Pacino walked swiftly from the first floor of the White House east wing through the door held open by a Marine guard, who snapped to attention and saluted. Pacino ignored him. He could hear the clicking sounds of his aide’s footsteps behind him. He ducked into the back of the borrowed staff car and waited for Lieutenant Stoddard to climb into the front.
He was stonily silent all the way to Andrews Air Force Base, where the car was ushered past the fencing and guards to a gray-painted swept-wing jet, a twelve-passenger Grumman SS-12. Pacino left the staff car behind and rushed into the aircraft, dumping himself into the midcabin executive seat. Joanna Stoddard scurried up the ladder. He could hear her muttering to the pilots and stealing an anxious look at Pacino. The sounds of the jets whining didn’t soothe him as they usually did. He stared out the window, furious, mostly at himself for being so tactless. As a submarine commander he had been known for brash action, but that was a different world, he told himself. He had just spoken up before the president of the United States to say that his commanding officer, the Chief of Naval Operations, was so wrong that his recommendations would be against the best interests of the country. Way to go, he thought.
After a statement like that Admiral Wadsworth would have no choice but to fire him. There was no way that Pacino’s insubordination could be allowed.
The jet neared the runway’s end and throttled up, the turbines spooling up to full power. Usually Pacino liked to sit in the cockpit for the takeoff, to watch the runway hurtling at the windshield. Not today. He continued to stare off into the distance as the runway vanished underneath the plane, the beltway rushed by below, then the city as Washington faded away to the northwest, the aircraft bound for Norfolk. The jet would never climb above 10,000 feet on this trip, since the two cities were so close, but by car it would be three or four hours in rush-hour traffic to get back to the Norfolk base, and by jet it was perhaps a half-hour door to door. As the jet flew on, Pacino considered his now limited options.
He had at most ten days. Wadsworth had every right to fire him on the phone or send a written message relieving him of command. But he had come to know Tony Wadsworth’s style, and the man seemed to enjoy personal confrontation — hell, he’d once been a boxer.
Wadsworth had fired several subordinates before, the stories legendary, and every time he did, he had done it in person, his face millimeters from his subordinate’s nose. Which meant that Pacino had until Wadsworth returned from his African tour, maybe ten days from now.
Except there was always the possibility that Wadsworth would return early after the meeting with the president, which could cut Pacino’s time down. The president might take him out of the office of Commander Unified Submarine Command, putting him behind a desk somewhere in the Navy’s bureaucracy. But somehow his gut feel was that he had enough rope to hang himself, and that would amount to ten days. And there was a lot he could get done in ten days. He waved at his aide Joanna Stoddard, who came over and sat next to him.
“Call Norfolk,” he said without preamble, “and get Captain Murphy and Commander McDonne to the office.”
Murphy was the deputy USUBCOM commander for operations, and McDonne was the deputy for administration.
“I want them waiting for me when we get in. And make sure the car is standing by at the airfield.”
“Yes sir,” and fairly vaulted herself forward to take care of the orders.
Pacino returned to looking glumly out the window.
Richard Donchez cleared his throat and tugged at his collar. It had been painful to watch the self-destruction of a career he had hand-built over twenty years. Pacino had been stupid. Stupid at sea was one thing — even the sea was more forgiving than the politicians — but stupid in the Oval Office was fatal. And it made no sense, because Pacino, despite his brashness, was still attuned to the way the world worked. Donchez had witnessed him biting his lip a hundred times when he’d had other opportunities to be less than tactful. Pacino had never stepped out of line, over the line, like this. Which made him wonder whether it might have been intentional.
Maybe Mikey didn’t want to play with the big dogs anymore.
Donchez resolved to talk to Pacino as soon as the meeting ended. There might be some things he could do, but holding back Tony Wadsworth would be a Herculean task. Donchez had heard that Tony, in the boxing ring, had gone undefeated his senior year at Annapolis.
“Well,” President Warner said after the door slammed on Pacino, “that has to be the most up-front statement by a military officer I’ve ever heard. In the meantime,” she said, turning back to the group, “we are left with the decision on what we will do regarding Japan.” She paced from one side of the office to the other, then stood behind Alex Addison’s seat. “Here is what I want done. First, Admiral Wadsworth, and Generals Sverdlov and Clough. The aircraft carrier battle group that is closest to Japan — I want it to keep going at top speed to get ready to set up a blockade. When that force is closer, say five hundred miles, I want to be notified. The other groups, with the other two carriers, should be sent to sea as fast as possible. I want an update every six hours on where we stand with those forces. Clear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the senior officers in the room said at once, Wadsworth’s acknowledgment delayed by the video lag.
“Mr. Gordon, get with our ambassador to Japan. His name is—”
“Pulcanson. Chesty Pulcanson.”
“Oh, I remember him. Good.”
Pulcanson was six feet five inches tall and weighed at least 250, a ruddy-faced Texan who had a presence imposing enough to fill a ballroom.
“Get Pulcanson to request a meeting with Kurita. Have him tell Kurita to accept the UN resolution — which I’m sure will be passed by then — allowing for inspectors to dismantle the Hiroshima missiles and to take control of the Japanese air force and navy, because if he does not. the US will enforce the embargo by military means.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Gordon said.
“That’s it. I want this group ready to come back and continue this meeting at a moment’s notice. Don’t anybody leave town. Admiral Wadsworth, I’d like you to remain a moment, please.”
Pacino crashed into his office and slammed his body into his leather chair. The oak desk, a relic from John Paul Jones’s command Bonhomme Richard, was covered with papers laid out for Pacino’s signature, the gasoline that fueled the fleet’s bureaucracy. Pacino hated to see the desk like that. He wanted to see an ocean of bare wood in front of him, uncluttered by blotters, pen sets, staplers and, most of all, papers. He had lectured the staff that with the new computer systems, with the four-year-old Writepad computer, there should never be a need for hardcopies. The Writepad Systems were radio-networked to a national megafile server in earth orbit, so that any newspaper or magazine could be accessed with a click of a finger on the flat paper-thin surface.
With the support of officers like Pacino, the Writepads were linked into a defense megafile server, so that messages that before were sent on radio circuits and printed down were now sent by electronic mail to individual Writepads. Paper was mostly obsolete. So why was it still everywhere? With a quick motion of his hands he swept the pile off the desk and looked up at Joanna.
“Where the hell are Murphy and McDonne?”
“Sir, they just arrived. They were out inspecting Eighth Squadron until—”
“Just get them in here.” Pacino bit his lip, wishing he had some bad habit like smoking that could calm him down. He couldn’t remember ever losing his control like this. He had been on the business end of half a dozen warshot torpedoes and twice as many more Chinese depth charges. Now, after having words with his boss he was acting like a plebe being hazed at the academy. Hell, he had served under psychotic Rocket Ron for two years, knowing there were at least five times he had almost punched him out, knowing also that Rocket Ron had been trying to provoke exactly that in order to find Pacino’s limit, one time succeeding as Pacino had left the submarine in the middle of the day and gone home to drink half a fifth of Jack Daniel’s. But now, with the end of his career imminent, he found that he wanted that career. Death was all in a day’s work, but facing ignominious demotion or retirement was not something he could deal with. He fought for control. He owed Joanna an apology.