have to do.”
“Dammit, I don’t like it,” the CNO said. “It sends the wrong message. We can’t have sailors disobeying orders whenever they feel like it.”
“Nor can we afford to look like complete and utter idiots to the rest of the world,” the chairman observed. He flipped quickly to the pages, searching for anything that would make him change his mind.
In theory at least, he agreed with the chief of naval operations. In theory. But when it came to getting things done in Washington, to managing the health and well-being of the armed services, to representing their interest to congress, to molding the forces into groups that could try to fight the wide range of missions they were given these days, all the while juggling the current perceptions of the American public — well, sometimes theories just didn’t cut it.
He knew the chief of Naval operations understood that. He had to, or he would not have risen to his current position. The CNO was right — it did send a wrong message, both to the American public and to the military in general.
But the alternative was even worse.
“This youngster — Airman Smith — he’s come up absolutely clean on the extended background investigation I ordered. There’s no political agenda, nobody behind him. Not as far as we can tell.”
“I know. I saw the same report.”
“Then you understand why it has to be this way?”
“Of course I do. It’s just that I don’t like it. I don’t like it one damned little bit.”
“A good thing that’s not the requisite for this job. Liking everything we have to do, I mean.”
The CNO stood, sighed, and headed for the door. He paused, turned back to the chairman, and said, “One day this will come back to bite us in the ass, you know.” The chairman nodded. “Better an ass biting in the future than a castration at present, don’t you think?”
Airman Smith stood at attention in the flag passageway. He flexed his knees, trying to ignore the aching starting in his feet. His hands were down by his side, his thumbs along the seams of his dress white uniform. He stared straight ahead, in best boot camp tradition, holding his eyes locked on some point far off in the distance. He had been standing there for thirty minutes, studiously ignoring and being ignored by everyone that walked by.
They probably all knew who he was. They had to, didn’t they? He got mail from everywhere around the world, had seen his own face on CNN and ACN, and had read the carefully filtered reports that were allowed on-board USS
A hot sense of shame coupled with righteous indignation swept through him. Some letters bothered him more than most, and oddly enough, they were from people who were on his side. For the most part, they congratulated him on standing up to the evil empire that was the United States Navy.
They didn’t get it. They just didn’t get it. There was nothing wrong with the Navy, nothing at all. Given a choice — a choice he might not have now — he’d stand a Navy for at least twenty years. Hell, maybe even go for thirty. For one fleeting moment a few months back, he even entertained the idea of commission. Being an officer in United States Navy — now that was something to be proud of.
It wasn’t going to happen that way now. He tried to do the right thing, follow orders, obey the Greek officer under whose command he’d been placed. But didn’t they see how wrong this was for America? Nobody, not one single person, not even the fancy defense attorney they’d appointed to represent him had appeared to understand that.
It was wrong — pure and simply wrong.
The door to the admiral’s quarters opened, and a navy captain stepped out. Staring into the officer’s stern, impassive face, Airman Smith realized how ludicrous the idea that he could ever have been an officer was.
The master-at-arms standing behind him poked him lightly in the back. “Remember what I told you. Keep your cover on. I want to see you marching smartly up to stand in front of the admiral’s desk. Hand salute and sound off. You got that?”
“Yes, Chief.”
“Then get going.”
Smith’s muscles protested at first, but it was a relief to be able to take the weight of one foot at a time, anyway. The navy captain was holding the door open now, and Smith paused for a moment, instinctively uncomfortable at the idea of preceding a senior officer into the admiral’s quarters.
“Go on, son. I’m not going to bite you.”
Smith’s rigid concentration broke. He actually turned his head and stared into the captain’s face. Stern, yes, but he saw a trace of something else there. Not friendship, no — just a warmth that didn’t make sense. No, the captain wouldn’t bite him, but the captain’s boss was about to send Smith to a court-martial, and that was close enough.
“Go on,” the captain urged, his voice gentle. The master-at-arms poked him in the back again.
Stunned beyond belief, Smith operated on reflex. He stepped into the room, saw the admiral’s desk, and made his way forward at a brisk pace, squaring his corners. He stopped two paces in front of the desk, and snapped into a salute position. He waited until the admiral looked up, then said “Airman Smith, reporting as ordered, Admiral.”
A single sheet of paper lay on the desk in front of the admiral. Smith was too scared to try reading it upside down. Admiral Magruder gazed at the him for a moment, and pointed at the chair. “Sit down, Smith.”
There was dead silence in the room. Of all the things Smith had been expecting, starting with an ass-chewing then working its way up to a physical beating, an invitation to sit down was not among them.
“Go on, it’s all right. You and I need to talk.” Admiral Magruder looked up at the navy captain and the master-at-arms. “Thank you, gentlemen. That will be all.”
Smith heard them walking away behind him, and the
The admiral tapped the paper on the desk in front of him. “You’ve heard what’s happening in the world, haven’t you? That our allies the Greeks turned out to be not such good allies?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, what do you think of that?”
What did he think? Was the admiral actually asking the opinion of a very junior airman? Smith tried to find his voice, tried to think of something that didn’t sound stupid to say. “That was bad, Admiral,” he finally said, aware as he spoke how lame that sounded. “They shouldn’t have done that.”
The admiral nodded. “But they did. And it’s made a lot of people look very foolish. Powerful people, ones that really hate looking stupid. You can understand that?”
By now Smith’s throat was so dry that he could hardly speak. His hands were sweating profusely, and he could feel the moisture bleeding through the cotton pants to his legs. “I guess so, Admiral.”
The Admiral nodded once again. “What I’m going to tell you stays between the two of us, you understand. No talking about it with anyone else. Because you’re getting a very, very good deal, and it wouldn’t take much to screw it up.”
Smith couldn’t force words out of his throat, so he simply nodded. It was rude, yes, but it was all he could manage.
The admiral leaned forward and fixed him with a stare. “A lot of people probably think you did the right thing,” he said. “What do you think?”
“I… I…” Smith tried to speak, but his voice simply wouldn’t work. The admiral stood. Smith jumped to his feet as well. The admiral waved him back into the chair then walked over to a credenza and poured a glass of water. He crossed the room again to stand in front of Smith, towering over the airman like a dark god. “Here. Drink.”
Smith’s hands were shaking so badly he almost dropped the foam cup. He tried to sip on the cold water, coughed as it went down the wrong pipe, then tried again.
The admiral waited until he’d finished, then asked, “Want more?”
