“It will be, Captain. I’m en route now. Carry on. I’ll speak with you after the mission.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Good luck, Amanda. Good hunting.”
The click of the disconnect was his only answer.
Macintyre returned the phone to its cradle and wondered to himself for a moment. He was a “West Coast Navy” officer by nature, casual in his command style. It wasn’t uncommon for him to address a subordinate by his or her first name.
Why did it feel so different, then, when he used hers?
Three hundred miles away, Amanda hung up her desk phone. They were committed now, and she felt a burden lift. It was like making a dive from the high board of a swimming pool. The dread of the dare was behind you, for better or worse, and all that was left to worry about was the plunge itself.
For her, there was only one last loose end to deal with. She switched on her laptop and called up the word processing program. For perhaps five minutes she sat quietly, her fingertips resting on the keyboard. Then she began to type.
Dearest Arkady:
This is one of those special letters that we of the profession of arms find necessary to write on occasion. If you are reading it, it will mean that I am dead…
Amanda struggled into her gear, taking on the unaccustomed weight and bulk of the equipment-studded load-bearing harness as well as the pistol belt and flak jacket. She considered the battle helmet as well, but decided to trust to luck instead of Kevlar. Twisting her hair up onto the top of her head, she contained it under her battered old Cunningham baseball cap, its tarnished gold braid concealed with black electrician’s tape.
She dug a small double-ended tube of camouflage cream out of a harness pouch. Removing the caps, she stood before the little wall mirror and inexpertly started applying the dull green and black skin paints.
A sharp knock sounded on the door as she worked. “Come in,” she called back over her shoulder.
Stone Quillain stepped up into her quarters. Fully geared and armed, he was a looming presence that filled the entirety of the little room.
“Boarding parties are ready to load, Skipper.” The Marine’s own face paint seemed to merge into the camouflage patterns of his equipment and jungle utilities, making him look as if he had been poured whole out of some stealth composite. Only the dark intentness of his narrowed eyes stood separate from the whole.
“Very good, Stone. I’ll be ready myself as soon as I get my face on. Elizabeth Arden never quite prepared me for anything like this.”
“Oh hell! What are you trying to do?” Stepping forward impatiently, Quillain took the tube of cream from her hand. “You aren’t supposed to be finger painting, goddammit!”
Loading a couple of fingertips with the paint, he began to swipe it onto her face with brusque strokes. “You want a solid base of the green all over everything, including the back of your neck. Then you use the black here to kill the highlight points. Your chin, the cheekbones, the bridge of your nose. Keep it asymmetrical, so if anyone does make out your face it’ll take him a couple seconds to figure out what it is he’s looking at. That’ll give you time to drop him. You get those spare .45 clips I sent over?”
“I did, Stone, and thank you,” she replied somberly. “You’ve taught me a lot about this business, and I want you to know that I appreciate it. I can imagine that it hasn’t been easy having to drag a green skimmer captain along behind you.”
“Aw, well, hell,” the big Marine muttered back. “I guess I’ve learned a few things too.” He jammed the caps back on the tube and tucked it into one of her gear pouches. “Use that stuff on your hands, too, when we go in. Either that or keep your gloves on.”
Quillain hesitated for a moment more. “There’s something that I want you to know, Skipper. Shame the devil and tell the truth, I had some… problems about working under the command of a woman CO when I first came out here. But now, for what it’s worth, I’d be pleased and proud to serve with you or with any other lady like you, anywhere, anytime.”
Amanda smiled, tasting the oily touch of the camo paint on her lips. “And I would be pleased and proud to serve with you, Stone. Anywhere. Anytime.”
She extended her hand and Quillain’s callused fingers closed around it, the two exchanging a short and fierce grip.
“Carry on, Captain Quillain. I’ll join you shortly.”
“Aye, aye, Skipper.”
As Quillain departed, Amanda turned back to her desk and the interphone, dialing up the Operations Center watch officer. “This is Captain Garrett. I’m shifting my flag to the Queen at this time. Is Commander Rendino there?”
The intel came on line in a moment. “Right here, boss ma’am.” Despite the flippant use of Amanda’s pet name, Christine sounded exceptionally sober this night.
“What’s our status, Chris?”
“We are on the precommit time line, ma’am. The air group is ready to take departure, and all other decoy elements are on station and standing by. Drone recon coverage is up and we are seeing no alteration in the Union force deployments. All boards are green. Operation Wolfrider is ready to commit.”
“What’s the word on Admiral Macintyre?”
“His helo is inbound with a fifteen-minute ETA. The helipads should be clear, so we can bring him straight aboard.”
“That’s good, Chris. Until he gets up to speed, you’ll be running the show.”
A laugh with a degree of sob in it came back over the phone. “God, responsibility! It keeps creeping up on me like cheap underwear. Damn you, Amanda. This is more frothing-at-the-mouth crazy than anything you’ve ever done before. Don’t be any more of a hero out there tonight than you absolutely have to. Okay?”
“I promise, Chris. Cross my heart. Take care of things until I get back.”
“You know I will, boss ma’am”.
Amanda glanced at her watch. “Commander Rendino. It is now 2245 hours. Advise all elements that we are committing to Operation Wolfrider. Initiate the primary time line.”
“Acknowledged, Captain. The primary time line is initiated.”
Amanda dropped the phone into its cradle and glanced for a last time at the recorded CD she’d left centered on her laptop lid. Then she stepped out into the night.
The misty rain that she’d hoped for blackened the antiskid on the decks and starred the scarlet worklights. Shadowy figures hurried through the darkness and voices shouted over the howl of turbines and the drone of rotors. Running lights pulsing against the black overcast. The helicopters of the composite U.K./U.S. air strike group were launching, three sleek British Merlins and one hulking American Sea Stallion lifting sequentially off the platform helipads.
Amanda lifted an unseen hand to Squadron Commander Dane in the lead aircraft and started aft to the hover hangars. As she made her way through the maze of deck modules, half-recognized voices called out of the shadows.
“Good luck, Captain!”
“Give ’em hell, ma’am!”
“Kick ass and take names, TACBOSS!”
She responded with a lifted thumb to each hail.
The trio of seafighters lay beneath the glare of the hangar arcs, their tail gates down and with the last few ammunition cases being hogged aboard. The PGACs were much changed from the gleaming, yard-new hulls that Amanda had first seen five months ago. Battered, patched, and sun blasted now, but also proven, like the men and women who crewed them.