Tipping Point: The War With China - the First Salvo (Dan Lenson Novels) (10 page)

“Hey, Dan. Good to see you back.”

He turned to Donnie Wenck’s blond cowlick and slightly mad blue eyes. The chief held up a green wool sub-style sweater. “Wanna borrow? Cold as the ass end of Pluto in here.”

“It’s ‘Captain,’ Donnie, or ‘Skipper.’ Not ‘Dan.’”

“Sorry, sir, keep forgetting. Wait a minute, I heard something on the 1MC. Racker’s gone, yeah? I didn’t like that guy. Too fucking friendly.”

“I don’t need your opinions on the outgoing CO, Chief. How’s the system?” Wenck, who’d come to the ship from the Tactical Analysis Group along with Dan, was the “SPY chief,” in charge of maintenance and operation of the massive radars that guided her weapons.

Wenck turned back to the Aegis console, and a chubby-faced girl blinked vaguely up at Dan. “Hey, Petty Officer Terranova,” he said.

His lead radar systems controller turned a dial, and the familiar five-pops-a-second audio of the outgoing beam echoed like a query from some extragalactic civilization. She tapped her keyboard, and the raw video came up on the rightmost screen. An orange, slowly fading beam, clicking, not sweeping, in a clockwise march across the face of East Africa. There was the Rift Valley, where the first human had made the first weapon.… She muttered, “Hinky CFA, and I’m gonna have ta replace one of the switch tubes.”

Wenck said, “ALIS is being a hooker, as usual. Otherwise, you got about 98 percent. You know that Aegis math—one plus one equals four.”

“Chill water system still tight?” The chief nodded, and Dan lowered his voice. “And has Lieutenant Singhe throttled back on pissing off the goat locker?”

Wenck shrugged, as if talking about human beings bored him. Dan lingered for a while, then undogged the door and climbed two flights of metal ladders up to the bridge level.

Brightness and heat. Scarlet dust fine as mercury oxide coated the chart table, the top of the steering console, the objectives of the binoculars. Outside the windows, the green sea, flat and calm today, and the purple land far off. Not a single cloud. Two ships in sight, a tanker, low in the water, and a high-piled containership farther off, both blurred by the invisible dust hanging in the air, the shimmer of heat boiling off the water. Both stern to, which agreed with the radar picture.

Matt Mills and Noah Pardees turned to salute. Mills, the tall lieutenant, had joined them from Jenn Roald’s staff. Pardees, languid and almost too thin to be seen sideways, was the first lieutenant, in charge of the deck division. A golf fanatic, he’d practiced his putting on the pier every evening in Crete. “Welcome back, Captain. Glad to see you again,” Mills said.

“Good to be here, guys.” Dan looked past them, inspecting the horizon. “Keep your lookouts alert. Some of these little dhows are just about transparent to radar, and a lot of containerships go through here. We don’t want to hit anything that fell overboard.”

Pardees murmured an aye aye, and Dan wandered the bridge, greeting the helmsman, the quartermaster, the boatswain, the junior officer of the deck, and the gunner’s mates on the remote operating consoles for the chain guns. “Good to have you back, sir,” they murmured, though none seemed terrifically enthusiastic about it.

He understood why. He went out on the bridge wing and checked aft. Then gazed down into green water churned to white froth, listening to the steady roar of the bow wave as
Savo
’s stem ripped through it at twenty knots. Only then did he hoist himself into the leather command chair, grinning. With the drill schedule he’d directed, hardly anyone would get enough sleep in the next few days. They all knew by now; the word flew around a ship like telepathy. But a busy crew, even if they bitched, were happier than one with time on their hands. And far better a trained and tired crew on the screens and damage-control parties, than a rested, sloppy one.

A message he’d gotten loud and clear watching his own COs in the past, both those who’d driven hard and those who’d let the reins dangle.

“Coffee, Captain?” The gangling, pimply-faced Longley, holding a tray as if tempted to throw it overboard. Skippers no longer had stewards, per se, but they did usually have a culinary specialist to look after them if operations drove hard. He’d seen some men abuse the relationship, using the seaman as a personal servant. The essential thing was that he never show Longley any favoritism. So far it seemed to be working, but not because of any excessive effort on the kid’s part. The steward looked as rumpled and sloppy as usual in a stained white mess coat. “Chili dogs today. You gonna want lunch up here?”

“Let’s say yes for now. Especially if traffic picks up.”

“I set your shit, I mean your stuff, up in the at-sea cabin. And your computer.”

“That’s good. How you been, Longley? Pull any liberty in Crete?”

“Went to the zoo. That be all, sir?”

“Yeah. I mean, no. Is the shower still—”

“It’s unfucked, sir. Just let the hot run for a minute or so.”

Bart Danenhower stepped up next. The chief engineer was big and bulky, with shaggy Hagrid eyebrows. Fittingly, he was a fan of the Potter books, leaving them in the engine spaces and offices. The CHENG wasn’t brilliant, but he worked hard and told the truth. They had a long conversation about the controllable reversible pitch propellers, which had some kind of leak or condensation no one had ever been able to locate the source of. “We change the filters, though, it goes away,” Danenhower finished. Dan glanced behind him to see who was next. The ship’s medic, HMC Grissett. “Oh yeah,” Danenhower added. “We still got that bug going around. I’ll let Doc Grissy bring you up to speed on that.”

The chief corpsman said that the sickness among the crew, which had gone away during their time in Crete, had surfaced again. “Got three at sick call just this morning, same symptoms. Dry cough. Chills and fever, spikes to a hundred and four. Muscle pain, lethargy, malaise; diarrhea. Even the people who recover, they feel like shit. Mopey. Slow. There’s some kind of ongoing syndrome here.”

“What the hell? We replaced the filters. Scrubbed down all the ductwork. Bart?”

Danenhower spread his hands. “We did it thorough, Cap’n. If it was in there, it’s dead.”

“But it’s not just up forward anymore,” Grissett added.

Dan rubbed his face. “The anthrax inoculations?”

“Bethesda says they’re safe. Anyway, a reaction to that wouldn’t surface weeks, months later like this.”

Was his ship itself somehow infected? Case after case, fever, chills, lassitude … one man had even died, in forward berthing, without a mark on him. “Okay, we’re not sitting still any longer. Draft another message for Bethesda. Info our chain of command. Outline the problem and the corrective action we took, and ask for immediate assistance on scene. Hand-carry that up through the XO. Clear?”

“Yessir.”

*   *   *

MAST
was scheduled for 1330. Longley brought chili dogs and cold fries up on a tray and Dan ate looking out over the sea, observing a white sail far off.
Savo,
the tanker, and the containership were maintaining nearly identical speeds, churning along down the coast. Sudan was coming up to starboard, and he checked on the security teams, 25mms, and port and starboard machine guns. No boarder threat had been predicted, but it was wise to be ready. Saudi Arabia slid past to port, tan and violet as the sun glared down and the very sea glowed and shimmered with heat.

At 1300 Cheryl and “Sid” Tausengelt, the command master chief, came up to discuss the mast case. Tausengelt was older than Dan, small and lean, with receding hair and a deep-harrowed, leathery face. Staurulakis handed Dan the defendant’s performance record, then briefed. Arthur Peeples was an MMSN, a machinist’s mate seaman. He was accused under Article 134.

“Remind me.”

“Basically, indecent language, Captain.”

Dan suppressed his first response, which was that dinging a sailor for indecent language was like … anyway, that was Oldthink. “Uh, okay. Elements of the charge?”

Staurulakis read, “‘One: That the accused orally or in writing communicated to another person certain language. Two: That such language was indecent. Three: That, under the circumstances, the conduct of the accused was to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces or was of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.’”

“All right, three elements: that he said it, it was indecent, and it impaired discipline. Got it.” Dan leaned back, considering. Each week the command master chief, Tausengelt, convened a disciplinary review board in the chief’s mess. The DRB’s recommendations went to the XO, who conducted an inquiry and decided either to dismiss the case or to forward it for the CO’s nonjudicial punishment, or as the Navy had always called it, captain’s mast. “Did he admit saying it, Master Chief? What was his defense?”

“Sir, he admitted saying it, but he told us at the DRB it was a joke. Also, that the words didn’t mean anything.”

“Yeah, I’m not exactly sure why this case had to come up to me,” Dan told Staurulakis. “The way I read his records here, Peeples is a solid worker. A little rowdy ashore, but not enough to not rate a good-conduct stripe. Don’t we have some bilges somewhere that need scrubbing?” When she didn’t answer he added, “What exactly did he say?”

She looked off to starboard, squinting against the glare. “He called his supervising petty officer a ‘hucking skunt.’”

“Um … a what?”

She repeated the phrase, deadpan. Dan stared at her, then at Tausengelt. The master chief shrugged microscopically and averted his eyes.

“So, I assume his petty officer is female.”

“Correct. MM3 Scharner.”

“And this is symptomatic of something ongoing?”

“Peeples has a rep for blowing off authority,” the exec said. “Especially if that authority has a double X chromosome.”

“Okay, I guess … But what worries me is element two. They could reverse us on the grounds ‘hucking skunt’ is not actually indecent language.”

“Basically, he made that point, yessir,” Tausengelt murmured.

“It was intended as indecent,” Staurulakis said, but as if she was advancing it as an argument, not an assertion. “Therefore it’s indecent. If he calls the master chief here a rucking fetard, is that indecent?”

“It’s certainly offensive,” Dan granted.

“And prejudicial to discipline, if we let him get away with it,” the officer of the deck put in. Noah Pardees had come on at eight bells, noon. Tall, laid-back, dark as any inhabitant of the land to starboard, he honchoed First Division, usually the roughest gang aboard ship. By all accounts, the boatswain’s mates worshipped him. Dan and the XO stared at him. After a moment Pardees cleared his throat and strolled back to the far side, where he buried his face in the radar hood.

Dan’s next question was, “If it’s a sexual harassment thing, why aren’t we charging him under Article 93?”

The exec said, “We considered that. But according to the UCMJ, you can’t sexually harass someone senior to you. ‘Any person subject to this chapter who is guilty of cruelty toward, or oppression or maltreatment of, any person
subject to his orders
shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.’ I know, that doesn’t really make sense, but the specifications and elements haven’t caught up yet.”

Dan checked his watch against the clock over the nav table. “Look, we convene in five minutes. I need a shower. This guy’s a decent machinist. Possible career material. Bart’s gonna be there to vouch for him, right? But they call masts ‘delayed admin discharges’ now. With nonjudicial punishment in his record, he’s going to find it hard to get advanced. Or even to stay in, if his rate’s overmanned.”

“He should have thought of that before he called her names.”

He looked away from the exec’s flat gaze, sighing inwardly. Solomon would have shaken his head at some of the cases that came to mast. “Okay, let’s go on down.”

*   *   *

TICOS
didn’t have a space well suited to holding a legal proceeding. In port, he used the bridge, but that was impossible under way. The wardroom had been cleared, and a fresh tablecloth laid. Staurulakis had set up the varnished lectern at which Dan presided so that he would be backed by the large canvas of the Battle of Savo Island that Tom Freeman, the artist, had donated to the ship. Dan ran down the laminated pages in the binder, making sure he had the names right. Checked the alignment of his ribbons on the fresh short-sleeved tropical white uniform. Glanced at the exec. She ran her eye up and down him, shoes to cap, and nodded. He cleared his throat. “Bring in the accused.”

The master-at-arms, Chief Hoang Quoc “Hal” Toan, thrust the door open. “Accused: forward,
harch
. Right turn,
harch.
Accused … halt. Come to attention. Uncover …
two.
”

They halted facing Dan, swaying with the very faint roll of the ship. Behind Dan stood Tausengelt and the exec. Behind the accused, others filed in: the injured party; the accused’s division officer and department head; and, an unexpected addition, a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman so curvaceous it was hard to look away.

Lieutenant Amarpeet “Amy” Singhe. His strike officer, in charge of
Savo
’s offensive power. To his surprise, Singhe stepped up beside Scharner. Maybe he was imagining it, but he was pretty sure he could smell sandalwood even across the space between them.

There hadn’t always been that much of it. Space, that is. After dark, in his at-sea stateroom, she’d leaned forward, explaining her plans to flatten the ship’s hierarchy, modernize its management. He’d only just managed not to tumble her, he was fairly certain not unwillingly, onto his bunk.

He tore his attention off her breasts and focused on the tall, thin young man in front of him. He was white, as was his accuser, which removed one possible complication. At attention, but his eyelids drooped. His pale chin showed dark stubble. Haircut, within current regs. Shoes, polished. Whites, neat and clean. The fingers holding his cap next to his thigh were white too. With tension?

Dan said, “Seaman Arthur Peeples, you are suspected of committing the following violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice: Article 134, in that you did use indecent language to a senior in your chain of command, to the prejudice of good order and discipline. You do not have to make any statement regarding the offense of which you are accused, and any statement may be used as evidence against you. Has the accused been notified of his rights?”