The Passage (27 page)

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Authors: David Poyer

BOOK: The Passage
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Finally, Leighty said, “What's the latest on the Soviet battle group here in the Caribbean? The
Kirov
and her escorts?”
“Uh, sir, last I heard, they were in port at Cienfuegos. But I'm primarily training; you could get the latest from the commodore when you call on him.”
“Good idea. Well, is that it? I guess we'll go ahead and break now, get training started. And I've got to make those calls. Thanks, Lieutenant.” He stood and everybody else did, too, as he left.
 
 
DAN had a little more preparation, but it wasn't the kind of frantic catch-up he'd had to do on his last visit, in
Bowen
. The ship was quiet; most of the crew was over at FTG getting the initial classroom
briefs. He had to admit, Leighty had prepared well. If only Sanderling hadn't jumped overboard, if only they could get the ACDADs running … maybe it would all work out somehow.
The ear-drilling keen of the boatswain's pipe came over the 1MC at 1600. “Liberty call, liberty call. Liberty commences for Sections Two and Three to expire on board at oh-two hundred.”
Dan took his sweaty uniform off and pulled on shorts and a polo shirt. He went back to the fan room, jingling his keys, and unlocked his bicycle and carried it down to the quarterdeck. They had maps there and he studied one, then carried the bike down the brow, did a couple of stretching exercises, and headed up Sherman Avenue, the winding two-laner that ran the length of Windward.
He pedaled for a long time, miles, past the clubs and the phone exchange, base housing and hospital. The road reached open country. Gradually, his muscles warmed and he started taking the hills in higher gear, pumping hard—till he looked up, to find his way blocked by a closed gate. He slowed on the dusty road, then stopped. Suddenly, he realized he was alone; there was no traffic here, nothing but the sigh of the wind as it bent the bushes that littered the dry hills. He'd never been out this far before. He got off the bike and walked it up a little rise. A green line of cactus and wire came into view a hundred yards off.
“That's it,” said a voice behind him. “Castro territory.”
When he turned, a marine lance corporal was standing twelve feet away. His M16 was unslung, not exactly pointing at Dan, but not pointing away, either.
“This area's off-limits, bud. How'd you get here?”
“On my bike. Came up that road.”
“Don't you read?”
“Read?”
“Yeah, like ‘Off-limits beyond this point' signs?”
“I didn't see it. If I had, I'd have turned back.” He swung a leg over the bike and started turning it around. “That's the perimeter, huh?”
“Uh-huh,” said the marine, relaxing a little. He lighted a cigarette, looking up at one of the guard towers. “See that hill? The one with the bunker on top of it? Sometimes you see a white Mercedes parked over there. They say that's Castro's; he comes down once in a while to make sure we're still here.”
“Is that so?” Dan looked again. “What's on our side?”
“On our side? The biggest fucking minefield in the Western world, that's what's on our side.”
“I don't see any.”
“You're not supposed to,” said the marine. “Tell you a story, though. Couple sailors get drunk at the club, decide they're going to walk back to the ship. They walk for a couple miles in the dark—
they're lost. Suddenly the guy in front hears this terrific explosion behind him. He starts running, but he runs fill tilt into a sign. He lights his Zippo and reads it. Knows enough Spanish to figure out it says he's in the middle of a minefield. So what's he do? The smart thing: lies down right there and sleeps it off. We saw him out there in the morning. Had to send a chopper out for the son of a bitch.”
“How about his buddy?”
“Chili burger.” The marine jerked his head down the road. “Take off, buds. Don't let me see you around the perimeter again.”
He cycled back slowly, cooling off. The shadows of the hills lay long across the dry dust. When he came to the turnoff for the officers' club, he swung right and coasted down a steep hill and then out a narrow point surrounded by the bay. He locked the bike and went in.
He treated himself to a martini—one, he told himself, just to relax—and went in to dinner. They had fresh grilled tuna and he had a leisurely meal alone. When the waiter asked him if he'd like a refill, he said why not. Two martinis with dinner weren't going to hurt him.
When he came out, he saw unfamiliar uniforms at the bar. They turned out to be Venezuelan, off the patrol boat he'd seen coming in. It was a Venezuelan Navy missile boat named
Federación.
They were there for joint training, they said, and would be doing some exercises later with
Barrett
and the other destroyer, USS
Dahlgren.
“
Dahlgren?
”
“That's right.”
He had a classmate aboard DDG-43. Shoot, he thought, I'll have to stop over and see Larry while we're here.
“You will have a planter's punch with us?”
“Sure,” said Dan. “If I get to buy the second round.”
Around eleven, some of the other officers from
Barrett
came in—the XO, Quintanilla, Shuffert, Lohmeyer, Horseheads, Martin Paul. Dan weaved over, glad to have an excuse to say
hasta la vista
to the South Americans. They drank like they'd never seen alcohol before.
Vysotsky called for dice from the bar and they played ship, captain, and crew for each round, slamming the cup down, the dice spinning out over the table. A six was the ship, five the captain, four the crew. You had to have a ship before a captain, and a captain before a crew. The XO kept the conversation light—sports and jokes, teasing Paul about his new kid. After a round, Dan got up. He told them to save his place and went to find the head.
He was standing at the urinal when another body slid in next to him. Then the XO grunted in relief. “I needed that.”
“Yeah. Same here.”
The exec cleared his throat. “You know, I've been meaning to say, I'm glad you went along with the shaving issue. I'd have hated to lose both you and Mark.”
“Yes, sir,” said Dan, though the bare mention of it made him angry all over again.
“I know it got your goat. But I figured that after you thought about it, you'd see I was right.”
“About what, sir?”
“About the issue, especially for officers. If we expect a seamanlike appearance from the men, we've got to look good. If we expect performance, we've got to know our jobs, too. If we expect honesty and dedication, we have to show them we're dedicated, too.”
Dan peered drunkenly down at the urinal, trying to keep the stream steady on the little white cake. “I can't disagree with that, sir. I just didn't see the linkage between any of that and a welltrimmed beard. It just seemed like—like somebody's blind prejudice.”
“Well, I thought about that after you and Mark made your arguments. I sort of had to consider what the difference was. And you know, I found it.”
Dan said unwillingly, “What's that, sir?”
Vysotsky zipped up, then paused, hand on the flushing lever. “I think the prejudice, if that's the right word, comes in when you judge somebody on the basis of something he can't change. Like that fellow at the Schools Command was judging me on the basis of my name being Russian. I think the only fair way is to judge every man on the basis of his performance, not things he was born into, like his race or his religion or how his name sounds.” He shrugged and flushed. “And a beard, that's a voluntary choice; that's just grooming.”
“Maybe so, sir. But my reaction was just that here's another rule telling me what I've got to do.”
“But we already had that discussion, right? About how it's an even trade?”
“I guess we did, XO.”
 
 
WHEN he got back to the table, there was another round waiting. Dan kept drinking. He kept winning, too. Again and again, he slammed the cup down and lifted it, seeing six, five, four, and then whatever the number of the crew would be. Then he rolled a perfect score: three sixes, a five, and a four. He laughed and ordered again, and somewhere in there he stopped remembering anything at all.
T
HE night spread out on every side, from the calm black bay to the looming hills to the east. Here and there, a lighted window shone from base housing, and the beacon flashed steadily from the airfield across the harbor.
All the way forward on the main deck, forward of the ground tackle, a lean dark figure stood with a boot propped on a chock, bent forward against the lifeline at the very bow. It looked down into the black glossy water, in which the stars flashed from time to time. A flashlight came on and played idly along the mooring lines. It ran along the pier. It probed down into the water, spreading a fuzzy, unfocused glow. Then it snapped off, and the figure straightened as another shadow came out of the breaker and climbed the rising slope of foredeck. When it got forward of the gun mount, it tripped in the dark, cursed, and then stood still, looking around.
“Over here. Jesus. Took you long enough.”
“I had some things to do. What, now I've got to drop everything when you call? Like I'm some fucking dog?”
“You sound hostile tonight, shipmate. On the rag?”
“I don't have anything to say to you. Just this: I'm out.”
A low laugh from the darkness. “You don't remember too good, do you? I told you when we started, don't sign up unless you're sure you want it. 'Cause once you're in with me, there's only one way out. The way Marion took, or our little pansy friend Sandy.”
“What are you saying?”
“I think you understand what I'm saying.”
“I ought to blow the whistle on you, you lying asshole.”
The lean man slowly took out a clasp knife. Clicking it open, he started cleaning his fingernails deliberately. He said, “You turn me in, you go down the tubes five seconds later. Remember? Our little deal? You had a nice taste of what that brought in, as I remember.
What, now it's all gone, you're getting an attack of conscience?”
“I had time to think about it. That's what happened. Who did those kits go to, anyway?”
“I told you. Raytheon makes that system. There's a company that wants to bid against them. They want to make 'em, they need to take apart some of the cards, figure out the manufacturing tricks. That's how America works. Hey, what you sweating it for? It ain't no big deal, Lieutenant. All it'll do, bring the cost of spare parts down a little bit.”
“Yeah, but this stuff you're talking about now …”
“All the same ball of wax, shipmate. All the same ball of wax.” The taller figure's voice fell suddenly as a party of sailors passed by on the pier. Both men looked down at them, then off across the calm starry bay. “Pretty night,” said the taller one.
“Yeah, this isn't a bad place to spend time.”
“You should have been here in the old days, before Castro. We used to put into Havana then. Tell you some stories … Shit, don't change the subject on me. You want out? No problem. Only, hey, all of a sudden somebody might find out what happened to those parts. Then you can kiss your career good-bye. And kiss off about ten years of your life, too. Cause that's gonna be how long you spend in federal prison for grand theft.”
The other didn't answer. “But you ain't gonna do that. You're going to hang with the program and keep on collecting that little supplement. You're going to keep on helping us out. And keep on helping yourself out, too. Right?”
The other didn't answer for a time. Together, they listened to the far-off sound of laughter, of boisterous singing, the sudden screech of brakes far off.
“What do you want me to do?” the voice murmured at last.
 
 
WHEN the second man left, the first lingered at the bow, looking out at the hills. He considered going over to the club later. But then thought, No, it might be best not to.
He had a great deal to do and not a great deal of time left to do it in. Thinking of this, he took a notebook out of his back pocket and turned the flashlight on once more, ran down the list of names, checked his watch. Then clicked the light off again and stood pondering in the darkness.
And after a time, another shadow detached itself from the superstructure. It hesitated for a time, looking searchingly around at the forecastle, the pier, the distant hills. A match flared and lips
drew nervously on a cigarette. Then it made its wary way up to the man, who waited casually for it to draw near, one boot propped on a chock, his upper body leaning easily forward on the lifelines, looking off toward the waiting shore.

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