Читаем The Command полностью

The civilian advisor drawled, “Don’t keep asking how we know. Ask what we know, then what it means. One last detail: it was a Saudi diplomatic passport.”

Diehl whistled.

The captain said, “If I could forge a diplomatic passport, I’d do it for someplace obscure, where no one could check on whether it was genuine — like, Sierra Leone.”

“That’s right. Therefore, I don’t think it was forged,” the CIA man said.

Diehl said, “You mean the Saudis are playing us both ways? Hosting us, but helping these guys attack us? Aisha — what do you think? Does the Moslem mind work that way? Mine sure doesn’t.”

The black woman said coolly, as if, Dan thought, he hadn’t just insulted her whole religious community, “I would regard it as more likely that it was forged. We know this organization, whatever it is, has sophisticated capabilities.”

Karnack got up. The military members bolted to their feet; the civilians simply looked up. The admiral said, “I’ve got to move on. But before I do, I’d like to get certain things clear with Captain Lenson here.”

“Yes, sir,” Dan said.

“People tell me you have a rep for taking independent action. Pending the results of the investigation, you’re forbidden to move Horn inside Saudi territorial waters. Nor will you approach the Saudis or the Bahrainis in any way outside of official channels.”

“I had no intention of—”

“Don’t tell me your intentions. Listen to my orders. Any unauthorized action on your part will result in your instant relief. So you won’t take any. Am I crystal clear, Commander?”

“Yes, sir, Admiral, you are.”

“That goes for the Bahrainis, too,” Karnack said to Diehl.

The civilian advisor said, “He’s saying the crime, the attempted crime, took place in their waters. The attack was launched from their streets. None of you — that goes for you NIS clowns, too — are going to try to solve it yourself.”

With that the meeting seemed to be closed, or at least Karnack, the colonel, and the advisor left. Those who remained looked at each other, then, as one, began stowing away what cold water was left for the trip back.

* * *

On which, he found himself with Ar-Rahim and the intel captain in the second Suburban. They didn’t start the conversation. So he had to, or sit in silence all the way back to Manama. “You work with the Bahraini cops, don’t you? Ms. Ar-Rahim?”

“To some extent.”

“I heard the guys who actually ran the dhows were all Bahrainis.”

“That’s right.”

“No outsiders?”

“All Bahrainis.”

“So the only outsider was this doctor guy. I’m wondering what if anything’s going to get done about him.”

“We’re continuing the investigation,” Ar-Rahim said.

The captain said, “That’s the official answer. The unofficial one is: Probably not much, if he’s actually Saudi-sponsored.”

“You think that’s possible?”

“You heard everything I just heard. As to doing anything about it, that gets decided at a lot higher level. This administration doesn’t like to strike back without a clearly identified guilty party. You were on that last launch from the Red Sea, weren’t you?”

Dan nodded, remembering the missiles roaring away into the sandstorm. The captain said, “We already proposed a punitive strike against the Sudan. With Horn participating, for the public relations aspect. The ship they tried to blow up, striking back.”

“My guys’ll be happy to smoke whoever tried to take us out.”

“No they won’t, because it got turned down. It might lose us basing rights for the Southern Watch overflights.”

“So we do — what?”

“At most, they’ll try to get the Saudis, and maybe the Sudanese, though we don’t seem to have much leverage there, to cough this guy up. Which they probably won’t, based on their performance to date.”

“There’ve been other bombings like this, haven’t there?” Ar-Rahim said.

“Let’s talk about that in a secure location,” the captain said, and Dan figured what he meant was, not in front of Dan Lenson and the enlisted driver, since he couldn’t think of a more secure location to talk than in a huge SUV tearing across the desert at eighty miles an hour.

But he was just the dumb ship driver who wanted to shoot first and ask questions later. But from now on, he was going to pay a lot more attention to security. Marchetti had been right. If the Machete hadn’t trained the boarding team and personally led them aboard the dhow, they might all be dust motes floating over the Arabian Peninsula now.

He looked out the window and there was the dog again, or maybe not the same one, just another gaunt-ribbed starving-eyed pariah mutt. If you had to be a dog, Saudi Arabia was probably the worst place in the world to live.

When they’d gotten back to Bahrain, and he was getting out, back inside the compound, the captain had leaned out and put his hand on his arm. “Karnack wasn’t joking,” he said.

“I didn’t think he was.”

“No independent action. You’ll get sailing orders tomorrow. Out of the Gulf, is my guess. You just go play destroyer captain and let us handle the downstream effects. Copy?”