Pacino let the dig at his current academic career go by.
“I’ve been away from the submarine navy too long, Admiral. There are a dozen skippers out there who could handle this mission. Sean Murphy, for one. His Tampa is one of the newest boats in the fleet and Murphy’s damned good. I ought to know, I roomed with that guy for four years here and almost five years after graduation. I’d say Tampa could do this better than the untested Seawolf. Sean’s boat is trained and ready.”
“Only one problem, Mikey. Sean Murphy and the Tampa are the ones being held captive.” Donchez decided he had to gamble in spite of his own rules of security. The risk had obviously been worth it, judging by Pacino’s shocked expression.
“The Chinese have had Tampa tied up at the Xingang piers outside of Tianjin for about sixteen hours. Intel indicates that the crew are being held onboard. The Seawolf made port in Yokosuka last night. Her captain and XO are on the way to D.C. now. I told them they’d be briefing Congress. I have a fast transport jet standing by at Andrews. I figure if you can get packed in an hour we can get Seawolf underway within twelve. What do you say, Mikey?”
For a moment Pacino said nothing. He no longer was registering Donchez’s words, nor seeing the vista of the Severn River in front of him. He was traveling a corridor of time, back to the moments he and Sean Murphy had shared as roommates, struggling against the hazing of their flrstclassmen. Back to the time that Murphy had risked dismissal from the Academy to go A.W.O.L. to see Pacino at the memorial service for Pacino’s father, when only a plea from the senior ranks of the Navy had been between Sean Murphy and life as a civilian. Back to happier times, the double-dates in town. Murphy crashing his car and Pacino picking him up in D.C.” Pacino speeding back to Annapolis to avoid having them both placed on report. Back to the moment before graduation when Pacino had had to pour Murphy into his dress whites, Sean being too hungover to stand on his own from the celebrating they’d done the night before. Back to the following year in Boston when the two of them had been at MIT, getting master’s degrees in mechanical engineering, but also prowling the bars of Boston in search of action. Back to the times of frustration and triumph in the nuclear power pipeline, the prototype nuclear plant training that had them working shift work twelve hours a day, seven days a week until they were qualified as reactor supervisors. Back to the three years they had spent on the USS Hawkbill during their division officer tours. Back to the day Pacino had been Murphy’s best man when he married Katrina, and to the day months later when the roles were reversed as Pacino married Hillary.
And now Murphy was a hemisphere away looking down the barrel of a Chinese rifle, and Sean Murphy’s wife might soon be a widow and his children fatherless.
After a moment Pacino realized Donchez was looking at him, waiting.
“What are we waiting for, Admiral?”
Donchez pulled a document from his pants pocket, sheets stapled together, the large stamp in black letters reading “ORIGINAL.” He handed it to Pacino. Buried in the official message were the words “REPORT FOR TEMPORARY DUTY AS COMMANDING OFFICER USS SEAWOLF SSN-21.”
“These are your orders. I’ve already talked to Hillary. Get home and say good-by to her. I’ve had Tony pulled from school — he’ll be waiting for you. I’ve got uniforms on the jet for you. Just pack your shaving kit, maybe see if you can dig up your old dolphins. We’ll have some poopy suits waiting for you on the boat. I’ll meet you at your place and take you to the airport. I’ll brief you in detail on the jet. I’ve had the Pentagon take care of your boss here. As of zero nine hundred this morning you no longer work here. You’re back in the Navy now.”
Pacino nodded, held out his hand to Donchez, then turned and walked quickly to the row of cars parked near the soccer field.
Donchez watched Pacino drive away, thinking about Pacino’s handshake. There could be no mistake about it. The handshake he had given Donchez before he left was just as firm, but this time it had been dry as a bone.
Donchez threw the stub of his cigar into the creek and walked to the rental car, for the first time feeling that the Tampa was now much closer to freedom than she had been just an hour before.
CHAPTER 8
Captain Michael Pacino sat in the deep upholstery of the Gulfstream’s wide seat staring out the window at the clouds below, thinking back to the scene at the house when he had told Hillary he was going back to sea. He had expected anger or tears from her, but she had looked at him with deep understanding. Her words still rang in his ears … “I’m scared to death of losing you, Michael, but I’ve seen what happens to you when you’re not at sea. You haven’t really been the same, not since—” Not since Devilfish sank, he had thought—”—and there’s something you need to finish out there, isn’t there?” She had seen right into him, past his eyes to the rusting wreck of his last submarine.
She had held their son Tony as Donchez’s staff car had pulled away, young Tony still crying, trembling in his mother’s arms. The only thing that had kept Pacino from turning the car around was the thought of Sean Junior crying in Katrina Murphy’s arms at the word of his father’s death, just as Pacino had when told that his father had gone down in the Stingray so many years ago.
Pacino’s jaw clenched. Suddenly he couldn’t wait to get to Yokosuka and take command of Seawolf. His hands seemed to itch for the feel of periscope grips, his ears for the sounds of torpedo launches. He stared out the jet’s window, not seeing the rolling countryside outside, but the blue waves of the endless stretches of the Pacific. It had been too damned long.
In front of him was a table with a half-dozen large three-ring notebooks scattered on top of nautical charts of the Go Hai Bay. The interior of the new jet was cold, the air conditioning system improperly adjusted. The cool air had raised goosebumps on Pacino’s exposed arms. He scarcely noticed.
As promised. Admiral Donchez had provided the new khaki uniforms in Pacino’s size. Pacino had ransacked a steamer trunk full of old uniforms in the basement of the house, but the old garments still stank of the Devilfish. He had found the velvet display case holding his Navy Cross earned “in classified action under the polar icecap onboard the USS Devilfish.” He had tossed the case back to the bottom of the trunk in disgust … over one hundred and thirty men had died in the Devilfish incident, he had gotten a damned medal … He had salvaged his old submariner’s dolphin pin, the brass emblem solid and heavy in his hands, the scaly fish facing toward the center where an oldfashioned diesel boat plowed through the waves. The pin had once belonged to his father, “Patch” Pacino.
Donchez had given it to him years before when he had first qualified in submarines. After the Devilfish incident, the dolphins were practically all that he had left from his old submarine. Everything else had gone down with her to the bottom.
Donchez’s voice brought Pacino back from his thoughts.
“Mikey, this trip is the only chance I’ll have to brief you. After that you’re on your own. The first thing we’ve got to get through is the weapons load out. The base is standing by to load the Seawolf with weapons and it’ll take at least five, six hours to get that done. I don’t want the mission delayed to load weapons. So let’s go over the mission, commit to the load out and I’ll radio the request to Yokosuka. When we’re done with that we’ll go over the capabilities of the Seawolf and brief you on the crew.”