Читать книгу Damage Control - Gordon Kent, Gordon Kent - Страница 9

Intel officers wait, Alan thought as he watched a digital clock tick down toward the beginning of the fleet exercise. Two minutes twenty to startex. And worry. He was standing by the JOTS repeater, staring at it as if memorizing the position of every ship in both fleets, but he was thinking about his wife, Rose, wanting to be with her. He tried to focus on the exercise. He called across to a female US rating, the only other American there besides him and Benvenuto. “Borgman, give me an update on my comms with the two fleet commands.”

“Good to go, sir.” Borgman was a heavy-bodied woman with an almost childishly pretty face, a plodder who got things done with tenacity rather than brilliance.

He nodded and went back to the JOTS terminal and the glowing blobs that represented the American and Indian ships. Nothing had changed. He looked up and let his eyes swing over the room. An Indian rating named Mehta looked up and let their glances meet as if to say, We’re doing the best we can here.

A little more than a minute to go. Alan raised his eyebrows at Benvenuto.

“Good to go, sir,” Benvenuto said. He was looking at something over Alan’s shoulder as he said, “Data’s streaming—”

Aware then of somebody behind him, Alan turned, saw an Indian officer standing there, registered the single star on the collar, produced a name without having to look at the man’s tag—Commodore Chanda, the Indian exercise-control officer. Alan smiled, guessed that the answering scowl was prestart nervousness.

“Sir,” Alan said.

The commodore was watching the clock, must have been watching it when Alan turned around. Across the room, a nervous Indian lieutenant was also staring at the orange numerals.

The commodore was standing too close. Alan wanted to elbow him out of the way, of course couldn’t. He bent over the terminal, pretending to study the location of the American flagship. The commodore was right behind him. Well, he’s a commodore; he can stand where he—

The crease in the commodore’s trousers brushed the back of Alan’s right thigh; Alan shifted left to make room for the more senior man, shifted his eyes for a fraction of a second off the terminal, catching a whiff of some scent the Indian officer used, then flashed back to the terminal as it—inexplicably, surprisingly—darkened and lost its picture, like an eye blinking. He caught movement below him—

—and saw a hand emerging from a uniform sleeve with a commodore’s broad stripe on it, holding something glittering and brassy to the input port of the JOTS repeater.

“Hey—!” Alan started to say, grabbing, without thinking, at the hand. Then, too late, he said, “Sir—!” but the commodore’s enraged eyes had already locked into his.