Without Remorse

  “How long did you work on this?”

  “Three days, sir. When I looked over the arms we embarked, it wasn’t hard to figure what you might need, and I had the spare time. So I played around some.”

  “But how the hell did you know I was going—”

  “We’re exchanging signals with a sub. How hard is all that to figure out?”

  “How did you know that?” Kelly demanded, knowing the answer even so.

  “Ever know a ship that had secrets? Captain’s got a yeoman. Yeomen talk,” the machinist explained, completing the reassembly process. “It makes the weapon about six inches longer, I hope you don’t mind.”

  Kelly shouldered the carbine. The balance was actually improved somewhat. He preferred a muzzle-heavy weapon since it made for better control.

  “Very nice.” He had to try it out, of course. Kelly and the chief headed aft. Along the way the machinist got a discarded wooden box. On the fantail, Kelly slapped a full magazine into the carbine. The chief tossed the wood into the water and stepped back. Kelly shouldered the weapon and squeezed off his first round.

  Pop. A moment later came the sound of the bullet hitting the wood, actually somewhat louder than the report of the cartridge. He’d also distinctly heard the working of the bolt mechanism. This chief machinist’s mate had done for a high-powered rifle what Kelly himself had done for a .22 pistol. The master craftsman smiled benignly.

  “The only hard part’s making sure there’s enough gas to work the bolt. Try it full auto, sir.”

  Kelly did that, rippling off six rounds. It still sounded like gunfire, but the actual noise generated was reduced by at least ninety-five percent, and that meant that no one could hear it beyond a couple hundred yards—as opposed to over a thousand for a normal rifle.

  “Good job, Chief.”

  “Whatever you’re up to, sir, you be careful, hear?” the chief suggested, walking off without another word.

  “You bet,” Kelly told the water. He hefted the weapon a little more, and emptied the magazine at the wood before it grew too far off. The bullets converted the wooden box into splinters to the accompaniment of small white fountains of seawater.

  You’re ready, John.

  So was the weather, he learned a few minutes later. Perhaps the world’s most sophisticated weather-prediction service operated to support air operations over Vietnam—not that the pilots really appreciated or acknowledged it. The senior meteorologist had come across from Constellation with the admirals. He moved his hands across a chart of isobars and the latest satellite photo.

  “The showers start tomorrow, and we can expect rain on and off for the next four days. Some heavy stuff. It’ll go on until this slow-moving low-pressure area slides up north into China,” the chief petty officer told them.

  All of the officers were there. The four flight crews assigned to the mission evaluated this news soberly. Flying a helicopter in heavy weather wasn’t exactly fun, and no aviator liked the idea of reduced visibility. But falling rain would also muffle the noise of the aircraft, and reduced visibility worked both ways. The main hazard that concerned them was light antiaircraft guns. Those were optically aimed, and anything that hindered the ability of the crews to hear and see their aircraft made for safety.

  “Max winds?” a Cobra pilot asked.

  “At worst, gusts to thirty-five or forty knots. It will be a little bumpy aloft, sir.”

  “Our main search radar is pretty good for weather surveillance. We can steer you around the worst of it,” Captain Franks offered. The pilots nodded.

  “Mr. Clark?” Admiral Greer asked.

  “Rain sounds good to me. The only way they can spot me on the inbound leg is the bubbles I leave on the surface of the river. Rain’ll break that up. It means I can move in daylight if I have to.” Kelly paused, knowing that to go on would merely make the final commitment. “Skate ready for me?”

  “Whenever we say so,” Maxwell answered.

  “Then it’s ’go-mission’ on my end, sir.” Kelly could feel his skin go cold. It seemed to contract around his entire body, making him seem smaller somehow. But he’d said it anyway.

  Eyes turned to Captain Albie, USMC. A vice admiral, two rear admirals, and an up-and-coming CIA field officer now depended on this young Marine to make the final decision. He would take the main force in. His was the ultimate operational responsibility. It seemed very strange indeed to the young captain that seven stars needed him to say “go,” but twenty-five Marines and perhaps twenty others had their lives riding on his judgment. It was his mission to lead, and it had to be exactly right the first time. He looked over at Kelly and smiled.

  “Mr. Clark, sir, you be real careful. I think it’s time for your swim. This mission is ‘go.’ ”

  There was no exultation. In fact, every man around the chart table looked down at the maps, trying to convert the two-dimensional ink on paper into three-dimensional reality. Then the eyes came up, almost simultaneously, and each pair read all the others. Maxwell spoke first to one of the helicopter crews.

  “I guess you’d better get your helo warmed up.” Maxwell turned. “Captain Franks, would you signal Skate?” Two crisp aye aye, sirs answered him, and the men stood erect, stepping back from the chart and their decision.

  It was a little late for the sober pause, Kelly told himself. He put his fear aside as best he could and started focusing his mind on twenty men. It seemed so strange to risk his life for people he hadn’t met, but then, risk of life wasn’t supposed to be rational. His father had spent a lifetime doing it, and had lost his life in the successful rescue of two children. If I can take pride in my dad, he told himself, then I can honor him best in this way.

  You can do it, man. You know how. He could feel the determination begin to take over. All the decisions were made. He was committed to action now. Kelly’s face took a hard set. Dangers were no longer things to be feared, but to be dealt with. To be overcome.

  Maxwell saw it. He’d seen the same thing in ready rooms on carriers, fellow pilots going through the mental preparations necessary before you tossed the dice, and the Admiral remembered how it had been for him, the way the muscles tense, how your eyesight suddenly becomes very sharp. First in, last out, just as his mission had often been, flying his F6F Hellcat to eliminate fighters and then cover the attack aircraft all the way home. My second son, was what Dutch suddenly told himself, as brave as Sonny and just as smart. But he’d never sent Sonny into danger personally, and Dutch was far older than he’d been at Okinawa. Somehow danger assigned to others was larger and more horrid than that which you assumed for yourself. But it had to be this way, and Maxwell knew that Kelly trusted him, as he in his time had trusted Pete Mitscher. That burden was a heavy one, all the more because he had to see the face he was sending into enemy territory, alone. Kelly caught the look from Maxwell, and his face changed into a knowing grin.

  “Don’t sweat it, sir.” He walked out of the compartment to pack up his gear.

  “You know, Dutch”—Admiral Podulski lit up a cigarette—“ we could have used that lad, back a few years. I think he would have fit in just fine.” It was far more than a “few” years, but Maxwell knew the truth of the statement. They’d been young warriors once, and now was the time of the new generation.

  “Cas, I just hope he’s careful.”

  “He will be. Just like we were.”

  The sea sled was wheeled out to the flight deck by the men who had prepared it. The helicopter was up and running now, its five-bladed rotor turning in the pre-dawn darkness as Kelly walked through the watertight door. He took a deep breath before striding out. He’d never had an audience like this before. Irvin was there, along with three of the other senior Marine NCOs, and Albie, and the flag officers, and the Ritter guy, seeing him off like he was goddamned Miss America or something. But it was the two Navy chiefs who came up to him.

  “Batteries are fully charged. Your gear’s in the container. It’s watertight, so no problems
there, sir. The rifle is loaded and chambered in case you need it in a hurry, safety on. New batteries for all the radios, and two sets of spares. If there’s anything else to do, I don’t know what it is,” the chief machinist’s mate shouted over the sound of the helicopter engines.

  “Sounds good to me!” Kelly shouted back.

  “Kick ass, Mr. Clark!”

  “See you in a few—and thanks!” Kelly shook hands with the two chiefs, then went to see Captain Franks. For comic effect he stood at attention and saluted. “Permission to leave the ship, sir.”

  Captain Franks returned it. “Permission granted, sir.”

  Then Kelly looked at all the rest. First in, last out. A half smile and a nod were sufficient gestures for the moment, and at this moment they took their courage from him.

  The big Sikorsky rescue chopper lifted off a few feet. A crewman attached the sled to the bottom of the helo, and then it headed aft, out of the burble turbulence of Ogden’s superstructure, flying off into the darkness without strobes and disappearing in a matter of seconds.

  USS Skate was an old-fashioned submarine, modified and developed from the first nuclear boat, USS Nautilus. Her hull was shaped almost like that of a real ship rather than a whale, which made her relatively slow underwater, but her twin screws made for greater maneuverability, especially in shallow water. For years Skate had drawn the duty of inshore intelligence ship, creeping close to the Vietnamese coast and raising whip antennas to snoop on radar and other electronic emissions. She’d also put more than one swimmer on the beach. That included Kelly, several years before, though there was not a single member of that crew still aboard to remember his face. He saw her on the surface, a black shape darker than the water that glistened with the waning quarter moon soon to be hidden by clouds. The helicopter pilot first of all set the sled on Skate’s foredeck, where the sub’s crew secured it in place. Then Kelly and his personal gear were lowered by hoist. A minute later he was in the sub’s control room.

  “Welcome aboard,” Commander Silvio Esteves said, anticipating his first swimmer mission. He was not yet through his first year in command.

  “Thank you, sir. How long to the beach?”

  “Six hours, more until we scope things out for you. Coffee? Food?”

  “How about a bed, sir?”

  “Spare bunk in the XO’s cabin. We’ll see you’re not disturbed.” Which was a better deal than that accorded the technicians aboard from the National Security Agency.

  Kelly headed forward to the last real rest he’d have for the next three days—if things went according to plan. He was asleep before the submarine dived back under the waters of the South China Sea.

  “This is interesting,” the Major said. He dropped the translation on the desk of his immediate superior, another major, but this one was on the Lieutenant Colonel’s list.

  “I’ve heard about this place. GRU is running the operation—trying to, I mean. Our fraternal socialist allies are not cooperating very well. So the Americans know about it at last, eh?”

  “Keep reading, Yuriy Petravich,” the junior man suggested.

  “Indeed!” He looked up. “Who exactly is this Cassius fellow?” Yuriy had seen the name before, attached to a large quantity of minor information that had come through various sources within the American left.

  “Glazov did the final recruitment only a short time ago.” The Major explained on for a minute or so.

  “Well, I’ll take it to him, then. I’m surprised Georgiy Borissovich isn’t running the case personally.”

  “I think he will now, Yuriy.”

  They knew something bad was about to happen. North Vietnam had a multitude of search radars arrayed along its coast. Their main purpose was to provide raid warning for incoming strikes from the aircraft carriers the Americans had sailing on what they called Yankee Station, and the North Vietnamese called something else. Frequently the search radars were jammed, but not this badly. This time the jammer was so powerful as to turn the Russian-made screen into a circular mass of pure white. The operators leaned in more closely, looking for particularly bright dots that might denote real targets amid the jamming noise.

  “Ship!” a voice called into the operations center. “Ship on the horizon.” It was yet another case where the human eye outperformed radar.

  If they were dumb enough to put their radars and guns on hilltops, that wasn’t his lookout. The master chief firecontrolman was in “Spot 1,” the forward fire-director tower that made the most graceful part of his ship’s profile. His eyes were glued to the eyepieces of the long-base rangefinders, designed in the late 1930s and still as fine a piece of optical gear as America had ever produced. His hand turned a small wheel, which operated not unlike the focusing mechanism of a camera, bringing a split-image together. His focus was on the radar antenna, whose metal framework, not protected now with camouflage netting, made a nearly perfect aiming reference.

  “Mark!”

  The firecontrolman 2/c next to him keyed the microphone, reading the numbers off the dial. “Range One-Five-Two-Five-Zero.”

  In central fire-control, a hundred feet below Spot 1, mechanical computers accepted the data, telling the cruiser’s eight guns how much to elevate. What happened next was simple enough. Already loaded, the guns rotated with their turrets, coming up to the proper angle of elevation calculated a generation earlier by scores of young women—now grandmothers—on mechanical calculators. On the computer, the cruiser’s speed and course were already set, and since they were firing at a stationary target, it was assigned an identical but reversed velocity vector. In this way the guns would automatically remain locked on target.

  “Commence firing,” the gunnery officer commanded. A young sailor closed the firing keys, and USS Newport News shook with the first salvo of the day.

  “Okay, on azimuth, we’re short by ... three hundred ...” the master chief said quietly, watching the fountains of dirt in the twenty-power rangefinders.

  “Up three hundred!” the talker relayed, and the next salvo thundered off fifteen seconds later. He didn’t know that the first salvo had inadvertently immolated the command bunker for the radar complex. The second salvo arced through the air. “This one does it,” the master chief whispered.

  It did. Three of the eight rounds landed within fifty yards of the radar antenna and shredded it.

  “On target,” he said over his own microphone, waiting for the dust to clear. “Target destroyed.”

  “Beats an airplane any day,” the Captain said, observing from the bridge. He’d been a young gunnery officer on USS Mississippi twenty-five years earlier, and had learned shore-bombardment against live targets in the Western Pacific, as had his treasured master chief in Spot 1. This was sure to be the last hurrah for the Navy’s real gunships, and the Captain was determined that it would be a loud one.

  A moment later some splashes appeared a thousand yards off. These would be from 130mm long guns the NVA used to annoy the Navy. He would engage them before concentrating on triple-A sites.

  “Counterbattery!” the skipper called to central fire-control.

  “Aye, sir, we’re on it.” A minute later Newport News shifted fire, her rapid-fire guns searching for and finding the six 130s that really should have known better.

  It was a diversion, the Captain knew. It had to be. Something was happening somewhere else. He didn’t know what, but it had to be something good to allow him and his cruiser on the gunline north of the DMZ. Not that he minded, the CO said to himself, feeling his ship shudder yet again. Thirty seconds later a rapidly expanding orange cloud announced the demise of that gun battery.

  “I got secondaries,” the CO announced. The bridge crew hooted briefly, then settled back down to work.

  “There you are.” Captain Mason stepped back from the periscope.

  “Pretty close.” Kelly needed only one look to see that Esteves was a cowboy. Skate was scraping off barnacles. The periscope was barely above water, the water lapping
at the lower half of the lens. “I suppose that’ll do.”

  “Good rainstorm topside,” Esteves said.

  “ ‘Good’ is right.” Kelly finished off his coffee, the real Navy sort with salt thrown in. “I’m going to use it.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes, sir.” Kelly nodded curtly. “Unless you plan to go in closer,” he added with a challenging grin.

  “Unfortunately, we don’t have any wheels on the bottom or I might just try.” Esteves gestured him forward. “What’s this one about? I usually know.”

  “Sir, I can’t say. Tell you this, though: if it works, you’ll find out.” That would have to do, and Esteves understood.

  “Then you better get ready.”

  As warm as the waters were, Kelly still had to worry about the cold. Eight hours in water with only a small temperature differential could sap the energy from his body like a short-circuited battery. He worked his way into a green-and-black neoprene wet suit, adding double the normal amount of weight belts. Alone in the executive officer’s stateroom, he had his last sober pause, beseeching God to help not himself, but the men whom he was trying to rescue. It seemed a strange thing to pray, Kelly thought, after what he’d done so recently yet so far away, and he took the time to ask forgiveness for anything wrong he might have done, still wondering if he had transgressed or not. It was a time for that sort of reflection, but only briefly. He had to look forward now. Maybe God would help him to rescue Colonel Zacharias, but he had to do his part, too. Kelly’s last thought before leaving the stateroom was of the photo of a lonely American about to be clubbed from behind by some little NVA fuck. It was time to put an end to that, he told himself, opening the door.