Finn sat out on the little strip of catwalk by the CIWS mount, watching the fierce Arabian sunlight playing over the water. The Lincoln’s strike group was spread too far apart to see any of the other ships from here, but they were far from alone. The Gulf’s surface was littered with little fishing boats, the ones the locals called “dhows.” Flocks of black-and-white terns swooped in and out, following the larger dhows’ wakes, diving for leftovers. To the north, he could just make out the Iranian coastline. They were currently on an east-southeast heading, beelining toward the Strait of Hormuz. About to leave the Gulf and start the homeward trek.
He reached down and picked up the large blank sketch pad at his feet, one of a dozen he’d bought at the ship’s store, and a fresh charcoal pencil. The pencils he’d brought on board with him. Never went anywhere without them.
He began sharpening, his little finger looped through the steel ring forged at the end of the knife’s haft.
The very first lesson he learned in close quarters combat training consisted of three words: “primary,” “secondary,” “tertiary.” In plain English: always have a backup. And a backup to your backup.
His primary, a Remington .300 Win Mag, was now locked up in the ship’s armory. His secondary, a Heckler & Koch .45 semiautomatic pistol, was keeping the Win Mag company. His primary and secondary were both gone.
This four-inch piece of steel was his tertiary.
Which suited Finn just fine. In an all-steel environment like this, bullets didn’t make much sense anyway; ricochets would travel at near original velocity and be unacceptably risky. Besides, unlike most of his sniper school classmates, Finn was not a lover of guns. Before joining the military he had never even handled a rifle, and despite the fluency he acquired through SEAL selection and sniper school, it was still not his native language.
Finn set the knife down at his side and began to sketch.
A memory floated up. Final training exercise—FTX—at sniper school.
Their instructor was a holdover from the early days, when sniper school instructors thought they were glorified BUD/S instructors whose sole purpose in life was to break these guys.
And he hated Finn. Had spent the entire course trying to figure out how to flush him and his partner, Boyd. But Finn was just too good. “Little motherfucker stalks like a fucking patch of mist,” Finn had overheard him complain to a colleague. “Melts into the goddamn scenery and pops up like a bad dream a thousand fucking yards away.”
Boyd had sucked at stalking, but Finn coached him through.
When the FTX arrived the instructor set up an extra pair of watchers fifty yards in front of where he sat, determined to stop Finn from reaching the target no matter what it took. Finn stalked himself and Boyd right up to the instructor’s perimeter, then set his rifle down, circled around to within thirty yards of the man’s backside, and tossed a pebble at him. Popped him square between the shoulder blades. Which was the signal for Boyd to take his shot.
Finn passed.
Boyd passed.
The instructor was rotated back to some bullshit admin post.
Sometimes a rock was as good as a gun.
Just then Finn felt a shift in the catwalk beneath him.
He looked up. The ship was veering due south again. Reverting to that familiar box pattern, the carrier strike group’s equivalent of treading water.
Finn understood what was happening. Ozone. Thunderheads. There was some diplomatic dustup with Iran and an order had come down. They couldn’t transit the Strait yet, as much as the crew was aching to go. For the moment they were trapped here in the Gulf, awaiting word from Washington as diplomats and back-channel proxies arm-wrestled and the talking heads on CNN batted around their little balls of yarn while waiting for more catnip.
And still not a word from the captain. Christ on stilts.
“Hey!”
Finn looked over his shoulder and saw Frank, the master-at-arms, standing at the hatchway.
“Ha,” Frank said, his glare softening to a smile when he saw who it was.
“Yo,” said Finn, nodding with his chin. The knife was gone, salted away in a pocket the instant he’d heard Frank’s approach.
Frank glanced out at the ocean and took a full breath of the salt air. He looked to Finn like he might like to sneak out there himself and spend some time reading a book, too. The MA looked at the big Gatling gun, then back at Finn. “Whatever you’re doing here,” he said, “it looks…sketchy.” He grinned, pleased with himself. Frank, the wit.
He came closer and looked at what Finn had drawn. “Whoa,” he said.
Now Finn looked at it, too.
It was a nighttime scene, in meticulous detail, sparse shrubby vegetation surrounding a walled-in little cluster of houses. In the center, a large wooden doorframe set into a wall built of mud-brick and rubble. Though the scene was dark, gashes of heat lightning sliced open the sky, its pale glare sufficient to see that the door had been shattered to pieces.
Finn felt a shudder of revulsion.
“Hey, that’s pretty good,” said Frank. “Really lifelike. Where the heck is that?”
“Someplace scary,” said Finn.
Frank chuckled. “Copy that.” He stood up straight again. “All right, then. But see that you’re in by ten thirty, young man, or I’ll dock your allowance.” He chuckled again and withdrew, leaving Finn alone out there.
As Finn had figured he would.
Make someone laugh and they trusted you. Finn didn’t get it. But he knew it worked.
“Whoa,” he said in Frank’s voice. And gave a soft chuckle, perfectly replicating the MA’s high-pitched gravel.
The Team guys used to say Finn was a hell of a manipulator. He didn’t see it that way. As far as he was concerned, he was just following the Golden Rule.
Interact with others the way they want to be interacted with.
He looked down at what he’d drawn. Carefully tore the page from the pad, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it overboard. Then picked up his charcoal pencil and began again.
Really lifelike.
That it was.
And Finn had absolutely no memory of ever seeing it before.