“Yes, Walt brags that you are a low-maintenance admiral.”
“Diana!” Walt objected.
“Admiral, like I said, I don’t know where she dreams these ideas.”
“She is right, Walt. I like to think of myself as a low maintenance admiral. Don’t want a large entourage milling about trying to take care of me.” Admiral Cameron took a sip of his wine and squeezed Susan’s hand.
“It’s amazing how things you thought were resolved years ago resurrect themselves again,” Admiral Cameron said, changing the subject.
“Like the Greek-Turkish thing last month. The Greeks are still flying combat air patrols around the Aegean and have even started flying them during the daylight hours off eastern Crete. They buzzed Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron Two’s EP-3E aircraft over international waters yesterday and the EP-3s fly out of Crete.”
“It’ll calm down, sir. I would say it’s more the eastern Mediterranean macho thing that keeps stirring those two up, but they haven’t had a major incident in nearly ten years; not since the SA-10 crisis in Cyprus. Just words and, of course, around election time the inevitable sword rattling to get out the votes.”
“EP-3E?” Diana asked.
“The EP-3E is an electronic reconnaissance variant of the P-3 Orion patrol aircraft. Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron Two, we call VQ-2 when we’re at work. The Q stands for electronic warfare. They are a descendant of the “Old Crows’ from World War II, which was the first squadron ever designed for electronic warfare.”
“What do they do?”
“If I knew, Diana, they’d have to shoot me.”
Everyone laughed politely at the old joke.
The Italian waiters moved along the table, setting out bottles of house wine along with olives and cheese, as the conversation continued among the group. Admiral Cameron seldom had an opportunity to socialize with his staff, what with the myriad political and military conferences and meetings he was forced to attend. He tried to rally everyone together at least once every three months. It was good for morale. It helped the spouses strengthen their ties and periodically the alcohol loosened a tongue to tell him something he needed to know. Five years ago when he became an admiral he discovered that few would risk offending him by bearing bad tidings.
The admiral looked down to the end of the table at Commander Jerry Baldston and raised his wine in a silent toast to his executive assistant. Baldston had been with him since he was a one-star at Cruiser Destroyer Group Eight in Norfolk, Virginia. While he had risen to three stars, Baldston had zoomed through the ranks from lieutenant to full commander. But Jerry stood the strong chance of stopping there. The admiral intended to correct a misjudgment that he felt the bureau had done in failing to give Baldston his own ship. Without an at-sea command, Baldston would never make captain, and Admiral Cameron knew the man was flag material, just needed the opportunity to prove it.
Baldston wiggled in his seat, trying to fit his refrigerator frame under the low Italian bistro table without falling off the small straw-seated chair. Over the years Jerry had adjusted to being a big man in a small world. Learned quickly after the academy how to duck through hatches and hunch his shoulders together when passing others in tight passageways.
The mobile phone rang. He pulled the phone out of its holster, pressed a button, and put it to his ear.
“Commander Baldston here.”
On the other end the excited voice of the Sixth Fleet staff duty officer garbled something about a bombing thirty minutes ago. He shook his head because the SDO couldn’t have said what Baldston thought he said. “Slow down. Lieutenant,” said Baldston quietly, trying to avoid attention from the others around the table.
“Tell me slowly what you’re trying to tell me.”
The blood drained from his face as he listened.
“Stop a moment and start over. Tell me, chronologically, what happened, the damages, and what actions have been taken.”
He reached in his shirt pocket and extracted one of the three-by-five cards he carried to take notes.
Mentally, he envisioned the lieutenant on the other end taking a deep breath. Then, with slow, methodical military precision, the officer relayed the events of the bombing.
Forty known dead, two ships completely out of commission — their sterns mired in the bottom of Gaeta Harbor, their sides caved in upon each other.
Baldston scribbled furiously to capture the words because he knew he would never remember what was being said with the emotional surge that was racing through him.
Baldston looked toward the admiral and saw the admiral staring at him. Conversation around the table trailed off as everyone’s attention focused on Baldston.
“Lieutenant, security posture?”
The SDO reported the Albany’s security alert force had the immediate harbor area secured while members of USS La Sane and USS Simon Lake damage control teams worked to bring the flooding under control and restore power. A damage control team from USS Albany was on board La Sane, the most seriously damaged ship. The damage control parties had shored up several weakened frames below the waterline of the La Sane and flooding had been contained.
The commanding officer of the La Sane, as senior officer present, had established a joint damage control cell on the pier to direct the combined teams. Muster of personnel was being hampered because of liberty hours so the true number of missing and dead would not be known until everyone was accounted for.
“Lieutenant, cancel all liberty and recall everyone. Relay to the skipper of the La Sane to do the same for the three ships. I’ll call back as soon as I’ve briefed the admiral.
Unless you hear otherwise expect us back within the next thirty minutes.” They were on the other side of the hills from Gaeta and the long, winding drive would take at least ten minutes.
Baldston folded the cellular phone and slipped it back into his coat pocket. Conversation ceased as everyone stared at him.
“What’s going on. Jerry?” asked the admiral in a voice that carried the length of the table.
Admiral Cameron shivered as he looked at the face of his executive assistant.
Susan put her hand on his arm.
“You alright, honey?”
“I just felt someone walk across my grave,” he said so quietly that she nearly missed it.
She squeezed his arm and left her hand there.
Baldston stood and began to ease himself down the tight space between the back row of people where the admiral was sitting and the wall of windows behind them that looked out over the mountains and the valley to the east.
“What’s happening, Walt?” asked Diana, leaning over to her husband.
Walt heard a lot of whispering around the table.
“I don’t know, honey. Just wait,” he replied. He took a bottle of house wine and refilled his glass, knowing Jerry was delivering bad news. From the look of the big man’s face it was very bad news indeed.
Walt’s mind instinctively recognized the clicking sound behind him. Chills raced up his spine. The Hizballah terrorists burst through the front door, their guns firing as they entered. Two Italian waiters near the door fell victim as bullets knocked them against the wall. Streaks of blood marked the wall as the elderly men slid to the floor.
The large man moving along the wall attracted the terrorists’ fire; a line of red holes exploded up the center of Baldston like new buttons tacked on a white shirt. The executive aide catapulted backward, shattering the window behind him to land halfway out, his left arm and lower body draped inside.
Walt grabbed his wife’s chair and pushed away from the table. As the chairs fell backward, Walt slung the wine bottle over his head in the direction of the terrorists. It was the only weapon he had.