The Med

by David Poyer

  “Hot Dog, out.”

  No commodore, no supervision, no drill … just the real thing, at last, what he had trained for so long. Through the whole deployment SACC had been a place where the staff went during GQ to nap and go through meaningless exercises, reading to each other from slips of paper. Now it was different. Here in this bright room he controlled all that the Fleet had to give the Corps; here the dusty, already tired men ashore could find support against the heavier weapons an entrenched enemy could muster. Naval guns, aircraft, and later this morning batteries of Marine Corps artillery; these were the power backing the thin shells of the amtracs and assault helos, the unprotected, step-by-step progress of the infantry, the grunts. An amphibious operation, a thrust ashore from the sea, was an unnatural thing for a modern army. It stripped it of its most potent weapons. And so the ships had to protect them, guide them, and supply them, until they could build up enough power ashore, man by man and weapon by weapon, to meet an enemy on something like equal terms.

  And given even approximately equal terms, Lenson thought, I’ll bet on the Marine Corps every time.

  He leaned back and stretched, conscious of a sure, steady pulse of power and excitement. He had trained for this moment since the day he entered the Academy. The falsity and strain, the endless worrying over appearances, had dropped away. This was what was important, and this, by God, he would do right. If only he felt more alert. Only a little more sleep …

  So far, though, it had been easy. Almost, except for the knowledge that it was real, like practice landings at Fort Lauderdale or Gythion or Sardinia. No one had yet fired on the men who rolled or waded so vulnerably ashore; who ran from the squatting hulls of helicopters; who were forming themselves now, at 0623, to thrust inland toward the hills of Syria.

  He hoped fervently that it would stay that way. He had guns and aircraft, but too few to hold a determined enemy. If the marines ran up against the Syrian Army, trained, careless of losses, and backed by Soviet power, there would be a lot of casualties.

  And those two thousand men were all there were. It was all riding on one column, one lightning thrust inland with the whole force. Haynes had not left a single trooper aboard the ships that waited now, empty and anxious, off the low beach, flat and blazing in the morning sun.

  No, goddammit, he thought fiercely. This has to work.

  “Coffee, Lieutenant?”

  “I guess another half a cup.” He stared at the mug as the petty officer tilted steaming fluid over the dregs of the last six. He knew now, forever, he hated the taste of the stuff. “Thanks, Mac.”

  “You look like shit, sir.”

  “Thanks for the beauty tip, too.” The staff quartermaster, he saw, did not look much better. The hours of close navigation during the beach approach had taken their toll on him.

  The intercom blared suddenly at his elbow; he winced and turned it down. “Mr. Lenson? Commander Hogan here. The commodore wants to know if you can come up to the bridge.”

  “We’re pretty busy here, sir.”

  “I think you better come up, Dan.”

  Oh, Christ, he thought, what now? He hit the key savagely, petulantly, wanting to punch something. “Yes sir, I’ll be right up.”

  * * *

  The flag bridge was filled with light. He had thought SACC was bright, but he blinked back tears and shielded his face with his hand as he mounted the last few steps of the outside ladder. The overcast that had shielded their movement was gone at last. The morning sun, two hands above the land, was burning straight through the windows, turning the closed bridge into an oven. The watch team was in full battle dress, helmets and life preservers, buttoned up tight. He felt sweat break on his forehead as he came up to the commodore’s chair from behind. Sundstrom was relaxing, his feet up on the intercom. His helmet and life vest lay on the deck by the chair. A covered tray with the remains of breakfast sat on the chart table near him, and a half-full cup of coffee was balanced precariously on his knee. He stood there for a moment, studying the familiar folds in the back of the task force commander’s neck. He had to breathe deeply several times, tamping down rage, before he could speak.

  “Sir, you wanted to see me?”

  “Dan. Yes.” Displeasure crossed Sundstrom’s face as he leaned back. “Why aren’t you in battle dress? We’re at general quarters. We could come under missile or air attack at any time—”

  “I was in SACC, sir.”

  “What is that supposed to mean? You mean nobody down there is in battle dress?”

  “No sir,” Lenson said, and heard the strain and viciousness in his own voice. “We can do our job better there without it.”

  The commodore noticed it, too; the look of displeasure deepened, but strangely his voice went softer. “Well—when you go back down, pass the word. All hands, and that means your people, too. Let’s look like professionals, Dan.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “Now. What’s going on? I’m not getting the information I should be getting. I want reports up here! That’s the only way I can exercise positive control!”

  “Yes sir,” said Lenson, his face wooden. “Leading elements of the first wave are moving up the road inland. They should reach the advance party at the LZ shortly. Neither report contact nor resistance so far. It looks like we’ve achieved surprise.”

  “Good, good. Do you think they’ll hit trouble?”

  “I don’t know too much about the political situation here, sir. Maybe Commander Byrne could answer that for you.”

  “I doubt it. Anyway,” said Sundstrom, raising his binoculars, “I want to make sure you know not to fire any weapon without permission. Tony was most definite on that point.”

  “Yes sir. You told me that at midnight.”

  “I remember what I say, goddamn it! I’m reemphasizing it!”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “This whole raid is juggling nitroglycerine,” Sundstrom said slowly. When he lowered the glasses Dan saw worry in his eyes. “Tony liked my scatter-and-rejoin idea. He said that was the key to getting the raid approved. But now they know we’re here. You can bet your boots every Russki sub and destroyer in the Med is making knots for us right now. And there’s a lot of Syrians starting up their tanks. You know—”

  “Sir?”

  Sundstrom hammered the binoculars softly against his knee. “I still think this could be a trap. But if it is they’ve tied my hands, Dan. We’re under direct control from the War Room now. I can’t do a thing to help those boys ashore without an explicit blessing from Washington.”

  “What about the increased ReadCon, sir? Doesn’t that mean they’ll back us?”

  “What—the nuclear alert? Maybe. But it would be just like them to back down on me. Lead me and Haynes down the garden path, then saw it off on us—”

  Sundstrom worried it like a toothless dog with a bone for several more minutes, then said suddenly, angrily, “Okay, that’s all. You’d better get back on the job.” Lenson turned away instantly at the dismissal. His eyes crossed Hogan’s as he went for the ladder. Lenson nodded to him—he had no easy job, up here all alone with the commodore—and undogged the hatch.

  He paused for a moment on the ladder, seventy feet above the blue, blue sea, and looked out toward the land.

  Lebanon. It was the first time he had seen it. At ten miles’ distance it was bright and beckoning, untouched by strife or war. To the south rose the white buildings, a few hotels taller than the rest, of Tripoli. According to the Port Directory it had once been a lovely place … directly to port and twenty thousand yards distant from the slowly moving ship was the beach, a strip of sand backed by dunes and, far beyond, the distant blue of hills rising to the mountains of the Liban. Save for plumes of smoke and dust there was no evidence of the men ashore. Asia had swallowed them, leaving as trace only the wheel of a helicopter across the sky, turtle-slow, coming back empty from a supply drop.

  Clinging to the rail, staring toward the land, he thought of the marines. A
board ship they and the Navy lived apart; segregated, almost; and he thought how strange it was that they had inhabited the same steel world for months on end, and still he could not say that he really knew a single one of the men who were now rolling toward those distant blue hills. What would they find there? He did not know. There might be battle, there might be death.

  Just as none of them knew, just as no man knew …

  Why am I standing here? he thought then. Why am I thinking about them? I have my orders. Make the men put their helmets on.

  He was turning away from the brightness when a flash from seaward caught him. Something to the south, not one of their own. He shaded his eyes.

  The trawler rolled even in the lee of the land, and he saw the familiar rust streaks. The flash came again, sunlight reflected from the bridge windscreen. It was bow on, headed back to rejoin them, like a dog that has tracked its master for miles and now pretends for a moment, as it approaches his leg, that it is shy.

  He thought for a moment of reporting it. Then he thought: I’m not a lookout. To hell with it.

  He turned from the brightness, and went below.

  29

  Ash Shummari, Syria

  She woke early that last day; woke to an immense silence, an immense heat. She could see by the utter blue beyond the window that the days of cloud were past. The wind had stopped and the sun was thrusting itself into the closed room like a magician’s sheaf of swords. The mattress was damp against her back and as she swung her legs to the floor; sweat trickled down them. There was another wetness, too, and she went into the bathroom, away from Nan and Moira and Michael, snatching up her purse as she went.

  Thank God for mascara and eyeliner … and most of all for cold cream. She repaired the wreck in the mirror as well as she could, then brushed her dirty hair till it took on a dull sheen.

  When she came back, wishing that the gathering mess from four people could be flushed away, the others were awake. Michael stood by the window, stretching. She could hear his joints crack. Moira sat on the bed looking haggard, not even glancing up as Susan said “Good morning.”

  Nan lay motionless, her face flushed. Susan knelt beside her, feeling a rush of guilt and apprehension so intense it made her knees weak. Her child was sick, and she was worrying about her appearance.

  Oh God, God, when would this be over.…

  “Baby. How are you doing this morning?”

  She moved only a little under Susan’s hand, without opening her eyes. “Oh hot again. Mommy, I want water. I itch.”

  “I’ll get you water. Where do you itch?”

  “Down in my throat, like.”

  “Oh. Guess you can’t scratch too good there, can you?”

  “I guess not.” She smiled a little. “Mommy … I had a dream. About Daddy. When is he coming to get us?”

  “You’re so good, you’re such a good girl. I don’t know—but I hope soon.” She got up quickly, tears making the image of her child waver. She blinked them away, angry at herself. Nan’s condition had no connection with what she had done. She loved her, she would do anything for her, but guilt was not an appropriate response. Not to this.

  But someone within her was not convinced. It was all too ready to blame her for her daughter’s suffering. Illogical … but depressing. She pressed her hand to her own forehead, unconsciously mimicking her gesture to her daughter, and went out into the hallway.

  The corridor was full of sunlight and bedraggled people. She took her place in line in front of the bucket and fell with relief into what passed for conversation.

  “Did you have a good night?”

  “More water, excellent. I came out here around midnight, and it was all gone.”

  “Someone’s thinking about us,” suggested a woman, her voice desperately hopeful. “Aren’t they? They aren’t like you were saying, so ruthless, are they?”

  “Has anyone seen breakfast?”

  Susan joined the rueful laughter at that remark. Breakfast … her stomach began to growl just at the word, as if it needed a sign to become hungry. We’re reverting, she thought. Water and food, avoiding danger, that’s all that concerns us now. She looked at her fellow hostages. They were apathetic, listless, their faces limp and pale. They reminded her uncomfortably of a PBS special she had once seen, on public mental hospitals. She dipped two glasses of water, sloshed a sip around in her mouth. The rest would be for Nan.

  She was in the bathroom again with her hair, fighting out tangles and cursing at the flies—they were persistent and thus ultimately successful like all lower forms of life—when Moira came in and closed the door. Susan did not look away from the mirror. The broken veins under her nostrils looked so ugly. Her nose was oily, her lashes stuck together, dirt showed at the collar of the T-shirt she had worn now for three days.

  “I’m a mess,” she said aloud, her back to Moira. She heard the hollow clank of the toilet seat and then the rattle of the Ox pissing.

  “God, it stinks in here.”

  “Moira … are you all right? You don’t sound well.”

  “I’m all right.” Lieberman, still slumped on the seat, ripped off a stingy piece of American Archaeology from her purse and rubbed her face with it. “It’s so goddamn hot … no, I think it’s the diet that’s getting to me. I wanted to lose ten pounds, but this is doing it the hard way.”

  “We’ll get more food soon. Hanna—”

  Her heart jumped. She knew it was too late then, but stopped anyway as she realized what she’d said. Moira reached back automatically to flush, but the handle only rattled loosely. “God damn it,” she said.

  Susan thought: She didn’t notice. Her heart began again. “Yes, it’s a mess … good thing you brought paper, though—”

  “Betts.”

  Uh-oh, she thought. “What?”

  “This Majd character.”

  “What about him?”

  “I woke up last night; you weren’t in your bed. I don’t want to pry, but I saw how he was looking at you yesterday. Did anything happen last night I ought to know about?”

  “Nothing happened last night.” She heard the defensiveness in her tone, and saw that Moira heard it, too. “I just talked to him for a while.”

  “Talked to him?” Lieberman stood up, looking alarmed.

  “Don’t get excited. There’s no harm in—”

  “Susan. You’re not a kid, don’t act like one.” Moira moved up beside her, looking over her shoulder into her face, into the mirror. She saw that she was not the only one who looked tired. Her roommate’s hair was scraggly, there were dark heeltaps under her eyes, her cheeks sagged. She looked like a three-week drunk. “This isn’t the place to play around, Betts! This bastard is out to kill. He’s said that, hell, they’ve done it in front of us. What happened last night?”

  “It’s none of your business,” said Susan.

  They looked at each other in the mirror. “Betts,” Moira said at last, low, “what is happening to us?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said again. They looked at each other, and knew they knew, and there was nothing more either of them could say.

  * * *

  There was so little to do, she thought later. Except wait, and sweat, and try not to think.

  Getting up so early made it bad. The weather made it worse. Susan could hardly credit how storm, rain, and cool had become airless and choking heat practically overnight.

  She lay on the hot mattress, feeling sweat crawl like ants over her ribs, and thought.

  “When is Daddy coming to get us?” Nan had said.

  When is Daddy coming … that was the child speaking. When will someone rescue us from this; when will someone deliver us from uncertainty, fear?

  He won’t, babe, she thought, lying in the fly-buzzing heat, feeling the thud of her heart and the occasional fruitless slap of her hand as her only distinction from a corpse. She felt angry and so sad she wanted to cry. No one will come. We’re here, and we’re helpless.

&nbs
p; She rolled her head to her child. Nan lay as if thrown on the bed, facing away from her, giving only the curve of her cheek and the line of her closed eyelids. Susan studied a bead of sweat on her forehead. She mused on the unfinished, pert curve of her nose, half-Asian, half-European, the inward dip between the eyes she had often congratulated herself on as more practical than the vision-obscuring Caucasian ridge. Yes, she did look like Dan … and like her … and altogether like herself, not a mixture but something different and new and precious. She contemplated with wonder the fact that something once part of herself had become separate and distinct and new, dependent now but not forever. In a way it made her feel that the child was not her own, but belonged to someone else, someone she could not know.

  She mused on that for a time, drifted into a doze, and woke again seconds or minutes or even an hour later. But nothing had changed. The room was close and hot and flies rose from the corners of her eyes as she opened them. Conversation murmured from the corridor. Arabic, but too faint for her even to separate its fluid rapidity into words.

  Unbidden, brought perhaps by the voices, she found herself thinking about him.

  About the Majd.

  She lay motionless for a long time, her only motion to blink when the insects returned. She was trying to understand how she felt, and to justify what had happened the night before, in the dark, in an empty room.

  She did not lack excuses, rationalizations, and coldly, in turn, she evaluated each. Weren’t hostages often attracted to their captors? Stockholm. Patty Hearst. But this was not an emotional response. She had submitted deliberately, to gain his protection. For insurance. That was what she had told herself the night before. But her mind was less certain in the daylight. Danger made you want sex … didn’t it? She lay and her hand moved gradually downward. No, the others were awake, sitting up … her hand came to rest on her midriff. She scratched at a pool of sweat in her navel, and half-turned again, switching her hips down into the hot ticking.

  She had been faithful since she was married. It wasn’t the end of the world, even if—and she knew that this was one thing it was not—it had been a random fling, a sideshow enjoyment. It was how you felt about a person that mattered, and not whom you slept with, once in a while. Dan, conservative as he was, would be horrified at that attitude. She knew he felt more strongly about fidelity than she did. But she had accepted that, accepted that it was important to him, just as she had stopped smoking because he disliked it.