The Med

by David Poyer

  The shouting beat at their ears again, louder, the sound of a dangerous surf. Looking toward the courtyard windows, Susan felt the pasteboards tremble in her hands. Fear? Yes. She was afraid. It had been growing all afternoon, since she had seen the gates.

  Perhaps the embassy, the shelter of the flag, was not inviolate.

  The flicker was stronger now.

  Michael returned. He pushed his hair back. “Everything’s cool out front,” he said. “A crowd went by there awhile back, but they didn’t seem to notice the embassy. Or care. The shouting’s coming from down the street.”

  “Man, that’s good news. But what’s with the fire?”

  “It looks like part of the city’s burning.”

  It was then, for the first time, that Susan was sure something bad was going to happen. She knew it all at once, deep inside, and reached out to shake Nan awake, pulling her daughter into her arms.

  “Calm. Please stay calm,” someone was shouting. “We have everything under control. No one has any reason to disturb us. Please, you’re quite safe here.” It was Persinger, the ambassador; his bald head shone in the light of a portable lantern at the counter. From outside the flames grew brighter, flickering through the windows and into the corridor.

  Above his voice, above the whispering of the refugees, came another spatter of shots. Five of them, spaced out, almost like a signal. They were close, just outside, and around her she heard the muttering stop and then rise again, louder. In front of them, like a scene lit for the stage, the sweat-shining face of the ambassador gleamed in the firelight as his mouth smiled and talked on.

  The two marines who had been off watch came running from the offices, carrying rifles. They slowed as they came abreast of Persinger, looking at him for direction, but he simply waved them on, toward the gate. As she hugged Nan, watching, Susan saw the ambassador’s face change as he looked after them. The smile faded, flickered back up, and then left his face. Without it he looked blank and slightly surprised. He pulled his coat down and sucked in his belly. He rubbed his mouth, glancing back at the people who had filled his once-cool and peaceful post. Then he nodded slightly, the first thing she had seen him do that seemed to be done for himself, not for the observation and consumption of others.

  He turned and went with short bouncy strides after the marines. Behind him she saw the dark man she’d noted earlier rise from a seat along the wall and follow him toward the gate.

  Michael got up, too. “Where do you think you’re going?” said Moira instantly.

  “See if I can help.”

  “That’s their job. They—”

  “There’s only a few guys to hold the fort. One more might make a difference. Stay here with them.” He, too, moved into the flickering darkness, toward the shouting.

  “Are they coming in here, Mommy?”

  “No, Bunny. Don’t worry, Mikey and the soldiers will stop them.”

  “Who is it out there? Bad men?”

  She looked down at her daughter’s frightened eyes, and smoothed with her hand the drops of moisture at the edges of her forehead. Bad? She hardly knew how to answer … she had never, reading the papers back home, really thought of attacking an American embassy as bad. It was only natural, the outcome of a policy that supported any oppressive regime, any dictator, so long as he claimed to oppose Communism. She had thought it a form of popular justice.

  But could you feel the same way, when you were one of the frightened people inside?

  And how did you explain the difference between war, and dissent, protest, justified revolt to a child? Good and bad … that was a child’s distinction. In this night an enemy identified himself by the primeval differences, language, race, even appearance. “I don’t know, Nan,” she said at last. “I don’t know who they are or what they want.”

  “Will they hurt us?”

  “No, of course they wouldn’t,” Susan said; but she wished there was someone who could tell her that with all the conviction of an adult to a three-year-old.

  Several minutes passed. Huddled in the near-dark, the refugees waited. Susan felt helpless. It enraged her. Give me a rifle, let me stand at the gate … then she thought of Nan. No, her place was with her daughter.

  If only Dan was here …

  The shouting came again, louder. She couldn’t make out words. The flickering light of torches or street fires wavered redly against the courtyard windows. Huddled back in the corridor, behind a hundred other frightened civilians, she and Nan could only hear what happened. They couldn’t see the gate, but they could hear the shouting that came again and again, louder, then the shattering of glass and a closer glow of fire, a stink of oil and flame.

  The front window burst in, paving rocks skidding into the crowded women and children, glass opening in a glittering bloom like a lake under raindrops. Nan screamed, and Susan held her tight against her heart, shielding her child with her body. The hall flickered, paved with shadows, and it was like—the thought came to her from somewhere—a medieval play; all dark save for the flamelit foreground, the shouting, the silent or weeping spectators.

  A moment later there came a burst of gunfire, so loud and close it seemed to come from within the embassy itself.

  Please, not to us, she prayed blindly. At that moment a textbook image had come to her, the layers of charred ash and bone at Knossos, Troy, Mycenae. How many mothers had held their children like this as battle raged at citadel gates, moments before defeat and death.

  God, no, not to us. Not to me and my child.

  She was hugging Nan, as much to comfort herself as the child, when another stutter of shots came, not from outside, but past the counter. The refugees gasped. She caught Mrs. Stanweis’ eye. The two old people sat close together, and the woman was hugging her dog, just as she was hugging Nan.

  Another shot went off, a single one this time, and she heard many voices shouting. There was a sharp explosion, not loud, but cracking like a whip. A yielding, high-pitched screech succeeded it, like a truck grinding a motorcyclist into shreds of leather and flesh, and then the clang of metal on stone. It could only be the gates, torn free of the walls, ringing on the pavement outside.

  Ms. Freed came running back, white-faced. “What is it?” “What’s going on?” They reached up to stop her, to ask her questions.

  “Don’t—let me by! There’s a man with a gun—he’s shot a guard, and—” She turned in mid-run. “This way, and—Doctor, can you help the ambassador, please?”

  “Oh, my God,” said Moira.

  It was Persinger. Michael was half-carrying him. His round head was rolled forward on his chest.

  “What was he doing out there?”

  “Probably making a speech,” said Moira. Susan turned on her, ready to cry out, but then she saw that she was serious. Yes, she thought. The smiling man probably had done just that: tried to reason with a mob.

  Behind Persinger and Cook a rifle came into view. It was being pointed by a small man dressed in nondescript dark trousers and stained short-sleeved shirt. His teeth were very bad. They stared at him as he threaded silently among them, his eyes darting restlessly here and there, but principally on the two who staggered ahead.

  Behind them, like an actor emerging into limelight, someone else stepped into the firelit hall of the embassy. Susan saw him clearly. He was no more than twenty-five, in jeans and an open-collared white shirt under a sport coat. With a shock she recognized the man who had shoved by her at the gate. A rag of green cloth bound his arm. For a moment she thought he was wounded, but when he raised the short-barreled weapon he carried in that hand she realized that it was a marking, some kind of impromptu uniform. He was looking over his shoulder toward the gate, where the shouting went on. Turned, balanced, the weapon raised high, he looked heroic. She felt a thrill mix with the fear she felt not for herself, but for her child.

  Nan, though—she glanced down—had stopped crying, and stared now with wide eyes, unblinking. It was the same rapt expression she wore whe
n she watched television.

  The man with the rifle gestured toward the gate, calling out. There was too much sound; she could not make it out … in answer six or seven more of them ran into the hall and stopped, looking at the people on the floor. Some of them carried strange-looking pistols, some the short rifles, and one brandished what looked like a grenade. For a moment the two groups seemed frozen, facing each other; both uncertain, perhaps both afraid.

  The leader waved them forward, and the men moved in among them. They held their weapons ready, looking down at the people who crouched away. Neither side spoke. The refugees were silent. The intruders were silent too, their faces angry and frightened at the same time. From time to time they reached down to pull apart a bundle of clothes, perhaps searching for arms. Michael spat in Greek at one who picked up his knapsack. He looked surprised, but finally shrugged and put it down.

  But their eyes, and Susan’s, kept going back to the first man, the one who held the rifle and directed the others. He stood with his head thrown back, black hair tumbling over his ears. He was thin, imperious, fierce-looking. He alone of all of them seemed to know what to do. And then, for the first time, she saw his eyes straight on, and knew why. They were fixed and wide and black, and utterly determined. They made her think of John Brown.

  More men stumbled in, making perhaps a dozen in all; the last three he waved back to the gate. The language came from deep in his chest, the very sound of it fierce and strange. She caught a few of the words: “Irjah la wourd … Bara wala dakh’el.”

  “Who are they?” she hissed to Moira.

  “I don’t know. That’s not Greek. He’s posting a guard,” Moira whispered. “That’s good—I think.”

  “What? Moira, who are these people?” she whispered, feeling the uncontrollable quiver in her throat.

  “Terrorists.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know! Where are they from? What do they want?”

  “I’m not sure yet … Turkish Cypriotes, maybe leftists … but that didn’t sound like Turkish, either. Anyway, what’s the difference? They’ve got guns and we don’t.”

  “Skhot’!” said one of the men threateningly, and they all understood that; be quiet.

  She was quiet; she and Nan, and Michael and Moira, and all the refugees, were quiet, and watched and waited. Sooner or later, they would find out what he wanted, this fiery young man who directed the others as if they were peasants. And then they would know what had to be endured. Until then they did not know whether to fear little or much, whether what he planned was harmless to them, or might mean great harm.

  She wondered, then, what had happened to the guards at the gate.

  “Mommy?” Nan’s face was pressed to her breast; she could feel the heat of her whisper.

  “Go to sleep, Bunny.”

  “Will that man hurt us?”

  “I don’t know, Bunny.”

  “Will he stay here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where’s Daddy? I want Daddy.”

  “Daddy’s not here, baby.”

  “But I want him.” She began to cry, and Susan, frightened, tried to stop her. At last she muffled the child’s face against her chest. When she released her Nan sobbed for breath, looking scared. “Mommy—you hurted me—”

  “I’m sorry, Bunny, but you’ve got to keep quiet,” she whispered urgently. “Please, please don’t cry now. Go to sleep, darling love. Better just go to sleep.”

  At that moment there were shouts from the rear of the building. Suddenly two of the men emerged from the office area. They were pushing a pale American in a gray suit whom she had not seen before. An embassy ID swung at his pocket. He stumbled along with blood on his face and a shattered pair of glasses hanging off his ears.

  “Houweh i’jahreb yezhab la barra.”

  “Mau’to!”

  By the tone it was an order. And they acted on it. They forced the official down to his knees. He made no resistance, as if he knew this would be his fate, as if he accepted it.

  Susan stared, her mind empty, stripped to observation and horror. The gun came down smoothly, fitted against the pale forehead without haste or hesitation. Against flesh and bone it made a muffled bang, and liquid flew from the back of the head and pattered against the wall.

  “Bismallahi rahmani rahim!” said the tall man. “Listen to me, you people. I want everyone to stay seated. Do not move! Do not attempt escape. This man”—he prodded the gray bundle at his feet with the muzzle of his weapon—“was attempting escape. Penalty was death. Penalty for disobeying of any my orders is death. Until I choose to tell you our plans for you, you will wait. There will be no moving and no talk.”

  Susan smoothed her hand over her daughter’s hair. She had not thought to hide it from her. It had happened too quickly, too casually, for her to realize what it was until it was too late. Now she saw her terror. No, darling, she cried deep in her heart. Don’t fear. I’m afraid, but let me fear for us both. Because if you do, daughter, it will last you and mark you your life long.

  Nan closed her eyes. Susan smoothed their lids, so tiny, so delicate, with her lips. Did she understand? She felt the small heart thudding against her own, fast, so fast.…

  The men stood around the walls, guns dangling. She watched them, head lowered, masking rage and fear with the same blankness she saw the other women wearing. One of them bent to a confiscated cigarette, and the flare of the match lit their faces for an instant. They were alert, hostile, foreign, and she could not tell what was in their minds. They waited. Across their features flickered the light of the distant flames, dancing in fierce liberation in the streets.

  15

  U.S.S. Guam

  The sail is a living thing, struggling for freedom in the sunlight, in the hard smooth wind.

  “Stand by to come about,” he calls.

  “Aye yi, Daddy!” The child, laughing, scrambles for the opposite side of the little daysailer. The woman flips free the sheet.

  “Ready,” she says.

  “Helm’s a-lee!” He swings the tiller and hauls in on the main. The boat begins to turn. The boom comes across, all three of them ducking. The jib cracks and shudders as they meet the wind, then tautens as the woman hauls in on the sheet.

  “Nicely done, crew.”

  “Thanks, Captain Bligh,” says the woman, laughing. She is dark as a Polynesian; she tans that way every summer, in one afternoon. The sun, dropping toward the hills, outlines her breast under thin cotton.

  And he thinks then: This is all I want from life. To be here, with these two, to be with them and make them happy. He points the little boat at the sun and suddenly, for just a moment, feels his whole chest fill with joy. On impulse he leans down to her lips. They are warm and salty and open, and his free hand drops till it brushes the inside of her thighs.

  “Not here,” she murmurs. “Nan.”

  “Isn’t this how she got started?”

  “Maybe,” she whispers. “I forget.” In the bow, oblivious to her parents, the child dips her hand into the sea, watching awed as it sparkles through her grasp. The cutoff khakis her father wears have holes in them, and her mother’s hand finds one of them. “Oh, I remember now. It was something in here.…”

  A hard set of knuckles dug into his ribs, just above his belt, and he started upright in the chair. “What the hell!”

  “Better keep your head up, Dan,” said Commander Hogan mildly. “We’ll start the briefing in a minute, soon as the commodore gets here.”

  “Uh, yes sir,” said Lenson to the chief of staff. “Thanks,” he muttered to Flasher, who sprawled beside him in the supporting-arms center, his shirt unbuttoned to mid-chest. Flasher nodded heavily. He looked tired, like the rest of the men who waited. Most were from the staff, but there was a sprinkling of marine officers, Colonel Haynes’ men, and the commanding officers from the other ships of TF 61, who had arrived that morning by helicopter.

  “Attention on deck!” shouted someone, and the o
fficers and enlisted leaped to their feet.

  Commodore Isaac I. Sundstrom paused in the doorway, his face closed and secret. He lingered for a moment, as if unconscious of those who waited for him, then nodded frostily to Haynes and to his captains, in the front row. Crossing the room, he took the center front seat, which had been left empty. His steward was right behind him with a gold-rimmed china coffee cup and saucer.

  “Carry on, gentlemen,” Sundstrom grunted. “Mr. Byrne, let’s get this show on the road. I’m sure not everyone here has as much time to waste as you seem to.”

  “Yes sir,” said Jack Byrne, getting up. His tone took no notice of the commodore’s taunt. He looked drawn, eyes hollow behind the aviator glasses, but his uniform was fresh and starched, as if he had just taken it out of a drycleaner’s bag ashore. Lenson wondered how he did it. Byrne paused for a moment before an easel, prompting an impatient cough from Sundstrom, and then flipped back the cover to show the first page.

  It was a map of Cyprus. A ripple of interest moved over the assembled men; even Flasher stopped yawning and craned forward to see.

  “Good morning, Commodore, Colonel Haynes, gentlemen.

  “As you know, Task Force 61, the Mediterranean Amphibious Ready Group, with MAU 32 embarked, has been ordered to proceed to the Eastern Med and hold itself in readiness for landing operations. This intelligence presentation, with an overall Secret classification, will brief you on the situation around the eastern littoral, and especially Cyprus. After it, Lieutenant (j.g.) Lenson will present an overview of the operation order he has prepared.”

  “Come on, Commander,” Sundstrom broke in. “Cut the Pentagonese. Just tell us what’s going on.”

  “Yes sir … As most of you know, political unrest has been longstanding between the majority of the Cypriote islanders, who are of Greek origin and language, and a sizable Turkish minority. At present, the island is partitioned between the two.” He extended a pointer to trace a cease-fire line.

  “Tensions have recently risen again. In general, the Greeks have behaved with restraint, but the new military government of Hassan Raschid needs a crusade to unite the country.