Tomahawk (45 page)

At the foot of the pier, a petty officer in a helmet liner held up a palm from a sentry box. Dan pulled his AWOL bag and his hanging gear out of the trunk and paid the cabbie. Then saw the line of phone booths, many occupied by sailors in dungarees. He hesitated, then stacked his bags. He folded the door closed on hot, sticky air.

He'd gone over this again and again in his mind, but it took less than a minute. A Chinese-accented voice answered, Lieutenant Colonel Li Chenbin's. Dan cleared his throat and said, “I'm calling about the uh … air conditioner you have for sale.”

“Meet me at Balboa Park. At the organ pavilion. Eight P.M.”

He repeated it and depressed the switch. He checked for the dial tone, then dropped another quarter and dialed a second number. He said into the receiver, “I'm here. I made the call. Balboa Park. At the organ pavilion. Twenty hundred.”

Bepko's voice: “Got it. See you there.”

Heading down the pier, just like so many times before … sweating under blue wool… The familiar smells of fuel and steam surrounded him. Beneath the gray cliff of USS
Peleliu,
one of the new helicopter assault ships, vans were loading up with marines. Passing sailors in whites saluted. He nodded back, hands occupied.

There she was, outboard another Sprw-can. He set the luggage down on the stained concrete and propped his shoe against a bollard.

San Diego Bay was placid today, translucent beneath
a softening sheen of oil near the piers, like Vaseline smeared over a camera lens. Beyond it lay the Silver Strand, the line of peninsula leading to North Island and Coronado, and .past that, distant and blue as Gibraltar, Point Loma, like a great ship headed out to sea.

“Excuse me, sir. Commander Lenson, sir?” A young seaman, expression earnest.

Dan returned his salute. “Afternoon. Yeah, I'm Lenson.”

“Officer of the deck sent me down, sir. Captain said to take you to his cabin soon as you showed up.”

He followed up the laddered brow onto the fantail. The feel of hollow steel beneath his feet and the familiar whoosh of blowers told him that even though he wasn't, in a strange way he was home again.

He prebriefed the skipper, “Duke” Cannady, the executive officer, and the missile officer in the commanding officer's in-port cabin, over coffee and yellow sheet cake. Sakai and Burdette were there, too, and the fire control chief, and civilian tech reps from the test range and Convair. The stateroom was just big enough, with extra chairs brought in.

Cannady began by apologizing for bunking the rider team in chief's berthing. Dan said that was fine, that he didn't want to move people out of their staterooms. Then he started the presentation.

During the next five days, they would be conducting the first operational evaluation, of the missile/ship team. Up to now, the Tomahawk shoots had been run by contractors. TASMEX would be run by the ship's crew, the way things would work in combat. The first five missiles would be instrumented shots. The final OPEVAL would be fired with a live warhead. It would be run as close to an actual antiship engagement as possible, with the missile impacting on a target hulk off San Nicolas Island.

Cannady listened intently, fingering a sharp chin. When Dan wrapped it up, the skipper said, “Okay, that all sounds straightforward. Larry, call away the guys for the presail conference. Mess decks, I suppose.” As the exec went to the phone, Cannady continued. “Let me ask
you something before we go down there, Dan.”

“Shoot, sir.”

“When we were working for Admiral Kristofferson, we had to triple-check where every byte went, optimize the thread count on every screw. Now it seems like under Barry Niles it's more of a ‘throttle-forward, get it out there at any cost' situation. Is that an accurate perception? And does it mean we've got a contingency coming up where we might need this weapon?”

“Sir, here's my readout on that. The program's at risk. We're in a cost overrun status. If Congress doesn't cover it, we're going to be shut down. I understand where Admiral Kristofferson was coming from. But looking at the political realities, I understand now where Admiral Niles is coming from, too.”

The ship's officers looked at him with unease and, yes, suspicion. Maybe it was the word “political”? After a moment, Cannady said, “Well, okay … but if we actually have to use these things, and they don't work, we're all going to look pretty stupid.”

“Yes sir, but there can't be too many bugs left to fix.” He brought them up-to-date on the redesign of the cable cutter.

“That's not going to modify the ones they've got deployed,” the missile officer said. “So what you're saying is, we've got birds in the fleet now that are going to fail.”

‘True, but the only ones out there now are on the subs and
New Jersey.
Every load-out after that will have the new cutter, and they'll get the updated birds as they come out of Mechanicsburg in the thirty-month recertification cycle.”

Cannady got up. He said to the XO, “Make sure we top off fresh water tonight. We've got a lot of extra people aboard.” To Dan, he said, “Glad to have you aboard. Shall we go down to the mess decks?”

After the brief, he went down to berthing. A paper towel taped to a stripped coffin rack read LENSON. He hunted up the compartment petty officer and got sheets, a tan bunk cover, and a towel. He made up his bunk, stowed his gear, then took a quick shower and changed into
slacks, a polo shirt, and running shoes. He checked his watch. Still only a little after six. He strolled forward, climbed a ladder, and emerged onto the forecastle.

Sakai was there, looking at the box launchers. One was open, the other closed. Dan looked up at the open one, examining the star crimps of the fly-through covers. The weapons were behind them, sealed away in their nitrogen-filled climate-controlled cocoons.

“Hey. Headed into town?”

“Just for a little while.”

“I'm going back to the equipment room, observe from back there. Then I'm gonna turn in. We'll be hitting it pretty hard next couple days.”

“Okay, Sparky. See you tomorrow.”

He lingered as the first star appeared over Mount Laguna. A stream of rippling light outlined the Coronado bridge. Beyond it glittered the Embarcadero. A ketch ghosted by, sidelight glowing ruby as it made for Coronado Keys.

The ship's exec came out. They stood watching the technicians run through a couple of last-minute tests.

“Going steaming tonight?” the XO asked him.

“Just to look around. How long's it gonna take me to get to Balboa Park?”

“Not long. Ten, fifteen minutes. There's usually a cab down by fleet landing. Interstate Five, Pershing exit, that'll put you on the east side of the park.”

“What time are we getting under way?”

“Zero-seven hundred. Liberty expires at zero-six.”

The tests ended. The FTs coiled up cables and left the forecastle to the evening. Out of nowhere, the exec said, “I heard the last XO board, selection rate was seventy percent, with all the new hulls commissioning.”

“Is that right?” Seventy percent was high. Then he remembered. He wouldn't be around.

The other groused that the ramp-up in ship numbers wasn't all good news. Money was going to defense contractors, but the sailors weren't seeing much of it. Between low pay and double-digit inflation, most of his married E-2s and E-3s were on food stamps. “What ship type you favor? You're a destroyer man, right?”

“Yeah. I did my department-head tour on
Barrett”

“Wait a minute …
Barrett.
Something I heard at the club one night… about her shooting down a MiG in the Windward Passage.”

“I heard that story, too,” Dan told him. “Anyway, if I was to be an XO, I'd want a small boy. A
Forrest Sherman,
or a
Knox,
or a Perry-class. How about you? Any idea where you're going?”

The exec said no, that he wanted a command, of course, but that his wife wanted him to put in for shore duty instead.

“You got kids?” Dan asked him, thinking about Nan, thinking it was about time to give her another call, see what her plans were for the summer.

“Two boys, six and six months. How about you?”

“One, a daughter. She's with my ex-wife.”

A shadow crossed the other officer's eyes. “We been having problems, too.”

“She wants out?”

“It's not that bad yet. But she makes it obvious she's not happy.”

Dan glanced at him. What was he telling him this for? Then he understood. The exec didn't want to talk about it with anybody from the ship. “Well, at least you know something's wrong. I didn't realize that till it was too late.”

The IMC chose that moment to strike four bells, then announce
“Merrill,
departing.” “Don't stay out too late,” said the exec as he headed for the quarterdeck. A minute later, a final bong quivered in the still air.

Dan stood there for a few more minutes, looking out over the bay. Then glanced at his watch and headed aft.

28

 

 

 

He'd photocopied his JCMP
Employee's Handbook
in Washington and had put the flimsy damp pages into a government brown envelope. He got them out of the side pocket of his B-4, then headed for the brow.

He left the ship at 1820, and by 1845 was getting out of the taxi at the east side of the park. Enough time to stroll around. He picked up a brochure, then followed the map in it down a pedestrian mall lined with Spanish Colonial buildings and palm trees, heading toward a massively ornate tower at the west end. It looked vaguely familiar, though he'd never been here before. Then turned south, realizing he'd passed what was marked on the map as the Spreckles Pavilion.

He spotted Bepko on a bench. The NIS agent was in running pants, running shoes, a photographer's vest. À camera hung around his neck. He squinted back as their eyes met, then heaved himself up and strolled away.

Message received. Dan sheered off, too, and ambled on, wondering how many of the others who moved with him through the spring-smelling air were also not what they seemed. The park was a popular place. He caught Spanish, Italian, Japanese. Jewelry jangled as women in saris sailed by. It was a great location for a meet, or whatever they called it when a spy met his contact. Maybe he should read some Graham Greene, figure out what the hell he was doing. Or maybe not. Being too smooth might make the Chinese suspicious.

Sprinklers began to whisper. Marigolds and poppies
folded themselves silently. The flower-laden air was almost too sweet. Jasmine crept along the ground and climbed fences—shiny green leaves, tiny white flowers in the shape of stars. Scores of tourists wandered about taking pictures of one another and gaping at the buildings.

The pavilion turned out to be an amphitheater, bigger than he'd expected. He strolled back and forth for about forty minutes in front of the arched building that housed the immense organ, till a small, neatly dressed Asian fell in next to him. He carried a shopping bag that read SUNNY'S SURPLUS.

“Commander Lenson?”

“That's me.”

They shook hands. “Li Chenbin. You can call me Xiaotu.” He pronounced it “Shoetoo.”

It was hard to tell how old the attaché was. He had a small mustache without any gray in it, pouchy eyes, and he was wearing sunglasses despite the late hour. Dan noted a striped rep tie under a light coat. His hat was chocolate-colored. His brown oxfords were good quality but scuffed. All in all, a face and an outfit you could find on any city street.

“Is that it?”

“Yeah. This is it.” Dan started to look around for Bepko, but caught himself in time. He gave Li the envelope. The attaché doubled it casually and slipped it into the shopping bag.

They walked on, Dan following Li's lead past cottage displays and beds of brilliant poppies. In front of the Museum of Art, he cleared his throat. “Uncle Xinhu—Mr. Zhang—said he'd pay for this. The phone list, I mean.”

“Oh, yes. Certainly. But we should discuss some other things first.”

“What kind of things?” He was nervous; he'd never talked to a Red Chinese spymaster before. It didn't help that the guy's English was so perfect.

Li turned suddenly down a walkway between the art museum and a botanical building. Dan wiped his hands on his slacks, wondering if being visibly nervous was a plus or not. A gaggle of kids passed, chattering and shrieking.

They came to a concession stand, a low building with a flat roof and stucco walls. Kids congregated in front of the counter, pushing one another and shrieking. Li asked him if he was hungry. Dan said he could eat something. The attaché got them corn dogs, and thick fries, and cans of Slice. They sat at a tile-topped table under a red umbrella. Lights ignited above them, driving the gathering shadows beneath the table. With a mouth half-full of corn dog, Li said, “What's your attitude toward China, Dan?”