“Pat is downloading an MDU. It’s almost all on board. Any idea why we’re getting one now?”

Glass turned serious. “We’re going to launch a strike. Man battle stations missile.” He turned and addressed the navigator. “Mr. Perez, submerge the ship to six-two feet.”

“Aye, sir!” Edwards responded, but he still looked mystified about what he had just heard. Jerry Perez jumped from his seat and started issuing orders.

As Toledo slid back beneath the waves, Glass watched the crew move to man their stations. Shooting Tomahawk missiles was a methodical, controlled evolution. There was none of the mad scramble associated with unexpectedly coming face-to-face with the enemy and shooting at him with a torpedo.

“Skipper,” Durand sang out. “MDU is downloaded and verified. We have our mission tasking order, too. I don’t need the BRA-34 anymore.”

“Very well. Mr. Perez, lower all masts and antennas.”

The twelve “vertical” launch tubes that held missiles on Toledo weren’t really vertical. They were angled backward so that they could be fitted into the confines of the forward ballast tanks. That meant that they fired their weapons back over the sail of the submarine. If the mast or periscope were up when the missiles roared away, it could result in them being damaged by the blast of the rocket booster motor. That was also why the sub had to be submerged to launch the missiles.

Brian Edwards read the launch order on the computer screen. He blinked once, then was all business again.

“Skipper, we are launching a four-bird strike. I have assigned the birds in tubes five through eight to the mission. Tubes nine and ten hold backup birds.”

“Very well. Spin up missiles. Begin launch sequence.”

Edwards nodded and turned back to his team. They continued the complex task of downloading all the flight information to the cruise missiles out in the ballast tanks. They checked every system on each of those birds. Nothing was left to chance. They were sending a million-dollar missile out to do a job. Once it left the sub, it was on its own. The systems had to work.

“Captain, tubes five, six, seven, and eight are ready for launch,” Edwards reported.

“Open tube doors on tubes five, six, seven, eight. Launch Tomahawk missiles, tubes five, six, seven, eight.”