Ghost Fleet : A Novel of the Next World War (9780544145979) (27 page)

As they passed one of the bars, Markov almost stopped, stricken by a sudden thirst. Then he pushed past the temptation and moved on to the intended destination.

“Hi, boys,” said the woman behind the surf desk. “I'm sorry, but your teammates took them all. No boards left.”

He was struck by the banal tone of her voice. In his whole time in Hawaii, he had never heard a local speak without some fleck of anger. But this woman sounded as if she were talking to a sunburned family of four from Chicago. Either she was on quite a cocktail of drugs or she was an utter idiot.

“It's too bad, you know,” she continued, “because today there's a perfect swell for beginners.”

Markov walked closer to the desk and locked eyes with her.

“Regrettably, this is work,” he said. “We're looking for information about a Directorate officer whose body was found on the beach.”

“I heard,” she said. “It's so sad.”

The nameplate on the desk identified her as Carrie Shin. Markov walked his eyes down Carrie's body, passing over her breasts but looking closely at her arms, searching for signs of needle tracks that might explain her demeanor. Maybe a little makeup on her forearm, but he couldn't be sure without looking at the skin up close.

“It is sad. How did he get possession of one of the hotel's boards?” said Markov.

“We think he took it after hours. We didn't think we had to lock them up anymore,” said Shin. Her voice lowered and her shoulders sagged, as if even the possibility of theft saddened her.

“When did he last rent a board here?” he asked.

“I saw him once,” she said. “Maybe two weeks ago? I think that was his first time surfing. He was really excited. He asked about a lesson but I couldn't do it then. I wish I had. Sandy Beach Park is one of the most dangerous places on the islands to surf—not a good place for a beginner.”

Markov studied the way her tanned skin seemed to give back some of the sun's warmth. He leaned in closer for his next question, wondering just how dark the circles under her eyes were when the makeup was washed away.

“Are there any other employees whom I should talk to?” he said.

She smiled and leaned away, arching her back in a subtle stretch. “This hotel is the safest place in town, for everyone. That's the point, isn't it?” she said. “Why would anyone do anything to upset that?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“The one thing I never heard was how he died.” She chattered on, slaking her curiosity in a way other locals never would have dared. “What did happen to him?”

“The board's leash got caught around his neck,” said Markov. “But it is not yet clear whether it was an accident or not.”

“Oh my God. That's horrible,” she said. “Wasn't there any video of the beach? Maybe a wave-cam?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.” He paused. “But as part of the revised security measures, we will be collecting something better from all the staff here.”

“Better than pictures?” she said.

“Much better. DNA,” he said. “That way we can track our friends throughout the island,” he said.

“Friends like me?” she said.

“Exactly,” he said.

Iliahi Elementary School, Wahiawa, Hawaii Special Administrative Zone

The body lay sprawled face-down on the ground. The mesh bag of soccer balls that the Chinese marine had brought for the students to play with had opened and the balls had spilled out; bright pink and yellow spheres rolled around the courtyard, leaving trails of blood behind them.

Nicks's grip on her SIG Sauer P220 loosened for a moment, then she squeezed the pistol tighter. Her hearing returned and her field of vision widened, allowing her to take in the chaos. Parents and children screamed over the ringing in her ears.

This was what the coach had been trying to warn them about when Nicks and the three other insurgents turned left off California Avenue. The coach had smiled a welcome but had waved his hands off to the side. Nicks cursed herself for missing the cue, caught up momentarily in the flash of normalcy brought on by the giddy kids around them.

“Contact!” shouted Charlie.

“A bit late for that,” said Nicks. “You hit?”

“No, I don't think so,” said Charlie. “There's got to be more; where are they?”

A Chinese marine burst around the gym corner, his assault rifle spraying wildly. A shot took Charlie in the neck. Nicks, with her pistol already up, instinctively fired two .45-caliber rounds at a distance of ten feet. The marine spun and collapsed over a blue hippo sculpture in the school's courtyard.

More fearful shouts in Chinese came from where the marine had been.

Nicks and the two other insurgents rounded the corner and found a lone Chinese civilian, evidently a member of one of the new community development units
⁶⁸
they'd been sending around to split the population from the insurgents, crying into a radio. She had a pistol but made no motion to use it; her two escorts were now dead.

They dragged her past Charlie's still body and over to the entrance of the building, and they took cover by the doors. After a moment, the woman stopped crying, and the unsettling calm that followed close combat came over Nicks. Her ears rang, her hands tingled, and she felt like her feet were so firmly planted in the ground, she couldn't take another step if her life depended on it. The feeling would pass, as it always did after the adrenaline waned, but in the moment, it took everything she had to stay focused and think about what was supposed to happen next.

“She was on the radio,” Nicks shouted to her squad mates, too loud because her ears were still ringing. “I don't know if she got someone on the other end. But we gotta tell Conan this place is blown and get clear.”

She looked up and saw three kids peering down at her from behind the blue-painted railings on the school's second-floor balcony. They looked blankly at the dead bodies and then at the NSM members. Then, one by one, they began to look skyward, until they were all squinting at the sky to the south.

That was when Nicks's ears cleared and she heard it too, the thumping of helicopter rotors coming closer.

Hidden Valley Estates, Wahiawa, Hawaii Special Administrative Zone

Conan and Finn cut through the empty parking lot of the Mormon church adjacent to the school, jumping off their bikes as they entered a stand of trees separating the church from the houses nearby. They kept beneath a long canopy of thick green foliage that ran through the clusters of one-story and two-story homes in the Hidden Valley Estates housing complex. Seeing a quadcopter drone zoom down the road toward the school, they ducked down and hid among the trees.

“Hold here,” said Conan.

“Screw that, let's go,” said Finn. “We can get to the cache, arm up, and then get them out.”

Conan shook her head. “No, we can't,” she said.

Neighbors had begun to spill out of their homes into the street, pointing and screaming. Some of them, probably parents, were rushing toward the school, racing against the arrival of the Directorate forces.

Finn turned to look at her, trying to puzzle it out. “Conan, our guys are one thing, but the kids. There are kids there.”

“Exactly,” said Conan quietly.

“What? What do you think is going to happen?” said Finn.

She didn't answer, just stared back at him. Finn tried to get up, but she wrestled him down. He had just shrugged off her grip when a pair of Directorate Z-8K assault helicopters
⁶⁹
roared overhead and then spun to flare just above the playing field next to the school. One after another, black-suited Directorate commandos jumped out. They fanned out around the landing point, the equipment shed with the weapons cache now inside their perimeter.

Finn ducked back under the brush and looked at her angrily. “Conan. You know our guys—they are going to fight. And those kids and teachers are going to be stuck in the middle of a shitstorm.”

“It was always a risk
⁷⁰
that something bad would go down at the school,” said Conan in a whisper. “Why do you think I chose it?”

Fort Mason, San Francisco

“I love you.”

Jamie knew what Lindsey would say when he walked through the door. She said it every night, even when he knew it was a struggle for her to get the words out.

Nights like tonight when he returned home late, exhausted and drained. The adrenaline had ebbed months ago; what propelled him now was a cocktail of caffeine, stims, and anger.

The boat hit the dock's edge gently, perfectly done, and he sharply saluted the shipyard launch that dropped him off at pier 2 in the dark. It was a perk of command that spared him the long autobus ride home and kept him on the water that much longer. Plus, it was only a quick walk up to his house in Fort Mason and he could be home in a few minutes once he set foot on land.

Like every night, though, he first stopped and sat down on a bench, a vestige of a time when this was an area for festivals and tourists. From his seat he looked west through the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge was illuminated
⁷¹
tonight, the LEDs woven into the cable wires showing a winking flag displayed, fifty stars bright. It was something the governor had decided to do, against the advice of the Defense Department. The bridge was a symbol of what they were fighting for, he argued, and should not be lost in the fog of war and the Bay. That speech had gone over well; no doubt one of his public affairs team's own social-engineering algorithms had come up with it.

Jamie took a last sip of coffee and slowly dumped the rest out, watching it spatter the ground at his feet. It was oddly soothing and had become a ritual as he tried to slow his mind down from the past sixteen hours at work.

“Halt!” said a voice in the dark.

Simmons looked up and saw no one. He was tired, but tired enough to hear things?

“Identification,” said a sentry. It was one of the California National Guard troops who patrolled the waterfront around the clock.

“Proceed,” said Simmons. “Captain James Simmons. Navy. I live at the fort, house forty-nine.”

The sentry scanned the barcode next to the left epaulet on Simmons's uniform.

“Thank you, sir,” said the sentry. “Quiet night.”

“No trouble?” said Simmons.

“No, there never is,” said the sentry, suddenly sounding old and tired. “What's that smell?” He clutched his M4 closer to his chest and inhaled deeply. “Damn, is that real coffee?”

“Yes, from onboard,” said Simmons.

“I knew I signed up for the wrong service. When you work as a barista at Starbucks and then the country runs out of coffee, well, you just can't drink the fake stuff, on principle,” said the sentry. “That's when I joined up. Spent the first few weeks of basic with the worst headaches, though. I'd charge the beach myself if they could promise me a fresh cup of Kona reserve on the other side.”

“We'll get you that Hawaiian coffee soon enough,” said Simmons.

“Thank you, sir. You have a good night,” said the sentry.

“You too,” said Simmons, and he started up the hill for home.

Jamie opened the front door quietly and slipped inside. At eleven o'clock, he'd missed the kids and dinner, but he could still spend an hour with Lindsey. Squeaking floorboards announced his arrival.

The dining room was empty. He looked in the living room to see if she had fallen asleep on the couch reading.

“Hey? Linds, still up?” he whispered.

He looked around the floor of the living room. Where were the toys? Oddly, there was nothing underfoot. He remembered the frenetic cleanups his father had imposed on him when he was the same age as his kids now. The sight of toys out of place, any sign, really, that children lived in his house, would set his father off.

“Linds?” he called again.

He gingerly walked upstairs. A faint glow emanated from their bedroom.

When he walked in, his heart soared and his stomach ached. Lindsey stood before him holding out a glass of sparkling wine, wearing only a red silk robe. Candles from their disaster kit lit the room. From a big pink beach bucket filled with ice, the neck of a champagne bottle stood at attention.

“Happy anniversary,” she said.

He took the flute and kissed her. How could he have forgotten?

“Fifteen years,” he said.

“I found you, lost you, and got you back again,” she said.

“Happy anniversary,” he said. “Sorry I'm late for it.”

“The kids are asleep, and the house is ours. For the next little while.”

“I have to be in early tomorrow,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “You're going to be tired.”

“Very,” he said, removing the robe. They made love with the patient pleasure that comes from focusing on each other completely.

Afterward, they lay back and looked out at the bridge in the dark, fog beginning to devour its pillars.

“One day you're going back out there,” she said.

“I know. And I know what I promised before all this. But I have to be out there now. You know that, right?”

“I'm not going to tell you not to go,” she said. “But all I think about is that we haven't had enough time together. Fifteen years is not enough.”

“No, it's not,” he said. “What I do each day, I do to make sure I will be back. That's it, in its simplest sense.”

“I know,” she said.

“My dad left my mom after fifteen years, did you know that?” he said.

“Is that why you forgot tonight?” she said.

This wasn't one of those binary choices. He could go in so many different directions. Anger. Denial. Submission. Regret.

“I am so sorry, Lindsey,” he said. “For tonight. For everything. For staying in the Navy when I told you I was done. I'm sorry. It's all I can say.”