The Command

“Okay, get out. But stay forward of the deckhouse. The crew’s aft, and they’re armed. If they come forward, light ’em all up and let Allah sort ’em out.”

“Roger that.”

“Join up with Hopalong and Booger. Soon’s we get everybody clear and I confirm the crew’s out of range I’ll call the RHIB in. All right, where’s—”

Water came up the scuttle, racing toward him. Marchetti gaped at it for a second, it was that startling, it was moving that fast. Not only that, it wasn’t water. Or not just water. It was black. Smelled like oil. When it got to his boots he saw, yeah, it was oil all right. He turned and headed out after the others.

The deck was definitely taking on a list. He walked uphill to where the officers were crouching behind cover, pistols out. They were learning. Cassidy was on the horn to the Horn. Lizard was doing a Columbus into the sandstorm, shading his eyes and coughing. Marty looked but couldn’t see anything. He wondered if the coxswain was going to be able to find them in this murk. The ship had radar, but the RHIB didn’t. Maybe the ship could talk them in, if they had them both on the scope. If the scope worked in a sandstorm. He didn’t like the number of ifs that were building up. He touched the float coat, wishing it was a real life preserver. It had some flotation, but mainly it was to carry gear. If they had to go in, and there was a boat full of smugglers out there, he was going to hold on to the Mossberg. The .45 might go, though.

Kalashnikovs clattered in the Martian fog. “What are they shooting at?” Deuce wanted to know. “Oh. Shit. The RHIB.”

“I hope not.” But Marty figured it probably was. Which was not good news at all, at all. Fear was fast, they’d just drive away, but once away, that was it as far as coming back. Not in this muck.

The deck tilted more, and things started to fall inside the superstructure. Tires started to slide. Son of a bitch, he thought.

“Here she goes,” Crack Man mumbled. “Just like the fucking Titanic, only we don’t have a band.”

“Anybody see Turd Chaser? Amarillo?”

Nobody answered. They were looking past him. He turned, to see the water rushing up from the stern. Took a few steps aft and peered round the deckhouse. The rear davits hung empty, lines trailing in the water. No lifeboats. No ragheads. No life jackets. Just a rising tide, and the gas-station stench of crude. It was geysering from vent pipes in the deck. They’d been hidden by the tires, so you couldn’t see what looked like a junky worn-out freighter was actually a tanker. Oil smugglers, with orders to hold out if they were searched, and if they couldn’t brazen it out, to suck the boarding party aboard and ambush them. Then open the sea cocks and scuttle. Trapping them. Cute.

Berger said brightly, “Anyway, the water’s nice and warm.”

* * *

Half an hour later Dan glanced over the side. The lookouts were double-teamed, each man searching the murky sea for the missing.

The smuggler had dropped off the scope. Its boats were beyond pursuit, lost among the islets and reefs of the Jazireh-Ye Khark. All that was left was a boil of rising crude, sweet and heavy all around them in the hot air. Hatch covers, wood, scores of old tires covered the water, all greased with a black paste. And it was still coming up, bubbling from below as the ruptured tanks gave up their integrity.

The Gold Team was back aboard. At least, most of it. Two souls missing. He hoped they were around here somewhere. If they weren’t, they’d gone down with the ship. Trapped below as she slipped beneath the Red Sea.

He swallowed, thinking sickly that if he hadn’t gone to the launch basket they’d probably be alive.

Strong came out onto the wing. “I recommended you not leave them here. Not with the escalating pattern of Iraqi smuggling.”

“You said nothing about that, sir,” Dan said.

“Indeed, I did. You’ll have to explain yourself, Commander. First the dead Iranian. And now this.”

Horn searched deep into the night. She found many things floating on that dark water, but none were her children.

III AN ISLAND IN THE GULF

18

Strait of Hormuz

Quarters, quarters. All hands to quarters for muster, instructions, and inspection.”

Early August, and the heat was even more intense east of the Sinai than it had been to the west.

The day after the missile strike, and the disastrous boarding of the smuggler, Commander, Mideast Force had detached Horn from the Red Sea Task Force and directed Strong to shift his flag to Laboon. After refueling and reprovisioning at Jiddah, Horn had circled the Saudi peninsula. Today she was transiting the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf, where she’d report to the U.S. Naval Support Activity, Manama, Bahrain, for replacement of her generator, repairs to her switchboard, liberty for her crew, and an administrative hearing for her commanding officer before Commander, Destroyer Squadron 50, the permanent Gulf screen commander.