The Cruiser (20 page)

The staffer's expression went earnest again, the way it had been on the flight deck. He threw the clipboard aside. “Apology accepted, Captain. I'm not the kind of guy who stands on ceremony. But it's not what you can do for me. I'm here to help
you
. Direct liaison between you and the White House.”

“Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but my chain of command goes up through the CNO. Then the Joint Chiefs, since Goldwater-Nichols, anyway. Then to the SecDef.”

Ammermann nodded eagerly, as if Dan had just made his main point for him. “And that takes how long? Ages, right? And this is an important mission, as I understand it.”

Dan said carefully, “What exactly do you understand about our mission, Adam?”

“You're here as our first ballistic missile defense deployment. To protect Israel when the war goes hot.”

Dan noted the
when
, not
if
. “No chance of a settlement? I was reading about some kind of ultimatum.”

The staffer shrugged. “We're giving him forty-eight hours to leave, but he's not going to. We're going to liberate the Iraqi people, and destroy Ba'athism forever. It won't take long. Their generals are already reaching out to us.” He took out a pack of Salems and a black Zippo. Offered them. “You smoke?”

Dan shook his head. “Outside the skin of the ship, please. Most of our smokers go up in the breakers. That's forward, port and starboard on the main deck.”

Ammermann looked at the pack, clicked the cover on and off the lighter a couple of times, but at last set them aside. “I have some news you might find useful, Captain. About this war we have to fight. Iraq has an uprated missile. Two days ago, DIA told seventy-five senators in closed session that Iraq can attack the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. with biological or chemical weapons.”

As Dan poured himself the last dregs of warm coffee a darkness like an advancing thunderhead shaded his mood. Remembering the bioweapons his team had found during the Signal Mirror mission. Most of that team hadn't come home. Of those who had, some had died from the virulent strain of smallpox Dr. Fayzah al-Syori had weaponized. If the Iraqis had regenerated stocks of that virus, and built even one missile with intercontinental range … He didn't want to imagine the consequences. Still … “Just having a supposedly uprated missile doesn't mean a weapon's operational.”

“We don't want to take that chance. I know you're married to a member of the former administration, Captain. And you served in the White House under Bob De Bari. Your sympathies may not be with this political team. But you have to believe we've got the best interests of the country in mind.”

Dan rubbed the old scar on his ear. A souvenir of Saddam's Mukhbarat. He couldn't argue with that; if any regime could be trusted with such a weapon, Iraq's brutal and reckless dictatorship wasn't it. But he wasn't convinced he needed “help”—which usually translated to questions, objections, guidance, and second-guessing—from the political side. “If that's true, what're we doing here? We should be on station off Atlantic City.”

“Because that's not your mission, Captain. We have that taken care of.” Ammermann leaned back, put the cigarette in his mouth, but didn't light it. He smiled.

A brief silence, interrupted by a beep from Dan's Hydra. The bridge reported a crossing contact. Electronic intelligence identified it as a merchant. Dan told the OOD to maintain course, but to slow and let the other ship pass ahead. He signed off and met Ammermann's gaze again. “So you're my liaison. With the president, you say.”

“Exactly right, Captain. Whatever you need, I'm here to help.”

“Well, I'll have one of my people get with you about some spare parts. At the moment, though, that's the only thing I can think of you can help with. Also, Adam, we just don't have a lot of room, or excess personnel to escort you around. Or, to be frank, the command attention—from me personally—that I'm certain you deserve. I'm going to berth you in here. This is where the commodore stays when he's aboard … or she. It's the best accommodation I have. But I'm going to ask permission to offload you back to the task force, or to a safe location ashore, at the first opportunity.”

Ammermann cocked his head, still smiling. “You're the captain. The way it was explained to me—well, the president himself, if he was aboard, you'd still give the orders.”

“Okay then. Let me know if you need anything else.” Dan got up. Ammermann jumped to his feet too, held out a hand. Dan had to shake it. Only as he was closing the door did he catch the soft rasp of the cigarette lighter behind him. And the soft breath of a relaxed exhalation.

10

 

THE
bonging went on and on, echoing the length of the ship. The boatswain leaned to the 1MC.
“Now general quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations. General quarters traffic route, up and forward to starboard; aft and down to port. Set material condition Zebra throughout the ship. Now general quarters!”

The pilothouse burst into a frenzied bustle. Watchstanders grabbed for GQ gear, bowing to tuck and tape the cuffs of coveralls into socks. They pulled heavy padded flash gear, hoods and gloves—standard issue since USS
Horn
's nuclear destruction not far from these waters—on over the coveralls, leaving only eyes peering out. They strapped gas masks rigged for quick donning on their thighs. Petty officers broke out sound-powered phones, in case comms went down. They passed out the same heavy steel helmets the Navy had issued in World War II, and banged open lockers of flotation devices and emergency breathing gear.

Dan was out on the wing, polishing his binoculars with lens paper, when the officer of the deck brought him out his helmet. The letters
CO
were stenciled in red on the front. He settled its weight on the crown of his skull. The wind gusted cold. Dawn was just breaking, a dull illumination that barely limned a charcoaled horizon, hardly distinguished sea from clouded sky. The stern light of a cargo ship glowed like a distant comet.
Savo Island
rolled slightly, charging through wind-ruffled onyx swells at twelve knots. Not all that fast, but he had to balance a desire not to present a stationary target with the need to conserve fuel.

Yeah, fuel. He frowned. Need to get with Bart Danenhower about that. He had no idea how long they'd be out here, and the Navy might not want to risk a tanker close inshore during a hot war.

Which might start any day. Any hour.

“Time: plus one minute,”
the 1MC announced.

So he'd decided on an old-fashioned general quarters drill. From the expressions around him, especially on the faces of the younger troops, they hadn't heard that pulse-pounding gong often since the last week of boot camp. But if
Savo
was as vulnerable as he feared, every man and woman aboard had to be ready to survive blast, flooding, fragments, and fire. As he glanced in at them through the window, for just a fraction of a second memory intruded.

He'd been looking away when it had happened. Fortunately. But even looking away, everything around him—sea, steel, cloth—had turned the brightness of the noon sun. The starboard lookout had screamed, dropping his binoculars, clutching his eyes. But the dreadful, burning light had gone on and on, as if someone had opened the scuttle to Hell.

Dan hadn't actually thought about what was happening. Drill alone had driven him across the bridge, slamming into the chart table, to shove the quartermaster aside and shout into the mike, “Nuclear detonation, brace for shock!”

The deck had jolted upward as he'd crashed down onto it, whiplashing him back up into the air. Dust and paint chips had leaped out of cable runs to fog the pilothouse. An instant later the windows had come in on them with a crack like lightning tearing an oak apart. Only the sound had gone on, and on.…

He came back now to find himself staring white-eyed into his own reflection, kneading his neck. The old fracture. Then, as he blinked, his gaze suddenly plunged through, past the wing window he was looking into, to meet the puzzled eyes of a slight young seaman manning the remote operating console for the port 25mm. The squished-together, almost toothless-looking old man's face was familiar.

Downie. “The Troll.” The goofball who'd left his pistol unattended on the quarterdeck just long enough for it to be stolen. The compartment cleaner who'd discovered a corpse cold in its bunk. They stared at each other for what seemed like a long time. Then Downie half-grinned, dropped his gaze, and squatted to adjust his gas mask carrier.

Almarshadi bustled up in flash gear and flotation vest, carrying a rolled-up sheaf of bond. Dan beckoned him closer. Trying to control suddenly ragged breathing, a racing heart, reaching for the cool impassivity everyone expected of him. Trying to forget
Horn,
and what had happened to all too many of her crew.

Under his command.

“Fahad, good morning. Fine Navy day, right?”

The exec shivered. He cast a doubtful eye at the clouds. “Absolutely, Captain. Spectacular Navy day.”

“Built the training package?”

“Bart and I got it written up last night.”

“Good. Couple of issues on the bridge team. I want protective goggles for them too. Have them wrap a pair in the flash gear hood so they get them on at the same time as the hoods. Second, aren't they supposed to have flak jackets? Do we have those?”

“Hermelinda might have goggles in stock. And we … not flak jackets … we have, um, ballistic protection gear for the boarding party.”

“Move it up here. We won't be doing any opposed boarding. I'd rather have the bridge team ready to keep fighting if we take a fragmentation hit.”

“Time: plus two minutes.”

The OOD leaned out. “Captain, XO: General quarters set. All stations report manned and ready. Time, two minutes and fifteen seconds.”

Dan gave Almarshadi the gimlet eye. With a ready time like that, someone had leaked the drill. He got a shamefaced grin back. “All right,” he told the OOD. “Have the bo's'un pass, ‘Work center supervisors, now carry out EBD and emergency egress drills.'” Almarshadi waited, tapping the rolled-up papers against his thigh. Dan looked aft, then up, giving the crew a few more minutes to get set. But something was missing. After a moment he realized what. “Get our battle colors up!” he yelled into the pilothouse, and added, to Almarshadi, “And leave them up, as long as we're on station out here.”

“Aye sir. Goggles, ballistic vests, battle colors.”

A quartermaster—there were no signalmen anymore—double-timed to the flag shack and began breaking out the oversized Stars and Stripes. When it was snapping free against the gray sky, huge and bright and crackling in the cold wind, he looked up for a long time. Filling his sight with red and blue and white like some essential nutrient he'd been short on for too long.

Reynolds Ryan
was gone.
Van Zandt
was gone.
Horn
was still radioactive, but he'd brought her back. Less than half as many ships out here now as when he'd stepped aboard his first destroyer so many years before. But the U.S. Navy was still on station.

Still on station.…

He took a deep breath, wondering why he was suddenly fighting tears. Fuck.
Fuck!
What would happen to these kids? Was
Savo
doomed too? He'd
just left
the Navy command center when Flight 77 had punched through the limestone skin of the Pentagon, blasting the space and everyone in it with fuel-flame and razor-sharp metal, turning everything in the C ring into fire and collapsing concrete.

Niles, and the others who'd called him a Jonah, a curse, a doom—were they right?

No. They couldn't be. He'd never have taken this command if he'd really believed that.

So why was the imp of self-doubt still whispering in his ear that he wasn't good enough, wasn't competent enough? That when the chips were down, he'd lack what it took.

He'd always come through before, true.
Oh, sure,
the imp sneered.
But one of these days.
…

A clearing of the throat beside him. Dan looked down from the streaming colors to find the XO regarding him. He dragged himself back into the present, into the bite of a frigid wind. And told Almarshadi, “Okay, that your drill schedule there? No, I'm sure it's fine. Take charge, Fahad. Go ahead and take charge.”

*   *   *

“CAPTAIN'S
in Combat” passed mouth to mouth. The lights were dimmed. Every seat was occupied. Everyone in CIC was in flash gear too, but their helmets lay on the deck beside them. He'd told Cheryl she could relax her battle dress if she wanted, once she was satisfied.

He settled into his command seat with a sigh, unbuckled his own helmet, and set it aside. His neck, injured in that nuclear whiplash aboard
Horn,
was grateful for the lessened weight. He kneaded it as he took in the screens. They shifted as Staurulakis tested inputs and cameras. Only the Aegis picture stayed constant. A gimlet gaze, but so exquisitely honed that as the spokes clicked back and forth, refreshing forty times a second, every desert wadi and ridge glowed green and gold.

Fractured neck, scarred airway, burn tissue in one shoulder from a hellish night in the Irish Sea … his body was a palimpsest. Niles had offered medical retirement. He could still run a mile in nine minutes, but he could envision a day when pelting through a ship, sliding down ladders, would be just too much.

What would he do then?

Agonize about that later, Lenson. Just now his ship,
his
ship, throbbed and whined around him. The turbines buzzed through the rubber-coated steel under the flight deck boots he wore for GQ. The ventilation whooshed, and keyboards clattered. The high lilting whalesong of the sonar trilled through alloy before hurtling out into miles of chilly sea. His elbow jerked and a paper cup of coffee he hadn't noticed being placed there spilled over the gray metal desk-shelf. He mopped the keyboard with a paper towel that Staurulakis, eyes narrowed, handed him.