Choosers of the Slain

6

Night had fallen over Rio. From the observation point atop Sugar Loaf Peak, a scattering of tourists and Cariocas looked down upon the starblaze of the city and the darkness of the harbor beyond. Centered in that darkness were the two American warships, glowing blood tone like twin rubies on a black velvet sheet. In the distance could be heard the faint, persistent thudding of rotors.

Closer in, the view was far more hard-edged and prosaic. Cross-decking operations were in full swing aboard the Duke. SAH-66 Sea Comanche helicopters came bellowing in across the water, cargo pallets slung beneath their sleek, fishlike fuselages like pendulous growths. Coming to a hover over decks illuminated by red-lensed floodlights, they eased their payloads down onto the replenishment hard-points. Cargo handlers dashed in, braving the hurricane-velocity downdraft to trip the manual shackle releases so the helicopters could lift clear and cycle back for the next run.

From that point on, it was all on the backs of the Cunningham's sailors. Munitions, spare parts, lubricants, rations, ship's stores of all descriptions had to be sorted out, hogged over to cargo elevators and shell hoists, or packed down companionway ladders. She was a big ship with a comparatively small crew, lacking the luxury of a horde of deck apes and warm bodies. All hands were turned to and would stay that way until the job was done. The destroyer was engaged in a cannibalistic fete at the expense of her smaller sister, gorging herself in preparation for what was to come.

"Begging the Lieutenant's pardon, but what in the hell was he thinking of!"

"I was thinking that she was a pretty sharp-looking lady."

"But she's the fuckin' captain!"

"She wasn't wearing her oak leaves on her swimsuit, Gus," Lieutenant Vince Arkady commented mildly to his systems operator, Petty Officer 1st Class Greg "Gus" Grestovitch. The aviator and the AC-1 had been flying together for some time now and were accustomed to speaking the truth.

"Yes, sir. But begging your pardon again, she has to be at least a three-striper. She's gotta be ancient!"

"Haven't you ever heard of the mystique of the older woman?"

"Oh shit… sir."

Their helo was down on the Cunningham's landing pad for fuel and a fast round of tactical servicing between cross-decking runs. Accordingly, the two naval aviators were taking the opportunity to report in to their new duty station. In the light of certain recent events, even Arkady was willing to concede that it might be a rather sensitive task.

Going forward, they climbed an interior companionway ladder to the second level of the destroyer's deckhouse. Down a short stretch of passage they found the door that bore the ominous designation, "Captain's Quarters."

"We're dead."

"Shut up, Gus. Here…" Arkady shoved his flight helmet into his SO's stomach. "Hang on to that while I go in to do the honors. It'll give you something to do with your hands besides chewing on your fingernails."

Vince approached the gray-panel door, lifted his hand, and hesitated. Damn! Why couldn't that fine lady have been a schoolteacher or a cocktail waitress or a nuclear physicist. Anything on God's green, but his new CO? He took a deep, deliberate breath and knocked.

"Come in," a husky alto replied.

The last hope was gone. He couldn't mistake that voice. Vince flipped the door handle and stepped through briskly. Coming to attention, he fired a precise salute to the figure seated at the desk.

"First Lieutenant Vince Arkady of Heloron sixteen, reporting aboard for duty, ma'am."

Steady, boy, keep those eyes focused on nowhere. Keep that face in neutral. One hint of a grin or a smirk and you are dog meat.

She coped well. Those incredible eyes widened and her jaw dropped slightly, but then she caught herself.

"At ease, Lieutenant," she replied, half rising and returning his salute. "Welcome aboard the Duke. My name… my full name is Commander Amanda Lee Garrett."

She said the latter with a slight, wry smile. Suddenly Vince decided that things were going to be okay.

"Pleased to be aboard, Captain," he replied, peeling open the Velcro flap on the thigh pocket of his flight suit and removing the data disk case he'd been carrying. "Here are my service records, and those of the rest of the aviation detachment. The hard copies are still being processed aboard the Boone and should be across shortly."

"Thank you, Lieutenant. Have a seat. I'll be with you in a second."

She dropped back into her chair and snapped the disk case open. It was obvious that any dismay or embarrassment she may have felt over this second encounter was already well behind her. She removed a file — Arkady noted that it was his own — slipped it into the access slot of her workstation terminal, and activated the system with a precise, three-key finger dance.

She read silently and intently for a few minutes, leaving Arkady free to discreetly glance around the small, odd-shaped compartment. There wasn't much to be seen at first, beyond standard government issue. Then he began to note the personal traces Amanda Garrett had overlaid on her surroundings. The faint scent of cologne and baby powder mingling with the neutral, painted-metal warship smell. A thin, golden chain necklace coiled in a compartment of a desk organizer. A flash of unmilitarily bright clothing showing through the partially open door of an overloaded locker. Then there was the picture.

It was a small oil, mounted on the bulkhead behind her desk. Vince was no art expert, but he could recognize that it had been done by the same skilled hand as the larger painting he had seen in the destroyer's wardroom. It showed a white-hulled Cape Cod sloop running free before the wind, a young woman at the tiller. Her features couldn't be made out, but that distinctive red-brown-gold hair was easy to identify.

"That's impressive."

She had said just exactly what he had been thinking, and Vince mentally floundered for a moment until she continued.

"The Sea Comanche hasn't been with the fleet that long. I didn't think anyone had been able to accumulate four hundred hours in it already."

"I've been with the bird pretty much from the start," Vince replied, rather relieved to find that his new captain wasn't a mind reader on top of everything else. "HS Sixteen was the first squadron to get the SAH-66, and for a while before that, I flew with the operational conversion unit assigned to the type. Some of those hours are in standard Army RAHs, but essentially, there's not much difference."

"None of those hours are off of a Cunningham, though?"

"No, but I've flown the Cunningham-class approach-and-departure program a lot of times on the simulator. I've been checking the positioning points and approach angles just now while we've been cross-decking. They seem to match up pretty well. I don't see any problem."

"How about stealth doctrine?" she inquired.

"I'm current on the standard package and I've done some studying on my own. The Sea Comanche LAMPS and the Cunningham-class destroyer were intended as mated stealth systems, so I figured I'd pull duty on one sooner or later."

"Well, it looks like now will be the time. Are your people aboard yet?"

"No, Captain, they had to pallet up our maintenance kit and our spares. They should be coming across inside the hour."

She nodded approvingly. "Good enough. Commander Hiro should have your billeting assignments ready by then. Now, what kind of an outfit am I inheriting?"

"They're solid, Captain," Arkady replied with certainty. "I've got a good air detachment and a first-rate systems operator."

"Good, I'm glad to hear it. Now, what about you?"

"Me, ma'am?"

"Yes, how good are you at what you do? An accurate personal assessment, please. Excessive modesty is of no more use to me than excessive machismo."

Arkady noticed that Amanda Garrett was one of those rare individuals who look directly at a person when they speak to them. Most people were uncomfortable doing that, they angled their line of vision slightly to one side or the other. She didn't. She fixed those big hazel eyes right on you, alert and calmly demanding of all pertinent information. He decided there and then never to play poker with this woman and never, ever, attempt to lie to her.

"I'm good, Captain. Just about anything you want done with a helicopter, I can do."

"All right." She nodded. "I'm glad to hear it, because as of now you're my new senior air group officer.

"I think you'll find that basically we have a sound outfit here on the Duke as well," she continued. "It might be a little ragged around the edges, primarily because our current pilot is still a bit of a nugget. Nancy is a competent officer, but she desperately needs more shakedown time."

Vince nodded. "I know Ensign Delany from the squadron and I can concur with that. She got a raw deal when she got dumped out on her own like this, first crack out of the box. Do you think there'll be any problem with me bumping her out of the group leader slot?"

"My guess is that you'll be greeted with considerable relief. There shouldn't be any trouble."

She stood up behind her desk. "I suppose that should do it for now. I know that you've got more loads to fly and that you've got your people to get bedded down. We can finish the paper chasing tomorrow."

As Vince got to his feet, Amanda extended her hand out to him. "I say again, Lieutenant Arkady. Welcome aboard the Cunningham."

There was a formality to the way she spoke, like a queen accepting a retainer into her court. Vince almost found himself bowing over her hand instead of shaking it.

"And I say again, ma'am, glad to be aboard."

They exchanged parting salutes. Vince had turned for the door when she called him back.

"Arkady," she said levelly. "There is one other thing. I don't think I really have to say this, but just for the record, what happened on the beach today doesn't cut either of us one millimeter of slack on the decks of this ship."

"I never figured that it would, Captain."

Gus Grestovich straightened from his slouched position against the bulkhead as his pilot exited the Captain's cabin. He looked on as the aviator stood in the passageway for a moment, an odd, thoughtful smile on his face.

"How did it go, Lieutenant?" the SO asked apprehensively.

"Hm… Oh, it went just fine, Gus. No problem. We're all dialed in."

As they started back down the passageway, Vince threw his arm around his SO's shoulder. "In fact, pal, I think we're gonna like this boat."

Amanda gazed at the door for several seconds after Arkady had left. Eventually, a small snicker escaped her. It grew into a full-fledged gale of laughter that tilted her back into her chair until her head thumped lightly against the bulkhead.

Of all the total improbabilities of the world. No wonder the poor guy had looked as if he'd been struck by lightning this afternoon on the beach. Good Lord! What if Chris hadn't found them when she did and the topic of mutual professions hadn't cropped up until later? Say, as pillow talk at about two in the morning.

The concept was intriguing. She bit her lower lip in amused consideration for a moment, then shrugged and returned to the work at hand.

However, she soon found that she couldn't get back into the mission data scrolled up on her terminal. Her concentration had been broken. There was another task, though, that she had wanted to tend to. Now would be an excellent time to take care of it.

The Cunningham had been granted a direct microwave link into the Rio telecommunication net, so it was a matter of simply tapping the fourteen-digit international calling code into her desk communications deck. A quarter of a minute later, an old-style wall phone began to ring in response in the kitchen of a sea-gray ranch house outside of Norfolk, Virginia.

Amanda visualized the lean, angular figure that would come slamming in from the converted garage studio, still sea-tanned and with a white crew cut, likely clad in his usual paint-smeared Levi's and sweatshirt.

Four rings and a curt "Yo!"

"Hi, Dad."

Rear Admiral Wilson Garrett, USN (Ret.), grinned into Ms end of the circuit. "Hi, Angel. How's it going?"

"It's going fine, Dad. How about you?"

"Stinkin', but what's unusual about that? You still in Rio?"

"For the moment."

"How is it? Rio is one liberty port that I never had the chance to hit."

"It's a beautiful city, Dad. I only had this afternoon to wander around, but I enjoyed myself. How's the latest masterpiece coming?"

"Like I said, stinkin'. I've shaken my sources down for every photo and model of the South Dakota-class battleship they can come up with. I've been sketching all week and l still can't find what I want."

"I wouldn't worry. You'll nail it down sooner or later."

"I had an idea. When you get into Mayport, why don't you see about getting a couple of days' leave? I could drive down and pick you up and we could go over to the Alabama memorial in Mobile. We could poke around her for a while and maybe I can find the feel I'm looking for."

"It sounds fine, Dad. The thing is, I won't be getting into Mayport for a while. We've been diverted."

"They're finally putting that gold-plated spit kit of yours to work, huh? What have you got?"

"I can't say."

"CNN just broke a story about things going to hell between Argentina and Great Britain in the Antarctic. Are you getting a piece of that action?"

"Sorry, Dad. I can't say."

"Okay, I get you. Can you at least tell me when you're going to sortie?"

"In a couple of hours. I don't know when I'll get back in anywhere. I… well, I just wanted to talk a little."

"I know the feeling, Angel. At least the phones work better now. Sometimes back in the good old days it would damn near require an act of God and Congress to get a call in stateside from Bahrain or the PI."

"We're almost in the same time zone, too. Mom and I would sometimes wait up till two or three in the morning for one of your calls to come in. We never minded, though."

"No, you never did."

There was a remembering kind of silence at the other end of the line, then Wils Garrett went on briskly. "Well, Captain, is that special-effects barge ready to go or not?"

"Admiral Daddy Sir, the Duke came off the ways ready."

"Good enough, just don't let those black boxes do any of the thinking that you should be doing. And another thing…"

In the passageway outside, the MC-1 speakers blared. "Security detail! Lay topside to the quarterdeck. On the double!" Simultaneously, the watch officer's circuit began to blink urgently on the phone control pad.

"Hang on a second, Dad."

Amanda switched across to the new call. "Captain here."

"Ma'am, we've got a problem with the refueling. Could you please come topside?"

"I'm on my way."

She went back to the land line. "Dad, something's come up. I've got to go."

"Okay. Listen, real fast. Project High Jump, 1946. A study was done on destroyer operations in the Antarctic. It's dated, but it's the only one of its kind ever made. Get a transcript!"

"Will do, Dad. I've got to go. I love you."

"Love you too, Angel. Be careful."

Hanging up the phone was one of the more difficult things Amanda had done that day. Like the end of one of those three A.M. phone calls from the Persian Gulf, it was the cutting of a slender thread that had momentarily connected her with someone she held very dear. Only, this time she was the one taking a fast ship into harm's way and her father was the one who had to wait for the next call. She found herself rather urgently wishing that her mother were still alive. Waiting was a little easier when you didn't have to do it alone.

She shook off that train of thought and got to her feet. She had her command to tend to.

Amanda shuddered a little as she stepped out onto the weather deck. She didn't like the blood-colored illumination of the battle lights. She knew that there was a superb reason to use the red-lensed arcs. Red light doesn't destroy night vision. However, there was something eerie and unnatural about standing in that glare and still being able to see the stars.

The Brazilian navy had been exceptionally helpful and efficient about the Cunningham's request for fuel. Just as dusk had settled in, one of their harbor tugs had brought a heavily laden tank barge alongside to receive the destroyer's replenishment hoses. Fueling operations had been going on for some time, but now apparently something had gone extremely wrong.

The deck officer and the gangway watch were peering down over the side and the security team was standing by at the head of the gangway itself. Amanda noted that they had the Velcro retaining tabs on their holsters pulled open.

She took her own quick look over the rail. There was obviously a confrontation of some kind going on aboard the barge. A cluster of blue-coveralled destroyer hands were facing off a smaller group of dungaree-clad Brazilian sailors. At the foot of the gangway, Chief Thomson was apparently having it out with a short, heavyset officer.

"What's going on here, Stewart?"

"I'm not sure, ma'am," the deck officer replied. "There was some problem with the refueling and Commander Thomson yelled up to get you on the double. There was some yelling and shoving going on between our people and the tug crew, so I also called away the security team."

"Right. Stand by, I'll check it out."

Amanda clattered down the gangway to stand beside the engineer.

"Okay, Chief," she demanded quietly, "what's going on?"

"These sons of bitches were trying to sabotage us!" Thomson snarled, as angry as Amanda had ever seen him before. The Brazilian tug skipper replied with a barrage of Portuguese backed by a flurry of gesturing.

"Dammit! You spoke English five minutes ago!" Thomson exploded.

"Stand easy!" Amanda snapped. "What do you mean by sabotage?"

"They tried to slip us a load of contaminated fuel."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, ma'am. I was checking the fuel quality before we took it inboard, like I always do. You know the kind of… stuff you can get in these third world ports. Everything went fine while we were loading from the first four cells, but when I start to test the fifth cell, this… entleman climbs all over me. He tells me to knock it off and keep loading because he's behind sked or something. I tell him to take a hike and I run my check."

"And?"

"Take a look."

The Chief hunkered down beside an open POL testing kit and picked up a half-pint glass beaker. Standing erect again, he took a pencil flash from his shirt pocket and played a beam of white light on the little container.

It should have contained a high-density kerosene compound, optimized for use in marine gas turbine engines and mixed with an explosive-suppression agent. Amanda was surrounded by the waxy, raw petroleum scent of it. It also should have been a clear fluid with a pinkish tinge. The substance in the beaker was murky, except for a half-inch-deep colorless layer at the bottom where fuel and contaminant had started to separate out.

"Water?"

"Uh-huh. The next four cells are all just like it."

Amanda took the beaker from Thomson and turned to confront the Brazilian officer. "I want an explanation for this," she demanded quietly.

The tug captain was taken severely off guard. As the product of a culture where women still deferred to men, he had discounted the arrival of this woman who thought she was a naval officer. Too late, he realized that indeed she was a naval officer.

She faced him now with her back arched, eyes narrowed, and with the air around her practically crackling with controlled anger. The Brazilian fervently wished that he had never heard of this assignment and groped for his rusty English.

"The water in the tanks may have come from damage, Capitão. An accident—"

"Bullshit!" Thomson exploded. "That water isn't leakage."

He gave his testing kit a sideways tap with the toe of his deck shoe. "It's fresh and chlorinated. They were too damn lazy to pump it up out of the bay, so they contaminated those cells with a dockside hose."

Amanda glanced over her shoulder at the engineer. "Chief, could you and your people handle the entire fueling operation?"

"Sure. The valving and fittings are pretty much standardized."

"And is there still usable fuel aboard this barge?"

"Begging your pardon, ma'am. But they likely didn't piss in it all."

"Then bypass the contaminated cells and continue the refueling. Indicate to the Brazilian personnel that they are to stay out of our way until we've finished topping off. Also put the duty security team in the wheelhouse of that tug. Keep them off their radio-telephone until we're done."

"Aye, aye, Captain."

"This is not authorized!" the agitated Brazilian officer said, stepping forward. "There must be investigations! This is not authorized—"

"Silence!"

Amanda continued in an ominously low voice. "Mister, you — and, I presume, the government that you represent — have just tried to disable my ship. I am not pleased about this."

With great deliberation, Amanda poured the contents of the beaker down the front of the Brazilian's uniform.

"An official protest will be filed, but until then, you may inform your superiors of this. You do not ass around in this fashion with the United States Navy. You do not ass around in this fashion with the USS Cunningham, and you most definitely do not ass around in this fashion with me!"