by Jeff Carlson
Could they have hit the right frequencies by accident?
Drew didn’t look at Christensen as he considered his options. They weren’t supposed to be friends, and their meeting was outside normal protocol. He was an aviator. She was a communications officer on the flag bridge.
If they were caught, it might blow their cover. Tonight was their first encounter in person. Drew had read her file back in the States, nothing more. The two of them had no relationship except that when his sat phone went dark, dropping its link, Christensen was his fail-safe to reestablish contact with the Pentagon.
Nevertheless, Drew was a warrior and an athlete, extra-attuned to his body and his surroundings. That he felt attracted to this bright young woman was predictable—but from the way she stood too near, her gaze flickering from his eyes to his mouth, he thought she felt it, too.
They were paired in a unique way. Aside from himself and Christensen, Drew had been told only one other ROMEO agent was aboard the America, which meant the three of them were alone on this foreign sea. They needed to protect each other.
“We were picking up a lot of interference today,” he said. “New stuff. I think the Chinese have a ground-based weapon plus whatever they’ve got in orbit.”
He had a flash drive and handed it to Christensen down low against her hip. Her gaze connected with his as their fingers touched.
“You can send this for me?” he asked. She would need to be careful when she uploaded his data through the ship’s normal transmissions.
She nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“We’ll need to meet again.”
“I can get away whenever you want me,” she said.
Good, Drew thought. With her neck-length brown hair and freckled nose, Christensen was achingly cute. Her eyes were enormous hazel pools in the dark. Drew glanced away, although beyond the catwalk was utter darkness. He didn’t need to see the strike group to know the ships were there, like a floating city.
Within the America, the Harry S. Truman, and the carriers’ support craft, hundreds of men and women reached in every direction through radar, sonar, and other sensors, creating an electronic umbrella around the fleet.
The umbrella had been compromised. The Chinese attack on U.S. satellites was more than a prelude to war. It was the first shot. And if China could selectively hit the U.S. intelligence agencies’ encrypted communications net, they must also have the capacity to paralyze the strike group in a wink.
What else can I do? Drew thought.
He’d been sent to Vietnam to act as additional eyes watching for new weapons tech in the battlefield: bio, nano, cyber, pulse.
The race for EMPs had become a top priority. Electromagnetic pulses were an unstoppable method of crippling technology-dependent militaries. Every circuit and computer chip was a weak point. Most of their systems were hardened, though not EMP-proof.
Both sides could generate an electromagnetic pulse with a nuke, but missile launches were impossible to hide. Even if one side managed to outwit the other, nuclear attacks would create untold amounts of fallout, most likely enough to poison both sides of the world. Clean EMP weapons like high-powered microwaves or loop antenna devices were the answer.
“I—” Drew said.
He heard boot steps on the deck.
Christensen pressed herself against him, stretching up to cover his mouth with her own. She startled Drew. Then he wrapped his arms around her.
She was pretending they were lovers. Drew wasn’t above making the most of their predicament. He ran his hand down her side into the curve of her waist as they kissed. She didn’t fight him. He thought she was smiling.
Sexual relationships were forbidden. Four thousand men and women couldn’t be locked together without some mischief, so fraternization between two sailors might be overlooked on land, in port. Good order and discipline were the rule at sea—but smooching was a lesser crime than espionage.
The boot steps walked closer, then stopped. “Hey, break it up,” said another man, a chief petty officer making rounds. He passed a red-lensed flashlight over their torsos, yet deliberately avoided their faces. He didn’t want to see who they were.
Drew turned to the CPO as Christensen slipped away. “Sorry,” Drew said.
The CPO looked at Drew’s flight suit, a green one-piece made of fire-resistant Nomex. Pilots never wore anything else. The suit identified Drew as one of the elite groups aboard the ship, and, while the CPO wouldn’t report them, he might gossip.
Christensen was gone. The CPO had done the gentlemanly thing.
“Appreciate it,” Drew said. Then he ducked inside through one open hatch and another, moving into the dry, recycled air of the ship.
The steel corridors were empty. Christensen hadn’t waited. Drew headed aft because she would have gone forward. Then a man rounded a corner behind him and four more appeared in the direction he was walking. Had they seen her?
Drew was due to launch. He’d follow up with Christensen later. The wardroom was also on the 03 Level, and he beelined for it, making a hole for the other sailors with the ease of habit. They turned their shoulders and passed without touching. Their footsteps were light on the white-tiled deck.
The voices behind him were also quiet, although Navy personnel learned to work and sleep through anything. The catapults and thundering jets on the flight deck could be heard throughout the ship. Even so, the best sailors tried not to disturb each other.
Drew’s guilt felt like a brand. He and Christensen were Navy in every way, loyal and competent, and yet they’d deceived the good people around them.
If the other crew members were the ship’s blood, he was a white blood cell. They had the same purpose, but he was fundamentally different. These were men and women who would die for each other. They were a team.
I should warn them.
Unfortunately, he had his orders. Christensen probably outranked him, too. She wore j.g. insignia, but she was the one on the bridge. ROMEO would want her to call the shots even if she said sir to Drew.
She kissed me. Why? We could have been holding hands or hugging when that dude came along. But she kissed me.
Feeling harried and distracted—and glad—Drew entered the wardroom’s familiar noise. Despite its low ceiling, the wardroom was a wide space with faux wood paneling, real linen, silverware, and dozens of aviators and crew. On an HDTV tuned to ESPN Classic, the Chargers and Steelers slugged it out.
“There he is! That’s the guy!”
The brash voice of Lieutenant Ted Buegeleisen caught Drew before he reached the buffet. This is the last thing I need, he thought, but he allowed himself to be waved over.
“You love me, you love him,” Buegeleisen declared. Sharing his table were two female helicopter pilots. One was brunette, the other sandy-blond. She wore a ring, which hadn’t stopped Buegeleisen from chatting her up. It never did.
“Bugle” was Drew’s friend and partner, again on multiple levels. Drew flew a two-man EA-18G. Bugle was his electronic warfare officer and a ROMEO agent, a tall, happy guy who considered himself catnip with the ladies. In reality, Bugle was a six-foot-three horse-faced dork. Drew had difficulty imagining a less likely prospect for a secret agent.
“Did you know this maniac saved four people from a deck fire?” Bugle asked the women.
“How’s mid rats tonight?” Drew said. Going on one in the morning, they were served midnight rations left over from dinner, but Bugle was not to be deterred.
“It’s true,” Bugle said. “You’re looking at him. A few years ago we had a fire on the Lincoln when some idiot was sneaking cigarettes by the fuel hoses.”
Drew left their table to grab a tray, two hamburgers, and a scoop of canned pineapple. He wished he was more like Bugle, fuzz in the brain, peaceful at heart, although he realized some of his disquiet was purely physiological.
The America and the Truman split every twenty-four hours into two “fly days” of thirteen hours each, creating some overlap at midnight and at
noon. Drew’s launch cycle was the second. He expected to fly from two a.m. to four a.m., but it was tough to eat when his belly thought it should be asleep and even tougher to sleep when his body thought it should be in the sun. Three weeks ago, Drew had been stationed in Guantanamo. Five weeks ago, he’d been in Seoul. His biorhythms were more out of whack than those of the crew members who’d already been with the America in San Diego.
Could that explain the tick of anxiety in his head? Despite everything he’d said to Christensen, he had no evidence of a Chinese attack.
“This cowboy ran into the fire four times!” Bugle said as Drew returned with his tray.
Christensen. Drew recalled the warmth of her body as he sat down and dug into his chow. If she was like him, she was lonely. ROMEO training meant less downtime, less dates, less family, less everything.
He admired her dedication. Twenty-five years old and a ROMEO agent… What had caused her to give up any semblance of a normal life? Were her motives like his own? Drew hadn’t gotten over his sister’s death—maybe he never would—but personal scars weren’t the main reason people chose to serve.
“Every time he comes back with someone else!” Bugle said. “We’ve got two jets on fire and smoke as thick as water, but he keeps going back in.”
“No way,” the brunette said.
“Bugle makes it sound good,” Drew said. “The smoke wasn’t as thick as water.”
“It was like the Amazon!” Bugle insisted.
Drew laughed. He’s an idiot, but he’s my idiot, he thought. Bugle’s blabbermouth style was the perfect disguise. The two of them had been last-minute additions to the crew, yet they’d made fast friends across the ship with Bugle taking the lead on the social scene.
ROMEO was a clandestine division of the Defense Intelligence Agency, a hand-picked group trained to blend with standard forces. Bugle claimed that was why they were code-named after the greatest secret lover of all time. ROMEO wasn’t an acronym. Bugle said they were supposed to get intimate with their shipmates. Drew believed there were similar groups called ALPHA, BRAVO, and so on.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “We need to fly.”
“We’ll see you later!” Bugle said. Both women chuckled at the eagerness in his face.
For Drew, the waiting was the hardest part, waiting and wondering if he could rely on anyone else. Once he’d quit accepting things at face value, life had grown complicated in a hurry. Maybe they were all spies.
As he and Bugle bussed their trays, six men rose from other tables. Would he know if any of them were Central Intelligence or National Security operatives?
A pilot named Giles jostled Bugle’s arm, faking the tough guy. “Watch it, fuckface,” Giles said, and Bugle responded brightly with “No thanks!”
Everyone handled the anticipation differently. Giles and Bugle fed off each other’s noise. Other men turned inward, like Drew.
The eight of them crossed the ship into the PR shop, an oversized storage locker lined with naked pipe and conduit. Giles cranked the boom box as they suited up. Drew tried to let the rapid-fire guitars erase his mind. It was better to be loud—better to be amped.
Christensen will have new orders once we’re back, he thought. If we make it back. China has decent aircraft, and a lot of ’em. It won’t be like pounding the shit out of Iraq.
If a pulse weapon burns our planes…
Drew grabbed his flight helmet and filed into the ready room, where the squadron duty officer handed over a weight chit. Drew scrawled his name before selecting a 9mm Beretta and two spare clips from the table.
“Next time I want a bazooka,” Bugle said.
“You are a bazooka,” Drew said, a rare crack for him, and Bugle laughed and punched his shoulder.
Every day Bugle wanted something different, a machine gun, a flamethrower, a fast horse. Clowning let him shrug off the superstition that they might need their sidearms.
A pistol was ludicrous compared to the missiles carried by an EA-18G, more so given the 20mm Vulcan cannon and five thousand pounds of ordnance on a normal F/A-18 fighter. No man would need his Beretta unless he was shot down in enemy territory, which was why they were also handed blood chits—waterproof sheets printed with the American flag and, in the spidery symbols of Vietnamese, Simple Mandarin, Complex Mandarin, and Cantonese, a short phrase that translated as If you help me, my government will repay you.
Four of their eight guys were spares. The America would launch two 18Gs piloted by Drew and Giles for their mission, launch a fighter escort in case either of the first two planes developed problems, then either recover the fighter or farm him out to another cycle. The fourth two-man team was an on-deck spare. Combat operations were predicated on the assumption of casualties, and yet as Drew led their group from the ready room, he found clarity at last.
They ascended behind the tower that held the flag bridge. In the dim shine of the sodium lights, Drew traded fist jabs with Giles and Wade as they walked to their jets.
“Rock ’em,” Giles said.
“Beautiful night,” Bugle added, and Drew nodded, breathing the sweet stink of jet fuel. He wasn’t aware that he was grinning.
The ROMEO shrinks said Drew’s self-assessment was too simple, but he thought he knew himself. He was the older brother of a girl raised by a single dad, an uneducated joe who’d worked fifty-hour weeks to make time-and-a-half in a paper plant in St. Paul, Minnesota. Their father was a good man. He’d destroyed his hands and his back to provide for them. Drew had tried to be the dad, too, cooking and folding laundry, watching over Brigit’s homework, her boyfriends, and her ambitions to play soccer and piano.
The Navy had become his surrogate family, although the ROMEO profilers were right. His loyalty was more than the desire for a home. Drew felt more than he wanted to, remembered more than he wanted to, and years ago he’d hoped the Navy might be a way to toughen up and prove himself.
Now he was lying to his friends for all the right reasons. It was crucial to prevent intercepts and to preserve the status of shadow forces like ROMEO. If not for his double role, he wouldn’t have learned about the threat of a pulse weapon—but because of ROMEO, he was forced to withhold his information.
That felt like betrayal.
He hated it.
LOS ANGELES
Partway through her media event, Emily had a death grip on the podium and swallowed again to relax her throat. She hated public speaking. DNAllied’s media director had done a nice job, promising the major television, print, and web outlets the scoop of the week. The hall was packed with news teams.
Was her mom watching on TV?
“We share ninety-eight percent of our DNA with chimpanzees,” Emily said, “and ninety-nine point seven with Neanderthal man, which makes them an excellent sounding board for comparative genomics.”
Laura stood with P.J. in the back of the conference room. Uncharacteristically, Emily avoided her sister’s gaze.
“Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis, and chimpanzees are similar creatures, yet our cousins adapted to the same world in different ways,” she said. “Some of their adaptations are less effective. Some are more. Among chimpanzees, for example, the incidence of most forms of cancer is twenty percent less than in Homo sapiens, whereas we believe Homo neanderthalensis was more susceptible than our own species.”
Emily paused one last time. She’d brought both sets of notes to the podium. This was where the two diverged.
Was her nephew worth more to her than unborn strangers? What about the thousands of other families with autistic children who needed help?
Emily decided she had to save them first. She would read the company version. Even this speech was loaded with hazards. She didn’t want to sound tactless or cold-blooded, but she expected controversy.
Lifting her chin like a boxer, Emily said, “Chimpanzees are also far less likely to develop cognitive disorders. Their resistance to these disorders includes Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, bipolar disorders… and
autism.”
Some people stirred among the media, such as the business writer from Newsweek and the woman from the local ABC affiliate. Emily had been warned that a few in particular would resist her findings. This was more than a hot-button issue. She was playing with evolution and some of the most incendiary questions of their time.
The subject was also intensely personal for her, not only because of Laura and P.J. Because of her mother. Maintaining family tradition, Jana Flint had raised her girls in accordance with the Catholic Church, and she didn’t always accept Emily’s career choice. No one could say or do anything that would hurt Emily more than Laura’s disapproval, but she’d been on thin ice with her mother for years.
Six reporters had their hands up. One man asked, “Miz Flint, are you implying—”
Emily tried to stay on track. “We want to use those differences to our advantage,” she said. “At DNAllied, we’ve developed and certified an extensive database of specific gene sequences that will lead to individualized cures in millions of people.”
“Are you implying there’s a connection between cancer and intelligence?” the reporter asked.
“It’s not that simple.”
“But you just—”
“Okay, please,” the media director said. “Doctor Flint is happy to answer questions. Let’s take them one at a time.” He pointed away from the aggressive reporter to someone who looked like a safer bet, a man with sleepy eyes and a mustache.
The new man said, “Has there really been any research done into chimpanzees with Alzheimer’s? Or depression? How would you know if a monkey has memory loss or was bipolar?”
“The same as with people,” Emily said. “Several well-designed behavioral studies have tracked both domesticated chimpanzees and those in the wild.”
Another reporter said, “Will your database be made public?”