The Weapon (7 page)

Now they stood in the VIP stand with the generals and admirals Blair outranked, the Commandant and the reviewing officer holding the salute as the guns boomed, making babies scream in the stands, dogs bark, and dozens of car alarms go off at once. Amid their discordant wailing the steady thud . . . thud . . . thud of the battery was like the heavy dull strokes of a sledge.

Then young voices echoed high in the cool air. “Pass . . . in. . . . review.” And a leatherfaced Marine next to Dan muttered the irreverent parody passed from generation to generation: “Piss . . . in . . . your . . . shoes.”

With a renewed blare of brass and crash of drums the march-past began. Dan stood at attention as the Brigade went by. From here he couldn't smell dust and crushed grass, gun oil and sweat-soaked wool, but he remembered them. And how simple Duty had been, when he'd been one of the
marching thousands. How clear and clean everything had seemed.

“What are you thinking?”

“Just that I thought it'd all be different.”

“The Navy? Life?”

“Everything.” He blinked at the bright faces trooping by. They put the women at the end of each company, or maybe it was just that they tended to be shorter, so they ended up in the rear rank. There were a lot of female stripers, though; the Brigade Commander was a stocky brunette the PA system announced was from Montana. “It makes you think, coming back.”

“Would you like to, really? To teach, or on the staff? That could be a nice assignment.”

He told her maybe, but to
please
not try to help him in any way. “I'll take what I'm assigned.”

“Dan, believe me, if you don't ask for what you want, you will not go far.”

“At this point, I don't think it makes a difference in my promotability.”

“Are you kidding? With a Congressional?”

“My record's not held in my favor in most quarters,” he told her. “There are a lot of people on those boards who don't think I ought to get another command.”

“By which you mean, another ship. But there are better opportunities than another ship, Dan.”

“Maybe. But that's what I want.”

He heard the stubbornness in his voice. She looked unhappy or angry, too, and to break the mood he put his arm around her. Leaned to brush her cheek with his lips. Then remembered he was on the Academy grounds, and she was a four-star equivalent, and a marine general was watching them; he let the arm drop. She didn't seem to notice. She was looking at the Homecoming schedule he'd printed out for her. “Feels funny not having an aide to tell me where to go next . . . okay, so six
P.M
.'s the dinner, with the guys from your old company. Then the dance, and tomorrow's the game.”

He smiled. Her tone said she'd accepted what he'd said. Maybe not agreed, but accepted it. “Yeah,” he said. “Tomorrow's the game.”

 

It was a close one, against Rice. Navy trailed from the first quarter, rallied after the half, then scored two touchdowns in quick succession to win. The stadium had been quiet during the first half, but wound up till by the end they were all on their feet and screaming, even Blair. When they finished singing “Navy Blue and Gold” and were filing out he grinned. “Never saw you this excited over a game.”

“It was a good one.”

They went to the class dinner in King Hall and for once no one near them was obnoxiously drunk, or wanted to start a food fight. She looked lovely and he wanted her. By the time they got back to the hotel he couldn't keep his hands off her, and she had her hand in his trouser pocket. As soon as the door was closed they were tearing each other's clothes off.

The main event was over and they were lying tangled together when the phone rang. She grimaced. “How do they always know?”

“Well, they were a little late this time.” He untangled himself and got it, then hesitated, unsure how to identify himself in an unofficial environment. Jeez, maybe he'd been in the Navy too long. Said at last, “Uh—Lenson here.”

“Dan? This is Captain Calvin Carroll Hines. SURFLANT N2?”

Dan knew Hines from e-mail exchanges. Code N2 was Surface Force Intelligence, deputy for Admiral Olivero, commander of Surface Forces, Atlantic. Olivero was Captain Mullaly's immediate senior, which made Hines the representative of his boss's boss. “Yessir. What can I do for you, Captain?”

“I'm not interrupting? Saw you at the game and figured you'd be staying here. Got a minute? Can you come down to the bar?”

Across the bed his wife was getting up. Dan eyed her
nude buttocks, her long tapering legs as she bent to pick up clothing. The shine of moisture where he'd just been. How could any man leave something like this? How could he want to go to sea again?

“Commander?”

“Be right down, sir,” he said into the phone.

 

The bar was modern and intimate, and was packed with alumni catching up. He stood in the doorway until an older man gestured him over. He was in slacks, a sports shirt, and a blue N-star Academy sweater.

“Beer?”

“A Coke, thanks.”

They discussed the game first, Dan wondering what this was about but figuring the intelligence officer would tell him when he was ready. The ambient noise was deafening, though, and got worse every time the TV showed a clip from the game. Finally Hines suggested they take a walk.

“Sir, is this official? My wife's upstairs. We don't get much time together—”

“The deputy undersecretary? Wouldn't want to keep you two apart.” The captain gave no clue how he meant this, though. “Yeah, official. Just a couple minutes. It's the high-speed torpedo issue.”

Dan figured this meant the Shkval. Outside, they headed toward the lights of the nearby mall. Not a star was visible above them. He remembered when this had been green fields. Hines said, “On the tasking? There was a working group, Navy/DIA/Commerce/Defense Acquisition Agency, to coordinate how we go about meeting it.”

“Uh, TAG hasn't passed that to me yet.”

“The decision points are in Mullaly's in-box. Short version: Since Shkval-K's being advertised for export, Commerce suggested we were making this harder than it had to be. Maybe the Russians would sell it to us, if we offered a deal—say, a joint venture to manufacture Shkvals for the USN.”

“You mean, just buy it?”

“Sometimes that's the easiest way.”

“Well, that sounds reasonable,” he said cautiously. “Do you think they'd go for it? This is supposed to be the most advanced weapon they have.”

“They need the cash. It's worth a try.”

“I, uh, I assume we wouldn't actually be putting Russian weapons in U.S. tubes? The safety issues—”

Hines waved that away. “We'll get Lockheed or Hughes to safe up the design, then charge us ten times as much. But that's many exits down the pike. Right now we're just talking about buying five or six for testing and evaluation.”

“Uh, exactly who at Commerce suggested this? I know some of those folks from when I was at the NSC.”

“All we got was the minutes and actually just our part of that. Well, the Russians put millions of dollars into this thing. Like you say, it might not be designed to NATO standards, but hey, it works. And Commerce says the more we buy from the Russian Federation, the more they can buy from us. That'd make their constituency happy.”

“From what I saw in the White House, we're too eager to sell certain things,” Dan said.

“Above our pay grade, son. I've talked to the development shop at SUBLANT. Consensus, not only would we remove a threat to the carriers, our subs could use something like this hunting diesel boats in shallow water. Get a one-ping solution and clobber them at close range.”

“Whatever. So, Commerce is going to buy it?”

Hines waited till a teenage couple buzzed past on motorbikes. “No.
They
don't want to get involved. They want
us
to buy it. From the Ministry of Defense.”

Dan waited for the punch line. But apparently this wasn't a joke, because Hines went on, “CNO's willing to commit funding from his acquisition pot. So, rather than whatever Norm had you set up to do, Admiral Olivero wants us to try to get to this system legally first. You're already backgrounded. And as it happens there's a major arms exposition opening Monday. Day after tomorrow.” Hines gave it a beat, then
added, “Short notice, I know. But working at TAG, you're used to travel, right? We had our office cut the paperwork.”

They stopped by a dark blue Mercury. Hines glanced around the lot, then popped the trunk and came up with manila. “Orders, tickets, a briefing package—you can read in on the plane. An invitation from the Russian Federation state corporation for military export. It's not made out to you by name, but it does invite the U.S. to send a rep, in case there's any question on their end. Who you can call up at the Building to work out the contractual end, if you get that far on the first visit. Which you probably won't, so don't sweat it.

“We don't expect you to come back with a finished deal, all right? Just talk to them, let 'em know we're interested, but only if it's reasonable—don't act like we're hot for this thing, they'll triple the price. Your assistant, we overnighted his package yesterday. But they said you'd be at the game this weekend, and since I was going, too . . . the personal touch . . . flight's at zero-seven tomorrow. So actually that works out, you can go right to BWI from here.”

Dan hefted the envelope—it was heavy—then tucked it under his arm. He was still trying to get his head around the switch in direction. Hines wheeled back toward the hotel. “Any questions?”

He'd already planned his week, and it hadn't included travel. But everything else Hines had said made sense. Especially the part about it being easier to buy what you wanted, than get it under the table. “Well, this is sudden, like you said, sir. But I guess we can give it a try. Uh, you never said where exactly I'm going?”

“Didn't I? ARMINTEX—the International Armaments Exhibition. In Moscow.”

Dan stopped at the hotel entrance. “Wait a minute. I thought San Diego, or Toronto, but—we've got to be in
Moscow
Monday? And I'm leaving tomorrow morning?”

“Not a problem, is it?”

He tried to recall how many pair of socks and underwear he had with him. “Uh, I don't have uniforms—”

“Not a problem. You'll be representing us in civvies,” the captain said. He added, “Enjoy your evening.” Then turned back once to call, “Remember, zero-seven tomorrow. And my very best to the undersecretary.”

The oversized, full-color Komponent brochure, no, more like a magazine, had been waiting on his bed when he checked in. But he hadn't opened it. Not after eighteen straight hours in the air, or twiddling his toes in terminals. During the last leg in from Finland, just before the doors closed, a party of drunken women had staggered aboard the aircraft and loudly demanded his and Henrickson's seats. Henrickson had shouted back in Russian, and after an argument that had nearly come to blows the harridans had moved on forward, pausing to scream back abuse. They'd kept drinking all during the flight, and from time to time, along with an alarming creaking from the wings, screams and the crash of breaking glass had ripped back through the smoky air.

They'd checked in at 0300 local, so tired he'd barely registered the little beige cube of a room, just spotted the rack and stripped and fallen onto it. In no time it seemed his watch had gone off. Now he flipped through the brochure in the gray light from the grimy window that comprised one wall, trying to glean the salient points as he stepped into slacks and pushed his feet into shoes.

The three-day International Armaments Exhibition showcased the latest technical developments for sea, air, and
land forces. It billed itself as the “most prominent and greatest European event in the field of ensuring national security.” Three hundred companies from fifty regions of the Federation and twelve foreign countries were participating. The schedule included seminars and round tables, presentations on doing business in the new Rus sia, press conferences, and demonstrations. The coordinating authority was the Russian Federation State Corporation for Armaments Export and Import. A long list of new designs were listed for sale. Dan noted nearly all were Russian. They included tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, small arms and artillery munitions, a new armored airborne fighting vehicle—he guessed this meant one designed to be air-dropped—and the list went on.

He found naval systems: fire control radars, missile systems, and the Shkval-K “high-speed underwater missile.” He dropped his already-tied tie around his neck and two-blocked it as he read.

HIGH-SPEED UNDERWATER MISSILES

The underwater speeds of water-to-water missiles exceed the speeds of any known torpedoes for many times. This is reached by sharp drag reduction due to optimum body profile and the usage of high effective missile motors.

We offer production know-how for the development of assembly units of high-speed underwater missiles including propulsion systems. The missiles can be manufactured in different sizes and adapted easily to a variety of different launch platforms; surface ships, submarines, and other carriers. The operational readiness of stored missiles kept in launches is maintained. The missiles offered for the development will possess the high accuracy of damage because of disability of target-ship to carry out antimissile manoeuvre. The known antitorpedo defensive system are not effective against high-speed underwater missiles.

High kill capability of missiles achived by the
combination of several factors including power warhead. We offer not only propulsion system licenses, assembly unit licenses, but also technical help, advices including the development and supply of test missiles, and instruments needed for their prestart installation.

We are ready to discuss the proposals for joint-venture production of missiles within laws accepted at the international market.