Choke Point

the White House didn’t know dick about handling a terrorist situation. Said they were wasting their time, firing a cruise instead of sending in helo snatch-and-grab squads — take some of the towel heads up an’ tell ’em, ’Talk or you’ll be the first A-rabs to walk in space.’ “

“So Clinton canned him?” asked Malcolm.

“No, the Pentagon did. Said Freeman was a loose cannon. Now they’re beatin’ the crap out of towel heads.”

“So how come Freeman’s still sidelined?” pressed Malcolm.

Jimmy shrugged. “Pentagon’s like anywhere else, I guess. Once you’re out, you—” Jimmy stopped as Freeman made his way to the stern’s A-frame and, standing by them, stared thoughtfully into the fog, as if willing his tired, deep blue eyes to see farther.

“Where’d you say the Skate was?” Malcolm asked Jimmy, in case the general suspected they’d been talking about him.

The general remained staring intently astern. He turned, looked directly at the two men, frowned darkly, then resumed staring out into the fog.

The two men moved away toward the dry lab. “He must have heard us,” said Malcolm softly.

Jimmy, turning for a last look at Freeman, almost tripped on the dry lab’s doorsill. “No,” he told Malcolm, “I don’t think he heard us.”

“C’mon, Jimmy. Did you see that frown?”

“It wasn’t meant for us,” replied Jimmy. “Something’s bothering him.”

Jimmy was right. Something was bothering Freeman, something he’d seen but couldn’t identify. Whatever it was, it was like a wasp hovering about, worrying you, when all you wanted to do was rest.

Right now, however, his first priority was to secure sleeping space for Sal, Aussie, and Choir and order them to rest, as if the three veterans of a dozen foreign wars needed a command to sleep after their grueling hours afloat and ashore. And the general’s second priority was to get rest himself. Besides, the last thing he wanted was to discuss with Hall or anyone else his failure to stop the sub in the crescent bay.

His team’s failure, everyone’s failure so far, stalked his sleep as he lay on a mattress brought to the dry lab, his snoring so loud that one of the side-scan technicians put on a pair of cranials.

“Goddamn,” the technician muttered, “I can still hear him.”

As a sailor, one of whose qualifications is the ability to live 24/7 with constant close-quarter noise, the tech’s complaint about Freeman’s train-whistle breathing was evidence, Frank thought, of the extraordinary tension aboard the Petrel.

In Washington, D.C., public opinion was overwhelmingly in favor of taking out Penghu. Both the Joint Chiefs and the Taiwanese government pointed out the extraordinary danger of allowing China to have a massive air base only fifteen miles from the island nation — two and a half minutes away by fighter-bomber. And, as many other American leaders and newspapers pointed out, most noticeably the New York Times, “If Taiwan, the only other democratic bulwark in Asia besides Japan, were to be lost, American power and influence, as well as its strategic and economic interests, would suffer irreparable harm.”

And the French were gloating, Le Monde commenting in an editorial that “once again Washington has to recognize that in its war against terrorism, in a conflict of such elasticity, its conventional force is passe and its navy has become what the Chinese call a ’paper tiger.’ “

The President said he didn’t give a damn what the foreign press said, especially France and Germany. The American people, however, did give a damn, and together with the Penghu military danger being pressed home with increasing fervor by the Pentagon, State, and Taipei, the President sought and received Congressional approval to “neutralize” the Penghu threat.

And so as Petrel approached the halfway mark of its search grid, the President ordered all battle groups to stand by, “pending imminent action against Penghu — collateral damage notwithstanding.” Which meant that whoever was to be tasked with the action would not allow the presence of Taiwanese hostages to impede the mission.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Admiral Jensen and Admiral Crowley had something in common. Jensen had been plunged further into depression over the promise of the NR-1B failing to materialize to rescue his all but fatally wounded reputation. Crowley, on the McCain, watching CNN’s report on the mounting public pressure, dared to hope that he might now have the chance to redeem his reputation as a superior decision maker, following what had already become known among those who’d survived the kamikaze attack on their beloved boat as “Crowley’s clanger.”

In the McCain’s blue-tile inner sanctums, officers and other ranks quietly wondered aloud whether they’d get a chance to avenge their dead with whatever the boat had left in her vault. Situated deep in the boat, these vaults or fortified ammunition magazines held over four million pounds of “payback.” There was everything down there from sparkling “virgins”—Standoff Land Attack Missiles-Expanded Response, or SLAMERs — to C-model air-to-ground, joint standoff missiles, each armed with a five-hundred-pound warhead with a mid-course accuracy of plus or minus fifty-two feet.

“That would do it,” said an ordnance chief petty officer in the vault. “Got enough here to turn that friggin’ Paygoo—”

“Penghu,” one of his fellow red jackets corrected him.

“Paygoo,” continued the CPO, looking about at the bright metal “coffins” that contained the “virgins” and the plethora of other land attack and air-to-air ordnance. As yet none of it was armed, but they were ready to go.

“If we get the call,” said the other red jacket.

“We’ll get the call,” the CPO said confidently. “That CNN skirt — one with the hooters — said there’s protest mobs outside the White House demanding we do somethin’.”

“Protests for war. Man, that’s a new one.”

The CPO was still thinking about “Paygoo.” “Could turn it into a parking lot after we’re finished with it.”

“After they fill in the craters, Chief,” said a green-shirted cargo handler.

“Yeah.” The CPO smiled.

“Yeah,” joined in the ordnance tracker. “If we get the order.”

“We’ll get it,” the CPO replied, his tone not brooking any dissent. “Who else is there? We’re Johnny on the spot. Besides, we’re the ones who got whacked.”

Admiral Crowley, anticipating, knowing, he’d soon be called in to launch America’s counterattack against Penghu, retired to what the Navy grandly called his “stateroom” for his daily ten-minute deep-diaphragm breathing, taking advantage of the lull in the normally thunderous roar of the “roof” directly above him. He switched on the TV, pressed “mute,” and lay flat on his back, his pillow under his knees. His son had got him doing the “destressor” routine, the admiral rejecting the idea at first, huffing and puffing about New Age cults.

“It’s not a cult, Dad,” his son had said. “Deep breathing, meditative techniques, are as old as the hills. Will you just try it? You’ll feel better when you do it.”

So the admiral was trying it, but with the door closed. He didn’t want the crew to think he was one of those damn yogis. And it was relaxing him — he could feel the tension of this terrible day abate somewhat. Of course, he had yet to write the families of all the men and women who had died, and that wouldn’t help his tension level. John Cuso had offered to help, and Crowley had accepted. They both agreed there would be no computer-generated crap, or fake “original” signatures. They’d write every one of the letters. Shipmates of those killed would, as usual, be a big help — providing personal details and, where appropriate, a humorous little anecdote to give the letters a more human touch. The padre would help too, but right now he was giving last rites to the dying and preparing for what would be the massive burial at sea.

CNN was doing its entertainment section. “Hollywood celebs caution a rush to judgment” was about one well-known singer-actor who’d apparently “terrified her fans” by threatening to leave America if Bush invaded Iraq.