The Command

At its northern end, where it bounded Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Jordan, the Red Sea split into two estuaries. The Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba branched off like an index and little finger extended to ward off evil. The two U.S. ships would be operating either just inside or just outside the entrance of the Gulf of Aqaba, depending on which sector the Senior Combatant Commander assigned them on arrival. The British, French, and Australians each had a frigate on the Red Sea station. They’d be refueled by an oiler out of Jubail; mail and spare parts would stage out of Sicily via a weekly C-9.

The Red Sea. He’d transited it in Van Zandt during the Iran-Iraq War, on the way to Operation Earnest Will. Had run it again in the strangely fated Oliver C Gaddis, on her way to the Far East. But he’d never operated there long, not at night, in close proximity to land, under an air threat. And most of his people had never been here before. Many had never deployed before.

Maritime interdiction operations, MIO. Not the most technically challenging assignment he could imagine, but maybe that was for the best, given they’d just gotten here.

“Set up a preaction briefing. All officers, chiefs, tactical petty officers. How about during the canal transit, while we lay over?”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

He studied their faces. When he’d joined the navy, a black ops officer would have been unlikely, a female exec unthinkable. Their smooth young faces filled him with vague alarm. But he hadn’t been any older when he’d filled their shoes…. He swung his legs down. “A thorough briefing,” he added. “I want everyone to see the big picture, not just his, uh, not just their own little piece of it.”

Camill left, but not Hotchkiss. “Captain, a word?”

“Sure.”

“Alone?”

“At-sea cabin?”

“That’s fine, sir.”

Dan looked at the officer of the deck. Resisted the temptation to check the radar. He wasn’t going to micromanage them, much though he wanted to. The tote board gave him no surface contacts inside fifteen thousand yards…. He felt uneasy leaving such kids in charge. Was this how Jimmy John Packer had thought of him, back on Reynolds Ryan?

“Captain’s off the bridge,” Yerega shouted behind him as the door to the pilothouse swung shut. He went down a short passageway, passing the nav shack.

His at-sea cabin was the size of a bathroom in a middle-class house. A leatherette settee stood along the starboard side beneath a blue-curtained porthole. Forward of that was a small desk with a shaded light over his notebook computer. Inboard was a shower and water closet. That was it. The reward of the general, he thought, is not a bigger tent. He pointed to the settee, then raised his eyebrows as she closed the door. “We need it closed, XO?”

“Maybe so, sir.”

She looked calm and self-possessed, as usual, but slightly flushed. He couldn’t tell whether it was anger or excitement, but it was intriguing. He steered his mind away from wherever it was going. “What you got, Claudia?”

She unclipped manila and spread the photos on leatherette.

They were of Palma. At least, the first two. The others were of Horn sailors having fun on liberty. On the beach. His heart sank as he thumbed through them. Eyes bleary, breasts bouncing as they ran into the sea. Lifting bottles, mugging for the camera. Not exactly pinup material, but that wasn’t the point. The Bacchae had gotten drunk and naked, too. At the peak of their revels they’d selected a man, chased him down, and torn him into bloody lumps of flesh.

“They’re all over the ship,” Hotchkiss told him. “Lin Porter walked into the first-class lounge in the middle of the movie. She found this set on the table.”

Dan looked through them again, playing for time. But Hotchkiss must have gotten the wrong idea, because she said sharply, “Do you find them exciting?”

He decided he’d better miss her point. “What I find interesting is that they’re enlargements. Not Polaroids.”

“Which means they were printed aboard.”

“In the Evinrude spaces,” Dan said.

The intel weenies were the only ones who had darkroom capability. He turned the photos facedown and cleared his throat. “It’s not what I’d call good news. But it’s not the end of the world, either. Sailors are sailors, I guess, of either gender. Sometimes they get drunk on liberty. Sometimes they display poor judgment. Occasionally they’ve even been known to take their clothes off.”

“With all due respect, I don’t like that comment, sir. It strikes to the root of the problem on this ship, and I think it requires corrective action.”