Sea of Shadows

everything about everything, piling more and more pressure on themselves to achieve the impossible, until they either burned out or snapped.

Bowie scanned the faces of his latest crop of junior officers. How many of them would not make it over the hump? How many of these bright young men and women would resign their commissions and limp home with their spirits in tatters, never really understanding where they had failed? One of them, probably. Perhaps even two. But wouldn’t it be great if, just once, all of them could make the cut?

“If wishes were fishes,” Bowie said under his breath. He turned his attention back to the motor vessel Lotus Blossom. He would do everything in his power to help these puppies along, but only time would tell.

“Gather round, ladies and gentlemen,” he said over his shoulder.

“School is now in session.”

Still blinking as their eyes adjusted to the sunlight, the young officers collected around him in a loose semicircle.

“Let’s start with your assessment of the tactical situation,” he said.

“And then we’ll go from there.” He looked at Ensign Patrick Cooper, the ship’s Undersea Warfare Officer. “Why don’t you kick us off, Pat? Take a look at our problem child out there and tell us what you see. Throw in anything you think might be tactically useful.”

Cooper nearly flinched at the sound of his name, and then stood up straighter and squared his shoulders. “Yes, sir.” He looked out at the Lotus Blossom for several seconds. “Aft superstructure,” he said slowly.

“So she’s a Type-3 freighter. It looks like she’s a converted bulk carrier. From here it doesn’t look like the ship fitters did a very clean job.”

Captain Bowie smiled. “Is that a tactical observation, or are you just offended by sloppy work?”

Ensign Carol Harvey snickered until Bowie caught her eye, then she chopped it off instantly.

Ensign Cooper reddened. “It’s … uh … a tactical observation, sir.”

Bowie’s eyebrows went up. “Explain your thinking.”

“Well, sir,” Cooper began, “it seems to me that those old cranes make for a lot of deck clutter. They’ll provide good concealment for anyone who wants to hide from our search teams. It probably wouldn’t take much for someone to stage an ambush from one of those old cable housings. On another note, I wouldn’t be surprised if our guys run into that same sort of crappy workmanship in other parts of the ship. Bare electrical wires, rusted ladder rungs, leaky steam pipes, missing deck plates — that sort of thing. A lot of opportunities for our people to get hurt over there, especially with the sun going down.”

The captain nodded again. “All good points, Pat. These are the kinds of things you have to think about before you send your people into a tight spot.” He shifted his eyes to Ensign Harvey. “Let’s talk about the sunset issue for a moment. Carol, why are we sending our teams out to board a potentially hostile vessel while the sun is going down? More specifically, why don’t we order the Lotus Blossom to heave-to and drop anchor? Then we could sit here and keep an eye on her until the sun comes up and send our boarding teams over in daylight.”

Ensign Harvey cleared her throat. “I can see two reasons for boarding tonight, sir. First, if the Lotus Blossom really is a smuggler, any contraband cargo she’s carrying is going to get tossed over the side as soon as the sun goes down. The only way to prevent that is to seize the ship now and post a guard on the crew while we search the cargo.”

“Good,” the captain said. “What’s your second reason?”

Ensign Harvey grinned. “I just came from Combat Information Center, sir. The Lotus Blossom is still ignoring all attempts to establish contact. They won’t respond to our signal flags or our flashing light, and they refuse to answer on bridge-to-bridge radio channel 16, which international law requires all major vessels to monitor at all times. In other words, Captain, they’re ducking our calls. And we can’t very well order them to heave-to and drop anchor if we can’t even establish communication with them.”

“True,” Captain Bowie said. “I’ll bet ten dollars against a month’s pay that — when we do finally establish contact — we’ll discover that their bridge-to-bridge radio is broken, and somehow they just didn’t see our signal flags or our flashing light.”

“By the looks of things,” Ensign Elliot La’Roche said, “they haven’t noticed us at all. Personally, I think if I had a ninety-seven hundred — ton destroyer cruising a few hundred yards off my starboard beam, I’d probably notice.”

“I agree,” the captain said. “And that brings up another point of discussion. Why did we position ourselves on her starboard beam? This puts us close to Iranian territorial waters, and the Iranians do not like foreign warships in their water. If we crowd the line too closely, they’ll send a couple of missile boats out to keep us company. Wouldn’t it have been smarter for us to come in on Lotus Blossom’s port side? That would have kept us farther away from Iranian waters and less likely to provoke a nasty international incident, or — worse — a missile attack.”

Ensign La’Roche rubbed his chin. “It might have been a little safer to do it that way, sir, but it definitely wouldn’t have been smarter.”

The captain nodded once. “Go on.”

“When we first picked the Lotus Blossom up on radar,” La’Roche said, “she was well east of the established shipping lanes and hugging the territorial waters of Iran. According to our TACMEMOs, that’s a tactic favored by smugglers who are trying to penetrate the naval blockade against Siraj. It gives the smugglers a chance to dart into Iranian waters if they think they’re about to be intercepted. As I understand it, Iran has no particular interest in harboring smugglers, especially ones who are bringing aid to Siraj, but the Iranians are fiercely protective of their national waters. If we go in there, even in pursuit of a known smuggler, we’re going to get shot at. By coming in on Lotus Blossom’s starboard side, we cut off her escape route into Iranian waters.”

“Excellent,” the captain said. “You kids have done your homework.

One final question before recess …” Something caught his attention: the sound of approaching footsteps. He held up a hand. “Just a second.”

Lieutenant (junior grade) Mitchell Hayes walked up to the little group.

He came to an abrupt stop about two paces away from Bowie, drew himself up to attention, and snapped out a salute. “Sir! All equipment checks and communications checks are complete. The boats are ready and at the rail. VBSS teams Blue and Gold are manned and ready to deploy.”

Captain Bowie returned the salute. “At ease, Mitch.”

Lieutenant (jg) Hayes relaxed his posture a notch and held a radio headset out to Bowie. “Your crypto is loaded and keyed, sir.”

The captain nodded and took the headset. “Thanks. Your teams can stand easy for a few minutes. We have to establish comms with our suspect vessel.”

“How are we going to do that, sir?” Ensign Harvey asked.

“We’re going to give them a little technical assistance in repairing their radio,” the captain said. He pulled the radio headset over his ears and positioned the throat mike in front of his mouth. When he was satisfied with the setup, he keyed the mike. “TAO, this is the Captain, over.”

The Tactical Action Officer’s voice came back in his ear a second later.

“Captain, this is the TAO. Read you Lima Charlie. Standing by for orders, over.”

Bowie keyed the mike again. “TAO, this is the Captain. Lay a 5-inch round across the bow of motor vessel Lotus Blossom. You have batteries released, over.”

“Captain, this is the TAO. I copy — lay a 5-inch round across the bow of suspect vessel. I understand I have batteries released, over.”

The captain reached into the pocket of his coveralls and pulled out a pair of flanged rubber earplugs: a standard part of the at-sea uniform.

“Well, kids … I suggest you put your hearing protection in.”

* * *

A few seconds later, the 5-inch gun mount spun ninety degrees to the left with a speed that seemed