The four SEALs nodded. They had been on board the carrier only an hour, and hadn’t eaten, showered, or slept yet. They were headed in that direction when Stroh nailed them.
“I’ll get clearance for a Sea Knight on board the Cowpens, CG 63, in Athens if this one goes down the way we think it will. Now, why don’t you guys get some food and some shuteye. I might be calling you before you know it. The chief is hot on this one. Nobody in Washington wants these warheads charging around the world like loose cannons.”
It was only a little after 0830, but Murdock and DeWitt both ordered up steak dinners at the dirty-shirt mess.
Later they found Kat sitting in the wardroom, staring at her hands and sipping coffee. She nodded a grim welcome.
Murdock and DeWitt watched her a moment without speaking. She looked up and set her mouth in a firm, hard line. “I’m so damn mad that I could spit,” she said. Her eyes were furious brown holes hidden by lowered brows.
“I don’t think I’m going to do this anymore,” she went on. “I just might call the President and tell him to get another player. I’m used up.”
“Kat, I’m no shrink, but I’ve sent more than one of my men to take a few sessions with the psychos. If you don’t want that, how about a talk with the chaplain.”
She looked up at Murdock and nodded, her brows raised in surprise.
“Yes, now why didn’t I think of that? I can’t get that woman’s furious expression out of my head. She knew she was dying and she looked right through me. I shivered then, and I’m shivering right now remembering it.
“I killed her, Murdock. I shot her three times and she died right there in that field. How can I ever accept the idea that it is all right for me to kill someone when I’m wearing this uniform? Even when I’m on a mission to save hundreds of thousands of lives? It doesn’t make sense to me. How do I get in touch with the chaplain?”
Captain Ira Ralston, senior chaplain on the carrier had learned years ago that being a Navy chaplain was a lot more than holding services and listening to complaints. He found himself to be father confessor for the Catholics, and oftentimes psychiatrist in uniform for many of the Protestants and Jews. He had been listening to this young lieutenant for a half hour now, and knew more about her and her life than he wanted to.
“So, how can I justify killing another human being?” she concluded.
“You simply reacted to the situation. You responded as you had been trained to do. You also fired in an attempt to save the life of a teammate. Those are all good and worthwhile motives. I’ve talked to a lot of men in combat. They say that they are always reacting before they can think. In a split second your mind must order your body to do something, in this case to aim and fire to protect another member of the team.
“Kat, you were in a combat situation. You’ve been there before, you told me, and you’ve killed before. This is no different. The fact that the victim was a woman is a coincidence. It more than likely would have been a man with the ratio of men to women in the defense force.
“This all goes way back in man’s development to the cave man when he fought huge ferocious beasts. He did it for food and to survive.
“Today some of us have to do the same thing. We fight to survive. Now we often call it ‘him or me.’ In the heat of battle, even if it lasts only a few seconds, the basic primal urge of fight to survive surfaces. If it’s a confrontation with another person, then it all comes down to who kills who. It’s him or me who will live. We always strive our best to be sure that it’s the me who survives and not the him.”
Captain Ralston watched the young lieutenant. He knew about her civilian status and the temporary rank for convenience. She looked up at him, but didn’t say anything.
“How did you handle this when you came out of Iran?” he asked.
“Not well. I cried a lot. I took a month off work and tried to get myself settled down. I kept having a dream when I relived the whole damn thing. Then I went into denial, and that almost worked. One day I woke up and realized that I had to face it, confront the fact that I had killed four or five men in Iran. Yes, part of it was a him-or-me syndrome. I never sought any professional help. I can see now that I should have.”
He waited. She looked at him, then at the bulkhead, then back at him. “So?”
“Did you throw up after the incident?”
She smiled. It was the first smile he had seen from her. “Incident? I kill a woman and you call it an incident?”
“Yes. Those warheads that you destroyed could have killed up to a half million each. That would be four and a half million lives that you saved in the world. The loss of one woman’s life against four and a half million makes it a ridiculously small incident.”
“Oh. I never thought of it that way before.” The smile came again. “All right, let’s summarize: I didn’t throw up after the… incident. I have not gone on any crying jags since that time, now almost five hours ago. I feel fairly well adjusted, but I think that I can now grieve for the woman I killed, without ruining my life. I’m ready to move on. Also, I want to call the President and resign from this special assignment and ask him to send me home.”
Captain Ralston smiled. “Good, good. I think this little talk has been of some benefit for you. I’ll call the communications center and have them set up a call with the White House. As you know, there is little chance you’ll talk directly with the President. But he will get the message.”
Twenty minutes later, Captain Ralston left the communications center when Kat picked up the handset.
“I’d like to speak with the President, please. This is Katherine Garnet on the aircraft carrier Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Mediterranean.”
“Yes, Miss Garnet. Congratulations on your successful mission on the nine warheads. I’m the President’s personal secretary and he knows about your good work. He left an hour ago for Europe and can be reached only in emergencies.”
Kat stared at the handset.
“Miss Garnet, are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“The President tried to call you, but we couldn’t get through to the ship. Some mix-up somewhere. He’ll try to call again tomorrow. May I offer you my congratulations on saving the world from nine more nuclear explosions and the millions of lives you saved.”
“Thanks, but the SEALs did most of it. I… I’ll wait for the President’s call. Thank you.”
When they first arrived in the assembly compartment, the SEALs had dropped their gear, had a big supper-type breakfast, and fallen into bed in their quarters. Mahanani had taken care of any scrapes and scratches. Ching had had what they decided was a sprained finger. They’d taped it tightly to the finger next to it.
Murdock showered after his meal, and dropped into bed, one of a six-pack officers compartment. De Witt was in the bunk over him.
Three hours after he got to bed, Murdock came awake with a start. Don Stroh was shaking his shoulder.
“Okay, sailor, up and at ’em. You’ve had more than enough sleep for one day. The captain wants to see you.”
Murdock came awake instantly. It was a skill he’d had to develop in the SEALs the first month he’d arrived, and he had maintained it.
“Captain? The ship’s captain or the CAG?”
“Yeah, the fly guy. He says he just received some messages from Air Force One and from the CNO. Sounds like they have made up their mind about the next move.”
Murdock decided to let DeWitt sleep. He dressed, and Stroh led him to the carrier’s Combat Information Center. It was the heart of the ship’s battle capability. All combat information came in there, and most of it showed on a large display of screens.