The Med (41 page)

“Yes sir.”

Sundstrom rubbed his face. Now that it was over, Lenson saw that the commodore was trembling. He felt pretty shaky himself, come to think of it.

“No, Dan, this was a debacle. We should have been able to shoot down all three of those bastards. They were right down on the water. And we should have had air cover. If we'd had a couple of F-14s they'd never have attacked us. It was a debacle.” He struck his fist slowly on the steel.

Lenson began to shake. He looked at the commodore, then out at the sea. He turned silently for the bridge.

“Dan,” the commodore called after him, “I want our ships to stay at GQ. Those guys could be back any time.”

“Yes sir,” said Lenson. It was all he could do to say it.

*   *   *

They found out later that afternoon what a debacle it had truly been. Not for them, but for others.

Coronado
reported the first drifter, and requested instructions. Sundstrom agonized over it for five minutes, then ordered her to maintain course and speed. He was afraid of submarines. Then there were more, the escort reported “many many,” and when the officers went out to the bridge wing they saw them. Heaving on the seas far ahead, they grew as the ship throbbed forward; became white specks, drifting bales, and then, last of all, dead men. They slipped quietly past, face down, most in muddy-colored trousers and white T-shirts, a few naked.
Guam
's crew stared down at them from the flight deck, quiet as the bloated bodies, unwilling to speak. One had long hair, and the wind ruffled it as he rolled at the crest of an oil-slicked wave to face upward, one arm outflung as if imploring aid. The arm ended in no hand. There was no blood on any of them. The sea had taken it.

The squawk box sounded, and Lenson reached down to answer it, still looking over the side.

“Flag bridge, bridge. What do you make of them?”

“I guess that big gaggle of bogeys to the north found their Turks, Captain.”

“Maybe. I'd like to heave to, pick one up for identification.”

“Aye, Cap'n.”

“Who is that?”

“Lieutenant Lenson, Captain.”

“Oh. Is the commodore there?”

“No sir, he's below eating his dinner. Ah—” Dan hesitated. “Why don't you just go ahead and do it, Captain?”

“Good point,” Fourchetti said. “Bridge out.”

One of the radiomen came up with a priority message. Lenson glanced at it, saw that it was about the embassy hostages. Their commandeered airliner had landed, in Syria. It interested him at the moment very little, and he sent the man down to the commodore's sea cabin.

Suddenly there was nothing to do. He leaned against the window and watched the damage-control teams working. A tractor was clearing the burnt-out helo over the side. It teetered on the brink, as if reluctant to leave, then gave way and toppled into space. A splash, a spreading cloud of white foam on gray sea, and it was gone. A roar from overhead made him glance up. Theirs; the two fighters from the
America.
When they had vectored in, half an hour before, he'd been angry at their lateness. Now, looking at the men in the water, he was glad they were there.

The commodore's phone buzzed. Oh, Jesus, he thought, and picked it up. “Yes sir.”

“Who's that? Lenson?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good. Dan, did you read this message?”

“Uh, glanced at it, sir.”

“What do you think?”

Think? He tried to. “Uh, Syria…”

“The coordinates they give for the abandoned airstrip. What does that mean to you?”

Still holding the phone, he crossed to the chart. Measured roughly, with his fingers spread. “Uh, that'll be just north of the Lebanese border, east of—”

“Goddammit, Dan, I know that. I can read a map! But look how far inland it is.”

“Oh. Not that far.”

“Not that goddamn far at all. Dan, I think it's still possible we could be sent in.”

“Into
Syria?”
He could hardly believe what he heard. It was as if Sundstrom had proposed landing in East Germany.

They were both silent for a moment. Lenson stared at the chart. It did look tempting. Only thirty miles or so overland direct from the beach. But no, he remembered what Byrne had said—Soviet client, Soviet naval base, hell of a well-equipped army—

“Maybe not,” the commodore muttered into his ear. “But I want to be ready, damn it. Those are our orders. What would we have to do?”

The fatigue had fallen back a bit, and he thought more rapidly now. “Well,” he said, “that coast is only a hundred miles east of us … we could make that pretty quick. They know we're here though, they could track us as soon as we started to move.” An idea woke and moved around back in his mind.

“Could we be ready?”

He had the answer to that all right. “I don't know, sir.”

Reaching for the idea, prodding it forward into daylight.

“Maybe we ought to head in that direction, anyway, just in case—”

“Not as a group,” said Dan then.

“What's that?”

“Sir, if anyone expects us to get the MAU ashore there in one piece, it's got to be done fast as hell, and it's got to be a surprise. Otherwise there'll be a division of tanks waiting for them on the beach. I think we ought to disperse.”

To his surprise Sundstrom did not dismiss it immediately. Instead he said, “Disperse—you mean break up the task force?”

“Yes sir. This overcast, plus the air attack—if we split up they'll think we've lost some ships, we're hurt bad, we're just milling around. Even if that AGI's still around he'll only find one of us.”

“I don't know, Dan. Say we scatter and head east. Then what?”

“Well, I guess we wait for orders.”

“But if somebody gets lost, they're not used to navigating on their own—”

Sundstrom had several more nitpicking reservations. Dan answered each in turn, feeling increasingly weary. There wasn't much chance of it anyway. At last the commodore hung up and he stood motionless for a moment, feeling weak. Then he reached for the signal book. Disperse, steer various courses east, rendezvous point to follow—he flipped pages listlessly.

Fourchetti came up again on the squawk box a few minutes later, reporting pickup complete. He felt the ship shudder as the screws bit in. He hit the intercom.

“Bridge aye.”

“Flag bridge again. Captain—you get any ID off him?”

“Who?”

“Your drifter.”

“Oh. No. I can't even tell if he's Greek or Turk. In fact … he looks just like one of our sailors.”

That suddenly, out of nowhere, his body dropped away, like a stone through air. He leaned his weight into the radar console, his head bending into it. Not in acquiescence; he was simply unable any longer to support himself. The ship reeled under his feet. Nausea … he struggled to lift his head, feeling the blackness of the deep sea come up in waves through his legs.

“Dan, you all right?”

“Yeah. Just tired.”

“Sit down for a minute. I'll take over.”

“No, I'm okay.”

“This is Big Red, I got the deck,” said Flasher loudly. To Lenson he said, “Look, go on below. Hit the sack for half an hour. How long you been up, anyway?”

“I forget.”

“Lay your butt below, man. You won't be any good if you're falling down.”

“I'm supposed to be on—”

“So he makes a stink, I ordered you below. My ass, not yours. Don't worry so much, you're getting like him.”

“That's below the belt, Red. But okay.” He breathed deep a few times, felt the darkness edge back; enough at least for him to stagger to the bridge ladder. But at its head he turned back. “Red—the order to scatter—”

“I was listening. It's a good tactic.”

“What?”

“I said, it's a good idea. Damned good. Wish I'd thought of it.”

“You think so?” Dan grinned through the faintness.

“Yeah. Go on down. I'll call him again, maybe get Haynes to call him, argue him into it.”

He got below somehow, but in his stateroom paused at the bunk frame, breathing hard. He felt weak. He rested for a moment, waited for the ship to roll, and kicked himself up. Or halfway up. He hung on the edge, steel biting his wrists, and slipped back. Still no good. He needed will, energy, something more than his drained mind could force from the exhausted knot of carbon compounds that crouched six feet below its rest.

He visualized a face. Pudgy and worried, suspicious and self-protective. And worst of all, indecisive. The energy came then, the hate, and he launched himself upward with his last strength, into his rack.

There was time for one look at her picture before he closed his eyes. He stared upward at it, his breath coming shallow. The nausea and fatigue, like acid etching away the unessential, made him see clearly something he had never dared to admit before.

He did not belong here.

It was not Sundstrom, at least not him alone. Foolishness and incompetence existed as much, he told himself, in any profession—although the power a commander wielded at sea made it harder to bear. It was simpler than that. It was wrong because he was away from them. But he was bound, both by law, obligation, and by his own choice. The sea, the clean, uncomplicated life of orders and men … he loved it. He always had and he always would.

But not as much as he loved his family.

Shore duty, then? He was due it after three tours at sea. But the sea was where a smudged career could be made white again, where advancement was won, where a line officer, an Annapolis man, belonged. Ashore … there was only one way to go ashore for good.

His mind backed away from the thought. It was too final, too frightening, worse to face than the flash of wings.

21

Ash Shummari, Syria

She was half asleep—hunger made her drowsy—when her dreams were penetrated by a scuffle, a scraping noise, and a moan.

Things were so pleasant in dreams. She struggled to stay where she was, aware in some redoubt of consciousness that it was better than what she was returning to. But that suspicion made her aware that she was dreaming; and with it the sleep-world unraveled, and she found, looking back, that she had already crossed into waking. She rolled over and snaked out her arms without opening her eyes.

Nan wasn't there.

The mattress creaked as she sat up. The wan light of an overcast dusk filtered through closed shutters, over Moira and Michael, who had twined themselves together fully clothed on the floor. Their hoarse breathing, Moira's familiar snore, were more ominous, somehow, than silence.

“Nan?” she murmured.

She got up sluggishly, feeling and smelling her own sodden staleness, and looked into the connecting bath. The watercloset lid, a shelf of heavy porcelain, lay where she had moved it, reflecting the watershimmer from inside the tank. Nan was not using it. Susan remembered how welcome that achievement had been. But then she felt alarmed. She went quickly to the door, but paused on the threshold. They had been told not to go out. The guard on this floor had made that plain with gestures. They were to stay in their assigned rooms.

She thrust her head into the corridor, surveying it from end to end with one swift turn of her eyes. It was empty. She took a breath, remembering.
Punishment for disobeying any of my orders is death.
She glanced back once more into the room, making certain the child was not there. Well, she thought then, if they catch me I will explain. I was looking for my child. They'll understand. Wouldn't they?

They would have to. She had no choice.

Her bare feet were soundless on the carpet. She passed open doors, looking in. The other hostages did not look out as she passed. Many were asleep. A few talked in subdued voices, or stared out their windows. One couple was telling fortunes, the Tarot spread between them over the bare ticking of their bed.

She began to feel frightened.

At the next room she paused. When the occupants looked up she said quickly, “Excuse me. Did a little girl come in here to you, or go past your door? A little girl with dark hair and glasses?”

They shook their heads, too surprised to speak.

She asked at several more rooms. No one had seen a child. The fear grew inside her. It was as if cotton stuffed her throat, turned her mouth dry and wadded the used air inside her lungs. She went on, walking more rapidly. At last the rooms were empty, but still doors gaped ahead along a corridor that disappeared dreamlike into hot and airless gloom.

When her feet whispered between the silent walls she realized she was running. Her breath roared in her ears. Where could Nan be? Where was their guard? Room after room rushed by. The hallway turned, grew darker. It was a submarine dimness, dusky blue, and from somewhere the memory came of another time she had felt this same terrible and growing fear: deep beneath the sea, her hands tearing desperately at the resisting dark for a small body. But no, that had been a dream, and this was real. Then another bend, and she was running hard, sobbing aloud, her hair slapping her back. There was a humming ahead; light, voices, people … she had circled the floor and returned to her own room. But now people stood in the hallway; there was a swell of excited talk.

From outside, clearly audible through the opened windows, came a new sound, a distant thunder.

She didn't stop to listen. Sobbing, she pushed at the people who turned at her approach, fell back from her, reached out half-heartedly as if to help or stop her. One woman murmured something to another. For a moment Susan refused to make sense of the words; they seemed meaningless, as incomprehensible as the Arabic of their captors. Then she did.

“Poor woman. She's lost her child…”

She stopped dead in the hallway, put her fists to her mouth, and screamed.