Accompanying them were two other men — the tall and saturnine Mr. Cabot, and another civilian who had the look of an aide. These last two stopped at the end of Pittsburgh's brow as the other four clattered their way up to the boat's after deck, where the OOD took them in hand and sent them down the forward escape trunk hatch.
Cabot's "special package," the agents Pittsburgh would be putting ashore on the Siberian coast.
On the pier, Cabot raised a hand in farewell. Gordon gravely saluted him, then picked up the handset that linked him with the control room. "Mr. Latham? Has the package arrived?"
"They're being taken for'rard to the torpedo room now, Captain."
"Very well. Let's make all preparations to get under way."
"Make all preparations to get under way, aye, sir."
He flipped a switch on his comm console, connecting him to Torpedoman's Mate Chief Bart Allison on the deck. "Chief? We're ready to roll. Secure the brow."
"Secure the brow, aye, sir!" crackled from the speaker. Allison was wearing a radio headset, which removed the need for shouting orders back and forth.
The deck crew, their orange life jackets bright in the murk, moved swiftly to unfasten the shipboard end of the brow. Ashore, the dock gang hauled on the brow and swung it clear of the boat.
"Brow is cleared away."
"Single up lines, fore and aft. Stand by to cast off."
"Single up, fore and aft, aye."
The deck crews on the sub and on the pier worked together, casting off lines until only a single mooring line forward and another one aft secured the Pittsburgh to the dock.
Gordon took a last look around. If anything, the fog was a bit thicker now than it had been moments ago, but he could make out the shapes and lights of two harbor tugs aft, one almost dead astern, the other upriver a bit. The two sail lookouts stood in their own sail-top openings aft of the weather bridge, looking to port and starboard. His best eyes, though, would be fog-penetrating radar. Someday, perhaps, satellite navigational aids would be good enough that a sub could be gentled up to the dock even when the dock was completely invisible in fog or rain. For now, though, they had to rely on the old and time-tested methods, radar, sound, and basic Mark I Mod 0 eyeballs.
In most other tight docking areas around the world, harbor tugs actually brought submarines all the way in and out. It wasn't that boat captains weren't trusted as such… but each submarine represented a not-so-small fortune in delicate sonar gear and electronics, and an accidental bump against a bollard could send a good many hundreds of thousands or millions of tax dollars into dry dock, and deprive the United States of a valuable defense asset.
The quarters were just too tight between the Mare Island slips to admit tugboat and sub. But they were waiting in the main shipping channel to catch him should something go wrong.
And that would be the ultimate embarrassment for an ambitious young nuke skipper, not to mention a serious speed bump for his career. He glanced down at the pier again. Cabot and his shadow were still there… along with another figure, wearing khakis. Mike Chase. It looked like the Pittsburgh's old skipper had turned out to see her off. And there was another officer as well, with a lot of gold braid. Admiral Hartwell, then, had come to see them off as well.
No, it wouldn't be good at all to fumble this one….
"Cast off aft."
"Aye aye, sir. Cast off aft."
Gordon heard the chief's voice raised. "Aft line handlers! Cast off!" The line arced gracefully through the wet air, to be caught by handlers ashore.
He looked across at the Parche, on the other side of Pier 2. He could see his opposite number there atop Parche's sail. Perrigrino tossed a jaunty salute, and Gordon returned it. A number of Parche's sailors had come up on deck to watch. Damn, was the whole world going to be looking over his shoulder?
"Lookouts, check astern."
"Clear astern, sir."
"Maneuvering, bridge," he said. "Rudder to starboard. Come aft, dead slow."
"Rudder starboard, aye! Come aft, dead slow, aye!"
With the rudder over and the screw turning, Pittsburgh's stern began walking out away from the pier. He watched the line handlers aft brace themselves against the gentle motion. All of the safety railings had been stricken and stowed below, so it was somewhat dangerous to be on the boat's open and rounded deck. A diver in full wet suit and swim gear stood on the deck just in case he was needed for a rescue, and a Coast Guard cutter waited farther upriver to follow Pittsburgh out into the bay, just in case someone fell overboard.
When Pittsburgh had swung out at a nearly forty-five degree angle from the pier, her rounded bow almost touching the dock, Gordon said, "Forward line handlers! Cast off forward!"
"Casting off forward, aye, sir!"
"Conn, give me three blasts of the horn."
"Three blasts, aye aye, sir." The shrill blast of Pittsburgh's horn cut through the fog, two short hoots signaling that she was backing down.
"Maneuvering, rudder amidships. Continue aft, dead slow."
"Rudder amidships, aye aye, sir. Maintain aft revs, dead slow, aye."
Gently, gently, the submarine's 360-foot length backed away from the pier, sliding backward into the Napa River Channel between Mare Island and Vallejo. The river was only about a quarter mile wide at this point, just enough room to get into trouble.
"Captain," the port lookout called. "The John Andrew Keith is coming close abeam to port."
Gordon turned. One of the harbor tugs was maneuvering in close to pass the Pittsburgh a line. "I see him. Maneuvering, Bridge. Reverse engine. Bring us to ahead slow."
"Reverse engine, ahead slow, aye aye, sir."
With a slight shudder through her hull, Pittsburgh slowed her backward crawl, stopped, then began sliding forward. A line was tossed across the submarine's forward deck by a linesman aboard the Keith and made secure to a recessed cleat alongside Pittsburgh's sail.
"Maneuvering, Bridge. Bring the rudder two points to port. Engine, all stop. We get to ride for a way, here."
"Bridge, Maneuvering. Rudder two points to port, aye. Engine at all stop, aye aye, sir."
The powerful little harbor tug, basically little more than a pair of powerful diesel engines with a red-painted superstructure around them, began picking up speed, hauling the Pittsburgh like a barge slowly downstream. The second tug and the Coast Guard cutter followed astern.
He heard the thud-thud-thud of the tugboat's engines alongside, the brooding low of a foghorn, the shrill clang of a buoy. He tasted salt on the air, felt the shiver of Pittsburgh's hull as she made way through the water, fast enough that her bow wake was curling up over her prow and wetting the forward deck. It was, for Gordon, a jubilant moment.
It wasn't until frozen instants like this one that he realized how much he missed the sea when he was apart from her. For two years he'd been locked away in the Five-Sided Squirrel Cage, trapped in the D-Ring labyrinth.
He was at his best when he was at sea, whether he was commanding a nuke or a diesel, or simply an officer of the watch. He gave a wry grin, realizing how sentimental he was getting about sea duty… and he wasn't even out into San Pablo Bay yet!