“You're too loyal. Must be a lingering symptom of your time in the Marines,” Trent observed. “You'd be a good director.”
“Never happen.”
“True. Now that Liz Elliot is National Security Advisor, you'll have to cover your ass. You know that.”
“Yep.”
“What in hell did you do to piss her off? Not that it's all that hard to do.”
“It was back right after the convention,” Ryan explained. “I was up in Chicago to brief Fowler. She caught me tired from a couple of long trips and she yanked my chain pretty hard. I yanked back.”
“Learn to be nice to her,” Trent suggested.
“Admiral Greer said that.”
Trent handed the papers back to Ryan. “It is difficult, isn't it?”
“Sure is.”
“Learn anyway. Best advice I can give you.” Probably a total waste of time, of course.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good timing on the request, by the way. The rest of the committee will be impressed as hell with the new operation. The Japan-bashers will put the word out to their friends on Appropriations that the Agency is really doing something useful. We'll have the money to you in two weeks if we're lucky. What the hell, fifty million bucks — chicken feed. Thanks for coming down.”
Ryan locked his case and stood. “Always a pleasure.”
Trent shook his hand. “You're a good man, Ryan. What a damned shame you're straight.”
Jack laughed. “We all have our handicaps, Al.”
Ryan returned to Langley to put the NIITAKA documents back in secure storage, and that ended his work for the day. He and Clark took the elevator down to the garage, and left the building an hour early, something they did every two weeks or so. Forty minutes later, they pulled into the parking lot of a 7-Eleven between Washington and Annapolis.
“Hello, Doc Ryan!” Carol Zimmer said from behind the register. One of her sons relieved her there, and she led Jack into the back room. John Clark checked out the store. He wasn't worried about Ryan's security, but he had some lingering worries about the way some local toughs felt about the Zimmer enterprise. He and Chavez had taken care of that one gang leader, having done so in front of three of his minions, one of whom had tried to interfere. Chavez had shown mercy to that lad, who hadn't required an overnight stay at the local hospital. That, Clark judged, was a sign of Ding's growing maturity.
“How is business?” Jack asked in the back room.
“We up twenty-six 'rcent from this time las' year.”
Carol Zimmer had been born in Laos less than forty years before, rescued from a hilltop fortress by an Air Force special-operations helicopter just as the North Vietnamese Army had overrun that last outpost of American power in Northern Laos. She'd been sixteen at the time, the last living child of a Hmong chieftain who'd served American interests and his own — he'd been a willing agent — courageously and well, and to the death. She'd married Air Force sergeant Buck Zimmer, who'd died in yet another helicopter after yet another betrayal, and then Ryan had stepped in. He hadn't lost his business sense despite his years of government service. He'd selected a good site for the store, and as fate had it, they hadn't needed his educational trust fund for the first of the kids now in college. With a kind word from Ryan to Father Tim Riley, the lad had a full scholarship at Georgetown and was already dean's-listed in pre-med. Like most Asians, Carol had a reverence for learning that bordered on religious fanaticism, and which she passed on to all of her kids. She also ran her store with the mechanistic precision a Prussian sergeant expected of an infantry squad. Cathy Ryan could have performed a surgical procedure on the register counter. It was that clean. Jack smiled at the thought. Maybe Laurence Alvin Zimmer, Jr., would do just that.
Ryan looked over the books. His CPA certificate had lapsed, but he could still read a balance sheet.
“You eat dinnah with us?”
“Carol, I can't. I have to get home. My son has a Little League game tonight. Everything's okay? No problems — not even those punks?”
“They not come back. Mistah Clark scare them away fo' good!”
“If they ever come back, I want you to call me right away,” Jack said seriously.
“Okay, okay. I learn lesson,” she promised him.
“Fine. You take care.” Ryan stood.
“Doc Ryan?”
“Yes?”
“Air Force say Buck die in accident. I never ask anybody, but I ask you: Accident, no accident?”
“Carol, Buck lost his life doing his job, saving lives. I was there. So was Mr. Clark.”
“The ones make Buck die…?”
“You have nothing to fear from them,” Ryan said evenly. “Nothing at all.” Jack saw the recognition in her eyes. Though Carol had modest language skills, she'd caught what he'd meant by his answer.
“Thank you, Doc Ryan. I never ask again, but I must know.”
“It's okay.” He was surprised she'd waited so long.
The bulkhead-mounted speaker rattled. “ Conn, sonar. I have a routine noise level bearing zero-four-seven, designate contact Sierra-5. No further information at this time. Will advise.”
“Very well.” Captain Ricks turned to the plotting table. “Tracking party, begin your TMA.” The Captain looked around the room. Instruments showed a speed of seven knots, a depth of four hundred feet, and a course of three- zero-three. The contact was broad on his starboard beam.
The ensign commanding the tracking party immediately consulted the Hewlett-Packard mini-computer located in the starboard-after corner of the attack center. “Okay,” he announced, “I have a trace angle… little shaky… computing now.” That took the machine all of two seconds. “Okay, I have a range gate… it's a convergence zone, range between three-five and four-five thousand yards if he's in CZ-1, five-five and six-one thousand yards for CZ- 2.”
“It's almost too easy,” the XO observed to the skipper.
“You're right, X, disable the computer,” Ricks ordered.
Lieutenant Commander Wally Claggett, Executive Officer, “Gold,” USS Maine walked back to the machine and switched it off. “We have a casualty to the HP computer… looks like it'll take hours to fix,” he announced. “Pity.”
“Thanks a lot,” Ensign Ken Shaw observed quietly to the quartermaster hunched next to him at the chart table.
“Be cool, Mr. Shaw,” the petty officer whispered back. “We'll take care o'ya. Don't need that thing now anyway, sir.”
“Let's keep it quiet in the attack center!” Captain Ricks observed.
The submarine's course took her northwest. The sonar operators fed information to the attack center as she did so. Ten minutes later, the tracking party made its decision.
“Captain,” Ensign Shaw announced. “Estimate contact Sierra-5 is in the first CZ, range looks like three-nine thousand yards, course is generally southerly, speed between eight and ten knots.”
“You can do better than that!” the CO announced sharply.
“ Conn, sonar, Sierra-5 looks like Akula-class Soviet fast-attack, preliminary target ident is Akula number six, the Admiral Lunin. Stand by”—a moment's silence—“possible aspect change on Sierra-5, possible turn. Conn, we have a definite aspect change. Sierra-5 is now beam-on, definite beam-aspect on target.”
“Captain,” the XO said, “that maximizes the effectiveness of his towed array.”
“Right. Sonar, conn. I want a self-noise check.”
“Sonar aye, stand by, sir.” Another few seconds. “ Conn, we're making some sort of noise… not sure what, rattle, like, maybe something in the aft ballast tanks. Didn't show before, sir. Definitely aft… definitely metallic.”
“Conn, maneuvering room, we got something screwy back here. I can hear something from aft, maybe in the ballast tanks.”
“Captain,” Shaw said next. “Sierra-5 is now on a reciprocal heading. Target course is now southeasterly,
