Sea fighter

by James H. Cobb

  Each craft came from the opposing extreme of the technological spectrum as well as the opposing side of a burgeoning international conflict. They held one thing in common, however. Each was on a mission of war.

  A steaming drizzle of rain streaked the louvered window of the little ad hoc office, its incessant pattering drowned out by the grumble of the overloaded air conditioner. Seated at her field desk, Christine Rendino studied the words that scrolled down the screen of her personal laptop computer.

  … in the end, Chris, the powers that be decided to do considerably more to the Duke than just repair the battle damage we received in the Yangtze. We’re receiving a total Block II survey. Upon completion, we’ll have all of the augmented bells and whistles that have been built into the later SC-21-class hulls.

  Unfortunately, the downside is that it will mean almost another full year in the yard. We won’t be ready for sea again before next October at the earliest. I’d hoped to take the Duke out on at least one more deployment before my tour aboard her was up, but there’s not much chance of that now. Maybe I’ll at least be able to get a shakedown cruise in before I have to hand her over to her next skipper.

  At any rate, I’ll have plenty of time to get this new crew in shape. Your transfer was just the first of many. Just about all of our old hands are gone now. The Bureau of Personnel is doling our experienced crew people to the other stealths and to the training commands as if they are pearls beyond price.

  Your favorite sparring partner; Frank McKelsie, has been bumped up to Lieutenant Commander and is on his way to San Diego to become the exec on the Boyington. Dix Beltrain is just a couple of piers down from us on the Connor, helping to get her ready for sea, and Doc Golden is up at Bethesda. Chief Thomson is out of the Navy now, not that he’s retiring by a long shot. He’s stepped straight across into a consultant’s position with Lockheed’s Sea Shadow division right here in Norfolk at a pleasantly fat salary.

  At the moment, it’s rather like being the new kid in school again. I look around the Duke these days and all I see are a lot of faces I don’t recognize. Ken Hiro is about the last of the old gang still aboard. He’s having more fun than a kitten with a ball of yarn overseeing the rebuild. To tell the truth, he’s doing such a good job of it that I’m feeling just a little bit redundant at the moment.

  Concerning Arkady (and I’m sure you’re panting to find out what’s going on with him), all I can say is, not much. We’ve been doing our best to run a long-distance romance, but I don’t think that either of us is finding it all that satisfying. However, we both have some leave coming and he’s flying in from San Diego tomorrow. We’re going to take the Seeadler out for a cruise and hopefully make up for some lost opportunities. Maybe we can also come to some conclusions about where the two of us are going.

  You know, there’s a certain irony about it all. When Arkady came aboard the Duke and we became involved, we didn’t dare admit to having an affair because he was attached to the ship and under my command. However, now that he’s no longer attached and an affair would be all legal and aboveboard, we haven’t been able to have one to admit to.

  Enough whining. I’ve been doing too much of that lately. I hope this new Tactical Intelligence project of yours is keeping you busy and out of trouble. I also trust that you are maintaining at least a semblance of military decorum. I doubt that Admiral Macintyre will have nearly the patience I had with that ex-pat Valley Girl act of yours. I do envy you the job, though. Africa would be an interesting duty station. A hot one as well if things keep going the way they have. Be careful, Chris.

  Love

  Amanda

  Christine first smiled, then frowned as she finished the email. Amanda had never been one to bitch about personal problems. That she made any mention of them at all was unusual in the extreme. The wisps of discontent rising up from the letter obviously stemmed from some deeper smoldering cause.

  A smile returned to the blond intelligence officer’s elfin features, but a sympathetic one. She could recognize the symptoms. At the moment, Amanda Lee Garrett was a dolphin run up onto the beach. The weight and dryness of the land were starting to suffocate her.

  If Christine were back in Norfolk, she could have conjured up any number of temporary cures for her old friend’s condition. Among other options, she might have orchestrated a totally blowout night on the town for the two of them. Getting Amanda to well and truly let her hair down required a degree of effort, but the end results were usually interesting.

  Christine checked the date on the message and found that it had been sent earlier that week. That would mean Lieutenant Vince Arkady was probably already on site. The intel’s smile deepened. Probably he could turn the trick even better.

  Even so, his visit would only bring about a temporary remission of the symptoms. As with that beached dolphin, the only permanent fix for Amanda Garrett would be for her to return to the sea. And at the moment, there was nothing Christine could do to bring that about.

  Her yeoman appeared in the doorless office doorway. “Beg your pardon, ma’am, but Admiral Maclntyre’s plane is on final approach now. You wanted to know.”

  “Okay, Andy. Thanks.” She glanced through the window at the low gray skies and the rain-sodden tarmac beyond the naval intelligence center. “Is the Hummer around front?”

  “Right outside the door, Commander.”

  Commander …Christine reached up and touched the golden oak leaves on the collar of her summer whites. The rank still sounded a little odd.

  She took a deep breath and flipped the cover of the mil spec Panasonic laptop closed. This had been her first fragment of free time for several days. It had been good to touch base with the real world for a moment. Standing up, she gave her slacks a smoothing tug. Not that it would make that much difference here on the Gold Coast. Five minutes away from an air conditioner and even the crispest set of creases would start to go limp. Donning her uniform hat, already swathed in its plastic rain cover, and taking her navy blue Windcheater from the back of her chair, she started out of the office.

  Beneath the ragged scrap of canvas that sheltered the stern of the pinasse, her captain sat at the tiller and took careful stock of his vessel’s position.

  Gray walls of rain-streaked mist rose up on all sides of his little craft, merging with the low overcast. They were engulfed by one of the frequent rain squalls that haunted the African Gold Coast. The African shipmaster lacked even a compass for navigation, and yet he knew exactly where he was.

  He’d held his course along the coast by steering across the regular ranks of deepwater rollers marching in from the Atlantic, maintaining his distance from the shore by throttling down his engine every few minutes to listen for the surf on his right.

  On his last check, however, the sound of the breaking waves had been fading astern and the water beneath the pinasse’s hull had been tinged with a milky brown coloration. When a palmful of it had been tasted, a muddy organic flavor had overlain the clean bite of sea salt. They were now off the broad mouth of the Tabounsou River.

  Were it not for the rain and mist, the low-set Camayenne Peninsula would have been seen to the west and extending away to the south. At the peninsula’s tip would have been the city of Conakry itself, and farther south yet, Kassa Island, the closest in of the Iles de Loos group.

  With the Tabounsou to starboard, their objective—the air port and the U.N. base—would be directly … there. On the coast and inside the river estuary easy on the starboard bow and perhaps five miles distant.

  Satisfied, the captain settled back into his seat, easing the rudder over a few degrees. He pushed the throttle in a notch, slowing the chugging beat of the little engine. They had made a good landfall. Now he and his crew must arrive at their objective just as darkness was falling.

  It was a busy afternoon on the vast concrete expanse of the Conakry flight line. Half a dozen C-130 He
rcules transports bearing the insignia and camouflage patterns of half a dozen nations were lined up wingtip to wingtip along one of the parking aprons, dripping in the rain and discharging relief supplies and military stores. On a second apron, a twin engined C-160 Transall of the Armée de l’Air and a small cluster of Super Puma utility helicopters rested in between flying support missions for the Foreign Legion Advisory Group who were working with the Guinean army. In yet a third area, a U.N.-chartered 747 air freighter discharged palletized Red Cross parcels through its open bow door. A polyglot cadre of military personnel—French, British, American—and a scattering of locals worked around the grounded aircraft, struggling with mixed success to bring order out of chaos.

  As Admiral Maclntyre’s Orion taxied in from the main runway, Christine had more than enough time to ponder how this huge and overwhelmingly unnecessary air-base complex had come to exist.

  Like any number of other Third World states, Guinea had at one time been tempted by the bright lie of communism. Swept deep within the circle of influence drawn by both the old Soviet Union and the former Red China, Guinea had, for a time, been one of the closer allies of both Moscow and Beijing on the African continent. In return for this allegiance, the Soviets had financed and constructed an international airport at Conakry.

  Upon completion, the airport proved to be far too large a facility for the minimal air-transport needs of Guinea, not to mention being far too costly for the small and impoverished country to maintain. On the other hand, it did give the Russian air force a very convenient South Atlantic staging base for its huge TU-95 maritime patrol bombers, thus being the nature of foreign aid given by the late Soviet empire.

  At last, the airfield was being used for the benefit of the people of Guinea. Through it poured the assistance that might yet stave off disaster for the foundering nation.

  Obediently trailing the base “follow me” truck, Admiral Maclntyre’s VP-3 lumbered into its parking spot, spray streaking the tarmac behind it. With a final twirling whine, its engines powered down, square-tipped propeller blades flickering into visibility.

  Normally, there would have been the turnout of the base honor guard and the appropriate pomp and circumstance mandated by tradition for a flag officer’s arrival. At Maclntyre’s specific request, however, a squelch had been placed on the formalities. Only Christine and the commanding officers of the other two major Navy elements attached to the UNAFIN operation stood by at the base of the boarding stairs.

  Since coming under his command, Christine Rendino had come to learn that the CINCNAVSPEFORCE was a man who preferred performance over ceremony by a decisive margin, especially inside a war zone. During those odd moments in his presence when she could step back from her professionalism, Christine also found herself noting that Vice Admiral Elliot “Eddie Mac” Macintyre was a damned handsome example of an older man.

  He was one of those individuals who don’t age as much as they weather. The gray streaking his brown hair and the lines carved into his strong-jawed features marked where the passage of time had only been able to lightly chip at the man. Descending the stairway with his jacket collar turned up against the rain, Macintyre moved with the quick and limber surety of a person in his prime.

  “Welcome to Conakry Base, Admiral.”

  “Pleased to be aboard, Jim,” Macintyre replied, exchanging salutes with Captain Stottard.

  Captain James Stottard was the senior American officer on the ground in Guinea, the commandant of the Conakry Base section as well as all other U.S. logistics and support forces attached to UNAFIN. A tall and bulky man with a stolid personality and humorless demeanor, the LOGBOSS was a professional bean counter and a damn good one.

  The TACBOSS was present as well.

  “Captain Phillip Emberly, sir!”

  Phil Emberly commanded the combat elements of NAVSPECFORCE’s share of the U.N. operation. Round faced, intense, and almost radiant with self-confidence, he was a fast-tracker from Navy R & D who had overseen the final phase development of the seafighter program. As the PG-ACs were to be the core unit of the interdiction force, it had seemed appropriate that he should lead them during their operational debut.

  Christine could appreciate the way Emberly had brought the experimental seafighter group up to speed. However, there were other aspects of the man she didn’t appreciate quite so much.

  “Pleased to meet you, Commander,” Macintyre replied. “I’ve heard a lot of good things about the seafighters.”

  The Admiral turned his attention to Christine, his finger tips coming to his brow in reply to her own salute. “Commander Rendino. It’s good to see you again.”

  “The same here, sir.”

  As for herself, Christine was aware of her place in the scheme of things. Within naval intelligence circles she was becoming heir to the reputation of the brilliant and eccentric Commander Joseph Rochefort, the man who had turned the tide of the Second World War by predicting the Japanese attack on Midway Island.

  With an IQ of 180, an eidetic memory, and a knack for deductive logic, she had served as intelligence officer aboard the USS Cunningham through America’s last two major international crises. When the destroyer’s crew had been dispersed, Christine had found herself snatched up by Admiral Macintyre as his personal prize out of the Duke’s treasure chest of conflict-hardened personnel. Following an early bump-up to lieutenant commander, she had been assigned to NAVSPECFORCE’s operational intelligence group, commanding its first fielded Tactical Intelligence Network detachment.

  “Miss Rendino, gentlemen,” Macintyre went on. “I apologize for dragging you out here in the rain when you’ve already got so much on your plates.”

  “No problem, sir,” Stottard replied politely. “We were halfway hoping that you were coming in to take over the show. We still haven’t gotten the word on what the final command structure is going to be down here.”

  Macintyre frowned momentarily. “Not quite, Jim, although I do have some dope on that subject. We’ll get into that later. For now, you can just call this a friendly tour of inspection. I want to find out what else you people need and how I can best get it for you.”

  “The seafighters are set to go now, sir,” Emberly interjected. “Give us the word and we’ll get the job done.”

  There was a commander’s pride in the TACBOSS’s words, but there was also something close to boastfulness. Macintyre glanced in Emberly’s direction. “Well, that’s fine, Captain. But I think that General Belewa will be the man giving us all the word when the time comes.”

  A silence hung in the air for a few moments, and then Macintyre returned his attention to the base commander. “Okay, Jim, what’s the agenda?”

  “We’ve got a series of intelligence briefings scheduled for the next couple of days, as well as a couple of planning sessions with the British and French liaisons. Commander Rendino’s been setting up the program.”

  Christine nodded. “Yes, sir. Since we haven’t been getting much formal word on how this operation is going to be structured, I figured it might be worthwhile getting some informal guidelines going.”

  Macintyre nodded and tugged his cap lower over his eyes, water dripping from its visor. “Good thinking, Commander. When do we start?”

  “We have a general orientation briefing scheduled for about forty-five minutes from now, sir. But if you’d like to rest up some from your flight …”

  “Forget it. I’m not that decrepit yet. I want to be brought up to speed ASAP. We don’t have much time to waste. Jim, my aide can lug my gear over to my quarters if you can provide him with some transportation. For now, I’d like to have a quick look around the base just to get my bearings. Commander Rendino here can drive me. I’ve got some intelligence matters I need to discuss with her.”

  In spite of the rain, they left the windows of the HumVee open, the motion-breeze rendering the sodden humi
dity of the air a little more tolerable.

  “What do you want to see first, sir?” Christine inquired.

  “Nothing much in particular, really,” Macintyre replied, unzipping his jacket. “Just take us once around the field perimeter. Frankly, Commander, I want to talk to you off the record about a couple of things before we go into this first briefing.”

  “Sure thing, sir,” Christine slued the big military 4 × 4 onto the perimeter road that circled the airfield. “What’s up?”

  “First, how are things with TACNET? What’s your status?”

  “It’s coming together, sir,” she replied over the muttering growl of the diesel power plant. “Some elements are already partially on line, and the rest are in theater and deploying.”

  “What coverage do we currently have, and how much more time will you need to be fully operational?”

  The intel considered. “Floater 1 is all the way up and running. She has her aerostat streamed, and they’re already flying off the smaller Eagle Eye drones. That’s giving us good coverage of the central Union coast, east to about Greenville and west to the Sherbro island shadow.

  “The other two ’stat carriers, the Bravo and the Valiant, have both arrived in Conakry and are replenishing from their haul across the Atlantic. They should be out on the Guinea East and Guinea West stations by this time tomorrow night, giving us full radar and signal intelligence coverage of the Guinea littoral as well.”

  Christine took a hand off the wheel and indicated one of the big hangars spaced along the edge of the flight line. “The Predator squadron is setting up there and the first of their birds is being assembled now. Last word I had was that they should be ready to launch by dawn tomorrow. The drone control nodes here and on Floater 1 are operational, and Abidjan should be up by midnight.”