“A great philosopher and sage once said, ‘who would count the teeth of the dragon must accept a degree of risk.’”
Amanda cocked an eyebrow. “Who said that?”
“I did. I was sitting right here. You heard me.”
That called her smile back up again, along with a low chuckle. “If I was the only one doing the counting, lover, it wouldn’t be any big deal. But I have to drag all of you people along with me. That’s something I still have a degree of difficulty reconciling myself to.”
“It comes with being the captain. That’s why you rate all the cool perks, like these sumptuous quarters. That’s why you get saluted … By the way, do you know where the salute really came from?”
“Where?”
“It came from some subordinate reaching up to wipe the sweat off of his forehead because his boss had shown up in time to make the really tough decisions.”
He was breaking her down. She was smiling more easily now. “You are not going to be serious here, are you?”
“I’ll be as serious as necessary, when necessary, babe. Later tonight, when we’re doing the probe, we’ll all be as serious as all hell. Especially me, considering I’m going to be Command Officer of the Deck. Because of that, though, I’m not going to prematurely let myself wind up any tighter than I have to.”
“Probably a very sound policy.”
“I think so. You have dinner yet?”
Amanda shook her head. “No. It’s hamburger night down in the wardroom, and I am not going to be able to cope with both this recon run and a government-issue slider at the same time.”
“Then where would you like to have dinner?” Arkady prompted.
Amanda started to reply offhand, then caught herself. She recognized the invitation to play the game, and her smile ceased being transitory.
“All right. Let’s see. Someplace a little out of the ordinary. No sameysamey.”
It was a counterploy to the imposed sterility of their current shipboard existence. Aboard the Cunningham, she and Arkady were lovers in an environment where a love affair’s traditional expressions — a touch, a kiss, a caress — were all inappropriate, if not professionally hazardous.
However, they were adaptable. The date game was just one of the counters they had developed on this cruise.
“Ever had roast duck?”
“Yes. I like it.”
“Good. Then it’s the Duck Club at the Monterey Plaza Hotel. It’s down there in Steinbeck country, right on Cannery Row. It’s the place all of us Monterey boys take our really serious ladies when we want to impress them.”
“Sounds interesting. What’s it like?”
“Very classy San Francisco. The dining room looks right out over the bay. The sunsets are to kill for, and they have this thing where they have sets of binoculars out on the tables. You can look out and watch the sea otters playing around in the kelp beds.”
“How incredibly neat! How should I dress for it?”
Arkady studied her and narrowed his eyes judgmentally.
“We are going to need a little flash here. Red. Definitely red.”
Amanda gave her head an emphatic shake. “That doesn’t work, love. I can’t wear that.”
“Sure you can. That ‘can’t wear red’ line was thought up by some brunette who wanted to hog a good thing. Every pretty lady should own at least one little red dress and one pair of red high heels, because she always looks great in them.”
“We’ll see.”
“I’ll prove the point. I’ll pick you up a couple of hours early and I’ll take you shopping … ”
20
It is one of the great rivers of the world. Born on a windswept mountain plateau deep in the Himalayas, it snakes its way down across the central plain of Asia to end in the East China Sea. Along the way, it collects the story and the essence that is China. Merging into it is the ice melt of ancient glaciers and the rain of ten thousand storms, the fine-worn silt of the tired fields, and the sweat and tears of one quarter of the human race. It is one of the few things that can even briefly challenge the might of the World Ocean. A hundred miles out beyond its mouth, the waves are still stained brown, the smell of the land dominating that of the sea.
“Stealth protocols are fully closed up. Full EMCON is in effect. All radios and radars are secure and all Faraday screens are engaged.”
“Very good, Mr. Hiro. Quartermaster, systems and positioning check, please.”
“GPUs and SINs cross-check and verify to within a ten meter circle of error. Qiantan Island is now bearing zero five degrees relative off the bow at nine thousand yards.”
Amanda refreshed her situational awareness with a glance at the graphics of the navigational display. The Duke was coming in from the northeast at a shallow angle. In a few minutes, they would turn south past the broad island-studded mouth of the Yangtze, running just outside the mine-defense barriers deployed by the Chinese Communists.
Outside in the darkness, a fine rain sluiced across the bridge windscreen, while within, the light of the instruments and readout screens had been turned down to their lowest settings. Amanda could sense rather than see the others of the bridge crew around her. Likewise, she could sense their tensions grow as the range closed with the Chinese coast.
“Bridge to CIC.”
“CIC, aye.”
“Okay, Chris. How do you want to work this thing?”
“I’d like to make one slow pass down the perimeter of the outer minefield to chart the entrance and egress channels. That’ll also give us enough time to run a full cross-spectrum analysis of the local EM environment.”
“Very well. However, I will not take us inside the three mile limit at any point. That means we’ll have to reverse out to the northeast when we approach the Maan Liedao group.”
“No problem, Boss Ma’am. If the bad guys are up to anything naughty, we’ll know about it by then.”
The Intel went off line and Amanda twisted around in the captain’s chair to face the shadow that was her first officer.
“Ken, I’m going to keep the con on the navigation bridge tonight. I’d like you to take the CIC.”
“Aye, aye.”
“And Ken, keep an eye on what’s going on in Raven’s Roost. Chris might need the help of an Asian-languages expert.”
“Captain, I’m barely conversational in Japanese and Mandarin. I’m a long way from being an expert in either one.”
“You’re the closest we’ve got. Good luck, Ken.”
“Good luck to you, too, Skipper.” Hiro moved off into the passageway leading aft.
There was another shadowy figure behind the central helm console, one foot braced on the throttle pedestal and faintly silhouetted in the back glow of the instrumentation.
“Officer of the Deck, how’s it going?”
“Pretty good, ma’am. I just can’t find the pitch and cyclic on this thing.”
“You’ll manage, Mr. Arkady. It does an Airedale good to stand a deck watch now and again, just to remind you what the real Navy is all about.”
“I’ll take your word for it, Captain.”
“You’d better. Now, bring her left to one eight three degrees. Hold our speed at ten knots and maintain a parallel course to the three-mile limit at a one-hundred-yard separation by the GPUs.”
“Aye, aye.”
That dealt with, Amanda slipped out of the captain’s chair and stepped through the hatchway onto the starboard bridge wing. From here, by day, she knew that she could have seen the hills of China, but now there were only the varying textures of darkness apparent to the night-sensitive eye.