The sun slipped beneath the horizon at that moment, the fire fading from the sky. The admiral drained the coffee mug and set it on a console.
“Good night, Captain.”
Fitzgerald watched him go with black misgivings.
Seaman David Howard sat at the round table with three friends, accepting the face-down cards as RD/2 Benedict dealt them out. Once he glanced up at the paneled bulkheads and their neatly framed prints of various scenes out of the Navy’s history and repressed a slight shudder. He remembered sitting in this same lounge two months earlier, with three other friends who now were all dead.
“Whatsa matter, Tiger?” the second-class radarman asked. “Lose something’?”
“Nah.” Howard scooped up the cards and fanned them. “Just thinking.”
Tiger. He still wasn’t used to the handle they’d dropped on him. Short in stature, still three weeks shy of his nineteenth birthday, he didn’t look much like a hero. His part during the Bangkok affair had won him a Silver Star; he still couldn’t remember much of what had happened, still didn’t feel heroic.
In fact, he didn’t feel any different now than he had then. Perhaps the only real change beyond his raise in rank and pay was the new nickname.
He liked “Tiger” a lot better than “Howie.”
“Ah, leave the thinking to the fuckin’ brass,” Air Traffic Controlman Third Francis Gilkey said. “Gimme two.”
“Make it three,” YN/3 Reid said. “Thinking too much don’t pay. Not on this boat.” Unlike Howard, Benedict, and Gilkey, all of whom were assigned to Air Ops as part of Jefferson’s OC Division, Reid served on the CAG staff and, therefore, was technically part of CVW-20 rather than the ship’s crew. As such, the third-class yeoman referred to the carrier as “boat” rather than “ship,” to the good-natured derision of the others.
“That’s ‘ship,” airhead,” Benedict said. He chewed a moment on his cigar. “Whatcha want, Tiger?”
“One.” Howard glanced at Reid. “What about this ship?”
“I got a friend.”
“Yeah.” Gilkey chuckled. “It’s called your right hand.”
“Up yours. He’s a quartermaster third. Had the duty up on the bridge tonight.”
“Yeah? They let him drive? Shit. What a crappy hand. Gimme three.”
“Raise you ten.” Benedict studied his cards. “So what’s the gouge?”
“Gouge” was Navyese for straight information, shipboard scuttlebutt that carried the ring of authenticity.
“Ah, he was standin’ by when Admiral Gone let slip what he really thinks of us.”
Gilkey laughed. “Going, going, gone.” The rhyming play on Vaughn’s name was a popular one with the enlisted men aboard. “So? What’d he say?”
“Only that we don’t count for shit. Raise you a quarter.”
“See you and another two bits too. Shit. That’s officers for YOU.”
“In.”
“All officers aren’t bad,” Howard said. “See you and raise you four bits.”
“Hey, the hero’s gettin’ serious.”
“Heavy bettin’, yeah. Just remember, Tiger. Officers don’t care a rat’s ass about you or anybody else with thirteen buttons on their blues.”
“What about Commander Magruder?”
“Who?” Benedict squinted over his cigar. “Oh, the other hero. Our ace of aces. What about him?”
“He seems like a good guy.”
“Yeah, an’ you notice he got canned,” Reid said. “Scuttlebutt is he shot before he got permission. Bad move for the upwardly mobile career-minded, y’know?”
“The good ‘uns always get the short end.” Gilkey sighed. “Crap. What kind of fuckin’ cards you handin’ out over there, Ben?”
“My own special brand. So what do the airedales say, Reid? We gonna fight the Indians or not?”
“Shit, I’m not mad at anybody,” Gilkey said. “Aw, fuck. I’m out.
Anyhow, what the Indies ever do to me?”
“Shot at us, is what,” Reid replied. “Raise you a quarter, Ben. Word is, they’re gonna hit us again. Soon.”
“Ah, bull crap,” Howard said. He’d become more adept during the past months at separating fact from fancy during interminable enlisted discussions that ranged from sex to Navy life to liberty ports to sex again. “No one knows that. Not even the officers. Raise a quarter.”
“What I heard was the Russkies have it all planned.” Gilkey leaned forward, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “They’ve been working undercover-like, to get close to us. Then … bam!”
“Shit,” Benedict said. “What for?”
“I hear they’d like a close look at one of our Aegis ships,” Reid said.
“And there’s ol’ Vicksburg, just sittin’ over there.”
Howard shook his head. “You guys are full of shit. They might like a good look at how she works in action, sure, but it’s the Indies who are out to get us, not the Russkies!”
“Aw, just jerkin’ your chain, kid. Call it. What you got?”
“Two pair,” Benedict said. “A pair of queens … and another pair of queens.”
“Son of a bitch.” Reid dropped the cards. “Fuckin’ conspiracy, man.”
“Nah.” Benedict raked in the change. “Just teachin’ Tiger there how to make his way in the world. Watcha say. Again?”
“Do it.” Reid started shuffling. “My deal this time. Maybe it should be my cards.”
“All I can say is that this deployment is royally fucked,” Gilkey observed. “I don’t think one gold stripe on this ship knows what the hell he’s doing.”
“Too long at sea,” Benedict agreed. “You can feel it, man. Every guy aboard is stretched out like a piano wire.”
“Shit,” Howard said as Reid began thumbing cards off the deck. “So what do you care? We don’t count, remember?”
Gilkey’s observation about the ship’s officers, though, was unnerving.
Despite the company of the others, it left Howard feeling very much alone.
CHAPTER 13
Admiral Magruder stood backstage with a number of other presidential aides and advisors, as well as the ever-present Secret Service men with their wire microphones and searching, emotionless expressions. From the off-stage wings behind the curtains, he listened and watched as the President conducted his press conference. He’d already delivered his speech, announcing to the world the Indian attack on U.S. Navy ships, and now he was fielding questions from the reporters who packed the press room. Batteries of lights flooded the President and the banks of microphones on the stage lectern before him with their glare.
Steadicams, each bearing a different logo of a TV networks or news service, were trained on him, and there was a steady whirr and click in the background as camera shutters were triggered.
“Mr. President,” a reporter from ABC was asking. “Does the attack on our ships mean war with India?”
“As I said before,” the President replied. “The United States of America will not tolerate any abridgement of our freedom of the seas, anywhere in the world. We will not tolerate attacks on our vessels or against our people. I think we amply demonstrated that resolve, that commitment in the military action against North Korea last year. It doesn’t matter who the aggressor is; an attack upon the military forces of the United States will be met by an appropriate response.