"Their negligence put their shipmates' lives in jeopardy." James turned in his chair until he was looking directly at Jake. "I want every officer and man on this ship to know that such conduct will not be tolerated. I want it punished." "Skipper, I'm not disputing the seriousness of this.
But in my judgment Commander Schultz should have the discretion to handle this matter as he chooses. I'm not going to order him to do anything. Of course, if you want to hold mast.
Both officers knew that Captain James could merely order the ship's master-at-arms to sign the report chit, and the accused would, in a week or two, stand at attention in his dress uniform to hear the charges read and Captain James prescribe the punishment. Mast, a nonjudicial proceeding, was really a means for the commanding officer to enforce discipline, and the only guarantee of fairness was what the commanding officer thought was fair. Both officers were acutely aware of the fact that an officer's or chief's naval career would be irreparably destroyed if either were awarded punishment at mast. They were also acutely aware that under the Super-CAG concept, James had been passing to Grafton all the report chits on air wing sailors generated by ship's personnel for him to hold mast on.
"What does Schultz intend to do about this?" "I haven't yet discussed that with him." "Get him up here." Jake used the nearby telephone to call the Red Ripper's ready room.
While they were waiting for Schultz, Captain James said, "I saw you sight-seeing on the flight deck this afternoon, CAG. In the future you might devote your time more profitably to inspecting the material condition of air wing spaces." "I'm responsible for those airplanes down there, Captain." "And two of those airplanes have been lost this cruise. This ship is not an airplane, Grafton, that we can afford to crash, then write an accident report on." Laird James picked up a document from a stack on the ledge in front of him and went over it carefully. Jake stood in silence and watched the yellow-shirted aircraft handlers on the flight deck move aircraft.
When Schultz arrived, out of breath because he had apparently run up the ten stories of ladders rather than wait for the elevator, James rested his paperwork on his lap and got straight to the point.
"What do you intend to do with Senior Chief Cosgrove and Lieutenant (jg) Slawson for failing to properly supervise Airman Potocky?" Schultz glanced at Jake. "Captain, Cosgrove has been in the navy twenty-six years. He's one of my two or three best chiefs. Slawson is a Naval Academy grad on his first cruise. He's a damn good young fighter pilot. The navy has made a hell of an investment in both of them and we're getting a hell of a lot in return. I intend to counsel them both, and the rest of my supervisors, and ensure they all know how to be supervisors." "You inform them," the captain said, his voice so soft that Jake found himself leaning forward a trifle to hear, "that there will be zero tolerance for slovenliness, laziness, negligence, incompetence, or gross stupidity that puts this ship at risk. Zero tolerance. None whatsoever. That includes you gentlemen as well, SuperCAG or no. This is my ship." Jake Grafton and Harvey Schultz saluted and left the bridge.
0 0 0 0 0 "YOU KNOW I love you, woman?" Jake whispered.
"I've often suspected it," Callie replied, pretending to examine her nails in the moonlight which streamed through the open door to the balcony and fell across the bed. "But you sailors, with your women in every port! A poor girl must stand in line. And it just doesn't pay to invest much emotion in a "here today, gone-tomorrow" lover." Jake chuckled and nuzzled her neck, drinking in the smell of her and luxuriating in the sensuous pleasure of her skin against his, the sleek coolness of the sheets, the ripeness of her body under his hand.
"That's me, I guess.
"I guess. So what am I? Number ten for you this month?" She giggled as Jake ran his tongue down her neck and across her collarbone, heading south.
"Eleven, I think." She hugged him fiercely. "Oh, I love you, Jake Grafton, you worthless gadabout fly-boy, you fool that sails away and leaves me.
When she released him, he propped his head on one elbow and ran his finger along her chin. She nipped at it.
"Have you been to the beach house lately?" he asked. Three years ago they had purchased a house on the beach in Delaware that they visited at every opportunity, anticipating the day when they would live there permanently.
"Just last weekend. You can still hear the gulls from the window, and the surf hitting the sand when the tide is in. But the upstairs commode stopped up. I had to call a plumber She went on, detailing the domestic crises and how much it had cost. He rolled out of bed and slipped a robe on.
From an easy chair near the door to the balcony, he said, "I've been thinking a lot about that house, lately." Callie sat up in bed and swept her long dark hair away from her face.
"Is twenty-three years enough?" That was how long Jake had been in the navy.
"I can't fly at night anymore. I'm half grounded." She left the bed, came over to the chair, and sat on his lap. He wrapped the robe around them both, as far as it would go.
"It's my eyes. I'm losing my night vision.
Something about liquid purple and rods and all that." "My God, Jake, won't you miss the flying?" "Yeah," he sighed disgustedly.
"And if you can't fly, how can you continue to command an air wing?" "I can't. They'll send someone to relieve me pretty soon. I'll probably be home in a month or so' and they'll ground me completely. No more flying. Ever." "Where will you go from here?" "I don't know. Probably some admiral's staff someplace. We're short on radar repairmen, but we've got a lot of admirals and a lot of staffs." "So you've been thinking about the beach house?" "Uh-huh. And about us. About you and your gadabout fly-boy lover and all the time we've been apart.
And I've been thinking, maybe it's time.
Everybody retires sooner or later, unless they get zapped, and so why not? It's time you had a full time husband, not some.
Callie put her face inches from his. Her cascading hair framed her dark eyes. She put her hands on his cheeks. "I've been extraordinarily happy married to you. Oh, the separations have been hard to take, but I can endure the days alone because I know that, God willing, you're coming back to me. You are who you are and what you are, and I love you. So don't you dare start talking like you've given me the dirty end of the stick these last fifteen years. You haven't." He started to speak, but she put her lips on his. In a moment he carried her back to the bed.
They ate a room service breakfast on the balcony, wearing only their robes. From here you could see the sweep of the Bay of Naples and the old Renaissance harbor where the yachts moored. The carrier lay several miles out to sea, foreshortened from this angle. Two surface combatants were anchored near her. The carrier's flat top looked grotesque, but the cruisers with their superstructures looked ominous, powerful-gray warships on a blue sea. And way, way out there, the sea and the sky were married by the summer haze. It was going to be hot today.
"Are you going out to the ship ?" Callie asked as she sipped her orange juice.
"Thought I might, after a while. Then maybe this afternoon you and I could go somewhere together. How about Pompeii?" Jake sat looking at the ship and drumming on the glass table with his fingers.
"I'm glad you gave up smoking." "I haven't made it yet," Jake said, and self-consciously stuffed his hands with their chewed fingernails into his robe pockets.
Callie hid her smile behind another piece of toast. Yes indeed, she decided, she had been extraordinarily lucky when she landed this one.
Not that he had had a chance of getting away, of course. She ran a hand through her hair and stretched.
Jake was looking down at the patio around the pool three stories below where breakfast was served al fresco.
"What are you looking at?" "I thought I recognized that girl. But from this angle I'm not sure.
Callie rose and stepped over to the railing. She had her toast in her hand. "Which girl?" "that one with the blue dress." Callie leaned on the railing and called, "Oh, Judith. Good morning." The girl in the blue dress looked up, grinned, an
d waved.
"It's Judith Farrell," Callie announced, and popped the last bite of toast into her mouth.
"Where in the name of God did you meet her?" "On the plane down here from London. She sat right beside me. She's a very nice young lady, an American reporter living in Paris.
Gave me an excellent chance to practice my French. She's very fluent. She's going to be in Naples for two weeks. I asked her to have dinner with us tonight." Jake's startled gaze left Callie and went back to the patio and the top of Judith Farrell's head.
"Who did you think she was?" Callie asked curiously. "I thought she might be Ms. Judith Farrell of the International Herald Tribune. The world is just too goddamn small." Up in his suite, Colonel Qazi swung his binoculars toward poolside and examined Farrell's profile. He was seated on a chair atop a table well back from the doors to the balcony so that he was invisible to persons in other rooms. After a moment he took his headphones off and handed them back to Yasim. He lifted the binoculars again. His brows knitted as he watched Judith Farrell eat her continental breakfast.
"Judith Farrell. What room is she in, Noora? The girl checked the chart. "Room 822." "You and Yasim get it wired as soon as possible.
Bugs in her phone, bathroom, and bed." "Who is she?" Ali asked.
"Ostensibly a reporter. She was on the ship in Tangiers." "Could she recognize you?" "No. I was fat and sixty-five years old for that appearance." He handed the binoculars to Ali, who trained them on the girl at poolside.
When Qazi received the glasses back, he swung them to the Graftons' balcony. So Farrell and Mrs. Grafton had side-by-side seats on the flight from London. Very interesting.
The colonel climbed down from his perch while the ex-CIA agent, Sakol, examined Judith Farrell with the binoculars. He fingered the focus knob. After a glance, he placed the glasses back on the table.
"I've "It is also possible she is what she seems to be," Qazi said with finality.
"Or she could be one of those amateurs that the Americans are using these days instead of the CIA professionals," Sakol retorted as he resumed his seat. "Perhaps she delivers autographed Bibles and cakes shaped like keys." He yawned and stretched.
"We'll check her room," Qazi said. "It would be an honor to have an opportunity to steal a Bible signed by a president." He turned to Ali.
"What did you learn last night about security and antiterrorist precautions aboard the ship?" "They have armed marines at the enlisted landing on the fantail, and on the officer's brow. Four fifty-caliber machine guns, two on each side of the flight deck, are manned by marines around the clock. Planes are scattered around the flight deck so there is no room for a helicopter to land.
The radio masts that surround the flight deck are kept in an up position. Lights are rigged around the ship so that swimmers and small boats cannot approach at night unseen." "And the communications?" "He got it all," Sakol sneered. "Your sadistic, camel-fucking assistant enjoyed every minute. He had a hard-on the whole time. I thought his cock was going to rip his zipper out." Also's right hand moved toward the pistol he carried in his trouser pocket, since it was too hot to wear a jacket.
Qazi waved his hand at Sakol. "Enough, Sakol. Enough. I can't let Ali shoot you just yet." "The little prick wouldn't enjoy just shooting me.
He would first want to-was "Enough!" "I'm going to get some sleep," Sakol said.
"You perverts figure out how you're going to rape the world. Put Ali near the crotch." He went into the bedroom and slammed the door.
"He will betray us," Ali said.
"Perhaps, given the opportunity." Qazi sighed and stretched. "Are we on schedule?" "It will be very tight. I am returning to Africa this afternoon. Noora should return with me. We will need her to handle jarvis." "Three days. We must be ready to go in three days. The Americans might sail at any time." "Their reservations are for another seven days," Yasim reminded them.
"The American government could order the ship to sail at any time in response to events in Lebanon. This would be an excellent time for those Shiite fools to behave themselves, but one cannot expect miracles.
We must seize this opportunity before it escapes us.
"Then we must make some changes." "Yes." Qazi rubbed the back of his neck.
Ensuring the painstaking accomplishment of a myriad of small details was the foundation of a successful clandestine operation, and the reason Colonel Qazi was still alive after twelve years in the business. He insisted Ali and his other lieutenants exhibit the wholehearted enthusiasm for detail he preached.
Unanticipated events would occur in spite of every precaution, but the less left to chance the better.
"Tell me about the communications.
Jake left the hotel at eight A.m. with four other officers he met in the lobby. All were attired in civilian clothes. Walking down the Via Medina together, they still drew glances from pedestrians and kamikazes zipping by on motor scooters. American sailors on liberty were no longer authorized to wear their uniforms ashore due to the terrorist threat, but their nationality was obvious to everyone, especially when they opened their mouths.
Another regulation decreed without even a nod toward reality, Jake mused. He began to perspire as he walked. The exercise felt good after so long without it.
They turned left when they reached the Piazza Municipio and walked down the divided boulevard toward the harbor. Behind them, across the top of the boulevard, was the Municipal Building. On their right the Castel Nuovojutted upward into the dirty white morning haze. On the side of the seven-hundred-year-old structure Jake could see a shell impact mark, perhaps a scar from World War II. It appeared as if a shell with a contact fuse had gouged a shallow hole in the stone and the shrapnel had ripped out gouges which radiated in all directions from the center crater.
Jake wondered how many wars and sieges and years the castle had withstood.
The little group threaded their way through bumper-to bumper morning traffic to the gate to the quay. The carabinieri on duty gave the little group a salute and received smiles in reply.
They joined other officers and men waiting for the ship's launch. As they chatted they watched the ferries getting under way for Ischia and Capri.
People boarded the vessels through the stern, then each moved slowly ahead as a man on the bow took in the anchor cable and, a hundred yards from the quay, the anchor itself. Now the screws bit the water in earnest and the wake began to spread. As each ferry departed, people on the stern waved heartily to the Americans.
When the officer's launch arrived at half past the hour, Jake stood with the boat officer and coxswain amidships rather than sit in the forward or after passenger compartment. He had never gotten used to riding these small craft in the chop beyond the breakwater.
The launch plowed the oily, black water and stirred the floating trash with its wake as it passed the bows of four U.s. destroyers and frigates moored stern-in against the breakwater. At the masthead of each ship the radar dishes rotated endlessly. Most of these ships were part of the flotilla that accompanied and protected the United States.
At the piers on the other side of the harbor, on his left as the launch made for the harbor entrance, ships of the Italian Navy were moored. Just visible in the haze beyond them was the rising prominence of Mount Vesuvius.
Jake looked aft, over the stern on the boat.
Buildings from prior centuries covered the hills behind the Castel Nuovo and the Municipal Building. At the top of the most prominent height stood a magnificent stone castle. This was Castel Sant'Elmo, now a military prison.
The flanks of the hill between the Municipal Building and Castel Sant'Elmo formed the oldest, poorest quarter of the city, the tenderloin known to generations of American sailors as "the Gut." The bars and girls there had entertained seafarers for centuries, and the punks there had rolled them and left them bleeding for at least as long.
Even with its smart new residential and shopping districts, Naples remained an industrial port city, not pretty,
not spruced up for tourists, but a city of muscle encased in fat and smelling of sweat and cheap wine. It was an old European city that modern Italian glitz and new Roman fashion had yet to transform.
He watched the features of the city merge into the morning haze as the boat bucked through the swells beyond the harbor entrance. The natural breeze was magnified by the boat's speed, so the perspiration dried on Jake's face and his stomach remained calm. He even traded quips with the boat officer, a young F-14 pilot in whites.
Gulls looking for a handout swept over the launch, almost close enough to touch, their heads pointed into the prevailing wind, out to sea. On the boat's fantail the Stars and Stripes crackled at attention.
It was a good feeling, Jake reflected, seeing the gray ships lying there at anchor in the sun with the sea breeze in your face, the coxswain wearing his Dixie cup at a jaunty angle to prevent it from being blown off" his white uniform incandescent in the sun. This was the part of his life Jake would miss the most, this carefree, tangy adventure with the world young and fresh, life stretching ahead over the waves toward an infinite horizon.
Stephen Coonts - Jake Grafton 2 - Final Flight Page 19