Sea of Shadows (For fans of Tom Clancy and Dale Brown) by Jeff Edwards

Author:Jeff Edwards
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stealth Books

CHAPTER 26

U.S. NAVY CENTRAL COMMAND (USNAVCENT)

BAHRAIN

FRIDAY; 18 MAY

1025 hours (10:25 AM)

TIME ZONE +3 ‘CHARLIE’

Admiral Vincent Rogers, Commander Fifth Fleet, leaned back in his chair and squeezed the bridge of his nose between thumb and index finger. The ever-present stack of paperwork on his desk seemed to grow every time he took his eyes off it for a few seconds. Maybe it was reproducing itself through some mechanism of parthenogenesis that had heretofore lain dormant in paper products—perhaps a recessive gene hidden deep in the paper’s DNA that had somehow been activated by the stifling Middle Eastern heat.

Rogers ran his fingers through the iron-gray stubble of his flattop haircut. Eight days shy of his fifty-seventh birthday, he was an old man to the Sailors he commanded, but—to his own way of thinking—he was far too young to be chained to a desk full of reports, operational summaries, force projection studies, feasibility matrices, and whatever the hell else had found its way into his Urgent stack.

There were two quiet knocks on his door.

Admiral Rogers sat up. “Enter.”

The door opened, and his chief of staff, Commander Troy Moody, stepped into the office. Moody carried a yellow folder in his left hand. Under the color-coding system used by the USNAVCENT staff, yellow was reserved for SITREPs, or situational reports, from ships assigned to Fifth Fleet’s command.

The admiral’s eyes stayed locked on the yellow folder. “Say, Troy, I was just wondering … whatever happened to that paperless Navy we were supposed to be headed for? Remember that?” He pointed to his desktop computer and then to his laptop computer and finally to his palm-top. “As I recall,” he said, “these were supposed to get rid of those.” He pointed to the fat stack of papers on his desk. “That was a great idea. Whatever happened to it?”

Moody smiled. “Um … I believe that paper covers computer, sir.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Moody held out the folder to the admiral. “You remember the rules, sir. Rock smashes scissors. Scissors cut paper. Paper covers rock. Well, somebody did a study, and it turns out that paper covers computer as well.”

Admiral Rogers accepted the folder. “By extrapolation, I assume that means that rock smashes computer.”

Moody pointed to the desk. “It certainly does, sir. Unfortunately, that still leaves paper.”

The admiral sighed. “No way around it, I guess.” He opened the folder. “What have you got here, Troy?”

“A SITREP from USS Antietam, sir.”

“I can see that,” the admiral said. “But I don’t feel like wading through four pages of minutiae in search of whatever little nugget of wisdom you found buried in there. Just give me the Reader’s Digest version.” He closed the folder. “What’s going on with Antietam?”

“They’ve completed repairs to their starboard rudder nearly a week ahead of schedule, sir. Barring problems during shakedown, they’re ready to put to sea now. I know you’ve been trying to scare up a fourth ship for your Search Attack Unit, sir. Looks like Antietam is going to be available after all.”

The admiral nodded.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.