He switched off the TV and tossed the remote on his bed, which he’d remade after the maid service had been in — the blankets now so tightly tucked that a tossed quarter bounced off it — testimony to the fact that as much as he was an original maverick thinker in the armed forces, he also valued the small but valuable drills that reinforced respect for tradition. He knew that some of the old ideas “in the box” could still serve well in times of personal and national crisis. Going back to the box of boring procedures for a moment, he asked Salvini to go online and into Google, to do a search on the Net for cruise ships’ arrivals and departures. In a minute Salvini saw that the Bermuda Star had been scheduled to arrive in Seattle a week before, that is, before the sinkings. But the entry was flagged with a red asterisk.
“Queer,” observed the general, explaining his comment by pointing out that Seattle Port Authority showed Bermuda Star as “delayed.” Having departed Lahaina, Maui, for Seattle two weeks ago, the cruise ship had been compelled to return to Hawaii due to an outbreak of a virulent SARS-like bronchial virus, over a dozen passengers removed to the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Honolulu. And the ship had been quarantined.
“So it didn’t get to Seattle,” said Freeman, his earlier fatigue replaced by a surge of energy.
“I don’t get it,” confessed Sal.
“The sub got hold of however many barrels it needed,” said Freeman, “from Bermuda Star. So if the sub sprang a leak, from its hydraulics, whatever—”
“And we took a sample of the leak,” cut in Aussie, “we’d think it was from this Bermuda Star. Only our terrorists,” he elaborated, “didn’t figure on the cruise ship coming down with a bug, having to stay quarantined in Hawaii.”
Freeman was on the phone to the Coast Guard station at Port Townsend, which was known to have the best supply of rigid inflatables. He wanted a twenty-four-man RIB for his team and any available Coast Guard divers.
“General,” the duty officer told him, “we’ve had to prioritize. This war’s being fought on so many fronts. The best we can do is a sixteen-footer. And we haven’t got any spare divers.”
“Prioritize! We’ve found the sub! — well, at least where it’s been. If we can trace the tail on that tadpole spill before it’s sucked out or chopped up by the tides, we may be able to backtrack it to the bastards’ operating base.”
“General, I’m following orders,” said the duty officer. “You find a sub base and I’ll request antisub aircraft from Whidbey.”
“That’s no damn good if it’s a cave. Can’t drop depth charges into a cave. I need more divers — SpecFor guys like mine. I’ve only got three,’sides myself. If you can—”
“Hold on, General.”
Freeman could hear someone interrupting in the background, then the Coast Guard DO came on again. “Young Peter wants to go with you.”
“Peter—”
“Dixon,” said the DO. “We’ll send him over with an RIB. Sixteen-footer.”
“Fine,” said Freeman, who knew the duty officer was right. Everyone was spread thin.
It was obvious to Aussie, Choir, and Sal that the general, for all his prodigious memory, didn’t recognize Dixon’s name.
“Dixon’s the swim buddy of that guy Albinski,” said Aussie. “Albinski was the one they winched up on Petrel, smothered in kelp.”
“Good,” said Freeman. “He’ll be keen to smoke those bastards out.”
“How ’bout David?” asked Aussie. “Maybe he can help.”
Choir and Sal looked uneasily at the general. They were glad it was his decision, not theirs.
He surprised them, however, by asking, “What d’you boys think?”
“Well …” Sal began awkwardly, becoming tongue-tied.
He deferred to Choir, the Welshman’s shrug, like Sal’s silence, also a diplomatic abstention.
“Aussie?” the general pressed. “You know the answer, same as these two ninnies. Don’t you?” He said “ninnies” with the rough affection born of long team membership.
“He could be a liability,” said Aussie quietly.
Freeman nodded, then looked at Salvini. “You asked from loyalty, Sal. I understand that. I admire that, but we all know that David’s gammy right arm can barely hold the Bullpup he’s been struggling with. Handling an RIB in this sea would be a hell of a lot more difficult than that.” He paused. “Brentwood would make the same decision.”
The three others agreed, but Aussie wasn’t so sure. David Brentwood was the kind of leader who, probably to a fault, would take a chance, having great faith in the power of will. He had often cited the extraordinary determination of the Vietnamese against all odds. Morale might not move mountains, as Freeman himself was often wont to say, but “it can sure as hell climb them.” Then again, the general’s responsibility was to the team, not any one individual.
“Call him, Aussie,” Freeman said. “He’ll be back at Fort Lewis by now. Tell him to sign out an antitank launcher with HE rounds — just in case we bump into the bastards. It’ll give him a sense of lending a hand — well, at least doing something.”
“I’m on to it,” said Aussie, dialing Brentwood’s cell. He hoped he wouldn’t answer. Who wanted to be a gofer?
“Might piss him off,” said Salvini.
“Oh, thanks for that, Sal. That really helps.”
“We’ll see,” said Choir, all of which left Aussie wondering why Freeman wasn’t calling his protégé.
To Aussie’s relief, David didn’t answer, so Lewis left him a quick but succinct message to bring them the antitank launcher from Fort Lewis.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Despite the assistance rendered by a Coast Guardsman who volunteered, on his own time, to accompany him to satisfy U.S. Coast Guard regulations, Dixon had trouble getting the RIB out of Port Townsend harbor on his way to pick up Freeman’s team at Port Angeles.
It wasn’t so much the gut-slamming chop created by the incoming tide that delayed the RIB’s departure, but the disturbing number of oil-matted seabirds that had been washed into the harbor. Dixon had seen enough dead wildlife, and the possibility that some of the gulls, cormorants, and other birds might still be alive haunted him. Accordingly, he slowed down to no more than two knots, while the Coast Guard volunteer filled the time by double-checking what few provisions he’d been able to second from the already drained USCG quartermaster’s supplies and the antitank launcher that Captain Brentwood had dutifully brought up from Fort Lewis.
Unaware of Brentwood’s injury, Dixon had been about to ask David, whom he’d seen on CNN touring the hospital, if he’d like to come along on the investigation of Darkstar’s anomaly when Dixon noticed the difficulty the Medal of Honor winner had lifting the relatively light fifteen-pound AT-4 rocket launcher unit.
As if reading young Dixon’s mind, David had stayed to help push the sixteen-foot-long Bruiser off from shore, but his Vibram boot slipped on an oil-slicked rock, throwing him off balance. His immobile right arm instinctively flew out to regain balance, but instead he went, as Aussie Lewis would have said, “A over tit,” and fell into the oily muck at the water’s edge, able to use only his left hand to push himself to the kneeling position. The injured right arm that had failed him with the new ambidextrous Bullpup was draped in oil-slicked kelp washing ashore amid an offal of other diesel-soaked detritus. Out of respect, an embarrassed Dixon and the Guardsman had looked quickly away.