Damage Control (7 page)

They attached the C-4 and connected wires buried in it to a cellular phone by alligator clips. Then they got back on the bike and putt-putted along the road for half a mile, where they stopped and made a cell-phone call, and the tower collapsed. Joke: the tower handled the call that triggered the explosives.

Admiral Pilchard came up a corridor in Fifth Fleet headquarters with his flag captain beside him and his flag lieutenant running interference. All three looked grim: they had just come from a meeting about the
Jefferson.

“Spinner!”

“Sir!”

“Get me the Public Information Officer—my office. Now!”

“Sir!”

That’s what Spinner seemed to do best—do things to please people. He was almost running in his eagerness to get the PIO.

Pilchard turned into the flag deck, waved a hand at people who were perfunctorily rising, and banged right through into his private office, a whirlwind pulling Lurgwitz in his wake. She was a stocky, intense woman who would one day have stars on her collar like Pilchard’s.

“What d’you think?” he demanded, throwing himself down in his chair.

“I don’t see the pony yet.”

Pilchard put his forehead on the heel of one hand. “What a mess! Jesus, Shelley—” He looked at her. “Sit down, for Christ’s sake!” He blew out breath. “Okay. I want CAP for the carrier, even if we have to go to the goddam US Air Force for it. Two, I want liaison with the embassy about the Indians and whatever the hell is going on over there. A, there’s the question of relations with their navy—get their attaché, what’s his name? Roopack, Jesus, what a birdbrain,
but he’s what they sent—calm him down if need be, make sure he gets the message and relays it home that we deeply regret, etcetera, not our doing. A full investigation—make that a full
joint
investigation—will follow. Don’t mention the
Jefferson
unless he does; if he does, not word one that we think it’s one of their birds that went into our deck or whose fault it was. Okay? B, put intel on finding out what the hell is going down in India itself. Find out why we haven’t heard from Craik and get on his ass if you can find him. Then—”

He looked up at a knock, bellowed to come in. Spinner put his pleasant face around the door, waited to be signaled in, and then let the Public Information Officer go first. Then, even as the admiral started speaking, Spinner was arranging chairs, making sure there were notepads, and fetching coffee from the admiral’s pot.

“We have a situation,” Pilchard said to the PIO. “Your job is to put a wall around it.”

The PIO, a commander with degrees in journalism and mass communications, nodded.

“The
Jefferson,
that’s the BG flagship, has had an accident. It’s bad. We don’t know how bad, but the boat’s crippled and people are dead. Right now, the deck’s closed and she’s got no air cover.” Pilchard picked up a pen and tossed it back on the desk. “We can’t let word about it get out until we know just what we’ve got and how we can cover. If the media pick up on it, we’re going to have every hardhead in the Middle East trying to pick off the BG. Understand?”

“You want a soothing-syrup story or no story at all?”

“No story today. Maybe syrup tomorrow.
No
press briefing.” He picked up the pen again. “Can we keep five thousand sailors on the
Jeff
from phoning home about it? So far, maybe—acting BG CO is ‘taking steps.’ If that holds, we’ll be okay for a day.” He cleared his throat.
“If
the story gets out—if you’re asked, volunteer nothing—then you say that the ship is underway and doing its job. Got it? That’s the
bottom line—the ship is still the biggest piece of force projection in the world, on station and on duty.”

“Uhh—” The PIO cleared his throat. “What’s Washington’s spin on it?” By
Washington,
he meant not the Navy, but the politicians in the executive branch.

“Washington doesn’t know yet. I’m reporting to the CNO as soon as this meeting ends. From there, he can do what he wants with the civilian spin-doctors.” He didn’t add,
And if I had my way, they’d never find out.

“Alert Bulletin—Alert Bulletin—Alert Bulletin!

“Forward elements of the Pakistani Army have been put on alert along the border in India. Unconfirmed reports present a wave of violence sweeping across India. Gunfire, including heavy weapons, has been heard in many places. Monitors of Radio India report accounts of murder, arson, and vandalism. Attempts by this reporter to contact India have failed, suggesting massive damage to the telephone system. Our army and air force reserves have been alerted to stand ready. Bulletins will be issued as more is known. Fahd Firadawsi, Lahore.”

They had mud-clotted shoes and calves by the time they had reached a clump of trees that promised shade, if not protection. Pant legs were black from mid-calf down, and the heat had ruined khakis put on for the air-conditioned spit and polish of the West Fleet Command building. Underarms were dark, hair lank. “This sucks,” Benvenuto growled.

“No pain, no gain,” Clavers said.

Ong moaned.

Benvenuto, perhaps out of sympathy for somebody even nerdier than he, reached back and grabbed her right hand and pulled her across a stretch of black mud.

They stopped under the trees, pushing wet hair off their foreheads and leaving mud stains. Fidel looked toward where the creek was supposed to be and shook his head. “Too easy,” he said. “We won’t be the only ones thought of coming this way.” He looked at Alan.

Alan grinned. “If I’d had time, I’d have ordered in a chopper.”

“We need flankers. Okay?”

“Okay by me.”

“Gotta be you guys with the rifles. Still okay by you?”

Alan grinned again, nodded. He had one of the old .303s, Benvenuto the other; Clavers had the CZ, because she said she had done a private combat handgun course—she said.

Fidel sent Alan thirty feet to the left and twenty feet ahead and put Benvenuto on the other side, almost on the fence. Fidel took point. When they moved out, Alan lost Benvenuto at once, and then he could see Fidel only between clumps of grass.

And then he was in the mud.

He plodded forward, seeming to drag the creek bed with him. The heat was oppressive, even after Bahrain, worse because the air was saturated. The effort made him hyperventilate, and he drew up on a tussock of grass, gasping, knelt to catch a moment’s rest. When he looked up, movement registered in the yellow-brown wasteland ahead of him.

He stared. Nothing. Then he saw it again—tan moving past darker brown, then into sun-blasted near-white. Tan pant legs, brown hands. Brown
gunstock.

And other movement closer to the creek.

He looked for Fidel but didn’t see him. Farther back, he saw a flicker of something dark. Benvenuto’s hair or Ong’s.

Then a sound to his left like a woman’s wail, quickly muffled.

Oh, shit, shit, no—

A voice called, birdlike, nervous, from in front of him, was answered from ahead on his left, and he heard Fidel shout, “Hit the dirt—down, down!” and an automatic rifle opened up. Alan, still kneeling, put the .303 to his cheek and fired where he had seen the gun, then swiveled and started to fire toward the movement closer to the creek and thought better of it, remembering that female wail. Fidel shouted again and began to fire three-shot bursts. Alan dove into the mud, propped his elbows on the next grass clump and fired again where he thought the shooter was.

That was two of his ten cartridges.

Where ignorant armies clash by night.
From a poem. High school. It had struck him even then, what clashing by night
would be like. This was not so different, clashing in the tall grass with an enemy who may have been a friend.

“Americans!” he shouted. “We’re Americans! American Navy!”

He heard single reports from his right: Benvenuto with the .303. Fidel must have shot a full clip, because there was a pause. How many clips had he found on that kid? Not many—

Somebody female was screaming ahead and to his left. He swept the sights that way, then back, hunting for the shooter on that side. The screamer was a woman. Was she hit? Would mutineers include women?

Fidel fired a burst.

“Fidel! Fidel, goddamit—stop firing—!” Then, in the silence, “Friends!” he shouted. “American Navy!”

A long silence, then the woman’s sobs. Not one of his.

“US Navy!”

Another voice, calling in an incomprehensible language.

“US Navy over here! Friends!”

Then another voice. “Show yourself.” The voice had authority, timbre.

“Jesus, don’t!” Fidel.

“Who are you?” Alan shouted.

“Show yourself.”

He waited. He was trying to pierce the grasses with his stare, willing them to part and show him who it was. But what difference would it make? His neck hurt from craning upward; he dropped his head forward, stared into the mud. It might, he thought, be almost the last thing he was ever to see.
Oh, Rose, what a mess—

He pushed himself upright. His hands were caked with mud, his uniform shirt filthy, his face streaked. “Commander Alan Craik, United States Navy.”

He heard the unmistakable sound of a foot being sucked out of the mud, then the swish of grass.

“Fidel, don’t for Christ’s sake shoot.”

The man who emerged from the yellow grass had gray hair, a complexion more olive than brown, heavy circles under his eyes. He stood as straight as it was possible for a human being to stand, his look imperious—head a little back, eyebrows arched. “Commander Ramanpur Upadhyay, Indian Navy.” He looked at least as disheveled as Alan.

Alan bent and picked up the .303, never taking his eyes from the Indian officer. He held the rifle well away from him to show he wasn’t going to use it and, with slow, deliberate steps, crossed on his toes to him. Neither man was wearing a hat: no saluting. Instead, Alan smiled. “Commander.”

“Commander.” They shook hands.

“I hope you have no casualties, Commander.”

“A credit to the depth of the mud here, I daresay.” He had no Indian accent whatsoever, in fact sounded more British than a Brit—an Indian type Alan had learned to recognize. “Most of mine are civilians. Yours?”

“American naval personnel.”

“I am trying to take mine to the hospital, where there is an attempt to gather loyal forces. I regret that we thought you were—an enemy.”

“So it
is
a mutiny?”

“God only knows what it is.” He spoke over his shoulder in another language. Alan, looking back, saw Fidel and the others struggling to their feet.
Like two tribes meeting in a jungle.

“We’re trying to get to our vehicle. In the fleet-exercise parking lot.”

“I hardly know this part of the base. I am a lawyer, actually. We were trying a court-martial in the JAG building when this dustup started. There will be a good many more courts-martial soon, I daresay.” He gave a hint of a smile. “Perhaps you would join us?” He gestured toward his path ahead. It sounded as if he was proposing a stroll with the family.

Alan thought of what it would mean to get through the mud to the bridge and then try to cross it. “I have to get my people off the base.”

The Indian commander nodded. “Quite the best plan, I’m sure. However, we had a garbled order to move to the hospital.”

His people, also filthy and disheveled, had arranged themselves behind him—an enlisted man with an old, wood-stocked AK, two astonished-looking younger officers who were, Alan guessed, also lawyers, and five civilian women, two in saris.

“Well—” Alan looked around, focusing on where the fence must be. “If we stand out here, we’ll bring trouble.”

“Quite. Best be moving on.” Again, a hint of a smile. “Our separate ways—ships that pass, and so on.” They shook hands again. “My profoundest apologies for the shooting.”

“No harm done.”

The two lines of people passed each other without words, individuals exchanging rueful smiles, especially the women on both sides. Fidel looked disgusted. Alan looked the others over—Benvenuto smiling nervously, Ong bedraggled but oddly calm, Clavers jerking down one side of her mouth in a nervous tic.
Never fun to get shot at.

Fidelio muttered in Alan’s ear, “I fucking didn’t kill anybody this time, okay?”

“And you did right. Fidel, it’s for the best—they’re the good guys.”

Fidel frowned, unconvinced. “They all look alike to me.”

When the straggling line of Indians had vanished into the yellow grass, Alan gathered the others close, their faces strained, eyes wary. “I think the car’s about a hundred yards along. We’ll probably have to go over another fence to get to it. Everybody ready?”

He took silence for an answer.

“Let’s go.” It would hardly have made any difference if
they’d said they weren’t ready. It was get to the car or die—and then get to the hotel or die. And then—

In the parking lot of Fifth Fleet headquarters, Spinner could hardly wait until he was out of the building before he was on his cell phone to his father in Washington. The other times he’d passed information along, he’d sent e-mails because he’d heard they were more secure, but now time was everything. If he could scoop the intel agencies with his dad, he’d score points, and his father would score points with the White House. Scoring points was very big medicine with both of them—Spinner because he felt in his gut that he never pleased his father, and the old man because he loved power.

“Dad!”

“Hey, boyo. How’s public service?”

“Listen, Dad, are you watching the news?”

“I’m in a meeting.” The implied comment was that he was doing something too important to be interrupted but could make time for his son.

“Dad, turn on CNN. There’s something going down in India.”

“Ray, I’m
in a meeting
—” Warning sign. Dad was not a patient man, as Ray’s mother had discovered.

“Dad, this is more important!” Spinner had the windows of his car rolled up despite the heat, his cell phone clutched to one ear. “Dad, now hear this: an Indian fighter jet just crashed into the deck of a carrier called the
Jefferson.
The doomsayers are telling the admiral it could have been deliberate. Pilchard is asking his staff for scenarios for
intervention
in India.” Spinner grinned. “I thought you’d want to know.”

There was a pause at the other end of the line, and Spinner could picture his father waving apologetically at somebody
powerful and walking out of the leather-upholstered meeting room in the Mass Avenue office and heading to the staff lounge down the hall where the TV was.

“The President doesn’t want to waste resources on a country like India.”

“Yeah, Dad, no kidding. Like, that’s why I called.”

TV sounds bled through the digital connection.

“Okay, India’s in chaos. What’s Pilchard up to?”

“He has people on the ground there because of a fleet exercise, and they’re panicked that the carrier accident might have some connection. Plus just now we got a report that a destroyer may have been
fired at
by an Indian vessel.”

“I think this goes right to my guy.” His “guy” was a deputy to the National Security Advisor. “Call me the instant you know more.”

“You bet! Out here.”

He punched off and looked around the parking lot. Had anybody seen him? Would anybody be suspicious, seeing an officer with a cell phone at his ear, at this hour? No, everybody had his own problems to think about. And everybody used cell phones all the time. And a plane had hit a carrier, so who gave a damn about a phone call?

And he was
Ray Spinner.
Born to win. Born to make out. Born to rule.

The fleet-exercise parking lot was a trapezoid that held about eighty vehicles. They had reached the back of it—yellow grass and livid green weeds, black mud and the odd scrub tree. The mud ran almost to the fence, and the walking was worse. Clavers and Fidel plodded ahead, but Benvenuto and Ong were holding each other up, staggering, no longer caring about mud or grass or firm ground.

Alan knelt where there was bamboo and some kind of thorned cane. “I’m going to do a recon up the far side to see
if I can check out our vehicle and if there’s anybody at the gate. If the gate’s down, we’ve got another problem.”

“Go through it,” Fidel muttered.

Alan shot him a look but said nothing. “Meanwhile, I want you guys to look for a way in without going over the fence.”

Benvenuto, who was lying flat, said, “Don’t raise the river, lower the bridge.”

“Talk English,” Fidel growled.

“Like, dig—dig?” Benvenuto giggled. “Go under, get it?”

Alan made himself sound confident, trying to pump them up. “Use whatever works. Only big enough for the biggest of us to squeeze through—I guess that’s you, Fidel.” He stood in a half-crouch. “I’ll be back.” He glanced at Ong, who was next senior to him and should have been told to take charge. Nothing.

Fidel got up. “I’m coming with you.”

“Better alone.”

“Unh-unh—
sir.
By the time you get that antique into firing position, you’d be in two pieces. You go; I cover you.”

Alan grinned. “Okay, Mom, I’ll take the pistol.” He handed Clavers the .303; she looked hurt, but she turned over the CZ. Alan grinned at them. “Dig good.”

He and Fidel went along the rear of the parking lot to the corner and turned up the long side. They hadn’t gone ten yards when Alan stopped, hearing a sound he knew he shouldn’t hear, an anomalous
clink,
then silence, then a soft sound of two things brushing together. He motioned Fidel back, knelt. Seconds later, an Indian noncom in fatigues appeared inside the fence thirty yards away, a new, black-plastic-stocked AK in his hands.

“Shit.” He pushed Fidel down as a signal for him to stay there and hurried, crouching, back the way they had come. When he reached the others, Clavers and Benvenuto were scraping in the earth with their pocketknives, a pile of dirt between them.

“Bag it!” he whispered. “Guy coming inside the fence. No shooting!” He looked down at the pile of dirt. “Kick it out of the way, push grass over it—!”

He waited with them until the noncom had come into view, come down the fence in a crouch, and gone past. The man was edgy, worried more about what was ahead of and behind him than what might be outside the fence.

“He see them?” Fidel said when Alan rejoined him.

“You think I’d be standing here if he had?”

At the far end of the fence, they knelt and studied the gate. An officer and three EMs were there, all armed. The arm of the gate was down and two cars had been parked bumper to bumper across the road.

“Iffy.”

Fidel grunted. “Maybe they’re good guys.” He was being sarcastic.