Seawolf End Game Read Online Free

was waiting to learn the “verdict,” although Kristen was no longer worried Brodie would lose the Seawolf . She’d seen the way Beagler had intervened to keep Brodie from going too far. Brodie’s value was clear to those who had the power to relieve him. He was the best they had, possibly the best they ever would, and although they might not want to admit it, they needed him at the helm of the Seawolf a little longer.
    “Attention on deck,” Graves barked, and everyone snapped to their feet and came to attention as Rear Admiral Beagler appeared in the control room.
    The admiral paused and looked in her direction. “Lieutenant Whitaker,” Beagler called to her.
    “Yes, sir?” Kristen replied automatically.
    Beagler then asked Brodie, “Might I borrow the lieutenant for a few moments, Captain?”
    “Of course, Admiral,” Brodie agreed.
    Beagler led Kristen aft. She fell into step behind him until they reached a passageway where they had some privacy. “How are you, Lieutenant?” he asked her, a bit of concern in his eyes.
    “I’m fine, sir,” she lied, having no earthly idea how she was feeling. Her emotions were a jumble of confusing and competing thoughts which was unsettling to say the least. For years her emotions had been kept strictly in check. She’d never allowed confusion or disquietude into her perfectly ordered mind. In fact, she’d assumed she was immune to regular human emotions.
    Until recently.
    “I’m worried about you,” he told her bluntly. “Sean says you’ve been through a veritable hell the last few weeks.”
    Kristen looked forward to the control room and then back at the Admiral. “Did the captain ask you to talk to me, sir?”
    “No, of course not,” he said honestly. “I wanted to make certain you’re okay, and you haven’t had too much trouble from the crew.”
    Kristen realized he was offering her a chance to get off the Seawolf . She just had to say the word, and he would quietly transfer her back to his staff. In fact, she didn’t even have to speak. If she allowed a few tears to fall, she would be packing her bags for sunny Hawaii and leave the Seawolf behind forever. But she shook her head. “No, Admiral, this is where I belong.” She then added, “And forgive me for saying so, but would you ask me this if I were a man?”
    “No,” he admitted. “But the fact is you’re a woman, and this boat is filled with one hundred and forty men. The entire crew has been under incredible stress since leaving Bremerton. I just want to make certain you’re getting along okay.”
    “Never better, Admiral,” Kristen answered without thought.
    After the admiral departed to the sounds of bells and whistles, she returned to the control room and found an impromptu officer’s meeting already underway. Brodie was going around the control room and receiving status reports and repair needs from each department. Once these reports were complete, he addressed his assembled officers, “Gentlemen, I don’t know exactly what’s going on, and I’m not certain anyone else on our side does either. But I’m certain our problem is not with North Korea. I’m also reasonably certain trouble is coming, and wherever it starts it will be someplace where the National Command Authority isn’t expecting it, which means we can expect fresh sailing orders at any given moment.”
    “Sir,” Ryan Walcott asked, “if North Korea isn’t where our problem is, then why have we dragged battle groups from the Pacific, the Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean to the Sea of Japan?”
    According to message traffic they’d received recently, the National Command Authority, fearing a nuclear exchange on the Korean Peninsula, had redeployed three separate carrier battle groups from their normal patrol areas and ordered them, with all expedience, to the Sea of Japan.
    “Answer that one and they’ll make you an admiral tomorrow, Ryan,” Brodie replied with a shake of his mane. “That’s why, although