A lot had happened in the twenty years since. For a time, Gordon had thought Chase'd been trying to sabotage his career. That had not been the case, but the distance between them had never closed up.
It was damned hard to find trust for a man once the old trust between them had seemed betrayed.
"So," Chase continued, as they turned and started walking toward the dockside. Seabirds shrieked overhead, circling, and bent white wings above the water. "When do you want to start going over the manifests?"
"Whenever convenient," Gordon replied. "Today, if you like."
"Not today," Chase said, smiling ruefully. "We're about to have an infestation of suits."
"Suits?" Gordon raised an eyebrow.
"Folks from Washington. Read Langley. I understand they want to debrief us on our last op."
"I see. What was the last op?"
"Can't tell you. Sorry."
"That classified?"
"That classified. And compartmentalized. And sanitized. And the key thrown away afterward."
"Hell of a way to run a Navy."
"My sense is that the Powers That Be are a bit nervous after the Walker incident." The Walkers had been an entire family of Navy spies—
John Walker, who'd started selling secrets when he'd been a Navy officer in 1967, his defense contractor brother, his Navy lieutenant son, and his best friend, also a naval officer. They'd been discovered only in 1985, after they'd already done incalculable damage. The word was that the new Soviet subs coming off the ways right now, ultrafast and ultra-silent, were the product, in part, of the Walkers' espionage efforts.
"And I'm going to put to sea with a whole crew who knows more about where the boat's been recently than I do!"
"They may decide to fill you in," Chase said quietly. "With all the haste… with the suits swarming everywhere …"
"What?"
"I don't know. I just have the feeling the 'Burgh is going to go right back into the lion's den again."
"And the next mission might have something to do with the last one?"
"Maybe."
"What makes you say that?"
"Nothing specific. Just a feeling, is all."
"Well, I don't want to come on board and spook the men," Gordon said. "Give me a call when we can get together and go over the books."
"Will do." Chase hesitated.
"What's the matter?" Gordon asked.
"Nothing really. Just a wonderment. I have to hold a captain's mast sometime this week. Five guys got into a fight in town the other night. Got pretty badly banged up."
"Sounds like they already got their punishment."
"That's true. But you know I can't let it slide."
"Of course not. What's the problem?"
"The problem is they had a raw deal handed to them on a platter. From what COB tells me, a biker gang decided to pick on them. They fought back. Predictable outcome."
"Ouch."
"The bartender wanted to press charges for damages. He knew he wasn't going to get it out of the bikers!"
"Yeah. I follow."
"COB got the men sprung, but the civilian establishment is still going to want to see justice done."
"So what have you done to the poor bastards so far?"
"Docked 'em liberty over the holiday. Though I did let the ones who wanted come topside to watch the fireworks over the Bay Saturday. But if they come up before me on mast, I'll have to dock 'em pay and give 'em extra duty. Seems a hell of a way to treat these boys, after what they've been through already."
And what they're likely to go through next. That shared but unspoken thought hung between them for a moment.
"Suggestion?" Gordon said.
"Shoot."
"Lose the forms."
"Eh?"
"Lose the forms. Since you're outgoing, they won't have any way to get hold of you, and I can play dumb. I'll refer them up the ladder all the way to Washington if I have to. If they want to sue the government, let 'em. By the time things straighten out, we'll be long gone to sea."
Chase nodded. "And from what I hear, you'll be home-porting down at San Diego after this. It'll be years before Pittsburgh sees Vallejo again."
"Sound workable?"
"Absolutely. I was hoping you'd think of that."
Gordon laughed. "I'd rather take care of our people than some parasite ashore."
"Amen. Well, I'd better go aboard and get squared away for our guests."
"I wish you luck."
"Thanks. We'll need it."
Chase walked down the pier, then stepped out onto the brow connecting the Pittsburgh with the dock. A small guard hut of strictly ceremonial utility had been erected on the 'Burghs deck aft of her sail, along with a confusion of safety lines and temporary stanchions. A Navy sentry came to attention as Chase saluted the ensign aft, then saluted the OD.
A ship's bell dinged twice. "Pittsburgh, arriving," a voice said over a loudspeaker, the ancient declaration that the ship's captain had just come aboard.
But not for much longer, he thought. The knowledge that he would soon be departing Pittsburgh for the last time hurt like the anticipated loss of a loved one.
9
"Easy there … easy!"
Seaman O'Brien stood shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the working party, working under the combined direction of Lieutenant Walberg, the boat's Weapons Officer, or "Weps," the Chief of the Boat, and the supervisor of a gang of dockworkers all clustered around the weapons-loading hatch forward of the Pittsburgh's sail. All of them wore life jackets and safety lines, which encumbered them a bit… but which were worth it when you considered the possibility of a false step or a heavy, free-swinging piece of machinery sending you ass over into the sea.
Pittsburgh carried a total of twenty-four of the big Mark 48 torpedoes, each a blunt-tipped pencil nineteen feet long and twenty-one inches thick, and weighing in at just over 3500 pounds. Sheathed in silver, with bright blue plastic protective nose shrouds, they gleamed in the morning sun as they slid slowly, magnificently, from the black depths of the submarine's forward hull.
Los Angeles class boats mounted four torpedo tubes, each of which went to sea warshot-loaded, plus room for an additional twenty-two reloads. Normally, however, one or two of the storage racks in the torpedo room were left empty, to allow the TMs to reach the stored weapons for maintenance, and to allow some extra room in the compartment for moving their long and massive charges about. All of those torpedoes were coming out of the Pittsburgh's bowels for routine shoreside inspection and replacement.
O'Brien had learned how the huge torpedoes were maneuvered on and off the boat. The entire flooring of the second deck had been torn up and reassembled as a loading rack leading down from the weapons hatch through to the torpedo room on the third deck. Part of the third deck had been taken up as well, converted to a transit rack for maneuvering the torpedoes to or from their cradles.
O'Brien's work detail had started out working below deck in the torpedo room. From there, the redecoration had created what looked to O'Brien like a deep, sheer-walled canyon cutting straight through the heart of the boat forward of the sail. The berthing space with his rack and storage space was now part of an open slot three decks high, allowing the torpedoes, once lowered through a hatch just wide enough to receive them, with the crew's racks visible as part of the wall to either side. Each torpedo was manhandled from its cradle in the torpedo room and fed up into the loading rack, then gently maneuvered up the chute until it emerged, nose-first, from the loading hatch.