He stretched his toes toward the bulkhead and pointed his fingers at them. Then he relaxed his whole body. Point … relax … point … relax. That was it. He felt for his pulse once more. Good. Much better. Relax.
Nelson could feel himself drifting off. It was a good feeling. He imagined the family back home … Cindy … his two daughters, Jenny and Beth … their new house.
That house! That was the best thing that had happened to the Nelson family. When they moved to the state of Washington, it was the first house they could really call their own. In the past they’d gone to the older bases — New London, Charleston, San Diego, Pearl Harbor — and the places they’d lived were either apartments or rented houses, and they were always moving into something that someone had just vacated.
Bangor, Washington, was a base especially for the boomers, and Buck Nelson presented his family with a brand-new house that had been built on a freshly cleared lot in a lovely grove of Douglas fir. The scent of fir bark and needles was a constant, always fresh, but there was nothing like a clear day after a heavy rain when that heady aroma permeated the air.
It had been a little late for swing sets — the girls were already teenagers — but Buck Nelson’s next major purchase had been one of those aboveground swimming pools, large enough to float in on one of those blow-up air mattresses. Pool days were rare in the northwest, and the giant firs blocked out enough sunlight to keep the air cool, but the Nelsons made the most of their “first real house.”
His photo of Cindy and the girls was partially hidden behind a jumble of papers, and he sat up in his bunk to reach across the open desk and clear a path to that picture. He smiled at it for a moment, then sorted the papers on the other side and dusted off the glass with his handkerchief. You’re a lucky man. Nelson. Cindy was a lovely woman. Triple lucky, he decided after looking at the girls. It was hard to imagine how a man with his looks — thin hair, skinny, kind of nondescript — could be surrounded by females like that.
Jenny and Beth were growing up too fast. Just before Florida had gotten under way — the night before, to be exact — they’d given him a picture of themselves by the pool. The sun had been directly overhead and they were in their bathing suits … and Beth, the fourteen-year-old, looked just like her older sister. Knockouts. That’s what you’ve produced, Nelson — knockouts! Too many of the younger men — both officer and enlisted — were in his stateroom every day, and he’d stuck the girls’ picture in his drawer. It had seemed embarrassing at the time for the C.O. of a boomer to have to explain that those two luscious females were none other than his daughters.
Now, after also polishing it with his handkerchief, he placed it next to the other. Why not show off? Hell, maybe one of those youngsters would see it and ask who those girls were.
There was a sharp knock on the bulkhead outside.
“Come,” Nelson called out huskily.
The curtain was pulled back and Delaney, the chief sonarman, a young man still under thirty, stepped inside. “Good morning, Captain, I—” He stopped in midsentence. “Wow, sir.” His eyes were on the photo of the girls. “Who are those lovely young ladies?”
“My daughters. Chief,” Nelson answered. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so proud before. Not only did he command a boomer, but he was surrounded by three of the most beautiful women in the world.
Pasadena cut through the ocean depths at flank speed but there was little sense of mobility. One grew accustomed to the sounds of a submarine under way — the comfortable noises from the engineering plant aft, the creaking of the hull, the everyday hum of auxiliary equipment, even the muffled buzz of the men at their stations. Only hours after getting under way it all became an accepted part of each individual’s integration with this huge machine; the only way that sound would ever be noticed was if something suddenly stopped. Then, that sudden silence, that unorthodox change in the submarine’s rhythm, would be noticed by each man. If they were asleep, they would awaken quickly. That alteration in the ship’s sound, her rhythmic heartbeat, would be no different than a rapid change in one’s own bodily functions. It demanded instant attention to this great body that encased your own.
Wayne Newell’s crew was tired; he could sense it. They were an integral part of him, and their weariness was akin to a numbness in his fingers or an itch between his shoulder blades that he couldn’t reach. The men were scared and … no, they weren’t scared. They were too well-trained. It was their families they feared for. No man who qualified as a submariner could be too frightened for his own life when he knew he was doing his duty — as long as they continued to work together, they figured they’d get each other back home.
It was home they were worried about. Home, hearth, whatever you wanted to call it. If there were a shooting war going on up on the surface, even if it was still limited to, say, a European land war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, how long would it be before the first tactical nuclear weapon was used? Perhaps it would be an eastern front in Germany that collapsed, or Soviet forces pouring through the Fulda Gap so rapidly that only extreme measures would halt them. It might not even be that threatening, just something that the NATO commander acceded to when a hysterical field general saw his forces crumbling. Then the use of theater-sized nuclear weapons could lead to strategic threats followed by a decision to beat the other side to the draw.
It wouldn’t take much to get to that same point of frustration about your home when you were six hundred feet below the surface of the ocean in an attack submarine. Not when you were racing at flank speed toward a newly designated sector to sink another Soviet ballistic-missile submarine … another one that sounded exactly like an American boomer. Not when you were increasingly terrified that your captain — or someone — could be making a terrible mistake and you were actually murdering your own people. And on the surface, perhaps that very moment … was someone murdering your wife and kids?
Wayne Newell understood the not-so-subtle element that was increasing the tension in his submarine. He also accepted the fact that it was solely up to him to make his crew as comfortable as possible with their terrifying responsibilities. They must be made to understand that there was absolutely no doubt in their captain’s mind that they were doing the right thing.
Of course it was the right thing! In theory, the entire plan was working flawlessly. No … no … no — not theory … those had not been American boomers they’d sunk. It was not an elaborate masquerade to convince Wayne Newell or Dick Makin or Pasadena’s crew that they were facing a cruel new device that was intended to deceive them into believing they were approaching one of their own boats. Those really were Soviet boomers! Wayne Newell now believed it in his heart … with all his heart … with his very being … and he closed his eyes and concentrated on that fact. You must believe in your killing if you are to do a good job of it — and we are killing the enemy!
He no longer acknowledged that their communications system was under the control of anything other than SUBPAC. He’d never heard of any SSV-516 — it would have meant nothing to him anyway — any communications satellite, any blue-green laser. When the messages were brought to him, they were actually issued through the normal system, relayed by satellite transceiver to ensure secure communications between SUBPAC and Pasadena. Pearl Harbor had warned him beforehand, even issued the op order to cover this unique situation. It was in black and white, and his own executive officer, Dick Makin, had watched him open the secure envelope — sealed by COMSUBPAC in Pearl and handed directly to Newell as the commanding officer of Pasadena. That’s how it really happened….