Seawolf Mask of Command (41 page)

A cruiser, part of the base’s police force, appeared illuminating the grisly scene in its headlights. Yong-sun’s dwindling force was now in a bad way. Surrounded and caught out in the open, all they could do was return fire in multiple directions. Yong-sun slumped to his side, struggling for life as his men finally silenced the machine gun manned by Taylor who was now slumped, apparently dead, in the bloody turret.

Yong-sun felt his strength leaving him, but he still gripped the grenade. He crawled along the base of the wall toward the door, seeing the muzzle flashes of multiple weapons emanating from the doorway. His one grenade could still snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, if only he could make it.

The earth beneath him was rocked by a powerful explosion and to the north, he saw the broiling explosion as one of the base’s fuel bunkers erupted. The blast was enormous and illuminated the entire skyline. The image buoyed his spirits briefly, but didn’t give him any more strength as his arms would no longer work well enough to allow him to crawl.

He wouldn’t be captured alive. That was a certainty. He knew he was dying fast. He thought of the grenade still clutched in his hand. He hadn’t the strength to throw it. His head collapsed to the cold pavement facing his men. There were only two left. They were lying prone, totally exposed and under fire from the base police as well as the sentries firing from inside the barracks. They would die fighting, too. All of them would die fighting. It was why they’d been sent here. None were expected to survive. It wasn’t why they were trained. This had been part of their training, too.

Yong-sun’s last act before fulfilling this ultimate order, was to pull the grenade close to his body and place it under him in hopes of taking more of his enemy with him when they found his body.

Torpedo Handling Room, USS Seawolf

K
risten could have slept on the deck if it weren’t already covered with boxes of equipment, ammunition crates, and snoring SEALs. She yawned tiredly, having spent nearly eighteen hours going over both LMRS drones to make certain they were in perfect order. She climbed the ladder leading out of the torpedo room and headed aft, anxious for a shower and then her bunk.

She reached the captain’s cabin after a brief stop to collect a change of clothing and her toiletries. He wasn’t in—as usual—and she took a quick shower, anxious to get to bed. The
Seawolf
was again submerged and, according to the navigation charts she’d seen in the control center, heading for the Sea of Japan.

She wiped the bathroom down as she did every time and then stepped out into the cabin. But now, sitting in the small booth-style seat, was Brodie. She hadn’t heard him enter and hadn’t expected to see him. He was leaned back slightly, his head resting against the bulkhead and his eyes closed. Kristen assumed he was asleep and quietly took a step for the door to leave him in peace.

“Lieutenant,” he said softly.

“I’m sorry I woke you. I was just leaving, Captain.”

“It’s all right. I was just resting my eyes,” he assured her.

“Excuse me, Captain, I know it isn’t for me to say,” she began, knowing it wasn’t her place but speaking her mind anyway. “But you sure look like you need some sleep.”

He seemed to think it funny and smiled slightly. “I’ll take it under advisement. Thank you.” He then asked, “How’re your burns healing?”

“They’re okay, sir.” she replied, lying a bit but not wanting him to worry about her. He had enough on his plate at the moment. She’d been thinking almost non-stop about just what they might be getting into, and her incredible intellect had recalled billions of tiny, apparently insignificant pieces of information she’d gleaned since coming on board. He wanted her on board. That was a fact. She was certain of it. Clearly, with everything he was going through at the moment, having to deal with a woman on board had only added to his burden—even if he struggled mightily to conceal it. Why with everything else he was dealing with had he asked for her? She now understood. The LMRS drones… he had read her record. He knew her history. There probably wasn’t another officer in the submarine service who’d worked closely with the drones, whereas she’d been a systems engineer on the drones and knew them well. She remembered her conversation with Penny Graves.

“Sean does nothing without a reason,” Penny had assured Kristen. Was this the reason she was here? Had he anticipated trouble with the LMRS drones? She couldn’t imagine how he could have anticipated this…

“I thought I said you aren’t supposed to lie to your captain,” he corrected her gently, apparently aware her burns were still quite sensitive.

His apparent ability to see right through her even while exhausted to the point he wasn’t able to keep his eyes open annoyed her. “You really should get some sleep, Captain,” she suggested, trying not to sound too much like Gibbs.

“I’m fine, I assure you,” he replied easily.

But Kristen held her ground, knowing he needed to rest. They were heading for trouble, and the last thing they needed was a punch drunk commanding officer. “Now who’s lying, sir?”

He said nothing else, and she turned and took a tentative step toward the door.

“What’s the story between you and Fitzgerald?” His voice was as calm and steady as ever.

She turned toward him, trying to muster up the ability to convince him there was nothing between her and Fitzgerald. But could she successfully withhold the truth? Could she look him in the eye and intentionally lie to him about something significant? She looked at him. He hadn’t moved a muscle, his eyes were still closed, and for a brief moment, she thought she might have imagined his voice talking to her.

“What happened, Lieutenant?” he asked again. He didn’t open his eyes, nor did his body make so much as a twitch.

She screwed up her courage, deciding he’d better things to worry about than something long in the past. “It’s nothing sir, really.” She then added, “Good night, Captain.”

Brodie’s eyes opened and settled on hers. Kristen felt what courage she’d gathered disappear instantly. His eyes were warm and comforting. It didn’t seem possible that these were the same harsh, critical eyes that had greeted her the first time she entered this cabin. Nor did it seem possible this was the same man whom everyone had warned her about. There couldn’t be an angry bone in his body.

“A captain worries about everything when it comes to his people, Lieutenant.” he reminded her. “You might keep it in mind when you have your own boat someday.” He said this last part as if her ever becoming a submarine captain wasn’t a question, but a certainty. Brodie stood tiredly and stretched, clearly pushing against a wall of exhaustion. He then stepped toward her. Kristen felt a sudden pang of nervousness sweep through her. A part of her recalled the motorcycle weeks earlier when she’d felt a brief connection between them. She was completely alone with him, and she was suddenly terrified what might happen.

Brodie raised a hand and gently reached for her left forearm where the worst burns were. It’d been the arm she’d used to reach out and pull the Halon activation lever as she passed through the flames in the galley. Kristen felt her skin tingle as she let him examine the burns, thankful his eyes were on her arm and not on her face. There was absolutely nothing suggestive about his touch, but her entire body was tingling with …

She wasn’t certain just what she was feeling.

“Doc told me he gave you some antibiotic cream?” he asked, not seeing any sign of it on her arm.

“I…uh,” she stumbled slightly with her words, feeling her face flush. “I…have it in my quarters, Captain.”

He nodded thoughtfully and released her forearm. “Does it still hurt much?”

“A bit,” she replied honestly, knowing if she tried to lie, he would know it.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, his eyes bloodshot and swollen with exhaustion. Only here, in the privacy of his cabin, had she ever seen him show real signs of fatigue. “Doc also tells me you’re working too hard and need some rest.”

Kristen’s cleared her throat and forced aside the ridiculous notions currently occupying her thoughts. “I bet Doc Reed says the same thing about you too, sir.”

A wan smile crossed his lips as he ran his hand through his mop of hair. “Touché.”

“Try to get some rest, sir.” Once more she turned to leave, but before she could take a step, she heard his voice again. Just as soft as before, just as gentle. But now, there was a hint of command to it.

“Not until you tell me what’s the story between you and Fitzgerald.”

“Sir…” she started to argue that it wasn’t important, but she stopped as his right forefinger waved at her accusingly. He was clearly not going to let her leave until she’d revealed all. She’d never told a living soul about the incident back in Corpus Christi. She’d been too embarrassed. Too ashamed. No one would have believed her anyway. She’d been the “bitch” who was bucking the system and had requested mast to the Chief of Naval Operations. She’d called her Senator, her Congressman. She was a trouble maker. Everyone hated her. Threats had been left under the door to her barracks room almost on a daily basis.

“Sir… I…” she didn’t know how to say it.

“He attacked you, didn’t he?” Brodie asked simply. There was no hint of reproach, only a sense of understanding.

“He was my department head,” she answered, feeling almost as if her vocal chords were working without her conscious effort. It was as if someone else was speaking.

He said nothing as she searched for the words. Brodie sat back down, his head leaning back until it touched the bulkhead and instantly his eyes were closed. But his calloused fingers were tracing a circle on the table next to him, and she knew he was listening to every word.

“There was a party—an official function off base we had to attend,” she explained, remembering the night nearly eighteen months earlier. “I’ve never done well with alcohol and had no intention of having any at the function, but Commander Fitzgerald insisted I have one drink and I…”

“What was the drink?” Brodie interrupted, his voice somehow calming her fractured nerves. At that moment, she could have told him anything. Brodie had affected her, and she couldn’t explain—even to herself—what she was feeling around him. But she knew she felt comfortable and safe with him, something she couldn’t recall feeling with anyone else since she was a small child. She thought about Fitzgerald and the evening back at Corpus. She’d never told a soul, not even Patricia, her best friend in the world. She’d never felt comfortable enough with anyone to reveal what had happened. Yet, in his cabin and alone with him, she felt her inhibitions, her embarrassment, and fear fade.

This man would not laugh.

He would not tease.

He would not judge her unfairly.

Kristen knew it.

“He said it was ice tea,” she replied, feeling like an idiot for not having known better.

“Ice tea?”

“A Long Island Ice Tea as I soon learned.”

“That’ll certainly get it done,” Brodie agreed, referring to the strong mixed drink.

“It certainly did on me. I started to feel bad, and he offered to take me back to base.” Kristen paused, remembering the event like it had just happened. “I might have been drunk, or just stupid. I’m not sure which, but it seemed okay. I mean, he was married. He was my boss. I thought nothing of it.

“Anyway, I was seated in the front seat of his car, my eyes closed and trying not to throw up when I realized he’d parked the car. He then tells me he can help me get what I want,” she explained. “He said he could help me get into a submarine, and when I didn’t fall for that one, he told me that if I didn’t do what he wanted, he would see to it my next fitness report was bad enough so I would never even see Lieutenant Junior Grade, let alone reach a submarine.” Kristen was no longer really aware she was talking as she remembered the night she’d tried so hard to forget. “Well, I must have been sober enough to tell him no, and that’s when it got rough.”

She hesitated. The images in her mind were so vivid, so clear. Her incredible memory allowed her to remember every detail with perfect clarity. The brutality of his hands on her leg. His foul breath in her face, the sandpaper like scraping of his five o’clock shadow against her neck as they’d struggled. Whenever she’d recalled them in the past, she’d felt the same visceral fear she’d experienced the night it happened. But now, alone with Brodie, she felt safe and the terror didn’t return.

“I guess I screamed loud enough, or got in enough good shots that he decided I wasn’t worth it, and he kicked me out of the car.” She exhaled deeply, feeling somewhat relieved at having finally told someone. “I wanted to report him,” she continued. “But…” she let the story fade. No one could possibly understand how hard it had been for her.

“You didn’t think anyone would believe you,” Brodie replied as if having known the story. “You were in the middle of fighting the entire Navy. Everyone around you was treating you like a leper. You had nowhere to turn.”

His analysis summed it up better than she could have.

“Something like that.”

“And your fitness report?”