The Command полностью

This time Hotchkiss heard him coming as he closed on her. She speeded up, and he tailed her for a while, dodging knee-knockers and scuttle coamings, enjoying the perky bounce of tight little cheeks in skimpy green nylon running shorts. She had shorty socks with the little red balls at the back and white Adidas, and a light top that didn’t leave a lot to the imagination either. Her hair was a tight bun above a terry sweatband, and as he gained on her, his eyes moved from it to the sweat shining on her neck, darkening the back of her sports bra, and down to a damp patch on green nylon. Right there at the cleft… He jerked his gaze away and grunted, “On your right.”

Barked it more harshly than he’d meant to, and she flinched away and stumbled into a ventilation tube sticking up from the deck. Then she was down on one knee, cursing a blue streak. “Sorry,” he said, stopping.

“I was showboating. Trying to stay ahead of you.”

“You okay? I can help you down to sick bay.”

Marchetti came pounding around the corner. As he neared, Dan saw his expression, and realized what it must look like, with his arm around the exec. Glancing up he saw the lookout watching, too, finger on the button of his mouthpiece. Fucking great, it’d be all over the ship in seconds. “She cracked her shin on one of the vents,” he told the Machete. Hotchkiss fended them both off, undogged a weather hatch, and limped inside.

Dan started to jog again, then stopped and went back to the quarterdeck phone and punched in the sick bay number. He told the duty corpsman the XO had hurt her leg running. She was probably in her stateroom, would he mind taking a look at her. Then immediately felt disgusted at such a cover-your-ass thought. That he’d actually worried about documenting he hadn’t been groping her on the main deck. With time, did it become second nature?

Wiping sweat from his eyes, he started on his fourth mile.

That afternoon, in Combat. Kim McCall, the on-watch TAO; Hotchkiss, limping; Casey Schaad, Lieutenant Sanduskie from the intel det, the Camel, Marchetti, and Dan. The ops officer chaired. He still spoke deliberately, but the others had gotten so used to it they spent the time between words thinking about other things.

As Camill reviewed the day’s contacts, Dan wondered again what they were doing out here. His private theory, based mainly on a month-old Time magazine someone had gotten in the mail from home, was that they were looking for someone smuggling Scud boosters to Iraq. But he hadn’t seen any reference to Scuds in the message traffic or any indication whatever they were looking for would actually transit their area. It was all so vague he doubted they’d be out here much longer. And the deployment was drawing toward an end. Then a little time at home, and he’d have to think seriously about what next. Like Blair’s proposal. A nine-to-five shore billet, a house in Alexandria or Arlington or maybe a little farther out, Falls Church or Reston.

Looking at the absorbed expressions around him, listening to the hum of the blowers and the monotone of the controller talking Blade Slinger down for a hot refuel after searching a hundred miles to the east, he realized he’d never be as happy in any other job. Commanding USS Horn was probably going to be the high point of his career. He’d done well, considering its … checkered nature. That was probably the right word. A red square, then a black. In the navy’s good graces, then, most decidedly, out.

He tuned back in to hear Marchetti say, “If we do have to board anybody out here, I want the Gold Team.”

“Despite Petty Officer Wilson?” Hotchkiss said, only the faintest edge cutting through the sweetness of her tone, like a blade that has to be oiled to penetrate a tough alloy.

Marchetti just shrugged, not giving it away. Which, Dan thought, was being a little rough on somebody who’d saved his bacon.

He got the phone on the second buzz. “Captain,” he muttered, trying to snap himself into something resembling awareness.

“Sir, TAO here. EW reports warship type radars between sixty and a hundred miles northeast of us, based on bearing drift over the last twenty minutes.”

He blinked into the slanting darkness. The wind was rushing outside. It had been rising at dusk. “Any idea what type, what class?”

“It might be a Kashin.”

He sat up. A Kashin-class destroyer displaced less than a Spruance, but in terms of weaponry they could be considered evenly matched. The next moment he shook his head. This was what Nick Niles had accused him of. Reacting too fast. Assuming the worst. What Fetrow hadn’t liked about his arming his boats in Bahrain. “Have we got them on JOTS?”

“Coming up now.”