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anchovies.
    “That, Ms. Connor, was twelve underground missile silos and a central support base for mobile missiles. Judging from the one missile that was on a truck at the base, I would say it is the Chinese CSS-27, Beijing’s latest medium-range ballistic missile. Except they’re not in China, they’re in Saudi Arabia—ah, Islamyah.”
    Susan Connor stood up, whistled, and then, slowly, said, “Ho-lee shit.” The anchovies were now on the carpet.
    Aboard the USS Ronald Reagan in the Persian Gulf, 
    also known as the Arabian Gulf

    A lthough the carrier was moving at 25 knots, preparing to recover a squadron of F-35 Enforcers, there was only the slightest sense of motion in the admiral’s suite, buried just under the flight deck of the 77,000-ton floating air base.
    “Would you like a cigar, Admiral? It’s a Cohiba,” the new flag ensign offered. The three-star vice admiral, Bradley Otis Adams, grinned as he reached into the open mahogany cigar box. “First of all, Ensign, smoking a cigar in here is prohibited. Second, a Cuban Cohiba is contraband. And third, your predecessor briefed you very well.”
    Leaning forward from his seat at the end of the table in the admiral’s dining room, one-star rear admiral Frank Haggerty took the beat-up Zippo lighter his boss offered. It was engraved with the words “HVT Bar, Baghdad.” Haggerty smiled, remembering Adams had a role in going after the high-value targets, the leaders of Saddam’s Iraq. Frank Haggerty lit up his Cohiba. “Ruck, you get these in Jebel Ali?”
    Andrew Rucker was captain of the USS Ronald Reagan,   a 1,040-foot behemoth with two nuclear reactors and a crew of 5,900. He looked across the table at his boss. “You can buy anything in Dubai,” he answered as he, like Adams and Haggerty, lit a cigar. 
    Smoking indoors on a U.S. Navy ship had been banned for years, but no one was going to tell that to the commander, Fifth Fleet, or his subordinate, the admiral in command of the Reagan battle group. So for the captain in charge of the Reagan, there was one slight benefit to having the brass dine in. “I think, sirs, that once Castro finally goes we are going to switch from being enemies of Cuba to its greatest friends. Real fast.”
    Admiral Adams drew a long puff from his cigar and savored the aroma as it filled the room. The roly-poly fifty-year-old flag officer was young to be a three-star. Although his blond hair was thinning, he looked even younger than his age. He had been young to be in every position he had ever been assigned to for over twenty-five years. He joked that salt water ran in his veins, since two Otises and three Adamses had been U.S. Navy admirals over the past two hundred years. He had been in the Bahrain job for one month, acting as both commander of U.S. Naval Forces (Central Command) and commander, Fifth Fleet. Already he was getting cabin fever in the little island nation of Bahrain. He had choppered out from Bahrain to join his friends Haggerty and Rucker for dinner under way aboard the carrier. He also just wanted to be on a moving ship again, not tied to a shore desk.
    Tonight he also needed to deliver a message, one that was for their ears only. He made a slight gesture toward the two aides standing nearby, and Rucker instantly caught his meaning. “Lopez, Anderson. That will be all, thank you.” The ensign and the seaman left the dining room and quietly closed the door behind them.
    Adams stood up and took another long drag on his cigar. “Although he was a little shaken up by the lobby of his hotel turning into a charnel house, Mr. Kashigian did eventually emerge and come by the base for his briefing. Only, turns out he was actually here to brief me.” Adams handed Haggerty a sheet of paper, with the engraved seal of the Secretary of Defense on the top and the looping signature of Under Secretary Ronald Kashigian at the bottom. “Take a look.”
    As the two read the documents, Brad Adams walked over to the