Ian Slater - WW III

Driving back to Northwestern, anxious about whether or not Ray had been injured or killed, he heard a Pentagon “spokesperson” come on the radio informing the press that “at this point in time we cannot categorically say whether the missile was fired by another vessel or a plane.” The woman droned on with more “points in time” instead of “presently,” and it all added up to the Pentagon wasn’t sure what the hell had happened. David watched the long, black sub, now no more than the size of a small branch, floating out on the clean and vibrant blue, taking what he could from its deceptive serenity. As much as he’d feared the sea, he also felt a strange communion with it at times, an attraction of opposites. David thought of his mother, pained at the thought of her pain, on the other side of the country, and it plunged him into a dilemma. Should he go back that evening to be with his folks? His father, of course, would never admit it: “Not for me, son, you understand. But it’d do wonders for your mom. Thrown her for a loop, David.” Well, Dad, Mom. She handles loops pretty well. Why don’t you just say, “Davy, I need you”?

Or should he wait a few days first until the Pentagon knew for sure what had happened, who was hurt? Driving over the Seattle overpass, David thought of how Melissa would be waiting for him now, full of sympathy and feminine comfort. God, he could play it to the hilt if he wanted, stoic expression, the Brentwood tradition. Just as quickly he was ashamed of even thinking of using it to his advantage. As he thought of her, he felt himself getting hard. Was it normal? His brother thousands of miles away, the Blaine and Ray in God knows what shape, and here his kid brother at home was so damned horny that the mere thought of having a woman could override his concern for his brother.

David could see her now. She was slipping off her jeans but nothing else — yet parading for him in the semidarkness of his room. He could feel her hand cupping him, squeezing, bringing him to her in one long, even pull…

A light changed to red and he hit the brakes. Next to him a big Mack semitruck shuddered, its raw power barely held in check. The driver, chewing gum, looked down at him, shaking his head.

When David got to her dorm, it was four in the afternoon. There was a note for him folded and taped to the doorknob. “Davy — it’s dreadful. I just heard. Be back from seminar five-thirty. Wait for me. Love you, Lissa.”

He went down to the dorm’s lounge room and wandered over to the pop machine before flicking on the TV.

“Dave!”

He turned around to see it was Stacy — only guy he knew who wore a bow tie to class. He had a short neck, too — looked ridiculous. And loaded with library books for effect.

“You get the message?” asked Stacy.

“Melissa’s?” Davy asked, annoyed that Stacy knew ahead of him. Had probably read it, too.

“No,” answered Stacy. “Your dorm.”

“Haven’t been there yet,” answered David.

“Oh — reserves are being called up. Fort Lewis. Your name’s on the list.”

David felt a rush in his gut. “You sure?”

“Brentwood. D. — that’s you, old buddy. Hey — listen, I’m sorry about your brother.”

Damn Stacy — why the hell didn’t he give you the messages one at a time and in order, for God’s sake? David wanted to ask him what exactly he’d heard about the reserves but hesitated— Stacy thrived on the drama. “All right, so what did you hear?”

“You mean you haven’t heard?”

“Jesus Christ, Stacy — what’s going on?”

“It was hit. Pretty bad, looks like. CBS is running an in-depth report at seven.”

Sometimes David didn’t know whether Stacy was just plain dumb—”in-depth”—or was just too “gee whiz” to realize how insensitive he was to others. “In-depth!”— Christ. Some file footage probably with a cutesy lead-in: “Blaine’s shame.” Or how about “Bam in the Sea of Japan”—that would be par for the course these days. David’s anger was now turning to consternation and turmoil. The upgraded Hazard Perry-class frigate, as his father proudly told anyone who’d listen, was one of the world’s most sophisticated warships, its Phalanx radar-weapons system capable of tracking and destroying multiple targets simultaneously. How was it possible that the Blaine…

For a moment he thought his brother’s frigate might have been blindsided, one of the defense systems turned off as it had been on the Stark. David just as quickly dismissed the idea from his mind. Hell, that mistake on the Stark had been imprinted on the mind of every cadet out of Annapolis. His brother Ray had even made up some kind of sign about it, or so his dad had told them: “Don’t forget the Stark” or something. It was also clear now that Stacy hadn’t been trying to be a smart-ass with his “in-depth” pun and that he, David, had simply been overreacting. Then Stacy gave him a slip of paper, the number at Fort Lewis that all the college reservists were supposed to call. Was Stacy helping him or helping Stacy? Very considerate of him to have it all ready like this. Almost as if Stacy was in a hurry to see him off campus.

“I guess this is the downside,” commented Stacy as they approached the quad, cypress trees glistening with rain from the night before.

“Of what?” pressed David, trying to be civil despite the conflicting responsibilities and choices coming down on him: his Mom, Fort Lewis, Melissa — a possible extension might be granted from the army until fall term’s end — but how would it look, with his brother…

“Downside of the army paying your tuition,” Stacy explained enthusiastically. “You know, tit for tat.”

“Yeah,” said David, trying to hide the fact that Stacy was getting to him, if that’s what he was up to.

“You could get a deferment probably,” opined Stacy. “I know a guy in commerce. He’s a corker at writing out requests for deferment. He did it for a—”

“Corker?” asked David. The little shit was definitely trying to get to him.

“Sorry,” said Stacy with an air of Ivy League superiority, except that he was on the opposite side of the country. “Corker’s a British expression,” explained Stacy. “You know, means first-class. Top of the line. My roommate’s a Brit. I pick up things like that, I guess.”

“What things? Brits or the way they talk?”

“Way they talk, old boy. Don’t you know?”

Barf. Brentwood didn’t know which would be worse, putting up with this crap for another term or fighting gooks. Melissa had got after him one time for calling them that. As he reached his dorm, gladly saying good-bye, or “Toorooloo!” as Stacy had put it, David Brentwood knew there was only a slight chance he could apply for a deferment from the call-up of reserves. He started to get mad with his brothers, just as he had as a youngster, always having felt he had to “measure up” to them. What the hell had Ray been doing out there anyway? Daydreaming? Walking slowly up the cement stairs, the dark, shaded mouth of the dorm swallowing him like some leviathan of the deep, he recalled they’d said something on the radio about patrol boats having attacked the ship, but had they been Russian or North Korean? Or did they say South Korean? He was confused. Everything seemed to be coming apart at the seams.

Because he had been summoned to report immediately to the Chungang Chongbo-bu— South Korea’s CIA — headquarters during the hours before Seoul’s fall, Chin Sung was unable to attend the funeral of Lee Sok Jo, his young colleague who had been with him as the students had rioted outside the Secret Gardens.