Navigator and Tactical Action Officer Rachel Romanov shut the captain’s stateroom door behind her and took her seat at the captain’s table next to Quinnivan.
“What do you think, Nav?” the XO asked.
Romanov sighed.
“You’re going to think I’m crazy for recommending this,” she started hesitantly. “But of all the officers, Lieutenant Pacino had the highest success rate in the simulations. He’s also the most original and takes the highest risks.”
“I told you he was a ‘chancer,’ Skipper,” Quinnivan said.
“Yeah,” Seagraves said, his chin in his hand, his gesture when he was deep in thought or wrestling with a difficult decision. “It was Pacino who lobbed that nuclear weapon into the sea between the Kilo and the attacking Russian submarine force farther south in the Indian Ocean.”
“It made a handy blue-out across half the horizon from the Russian submarines,” Romanov said. “Those zillion bubbles in the sea that blocked the Russian passive and active sonar allowed the Panther to clear datum, and it also got Vermont off Scot-free.”
“Leave it to that Lipstick to reach for a nuke straight out of the chute,” Quinnivan said.
“Pacino’s blue team won against the scenario at a much higher percentage than the other blues. When we switched him into a red team, he didn’t lose the Panther one time. Meanwhile, the other red teams got boarded or torpedoed by various interception forces,” Romanov said.
“Or their reactors blew up when you were on God group watch,” Quinnivan said, his eyes crinkling into a smile as looked at Romanov.
“Are you saying I put my thumb on the scale to favor Pacino?” Romanov said, a sharpness in her tone, her eyes narrowed at the XO.
Quinnivan put his palms out as if in surrender. “No, no, no, I’m not saying that,” he said, trying to calm the navigator down.
“So,” Seagraves said, “you’re recommending we put Pacino onboard the Panther even though he isn’t even qualified on an American sub.”
“More than that, Captain,” Romanov said. “I’m recommending he be put in as OIC.” OIC meant officer in charge.
“Captain Pacino,” Quinnivan mused. “I like the sound of that.”
“Who would go with him, then, Nav? Pacino’s the most inexperienced of the officers aboard. It would be awkward to put Dankleff or Varney or Lomax onboard with him if Pacino’s in command.”
“More than awkward, Skipper,” Quinnivan said. “It would violate your U.S. Navy Regulations.”
“I’m thinking we send in Supply Officer Gangbanger with him. Ganghadharan is a junior grade lieutenant. Pacino outranks him.”
“Who else, then?” Seagraves asked.
“We send in Chief Radioman Goreliki — she’s a wizard at anything that communicates and she can modify the Iranian radio gear to accept our crypto and transceivers. We send in Chief Firecontrolman Kim — she can figure out the Panther’s firecontrol system if anyone can. And then Chief Sonarman Albanese, to decode the Panther’s sonar system. Then we send in the crypto tech we picked up in AUTEC, Indian guy, what’s his name, Saurabh, who’s fluent in Farsi, because we’ll need translations to operate their systems.”
“You’ve thought this through, haven’t you, Nav?” Seagraves said.
“It’s my best recommendation, Captain, XO,” Romanov said, looking first at Seagraves, then Quinnivan.
“Let us think about it, Nav,” Seagraves said. “Sending those chiefs onto the Panther takes our first-string operators away.”
“You’ll need them more on the Kilo than here. If the mission goes to plan, this is relatively uneventful for Vermont. The action will all be for the Panther.”
“I hear you, Nav. It’s late. Why don’t you get some rest?”
“By your leave, sir,” Romanov said, standing.
“Goodnight, Nav,” Seagraves said.
When the door shut behind her, Seagraves looked at Quinnivan, who pulled a leather cigar carrier from his pocket, a cutter and a lighter. Seagraves opened his desk and withdrew a crystal ash tray and placed it on the table between them. Soon both officers were puffing smoke into the overhead.
“Nothing like watching cigar smoke rise to help you think, eh, Captain?”
“You know what I’m thinking, XO? It’s just interesting that Romanov puts Pacino into the stolen Panther at the same time she’s furious with him. Makes you wonder what’s going on in her subconscious.”
“Jaysus, Skipper,” Quinnivan said, cigar smoke emerging from his nostrils. “Are you saying she’s trying to get him killed?”
“You know what the simulations said in the aggregate, right, XO? This mission has a nineteen percent chance of success. Nineteen. Sixty-one percent chance the Panther is lost at sea, from an opposing force or from its own hellish reactor exploding.”
“What’s the other twenty percent?”
“That we’ll never know what happened. Panther simply vanishes. Either the Russians or the Iranians grab it or torpedo it. Or it sinks out of sensor range of the Vermont or an opposition force.”
“Nineteen percent chance of success,” Quinnivan said. “Do you think the Nav knows that little statistic?”
“How could she not, XO?”
“Still. There is something to be said about that young lad Pacino. He may be a chancer, but he has something I’ve never seen before. It’s like, hell, I’ll sound foolish saying this out loud to you, Skipper, but it’s like that kid carries destiny itself with him. That thing on the Piranha, what do you think the chances were of surviving that?”
“About zero point zero,” Seagraves said.
“Exactly,” Quinnivan said, taking a puff and blowing a smoke ring. “That kid has a special kind of luck, Captain. He brings it with him. With him on the Vermont, we can’t fail and we can’t die. If we put him on the Panther, well, he just won’t be on the Vermont. And I’m not afraid to admit, that scares me.”
Seagraves thought for a moment, tapping a long ash off the Churchill cigar into his ash tray.
“XO, if your metaphysical argument is correct, that this kid quote, carries destiny with him, unquote, we’d be derelict in our duty to not put him on the Panther mission.”
“You make a damned good point, Skipper. But now, let’s look at this from Admiral Catardi’s point of view. You just put his boss’ son on a mission that has a nineteen percent chance of success. And not just any boss’ son. The son that personally risked his life to rescue Catardi himself from certain death in the Piranha sinking. How career enhancing will it be to send Catardi a situation report stating that Panther sank with all hands, including one Lieutenant Anthony Pacino?”
Seagraves tamped his cigar out in the ash tray. “XO, knowing what we know? Catardi would do the same thing. And if we have to give an officer special treatment, what good is he to us? And don’t forget, Pacino volunteered for this mission in the strongest possible terms. And a final point? It was Catardi who sent us on this damned mission in the first place. So we’re all in this together. So it’s settled. Pacino goes.”
Quinnivan seemed satisfied with Seagraves’ answer. “So, are you going to make him OIC?”