“What’s the new assignment, Bullfrog?” Driscoll asked.
“Shh. Top secret, lad,” Quinnivan said, grinning and glancing at Pacino and Romanov. “Not in front of the children.” He turned toward Pacino and Romanov. “Patch, Silky, this is Lieutenant Commander Lurch Driscoll, my old roommate and stateroom mate on the HMS Astute back home. I was the navigator. Lurch isn’t smart enough to navigate, so they put him in charge of the weapons department. He never could figure out that Spearfish torpedo, though. Damn near blew us up doing maintenance one day. Lurch, this is Rachel Silky Romanov — you’ve heard of iron fist, velvet glove? Well, Lieutenant Commander Romanov here has a titanium fist in a silk glove. And this youngster here is Lieutenant Anthony Patch Pacino. We’re particularly proud of this young’un.”
Driscoll shook Rachel’s hand, then Pacino’s.
“The name is actually ‘Balaclava’ Driscoll,’” he said to Pacino. “I convene a captain’s mast for anyone calling me ‘Lurch.’ But some assholes are just too stupid to be retrained,” he said, winking at Quinnivan. “And you, Mister Pacino. I was informed your callsign is actually ‘Death Toll.’ How many Russians have you killed in the last two ops?”
Pacino smirked. Death Toll Pacino. He supposed anything was better than his old callsign, Lipstick.
“Come on down, you three,” Driscoll said, smiling. “Let me introduce you to the captain, and then you can wander around as needed.”
Pacino followed Romanov and Quinnivan down the gangway to the hull, all three of them saluting the American flag mounted aft, then across to the doghouse overlooking the maw of the plug trunk hatch. When Pacino’s turn came to enter the submarine, that unique and powerful smell of the boat filled his nostrils, an unmistakable witch’s brew of atmo control amines, ozone, diesel fuel, diesel exhaust, cooking grease, seasoned with a touch of raw sewage. Wives of submariners often made husbands take off their boat uniforms before entering the house, the smell soaking into fabric and only a strong detergent able to eliminate it. It could get worse on a long run, Pacino thought, especially in the tropics, when stale human sweat was added to the mix, sometimes exacerbated by the laundry being shut down if there were trouble with the evaporators. Clean water was reserved for the oxygen generator, the reactor, the steam plant, and only after that for cooking and drinking, and dead last, for laundry. Pacino realized he hadn’t smelled that scent since climbing out of the New Jersey, and the strong aroma brought him back to the moments before the sub sank.
He wondered if the smell would hit Rachel the same way it was hitting him. Would that crazy smell wake her up? Or would her amnesia persist? The trouble was, the smell had been present in her memories of her year on the Vermont before Pacino had shown up. He followed the other officers down the steep staircase to the middle level and forward to the door to the captain’s stateroom. When Romanov turned to face Pacino at the door, he could tell from her blank stare that nothing had changed for her. The amnesia was continuing, he thought, his stomach dropping a few floors.
The man in the captain’s stateroom stood. He seemed way too young to be a sub captain, Pacino thought. He stood barely over five feet tall, with a shock of red hair and a red five o’clock shadow. His face was open and friendly. He grinned in pleasure at Quinnivan.
“The mad Irishman cometh,” he said, shaking Quinnivan’s hand. “How the hell are ya, Bullfrog?”
“Great, great,” Quinnivan said. “I’m just about done destroying American submarines.”
“Tour coming to an end? Is the exchange program continuing?” The captain looked at Driscoll. “I hope so. Maybe I could get a British XO who would actually be competent instead of this loafer.”
“Fuck you, Skipper,” Driscoll said, smiling. “Gentlemen and lady, this is Captain Grey ‘Gray Wolf’ Austin, commanding officer of the legendary submarine USS New Hampshire. Captain, this is Rachel Silky Romanov, Vermont’s former navigator, and their sonar officer, Anthony Patch Pacino.”
Austin smiled. “Pleased to meet you guys,” he said, reaching out to shake Rachel’s hand, then Pacino’s. “Your XO is correct about this being a legendary submarine. The New Hampshire is here to save Western civilization, as we have done many times already.” He looked sympathetically at Rachel. “I heard there was, as Bullfrog would say, a spot of bother on the Vermont in drydock. You’re all healed up now?”
“Yes, Captain,” Rachel said, her voice neutral, almost dead sounding. She obviously was not happy with this errand. Pacino wondered if Bruno had convinced her to visit the sub or if Quinnivan or Seagraves had demanded the trip. “I’ve just lost a few months of my memory. There is the valid concern that what I do remember is complete enough to return me to submarine duty, or if I need to be retrained. Hopefully I haven’t suffered so much brain trauma that I’ve lost what I know about operating a submarine.”
“Good, good, well, you’ve come to the right place. New Hampshire is the best submarine in the fleet,” Austin said, smiling. “With the finest officers, chiefs and enlisted personnel. Not like those blithering idiots on the New England.”
“Hey now,” Quinnivan said, striking a boxing pose. “Captain, Lieutenant Pacino here, you may have heard stories about him. Disregard them. They’re all lies.”
Austin laughed. “What, are you saying he didn’t machine gun down a platoon of Russians about to take you hostage? Or launch a Russian supercavitating torpedo to sink a Yasen-M class Russian boat? After sneaking aboard an Iranian nuke sub and hijacking it?”
“And not only that,” Quinnivan said, “he’s the son of Admiral Pacino.”
“Wow, that’s your dad? He’s running for president against Carlucci,” Austin said.
“No, I don’t think so,” Pacino said.
“He just announced his candidacy this morning,” Austin said, finding his tablet computer, putting on his reading glasses and handing the unit to Pacino. Pacino squinted at it and scanned it. Austin was right. Dad was running for president. Pacino blinked, feeling disoriented, like he’d stepped into an alternate universe, one where his father had become a politician and his woman had no idea who he was.
“Anyway, you guys go wherever you want,” Austin said. “If you’re going aft, get set up with the engineer first with dosimeters. Eng is in stateroom two. Come to the wardroom at 1145. We’re having an amazing meal today.”
“What’s for lunch, Captain?” Quinnivan asked.
“Sliders,” Austin grinned. “With steak fries and my favorite, cornbread. No one makes cornbread like my mess cooks. They make my old Aunt Martha from Waycross, Georgia, look like an amateur.”
“We’ll be there, Captain,” Quinnivan said. “I’m hungry already.” He looked at Pacino and Romanov. “Come on, let’s go hang out in control first.”
The three of them spent a half hour in the control room, which was cold and quiet, all the electronics shut down when in port, the air conditioning tuned for when every console would be operational and hot. Pacino kept stealing glances at Romanov to see if she’d recognize him, but she just stood there, silent as a statue. He’d moved close to her to get her to move to the space aft of the command console and he took the position to her immediate left, where they had stood for the early parts of Operation Panther, but still nothing seemed to penetrate the fog of her memory loss.