The Cruiser: A Dan Lenson Novel (16 page)

“Thanks, maybe tomorrow.”

The woman asked, “We keep hearing rumors on the news, sir. We gonna invade?”

“Seems to be a possibility.”

“I hear they’re threatening that if we attack, they won’t limit the war to the Mideast. What do you think that means?”

“That’s a good question. It might be why we’re headed where we’re going. But all I can really say is, we just need to be ready. Just all do our jobs and stand by.”

They didn’t look satisfied, but there weren’t any more questions. Strange that they hadn’t gotten the word about the death yet. Or maybe they had, and were just wary about bringing it up. He’d ask the corpsman to put something out, to all hands, before the scuttlebutt started to fly.

He looked into torpedo stowage, had a short discussion with the leading torpedoman, then ambled forward again up the port side. Halfway to the mess decks his radio crackled.
“Skipper, XO.”

“Go, Fahad.”

“Got that message done, about Goodroe. Waiting for your chop.”

“Run it past Chief Grissett.”

“Already did, Captain.”

“Okay, good.”

“There’s a message from DesRon in your in-box. They want to schedule a red phone call at 1500 local with Two Six Actual.”

Jen Roald. His commodore. He checked his watch. The sea; the ship, the crew. And the captain. Like the old game played for decades with dice and drinks. Did they still play that, in officers’ clubs, in petty officers’ clubs, in what had once been Acey-Deucey clubs? Or had it too gone, another tradition eaten by the locusts? “Okay, XO, thanks. I’ll take that in CIC.”

*   *   *

HE
got there at 1445 and logged in at his chair. The vertical displays were blank, all but the central one, which showed the Global Command and Control picture. A lot of air traffic to the east. To the west, far behind now, glowed the bright pips of the battle group. He found Almarshadi’s draft message about Goodroe, went through it, started to correct a phrase, then shrugged and hit Send. Too many skippers wasted time massaging text. If it said what it meant to say, without having to be read twice, so be it.

The news summary carried press speculation that operations against Iraq were about to start, but there was no confirmation in the official traffic. A Chinese general had made threats against Taiwan. “Kill one rabbit, to scare the monkeys,” he’d said. A message slotted to both Matt Mills and himself from Naval Weapons Center Dahlgren, Network Systems Directorate, caught his eye. The header: SPY-1 Flight 7 Upgrade. He opened it.

Referring to the request Donnie Wenck had sent, it turned down
Savo Island
’s request for new software. The upgrade was in Open Architecture Computing Environment (OACE) Category 3 infrastructure, which had not yet been approved for fleet issue due to considerations of operational security.

Which, he guessed, frowning, meant they were unsure it was hardened against hacking. Everybody wanted open architecture, but the easier programming was to write and change, the more vulnerable it became. He started a reply, then saved it to his draft folder.

As usual with Jennifer, she called five minutes early. “Commodore,” he said, then released the button on the handset.

“Dan. I guess you saw the response to your message to Dahlgren.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You made a good case, but you might want to hold off on pressing that issue. You’re handling an emergent tasker. You don’t want to degrade your system right now. Believe me.”

“I was thinking along those lines. Any, uh, idea when the balloon goes up?”

“You know as much as we do. I called my relief at the Sit Room and he can’t shed any light.”

Dan rubbed a bristly chin. Ought to shave soon. “Uh, apropos of that, we may have mutual interference, with the Israeli Patriot battery at Ben Gurion. Our geographic sectors overlap and our freq bands are real close. We’ve asked for a copy of a Patriot/Aegis interoperability test they did at White Sands, but we haven’t been able to break that loose. It’d be good to have some kind of direct channel to the Israelis too. To be able to deconflict in real time.”

“Sounds reasonable. I’ll take that for action and get back to you. Otherwise, how’s it going? Over.”

“I had what seems to be a natural-causes death this morning.” He gave her the details, and ended, “I just hit Send on the full report. I’m requesting an autopsy. There’s just not too much my chief corpsman can pull out of his—tail. Other than that it might be a vaccine reaction.”

Her voice sharpened.
“To AVA? The anthrax vaccine?”

“Correct. Over.”

“That’ll involve Bethesda. You’ll be getting calls from Clinical Investigation. Has the family been notified? You did what’s right, right? Over.”

“My XO looked it up in the manual and did the death report and the next-of-kin notification. You and your N4 are info’d on those. Over.”

“Okay then … keep me in the loop on that. Anything else you need?”

“Those parts for the chassis rebuild we requested. We got some of them helo lift from the TF, but there’s still outstanding requests.”

“My loggies are working it. Oh, and by the way—almost forgot—NCIS identified the guy who threw the gasoline at you, at the gate. Over.”

This was news. He pulled his consciousness out of the phone, checked the display, checked his own personal six. Then wondered what he was looking for, in the chill, darkened, equipment-packed space. The shapeless void-thing that had stalked him in the corridors of dream? “Really? They got him? Over.”

“Well, identified him. Unfortunately, the Italians had already let him go by then. And don’t seem to be able to find him again—no surprise, I guess. Anyway, want to know who he worked for?”

“Uh … yeah.”

“There’s an al-Qaeda link. Maybe not directly, but we’re pretty sure they pulled the string.”

Dan thought of several things he might say, but the one that came closest to actually getting voiced was:
And I know why
.

After 9/11, at first, no one had known for sure who was responsible. Then they had, but hadn’t been able to locate him.

But TAG had been able to retask a modeling agent framework, originally intended to data-mine a littoral environment to locate submarines, into a program that integrated communications, intelligence, and social relations to predict the location of a unitary actor. Such as bin Laden. Dan, Henrickson, and Wenck had taken CIRCE active at Bagram Field, Afghanistan, and had nailed Osama’s location closely enough that a SEAL team had come within an ace of taking him out.

Now, with a titanic conflict impending, maybe OBL was taking the opportunity to settle his books.

Or was that simply megalomania? To think a randomly thrown bottle had been aimed at him? Surely he wasn’t that important, in the great scheme of things. He grimaced. No, they’d seen an official car, and thrown a firebomb. That was all.

“Dan? You there?”

“Yeah. That’s interesting. An asymmetrical response.”

“Or something like that. Okay, we’re up-to-date, right? Info me on your on-station message. I’ll keep working on this end. Out.”

He signed off and resocketed the phone. Looked once more at the display, at the symbology and overlay and now, coming into the picture on the right, the east, the curved-bow shape of the most fought-over land on earth. Next year in Jerusalem. Next year in Al-Quds. The Holy Land of the Crusaders and Salah ad-Din. Israel. Palestine.

He took a deep breath and let it out. Toggled to the next screen, and started his on-arrival message.

9

Oparea Adamantine

“
NOW
flight quarters, flight quarters. All hands man your flight quarters stations. Stand clear topside aft of frame 315. Flight quarters.”

The echoes of the 1MC died. Dan sprawled in his bridge chair, boots up, foul weather jacket zipped snug to the throat, gazing out over an uneasy sea. As
Savo Island
nosed around to face the wind she rose, then plummeted, picking up a deep creaking pitch. The air had turned chill again, and all was gray; charcoal clouds pressing down on a sea like a herd of stampeding elephants, ruffled with streaks of white foam like dust blown off their great heaving backs.

No mark on that ever-changing, ever-unchanging surface testified to it, but they were on station at last. A misshapen arc thirty miles north to south and slightly narrower east to west, centered west and south of Tel Aviv. He watched the rounded neon numerals of the Fathometer rise with each flicker: 998; 1010; 1023. Crossing the thousand-meter line. The navigator and the chief quartermaster, Van Gogh, were having a muted argument at the far end of the bridge. A petty officer murmured into his handheld next to Dan. He was there to relay word from the helicopter control station aft, an armored, fireproofed mini–control tower set to one side of the squared-off flight deck.

“Bridge, Helo Control. From the pilot: Can we come fifteen to twenty degrees left. He’s got turbulence across the deck. We’re just about at the wind limit.”

Dark eyes gave Dan a level look; a sleek head inclined. Crossing to stand beside him, Lieutenant (jg) Noah Pardees murmured, “Skipper, range is clear to port. Closest contact fifteen hundred yards and opening. No other threatening CPAs.”

Pardees, the deck department officer, was even taller than Dan, and so West Coast laid-back and so very meager he seemed barely to inhabit his coveralls. Dan nodded. “How about that fuel-pressure caution light? And will we still be within ship motion limitations if the wind increases?”

The petty officer said, “They say they got that addressed, Captain. The caution light. Green board, ready to fly. On ship motion: remember they go by their onboard gyros, not ship’s inclinometers.”

“Okay … I guess. If they’re happy. What about this rain? Looks as if it could close in.”

“Scattered showers. And no problem if the wind comes up another ten knots. After that, could get dicey.”

Pardees murmured languidly, “That’s not in the fleet weather prediction, sir.”

“Bridge, Helo Control: Request green deck.”

Dan resisted the impulse to get down from his chair and check the radar one last time. Pardees had his binoculars up, peering out to port. The junior officer of the deck, little apple-cheeked Gene Mytsalo, was out on the wing. He had to trust. Trust the weather prediction, the pilots’ judgment, the mechanics who’d repaired the fuel pump or pressure switch or whatever had triggered the caution light. He was the captain, not God. The OOD lowered the glasses and shot him a glance. He nodded.

“Helo Control, OOD: Deck
is
green,” Pardees said into his Hydra.

“Green, aye … stand by.”

Dan gripped the arms of his chair, then made himself relax back into it. Feign serenity, at least, if he couldn’t actually achieve it. He’d seen a helicopter explode once, on its approach to the deck. Not a Sea Hawk; one of the older aircraft, a Sea Sprite. A good bird, despite the accidents, but the Navy had retired them when it got rid of the last Knox-class frigates.

At last the rising roar from aft, shifting to starboard, testified to the launch. “Red Hawk 202 away,” the petty officer relayed.

Red Hawk was the squadron name, 202 the airframe number. The slate-gray minke bulk of the aircraft, tilted slightly forward, swept past, vibrating the heavy shatterproof windows. A ghostly smoke-trail spinnereted behind it, pressed down by rotorwash but not dispersed. It shrank slowly, outbound, then banked left and tracked across their bow, in and out of the low scud of clouds.

“Navigator recommends continuing left to course one seven zero, and reducing speed to ten knots to commence port leg.”

“Very well,” Pardees said, turning away. “Left fifteen degrees rudder. Come to course one seven zero. Engines ahead two thirds; indicate fifty-five rpm at eighty percent pitch for ten knots.”

The orders and responses came and went, ebbing in the endless litany that had never, probably, been interrupted since the Phoenicians had begun voyaging across this very sea. Dan squinted, followed the aircraft until it became a speck, winking into and out of existence, until he couldn’t be sure he was actually seeing it any longer or only imagining it. Then it was gone.

And Goodroe with it. The iced-down remains were headed back to the task group, which would do a preliminary investigation—they had an MD and a fairly sophisticated operating room aboard the carrier—then ship it onward, via Italy and Germany, back to the States. He hadn’t heard any rumors about bad luck. Maybe the superstitions of the sea were vanishing along with so many other taboos; women aboard ship, for one thing. More and more, life at sea reflected life ashore. But sometimes he wasn’t sure that was an improvement.

His reflection stared back from the slanted bulletproof glass. He shook his head and bent to the morning traffic.

He’d signed off on the arrival message at 0600, assuring both CentCom and EuCom, and the subordinate commanders in the chain, including Jen Roald, that
Savo Island
had taken station at Ballistic Missile Oparea Adamantine. Now he looked at a response to that message—or no, its originating date time group meant it had been drafted before. It was from CentCom, a frag order—a modification to a previously issued op plan. Instead of operating alone, commanding officer
Savo Island
would command Task Group 161, made up of his own ship and a Los Angeles–class nuclear submarine, USS
Pittsburgh.
The sub would join tomorrow. Which meant it was speeding toward them now.

He flipped pages to the
Early Bird
, the daily Pentagon news summary. He’d asked Radio to print it out each day, and to forward it to Almarshadi to excerpt for the crew. Iraq had threatened again that if the U.S. attacked, the war would spread. This was getting to be old news. He’d heard it before, during the Gulf War. But as it turned out, it hadn’t been a bluff. Not then. He and a small team of Marines had only barely managed to abort mass destruction in the final minutes, deep beneath Baghdad.