The Cruiser (11 page)

With just the desk light on, only the blue glow from his desktop screen, and the fainter jade-green illuminations from the gyrocompass and radar repeaters above his bunk, relieved the darkness. That and the ruby glow that seeped past the jamb, limning her silhouette in carmine. She nodded toward his bunk. “Good book?”

“Huh? Oh … just ancient history.”

“You're interested in history, sir?”

“Just something I picked up.” He cleared his throat. “What's on your mind, Lieutenant? I mean, Amarpeet?”

“I wanted to talk about something I've been trying to initiate aboard, since my piece on leveling military management came out.”

“I read that. Good article,” Dan said. “Thought-provoking. You wanted to apply certain, uh, modern principles to the Navy.”

“It fits in better with how the world does business now, sir. Communication at the speed of light. The drive toward reduced manning. Most of all, the professionalism of today's enlisted. Our command structure was set up for a small educated class and a large group of unskilled and more or less unwilling draftees. But the old, hierarchical information-flow model … it's dead. It's
wasteful.
And quite frankly, it turns our best enlisted off.”

Dan considered this. She was absolutely right about the way the Navy was designed. How had Herman Wouk described it? “Designed by geniuses, to be run by idiots”? But the idea of cutting midlevel management didn't thrill him. The one time he'd had to—trying to run a ship without a flag in the China Sea, without chiefs and department heads, basically just himself, a worthless exec, and a ragtag crew no one else wanted—hadn't worked out well. “Uh—did I see you have an MBA?”

“Yes sir. From Wharton.”

“We don't see many people with those kinds of degrees in the Navy. At least at the JO level.”

“I'd like to make that count, sir. Is there any possibility we can do an experiment aboard
Savo Island
?” She reached to the small of her back, bending forward as she did so, and he had to avert his gaze. “Here's a copy of my proposal for reorganizing the chain of command.”

“Well, hold on a sec, Amy. There's more to this than management. There's also leadership.”

A shadowy form paused outside, might have looked in at them, but then continued aft.

“Leadership's just another word for charismatic management, sir. If we want to get hard-nosed about it.”

“The core tenets: unity of command, chain of command, the ability to verify a command—”

“Again, irrelevant to the way we actually do business. Where do the guidelines for our most important decisions reside today, anyway? In computers. Doctrine's preset now, in hardware and software, not in top-down relationships. And as computing power proliferates—”

“I guess we could argue that both ways,” Dan said. “And there are legal issues … UCMJ, Navy Regs, laws of war … but I don't want to sound negative.” He flattened the still-warm pages under his hand. Cleared his throat. “But I'll offer a caveat up front, Amarpeet.”

“Amy.”

“Amy. A personal warning. I've seen JOs who don't have good relationships with their chiefs. Not only do they screw up their divisions, they get ostracized within the wardroom. Since they don't have the technical expert backing the stuff they say. And it's hard for them to get deckplate compliance without support from the chiefs. Uh … that said, I'll be happy to look this over. With an open mind. And then discuss it further.

“Any other issues you're aware of aboard, Amy? Seeing as how this is the first time we've had a chance to really sit down together.”

Hands on knees, she'd started to rise, but sank back. “Well, sir, you may be aware that, just like you said, there's some pushback from the chiefs' mess.”

“I'm not sure I know what you mean. What kind of pushback?”

“Maybe not so much even that, as a certain mind-set. I hear what you're saying, about making things difficult for myself. But these men really don't understand their sailors. They know their technical fields—most of them, anyway—but today's young sailor is foreign to them. Even more so, the women. Also, I'm convinced ‘don't ask, don't tell' will be repealed soon. They're not ready for it. At all. And speaking of men, have you noticed, we don't have a single female chief?”

Dan blinked. “I hadn't, but you're right. But can you point to a specific example? Any chief in particular?”

“Actually, one of the worst was the former command master chief.”

“The one who got D/S'd with Captain Imerson.”

“Yessir. But by no means was he alone. I don't want to name names. And I don't think you meant to put me in that kind of spot—” She stretched an arm around the back of her neck to massage her nape. Grimacing, as if it hurt. “So I'll sort of slide past that question.” She made as if to rise again. “Is that all, sir?”

“I guess so.” He lifted the paper. “I'll read this. And thanks for bringing it to my attention. Especially about us needing a female chief. I'll ask Sid Tausengelt to look at our E-6s, see if we can identify a candidate.”

“Yes sir; I'll be glad to provide input. Want me to close this door? Oh, and one last thing … I do a yoga class Tuesdays and Wednesdays, back in torpedo stowage. If you wanted to join us, you'd be welcome.”

He said thank you, he'd keep that in mind, and the ribbon of ruby narrowed, shrank, vanished. He sat alone in the near darkness, still enjoying her scent. For a moment he imagined shaking that dark hair down over what were, by the way she filled out those coveralls, all too evidently more than adequate …
no
. He took a deep breath and let it out. God. He even had an erection.

Chill, Lenson. You're twenty years older than she is. Well, maybe not. Maybe eighteen. Still, old enough to be her father.

What about her ideas? Think about that, not her tits. “Flattening management.” His initial reaction was skeptical. But hadn't he felt exactly the same when he'd been her age? Enraged at the iron-rigid hierarchy of seniors who all too often seemed incompetent, if not, occasionally, clinically nuts? More serious was her charge about the goat locker. But received wisdom in the fleet was that a sure route to big trouble was to bypass or downgrade the chiefs and senior enlisted. They ran the ship, after all.

The muted shriek of the J-phone. He snatched it off the bulkhead. “Captain.”

“OOD, sir. Sorry to wake you—”

“Wasn't asleep. Whatcha got?”

“Sir, we're at course one one four, speed fifteen. Entering the Strait of Messina. Twenty-four contacts on the screen. Crossing contact, Skunk Bravo Lima, range eight thousand yards, bearing one three zero. Closest point of approach, time three zero, bearing zero nine four, two thousand yards—”

“Is the XO up there?”

“Yessir, Commander Almarshadi's here. Did you want him on the line?”

Dan closed his eyes. Remembering how it had been with Crazy Ike Sundstrom. Whatever else, the Commodore from Hell had taught him what
not
to do. The commander bore the ultimate responsibility. True. But he had to trust. He
had
to trust.

He took a deep breath. “Not necessary. Log this: Commander Almarshadi is in charge. Maneuver according to his instructions. Call me only if we're in extremis.”

A moment's astonished pause, behind which he heard the crackle of the bridge to bridge; a warning going out. “Aye aye, sir,” the young voice said at last, its tone falling, as if doubting. But acknowledging the order. “I'll log that.”

He hung up, figuring he wouldn't get any more actual sleep that night than he would if he were in his bridge chair. But he had to build up his XO's confidence. Where they were going, he'd need someone he could depend on for backup.

But Singhe. Hard to stop thinking of her. Was he too susceptible to an attentive young woman? He didn't think so. She was ambitious. Hard-charging. Innovative. All the things that were supposed to rank JOs in the top 1 percent in their fitness reports. All the things he was supposed to nurture. As her commanding officer.

He felt around on his desk for the papers she'd left. When he lifted them to his face, he could still smell sandalwood.

7

Point Hotel
Latitude 33° 36' N,
Longitude 28° 35' E
The Eastern Mediterranean

“
CAPTAIN
, your presence is requested on the bridge.” Two days later Ensign Mytsalo, chubby cheeks glowing bright pink at actually speaking to his CO, held the J-phone up. Looking uncertain, as if unsure of the ceremonial involved in passing such a request.

They were in the wardroom. Dan blotted his lips, looking regretfully at the steaming tomato bisque, the hot turkey sandwich on white-and-blue Navy china before him. “Uh … ask if it's urgent.”

“XO says the task force is in sight, sir.”

“Range?”

“Just on the horizon … closest unit twenty-three thousand yards.”

“Tell him I'll be up in three.” He'd have time for soup, at least.

He savored a spoonful, but it soured as he remembered another time, on another ship. He'd been on the bridge, and they'd been making an approach on a carrier battle group. But the carrier did an unannounced 180. The result was that instead of approaching from the stern, they'd suddenly found themselves on a collision course with upwards of seventy thousand tons of steel coming down the ship's throat at a combined closing rate of seventy miles an hour.

“Excuse me,” he said to the assembled wardroom. They started to rise too, until he motioned them back down. “Don't get up. Ops, Nav, and Training, how about joining me on the bridge when you're done with your meal. Don't hurry. I'll be up there awhile.”

*   *   *

HE'D
kept
Savo Island
at close to full speed. Past Greece and then, to the north, Crete. Point Hotel, their rendezvous with the task force, was about 170 miles south of Rhodes and 150 miles north of Egypt. Halfway between Europe and Africa, in the empty reaches of the central Med.

So far, there'd been no significant problems with shafts, props, or plant, and the rest of the coolant hoses had checked out. In CIC, Wenck and Dr. Noblos had been drilling the team by tracking the commercial airlines that arched between Europe and the east Med: Beirut, Haifa, Tel Aviv, Cairo. Noblos admitted they were shaping up. “But they're still marginal,” he'd grumbled. Marginal was better than substandard, but Dan had asked him to keep pressing.

The bridge door opened on an opalescent glow. “Captain's on the bridge,” the boatswain sang out.

“Good morning, Captain. I mean, good afternoon.” The OOD saluted, binoculars in his other hand. “We're on zero niner niner, speed twenty-five. GTM 1A and 2B on the line. Eighteen contacts on the screen—”

“Thanks, good. Resume your watch. The XO can update me.” Dan bent to the radar scope, noting the cluster of bright pips ahead. Noting, too, the absence of chatter from the Navy Red and Fleet Tac speakers above his head. Ten years before, the ether would have been loud with voice comms as the destroyer screen maneuvered within their sectors and the carriers sought the wind. Now most interaction had gone to satellite-mediated chat.

He swung up into his leather-covered chair, reclined it, and let Almarshadi bring him up to speed. The day was bright with a curl of high cirrus. The seas were heavier, five to six feet, but the air was clear and hard as sharp ice. He sat with ankles crossed and boots propped, musing as one by one masts and upperworks porcupined the distant rim of sea. Destroyers. Frigates. Closer to the center of each formation, the cruisers, like
Savo Island
herself.

Last, slowly lifting deck on deck, majestic, broad, implacable … the carriers. Twelve miles apart, but he could see both at once, far to left and right, looming like gray islands. He glanced from the call-sign board to the formation diagram Almarshadi handed him, then out the window, trying to match names to distant specks. To port,
Theodore Roosevelt, Anzio, Cape St. George, Arleigh Burke, Porter, Winston Churchill
, and
Carr.
To starboard
Harry S Truman, San Jacinto, Oscar Austin, Mitscher, Donald Cook, Briscoe, Deyo, Hawes, Mount Baker
, and
Kanawha
. Three submarines were also attached to Task Force 60, though, of course, they weren't showing on radar. Point Hotel was at just about the deepest part of the eastern Med. No doubt carefully selected, to give the subs the best sound channels. His gaze returned to the oiler; they'd be going alongside shortly.

As mast after mast grew around him, as he penetrated to
Savo
's station aft of the tanker, he couldn't help feeling proud of the country that could send such power halfway around the world. This assemblage of gray ships, these aircraft, missiles, guns, and those who knew how to use them, assured peace. Or as much of it as the world would know in this twenty-first century after Christ. For sixty years now, inheriting the task from the Royal Navy, the U.S. Navy had stood guard between the continents. For sixty years it had deterred and influenced, backing the word of the U.S., the UN, and international law. For what was law without power? What was justice without the means to enforce it, or compassion without the means to discipline those who massacred whole populations?

Not to mention guarding a trade that undergirded and sustained that world. He'd heard a man say in a bar once—some loudmouth drinking a Dutch beer, cooled by a Japanese air conditioner, no doubt wearing clothes made in Thailand or China and driving a truck fueled by Saudi crude, and wearing the logo on his jacket of one of the biggest exporters of American agricultural equipment—“Why the hell do I have to pay taxes for a fucking navy? I live in fucking Kansas.”