Terror At Dawn c-21 Page 3

  “No, Admiral. I don’t think it’s going to be the same thing twice in a row. Besides, after what happened, the full antisurface team is going to be in Combat whether I set the condition or not.”

  Coyote gritted his teeth and groaned inside. Captain Jackie Bethlehem, Jefferson’s newly appointed commanding officer, was well within her rights to make that decision. He appreciated her informing him of the change before it occurred, and in principle he agreed — but why, oh, why, did every word she speak grate on his nerves?

  Bethlehem was a tall woman with dark hair and ice-green eyes. Her hair was short and curly and most days, like today, it had a tousled, just-stepped-out-of-the-shower look. She looked as though she was in her early thirties, but for that to be true she would have had to have been commissioned almost before puberty. Not that Coyote had any indication that she’d ever actually gone through puberty. Her uniforms, while trim and neatly cut, were just generous enough in certain places to hide most of her figure. And her personality — well, Coyote was reasonably certain she probably had one, but her military bearing and command presence were pretty damned near impossible. He’d cracked a couple of jokes during their presail conferences, and even bought her a beer after one meeting, but he was no closer to knowing the woman behind the title than he had been the first day. Maybe she wasn’t even human — a robot of some sort, put on his ship—his ship — solely to annoy him.

  Stop it, he told himself sternly. This is your problem, not hers.

  When he’d heard Bethlehem had won the highly coveted billet as skipper of his flagship, Coyote had been taken aback. Sure, he knew who she was — everybody in the tightknit Naval Aviation community did. She’d been first in her class in Basic Flight, first in her Hornet class, first in damn near everything she’d attempted. The word on the flight line was that she wasn’t just another bow to political correctness. She was a cold, tough pilot, a superb aviator, and a natural leader. If she’d been born male instead of female, she would have ended up in a command billet eventually.

  Eventually. But maybe not so fast. And maybe not as commander of the most battle-tested aircraft carrier in the fleet. My carrier, my Jefferson.

  Even though she’d managed to resist his considerable personal charm, Coyote had been prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt. After all, since he’d commanded Jefferson himself, he’d be around to give her a few pointers. He’d succeeded in convincing himself that Captain Bethlehem was going to work out just fine.

  And so far, she had. The ship—her ship—was in the highest readiness condition he’d ever seen. Every combat system, every measurement of personnel performance, was breaking records in the fleet. Hell, even the food was better.

  So why was it that she was such a thorn in his side? Was he just a tad bit pissed off that her statistics in command of Jefferson were higher than his had ever been?

  He’d talked it over circumspectly with an old friend, Admiral Batman Wayne, not getting right to the heart of it but edging around the issue. Batman, as usual, had nailed the heart of it. “You’re a Texan and she’s a good-looking woman.” Batman had cocked one quizzical eyebrow at him. “You see any reason for this problem you’re having?”

  “I don’t,” Coyote had replied stiffly, aware that the back of his neck was itching, as it always did when he strayed from the truth.

  “Ah. So it’s like that, is it?” Batman smirked.

  “No, it’s not,” Coyote snapped. Then belatedly. “Like what?”

  Not that he’d had to ask. As soon as he’d seen that snide expression on Batman’s face, Coyote had known the truth. Captain Bethlehem, a tall woman with striking blue eyes and blue-black hair, was indeed one of the most attractive women he’d run across in a long time. And not just physically — there was something about her presence, her command presence, that attracted him in a way he didn’t understand.

  Pushy women weren’t his type.

  “I’ve doubled the lookouts as well,” Captain Bethlehem continued, apparently oblivious to the fact that her admiral had yet to turn and look at her.

  “Good.” Finally, his innate sense of courtesy and good manners shaming him into action, he turned to face her.

  Seated, his face was level with hers, although he had a good six inches in height on her when they were both standing. Once again, he was conscious of the fact that they were built along similar lines, both lean and smoothly muscled, both taller than most people around them. On her, however, the overall impression was one of a competitive swimmer, while Coyote had always verged on an awkward lankiness.

  “Any new word from United States?” she asked. For the first time, Coyote could see the strain in her face, and he felt a moment of shame for his earlier surliness.

  “No. Fire’s out, reflash set. I imagine we’ll hear from them when things settle down. This is bound to change things,” he answered.

  Coyote was itching to grab the mike and call his counterpart on board United States to see how it was going. But he resisted the urge, knowing that the captain and admiral on board the other ship had far more important things to do than talk to him. Eventually, when they got out the required alert messages, treated all the casualties, and made sure that the area around the ship was cleared of potential threats, they’d have time to talk. But not until then.

  “We’re ready,” she said simply, knowing as well as he did what was coming. The Jefferson would be ordered into the Red Sea and would take part in any retaliatory strikes. It was only a matter of time.

  “I know you are,” he said, and was only slightly surprised to realize that he meant it.

  The call, when it came, was simple and straight to the point. Admiral Blair Jette, call sign Jetson, sounded tired and unusually candid. “It could’ve been a lot worse, Coyote. A lot worse. If the fire had spread to the helo, we would’ve been fighting a Class Delta fire.”

  Coyote shuddered. “Not a good thing.”

  “You got that right.”

  “So. Any damaged operational capabilities I should know about?” Coyote asked.

  “Nothing that should affect you. We’ve had to reroute a few fire lines, but that’s about it. Nothing we can’t handle with ship’s crew. But what worries me is the larger situation here. That small boat — we never held it on radar at all. It was all visual.” Jette’s voice held a note of wonder, as though he still wasn’t able to understand how a small wooden craft had posed such a danger to his carrier.

  “That worries me, too,” Coyote admitted.

  “Listen, the intelligence indications we’re getting down here — if I were you, I’d be standing by to inchop the Red Sea. Things look like they’re heating up again, and you may want to be in position to strike.”

  “That bad?”

  “Potentially. Nothing we can’t handle, of course.” The cocky note that Coyote had come to associate with Jette was back, as though he hadn’t just fought a fire on board his ship. “Take a look at your intelligence circuits — you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

  Coyote glanced to his right, and Commander “Lab Rat” Busby, Jefferson’s intelligence officer, stepped forward. He was a short man, barely topping five feet six inches in height, perhaps 130 pounds soaking wet, and most of that was devoted to brainpower, Coyote believed. Lab Rat’s pale blue eyes, light hair, and light eyes had earned him his nickname in his early days of aviation training.

  Without keying the mike, Coyote asked, “What’s he talking about?”

  “Four more violations of the no-fly zone, this time with some fairly serious aggressiveness. There was one strafing run on a group of refugee trucks. Also, we have some human intelligence, not of high confidence, but still, that there are some new developments in Iraq’s biological-warfare program.”

  “What sort of developments?” Coyote asked. The strafing runs, the no-fly zone — normal stuff, even if detestable. But anything having to do with biological weapons really got his attention.

  “No one knows for sure, Admiral. The
report may have been sanitized pretty heavily before it was sent to us, but if you read between the lines, you can tell what’s going on. Whatever it is, the folks back at the CIA are worried about it.”

  “Ebola? Something like that?”

  That diminutive intelligence officer shook his head. “I don’t think so, nothing but a few details. If I had to guess — and mind you, it’s just a guess — I’d say black plague.”

  A shudder ran through Coyote. The name alone conjured up apparitions so horrible that he hated to contemplate them.

  “Coyote, you still there?” Jette asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” Coyote answered as he tried to sort out the implications of what Lab Rat had just told him. “Catching up on a few things with my intelligence officer. And I agree with you, it looks like the stage is set for another major play. But under the circumstances, I’m not inclined to move into the Red Sea immediately. The waters are little bit too constrained for my taste.”

  “Exactly so, but there’s no reason to be too concerned about that.” The other admiral’s voice sounded, if anything, even cockier than before. “This time of year you get a good wind across the deck — no problem launching and recovering.”

  “Constrained waters,” Coyote began again, but Jette cut him off.

  “The only reason a carrier needs much water is to launch and recover aircraft, and the prevailing winds are right along the whole length of the Red Sea. So you’re a little closer to land — big deal. Nothing that your close-in weapons systems can’t deal with.”

  Like yours just dealt with the Stringer?

  Jette should know better. Sure, he was new to his battle group and had spent more time in Washington than on cruises, but that was no excuse. The constrained waters were something to worry about, and it had nothing to do with a man’s guts or courage. It had to do with good, prudent seamanship.

  “Well, we’ll stand by for orders,” Coyote said finally. “I’ve been in the Red Sea and know that we can deal with shorter reaction times.” The Silkworm sites — I guess I better brush up on those. There’s no telling what else they have in the area now.

  The Silkworm was a powerful, short-range antiship missile that packed a wallop. It could do far more damage than a little Stinger could, penetrating hulls and strakes to detonate deep inside the ship. It didn’t have to look for an open hangar bay to kill.

  “Just keep your boys and girls on their toes and you won’t have any problems,” the other admiral advised, oblivious to the reaction he was producing in Coyote’s command center area. “And when you get ready to come in where the action is, let me know. We can update you on the situation.”

  “I’m in the Mediterranean, not San Diego,” Coyote snapped. Sure, he was willing to make allowances for Jette’s arrogance, given what he’d just been through, but tolerance would go only so far.

  “Right, right. Well, catch up on your liberty ports and maybe we’ll see you on the front line eventually. United States out.”

  Coyote replaced the microphone in its holder, grinding his teeth in frustration. Why, oh why, did he have to be deployed with that particular admiral on this cruise?

  The order came later that night. Unless otherwise directed, the USS Jefferson was to inchop the Red Sea and stand by for additional orders. She was to remain in a heightened state of security, particularly in regard to threats from shore-based installations and small boats.

  Coyote scanned the orders, then passed his copy to the Chief of Staff. “I’ll be in Medical, if anyone needs me.”

  “Anything wrong, Admiral?” his chief of staff asked.

  Coyote shook his head. “Nope. Just antsy about the biochem thing. I’ll feel better when I know exactly what we’re doing to plan for it, that’s all.”

  He trudged down the ladders and passageways toward Medical. All around him, the crisscrossing lines and pipes were evidence of Jefferson’s intricate, self-contained life-support system. Potable and firefighting lines, electrical junction boxes and compressed air lines and steam lines, all meticulously labeled, surrounded him. Not for the first time, he marveled at how self-contained the Jefferson was. The nuclear power plant provided virtually unlimited energy, sufficient for the ship to make all the fresh water she needed, run the pumps and filters that cleaned her air, provide power to everything from ovens to power tools, not to mention the lights and the air-conditioning. If threatened by nuclear fallout or biological and chemical weapons, Jefferson could button up and put a positive pressure gradient on her interior spaces, making it virtually impossible for any foreign material to enter the ship.

  But every strength had its corresponding weakness. Setting Dog Zebra, the material condition that isolated Jefferson’s interior from the outside world, could make her a safe haven in a dangerous environment — or turn her into an incubator. And that little nightmare was just what he wanted to talk to Medical about.

  THREE

  Bull Run, Idaho

  Wednesday, September 12

  1000 local (GMT -7)

  Kyle Smart had had one particular characteristic in mind when he went hunting for a new dog. Previously he’d been primarily interested in how the dog would get along with the kids, whether it could be trusted around the chickens, and at least the possibility that it might turn into some sort of hunting dog. Black Dog — which is how the last dog had been known — had met those criteria admirably. Though he’d never been much to look at, with his slightly bulging eyes, short shiny black coat, and German Shepherd build, he’d slipped into the family as though he’d been born there.

  One night, Kyle had heard the rabid baying of the coyotes. The next morning, Black Dog failed to show up for breakfast.

  That was then. This was now. Kyle no longer worried about how good a dog was with kids.

  The Internet was responsible for Kyle’s change of priorities. The computer hooked up to the phone line had originally been purchased with the idea that the kids needed it for school. It was an older model, running at a modem speed that would be laughable to most other people, but to Kyle it was a gateway to skills and talents he never knew he had. He understood immediately how it worked, and discovered the Internet was a vast storehouse of knowledge. And if there was anything that Kyle needed right now, it was that.

  Things hadn’t been going all that well at the farm. The two hundred acres that had been in his family for generations were still struggling valiantly to produce crops, but time and overfarming had taken their toll. More and more, Kyle had to rely on man-made chemicals that he couldn’t really afford to bolster production. And without the added production, he couldn’t afford the chemicals. The vicious circle went on.

  It wasn’t just the land, either. It was the way the whole world seemed to be going, as though not much made sense anymore. Sure, he knew about the ’60s and hippies and everything like that, although he been too young to participate. And there was no denying that some things had changed in some ways for the better over the last several decades. But what bothered him most was the way the government seemed to be working.

  Or, more precisely, not working. Increasingly, the measures that came floating out of Washington to the remote areas of Idaho seems aimed personally at him. Farm subsidies were down. Added taxes sent the cost of fuel and fertilizer skyrocketing. The bombing in Oklahoma had even made purchasing fertilizer more difficult, and every day it seemed that taxes went up just a little bit more.

  He knew he wasn’t the only one feeling the changes. Last Sunday afternoon, while the children screamed around the church playground and the women gathered in corners to talk about God knows what, Kyle and the other men had tried to figure things out. If only they could see a reason for it all. Like if all the government shit was necessary to protect them from the Soviet Union. Or nuclear war, or depression. But no matter how they turned the issue around, upside down, and inside out, it didn’t seem to make any sense.

  Finally, Gus Armstrong, who owned a stretch of land two farms to the north of the Smart spre
ad, put it this way. “It’s not our government anymore. Boys, we just have to face the facts. America’s not what she used to be. And if we don’t do something about it, it’s all going to be gone for good.”

  There was a general murmur of agreement, some of the voices angrier than others. “Next election,” Kyle began, but was cut off by a snort of disgust from Gus.

  “I’m not talking about elections. There’s nobody left to vote for, anyway. Ever since Nixon, it’s been downhill — except maybe for Ronald Reagan.”

  “They’re making the ordinary citizen out to be a criminal, and electing the real criminals to office,” put in another. “It’s just not right.”

  No, it wasn’t right. Kyle could feel it in his bones, with an even deeper conviction than any he’d ever felt inside the church behind them. Standing there, with his neighbors and his parents, their grandparents and his grandparents buried nearby, he felt a small surge of hope, or something like it. At least he wasn’t alone. They knew what he was talking about, and it affected all of them.

  Gus stood a little straighter, his hands on his hips, pelvis tilted forward slightly. A bank walker, that’s what Gus was, Kyle thought. He had been ever since he was a kid. Strutting around naked on the bank of the pond after the rest of them had jumped in, trying to show off what he had. Not that it was all that much. But it didn’t matter to a real bank walker.

  “I, for one, am not letting them take everything I’ve worked for. That my family’s worked for. If they come after me like they came at Ruby Ridge, they’d better be prepared to die.”

  One part of Kyle’s mind stepped back at that point, marveling at just how odd the world was getting. From a general discussion of the economy, the price of gas, and the difficulty of getting fertilizer, all at once they were back on Ruby Ridge. And what was even more worrisome was that no one else found it odd.

  “Maybe we ought to be ready for something like that,” one of them said hesitantly. They all, even Kyle, turned to Gus expectantly. The silence settled over them.