Designated Targets

In the Combat Center of the Havoc, Captain Jane Willet watched the attack on-screen. Kennedy’s boat was the first contemporary vessel she’d set foot on, and it had left a strong impression. Standing in the slightly antiseptic chilled air of her own submarine, she couldn’t help but remember the raw sense of displacement she’d experienced as they climbed aboard the 101, to be greeted by its famous skipper.

He was the first celebrity she’d ever met. The runner-up in the fourth and final Australian Idol competition didn’t really count, even if a much younger Jane Willet had once upon a time waited for three hours outside the Sydney Hilton to get his autograph.

“So, Captain, were you swept away by the famous Kennedy charm?” asked her executive officer, Commander Conrad Grey, as they waited for the attack to unfold.

“Did I let him shag me, you mean, Mr. Grey?” she smirked.

“Oh, Captain, please, what will the junior ranks think?”

Willet snorted in amusement. “Well, he was a very handsome man, Commander. The image files don’t do him justice. But, no. Future president or not, he didn’t get a leg over. Didn’t even try. He seemed—I don’t know—very well mannered and quite normal.”

On the twenty-three-inch Siemens flatscreen, the two torpedo boats appeared in the opalescent green of low-light amplification, their wakes spreading and overlapping as they raced toward their prey. Part of her mind was out there with them. She recalled the faint stench of the boat’s Copperoid bottom paint, the smell of atabrine tablets on the crew’s breath, the abrasive feel of the saltwater soap in the officers’ head, and the taste of the powdered eggs and Spam covered in chutney that they’d eaten for lunch.

The strongest memory she took away, however, was of the crew’s grim black humor. They were a ratty-looking bunch, all half-naked except for the cut-off shorts and greasy baseball caps. They were unwashed and unshaved and had the resigned look in their eyes of men who didn’t really think they’d make it back home. But they adored their captain, who would obviously do anything for them. And the only nod he’d made in the direction of the bizarre fate that might await him was the hand-painted sign on the outside of the boat’s flying bridge.

It read, THE GRASSY KNOLL.

SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA HEADQUARTERS, BRISBANE

The small office in which Lieutenant Commander Nguyen now worked was crowded with men, all of them ’temps. There must have been fifteen or more squeezed in there, none of them sporting as much as a drop of deodorant. She was glad for the small circle of inviolate personal space around her that was guaranteed by the presence at her elbow of General Douglas MacArthur.

Nguyen had seen him around the building enough not to be completely freaked out. She’d even been part of a briefing team that had reported directly to him on one occasion. Nonetheless, it was quite an experience having such a legendary figure sit down next to her, so that she could talk him through the PT boat attack.

Interest in the convoy had metastasized since the incident captured by the drone earlier that day. More surveillance time had been allotted to the troopships, and additional analysts had been drafted in.

“It’s like they want to be seen,” Nguyen mused. “They have to be decoys.”

MacArthur removed the unlit pipe from his mouth—she had told him the smoke would degrade the computer’s circuitry. It was simpler than explaining the dangers of secondary smoke.

“How so, Commander?” he asked.

“Their blackout is seriously half-arsed, if you’ll excuse my French, sir. Ditto their emcon—emissions control, you know, radio silence and so on. They know from experience that if we can see them, we can kill them, but it’s like they’re not even trying to hide.”

“So you agree with Major Brennan that they’re a lure of some sort?”

“I think so—very much so, in fact—but I don’t have enough data to say for certain, General. If I had to take a punt, I’d say they’ve been sent down as sacrificial goats. Not to lure the Havoc into a fight, exactly. More to soak up whatever she fires at them.”

“Let’s hope we can get you some data, then,” MacArthur grunted as the torpedo boats began to churn up a lot of water. It showed on the display panel as an explosion of lime-green fairy floss on a dark emerald sea surface. Everyone in the room with a view of the monitor could clearly see individual figures moving to their stations on the deck.

“They’re accelerating for the run in.”

“Which one’s Kennedy?” somebody behind her asked.

“The lead vessel,” said Nguyen.

“Ha, that figures.”

She couldn’t tell whether the speaker meant well or not. She ignored him to concentrate on the feed from the drone. In contrast to the Japanese ships, the Americans weren’t giving anything away. They maintained radio silence, and no telltale jewels of light sparkled from within their blacked-out cabins. They were shut up nice and tight.