Inside the radio housing, delicate circuits clicked over microseconds, recording the passage of time far more accurately than was needed for the bomb’s purposes. Twenty seconds before the scheduled detonation time, two activating relays kicked over to their ready position. Poised just a millimeter over the metallic hard points that would complete the electrical circuit, they surged invisibly with the current poised over their tips.
As the timing circuit clicked over to 0300, both contacts closed the last millimeter of distance.
Tombstone took another step over another knee-knocker. The digital watch on his wrist chimed gently on the hour.
His world exploded.
Tombstone slammed hard into the bulkhead on his right. His shoulder hit first, followed a split second later by his head. His foot, still poised over the knee-knocker, caught the metal ledge on his heel, spinning him back into the angle formed by the knee-knocker hatch and the bulkhead.
His chin slammed into the steel and he felt something crumple in his mouth.
He slid down to the deck, barely conscious. In the passageway, rolling down fore and aft on a wave of sound and smoke and flames. Tombstone felt the heat, searing and instant. Then it subsided slightly as damaged nerve endings shut down. Instinctively, he buried his head in his hands, shielding his face and eyes. It was a natural movement for a pilot?the eyes, his most critical personal asset aside from testosterone.
As his consciousness faded out, he noted how oddly quiet it was.
He slid to the deck, his cheek still scraping down the gray-painted metal bulkhead, and collapsed into an ungainly sprawl on the deck.
The explosion threw Shaughnessy down the passageway, slamming her into a fire hose coiled and mounted on the bulkhead. The impact stunned her for a few moments. She lay on the deck, heard the gonging sound of General Quarters begin, and feet pounding down the passageway, without entirely understanding what was happening.
“Shaughnessy!” A young man crouched next to her, shook her gently by the shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Full consciousness returned slowly. Shaughnessy stirred, and groaned as the numbness in her back seeped away. “I think so.”
Every second, her mind cleared more and more. “Help me get up.”
The other sailor shot an anxious glance down the corridor, then held out his hand. “Come on. General Quarters?are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, a frown on his face. “You don’t look so hot.”
Shaughnessy shook her head, took a deep breath, and shoved his helping hand away. “I’m all right. Let’s get up to the flight deck.”
The other sailor, Airman Mike Moyers, led the way. They darted down the passageway, keeping with the flow of sailors scrambling for General Quarters stations, then went up one ladder to the flight deck. Both were assigned to Repair 8 as their General Quarters station, the damage-control team that was responsible for the flight deck.
As they stepped over the knee-knocker and onto the tarmac, Mike grabbed Shaughnessy by the shoulder again. He pointed aft to a cluster of people. “There it is?thank God, no fire.”
Shaughnessy nodded. Of all the disasters they could face on board the carrier, a flight deck fire was one of the worst, second only to a fire in main Engineering. Uncontrolled, the flames could quickly engulf parked aircraft, weapons waiting to be uploaded onto wings, as well as the fuel outlets. In a matter of moments, a conflagration could destroy the entire fighting capability of an aircraft carrier. It had happened before.
“Let’s get suited up.” Shaughnessy took the lead as they darted toward their damage-control compartment. They joined a crowd of sailors thronging around it, struggling into asbestos-proofed fire-fighting ensembles, manning sound-powered phones, and generally gearing up for battle. It was the standard precaution. Even though there was no sign of fire now on the flight deck, there was no telling what damage the explosion had done below?and how it would spread.
Shaughnessy slipped the ensemble hood over her head, and the clear-tempered glass face mask immediately started fogging up. That was one of the worst parts about being suited up. While the gear provided excellent protection against most of the conditions a fire-fighting team would expect to encounter, the heat inside it quickly rose to a stifling temperature.
“Not yet,” the damage-control-party leader said, motioning to Shaughnessy. “Stand by, though?so far it looks like all we’ve got is structural damage.”
Shaughnessy gratefully took off the hood and took a deep breath of the fresh air. “What happened?”
Mike turned to her. “You were right down the passageway from it, weren’t you?”
“Are you hurt?” the damage-control-party leader asked. He assessed her carefully. “Big raw gash on your forehead?what else?”
“I’m fine.” Shaughnessy shook her head, aware of the ache that was already spreading down her back. “Knocked me around a little bit, but that’s all.”
“Well.” The damage-control-party leader dropped the matter, relying on her assessment of her own condition.
“But what happened?” Mike demanded again.
“I don’t know. I’d just passed an admiral in the passageway?Sixth Fleet, actually?and I was headed for the line shack. Then there was this big noise, and a flash. I must have hit the damage-control gear mounted on the bulkhead.”
She shook her head, remembering just how fast it had gone.
There hadn’t been time to react, not even time to be afraid. Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. “The admiral?what happened to him?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see anyone else in the passageway, but it was dark too.” Mike shrugged, and touched her gently on the back of the head. “Repair 2 will be on it. If he’s there, they’ll find him.”
Shaughnessy nodded slowly. It wasn’t her problem, not right now.
Still, Admiral Magruder had been in command of her carrier battle group during her last cruise. He seemed like a good guy, as admirals went. Be a shame if something happened to him.
“What was the explosion?” she asked. “There’s nothing in that part of the ship that could detonate like that.”
Mike shrugged. “You’re right about that.”
An uneasy feeling wormed its way into Shaughnessy’s gut. Disaster was possible in any part of the carrier?she knew that. The entire structure was honeycombed with electrical lines, fuel lines, and myriad other conduits. There was nowhere that was entirely safe, not even the flag passageway.
But a fire in that area of the ship would more likely be electrical in nature, not explosive. Smoldering circuits, the stench of burning insulation?that was what she would have expected to find if she had been dispatched as primary investigator during a disaster. Not explosives. It was almost as though-
“You don’t think somebody could have planted a bomb on the ship, do you?” she said, hearing just how very terrifying the words sounded even as she said them. “Not a bomb.”
“Team Leader, Investigator.” The point man on the fire team crouched down low in the passageway over the crumpled form. “One casualty?send a corpsman up ASAP.”
“Investigator, Team Leader. Interrogative conditions in your area? The corpsman?can he make it up there?”
The investigator assessed the condition of the passageway. The bulkheads were charred and black smoke still boiled and eddied about him.
Still, there were no signs of an actual fire. Not yet. That was his role on the damage-control team, to be the first in, to report back to the team leader, who could then decide how to dispatch his fire parties and desmoking teams.
