But it was here, of that she was certain. She leaned on the quay wall and stared out at the sea, silently demanding that something happen.
Something, anythinghell, at this point she’d settle for two fishing boats colliding.
The story was here. She could feel it in the way the small hairs on the back of her neck prickled, in the uneasy tightness in her gut. Whether or not it was hers alone now was the problem. Every network kept track of her movements, she knew. They had their spies, their scouts in the major airlines as well as in her own bureau, no doubt. As soon as Pamela landed and established a presence in a particular theater, everyone played catchup. Regardless of whether or not they knew what the story was, regardless of how absurd her destination seemed, everybody followed.
She grimaced. That was the problem with Istanbul right noweverybody else was also here. If a story did break, she’d just be one among the masses chasing after it. Someone might even scoop her. No, that would be entirely unacceptable. No, it wouldn’t happen here, and it had never happened.
But where the hell was everybody?
The line to an old song ran through her headsomething about giving a war and nobody coming. “I wonder if I should call the Navy and tell them they’re missing something,” she said aloud.
The cameraman turned toward her with a weary, bored expression on his face. “What?”
She wheeled to face him down. “The story. There’s one here, you know.”
The cameraman nodded. “You’ve been telling me that. But where is it?”
She glared at him. “I don’t know. But it’ll be here soon. We just don’t know where to look right this second.”
The cameraman’s face suddenly took on a degree of animation. He pointed out at the horizon behind her and said, “Maybe we should try out there.”
“That’s exactly what I mean. There’s something happening out there, and I don’t know what it is yet.”
The cameraman began shaking his head violently from side to side, fumbling with the camera bag at his side without ever taking his eyes off the horizon. “No, I mean it’s thereright there.”
He pointed again at the horizon, taking his eyes off it to dig out a new lens.
Pamela whirled and stared at the horizon. It was therethe pieces were starting to fall into place.
Right at the boundary between water and sky, a dark gray smudge broke the clean line of the ocean. She recognized it immediately, having seen it too many times from too many different angles not to. It was the USS Jefferson, steaming toward them with helicopters and aircraft arrayed overhead like an honor escort. “I told you.”
“Dammit, set up for the feed.”
She moved in front of him, positioning for the sun and the favorable angle while still making sure that the camera could catch the shape of the aircraft carrier in the background.
1310 Local
Vulture’s Row
USS Jefferson
“I don’t like this, Tombstone. I don’t like it one little bit.”
Batman stared out at the calm, glassy water as the massive carrier plowed through the smooth seas. “Constrained watersthat’s no place for an aircraft carrier.”
“I agree. You know I do.”
Tombstone stared off in the sky, looking for the martial stack of aircraft orbiting. “That’s one of the reasons we’ve got so much in the air right now.”
“A hell of a lot it’s going to do in these waters. And still don’t see any justification for putting us at risk by pulling into port in Ukraine. Hell, we can make do with two catsthat’s why we’ve got three.”
Stoney sighed. The order from the Department of Defense had been ambiguous at best, downright unclear at worst. Jefferson had been directed to sail into the Black Sea for possible repair in Ukraine “pending further determination.”
How many strings had Tiltfelt pulled?
Enough, evidently. From what he’d heard on CNN and the other networks, Congress was slavering over the possibility of having a stronghold at Russia’s back door.
“Let’s look at the bright side,” Tombstone said finally. “At least we’re not ordered to make port there. I think Uncle Thomas is going to be playing this close to the chestget us in theater, within striking range of Turkey, and wait to see what falls out from this little incident on board. That’s the only thing that makes sense to me.”
His uncle, Tombstone knew, would be irrevocably opposed to pulling Jefferson into any foreign port right now. The prospect of making a transit through the Strait of Bosphorus and being confined to the Black Sea was not much better, but at least the Black Sea offered some elbow room. Once they were through the Strait, he’d feel better anyway.
“What I really don’t understand,” Batman said, pointing to mainland Turkey just starting to come into view off their starboard bow, “is why we’re so convinced Turkey will let us through here. Isn’t this whole area mined?”
“Of course it is. It’s sort of a test, I suppose. Turkey is still claiming that they weren’t behind the EMP attack, and the thinking is that if they let us sail through the Strait unmolested, then they probably weren’t. Or at least possibly weren’t. Or at leastoh, hell, I don’t know. I don’t like it any better than you do.”
Both of the Naval aviators stared out at the calm waves, waiting for the first sign of trouble.
1320 Local
Istanbul, Turkey
“How fast can this tug go?” Pamela demanded. “Forty knots?”
The owner of the boat shrugged, and pointed at the sea. “Maybe twenty. As calm as the seas are today, we won’t have the swells to contend with. But why the worry about speed?”
Pamela took two steps closer, bringing herself well within his personal range. She could feel his interest in her grow, see the sudden hungry look in his eyes. “I’ve got a plan. I need to borrow your boatrent it, really. Could use you along, if you’re interested.”
She let an alluring smile play across her face.
The man reached out one hand and laid it on her shoulder, stroking gently. “I might be.”
“Work first.”
Pamela explained her plan to him. The man’s face went through a cycle from lust to surprise to childish glee. He started nodding vigorously. “Come on. Let’s see how fast I can get her going.”
1345 Local
Hunter 701
“Man, I’m hungry,” AWI Harness moaned. “Come on, guysdidn’t anybody bring something to eat?”
Rabies and his copilot exchanged a snide, knowing look. Harness could be the best antisubmarine technician in the Navyneither of them had any doubt that he wasbut he could be a real pain in the ass on a mission.
“Didn’t you eat before you left home?” Rabies inquired innocently. “I know I told you to.”
“After last time, sir, I thought it might be better to go light on lunch,” Harness replied stiffly. “You know, just in case you wanted to start down and take another real close look at those waves again.”
Rabies burst out laughing. “Harness, you’re such a pussy.”
“I resent that remark,” the TACCO said from the backseat. “Last time I checked, he wasn’t allowed in our heads.”
Lieutenant Sara Andrews was one of the first female TACCOs to fly in an S-3 Viking. “Besides, even if he werehe’d still get hungry.”
“Thanks-I think,” Harness muttered. “Come on, what happened to the team concept here?”
“Oh, all right.”
Rabies fumbled around in a flight suit pocket and drew out a candy bar. “Here.”
“Thanks, sir.”
Rabies could hear Harness peeling off the paper, the muffling little noises barely audible over the ICS.
Wait for it, wait for itnow. “Oh, by the way, Harness,” Rabies said casually. “It doesn’t bother you that I keep that in the same package I have your full piddle pack, does it? I don’t know why the hell I forgot to take it out after the last missionit’s been, whatthree days
?”
The copilot and TACCO howled. Rabies burst into song. He could hear just what he’d expected to hear from the backseatHarness gagging.
The S-3 Viking was flying lazy, low-level circles around the aircraft carrier as she approached the Strait. Once Jefferson commenced her transit, the Viking would dart ahead to the Black Sea and orbit there, waiting for the ship to arrive. The technicalities of maneuvering by aircraft over international waterways were complicated, and Rabies wasn’t sure exactly why the rules were the way they were. All he knew was how the mission had been briefed by Intel, with a JAG officer sitting right next to him.
“Look! To starboard.”
Rabies glanced over as the copilot craned his head back to see. “I don’t believe it.”
Rabies threw the S-3 into a hard, starboard turn, descending rapidly to two thousand feet. From that altitude, the sight that had so intrigued the copilot was readily visible. The clear, calm waters of the Mediterranean were a massive barrier of odd acoustics and soggy bottom. Detection by sonar, including sonobuoys, was problematic at best. On the worst day, S-3 could virtually hit a submarine with a sonobuoy and not hear it acoustically.
There was, however, one advantage to the shallow waters on a calm dayvisibility was excellent. As more than one Mediterranean sailor could testify, being submerged wasn’t a blanket of invisibility in the Mediterranean, not on a day like this.
Living proof of that theory was making a slow transit through the water below them.
Sara whistled softly. “He must be fifty feet down,” she said, quiet wonder in her voice. “I’d heard the storiesbut it sure is something to see it yourself. Wait, I can almostwhat about it, Rabies, can you see what type it is?”
“Let’s get a little closer and see if we can figure it out.”
Rabies tipped the S-3’s blunt nose down and executed a steep descent toward the waves. The dark shadow under the water abruptly started to turn to port.
“He hears usI’m sure of it,” Rabies said over the ICS.
“But what kind of submarine?”
Rabies and the copilot studied the sleek underwater form, trying to make out the class identifiers. Both had done several tours in the Mediterranean, and the variety of diesel submarines located in its shallow waters were familiar to them. Both were expecting to see a Turkish Kilo, or perhaps one of the myriad German varieties that populated these waters.
Either one of them would have been cause for worry, the Turkish Kilo particularly. With the current state of affairs between the United States and Turkey, neither Rabies nor the copilot would be inclined to believe the Turkish submarine had friendly intentions, lurking as it was in the trail of the American aircraft carrier.
When Rabies finally made out the silhouette of the submarine, he sucked in a hard breath. He’d been prepared to worry over a Turkish Kilo, but what he saw bothered him even more. Not because of the capabilities of the submarine, though that was cause for concern as well. No, what this classification meant this close on the trail of the aircraft carrier was about to throw a wrench into every bit of tactical planning that had gone on to date. He turned to the copilot. “You’d best get Homeplate on the circuit. That there is a Julietan old Russian ship-killer. She’s capable of over-the-horizon linking with surveillance aircraft, and she’s too damned close to our carrier.”
“A Juliet?” The copilot leaned forward as though getting closer to the glass would improve his vision. “You’re rightJuliet, no doubt about it.”
During the Cold War, the old Type II Juliet-class diesel submarine was a mainstay of the Soviet Union. It alternated anticarrier operations in the Mediterranean with other SSG duties with the then-new Echo II nuclear submarine.
In the last decades, the Juliets had been increasingly reluctant to stray far from home port. Age and poor maintenance had rendered them virtually unseaworthy. For this one to be here in the Mediterranean, lurking outside the entrance to the Black Sea, must have required a major maintenance and resupply evolution. “Turkey doesn’t have any Juliets,” Rabies said over the ICS. “Do they? Anybody know different, you speak up.”
“No.”
Harness’s voice was crisp and clear. “They were sold to several nations around the world, but the only countries who still have operational ones are Ukraine and Russia.”
“Then what in the hell is this boat doing out here?” Rabies demanded.
“From her position on the stern, it looks like she’s herding us, like a sheepdog.”
“I don’t know, but I don’t like it,” Sara said. “Hold on, Homeplate’s talking.”
They all listened as the directions came from the aircraft carrier.
Hunter 701 was to maintain close contact on the Juliet, pinning it down inside a barrier of sonobuoys including active sonobuoys that would hold it even if it went sinker. In addition, two SH60-B helos were being vectored off the aircraft carrier for coordinated antisubmarine operations with the S3. The S3 was to maintain tactical control of the situation. Weapons free was authorized if the Juliet approached within three thousand yards of the carrier.
“Weapons free,” Rabies said quietly. “Oh, deep holy shit. Weapons free.”
1400 Local
Bosphorus Strait
“There it is. Get closer.” Pamela’s voice was harsh and demanding.
Her cameraman glanced at her uneasily and then stepped away from her as though to distance himself from what he suspected she was about to do.
An uneasy murmuring arose from the crew. The cameraman held up one hand as though to quell protests, listened, and then turned back to her.
“They don’t want to get very close to the carrier. It is not good seamanship, they say. The carrier, it is so heavily laden, it cannot maneuver to avoid them should they run into problems.”
“We’re not going that close. Circle around to the other side.” Pamela had spotted the rescue helicopter making lazy orbits on the starboard side of the carrier.
“We’ll pass astern,” the captain said.
“Fine, finejust hurry up and do it.” Pamela kicked at the gunwales of the battered fishing boat. The engine roared to life, a good deal more steady and satisfying than she would have thought possible, given the outward condition of the boat. The boat picked up speed, traced a parallel course to the carrier, then pitched and bobbed as it steamed over the massive vessel’s wake.
Finally, as the waves died down on the leeward side of the ship,
Pamela saw the helicopter again. She waved her arms at it, trying to attract the pilot’s attention. There was no indication that it saw her, although she was certain the helo’s crew members were checking out every one on deck on the vessels near the carrier.
Frustrated, she reached down at her sides, grabbed the edges of her white pullover, and yanked it over her head. Stunned silence, followed by a low chorus of appreciative wolf whistles, greeted her as her head popped out of the sweater. She put her hands on her hips, glared at the fishing boat’s crew members, then turned back to the helo.
Raising her right hand holding the sweater, she began vigorously waving the new signal flag at the helicopter. She saw it stop in midair, change course, and vector toward them.
She grinned, thinking how horrified Tombstone would be if he knew his stories about the predilections of sailors on watch on both ships and helicopters had inspired her.
She waited until the helicopter was almost directly overhead, certain that its crew was watching her. She turned to the cameraman. “Have them come to a dead stop. Then you get the hell out of here. Explain it to the crew if the captain doesn’t. If he doesn’t clear the area at his best possible speed, there’s a good chance his boat will be impounded when he returns to shore. He needs to get lostand you make him understand it. Now give me your camera.”
“What?”
The cameraman started to say something else, but his words were lost.
“The camera,” she repeated. She reached out and snatched it from
his hands, silently thanking the powers that looked down on reporters that he’d had the foresight to bring the waterproof camera. Field offices had been bitching about the extra cost for combat undersea-hardened equipment for years, but it always paid off in the end.
She slung the camera strap around her neck, then looped her belt over it to hold it close to her body. Then she stepped up onto the gunwales, balanced carefully for a moment, and executed a perfect racing dive into the calm waters.
The chill in the water took her breath away immediately, but she stroked determinedly underwater, trying to put as much distance as possible between herself and the churning screws of the fishing boat. Finally, when she could stand the oxygen deprivation no longer, she clawed her way gasping and coughing to the surface. She treaded water, still feeling the chill seep into her bones, and scanned the ocean around her.
The fishing vessel had evidently taken her advice. It was rapidly leaving the area, its wake from powerful twin three-bladed propellers churning up the water in a rooster tail behind it. Pamela treaded water, watching the helo now closing in on her, hoping and praying the United States Navy was as chivalrous as it claimed to be.
1405 Local
Seahawk 601
“Look at that crazy bitch!” The helicopter pilot followed that comment with a string of obscenities. The woman in the water had gone from being a pleasant, welcome source of free entertainment to being part of his job. “Get Mother on the circuitwe’ve got a problem here.”
The carrier’s reaction was immediate and predictable. The helicopter was equipped for sea-air rescue, which was why it was assigned as the angel helo during flight operations. The pilot was ordered to execute a standard SAR mission on the woman in the water.
“Now this is something different,” the rescue diver murmured as he shrugged into his harness. He looked at the other flight crew member standing by the winch. “Course, it’s all business with me. You know that.”
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