The three J.O.s found their bags and lugged them to their staterooms. Pacino was almost fully unpacked when Quinnivan poked his head in.
“No officers’ call today, Mr. Lipstick. But find your opposite number from PCU New Jersey and get turned over. Change of command ceremony is at fifteen hundred. You got your choker whites?”
“Yes, XO.” Pacino had packed them, but the ultra-starched service dress whites were probably as wrinkled as an unmade bed from being tossed into his seabag.
“Good. Pass that word on to your scurvy buddies, yeah?”
“Aye, sir.”
“As soon as the command change is over, you’re driving us out. Or I should say, Short Hull Cooper is driving as your under-instruction. See to it he doesn’t fuck up, or it’s your head.”
“Understood, sir.”
“And laddy, you’ll be using tugs and a harbor pilot for this run. Think you can handle it?”
“It won’t be a problem, XO.”
“Good, lad. I’ll see you topside at fourteen-forty-five, yeah?” With that, the Irishman vanished.
Pacino had stowed his things into one of the cubbyholes and the rest into the bed pan under the upper rack, then taken the ladder steps to the upper level to the sonar equipment space, or SES. Inside, he found two chief petty officers deep in conversation. They turned to look at him, and to Pacino’s delight, one of them was Senior Chief Tom “Whale” Albanese, who had been his leading chief of sonar on Vermont and had gone with Pacino on the Panther run.
“Whale!” Pacino said, grinning and pulling the senior chief into a bear hug, the wiry redhead smiling back, his uniform smelling of the cigarettes that he chain-smoked when he could get away with it in the non-smoking universe of the submarine force.
“Mr. Patch!” Albanese exclaimed.
“I wasn’t sure if the goat locker would embark on New Jersey,” Pacino said.
“We were given a choice, but XO put pressure on me and a few others, but he needn’t have bothered. I’m happy to be here.”
“Aren’t you married, Whale?”
Albanese made a sour face. “Newly separated. Yet another reason to get out of there.”
“Kids?”
“Fortunately, no. Diane had a miscarriage, and we fought so much after that… well, it just didn’t make sense to stay together.”
“I’m sorry to hear, Senior Chief. Really. I haven’t been through anything like that, but I feel for you.”
“Thanks, Mr. Patch. Anyway, I was going through the turnover with Chief Carlyle-Smith here.”
Pacino shook the PCU sonar chief’s hand. “How is the turnover going? And where is the PCU sonar officer?”
“We’re in great shape,” Albanese said. “And the PCU sonar officer is in the hospital.”
“What happened?”
The PCU sonar chief looked at Pacino. “Domestic dispute. His husband punched him hard enough to break his jaw.”
“What?” Pacino said. “His husband?”
Albanese half-nodded at Pacino. “It’s a brave new world, sir.”
“It don’t matter none,” Chief Carlyle-Smith said. “Sonar is a hunnert percent. I ain’t never seen a sonar suite this tuned up and perfect. Especially coming out of new-con.”
“Hey, don’t jinx it,” Albanese said.
“Sprinkle some holy water on it, Whale,” Carlyle-Smith said. “Anyway, it’s all yours. I’m out of here.”
The PCU sonar chief stepped out. “Is it as good as he claims?” Pacino asked.
Albanese nodded. “For once, the shipyard didn’t hump the pooch.”
Pacino nodded. “Well, okay then. I guess I’ll jump into my choker whites for the change of command. I’ll see you topside, Whale.”
Commander Timothy Talisker “Scotch” Seagraves was almost finished unpacking his gear into the captain’s stateroom. He decided on a last-minute shave before he’d don the starched tunic of his dress whites. He glanced at his face in the mirror, somewhat encouraged that despite turning thirty-nine, his face hadn’t really changed in fifteen years. He was fortunate that despite rich submarine food, he had retained his thin build, although he had gained perhaps ten pounds since Annapolis graduation, but it helped that he was over six feet tall, he thought. He could carry the weight easily. Seagraves’ ex-wife — back before she’d decided she hated him — used to go off about how movie-star handsome he was, but he’d never seen it himself. His face seemed bony to his own eyes, with stark cheekbones, a pronounced brow, shallow cheeks, a cleft chin, ruler-straight jawline, and too-full lips. He shook off the internal debate, lathered up, shaved and was just toweling off when the 1MC general announcing circuit clicked, then boomed with the topside watchstander’s soprano voice.
“ComSubDevRon Twelve, arriving!”
That would be the boss of the local squadron, Seagraves thought, Captain Liam “Twister” Flanagan. Which was odd, since word had come down from ComSubFor that New Jersey was to be a Norfolk-based Squadron Six boat, not a Groton-based Development Squadron Twelve unit, which was Flanagan’s fiefdom. Seagraves had known Flanagan years in the past when Flanagan had been the navigator of the USS Newport News and Seagraves had been her MPA. They’d sailed Newport News for a year together before Flanagan rotated off to be the XO of the Topeka. Soon, a knock came to the door and Seagraves opened it.
Captain Flanagan was short and slight, with a bushy head of brown hair and a well-trimmed goatee. He was dressed in starched dress whites, obviously for the change of command ceremony upcoming in the next hour. Seagraves had put on the pants and shoes, but he was still just wearing his white T-shirt tucked into his white pants, the starched high-collar whites with full medals on a hanger by the door to the stateroom. Seagraves shook Flanagan’s hand and waved him to a seat at the small conference table. He sat in his high-backed command chair and looked over at Flanagan.
“Can I get us coffee, Commodore?”
“Coffee would be excellent, Captain.”
Seagraves made a call to the wardroom, then made small talk with the commodore about his family and life on the base, and how well he knew the base commander, a Naval Academy firstie when Seagraves was a lowly plebe. Once the coffee service arrived and Seagraves had poured for them both, Flanagan got down to business, withdrawing a folded manila envelope he’d had in his back pocket under his choker white tunic.
“Your sealed orders,” Flanagan said, smirking. “Top secret and very hush-hush.”
Seagraves opened the envelope and spread the two pages on the table. He scanned the order, then reread it more carefully. He looked up at Flanagan.
“His Majesty’s Naval Base, Clyde, Faslane, Scotland. U.K. submarine base. Way the hell up north.”
Flanagan nodded.
“The orders seem to stop there,” Seagraves noted. “Make all haste to UK SubBase Faslane, where New Jersey will load out weapons, gear and supplies for a hundred-and-forty day run. Then it stops.” He frowned. “A hundred-and-forty days, Commodore? What the hell is going on?”