Gordon Kent - Force Protection

Fuck command , he thought. Some people were born to be flyers, not to take command. Nobody knew better than he did himself that he’d reached his max when he was an exec. But the Navy said, ‘Up or out,’ and he’d kept moving up. Now –

A face he distrusted appeared at the far door; it took an instant for him to realize it was Rafe Rafehausen’s. He felt that momentary hatred, suspicion, fear that came from seeing the face of a rival, then almost relaxed as he admitted that maybe Rafehausen was about to take the whole problem off his hands. Bitter, bitter though that loss would be.

‘Pete, what the hell’s going on?’

Beluscio was pleased to see that Rafehausen was stretched tight, too. ‘We’re keeping you informed, Rafe.’

‘Jesus, it’s more than four hours – they must know something!’

‘You’re on the links, what do you think, we’re holding back?’ Beluscio had let his own tension show; his tone had been harsh. A second class at a terminal looked around at them, looked away. Beluscio lowered his voice. ‘The moment I hear anything –’

‘Lieutenant-Commander Craik on four, Captain!’

Beluscio clapped his right hand over the earphone and swung away from Rafehausen. ‘Yes!’

Rafe Rafehausen was puzzled by Pete Beluscio, who seemed to him tricky, overcomplex. Rafe himself was a fairly simple man, one who believed that the best direction was always straight ahead. Beluscio seemed to him always to be going one step sideways for every step forward. Like now, getting antsy over nothing, turning away when he might be getting the word at last.

Not a cynic, Rafehausen was still capable of suspecting that Beluscio might try to hold on to his temporary command of the battle group by demanding some absolute, legalistic confirmation of the admiral’s death long after it was clear the man was gone. If he did –

‘How long ago?’ he heard Beluscio say.

Rafehausen moved closer; at the same time, Beluscio swung back to look at him.

‘This is confirmed?’ Beluscio’s head was down now, his eyes not meeting Rafe’s. He listened for what seemed far too long, then muttered, ‘All four?’ After a few seconds, he said, ‘Well – the collar seems pretty, um, definite. Yeah, yeah, we’ll have to have the legal eagles confirm, dental and all that, but –’

Beluscio looked up then and met Rafe’s eyes. Switching off his mike with his left hand, he said softly, ‘Craik has evidence the admiral’s dead.’

The two men looked at each other. Rafe felt his heart surge with adrenaline, then with relief that Beluscio was going to do the right thing. He held out his hand. ‘I’m taking command of the BG, Pete.’

Beluscio hesitated and then, nodding, pulled off the headset and handed it over, as if it was a crown he was passing on. ‘I, uh – you know I’ll back you all the way, Rafe.’

The two men’s hands touched. Rafe took the headset and, putting it on with his right hand, grasped Beluscio’s arm with his left and squeezed.

‘Alan!’

‘Hey, Rafe –’ They were old friends.

‘Fill me in, the short version.’

‘Medics brought up parts of three, maybe four bodies in one bag, all cut up from shrapnel. One was an NCIS female agent who was known to be with the admiral. They found a Navy collar with two stars, same location. I’ve had the bag loaded for transfer to the Jeff so your guys can make a real ID, but – there’s no place left to look, Rafe.’

‘Okay. I’m assuming command of the BG, Al. What’re your orders?’

‘Beluscio ordered us out, including my det – the embassy told him the city’s rioting, something about Islamic fundamentalists – but that’s bullshit, Rafe. The Kenyans –’

‘No time. Answer me one question: you want to stay or fly back?’

‘I’ve got a mission here.’

‘Good. New orders: continue as before, your det to hunker down at Mombasa airport. I’ll send your second bird as soon as Stevens can have the guys ready. Okay, listen up, Al, I gotta go, but I’m depending on you there. You’re the Navy’s point man until you hear otherwise, you hear me? One, I want to know what happened to that ship; two, we want the bastards who did it if it’s a terrorist thing; and three, we want you to protect your people and the ship. Got it?’

‘You authorizing me to investigate?’

Beluscio had handed Rafehausen a quickly scrawled note. He scanned it and said to Alan, ‘NCIS is putting a team together, but that’ll take time. You’re on the spot – make the most of it. I’ll support you every step of the way. For now, hang on there. As far as I’m concerned, you’re in command of the Harker. Can you hack it?’

Alan tried to laugh. ‘I think the Navy’ll say I don’t have the right designator for command at sea.’

‘Yeah, well, you aren’t putting to sea, are you?’

‘It would help if I could contact my det at the airport. We can’t raise them.’

Rafehausen scowled. ‘Neither can we. All we can figure, they don’t have their comm on. We’ll keep trying.’ He glanced at the clock, then at the men and women around him. They were all looking at him, he realized. They knew. ‘Marines are to be attached to your det, under your command. Dispose them as you see fit. What else have you got for defense?’

‘One nine-millimeter handgun and a sniper rifle and some maybe-maybe support from the Kenyan Navy. They saved my ass from a missile attack, Rafe, so if you can send some sort of message of thanks, it’ll help. Right now, they’re back in their bunker. Maybe they’ll come out again to help us if things get bad and I say “please” really nice. But the situation’s iffy.’

Rafehausen made a face, glanced at the clock. ‘We’ll turn the choppers around as fast as we can; one should get back to you by –’ he squinted – ‘maybe 2200 local.’ He looked at Beluscio’s note again. ‘Captain Beluscio has been prepping the gator freighter to send in more support, but it looks like tomorrow before they can get there. Can you hold out?’

He heard Alan give a wry, small laugh. ‘We’ve made it this far.’ He hesitated, then said in a rush, ‘Martin Craw bought it.’

‘Oh, jeez.’ Rafehausen, Alan, and Craw had been in the same aircrew in the Gulf War. ‘We’ll be praying for you, Al.’

Rafe switched off the mike and squared his shoulders. Raising his voice, he said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have good reason to believe that Admiral Kessler was killed this morning on a visit to USNS Harker in Mombasa. As senior officer on board, I’m assuming command of the battle group. I’d like to meet at once with Captain Beluscio, Lieutenant-Commander Byng, Commander Nesbitt, and Commander Manfredi.’ He turned to a jg standing with Beluscio – the flag lieutenant’s gopher. He lowered his voice. ‘Dick, contact the chaplain, schedule a memorial service for tomorrow, subject to positive ID of the remains. But first, get ship’s captain on comm and let me speak with him personally, please.’

Going out, he grabbed Beluscio’s arm again. ‘Pete, Metro mumbled something to me about a tropical depression that’s coming the wrong way south of Sri Lanka; get a clarification and see what it means for us, will you?’ He let go and turned to the flag intel officer. ‘Get us a contact at the embassy in Nairobi; I want to be able to reach them twenty-four hours a day. Tell them to get my guy some protection at Kilindini – they need to lean on the Kenyans – tell them I don’t want to have to bring the BG off Mombasa to make the point – okay?’ He grabbed somebody else. ‘Dick, we’re going to have to refuel the gator freighter’s Seahawks for the trip to Mombasa. Here’s how I see it –’