Ghost Fleet : A Novel of the Next World War (9780544145979) (30 page)

In the red light, the tape glowed bright, and it unrolled silently as she began to bind his left wrist to the honeycombed aluminum base of one of the jump seats running along the interior of the carrier.

“Whoa, I thought we were going to tie you up,” he said.

“Are you scared?” she asked. “A big guy like you?”

She stepped back, tape still in hand, and slid out of the dress, now fully naked. “Frisk me if you want, there's no weapons on this insurgent.”

“Okay, but only my left hand,” he said. “Leave the other free. You may be beautiful, but you're still an American.”

She responded by stepping forward, kneeling before him, and placing a kiss on his navel. Seeing him nod in pleasure, she continued to tie his left wrist to the seat post. She kissed him again and then abruptly stopped. A look of pity came over her face, followed by her gleaming smile washed in the red light.

She reached back into the bag where she'd found the nanopore tape and pulled out a folding knife with a five-inch blade.

His right hand started to reach out fast, but before he could grab her wrist, she placed the knife in his open palm, the blade still locked shut.

“See, nothing to fear,” she said.

She kissed him, starting with his ears, then his chin, and then his neck, drawing out her progress until she stopped at his belt buckle. She reached up and held his free hand, still holding the closed knife. The metallic snap of the blade flashing open was easily heard above the rhythmic piano.

“What are you doing?” he said. The knife was open in his right hand, and her fingers wrapped around his, closing his fingers around the handle.

Their two clasped hands together, she raised the knife to right in front of her eyes, admiring the sharp edge from up close, its black anodized blade reflecting none of the red light.

Then she drove their clasped hands down, directing the blade's tip toward her chest.

She stopped the blade's descent when there was just the faintest pressure on the skin right above her heart. A light prick drew a single drop of blood. It happened so quick, he was too surprised to scream, and he sucked in air that should have come out in a howl but could not. She closed her eyes and breathed deep, seeming to savor the moment.

“See, it's okay,” she purred. “You can trust me.”

“I don't think so . . .” he said.

“Don't be scared, you'll always have the knife to do whatever you want. I just need my hands free now for something else, a little more fun. See, I'll even make sure you don't lose your long knife in all the . . . excitement.”

He nodded. And she began to wrap the tape around the hand that held the knife, the blade emerging out along the pinkie finger. Then she took that hand and pointed the knife at her neck, poised just above her jugular vein.

“See, just like your army, you'll be in total control,” she whispered.

The blade in his hand then followed her down the same path she'd taken before, always an inch from her neck, until she stopped at his belt buckle. She looked up at him and smiled.

With a movement so fast it was hard to see, her hands brought the knife in toward him, and the blade slashed through the leather of his belt; his pants fell to the APC's floor.

“You're going to have to explain this one to your commanding officer,” she said.

He laughed. “Let's stop the games. Come here.”

She slid forward and up again onto his naked body. Leaning with all her weight, she pressed her body onto his, his arm with the blade now wrapped behind her, pulling her in close. Her hands caressed his face, and he started to say something.

“Shhh, now the fun really starts,” she said.

In an instant, Carrie slapped a strip of the nanopore tape over his mouth and nose.

Instinct took over and he didn't even try to cut her as she slithered quickly down to the floor and then just out of reach. Instead, he began frantically trying to cut the tape binding his hand to the chair. The tape held. He grunted, sucking the tape over his mouth as he tried to breathe, and he looked at her, his eyes angry and then almost begging.

Carrie tilted her head slightly and studied him, watching silently as he awkwardly turned the taped hand with the blade back at himself, the angle just off, almost like a toddler trying to feed himself but holding the utensil the wrong way.

He poked the blade at first, tentatively trying to create a hole in the bright yellow tape that covered his mouth. But when he couldn't cut the tape and instead just pushed it inward against the bubble of air trapped beneath, he quickly grew more desperate.

He looked at her and gave a piteous whimper as he saw her expressionless study of him. He stabbed harder, and the sharp blade finally sliced through the tape and into his lower lip and tongue.

He grunted with pain, unable to fully scream. A spray of blood marked with the yellow leaching color shot outward from the slit in the tape. He tried to suck in air through the half-inch-long slit, but the blood welled inside his mouth, choking him, and another burst of yellow bubbles and red blood spouted from the gash in the tape. He tried to use the blade to widen the opening in the tape over his mouth, gasping through the thin slit. In his frenzy, he didn't even notice the weight of Carrie's hand, now back again on the knife.

USS
Zumwalt
, Rail-Gun Turret

Two hundred years ago, a wind like this would have played on a sailing ship's rigging with a wonderful harmony, thought Mike. On the
Zumwalt
, the twenty-five-knot wind merely sounded like someone had turned up the air conditioning. Just another reason to hate this ship.

He snatched another glance at Vern, worming her way inside the rail-gun turret to double-check the wiring harnesses that kept shaking loose. She had not spoken once during the past hour. Somewhere above them, Secretary of Defense Claiburne was glad-handing the crew, speaking in the easy, confident drawl that to Mike always sounded like she had just finished a modest glass of neat bourbon.

The tension Vern carried in her shoulders made her look like she was bracing for a crash.

Mike shook his head and eased his way into the turret. Wordlessly he opened the turret hatch and let the rush of salt air fill the small area. For a moment, the space smelled of somewhere far away in his imagination he rarely visited, the scent of a woman and the sea. Then the acrid smell of hot plastic and ozone returned.

“Three minutes, Dr. Li. You best wrap things up.”

Ship Mission Center, USS
Zumwalt
, eBay Park, San Francisco

The bridge had been the command center of ships going back to the time of Noah, but like so much else in the
Zumwalt
class, the Navy designers had decided to make something new, different, and big. The ship mission center
⁸⁵
stood two stories high, the bottom level filled with four rows of sailors seated at computer workstations, and a second level with a balcony for the officers to watch down, almost like an interior bridge of the ship. On the walls were massive liquid-crystal screens that displayed the ship's location and systems' status and, at the moment, the third inning of the Giants game. It was that particular screen that held Secretary Claiburne's attention, a pitcher's-cap-cam focusing in on the squinting eyes behind the catcher's faceplate. The pitcher then pivoted and threw out the runner on first, ending the inning.

“All right, let's light it up,” she said.

The secretary of defense, who'd been an aerospace executive before she was brought into the administration, casually held a cigar in her right hand. It was part of her shtick, that she was more of an old boy than anyone in the old boys' network she'd knocked down on her way to the top of the business. Simmons noticed the cigar was the real thing, not the e-cigar his former mentor smoked indoors. Admiral Murray seemed unfazed by the purple smoke starting to cloud up the room, but this was the first time anybody had smoked inside the
Z
during his command. He had no idea where she would put it out. There was no ashtray aboard the ship.

The test was designed to see how quickly the
Zumwalt
could deliver a peak power load and how long it could sustain it. This had been a problem during the refurbishment, because they couldn't utilize such power over an extended time without the Directorate noticing the surge, which would potentially give away the ship's new capabilities.

Simmons nodded at Cortez, who began barking out orders to shift power from the ship systems to the cables linking to shore.

“You know, Captain Simmons,” said Secretary Claiburne, “President Conley is watching tonight back in the situation room. Not just for you, of course; he's a big Nationals fan. He had their closer, T. D. Singh, over at the White House a month ago.” One of her military aides, an Army major who scowled at Simmons from behind a pair of thick black assaulter viz glasses, appeared at her side with an empty coffee cup. Claiburne dropped an inch of ash into it.

“Thank you, Secretary Claiburne. We're the lucky ones tonight, getting paid to watch the game,” said Simmons, smiling at her through the smoke.

“Something like that, Captain,” said Secretary Claiburne. “Take this.” She handed him a San Francisco Giants jersey signed by the team. She shot a look over at her aide and motioned for a pen. He was there in an instant, hovering over her as she took back the jersey, added her own signature to it, and then returned it to Simmons.

“Wear it in good health,” she said.

Simmons thanked her with a bemused smile, handed the shirt over to Cortez when she turned away, and then turned to watch the screens showing the ship's power production. On deck, the crew stood near the cables that snaked off the ship and ran under the Bay's waters to the pier near the park.

“At ninety-nine percent power capacity,” said Cortez. “ATHENA is online, it's green for go.” After the failures they'd had with the ODIS-E software, the decision had been made to keep using the old ATHENA management system. It would have to be isolated, not networked with any other ships for security reasons, but at least they knew it worked.

“Execute the transfer,” Simmons ordered.

The lights flickered out on the bridge, causing Admiral Murray to wince. Onshore, a microsecond later, the stadium lights flickered and then returned to normal, the ship's systems now feeding their demand as well as the surrounding neighborhoods'. The
Z
's crew could hear cheering from the park. They knew it wasn't for them; the forty-four thousand people inside were celebrating a leaping catch that had robbed the Nationals of a home run. But the crew felt like it was for them all the same.

A tense silence took over the room. Claiburne mostly tracked the game—the Giants were now at bat and ready to add to their 5–3 lead. Simmons and his officers monitored the screens playing beneath them on the lower deck, windows onto the ship's systems status. None of the crew frantically chasing software glitches or figuring out ways to dump heat buildup were visible, yet their grueling work was revealed by the soothing reds, blues, and greens of the monitors. The
Z
was feeding the shifting demands of the park, but at a cost. Self-defense systems went on- and offline; secondary systems collapsed; and ATHENA itself started to act up.

Cortez caught Simmons's attention and tapped his own ear.

Mike's voice boomed into his headset.

“Captain, we can't keep this going more than a minute more,” said Mike. “We've got thermal-management problems with the battery. Fans are running full speed, but they're just heating it up more.”

“Anything Dr. Li can do with the software? Any tweaks?” said Simmons.

“Nothing yet,” said Mike.

“Let me talk to her,” said Simmons.

“She's fighting with one of the machines right now,” said Mike. “Don't think she can stop.”

“Stand by,” said Simmons into his headset.

He put his trigger finger over the microphone near his mouth and, using his command voice, addressed the room.

“Nice work, everybody. Nobody has ruined the president's game so far. We've got one more play to make. Admiral Murray and I spoke beforehand and it's time we threw a curve ball.” They wouldn't get more tests like this, so it was important to understand the ship's limits.

“XO, take ATHENA offline,” said Simmons. “Then bring power output up to a hundred and ten percent.”

Mike started to shout, but Simmons just dropped the channel, and the profanity-laced protest disappeared from his ear.

A faint smell of burning plastic began to seep into the room, competing with Secretary Claiburne's fragrant cigar.

“Max the fans,” said Cortez.

His father's voice boomed again in Simmons's ear. He winced out of instinct, an all-too-familiar feeling.

“Captain, we're losing it. Ambient temp in the control room is at a hundred and fifteen degrees. Two of the boxes are cooked. You could put a burger on them. Dr. Li here says that—” said Mike.

“I understand, Chief. Task a team to replace them,” Simmons said, trying to keep his side of the conversation calm in front of the SecDef.

“I'd do it if I had anyone to send. This goddamn ship doesn't have enough crew on it.”

“Understood, Chief. Keep the power coming,” said Simmons, again for the crowd.

A flicker on the monitor that was showing the game caught his attention. The stadium lights had gone out for a second and then returned.

“Give me Dr. Li,” Simmons ordered. “Now.”

“Yes, Captain?” said Vern in his earpiece. He could hear her inhale and exhale loudly, as if she were coming off a run. “We need to tail off the power now. We weren't expecting to go above the test thresholds. Otherwise I'm not sure what we can do to keep the ship from burning itself out.”