Forgive & Forget (Love in the Fleet) Read online

  He would never have guessed Trixie had an ounce of maternal instinct down there under all that crust. But she was still a woman and he was none too enamored with women these days. Who the hell could figure them out? He just wanted her to leave. Leave him alone and let him wallow in his misery. “No. But thanks for the offer, Williams. I appreciate it.”

  “Well, if you ever want to talk about it, I’m here. I’m a chick. I know how they think. But I’m on your side.”

  That left him smiling. Yeah, like he’d talk to her about it, but it was a tender gesture on her part.

  Trixie went back out into the spaces and, thinking she was out of his earshot, debriefed the working party. “He apologized for biting my head off. Said he got some bad news. And you can bet your sweet ass the bad news has something to do with not getting any.”

  No matter how hard he worked, by the time Philip crawled into the rack in his stateroom at night, all the memories were waiting for him. The good, the bad, and the beautiful. He’d lie awake nights, staring at the underside of his roommate’s bunk, reliving the good times, and then trying to figure out what the hell “we can’t be together anymore” meant.

  Philip Johnston held a mechanical engineering degree from the United States Naval Academy. He was experienced at taking things apart, analyzing the pieces, repairing the broken parts, and then putting them back together again. And although this worked on the job and he could fix most of the problems in his corner of the Engineering Department, he was not always as adept at fixing problems in his life.

  Every night when he crawled into bed, he dissected their relationship and reexamined it. Piece by piece. Trying to figure out what the hell had gone wrong.

  He had loved Hallie enough to tell her he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. And it wasn’t just about the most incredible sex in the entire world. It was about the intelligent conversations, talk of the future, their shared joys in a sailboat, the same sense of humor, and not needing to talk to communicate with each other. But he’d always end up fast forwarding to that last night.

  How had he fucked things up?

  What was it she had to figure out? Why couldn’t they be together? Besides him deploying. Was it personal, something wrong with him, or were there circumstances he didn’t know about?

  “There are still things you don’t know about me,” she had said.

  Was she already married? Maybe legally separated from an ax murderer? Did she have a couple of children tucked away somewhere? Maybe she was a vampire. Or an alien.

  He knew she would have thought that humorous, but he couldn’t even laugh any more.

  Wait. Maybe she was a peacenik.

  Eventually, “we can’t be together anymore” morphed into “I don’t love you anymore.” That was simpler and easier to process for Phillip. She had gotten tired of his nice guy ass. He was boring. Didn’t talk enough. Worked too hard. Never wanted to go out and have fun. The kinds of things other women had kindly tried to tell him.

  Then why would she have continually told him that that’s what she liked about him? That he made her feel safe.

  That he was her anchor.

  So he tried to move on. Planned to work hard during this deployment, just put one boot down in front of the other every day. And then maybe when they got back to the States, he would look around again for a good woman who his mom swore was out there looking for somebody just like him. Although he knew for sure that he’d have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever finding someone he would ever love as much as Hallie McCabe.

  Dear Hot Mama: I was sad leaving you today. I’ll miss you while I’m gone, but I know you’ll be strong. I’m sorry I’ll miss our anniversary on September 9, but I will have a surprise for you. I have everything I need to make it, so I promise it will be ready on time. I love you, Randy.

  Rashid clicked send and knew his sadiqs would understand the pre-coded message he’d sent them. “I had to leave you today” meant that the Blanchard did indeed get underway as planned on the date of the email. “I have everything I need,” meant that he was successful in getting the necessary explosives and a gun onto the ship. He couldn’t believe how easy it had been. He’d just carried a little on board each day and stowed it in his locker. Only random screenings on the quarterdeck, and even if they’d checked his stuff, he had everything sewn inside the lining of his gym bag.

  You would think they’d have better detectors these days, but no. The powers-that-be apparently knew everyone on board had a security clearance, so there was little risk from a member of their own crew. Rashid’s clearance had been completed four years ago when he finished OS “A” School and a lot had happened since then. He wouldn’t be due for another until he re-enlisted.

  Fat chance of that happening.

  The rest of his message was self-explanatory, although the sadiqs would find a different meaning in it than the ship’s Information Systems Techs who monitored all electronic communications. A fictional wife or lover wouldn’t even get a second look by the ITs. They would assume he was planning a sweet surprise for his woman.

  Though he had been assigned to man the rails, Rashid did not go topside for the send-off. He had no one on the pier to say goodbye to anymore. Nobody blowing a kiss or waving a flag in his honor. Besides he hadn’t slept well lately and figured he could grab a power nap while nobody was looking.

  The OSs would be working Port and Starboard shifts: twelve hours on, twelve hours off. It was the price they paid to play Solitaire in port. Starting tonight, his life would become one long cycle of monitoring radar screens and naming unidentified vessels and aircraft. He wasn’t worried about working too hard these days though. He was the lone member of the Blanchard who knew there were only forty-eight days left of this deployment.

  Once they arrived in the Middle East there would be plenty of fish lighting up the radar screens for him to detect, or miss, since he was planning to be the duty OS on September ninth. He’d make sure of it. Wouldn’t be a problem since he wrote the watch bill. Oh, fucking Commander Haggman, the Combat Direction Center officer, would sign it off, but Rashid would write it. And his name would be on it. Using the Identification Friend or Foe function of the surveillance radars, he’d be the first to know when his sadiqs came to visit. And left their calling card. Correction. Cards. Their last communiqué had confirmed there would be five at each location.

  Allahu Akbar.

  Nah. He decided he definitely wasn’t going to yell that Arabic shit when the time came. Maybe some kind of a toast to Rosie? He had plenty of time to think about it. A sweet little nugget he could tuck away in his seabag and take out and mull over every night in his rack. Whatever it was, it would be the last thing he said in this lifetime. And what he wanted to see? The look of horror on Commander Haggman’s face right before he blew him to kingdom come.

  Chapter 12

  Hallie and Gina exchanged their dress whites for camouflage and high-tailed it to the Admiral’s Bridge, where the commander of the entire Carrier Strike Group would be watching the fly-on with his minions. Getting there was no small feat, considering they had to ascend eight ladders inside the island to get there from the flight deck.

  Commander Scott assigned them to do more than just take notes for the ship’s Facebook page. If they got any face-time with the Admiral, he also wanted them to use their youth and charm to talk him into making a daily Facebook announcement and opening a Twitter account. Apparently they were tasked with bringing him into the twenty-first century.

  Once everyone was aboard, the population of this floating city would be roughly five thousand. Two thousand airedales, members of the air wing; and three-thousand ship’s company, those responsible for the functioning of the ship itself.

  The Blanchard would be joined by two thousand more sailors and officers on two destroyers, two fast frigates, and a cruiser, from both Mayport
and Norfolk. These ships would make up the rest of the Carrier Strike Group and would form a distant perimeter around the aircraft carrier, protecting her from enemy ships, submarines, or aircraft. The Admiral would be responsible for all of them.

  All the glamor of the send-off was gone. The crew now wore practical working uniforms. Administrative types had changed into aquaflage, while engineers and others performing dirty work below decks wore navy blue coveralls. Airedales seemed to wear whatever they wanted.

  Hallie glanced down at the colorful scene below as the flight deck crews prepared for the aircraft recovery. She knew the pilots and flight crews would be wearing flight suits, but the enlisted airedales who’d arrived yesterday were scuttling around below looking like a motley crew. They were a virtual kaleidoscope of colored jerseys and matching flotation vests, all worn with camouflage pants bloused over combat boots.

  “Do you know why they call the flight deck workers Skittles?” Gina asked.

  “Because of their different colored shirts?”

  “You got it. The colors allow everyone to know who does what without having to ask in that deafening environment. See those guys in the green shirts? They work catapult and arresting gear. We call the guys in purple shirts Grapes. They handle aviation fuel. You don’t see any yellow or red shirts yet because yellow is for plane shooters and we’re not doing any launches today, and red shirts are ordnance. Doubt we’ll be loading any bombs for a few days.”

  A shiver worked its way up Hallie’s spine. This was really happening. They were going to war.

  “Ladies,” said a nice-looking officer with salt and pepper hair and a welcoming smile. “I’m Commander Taylor, Ship’s Safety Officer.”

  He radiated confidence and offered his hand in greeting. But his smile and the desert tan flight suit put Hallie off. She barely raised a sweaty palm before he grabbed it and gave it a firm shake. She reminded herself the ship would be crawling with aviators within a few hours. She decided to suck it up, but to never let her guard down.

  “All my flight deck personnel are serving as safety observers for the fly-on. So when your boss asked for an escort for two of his best and brightest, I volunteered.”

  “Thank you, sir. We appreciate it,” Gina said.

  “Since the Admiral’s Bridge is packed with observers jostling for a good view, I thought we’d begin up one level on the Navigation Bridge. Follow me.”

  Oh, well. During a fly-on was probably not the best time to discuss Facebook with the Carrier Air Group Commander anyway.

  The Safety Officer extended his arms. “Ladies, this is ‘The Bridge,’ where the Officer of the Deck drives the ship. And anytime we’re involved in a high risk evolution you’ll find the Commanding Officer up here.”

  “Hello, Buck, how’s it going?” asked Captain Amerson, the Blanchard’s CO, turning to welcome them.

  Hallie’s gut registered wolf in sheep’s clothing. Although he wore a blue camouflage uniform instead of a flight suit, the embroidered wings over his breast pocket, the aviator sunglasses, and his come-on smile tipped his hand as a pilot. She greeted him respectfully, then turned away and looked through the windshield at the flight deck below. She better toughen her resolve, because there were more pilots than she could shake a stick at winging their way to the ship this very minute.

  “I’m escorting a couple of sailors from media, sir. They’re covering the fly-on and I’m their official tour guide. This is Petty Officer McCabe and her fellow paparazzi, Petty Officer Marini.”

  “Excellent,” Captain Amerson said, joining them at the window. “We’re landing Helicopter Combat Support Squadron Seven, the Dusty Dogs, right now.”

  Like a well-orchestrated dance of dragonflies, one by one, five gray Seahawk helicopters passed left to right just aft of the stern, then turned and flew up the port side. The first one getting almost to the bow before sliding sideways and landing on Helicopter Spot Number One. The second followed into Spot Number Two and so on.

  By the time number five had landed, the first two had shut down their engines and their rotor blades had stopped turning. Like giant damselflies, the helos began folding their blades back along their fuselages. Then crewmembers approached and manually folded the entire tail section toward the folded blades.

  “Wow. I’ve seen Navy helos folded up like that stowed on board ship, but I’ve never watched them do it before,” Hallie said. She wondered if one of the helo pilots was Philip’s friend, Sky.

  Philip.

  Her heart skipped a beat. She was so involved in watching the fly-on, she forgot what her priority was today. Finish that letter.

  “We always keep a couple of helos on the flight deck, so they’re ready at a moment’s notice. And we’ll keep one airborne all day to fly Search and Rescue in case of an emergency. The rest of the helos will be taken down the elevator to the hangar bay, so the next squadron can start landing.”

  Since this was her first cruise, Hallie had only seen the hangar bay empty. Located directly below the flight deck, it was the size of two football fields and stood three stories high. It would be a busy place for maintenance and repair of aircraft—when it wasn’t being used for full-court basketball games or all-hands meetings.

  “You know you two could get a better view and better photos from Vulture’s Row above us.”

  “That’s our next destination, sir,” Commander Taylor said.

  “Thank you for your time, Captain,” Gina said.

  “My pleasure, ladies.”

  When the last of the helicopters had landed, Commander Taylor pointed out the four cables stretched tight across the deck about fifty feet apart.

  “Those are what the jets and propeller-driven planes will catch with their tailhooks. Each of those wires is capable of stopping a fifty-four-thousand pound aircraft traveling a hundred-fifty miles an hour within three-hundred-fifty feet.” He smiled proudly. “In about two seconds. See how all the Skittles are taking their places? The recovery will be fast and furious once the jets come aboard. They have to come in at top speed in case they miss the wires and have to take off again. The ship has to be steaming at thirty knots to launch or recover the planes.”

  Even with double ear protection, the first thing Hallie noticed as the first FA-18 Hornet approached was the noise. It turned into a thunderous roar as the aircraft touched down under full power. Just two seconds after the jet snagged the number three wire, the Hornet was at a complete stop. It rolled backward a few feet as the pilot raised the tailhook and then taxied out of the way so the next aircraft could land. This would go on all afternoon.

  Gina pulled up Hallie’s hearing protection and spoke in her ear. “I once asked a jet pilot what it felt like to land on a carrier. He said to imagine having an orgasm while being hit by a bus. And being launched by the catapult was like climaxing while being shot from a cannon.”

  Hallie couldn’t get over how quickly the planes landed, stopped, and taxied before another came in right behind it. Like clockwork.

  “If you think this evolution is busy, you two should come back when we’re doing launch and recoveries at the same time. Then you can witness the world’s most dangerous parking lot.”

  Commander Taylor smiled at the look on Hallie’s face. “And feel free to come by and watch night ops as well. It’s really amazing in the dark.”

  Once they had witnessed all the different types of aircraft landing, they thanked the Safety Officer and headed below decks for a late lunch. They would write up their observations about the recovery of aircraft and the next day they would observe launches from the catapults. Flight ops would begin first thing in the morning and would continue daily, or nightly, until they pulled into their first port.

  But Hallie McCabe was more concerned with something else she needed to write. She had avoided the pain of sharing the truth with Philip for far t
oo long. They were now utterly and totally haze gray and underway.

  And she’d run out of excuses.

  OS2 Randy Davis plunked his tray down with several of his colleagues on the aft mess deck for evening chow. He wasn’t planning to bond with his shipmates, but he didn’t wish to draw attention to himself as a loner. He’d make polite conversation if he had to, all the while seething at the assholes around him. He knew he had power over everyone at the table. Hell, every person on board the ship.

  “So who’s running the Anchor Pool?” one of his tablemates said.

  “What’s an Anchor Pool?” asked an OS3 who had recently reported aboard.

  A man named Rogers sneered. “Don’t you know anything?”

  Rashid shot Rogers a menacing look, challenging him with his eyes. “Hey, lay off the new kid. He just got here.”

  “Well, excuuuuse me, Davis,” Rogers rolled his eyes and Rashid caught a smirk out of the corner of his eye.

  Davis turned to the newbie. “It’s a matrix of possible dates and times when we drop anchor or moor pierside. You pick your date and pay. We’ll do one in Combat for five bucks a pop, but if you want in on the real action, see Jackson in Supply.”

  Rogers jumped in again. “Hey, did you hear who Jackson’s got the hots for these days?”

  Rashid tuned them out. It was all scuttlebutt. Gossiping would be the top downtime activity on the cruise. He chuckled when he thought about the word, scuttlebutt. Since it was the word for water fountain in the Navy, he always pictured sailors of old gathered around an oaken water barrel, sipping from a dipper—most likely exchanging gossip.

  And didn’t scuttlebutt just fly on a Navy cruise. It could be the truth, a partial truth, or totally false. Regardless, rumors spread at light speed. One chick on his last deployment laughed her ass off when she found out she was engaged to some guy she’d never met. Christ, these cruises were like high school. The average age of the freaking crew was twenty-one years old. Half of them were leaving home for the first time in their lives, lots with sad stories about how this was their only chance to succeed in this world. At nineteen? What the fuck was wrong with them? They clearly didn’t use a fraction of their brainpower to think most things through. And all of them were horny as all get out.