Without remorse - Tom Clancy [233]
'Aviators gotta be crazy,' Kelly bitched.
'Does get kinda long. Follow me,' the Admiral ordered, leading him into the superstructure. Kelly looked around first. Constellation was on the eastern horizon and he could see aircraft flying off one end while others circled to land on the other. Two cruisers were in close attendance, and destroyers ringed the formation. It was part of the Navy which Kelly had rarely seen, the Big Blue Team at work, commanding the ocean. 'What's that?' he asked, pointing.
'Russian fishing trawler, AGI.' Podulski waved Kelly through a watertight door.
'Oh, that's just great!'
'Don't worry. We can deal with that,' the Admiral assured him.
Inside the superstructure, the two men headed up a series of ladders, finding flag quarters, or what passed for them at the moment. Admiral Podulski had taken over the Captain's in-port cabin for the duration of the mission, relegating Ogden's CO to his smaller accommodations nearer the bridge. There was a comfortable sitting room, and the ship's captain was there.
'Welcome aboard!' Captain Ted Franks said in greeting. 'You're Clark?'
'Yes, sir.'
Franks was a fifty-year-old pro who'd been in amphibious ships since 1944. Ogden was his fifth and would be his last command. Short, pudgy, and losing his hair, he still had the look of a warrior on a face that was by turns good-natured and deadly serious. At the moment, it was the former. He waved Kelly to a chair next to a table in the center of which was a bottle of Jack Daniel's.
'That ain't legal,' Kelly observed at once.
'Not for me,' Captain Franks agreed. 'Aviator rations.'
'I arranged for them,' Casimir Podulski explained. 'Brought 'em over from Connie. You need something to steady down after all that time with the Air Scouts.'
'Sir, I never argue with admirals.' Kelly dropped two ice cubes into a tumbler and covered them with alcohol.
'My XO is talking with Captain Albie and his people. They're all getting entertained, too,' Franks added, meaning that every man had two miniatures on his assigned bunk. 'Mr Clark, our ship is yours. Anything we have, you got it.'
'Well, Cap'n, you surely know how to say hello.' Kelly sipped at his drink, and the first touch of the booze made his body remember how wrung-out he was. 'So when do we start?'
'Four days. You need two to recover from the trip,' the Admiral said. 'The submarine will be with us two days after that. The Marines go in Friday morning, depending on weather.'
'Okay.' There was nothing else he could say.
'Only the XO and I know anything yet. Try not to spread things around. We've got a pretty good crew. The intel team is aboard and working. The medical team gets here tomorrow.'
'Recon?'
Podulski handled that one. 'We'll have photos of the camp later today, from a Vigilante working off Connie. Then another set twelve hours before you move out. We have Buffalo Hunter shots, five days old. The camp is still there, still guarded, same as before.'
'Items?' Kelly asked, using the code word for prisoners.
'We've only got three shots of Americans in the compound.' Podulski shrugged. 'They don't make a camera yet that can see through a tile roof.'
'Right.' Kelly's face said it all.
'I m worried about that, too,' Cas admitted.
Kelly turned. 'Captain, you have an exercise place, something like that?'
'Weight room, aft of the crew's mess. Like I said, it's yours if you want it.'
He finished off his drink. 'Well, I think I need to get some rack time.'
'You'll mess with the Marines. You'll like the food here,' Captain Franks promised.
'Fair enough.'
'I saw two men not wearing their hard-hats,' Marvin Wilson said to the boss.
'I'll talk to them.'
'Aside from that, thanks a lot for your cooperation.' He'd made a total of eleven safety recommendations, and the owner of the cement company had adopted every one, hoping for a reduction in his insurance rates. Marvin took off his white hard-hat and wiped the sweat from his brow. It was going to be a hot one. The summer climate