This only can I say!
A mass jeopardy novel by Peter G Bailey
Stunning and believable.
By
Peter G Bailey
Smashwords Edition
Published By:
Peter G Bailey at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 by Peter G Bailey ©
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First published in Great Britain by PG Publishing
ISBN 978-0-9569572-3-8
First published electronically in Great Britain by Amazon in 2011.
All characters in this book are fictitious and bear no relationship to any person, dead or alive, known to the author.
A catalogue record for all published eBooks is held in the British Library.
Dedication:-
To Joy:- Banal but true.
A thing of beauty is a Joy forever.
Frontispiece:
One paragraph summary:
When an asteroid devastates the Earth, a dedicated US naval officer balances his ethical duty against the opportunistic greed of ambitious survivors.
Two paragraph summary:
With world order destroyed by an asteroid, tough, youthful Marcus Kelloway finds himself opposed to his acquisitive president’s policy of taking over countries unable to defend themselves.
Asked to assist in the take-over of China, he opposes the operation and begins a nuclear exchange that finally destroys him and the remnants of the world’s civilisation.
Cover summary:
Returning to Washington from Persian Gulf carrier service in a world threatened by an asteroid, US Navy Captain Marcus Kelloway arrives with mixed personal feelings. Not only has he been relieved early from the prestige command of the USS Carl Vinsen by Hudd Warren, a man he’s detested since junior school, Kelloway finds himself appointed to the Materials Division of the Navy Department, a job with no hopes of further advancement.
At the airport he meets his younger brother’s wife who carries an exuberant welcome into a long-lasting love affair in retaliation for her husband’s lust for the gorgeous soignée, Crystal Le Blanc, a rich Washington socialite. When he meets her himself, Kelloway falls helplessly under her spell and happily numbers himself amongst her many lovers.
At the Navy Department, Kelloway seeks answers to America’s foreign base military needs. Instead of leasing bases, President Granby decides America should build huge mobile islands. On the project Kelloway meets Professor Compton Parkside, a brilliant scientist, but one with a sinister non-scientific agenda of his own.
Despite objections, Granby backs Parkside’s assertion that he can steer the possibly fatal asteroid away from the earth by soft landing a rocket on its surface and sequence firing impulse motors.
When the first two Floating Islands are launched, Kelloway is given command of one, but is disappointed to discover Hudd Warren, who has just stolen Crystal from him, is to command the second.
Their first assignments are thrown into chaos, along with the world, when Parkside fails to divert the asteroid and it lands in the Andes setting off enormous techtoidal plate movements, fatal tidal waves and extensive volcanic activity all round the world. Not only did Parkside predict this; it was part of his eugenic aspirations. He, and his disciples, believe human civilisation has failed and should be replaced by something better.
Caught at sea Kelloway can do nothing as the world suffers and vast numbers of people die from starvation and toxic gas poisoning. Kelloway and his battle fleet survive by moving to Antarctica and Warren, with Parkside, Bentley and Crystal on board shelters in the Arctic.
After four years, Kelloway, now in command, sails his reduced fleet back to badly hit America and finds its administration has survived in underground bunkers. While his ships are overhauled, Kelloway learns that Granby intends to take advantage of the disrupted world situation by taking possession of countries unable to defend themselves. He too has an agenda Kelloway recognises as part of the Parkside grand plan for the world, and when he’s sent to China to find Warren and his fleet, he discovers Warren taking over the devastated country.
Much as he objects to the land acquisition policy, Kelloway finds himself forced to launch a nuclear cruise missile attack on Chinese forces believed to be preparing to launch IBMs at America. His preventative action sets off the ultimate world nuclear disaster as China indiscriminately fires IBMs at America and Russia and both countries retaliate.
Caught in the blast of an errant American IBM, Kelloway tries to sail his vessel from the scene leaving Warren, Crystal, Parkside, his brother and the newly appointed US Governor of China, dead. He also deserts his detached troops and air squadrons believing them lost.
Trying to return to America to complete the work his murdered father started in trying to stop Granby, Kelloway finds his crew dying of radiation sickness. Delirious himself, the Shepherd runs aground in the South China Sea and cannot be refloated.
Two thousand years later the broken wreckage of the Shepherd is discovered by flint wielding survivors as they spread from the northlands looking for room to expand and fresh supplies of food to eat.
This Only Can I say: I Hate you Earth
Chapter Headings:
Chapter One - Father, Son & Hudd.
Chapter Two -Project FI
Chapter Three - Building an Island.
Chapter Four - Storm Clouds.
Chapter Five - In Came the Viper.
Chapter Six - Docking and Launching.
Chapter Seven - The Whisperer Calls.
Chapter Eight -The Long Night.
Chapter Nine - The Longer Winter.
Chapter Ten - The Homecoming.
Chapter Eleven - US Governor of China.
Chapter Twelve - Know Your Enemy?
Chapter One
Father, Son and Hudd.
Mid-June 2020
On the air-conditioned bridge of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinsen everything seemed calm and unhurried in the wilting morning heat of a mid-June Persian Gulf year. Duty men stood at their posts dressed in crisp white or khaki uniforms, each one tense and alert for the barked order that would jerk them into instant action, a correction of course here, an alteration of speed there, or more likely a terse reminder to pay attention. There was no need for raised voices in this sanctuary of studied silence. The least whisper, muttered aside, or heartfelt half-suppressed sigh or curse, could be heard from one side of the immense bridge to the other without electronic amplification. On the turbulent flight deck below the same calm unhurried conditions did not apply and never could. Noise there was horrendous while unbearable daytime heat added to the seeming confusion and bad temper that reigned everywhere on the vast flight deck, but nothing of that penetrated the thick triple plated armoured glass surrounding all sides of the attentive bridge occupants. While men on the flight deck sweated, cursed and suffered conditions akin to those expected for sinners doomed to make the subterranean journey into the after-life, men on the bridge could be in the reading room of the Smithsonian Institution library on Washington’s Independence Avenue, or they could be studying the latest edition of the Wall Street Journal in a New York skyscraper office, neither place could be quieter, nor as cool.
Bridge workers never suffered the blistering temperatures endured by their over-stressed flight deck comrades as those greaseballs prepared complicated machinery for the endless cycles of aircraft launch and recovery imposed on them by the dictates of grinding flying programmes that paid no attention to the frailties of man, or women, for both over-taxed genders inhabited the same mad fume-filled world. Those hardy souls worked in temperatures exceeding one hundred and thirty degrees Fahrenheit during daylight and darkness brought scant relief. They toiled, sweated and sometimes wilted from sheer heat exhaustion, a hardship not suffered by the favoured workers in the nerve centre of the whole operation. Dressed in full white tropical uniform, buttoned neatly at neck and wrist no one on the bridge sweated and no one looked the least bit flustered by the tolerable conditions they worked in. For them, this was no more than a routine day in the semi-war conditions of the Persian Gulf.
The US 10th Naval Task force under Vice Admiral Harper Tidcombe steamed in open battle order forty miles off the Kuwait, Iraq and Iranian coastline where they had patrolled, they thought, since the dawn of time. Around the carrier, leaving plenty of sea room for flying operations spread the carrier’s outer ring of missile defence and anti-submarine vessels. Some forty miles astern of the carrier sailed two ominous sleek, grey missile cruisers and around them purposeful lean escorts. These ships comprised the fleet’s long stop formation. An enemy imprudent enough to attack the carrier would first have to deal with these powerful vessels and the outcome would not be pleasant.
Captain Marcus Kelloway, the only one sitting relaxed, hatless and at ease in his high backed swivel chair on the carrier’s bridge, although no less immaculately attired, appeared lost in another time zone as he squinted with narrowed eyelids into the sun sparkling distance. No land was visible anywhere on the horizon but he knew four Arab states lay on three sides of him, two friendly, one openly hostile and one brooding with scarcely contained malice for the damnation of his country. This was no place for a western power to be operating, especially one subjecting one of the four to a succession of incursions by armed aircraft whose lethal weapons they were not slow to use if provoked, even slightly.
The nuclear powered USS Carl Vinsen, operating many thousands of miles from her Virginia base, sailed the restricted waters of the Persian Gulf sending relays of armed aircraft patrols over the territory of a sovereign state in the name of the United Nations.
‘Mid morning coffee patrol away, sir, including two low caps.’ A calm voice reported as Commander Ruff Kelston stepped out of his control blister and took the few paces to reach his captain’s side. Unlike the semi-absorbed captain his thoughts centred on the four aircraft just launched and sent speeding across the same sparkling sea that seemed to mesmerise Kelloway. ‘We’ll recover the low cap before the Toast Patrol in about twenty minutes,’ he concluded in a matter of fact voice that had reported similar details many hundreds of times before and which would report the same details many hundreds of times into the future if the present confrontation continued that long. It was a routine chore and the US navy, in time of war and peace, thrived on that indigestible diet.
If he thought about the strange vernacular used by the naval aviation branch of the American Navy, Captain Kelloway had long ceased to question its relevance. Flying aircraft patrols every few hours over the supposed de-militarised zones of southern Iraq meant some differentiation had to be made between flights and what better way than to ironically name each patrol after the meal the launch invariable ruined. In the US Navy everything ran by the clock, even heartbeats, thus at ten hundred hours every day of the week, mid-morning coffee and a brief spell of relaxation was piped for the whole ship’s company, so was an aircraft launch or recovery. The same thing happened as mail was piped for distribution, laundry for collection, every routine mealtime, and each time a new film was to be screened. No one had yet worked out a system for reconciling the manifold needs of the navy and its aircraft flying operations, except the navy. The Navy Department worked on the uncompromising principle that it paid the wages and its needs came first, second, third and all the way to the point when it could think of no other demand to tax the dedication and fortitude of its personnel. The navy could always astonish and frustrate.
‘No point reducing speed then?’ Kelloway commented. He stirred his six foot three inch frame in his swivel chair and rotated it just enough to regard his Air Exec without strain. The carrier always increased speed for take-offs and recoveries and the choice of speed depended on the strength of the prevailing wind. In the Persian Gulf at most times of the year little wind blew, but that presented no problems for the hugely powerful nuclear reactors housed somewhere in the bowels of the great ship. These tireless engines could drive the huge carrier through the water faster than some of its protecting destroyers, and could keep going longer. For normal Persian Gulf flying twenty-seven knots would do for launching and recovery, sixteen for loitering between missions.
‘I think the deck crew would appreciate the gesture though, sir,’ Kelston disagreed politely. The two men had been together on the carrier for eighteen months, but Kelston had yet to get it across to his captain that naval aircraft maintenance engineers found it difficult working in stiff winds.
Kelloway raised a lazy hand to acknowledge the hint. He needed to do no more than that since, for flying purposes, the ship sailed under the control of the air department anyway. The captain was a mere passenger on his own bridge, although he faced the possibility of a court martial should his ship be hazarded during that time.
‘All quiet ashore?’ Kelston probed. He had a few spare moments before returning to his flying position to resume the traditional harassment of his flight deck crews and asking questions was the easiest way to keep abreast of the war situation. ‘The Toast Patrol reported all quiet around Al Nasiriah and Basrah a few minutes ago,’ he added and when that information seemed mundane and hardly worthy of a reply. ‘You heard anything more about the Gloworms?’
Kelloway shook his head. ‘Not since the last signal. Whatever our informants saw disappeared into the desert sands. Perhaps they were mirages like much else that goes on ashore around these parts.’
Kelston nodded gloomily. ‘I hope so, those missiles can be nuclear tipped so let’s hope we get to them before they get to us. We’re sitting ducks out here.’
‘True,’ Kelloway agreed amiably. ‘But with all this sea around us we stand a good chance of being not being hit, especially as their guidance system is reportedly inferior to the aim of a junior league baseball pitcher. Anyway, the nuclear yield is low and might just take out a rowing boat if it got a bit lucky.’ He shrugged. ‘But would Iraqi dissidents try a stunt like that? There’s scarcely a mud brick left standing in the whole of Iraq after all the years of ground fighting and aerial bombing. One thing is sure though, they’ll soon know what bombing is about if they try to raise one of those missiles for a shot at any of our ships.’
‘Even a low yield nuke could melt a few of our decks if they scored a direct hit, or even a near miss,’ Kelston reminded him cautiously. He glanced at the large clock over the navigator’s position. A few minutes remained for more questions while the captain seemed in the mood for conversation. ‘Any idea what the top brass is chewing over at Riyadh?’ he enquired. His captain, never all that communicative, seemed less tight-lipped than usual. ‘Or will, the admiral tell us when he gets back?’
Kelloway shrugged. ‘I’m not sure there’ll be much to tell. There’s usually more hot air blowing over those Arab summit meetings than there is blowing over all the deserts between here and the Atlantic Ocean. Arabs say one thing to us behind closed doors and another for public consumption outside them. In between we get our butts kicked for prodding them into making wrong interpretation of our motives.’
Kelston grinned. ‘That’s religion for you,’ he agreed cynically. ‘In some respects we’d be better fighting the old style communists at least we understood want they wanted to achieve.’ He waved an arm in the direction of the northern horizon. ‘Arabs spend their time either on their knees praying for salvation or standing upright trying to kill each other and anyone else who doesn’t believe what their prophet tells them. A curious religion...’
‘Most religions have a similar basis,’ Kelloway reminded him. ‘In fact, some have more parallels than conflicts. It’s the interpretation of the scripts that presents problems. Some say the Koran preaches that the sword should spread the word of God and all non-believers should be slaughtered as heretics. Others are equally confident that it says no such thing. At the moment, it’s a question of who shouts the loudest and has the richest paymaster behind them.’
Kelston nodded. ‘There’s only one bible preaching Christianity, but there are ten thousand versions of it for believers to fight over if they want to gain a good spot in the queue outside the Pearly Gates.’
He grinned ruefully as he remembered that Kelloway came from a bible bashing mid-west town before moving to Washington to be educated and to join the US navy.
‘I suppose that’s the one certain thread running through the history of mankind,’ Kelloway responded calmly. ‘Right from the time we dropped out of the trees and found enough food to eat on the ground we’ve been fighting over different superstitious beliefs. Why change that after all this time? If we stopped fighting over religious prejudices we wouldn’t know how to fill our time, would we? We wouldn’t want to spend it improving international relations and understanding what presses each other’s buttons, would we?’
He stopped speaking as a repeat speaker in his control position announced the first radio contact with the returning Toast Patrol.
Although Kelloway’s work load did not increase noticeably with the aircraft’s return, those around him shifted up a silent gear. The ship’s speed, allowed to slow as it travelled down wind, increased as the bows turned back into wind. The aircraft were not yet in sight but after a long patrol over hostile territory they did not want to wait in a holding pattern while the carrier sorted itself out below them. With little fuel in their tanks they wanted a straight approach and no aborts.
On the flight deck groundcrews began moving with a sense of purpose knowing that a successful flight deck needed them to operate with the precision of a Swiss watch or chaos took over. One breakdown in any part of the flight deck organisation could throw the whole carrier operation into expensive confusion since flying aircraft from closely packed carriers was only possible if the utmost operating efficiency could be guaranteed day and night. The fact that this was achieved throughout the US navy said much for the dedication and efficiency of the men and women involved.
As the returning aircraft approached the angled deck miraculously cleared of obstructions as heavy arrestor wires strung across the aft end of the flight deck tautened and lifted to a convenient hook catching height above the steel flight deck. Everyone in the landing area ran for cover encouraged by the thought of a twenty ton aircraft crashing into the space the size of a tennis court while travelling in excess of a hundred miles an hour. To be in that place at that time was not the stuff of daydreams. Even the most callow of between-deck goofers quickly grasped that important principle of longevity. They learnt that once committed to a carrier landing nothing could impede the dynamics of motion, certainly not a soft muscled body crunching under the wheels and wings of an uncontrollable aerial monster.
The two aircraft on low level patrol over the carrier landed first. Even cruising at their most economical engine settings they used a lot of fuel and needed urgent refuelling. Aircraft on high level patrols could stay aloft longer because reduced air resistance and colder air temperatures meant their engines burnt less fuel. Replacement aircraft would take over high cap duties while the high level aircraft dropped lower ready to land at the next convenient recovery slot. These manoeuvres needed precise timing: aircraft and pilots were expensive while looking at a clock was marginally cheaper.
As the first aircraft thudded onto the deck with the thunderous roar often described as a controlled crash Kelloway’s yeoman arrived on the bridge clutching a handful of incoming signals. With his admiral off the ship Kelloway accepted his signals as well, although personal and operational signals would be re-routed to where his body was, in this case Riyadh.
By the time Kelloway skimmed through the bundle, making notes on some and initially them all, Toast Patrol was on deck and taxiing into the forward holding area designated as Fly One. Kelloway saw none of the aircraft land, but missing that dramatic spectacle held no regrets for him. He had watched thousands of landings during his time on board and missing a few meant nothing. There would be more later that day, more tomorrow and more the day after. In fact, that was the function of an operational aircraft carrier, it flew aircraft day and night in war and in peace, in fair weather and in foul.
With the signal yeoman sent on his way Kelloway glanced down at the confusion the flight deck had descended into since the last time he looked. Ground crews swarmed over recovered aircraft as they refuelled them from long snake-like flexible hoses drawn from beneath the deck, rectified reported defects and prepared them for the next launch. If aircraft proved too unserviceable and needed extensive rectification work beyond the capabilities of the time stretched flight deck crews the aircraft were struck down into the hangar and replaced by serviceable machines brought up from either of the two hangers below the flight deck. In the seemingly uncoordinated melee going on around them returning aircrew climbed from their machines and waited for friends to compare notes with before signing in their aircraft and reporting to their squadron crewrooms for de-briefing. From the bridge it seemed impossible that order would be restored on the flight deck within six months let along the few minutes it would take to bring forward and launch another six aircraft, four destined for patrols over Iraq and two for high cap duties, and at the same time re-spot the deck for later launches.
From his blister window with its eagle view of the whole length of the flight deck Commander Kelston mercilessly chivvied and cajoled his flight deck teams into greater efforts. Over the flight deck magnetic loop communication system his abrasive voice could be heard chastising, insulting and threatening anyone offending the integrity of his deck. In moments of extreme tension he abused officers in the same florid language that he directed at the enlisted men, but at the end of the day, all was forgotten, although the six monthly efficiency reports on the men under him would show how much of the incident he remembered and how much he had forgotten.
Those disquieting thoughts idled through his mind as he sat in his bridge chair. Kelloway, like Tidcombe, was not an easy man to read, or to impress. He never voiced his personal thoughts and the religious opinions he shared with Kelston a few moments earlier were uncharacteristic, but such contentious thoughts vanished in an instant when Tidcombe’s staff commander appeared on the bridge and coughed politely to attract attention. He had remained on board while his employer jetted off to Riyadh to attend an important Arab meeting supported only by a junior briefcase carrying staff lieutenant.
Seeing him, Kelloway straightened warily, a visit from Travis Pillay usually meant trouble. The elegant fast tracker never made social calls to the bridge and was never seen in the wardroom without the admiral. In some respects Pillay was a mirror image of himself, although Kelloway would never accept the veracity of that comparison being drawn to his attention. Pillay was tall, dark haired, but not as severely cropped as Kelloway, and he always appeared collected and immaculately turned out, even at the end of a three day defence and salvage exercise where no one slept, bathed or eat anything more sustaining than an overrated calorie laden beefburger. Kelloway possessed the same sartorial elegance, but with the added magic of exercising real military power.
On this occasion Pillay did not display his irritating, ‘I’m only here on sufferance’ look, as he waited. He understood that he might be fireproof in his present staff position, but there was always the chance that he might end up under Kelloway’s command some time in the future and he guessed the dark brooding captain had a long memory and was not a forgiving man.
‘Something from the Angel, Travis?’ Kelloway enquired, his brown-eyed gaze noting that Pillay carried nothing in either a hand: itself a remarkable event. Pillay always carried something, usually his master’s briefcase containing nuclear missile codes. More often it was a confidential action signal needing to be conveyed by hand from master to the captain of his flagship.
If Pillay heard his master’s derogatory nickname he gave no sign. Everyone called the admiral something uncomplimentary behind his back with the ‘Angel’ being the least offensive. The name carried evangelical origins since Tidcombe attended Sunday church services devoutly and always read the lesson with mid-western conviction that made the nickname cynically apposite.
‘The admiral would like to see you in the day cabin, sir,’ Pillay informed him politely.
‘The admiral?’ Kelloway repeated as a surge of panic passed through him and his eyes blinked nervously. Then he visibly relaxed. Pillay was losing his grip. The man was flipping. ‘The admiral’s in Riyadh,’ he reminded him guardedly. ‘He left this morning at seven hundred hours. I saw him take-off in his barge.’
Kelloway knew that fact with complete certainty. He had stood on the dawn-tinged flight deck and watched the propeller driven aircraft undertake a free flight take-off and disappear towards a gold coloured horizon. Tidcombe might command a carrier task force of enormous power and technical sophistication, but he was no lover of jet flights beginning with a fierce ride down the steam catapult track and a gut-wrenching arrestor wire stop at the end of it. The propeller aircraft might be ponderously slow, but it arrived with the passenger’s dignity intact and his breakfast undisturbed.
Although he saw the admiral take-off and had watched the twin engined machine disappear over the horizon there existed the possibility that no one thought to inform him of Tidcombe’s premature return. If that breakdown in domestic communication had occurred someone’s entrails would dangle from the highest part of the signals tower by nightfall he silently promised himself. A captain was supposed to know everything that went on aboard his ship, and the presence, or otherwise, of the admiral on his flagship topped the first three places on any ambitious captain’s list of priorities. His first panicky thought was to wonder if the admiral’s flag had been raised to mark his return. If not, that omission rated as an insult far worse than calling the owner of the flag a wife beater and child molester to his face. Kelloway glared in the direction of Kelston, a man who should be attending his flight deck chores, but who displayed an unhealthy interest in the presence of the Admiral’s staff officer on the bridge. Whenever that man appeared anywhere on the ship trouble followed, and trouble for Kelston usually meant a drastic alteration of the flying programme to include whatever fancy scheme the admiral, or the Navy Department had dreamed up to torment him. The sources of his cynical speculation had no conception of how their seemingly innocuous requests could throw his intricately timed flying schedule into the deepest of chaotic messes.
Kelston wanted to know Pillay’s business before making last minute adjustments to his flying programme. He, of all people, knew the effect of mind changes. Every day he saw the exasperation of men affected by sudden changes to routine without being told the nature of the mouthed insults being flung at the glass walled bridge. On those occasions the ability to set a stone faced countenance totally oblivious to personal insults became a priceless asset and a judicious bout of deafness was preferable to an unpleasant disciplinary incident that could ruin many promising careers, including his own. Now, when Kelston saw the concern on his captain’s suddenly grim features, he guessed his department figured somewhere in the change of humour. Someone had offended the Gods, but who and why? He dropped his hand microphone on to its stand and hurried across to the two men as they stared uncomprehendingly at each other.
‘Has the admiral’s barge returned, Commander?’ Kelloway demanded curtly as Kelston joined them. ‘If so, why was I not informed?’
Kelston blinked and looked just as alarmed as Kelloway felt. He shook his head.
‘The barge landed at King Khalid airport at zero nine one five, sir,’ he said quickly. He wanted to glance through the plate glass to see what aircraft filled Fly One, but restrained the urge. That would be weak and a sure sign that he did not know what was happening on the flight deck. ‘As far as I know it’s still parked there.’ He paused to swallow nervously as another thought struck him. The Admiral could be on his way back. That would explain Pillay’s presence.
The tension cleared from Kelloway’s lightly sun-tanned face as though a load had been lifted from his shoulders, but the relief was premature.
We recovered a Saudi F22 with the Toast Patrol though,’ Kelston added as an afterthought. ‘I don’t know what it’s doing on board yet. The pilot hasn’t reported in.’
The irritation returned to Kelloway’s face. ‘Any passengers?’ he demanded.
‘Just the navigator,’ Kelston informed him. ‘I’ll get them up here to report immediately.’
Kelloway nodded as his attention returned to Pillay as the staff commander shifted uneasily.
‘Sir, the admiral? I think he’s in a hurry,’ he said.
Kelloway glowered balefully at his Air exec. ‘I’ll talk to you late,’ he growled ominously as he eased himself from the swivel chair and began straightening his creased clothing. He turned to Pillay. ‘I hope there’s a good explanation for this conundrum.’
Without waiting for a reply Kelloway left both men and walked briskly to the line of hooks bearing just one gold encrusted hat, his. All other duty men wore theirs. The two commanders exchanged knowing glances and shrugged as Kelston returned to his control position to order the Saudi aircrew to the bridge while Pillay followed Kelloway as he patted his hat firmly in place and nodded to the watching deck officer.
‘You have the deck,’ he informed him. Turning, he left the bridge to a loud declaration from the quartermaster that the captain had left the bridge, a move that brought obvious relief to everyone on duty there. Shoulders relaxed and heads turned inquisitively to see what was happening around them, but attention did not wander too far, the deck officer would not allow that luxury to mar the slick running of his watch.
It was only when Kelloway reached the admiral’s day cabin that he allowed Pillay to overtake him and knock courteously on the closed and marine guarded sliding door marked in black painted letters with the eminent owner’s name and rank. Kelloway, a regular visitor to the day cabin, never presumed to enter without first being introduced by the duty staff officer. This time, and unusually, Pillay waited until a gruff voice inside invited entry. He opened the door, but did not step inside.
‘Captain Kelloway, sir,’ he said deferentially from the passageway.
Vice Admiral Tidcombe occupied the day cabin situated immediately above the bridge, exclusively when on board the carrier. In an adjacent compartment a large table carrying a contoured map of the upper Persian Gulf took up much of the available deck space and on the surrounding bulkheads hung large-scale maps of the same area with stowages for others should the region of operations change. Around the table the admiral’s tactical staff worked, some were women serving officers, but most were men. They moved model ships and aircraft on the table as the tactical situation changed around the attack group. Kelloway carried the same picture in his head refreshed occasionally by an overview of the details he could see displayed on the table. At other places in the compartment ratings and officers monitored incoming signals and reports. This was the true nerve centre of the ship and one guarded as much from the ship’s company as it was from the enemy. The information coming into, and leaving, the admiral’s quarters portrayed raw power and represented the authority of Navy Department back in America. Spread too much of that hard won commodity around and the awesome mystique of executive power disappeared or became degraded. Kelloway guessed Tidcombe kept much of the information passing through his office strictly to himself. Most of it had no relevance to his captain anyway, but when it did he was not always immediately informed. At those times the first he saw only a series of execution orders to be obeyed implicitly and without question. This imposition might have been a burden for a perfectionist captain to shoulder, but in many respects it provided Kelloway with a safety blanket under which he could shelter should his implementation prove defective. He had long since grown used to the paucity of information passed to him and which forced him to work within the constraints of Tidcombe’s obsessionally closed control system. In their defence it could be said that senior officers disliked their orders being questioned by juniors and generally operated in this secretive way. Kelloway knew this as well as most officers occupying command positions and conducted his affairs accordingly. Also, from experience and training courses Kelloway understood the routine involved in running an admiral’s tactical planning office. He could afford to ignore the displayed warship configuration in favour of seeking a justifiable excuse for not being on deck when his admiral returned, an omission almost amounting to dereliction of duty. Excuses would sound trite, he decided as he entered the day cabin, better apologise immediately and get the oversight out of the way.
Stepping into the spacious sunlit office Kelloway stopped in his tracks as the door slid shut behind him with a metallic click. Pillay plainly considered his presence superfluous and Kelloway immediately understood why. Standing by the admiral’s desk dressed in dark green flying overalls displaying no rank, or status insignia, stood a tall distinguished man. The figure needed no adornments to show he was a man who exercised extreme power. Just standing, with a smile of glad recognition playing around his firm mouth and jaw the figure emanated undeniable authority.
Automatically Kelloway stiffened and saluted. This was the most senior admiral in the US Navy, the man who ruled their lives, fed them, paid them and decided whether they lived or died. This was the Chief of Naval operations.
‘Hello son,’ Fleet Admiral Eden Kelloway said as he returned the salute with a perfunctory half-raised hand. Moving towards each other the two men embraced emotionally.
‘Dad, no one said you were coming aboard,’ Marcus Kelloway apologised when they self-consciously moved apart to regard each other approvingly. Men did not embrace, especially senior male naval officers, now they tried to regain their disturbed dignity. Technical talk would do that.
‘If I’d sent a message you’d only have rolled out the red carpet and the marine band and I don’t need that on a private visit,’ Eden told him with a happy smile and a glint of paternal pleasure in his dark eyes. ‘I can get that routine in a thousand places without interrupting the routine of a fighting ship in a war zone. No, I hopped over unannounced because I was in the area more or less and I wanted to see my eldest son and feel proud that he’s commanding a ship of the size and potential we never had in my day.’
‘Heck dad! What you lacked in size you sure as hell made up for in fighting spirit,’ Marcus objected dutifully. He knew his father commanded a carrier force in the Pacific during the Second World War at a time when the US Navy was a hundred times its present size.
‘It certainly wasn’t so fast, or as noisy on board carriers in those days,’ Eden agreed leaning against the desk to rest his back. ‘How do you liking being top shirt, quite something ain’t it? I remember my first command, a PT boat down in the Florida Keys, I felt proud prodding that boat around while still in my teens.’ He grinned reminiscently. ‘They didn’t let me keep it long before bouncing me out to Hawaii and the real navy though.’ He glanced around Tidcombe’s tidy day cabin dispassionately. ‘That Harper guy keep anything worth drinking around here? Probably not,’ he said regretfully answering his own question. ‘Always was a pinch tight arsehole that one.’
Marcus shook his head. ‘I couldn’t drink even if he kept a distillery up here, dad,’ he informed his father virtuously. ‘I’ve got to look sober at all times even if I’m not.’ He removed his hat and tucked it respectfully under his arm. Even though his father professed to be on a private visit he could not forget the man was God to the rest of the navy, and to himself. ‘How’s Ben?’ he asked diffidently. He was sure his father had not flown all the way from Riyadh just to talk navy, even reminiscently.
‘Bentley,’ his father corrected sternly. His mother would have done that, but she died five years earlier in a road accident and his father felt the need to take up the speech-correcting baton where she dropped it. She never liked abbreviated Christian names. Marcus was never called Marc around the house, although he was everywhere else, and Bentley was always that. ‘He got married,’ the Admiral continued thoughtfully as though wracking his brains for items of family news long buried under a ton of nationally important material. ‘But you’d know that since you were at their wedding. His wife Delia is doing well at the library, no babies though. I don’t think they’re trying all that hard. Your mother would be disappointed. She wanted you both to produce grandchildren for us to play with in our old age.’
‘They found anywhere to live yet?’ Marcus asked, ignoring the predictable goading progeny comment that always entered the father-son conversation at some point. ‘There was talk of a place over at Arlington Heights.’
‘No, they’re still living at home,’ the old man sighed. ‘I said they might just as well live there and save something towards their old age and my grandchildren’s education. The house would remain empty otherwise, and I ain’t paying Haitian staff to live in a three million-dollar house until I’m ready to move back in. I got my official government residence in town and that suits me real fine.’
Marcus whistled disbelievingly. ‘Bonhomme Richard is worth as much as that?’
‘Best ten thousand dollars I ever spent,’ his father grinned happily. ‘Real estate prices shot right up after the war and they’ve climbed ever since. Some say the place could hit ten million in a couple of years.’ He glanced knowingly at the bulkhead maps round him. ‘Might even sell up and take a world cruise when that happens.’
‘That would do you good, dad,’ his son agreed. ‘If there’s any part you haven’t yet already seen at the navy’s expense a dozen times or more.’
Still smiling, his father thought for a while.
‘Come to think of there’s a couple of dry river creeks I haven’t explored out in the Saudi desert. Guess I’ll take a look at those before I return Stateside, but you’re right, son, there ain’t a lot left in the world I’ve a hankering to see. Most of it’s now being squabbled and fought over for no good political reason and that sort of degrades the sightseeing desire a bit, especially as we seem to be starting up the Crusader Wars all over again, and it seems to me that religious beliefs ain’t no subject to be picking up nuclear weapons about. Prayers and lots of them can best solve arguments about that subject. Let the gods sort themselves out without us humans taking up the cudgels on their behalf.’ He grinned wryly. ‘They got a mite longer to settle their problems than the miserable three score and ten years they allocate us earthbound humans in the bible.’
‘You might have something there, dad,’ Marcus agreed. This was a subject he held no firm views on, not when flying intimidating armed patrols over a Muslim country. ‘Is Ben, I mean Bentley, keeping my room handy?’ he asked to change the subject to one he that did not need a ready made opinion, an ingrained habit picked up from years in the service. Never express a firm opinion before finding out a superior’s thoughts on the subject.
‘Sure, son. Your room’s just as you left, only tidier,’ his father informed him quietly. ‘Bentley and Delia say you’re welcome to move in any time.’ The admiral looked about to add something but changed his mind. ‘You got anything in skirts lined up yet?’ he asked with a fatherly chuckle added to take the edge off the intrusive question.
‘Heck, dad,’ Marcus protested. His unmarried status always embarrassed him when talking to his father, but not to anyone else. On those occasions it was a matter of awed third party admiration that he had managed to remain single when his contemporaries had fallen by the wayside and had gathered wives, children and unhealthily large mortgages to fret over. ‘You know how much time I have for looking girls over.’
‘Horse shit! Other sailors manage to get into girl’s knickers without breaking sweat,’ his father scoffed derisively. ‘Hell, I fought a world war and still managed to keep my score up with the best. This little thing you got going out here in the Persian Gulf shouldn’t take your mind off the important things in life like grabbing a piece of the matrimonial action.’
Kelloway grinned warily, wanting to turn the conversation away from uncomfortable personal matters as he seized on the chance to bring his father’s thinking up to date.
‘You forget that ships in your day needed to bunker and restore as well as decoke their boilers in harbour,’ he reminded him. ‘We don’t do that any more, dad. We replenish at sea and our nuclear reactors keep chugging on for twenty years or more. We just don’t get the same amount of R and R you and John Wayne enjoyed.’
‘Don’t you think us desk bound old salts don’t know that, son? That’s why we send women in uniform to sea to remind you sailors that the human forms comes in two shapes, and one of them is quite attractive when stripped down to bare essentials.’ The admiral grinned and noticed for the first time that they were both still standing. ‘Hey, grab a chair and I’ll tell you why I’m playing hooky out here in the Gulf when I should be talking to the Saudi Arabian’s finest about their defence problems.’
There were four comfortable armchairs in the day cabin and the men settled into two of them. Marcus laid his hat in another and leaned back to listen.
‘I didn’t realise the Riyadh meeting was all that important, dad,’ he said wonderingly. The Chief of Naval Operations usually held his meetings in Washington not in the far-flung capitals of the world. Important people visited him, not the other way around.
‘The Army and Air Force boys are talking turkey with their counterparts, but the Saudis have no navy that interests me. I left my number two to find out what their squawk is about and he can fill me in later.’
‘Anything going down out here?’ Marcus interposed. ‘Or shouldn’t I ask?’
‘You can ask, son, as long as you keep it under your hat,’ the admiral said cautiously. ‘At the moment the thinking is that we should take out the top renegade Iraqi leadership and put them on trial for crimes against humanity, and not before time if you ask me. We should have done it a long time ago, but we had to wait and see what happened after our occupation troops left the second time around. Well, as you and everyone knows things got worse, much worse the Baathist Party is back business and in control of the Iraqi military and the country’s oil production. Renewed bombing has so far proved unsuccessful in bringing down the new dictator and his council. They just hide in underground bunkers and challenge us to go after them again with troops. They think we’ll be unwilling to take the world and press criticism a new invasion would bring down on us, and after the 2003 experience we probably are. Look how much adverse publicity we get from our own side over your punitive patrols and bombing runs. Taking all that into consideration we’ve decided to end this political fiasco and finish the stand-off for good.’
Marcus looked surprised.
‘That will take months to set up if the last two Gulf wars are anything to go by,’ he objected. ‘We don’t have the troops in the region and the Iraqi army has been trained and equipped by us. They know the way we fight and they know our battle tactics. I’m surprised we haven’t lost more aircraft to ground defences than we have.’
The admiral nodded.
‘That’s what they expect to happen. After the last political bruising we suffered they’ll expect us to go the timid United Nations route before raising a coalition army for a third invasion.’
‘That’ll take months, even years,’ Marcus suggested.
‘At the moment,’ the admiral interposed. ‘We’re thinking of a paratroop drop to grab and hold the strategic positions around Baghdad while their so called revolutionary council is in session. Once on the ground we grab everyone we want and set up a democratic government. Once that’s in place they deal with the dissidents while we pull out, problem solved.’
Marcus raised his dark eyebrows sceptically.
‘That’ll take some doing,’ he said doubtfully. ‘We got anyone on side for this operation, besides the Brits, that is?’
The admiral shook his head sadly. ‘As usual, the Arab states want things to happen in their favour without being openly involved in the process. Far better for them is for us imperialists to be seen doing their dirty work while they carry on trading oil, praying to Allah and lining their pockets with our gold.’
‘Our traders will pick up a few dollars along the way though, they always do.’ Marcus reminded him sourly. ‘Everyone knows our actions here are not entirely one-sided, even if we are acting as the United Nations’ police force.’
‘Sure our guys profit where they can,’ his father agreed unabashed by the charge. ‘That’s the reason we picked up the world policing baton dropped by the Brits when she finished throwing her weight around these parts. Britain’s Royal Navy established bases all around the world so that her ships could replenish and re-coal anywhere they needed to flex a little military muscle to help sort out a local difficulty. If she didn’t have ready access to those bases she could never have policed the seas for as long as she did, but now we wear the white hat every country in the world goes real coy when it comes to offering us base facilities even when they want us to fight their battles, and son, that just ain’t good enough. What we need is some secure bases we control ourselves. Ones we can move anywhere in the world and ones that can be ready for action on arrival.’
Marcus nodded in acknowledgement. ‘The Brits had it easy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries though,’ he observed. ‘If they needed a base they just moved in and took it.’
‘That’s right!’ the admiral agreed. ‘But we can’t do that nowadays. We have too many journalists biting our butts with lap top computers and satellite communication facilities just waiting for us to knock over some old granny and grab the land she’s sat on. They’re a pain in the rear regions right enough, but as long as we subscribe to the inexact governing science called democracy I guess we’re stuck with the sanctimonious rules they live by, although I hope to see them trip over their crusading zeal one of these days. There’s just so much crap we can take from these guys, you know.’
‘You’d think those guys would know who protects their arses,’ Marcus agreed with a short chuckle and a change of subject. ‘They keep trying to get this Whistler meteorite scare rolling along the panic trail without much noticeable success, don’t they? You have to agree the authors of that story have vivid imaginations if nothing else. Probably comes from snorting too much dope in their spare time.’
‘The Whistler?’ the admiral repeated, giving his son a sharp look of disapproval for making the comment. ‘You don’t go along with that crap, do you?’ he asked scornfully. ‘It’s gathering a lot of nut-case believers back in the States and a quite a few of them live in the Bible Belt where they expect this sort of thing to happen with the messiah riding shotgun along with the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Keeps the preachers on their toes and gives them something to rant about from the pulpits, I guess. Gets them off our back on other subjects though.’
Marcus shrugged. ‘It could be true,’ he objected. ‘The asteroid, I mean, not the arrival of the messiah to bolster the Christian faithful in the face of the Islamic onslaught, but meteorites and space debris has been hitting the earth’s surface since the dawn of time and we ignore that fact to deal with celestial issues like what’s happening over the horizon in Iraq. If this Whistler meteorite does strike the earth it won’t matter whose god we praise. All our butts will be ablaze.’
‘Glad to hear you’ve developed a nice line in healthy scepticism, son,’ the admiral applauded. ‘And I suppose that’s one way of looking at the likely outcome of the asteroid scare, but I think there’s a bit more to the story than that, and it’s closer to home. The United States Air Force is trying to screw Congress for a few more bucks to fund their newly dreamed up Whistler deflection programme. Good luck to them, of course, but it’s a sham.’ He shook his head. ‘Wish we’d thought of it though.’ He shifted slightly in his chair to indicate that he wanted to become serious and change the subject. He had not travelled three hundred miles to talk about some out-of-earth event that might never happen. There were things on his mind that would certainly happen and one of them was his son’s post-asteroid future in the navy.
‘How long you got left to do on this commission, son?’ He enquired. He knew the answer to the day, almost to the hour; the question merely introduced the subject he wanted to raise.
Marcus Kelloway did not blink or allow his expression to change. He had expected the question. It was one any concerned father would ask, but he did not know if the question had paternal or official overtones. If the former, there was nothing to fear, if the latter his wonderful life as a fleet commander could end abruptly in a job change, and that was bad: or it could be extended in the light of his father’s comments about a third incursion into Iraq. That move meant almost certain promotion as his command experience extended way beyond that of his contemporaries.
‘Six months,’ he admitted without blinking. ‘If the Navy Department see it that way.’
The Navy Department was the kind old man sitting in an armchair beside him but the younger Kelloway could not ask, much less beg, for preferential treatment. He had never done that and would never demean himself by seeking that pampered and tainted route. Apart from anything else, his father did not appoint officers to their next commission. A busy department many rungs down the command chain and all without noticeable influence from above performed that function.
‘The Navy Department is a rum organisation,’ his father revealed before asking. ‘How would you feel about being relieved early to take over a Washington desk?’
He already knew the answer.
‘Bitter,’ Marcus informed him promptly without the need to think of an answer. ‘In one word, bitter. In two, pissed off.’ He shrugged, furiously trying to make the best of what was obviously a bad and irreversible situation. If the decision was already made he knew the Navy Department never backed down without good reason and a recently signed death certificate barely satisfied that condition. In their view such generosity of spirit as a change of mind would lead to challenges to its carefully crafted decisions and that was not good for discipline. ‘But it goes without saying I’ll do my best in whatever position I’m appointed to serve,’ he conceded before the rising gall in his throat choked the mendacious words.
‘I know that, son,’ his father assured him confidingly, ‘but this job’s not what it seems on the surface, make a good fist of it and rear admiral is right there for the taking when you leave.’
Hearing that attractive inducement Marcus brightened visibly, but the capricious enthusiasm quickly subsided under a bucketful of doubts. No job was better than a command, but the promise of a double promotion at the end? That prospect had to be thought about, but where was the catch?
‘What happened to the commodore hurdle, dad?’ he asked to give himself thinking time. If he achieved a double promotion he would step over many heads and few of them would be delighted, but that prospect did not worry Marcos Kelloway. The deadbeats left behind could eat his dust and choke on the bitter frustration they always felt whenever his name appeared on the promotion lists above theirs.
‘It’s a bribe that I’m not promising without good reason, son,’ Eden Kelloway went on cautiously. ‘If you blow the job, you’ll probably be beached forever, and so will I for making such a foolish and ill-advised suggestion, but if it comes off you’ll get what you deserve and maybe I’ll keep my job for a couple more years, you never know.’
‘Sounds interesting,’ Marcos Kelloway mused doubtfully as he furiously tried to look behind such a seemingly attractive offer. Disappointment at the prospect of losing his command early choked him, but he had to listen to anything his father said simply because he had to. ‘Does the Angel, sorry, does Harper Tidcombe know about my being possibly released early?’ he asked after a slight pause.
‘Not a thing, but he will.’
‘Can you clue me on which desk I might be tucking my size ten shoes under?’ Marcus asked. ‘Is it in Washington for instance?’
‘Heh, I’m not taking part in a game of twenty questions,’ his father protested with a grin. ‘Like Harper, I’m not supposed to know anything, remember. I’m just here to sound you out for my own benefit. The job requires unique abilities I believe you possess; if you don’t you’re no son of mine. What I can tell you is this, the job will be based mostly in Washington so you can live at home, and it will take you to other parts of the country, liasing, co-ordinating and kicking butt, that sort of thing.’
‘Not much different to this job then,’ Marcus interposed cynically before going on to ask. ‘Any clues as to which Navy Department I’ll need to apply for my car park permit then.’ He knew some departments were promotion death traps with time-served frustrated admirals in charge whose main function in their declining years was to make life impossible for those under them in the forlorn hope that such firmness might somehow improve their own dead, or moribund, promotion prospects. Everyone in line for an assignment to the Navy Department quickly identified these deathsheads before struggling furiously to avoid the inevitable drop into purgatory.
His father smiled. He could read his son’s mind and knew the exact thoughts spinning through his uncertain brain.
‘Let’s kick the ball off in Material Command,’ he said. ‘In saying that, I ain’t giving too much away and it gives me a chance to get off this carrier before I find myself in your brig for impersonating a senior officer who shouldn’t be here anyway.’
‘Shit, dad you’re given nothing away, are you?’ Kelloway protested indignantly. ‘That place is a labyrinth. It takes two years to find a desk and when you’ve found one it’s time to move on.’
The admiral shrugged dismissively. ‘It’s not that bad if you can read and follow signs like you’ve been taught.’
‘Who’s taking over here?’ Marcus asked with a waving motion of his hand that hardly rose above knee level but encompassed the whole Persian Gulf. ‘Do you, or do they know?’
The admiral rose to his feet, walked to the plate glass window overlooking the flight deck and peered through it. The frenetic activity had not calmed from the last aircraft recovery and already preparations where being made for the next launch.
For a long moment Marcus thought his father had not heard the question, or did not want to answer, but the admiral had heard. He was searching for the right response words knowing the answer would be unpalatable to his son.
‘Sure I know, and he knows,’ the admiral said. He turned away from the glare of the window and walked back to his original position resting on the edge of Tidcombe’s desk. He felt more in control standing over his seated son. ‘You know him very well, and I know you two ain’t ever seen eye to eye since junior grade, but there’s method in my madness, believe me,’ he paused with a wry grin.
‘No, dad, you can’t mean...’ Marcus felt an unwelcome groan of disgust slide from his throat before he could bite off the sound.
‘Sorry,’ his father said with mock humility. ‘Hudd’s top of the deck for a front line command and he figures pretty much in my future plans.’
‘If it’s a command he wants can’t you fix him up with a PT boat down in McMurdo Sound,’ Marcus pleaded. ‘He might not like it, but I sure as hell would. That man’s dogged my tail since Naval Academy, although I thought I’d shaken him off when he took that two year flying course, now he’ll be back trampling on my heels again.’