by David Poyer
“It does not matter what we are called. We are fighting the same enemy,” the smiling man observed. “That makes us all of one heart. Does it not, al-Amriki?”
Teddy poked him in the chest, hard, knowing he was pushing it, but with the knife gripped in his pocketed hand. “Fall in line, mac, or you’ll be standing in front of the imam yourself.”
Qurban coughed into a fist. Or was it a chuckle? “What is the worst you can do? You can beat me, I suppose. But is it done, to beat one who has already sacrificed so much for jihad? I think it is not. The worst would be to murder me, American. But I do not think you or I is fated to die just yet.”
Teddy gritted his teeth. He almost said try me but didn’t. Never warn a man you intend to kill. “Right now, we’re going inside. You’ll apologize to me in front of the squad leaders, then again in front of the rest.”
“It is as Allah wills,” said the bearded muj, spreading his hands. “Is it not written: ‘You should listen to and obey your ruler even if he is a black slave whose head looks like a raisin’?”
Teddy scowled. “Are you insulting me … comrade?”
“Far from it. I am praising you,” Qurban said. “But truly, al-Amriki, you are a puzzle. You pray with us. Fight alongside us. But have you fully opened your heart to God? That is what I do not understand, Mr. Oberg. Perhaps you do not see this clearly yet yourself.
“But the end of days is coming. The final battle. Soon you will have to choose, between your corrupt and murderous masters in Washington and the one Master in Heaven. But for now, let us shake hands. Then say a dhikr together and make peace between us, and I will do even as you say and apologize before the assembly.”
He bowed deeply, and stayed that way until Teddy, though still steamed, judged this not the time to press the point. He nodded curtly, and stepped away.
* * *
TRUE to his word, the guy apologized, at length, first in classical Arabic, with many flowery quotations from the Koran. Then in Uighur, stroking his beard and smiling beatifically. Even in apology, he seemed to be conveying something rebellious to those silent young men who stood at the back of the cave, separate from the others. Even when it was time for prayers they prostrated themselves with everyone else, but remained apart.
Teddy prayed too, but kept an eye on them. Oh yeah, Qurban had apologized.
But he still wouldn’t turn his back on this guy.
IV
THE REMOTEST REGIONS OF DEATH
19
Laguna Beach, California
LYING in bed before dawn, staring at his face as he slept, Cheryl wondered: What is this? What the hell am I doing?
Maybe the answer was simple.
Or perhaps more complicated than she’d ever dreamed.
The resort must have been super expensive before the war. Nestled deep in a green-forested canyon, it faced a golden beach and a lapis sea. Their two-story creekside cottage’s floor-to-ceiling windows looked up along the nature trail on one side. On the other, down onto the heated saline pool, and beyond that the golf course and riding stables. Morale, Welfare, and Rec had gotten her a special rate. Though now most of the cottages were empty, and they’d been almost alone out on the links, where she’d given Teju his first lesson.
Two days of freedom, before she had to be back. Forty-eight hours of pleasure, larded with guilt.
She hovered a finger five millimeters above black stubble on cocoa skin. His mother was Thai, his father Nigerian. “All my father’s family was tall,” he’d said. He’d grown up in Echo Park, in a family of six. He slept perfectly quietly. Unlike Eddie, who’d snored.
The minutes ebbed as the big room they lay in slowly became visible. A modernistic chandelier of twisted, tinted glass. High beamed ceilings. A gigantic bed, sized for newlyweds.
But this felt less like a honeymoon than an assignation. Not quite adulterous. But different from anything she’d ever done. At least, since college.
And definitely something that couldn’t last.
She got up quietly. In the bathroom she washed her face and gazed into her eyes.
I look every minute of thirty-six, she thought.
He was twenty-five.
She’d explained about Eddie, and Teju, in turn, had come clean about his wife. She’d been evacuated, he told her. No kids yet, though his older brothers both had large families. “You must have had lots of girlfriends,” she’d teased him over the dinner she’d ordered from room service. California cuisine. Lobster. In their cottage, brought by a silent black-uniformed woman who’d glanced at him as he lounged bare-chested in swim trunks, then had met Cheryl’s look with a collusive, eyebrow-arched half-smile. As if they were sisters, sharing some shameful but juicy secret.
Maybe it was just that clandestinity, that feeling she had to keep this under the radar, that made it so delicious. It wasn’t exactly against regs. The peacetime purges of commanding officers for extramarital affairs had been forgotten with the coming of war. And she wasn’t sure a union official who worked at the yard could really be considered in her chain of command, anyhow.
But it was definitely … out of the ordinary.
Was it about race? Or class? No, that was Oldthink. But no question, it would shock the wardroom if they saw their all-business, tightly wound skipper shacked up with a yardbird. No, a “shipyard worker.”
And Eddie … she just had to change her mind to another channel whenever something reminded her of him.
This was their first time, and probably the only one, so she’d wanted to make it special. Thus, the resort. They saw each other now and then during the day, on the ship. Teju seemed to spend more time aboard supervising now, and she suspected he was the main reason they’d retaken the lead from Itbayat Island. Now Hull #91 would be commissioned first.
In fact, today. She rubbed her face, noting, in the mirror, the sunburn flush on her cheeks. They’d thought about sea kayaking, but she wanted to walk the woods instead. Feel the pull of a hill in thighs and calves. So they’d taken the nature trail yesterday, holding hands, and on the canyonside had found a secluded bed of maidenhair fern shaded by live oak. The half-pain, half-heaven so wringing-sharp she’d cried out, staring up through the shifting patterns of light falling through the leaves.
Then wended their way back down, fingers entwined. No need for words, after what they’d just shared.
Then the pool, and the session on the links, where he’d been so abysmally bad they’d both collapsed in laughter.
Feeling each minute bleed away …
She shook her head, then lifted a monitory finger to herself in the mirror. But it had to end. Today. She sighed, brushed her teeth, sketched on light makeup, then padded back in. Changed silently, so as not to wake him. But midway through fastening her bra she felt his arms slide around her waist, his breath warm on her nape.
“You don’t need to do that just yet,” he whispered. And led her, once again, to the bed.
* * *
THE day would be hot. Already, as she headed toward the ship from the CO’s parking space, heat shimmered up from the concrete. Damn, she was sore. But she didn’t regret a minute of it. For the first time in months, she didn’t feel anxious. She checked her phone: an hour until the ceremony. Decent timing. She climbed the brow, which had been decorated with red, white, and blue bunting. Changed into whites in her stateroom.
The wardroom of the new Savo Island was no larger than that of the old, but she was glad to see they had the old silver out. Lenson had sent it ashore for storage early in the war, and back it would go to some obscure Navy vault for safekeeping after today, but now it sparkled, freshly polished, set out on spotless white tablecloths. Pastries. Coffee. Tea. Excellent.
“Good morning, Captain.” Mills, looking handsome indeed in short-sleeved trop whites.
She nodded. “Morning, Matt. What have we got today? Any issues?”
“We trimmed down the ceremony, like you wanted. No band, no bandstand. Just a short ceremony, rema
rks, then we break the pennant and come alive. Coffee and cake in the wardroom after.”
“Is Mrs. Calvin here yet?”
A gray-haired woman peeked in the door. “I’m Mrs. Calvin.”
Cheryl took a soft, frail-boned hand. Jeanne Moore Calvin was the granddaughter of Samuel Nobre Moore, last commanding officer of USS Quincy. Moore had been killed on the bridge by a direct hit during the 1942 battle for which Cheryl’s ship was named. Calvin would be the ship’s sponsor. “I’m so glad you could make it,” Cheryl said. “What with the crashes.”
“They sent me a priority pass. I was able to take the train.” They exchanged a few more polite words before Cheryl excused herself.
“Matt, we’ve got the music, I hope?”
“You said no band.”
She tensed. “We need the national anthem, XO!”
He patted her shoulder, a quarter inch short of patronizing. “Got it covered, Skipper. I have a recording. And a backup.”
She frowned. “Don’t pat my shoulder, Lieutenant.”
“Sorry. Just meant … I apologize.”
“Forget it,” she muttered. “Backups, good.” Christ, she was getting wound up again, just when she’d been congratulating herself on being relaxed.
Following the ceremony, the crew would get one day’s liberty, after which they’d get under way for shakedown exercises with air and submarine services in the Southern California oparea. A shipyard availability would correct anything the workup revealed. They’d head to Hawaii for fleet exercises, then ballistic missile defense qualification and certification with the Afloat Training Group.
From there, if they passed their final exam, Savo would be assigned to one of the new strike groups being formed for the counteroffensive.
Then it would be back to war.…
* * *
COMMISSIONING gave a ship her name. Until the ceremony, she belonged to the yard. Afterward, she was officially in the Navy. Part of history forever, though her battered fabric might lie fathoms deep in a distant sea, or be recycled into something new. Or like a very few, enough to count on the fingers of one’s hands, be preserved as a historic ship.
The proceedings today, in wartime, would be truncated. But still, not brief. She sat with ankles demurely crossed on the bunting-draped podium with Captain Cadden, the local congressman, the deputy commander, Third Fleet, and the other notables. Eddie would have been with her, if … if only. And Teju, well, he wouldn’t really fit in up here, though he was in the audience, five rows back.
They sweltered through remarks by the mayor of Long Beach, the congressman, then the shipyard commander. Mrs. Calvin gave a speech about the sacrifices her grandfather, and so many others, had made to stop the Japanese in World War II. At the end of her remarks, Cadden turned the hull over to Fleet, who accepted on behalf of the CNO and the Navy.
By then Cheryl was sitting in a pool of sweat. She hoped it wouldn’t show on the back of her skirt when she got up. Finally the admiral turned to her. “Now we’ll hear from the first commanding officer of the new USS Savo Island, and the last commanding officer of her namesake. Commander Cheryl Staurulakis, United States Navy.
“But first, a sidebar. As the skipper of a cruiser, is the rank of O-5 really appropriate? Cheryl, what do you think? Wouldn’t it be better if her CO was a full captain?”
A scatter of surprised laughter. She had to smile and nod, and pretend this was all a big surprise. She stood at attention as he replaced the shoulder boards on her trop whites with the four gold stripes of a captain. She stepped back, saluted, then shook his perspiring palm. So he was feeling the heat too. Wasn’t there any way she could cut this even shorter? Unfortunately, she didn’t think so.
Smoothing her pages out atop the podium, she looked out across the faces, over the heat-wavering pier, to the great flat slab of gray-painted steel that in moments would officially become a warship. Mills caught her eye and gave a nod. Apparently that meant the flag-hoisting party was standing by.
“Good afternoon. Congressman, Mr. Mayor, Mrs. Calvin. Admiral, Captain. The heads of teams for our major contractors. It’s very hot today, so I may abbreviate my remarks somewhat. But let me say first how happy I am to stand here today, and how proud.
“As others have mentioned, USS Savo Island, CGA-91, represents our newest class of surface combatant. It carries the latest antisubmarine, antiair, antisurface, and antiballistic missile armament of any ship of any country. Its new Alliance missile, with multiple kinetic kill vehicles, is AI-enabled to discriminate between decoys and live warheads. It offers a robust defense against heavy ICBMs in the midcourse phase.
“Our railgun and advanced beam weapons are game-changers. They will extend the reach and lethality of any force Savo Island accompanies. New survivability features will enable us to operate in the most hostile environments. As a multimission platform, with advanced command and control and intelligence fusion, the ship is designed to operate in many mission sets. With surface strike groups, carrier strike groups, other adaptive force packages, or on our own in tailored antiballistic missile protective missions. A new dynamic access network will provide high-bandwidth data exchange among air-, surface-, subsurface-, and ground-based tactical data systems, both U.S. and Allied.
“As the admiral said, ships of this class truly represent the best our country can produce.”
She took a breath and scanned the crowd. Skip the next part? No, it was tradition. “Our name commemorates a deadly naval battle fought north of Guadalcanal on August 9, 1942, an action in which our sponsor’s grandfather gave his life as a hero … which she has so vividly recalled for us.
“The first USS Savo Island, CVE-78, was a Casablanca-class escort carrier built in Vancouver, Washington. Commissioned in February 1944, she received four battle stars during World War II. She also received a Presidential Unit Citation for her service in the Western Carolines, the Philippines, and Okinawa between September 1944 and April 1945. This first ship to bear the name was struck from the Navy list in 1959.
“The second Savo, a Ticonderoga-class cruiser, was built at Bath Iron Works. She served with the Atlantic Fleet until transferred via the Med Sea and Indian Ocean as part of the rebalance to the Pacific. She received numerous commendations during her career, including the Presidential Unit Citation for her actions at the opening of the present war. I had the honor of commanding her.”
She looked to the sky, blinking to avoid tearing up. “That second Savo Island … after receiving battle stars for actions in the Taiwan Strait, the Battle of the Central Pacific, and Operation Recoil in the East China Sea, was lost in action during the nuclear attack on Hawaii. Many of the current complement, whom you see before you, are former members of her crew.”
She went through the obligatory thank-yous: the prime agencies and contractors, the subcontractors. “And especially, the yard personnel who worked alongside our deckplate sailors to install and test hundreds of systems, many brand-new to the fleet. It has been extremely beneficial for us to learn from and work beside them.
“Mr. Mayor, Congressman, we’ve been treated well by Long Beach and California. This city, too, will always be in our hearts.”
She took a breath. “To my sailors: You’ve met all the challenges presented by a first-of-class ship, with flying colors. I’m proud of you. I know you’ll bring the same expertise, teamwork, and toughness to working up with other elements of the fleet. Together we will sharpen USS Savo Island into the shining tip of America’s spear. We will give battle to our country’s enemies, and liberation to our allies in Asia.”
She gave it a pause, meeting their expectant gazes, then lowered her eyes again. “I will now read my orders.
“‘From: Chief of Naval Operations. To: Captain Cheryl F. Staurulakis USN.
“‘Effective immediately, proceed to the port wherein USS Savo Island may be and upon her commissioning, report to your immediate superior in command, if present, otherwise by message, for duty as commanding offic
er of USS Savo Island.’”
She turned to the admiral. “Sir: I am ready to take command.”
He saluted her gravely. “Carry out your orders, Captain.”
She turned to the waiting ranks of white-uniformed men and women. So few, really, to run such a massive ship. But they were ready. Mills turned, lifted a sword—crap, she hadn’t expected that—and boomed out, “Ship’s complement: atten-hut.”
The national anthem, from the topside speakers of the ship’s 1MC. Good.
“And the home … of the brave.”
“Ready … two.”
She dropped her salute, and stepped back to the mike. But remembered at the last second that traditionally the ship’s sponsor gave this first order. She gestured Mrs. Calvin forward. Bending to the microphone, the old lady intoned, “Officers and crew of USS Savo Island, man our ship and bring her to life!”
Atop the vestigial mast, the whiplike commissioning pennant broke. At the same moment, the ensign climbed into view on the fantail.
The rearmost rank of the crew stepped back, right-faced, and double-timed for the brow. They broke step as they crossed the long gangway. Disappeared for a time, then reappeared, lining up along the main deck, aft, the foredeck, and high on the bridge. Reaching position, each faced the pier and snapped to a crisp parade rest.
Mrs. Calvin was dabbing at her cheeks with a lace-edged handkerchief. Cheryl gave her an impulsive hug. “Thank you so much for coming,” she told her. Then drew herself up, turned to the admiral, and saluted.
He regarded her impassively, returned the salute, then dropped it and shook her hand. “Congratulations, Captain.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t give up the ship.”
“No sir. Never.”
“I guess you’ve proven that. Now take charge. Always do the right thing. And may God be with you.”
* * *
THAT evening, after cake and tea in the wardroom, and the formal dinner the city put on for them, she drove back to the resort.
