Dan rubbed a bristly chin. Ought to shave soon. “Uh, apropos of that, we may have mutual interference, with the Israeli Patriot battery at Ben Gurion. Our geographic sectors overlap and our freq bands are real close. We’ve asked for a copy of a Patriot/Aegis interoperability test they did at White Sands, but we haven’t been able to break that loose. It’d be good to have some kind of direct channel to the Israelis too. To be able to deconflict in real time.”
“Sounds reasonable. I’ll take that for action and get back to you. Otherwise, how’s it going? Over.”
“I had what seems to be a natural-causes death this morning.” He gave her the details, and ended, “I just hit Send on the full report. I’m requesting an autopsy. There’s just not too much my chief corpsman can pull out of his — tail. Other than that it might be a vaccine reaction.”
Her voice sharpened. “To AVA? The anthrax vaccine?”
“Correct. Over.”
“That’ll involve Bethesda. You’ll be getting calls from Clinical Investigation. Has the family been notified? You did what’s right, right? Over.”
“My XO looked it up in the manual and did the death report and the next-of-kin notification. You and your N4 are info’d on those. Over.”
“Okay then … keep me in the loop on that. Anything else you need?”
“Those parts for the chassis rebuild we requested. We got some of them helo lift from the TF, but there’s still outstanding requests.”
“My loggies are working it. Oh, and by the way — almost forgot — NCIS identified the guy who threw the gasoline at you, at the gate. Over.”
This was news. He pulled his consciousness out of the phone, checked the display, checked his own personal six. Then wondered what he was looking for, in the chill, darkened, equipment-packed space. The shapeless void-thing that had stalked him in the corridors of dream? “Really? They got him? Over.”
“Well, identified him. Unfortunately, the Italians had already let him go by then. And don’t seem to be able to find him again — no surprise, I guess. Anyway, want to know who he worked for?”
“Uh … yeah.”
“There’s an al-Qaeda link. Maybe not directly, but we’re pretty sure they pulled the string.”
Dan thought of several things he might say, but the one that came closest to actually getting voiced was: And I know why.
After 9/11, at first, no one had known for sure who was responsible. Then they had, but hadn’t been able to locate him.
But TAG had been able to retask a modeling agent framework, originally intended to data-mine a littoral environment to locate submarines, into a program that integrated communications, intelligence, and social relations to predict the location of a unitary actor. Such as bin Laden. Dan, Henrickson, and Wenck had taken CIRCE active at Bagram Field, Afghanistan, and had nailed Osama’s location closely enough that a SEAL team had come within an ace of taking him out.
Now, with a titanic conflict impending, maybe OBL was taking the opportunity to settle his books.
Or was that simply megalomania? To think a randomly thrown bottle had been aimed at him? Surely he wasn’t that important, in the great scheme of things. He grimaced. No, they’d seen an official car, and thrown a firebomb. That was all.
“Dan? You there?”
“Yeah. That’s interesting. An asymmetrical response.”
“Or something like that. Okay, we’re up-to-date, right? Info me on your on-station message. I’ll keep working on this end. Out.”
He signed off and resocketed the phone. Looked once more at the display, at the symbology and overlay and now, coming into the picture on the right, the east, the curved-bow shape of the most fought-over land on earth. Next year in Jerusalem. Next year in Al-Quds. The Holy Land of the Crusaders and Salah ad-Din. Israel. Palestine.
He took a deep breath and let it out. Toggled to the next screen, and started his on-arrival message.
9
“Now flight quarters, flight quarters. All hands man your flight quarters stations. Stand clear topside aft of frame 315. Flight quarters.”
The echoes of the 1MC died. Dan sprawled in his bridge chair, boots up, foul weather jacket zipped snug to the throat, gazing out over an uneasy sea. As Savo Island nosed around to face the wind she rose, then plummeted, picking up a deep creaking pitch. The air had turned chill again, and all was gray; charcoal clouds pressing down on a sea like a herd of stampeding elephants, ruffled with streaks of white foam like dust blown off their great heaving backs.
No mark on that ever-changing, ever-unchanging surface testified to it, but they were on station at last. A misshapen arc thirty miles north to south and slightly narrower east to west, centered west and south of Tel Aviv. He watched the rounded neon numerals of the Fathometer rise with each flicker: 998; 1010; 1023. Crossing the thousand-meter line. The navigator and the chief quartermaster, Van Gogh, were having a muted argument at the far end of the bridge. A petty officer murmured into his handheld next to Dan. He was there to relay word from the helicopter control station aft, an armored, fireproofed mini — control tower set to one side of the squared-off flight deck.
“Bridge, Helo Control. From the pilot: Can we come fifteen to twenty degrees left. He’s got turbulence across the deck. We’re just about at the wind limit.”
Dark eyes gave Dan a level look; a sleek head inclined. Crossing to stand beside him, Lieutenant (jg) Noah Pardees murmured, “Skipper, range is clear to port. Closest contact fifteen hundred yards and opening. No other threatening CPAs.”
Pardees, the deck department officer, was even taller than Dan, and so West Coast laid-back and so very meager he seemed barely to inhabit his coveralls. Dan nodded. “How about that fuel-pressure caution light? And will we still be within ship motion limitations if the wind increases?”
The petty officer said, “They say they got that addressed, Captain. The caution light. Green board, ready to fly. On ship motion: remember they go by their onboard gyros, not ship’s inclinometers.”
“Okay … I guess. If they’re happy. What about this rain? Looks as if it could close in.”
“Scattered showers. And no problem if the wind comes up another ten knots. After that, could get dicey.”
Pardees murmured languidly, “That’s not in the fleet weather prediction, sir.”
“Bridge, Helo Controclass="underline" Request green deck.”
Dan resisted the impulse to get down from his chair and check the radar one last time. Pardees had his binoculars up, peering out to port. The junior officer of the deck, little apple-cheeked Gene Mytsalo, was out on the wing. He had to trust. Trust the weather prediction, the pilots’ judgment, the mechanics who’d repaired the fuel pump or pressure switch or whatever had triggered the caution light. He was the captain, not God. The OOD lowered the glasses and shot him a glance. He nodded.
“Helo Control, OOD: Deck is green,” Pardees said into his Hydra.
“Green, aye … stand by.”
Dan gripped the arms of his chair, then made himself relax back into it. Feign serenity, at least, if he couldn’t actually achieve it. He’d seen a helicopter explode once, on its approach to the deck. Not a Sea Hawk; one of the older aircraft, a Sea Sprite. A good bird, despite the accidents, but the Navy had retired them when it got rid of the last Knox-class frigates.
At last the rising roar from aft, shifting to starboard, testified to the launch. “Red Hawk 202 away,” the petty officer relayed.