The Command полностью

Yousif burst out of the door, screaming for her to stop, screaming at the sentry to close the gates. By then she was already pulling through, hitting the accelerator. A truck was looming over them, Nimmerich was making strangled noises and flailing for his seat belt, and she was merged, she was in the roundabout, she was gone.

Horn rode alone, yet not alone, beneath a clear blue sky shading toward dusk. The wind and seas had kicked up over the last couple of days, with a fresh northeasterly breeze. The ride was still comfortable, but the ship felt alive. The weather-deck doors had been open all day, letting in a welcome coolness after the months in the Red Sea and Gulf.

Dan had his feet up in his captain’s chair, on the bridge. He’d just come up from ten straight hours in Combat. Would probably spend the night there, too. But he needed a break from the endless crackle of data. He yawned between the last forkfuls off the tray the mess attendant had brought up. Then filed his cleaned plate against the window and leaned back, listening to the drone from the helm as the helmsman corrected to a course of 090, speed ten knots, the chatter over the VHF as, miles to the northwest, an Italian frigate interrogated the master of an Indian bulk-cargo carrier.

The Camel broke his reverie. He had the draft OPREP-5 feeder report, and Dan went down it quickly, checking only here and there because he’d never caught the Ops boss in a mistake yet. “Lin give you this, about the evaporator?”

“Yes, sir.” Past Camill’s skull, no longer shaven — with the onset of cooler weather he was letting his hair grow back — Dan saw Hotchkiss come on the bridge. Once again composed, clipboard under her arm, she met his glance across the pilothouse. He initialed the message and Camill left.

“Evening, sir,” she said. Dan nodded, waited, but the exec didn’t seem to have anything more. Just stood by his chair, looking past him at the sea.

“Nice night,” he said at last.

“Yes, sir. Sure is.”

“I know I’ve been tied down all day. Have you got something for me?”

“I just wanted to say that… last night’s not going to happen again.”

“I already told you, ancient history. Okay?”

She nodded, but didn’t look convinced. He saw now there were circles under her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept. Well, since the flash message sending them east, few aboard had. He started to say something reassuring, but was interrupted by the 21MC calling him back to Combat.

The screens showed the southeastern Mediterranean off Israel, where Horn had moved during the previous night, as a blue field overlaid with yellow squares and circles. The squares marked operating areas. Over the last eighteen hours they’d filled with most of the U.S. destroyer-types in Task Force 60, two British frigates, Active and Scylla, two more each of French and Italians, and even a Turkish frigate. Closer inshore, smaller rectangles marked a second barrier pattern off Gaza, Ashqelon, Ashdod, Tel Aviv, Netanya, and Haifa. The squares alternated in a slipped checkerboard, so any intruder snaking between two of the first-line defenders would go straight through the center sector of the next.

He settled into his chair, fitting his spine into the familiar indentations like some piece of expensive and delicate equipment into a form-fitting case. The dim blue light haloed profiles at the surface weapons console, the Harpoon engagement planning console, the Tomahawk data console. Beyond that, men and women sat intent at the EW stack, the gunnery control station, the fire control radar consoles. The horizon rolled slowly on a monitor that gave them the output of the mast-mounted sight. Fifteen people shared the icy air with him. Directly before him Casey Schaad had a finger hooked on the transmit lever of the 21MC, ironing out a glitch in the combat direction system with the data processing center. He was keyboarding with the other hand, a phone tucked into the crook of his neck, busy as a fry cook with six short orders going…. He caught Dan out of the corner of his eye. “Sir. Track 2378. Another incoming from the west Vigilant Dragon wants us to check out. Picked up by Tiger One Four.”