The Marine Corps had turned its back on Adam, while Chen had welcomed him with open arms. And legs.
He turned to face the admiral. “By your leave, Admiral?”
The old man sighed and nodded at the Osprey. “Very well. Guess I should stop ogling the pretty girls and get back to running my strike group.”
Adam followed his gaze and watched a slender woman in jeans and a red hoodie with jet-black hair tucked under an ill-fitting cranial follow a tall Black man in a flight suit from the back of the Osprey toward the island. She wasn’t dressed like a sailor, or any other member of the military for that matter, and he watched her until she disappeared from view.
The two men turned and looked at each other for a moment before the admiral broke away with a curt nod and turned for the flag bridge. Adam turned the opposite direction for the door leading to the down ladder while his mind swam with conflicting thoughts.
A short distance north from the Lincoln, Beth sat in her chair on the bridge, brooding over the day’s coming events. She had managed four hours of sleep after Master Chief finished briefing her on the plan of the day and the timeline for the upcoming missile test, but she knew she would need more than a cup or two of Trident coffee to make it that far.
She lifted the gold-rimmed ceramic coffee mug and took a sip of the steaming elixir, savoring one of the few guilty pleasures she allowed herself in her otherwise Spartan lifestyle. Staring through the forward windows, she took in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean beyond the bow, but her mind continued replaying the events of the night before.
“Ma’am?”
Beth turned and saw the Officer of the Deck standing over her shoulder. “Yes, Lieutenant?”
“We just crossed into the Point Mugu Sea Range.”
Beth stepped down from her chair and followed the young lieutenant junior grade to one of the ECDIS, or Electronic Chart Display and Information System, stations to review their position in relation to the sea space overlay. The thirty-six-thousand-square-mile sea test range was ideally suited for coordinated exercises with submarines, surface ships, and aircraft to engage targets both in the air and on the water.
“Very well,” she said. “Go ahead and begin area sanitization.”
“Aye aye, ma’am.” The OOD spun away and picked up the Net 15 handset to inform the Surface Warfare Coordinator they were in place and ready to begin.
Beth watched the confident young officer work and again marveled at the skill and professionalism of her crew. It felt like only yesterday when she had been in his shoes, just over two years in the Navy and a graduate of the six-month Division Officer course at SWOS, the Surface Warfare Officer School, in Newport, Rhode Island. The future had seemed so exciting and the possibilities endless, but she had no idea what to expect.
She certainly never would have expected what happened the night before.
“Lieutenant, what’s the air picture?”
He glanced at her to acknowledge the query, then spoke again into the handset. Within seconds, she heard the speaker squawk: “Air picture clear.”
She nodded. No matter what the CAG had told her, she still felt uneasy about having an F-35C Joint Strike Fighter flying in the airspace above, armed with an advanced anti-shipping missile no less. But one thing was for certain. She wouldn’t be caught with her pants down and would prepare her crew for the unexpected.
“Captain, Combat,” came the voice over the Net 15 speaker.
Beth turned and picked up the handset. “This is the captain.”
“The target is within range.”
“Very well. I’m on my way there.”
Beth turned and strode for the door, confident she was leaving the bridge in good hands.
19
Adam was still recovering from his brief encounter with the admiral as he made his way aft in the hangar bay toward the fantail to reply to Chen’s message. It worried him that their frequency in communication had increased, but not as much as the idea of being caught because the Navy pilot found something incriminating in the maintenance data. With his message sent, he left the cavernous hangar bay and tried putting it from his mind. He didn’t need to report to maintenance control for at least another hour, but he also knew he couldn’t stay away from his workspace if he wanted to avoid suspicion.
For most sailors aboard the carrier, as well as the Marines in Adam’s squadron, learning how to get around the ship had been relatively simple. He only needed to know how to get from his assigned berthing and workspace, both on the 03 level, to the mess deck four levels beneath him, where he ate his meals, usually alone.
After reaching the top of the ladder, he turned inboard for one of two main passageways running the length of the ship. Maintenance control was located off a short hallway on the port side, and with some hesitation, he turned for it and walked through the door. Both Sarge and Gunny were in their usual places, preparing the logbooks for the upcoming first event. “Morning, Gunny,” he muttered.
“Garett,” Gunny replied, before spitting a thick stream of tobacco juice into his bottle.
“Skipper came by this morning,” Sergeant Narvaez said, turning to look at him. “We couldn’t find the data from last night’s event. Did you move it somewhere?”
Adam felt his heart bolt like a startled doe, but he breathed through his nose to tamp his fear before replying. “Not since we made a copy for the lieutenant.”
Acting like it wasn’t a big deal, he crossed to his workstation and sat down in the chair and put his back to the other men. He could already feel beads of sweat forming on his brow, and he wanted to avoid drawing even more attention to himself. But if the others thought the missing data was a big deal, they didn’t show it and went back to the normal busywork that defined their jobs on the boat.
Adam logged in to the computer while continuing to breathe through his fear. He needed to lose himself in his work and forget the message he had sent to Chen. He should have felt relief the pilot would soon be off the carrier, but he was starting to wonder how deep down the rabbit hole of treachery he was willing to go. She might not have ordered him to pull the trigger, but he had pointed the gun for her.
There’s no turning back now.
As Punky followed Chief Cooper from the back of the Osprey and across the flight deck, she couldn’t help but stare in open-mouthed amazement at the bedlam surrounding her. Everywhere she looked, she saw sailors in different colored jerseys scurrying about in an unorganized fashion performing various tasks she assumed were somewhat important to the daily goings-on aboard an aircraft carrier.
“This way, ma’am,” Chief Cooper yelled, turning to ensure she was still following in his wake.
She remained on his heels, not daring to step away from the invisible path he was treading. To their left, she saw a man in camouflage trousers with a long-sleeved green turtleneck and green vest standing at the nose of an F-35C Joint Strike Fighter. His green cranial swiveled from side to side as he supervised others in green, brown, and white jerseys crawling underneath the jet. He turned in her direction, said something into the microphone attached to his cranial, then turned back to the others and started barking orders.
To her right, an E-2D Hawkeye started its engines, and the propellers began spinning violently in the humid marine air, dangerously close to where she and Chief Cooper were walking. But the seasoned crew chief didn’t seem fazed by it, and he walked with confidence toward the starboard side of the ship, just forward of the island. She breathed a sigh of relief when he led her from the flight deck down a short set of stairs onto a catwalk, then into the ship through a watertight door.