Hiro fired his net volley of orders into the command headset he wore. “Combat Information Center, this is the captain. Disengage Cooperative Engagement links and reconfigure for independent operations. Signals, you may inform the Carlson we are executing breakaway.”
Amanda drifted over to the port bridge wing door and peered aft. The Duke was pulling rapidly away from the Carlson, cutting across the LPD’s course line and leaving her to make her own more leisurely way east to the Indies. A dazzling point of light danced at the larger ship’s signal bridge, outshining even the glare of the Indian Ocean sun. No doubt the reply to Ken’s departure notice. To her surprise Amanda found she was going to miss the looming presence of the big amphib. Coming back aboard the Cunningham was like returning to visit the hometown where you grew up. The Carlson was where her tomorrows rested.
“What’s the word, ma’am?” Ken inquired, coming up behind her as she lounged in the hatchway. “I never had the eye for blinker code.”
“Let’s see: ‘Godspeed and good… hunting…. Break…. See… you… in… Singapore…. Break…. Leave… some… for… us.’ ”
Hiro chuckled. “I didn’t think Carberry would loosen up that much.”
“He’s not so bad, just different. And I seem to recall a certain exec of mine who tended to be a little bit stiff at times as well.”
“Well, that was before a tough lady captain knocked the starch out of me.”
They withdrew into the cool of the wheelhouse. “Any further orders, ma’am?” Hiro inquired.
“Not for the moment, Ken. Carry on. I’ll just lean back in a corner and watch some water for a while if I may.”
“Would you care to take the captain’s chair, ma’am?” Ken nodded toward the elevated seat on the right-hand side of the bridge, traditionally sacrosanct for the ship’s commanding officer. Amanda had lounged there for many a watch and sea mile.
She shook her head. “No, Ken, that chair belongs to the skipper of the Duke, and that’s you. I’m just a high-ranking hitchhiker at the moment.”
“Acknowledged and understood, ma’am. In that case, may the captain of the Cunningham respectfully request that the task force commander grace his personal chair with her presence for the remainder of the watch… just once, for old times’ sake?”
Amanda chuckled. “Request granted.”
She crossed to the captain’s chair and lifted herself into it. There was new padding and a revised bank of chair arm controls; yet the flick of her heel on the base ring still rotated it that forty-five degrees relative to the bow that permitted her to brace her feet comfortably on the bridge grab rail. Crossing her arms, she tilted the seat back and lounged. It still felt just right.
Maybe they were wrong. Maybe you could come home again, if only for a little while.
Flag Quarters, USS Carlson
180 Miles Southeast of the Yemeni Headlands
0944 Hours, Zone Time: July 30, 2008
It had been some time since Elliot MacIntyre had shared quarters with a woman, even when the lady herself wasn’t present.
Amanda had insisted that MacIntyre take over her flag cabin while she was away aboard the Cunningham, pointing out that it made no sense whatsoever to leave accommodations empty aboard a living-space-starved man-of-war. Having refused her proposal that she turn her cabin over to him altogether during his stay aboard, he had to allow her to win on this point.
Still, it felt damn peculiar, and Eddie Mac couldn’t define exactly why.
There was nothing overtly feminine about the two-room suite with its connecting private head. Nor was there anything especially extravagant about them beyond the fitted navy-blue carpeting on the deck and the artificial pine paneling on the bulkheads. The overhead was still raked with the naked conduits and cable clusters of a warship.
The little office/living space had room enough for a large gray steel desk and computer terminal, along with a small leather-and-steel-tube couch and a rather battered and mismatched leather recliner chair that MacIntyre remembered as Amanda’s favorite from the wardroom set of the Cunningham.
The paintings mounted on the bulkheads were definitely worth a look. Amanda had several thousand dollars’ worth of original maritime art here, all of it done by Wilson Garrett, Rear Admiral, USN, retired — Amanda’s father.
MacIntyre grinned reminiscently. Back in the Persian Gulf aboard the old Callahan, they’d always thought the Old Man was just a little eccentric with his sketchpads and easels.
Two of the paintings were also transfers from the Duke, the one of Amanda’s first command, the fleet ocean tug Paigan, and the other of her Cape Cod sloop, the Zeeadler. But there was a third he had never seen before, a painting of a young girl looking out to sea from the top of a rocky beachside bluff. Clad in blue jeans and cradling a toy Sailboat in her arms, the child gazed at the distant horizon, a yearning dream in her eyes.
“Damnation,” MacIntyre murmured. There was no mistaking who the girl might be. A lot of father’s love had gone into that picture.
MacIntyre crossed to the door that led into the sleeping cabin. The blue carpet and pine panel motif held over here as well, a blue blanket drum-taut on the bunk-inset in the bulkhead. Again, not a trace of overt femininity, and yet, there was something….
The scent! That was it! The soft sweetness of cologne and talc over rode the usual warm metal neutrality of a ship’s atmosphere. He remembered now how it would strike him when he entered his bedroom back home after a long stint at sea. The scent of his late wife and the promise it held. The ways they would make up for their time apart.
Eddie Mac gave an impatient shake of his head, stuffing those memories back in their box and slamming the lid down. That was past now, and not returning.
Brusquely he turned to the lockers and drawers built into the bulk head across from the bunk, checking to see how the steward’s mate had his gear secured. However, the third drawer he pulled open revealed an explosion of filmy femininity. MacIntyre slammed the drawer hastily shut.
A totally inappropriate set of images involving Amanda Garrett and a small handful of black lace raged behind his eyes. Eddie Mac lifted a hand to his forehead and massaged his temples. This… was going to be difficult.
Seeking to refocus his attention, MacIntyre turned back toward the bunk. An inset shelf railed against wave action ran above it for its full length. Here MacIntyre found his diversion. An expensive portable CD player had been racked at its center along with a long row of music disks.
And there were books.
The admiral noted that a disk was already loaded in the player. He reached over and tapped the Start key. After a few moments the haunting strains of a familiar movement of music issued from the speaker. “The Song of the High Seas”; he should have expected that.
Intently he studied the row of book titles over the head of the bed. One of the surest ways of learning what was in an individual’s heart and mind was in having a look at what they read. Amanda had another bookcase full of professional reading out in the office space, but these were old friends, comfort books, battered and worn from many rereadings.
Not surprisingly there was a strong maritime orientation. There were a few Foresters, The Ship, The Good Shepherd, Gold from Crete. No Horn-blower, though: MacIntyre recalled Amanda once saying that she found the character’s incessant mullygutsing over his own inadequacies annoying. There was also a Jack London, The Adventures of Captain Grief, and Jan de Hartog’s Call of the Sea anthology.