by Noah Mann
“That’s the way not to do it,” I said.
“Thanks for the demonstration,” Schiavo said, allowing a nervous chuckle.
I attempted the crossing again, successfully this time, with Martin ready to steady me against the ship’s motion. After I was safely across, Schiavo followed, her husband and I both giving her an assist to ensure there were no more near misses.
I glanced to the other balcony we’d just left, and the opening to the interior of the ship. No one was coming after us. I’d told Schiavo just moments before that something wasn’t right. I felt that more strongly now.
“Fletch...”
Schiavo called to me from the opening to the ship’s interior. Martin and Hart were already inside, making their way to the stairs Martin had earlier discovered. We were leaving Lana’s lair behind.
But I had a terrible feeling that we hadn’t left it behind for good.
Twenty Three
The stairs led to the hangar deck as Martin said they would. As in the rest of the ship, lights had been selectively reactivated, though only a few burned in the vast space beneath the flight deck, hardly enough to reveal much.
Except our position.
“The rope’s still there,” I said.
The faint light was enough to show that the rope we’d rappelled down, and which Westin and Laws had ascended, still swung from its anchor point, whipping about in the open elevator well. We had to get to it to reach our friends, and our only way off the carrier. Doing so would require a dash across the open space.
“A lot of shadows out there,” Hart commented.
There were. In recesses along the hangar deck’s outer wall, anyone could be hiding.
“Another ambush?” Schiavo wondered, looking to me.
I shook my head. Despite my uneasy feelings about our seemingly unmolested escape, a second attack on us here, on the hangar deck, seemed illogical.
“If she wanted to she could hit us up top,” I said. “With everyone and the plane vulnerable.”
“She has the run of the ship,” Martin said, adding credence to my observation.
“Move and cover,” Schiavo said, nodding to her medic to take the lead.
Hart rose from the cover we’d taken and jogged across the hangar deck, positioning himself near the edge of the aircraft elevator where he secured the swinging rope with one hand and covered our continuing advance with the rifle in his other.
Martin went next, running with difficulty, his injury slowing him down appreciably.
“You’re tail gunner again,” Schiavo said.
I nodded and she headed out across the space just as Martin reached cover. Once she was safely with the others, I rose and ran, scanning the shadows and glancing behind, wary of some ambush that, in other situations, would be almost certain given the lay of the land. None came, though, and I reached the elevator, taking the slack end of the rope from Hart.
“I’ll cover topside and get help to haul Martin up,” I said.
“Sorry about the bum leg,” he said.
He didn’t want to be a burden on anyone, but there was no way he could use the rope to walk himself up the side of the elevator well.
“Have you up in no time,” I told Martin.
The shotgun I’d acquired, a Benelli M1, had no sling attached to it. Ignoring most rules of proper handling, I made sure the safety was on and slid the long weapon between my belt and pants, securing it as one might a sword in a scabbard. Then I gripped the rope and pulled myself up, planting my boots on the steel wall and creeping upward, hands pulling, feet walking, the broken and bandaged finger almost an afterthought now. Within a minute I was at the edge of the elevator well where it met the flight deck. A small recess there allowed me to slip one boot in for a foothold while I brought my shotgun back up and peered over the edge.
We had no way of knowing if any of our friends were still there, but when I peered across the wide landing strip I could see, in the weak glow of lights which had come on like those below, Carter Laws and Chris Beekman crouching near the corner of the jamming structure, weapons at the ready.
I hauled myself fully onto the flight deck and crouched low.
“Hey!” I shouted, loud enough to cut through the constant wind buffeting the ship and screaming across the deck.
Carter and Beekman looked at the same instant, weapons swiveling. Both, fortunately, were able to see that it was not an enemy calling to them, but a friend. The Corporal signaled for the pilot to stay with the plane, then he jogged across the deck to where I’d appeared.
“Fletch.”
“It’s good to see you, Carter,” I said, scanning the space beyond him once more. “Where’s Ed?”
“He got into the island,” Carter said, pointing to the superstructure rising on the starboard side of the ship. “He’s working on the radio. Should I get him?”
I shook my head. Schiavo had charged Sergeant Ed Westin with establishing some sort of communications link with Bandon. That was vital. Carter and I could manage what needed to be done at the elevator, leaving Beekman to guard the Cessna.
“Give me a hand,” I told Carter.
Five minutes later we had Hart, Schiavo and Martin on the flight deck. We crossed it with Carter, the first licks of rain from a building storm starting to fall.
“The plane is good?” Schiavo asked.
“The plane is fine,” Beekman assured her. “We felt an explosion.”
The blast which we’d set off to gain access to Lana’s section of the ship had been transmitted through the structure, alerting our friends, as well as her people, that we had breached their barrier.
“That was us,” I said said, nearly toppling over when the ship rolled hard with a wave.
I took a moment to update Beekman on what had transpired below. When I was done, he looked across the rainy deck and clutched his compact shotgun a bit more tightly.
“I’m ready to get off this ship asap,” he said.
“Join the club,” I agreed.
A few yards away, Martin stumbled as Schiavo talked with Corporal Wells and Sergeant Hart. I hurried over and helped him to a position under the Cessna’s wing, partly shielded from the elements. He leaned against the fuselage and took his weight off the offending limb.
“You think it’s broken?” I asked, gesturing to his ankle.
He shook his head.
“Did that when I was nineteen and invincible on a dirt bike,” he shared. “Different feeling. It’s just twisted. I banged it up good.”
“You know, that took some guts,” I said. “What you did down there.”
Martin shrugged off the praise.
“I was trying to reach a better position when I saw those guys moving on you and Angela. That hole swallowed me before I knew it.”
“Still,” I said.
He understood that I was trying to be both complimentary, and thankful. He’d saved us down there, and his covert scouting had allowed us to return to where we now stood.
“Fletch...”
It was Schiavo. She motioned me over as Hart and Laws moved to positions to secure more of the flight deck.
“Give that ankle a rest,” I told Martin, then joined Schiavo.
“Join me in the island,” she requested.
Westin was in there, according to Carter Laws. Working whatever magic he could with the remnants of the carrier’s communications system.
“Let’s go,” I said.
It was vital that he succeed, I knew. And I suspected why that was so, considering what Schiavo might do with the ability to communicate should Westin be able to provide that to her.
Twenty Four
We found Westin several levels up in the island, the upper half of his body twisted into the space beneath a console he’d pried open.
“I’m close, I think,” he told us as we waited. “Just a minute more.”
“I’m counting on you, Ed,” Schiavo said, her words praising and prodding at the same time.
I
looked around the space, a few lights on here. It seemed to me that the job Lana’s people had done on the carrier had left some spaces with only dim emergency lighting, and other areas, such as those she controlled, with a full complement of illumination. I wondered if that was going to be a problem for the garrison’s com expert.
“Do you have power in there?” I asked.
“Just enough amps,” Westin answered, his reply muffled somewhat by thin steel panels and bundles of unused cables still stuffing the electronics cabinet.
Similar metal boxes were arranged along the outer wall of what must have been the bridge. Commands were given here, at one time, to guide the ship. To steer it into ports. Or into war.
Now, though, the majority of the floor space was bare. Where navigation consoles and controls had once been located, only severed conduits remained, poking up from the floor. There was no ship’s wheel for steering. No chair for the captain. Someone had either moved those things to a different part of the vessel, for use there, or they’d simply wanted to remove all ability to control the carrier from this space.
Westin finished and wriggled his way out of the space beneath the console, unspooling a length of coaxial cable with him. He passed one end up to me and stood, hunching over the radio he’d brought along, removing its antenna and attaching the end of the cable to it.
“Will it work?” Schiavo pressed him.
“I’m tapping into the ship’s antenna array,” the com specialist said. “But I have no way of knowing which array. It could be HF or UHF or...”
He wasn’t certain. Worse, he was worried that he was failing his commander.
“Ed,” Schiavo said, and the sergeant looked to her. “You’re doing your best.”
Westin accepted the reassurance with a nod.
“We’re getting some power from the ship, but I don’t know how much will match to our output,” Westin said.
“Meaning?” I asked him.
“Meaning we could transmit a thousand miles skipping off the atmosphere, or two hundred yards to the end of the flight deck.”
Schiavo reached out and he passed the handheld radio to her to her.
“We’ll know soon enough,” Schiavo said, then glanced to me.
Normally it would be Schiavo asking her subordinate to leave a space so that matters above his pay grade could be discussed. She’d very openly delegated that task to me. Westin didn’t understand why, but I did. She wanted me there because I was already a party to what was to come.
Viper Diamond Nine...
“Ed, can you give us the room,” I said.
“And ask Martin to come up,” Schiavo added.
Through one of the thick windows angled down toward the flight deck, I could glimpse Martin standing awkwardly with Beekman and the other two members of the garrison who’d come to the carrier. All stood at the ready, guarding the plane, Martin still taking the weight off his injured leg by leaning against the fuselage. The Cessna was our lifeline to civilization. To Bandon. Without it...
Without it we would die at sea along with anyone left on the carrier.
“Will do,” Westin said, then he hustled off the bridge.
“It’s only one-thirty,” I said.
Schiavo nodded. The sub, if it still existed, was supposed to be listening for our call at 3 in the morning or 3 in the afternoon. We were 90 minutes shy of the former.
“To hell with the clock,” Schiavo said. “Someone has to be monitoring the radio.”
After years of waiting for a call that, to this point, had not come, and might never come, would any surviving members of the sub’s crew be listening at an off hour? And, if they were, would they heed our call at this time?
“How long is the flight to Bandon, Fletch?”
I did some quick calculations, and added those to my recollections of the nearly completed round trip I’d made with Chris Beekman.
“Figure an hour and fifteen minutes,” I said. “Give or take.”
“Say an hour and a half to be safe,” Schiavo said. “A three-hour round trip. That gives us three hours.”
The ‘us’ she’d said included me, I knew. And likely Martin, as well.
“I’m sending my guys back on the first flight with Beekman,” she said.
“And us?” I asked.
“We wait,” she said.
“Wait for what?”
We looked toward the entrance to the bridge and saw Martin standing there, M4 slung. He hobbled toward us, supporting himself with handholds on the battered consoles which had once aided in controlling the mighty vessel.
“Wait for what?” he repeated.
“Viper Diamond Nine,” Schiavo said, confirming my realization.
She’d brought Martin into her confidence regarding the power the President of the United States had granted her. The power to obliterate entire cities by ordering the launch of nuclear tipped missiles from a submarine that might, or might not, still be cruising the Pacific. I’d shared the same information with Elaine when Schiavo had given me that very same power. The two of us now held in our memory a series of letters and digits which would allow destruction to rain down upon a hostile town.
Or upon a lone aircraft carrier at sea.
“You’re going to nuke the Vinson,” Martin said.
“A hundred and thirty miles from Bandon,” I said. “Is that a safe distance? There could be effects.”
“It will be fine,” she said.
“You sound confident,” Martin said.
“I am.”
Over the next few minutes she explained why what she was going to do would leave Bandon in the clear. But there was still one huge question to be answered.
“What if the sub isn’t there anymore?” I asked and reminded her all at once.
“That’s why Martin is here,” Schiavo said, turning to her husband. “Fletch and I will put out the call to the sub. You get back to the plane and tell Beekman he’s taking Westin, Hart, and Laws back to Bandon first. Before he heads back for us, I want him to have Lieutenant Lorenzen load three hundred pounds of C-Four on the plane.”
I understood immediately.
“If the sub isn’t out there, or can’t hit the ship in time, we’ll sink the Vinson ourselves.”
Schiavo nodded at my supposition.
“We’re on a clock, Martin,” she said.
Her husband nodded, then left the bridge, limping as he made his way back to the flight deck. Schiavo looked to the radio in hand, coax cable running from its antenna port and disappearing beneath the open console.
“You remember the frequency, Fletch?”
I did, and I read it back to her from memory. She confirmed the numbers and entered them on the unit’s keypad. She brought it up to her face and paused, looking at me for a moment before pressing the transmit button.
“This is Viper Diamond Nine,” Schiavo said. “Please respond.”
Schiavo released the mic switched and listened. There was only silence.
“This is Viper Diamond Nine,” she repeated. “Come in.”
Once more we listened, Schiavo dialing the radio’s squelch down now to allow static through. If a weak signal was all the sub could manage, she didn’t want it masked by the radio’s noise cancelling feature.
“The three o’clock thing could be a hard rule,” I said. “They may only surface at that time. If they’re submerged, they’re not going to hear a call from—”
“Viper Diamond Nine, this is the USS Louisiana.”
Schiavo looked to me, visibly shocked, as the reply cut me off.
“USS Louisiana,” Schiavo said. “It’s...good to...it’s good to hear you’re still with us.”
There was a pause. A long pause. As if some discussion regarding our contact was happening on the receiving end. When the lack of response was becoming worrisome, the airwaves came to life again.
“This is the USS Louisiana,” a different voice said. “Please identify.”
It was an older voice. A
n authoritative voice. An impatient voice.
“This is Viper Diamond Nine,” Schiavo said.
The next reply came back without any delay.
“Your name, Viper Diamond Nine.”
Schiavo and I both puzzled at the question. There’d been no mention by the President that any authentication beyond the call sign would be required. But time had passed since that information was given to us. Years, actually. Those aboard the sub might not have had any contact with the nation’s commander in chief, or any command authority, for a similar period. If so, any orders they’d been given might well have been superseded by the laws of necessity. And prudence.
“I say again, Viper Diamond Nine, I need your name.”
I wasn’t sure if the change in protocol had set something to simmer within, but the repeated insistence, in the mildest of ways, allowed what Schiavo was feeling to boil over.
“USS Louisiana, who am I speaking with?” Schiavo demanded.
A brief hesitation followed.
“This is the commanding officer,” he replied.
“The protocol, you are aware, requires you to act on my request when received using the proper call sign,” Schiavo reminded the man. “Am I incorrect?”
“You are not,” the commanding officer said. “But those are three words, ma’am. I’m not blowing up some corner of the world based on three words I haven’t heard since I was briefed on them several years ago.”
Schiavo thought for a moment. The officer, whoever he was, had reverted to a level of command which forced more decisions upon himself. The rulebook which had run much of his operations had likely been used for toilet paper by now. He was having to improvise. Trust his gut. All from the claustrophobic isolation of a steel tube that spent most of its time cruising beneath the waves.
“What’s your rank?” Schiavo asked, attempting to dial back the intensity of the impasse they’d reached.
“Captain,” the man said, adding without prompting. “Captain Paul Vega.”
