“Yes sir,” Rodriguez said. “Do you know how my people are?”
There was a pause, “I’m told all the wounded are recovering well. One is still in a critical condition, but stable,” Solanta said.
Bunny leaned over and gave Rodriguez a high five. “Sir, this is Lieutenant O’Hare,” Bunny said. “Do we have a damage assessment from our strike on Anadyr yesterday?”
“That’s why I’m calling,” the Admiral said. “Our intel… and we have multiple source confirmation on this one… says you have rendered the Russian 573rd Army Air Force drones totally non-mission capable.”
Bunny and Rodriguez looked at each other, “Sorry sir, can you repeat?” Rodriguez asked in shock. “Did you say we NMC’ed a whole Russian fighter regiment?”
“Yes Lieutenant Commander, you heard me right. I don’t call active duty personnel on a whim — you whupped some serious Russian ass, ladies.” Right then, you could have lit a skyscraper from the wattage coming from Bunny and Rodriguez’s smiles. Admiral Solanta knew how to motivate his warriors. He also knew how not to. He hadn’t made mention of the massive casualty tally his intelligence staff had handed him. He also made no mention of the unconfirmed report the attack had killed a Russian General. He gave a cough and continued, “Now, I have to keep moving, but I wanted to give you a sitrep. It’s not good. While you’ve been trying to stay alive and get a little payback up there, Ivan has knocked us on our can. Eielson and Elmendorf-Richardson are out of action, at least for another three days, maybe longer. We’ve got some mobile anti-air fighting back but just as soon as they put up their radar dishes, Russia hits them. We’ve decided we aren’t going to fight Ivan’s fight on this one, not on his terms. We’re preparing a joint services counter-offensive on a scale that is going to blast him back to Siberia, and we’re looking at… other options.” The Admiral paused to let those last two words sink in. “Which we hope will never be needed. But here’s the other reason for my call. Right now, NCTAMS-A4 is the only offensive air unit I have in the Operations Area. I’m going to be asking you two to hunker down under that rock, and you’ll be flying day and night until you drop dead with fatigue, or you run out of drones, whichever comes first.”
Rodriguez gulped. The only offensive air unit in the Operations Area? Holy hell. “Yes, sir. Understood. We’ll do our best.”
The Admiral laughed, “You telling me I haven’t seen your best yet Lieutenant Commander? Well, I look forward to that. You two are rewriting the book on how to fight a modern air war. Keep it up, they’ll be teaching the next generation of aviators at Annapolis about the ‘NCTAMS model for bare bones kick-assery’, I guarantee you that.”
“Yes, sir!” they both chimed at the same time, bumping fists.
After the Admiral logged out, Bunny swiveled twice around in her seat, and then fixed Rodriguez with a fierce glare, “Ma’am, we get out of here alive, you and me have got to get tattoos.”
Devlin McCarthy had a tattoo. And she was willing to bet none of her staff had ever even entertained the thought their greying, stress cadet of an Ambassador had a tattoo on her right upper arm. Even less that it was a tattoo she’d gotten recently. When she was wearing light shirts, she covered it with a skin toned plaster. It was only a little tattoo, just a name really, in a nice curly font. It said ‘Angel’ and there was a story behind it, of course.
Devlin’s daughter, Cindy, had been 32 when she announced to her mother she was pregnant. She’d moved in with Devlin in Moscow a year earlier after a long-term relationship ended in disaster. A lawyer in a private practice in DC, she’d told her bosses she needed time away from work and rather than let her quit, they’d told her to take a few months and get her head together. They knew it was a better option than losing her for good. A few months had turned into a year, and Cindy had based herself in Moscow and traveled all over Europe. She and Devlin had talked about the breakup she’d been through, and how the one thing that had kept her daughter together with her partner for so long was the hope they’d have kids together one day. She’d waited and waited and then started suggesting it, more and more insistently — she was 30 dammit and she wanted kids! But it turned out he didn’t, and that was that.
Devlin remembered every detail of the afternoon Cindy told her she was pregnant. It was a Sunday. Cindy had been in Saint Petersburg, with a ‘friend’ she’d met in Rome, she said. A friend she’d been seeing a lot of lately, but hadn’t brought back home.
She’d come in from the airport, dumped her bags in her room and Devlin had made her a pot of tea. It was raining, but not in that drab melancholy way it often rains in Moscow. They were sun showers, fresh and brisk and Devlin had the windows open because she liked listening to the patter of the raindrops on the green copper of the roof above. Cindy came in, sat on the sofa with her cup of tea, one leg tucked underneath her. She was beautiful, of course, and not just because Devlin thought so. She was a young, bright, competent and together young woman with style and as Devlin walked into the lounge room and looked at her daughter sitting there in a ray of sunshine, framed in raindrops, Devlin’s heart near burst with pride.
“I’m pregnant,” Cindy had said.
Devlin sat next to her, taking it pretty calmly. After all, the girl wasn’t 15 years old.
“OK, wow,” Devlin said. “You sound…actually you sound OK about it.”
“I wanted it,” Cindy said. “I didn’t know how to tell you. But I’ve kind of been shopping while I’ve been here.”
“For a husband?”
“No, for a… man,” she said. She laughed. “I didn’t want to just go bonking random guys until it happened. I wanted a love affair, with someone I liked, but not so much I couldn’t say goodbye.”
“And you found one,” Devlin said. “I’ve been wondering who you’ve been traveling with, all these places. I thought maybe… I thought you maybe had a girlfriend and were afraid to tell me.”
Now Cindy really laughed, “A lesbian rebound? Oh Mom.” She sipped her tea. “No. I just figured it wasn’t worth introducing him because he’s not going to be a part of this.”
“What do you mean?” Devlin asked.
“I mean, he’s Russian and I’m going back to the States to have my baby,” she said. “I’m not sure I’ll even tell him.”
Devlin clutched her hand, gave her a hug and yes, she cried a little. While her daughter had been talking, she had suddenly had this image of the two of them, living in Moscow, a little baby in the residence, Devlin suddenly and wonderfully a grandmother. But, no. Apparently not.
“When I’m finished here, I’ll get something back in DC,” Devlin said, sniffling. “Maybe I could get out of the posting sooner, say next year.”
“It’s OK Mom,” Cindy said. “We have a whole lifetime to work this out. I want you there for the birth though,” she said, holding her mother’s face. “You promise me that, OK. I wouldn’t want anyone else there.”
And that night, the two of them had gone for drinks — mocktails for Cindy, a dozen different variations on a vodka theme for Devlin and then the two of them had gotten tattoos. And their tattoos said ‘Angel’ because Devlin had decided that’s what her grandchild was going to be and it was small enough it wouldn’t hurt too much and she could cover it with her sleeve and Cindy said ‘whatever’ she couldn’t believe she was getting a tattoo with her 55-year-old mother the US Ambassador to Moscow.