She sank down beside Christine, putting her back to the systems shack bulkhead. “Pass me that brush, would you?” she asked, unpinning her hair.
Christine collected the brush from the gym bag at her side. “You’re letting it grow out a little more,” she commented, reaching up to touch Amanda’s tousled amber mane.
“Mmm, just too lazy to do anything with it.”
“Want me to do it?”
“Be my guest.”
Sitting cross-legged, Amanda turned half away to accept the grooming, and the two sat in the silence that is so different between old and comfortable friends from the silence between uneasy strangers, watching the Carlson’s wake boil white in the growing dawn.
“Hear anything from Arkady lately?” Christine inquired after a time.
“Now and again. He’s up in Japan at the moment, working with the Maritime Self Defense Force on their aviation ship program. I gather he’s taken enthusiastically to being a fighter pilot and he’s having more fun than kittens.”
Chris glanced away. keeping her voice casual. “That’s what I’d heard. I was just wondering if he’d been saying anything… special to you.”
Amanda tilted her head to let Christine work out a snarl. “We exchange a letter now and again, Chris. Friends’ letters.”
“Oh…”
Amanda poked an elbow back into the intel’s ribs. “And there is no reason to go ‘Oh’ on me, Christine Maude. Arkady and I have no regrets and a lot of very happy memories. It was just time to set it aside for a while.”
“Cool, then. Who’s the replacement?”
“Replacement? Good Lord, Chris. I haven’t replaced him with anyone.”
“Well, why not?”
“Because I haven’t had the time… or the particular inclination.”
Christine thumped the palm of her hand into the center of her forehead. “I can see it all now. After office hours, your staff turns off your main power switch and throws a dust cover over you. I knew it was a mistake to accept that tour with NAVSPEC. You need a keeper.”
“I’m doing just fine, thank you kindly.” Amanda gave her brush glossed hair a final setting shake into place.
Christine snorted. “Sure. And what are you going to carve on your tombstone? ‘Here lies Amanda Lee Garrett, who got too busy to have a life.’ ”
“I intend to be buried at sea, Chris.”
The intel sighed and tossed the brush back into the gym bag. Leaning back against the bulkhead again, she closed her eyes. “That was a bad line, Boss Ma’am…. Amanda, I’m sorry. It’s just that you drive me just a little bit crazy sometimes. You have got to be the most… generous person with yourself I’ve ever met. You give it all away, to the Navy, to the mission, to your crew, to your friends and lovers. Hey, I just wish you’d learn keep a little bit of it for yourself. It is okay to do that, you know?”
Amanda gave a brief wry chuckle and reached back to lightly slap her friend on the thigh. “I’ve heard rumors to that effect, yes. And to tell the truth, I’ve been giving the subject some thought. I missed something very good with Vince Arkady because the time simply wasn’t right. I don’t want the time to be wrong again, whether I pick up with Vince or whether I move on with someone else.”
An odd speculative tone came into Christine’s voice. “Have you talked with Eddie Mac lately?”
Amanda looked over her shoulder. “To Admiral MacIntyre? Of course. I brief him a couple of times a week on how the task force is shaking down. Why?”
Chris only shrugged and looked out to sea. “No reason. Just wondering.”
Amanda’s command headset had been hooked over one end of her open gym bag; now its exterior alarm chirped, demanding attention. Christine passed it across as Amanda came up onto her knees. “Garrett here,” she said, fitting the earphone to the side of her head. Intently she listened for a moment.
“Very good. Carry on.”
Lithely getting to her feet, Amanda reached for the set of wash khakis she had draped over the topside railing. “Speak of the devil, Chris. That was the task group AIRBOSS. Admiral Maclntyre’s inbound.”
Admiral Elliot MacIntyre had served for three years as CINCLANT (commander in chief, Atlantic Fleet) operating from FLEETLANT-COM’s bunkerlike headquarters complex in Norfolk, Virginia. Upon leaving that assignment for NAVSPECFORCE, he had sworn he would never again, as he phrased it, “fly his flag from a brick shithouse.”
These days he spent fully half of his time in the field with his combat elements. Accompanied by a minimal tactical staff, he utilized the advances made in military telecommunications to the maximum, remaining electronically linked with his headquarters responsibilities while working face-to-face with his unit commanders.
Within NAVSPECFORCE, it had been learned that the phrase “Eddie Mac will be on the ground in half an hour” could be spoken at any time, day or night. Depending upon the situation, this could be cause for relief or trepidation.
MacIntyre would agree that perhaps it was an unconventional way to run a major military command. However, peering down at the frost and jade wakes of his ships cutting across the Red Sea, he would also state it was a hell of a personal improvement over staring at a briefing-room flatscreen.
The desert-camouflaged Sikorsky S-70 gingerly eased in over the Carlson’s flight deck, its Saudi air force pilots demonstrating an understandable lack of familiarity with a shipboard landing platform. Eventually the landing gear of the export variant Blackhawk bounced down onto the deck, and the Saudi airmen throttled back to idling power. As the aircraft’s side doors slid open, MacIntyre led a mixed dozen of U.S. Navy enlisted hands, CPOs, and junior officers out of the helicopter’s cargo bay and onto the LPD’s deck.
In his own personal operating style, the admiral carried his own luggage off the aircaft; as per his standing orders within NAVSPECFORCE, no ceremony heralded his arrival beyond the small group of officers clustered at the head of the helipad.
Keeping the bill of his uniform cap tugged down against the rotor wash, he ducked across to his waiting officers. Straightening, he turned and saluted the colors aft, then turned to reply to the crisp volley of salutes offered to him.
“Request permission to come aboard, Captain,” he yelled to Commander Carberry over the rotor thunder.
“Permission granted, sir!”
Deckside communications then became temporarily impossible as the Saudi helicopter lifted off behind them. As the aircraft hauled away toward the Saudi coast and the sound level dropped, MacIntyre gave his cap a final settling tug. “Well, that’s an improvement. Commander Carberry, it’s a pleasure to see you again. And you, Commander Rendino… and you, Captain Garrett.”
As always, MacIntyre found himself stricken with the poise and natural regality of Amanda’s bearing and, dammit, by the striking and unself-conscious beauty of the woman, the rich reddish brown of her hair and the golden glow of her skin contrasting with her tropic whites and rakish black Sea Fighter beret.
“It’s a pleasure to have you aboard, sir,” she replied in her purring alto. “Chris says that you have an interesting job for us.”
“Among other things. But first be advised you can expect about a dozen more Saudi helos in this morning. Beyond my staff people, we have personnel transfers for both the Carlson and the Cunningham, and some sling loads of parts and munitions. You’ve got company coming aboard.”