It was Saturday at two in the afternoon. A little early to drink, Pacino thought, but he looked at Bruno and said, “is there any good scotch in the house?”
Bruno laughed. “Of course! Let me go get us a round. Double, right? Three fingers?”
Pacino smiled. “Three fat fingers,” he said.
“Rachel!” Bruno called up the stairs. “There’s a visitor here for you. A certain Lieutenant Patch Pacino.”
Rachel Romanov came down the stairs, her shining and partly curled dirty blonde hair down past her nipples, dressed in a form-fitting red sweater — which Pacino thought might be the same one she’d worn when he first met her at the XO’s party a million years ago — with tight jeans and tall brown boots. She smiled, showing her even, white, perfect teeth, but there was no recognition in her smile.
“Hello. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name. Patch, is it?”
“Anthony Pacino,” he said, taking Rachel’s outstretched hand. “My callsign is Patch, but some people used to call me Lipstick.” He watched her face for any sign of her remembering, but her face was blank.
“Did I know you before?” she asked.
“Yes, Rachel,” Pacino said, as Bruno handed him a rocks glass with three fingers of scotch in it and Rachel a glass of red wine.
“A toast,” Bruno said in his booming, deep voice with his slight eastern European accent. “To old friends, even if we don’t remember who they are.”
Pacino took a sip of the whisky, the liquid burning down his throat. “Dear God, Bruno, what is this?”
Bruno laughed. “I’m told you and your guys in Faslane liked it. Anyway, come over to the living room. Let’s sit down and talk.”
Rachel sat on a wing chair facing the couch. Pacino put his drink down on a coaster on the coffee table and looked at Rachel, but her face was still blank.
“Rachel,” Pacino said, “you and I were in the control room of the Vermont when the fire started. You went aft to take charge at the scene.”
She shook her hair off her shoulders and pursed her lips. “I’m sorry, Patch. Patch, right? I’m sorry, I just don’t remember.”
“Did someone show you the video of the control room before and during the accident?” Pacino asked.
She nodded. “Bruno got it for me. I watched it.” She shrugged. “It was like watching strangers.”
Pacino nodded and took another sip of the whisky. “I get that. What is the last thing you do remember?”
“I was getting off a limo bus and walking up to Quinnivan’s house for a ship’s party.”
Pacino looked down at the carpeting. She had remembered up to ten minutes before the moment when she’d met him for the first time. If her memory had only gone one hour longer, he thought, she’d know who he was.
“I wanted to ask you and Bruno something,” Pacino said.
“Go ahead, Patch,” Bruno said.
“Commander Quinnivan, our XO, made arrangements with the captain and XO of SSN-778, USS New Hampshire, out of Norfolk’s Squadron Six, to give Rachel a classified tour including the control room. The doctors I talked to said the sights, sounds, and smells of the submarine might bring back your memory.”
Rachel shook her head. “I don’t want a tour. I’m not sure I want my memory back,” she said. “I heard the fire on the Vermont was awful. And I’m not sure if I’m staying in the Navy or if I stay, whether I’ll stay in the submarine force.”
“Oh,” Pacino said, his face and tone giving away his disappointment.
“Listen, Patch. Anthony. I’d just as soon forget about my experiences on the Vermont.”
“I should be going,” Pacino said, draining his scotch and standing.
“You sure you won’t stay for dinner?” Rachel said, smiling brightly. “Bruno’s grilling steaks and I’m making salad and sides.”
“No, I’ll leave it to you two,” Pacino said.
The conversation at the front door seemed endless, and Pacino just wanted to go. Finally, they said their last good-bye and he walked out to the Corvette.
He knew what he needed, he thought. He programmed the destination into his phone and followed the app’s turn-by-turn directions toward the north.
Toward Annapolis.
31
It was early evening when Anthony Pacino cut the engine of the Corvette on the wide driveway of his father’s Annapolis house. The house looked like every light had been turned on inside, with the exterior lights making the driveway look like daylight. He’d texted his father that he’d be driving up, but he wasn’t sure if the old man would be there, or still in D.C. — or perhaps at the Sandbridge beach house.
His father had only replied “OK” to the text message, probably worried about the younger Pacino texting and driving. Pacino walked up to the front door, and looked back at the car, wondering if he should pull out his “go bag” of spare clothes and toiletries, but he had kept a week’s worth of clothes at the Annapolis house.
The house was a huge three-story log structure built on an artificial peninsula jutting into the Severn River, with sweeping views of the Maryland Route 2 bridge over the river and the northernmost grounds of the United States Naval Academy, the green-tinted copper dome of the chapel in the background. Back when his father was the admiral-in-command of the Navy, his direct reports had named the estate “Pacino Peninsula.” Pacino looked up to the second floor’s western deck, where he and his father had had happy hour every night in the month after Carrie Alameda died. He shook his head. Carrie’s death had slammed him hard, but losing Rachel to amnesia seemed almost as bad. She walked and talked, yet had no idea who he was or what she’d meant to him. Perhaps his father would have some advice, he thought.
He tried the front door and it was unlocked.
“Anthony?” his father called down the stairs.
“It’s me,” Pacino said, taking the stairs two at a time. He grinned as he saw his father. The old man wore a NAVY 90 sweatshirt, still grease-stained from when he’d wear it to work on his sailboat, which he’d sold after his divorce.
“Damn, it’s so good to see you, Son,” the elder Pacino said, pulling Anthony into a bear hug. He pulled back and looked at Anthony’s bandages.
“We need to change these dressings,” Michael said. “I know a good plastic surgeon, Son. Not to worry.”
“Hey, the scars might look cool.”
Michael shook his head. “I guarantee you they won’t. Anyway, you’re back and safe, finally.”
“Well, it got close a couple times, Dad. Four nuclear explosions, an arctic storm, and the Russian GRU trying to take us all prisoner.” Anthony bit his lip. “We lost five officers and five chiefs. And fourteen of the enlisted, one of them Snowman Mercer, the sonarman who first detected the Panther in the Gulf of Oman.”
“I heard the USS Rickover is bringing their bodies home,” Michael Pacino said solemnly. “There will be a service at Arlington National Cemetery.” The admiral picked up the crystal carafe from the bar. “Let’s grab a drink on the east deck.” He tossed Anthony a black sweatshirt with the emblem of a skull and crossbones. “It’s a little chilly but it’s a nice night.” He handed the scotch carafe to Anthony and grabbed two glasses and strode to the deck’s sliding glass door. He waved Anthony to a chair and poured for them both, then sat.
“A toast,” Michael Pacino said. “To your safe return and knowing that your mission was accomplished.”
“And to our fallen friends,” Anthony said. He drank, then looked at his father. “What did you mean the mission was accomplished?”