Payback

“Approaching Yorktown!” It sounded like the voice of God, a booming authority from on high from the sky outside and beyond the RS. Probably coming, Choir thought, from the Yorktown’s flight-deck horn. “I say again, approaching Yorktown.”

“Yeah, yeah,” snapped Aussie. “I heard you the first fucking time. Hooray for the Yorktown. Fucking idiot — where the fuck’s he think we’re heading to, fucking North Korea? Gomez, stop worrying. All that shit about Bone, it’s Al Jazeera — fucking A-rab station. They made it up.”

“But it was a CNN feed,” protested Gomez, while at the same time wanting desperately to believe Aussie.

Aussie’s contempt wasn’t abating, and he was resorting to his childhood epithets. “Ah, stone the bloody crows, mate. Just because it’s C an’ fucking N doesn’t make it holy. One of those bastards did a deal with Saddam’s son, remember? Prick told the CNN guy he was going to have one of his own relatives whacked when he came back to Iraq. Did the CNN guy tell what he knew? No, sir. He had too cozy a deal for CNN exclusives from fucking Baghdad with Saddam’s boy. They’re all in bed together, Gomez. Wake up, they don’t want the truth. All they want is more viewers like you. That Marte Price bitch, she’s no diff—”

“Aussie!” thundered the general. “You get a grip! That’s an ORDER!”

No one in the team remembered that tone. The general’s face was boozy red. “You!” hollered the general above what was now a din of cables slacking — they were on Yorktown’s flight deck, “keep your damned opinions to yourself. I don’t know what Gomez heard, but whatever—” He stopped mid-sentence.

The SES feed was now coming in beautifully, full color, showing Marte Price, mike in hand, the info block reading NARITA, JAPAN. “…an attack,” Marte was saying, “against North Korea, which the White House will neither confirm nor deny, and the photo of this man—” Bone’s face stared out of the screen. Marte’s voice faded for a moment, then came back full volume. “—who North Korean officials claim is an American and who they say confessed that he was part of the attack led by retired, and I want to emphasize that, retired, General of the Army Douglas Freeman. Erin, over to you.”

They felt the RS bump softly onto the Yorktown’s deck. Shortly after, there was a sharp rap on hatch one.

“No one,” added Freeman, “says anything. Got it? No comment. I’ll do whatever talking’s necessary after we debrief. I’ll go out first, check that the media isn’t anywhere near this tub.”

There were muffled “yessirs” from the seven other commandos. “Lieutenant Lee, you follow me if I give the all-clear. You need to see about that arm straightaway.”

“Yessir. Sorry about the loose pack.”

“Don’t be sorry. Be contrite.” The general actually smiled. For a moment he was like a forgiving uncle. “And don’t do it again!”

“No, sir.”

“All right, open the hatch.” It was a soft command by a dour Freeman, his voice having lost all its anger, an emotion he was afraid was about to flood over him again as he heard just what half-truths the NKA had been able to propagate.

“Yes, sir,” said Eddie Mervyn smartly. “Opening hatch one.”

Freeman looked up, saw a diving-masked face peering down at him. “Admiral sends his regards, sir, and the captain welcomes you aboard. I’m to tell you, General, that you can take all the time you need.”

“How do you know I’m a general?”

“Ah, well, I just saw you on the TV.”

“When, precisely? When?”

“Umm—” The man was thinking, seawater dripping from his shiny black wet suit. The sun was shining! “Ah, just ’fore we got on the helo.”

“Very well. Are there any media aboard?”

“Media? Don’t think so, General.”

“I want you to go make sure no media’s been flown in. I don’t want my boys having to contend with some cap-backwards camera loony poking a goddamn lens in their faces. They need rest.”

“Yessir. I’ll go check.”

“You do that, son. And close the hatch. That wind’s cold.” “Yessir.”

“SES feed is gone, sir,” Eddie Mervyn told a disconsolate Freeman.

There was a rap on hatch one again.

“Open it,” Freeman told Eddie.

It was the diver again. “No media, sir — yet.”

“Very well,” said Freeman. “We’ll be out in about ten minutes. Some hot coffee would be appreciated.”

“How about some Krispy Kremes?” said the diver.

“Sounds good to me. But—” He pointed to Aussie. “—no Krispy Kremes for my Aussie friend here. He’s on a diet.”

“Got it,” said the diver, giving Aussie a sidelong glance, before closing the hatch.

“Son of a bitch!” Aussie objected. “No Krispy Kremes!”

Salvini laughed. “The guy believed you, General.”

They all laughed, and the team feeling was back, previous remarks made in heat forgiven, but the general’s serious tone returned as he addressed the team.

“Before we exit this RS, I want to share a couple of suspicions with you — get your input. Something that’s been bothering me since before the mission, ever since the terrorists unloaded those three shoulder-fired missiles on the three planes and murdered all those folks — children especially — is the color of the missiles’ exhaust. It had a markedly bluish tinge, a fingerprint of high sulfur content. I won’t bore you with what led me to that conclusion.” He forced a smile. “Sounds crazy, but it has to do with onions. Maybe I’m just a worrywart here. Maybe I’m just taking counsel of my fears, never a good idea, I know. But I’m at a dead end with trying to figure out the connection, if there is any, between the color of the exhaust and anything else.” He sighed before adding, “But we’re not children, and sometimes you never get clean-cut answers to life’s mysteries, things that you see, things that you dream. The second thing that’s been bugging me is more tangible, however — more disturbing. I’m talking here about the presence of the HAN and the junk. Was it pure coincidence?” He left the question hanging in the air for a moment, before adding, “Maybe it was coincidence. After all, we were traversing one of the busiest sea routes in the world, between the North Korean and Japanese coastlines.”

Aussie, however, saw the general’s concern. “I don’t like coincidences.”

“ ’Cept,” joshed Sal, “when you win a few bucks on the nags.”

“Nags?” said Choir disingenuously, adopting a confused air to lighten the sudden dark mood that the general had brought upon them. “Nags? Are we talking about women or horses here?”

“I’ll tell Alexsandra you called her a nag,” said Aussie.

“Ah — in that case,” said Choir, “I withdraw my question. My apologies. Nevertheless, I think you’ll find that the HAN and our unflagged junk were nothing more than patrol vessels who happened upon us. Just think of how many patrol craft we have back in the States along our coasts.”

“Point taken,” said the general. “We probably would have seen more if it hadn’t been for the storm.”

“Oh, c’mon, guys,” Aussie challenged them. “Gimme a break! Storm, shorm…those two buckets were looking for an echo — not a surface ship but a submersible. What I mean is that someone must have seen us en route, via Hawaii. You can’t miss a friggin’ Galaxy landing in Honolulu. It’s the biggest bird we’ve got — can carry three Apaches fully armed and ready to go. So whoever saw us down their intel chain figured that that pallet drop — you know, the big fucking parachutes you can see for about a hundred fucking miles? — meant that something special was going aboard McCain. No one knew exactly what we had strapped to that pallet, not even the guys on McCain, because of the general’s neat mock-up job on the RS. But anyone who saw those big drogue chutes would have suspected that something out of the ordinary was going on aboard McCain. And if they don’t have a spy on that fucking Ullung Island, I’ll dance with Choir.”