Joint Task Force #2: America (18 page)

“Commander,” Commodore West said, the slight tremor in voice revealing his age. “Hope all of you are having a great vacation here in the land of love, as Virginia likes to be called.”

St. Cyr nodded graciously at Tucker and mouthed the words “land of love,” drawing a smile from him.

As much as Tucker hated to admit it, he was beginning to like the Frenchman, though as a whole Americans would just as soon see them stay in France. The old European country had taken a mantle upon its shoulders to be the balancing power of America’s superpower, believing active diplomacy was an effective weapon to fight an overwhelming military strength. Even Evian water had suffered an economic setback since the debacle of 2003 when France led a coalition opposing American hegemony to dismantle rogue regimes. A few years later, when radical terrorists had hit Paris with a combined biological and chemical attack in the subway, the source had been traced to the former Iraq—the “Arsenal of Terrorism.”

Commodore West had a deep voice, but he spoke fast, running his words together, and unless you listened closely, Tucker was discovering, you missed most of what the seasoned veteran said. His attention wandered in and out, as the Commodore addressed the weather and the Special Boats tied up at the base of the tower.

Tucker wondered briefly whether if he stayed for thirty-plus years in the Navy he would become prematurely gray and going bald on top like old-timers such as West. He patted his stomach. Would he get the leadership paunch that came with it? Must be stress. Of course, could be the liberty. Liberty before the notorious Tailhook Convention in the early 1990s was something that could shorten your life. The same sort of liberty after that Tailhook Convention would shorten your career.

“This has been some storm, Commodore,” Tucker replied.

Commodore West laid his binoculars on the table in the center of the small control tower. “That’s what I just said, Commander. Weren’t you listening?” He took a step away, the binoculars falling off the ledge to dangle from the strap still wrapped around his wrist. West calmly unwrapped them and put them back in their storage area. “Don’t know why I even bother with these things. Especially with weather like it is today. Can’t even see the channel out there, and it’s only two miles away.”

West reached over and pulled a chart over. “I know this is boring for you three, being snake-eaters and everything. If I was as young as you and in your line of work, I’d want to be somewhere painful rather than twiddling one finger in your mouth and the other up your—” He looked at Sam and stopped. “Well, you know. Different subject, gentlemen and lady. First, let me say, the Admiral briefed me on the rationale for combining operations with our British and French allies.” He nodded sharply, and then looked up at St. Cyr and Tibbles-Seagraves. “Can’t say we have seen much cooperative spirit with our French allies this century, so this makes what I hope is a pleasant change, especially after the confrontation off Liberia last year.”

St. Cyr raised his finger. “Ah, Commodore, with all due respect, sir,” he said. The Commodore and he were the same rank, even if West was older than his father. He wagged his finger at the Navy Captain. “There was no confrontation. We had an unfortunate misunderstanding
during a combined exercise. I am sure Admiral Holman would agree with that statement.”

West’s lower lip arched upward, covering his upper lip. His eyes narrowed. “Of course, Captain,” he said sharply. “One thing we understand thoroughly in my United States Navy is that our government is never wrong regardless of which administration is in office. Luckily for us, the misunderstanding failed to stop our evacuation of American citizens. But, then, with allies such as France, we were doomed to success in the first place.”

Tucker saw a faint red color his French counterpart’s neck. One thing about the French—they were a nationalistic bunch that demanded respect.

“Of course, Commodore. I am sure it is as you say,” St. Cyr responded tartly. “I meant no offense.”

“Offense!” Commodore West guffawed. Then, in barely a whisper, he added, “That’s a word I doubt you know.”

This was headed downhill fast, a direction Tucker would prefer to avoid. If this continued, the Commodore would probably start working his way back in history to other instances of French and American differences, such as the Iraqi War.

“Sir, when can we expect the weather to clear, and have you heard anything from the operations around Europe?”

The old Captain sighed, rubbing the slight stubble from his early-morning shave. “Touché, Commander. You’ll go far in this Navy.” He turned to a slim Commander who had the countenance of a long-distance jogger, thought Tucker, until he noticed the half-opened pack of cigarettes half-hidden under the newspaper near the Commander. The officer pushed himself off the forward bulkhead.

“Yes, sir, Commodore.”

“John, tell them what you told me earlier.”

The man moved out of the gray shadows caused by the morning overcast to the lighted area near the table. “First,” he said, in a high, tenor-like voice, “the tropical storm is wavering between remaining a tropical storm and
being reclassified as a hurricane.” He pulled the chart away from in front of Commodore West, flipped it around so it was right side up for Tucker and the others. He placed his finger on an area north of Bermuda and about five hundred nautical miles off the east coast of North Carolina. “The storm has slowed here. It’s being hit by a high front to the north and an equally low front from the south and east. It’s created a weather anomaly that has slowed the storm’s movement while keeping its energy from growing. Moreover, it’s keeping it from losing any of its energy, as these fronts have one giving the storm more moisture and the other maintaining the wind momentum for it. Within the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours, one of those fronts is going to give way to the other. Until that happens, the storm is going to keep its slow movement on the same heading. Which front gives way and how it moves will determine the course, speed, and whether we inherit a hurricane or not.”

“Could it blow itself out?” Sam asked from the rear.

“No, ma’am,” the Commander replied.

“I’m a ma’am, but I’m also an active-duty Navy nurse—Lieutenant Commander,” she said, making sure the meteorologist knew she was junior to him in rank.

The meteorologist nodded. “No, it won’t blow itself out immediately. What’ll happen is it will react like a blast of water trapped in a garden hose when you first open the nozzle. It’ll shoot out of the entrapment, taking everything in its path with it. I talked with the National Weather Service earlier this morning, and while it’s still classified as a tropical storm, they’re preparing to call it a hurricane if the wind picks up speed, when it catapults out of this frontal vise.”

“I guess I don’t have to ask which direction it’s headed?” Tucker asked.

“Right now it’s moving at five knots on a northwesterly course.”

“Northwest. Means it’s headed this direction?”

“Yeap,” the Commodore acknowledged. “Means it is headed this direction. Also means that we’re going to
batten down everything we can in the event it should decide to come ashore here in the Tidewater area.”

“The Commodore is correct,” the Commander agreed. “If the storm heads directly for us, it’ll most likely be the most powerful hurricane to hit Virginia since Isabel. It’s only five hundred miles away and traveling at five knots. Every ten hours it chops the distance by fifty miles.” The officer paused for a moment, shaking his head. “Lots of unknowns here. How much is the slow movement of the storm influencing the balancing act of the high and low fronts? How much speed will it pick up when the balancing act ends? And will the balancing between the high and low fronts dissipate slowly or”—he clapped his hands together—“disappear all at once? If it’s slow, then it may not reach hurricane force, but if those two fronts move apart suddenly, then I agree with the National Weather Service’s worse-case analysis that the winds could quickly go from eighty miles an hour to one hundred sixty miles an hour. And with only five hundred miles between it and the East Coast, there’s insufficient distance to give the winds time to lose strength before they slam ashore somewhere along our middle Atlantic coast.”

Tibbles-Seagraves leaned forward. “So, the storm may hit here?”

The Commander shook his head. “Could,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “But not necessarily. We won’t have a good idea where it’s heading until those fronts move. If the high-pressure front to the north shifts west and the low front to the south moves northward, then the storm could close our coast as it curves out to sea toward the North Atlantic. As I’ve said, when it comes out of the high-low pressure vise, the final direction will be determined by which pressure system shifts east first.” He pointed toward the open sea, visible about a quarter mile away, whitecaps whipping across the high waves being blown into the Hampton Roads complex of harbors, piers, and shipyards. “If it does, it will come directly across this body of water, hitting land here, blowing this building to hell and gone.”

Tucker looked to where the meteorologist pointed.

Tibbles-Seagraves’s eyes bulged.

“Here?” Tucker asked.

“John, stop teasing,” Commodore West said. “It’ll head toward Virginia as its land-crossing point. That being said, it doesn’t matter whether it shoots out of the frontal vise, as John calls it, and heads north or east; some of it will hit the Tidewater area. Right, John?”

The meteorologist nodded several times, grinning. “Yes, sir.”

Commodore West, Tucker, and Sam laughed.

“A joke?”

Tibbles-Seagraves reached up and shook the Frenchman on the shoulder. “You wouldn’t understand, my friend. It is a bit of humor that only we who speak the international language of English could understand.”

“And, French isn’t an international language?” St. Cyr protested.

“For surrendering,” Commodore West muttered unheard beneath his breath.

“Commodore, what about the search-and-rescue mission for Recce Mission 62?” Tucker asked.

West put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Sorry. Everything is grounded along the East Coast and out of Roosevelt Roads for at least the next couple of days. I hate to say it, but if they survived the crash—and we are assuming they crashed—then they will need a lot of luck and God’s grace to survive this.” He turned to one of several televisions mounted above the front windows of the control tower and pushed the ON button. A satellite picture appeared. “This is the Atlantic. Look at this! About the only clear area for this storm are the farther areas of the Eastern Atlantic. Torrential rains are pounding the Caribbean Islands, south of it. If you watched television last night, you’ve seen the floods.” He turned back to the men. “As for the crew of Recce Flight 62, I don’t see much hope for them. The only thing we can hope is that Admiral Holman and his international partners across the ocean catch the terrorists.”

“You think they were shot down by those on the ship?” St. Cyr asked.

West shrugged. “Who knows? They report no engine problems; had made over fifty ups-and-downs identifying merchant vessels, and the one vessel they identify heading in a different direction than the others is the last one they report. If they had crashed near it and it was a friendly, we’d’ve known by now. No, whatever happened, that vessel had to have seen it or been the cause of it, which means whatever is on that vessel and whoever is manning it doesn’t want us to find it.”

Movement to his right caught Tucker’s attention as he was listening to the Commodore. Sam had moved to the ever-present coffee pot and poured herself a cup. The Chief from the quarterdeck below walked into the tower.

“Commodore, we’re ordering Domino’s Pizza. Would you like us to order some for you and the others?”

“Chief, you think they’re working?” West asked, and then continued before the Chief could respond. “If you call them and if we should be so lucky, order enough for all of us. I think we’re going to be here through the night.”

Tucker walked over to the port windows, tuning out the Commodore and Chief working out the pizza order. Looking down at the two small piers where the Mark V Special Operations Crafts were tied up, he watched, mesmerized, as the six crafts pitched and rolled with the rough seas being forced through the narrow waterway entrance to where Special Boat Unit Twenty called home. As he watched, a couple of sailors on board one of them jumped onto the pier and, with movements born of experience, loosened the lines running between the boats and the wooden piers. “Looks as if those boats are going have a rough night,” he said to no one in particular.

The others joined him.

“Just hope the sailors on board have strong stomachs,” West offered. “Can’t really take them off and can’t have them sortie out to sea like the big boys are doing and the small boys plan.”

Tucker looked at the Commodore. “The fleet is setting sail?”

West nodded. “Best thing they can do. It’s far easier for carriers, cruisers, even destroyers, frigates, and most of Admiral Holman’s amphibious ships to ride out the storm at sea than be tied up where severe winds and tides can slam them against the piers and shores. I recall a storm in Jacksonville once—years ago, probably while you were in high school—that put a frigate on the beach. The Commander of Atlantic Fleet was not amused.”

Sam walked up with a tray bearing several cups of coffee. “Here, gentleman, and don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t do windows.” She sat the tray on the table in the center of the tower. “As the lead medical person on this team, I made a fresh pot after doing a visual analysis of the older pot of coffee and determining it was growing new and unidentified bacteria, possibly as a fallout of evolution since the coffee had been there so long.”

The coffee did taste good. Tucker thought about asking the Commodore if this meant securing from the terrorist alert and allowing the three of them to return to their respective bases. He grinned slightly at the thought of how Tibbles-Seagraves had looked when the British airman had heard about the possibility of the storm crossing right up that narrow channel. Come to think, it took the Commodore’s comment to make him realize the thin Commander was making a joke. Neither the man’s voice nor facial expressions betrayed this sense of humor.