“Hear, hear.”
A distant droning wail drifted across to the hotel from the east side of the peninsula. Amanda’s head came up as she listened intently. “That’s the Queen coming in,” she said after a moment. “If you will excuse me, Admiral. I’ll have to be getting back to the base.”
“Of course, Captain,” Macintyre replied, suppressing a pang of regret. “My driver can take you out.”
“Thank you, sir.” She smiled and brushed back a lock of breeze-ruffled hair.
“No problem, Captain,” he replied gruffly. “May I escort you to my car?”
“I’d be honored, sir.”
They were crossing the busy hotel lobby to the main entry when Amanda glanced over toward the small glass-fronted gift shop. Abruptly she came to a halt, so suddenly in fact that Macintyre bumped into her.
“Anything wrong?” he inquired.
“No, sir.” She shook her head, still peering into the shop window. “It’s just that they have something over there that’s given me an idea… and, well, if you’ll indulge me for a moment, I think I have to buy a hat.”
“Captain Garrett’s aboard, Skipper.” Chief Tehoa’s voice issued from the Queen of the West’s interphone. “She’s on her way forward to the cockpit.”
“Gotcha, Chief,” Steamer Lane replied amiably into his headset. “Start getting her buttoned up back there. We’ll be firing up in a minute.”
“Aye, aye, sir. And, by the way, the Captain comes bearing gifts.”
Steamer and Snowy Banks exchanged puzzled glances. As they heard footsteps clank on the cockpit ladderway, both hover pilots twisted in their seats to look aft.
“Oooh, that is so cool!” Snowy breathed.
Preening a little, her head lifted proudly, Amanda entered the cockpit. She was still clad in tropic whites, but instead of the standard women’s uniform hat, she wore a rakish black beret. A silver U.S.N. lapel insignia gleamed in place as a cap badge.
“Oh, yeah, Snow.” Lane grinned. “That is cool. When do we get ours, Captain?”
“Right now.” Amanda handed forward a large paper sack. “I got enough for the Queen’s whole crew. There are smalls, mediums, and larges, and they’re adjustable to fit. There are some spare cards of insignia in there as well that I picked up at the Conakry PX. They’ll do until we can get a real cap badge designed.”
“Are these standard now, Captain?” Snowy asked, rummaging with interest in the bag.
“They’re authorized for the Tactical Action Group as a whole and for your seafighters specifically, Steamer. I’ve already cleared it with Admiral Macintyre. I’ve also made arrangements with a shopkeeper over at the Hotel Camayenne to keep a big batch of these in stock for us. Our people can order them through him.”
“All right, Captain, this is sharp.” Steamer examined his own new headgear with interest. “Didn’t I read somewhere about another Navy outfit that was authorized a black beret?”
Amanda nodded. “The PBR squadrons in Vietnam. We’re doing very much the same kind of work they did, and I liked the thought of the continuity. We’re a new outfit, and this gives us a proud history to look back and draw on. I think that’s important.
“There’s another reason as well,” Amanda continued with an impish grin. “A far more personal one. Ever since I’ve joined this man’s navy I have hated, loathed, and despised that damn flat ashtray of a hat they stick you with as part of the women’s uniform. I swore that should the day ever come when I would have the rank and influence to do something about it, I would. And, ladies and gentlemen, that day has arrived.”
The sound of a seafighter spooling up to power disrupted the two-person conference in the briefing trailer. Both Amanda and Christine had learned it was an act of futility to try to speak over the wailing turbines. Patiently, they waited for the hovercraft to take its departure down the launch ramp before continuing.
“Okay, Chris,” Amanda said as the moan of the PG faded to a tolerable level, “you were saying about the goody bag program?”
“Just that we have it up and running and that so far it seems to be a success.” The intel tossed a resealable plastic sandwich bag onto the conference table. Beyond a printed card with the Three Little Pigs Unit badge in the corner, the watertight envelope contained a pack of chewing gum, a book of matches, a notepad and pencil, and a roll of black electrician’s tape.
“This is just an example. We’ve got a bunch of different stuff that we put into the bags in different combinations: candy, fish hooks, coils of fishing line and wire, razor blades. Odds and ends that the local fishermen and boatmen can make use of. The card in there is printed in both English and French and explains about the UNAFIN mission and what we’re trying to accomplish down here. We hand one of these out to every small craft we inspect to make up for the inconvenience of the boarding and search.”
Amanda nodded her understanding. “Does it help any?”
“Seems to,” Christine replied. “At least with the boatmen from Guineaside. We’ve also been taking a digital photograph of every boat we stop to add to our intelligence database. We give big eight-by-twelve color printouts of the picture to every crewman and passenger aboard. Even the Union guys get a kick out of that.”
“Just don’t make those grab bags so good that they deliberately hang around our patrol zones, hoping to get inspected.”
The intel chuckled. “We’ll aim for a happy medium.”
“Good enough.” Amanda nodded. “As soon as we get two spare seconds to rub together, I’d like to organize a hearts and minds program with the fishing villages. Aid visits by our medical personnel, having the Seabees help with village development projects, that kind of thing. Having the coastal tribes on our side will make a big difference.…”
Amanda let her voice trail off. The sound of the departing seafighter patrol had faded almost to the point of inaudibility. Now, however, the familiar vacuum cleaner moan was growing in intensity again. She reached for the desk phone, but it trilled before her hand came to rest upon it.
“Garrett here.”
“Captain, this is Operations. Commander Lane reports that the Queen of the West’s had a systems casualty. They’re aborting and returning to the platform.”
“Did the Commander say how much of a casualty he has?”
“He wasn’t sure himself, Captain. He indicated some kind of hydraulics problem.”
Amanda frowned. “Hydraulics” could cover a lot of territory aboard a vehicle as complex as a PGAC. “Very well. Operations, I’ll check it out.” She dropped the handset into the phone cradle and came to her feet. “Stay with me, Chris. We’ve got trouble.”
The Queen came in slowly, still on her air cushion but wavering as if she were having difficulty holding her course. As Amanda strode up to the platform rail, she could hear the sound of the seafighter’s airscrews rising and falling erratically. She realized then that the Queen’s pilots were steering the hovercraft with the drive engines.
Some twenty yards off the lee side of Floater 1, the Queen of the West came off pad, powering down and settling onto the wave tops. Even as the drive propellers flickered to a halt, hatches swung open on her weather deck and figures emerged onto the hover’s broad back. Scrounger Caitlin and Chief Tehoa surfaced amidships, while Steamer Lane slid down from the cockpit dome. All three made their way aft to a point near the stern antenna bar.