Sea of Shadows eBook - Navy Thriller.com

USS TOWERS (DDG-103)
NORTHERN ARABIAN GULF
FRIDAY; 18 MAY
0732 hours (7:32 AM)
TIME ZONE +3 ‘CHARLIE’
CHAPTER 23
Someone was shaking him …
Some distantly conscious fragment of Chief Lowery’s brain detected
the pressure of someone’s hand on his shoulder. A million miles away,
someone with a tin bucket over his head was speaking gibberish in slow
motion. The voice was tinny, echoey, and totally incomprehensible. The
lump of unconscious meat that sometimes called itself Chief Lowery
grunted and rolled over, burrowing farther under the blankets, away from
the intruder, whoever—or whatever—it was.
The hand grabbed his shoulder again, tighter this time, and shook
harder. “Heep! May-buff!”
Chief Lowery flailed one arm in a half-hearted attempt to drive the
intruder away. The sudden motion ratcheted his brain a couple of notches
closer to consciousness. “Keef! Hay-gupp!” It was the voice again.
Closer this time, and more word-like. The shaking continued.
A switch in the deep recesses of his brain clicked reluctantly to the
“on” position. Lowery felt the rumble of his own groan as it escaped his
throat. He clenched his eyes shut even tighter, preparing the muscles for
the unthinkable task of opening his eyelids.
The hand on his shoulder continued to shake him toward awareness.
“Chief! Way-gupp!” The voice was an urgent whisper, close to his ear.
A whiff of his dream still floated at the edge of his memory, an
indistinct sweetness, like the subtlest perfume smelled at a distance. It was
a wonderful dream, part of him knew. A glorious re-imagining of life, in
which Charlotte was still in love with him, and he could somehow dance
and sing like Fred Astaire.
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