by David Poyer
The girl made a face but turned the paper over. Aisha went back to the questionnaire.
How did you first hear about the attack on Petty Officer Beth Terranova?
From the chief of my division during quarters.
Where were you the night and time she was attacked?
No real alibi. I was turned into my bunk that night as I was off watch bill due to migraine headache.
What should happen to the person who did this?
People like this animal should be strapped down and let the women cut his nuts off. That’s what they do in Arabia and it sounds good to me. You wouldn’t have rapists then or at least only once.
She puzzled over this one and at last set it aside. Better spelling, better handwriting, and a touch of overeagerness on the punishment angle, combined with a hint of imagination.
The next statement was two pages long. It seemed to have been written by someone in a fever, or with severe attention deficiency. She puzzled over it for some minutes. This guy wasn’t into impressing anyone. “Who’s R. M. Downie?”
“You know him. The weird little guy on the mess decks. The Troll,” Ryan added.
“Oh. Right, right.” Aisha nodded and put it on the reject pile.
Half an hour later she had six prospectives and twenty-nine rejects. Some of the latter she wasn’t certain about, but a SCAN didn’t give you absolutes, only leads that had to be followed up the good old-fashioned way: bootsoles in the passageways. Two of the names were familiar. Benyamin and Peeples. Both rated high on the misogyny factor and neither had much of an alibi yet, even after having been interviewed, knowing they were suspects. A third was the same Mycus Ammons who’d advised her, on the bridge wing, that being a Muslim condemned her to hell. She didn’t think that was why she’d felt moved to put his name in the suspect pile. It was his raving about how shameless the women were on board ship. His answer had been, I heard about it from one of the ops specs. Wasn’t surprised when I heard. I knew her and she was always asking for it.
But two names were new to her. One was a Kaghazchi, first name Bozorgmehr, storekeeper third class. Ryan said he was Iranian. Along with being a storekeeper, he was often up on the bridge helping with translation, or talking to foreign ships when a Parsi speaker was needed.
“So he’d be familiar with that passageway, and had access,” Aisha murmured.
“Could be.” Ryan nodded. “And you know, there were three other Iranians aboard back when we were in the Indian Ocean. Guys we picked up at sea. That was the first time Beth got groped.”
Aisha reread what the storekeeper had written. I will speak here as I always do, the absolute truth without attempting to think what anyone will find acceptable or correct. Both the evil man who had sex intercourse with her and the evil woman who consented should be whipped first, then stoned. A woman is as guilty as the man she lies with. No one can thread a moving needle. There is a reason God made marriage. American women tempt men and seduce them, drive them from reason. They have no shame. But they will learn one day.
Hard-core all right. The old line: it was the woman’s fault. “You’re saying one of them might have started it, and he got the idea from them? You know him?”
“Just to say hi. When he comes in for sick call, or we have to update his shot record. Like, when we did the anthrax series.”
Aisha pondered that, rereading the last sentences. They have no shame. But they will learn one day.
It was a threat, all right.
She set the page aside for the next, and cleared her throat. “What about this other guy? Jeffrey Differey?”
“Jeffrey?” Ryan briefly looked confused; then her brow cleared. “You mean Storm?”
“His name’s Storm?”
“I mean that’s his flying name. He’s not really shipboard complement. He’s air side.”
“One of the helo crewmen?”
“Usually he flies as copilot for Mr. Wilker. Strafer and Storm, they like to use the names together.”
She nodded. Certainly a pilot would have reason to be back in the hangar area, where the first groping had taken place. “Do the pilots spend a lot of time on the bridge?”
“Sometimes, yeah. Talking with the CO or the navigator. About the weather, usually. And in CIC, too, with the air controllers.”
Aisha quizzed her, but she didn’t know any more about Storm Differey other than that he wore his hair super short, smiled at all the female crew, and was cute. “He’s married, though.”
“Believe me, that doesn’t mean he can’t be a rapist, honey.” She flipped through her case notes, looking for a printout of the player names for the Gang Bang game. Sure enough, there it was. Storm, points 367, player rating Gangsta.
The fifth paper she’d selected out was one Daniel V. Lenson. The commanding officer. His answers read:
How did you first hear about the attack on Petty Officer Beth Terranova?
Notified by CMAA and XO.
Where were you the night and time she was attacked?
Most likely either on the bridge or in CIC.
What should happen to the person who did this?
Once a suspect is identified, punishment will be determined by a court-martial. My personal opinion is that the most appropriate punishment would be imprisonment for a term of ten to fifteen years.
She lifted her head and blew out. Brief but thoughtful answers. Hewing to the requirements of legal procedure and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Just what you’d expect from a senior officer.
Then why did they sound evasive, like words mouthed behind a screen?
“So what do we do now?” The corpsman hovered by the door, cupping her elbows.
“Carry on with the investigation. What else? We have a couple of new people to interview.”
“You know what’s going on, right?”
She got up and went to the mirror. Checked her appearance. “What do you mean? In the investigation?”
“No. That China issued an ultimatum to Taiwan.”
“I didn’t hear that.”
“They said, surrender or be invaded. It’s going to be a real war now. Not all this dancing around we’ve been doing out here.”
“That doesn’t affect my mission.”
“It affects mine, Special Agent. I want to help you find this guy. But we’ve got to be ready to treat mass casualties. If we go to Condition One, GQ, that’s where I’ll be. If we get attacked, it might not matter if we catch him. If we all, like, die together.”
Aisha turned her head slightly, evaluating her eyelids. “Is that likely?”
“The girls say it could happen. A missile. A torpedo.” She hugged herself more tightly.
Aisha nodded, still looking at her own hooded dark eyes. The too-round face, the sagging chin line. She looked tired too, the way everyone on the ship did. “What will you do then?” the corpsman added.
She smiled sadly at herself. “I believe I will trust in God.”
“That’s all you’ve got to say? Trust in God?”
“Who else is there?”
The corpsman didn’t answer. A moment later, the door clicked behind her.
19
THE second wave of missiles hit just after midnight. And along with it, a contact report arrived from Pittsburgh. Two Song-class boats, at the midpoint of the strait. The data link with the ROC defense network came up sporadically, along with the relayed picture from the AWACS orbiting east of the island. During the times it was up, it showed dozens of warheads rising from the mainland, turning east, and accelerating. Donnie and the Terror concentrated on any that might be targeted on the capital. But Beijing seemed to be consciously avoiding the city, or indeed, any heavily populated region.
Which might not be as good a sign as it seemed … Chip Fang, looking ragged, slumped next to Dan at the command desk in CIC. His thin chest was wrapped in a Savo Island foul-weather jacket. And under that … Dan did a double take. “Where’d you pick that up, Chip?”
The
Taiwanese patted the olive-and-black shemagh tucked ascot-like into his collar. “I had to buy it. Expensive, too.”
“I thought we were out, in the ship’s store.”
“You are.” Fang smirked. “A private transaction. Where’d you get them?”
“Jebel Ali. Should have bought an extra hundred. I didn’t know they’d be this popular.”
“My uncle has a textile mill. We can run you off a few thousand. For less than you would expect.” Fang sobered. “But they’re probably shut down now. Our whole workforce is in the reserves. They’re mobilized, I’m sure.”
Dan nodded, eyeing the weapons inventory tote. Worrying over how few rounds he had left. Especially the Block 4s. But help was on the way. USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, with a full strike group, would be on scene in two days.
At that point, Dan and Savo would have done their job, and TF 779.1 would most likely be relieved. They’d head for Guam to rearm and resupply, prior to being folded in with units currently finishing hasty overhauls in West Coast ports.
At least that was what he hoped for.
Fang bent into his earphones. He spoke rapidly in Chinese, then listened again.
The 21MC lit. “TAO, Engineering. CO there?”
Dan hit the lever. “Go ahead, Bart.”
“Sir, that tanker refuel, got a time and rendezvous yet?”
“Thought XO passed that to you. Early tomorrow. Five thousand tons, out of Hualien. Comms on channel 22. He does us, then Mitscher, Curtis Wilbur, Chokai, Kurama. In that order.”
“Copy. Does Noah know that? First Division’s gonna have to set up if we’re doing an astern fueling.”
Dan scratched his head. “Can you make sure they do? A lot’s cooking up here. We’ll need to hook up, top off, and return freedom to maneuver as quickly as we can.”
Danenhower signed off as Fang laid down his earphones. “What’s the news?” Dan asked.
“Not good. The mainland’s announced this latest barrage is retaliation for a raid on their base on Yongxing. Woody Island, you might know it as.”
“Woody … that’s in the Paracels?” As the liaison nodded, Dan did too, but for a different reason. The left hook he’d expected. But not as a raid … A raid, though, would be how Beijing would present it.… Doubtless the full might of Strike One and the Vietnamese were surging over the islands at this very moment. And each time the Chinese tried to reinforce, they’d have to do so under U.S. air out of Cam Ranh Bay and the old airfield at Da Nang.
He put that aside. “How’s the population taking it?”
Fang said the Republic of China had prepared for this for generations. The reserves were mobilized. “Almost two million men. They can shell us, bomb us all they like. But they will have to conquer us one by one. And to do that, they will have to cross the strait, put their boots on our sand, and kill us all.”
Dan pushed back from the command desk, hoping the civilian leadership was as determined.
If they weren’t, his task group could be caught in a nutcracker. Pinched between the lodgment in the Senkakus, and a newly “reunited” Taiwan, there was no way the Navy could hold the Miyako Strait. Or the Bashi Channel and Luzon Strait, either. Would that satisfy General Zhang—no, President Zhang now—and a triumphant China? Or would it be only the first step on a career of conquest?
He felt pretty sure he knew the answer to that one.
* * *
BY dawn over two hundred warheads had fallen. Fang reported Leshan Mountain had been hit again and was no longer operational. The airfields had been sledgehammered, with both cratering and cluster antipersonnel ordnance, to discourage runway repair. Special operations forces had been reported landing on Penghu Island, in the middle of the strait. The ROC Army was counterattacking, attempting to drive them back into the sea.
Then, for two hours, a massive, obviously carefully planned air blitz, comprising nearly two full wings of bombers covered by fighters and jammers, had worked over Hengshan and Chiashan, the major air-defense headquarters near Taipei, with earth-penetrating bombs. Only a few interceptors rose to challenge them. Fang said they were being husbanded, to unleash against the invasion fleet. Amy Singhe had pleaded with Dan to take them out with Standards. He’d weighed the decision. And said, finally, that the situation lay outside his rules of engagement. They weren’t attacking the civilian population.
Now it was 0800. He paced the bridge, trying to conceal impatience and apprehension. Puffy white clouds grazed across a pale sky. Wind eight knots, from 120 true. One- to two-foot seas.
“Now secure from flight quarters,” Nuckols announced over the 1MC. Red Hawk 202 was laying a trail of brownish-gray exhaust, heading north. Dan wanted “Strafer” Wilker, loaded with flares and chaff, between him and Uotsuri. Both Ku-band radars were radiating now, so he assumed both triple-A batteries were active.
“Right rudder, come to course 130. Make pitch and turns for ten knots,” Ensign Mytsalo murmured.
All but nodding off, Dan leaned on the bulwark of the bridge wing as Mytsalo carefully chiseled the bow in behind a surprisingly small, blue-hulled, white-superstructured products tanker. Bao Shan III. A puke-green wake unrolled from her stern. A drogue porpoised, throwing spray as it bounded. Sea sparrows darted above the rocking foam. Dan remembered the old seamen’s lore: Low-flying birds meant a storm on its way. Though these were probably just skimming the churned-up wake in hopes of an early lunch.
He blew out, impatient, but kept his expression mild. Better too slow than too fast; an overshoot could plow them into the other’s stern. USS Curtis Wilbur’s low gray outline rode off to the west, placed to intercept any surprises from the direction of the mainland. Even farther out, Pittsburgh lay in wait for subsurface intruders.
But so far, aside from the test probe by the Song-class and the old nuke boat, no Chinese subs had tried to pierce their barrier. Which was puzzling. Were they sneaking through so covertly he just hadn’t detected them? But Pittsburgh, Wilbur, and Mitscher all had their tails streamed, and Kurama’s helos had laid sonobuoys. Had the whole sub fleet made it through before he’d latched the gate?
Or were they holding back, waiting for the allies and their carrier groups to move in close enough for a crushing, overwhelming right cross?
The fog of uncertainty had descended on the battlefield, thickened by jamming, distance, and the lack of recon. All he could do was execute his last orders … and maybe, if he had to, look past their wording, to what Seventh Fleet and PaCom would have ordered, if they’d seen the situation up close. The way the U.S. Navy had always operated.
Always bearing in mind that whoever stepped over the line had better turn out to be right.
“Put the eye of the ship right beside it. Which side doesn’t matter,” he told Mytsalo. “But crowd in close, to make it easy for the folks on deck. They have to get that grapnel on it, and that won’t be easy.”
“Captain. Good morning.” At the doorway to the pilothouse, Dave Branscombe held his salute. Dan beckoned the comm officer onto the wing with a crooked finger.
“Skipper, we have the response to your message to the Korean task force commander. Admiral Jung. We’ve set you up HF voice. Just remember, it’s an uncovered net.”
Dan nodded. Min Jun Jung was a savvy officer, and the Koreans were good seamen, aggressive and tough. Their ships were short on creature comforts, but fast and heavily armed. Just now, Jung’s force was at sea, covering the Korea Strait. Dan checked his watch. “Remote to the bridge?… Good. Call sign?”
“You’re still ‘Ringmaster.’ Admiral Jung is ‘War Drums.’”
“JOOD … range and bearing to Mitscher.”
Dan listened with half an ear, eyeing the drogue, which Pardees’s and Chief Anschutz’s boatswains were manhandling up to the break in the forecastle. It was lashed to a cable, which was in turn made fast to a five-inch refueling hose, unreeling off the tanker’s stern. The engineers were standing by an already-connected feeder stub. Make the hose up, signal th
e tanker to start pumping, and they’d be sucking aboard Jet A1 at a thousand gallons a minute. It would take half an hour to top off Savo’s tanks. By noon he wanted everyone fully refueled and on their way to the outer limit of the Orange Zone.
Time to see if he could get some help. Taking a last glance down at the forecastle, where the engineers were gathered, he went into the pilothouse. Unsocketed the red phone, reminded himself he was on a nonsecure net, and hit the Transmit button. “War Drums, this is Ringmaster actual. Over.”
The answer came back at once, and surprisingly clear for an over-the-horizon high-frequency message. “This is War Drums actual. Good to talk to you, Dan. I always thought we’d meet again.”
Dan pictured him. Oversized hands, small dark eyes, the scent of expensive mentholated cigarettes and too-sweet cologne. His English was almost perfect, with a touch of California. “Hello, Min. Congrats on the promotion. Over.”
“Same to you. Good to have you back. Just wish it wasn’t for the current reason. Over.”
“This is Ringmaster. Understand. Uh, is Commander Hwang still with you?”
“He commands Jeonnam, one of my units of the Third Fleet.”
Okay, they were getting into classified territory. But he had to know one fact. “This is Ringmaster. Interrogative. Are you under command of combined, uh, authorities? Or national authorities?” In wartime, the entire South Korean navy came under U.S. Navy command, so operations could be coordinated.
“This is War Drums. Command has not yet been transferred.”
Okay, which meant he and Jung didn’t have to ask permission from Fleet. “Roger that. Are you in receipt of our message of 0220 local? Outlining Operation Dragonglass.”
“War Drums. We have your message, and clearance from Seoul. I believe this move should have been made earlier. However, I am eager to participate. Have hopscotched several units toward you in anticipation. Including flagship. We will come up on the frequencies specified. Over.”