The Gulf

by David Poyer

  Blair put her cup down. “Don’t pull that stab-in-the-back bullshit on me. That’s getting to be the standard response when you people fail, isn’t it? Congress wouldn’t let you win! If you were more efficiently organized—”

  “Whoa, both of you,” said Byrne soothingly. “Just let’s back off now, and try to look at it calmly.”

  “I’m calm, Mr. Byrne, very calm. I just don’t like to have utter bullshit served up to me as an excuse.”

  “If I get an order to go in, I’ll go in,” said Miller tightly.

  “In this ship? No way! Captain, we paid too damn much for it to risk this floating Pentagon in anything less than defending a carrier against a full-scale Soviet air attack.”

  There was a rap on the door then, and the man with the clipboard let himself in. He paused, seeing perhaps the echo of angry words in their faces. But Miller waved him in. As he read, his face darkened.

  “Bad news?”

  “A few minutes ago, my tactical action officer alerted the convoy to an approaching air contact.”

  “What happened? Did they shoot it down?”

  Miller cleared his throat. “Well, no. It was identified as a civilian airliner.”

  “Who identified it? Could you tell what it was from here?”

  “Well, I’ll be perfectly honest with you. Not always. In this case, the frigate made the final call. But the important thing is, she was ready.” He paused. “Also, there’s been another raid. On a Greek freighter. It’s on fire. One of Van Zandt’s helicopters, and one from a British destroyer, are taking off survivors.”

  She wanted to say, And what about the attackers? Did you even see them on your expensive displays?

  But there was a time to go easy, let the facts speak for themselves.

  She, Byrne, and the two ship’s officers sat in silence after the radioman left. Finally, she said, “So you see the problem. What can we do about it?”

  “An air strike?” suggested the exec.

  “Ineffective,” said Byrne gloomily. “With the hand-held missiles the Pasdaran have now, the pilots can’t go in low. And going in high, they’d never hit Boghammers.”

  “Well, all I can say is, you people had better think of something.”

  “We’ve also got to worry about that damned two-oh-nine,” said Miller. “When and where it’ll show up—”

  Byrne started. Before he could speak, Blair said, “What’s that?”

  “It’s a submarine. It’s—”

  “That’s classified,” said Byrne.

  “You said she was cleared.”

  “Not for that.”

  “Not for what?” She turned on Byrne, who was hunched guiltily over a cherry tart. “The Admiral said everything, Mr. Byrne. Did he not? What’s this about a submarine?”

  “There may not be any. It’s just a rumor.”

  “Let’s have it.” She was angry now. “Let’s have it all. Is this what you were whispering about in Bahrain? Do you want me to call Talmadge, tell him you’re holding out on me?”

  “No. But I don’t want you to overreact, either.”

  “You let me judge what I’ll do. Now tell me what a 209 is, and why you’re so worried about it.”

  The intel officer sighed. “It’s a West German-made submarine. The Shah bought two. One was delivered, just before the revolution, but it was never operational.

  “Now, though, we’ve”—he lowered his voice till it was almost inaudible over the hum of the ventilators—“This is highly classified, Blair, because it’s derived from certain listening systems that we’re not, uh, really supposed to have in the Indian Ocean. Our ships’ COs know, but no one else.”

  “You mean you’ve been—no, don’t tell me any more.” She closed her eyes. “Okay, so you’ve detected a submarine. Where is it?”

  “We don’t know. Yet. We know it was under way for a brief period, possibly for training or system tests.”

  “Why is one submarine such a threat? Can’t you deal with it?”

  “We could in the open ocean. But the Gulf’s so shallow, most of our gear won’t work. Nobody’s gear would. It’s not a case of buying the wrong stuff, sonar’s just not very effective there. We’re talking about a very advanced, quiet boat, specifically designed for shallow-water operations. If the Iranians start torpedoing ships, that’s a different matter than some fanatics firing rocket grenades. That would stop all the traffic. It would cut off oil to Japan and Europe.”

  “Entirely.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Can our nuclear submarines track it?”

  “Again, they’d deal with it easily in open ocean, but they’re too big to go into the Gulf.”

  “So what does Admiral Hart plan to do, Mr. Byrne?”

  “We’re looking for it. Recon flights, satellite photos, and electronic intercept, as well as the listening stations. Sooner or later, if it’s there, we’ll spot it. Once we know where it is, then we can set up an antisubmarine screen outside its harbor.”

  “And then what? Sink it as it comes out?”

  “Well, it’d have to show hostile intent first.”

  “Or we could sink it by mistake,” said Miller thoughtfully.

  She was about to ask exactly what he meant by that when a telephone buzzed. The CO reached under the table for it, listened, then said, “Thank you, she’ll be back there in ten minutes—Ms. Titus, helo control reports your transportation is inbound. Let’s see, think I saw your bag last in CDC. I’ll send a man for it.”

  They got up. She hesitated, then said, “Captain, thank you for your time. I’m sorry, but you have to ask hard questions to get useful answers.”

  “I understand,” said Miller, but his mouth was grim as he held the door for her. “I hope you find what you’re looking for. Whatever the hell it is. And then go home, and let the professionals fight the war.”

  She stopped, there in the doorway, with enlisted men waiting outside. After a moment, she murmured, “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. I don’t pussyfoot, Ms. Titus. I say what I think, and I think you don’t belong here.”

  “Is that so.”

  “Here’s your bag,” said Byrne, emerging from a side door. “The helo should be waiting, let’s—”

  “Tell them to go back to the barge,” she said, holding Miller’s now-startled eyes. “We won’t be needing it tonight. I’m staying aboard, Captain. Find me a bed, please.”

  “Blair—”

  “You’re not staying on this ship,” said Miller flatly.

  The enlisted men looked at each other and melted, unobtrusively but very suddenly, from sight.

  “I’m not?”

  “No. It’s against the law. And I don’t want you.”

  “Give me the briefcase, Mr. Byrne. Thank you. Captain Miller, do you see this letter? This authorizes me access to all military facilities in the Persian Gulf area for purposes of investigation on behalf of the Senate Armed Services Committee. This is a military facility, is it not?”

  “It’s not a Goddamned facility, it’s a warship. There’s no place to put a woman. Steward! Take her bag to the flight deck.”

  “That’s mine. I’ll need it tonight. Don’t put your hands on it.”

  The man stopped, looking first scared and then glancing, in mute helplessness, at his commanding officer.

  “Uh, Blair, overnight visits are not authorized—”

  “Mr. Byrne, unless you are going to help me, please keep quiet. Captain, the only way I’m going on that helicopter will be kicking and screaming, and I don’t think you’d enjoy what would happen once I got ashore. I need to see Admiral Hart tomorrow. So, I’m going to stay.” She decided her sweetest smile was called for. “Now is the time for you to give in gracefully. Don’t you think?”

  Miller stared down at her for another five seconds, his face looking like a balloon about to pop, before he wheeled suddenly on Byrne. “You’re Hart’s Goddamned rep. Does he expect us to run a damn hotel for visiting �
� visiting…” He stalled, then spat out, “civilians?”

  “Given the situation, Lee, I don’t think we have a hell of a lot of choice.”

  Miller wheeled and began shouting. “… my inport cabin,” he finished. “And hang some Goddamned sign on the door so people don’t walk in. Jesus Christ!”

  “That’s not very graceful. But it’ll do.” She smiled at the enlisted man. “Now you can pick it up. Thank you. Follow us, please. Captain … lead on.”

  16

  U.S.S. Turner Van Zandt

  THE late-morning sunlight poured through the tempered glass like boiling water. Hayes’s feet were cramping again. The helmet chafed against his neck, he was sweating under the body armor, and heat rash itched at his crotch.

  Mattocks and the other mechanics had worked all night repairing Two One’s hydraulics. The plane had passed its final check just before dawn. Since then, they’d been aloft, describing slow circles fifteen miles out in front of the convoy. He hadn’t had the stick one minute of that time. He was uncomfortable, hungry, bored, and sleepy.

  He glanced at Schweinberg. The dark curve of the visor hid his face from sight. Not that he was exactly longing to see the full red cheeks, the flat, stupid eyes.

  Buck studied the stickers plastered on his HAC’s helmet. The American flag, Day-Glo on Mylar backing; a Seminoles decal; SHIT HAPPENS; another, MUSTACHE RIDES 5¢; and the squadron insignia, a curvaceous angel in high-heeled boots plunging a sword into a submarine.

  His own helmet was as bare as it was issued. He didn’t think stickers for the NAACP, ACLU, and the Unitarian Church would go over real good.

  Virgil Hayes thought he put on a good front. Weight lifting and an occasional street joke seemed to satisfy the men he worked with. But sometimes he felt surrounded.

  Not that he disliked them, or disliked the Navy. His experience was that it was about as free of prejudice as you could expect of any organization run by human beings. But he felt out of place among men who were basically conservative, whose first response to any challenge was patriotism and violence.

  On the other hand, it was true that his roommate didn’t seem to care about money. Buck had to admire that in him.

  The question was, should he stay in, or take ATI’s offer? On paper, it looked good. At the moment, he was making $2,339 a month basic, $206 flight pay, and $110 for hazardous duty. Quarters, subsistence, and housing allowance for Joyce and the kids was another $741. Total, $3,400, or about $41,000 a year. The engineering job started at $47,000. But that wasn’t the whole story. There’d be no more deployments, no dets, no duty days … just home being Daddy and husband.

  The company would need a commitment soon; they couldn’t hold the position open indefinitely. And Joyce wanted an answer, too. She’d have to set things up for Jesse’s kindergarten and Dustin’s school, find a house, get herself a job. He had to decide soon.

  Beside him, Schweinberg stared down, hardly registering the uninterrupted surface of sea as it droned beneath him. His mind was in the past. In the night after the Old Miss game. He’d had three tackles and his first interception, and after the postgame party, two blonde juniors had decided to see whether they could exhaust the human football-and-fucking machine that was Claude Schweinberg at twenty.

  And still was, goddammit. His fingers stealthily explored a hardness near the cyclic.

  The plane thought for him. They were on RADALT hold, automatically maintaining altitude, and the rudder pedal depressed and rose slowly under his flight boots. From time to time, without engaging much of his brain, his eyes lifted from the sea and moved across the panel.

  Gradually, the hum of rotors and transmission, the steady rush and whistle of wind gentled his mind, sanded smooth the edge of his lust. His head nodded in an involuntary dovening. The sunlight fell hot in his lap and the air hissed cool through the vent. Airspeed eighty, heading 210 and coming left again. They’d been in the air for three hours, refuelled in a hover, then gone back out without so much as touching the deck. They’d have six hours off that afternoon, then fly again that night.

  It was a bear of a schedule. But convoy duty was like that—grind, grind, grind. With only one plane in the det, it was just that much worse.

  He caught his head sagging and snapped it back. The ICS was silent. “Kane, Christy, you guys sharp back there?” he grunted.

  Their voices were muzzy. The crewmen got even less sleep than the officers during a convoy. They flew, worked on the plane, then flew again. He’d have liked to let them sack out now, but he needed their eyeballs. He glanced at his copilot, and found him staring fixedly out the chin bubble. Cool and collected. His ATO was the wrong color, but he never seemed to get rattled. Schweinberg admired that.

  Hayes caught the motion and blinked, recalling himself from his career decision. From a hundred feet up, the Gulf looked rough today. Not North Atlantic rough, but rough for a narrow, shallow sea. The waves uncoiled slowly, leaving patches of ivory foam. The sun accompanied them, sparkling and glittering to the southeast. It made his eyes water. He locked the visor up and rubbed them.

  “See anything?” drawled Schweinberg.

  “No.”

  “Well, I’m about passed out. You got it. Poke me in fifteen.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The pilot eased his harness and slumped against the door. Buck took the stick. He ran his eyes over the panel. Main transmission pressure a tad low. Fuel consumption normal. Temperatures good. No odd sounds. He flexed his fingers on the cyclic, wishing he had some coffee or cola. Coming up on next circle … a slight bank, say five degrees, enough to let you look down at the translucent Gulf.…

  The idea was to scan for anything out of the ordinary. Especially small boats and mines, but anything that might be evidence of Iranian chicanery. Hayes had never been able to decide how realistic this was. A properly laid mine couldn’t be seen from the air. They were moored to the bottom and floated fifteen or twenty feet down, and even if the water was clear, nobody sweeping over at eighty knots was going to see one.

  Drifting mines were different. The det from Foster had seen one last month and set it off with machine-gun fire. That would be a diversion. Schweinberg would love the noise.

  He held the orbit, thinking how boring this all was. Tired, tired … when they got back and he put in his letter, maybe he and Joyce would leave the boys with her mom and head someplace to be alone. That would be a good idea. Get the arguments and tears that always followed a deployment over where they wouldn’t upset the kids.

  He realized then that for the first time he’d said when, and not if.

  The lead ship of the convoy prickled into sight to the south, a flyspeck that boiled on the boiling horizon. Two One vibrated and droned, and Buck Hayes shook himself into the waking present again, realizing with something not far from horror that he’d nodded off, too.

  “ATO, ATACO.”

  He clicked the transmit trigger on the stick. “ATO.”

  “Crossing contact to north, your zero-two-zero, fifteen, request you check it out.” The petty officer sounded bored, too.

  “Two One, wilco.”

  Schweinberg shifted in his seat. He muttered, “Don’t say ‘wilco’ until I agree. Don’t you know what that means?”

  Hayes said between his teeth, “It means ‘I will comply.’”

  “Right, but I’m the helo commander. I’m the only one who can say ‘wilco.’”

  Hayes didn’t bother to answer. He was sorry Chunky was awake again. It had been relaxing with him asleep. Except for the snore.

  “What was that bearing?”

  “Zero-two-zero, fifteen.”

  Schweinberg stretched and belched. “Okay, gimme the airplane. Coming right. How’s my fuel?”

  “MAD vector,” said Kane suddenly, from the back.

  “What?”

  “Something registered on the magnetic detector, sir. Something big down there, something metal. Can we come around, take another sweep?”

&n
bsp; “You’re talking antisubmarine, right?” drawled Schweinberg. “Forget it. There ain’t none out here.”

  “It was something, sir. Can’t we check it out? We got no sonobuoys aboard, but maybe we could localize it with a couple passes. I think—”

  “Forget it,” said Schweinberg, and his voice held exasperation and finality. “Told you, ain’t no subs out here. It’s just a wreck, some old ship or drilling rig on the bottom or something. Do what I tell you and quit thinking, Kane, quit your goddamn thinking.”

  The SH-60 droned and vibrated through a huge arc. Hayes yawned luxuriously, still looking down. The Gulf rushed past blurry-swift directly under them, slower a mile away, and the horizon not moving at all. The black shadow of the bird rushed soundlessly over the sea, flying formation on them.

  “There he is. Two o’clock,” said Schweinberg.

  The speck ahead grew, became a boat. Characteristic banana shape. White, green, blue stripes. They flashed over it at three hundred feet, then banked back in a great loop. Hayes said, “ATACO, ATO: We have contact in sight. Identify as dhow, course one-eight-zero.”

  Van Zandt acknowledged. As they came around, he saw the convoy on the horizon. They looked small and lost, caught in the joining of the two vast bowls, placed lip to lip, of sky and water. The ship came back. “ATO, Bridge: we hold his course intersecting ours.”

  “Concur,” drawled Schweinberg.

  “Try to change his mind. Commodore doesn’t want him passing through the formation.”

  “Got it.”

  Bank again. The sun blazed suddenly through the windscreen, blinding them, heating the exposed skin under their visors to the point of pain. Hayes wouldn’t have been surprised if the impact of those white-hot photons slowed their airspeed.

  Schweinberg told Kane to open the cabin door. He eased back on cyclic and the airframe gave an orgasmic shudder, transitioning to hover.

  Killer Two One hung above the sea, moving with the dhow, which was chugging stolidly along perhaps two hundred feet away. “Wave him off,” shouted Schweinberg.

  Hayes caught Kane’s lifted arm, and past him a glimpse of the boat. The iron pipe of its exhaust rose perfectly vertical aft, putt-putting along. Clothing decorated the rails. A few men stood on deck. Around them, the topsides were littered with wire cages, fish traps, line, orange plastic floats. He remembered the yard they’d visited on a tour, the patient artisans carving ribs and stringers out of iron-hard teak. They’d said each dhow was guaranteed for a hundred years. It was timeless, biblical.