyard drydock, a gaping hullcut opened in her flank, her torpedo room brutalized by the shipyard workers and the overgrown Vortex missile tubes being jammed in. It seemed a crime that in the middle of a hot war on the other side of the world, the most advanced submarine in the U.S.

“Captain Pacino,” he said curtly into the phone, expecting a young

lieutenant to report another problem. But it wasn’t the ship calling.

“Mikey,” Admiral Donchez’s voice boomed in Pacino’s ear. “Merry Christmas.”

Hillary Janice Pacino, a slim attractive woman with golden hair curling halfway down her back, lit a cigarette and listened to the phone conversation in the background, her expression growing steadily unhappy as it became obvious that Pacino would be leaving. Thirty seconds after the conversation ended, right on cue, he appeared in the kitchen.

“Where to this time?” she asked, her voice surprisingly calm.

“Autec. Bahamas test range. Donchez’s Vortex missile test. He wants me to watch. His jet is picking me up in two hours.”

“On Christmas Day?”

“The missile test goes down tomorrow.”

“What’s the big rush? It’s not like you’re going to war. If there was one Christmas I thought you’d make, it was this year. Your ship is in the dock and you’re being relieved in two months. Why are you going now? Because the chief of naval operations asks and you jump?” “No. Because Dick Donchez asks and I jump. We still have time for dinner.”

“How long?”

“Two days, maybe three.”

Pacino watched as his wife clammed up and began moving around the room, banging pots and plates. He climbed the stairs and packed a bag, wondering himself why a weapon test was so important that he had to drop everything on Christmas Day to see it.

Ten minutes later he stood in front of the television, the news channel reported on the Coalition invasion of southern Iran. Pacino bit his lip in frustration, wondering for the hundredth time why Seawolf had to sit out the war. If he had to be away on Christmas, he thought, it could at least be to take the ship on a mission. He thought about his old captain, Rocket Ron Daminski, who was now on patrol in the Mediterranean aboard the Augusta, there since Thanksgiving, probably spending the holiday watching old movies in the wardroom and complaining bitterly about being at sea, driving his crew crazy.

Too bad, Pacino thought, there was nothing for a sub to do during the ground war except poke holes in the ocean. Or so it seemed.

BOOK I

ROCKET RON

Chapter 1

Thursday, 26 December

EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

TEN NAUTICAL MILES EAST OF CAPE GRECO, CYPRUS

OPERATION EARLY RETIREMENT

USS AUGUSTA

The Javelin cruise missile blew out of the dark water of the Mediterranean, momentarily frozen in space above an angry cloud of spray until the weapon’s rocket motor ignited in a violent fireball, hurling the missile skyward with an agonizingly bright flame trail.