The Seventh Angel (33 page)

Sitting at her desk, Veronica Doyle cracked another smile.
Ouch! Let’s see how fast old Dick backs away from that one...

“
I’m not talking about dignity,” the senator growled. “I’m talking about national security. Strategic deterrence. National policy. Do any of these words ring a bell?”

Veronica Doyle picked up the remote and turned off the television. The show was just warming up, but she’d heard all she needed to hear.

A lot of people around the beltway were already treating Richard Blair as the presumptive Republican nominee for the next presidential election. He was clearly positioning himself for the nomination. One thing was certain; the crafty old bastard had identified the theme of his campaign.

USS TOWERS (DDG-103)

WESTERN PACIFIC OCEAN

MONDAY; 04 MARCH

0141 hours (1:41 AM)

TIME ZONE +11 ‘LIMA’

Bowie woke into darkness, his heart still pounding in his chest as the dream grudgingly released its grip on his mind. He lay in the bunk of his at-sea cabin, tangled in his sheets, his throat burning with remembered adrenaline.

He blinked away tears and concentrated on slowing his breathing while his brain sorted through the jumbled logic of the nightmare, separating dream images and memories of the past, from the realities of the present. The urgency of the dream began to give way, the memories gradually fading from his conscious thoughts.

This was
not
the Siraji minefield. There was no torpedo clawing its way up the wake of his wounded ship. Those events belonged to the past. They were gone and done with, no matter how many times they came back to haunt his sleep.

The parade of corpses was fading as well. Bowie was lying in his bunk alone. He was not standing in Combat Information Center, and he was not surrounded by the broken and bloody ghosts of the Sailors who had died under his command.

He stared toward the darkened ceiling, and didn’t reach for his wristwatch. He didn’t want to know what time it was. Not yet. He didn’t want to know how much sleep he’d had, or rather, how
little
.

He thought about trying to go back to sleep.

Maybe tonight would be different. Maybe this time, the dream wouldn’t come again. Maybe he would sleep, with no dreams at all. He jerked the sheets away from his legs. And maybe the Tooth Fairy would leave a quarter under his pillow.

The dream didn’t come often. Sometimes it left him alone for days at a time, and once he’d gone three weeks without a single troubled night. But sooner or later, it always came back.
Always
.

If he let himself fall asleep now, he’d be back in the minefield, standing shoulder to shoulder with Clint Brody, and Alex Sherman, and Julie Schramm, and all the rest of them—with their torn and burnt flesh, and their mangled limbs.

They wouldn’t question him, or accuse him. They hadn’t done it in life, and they didn’t do it in the dream. They just stood there, mangled and lifeless, reminding Bowie of the terrible price that each of them had paid for following his orders.

Damn.

He might has well get up. He wasn’t going to get any more sleep tonight.

Bowie sat up on his bunk. He was reaching for his coveralls when the phone rang. He fumbled for it in the dark, locating it by touch, and unlatching the receiver from the cradle.

He held the phone to his ear. “Captain speaking.”

The voice of his Executive Officer came over the line. “Captain, this is the XO. I apologize for disturbing your sleep, but we’ve got Flash message traffic, sir. Immediate execute.”

Bowie yawned. “Thanks, Nick. I’ll meet you in the wardroom in a couple of minutes.”

He yawned again. “You’ve seen the message. Is this something we’re going to need to wake up the Department Heads for?”

“
I think so, sir,” the XO said.

“
Alright,” Bowie said. “Roust them out, and head them up to the wardroom. I’ll be up there in two shakes.”

He hung up the phone. Immediate execute? That could only be one thing.

The XO hadn’t given him any details, because the ship’s regular internal telephones were non-secure. He’d find out in a minute, when he read the message. But it
had
to be the submarine. Bowie couldn’t think of anything else that would justify Flash message traffic with Immediate execute orders.

He stood up and began pulling on his coveralls. The
Towers
was getting orders to go after the Russian missile sub. That had to be it.

They were going to go kill the submarine. He whistled through his teeth. Nothing like a little taste of déjà vu to get the morning started off right.

NEW KOBOSHI HOTEL

CHIBA PREFECTURE, JAPAN

MONDAY; 04 MARCH

0326 hours (3:26 AM)

TIME ZONE +9 ‘INDIA’

Someone was knocking on the door.

Ann Roark grunted and rolled over, pulling a pillow over her head.

The knocking continued, this time accompanied by a voice. “Ann … Get up.”

It was Sheldon.

Ann opened one eye. The miniscule Japanese hotel room was still dark, the only illumination coming from the green digits of the clock radio and the red LED on the ceiling smoke detector. The muted glow of streetlights against the backs of the curtains made the window a rectangle of lesser darkness.

Ann tried to focus on the clock, but her vision was too blurry to resolve the digits into anything meaningful.

Sheldon knocked again. “Wake up, Princess Leia. It’s time to go save the galaxy …
Again
.”

Ann reluctantly peeled back the covers and half-stumbled out of bed, shuffling in the general direction of the door. She located a doorknob, twisted it, and found herself gazing blearily into the dark confines of the hotel room’s tiny closet. She shoved it closed, located the correct door, and opened it.

The light from the hallway nearly blinded her. She shielded her eyes with a hand that felt like lead, and squinted toward her intruder. Sheldon stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the brightness like a Blake painting of an angel radiating heavenly glory.

Ann turned away from this vision of ersatz splendor, and reached through the open door of the bathroom to flip on the vanity lights.

“
Get in, and shut the door,” she said. “That hallway light is killing me.”

She shuffled back into the room, hearing Sheldon close the door behind himself. She flopped face down onto the bed like a rag doll.

She clamped her eyes tightly closed, and then forced herself to open them again. “Did you get through to Powder and Booty?”

Powder was Sheldon’s three year-old cocker spaniel, a shaggy buff-colored powder-puff of a dog, with a lolling tongue and a golden disposition. ‘Booty’ was Ann’s name for Buddy, the eight month-old Yorkshire Terrier-Chihuahua mix that Sheldon had gotten as a companion to Powder. Ann had taken to calling the smaller dog
Booty
, because he seemed to take savage glee in leaping up to nip unwary people on the rump. The scruffy little rat was, quite literally, a pain in the butt.

“
I got a call through to my mom,” Sheldon said. “She’s scared half out of her wits, but otherwise she’s doing okay. I’m glad she lives up in the hills, because she tells me that Oceanside is coming unglued.”

He sighed. “Powder and Buddy are doing fine, by the way.”

Talking about Booty made Ann gradually realize that her own booty was currently on display. She was dressed in her bed clothes: an old
Phantom of the Opera
tee-shirt and faded green panties. Her butt was pointed straight at the ceiling.

With a nearly-convulsive jerk, she rolled over, adjusting her tee-shirt to cover her panties. Had Sheldon peeked at her ass when her back was turned? He’d almost certainly
wanted
to. Between Stairmaster and Pilate’s, her butt was in pretty good shape, and she knew that Sheldon was healthy and hetero. He probably hadn’t looked, though. Sheldon had an annoying habit of doing the right thing, even when nobody was watching.

She tugged the shirt down a little lower, trying to make sure her panties were safely out of view. “What time is it?”

Sheldon checked his watch. “Almost three-thirty.”

“
In the morning? Three-thirty
AM
?”

“
I’m pretty
sure
it’s AM,” Sheldon said. “It’s still dark outside. But this is Japan, and the rules may be different here. Maybe the sun doesn’t come up on any particular schedule.”

Ann yawned. “Why …” Her question was interrupted by a second yawn. “… are you waking me up at three-thirty in the freaking morning, Sheldon?”

“
You need to get packed,” Sheldon said. “The Navy wants us back.”

Ann yawned a third time. “The Navy wants us back
where
?”

“
Back on the ship,” Sheldon said. “USS
Towers
. I got a call from corporate about twenty minutes ago. The Navy wants us to do some more work with Mouse. Apparently, Captain Bowie asked for us by name. They’re sending a van to drive us to the Air Force Base at Yakota. We catch a helo flight from there.”

Ann forced her eyes wide enough to stare at Sheldon. He was still standing near the door, illuminated by the bathroom vanity lights. “
I’m
the tech, she said. Why did corporate call
you
?”

Sheldon grinned. “They called us both. But you turn your cell phone off at night. I leave mine on. I imagine you’ve got a voicemail on your phone right now.”

Ann rubbed her eyes, and rotated her head to loosen her neck muscles. “What kind of work does the Navy expect us to do?”

“
I don’t know,” Sheldon said. “I talked to Rick Kramer from Norton corporate liaison. He couldn’t give details over the phone. Evidently it’s all pretty hush-hush. But Rick
did
say that it’s going to be dangerous. We have to sign liability waivers and security agreements.”

Ann shook her head. “I’m not at the Navy’s beck and call. They can’t order me to go anywhere. And they certainly can’t order me to intentionally put myself in danger.”

“
Nobody’s ordering us,” Sheldon said. “The Navy’s
asking
for us. They need our help with something.”

He shrugged. “I’m going. There aren’t any flights to the States anyway. Might as well go do some work and earn some hazard pay. It beats sitting around a hotel room the size of a shoebox, watching Japanese game shows.”

“
I’m not going,” Ann said. “The Navy can kiss off.”

“
Okay,” Sheldon said. “I’ll tell Rick, and they’ll send somebody else.”

“
They can’t do that,” Ann snapped. “Mouse is
my
baby. I did half the fabrication, and I wrote most of the code. Nobody knows that robot like I do.”

“
I understand that,” Sheldon said. “But Mouse doesn’t belong to you, Ann. It’s a very expensive prototype that happens to be the property of Norton Deep Water Systems. And Norton has an extremely lucrative contract to build a few
hundred
Mouse units for the United States Navy. Ann, you know that corporate isn’t going to piss off their
numero-uno
customer. If the Navy wants a Mouse technician, Norton’s going to send them one. If it’s not you, it’ll be somebody else. But it’s going to happen. You know that.”

He turned back toward the door. “I’ll call Rick, and tell him to get another tech out here.”

Ann sighed. “Alright! I’ll go, damn it! Just get out of here so I can pack and get dressed.”

Sheldon checked his watch again. “The van will be here in about forty minutes. Why don’t we meet in the downstairs coffee shop in half an hour?”

“
Okay,” Ann said. “Have some caffeine ready when I get down there. Otherwise, I may have to kill you.”

“
Will do.” He reached for the doorknob.

“
Sheldon?”

He paused. “Yeah?”

“
Did you look at my butt when my back was turned?”

“
Ah … no. I thought about it, but it didn’t seem polite.”

Ann threw a pillow at him. “You’re too freaking nice for your own good. Now, get the hell out of my room and let me get dressed.”

Sheldon laughed. “Meet you downstairs.”

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Ann walked through the front door of the coffee shop. The lighted plastic sign by the entrance identified the shop as
Hero Coffee Star
. The accompanying logo included a bright red Art Deco coffee pot, rendered in the style of a 1950s Flash Gordon rocket ship.

The interior décor of the coffee shop followed the retro-science fiction theme. The walls were airbrushed with cartoon murals of alien lunarscapes, dotted with improbable-looking domed cities in which the buildings all resembled old-school jukeboxes.

Sheldon was seated at a small round table that had been silk-screened to look like the planet Saturn. As promised, he had a cup of coffee waiting on the table in front of Ann’s chair.