The Passage

by David Poyer

  “What are they doing?”

  “The One forty-two oh-seven hundred sitsum shows them still steaming in the same area. Lexington has an E-two up; we’ve got long-range surveillance now. That’ll help our early warning time.”

  “Yeah, good.”

  “Overall, it looks to me like they missed the boat. They should have come up and kicked our ass when they had the chance. Oh, the op order.” Quintanilla rapped the red-and-white-striped Masonite cover of the Secret board. “Forwarded to us for info only. This isn’t a USN ball game. Probably a good idea in terms of avoiding escalation. They call it ‘Operation Tempest.’ Royal Bahamian Defence Forces, backed by British and Canadian destroyers and—get this—Munro, are going to cover a landing in the northern part of the Cay Sal group. That leaves the back door open for the Cubans to make a graceful exit to the south. Next step, they’ll send a Bahamian police detachment into Elbow Cay, covered by one of the destroyers. They will politely tell the Cubans, ‘Thank you for maintaining order. We’ll take care of the refugees. You may now get the fuck out of our territory.’”

  “If they don’t?”

  “Then things get serious, I guess. But by then, we’ll have the beef on scene to make things turn out the way we want. At least locally.”

  “It still doesn’t make sense, Felipe. What do they get out of it? Other than proving they can jerk us around?”

  “I don’t know. Who knows why that asshole does anything?”

  “Which asshole?”

  “I don’t know which asshole.” Quintanilla sounded as if he was getting tired, too. “Let’s talk about hydrofoils. I want to get relieved sometime this week, okay? Admiral Larson has them stationed here, east of us. That way, they can move west to our support if Kirov shows any signs of moving north, or else head east to cut the Cubans off from reinforcement and resupply if the landing turns ugly … .”

  When Quintanilla was gone, Dan sat in the big leather chair, trying to stay awake long enough to finish his doughnut. Having a submarine on their side made him feel more confident. The news about other ships on the way was good, too. Hell, he thought, we get Ike and Virginia here and we’ll be able to take on two Kirovs. The Russians weren’t crazy. They stepped back when they were outnumbered. This whole thing might just end up without the two sides blowing each other out of the water.

  AS he rose from the console, Hank Shrobo’s head felt like a heliumfilled balloon slowly rising toward the ceiling. His legs felt shaky, foreign, as if they’d just been grafted on.

  “That it?” Dawson asked, still regarding the screen.

  “You saw it. A complete run-through, no hang-ups.”

  “Congratulations,” Matt Williams said, clapping him on the back. Then he staggered around and finally sat down on the deck. “Jeez, I don’t feel so good all of a sudden.”

  “It’s ROE syndrome,” said Hank. “Return to Earth. Common among programmers. Okay, Chief, you understand the trouble-shooting procedure now? I might ask you and Matt to write it up, something brief we can put out interim, till we get a new section for the manual.”

  “I think so.”

  “I’ll go over it once more. The antiviral program’s loaded on computer number three. You bring up the module you want to scrub on computer two, then put it in maintenance mode from the MCC. Three will then take control of number two and start scrubbing whatever’s in it line by line. Each time it hits a piece of virus or a flawed sector, it’ll delete it and break to the screen. You poke in the marked lines from the listing, then hit ‘run’ again. Got that? We scrubbed the op program first, then sonar. You can do the others. Except the Link Eleven module, it’s always come up clean.”

  “Got it. But what if it comes back?”

  “That’s the other program. I call it Antibody. Later, we’ll integrate it into the exec, but for right now just load it before the op program goes in. Matt wrote it in Ultra-32, it doesn’t take much memory. Load the O.P. right on top of it. It doesn’t do anything unless it sniffs virus. Then it runs a search-and-delete, marks the line number, and logs out an error condition. Eventually, as you run all the data tapes and subprograms, it’ll filter all the Crud out and you’ll have a virgin system again.” He stretched again, his mind moving on, now that the job was complete, the problem solved, to what was waiting for him back at Vartech. “Any more questions? Okay, I’m going to go find Lenson, tell him we’ve got it licked.”

  HE found the lieutenant in the dark room they called Combat, looking bored. Shrobo stood beside him for a while, watching the displays. Finally, he said, “Lieutenant.”

  “Oh.” Dan turned his head slowly. Powdered sugar sparkled on the front of his uniform, even his hair. “Hi, Doc, what you doing up here?”

  “Came to report. Finished the scan program. It runs. Your ACDADS is now fully operational.”

  “It works? Confirmed? Because I’ve heard this before—”

  “This time it’s a guarantee.”

  “Wait a minute,” Dan said. “The CO’s going to be happy to hear this.” He picked up the J-phone, but a strange voice answered from the captain’s cabin. “Who’s this?” he asked.

  “Seaman Pedersen, sir. In here makin’ the bunk up.”

  “Oh. Skipper there?”

  “Hold on.”

  “Captain, what is it?”

  “Sir, Mr. Lenson. Dr. Shrobo’s just reported that he’s finished the scan program. He says our problems with ACDADS are over. Did you want to have him—”

  “Yes, bring him in. No, wait. You’re in Combat? I’ll be in in a minute.”

  Five minutes later, Leighty appeared in the doorway. He looked fresh and dapper, hair combed back wet, clean khakis, gleaming shoes. He nodded to Shrobo and said in a friendly tone, “Dan tells me you’ve got everything running again.”

  “Just about, Captain.”

  “Call me Tom, all right? Hank?”

  Shrobo cleared his throat, impatient, now that it was all solved, to get through the official congratulations and get to work on his paper, get a skeleton draft down while everything was still fresh in his head. And then go home. “Sure. Tom. We finished the antiviral program early this morning. The op program is sanitized. So is the sonar module. The procedure’s simple enough that your men can run it on their own now to filter the others.”

  “So the whole ACDADS is operational again?”

  “The exec program is. The others will come on-line one by one through the day. There’s also another, smaller program that will operate continuously to keep the Crud from recurring.”

  “This sounds like a permanent fix.”

  “On this virus, at any rate. Other viruses, we’ll have to go through the same procedure of breaking it first, then writing a search program. Eventually, though, I may be able to write one that detects any foreign replicating programs and penetrates, decodes, and deletes them automatically.” He reflected. “There might not be memory space in the current generation of computers. But there will be soon, with the AN/UYK-forty-three series.”

  “That’s great news. Thanks for all your help. Uh, I’ll be writing a message saying how much we appreciate all the time you’ve put in cracking this thing. If there’s anything else I can do—”

  “Can I get a ride back to Virginia Beach?” Shrobo asked him.

  “There may be a COD flight, a carrier onboard delivery plane, between Lex and Pensacola. We’d have to get you shuttled over there.”

  “I’ll check it out, sir, see if we can set it up,” said Dan. He asked Shrobo, “You want to go right away?”

  “As soon as I can, yes. I’ve been away too long as it is. Also, I want very much to put some of my systems analysts on this bug. I want to try to figure out where it came from.”

  “What’s your guess? Some kind of amateur hacker?”

  “That’s what I thought at first. But now I’m not so sure. It has to be somebody who knows UYK-sevens. Somebody who knows Navy computer systems. Somebody who knows a hell of a lot and is very sma
rt indeed.”

  “Whom could that be?” Leighty asked him.

  “When we figure it out, you’ll be the first to know,” Hank told him. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get some sleep.”

  SHUFFERT came up to relieve him at eleven. Dan wolfed lunch, then checked his spaces. Everything seemed normal, so he went down to the office and cleared up his in box. He bagged his laundry, then went down to the barber shop for a trim. On the way back, he passed the ship’s store. It was open, so he went in and bought a new lifer light and batteries. Then he remembered Billy and bought a USS Barrett T-shirt, size small, a USS Barrett belt buckle, and a Camillus stainless-steel Navy pocketknife and put them in the mail to him. No telling when it would go out, but when it did, they’d be in it. At 1530, he pulled on his shorts and running shoes, went up to the hangar, and did some stretching exercises. He jogged around the flight deck for half an hour, the rough black nonskid canting slowly under his feet, the horizon rolling up slowly, then down again beyond the deck-edge nets. He did some push-ups and leg lifts, then walked for a while, cooling down and letting the sun bake his bare chest, bare shoulders. The only mar on his peace was when he looked at the waves and reflected that he still didn’t know what had happened to Graciela and the baby.

  When he went back to relieve Quintanilla, the ops officer was reading a message. One of the radiomen stood beside him, waiting to take it back. “So, what’s the news?” Dan asked him.

  Quintanilla handed him the board. “Press your eyeballs to this,” he said. Dan scanned down an update on Operation Tempest. The Bahamian Defence Forces, three boats and fifty men, backed by Rhyl, the British destroyer previously assigned to the refugee assistance operation, and Gatineau, a Canadian destroyer, were landing on Anguila, the next island up the chain from the Cay Sal group. Dan initialed it, muttered, “Good luck, guys,” and handed it back to the radioman.

  All through his watch, update messages came in every hour. The combined Caribbean Commonwealth forces, as they were now being called in the messages, completed the landing, picked up ten refugees, then reembarked for their next stop, Elbow Cay. So far, there was no sign from the Cubans either of preparations for resistance or preparations to depart. It looked to him, from reading the messages and measuring distances, that the showdown would take place at dawn.

  THAT night, he came suddenly awake out of a sound sleep. He didn’t know why, but he knew something had changed. He fumbled in the dark for the phone, dropped it clattering down the bulkhead. His roommate grunted. “Sorry,” he muttered, dialing CIC by feel.

  Lauderdale answered. He said that yeah, formation course had changed; they were headed east now.

  “Any change in the situation?”

  “Yeah, that’s why we turned. The Cubans are pulling out.”

  “Is that right?”

  “That’s what the last report from the Commonwealth force says. They’re postponing the morning landing on Elbow Cay to let them evacuate. They’ll leave Cay Sal itself as soon as the Bahamians have a police presence there.”

  “How about the Russians?”

  “The Kirov battle group has turned south. Southeast, actually. Anyway, away from us.”

  “Jesus. At the same time?”

  “Yeah. Obviously coordinated.”

  “Huh. So that’s it?”

  “I guess.”

  He hung up and lay there, staring into the dark. Was this really how the whole crisis, the whole face-off was going to end? Just sort of evaporate, fizzle out? Everybody turn around, go home, live happily ever after? He couldn’t quite believe it.

  45

  TWO days later, Dan pulled his chair out from the wardroom table as Antonio flicked a breakfast chit in front of him. He yawned as he picked up the stub of pencil and stroked off pancakes, egg, sunny-side up. Someday he’d get a full night’s sleep again—maybe when they got back to Charleston. Check in at the Q, not leave a forwarding phone, then just turn the air conditioning up and the lights off … .

  TF 142 had left Point PAPA on a course of 105, opening the range between the two forces to the east as the Kirov group opened it to the south—both sides gradually retiring but keeping a close eye on each other. Lexington kept her reconnaissance and CAP aircraft in the air. Barrett stayed at Condition III with weapons systems in standby. But the atmosphere in CIC was noticeably less tense. The radarmen were already discussing the chances of pulling liberty in Key West.

  For the last forty-eight hours, Lexington and her escorts had remained in the Straits of Florida, monitoring the situation and sending out an occasional fighter sweep to demonstrate presence. But the Cubans left Elbow Cay peacefully. The Bahamian police landed on Cay Sal itself the next day, and the invaders left there, too. Dan had watched their patrol boats creep across the screen, headed south, back toward the Cuban navy base at Mariel.

  That had been yesterday. Today, the task force, its mission fulfilled, was breaking up. Dahlgren had detached first, headed for a long stay in the yards. Canisteo had departed after a last alongside refueling of Voge, Bronstein, and Barrett. This morning, the remaining ships were simply waiting for the signal to disband and their orders as to where to proceed from there.

  “See the news, Mr. Lenson?”

  “The what?”

  “The bird farm puts out a paper every day for their crew. Mr. Van Cleef figured how to get it sent over to us by radio. Ain’t electronics wonderful?”

  It was three stapled pages, a summary of stateside and international news, sports scores, the Dow Jones. Dan got coffee and read through it. The papers were applauding the successful resolution of the Cay Sal crisis. The Los Angeles Times called it a “showdown.” They said, “The US Navy and the Soviets went eyeball-to-eyeball a second time, and once again, the USSR blinked.” The Chicago Tribune said, “A scratch force of Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard, hastily assembled from training duties and reserve bases while front-line units were deployed to face Iran, held the line until Castro understood he could not expect acquiescence in this latest adventure.” He smiled wryly, reading the excerpts. They were heroes this week; next week they’d be villains, fools, and wastrels again … . A volcano had exploded in Washington state, killing an eighty-three-year-old man who refused to evacuate … . The rioting and looting in Miami was still going on. Whole blocks of the city were burning. The mayor had called in the National Guard and they were searching for weapons at roadblocks, but Liberty City was a free-fire zone. Snipers were shooting at anyone who moved, black or white. Chief Dawson had told him about Williams’s and Shrobo’s narrow escape the night the rioting began. Dan wondered whether they’d actually been safer out here at sea, facing the Russians, than if they’d stayed in Miami or North Charleston. He remembered warning his men to buddy up going ashore in a foreign port. Now stateside was the most dangerous liberty of all. He noticed there was nothing at all about the Cuban refugees. They were last week’s news. Just as Task Force 142’s vigil, the insanity of courting war over a couple of specks of useless sand, Larry Prince’s meaningless death—all would be forgotten in a week or two. Erased, as the wave marks on the sand were obliterated by the next tide.

  So what was the lesson? he asked his coffee. The yellow specks of creamer floated up, swirled in tiny whirlpools, dissolved. Perhaps it was an answer, but he couldn’t decode it. What was he supposed to conclude from all this? Should he see his dad when they got back? Forgive the bastard before he died? Get serious about Beverly Strishauser? Leave the Navy and go back to school, get a degree in something useful, like civil engineering?

  “Pancakes, sir.”

  “Thanks.” He set his quandaries aside and dug in, tuning into the conversation around him, the officers enjoying a second cup of coffee and a few minutes of bullshit before quarters.

  “No way,” said Dwight Giordano. The engineer looked, Dan thought, the least worn of them all; he’d stood normal watches through the entire crisis. So that now his habitual harried look seemed relaxed next to those who
had stood endless bridge and CIC watches. “They’ll never send us back. Are you nuts? There’re other ships scheduled now. Five bucks says they bless us and say, ‘Go and train no more.’”

  “I’m not taking any bets, but we’ve got to go back. You can’t graduate without passing the battle problem,” Quintanilla insisted.

  “Why not?”

  “That’s what they said from the start. It puts everything together, shows whether you can make the band play in tune.”

  “They can’t figure? Look at Dahlgren, those guys fucking saved their fucking ship.”

  “They already passed. We haven’t. If we’d gotten hit and put out a fire, stopped flooding, treated casualties, maybe then we could ask for some kind of waiver.”

  Obviously, they were talking about Gitmo—whether, now that the boat lift and the Cay Sal crisis were over, Barrett would be required to finish refresher training. “What I heard,” he said, just to bait them, “is because our training was interrupted, we’ll have to do it all over again from the beginning.”

  “Get out of here.”

  “That’s just crazy enough to be right.”

  Kessler said, “This was more real than Gitmo. This was realworld operations. I say they’ll waive it.”

  “You just want to get home, Casey. That ain’t your brain talking; it’s fifty million backlogged sperms.”

  “Shit yeah, I’m ready to go home. We’ve jumped through our grommets enough on this fucking cruise.”

  Vysotsky cleared his throat from the door. They glanced at him, then went on to other topics, such as how the syrup was holding out.

  “NOW quarters, quarters for morning muster and inspection. Officers’ call.”

  The exec’s grating voice rose above the murmur. “Okay, listen up. We have the word on where we’re going.”

  “Shut up, goddamn it,” somebody muttered in the back. The mass of khaki shuffled, quieted.

  “Okay, listen up. We will out-chop from Task Force One forty-two on signal this morning. At that time, we will set course once more for Guantánamo Bay.”