CARRIER 2: VIPER STRIKE By Keith Douglass

meant. Much of the thrust for her series called into question the whole

issue of the Navy, of the government spending tens of billions of

dollars for a fifteen-carrier fleet it no longer needed. While drawing

out Tombstone and getting him to talk about himself, Pamela had argued

that carriers were too expensive and too vulnerable, useless high-tech

toys in an age when nuclear confrontation with the Soviets was no longer

a likely possibility, and when Third World banana republics no longer

knuckled under to gunboat diplomacy.

Pamela knew she’d done a damned good job putting her message across,

too.

Still, she’d liked the way Tombstone had kept the ball coming back into

her court. He believed in carriers as an extension of Presidential

foreign policy with an almost passionate conviction. He’d not convinced

her of his side of the argument, not by a long shot, but she admired the

way he stood up to her.

Maybe that was what she found most fascinating about the guy.

They finished the custards and disposed of the banana leaf wrappings in

a street-side waste container.

“It’s waste I don’t like, Tombstone,” she said after a long silence. “We

don’t need multibillion-dollar floating airfields anymore. Maybe back

in the days when we were toe-to-toe with the Soviets, but …”

“The Russians aren’t the only bad boys on the block,” he said. “Besides,

they’re preoccupied with their own troubles right now … but there’s

nothing that says they might not come out of their hole sometime soon

meaner and scrappier than ever.”

“Nonsense.” Her tone was harsher, more sarcastic than she’d intended.

“The Cold War is over, or hadn’t you heard?”

He looked at her, his gray eyes like ice. “You know, Pamela, I’ve had

the distinct impression all along that you had it in for us service

pukes.”

The accusation hit her in the pit of the stomach like a blow. She

stopped in mid-stride, turning on Tombstone, unable to keep the fury out

of her face and voice. “Don’t you say that! Don’t you ever say that!”

Tombstone’s expression showed first confusion, then concern. “Pamela?

What’s wrong?”

Slowly, she forced herself to relax, unclenching her fists, and looking

away from the Navy officer to study the crowd surrounding them. As many

people as there were, the surroundings felt strangely private.

Pamela took a deep breath. “Sorry, Commander,” she said. “It’s …

what you said.”

“What did I say?”

She was silent a long moment. “I’ll tell you something. Something I

don’t like to talk about.” She looked away, catching her lower lip

between her teeth before she continued. “I had a brother once.”

He gave her a hard look. “‘Had’?”

Pamela nodded. The pain was still sharp. “His name was Bobby and he

was three years younger than me. I was a journalism major at Pitt when

he graduated from high school. Our … our family was all set to pack

him off to college, but he wouldn’t have any of it. You talk about

conservatives! He figured the colleges were all liberal hotbeds–this

was the dawn of the Reagan Era, you understand–and that there were

better ways of getting an education without spending forty thousand

dollars for a piece of paper to hang on a wall.”

“What happened?”

“He joined the Marines.” She sniffled once, surprised that the memory

still brought tears. “He went to boot camp at Paris Island, then got

assigned to a rifle platoon going overseas. Beirut.”

“Oh, God.”

“October, 1983. Some crazy drove a truck bomb into his barracks one

floor below where he was sleeping. They never even found enough of him

afterward to send home in a body bag.”

“I’m … sorry.”

“So, Commander, I do care for … for ‘service pukes,” as you call them.

And that’s why. As a journalist, yes, damn it, as a liberal journalist,

I take great pleasure in putting the spotlight on waste in the military,

especially on fat, braid-heavy Washington S.O.B.”s who ship young men

like Bobby off into impossible situations, places where they aren’t even

allowed to defend themselves, places where they can get killed, killed

just because …

because …”

Pamela wasn’t sure just how she got into Tombstone’s arms. It hadn’t

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