“The A-10s opened up. The door gunners on the Battlestar opened up. Me and my boys opened up. All of a sudden the whole damn world was shooting at each other. We fell back to the tail ramp of the lift ship, emptying magazines as fast as we could fit them in our weapons.
“We didn’t have the little Leprechaun transceivers back then. We were still using the old backpack PRC-119s carried by a dedicated radio operator. My radioman had been sticking right with me through all of this. A real nice young Puerto Rican kid from New Jersey. Anyway, he and I stopped for a second at the foot of the ramp so I could call one of the strike aircraft in on a hot target. And all of a sudden my RT just sort of went ‘uh’ and folded up on me. I grabbed him by the harness and dragged him aboard the helo and we got out of there.”
Stone flipped the crumpled cup into the trash basket, his expression shielded and impassive. “Our Corpsman worked on him, but it wasn’t no good. The kid was dead. Caught a 7.65 round right on the zip of his flak jacket. Took his heart clean out. I can remember sort of holding his head and shoulders in my lap all the way back to Aviano and thinkin’, ‘I’m this boy’s officer! I got to do something about this!’ But there wasn’t anything to do. Nothing at all.”
He nodded toward the envelopes on Amanda’s desk. “I didn’t even get to write one of them letters. They just listed it as a training accident and sent him home.”
Amanda nodded slowly, her own thoughts drifting back over times of blood and fire. “I lost two back aboard my old destroyer. One of them was in the Drake’s Passage fight, a rather sweet Midwestern boy who’d joined the Navy because he couldn’t get a football scholarship. The other was in the Battle of the Yangtze Approaches. I didn’t know him very well. He was a new hand who’d signed aboard just before we sailed on that cruise. I doubt I ever exchanged more than a dozen words with him. But he died obeying my orders.”
The interior of her quarters shifted in and out of focus, and Amanda found herself having to be deliberate in the choice and forming of her words. “Funny … though. I can remember their faces … every detail. I guess it’s because they keep coming back.”
Quillain frowned. “How’s that, Skipper?”
Amanda looked back at him owlishly, the hidden words she’d never intended to say to anyone slipping from her. “I mean, they keep coming back, Stone. At night, after lights out, when I’m alone. I mean, I don’t really see anything, I guess … I just know they’re there. I can feel them standing there in the dark … just watching me.”
“What d’you reckon they want, Skipper?”
Hazily she considered. “I don’t know. I don’t think they’re angry or that they blame me. That’s not what it feels like. It’s more like they … want to remind me about why I can never be wrong. About what the price is when I mess up …”
Her eyes were closing now, and she tried and failed to fight them open again. “Tonight … for the first time, there’s going to be three of them. I think that’s why I don’t want to sleep …”
“You got to, though, Skipper,” Quillain said quietly. “You got to.”
Funny, she hadn’t noticed before how gentle the big man could make his voice. Her empty cup slipped from her hand, but she didn’t hear it clatter to the floor.
Stone Quillain took his feet down off the desk and hoisted himself out of his chair. That was a job done, even though it had cost his last stash of decent sippin’ liquor to do it. Stone had talked and boozed more than one C.O. back down after a tough operation, but this little gal had been a chore. She had a head on her like a steel towing butt. That, plus a whole lot more caring than was likely good for her.
Coming around Amanda’s desk, Quillain found the deck seemed a little unsteady underfoot. A sea kicking up, no doubt. He hoisted the slumbering woman out of her chair and into his arms. He turned to lay her on her bed, only to discover that as he had her oriented, her feet would be at the head of the cot and vice versa.
A degree of backing and filling proved this to be an insurmountable engineering problem, so with a muttered “To hell with it” he laid her down and shifted the pillow to the appropriate end, slipping it under Amanda’s head with clumsy care. Lost in sleep like an overtired child, she didn’t even move.
Crossing to the door and switching off the overhead light, Quillain stepped out into the night. As darkness filled the little room behind him, he hesitated for a moment, then looked back.
“You boys go easy on the lady. You hear?” he murmured. “I reckon she’s trying about as hard as she can.”
In the moonshadow of a platform gun tower, Steamer Lane leaned against the steel cable deck railing. His slashed forehead itched abominably under the butterfly sutures, and he had to fight down the urge to scratch. He found himself envying the characters in the old World War II movies he’d watched as a kid. Back then, before they’d invented lung cancer, a guy who couldn’t figure out anything better to do with himself could always light up a cigarette. Flicking an imaginary butt over the side, he looked out to sea to the northwest.
One or two stars seemed to ride a little below the distant coastal horizon. An entire constellation had glowed there once, the lights of the city of Monrovia. One by one they’d been going out over the past months. But not quite fast enough.
The railing cable swayed slightly as another’s weight came onto it. Snowy Banks leaned silently beside him now, her slender silhouette pale against deeper shadow. Neither spoke. They had been a team for so long, they no longer needed to fill in every little patch of silence with idle conversation.
“It’s funny,” she said after a time. “But back in NROTC, I can’t recall them talking much about your people being killed.”
“They talked about us taking casualties in the Academy enough. They even had a shrink in a few times talking about traumatic and post-traumatic shock syndrome and that kind of deal.”
“I know. We had that too. Only, there’s a whole wall in between ‘taking casualties’ and your people dying. Casualty is just a word that lies flat on a page. Your people dying is … Oh, damn it, Steamer, it’s the Chief!”
“I know it, Snow. Even if they did try and tell you, it wouldn’t do any good. It’s one of those things you have to live. It can’t be taught in a way that would mean anything.”
The silence closed in once more, barring the lap and slosh of the waves between the barge hull and the Kevlar armor curtains. Gradually Steamer became aware of a growing patch of warmth on his shoulder. Not touch, only proximity. As still as a statue, his little exec looked off toward the distant coast, her head turned carefully away.
Steamer urgently wished for that cigarette again. Instead, he found his arm closed around Snowy’s shoulders. She turned into him, burying her face in his chest. They could even embrace in silence and still say what needed to be said.
Mobile Offshore Base, Floater 1 1021 Hours, Zone time;
September 5, 2007
Fourteen days passed.
At first Amanda had been more than grateful for the lull in the action. The battle damage to the Queen of the West and Carondelet had been repaired, the backlog of maintenance accrued during the doubled patrols of the OK Corral operation had been dealt with, and her crews had been given a chance to rest and recover.
By the start of second week, however, the drop-the-other shoe syndrome came into play. Amanda eyed her silent interphone deck more and more often, and curt, inquiring calls were made to the Intelligence and Operations Centers with growing frequency. Sleep became harder to come by and explosions of temperament easier. The death of Chief Tehoa on top of six months of continuous campaigning on the Gold Coast had taken its toll. Raw nerve endings drew taut, and all she wanted now was to finish it.
On the fourteenth day, after a morning spent restlessly prowling the decks of the platform, she sought out Christine Rendino.
The interior of the Intelli
gence Division’s Control Node trailer was possibly the coolest place on Floater 1. The massively augmented air-conditioning mandated by the computer systems made the space chilly for someone who had just stepped out of an equatorial noonday. Likewise, Amanda’s eyes had to adjust to a darkness lit only by glowing wall screens and CRTs.
The row of duty systems operators bent intently over their consoles, downloading data dumps, guiding reconnaissance drones, and performing the other esoteric tasks of the military intelligence gatherer. The cooling units rumbled softly beneath the deck and the voice of a Union Army officer issued from an overhead speaker, casually involved in a phone call to a subordinate and totally unaware that his every word was monitored.
Christine sat at the head of the trailer at her minute workstation, shaping her nails with an emery board by the light issuing from her personal monitor. She glanced up as Amanda edged down the line of S.O.s toward her. “Top of the morning, boss ma’am.”
Amanda replied with a soft and noncommittal grunt. “Anything new to report?”
“Not a solitary flippin’ thing. Just as it was at the 0600 briefing this morning and at the 1800 hour briefing last night. Nada. Zip. Zero. Peace has busted out all over and is growing like a dandelion in a field of cow pies.”
“Agh.” Amanda leaned back against the trailer’s bulkhead. “Why does that make me feel so nervous?”
“Because it should.” Christine blew lightly across her nails. “Because you were right and I was wrong back there before OK Corral. That convoy operation was only the warm up act. Elvis has yet to enter the building.”
“Thanks. I came in here hoping you’d convince me that I’m getting delusional in my old age, and that Belewa is, in fact, quietly turning belly up on us.”
Christine shook her tousled blond head. “Not a chance. Right now, in my expert opinion, Belewa is busy ‘fighting the fight of sit-down,’ as the Zulus used to call it.”
The intel gestured at the row of drone display monitors. “He’s ramped everything way back. Insurgency operations inside Guinea have almost come to a halt. He’s stopped shifting his political DPs into the border-crossing camps. He’s even closed out his smuggling pipeline in Côte d’Ivoire. He’s hunkering down and channeling whatever dribbles of fuel he has left into maintaining his civilian transportation and communications nets.”
“That sounds more to me as if your scenario was correct. He’s packing it in without a last gambit.”
“Not so.” Christine gestured pointedly with the emery board. “If that were the case, we’d be seeing endgame diplomacy. Belewa would be negotiating with the U.N., trying to cut the best deal he could. As is, he isn’t talking with anyone, except maybe the Algerians.”
“Then what is he up to, Chris?”
The little blond started on another nail. “He’s established a holding pattern and he’s waiting for something.”
“For what?”
“That is the problem. I don’t have a tenth of a percentile point of a clue. Whatever Belewa is setting up, we’re not seeing it. Our drone sweeps and our Elint downloads aren’t showing anything out of the ordinary. Whatever he’s hitting us with is something new, and it’s coming from way the heck out in left field.”
“Come on, Chris, this isn’t like you. There’s got to be something showing.”
“I’m sorry, boss ma’am. But the old crystal ball’s burnt out. Belewa isn’t giving me anything to work with. The only blip on the boards at all for the past two weeks has been some extra Algerian Airlines traffic into and out of Monrovia. This could be significant.”
Amanda crossed her arms. “How so?”
“I suspect that the Union and the Algerians are involved in some kind of negotiations or joint planning and they’re doing it all the old-fashioned way, face-to-face or by courier. They know how strong we are in signal and electronic intelligence, and they’re locking us out by not using any form of telecommunications in reference to this operation.
“Probably Belewa has set up the same kind of security protocols for any briefing and preparation work taking place in country as well. He isn’t taking the chance of even a single electron leaking out about whatever it is he’s planning.”
“Do we have anyone working the problem from the Algerian end?” Amanda inquired.
“LANTFLEETCOM and the Office of Naval intelligence are querying DIA and the National Security Agency for us on any unusual activity inside Algeria. Again so far, nothing outstanding.
“It sounds like he’s got us behind the curve again, Chris.”
“He does, fa’-certain-sure.” Christine glanced up soberly at Amanda. “I’m sorry, Amanda. I’m letting you down. I’ll keep working the problem, but I think he’s going to blindside us on this one.”
Amanda reached down and lightly ruffled her friend’s hair.
“It’s okay, Chris. I know you’ve given it your best shot. Besides.” she went on with a wry shrug, “I always did like surprises.”
Mobile Offshore Platform, Floater 1 0717 Hours, Zone time; September 7, 2007
The big Colt roared repeatedly, its barrel tracking along the arc of the hurled Coke can. A few inches above the wavetops, the can jerked sharply sideways, one end opening out in a blossom of frazzled aluminum.
“Yes!” Amanda yelped as the remnants splashed into the sea. “Yes, yes, yes!” Slapping the empty automatic down on their mess-table shooting bench, she looked over at her instructor in triumph.
Beyond the barge’s rail, the morning sun burned redly on the low wave crests, presenting its usual promise of steel-sizzling heat. Stripped to the waist and with his utility cover tugged down low over his eyes, Stone Quillain gave a single, sour shake of his head. “First time’s always luck. When you can do that twice in a row, maybe then we’ll be getting somewhere.”
Amanda cast a sour glance of her own. “You,” she said with great deliberation, “are totally insufferable.”
“Hell, woman. You’re supposed to be hitting what you shoot at. Don’t expect any hoorah out of me because you finally got around to doing what you’re supposed to. Reload those clips and let’s try it again.”
“You know, Stone, you’re beginning to sound just like my father,” Amanda grumbled, picking up a fresh box of .45 hard ball.
“Captain! Captain Garrett!” The call was muffled by her ear protectors. She looked around to see Scrounger Caitlin trotting toward the shooting stage from across the platform.
“What’s up, Scrounge?” she inquired, removing the headset.
“Operations sent me over when they couldn’t get you on the interphone link, ma’am. We got a blockade runner.”
Amanda stiffened. “Specifics?”
“The barrier patrol’s intercepted an Algerian oil tanker entering the exclusion zone. It’s refusing to heave to and it’s running at flank speed straight for Port Monrovia. The French corvette making the intercept is calling for backup.”
A cold chill trickled down Amanda’s spine in spite of the growing warmth of the day. The waiting was over. “Scrounger, go find Commander Lane and inform him I want the Queen readied for an immediate launch.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am!” The turbine tech bolted away on her new task.
Amanda glanced up at the helipads, checking to see what air assets were aboard and available. “Stone, I want two squads outfitted for boarding operations. One to come with us on the Queen, another rigged to fast-rope down from that CH-60 for a deck assault.”
“You got ’em.” He snatched his utility shirt and headed for Marine country, bellowing for Sergeant Tallman. Amanda scooped her mobile command interphone up off the shooting bench and settled the headphones over her ears.
“Operations, this is Captain Garrett. I have the word on the blockade runner. Take us to full alert. Flash Red, all task force elements! I say again, Flash Re
d, all task force elements!”
The Queen of the West howled southward into the open Atlantic, the Gold Coast fading to a haze line on the horizon behind her. At the navigator’s station in the cockpit, Amanda worked to bring herself up to speed on the developing crisis.
“Talk to me, Chris. What do we have?”
“We’ve got the tanker Bajara, boss ma’am. Algerian registry, twenty-four thousand tons displacement. The Lloyd’s database indicates she cleared Oran ten days ago with a mixed cargo of refined-petroleum products. Her listed destination was South Africa. However, I’ve just checked with Soucan Customs Control and with the harbor masters at both Cape Town and Durban. Nobody down there’s ever heard of her or is showing any Algerian oil inbound.”
“Right. Can you give me a visual on the target?”
“We have an Eagle Eye arriving over her now. Real-time imaging is up on your datalink. We are passing camera turret override control to your station.”
Amanda’s main monitor filled with an aerial view of the Algerian oil carrier: rust streaked, black hulled, and with a grimy buff-colored deckhouse right aft. At 24,000 tons displacement, she was far from being a supertanker, yet she dwarfed the petite 3,000-ton French corvette dogging her heels. Likewise, she carried enough fuel in her cargo cells to power the West African Union for half a year.
Amanda noted that the Bajara was running at nearly twenty knots. Smoke streaked thickly back from her stumpy funnel and the sea boiled beneath her stem and stern. Whoever was at the con of the Algerian tanker must be driving her until her engines lifted off the bedplates.
The Eagle Eye came to a hover over the blockade runner. Using her joystick controller, Amanda zoomed the little RPV’s camera in on the tanker’s decks. Stone Quillain silently leaned in over her shoulder and together they studied the image on the screen.
Not a soul was visible aboard the Algerian vessel. She might have been a ghost ship. For some reason, those empty decks and bridge wings magnified Amanda’s already growing apprehensions.
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