“Fine, whatever you need.”
“Your supplier will now play a pivotal role. Unwittingly, he has already provided us invaluable assistance since you have gone underground. He is positioned to give us valuable information. I would say that he is now more than a supplier; he is a mole. I need to ensure that he is clean during this task, separate from the others in every way. That means that you need to be the one to communicate with him.”
“Okay.”
“You’ll have to go back to South Texas.”
“I understand.”
“This is going to involve more violent action, something that we have never required of him. But if he does it correctly he will never be under suspicion.”
Gabriel realized that he was to blackmail the supplier.
“Now, let me tell you what he must do.”
FORTY-ONE
They were in a semi-normal routine. After returning home, Det Four was supposed to be in a thirty-day stand down. Denke and Keating came up with a leave plan that would ensure that at least a full dive team, four men, was available at all times. When not on leave Det Four shortened their business days to half days.
Their mornings were filled with physical training and light maintenance. The afternoons were spent at home, devoted to getting back in touch with their families.
As always, Jazz began his workday by heading to the equipment room, coffee cup in hand, to see what the guys were up to.
When he stepped in Denke was on the phone. He looked concerned.
“Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I understand.”
Jazz looked at him quizzically.
“Ah, that is correct, sir. Yes, I will take care of it and report back to you, yessir. Thank you.”
Denke hung up the phone.
“Who was that, Senior?”
The man appeared to be at a loss for words.
“LT, let me explain it later.”
One of the traits of a successful naval officer is to be able to understand clearly when your chief is subtly saying, “Don’t ask me that question.”
“Roger that, Senior.”
Denke got up and left the room. Jazz thought it was odd, but knew that if he needed to know he would be told, and often the junior officer really did not want to know.
Twenty minutes later the OIC looked up from his computer to see Denke and an officer stepping into the office. Denke moved to the window and closed the shade.
On closer inspection, Jazz noticed a cross on the officer’s collar.
A chaplain?
The chaplain closed the door behind him.
“Welcome, Chaplain,” said Jazz. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes, sir,” said Denke. “It is about the call I got earlier.”
“What is it, Senior Chief?”
“It’s the admiral, sir, your father. He passed away this morning.”
True to form, the events surrounding the Admiral’s wake and funeral went flawlessly. James J. Jascinski Senior made arrangements with both a classmate and a lawyer, years before.
Eleanor was composed throughout. Showing overt emotion in public would have insulted her husband’s memory. She kept herself busy by directing the whole evolution as if it were a “Hail and Farewell” or CO’s garden party.
Jazz was only vaguely aware that his wife was present. The children all disappeared, undoubtedly holed up with a neighbor’s au pair.
In the last moments that anyone would gaze upon him, the Admiral appeared just as he did in life, stoic and cold. Jazz knelt next to the form of his father and tried unsuccessfully to pray silently.
Emotionally the moment was confusing. The ten-year-old boy still within James J. Jascinski Junior was relieved that he would no longer have the sick nervous feeling in his stomach each time he went home. The young man and father in him was truly sad. In his prayers, he was able to muster a “thanks” that he and his father at least began to reach an understanding of each other.
Jazz laughed to himself nervously as he thought of his father not in Heaven, but in Purgatory. Deep down he knew that the Admiral was in “Boat School” Purgatory. First he pictured him in full uniform, rifle at ‘Right shoulder arms,’ marching off restriction points back and forth on Red Beach under the watchful eye of Saint Peter and John Paul Jones.
In Jazz’s mind the Admiral would be allowed some leisure. Certainly in the evenings his father would retire to the basement of the Alumni House in the sky, sitting quietly in the corner sipping a gin and tonic. Jazz imagined his father trading sea stories with other classmates who had passed, all of them waiting for the next Army-Navy game to come on television.
Jazz composed himself, took one last look at his father, stood and turned on his heel.
The funeral director was waiting in the back of the viewing room. Down to his manner of dress, the guy reminded Jazz of comedian Richard Belzer.
Guy probably does funeral jokes at Chuckles on Tuesday nights.
The man bowed slightly as he whispered respectfully.
“If you will wait a mere moment outside, sir…”
Though the arrangements were made ahead of time, Eleanor was adamant that Jazz remind the director.
“Just the ring,” he said.
“Excuse me, sir?”
“The family wants the class ring. The medals, the watch, everything else stays. We just want the class ring.”
“Yes, sir.”
The lobby outside the viewing room was empty now; everyone had gone. Jazz looked at his leather case next to the couch where the grieved often sat to reflect.
“What is in the case?” Eleanor had asked him.
“Just some things, Mom.”
There was still a chance to slip it into the Admiral’s box. The funeral director was being paid handsomely. He would practically get in the box himself if Jazz asked him to.
But Jazz knew that by bringing the knife he was really just grasping for a way to say his goodbye in a special way. He realized after long reflection and a bottle of port in the Admiral’s study the night before that the man would not want to be buried with it.
So there would be no last gesture and no last public words from this son on the occasion of his father’s death. The Admiral arranged for a eulogy from two of his classmates long before his son was commissioned.
James J. Jascinski merely helped his mother grieve and paid his last respects.
The stand-down period gave T-Ball time to work uninterrupted on the detachment’s Mark-16 dive rigs. Each day he came in, completed a rigorous workout, showered and began the required annual maintenance checks.
There were no other Techs in the building. Detachment Two was at Ft. Story attending their READIMPT before a deployment to Bahrain. Ash was at medical. Denke and Keating were at a planning conference for an MCM exercise across the bay in Corpus Christi.
There was only time to complete one rig per day by lunch. The annual checks required that he work in the O2 clean room following strict re-entry control procedures. This was because T-Ball would be opening the lines that provided passage for the oxygen to the diver’s breathing loop. O-rings lay on the work table next to tools that would be used to inspect and test the Schrader valve.
Somewhere in the shop, a phone began ringing. He ran to the front and picked up the phone on the OIC’s desk.
“EOD Mobile Unit Six Det Four, Petty Officer Ball speaking, may I help you?”
“Uh, is this EOD?”
“Yes, sir. Can I help you?”
“Yeah, this is base security dispatch. We have a report of a suspect package in the courtyard between buildings one and two.”