"I'm thirty-nine years old, Claire. It's a little early to retire, and a little late to start over!"
"Bullshit! Al Jaffey got out in 'ninety-seven, and he's making ninety thousand a year now. And Fred Lee—"
"Fred Lee is—was—an aviator, Claire. A Hornet driver. United probably had headhunters jump him the day he set foot off-base as a civilian. And Al is a programmer. Of course he landed something in Silicon Valley. What am I good for on the outside? Driving the submarine ride at Disneyland?"
"You have all that training in nuclear reactors."
"In case you hadn't noticed, Claire, nuclear energy's pretty much a dead issue in this country. Nobody's building 'em anymore."
"Well, you're an officer, for chrissakes!" she shouted. "A manager! You could get a job at any company as an office manager, a department head, a director of—"
"I don't want any job, Claire. I'm a submariner. You knew that when you married me!"
"And maybe I didn't know what a bum ride I was signing on for," she told him, bitter. "You're gone more than you're here. Sea duty three, four months at a stretch. And you just keep smiling and taking all the shit they give you, with a 'please, sir,' and a 'thank you, sir,' and an 'aye aye, sir.' I'm sick of it!"
"Claire, it's not like that, and you know it! Frank said today that—"
"Frank says! Frank says! I'm sick to death of what Frank says! Was he or was he not on that kangaroo-court board of inquiry?"
"He was, but—"
"Some friend! He's using you, using your friendship, and he couldn't even pull one of those strings of his you're always boasting about to get you out of trouble with SUBRON! He's a goddamn spy! You know it, and I know it! I never did trust him!"
"What does his being in Navy Intelligence have to do with it?" Garrett asked, on the defensive. Sometimes, when Claire got into one of her moods…
"It means that he's working with the CIA or whoever, and as soon as something goes wrong with one of their little plots with some dictator somewhere, he'll find someone to blame, like you! It means he uses you, takes advantage of you, and he'll discard you like that if it's convenient! The Cold War's over! He should come in from the cold already!"
"You're not making any sense!"
"Neither are you! Damn it, Tom, I'm sick of this life, sick of not having enough money, sick of not having kids, sick of having you gone all the time, sick of worrying about you…." She turned, looking up at him. "I've had it, Tom. I really have. I wasn't cut out to be a Navy wife. I want better. I deserve better! Either you leave the Navy… or I leave!"
"That's not fair! You can't ask me to just ditch my career on a whim—"
"This isn't a whim! I've been thinking this over for a long time. Mom agrees with me. Make something better of yourself, for once in your life! Or find yourself someone else who can put up with this nonsense! Like a dog who doesn't mind going to the kennel when you have sea duty!"
He tried to smooth things over, as he'd done in times past, but dinner was eaten in sullen silence, and that night he found the bedroom door locked, with blanket and pillow piled on the sofa. He left the next morning without saying good-bye… and she was gone when he returned.
For Garrett, who'd loved Claire deeply — once, at least — it was like a small but intensely bitter ending of the world….
6
"Would you please step out of the vehicle, sir?"
He stepped out of the cab under the watchful eyes of two Marine sentries — both men in full combat dress, with M-16 rifles at port arms, with magazines in place. A third Marine, a very young-looking lieutenant, very carefully examined his military ID, comparing the photo to his face.
Gordon waited patiently as the Marine checked him out. He was still feeling a bit sick and jet-lagged after his all-night crossing of the Pacific aboard a Marine C-130 Hercules—"available transportation" in Navyspeak. They'd hit the fringes of a storm south of Kamchatka, and the last three hours of the flight had been a jouncing, thumping, air-pocket-ridden hell that had made all thought of catching up on lost sleep impossible.
The Herky Bird had touched down at last on the runway at the Naval Air Facility at Atsugi, and he'd elected to hire a local cab rather than wait for the next scheduled military bus bound for Yokosuka. He desperately needed a shave, a shower, and about ten hours in the rack — not necessarily in that order — but his scheduled meeting at Fleet Activities HQ was at 1300 hours, and he somehow doubted that he was going to catch up on his sleep first.
The lieutenant finished his inspection of Gordon's ID at last. "Very well, sir," the Marine said. "We'll get your luggage. Corporal!"
"Aye aye, sir!" Yet a fourth Marine trotted forward, careful not to come between the two armed men and the taxi that had brought Gordon out from Atsugi. He pulled Gordon's single small suitcase out of the backseat and carried it off toward the front gate security shack.
"May I check your briefcase, sir?" the lieutenant asked, eyeing the attache case Gordon was carrying.
"No, Lieutenant," he replied, reaching into his inside jacket pocket. "Here's my clearance."
The Marine studied the paper, which listed the security classification for the contents of the briefcase and exempted it from search. "Thank you, Captain," the lieutenant said, handing the document back to Gordon. "You may go through, sir."
It was, Gordon thought, further evidence of a world changed beyond all sane recognition.
The destruction of the World Trade Center in New York in 2001 had awakened America to the realpolitik of a world fast sinking into a new Dark Age of barbarism, warlords, and terror, and all threats to the nation's boundaries were being met with a vigor that was at times almost paranoid.
And reasonably so, Gordon thought. The War on Terrorism was in its second year now and still showed no sign of abating. One of the most obvious signs of that war's far-reaching effects worldwide was the increase in security at airport terminals, at international border crossings, at embassies… and at military bases. At installations like the Fleet Activities base here at Yokosuka, even official vehicles could no longer simply drive through the main gate without close inspection, and foreign vehicles were turned aside by armed guards and rows of concrete dragons' teeth blocking the road. No one was permitted on base without careful scrutiny.
Especially high-profile bases like this one. The Commander Fleet Activities for the Western Pacific, COMFLEACTWESTPAC, was responsible for the logistical support of all Navy forces on this side of the Pacific. Yokosuka — pronounced "yoh-koo-ska" rather than the way the name looked — was the largest naval shore facility in the Far East, covering something like five hundred acres. Thirteen hundred families lived on base, with another four hundred quartered at the Negishi Housing Area at Yokohama, seventeen miles to the north, and perhaps twelve or thirteen hundred families more living off base in private rentals. If Al Qaida terrorists were looking for a target that combined American military prestige with sheer numbers of potential casualties, as well as one with strategic value, Yokosuka was a prime candidate. Military security, for that reason, was extremely tight and had been ever since the bloody infamy of September 2001.
A Marine driver ushered Gordon into a gray-painted sedan and whisked him into the depths of the huge base, past the on-base McDonald's, a cluster of bowling alleys, swimming pools, and other recreational centers, and the A-33, a popular fleet exchange carrying a bewildering array of electronic equipment, cameras, computers, and the like.