The Edge of Honor by P. T. Deutermann

Author:P. T. Deutermann [Deutermann, P. T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Espionage, Military, History, Vietnam War
ISBN: 9780312110512
Google: B_3zGC6QPO8C
Amazon: 0312953968
Goodreads: 21294
Published: 1993-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

San Diego

Maddy lay in bed at 2:30 on a Friday morning and tried not to cry. Brian had finally phoned from Subic Bay, and it had just about been a complete disaster.

First, they had been disconnected. She had picked the phone up, awakening from a troubled sleep, and not recognized who it was until the static diminished and the connection suddenly cleared.

“Brian, is that you? Oh, I can’t believe it!”

“Hey, Maddy,” he had said, using the traditional Georgia salutation.

“Brian, where are you—what time is it—oh, I’m confused.

I’m not awake.”

“Sorry, babe, I’m lucky even to get a line. I—”

And then the line had gone dead, his voice replaced with a roar of static. She had groaned, sworn, and hung up. He had told her this might happen; now the trick was for him to get his operator back without losing his place in line. She had waited, rubbing her eyes, afraid to leave the phone even to go to the bathroom. He had come through again ten minutes later, and, after an incompre hensible exchange with a Filipino operator that she had finally recognized was a request for a collect call, Brian was back.

He had asked how she was doing and she had said, “Fine, good as can be expected. I miss you. Do you miss me?” He had told her about the big foreign-exchange building and that he was going to get himself a stereo and her a surprise present. She asked how he was doing in Hood and he said that he had seen the special fitness report, and that, if they sent it, it looked good for promotion, even though there were some things about the Hood that were not … well, he’d tell her about it later.

“What do you mean, if they send it? Why wouldn’t they send it?”

He had demurred at first, but she had pressed, and then he had started talking around the drug problem, trying to disguise what he was talking about because all the phone lines from Subic were monitored by a Navy security group. He had told her of his somewhat anomalous position vis-a-vis the exec and the captain on what happened to people caught with drugs aboard ship, how his future fitness reports would depend on going along with the ship’s system, and how he was having trouble coming around to doing it their way.

“Brian, is that smart?” she had asked. “I mean, the whole point of taking this ship, this damned deployment, was to get to lieutenant commander, wasn’t it? Maybe you’re just going to have to go along, get through it, and get off the ship as soon as your tour is up.”

“But Maddy, this isn’t right, what’s going on here. I mean, it may be politically the right move, and there are guys like Austin who think that is exactly how we should play it, but I hate the thought of some pothead with his fingers on the missile radars. Look, we should probably stop talking about this, okay?”

“Okay, but Brian, don’t throw away this whole deployment.

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