by Gordon Kent
At that point, his voice faded and the line began to crackle. Alan shouted, “You’re breaking up!” and he heard incoherent babble from the other end. He punched the phone off, watching the battery signal flash at him. How much time left?
He looked at the Harker’s radioman. “I’ve gotta have a radio link.” He threw the cell phone on the tilted desk. It had been shoved into his hand, still in its plastic wrapping, when he had left Norfolk—memory empty, ability to find satellites untested. Now he was concluding it was a piece of crap.
The communications man looked barely out of his teens. He had come through the explosion with a forearm slashed by flying glass, had stayed at his post, put out his calls for help. “I’m working on it. Can’t you make a local call someplace?”
Alan thought of local friendly assets. There used to be an air force unit at the airport, but they had been pulled out, and it was their abandoned hangars that his detachment was to use. The British had had a regiment up the coast for decades, but they were gone now, too. He thought of the two Kenyan officers he had fought alongside in Bosnia—what the hell were their names? And where were they now? And how would he reach them? The last thing he wanted to have to depend on was a third-world cell-phone network in the middle of a citywide riot. Would rioters tear down cell-phone towers? he wondered. Why not? As useful as burning cars, wasn’t it?
Suddenly, he said, “The Kenyan Navy—Jesus, they’ve got to be here somewhere! There’s got to be a Kenyan naval facility at Mombasa!” He picked up the cell phone and punched in a number that he hoped was right. “NCIS, Washington—they can find the Kenyan Navy for us. Shit—!” He looked around a little wildly; the cell phone wasn’t connecting with a satellite. “All this fucking metal—!” He stared at the communications man. “You got any local telephone numbers?”
The man opened his hands in helplessness, then gestured around them. The comm office was a mess; the ship had tilted, and what hadn’t been shaken by the blast was now tipped on the floor—pubs, gear, a cup of long-forgotten coffee.
“What’s your name?”
“Uh, Hansen—Joe.”
“Hansen, we’ve got to get a number for the Kenyan Navy.” He punched the numbers for NCIS Washington into the cell phone. It was ridiculous: he was halfway around the world and he was calling home. “If it doesn’t work, try a local operator. Try directory assistance, whatever the hell they call it here. Try our embassy; that’s in Nairobi. Try—”
A dark head popped in the broken door. “Fireboat is pumping water in—they think they got the fire limited now—” It was Patel, the Indian who had come down from the riot with him.
Alan ran out to the catwalk that curved around the superstructure. Water began to fall on him like rain: the fireboat.
“Great—!”
A bullet pinged off the steel bulkhead.
“Oh, shit—!” Instinctively, his wounded hand contracted into what was left of a fist.
Somebody had started shooting from one of the warehouses along the dock. Not a very accurate shooter, but real bullets. The few men available to do damage control on the Harker were belowdecks, thus safe from sniping; the wounded were up on the main deck now, protected for the moment by the ship’s list to port. But up here on the superstructure, they were exposed.
Three levels above him, Jagiello, another who had come with him from the city, was supposed to be sitting with the rifle Alan had taken from the sniper. He was a deer hunter, he had said. He’d drill anybody who tried anything.
Well, why wasn’t he shooting?
Alan crouched behind the solid starboard rail. “Hansen!”
“Sir—?”
Alan looked up, waved him down. “Get down on the deck—!”
“Get out here but keep down!” When the younger man appeared, apelike on toes and fingertips, he shouted, “Get down! Way down—that’s it. Try that cell phone out here.”
“I’ve got to get a radio hookup.”
“Try the cell phone—that’s an order.”
Neither of them was sure that Alan had official authority on the Harker, but Hansen seemed to recognize that Alan had authority of a different kind. He rolled on his elbow and began to punch the phone.
Alan drew the H&K and tapped two quick shots in the general direction of the sniper. “Fat lot of good that’ll do,” he muttered. Where the hell was the guy with the sniper rifle? He peered out through the gap between the steel plates of the bulkhead. The warehouse had a long row of clerestory windows, the glass blown out of every one by the blast. The shooter could be in any of them. It hardly mattered; the range was ridiculous for a pistol, anyway. Still— He saw movement, aimed quickly, fired. Behind him, Hansen was muttering into the cell phone, his long hair plastered to his head by the falling water.
“Got them?”
Hansen held up a hand, shook his head. Alan looked again at the warehouse, saw a silhouetted head, aimed more carefully, and fired. Hadn’t there been some famous pistol shooter who enjoyed shooting at gallon jugs at a hundred yards? Oh, yeah. Do better throwing wads of Kleenex.
“They won’t talk to me,” Hansen said behind him. His young face was red with anger. He held out the phone. “They’re asking me for ID.”
Alan grabbed the phone. “They still there?” He slammed the cell phone against his ear. “Hello! Now listen up. This is Lieutenant-Commander Alan Craik, U.S. Navy.” He rattled off his service number. “I’m under fire and I need help and who the hell are you?”
“Uh—sir, this is Special Agent Gollub, NCIS Washington. Uh, sir—”
“Goddamit, Gollub, don’t dick with me! I’m on a ship that’s been hit by an explosion, people are shooting at us, and I’ve got one goddamn pistol! Get me some fucking help!”
“Sir, we’re the Navy’s investigative serv—”
“Then fucking investigate! I want the contact info for the Kenyan naval facility, Mombasa, Kenya. Right now! Do it!”
“Uh, sir, your language is not—”
“Do you know Mike Dukas?”
“Uh, yessir, I know Special Agent Dukas by sight and repu—”
“Well, if you don’t find me that information right now, I am personally going to have him tear your fucking throat out, because he is my asshole buddy! You follow?” He put his eye to the gap in the steel plates, saw the head again, and fired. “Did you follow me, Mister Gollub? Hello? Gollub? Goddamit—!”
“You want the Kenyan Naval Maritime Patrol Center, Kilindini, Kenya. The telephone is 596-987. They communicate on the following frequencies: a hundred and—”
“Don’t tell me; tell this guy.” Alan handed the phone to Hansen. “Get the phone number; screw the frequencies.”
He looked through the gap again, saw the head, fired three shots. There! Bang-bang-bang—body, body, head! Right? No, missed with every one.
Gallon jugs at a hundred yards. Jesus! “Where’s that guy with the sniper rifle?” He tipped his head back, looked up the side of the superstructure. “Hey! Yo!” What the hell was his name? Jagiello! “Jagiello, what the hell are you doing?”
He scuttled into the comm shack after Hansen. “You get the number?”
“That guy said he was going to report you.”
“Right, I’m really worried about that. Did you get the number?”
“Yessir. What you want me to say?”
“You say that Lieutenant-Commander Craik, U.S. Navy, is asking—asking—for their support and cooperation. He is under fire on USNS Harker, hit by an explosion thirty minutes ago. We are in a hot zone—use those words, ‘hot zone.’ They got a problem, give me the—”
Both men lifted their heads as the unmistakable sound of a rocket engine whooshed closer. Hansen’s eyes were wide. “Hit the deck!” Alan shouted, but the missile was already by them, the sound decreasing, and then there was an explosion.
“Sir, sir—!” It was Patel, the lookout on the bridge. He came scrambling down the catwalk, half-fell into the room, still on all fours. “Sir, they
are shooting missiles at the fireboat! Now it is on fire!”
Houston.
Rose Siciliano Craik was accustomed to waking with first light. Mike Dukas’s call had come a little earlier than that, but now, fifteen minutes later, she was up and moving quickly through the habitual motions of the morning. Brush teeth, shower, turn on television; dress in T-shirt and jeans and slippers, make coffee, watch the clip on CNN, check e-mails, feed the dog, check the kids (both still sleeping), drink coffee. Try not to think about where her husband was. Make lunches while standing at the kitchen counter, a book of engineering drawings of the space shuttle open in front of her, because she was beginning astronaut training.
Try not to think about her husband.
Try not to think about her mother.
Her father had called her last night. Her mother, he said, had “gone funny.” It had taken her a while to get him to explain what he meant. Her mother was forgetting things. Had been, he confessed, for some time. I didn’t want to worry you.
Thinking, when she wasn’t thinking about her mother, of that three-fingered hand coming up on the television screen, knowing how much the wound dismayed him. A proud man, perhaps vain, hating disfigurement; former wrestler, too aware now of holds he couldn’t make. Stupid little things really throw us, she thought. Poor guy. His first lovemaking had been awkward, hiding the hand. At dinner, he had kept it in his lap.
Her mother had got lost walking to the store, her father had said. She had been walking the route for twenty years. She worried that black people were coming into her house. He had found her nailing the windows shut.
Rose wrapped the lunches, hers and Mikey’s and the baby’s for day care. She flipped from channel to channel, looking for more news. Most of them had the story now, but CNN had the most, the best. Still, there wasn’t enough to know what was going on.
She worried. He could be dying. Dead.
She worried about him because he was a risk-taker, impetuous. A glory hound, some Navy people said. No. More like a poet with balls of steel—idealist, hard case.
She had a tough day ahead. Two hours in the astronauts’ gym for VO2-Max and heart tests; an hour underwater in mock zero gravity; two hours hands-on on the engineering of the shuttle. Plus, just thrown at her by Mike Dukas, an obligatory half hour with NASA security to plan protection for her and the kids.
“For what!” she’d protested. “What am I being protected from, for God’s sake?”
Mike knew her temper and wasn’t fazed by it. Mike was in love with her, but he wasn’t afraid of her. “From whoever blew up that ship, babe. Listen to me! The family of every man on that ship is going to get the same message today—maximum alert, get security, protect yourself! It’s Uncle’s standard OP when there’s terrorism.”
“But why me? Mike, I’m up to my ass in work as it is!”
“Because your husband’s on the ship now and because he put his face on TV for every goddamn terrorist in the world to see. Babe! Trust me!”
“Oh, yeah.” She had pretended to argue, but she saw the point. If not for her, then for the kids. Dukas was to get on to NASA security as soon as he had hung up from talking to her; she was to warn Mikey’s camp and Bobby’s day care.
She wasn’t afraid for herself. But she’d kill to protect her children.
Reminded, she went back into the bedroom and slid open the drawer on her side. There, in a locked metal box, was her armpit gun, a Smith & Wesson Model 15. A revolver. Some guys had laughed at her for picking a revolver. But she liked the feel of it and the no-bullshit simplicity of it, and she liked the .38 Special plus-Ps that she shot in it. “Not a lady’s gun,” the fat man in the gun shop had said to her when she bought it, and she had said, “I’m not a lady.”
She aimed it at a spot on the wall. The sights lined up as if they had been programmed. She dry-fired every day, hit a range at least once a week, shot fifty-yard combat courses for fun.
There’s an old saying: be careful of the man—or woman—who owns only one gun. They’ll really know how to use it.
Two empty speedloaders were in the box with a carton of plus-Ps. She took them back to the kitchen and loaded them while she watched the news.
Nothing really new. Her husband was suspended in time and space, his three-fingered hand held out to the camera, trotting toward risk.
She worried. About him. About her mother. She didn’t even like her mother; what was she worrying about? Her father, whom she loved, and the effect on him? Or was the link to her mother too strong for “liking” to even matter?
She worried.
She wanted to talk to her husband. She wanted to hear his voice. To know he was alive.
She went back to the television.
USS Thomas Jefferson.
Captain Beluscio’s voice sounded strangled with tension. “Now what?”
The comm officer had just been handed a message slip and was reading quickly. “A message from the Harker. ‘Mob action in city and at dock gates. Local fireboat hit by shoulder-fired missile or grenade. Recommend send no air or surface help until situation resolved. Signed Craik.’ ”
The captain stared. “Who the hell is that?”
“Unh, the O-in-C of the S-3 det is named Craik. The guy they had to fly out of Pakistan a few weeks back, he lost part of his—”
Beluscio made an angry sound. Friend of Rafehausen’s. The chief of staff and Rafehausen were cat and dog—too close to each other in rank, with Rafehausen having only days of seniority; too different in temperament, the CoS tense, quick, Rafehausen laid-back. And the two men too often treated as opposites by the admiral, who liked competition among his officers.
“Craik,” the chief of staff growled now. “I remember. What the hell is he doing in Mombasa?”
The other man dared to grin. “You can watch him on CNN, sir.”
Mombasa.
Alan duckwalked along a line of wounded men, six in all. White, the cook, had patched them up, but there was blood on the deck, and one man was pumping blood from an almost severed leg despite a tourniquet.
“I got to get medical help!” White was saying.
“Nothing’s going in or out of the docks.” He looked down at the blood that was spreading slowly over the chipped gray paint of the deck. “Anyway, we can’t use local blood. Navy policy.”
The black man stared at him. What Alan had said didn’t register. “They could send in a rescue chopper!”
“Yeah, they could, if people weren’t shooting at us.” He glanced back toward the dock, but the tilt of the deck hid everything; he saw only thin, gray cloud.
“This man gonna die if he don’t get help!”
Alan gripped his big upper arm. “Save the ones you can save.” That was the moment when he realized that they all might die there. It hadn’t occurred to him before—but here they were, cut off from the city, easy targets, with Alan the only shooter. He was carrying the sniper rifle himself now, because Jagiello, it turned out, had panicked and forgotten to take his safety off when the shooting started.
Alan looked up at the blown-out windows of the starboard wing of the bridge.
“Patel!”
The dark head of the lookout appeared. “Sir!”
“What’re the Kenyans up to?”
“Very active in aid of finding the missile launcher! Twenty or more guys running about! Some shooting!”
Hansen had got on to the Kenyans twenty-five minutes before. Now, two hundred feet beyond where the Harker’s sloping deck met the water, the crippled fireboat, its radars shorn off and its deck littered with metal fragments, had stopped pumping water on the Harker but had stabilized itself. Alan had to be grateful for the hit on the fireboat, because, without it, the Kenyan Navy wouldn’t have come out.
Beyond the fireboat, a Kenyan Nyayo-class Thornycroft cruised slowly between the docks; beyond it, eighty yards from where he stood, he could see the tiny figures of Kenyan sailors swarming over an anchored dhow. He guessed that they were search
ing the ships there—too late—for more snipers and missile launchers.
It occurred to Alan that the hundred-foot Kenyan patrol boat carried a potent surface-to-surface missile that he hoped they wouldn’t decide to use in these close quarters. As if in answer, the boat could be heard to back its engines, bringing it to a stop, and at once a 20mm repeating cannon opened up. Instinctively, Alan ducked, but he heard the rounds hit behind him and knew that the Kenyans had solved the problem of the sniper in the warehouse: they had taken out what was left of every window in the wall—and the wall, as well. (And collateral damage beyond? he was thinking as he ran to a ladder and started for the bridge.)
It had turned out that the Kenyan Navy had a facility two docks down from where the Harker lay. They had gone on full alert when the explosion had gone off, putting their three boats to sea and hunkering down for some kind of assault, but they never explained why they had not at least sent somebody to gather intelligence on what had happened. Alan suspected some sort of wrangle between the Navy, a minor part of the Kenyan establishment, and the Army, with the GSU thrown in on the Army’s side. More to the point, perhaps, was the huge fuel depot that sat behind where he now knew the Navy installation was: they were guarding that, they said, because if the explosion that destroyed the Harker was repeated there, all of Kilindini, maybe all of Mombasa, could be afire. At least that was the explanation the government would give later, although by then there were rumors that somebody had ordered the Navy to stay in barracks to keep them from helping the Harker.
Alan ducked as he came out on the bridge’s wing. He glanced aside, saw the shattered roofline of the warehouse.
“Done nicely,” Patel said from the windowless bridge.
“Very nicely.”
Alan went up one level to the communications space, where Hansen was still trying to patch in a secure transmission unit.
“How you doing?”
Hansen had established a radio link to the Jefferson, but it wasn’t yet secure. Until he had secure communications, Alan couldn’t tell the CV anything but the bare bones of what was happening. He had been trying to raise LantFleet, Norfolk, on his cell phone again, but as soon as he got somebody on the line, he’d lose the connection. He tried once more, waited two minutes, then gave it up. He laid the cell phone on Hansen’s table. “If they call back, tell them I tried.”
