Ian Slater: Payback

“Must be a diver riding atop us!” said Lee, his voice cracked and dry.

“Fuck the diver!” said Aussie. “What about Bone, Gomez?”

Gomez was bent over, both hands white on the roll bar. “They’ve got Bone. Saying he confessed the attack was planned by the White House. White House is denying — it’s an Al Jazeera feed to CNN.”

What had been Aussie’s expression of tight-faced shock now relaxed, his incredulity overriding his fear of loss of control that had manifested itself on the wire, over which he had no control. But with the assertion that not only was Bone alive but confessing as well, he had regained control. Aussie had been there, had seen Freeman shoot Brady to put the poor bastard out of his misery.

“Yeah, right!” said Aussie, his tone so pregnant with contempt for what he’d heard, it cut through the maelstrom of noise, penetrating even the noise of the Super Stallion’s engines, which were now in feral roar mode as it strained and picked up the RS. As the craft rose above the chaotic, wind-whipped seas, the RS’s bulbous bow nosed forward toward Yorktown . In the RS, a loose combat pack, Lee’s, which should have been stowed, tumbled forward, thumping hard against the composite bulkhead, dangerously close to the flat screen.

“Stow that fucking pack!” shouted Freeman, the fury in his tone reminiscent of his outburst when in ’93 he’d heard about the slaughter of the Rangers and Delta Force men in Mogadishu when two Blackhawks went down. Eddie Mervyn grabbed Lee’s pack. “Whose is it?” he shouted angrily.

Choir jerked his head around, checking that his own pack was in the rack, as if the accusation was leveled at him. Everyone aboard, including the legendary boss, seemed to be losing it.

“Approaching Yorktown !” It sounded like the voice of God, a booming authority from on high from the sky outside and beyond the RS. Probably coming, Choir thought, from the Yorktown ’s flight-deck horn. “I say again, approaching Yorktown .”

“Yeah, yeah,” snapped Aussie. “I heard you the first fucking time. Hooray for the Yorktown . Fucking idiot — where the fuck’s he think we’re heading to, fucking North Korea? Gomez, stop worrying. All that shit about Bone, it’s Al Jazeera — fucking A-rab station. They made it up.”

“But it was a CNN feed,” protested Gomez, while at the same time wanting desperately to believe Aussie.

Aussie’s contempt wasn’t abating, and he was resorting to his childhood epithets. “Ah, stone the bloody crows, mate. Just because it’s C an’ fucking N doesn’t make it holy. One of those bastards did a deal with Saddam’s son, remember? Prick told the CNN guy he was going to have one of his own relatives whacked when he came back to Iraq. Did the CNN guy tell what he knew? No, sir. He had too cozy a deal for CNN exclusives from fucking Baghdad with Saddam’s boy. They’re all in bed together, Gomez. Wake up, they don’t want the truth. All they want is more viewers like you. That Marte Price bitch, she’s no diff—”

“Aussie!” thundered the general. “You get a grip! That’s an ORDER!”

No one in the team remembered that tone. The general’s face was boozy red. “You!” hollered the general above what was now a din of cables slacking — they were on Yorktown ’s flight deck, “keep your damned opinions to yourself. I don’t know what Gomez heard, but whatever—” He stopped mid-sentence.

The SES feed was now coming in beautifully, full color, showing Marte Price, mike in hand, the info block reading NARITA, JAPAN. “…an attack,” Marte was saying, “against North Korea, which the White House will neither confirm nor deny, and the photo of this man—” Bone’s face stared out of the screen. Marte’s voice faded for a moment, then came back full volume. “—who North Korean officials claim is an American and who they say confessed that he was part of the attack led by retired, and I want to emphasize that, retired, General of the Army Douglas Freeman. Erin, over to you.”

They felt the RS bump softly onto the Yorktown ’s deck. Shortly after, there was a sharp rap on hatch one.

“No one,” added Freeman, “says anything. Got it? No comment. I’ll do whatever talking’s necessary after we debrief. I’ll go out first, check that the media isn’t anywhere near this tub.”

There were muffled “yessirs” from the seven other commandos. “Lieutenant Lee, you follow me if I give the all-clear. You need to see about that arm straightaway.”

“Yessir. Sorry about the loose pack.”

“Don’t be sorry. Be contrite.” The general actually smiled. For a moment he was like a forgiving uncle. “And don’t do it again!”

“No, sir.”

“All right, open the hatch.” It was a soft command by a dour Freeman, his voice having lost all its anger, an emotion he was afraid was about to flood over him again as he heard just what half-truths the NKA had been able to propagate.

“Yes, sir,” said Eddie Mervyn smartly. “Opening hatch one.”

Freeman looked up, saw a diving-masked face peering down at him. “Admiral sends his regards, sir, and the captain welcomes you aboard. I’m to tell you, General, that you can take all the time you need.”

“How do you know I’m a general?”

“Ah, well, I just saw you on the TV.”

“When, precisely? When?”

“Umm—” The man was thinking, seawater dripping from his shiny black wet suit. The sun was shining! “Ah, just ’fore we got on the helo.”

“Very well. Are there any media aboard?”

“Media? Don’t think so, General.”

“I want you to go make sure no media’s been flown in. I don’t want my boys having to contend with some cap-backwards camera loony poking a goddamn lens in their faces. They need rest.”

“Yessir. I’ll go check.”

“You do that, son. And close the hatch. That wind’s cold.” “Yessir.”

“SES feed is gone, sir,” Eddie Mervyn told a disconsolate Freeman.

There was a rap on hatch one again.

“Open it,” Freeman told Eddie.

It was the diver again. “No media, sir — yet.”

“Very well,” said Freeman. “We’ll be out in about ten minutes. Some hot coffee would be appreciated.”

“How about some Krispy Kremes?” said the diver.

“Sounds good to me. But—” He pointed to Aussie. “— no Krispy Kremes for my Aussie friend here. He’s on a diet.”

“Got it,” said the diver, giving Aussie a sidelong glance, before closing the hatch.

“Son of a bitch!” Aussie objected. “No Krispy Kremes!”

Salvini laughed. “The guy believed you, General.”

They all laughed, and the team feeling was back, previous remarks made in heat forgiven, but the general’s serious tone returned as he addressed the team.

“Before we exit this RS, I want to share a couple of suspicions with you — get your input. Something that’s been bothering me since before the mission, ever since the terrorists unloaded those three shoulder-fired missiles on the three planes and murdered all those folks — children especially — is the color of the missiles’ exhaust. It had a markedly bluish tinge, a fingerprint of high sulfur content. I won’t bore you with what led me to that conclusion.” He forced a smile. “Sounds crazy, but it has to do with onions. Maybe I’m just a worrywart here. Maybe I’m just taking counsel of my fears, never a good idea, I know. But I’m at a dead end with trying to figure out the connection, if there is any, between the color of the exhaust and anything else.” He sighed before adding, “But we’re not children, and sometimes you never get clean-cut answers to life’s mysteries, things that you see, things that you dream. The second thing that’s been bugging me is more tangible, however — more disturbing. I’m talking here about the presence of the HAN and the junk. Was it pure coincidence ?” He left the question hanging in the air for a moment, before adding, “Maybe it was coincidence. After all, we were traversing one of the busiest sea routes in the world, between the North Korean and Japanese coastlines.”