by David Poyer
“Hi, I’m Doris. Where you kids going?” the older woman said brightly.
“We’re not kids. We’re Devil Dogs,” Coreguaje corrected her. Not in a mean way, just matter-of-fact. Hector liked this girl. Firm, but you could tell she wasn’t looking for trouble. He kind of suspected she was with Pruss, but that didn’t matter, he had Mirielle to come back to. If he actually came back.
“I know, I know. I didn’t mean anything, honey. So where’m I taking you?” Doris was in the acceleration lane, pulling out onto a highway. A sign flashed past: Route 5 South.
“Where we can have some fun,” Pruss said. “You know, let go a little. We’re in SOI.”
“School of Infantry? Well, we could go to Oceanside. Or San Diego. But that’s a long drive. When’s liberty expire?”
Hector squinted at her. “My son was in,” she said, glancing apologetically into the rearview. “That’s why I wanted to come down and kind of help out.”
“Oh yeah? Where’s he now?”
“KIA. Ramadi II.”
He sat back, wishing he hadn’t gotten nosy. “So, where to?” Doris said again.
“Someplace with karaoke. Dancing. Music.”
“Oh God. Not fucking karaoke,” Whipkey moaned.
Pruss shrugged. “A hookah lounge, then. Ever do hookah? You can get so wasted. And you know they’ll piss-test us when we get back.”
Doris said, “Well, there’s restaurants in Oceanside giving free dinners to deploying servicemen … I mean, servicepeople. And there’s a concert at the Amphitheater. And the pier, or the beach … Rich used to go skateboarding on the Strand.… Does any of that sound good?”
Pruss patted the back of the driver’s seat. “Sorry about your son. Is there a hookah lounge anywhere?”
Doris frowned. “A hookup lounge?”
“Hookah!” Pruss leaned forward, chortling.
“Oh.” Doris seemed to be concentrating harder on the road. “I think there’s a big one down toward Carlsbad. No, wait. There’s one closer. North Freeman, Seagaze? We can go look. If that’s what you dogs want to do before you ship out, well, shit. I say go for it.”
* * *
THEY had dinner at a Thai restaurant. It wasn’t free, but it was half price and the first drink was half price too. So they had one each, then went out into a dusk studded with lights. The wind was cooler. People were out in the streets. They went with the flow, down toward the water. Toward the Strand, where Doris had said her son used to skateboard.
Hector shivered, and not just from the wind. Like they were hooked to the same chain, being driven on toward the Kill Room … no, don’t think about that … look at the lights twinkling over the pier, drink the beer you just bought, cold in your hand. The girl beside you, who even if she isn’t yours is drawing envious looks from the other guys on the boardwalk.
Pruss kept talking hookahs, but Whipkey insisted he wanted another drink first. They found a place with tables outside. The bar inside was filled with men and women, but they were all looking at their phones, not at one another. Pruss said, “Guess OKCupid’s back up too.”
Orietta snorted. “Yeah, look at all the poor Tinderellas, hoping they get picked before midnight.”
“And the fuckboys, all hot to get it in.”
Two hipster-looking guys wandered out, studying their screens and swiping. They had stylish rumpled hair and half-growths of blond beard. They glanced at the four at the table and started to go back in. Then the one in the checked shirt nudged the other and turned back. “Hey, you guys soldiers?” he called.
“No, Marines,” Coreguaje said.
“Thought so. Outta Pendleton, right? Buy you a drink?”
“You want to buy us drinks?” Whipkey scowled, though Hector didn’t see why.
Tall Farmer said patronizingly, “To support the troops. Show our appreciation. These your girls?”
“Are they girls?” muttered the shorter guy, whose black hoodie was flipped back.
“These women are Marines too,” Hector said quickly, before either of them could respond. Then hoped he hadn’t stepped in it, that Pruss didn’t mind being called a woman.
“You want to show your fucking appreciation, asshole, then join the fuck up,” Whipkey snarled.
“Yeah, join the fuck up,” Pruss chimed in. “With the fucking girls.” They and Whipkey exchanged high fives.
“No need to be rude,” the tall guy said, trying to laugh it off. “Just wanted to be friendly.”
“You can save the friendly for when the fucking Chinks land on your fucking beach here,” Pruss said, pointing to the surf.
Hoodie swiped his phone. “That the line of shit they feed you inside the wire, butch? This isn’t our war. Let the Koreans and Japs fight it.”
“If we let them take Guam, they’ll be in Hawaii next,” Hector said.
“That what they’re telling you? Well, that’s what we pay you people for. —Hey, how about her? Check that out.” He shoved his phone at the other guy. “What are you, anyway? Mexicans? My grandfather was in the army. That’s how it works in this country, you know. First generation pays the dues. After that, people wise up.”
“My folks fought in the Civil War.” Whipkey shoved his chair back.
“Wail, there’s always the crackers. Lahk yew,” said the short guy, mimicking a Deep South accent. “Who b’lieve Gawd invented the bolt-action Remington, ta kill the dinosaurs and the ho-mo-sexuals.”
Hector got Whipkey’s arm and dragged him back. The short guy held out both hands, palms out. “Okay, okay—sorry, dude. Bad joke.”
“Did you two even register?” Coreguaje wanted to know. “There’s a draft, ya know. Did you register your sorry, self-indulgent asses?”
The two chuckled. Hoodie sneered, “You don’t register. They build the database from the Cloud. Driver’s licenses, birth records, passports, big data. But any doctor’ll give you a deferral. Or you sign up for a MOC. An online course counts as university registration. No, it’s the illegal aliens they’re sweeping up. Either join the army, or go back across the border in a truck.”
“Makes sense to me.” The tall guy kept swiping. “Let ’em pay their way, or go back where the fuck they came from. We got better things to do.” He whistled, turned on one heel, headed to the bar. Called back, “Hey, Kyle. This one likes it on all fours, and she’ll take us both. Got an apartment, ten minutes’ walk.”
“Jesus.” Pruss threw a Corps-issue chip card on the table. “Let’s get the hell out of here. I need a smoke.”
* * *
THE shop was brightly lit outside but dim and cozy within. A front area, more of a head shop, was lined with showcases of pipes, bubblers, hand pipes, water pipes, stash cans, ash catchers, detox kits, downstems, bowls, scales. Behind that was a lounge lit even more dimly, furnished with long deep sofas and a chessboard, with some kind of sitar music playing. It was fogged with a low-hanging haze rich with spices and tobaccos and other things too. People were chatting and smoking cigars or vaping or toking off softly bubbling devices. Some watched a huge curved-screen television, where images flitted almost too fast to follow.
A short woman with penetrating eyes and a squinting smile murmured, “Hi, I’m Rosa. You kids is of age, right? I don’t need to check no ID, do I? You know there is a back room. Twenty dollars, and you soldiers can have privacy. Nobody else back there now.”
Hector expected Coreguaje to say again We aren’t soldiers, we’re Marines, but she just nodded. “That’d be good. Not so many hijos de putas.”
The back room lay down a hallway past a grimy shared bathroom, then through a clattering curtain of blue plastic beads. It was darker yet, but though the smell was still strong the smoke wasn’t as thick. Sofas faced each other, with a rosewood coffee table between them. A carafe and a tissue dispenser stood on it. A fan circled near the ceiling. Rosa passed out menus, and she and Pruss discussed the shisha choices. Hector figured “shisha” meant the tobacco mix you smoked. Finally Pruss settle
d on one, and Rosa brought in the pipe, a gaudy brass urn with dangling octopus arms of bright green and blue plastic.
Pruss filled the glass bowl with water from the carafe, then checked the gaskets. They sealed the top with a licked palm, and then their cheeks hollowed as they sucked in through the hose. “Just like checking your gas mask for leaks.” They tightened one gasket, tried it again, and pronounced it airtight. Loaded the tobacco, not too tight. Pruss lit it with a piece of hot charcoal and took quick drags. A thick white smoke filled the glass. They sucked again, eyes closed, and let smoke trickle out their nose. The scents of orange and vanilla filled the air.
Pruss sighed, wiped the mouthpiece with one of the tissues, and laid it on the table. After a moment Whipkey picked it up. He sucked deep and held it, obviously used to grass, then burst out coughing.
When it came Hector’s turn the smoke tasted sweet at first. Then the top of his head pried off and hovered. His stomach flipped a crazy twist. His heart thumped and started to race, pushing against his chest. His eyes popped and water sprang into his mouth. Shit, this was fun?
In the bathroom, after he was done puking, he stared at himself in the mirror. The goggles had left a white band across his upper face. Burn marks from hot cartridges tattooed his cheeks. He looked older, sí. Would Mirielle even know him now? He should get someone with a phone to send her a picture. Maybe Pruss would, if he asked her. No, them. Before they went back tonight.
Out front he got energy drinks for everybody. When he brought them back to the room a dirty guy in ragged clothes was hunched in a corner, playing two spoons clickety-clack under his arm like hambones. He talked a mile a minute and his eyes darted every which way. “Cigarettes is alls I needs,” he kept saying, over and over. Clickety clack, clackety clackety clack. “Five bucks for cigarettes is alls I needs.”
“Get out of here, Spoon Man,” Rosa said wearily from the curtain, as if she said it a dozen times a day. “Go on, get out. Let these kids have some privacy, goddamn it.”
After he left, Orietta got up and turned the lights out. The red coal of the hookah glowed like a demon’s eye in the dark. They passed the mouthpiece around, but Hector only took a sip now and then. He and Orietta sat together on the sofa, and after a while she turned to snuggle into him.
As they held each other in the dark, he wasn’t sure just how, her hand was inside his shirt. Then it was sliding under his belt.
Soon his fingers were inside a wet squirming warmth, her breath panting in his ear. Something was happening on the other sofa too, but they weren’t looking over here.
He was lying back, breathing hard, when the bead curtain clattered. Rosa peered in. “Sorry, but … you guys might want to come out here, see this.”
Clothes hastily tucked back together, they gaped up at the television.
Korea had surrendered. No, “accepted terms.” South Korea would capitulate to China, not North Korea. It would remain a separate country, with a capitalist system, but would dismantle its armed forces and acknowledge Beijing’s leadership. American forces fighting there would be permitted one week to leave. If they did not, they would be destroyed without mercy.
“Guess we won’t be deploying after all,” Whipkey muttered. He leaned back, elbows propped on the bar, and announced to the whole place, “Hey, we ain’t goin’ to Korea. Guess they’re gonna send us home now, war’s fucking over. Guess what? We lost.”
A big older guy got up from one of the front room chairs. Hector tensed. This man looked like one of the fat angry whites who concealed-carried back where he came from. But the old gringo just came over and shook their hands without saying a word; then bent his head, face sad, and left.
11
The Central Pacific
“READY to give it a shot, Admiral?”
Dan rubbed his face, wondering if this was worth the risk. Still, Chief Wenck seemed to think he’d pulled everything together.
The strange, nearly invisible contacts had dogged them on and off for the last year. The pips moved slowly, over a hundred thousand feet up. They only seldom registered, even on Savo’s powerful radars, which meant their cross sections were tiny. At first Dan had dismissed them as discontinuities in the atmosphere, “sprites,” lensing effects, or artifacts of poor tuning. But they’d appeared again and again, high in the upper stratosphere. Seeming at times to follow the ships below.
At last, Donnie had come up with a proposal. An experiment, to find out just what they were.
Hornet’s CIC was darkened and fully manned, but the large-screen displays had less data than Dan was used to from Savo Island. He hoped it would be enough to run a battle.… The LHA herself wouldn’t be radiating, of course. Her radars lacked the precise focus of the Aegis ships. But the chief had set this up over the last few days, as the formation slowly steamed east, then south, then east again. Poking along at twelve knots. Trailing the bait through a vast deep oceanic basin, which had, according to Rit Carpenter, “the acoustics of a gymnasium. They gotta know we’re here.”
All that time, Hornet had made smoke, from cans of waste and lube oil on the stern, and kept one screw locked. Dan hadn’t repeated the distress transmissions. That seemed too obvious. But if the pack commander had any sort of scouting screen out, sooner or later he’d pick them up.
What happened after that … well, Dan only hoped he didn’t stumble into all two dozen subs at the same time. A force like that would execute a massacre like the battle that had given his old cruiser her name.
Savo Island, north of Guadalcanal, had been a knife fight in the dark. Night-practiced Imperial Navy ships had all but wiped out a surprised, confused U.S. destroyer and cruiser force.
“Sir?” Wenck prompted him.
Dan cleared his throat. “Sure this is worth trying, Donnie?”
The chief spread his hands. “Hey.… We got enough radiating elements and phase shifters. Got the transmitting arrays and the power. It’s whether we can link the drivers, to focus it. I wrote a steering program, running it off the UYK-43 in McClung, but these ain’t microwave lasers.”
“All right. Initiate when you’re ready,” Dan muttered.
Wenck’s fingers clattered on keys, sending coordinates and elevations to the four Aegis units. Clustered as close as they dared, Savo, McClung, Kristensen, and Sejong the Great were aiming the pencil-beams of their phased arrays to intersect a hundred thousand feet up: pouring over ten megawatts into a ten-cubic-meter volume of space, twenty miles in the sky.
“Building up to peak power,” Wenck said. “We’re gonna synchronize pulses, ten hertz, then vary the PRR and see if we can set up a harmonic.”
Dan wasn’t sure what that meant, and didn’t care. He was more worried over the fact that they were deep in the danger area, yet hadn’t made a single contact, or glimpsed as much as a periscope.
Where the hell were the Chinese?
He left Wenck to his own devices, and climbed to the bridge.
Clear and sunny. The sea was flat as a tabletop, and too aching blue to look down into for long. Out on the port wing, overlooking the flight deck, he searched the horizon. Aside from Earhart and Green Bay three miles away to port, only distant specks pricked it. McClung was on his port quarter, and Kristensen far astern. He shaded his eyes into the sun-glare, and caught Savo fine on the southern horizon, a tiny, all but invisible pinpoint at over ten thousand yards.
Even pulled in close for the Wenck Experiment, the main body of the task force covered twenty miles of sea. Jung’s wing elements were even farther away. Not only did he have to worry about DF-21s, but the latest intel speculated that along with antiship missiles, Chinese submarines carried the Shkval-K, a two-hundred-knot rocket torpedo that could evade acoustic decoys and jamming. A Russian export, Shkvals were designed to burn through hull armor with rods of incendiary depleted uranium. Also, they might be carrying a small antitorpedo torpedo. These weapons, code-named “Nightshade,” might be immune to the countermeasures built into U.S. torpedoes.
>
On the plus side, the standard Chinese submarine torpedo, the Yu-3, had an effective range of only about eight miles.
Given that, Dan had instructed his helos to carry out attacks as soon as they had a datum, and to double the usual salvo rate of one torpedo per attack. Facing two incomers, any antitorpedo system would have to work four times as hard to identify, track, and intercept. And the farther away he could hold his adversary, the less risk to his own forces.
Of course, that strategy meant he might run out of torpedoes before he ran out of targets. And given the supply situation, he wouldn’t be getting any more.
In which case … the task force would become the target. And, given the depleted state of his self-defense ordnance, an all but helpless one.
The hunter-killar group out of Pearl was closing him from the east. Slowly, searching every cubic mile of sea as it swept forward. It was built around Makin Island, protected by three Burke-class destroyers and an older U.S. nuclear submarine. If they could join up, the united force should be capable of knocking down whatever the Chinese could throw at them.
Unless the concentration invited Zhang to expend another thermonuclear warhead. If that happened, they were doomed. The magazines of Savo Island, their only ABM-capable unit, were empty of Block 4s.
They’d buried the dead from the exit battle at sea. His deputy, four watchstanders, and sixteen ship’s company, all burned, blasted apart, decapitated, or sliced into pieces. But there wouldn’t be any need for canvas shrouds, bugle calls, and the Service for the Dead if one of Zhang’s massive thermonukes came down on them. It would cremate every ship in a fifteen-mile radius.
