The small office in which Lieutenant Commander Nguyen now worked was crowded with men, all of them 'temps. There must have been fifteen or more squeezed in there, none of them sporting as much as a drop of deodorant. She was glad for the small circle of inviolate personal space around her that was guaranteed by the presence at her elbow of General Douglas MacArthur.
Nguyen had seen him around the building enough not to be completely freaked out. She'd even been part of a briefing team that had reported directly to him on one occasion. Nonetheless, it was quite an experience having such a legendary figure sit down next to her, so that she could talk him through the PT boat attack.
Interest in the convoy had metastasized since the incident captured by the drone earlier that day. More surveillance time had been allotted to the troopships, and additional analysts had been drafted in.
"It's like they want to be seen," Nguyen mused. "They have to be decoys."
MacArthur removed the unlit pipe from his mouth-she had told him the smoke would degrade the computer's circuitry. It was simpler than explaining the dangers of secondary smoke.
"How so, Commander?" he asked.
"Their blackout is seriously half-arsed, if you'll excuse my French, sir. Ditto their emcon-emissions control, you know, radio silence and so on. They know from experience that if we can see them, we can kill them, but it's like they're not even trying to hide."
"So you agree with Major Brennan that they're a lure of some sort?"
"I think so-very much so, in fact-but I don't have enough data to say for certain, General. If I had to take a punt, I'd say they've been sent down as sacrificial goats. Not to lure the Havoc into a fight, exactly. More to soak up whatever she fires at them."
"Let's hope we can get you some data, then," MacArthur grunted as the torpedo boats began to churn up a lot of water. It showed on the display panel as an explosion of lime-green fairy floss on a dark emerald sea surface. Everyone in the room with a view of the monitor could clearly see individual figures moving to their stations on the deck.
"They're accelerating for the run in."
"Which one's Kennedy?" somebody behind her asked.
"The lead vessel," said Nguyen.
"Ha, that figures."
She couldn't tell whether the speaker meant well or not. She ignored him to concentrate on the feed from the drone. In contrast to the Japanese ships, the Americans weren't giving anything away. They maintained radio silence, and no telltale jewels of light sparkled from within their blacked-out cabins. They were shut up nice and tight.
Great fans of seawater began to spray back from their bows as they sliced through the swell. None of the small jade figures on deck moved now. They would be coiled and waiting. Nguyen wondered how loud their engines would be, and whether any lookouts on the Japanese ships had managed to obtain night-vision equipment of their own. Some had certainly fallen into enemy hands.