Hell, he was the CO. All the blame was his. No matter what happened outside, on those wet slick decks, in the blackness of winter night. Actually, in the dark, Almarshadi would be vulnerable. And he had to foresee that. So he’d probably shoot when Dan’s back would be to him, going through the darken-ship curtains.
But at least no one else would be in the line of fire. The issue Berettas held fifteen rounds: enough to take out most of the men and women around them in CIC. Above all else, Dan had to get him away from them. He forced numb legs into reluctant motion. “Shall we?”
As he took a step forward, Almarshadi took one back. Still holding the gun on him. Still looking both irresolute and past caring.
The gray canvas curtain to Sonar parted. Something small and low to the deck barreled out. A crouched-over Chief Zotcher hit the XO in the midriff, arms extended, grappling for the weapon. The impetus carried them both bodily into the dark corner under the comm readout. The thump and clang as they collided with the scuttlebutt was overlaid by a pistol crack. Confined by the black-painted bulkheads, the low overhead, it was as close and loud as a lightning strike.
Zotcher reeled back and crashed into the outer door as it burst inward. The doorway was suddenly filled with bulky figures in orange float coats and body armor, shouting hoarse commands and pointing shotguns and short-barreled rifles. Savo’s intercept and boarding team. Scrambled, Dan had no doubt, by Staurulakis’s typed message over the ship’s LAN. The lead petty officer crouched low, sweeping the space with his weapon, then caught the pointing fingers and wheeled left.
Almarshadi had the pistol free again, but he wasn’t aiming it at anyone. He was just holding it down, along his thigh. Frowning. Looking puzzled. “Don’t shoot him!” Dan shouted. “Fahad! Put the gun down!”
“No, there’s no point in that,” Almarshadi said.
“Put it down, Fahad. Please.”
“I’m sorry, Chief,” the exec said to Zotcher, who’d slumped to the deckplates and was holding his side, face shocked white. The executive officer lifted his head, and his voice. Looked them all over. “I could shoot somebody else,” he said. “But what good would it do? Just confirm what you already think. That Arabs kill.”
“Give us the pistol, Fahad,” Dan pleaded. “Fahad. Please.”
“May God have mercy on me,” Almarshadi said. He fingered the sidearm for a moment, groping at the neck of his coveralls with his other hand, while the boarding team kept their carbines on him. Then brought the gun up again, slowly, his gaze locked for once with absolute confidence on Dan’s, and pressed it to the side of his own head.
Chief Zotcher had taken a bullet in the side. Grissett straightened from the Stokes litter where the sonarman lay. “It missed his kidney, I think. If I can stop the bleeding, he might not be in danger.”
Dan was on one knee by the litter. “Can we get him down to sick bay? Is it safe to move him?”
The chief corpsman said it probably was. Dan squeezed Zotcher’s hand. Blinked past him to the covered form in the corner. A green nylon bag lay unfolded and unzipped beside it, freshly stripped of plastic packaging; the air smelled of blood and talcum and burnt powder. The pistol lay a few feet away. The chief master-at-arms was bagging it with gloved hands. He glanced up. “Serial matches the one missing from the quarterdeck. Sir.”
“All right. — Thanks, Doc.” Dan wanted to stay, but couldn’t. He laid Zotcher’s hand back on his chest, and patted his shoulder. Met his squinted gaze. “Nice work, Chief. You done good.”
A grimace, probably meant as a smile. “Not totally a pain in the ass … right, Skipper?”
“Not totally. I’ll see if I can get you something for this.” Dan patted him again, shaking his head, and jerked himself to his feet.
Took two steps, and knelt by the body. Almarshadi lay with his head turned away, which was just as well. Blood and brain matter spattered the cables that ran up the matte black of the bulkhead. The XO’s left hand still gripped the cross that had hung from around his neck. Dan put his hand on the motionless chest. I never, he thought. I didn’t … His inner voice faded back into the blank hissing rush of fatigue.
He’d mishandled the XO. That was the bottom line. Misread whatever subtext had dictated his bewildering touchiness, his strange mixture of prickliness and eagerness to please.
Just another failure in a long string of them.
“Can I get a shot, sir?” Grissett said, beside him. Holding a camera. “Then we’d better bag him, and get this cleaned up.”
“Treat him with respect, Doc.”
“Always, sir. Want the pistol back in inventory?”
“I imagine it’s evidence, right? The NCIS’s gonna want it?”
“Could be. Yeah.”
“Then no. Bag it and lock it up.”
He pushed the guilt and sadness away and rose, knees protesting after so long on the hard steel.
He wiped both palms across his face, trying to reorient as Staurulakis, who’d gone back to her seat as soon as the boarding team had broken in, briefed him in spare sentences. In the minutes the confrontation with Almarshadi had eaten, the Iranian warships had separated even farther. They were now ten degrees apart in bearing, with their courses still diverging.
“Does that missile boat have to be bow on to us to launch, Cher?”
“Not that class, sir. Not with that missile.”
“And Lahav—”
“Bearing zero seven five, range fifteen thousand. Course, zero three zero, speed twenty. Opening to the northeast.”
A heavy figure in civvies stood at his elbow. “Tell Bart we want full power available,” he told Cheryl. “Let’s go to general quarters.” He nodded absently to Ammermann, his mind caroming around several tracks at once as the 1MC crackled, hissed, and began to bong in that sustained note that always stilled his heart when he heard it. Nothing much would change in CIC; they were already at full battle manning. But the rest of the ship would be dogging doors and hatches, donning helmets and flash gear, manning damage-control teams, weapons, launchers, magazines.
Getting ready for the ultimate test.
Lahav was opening, but she was still between Savo and the Syrian radars, the truck-mounted launchers. The Israeli Corvette had ceased illuminating them during the drama with the exec. Which he did not have time to think about any more just now … “Pittsburgh?”
Cheryl flinched and rattled the keyboard. “Almost forgot about them … They’re out of torpedo range, but locked on to the missile boat with sub Harpoon.”
“Okay, that leaves Alborz for us—”
“Can I get a word in?” said the staffer.
Dan forced his tone halfway toward courtesy. For a second he couldn’t remember what he’d sent him to do. Then did, and coughed into a fist. “Uh, Adam. Any luck on what I asked you to look into? Intentions of the Iranians? Whether the West Wing can get Israel to hold off striking back?”
“I talked to the national security adviser. Dr. Szerenci said you know each other.”
“Uh-huh. He was my professor at George Washington. A long time ago, when we … anyway, a long time ago.”
“Well, he couldn’t give me anything on the Iranians. We don’t have a window there, apparently. There are a lot of different factions, too. The regular navy. The Revolutionary Guards. Not a unitary actor. If you know what I’m talking about—”
“Don’t talk down to me, Adam. Yes, I know unitary-actor theory.”
“Sorry … Captain.” The staffer shook his head like a boxer shrugging off a hard punch. “He said he’d call Sharon. A personal call — apparently he can do that if it’s important enough.”