Coyote held up one hand. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. Like Bird Dog said, we’ll print it. Everybody’s prints are on file. Maybe it will turn out to be a mess cook or a yeoman. But how they would know where to cut, what would do the most damage — hell, I would’ve bet a lot of them couldn’t even find the flight deck. It’s not necessarily somebody in your squadron, Chief,” he said, including Bird Dog in his comments with a glance. “But you’re right, this is surely and truly fucked. We will find whoever did it, and I’ll make the bastard wish he’d never been born.”
The deck shifted slightly under his feet. The Jefferson was incapable of making the hard, tight turns of a destroyer or frigate, but she was fairly nimble, given her size. The movement was noticeable, and Coyote darted to the bridge wing to look out.
Far below, a ragged fishing boat was chugging up the starboard side, apparently oblivious to the tons of steel blocking its way. The vessel came astern, and moved so close that it disappeared in the shadow cast by the flight deck.
“General Quarters,” a strong female voice announced on the 1MC. As she spoke, the ship’s horn blasted out five short blasts, the international signal for immediate danger. The fishing boat appeared to take no notice.
Coyote swore violently and grabbed a bullhorn mounted along the bulkhead. “Fishing vessel on my starboard quarter, this is the captain of the USS Jefferson. Be advised you are standing into danger. Come right immediately to open distance and decrease your speed to fall astern of us.”
His words seemed to have some effect where the ship’s whistle had not. Coyote saw darkly tanned faces turn up toward him, a look of surly anger on the face of what appeared to be the vessel’s master. A few of the deckhands extended a middle finger at Coyote, then turned their backs to him. One sauntered to the edge of the deck, unbuttoned his fly, and took a leak over the side, aiming in Coyote’s direction.
For moment, Coyote was seized with the overpowering desire to either grab his.45 and let them know just how serious he was on a one-to-one basis, or jump over the side, swim over to the boat, and personally throttle its master.
A large hand descended heavily on his shoulder, and he turned to face CAG, who had a grim expression on his face. No words were necessary. Coyote let out his breath, tried to drain the tension out.
“You’re not the captain of Jefferson, Admiral,” CAG said quietly, his voice reaching only Coyote. “Bethlehem’s got it under control.”
FIVE
USS United States
Forward crew galley
1200 local (GMT +3)
Griffin was not particularly hungry, but in four hours he was supposed to meet his squad in the weight room, and it was better to carb out now rather than try to choke down food after a workout. Still, as he contemplated the chili mac and overcooked vegetables, he wasn’t convinced that he really wanted to eat. The Jell-O and the ice cream down at the far end of the food line looked far more inviting.
The mess cook dumped a large ladle of chili mac on his plate and shoved it at him. Griffin eyed it suspiciously. “A little small, isn’t it?”
“You want more, you can come back,” the mess cook said. “We got plenty.”
“Then give me some more now and save me a trip,” Griffin said, one part of his mind wondering why he was even bothering. He wasn’t so sure he was hungry. Still, it was the point of the thing. The mess cooks knew they were supposed to give the Marines bigger portions, knew that they’d work it off during the day. Every Marine knew that and so did this mess cook. So why bother with this bullshit about coming back?
“That’s the portion size,” the mess cook said, his voice taking on a whining note. “Or, like I said, you want more, come back.”
“Chill, Barry,” the Marine behind him said. It was Gonzo, his team partner. “Not worth the hassle.” Griffin knew what he meant — brawling in the mess hall would bring the captain’s anger down on them, and it would be even worse when the top sergeant got ahold of them. Still, this squid was trying to shortchange him, wasn’t he? Griffin had just started to open his mouth to take the next verbal shot, intending to follow up with physical action within the next twenty seconds or so, when the nausea hit.
It was all-encompassing, consuming. It started like an atom bomb in his gut and worked its way both up and down simultaneously. He doubled over, moaning as a wave of cramps convulsed through his gut, the pain intensifying each moment. It seemed as if somebody had skewered his intestines and was slowly extracting them through his navel. The mess hall around him was tilting, whirling about him, his entire world suddenly unsteady. He got a glimpse of Gonzo’s face looming over him before the pain forced his eyes shut. He heard someone moaning, crying and praying, and vaguely realized it was his own voice. Around him, the Marines backed away in horror.
Hospital Corpsman Second Class David Evans shoved his way through the crowd to Griffin’s side. The Navy corpsman was their medic and an integral part of the squad. Evans ran his hands over Griffin, checking to make sure he was breathing and his heart was still beating. “Get Medical down here,” he snapped, turning to Gonzo. He kept his fingertips on Griffin’s neck, feeling the thready pulse under his fingers. “No, not you — you,” he said, motioning with his chin to a Marine farther back in the crowd that had gathered. “Get to the phone, tell Medical to get down here — full decontamination gear.”
“Oh, shit,” one Marine muttered. “Don’t tell me—”
“The rest of you,” the corpsman continued, pointing at Gonzo, “get over against a wall, anyone who was within five — no, ten feet of him. Anybody else, move to the other side of the compartment. Now move.” The corpsman was only a petty officer second class, but the note of command in his voice kicked in the reflexes of every Marine and sailor present. They did as they were directed, the senior man in each group taking charge of his cadre, holding them in position as the corpsman tended to Griffin. A few moments later, the order blared over the loudspeaker. “Medical to forward crew’s galley. Man down. Contamination gear required. Now set MOPP Level Three throughout the ship.” The few Marines who had not figured out what the corpsman was doing now tumbled to the danger. There were more protests, but the larger group at the back of the compartment moved as far away as possible from the group that had been near Griffin. Forty seconds later, the first ship’s corpsman arrived, hastily donning a gauze mask and rubber gloves. He stopped ten feet away from Griffin.
“What happened?” he asked.
“He went down — cramps, nausea — oh, shit,” Evans said as Griffin’s body started to buck under his hands. He moved to Griffin’s head and placed a hand on either side of his face, trying to prevent the Marine from slamming his head against the deck. “Convulsions! Hold on, buddy, hold on.”
“Why the contam gear?”
“They were on a mission to the beach today, to the interior. They saw something that look like it could be biochem warheads. Those guys were around him,” he said, nodding toward the group that had been nearest to Griffin. “The others, ten feet away. The cooks, I haven’t done anything about them.”
More medical people were arriving on the scene, including a young doctor who darted forward. The first-class corpsman clamped his hand on his upper arm and jerked him back. “Hey! Let me go!” The doctor struggled and tried to pull away. “There’s a man down!”
“You don’t have your gear on,” the senior corpsman said, not relaxing his grip. Briefly, he sketched in the details. While the doctor stood stock still in stunned silence, the corpsman took charge.
“Full contamination gear,” he said to a second group of men and women arriving. “Get a stretcher. Call Medical, tell them to set up an isolation chamber. Until we know what’s going on with him, we’re not going to take any chances.” He glanced over at the doctor, who had regained control of himself and was nodding agreement. Then he looked at the corpsman by Griffin’s side. “Plus an isolation ward,” he said. “One room and one ward. You want to hold these guys — how long
ago was he in country?”
“About six hours ago.”
“Right.” The senior corpsman turned back to the doctor. “You want to hold them for at least seventy-two hours in isolation. Right, sir?”
“Right,” the doctor said, staring unbelievably at Griffin and Evans.
Things moved with surprising efficiency after that. The medical teams had practiced exactly this scenario time and time again, but never, ever, had any of them thought they’d really have to do it for real.
Finally, after Griffin was loaded onto an isolation stretcher and prepared for transport, and the passageways and ladders between the galley and Medical were cleared of all personnel, the senior corpsman turned to Evans. “Full decontamination procedures for you. We’ve got Griffin from here — follow along, and I want you in the decontam shower the second we get there. Got it?”
The strain were starting to show in Evans’s face. “Got it,” he said, pleased that his voice was steady. As he started to head off, following Griffin, the senior corpsman, now completely gowned and gloved, stopped him. “Good going.”
Evans shook his head. “Maybe.”
“No maybe about it. Now go get showered,” the senior corpsman said, his voice unexpectedly gentle. “We got it in time — you’ll be okay.”
“Yeah. I’ll be okay.” But as Evans watched another convulsion wrack Griffin’s body, as he saw them insert an IV needle in his arm, he wasn’t so sure.
USS Jefferson
1230 local (GMT +3)
Coyote took a deep breath before he picked up the handset to call Admiral Jette. He could not let his personal feelings get in the way of duty. Like it or not, they were going to be working together, and that meant they needed to coordinate their resources and plans. Gone with the days of autonomous operations. There were too few people and too little equipment.
“Your people got the plans we sent over, I take it?” Coyote said after a few preliminary remarks. “Any feedback?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact. My people are wondering why there aren’t more specifics. Seems like a lot of TBAs,” Jette answered.
There it was again, that faintly supercilious, superior tone of voice that had been driving Coyote crazy for the last few months. How could a man rise to one-star rank and still have no clue as to how things were actually done in a combat flight schedule?
“To Be Arranged gives us more flexibility. My experience has been,” Coyote began carefully, striving for self-control and patience, “that a target list changes radically from day to day. The shelf life of intelligence is pretty short, often measured in hours rather than days. If I start assigning flights to specific targets now, people start planning around those. Then, when we have to make changes, they’re caught short. That’s why I leave a lot of the details TBA so people will continue to think outside the box.”
“But we know where their bases and major facilities are. So what if you have to fine-tune a few details?”
“The devil is in the details,” Coyote answered, aware that his voice was getting sharper. “It’s a specific Silkworm site that will kill you, not the general knowledge that there’s a missile somewhere within a five-mile area. Unless,” he said, trying unsuccessfully to control his temper, “you really want to send a Tomcat driver out with orders just to find something that looks dangerous and kill it?”
“I put a lot of faith in the guy in the cockpit.”
“Like I don’t? Listen, buddy, I’ve been there, been back, and got the Air Medal. And I’m telling you, this has nothing to do with dissing the judgment of an individual pilot. It has to do with how old your intelligence is, how good it is, and what the hell is going on in the rest of the world. Not whether your flight schedule has all the blanks filled in days or weeks before the actual event.”
“Flight schedules can change.”
“They can. But they don’t. You put the details in, it’s like setting it in stone. People figure you know what you’re doing and they start their planning based on your flight schedule. Tankers, the logistics and weapons people, even national authority.”
“Yes, master. Grasshopper understand.”
“Knock it off.”
“You going to make me?”
I don’t believe this. What are we, back on the playground? Is he going to helo over here and try to beat the shit out of me? “Listen, you’ve got my flight plan. Now get me yours and we’ll see what kind of plans we can come up with.”
“What if I don’t?”
Coyote smiled. It was not a pretty sight. “Hasn’t it occurred to you,” he said, his voice soft and level, “that I’m a year senior to you? When it comes down to coordinating our operations, who do think it’s going to be in overall command? You? Nope. So, Admiral — yes, I am going to make you knock it off. I will expect your proposed flight plan on my desk tomorrow morning, submitted for my approval, and I will let you know what further tasking we have for you. Jefferson out.”
USS Lincoln
Off the coast of Korea
1900 local (GMT +9)
Had the admiral on board Lincoln been privy to the pissing contest between Coyote and his nemesis, he would have undoubtedly agreed with Coyote. As it was, he was far more interested in the conflicting intelligence reports he was getting from Korea to worry about what was going on in the Middle East.
For perhaps the fourth time in the last hour, he read the latest intelligence summary. According to what the spooks termed “sources of questionable reliability,” North Korean troops were poised to move south. Already, the source claimed, cadres of guerrilla fighters had been filtering into areas along the Demilitarized Zone. The bulk of the troops, never more than a day or so’s travel from the DMZ, were in a heightened state of readiness and could be deployed at any time.
Or maybe not. The problem lay in the fact that there was no supporting source of information. The satellite spooks had not yet turned up any evidence of increased troop movements, nor had any of the international news agencies that followed the area. The only one crying wolf was one lone intelligence source on the ground, a foreign national at that.
It didn’t make a whole lot of difference, though, did it? What would you do differently if you were certain that trouble was starting in Korea?
Get some more assets in the area, for starters. One cruiser isn’t enough. And a higher priority on repairs, intelligence — everything.
And that, he concluded, was the real issue — priority. Most of America’s focus was centered on its problems at home and in the Middle East. Let gasoline prices go up two cents at the pump and everybody would be howling about Middle East stability. Problems with Korea were low on the national priority list.
And they shouldn’t be. Not with China involved.
China had far more power to affect the world than the Middle East even dreamed about, and her first forays into the international arena had taken place here, in Korea, where China knew the ground, the terrain, and the people. Some people remembered that, most notably the veterans of the Korean War, but they were aging and dying off and their voices seldom were heard.
I think it’s happening. And I think it’s happening now. China is not going to miss the fact that we are preoccupied with the Middle East and domestic problems. It’s a situation tailor-made for them. We don’t have the resources to handle the Middle East and Korea at the same time and they know it.
He picked up his desk phone and dialed the chief of staff. “Round up the intelligence officer, will you? And Strike. I think we need to take a serious look at this latest intel.”
This time, he was going with his gut. And his gut was screaming that he’d better be ready.
Pyongyang, North Korea
0900 local (GMT +9)
Chan Su Lee would have taken some comfort from it if he’d known of Coyote’s worries, and there were few comforts to be found in North Korea for the senior officer from the People’s Republic of China. Never in all his military career, not even under the worst field c
onditions, had being in North Korea seemed such a hardship. The most miserable part of this tour of duty was the smell. The stench of rotting fish and kimchi assailed Chan the moment he woke up. It clung to his clothes and his hair, permeating everything he owned, promising to follow him home to China. Everything he owned and had brought to North Korea would have to be burned downwind from any of his family or friends.
Even after two months in North Korea, the Chinese had not yet fully acclimated. Every day, some misunderstanding or problem arose from the differences in their cultures. In particular, he found the Koreans far too prickly about their national pride and prestige. It struck him as ludicrous that such an insignificant peninsula could matter at all to the rest of the world. The area known as Korea was part of the greater Chinese Empire, and everyone know it. If the rest of the world would stop interfering in what was purely a territorial matter, the matter would resolve itself simply and quietly.
Chan rolled out of his bed. His feet hit the old wooden floor last polished perhaps ten years ago. The deprivations in the North were felt at all levels of the society, and senior visiting dignitaries, even military ones, were not exempt. At home, his accommodations would have been more in keeping with his status. Here, however, he had to cope with damp and cold quarters. No matter that this was the best available. That did not prevent them from being truly miserable accommodations.
His aides and personal servants were already hard at work, organizing the rest of his day. There were a number of political and social obligations, but in truth, nothing much mattered after his morning conference. Oh, yes, there were alliances to be made, and other work to be done. But the man he was meeting this morning was really the only one he needed to talk to.
An hour later, there was a soft tap on his door, which was answered by his aide. He heard a few murmured words, and then his aide was at his office door, announcing the visitor. Chan stood as the man entered the room.
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