The Command (Dan Lenson, 8) - Hardcover

Poyer, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312318367 ISBN 13: 9780312318369

Verlag: St Martin's Press, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

After receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor for action in Iraq, Commander Daniel V. Lenson's new orders read: take over as skipper of USS Thomas W. Horn. His mission: prepare the Tomahawk-equipped strike destroyer and her crew for the Red Sea, where she'll join an international task force searching for weapons of mass destruction.

But this will be no routine deployment. Horn will be the first US Navy warship ever to deploy with an integrated male and female crew-a controversial and politically explosive experiment that will raise questions about morale, behavior, training, sexual attraction, and ultimately, performance under fire. Facing sandstorms, smugglers, and ambushes, Horn's increasingly polarized crew will conduct demanding, diplomatically sensitive search-and-seizure operations against foreign vessels attempting to smuggle arms to Iraq. But the real nightmare's brewing in Bahrain. There, the most dangerous bomb expert in Al-Qaeda has targeted Horn for attack- as the first step in a plan to redraw the map of the whole Middle East.

With gripping action scenes and an explosive climax, The Command continues Dan Lenson's star-crossed career in a series that explores both global and deeply personal implications of honor, duty, power, and war.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Captain David Poyer's twenty-four novels make him possibly the most popular living author of American sea fiction. His naval career included service in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, Arctic, Caribbean, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Pacific. The Command is the eighth book in his continuing novel-cycle of the modern Navy, following The Med, The Gulf, The Circle, The Passage, Tomahawk, China Sea, and Black Storm. He lives with his wife, novelist Lenore Hart, and their daughter on Virginia's Eastern Shore.

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Praise for David Poyer's novels of the Modern Navy:

Black Storm
"No one writes gritty, realistic military fiction like David Poyer. No one."
- Stephen Coonts, author of America

"A gripping, gritty novel that reads like the real thing. You're with the marines every step of the way. Poyer knows his stuff."
- Vince Flynn, author of Separation of Power

"Exceptional...a straight-ahead adventure yarn, a frontal assault on the bestseller lists."
- Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe

China Sea
"Vivid descriptions...an exciting story."
- John Garst, Virginia Times

Tomahawk
"Imaginative, thought-provoking."
- USA Today

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The Command

By David Poyer

St. Martin's Press

Copyright © 2004 David Poyer
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-312-31836-9

CHAPTER 1

Pier 8, Norfolk,Virginia

GLANCING through the porthole in the at-sea cabin, the tall man in choker whites checked the sky. Overcast but clearing. The wind light, the air warm. He rubbed his mouth. It might turn out to be a good day after all.

Daniel V. Lenson, Commander, U.S. Navy, had spent most of his career in destroyers and frigates. Some of those tours had been enjoyable. Others had not, and he'd seen shipmates die, had killed other men, and come close to dying more than once. Five rows of decorations were pinned above his breast pocket. The topmost was light blue, set with small white stars. His sun-darkened face was beginning to show the years at sea. Sleepless nights and tension had crimped crow's-feet around the gray eyes and scattered silver in his sandy hair.

His watch gave him ten minutes until he took command of USS Thomas Horn, a helicopter-capable Spruance-class destroyer. Just now he was having weak coffee and sugar cookies with the skipper he was relieving. For someone who was turning over command, normally a time to celebrate, the balding little man seemed tense and disappointed.

"You heard about the three envelopes?" Ross said, turning his cup in gnarled fingers. Dan wondered why he was so nervous, as if in the waning minutes of his watch some disaster might still overtake him. As to his own feelings, the less said the better.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, the civilian shrink had called it. From being caught and tortured by Saddam's Mukhabarat. That was behind the icy sweat, the breath-stopping sense of impending doom. When he declined her prescription, she said he could try to go on without drugs. But if he gave in to his fears, avoided stressful situations, or showed panic, the terror that hunted beneath his conscious mind would take over his life.

He cleared his throat. "Three envelopes?"

"Fella comes on board to relieve, the outgoing CO gives him three envelopes. He says, when you get in trouble, open the first envelope. When you get in real trouble, open the second envelope. And when you're ass-deep in gators and there's no way out, open the last one.

"So sure enough, the fella screws up and he opens the first one. It says, 'Blame your predecessor.' So he does, and it works. Then later on he gets in real trouble. He opens the second envelope, it says, 'Reorganize.' So he does that, and he's out of the shit. But then at last he gets in real, real deep kimchee and can't see any way out short of a court-martial. He opens the third envelope."

"So what's it say?"

"'Prepare three envelopes.'"

Dan chuckled, but then the silence came back. They'd gone over everything they had to talk about. Unfortunately, what he'd learned hadn't contradicted his first impression, which was of a ship that needed attention.

He'd heard things were less than rosy during his precommand training. The regional engineering training and readiness inspectors said Horn's engineering department lacked leadership. A master chief told him the ship got a present when it passed its reexam for certification. The second recurring theme was sexual fraternization. Dan took waterfront tales with a grain of salt, but the fact they were going around wasn't good.

Four men had been standing on the quarterdeck as he'd come up the brow the week before. By the time he'd finished saluting, only the officer of the deck remained. When crew scattered at the sight of khaki, something was wrong. His unease grew as he filtered through the spaces, talking to chiefs and white hats, learning who the shitbirds were, what gear was due to fail and which was bulletproof. He'd met department heads and reviewed inventory letters. Spot-checked ammo and crypto materials and the controlled equipment like night vision devices and handheld radios and computers. Signed the admin and relieving letters, and looked over the disbursing officer's audit of cash on hand.

Now he had to stand in the noon sun and show them their new skipper.

A trilling tone from the ship's service phone. Ross flinched and snatched it off the bulkhead. "They're mustered." He stood too fast, knocking over his cup. The dark fluid just missed Dan's whites.

Looking at the oily black liquid dye the carpet, suddenly he didn't feel well. A shadow moved over his perception, darkening the very light. He didn't want to go out in front of these people. Didn't want this command. All he had to oppose to fear was duty. That and the blue ribbon he wore. Which attested, like the Cowardly Lion's medal, that he had once been brave.

He followed Ross out into sunlight and the wind.

STANDING on Horn's flight deck as a cloud strains the sun into searching beams of golden light. Looking down past the Sea Sparrow launcher to the after five-inch, its tapered barrel centered and elevated.

Spruances were no longer the most modern destroyers in the fleet. But they were bigger, roomier, more comfortable than the Gearings and Knoxes he'd begun his career on. They carried antiship Harpoons between the stacks and Tomahawks forward. A tug churned by, screws whipping the Elizabeth River into malt frappé. He held the salute as the honors tape played over the 1MC, the ship's public address system. As a smiling, glasses-shining Commodore Saul Aronie, Commander, Destroyer Squadron Twenty-Two, passed between saluting sideboys. The sun was blazing now, right in his eyes. He was standing with Ross and Ross's wife, what was her name, he couldn't remember whether it was Cecilia or Cynthia or Cindy.

His own wife couldn't make it out of D.C. With the new administration, Blair had moved from Senate staff to the executive branch. It was one of those long-distance relationships. The week after the wedding, he'd been off to the Naval War College, while she briefed the new administration's transition team.

The day was as bright now, the wind as warm as his glance out the porthole had promised. The crew were phalanxed ranks of white. The commodore settling into his chair, adjusting his sword. At the podium, Dan's new exec. From behind he contemplated the small waist, the swell of her hips. This would take some getting used to.

Claudia Hotchkiss was a head shorter than he was, an energetic woman with apple cheeks and dusty blond hair. She looked like the actress who held the torch for Columbia Pictures. The same enigmatic expression, too. Horn would be the first warship in history to deploy to a combat zone with an integrated male/female crew. Hotchkiss had served in oilers and ammunition ships and had done her department head tour aboard Mount Whitney before screening for exec. She stretched on tiptoe to reach the mike. "Captain Carter Llewellyn Ross, commanding officer, USS Horn."

Ross lifted his cover, smoothed what was left of his hair. Gripped walnut-stained plywood and faced the ranks, the seated rows of guests, with the embattled crouch of one resolved to tell the unwelcome truth, come what may.

"Commodore Aronie; Commander Lenson; distinguished guests; officers and men of USS Horn. Thank you for joining me on this morning, on what should be a happy occasion.

"It should be happy; yet for me, it is not.

"I must speak out against what is happening to this navy I have loved and served."

A stir rippled across the sailors, listening at parade rest. Here and there Dan caught a bark, a grunt, a low, questioning growl.

"The United States military cannot be a laboratory for social change. We cannot...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: St Martin's Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2004
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0312318367
• ISBN 13: 9780312318369
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar