The Cruiser: A Dan Lenson Novel (2 page)

“So, Lenson,” Nick Niles had rumbled four days before, slapping his desk, “I keep my promises. Still want a ship?”

Dan had stood by the window of the vice CNO’s temporary office at the Buchanan House, looking out toward the Pentagon. The offices he and Niles had staggered out of together, through burning fuel, under collapsing ceilings, over torn-apart bodies, were being gutted and rebuilt.

“Yes sir,” he’d murmured. Niles had stalled his career, blocked his promotion, spread the word that the most highly decorated officer in the sea services was a hothead, an individualist, reckless, cavalier, unaccountable. He seemed to have changed his mind after 9/11. Somehow he’d engineered Dan’s fourth stripe, though his fingerprints were nowhere to be seen. But Dan was still wary of African-American admirals bearing gifts.

“You made captain. Sure you don’t want to cash in your chips? Take a medical retirement on those wheezy lungs, go make some real money?”

He didn’t answer, and a hollow boom quivered the air as a big palm walloped the desk again. “Okay. A command? I got one. You might actually be a good fit. Your background with missiles. Think about who you can cherry-pick from TAG to take with you. Fill in the holes.”

“Well, I—”

“But you won’t have long.” A sausagelike finger had boresighted him. “I can’t wait for results. She’s out there on a national-level mission. If this ship doesn’t turn around, and I mean on a dime, I’ve got another O-6 with his bags packed. And tread light this time, Lenson. No more
Gaddis
es. No more
Horn
s.”

“What’s the mission, sir?” Dan had asked.

And Niles had told him.

“We can look at the far side, sir,” said the coxswain, beside him in the boat. Dan nodded. Binoculars flashed from the bridge wing; he turned his collars up to hide his rank insignia. On the port side the red antifouling coating rose several feet above the waterline. “The screws seem to be in deeper water,” Mills yelled, and Dan nodded again. That’d be a plus, if the shafts and screws weren’t damaged. He could borrow fins and take a look, if that wasn’t beneath the dignity of a skipper. Still, the sonar dome, all the way forward, looked as if it had been driven right up onto the shoal.

He took one more long survey, stem to stern, all 570 gray humming, roaring feet of her; at men and women standing about on the fantail, gazing longingly at the city that stretched away into the hazy distance, climbing the slopes of silent ominous peaks. Then said to the coxswain, “Thanks for the look. You can put us ashore now.”

*   *   *

DRIVING
back to the base, Dan remembered coming here as a lieutenant (jg), aboard USS
Guam.
Naples had been a grim, depressed city of blowing trash and sullen crowds and wash hanging from shabby tenements, with too many people and far too little employment. In those days every bullet-chipped wall had been plastered with Communist posters, and sailors on liberty had been warned to travel in groups.

There was still trash back in the alleys, and the streets were no wider, but the Terminale Marittima had been freshly repainted and the cars they idled behind were new. The shops were all open, with bright signs and fully stocked windows. The women who crossed in total disregard of whether or not the lights said to walk swung along jauntily in glossy leather boots and stylish coats, and the men looked far more hopeful. Italy seemed to be doing well, even in what had always been one of its least-advantaged cities. Maybe the protection of the U.S. Navy had helped it get there. He liked to think so, anyway.

Mills was slowing the sedan at the entrance to the base when Dan noticed another crowd. The guardhouse lay at the end of a cul-de-sac walled off from the main terminal by blocks of warehouses and trucking garages and the concertina wire surrounding the Alitalia repair shops. A line of cars waited to enter, but between them and the guard shack a chain of demonstrators were waving signs, gesticulating, and marching back and forth. Their shouts echoed down the cul-de-sac, amplified by the concrete walls.

“What’s going on up there, Matt?”

“I’m not sure. Work disagreement, I think. There’s always a strike someplace in town.”

“That hasn’t changed.”

“Usually it’s pretty tame. They even announce the time it’ll be over, when they strike the train lines. So everybody can plan. It’s pretty civilized.” Mills touched the pedal and the sedan edged up. He slid out a sign that read
AUTOVETTURE DI SERVIZIO—US NAVY
and propped it on the dash.

Dan lowered his window for a better look. Unlike the demonstrators down by the waterfront, all these were male. Some had beards, which he hadn’t seen on any Italians in the streets. They were dark-skinned. A squad of police, shields and helmets stacked at their feet, were joking and smoking, leaning against a warehouse wall.

The brake lights of the SUV ahead flashed as it reached the throng. As the police yelled at the demonstrators, it pushed slowly through. Some of the crowd screamed back, parting sullenly. Others ignored it, haranguing the gate guards, who stood with gloves on pistols. A reaction team watched from a Humvee. The noise level was building.

Dan pressed the switch. The window was humming upward again when a green projectile hurtled up out of the mob, whirled in the air, and plunged. It burst on their windshield with a crack of shattering glass, spattering pinkish liquid, which, an instant later, burst into flame. His window was still closing as it hit, and some spurted in, filling the cabin with gasoline fumes. Time slowed as he watched the flame outside propagate along the fume-line, jump the gap just as the window sealed, and ignite on his shoulder and in the rear seat.

“Holy shit,” Mills said, hitting the accelerator. Dan twisted away from the flames, beating at them frantically as they lurched forward. They crisped his hair, and a choking plasticky smoke filled the interior. Flailing at the fire, feeling his skin start to burn, he only dimly sensed their acceleration forward, then an abrupt brake that slammed him into his shoulder belt.

A thick white cloud blasted windshield and hood, instantly extinguishing the flames that roared and licked there. Tiny volcanoes of blistered, smoking paint vented gas and then sagged, stiffening as frost coated them. The door jerked open and an icy howl enveloped him, stopping his breath, instantly freezing his skin. But the flames doused as if by incantation. The rush of frigid gas moved on, to blast first over Mills, hunched at the wheel, eyes squinched, then shifting to the backseat, to quell the last stubborn pools of fire back there.

Gloved hands seized his belts, sawed, and yanked. He stumbled out in a gush of smoke and white vapor, flakes of which drifted around him before sublimating into invisibility. He nearly fell, but other hands steadied him, and he coughed hard, his 9/11-scarred trachea nearly closing. He swallowed, and grabbed the mask tubed to a green cylinder someone held out.

“Matt, you okay? —Matt?”

“Okay, sir,” Mills said, sounding shaken, but looking unhurt. “You burned?”

“Just my … mainly my uniform, I think.”

As a medic led him toward an emergency response van Dan glanced back. A steel mesh barrier and a solid line of troops barred access to the base. Red and blue strobes hurtled across still-smoking asphalt. The Italian police were in among the demonstrators, pushing them to their knees, handcuffing them. Some fought back, and the cops blocked the blows with their shields. Black batons rose and fell as, down the narrow street, sirens seesawed and more police vehicles turned in toward the scuffle.

He coughed hard, and sucked another hit of oxygen. If he hadn’t gotten that window closed, the gasoline would have gone all over him. A fucking Molotov cocktail. Was he the target, or just a random victim? His damaged throat spasmed again and he closed his eyes, trying to breathe.

“Sit down right here, sir,” the corpsman said. Filipino, by the look of him. “Got a problem with that airway?”

“No. No … problem.”

Shrewd brown eyes examined him. “Looked like you might have. Just need to have you lie down here, then. And I’m going to give you a little injection, all right? Just to help you relax.”

Still fighting to catch his breath, Dan only nodded.

*   *   *

THAT
night, in his suite, he looked through a book someone had left in the lobby bookcase. It was by Freya Stark, about Rome’s long struggle to maintain its eastern frontier against first Mithradates, then the Seleucids, and then the long struggle with the Parthians … who seemed to be related, in some way not quite clear, to the Pathans or Pashtuns he, Dan, had fought in Afghanistan. The Persians seemed to be involved too, but later in the story.

Eventually, trying his cell every few pages, he managed to get through to Blair. His wife sounded depressed. She’d been fighting the blues for a long time now, after being injured in the Twin Towers collapse. She’d gone through bone infection, burn problems, and trouble with the autografts to her face and ear. “How’s it going, honey?” he said. “It’s me.”

“I know. But why’s your voice so raspy?”

He debated telling her about the firebombing, but decided that would serve no good purpose. His skin still itched where the corpsman had applied an antibiotic ointment. He shivered. After getting badly burned on
Reynolds Ryan,
and so narrowly escaping from the Pentagon on 9/11, he was really starting to fear fire. “I don’t know. Do I sound different?”

“Maybe not. Where are you now? Italy?”

“Correct. Naples.”

“I’m sitting here watching them start another TV war. Are you aboard your ship?
Savo Island
, you said?”

“No, I’m at the Navy Lodge. I can’t take over until they relieve the previous CO.”

“I wish you didn’t have to go.”

He lay on the bed, BlackBerry pressed to his ear. The news was on the television, an Italian channel, sound muted, but a long shot panned the length of a beached and helpless warship, lingered on the U.S. flag, then pulled back to show the harbor. A commentator spoke in the foreground, ending with a smirk and a shake of the head. Dan closed his eyes. “So, how’s the ear?”

“Looks horrible, but the swelling’s going down.”

“And the fund-raising?”

“I feel infected after every meeting. But Checkie says it’s got to be done. He’s been a big help. He advises me before every sit-down.”

“That’s good, hon. But I can’t believe you need much hand-holding.” Checkie Titus was her father, a retired banker. Blair was from one of the oldest families in Maryland, and a former undersecretary of defense. Dan didn’t think she’d actually have much trouble raising enough cash to run for Congress, though he wasn’t sure he wanted her to win. That, of course, had to go unvoiced. Like maybe a lot of things between husbands and wives.

“I wish you didn’t have to deploy again.”

“I wish I could be in two places, hon. How about this. Maybe you can take a break and fly over. How’s Crete sound? The ruins of Minos. Or maybe Athens?”

“I’ve been to Athens, but Crete … hmm. That’d be new.” Her voice changed, gained what sounded like anticipation. “Can you let me know your schedule?”

“Not sure just yet. And I couldn’t tell you over the phone anyway. I’ll give you the name of the port-calls guy at Surflant.”

When he hung up he lay watching the muted images flicker shifting shadows on the ceiling of the darkened cavelike room. He hadn’t seen his daughter in nearly a year. Wouldn’t see his wife for months. Neither would any of the others aboard the ship he might shortly call his own.

Why did they do it? When they could all make more money ashore? Be with their families. Have actual lives. Instead, they were part of a crew.

Part of a crew.

Yeah.

Maybe that was explanation enough.

2

THE
next morning Mills took him to the Spina, a bricked courtyard with a Subway, a Navy Federal Credit Union office, and a Navy College storefront. Admin Two’s long, wide, light-filled corridors smelled of cappuccino. They were floored with glossy white callacatta veined with writhes of cinnabar. The slick hard marble felt strange underfoot; he was used to buffed tile or terrazzo.

Across a desk, a woman who’d always made him nervous was giving orders over her cell. They’d shaken hands when he came in, her small palm slightly sweaty; then her phone had chimed. Intense, skeptical Jennifer Roald, a small-boned, sharp-faced brunette was only a little older than he. She’d directed the White House Situation Room when Dan had worked in the West Wing. They’d stayed in touch, and now and then she’d been able to extend a helping hand, or pulse the Old Girl Network on his behalf. She’d obviously hit wickets and punched tickets since; now she was ComDesRon 26,
Savo Island
’s squadron commander—and thus, his putative direct boss, at least for manning, equipment, and administrative matters.

Studying her, he wondered if
she
could have been the one who’d gotten the promotion board to throw out its initial recommendations. Probably not. They hadn’t been
that
close. Coworkers, no more. Only Niles had the clout to swing a board his way. And the cunning to make sure no one would ever be able to prove it.

Snapping the cell closed, Roald focused a dark gaze on him. “Dan, good to see you again. That was the NCIS. They’re helping the Italians with the case. The police are working their way through the demonstrators. They want to know if you got a look at who threw the bomb.”

“It wasn’t a bomb. Just a bottle of gasoline. Green, maybe a wine bottle. I only got a glimpse. And I didn’t see who threw it. It flew up out of the crowd, then hit our windshield. I smelled gas, and whoosh—it ignited.”

She pushed across a paper slip. “Call this number. The agent’s name’s Erculiano. Italian name, but he’s American.”

He said he would and Roald glanced at a notebook screen. “Okay. Where we stand on the grounding … Sixth Fleet convened a JAG manual investigation, came down with a six-man team. They’ll wrap at noon and present their conclusions to Admiral Ogawa. You know him?”