The Gulf

by David Poyer

  “We have a powerful and battle-ready ship under us. We’ve taken shit off these ragheads for too long. But at last we’ve got our orders. Close with the enemy, and put the bastards out of business for good.”

  He could hear the cheer even through the roar of the cutwater, even through the steel behind him. The whole crew must be shouting. Cheering Shaker. Cheering the chance at last to fight those they had feared and watched against so long. Above it, the brazen voice lifted, grim, inspiring, pealing the kind of call to arms that he had sometimes feared, sometimes hoped, belonged only and forever to the past.

  “We will hit them and hit them hard. I want every weapon ready. I want every man to know that we will kill Iranians tonight until there are no more of them left in range.”

  Into battle, Dan thought. He’d been there before. And survived. But there was no guarantee he would this time. All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is mortal. The most basic syllogism of all. How well would their own logic work? The logic of their plans, and the expensive and complex electronic logic built into their ship and their weapons? How many aboard the two black destroyers would make it through the coming night? Would he?

  “That is all. Bo’s’n, sound general quarters.”

  As he turned, already running, he knew that the answer to that question no longer made any difference. He wore the uniform. Not of compulsion. Of his own free will. And with the coin of Caesar came the obligation to die, if he had to, facing the enemy.

  Whether he was alive a day from now no longer mattered. The real question was, Would he do his duty.

  He had the feeling that he would. And he heard, with terror and at the same time an ancient joy, his own voice lifting to join the paean.

  33

  U.S.S. Charles F. Adams, DDG-2

  PHELAN moaned and struggled, hauling the five-gallon bucket, lead-heavy with paint, down the too-steep ladder that led into the sea. Below him the boatswain, the same man who’d taken pity on him on the pier at Mina’ Salman, smirked up at his awkward progress, obviously enjoying the sight.

  Shit, he was thinking. Screwed again. Screwed bad this time. He shifted the bucket, slopping its contents over his good shoes, and whimpered aloud. In its inky darkness, for one moment a perfect mirror, he knew his tortured and sweating face.

  He’d been working now for hours. How many he couldn’t tell—there were no watches on the float—but it was almost dark. So that was at least six hours straight down here in the heat, on the pitching balks of wood.

  He’d stepped aboard Adams from the whaleboat jaunty, composed, his story polished bright as tourist-trap silver. How he’d forgotten the envelope with his orders on the seat of the plane, and how when he went back, they were gone. But he didn’t think now Adams’s exec had really been listening. “That’s too bad,” he’d said at last, breaking into Phelan’s explanation. “But we’re full up with corpsmen. And with no I.D. and no orders, I don’t want you working there, anyway. You can stay till we find your ship, but you’re going to first division. That’s where we need hands now. Get into your dungarees and report to the chief boats.”

  So now here he was. One of the peons, one of the apes. And not liking it one damn bit.

  He got to the bottom at last and grunted the can down on splintered wood that looked like a giant had used it as a palette. He was instantly surrounded by dirty, tattooed, cursing sailors. They elbowed him aside without looking at him, fighting around the dark reservoir like bears around a honey pot. He backed away, almost fell into the water as his foot skidded over the edge of the float. He scrambled back up and lifted his eyes.

  Charles Adams rode motionless in the falling darkness in the lee of a small cape. Alongside her were lashed several narrow balks of wood. From them, and from two dented jonboats, thirty men were rapidly slapping rollers and brushes along the looming sides. All but amidships, where they’d left an irregular patch of sea-faded gray. The paint had been a perfect mirror in his bucket. He noticed now that it was drying to dead black.

  “Hey, Geronimo! This ain’t no time for rubbernecking! Get us some more rollers, the big ones. Chop chop! Pedal ass, fuck-face!”

  “He’s thinking,” said one of the stained men, his teeth yellow in a black face. “Thinkin’ about tonight. Little bastard’s scared shitless. Look at him.”

  “Don’t think, asshole, work.”

  Phelan didn’t answer. He didn’t belong with these people. And he was feeling bad. The uneasy jostling of the float, the turpentine stink made him want to barf. He wanted another Dilaudid. But they were history now. Jesu, he was in bad shape. Could he report sick? It’d be easy to slip going up that ladder. He could sprain an ankle. That was painful and they might give him—

  He yelped as a hard and sticky hand slammed him into the hull. “I said move your ass, you little prick,” growled a voice in his ear. “The fucking khaki can’t see us down here. You want to lose teeth, just keep doping off on us, hear me?”

  He found himself loping up the ladder like a scared rabbit.

  Topside was covered with men, all of them painting. He did a double take as he saw chiefs, too, with brushes in their hands. He strolled forward, then ducked into an open hatch.

  Sick bay. The caduceus on the door, the comforting smells of disinfectant, wax, and medicines. He gazed in yearningly through the open half of the dutch door. “What’s the trouble, Jack?” said the second-class on duty.

  “I don’t feel good.”

  “Name?”

  “Phelan. Bernard.”

  “Division?”

  “Uh, none, I’m here TAD.”

  “Rate?”

  “Hospitalman.”

  “Oh, wait a minute, I heard about you,” said the corpsman. “Phelan. Yeah. You as fucked up as they say?”

  Bernard stared at him, trembling and sweating. “What do you mean by that, fatass?”

  “Nothin’, only the chief said he heard about you. He knows some guys off the Long Beach. What’s the complaint today, Phelan?”

  “I don’t know. I got cramps and all my muscles are sore. I think I got the flu. Or gastroenteritis. It hurts real bad.” He moved closer and lowered his voice. “I need something special. You got to help me, man. I’d help you out if you needed it.”

  “I bet it does,” said the corpsman, grinning. “Here you go, Phelan, don’t say I never give you nothing.”

  He stared down at two aspirin in his dirty palm.

  Before he could think, he cursed the man and threw the tablets in his face. He was sorry an instant later. He had to make friends, not enemies. But the door had already slammed shut. And a warrant officer, coming down the passageway with his arms full of canvas, was shouting “What are you doing down here, sailor? We got an all-hands working party going. Get your ass up on the weather decks!”

  Topside again, his teeth chattering with a sudden chill, he joined a line in front of the paint locker. It moved fast. He said to the man behind him, “Jesus, what’s the big hurry?”

  “Didn’t you listen to the captain? We’re going to sink some ragheads tonight, buddy. Going to put some hurts on those little brown fuckers.”

  “Tonight? What, what are we doing?”

  “Going to do some shooting,” said the seaman in the paint locker, handing him five rollers. “Going to go in and take some people out. Get moving, pal, we got to finish up tonight.”

  He couldn’t help groaning as he reapproached the ladder. His stomach was cramping so badly it was hard to walk. He didn’t want to go down there again. But there didn’t seem to be much alternative. He was afraid of the boatswain with the hard fists.

  And what was this they were saying, about going in and … he didn’t like the sound of that at all.

  “Hey, you!”

  He flinched. This time it was a man he didn’t recognize, smeared black like all the rest on this floating Earl Scheib’s, but in shorts and T-shirt instead of uniform. Phelan stared at him. “I’m the master-at-arms,” he s
aid rapidly, glancing back to where other chiefs were hastily wire-brushing out a paint sprayer. “Wanted to let you know, when we go to general quarters for the attack tonight, you’ll be in Repair Two. That’s up forward, main deck. You can ask somebody how to get there. You had damage-control training on your ship, right?”

  “No, not much, I’m a corpsman. I’m supposed to be assigned to sick bay. Can’t you get me put in sick bay, I’m—”

  “Repair Two. Don’t forget. Be there; I put you on their muster list.” The chief ran forward.

  Phelan became aware at that moment of threatening voices raised below him. He started, almost tripped over the coaming, but caught himself on the lifeline at the last moment. He hurt. He was scared. But he was more scared of what would happen down there if he didn’t turn to.

  Praying in Zuni behind his closed teeth, he hurried down the ladder, taking care not to slip.

  34

  2100 Hours: Off Abu Musa Island, Southern Gulf

  THERE was one short but endless moment in his fall when Gordon lost himself. His ears were crammed with the pulse of rotors, but his eyes, dark-adapted, still met nothing but blackness. Then, still falling, he glimpsed a wheeling myriad of stars. They seethed like bubbles around him as he tumbled out of the sky. He couldn’t see the water at all. Only sparkling below him, too, the distant golden suns—

  He hit so hard his breath drove into the mouthpiece with an explosive grunt. A hundred and thirty pounds of dive gear, tools, and weights instantly dragged him under. Into void, oblivion, now tangible as well as visible.

  For a moment, he fought fear. Then drill took charge. His left hand slapped the inflation valve. Gas hissed, and a few seconds later he felt the sea slipping past him, yielding him up reluctantly and only for a time.

  His mask broke the surface. At first, he didn’t realize it. Then he shook his head, spat out the mouthpiece, and screamed as loudly as he could into the departing engines.

  “Over here!” came Terger’s voice, hoarse with stress. Gordon shouted again, wondering whether his voice was giving him away, too. Then he began swimming, toward the shape that suddenly appeared a few yards away, taking on form as he closed it.

  “Tony!” he shouted.

  “Là.” Maudit, on the far side of the raft.

  “Burgee!”

  “Yo.”

  “Everett here.”

  “Join up on me,” he shouted. Yes, he could hear tension. He swallowed, trying to relax his throat.

  The Z-bird was rocking cheerfully on the chop when he reached it. Already inflated, it was rigged to fall bottom-first and land upright. He was pleased to see it had done just that. He cut at the cargo net over it, heard the snore of other knives helping; it came away and he pushed it into the water. Attached weights sank it silently from sight. He unslung his gear and tossed it in, got a leg up and rolled over the gunwale. He slammed into bags, hard shapes, the lashed-down motor. Lem Everett rolled in at the same moment on the other side.

  Gordon kept low, pulling the others aboard. The raft rode lower with each body. When the team was in, he grunted a command and they moved apart, each taking his assigned position, checking and unlashing equipment. He heard a click as Burgee attached the gas tank. Then the electrician’s anxious mutter: “I think she took some water. Do it, baby, come on, you whore—”

  The muffled Evinrude caught on the first pull. Gordon eased breath out, then looked around.

  Three hours before midnight, the sky soared above them like the loft of a huge and ancient barn. The Milky Way was a winter snowfall caught on the points of the stars. To the north—ahead, as Clint angled the throttle—the horizon flickered orange to distant flame. Against it, he could make out the island, low to their left, rising gradually to starboard. A few cold-looking blue and yellow lights glittered minutely along its flank. He watched them for two or three minutes but saw no movement.

  That was good.… He stood up for a moment, bracing himself on Lem Everett’s rubber-covered shoulder. As far as he could tell, they’d dropped on target. It was hard to judge distance, but they should be just over ten miles out.

  “Lem.”

  “Yeah, John?”

  “Got a fix yet?”

  “Working on it.” Everett raised the bearing compass to his eye and sighted on the peak. A moment later, he shifted to the left tangent of the island, then to a distant red planet that marked the Mubarek oil field. With three points, they could fix their position.

  “Got it?” he muttered again, unable to wait.

  “Five more degrees. Clint, come a little left.”

  Gordon glanced over his shoulder. He’d thought he might see the helicopter, the glow of the turbines, but nothing moved against the constellations.

  The trip had been low and fast, terrifyingly low and incredibly fast. After the lift-off, they’d huddled dressed out on the bench seats of the H-53, not speaking, just waiting. Then at last the green light had come on, and they’d shoved the raft out the rear ramp and followed it silently and without hesitation into the roaring night.

  He’d wondered then, as he stepped into space, how many of them would see the dawn again.

  He shoved that thought into a hole in his brain and tamped as much of his anxiety as he could down after it. Then he concentrated again on the island. It was closer now, but still there was no sign of movement. He became conscious at the same time that the boat was riding easier, that the seas that had been popping against the port side had dropped. The motor sounded louder. The wind, light before, had fallen away almost to nothing.

  He ran over the plan again, then groped about on the floorboards. They’d brought all the standard gear, the standard tools—just in case. But the most important … He breathed out as his fingers felt corners through nylon net. The gadgets. God, if they’d lost those …

  He took three deep breaths, visualizing a blue-green hillside, the straggling forms of grazing beasts. It helped. But instead of grass and earth, he smelled kerosene and rubber and dead fish. His hands moved automatically over the Mark 16, tightening straps jolted by the drop, checking the oxygen bypass valve, the bottle valve handwheel, clamping the display tighter to his mask. In between, they bumped an unfamiliar object and he touched it again, puzzled for a moment before he recognized it.

  He hoped he didn’t have to use the flare pen. A red star as the destroyers approached was the signal he’d failed to clear the channel, that the attack had to be aborted. Of course by then, the air would already be working the island over, and they could expect irate Iranians galore. How they’d escape then, he didn’t know. Except for their knives, and his automatic, they weren’t armed. EOD divers seldom used rifles. Nor was there room for them, with all the gear they had in the boat.

  “Mark,” said Everett suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Mark, outer boundary. We’re here.”

  They were at the edge of the mine field. Below them somewhere … He stopped thinking about that, too. “Cut it, Clint.”

  The motor stopped suddenly. It hadn’t been loud, but now the silence became vast. He eased the hood from his ear and heard the sigh of wind, the splash of waves. Then the rumble of a heavy motor, a boat or truck, from the island. They were only two miles off the beach. He could hear dogs, too. He felt exposed. He wanted to pull the sea over his head like a child’s blanket.

  “What?” whispered Terger. “What’d you say?”

  “Nothing.” He was whispering, too. “Lem, you’re sure this is it?”

  “Just did another round. Good fix. Grab it while you got it.”

  “Okay. Tony, drop the master.”

  He saw the paramedic lift it in the rear of the boat, a lumpy shadow by starlight. The master reference buoy, a lead mushroom with two sandbags lashed to it. Lead and sand were nonmagnetic. Their search would be plotted from it in through the mine field to clear water.

  A muffled splash and the slither of uncoiling line. “It is down.”

  “Okay, good. Tendi
ng line?”

  “Hundred yards.”

  “Pay out as soon as we’re in the water.” He knew he didn’t have to say all this, but he wanted to be sure everyone understood. “Let her drift off out of the area. Then wait. Stay low in the boat. If anybody comes out to investigate, pop the valves and let it sink. But stay with it; you’re our ticket out of here.”

  “Comprends, moi. But—”

  “But what?”

  “Don’t stay too long.” He could hear the grin.

  “You leave us here, Frenchy, and I’ll come back and ha’nt you and Regine and both your ugly kids. Everybody else! Grab your gear and in the water. By the numbers.” He’d made each man memorize what he carried, as Everett had memorized the anchor bearings. But he didn’t dare let them forget anything, so he checked it all, hurrying now: jackstays, lift bags, buoys, each man’s equipment. As he was satisfied, he slapped each diver’s shoulder. One by one, they slid to the side, became humped shadows in the starlight, were gone.

  His turn. He wished he wasn’t so tense, but it couldn’t be helped. He sprayed and fitted his mask and checked that the display was in view. Then cracked the supply valve.

  “John? Bonne chance.” Said very quietly, under the watching stars.

  He nodded, and dissolved into the warm sea.

  * * *

  He recalled now, sinking, the sketch they’d studied aboard Iwo Jima. Nothing clever, no computer graphics. This had been a pencil diagram on lined paper, just as it had come from the hands of the defector.

  Gordon hoped the man was right. And that whoever had debriefed him spoke good Farsi.

  He turned his mask from side to side, looking for Burgee. A few feet away, an outstretched arm glowed nightmare green. He remembered his own chem light, and snapped and shook the plastic tube. It began to burn, cold and eerie in the endless night.

  The mine field, a kidney-shaped area bent around the anchorage, was said to be eight hundred yards deep. The destroyers would need a marked lane at least a hundred yards wide. That defined the Q-channel they had to clear. He and Burgee were taking the port side, working by compass bearings from the reference buoy. Everett and Terger, meanwhile, would work into the mine field to starboard. He’d overlapped their lanes to ensure they didn’t miss anything.