The Command

THEY had dinner atop the hotel, looking over the coastal highway, out into the darkening sapphire Gulf. Northward, he thought. So Iraq would be over that horizon. Dozens, scores of rusty-hulled dhows were putt-putting in. As they neared they fell into line ahead. Then slowed, threaded the entrance to the artificial harbor, and gunned forward and back, stacks jetting blue smoke, fitting themselves into the shelter of the eastern mole. It was exotic, magical in the ending light.

“How long can you stay?” he asked her.

“Three days. Maybe four. How about you?”

“We haven’t gotten orders yet. I’ve got to do a generator swap, fuel, and do some — administrative stuff. Then we’ll probably go north, to the interdiction line.”

“We’re putting a lot of effort into that. Isn’t that what you were doing in the Red Sea?”

“Yeah, we put in a lot of hours. More than I thought we would.”

“Is it working?”

He veered her away from that question. He wanted to forget about the navy, oil, Horn, about everything he’d been doing for months. He wanted to concentrate on having a fine dinner in the company of a beautiful woman who was also his wife.

“How are your women working out, Dan? We’re very interested in that, on the committee.”

“They’re doing all right.”

“Just ‘all right?’”

“There are problems. I wouldn’t say more than with male sailors. But… different.”

“Pregnancies?”

“A few. Not enough to affect readiness. I guess if my XO got knocked up it might, but it hasn’t happened yet.” He caught her glance. “I’m joking, okay?”

“Oh, yes … Claudia. Is she working out?”

“Yeah. She’s good.”

Blair sipped her wine. Said casually, “Have you thought about what you want to do after this tour?”

“Well, usually it’s a shore billet after a command tour. Typically at one of the staffs.”

“The Pentagon?”

“Could be.”

“You don’t have any preference?”

“Something to do with operations would be good,” Dan told her. “Maybe joint operations, it seems like that’s the way things are going.”

“I want to get a house,” she told him. “I’ll probably be in the administration for a while. I don’t see anyone taking this president’s second term away, but there are figures who won’t stay for a second term.”

“So you could get a promotion?”

“We don’t call it that, but that’s what it’d be. If I do well where I’m at. And so far, I think I am. Oh, there’s grumbling at having a woman, and a Democrat, and somebody who hasn’t had any military service.”

“I can see the point about lack of service,” Dan said, “but the other shouldn’t matter.”

“Unfortunately, for some people they do. but they’re just going to have to live with it.” She shook her head. “Anyway, that’d put us both in town. I can start looking. If I find something I can send you pictures.”

Dan felt uneasy, but he wasn’t sure why. “Look, honey, don’t take this wrong, but I don’t want you setting up some special job for me. Understand? Just let the system work. I’ll talk to my detailer and see if there’s anything in the area.”

She picked at her fish. Then said, “You don’t like it when I bring this up. But what are you going to do after you get out of the navy?”

He tried to make a joke out of it. “Just being in takes all my attention, Blair. I don’t have time to think about anything else.”

“You told me if you made commander, that’d be it. So now you’re a commander.”

“When did I say that?”

“In Philadelphia. When you were getting the Gaddis ready to turn over to the Pakistanis.”

He was trying to recover the memory. Then had it: the garden of the art museum, the Schuylkill rushing by below, its cold breath coming up into their faces in the winter dark. “I didn’t mean I’d get out when I was a commander. I meant I wouldn’t make it to commander.”

“And now you have, and you’ve got the Medal of Honor, and a graduate degree, and you’re commanding a ship. Is this the old Dan Lenson I’m-doomed-before-I-start routine?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” He had to grin, thinking she was probably right. He did tend to look on the dark side. On the other hand, that side had turned his way, often as not.

“You need me around to give you these pep talks once in a while. I don’t think your career’s over yet. If that’s what you want.”

“Can we talk about this some other time?”

“Sure. But think about it, okay? … Aren’t those boats pretty?”

“Yeah, they’re pretty,” he said. Thinking only, as he looked out at their graceful shapes outlined against the declining light, that there sure were a lot of them, crowding in through the entrance to lie shoaled against each other as the nets of silvery gain came swinging ashore.

19

The coffee was rich and dark, the roll baked that morning. Doctor Fasil Tariq al-Ulam spread it with sweet butter and jam and ate it in small, leisurely bites in a street-front café across from the Guday-biya Palace as cars and Japanese-made trucks roared past in the early rush.