Читаем The Command полностью

Dan was reflecting how once, and not that long ago either, detection of a Soviet destroyer would have sent a U.S. warship to general quarters. For his entire career, the Soviet navy had been the U.S. surface fleet’s number-one enemy. Now Yeltsin’s newly downsized Commonwealth of Fewer and Fewer Independent States was trying hard to impress the West with how great an investment opportunity they were.

Yeah, everybody was friends now. The Russians. The Chinese. The Wall was down. The Cold War, over. The vortex that had sucked down blood and treasure for fifty years. Could it possibly be everyone had learned to play together in the same sandbox at last? He told Camill, “If it’s on JOTS, the world knows about it, but let’s make a satellite voice report anyway. Just to reassure ’em we’re on the beat down here.”

He thought about getting Camill to plan an attack, just for drill, but didn’t. He hung up and lay back in the dark.

Then he couldn’t sleep. His mind was just jumping around. Thinking about this and that. Once they got back, they’d spend the next year more or less in port. Maybe some counterdrug ops in the Caribbean. About the time Horn started gearing up for her next deployment, he’d be briefing his relief. And maybe thinking about a civilian career. Except … he couldn’t think of a job that’d give him a tenth the satisfaction that welding this crew together had.

Yeah, they’d come through a lot: overcoming the divisiveness Ross had left, fixing the engineering and combat systems problems, getting the women accepted. It’d be tough to see them go. Especially since they’d added their little footnote to history.

But it happened to every crew. They’d transfer, ship out, get out, retire. And in later years they’d think fondly of their old ship, and whenever they met someone from her, they’d talk about this character and that; and maybe someday there’d be a notice in the Navy Times about a reunion. He’d heard the way former skippers talked about old crews and ships that were gone, heard the regret and homesickness in it, as if for a little while they’d actually tasted what life had promised when they were young.

The phone. “Skipper? Just got off the horn with CTF 60. They said they know about the Russian. Not an object of concern.”

Dan asked if there were any other contacts, and he said no. A second later the phone was back on the hook.

He was almost asleep again when someone tapped on his door.

* * *

“Who is it?” He kept his door locked when he slept, something he felt equivocal about but couldn’t neglect. Not in the navy of the 1990s, and maybe, thinking about the Bounty and the Globe and a lot of other infamous incidents over the years, maybe never. He leaned against the jamb, waiting.

“It’s me.”

Hotchkiss. He opened at once, and there she was in the dim red light of the passageway. He heard the ever present hum from the nav shack, the creak of steel around them. Not a heavy roll. Just a light, comfortable sway that told him they were taking the prevailing seas on the port beam. “What you got, Exec?”

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah.” He turned the stateroom light on as she came in, snapping the switch to red. Giving her visibility to navigate, but not so much he’d be dazzled if he was called to the bridge. She was limping and he took her arm. “How’s the knee?”

“Not so bad. Nothing broken.”

“That’s good.” They were face to face in the dim light. When she said nothing, he shifted his gaze and cleared his throat. “Well, what you got?” he said again.

“I’m afraid it’s about you,” she said.

He cleared his throat, trying to reorient even as his body, understanding more swiftly than his torpid sleepy mind, began to respond. In the red light her lips looked softer even than he’d dreamed. He stood riveted, unable, in that moment he’d fantasized so often, to move or act.

She looked around the stateroom she’d been in so often before. He saw it suddenly through her eyes. The rumpled blanket on the settee, the coffee cups racked over the desk. The hum of the computer. The sigh of the wind. The creak and sway around them loud enough, the devil in his heart proposed, to cover any noise they might make.

Finally she said, “Can I sit down?”

“Sure. Sure.” He waved to the chair, but she perched on the settee, almost primly, knees together. Looking closely he saw perspiration gleaming on her upper lip. He lowered himself beside her. Conscious suddenly he was in skivvy shorts and T-shirt, neither exactly fresh. “Thanks for helping me today,” she said.

“All I did was help you up.”

“With your arm around me. You know what they’ll be saying now.”

“I guess so. Yeah.”

He was so used to seeing Claudia Hotchkiss in control that seeing her nervous was almost frightening. Seeing her pressing her fingers together to keep her hands from shaking.

“We’re not going to be together much longer.”

“We’ll have to take her through the yard together. Then postdeploy-ment training. No,” he tried to joke it away, “I wouldn’t let go of the best exec I’ve ever had.”