Would it work? Probably not, Gritti thought. But it would be sweet. Since they’d landed in this shitty place, it had been Al-Fasr, time after time, who had delivered the surprises. Now it was their turn.
Waiting for the battle to begin, Gritti sensed the same old doubts nagging at him. He had fifty able marines. Against how many? Several hundred, perhaps more. The Sherji would whittle at them until the core of their fighting strength was nil.
Is it worth it?
It was not too late. He could still show a white flag.
No. The thought of surrender was unacceptable to him. Not while they could fight, not while they could inflict pain and death on the enemy.
Gritti checked his watch. Dawn was coming soon. He wondered what Al-Fasr was thinking. Would the Sherji wait for daylight?
Would he? Hell, no.
As if triggered by the thought, the first rumble from the valley below reached him. It sounded like a thunderclap. A fifty-seven millimeter, he guessed.
Claire took a deep breath, then knocked on the stateroom door.
She had a cute little speech prepared, something to the effect that he ought to let her know before he went off on a hiking excursion in the Middle East. He ought to be more considerate than to leave a girl without telling her when he was coming back. It was supposed to be funny.
Then a panicky thought. I look like utter hell.
She should have taken the time to fix her hair, put on some makeup. She was still wearing the torn pantsuit that made her look like a refugee, which, of course, she was. After learning from Red Boyce that Sam was alive, she had run directly to —
The door opened.
He had been asleep, and judging by the lined face and reddened eyes, he needed it. He was wearing a white T-shirt and warmup shorts. His left arm was bandaged from something.
Maxwell’s face broke into a happy grin. “Claire!”
The cute little speech vaporized. She threw herself into his arms. The words tumbled out. “Sam, Sam… I thought I’d lost you… I missed you so much…”
He held her until she’d run out of words, ignoring the curious officers walking past the doorway. Then he pulled her inside and closed the door. He took her face in his hands and kissed her.
She pressed herself against him. For a precious moment they were finally together. She was safe and Sam was safe and nothing — not Yemen, not the Navy, not Jamal Al-Fasr — mattered.
For a long while he continued holding her. He stroked her as he nuzzled her neck. Her own numbing fatigue melted away. She held him tightly, wanting him.
He tilted her chin back and looked at her. “I believe we’ve reached the point where I’m supposed to tear your clothes off and take you to bed.”
“I believe we’re aboard a U.S. naval vessel, Commander.”
She knew the Navy’s position on the matter. Intimate relations aboard a naval ship were taboo. But they were alone, the door was closed, and she didn’t give a damn about the Navy’s taboos.
Maxwell seemed to be going through his own thought process. He kept his hands on her shoulders, regarding her with those icy blue eyes. “I’m the guy who tells his people not to do this.”
“Is making love to me in your stateroom a bad thing?”
“It is if you’re the squadron skipper.”
Claire sighed. That was what was so contradictory about Sam Maxwell. He had no problem breaking rules, but he refused to be a hypocrite about it.
“Will we still spend a week together when this is over?”
“Anywhere you want.”
“Doesn’t matter as long as I’m with you. And it’s not in Yemen.” She shivered, the memories of her last night in San‘a coming back to her. “Hold me, Sam. I’m afraid. Something bad is happening, and I don’t know what it is.”
He tousled her hair. “You’re safe now.”
“I don’t know what safe means anymore.”
While he held her, she blurted the whole story — San‘a, Vince Maloney, his revelation about Al-Fasr and Whitney Babcock. And the car bomb.
Maxwell didn’t speak. She wondered if he understood what she had told him.
Finally he said, “We have to tell this to someone. The part about Al-Fasr and Babcock.”
“To whom? The intelligence officer? What’s his name — Morse?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. I want you to tell this to Red Boyce, verbatim, exactly like you just told me.”
“Do you think it could be true, the part about Babcock making a deal with Al-Fasr?”
A cloud passed over Maxwell’s face. “It fits.”
“Why is Babcock letting the press cover the story now? After kicking us off before?”
“Publicity. Self-glorification. He thinks the situation is almost wrapped up, and he wants to make sure you portray him as the brilliant leader who took command and made it happen. While you’re aboard this ship, he can control whatever information is dispensed to you.”
She nodded. “Then that’s why we had that little briefing this morning. The message seemed to be that we had better give him plenty of camera time; otherwise we’d find ourselves back in a tent at the Aden airport.”
She shivered again. The accumulated stress of the past two days was bearing down like a weight on her. She put her head on his chest. “Sam, I never thought I’d miss you so much.”
He took her in his arms, stroking her hair…
Thunk. Thunk.
Maxwell glared at the door. “Damn.”
“It’s okay,” Claire said. “It might be important.”
He opened the door. Standing in the passageway, staring as if she were seeing an apparition, was B. J. Johnson. She saw Claire inside the room. For a long frozen moment the two women held eye contact. Volumes of unspoken communication passed between them.
Abruptly, B.J. whirled and bolted down the passageway.
Maxwell called after her: “B.J.! What was it you—”
She was gone. Maxwell stood in the passageway, shaking his head.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
BAITING THE TRAP
At a speed of three knots, the Ilia Mourmetz crept from its hiding place beneath the littoral shelf. Manilov was doing his best to keep the boat at a depth of seventy meters, where it was still concealed under the thermal layer. At this snaillike speed, the big bow planes of the Mourmetz were almost useless.
The risk was enormous. The Americans had displayed too keen an interest in the brief contact they had picked up when he last peeked with the Mourmetz’s periscope. For several hours they had bombarded the area with sound signals and sonobuoys, passing back and forth with their helicopters and S-3 Vikings equipped with magnetic anomaly detectors.
Finally they had given up the search.
Or had they? As he had done earlier, Manilov tried to place himself inside the mind of the American commander.
If you were unable to pinpoint the precise location of the enemy submarine, what would be your next course of action?
Elementary. You backed off and waited for the enemy submarine to emerge from hiding.
As he was doing now.
Of course, it was possible that the Americans had never confirmed a positive contact and were merely being cautious. That would be typical of the U.S. Navy, with their ridiculously overstuffed budgets, to waste tons of ordnance and fuel in such a stupid exercise.
Everything depended now on the Kilo class’s legendary stealthiness. The special single-shaft, seven-bladed screw was driven by the nearly silent Elektrosila electric motor. Anechoic rubber antisonar tiles covered the Mourmetz’s hull. The submerged vessel was as indistinguishable in the sea as a mackerel.