Eberhard sighed. 'Very well, we've done our job. Now we see if the Einzvo's clever exit gambit works…. Pilot, maintain course. Full speed ahead, make revs for thirty knots.'
'That takes us toward the Truman, sir,' Beck said. 'They won't expect us to egress in that direction.' Beck went back to watching the Honeybee screen. Some Super Stallions sprayed foam on the water near the
Button, to try to hold back the flames.
'Interesting,' Eberhard said. 'I haven't seen that tactic used before.' Other helos were busy retrieving burn victims from
the sea. One aircraft, full with wounded, flew back to the distant carrier. The Fitch's decks were swarming with huddled figures now, and many more still weakly climbed her nets, but there couldn't be more than a hundred or two survivors there, and the Button had carried eight thousand.
Beck saw other escorts approach the Button to help. He spotted a Viking orbiting overhead, a fixed-wing four-engine sub-hunting plane, acting as local air traffic controller for the rescue. More antisubmarine Seahawk helos, twenty knots slower than Stallions, arrived from Truman, to relieve surviving Seahawks low on fuel. But instead of deploying to threaten Deutschland, they formed a line and used their downwash to drive the burning oil away from the life rafts and the troopship's stern. The perverse armistice between Deutschland and the escorts was holding. Soldiers continued jumping from Button's side in droves. Her main deck was barely ten feet from the water now.
'New airborne visual contact,' a technician said. 'Two helicopters approaching from north, range thirty sea miles.' 'Zoom in more,' Eberhard said.
'Those are Royal Navy sub-hunting aircraft, long-range Merlins.' Beck saw each had only one torpedo — their maximum load was four, but that reduced their combat radius.
'They must have launched from the escort reinforcements,' Eberhard said. Beck felt uneasy. 'Sir, recalling the Brits' behavior in World War Two, against our Uboats giving aid to Allied seamen, they're quite likely to drop nuclear weapons in spite of the rescue efforts underway.'
'I concur.'
'Surface-tension impacts!' Haffner said. 'Contacts on acoustic intercept, bearing north. Royal Navy active sonobuoys.'
'Use Polyphems, Captain?' Beck said. Polyphems were anti-aircraft missiles, launched from a torpedo tube. 'No, I want to send the Americans a message…. Achtung, Sea Lion in tube seven, preset maximum yield, maximum attack speed. Snap shot, due north. Los!'
The weapon was fired. Beck watched the visual imagery, and monitored the data from the Sea Lion through its wire. 'Local escorts not reacting to our weapon.'
'They don't want to break our little truce.'
Beck waited while the unit ran, under the Merlins and past them. The helos heard it and tried to escape. 'Teach them a lesson, Einzvo.'
Beck ordered the weapons officer to detonate. Another mountainous geyser blasted into the sky, well beyond the horizon. The fireball rose a moment later; the shock wave caught the Royal Navy helos from behind. They shattered, and flaming aviation gas rained to the sea.
Eberhard smiled. 'Now Fitch knows we haven't exhausted Deutschland's atomic arsenal.' The image from the Honeybee wobbled, then steadied. 'Last Honeybee's fuel is running low,' Beck said. 'Give control to me.'
Beck watched as Eberhard used his joystick to focus near the Button, on two rescue swimmers putting a soldier into a litter in the water, under a hovering Stallion. The litter started to rise on its winch cable, toward the door of the big helo. The rotor downdraft punished the surface of the sea. Eberhard followed the litter, moving the Honeybee closer.
Beck saw the soldier was badly burned from head to foot. Beck realized the soldier had breasts. He realized she was alive. I did this, he told himself. He knew he'd be haunted by the memory for the rest of his natural life.
The litter arrived at the door of the helo. The crew chief steadied the winch cable, and two other Marines shifted the litter into the aircraft.
The crew chief, in flight helmet and rubberized protective anti-radiation suit, suddenly noticed the Honeybee. The man's dark autopolarizing visor was up, so he could see what he was doing. He stared at Beck through the camera, as if to accuse him personally. Through the gas mask, Beck watched the marine sergeant's features harden with rage. He disappeared into the passenger compartment, and came back to the door with an M16. He knelt and aimed at Beck. The rifle's muzzle flashed. The picture went blank.
LATER THAT DAY, ON USS CHALLENGER
The air was breathable now, though to Ilse it smelled like bus exhaust and burnt plastic. She rubbed again at the deep marks on her neck, from hours in a breather mask. Ilse stood up as straight as she could and knocked on Jeffrey's stateroom door. She knew he was alone right now. She felt butterflies in her stomach.
'Enter,' she heard him call.
She slid open the door and went in and closed it behind her.
Jeffrey nodded. 'Miss Reebeck.'
This isn't going well, she thought right away. Even in private, we're back to a last-name basis.
Jeffrey sat at his fold-down desk, littered with maps and briefing papers. His laptop Was open and on. She ed to peer at the screen. He shook his head and close, the computer.
'How's your leg feeling?' Ilse tried to bring up something from their shared experience two weeks ago. 'What?' Jeffrey seemed puzzled. 'Oh. Yeah. It's funny, it stopped hurting before we got to Cape Verde. It must've been stress, not decompression sickness after all.'
Ilse sat down in the only guest chair. Jeffrey frowned.
'You mean, like psychosomatic or something?'
'I don't like big words like that,' Jeffrey said, a bit sternly. 'How can I help you?' Ilse tried to recover. 'I, urn, I wanted to mention. I took a first look at the data you gave me.'
'And…?'
'It isn't quite as bad as I thought. There's this thing called the Navy Meteorological and Oceanographic Command.'
'Yes. METOC.'
'They, they have an assessment of basic tactics, for infiltration and stealth. You know, into the Baltic? It needs some work, and it does lack recent cyclical trends, but it seems pretty good for a start.'
Jeffrey looked right at her. 'Did you think you were the first oceanographer to ever think about undersea war- fighting?'
Ilse decided to get to the point, before Jeffrey threw her out of his office. It dawned on her, all at once, that he was a very busy, very important man. The shy, stammering guy who'd tried to ask her out at Cape Verde was gone from her reach, maybe gone forever.
'I wanted to ask you, Jeffrey. What exactly is my status now?'
'First of all, it's Captain, or Commander Fuller.'
Ilse looked for something in Jeffrey's eyes, some hint of personal feeling behind the mask of authority. She didn't find it.
'I mean, sir, where do I fit in on the ship? Am I part of the crew? What am I supposed to be?'
This was the first time she'd called him sir in private, too. 'So far as I know, a formal status hasn't been specified.
I suggest you concentrate on the immediate task.'
Ilse took a deep breath, and exhaled, and felt like half her spirit left her body with the exhalation.
'Do you know what will happen to me, after this mission?' This was her last attempt to hold open a bridge to Jeffrey Fuller. Maybe they'd have time later, after the mission, when he could unwind.
'Frankly, I hadn't thought that far ahead.'
'I mean, do I—'
