by David Poyer
“Has anybody showed up yet from the shipyard?”
“There’s an estimator or something up in the log room.”
“Let me have a minute with Mr. Armey; then we’ll go talk to him.” Dan ran his hand over the damaged section. The firebrick came apart under his hands, gritty and frangible. It could take a thousand degrees of flame, but it was delicate as porcelain. It left a black stain on his hands that didn’t rub off even when he was back in his cabin, washing his hands as he changed for lunch.
* * *
HUSSAIN Khashar was in British-style whites. Dan stared at the four broad stripes on Khashar’s wing-curved shoulder boards. A shock, and not a pleasant one. He’d assumed everyone called the Pakistani “Captain” because he was taking over as skipper. Khashar was nearly six feet tall, but his legs were short, making him seem top-heavy as he grasped Dan’s hand and revealed strong yellow teeth. “Assalam o-aleikum. The blessings of God upon you.”
“Uh, upon you, too,” said Dan. “You know Commander Beard and Commander Juskoviac.” Khashar nodded to the exec but didn’t seem to see the ship transfer officer.
They sat down to fish sandwiches and fries. Foley served, not with any flair, but he got the plates from the tray to the table.
Khashar took out a pack of Camels when the meal was over, and Dan noted a jewel-encrusted Rolex on his wrist. He lit a cigarette and opened with, “I wondered whether to show up for your change of command. Finally I decided it should be an all-American function. Commander Ottero and I had differences.”
Dan said, keeping his voice bland, “Differences?”
“My government has put twelve million dollars into this account. As far as I’m concerned, this is my ship. We won’t be working together long, you and I, but I hope you’ll be more helpful, more flexible, than he was.”
Dan turned to Beard, asking if they might take a look at the turnover schedule. She spread a file before them. In a flat voice, she pointed out where they should have been by this time. Dan frowned. “You mean we were three weeks behind even before the explosion?”
“Purely administrative,” Khashar put in. “The only essential element is the training. And that’s on schedule.”
“It’s not on schedule,” Beard told him. “Withdrawal of personnel from schools without meeting test standards does not constitute acceptable training.”
“It does if I’m satisfied with their progress.”
“I’m talking about operating the automatic combustion controls. Weapons system maintenance. Sonar acoustic analysis. How can you judge their progress?”
“But you insist that all training, and all tests, must be conducted in English.” Khashar spread his hands. “How much can we realistically expect? If they can demonstrate basic knowledge of the systems, we can figure the rest out in service.”
Beard said, “On the job, you mean? You could train on the auxiliary systems that way. But engineering, ordnance, that’s a stupid approach.” She stopped herself. “Not stupid—I didn’t mean that—just risky.”
But her apology came too late. Khashar had withdrawn to some higher plane, where he neither heard nor could be bothered with those below. He sipped his coffee, lit another cigarette, and stared out the porthole at the upperworks of a passing freighter in the channel.
A double rap on the door, an inthrust shaggy head. The ponytailed man in an old-fashioned foul-weather jacket introduced himself as their ship supervisor. “Can’t stay long, Captain. We’re working everybody overtime on the Connie. May be longer than you like before we can get to you.”
“I meant to ask you about that. If it’s a question of triage, getting hulls into service fast, we’re a better investment than a ship with a big backlog of work.”
The ship supe looked puzzled. “Right, but I understood you were slated for overseas sale. Isn’t that right? Transfer to, uh, Egypt?”
Dan hesitated, caught between Munro’s warning and Khashar’s questioning look. Finally he said, “No, Pakistan. But the end result’s the same, another combat-capable ship in the Middle East.”
“I’d cut you a break if I could. But we’re at capacity right now.”
“That’s not what I hear.”
The supe looked surprised; then his face hardened. “What do you hear? Captain?”
“I’m told if this gets tagged as a hot job, management can ask for volunteers from the planners and supervisors, to go back to the tools and help out. I’ve got a committed wardroom and two committed crews. Put them together with some experienced craftsmen and we’ll get this job done.”
“And why should we tag this as a hot job?”
“Because the United States of America made an agreement with a foreign government. I’m willing to go to twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week, to keep that commitment.” Dan got up, picking up his cap. “I’m headed over to the shipyard commander’s office. Captain Khashar, Commander Beard, would you do me the favor of accompanying me?”
“You’re not going to make yourself popular over there, pulling that card out,” Beard said.
“Sometimes you have to accept that as a cost of doing business,” Dan told her.
3
NINE days later, he held tight to a jagged hot sheet of steel as a volcano of sparks flamed past his squinted eyes. After long seconds the howling torch waned. Blinking, he sucked smoky air through his dust mask. Then the man holding the air arc shifted his boots and jammed the nozzle against the casing again, and the roar built anew.
He was in the boiler room, surrounded by ship’s force in green coveralls and yard workers in disposable outfits and red and gray hard hats. Since they’d started, Dan had been going down several times a day to observe. He didn’t think of himself as a back slapper, but he knew every man worked harder if he saw the CO was personally into getting the job done.
Jim Armey, who seemed to spend twenty-four hours a day on the job, had explained that ripout was the first order of business. The boiler was surrounded by fuel lines, fuel oil control valves, air flow transmitters, and sensing piping. It all had to be torn out or moved so they could gain access to the work area. That had taken four days. Next, they had to remove the damaged casing panels. There were actually two casings on the boiler, inner and outer, separated by stainless-steel stiffeners that allowed movement from thermal expansion. A few of the least damaged panels could be repaired in place, but most had to be cut out. The air arc, from which his ears were still ringing, combined a high-temperature welding arc to melt the metal with an air jet that blew it away. It made a deafening roar and filled the boiler room with dense black smoke, but it was fast.
The next job, which they’d start at midnight, was to begin air-chipping out the firebrick and mortarlike cast refractory that covered the firetubes. Only then would the boilermakers be able to reach the tubes themselves.
As the deafening whine built again, he headed for the ladder, pulling himself out of the engine spaces into the only slightly less grimy passageway outside the mess decks. His coveralls, like those of the men he left behind, were coated with a gritty powder.
They were making progress. But it had taken a personal call on COMNAVBASE Philadelphia, two meetings with the shipyard commander, and an appearance before the Metal Trades Council, the shipyard’s equivalent to a union council.
Of course there’d been a price. Admiral Girault had been faultlessly correct, but icy, and Dan knew word traveled. He had a reputation already as a loose cannon. Add to that a name as a troublemaker, and he could kiss his career farewell.
The second price had been with the crew. He’d called BuPers and told them he was holding personnel they’d slated for transfer. Juskoviac had been in his cabin within the hour, protesting that Lenson was lousing up arrangements he and Ottero had made to get career-enhancing billets for the men being transferred off.
Dan had studied his exec’s sulky pout for a moment. His initially neutral impression of the man was changing rapidly to dislike. Juskoviac’s moods altered unpredicta
bly, almost manically. At times he was all energy and enthusiasm, like a puppy who wants to be picked up. At other times he was sullen and hostile. Dan could live with emotional lability, but he’d also noticed Juskoviac had to be reminded, warned, and bird-dogged in order to get anything done, a fatal drawback in a ship’s XO. Now he said, “Sorry, Greg. I already made the call.”
Juskoviac had closed the door. “We’re going to be facing a real morale crash when this gets out.”
“Then they’d better hear it from us first.”
“You’d better announce it yourself. Sir. Because I don’t think it’s necessary.”
Dan overlooked his tone, for the moment. He remembered how difficult it had been when he was an XO to speak bluntly to Captain Shaker. “You know what we’ve got to do, Greg. We’ve got to have the bodies to do it with.”
“But have we really got to do it? Screw the guys on their next assignments and work them like dogs, just to turn it all over to the Pakis two weeks early? You’re letting this acting CO thing go to your head.”
Dan had risen then, letting his anger show. “I can’t force you to agree with me, Greg, but I damn sure expect you to support me in public. Or, if you can’t do that, keep your mouth shut. Yeah, I’ll go on the 1MC and explain why we’re holding people.”
And Juskoviac had been right, at least in part. Chief Mellows had filled Dan in on what was circulating on the mess decks. He was aware of a coolness when he made his daily rounds. But there hadn’t been any actual protest, no notes in the suggestion box or calls from congressmen. The enlisted were holding off, giving him the benefit of the doubt. Dan knew why, or hoped he did. The Allies were building up their forces in the Gulf, flying in air wings and troops. Everyone still hoped Saddam would back out, retreat from the occupied territory, but there was no sign yet of anything but a determination to hold.
“We may need her.” That was how Munro had put it.
Back in his cabin, Dan stripped off the coveralls. There was enough shore steam for hot water, and he tried his best to relax in the sheer animal pleasure of floods of it.
The phone, right outside. No matter if you were squatting on the can, there was always a phone near the CO. He shut off the water reluctantly. Naked, shivering, he said, “USS Gaddis, commanding officer, this is a nonsecure line.”
“Dan? Is that you?”
“Blair,” he said, smiling.
He’d met Blair Titus in Bahrain, during what was for him an all-too-brief port visit during Operation Earnest Will and for her a tour as defense staffer for Sen. Bankey Talmadge. At the time Dan had thought that was it: one snatched night; knowing only that he’d always remember her; that in years to come he’d see her likeness in others who passed him on the street, in malls, on beaches. She would be part of what made him himself; he would take the smell of her hair and the feel of her lips with him into the darkness. But then he’d found her again on the heat-baked tarmac at Manama when he arrived with the other Van Zandt survivors.
Since then they’d spent weekends together and gone hiking and camping in the Blue Ridge. He’d been out to Charles County to meet her family. No promises, no commitments, just a strange sort of camaraderie, respect, and (he had to admit) great sex.
Neither had much time for the other. Or for much of anything but work. That was the price you paid, he figured, for being dedicated to what you did.
But sometimes he wondered if what you got was worth what you were charged. He came back to being naked, dripping, holding the phone and her saying, “I was calling because the base closing commission’s going to be in Philly and I can make it an overnight. If you want.”
“Sure. We’re pretty busy here, but—sure! When?”
“Thursday. I’ll have my assistant set something up. I don’t think I want to be down near the shipyard area. That’s in South Philly, right?”
“Yeah—why not?”
“Haven’t you heard? About the Philly Ripper?”
“Sorry, I haven’t been following the news.”
“They found one woman dead, and pretty badly mutilated. Another was attacked and escaped but couldn’t give much of a description.”
“No, I haven’t heard about that. I’ve had my head inside these repairs. Thursday, fine, it’ll be nice to see you. What time’ll you be in?”
She said she wasn’t sure but would have her assistant call. She made a kissing noise and said good-bye.
A tap at the door: Foley. The seaman stared, then coughed into a fist. “Excuse me, sir. Quarterdeck wants to know where you wanna hold the progress conference.”
Dan grabbed for the towel. “Uh, make it in the wardroom. Call damage control central, see if they can get the word to Mr. Armey to meet me there.”
* * *
HE was on his way when shouting came from a ladderway, a clang of metal on metal. He wheeled, dropped a deck, and came off the ladder into a pushing, shouting melee.
“Marsh” Mellows, the big chief master-at-arms, held two people apart at its heart. One was a livid Pakistani; the other, a snarling woman in coveralls and a yellow hard hat. “What’s going on?” Dan said as all eyes swung to him.
“Got a situation, is all,” said Mellows, still holding them both, the Pakistani and the woman, well separated. He did look like Mr. Clean, just as burly but sort of friendly at the same time, with knotted curly eyebrows like Leonid Brezhnev. “You don’t need to get involved in this, sir.”
He liked Mellows—had come to depend on the chief master-at-arms’s calm efficiency, the way he seemed to know everything the crew said or even thought. Still, he didn’t like the mix of angry sailors. “Maybe I’d better.”
The chief said reluctantly, “Seaman Usmani here. Sounds like the son of a bitch couldn’t keep his hands to himself.”
“How about it?” Dan asked the woman. Before she could answer, someone else said, “She’s one of the yardbirds. She says he came on to her, started humping her ass like a dog.”
“Is you the captain? I’m filing a complaint on this filthy animal.” Powell was young, stocky, a grimy canvas toolbag over her shoulder. “This little prick been hassling me all day. Make sucking noises when I go by. Then I goes to get a drink of water and he come up behind me. That’s when he says it.”
“What did you say to her, Usmani?”
“All I say, I bump into her, I say, ‘Excuse me, please’.”
“Like shit. He said, ‘Screw me, please.’ Then he start pushing his crotch into me. I’m putting in a paper. This ain’t right, that all—”
“Great, great.” Dan looked at the guy, already sorry he’d gotten involved. Mellows had tried to warn him. More people were arriving, coming down from the mess decks, hanging on the ladder. He couldn’t let it go by. On the other hand, he wasn’t certain how far his authority over the foreign crew extended.
“Is there a problem here?” said a British-accented voice.
Dan half-turned, but Khashar was already pushing past him.
The sailor’s eyes had time only to widen before the captain slapped him, followed by a torrent of abuse. Khashar turned to Powell. “These men see American television, movies. They watch the women naked in bars, offering themselves. They think this means all American women. This man will be broken in rank and restricted to the ship until we return to Pakistan. I hope this will be satisfactory?”
“You didn’t need to hit him,” said the worker. “I figured chew his ass a little, that kind of thing.… You didn’t have to hit him.”
Dan said, “So you’re satisfied?”
“Long’s it don’t happen again, and none of those others starts grabbing me. I’m here to do a job. Leave me alone, it’ll get done.”
Usmani stood against the bulkhead, face blank, cheek reddening where he’d been struck.
Mellows shouted, “You guys all got work to do, don’t you? Or do I need to think up something?”
The knot broke, drifted apart. The situation seemed to be defusing itself. But when Dan looked after
the dispersing sailors, he noted the way the Americans stayed an arm’s length from the Pakistanis, how they didn’t intermingle at all.
4
THE lobby of the Four Seasons smelled of perfume and flowers. Low sofas and armchairs and an antique sideboard holding an immense Chinese vase of fresh gladiolas were scattered over the silver-veined marble floor. The concierge asked, “Can I help you, sir? You look as if you’re lost.”
“No, no, just waiting for someone.”
He was turning from an eighteenth-century engraving when he saw her through heavy glass, a doorman dressed like a Ukrainian general ushering her in. He lifted a hand and her face lit up and she swung toward him, tall and cool and looking so damn good, feeling so damn good in his arms.
“How fares the BRAC? Are we losing the navy yard?”
“I’m not actually on the committee. But base closing and consolidation’s obviously one of Armed Services’ prime concerns.” Blair Titus checked out the lobby, then him. “You look tired. How about tea? Or would you rather just do room service?”
“I’ve never been a big fan of tea.”
* * *
THEY lay together, when they were both exhausted, close as the twists of a cruller, and the touch of her legs against his, scratchy here and petal soft within, was sweeter than powdered sugar. He felt himself relaxing for the first time in weeks. He opened his eyes to examine her closed lids, the lashes lowered to shade the penetrating intelligence of her gaze. He cupped a white breast and let his drift closed, too.
The first time, in Manama, he’d been wary of her, wary of love. Disappointed twice, once by divorce and once by death, he’d tried to fight clear. But it hadn’t worked, and though he hadn’t told her yet and they had never discussed it seriously, he knew now he was one cooked gosling.
Some time later she stirred, and he jerked awake. She yawned, lifting a bare arm shining with fine golden hair to check her watch. “You awake?”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to drift off.”
