But before that, before his next identity and the long-awaited and long-prepared mission to the north, one thing remained. A treat, of a sort, that he allowed himself with each outing.
He pulled off into a pleasantly landscaped parking area that overlooked an artificial beach. Families had spread cloths on picnic tables. Children ran shrieking through friendly waves. He pulled the car around until he was looking back in the direction he’d come from.
He glanced at his watch. Then turned on the radio, got out, and climbed up to sit on the hood and light a cigarette.
He sat there for a long time in the sunlight and sea wind, watching the children and listening to the radio. His fingertips stroked the gleaming surface of the hood. Waiting for the distant plume of smoke — yes, he should be able to see it from here — listening for the terrified, shocked words announcing another disaster.
But they didn’t come. A traffic reporter said flow was interrupted on Avenue 40, on the way to Juffair, due to a police barricade. At that he turned the volume up. But the announcer said nothing more, until some time later he said the delays were now lifted and morning traffic was flowing normally.
Something had gone wrong. It hadn’t come off. Even now the local talent might be undergoing interrogation.
He took out his new passport and flicked the lighter beneath it. Held it away from his suit as it writhed, blackened, became a wisp of char that he carried, still burning, to a trash container and rubbed into powder between his palms. He took a third set of documents from a slit cut into the leather of the rear seat, cunningly concealed by the seam. Now he could not be stopped, searched, photographed, or fingerprinted. This was a diplomatic passport. On its cover gold gleamed: a deeply embossed seal of crossed swords beneath a palm tree.
The official seal of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Holding it up, he’d be waved past the businessmen and tourists waiting for access to the Land of the Two Holy Places.
He looked again, hoping still to see smoke. But still the sky hovered clear, pale, innocent of the sign and evidence of destruction. Behind the sunglasses his eyes narrowed. He did not like to fail.
Then his chin lifted again. The road which makes our feet bleed is the path which leads upward. To topple the colossus would take many blows. Much sacrifice and pain.
Or perhaps — his mind moved ahead — one great blow. Greater than any that had ever been struck before.
The heavy car accelerated again, heading west.
The darkened bridge was quiet, but not relaxed. It was the calm of those who didn’t need to cover uncertainty with talk. Who in months at sea together had worn through idle conversation. So that words were scarce now, consisting of the chanted antiphon of the phone talker, the helm’s terse reports, the murmur of the conning officer keeping them on station a thousand yards astern of the deck-edge lights of USS
Dan sat with legs crossed and shoes kicked off in the dark. He’d started chewing gum. It seemed to help. Working out helped, too. Running was out, at least temporarily; Blade Slinger 191 had operated practically round the clock since they’d rejoined the battle group. Even during down time, hauled inside with the maintenance crews working her over, the deck had to stay clear in case another aircraft needed a dry spot. He tried to get to the weight room every day. Around 0400 seemed to work best. A hard hour on the machines, then a shower before his self-imposed date with the rising sun.
Around him the Battle Force Sixth Fleet, carrier, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, combat support, drove massively through the night. It had been here since 1949. Nearly every sailor who’d served in the navy since had been part of it at one time or another. Along with its associated amphibious ready group, two hundred miles to the south at the moment, it could react to anything from a humanitarian crisis to all-out war. It could move seven hundred miles in a day, refuel, rearm, and strike without the permission of tacit enemies, doubtful neutrals, or reluctant allies.
