“He could talk himself into and out of any kind of trouble. He was a real charmer.” Castillo caught Washington’s eye. “Maybe you know the type.”
“I am sure I do not know what the captain means,” said the cob with a perfectly straight face.
“He was the kind of kid who could talk Aurelia Lopez with her fine body into going to the movies on a Friday night and talk her out of killing him when she learned that he already had a date with Gloria Mejia on the same night.”
Castillo paused, ran a hand through his hair. “Anyway, one night, he met this girl — I don’t even remember her name — but she was fine. We were walking down the street and she was the kind of chica that would stop traffic. Everyone on that street just turned as she walked by, but George, George, had the cojones to try to pick her up.”
“Get a girl in trouble, did he?” asked the cob.
“Probably wouldn’t have even been nothing, except George made her laugh. He was so damn funny, the laughter just came bubbling out of her and if she was fine walking down the street she was an angel when she laughed.”
Castillo was silent for a long moment, his stomach twisted into knots and heavy with acid. He felt strung out, exhausted and wired on caffeine.
“It sounded like popping,” he whispered, “I’ll never forget that, not loud and dramatic, just pop, pop, pop, like a bottle of Champagne and then George crashed to the sidewalk. He was wearing a Bronco jersey, old and faded orange and I saw it was stained black and his face was white, like someone had poured all the blood right out of him. I was sixteen, I didn’t—” He shook his head. “Didn’t know what to do, anyway, I shouted for help and then I grabbed him, I don’t know what I was thinking, maybe if I could hold onto him, maybe if I could just hold on to him he would be okay until help… He was shaking so hard, looking up at me with frightened eyes and it wasn’t like it was even him because he wasn’t talking, couldn’t talk, and if there was one thing George could do it was talk, and I just wanted him to stop shaking.”
He looked up. The cob sat across from him, ramrod straight, his jaw locked shut, his face grim.
“George Fuentes was sixteen when he died,” said Castillo. “Shot dead because he put a hand on the shoulder of a gangbanger’s girlfriend and made her laugh. You see, Senior Chief,” and if Castillo’s voice had been cold before, now it was arctic, “that’s what happened in my neighborhood when you made a mistake.”
Washington’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He hauled to himself to his feet, his face set into grave lines. He looked down, like he couldn’t meet Castillo’s eyes. “I apologize for disturbing you, Captain,” he said softly. Then he turned and left, shutting the hatch gently behind him.
Castillo sat in his chair for a long moment, staring at the closed hatch. Then he got up and snapped off the light and laid down on his rack.
It was a long time before he could get to sleep.
When Castillo made his way up to Control, Lieutenant, j.g. Kenneth Green had the deck. Green was six-two and built, an African-American who was almost too big for submarine duty.
“What’s it look like, Lieutenant?” he asked softly.
“Good morning, Captain,” said Green and his face quirked in an ironic smile. It had been a while since anyone had gotten any kind of regular sleep on Pasadena—Castillo included.
The kid stepped over to the DRT. “We’ve got a subsurface contact out here at three four nine, designated Sierra Six. We don’t have a range yet, Captain, sorry.”
Castillo’s gaze flickered to the helmsman. The young sailor had his wheel over to the left. “You’re turning to get another bearing.”
Green bobbed his head. “Yessir. We’re working to firm up Six. She’s awfully quiet, though. Sonar thinks she’s the Typhoon.” He tapped the tracing paper, pointing out another track. “This is an air contact, sounds like rotors. It’s running forward of Six. I’m guessing a Helix, though we’d have to come up to pee dee to check that with ESM.”
Castillo nodded. “It’s a good thought, Ken, but I don’t want to risk detection by that helo. Helix is a good guess, good enough for what we’re doing. I suppose it makes sense that the Ruskies would send a helo out to screen a lone boomer, but why is she alone?” He shook his head. “It’s not like the Russians are running out of attack boats.”
Green laughed. “No, sir. In fact, we have one to the northwest. Sierra Four, classified as Victor Eighteen, the Daniil Moskovskiy. She’s making all kinds of noise, Captain, full bell. We’ve got a good solution on her, zero three two at sixty thousand yards.”
Castillo blinked. What the hell? He glanced down at Sierra Four’s track, thinking maybe Vic-18 was running in to screen Pasadena off the boomer, but no, the attack boat was moving left to right, away from the Typhoon. He shook his head. First the Russians sent a boomer out by herself and then they had a fast boat running in the opposite direction.
None of this made any sense.
“You got a handle on this?” Castillo asked.
Green opened his mouth, thought better of it and closed it. He shook his head. “No, sir.”
Castillo rolled his answer over in his mind for a second or two. The Captain’s all-knowing mystique was a powerful tool in the command arsenal and he had peers who never admitted to their troops that they didn’t know an answer, but how was a JO supposed to learn if you locked them out of your thinking?
Castillo sighed, “Me neither, Ken.” He tapped the DRT tracing paper. “In a situation like this we need to think about what we know — and what we don’t. The Russians are acting contrary to doctrine. It’s confusing to us, but there is a reason. I think we’ll find it when we get close to the Typhoon.”
“What if we don’t?” asked Green.
Castillo flashed the young officer a smile. “Then Ivan’s doing something different and Pasadena has the good fortune to lock it down and report it to CINCPACFLT.” He clapped Green on the shoulder. “We’re not out here to do the same thing all the time, Ken. The nav put us out here because we can think.”
The kid grinned. “Well, in that case, sir, I suggest we—”
He was interrupted by an excited voice from the gray speaker hung in the overhead. “Con, Sonar. I have an explosion at zero three three.”
Castillo was on the move in an instant, punching through the hatch at the forward end of Control, stepping into the passageway and then shouldering his way into Sonar. “Report!” he barked.
The sonar watch supervisor, STS2(SS) Thanh Pham, turned to look up at him. “Captain, we detected a large explosion, bearing zero three three.”
Next to Busfield, Pham was the best sonarman on the boat. He was a short kid from SoCal who loved the good submarine chow a little too much. Normally the kid had a sunny disposition. But now anguish twisted his features.
“The Victor,” said Castillo.
“That’s affirm, Captain.” The kid’s eyes were wide. His right phone covered his ear, but the left was off so he could hear his commander. Suddenly he wheeled around, shifted the left phone back over his ear, closed his eyes. “Son of a bitch,” he whispered. He turned back around and pulled the phone set off his head. “I’m getting water rushing sounds, Captain. Her screw—” He shook his head. “It’s pinwheeling. I think—” He shook his head again. “I think she’s going down.”