Salem nibbled his three-bean salad and admired the ease with which she transformed the commander of a warship into a child.
She smiled, tilted her head, and said something inaudible. Pastor nodded, touched her shoulder, and turned to Salem. His carriage reverted from child to top dog.
“So, what is it exactly that you’re a doctor of?”
“Economics.”
Pastor’s brow furrowed and his nostrils flared.
“This downturn,” Pastor said, “will be enduring.”
“That’s a strong possibility,” Salem said, “at least for Japan, America, and Western Europe, but there are signs of growth in other regions.”
Pastor’s face furrowed deeper, disliking the argument, the challenge to his authority, or both, Salem thought.
“So, you’re Farah’s cousin,” Pastor said. “Tell me about that.”
“We’re not blood related,” Salem said. “My mother’s sister and her father’s brother — their son and daughter, respectively, married a few years ago. Farah and I met at the wedding and grew close ever since. There aren’t that many post-doctoral professionals in the family, and it was a natural bond for us.”
He feared that Pastor would probe for details of the fictitious wedding, but the captain proved self-absorbed.
“Weddings sure are nice,” he said. “We’ll be married soon after I get back from my next major deployment.”
The mess specialist cleared salad plates and returned with plates of lamb chops, mashed potatoes, and broccoli.
“Where are you taking me for our honeymoon?” Ghaffari asked, appearing sheepish.
“Hmmm… Antigua,” he said. “Now that’s a good place for a honeymoon.”
“Oh,” Ghaffari said. “I hear it’s unclean.”
Pastor glared at her. Salem disliked his demeanor but watched Ghaffari work her head tilting and childlike tone.
“Does it matter where we go, as long as we’re together?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said and snorted. “This is my second marriage, and I’d like to start it off right. I don’t know how many chances I’ll get.”
“What if we went somewhere else in the Caribbean that we both like? You can reconsider for me, can’t you? What about the Bahamas or the Virgin Islands?”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” he said, as his face softened, “but for you, maybe I’ll consider it.”
In the Mustang, Salem felt uncertain.
“That man is an arrogant idiot,” he said. “Do they really entrust him with command?”
“He expects to give orders and be obeyed. It’s a side-effect of military culture.”
“I don’t like it. Can you manipulate a man who believes he is the apex of humanity?”
“Weren’t you watching? As long as he thinks he’s in control, I am. He can’t resist the urge to indulge me and feel magnanimous about it. This is trivial. He’ll deliver what we need when we need it.”
“Why does he want to marry you?” he asked.
“A careerist naval officer needs a wife.”
“Does it matter that you’re Persian?”
“I asked him, of course, playing the dutiful would-be wife concerned about her husband’s career. He said it was advantageous because it showed tolerance and cultural breadth, neither of which he’s known for.”
“I’m not surprised,” he said.
“Or it could be that no American woman tolerates him. You’re lucky that I do.”
“It’s only temporary.”
“That’s correct, and no matter what, I have no intention of marrying that jackass. So whatever you’re doing, it had better be decisive.”
Salem lectured that afternoon at Old Dominion University about economic trends in several of the countries known in the western world as the Middle East.
With a knack for simplifying the complex and infusing the right words with emotion for a given audience, he enthralled an auditorium full of students. For the hour, several faculty members also shared his passion for the subject. One female Persian psychology professor caught his eye as paying deep, earnest, attention from the front row.
During the post-discourse networking, he received the usual pandering and sympathizing that his guest lecturing often earned, but nobody asked the hard questions about how to improve the global macro-economy.
Ghaffari, who had given him space with the students and other faculty members, joined the circle around him.
“I believe Professor Salem has had a long day,” she said. “Perhaps we can let him return to his hotel.”
The sun cast long shadows in front of the Mustang.
“Hotel?” he asked. “I could have stayed in a hotel?”
“No, you came here to assess me,” she said. “You can’t do that from across town. I mentioned the hotel for appearances.”
They said nothing for the rest of the drive. When they arrived in her apartment, she dropped her purse on a table and turned to him.
“Perhaps for dinner tonight we can do better than pizza,” she said.
“You were impressed with me during my lecture.”
“Yes, I was. Your mind is sharp. Whatever your master plan is, I’m sure it is inspiring.”
Her pupils widened as she stared into his eyes. He grabbed her and kissed her deeply. Then he carried her upstairs to her bedroom and ravaged her.
CHAPTER 6
Commander Brad Flint scratched his head.
“What’s that, Sonar?” he asked.
The voice of his sonar room supervisor belched from a loudspeaker overhead.
“We lost the Leviathan again. Can we get a thousand yards closer?”
“That’s pushing counter-detection range,” Flint said. “Why’d we lose them?”
“It’s just a quiet ship,” sir. “It’s a bitch to hear.”
“Let’s be patient and keep an eye out. If they drive fast we’ll hear them. If they don’t we’ll pick them up again soon. We always do.”
Aboard the Leviathan, Salem realized he hadn’t slept in a day and a half. Static and fuzz filled his head as he ducked through a hatch into the propulsion spaces and saw pock marks on a reddened scalp.
“How are you, Bazzi,” he asked.
The retired Syrian naval submarine mechanic, seated before battery indications, looked up with concern.
“The distillate unit is consuming battery power. I’m calculating how long we have until we need to snorkel.”
“How long?”
“If we move at six knots, then at best twenty hours.”
“We’re moving at four knots,” Salem said. “For safety, since we hardly understand the portions of this ship that we’ve managed to turn on.”
“Can we move that slowly?”
“There’s no hurry. The Iranian tanker isn’t due through the Suez Canal for another three days, and it will overtake us whenever it overtakes us.”
“The slower the better,” Bazzi said. “But if you ever go fast, remember to ask me what’s leaking, smoking, and shaking at the end of the run. I don’t trust a ship until it’s proven itself at speed and depth.”
Salem worked his way to the control center, disheartened to see smeared blood and lingering corpses during his walk.
Asad and Latakia slouched over the ship’s controls while the four academic experts reminded him of mannequins in various stages of sleep and daydreaming. The four soldiers were absent.
“Gentlemen!” Salem said.
The mannequins stirred.
“We’ve reached the point where rest is both deserved and necessary,” Salem said.
“We can staff three people throughout the ship and let the others rest,” Asad said, “as long as we’re doing little more than drifting.”