“We’re ready,” she said simply, knowing as well as he did what was coming. The
“I know you are,” he said, and was only slightly surprised to realize that he meant it.
The call, when it came, was simple and straight to the point. Admiral Blair Jette, call sign Jetson, sounded tired and unusually candid. “It could’ve been a lot worse, Coyote. A lot worse. If the fire had spread to the helo, we would’ve been fighting a Class Delta fire.”
Coyote shuddered. “Not a good thing.”
“You got that right.”
“So. Any damaged operational capabilities I should know about?” Coyote asked.
“Nothing that should affect you. We’ve had to reroute a few fire lines, but that’s about it. Nothing we can’t handle with ship’s crew. But what worries me is the larger situation here. That small boat — we never held it on radar at all. It was all visual.” Jette’s voice held a note of wonder, as though he still wasn’t able to understand how a small wooden craft had posed such a danger to his carrier.
“That worries me, too,” Coyote admitted.
“Listen, the intelligence indications we’re getting down here — if I were you, I’d be standing by to inchop the Red Sea. Things look like they’re heating up again, and you may want to be in position to strike.”
“That bad?”
“Potentially. Nothing we can’t handle, of course.” The cocky note that Coyote had come to associate with Jette was back, as though he hadn’t just fought a fire on board his ship. “Take a look at your intelligence circuits — you’ll see what I’m talking about.”
Coyote glanced to his right, and Commander “Lab Rat” Busby,
Without keying the mike, Coyote asked, “What’s he talking about?”
“Four more violations of the no-fly zone, this time with some fairly serious aggressiveness. There was one strafing run on a group of refugee trucks. Also, we have some human intelligence, not of high confidence, but still, that there are some new developments in Iraq’s biological-warfare program.”
“What sort of developments?” Coyote asked. The strafing runs, the no-fly zone — normal stuff, even if detestable. But anything having to do with biological weapons really got his attention.
“No one knows for sure, Admiral. The report may have been sanitized pretty heavily before it was sent to us, but if you read between the lines, you can tell what’s going on. Whatever it is, the folks back at the CIA are worried about it.”
“Ebola? Something like that?”
That diminutive intelligence officer shook his head. “I don’t think so, nothing but a few details. If I had to guess — and mind you, it’s just a guess — I’d say black plague.”
A shudder ran through Coyote. The name alone conjured up apparitions so horrible that he hated to contemplate them.
“Coyote, you still there?” Jette asked.
“Yeah, sure,” Coyote answered as he tried to sort out the implications of what Lab Rat had just told him. “Catching up on a few things with my intelligence officer. And I agree with you, it looks like the stage is set for another major play. But under the circumstances, I’m not inclined to move into the Red Sea immediately. The waters are little bit too constrained for my taste.”
“Exactly so, but there’s no reason to be too concerned about that.” The other admiral’s voice sounded, if anything, even cockier than before. “This time of year you get a good wind across the deck — no problem launching and recovering.”
“Constrained waters,” Coyote began again, but Jette cut him off.
“The only reason a carrier needs much water is to launch and recover aircraft, and the prevailing winds are right along the whole length of the Red Sea. So you’re a little closer to land — big deal. Nothing that your close-in weapons systems can’t deal with.”
Jette should know better. Sure, he was new to his battle group and had spent more time in Washington than on cruises, but that was no excuse. The constrained waters
“Well, we’ll stand by for orders,” Coyote said finally. “I’ve been in the Red Sea and know that we can deal with shorter reaction times.”
The Silkworm was a powerful, short-range antiship missile that packed a wallop. It could do far more damage than a little Stinger could, penetrating hulls and strakes to detonate deep inside the ship. It didn’t have to look for an open hangar bay to kill.
“Just keep your boys and girls on their toes and you won’t have any problems,” the other admiral advised, oblivious to the reaction he was producing in Coyote’s command center area. “And when you get ready to come in where the action is, let me know. We can update you on the situation.”
“I’m in the Mediterranean, not San Diego,” Coyote snapped. Sure, he was willing to make allowances for Jette’s arrogance, given what he’d just been through, but tolerance would go only so far.
“Right, right. Well, catch up on your liberty ports and maybe we’ll see you on the front line eventually.
Coyote replaced the microphone in its holder, grinding his teeth in frustration. Why, oh why, did he have to be deployed with that particular admiral on this cruise?
The order came later that night. Unless otherwise directed, the USS
Coyote scanned the orders, then passed his copy to the Chief of Staff. “I’ll be in Medical, if anyone needs me.”
“Anything wrong, Admiral?” his chief of staff asked.
Coyote shook his head. “Nope. Just antsy about the biochem thing. I’ll feel better when I know exactly what we’re doing to plan for it, that’s all.”
He trudged down the ladders and passageways toward Medical. All around him, the crisscrossing lines and pipes were evidence of
But every strength had its corresponding weakness. Setting Dog Zebra, the material condition that isolated
THREE
