Without remorse - Tom Clancy [236]
'Don't worry about that. Michelle will handle this as a matter of professional courtesy. You have to go there with Doris. Now, it is very important that you understand, she's been through a really horrible experience. Terrible things. She's going to get better - she's going to recover fully, but you have to do your part. Michelle can explain all that better than I can. What I'm telling you, Mr Brown, is this: no matter what awful things you learn, please -'
'Doc,' he interrupted softly, 'that's my little girl. She's all I have, and I'm not going to ... foul up and lose her again. I'd rather die.'
'Mr Brown, that is exactly what we needed to hear.'
Kelly awoke at one in the morning, local time. The big slug of whiskey he'd downed along the way had blessedly not resulted in a hangover. In fact, he felt unusually rested. The gentle rocking of the ship had soothed his body during the day/night, and lying in the darkness of his officers' accommodations he heard the gentle creaks of steel compressing and expanding as USS Ogden turned to port. He made his way to the shower, using cold water to wake himself up. In ten minutes he was dressed and presentable. It was time to explore the ship.
Warships never sleep. Though most work details were synchronized to daylight hours, the unbending watch cycle of the Navy meant that men were always moving about. No less than a hundred of the ship's crew were always at their duty stations, and many others were circulating about the dimly lit passageways on their way to minor maintenance tasks. Others were lounging in the mess spaces, catching up on reading or letter-writing.
He was dressed in striped fatigues. There was a name tag that said Clark, but no badges of rank. In the eyes of the crew that made 'Mr Clark' a civilian, and already they were whispering that he was a CIA guy - to the natural accompaniment of James Bond jokes that evaporated on the sight of him. The sailors stood aside in the passageways as he wandered around, greeting him with respectful nods that he acknowledged, bemused to have officer status. Though only the Captain and Executive Officer knew what this mission was all about, the sailors weren't dumb. You didn't send a ship all the way from 'Dago just to support a short platoon of Marines unless there was one hell of a good reason, and the bad-ass bunch that had come aboard looked like the sort to make John Wayne take a respectful step back.
Кеllу found the flight deck. Three sailors were walking there, too. Connie was still on the horizon, still operating aircraft whose strobes blinked away against the stars. In a few minutes his eyes adapted to the darkness. There were destroyers present, a few thousand yards out. Aloft on Ogden, radar antennas turned to the hum of electric motors, but the dominating sound was the continuous broomlike swish of steel hull parting water.
'Jesus, it's pretty,' he said, mainly to himself. Kelly headed back into the superstructure and wandered forward and upwards until he found the Combat Information Center. Captain Franks was there, sleepless, as many captains tended to be.
'Feeling better?' the CO asked.
'Yes, sir.' Kelly looked down at the plot, counting the ships in this formation, designated TF-77.1. Lots of radars were up and running, because North Vietnam had an air force and might someday try to do something really dumb.
'Which one's the AGI?'
'This is our Russian friend.' Franks tapped the main display. 'Doing the same thing we are. The Elint guys we have embarked are having a fine old time,' the Captain went on. 'Normally they go out on little ships. We're like the Queen Mary for them.'
'Pretty big,' Kelly agreed. 'Seems real empty, too.'
'Yep. Well, no scuffles to worry about, 'tween my kids and the Marine kids, I mean. You need to look at some charts? I have the whole package under lock in my cabin.'
'Sounds like a good idea, Cap'n. Maybe some coffee, too?'
Franks' at-sea cabin was comfortable enough. A steward brought coffee and breakfast. Kelly unfolded the chart, again examining