Sea of Shadows

The OOD was Lieutenant (jg) Karen Augustine. Her hair was matted with blood, and she was holding a scrap of bloody T-shirt to her scalp, but her eyes were bright and alert. “Yes, sir?”

The captain glanced down at the helm indicators. “How much speed can you give me?”

The OOD scanned her consoles. “A little less than eight knots, sir.

Engineering is working to get us more, but right now, it’s a miracle that we can make way at all.”

“Eight knots it is,” the captain said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

CHAPTER 52

OVAL OFFICE

WASHINGTON, DC

MONDAY; 28 MAY

4:30 PM EDT

The television was a rear-projection model, a big one that slid neatly into a recess in the ceiling when it wasn’t needed. The big screen made Friedrik Shoernberg’s face look huge.

Veronica Doyle pointed a remote at the screen, and the Chancellor of Germany’s face winked out of existence. “I guess that makes it official,” she said. “How did you know he’d resign, Mr. President?”

“I gave him a little incentive,” the president said. “I assured him that the United States wouldn’t seek reparations if he stepped down quietly. And I told him we would back a British attack on Germany if he didn’t.”

Gregory Brenthoven stared at him. “Tell me you’re joking, sir.”

The president shook his head. “I’m not joking, Greg. I did tell him that, and I was serious. Shoernberg’s resignation and a formal apology from the Bundestag were the only things that could keep Emily Irons from declaring war on Germany. If Chancellor Shoernberg had refused to step down, I don’t think I could have prevented a war. And if I couldn’t stop it, the least I could do was try to end it quickly.”

“Lucky for us that you read Chancellor Shoernberg correctly, Mr. President,” Doyle said. “You called this play all the way down the line.”

“Bullshit,” the president said. “Bull … shit.” He shook his head slowly. “I predicted that Friedrik would take the easy way out if his ass was on the line. That’s the only thing I was right about in this whole god-awful mess.”

He looked down at a folder on his desk, bound in dark blue leather and embossed with the presidential seal. He hadn’t opened it yet, but he knew what was in it: an operational summary of the entire incident, complete with charts, graphs, and satellite photos. Some of those charts represented dollars spent. Others discussed fuel expended and the amount of ordnance that had been launched. And one of the charts would show him the cost of this fiasco in human lives.

“I was wrong about a lot more things than I was right about,” he said softly. “And an awful lot of fine young Americans had to die to show me how wrong I was.”

CHAPTER 53

USS TOWERS (DDG-103)

CONTINENTAL MARITIME SHIPYARDS

SAN DIEGO, CA

THURSDAY; 21 JUNE

1320 hours (1:20 PM)

TIME ZONE-8 ‘UNIFORM’

Captain Bowie stood at the rail of dry dock number four and looked down at his broken ship. Out of the water and up on the blocks, the massive damage to the port side was clearly visible, and it was much worse than even the most pessimistic part of him had suspected. Showers of sparks fell like blue neon rain into the concrete bottom of the dry dock, as shipyard workers cut out mangled sections of steel and welded in new ones.

Many of the crew were gone now — the injured to hospitals for treatment, the dead to their families for burial. Some of the injured would return to Towers when their wounds were healed, but not many. The next time the destroyer put out to sea, much of the old crew would be gone, replaced by newcomers to whom the battles that Towers had fought would be the stuff of legend.

“She put up a hell of a fight, sir,” a voice at his elbow said.

Captain Bowie turned to find Chief McPherson, her right arm still in a cast from shoulder to wrist.

The chief saluted with her left hand. “It’s tough to get used to saluting with the wrong hand.”

Captain Bowie returned her salute with a shadow of a smile. “It won’t be for much longer. You’ll be out of that thing pretty soon.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be all patched up and ready for battle.” She nodded toward the ship in the dry dock. “Just like the grand lady down there. Weld on a couple of hull plates, run some wiring, slap on a fresh coat of paint, and we’re both as good as new.”

She sighed. “We got lucky, sir. If that last sub had gotten past us, the Brits would be gearing up for war right now.”

Captain Bowie nodded. “We did get lucky, Chief. But I think our little tango in that minefield used up the last of my four-leaf clovers.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“They’re taking her away from me,” the captain said. “I got a heads-up call from SURFPAC this morning. Vice Admiral Hicks is hand-carrying my orders over himself.”

“I’ve never heard of SURFPAC hand-delivering orders before,” the chief said.

“I have,” said Captain Bowie. “Sometimes that’s how they do it when you’re being relieved of command.”

“What?” the chief said. “Relieved of command? They can’t do that!”

Captain Bowie smiled. “I’m afraid they can, Chief.”

“They’ve got no grounds to relieve you, sir.”

“Yes they do,” the captain said. “A ship under my command was sunk in combat, and that hasn’t happened since World War II. Not to mention that we lost every helo attached to our SAU. Apparently, the upper command thinks I mismanaged the situation pretty badly.”

“Mismanaged? Sir, with all due respect, that’s bullshit! Nobody could have done it any better than you did.”

Bowie shook his head and stared down into the dry dock at his wounded ship. “I worked for this my whole life,” he said. “I never gave a damn about making full-bird, and I never even thought about admiral. I wanted to command a destroyer at sea.” He shrugged. “I was lucky enough to live my dream, for a while anyway. I always knew that my time as CO of Towers would go by too quickly. But I never expected to get pulled out of the game early.”

He looked up the pier and pulled his walkie-talkie from its belt holster.

“Quarterdeck, this is the Captain. Sound six bells. Admiral Hicks is approaching.”

“Quarterdeck, aye.”

A few seconds later, the ship’s bell rang six times — three groups of two bells each, followed by the Petty Officer of the Watch’s voice over the 1-MC. “Commander, Naval Surface Force Pacific — Arriving.”

Captain Bowie and Chief McPherson came to attention as the admiral approached. When he was about eight paces away, they both rendered hand salutes, the captain with his right hand and the chief with her left.

The admiral promptly returned their mismatched salutes with a snappy one of his own. “At ease.”

They dropped into slightly more relaxed postures.

Vice Admiral Douglas Hicks had a folder tucked under his left arm.

He looked down and tried to brush a smear of dirt off the right leg of his uniform pants. “I shouldn’t have