“God, I feel incredibly stupid at the moment,” he said after a time.
“Why’s that?” she murmured, her eyes closed.
He looked down at the head of sun-streaked amber hair. “Like I’m a little out of practice with saying the right things to a beautiful woman.”
Amanda lifted her head, her eyes opening. “Who, me?”
“Yes damn it! You and you know it!”
“If you insist.” She plopped her head back onto his shoulder and stretched once more, climaxing
with a contented kind of sigh. “I’ve already told you, you haven’t been doing badly so far. We’ll get you up to speed soon enough.”
“Thank you … I think.” He looked into her amused expression. “You’ve been enjoying yourself watching me suffer over this, haven’t you?”
Her brows came up. “Well, no more than any other woman – but I’ve been getting a little impatient for you to get on with it.”
MacIntyre shook his head. “It is totally insane to be talking about this. Especially now!”
“Quite possibly,” Amanda was forced to agree, “but – as a friend pointed out recently – sometimes being too much in control doesn’t necessarily make you stronger.”
“Amanda, all of the smoke and mirrors aside, you are still under my chain of command.”
Her brows knit. “And that’s something else I’m getting fed up with! I don’t know about you, Elliot, but I’m getting a little bit tired of the Joint Chiefs of Staff telling me who I can
and cannot sleep with. I’ve been saving western civilization from certain destruction for some time now
and, if someone wants to say I’m not emotionally mature enough to manage my own relationships in my own way,
let ’em prove it!”
Lord God Almighty, what was he getting himself into? For certain, it was going to be interesting. But he was also certain now that it was what he wanted. She was right. Let ’em prove it.
He kissed her.
It was a good kiss. An excellent one in fact. Different than Anne’s, but that was as it should be.
“This is going to be one hell of a peculiar courtship,” he commented, nose to nose with her.
“We’re peculiar people, Elliot,” she replied softly. “I’ll admit, it would be nice if we could waltz ’neath the harvest moon ’til dawn and gaze deeply into each other’s eyes for hours on end – but I’m afraid we’re going to be too busy. We have too many places to go and too many important
things to do, and what we would like or want really isn’t very important in the greater scheme of things. So, whatever bits of the sweet
life we’re ever going to have together, we’ll have to grab as the opportunity presents.”
“Very true, Captain,” Macintyre replied wryly. “Like right now. We have an Operations Group in an hour.”
Amanda’s grin became impish and she consulted the old Pusser’s Lady Admiral wristwatch strapped to her wrist. “In forty-seven minutes to be exact. Granting fifteen minutes to shower, dress
and get our notes together and get forward, that gives us exactly thirty-two
minutes.”
She clicked the alarm on her watch, then squirmed out of the curve of his arms.
Clothes rustled, a zipper whispered open – and, in only moments, a wad of discarded clothing lay on the blue carpet.
Amanda knelt on the settee, sleek, bare and golden tanned. “You may be a little out of practice, Elliot, but two people can accomplish quite
a lot in thirty-two minutes.”
The Combat Information Center, USS Shenandoah
0602 Hours; Zone Time, November 20, 2008
“Fighting ground and ships, Makara,” Amanda said, leaning across the chart table. “That’s what we need. We require an isolated hide site for a squadron of helicopters
overlooking the passage between Sebangka and Lingga and a small, totally
deserted island within the passage itself. We also need a Bugi squadron down
here in Berhala Strait. Can you give them to us?”
The Operations Group was forming up in the main briefing room, but Amanda and MacIntyre had called the taipan aside into what once would have been called the chart room. Now, though, it was referred to as the ship’s Geo-Intelligence Center, and it placed the complete cartographic database of the US Defense Mapping Agency at the disposal of Phantom Force.
“It depends,” Harconan frowned. “Let’s take the ships first. If you’re talking about armed Bugi raiders, I don’t have anything anywhere that could stand against Ketalaman’s blue water warships.”
“They don’t have to fight,” MacIntyre replied. “They don’t even have to be armed. They just have to be able to maneuver under power, and
they’ve got to have crews with nerve enough to stand. And they have to be in the gut
of Berhala Strait by nightfall.”
Harconan consulted his mental listing of Bugi assets in the region. “I’ll have to talk with some of the local clan leaders, but that should be easily
enough done. Three or four at least. Maybe half a dozen. They’ll be powered fishing luggers and small coasters. Will that be adequate?”
“It should be,” Amanda said. “We’d be putting small teams of our personnel aboard those craft and their captains
would have to follow the orders of the team leaders. Will that be acceptable to
your people?”
“If I tell them it’s to be acceptable, it will be.”
“Excellent. Thank you, Makara.”
There was something odd about Amanda this morning, Harconan noted, a certain difference. There was a brightness to her eyes beyond a lack of sleep and a certain vibrancy, as if she had been tuned to a higher level. He had seen her so before, under pleasanter circumstances.
Amanda Garrett was, beyond her self-discipline, essentially a woman of passion. Like a gemstone, she glowed after the polishing of physical love.
And this craggy man with the three stars on his collar, this Admiral Macintyre. Wasn’t he standing just an inch or two closer to her this morning? And wasn’t he allowing his eyes to linger on her a little longer for each glance?
These hints were indicative. Somewhere in this past night, the dam had broken.
Makara Harconan felt a pang of sadness. He’d lost a great deal lately. Still, my queen, I shall be man enough to wish you and your Admiral good fortune
and much happiness.
Words were spoken that he didn’t hear and he snapped his attention back to the real world.
“The islands, yes. The Riau group is especially involved in the tourist and
vacation trade out of Malaysia and Singapore. Beyond customs personnel, you won’t find a large government presence …”
East of the Thousand Islands
1000 Hours; Zone Time, November 20, 2008
The usual scattering of tropic squalls rode with the trade winds through the Java Sea, each a few square miles of mist and blood-warm rain that materialized randomly, blotted out the sea and sky for a few hours and then dissipated, ghostlike.
