“Of course, Admiral,” the COS said smoothly. “I’ll make that happen.” He nodded to Lab Rat and then said, “With your permission, Admiral, I’ll get right on it.”
“Carry on, carry on,” the admiral said, waving him off. He watched the man go back into the interior of the ship before turning to Lab Rat. “Surface guy,” he said, his voice confiding. “You know them.” In Coyote’s view that said it all. The man was not an aviator — therefore, by definition, he sweated the small stuff, didn’t know the sheer joy of flying, and would tend to get his panties in a wad over things that might make a tremendous amount of difference to some paper pusher in DC but that Coyote didn’t give a rat’s ass about.
“Seems like a good fellow, though,” Lab Rat added tactfully. He could see the problem looming, and he had no intention of being part of a tiff between Admiral Grant and his chief of staff. “Got a sterling reputation.”
“Sure. You can’t believe everything you hear, though,” Coyote said, and for a moment his eyes looked bleak.
And just what is that all about? Lab Rat wondered. Ganner was a cruiser man who’d commanded an Aegis cruise and then a deep draft follow on command. Those two command tours had pegged him as a man to be watched, one who was being put through the crucible in order to evaluate him for later selection to flag rank. That he’d been assigned as Coyote’s chief of staff was not a step up — it was a sideways move, indicating that there was some doubt that he was still on the fast track to promotion to admiral.
If it bothered Ganner, you couldn’t tell it by looking at him. He was a darkly tanned man, one with brown sun-streaked hair swept back from his face, short but not Marine short, dark brown, almost black eyes and a powerful physique. He had the look of an admiral, the sense of presence and command, and from what Lab Rat had heard, he had the brain power to back it up.
So what had happened? What had knocked him off his preordained track to higher rank? Lab Rat considered asking Coyote, but decided against it. While Lab Rat himself was considered part of the aviation community, he was not per se an aviator. Therefore, Coyote might have been reluctant to confide in him the way he would in another pilot. Besides, it was always better to know things that no one else knew you knew. Sooner or later — and Lab Rat was betting on sooner — he’d know exactly what had happened in Ganner’s career and be able to evaluate how it affected his position on the ship. Maybe Ganner was resentful over whatever had happened and envied Coyote. A bitter or disillusioned COS could make life difficult for one of the admiral’s perceived favorites, and joining the battle group like this could make Lab Rat and his people look like just that. There were a thousand ways a COS could sabotage a more junior officer.
In the meantime, it was important to avoid getting caught between Coyote and his COS. Stay on the good side of both, keep your head down, and do your job. Because clearly the COS hadn’t pissed Coyote off enough to get his butt relieved, so Coyote would be reluctant to completely torpedo the man’s career. But the situation would bear watching.
“So git,” Coyote said. “You got a ton of stuff to do, starting with finding a ride home, right? You need to get your people packed up and orders cut and berthing arranged and all that paperwork shit, I bet.”
“Sir, they’re packing out right now.” Lab Rat could not repress a slight smirk. “I got reservations on comm air for all of them and a couple of COD’s standing by at North Island to get them out here.”
Coyote gave him a long, level look. “Pretty confident, aren’t you?”
“Not in me, sir.” Lab Rat grinned openly now. “In you.”
SEVEN
United Nations
Thursday, September 5
1400 local (GMT –5)
Shortly after the last secretary had straggled back from lunch, Captain Hemingway appeared at Wexler’s office, accompanied by four enlisted technicians carrying black plastic cases. Hemingway did not give their names, and Wexler did not ask.
Most of the staff was still at lunch, although a few were eating at their desks. They looked up, puzzled, as the technicians immediately began spreading around the room, rapping on the walls, examining cracks and ceilings, checking telephones and computer lines, and generally taking possession of the entire office.
Hemingway turned to Wexler. “This takes about an hour. I also have people down at the central switch boxes tracing out the circuitry. You’d be amazed how often that is overlooked. And yes, I know you’re on fiber optic communications, but there are ways…” She didn’t finish her sentence, but merely looked at Wexler significantly.
Just then, Brad returned from lunch, his face flushed. Another quick round at the racquetball court, Wexler surmised. But his color rose even higher as he saw the people swarming over their office complex. He turned to Wexler, a question on his face.
“Just a redundancy check,” Wexler said calmly. “Captain Hemingway was kind enough to offer the services of her office. She provides the same service for JCS, and I felt we would welcome a second set of eyes.”
Brad’s face looked anything but welcoming. He went into his own office without speaking to Hemingway, dropped his gym bag, then came back out, all traces of emotion gone from his face. “Madam Ambassador, could I see you in private for a moment?”
“Of course.” Wexler led the way back into her office, and Brad shut the door firmly behind them.
“You didn’t discuss this with me,” he stated.
Wexler nodded. “That’s right. I didn’t.”
“I’ll resign immediately, if you like,” he said steadily. “That’s really the only course left open if you don’t trust my judgment in these matters.”
Wexler waved him off. “Oh, do sit down and stop being such a dick, Brad. It’s just what I said — a double check. I thought you’d welcome a second opinion telling me how wonderfully capable you are at your job.”
Brad leaned forward and planted his hands on her desk. “Have they been in your office yet?”
“No.”
Brad pointed at the telephone. Then he motioned her to follow him into her small personal room behind her office. He shut the door again behind them. “I can’t believe you don’t see the danger in this,” he said. “Did it occur to you that they might be planting a bug rather than looking for one?”
Wexler regarded him levelly. “Yes, of course it did. I need to sort out who the players are, Brad. One way of doing that is to give people a chance to make their intentions clear. As soon as they leave, I want you to run a complete check on our spaces. See if anything has changed.”
“That’s what this is?” Brad asked incredulously. “You’re giving the Joint Chiefs of Staff the opportunity to bug your office to see if they take advantage of it?”
Wexler nodded. “And if you can think of a way to run the same scam on the State Department and the CIA, I’d like to do that as well.”
Brad laughed. “You’re betting a lot on my competence, Ambassador. What if they’ve got some new system that we don’t know how to detect?”
“Then we’re in a lot more trouble than I thought.” She stared at him, challenge in her eyes. “You keep telling me that there’s nothing to worry about — well, then prove it.”
Just then, she heard a cry from the other room.
“This conversation is over,” Wexler said. “I am counting on your cooperation.”
Brad nodded, although he was clearly still not in favor of the idea. They walked out together into the outer office to find Captain Hemingway in deep conversation with one of her technicians. She turned to face them, a mixture of triumph and concern on her face. “Look at this.”
The technician held out a pair of tweezers and what looked like a grain of rice between the prongs. Hemingway held out a magnifying glass to let them get a closer look.
“That’s it?” Wexler asked, surprised at the size of it.
Brad looked grim. “Where?”
“In the ambassador’s door jamb,” Hemingway answered.
“Any idea how long it’s been there?” he asked.
She shook her head. “As you can see, it’s colored to match your wall paint here. I don’t know if that means it was designed that way, or whether it was painted over the last time the office was redone.” She shot a speculative look at the walls. “Do you know when it was last painted?”
“Eighteen months ago,” Brad said immediately. His face was pale now, his jaw pulsing with anger.
“You mean,” Wexler said carefully, “there is a chance that that… that… device has been listening in on conversations in my office for the last eighteen months?” Her horror was evident in her voice. She cast her mind back over that time, reviewing the conflicts the United States had been involved in, the delicate negotiations and outright confrontations that had taken place in her office. Was it all compromised? Did someone else know everything that she did as soon as she did it?
Oh, dear God. This is a disaster. Please, tell me this can’t be happening.
“Tell me everything you know about it,” she said firmly, focusing on the current issue at hand. What was important was that they figure out who had planted it, whether there might be any more, and then deal with the damage already done. “They will know we detected it, I suppose?”
Hemingway looked faintly amused. “I have certain… ways… of dealing with that very issue. At the moment, there is a dummy load in series with it, transmitting nothing but static. Whoever is listening may think they’re getting some short-term interference. Sun spots, that sort of thing. They’ll wait for it to clear up on its own before they decide the device is compromised.”
“So they don’t know?”
Hemingway nodded. “If you want, we can replace it. In the long run, sooner or later, you’ll slip up. But in the short run, you may be able to plant some disinformation that may help undo any damage. What precisely that might be, I don’t know. That’s for you to decide.” She glanced around the room. The support staff was staring at them, shock on their faces. “And it will be quite a lot to orchestrate. Remember, you’ll all have to behave precisely as you were before, with the exception of being very careful about what you say. At the same time, you’ll have to act naturally enough that they won’t know there’s a problem.” She shook her head discouragingly. “It’s very difficult to pull off. We’ve had instances where people have tried, and failed miserably.”
“Could you move it?” Wexler asked. “Reposition it so it only hears inside my office alone?”
Hemingway looked startled, then quickly understood what Wexler was suggesting. “Yes, of course. And it’s much easier for one person to manage to carry on the charade than an entire office. That might work.”
“Next question, then. Who’s responsible?” She resisted the temptation to growl when she saw Hemingway and Brad exchange a significant glance. “Well? Who? The CIA, perhaps?”
She could see by their body language that Hemingway was tossing the ball into Brad’s court. He sighed, then looked away from her. “This is, I believe, a device known as ‘Little Insect.’ It is normally not intended as a long-term surveillance device. Somewhere behind a wallboard, we’ll find a small battery to power the transmitter. But because of its size, it’s normally for short-term use only. Unless you can make arrangements to have someone come in and change the battery.”
More horror. “But at least there’s a chance it’s short-term, yes? How long is short-term?”
“Depending on a number of factors, it is effective for up to three weeks.”
Finally, some good news, if it could be called that. “Let’s assume the battery hasn’t been replaced, for the moment. I imagine you’ll be able to tell more when you locate it, yes?” She saw two heads nodding in unison. “Very well, then. For now, we’ll operate on the assumption that it has been in place only three weeks. Now, answer my original question — who?”
There was a long silence, and Brad said, “The ‘Little Insect’ is manufactured in China. As far as we know, it is not available on the export market.” He held up one hand to forestall comment. “As far as we know. Every time we have seen it so far, the circumstances have indicated China.”
China. T’ing. Oh dear Lord, not this, too.
In the last year, Ambassador Wexler’s relationship with the ambassador from China had gone from mutual respect to warm friendship. He had been responsible for saving her life in the last Middle East crisis, and she’d come to depend more and more on his advice and friendship.
“China.” She looked away, her face carefully composed. “That would answer a lot of questions, wouldn’t it?” She glanced at Brad. He simply nodded.
“Replace it,” Wexler said firmly. “Fix it so it will only hear what’s inside my office. And you two,” she pointed at Brad and Hemingway, “and I need to have a long conversation. Somewhere else. I have a plan, and I’m going to need your help.”
EIGHT
USS United States
Thursday, September 5
1800 local (GMT –10)
Coyote stared down at his cup of coffee, fascinated. The surface of the liquid jittered with standing waves, the concentric circles radiating out from the center, a response to the vibrations thrumming through the ship.
It was odd to feel the carrier trembling under his feet. Odd to actually feel the power of her four turbines driving her four shafts, the slant on the deck as she made turns, the dip and yaw as she smashed through the seas.
Normally, the carrier had no more sense of motion about her than an office building. The deck was stable underfoot. Coffee cups and plates did not slide around on tables. Things stayed where you put them. Except for the howl of aircraft and the reverberating slam as aircraft hit the deck — and the occasional typhoon, of course — you could have been ashore.
But not now. Flight operations actually provided the most stable times, since the carrier reduced speed from flank, sought favorable winds and kept the deck level to within a few degrees of roll. But once a flight cycle was completed, the carrier immediately ramped back up to flank speed, channeling every atom of superheated steam from her reactors into pounding the ocean into submission with her propellers.
Coyote glanced up at the tactical plot and saw that they were making excellent time. Would it be fast enough? Hard to say — but short of fitting the carrier with jet engines and turning her into a hovercraft, they were making the best time that was humanly possible.
Could have been a bit faster, I suppose. But a carrier without an airwing and qualified pilots isn’t much use at all.
CAG had gotten the airwing onboard in record time. The deck was still clobbered with the newly arrived squadrons sorting out people and planes, looking for assigned spots, and generally going through all the gyrations that they would have had a couple of weeks to work out normally.
But the air wing wasn’t the only problem. In addition to Lab Rat’s people, there were hundreds of additional personnel to embark, and in between fighter traps and carrier quals, the decks were crowded with C-2 Greyhound CODS disgorging massive loads of people and gear. While they were still within range, the heavy transport helos picked up part of the load, but soon they would be out of the helos unrefueled range, and the CODs would have to handle the rest of it alone.
And the carrier quals — my God, had there been such an increase in new pilots into squadrons in the last year? It seemed like every third pilot was completely out of qual and had to get ten day traps and five night traps to even be considered minimally safe. And that didn’t even count the ones who needed a few extra looks at the deck to get back into the saddle.
Yes, getting the airwing back onboard and up to speed had cut into their speed of advance, or SOA. But there was no help for it. Cutting corners would just get people killed down the road.
“How long, do you think?” Coyote asked. He glanced over at Captain Ganner.
“I think we’ll make it in three weeks, easy,” Ganner said. “We might shave off a couple of days along the way if everythin
g works well.”
“Let’s just hope China doesn’t bomb Taiwan back into the Stone Age while we’re hauling ass across the ocean. Dammit, what were they thinking, leaving the area without a carrier around?”
Ganner cleared his throat. “Sir, we could cut some time off if we proceeded ahead alone. I don’t like the option, and I know you don’t either. But the support ships and small boys are slowing us down. Between refueling and a slower speed of advance — well, I wonder if you’d reconsidered.”
Coyote grunted. What Ganner was proposing was something that they’d all known, but hadn’t had the balls to say out loud. The United States was powered by a nuclear reactor. She didn’t need to take on fuel, except when the hungry aircraft finally depleted her massive stores, and that wouldn’t be for quite a while. And she had storage space and reefers to hold more than enough food for the transit. Oh, sure, they might run short on FFV, or fresh fruits and vegetables, but it was something that they could deal with in the short run.
The escort combatants and supply ships, however, were in an entirely different situation. Not only were they conventionally powered and needed fuel en route, but they also had slower max speeds. Sure, some of the gas turbine ships could keep up, but not without taking a terrible toll on equipment and personnel. Speeds that translated to a little roll onboard a carrier were gut-wrenching and exhausting rolls and yaws on a small boy. The motion would make solid sleep virtually impossible when every movement of the ship threatened to throw you out of your rack, and eating was a constant challenge. And that wasn’t even counting the sailors — about a third, Coyote reckoned — who would be seriously sea sick most of the time. All it took was one sailor puking in Combat to set off the rest of them.
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