“I still have Grant.”
“Do you? Are you sure he will be there to pluck you from the sea on the other side of the world?”
“I have the guys on this ship.”
“Do you consider them friends? I doubt it. I may now be your only true friend,” Renard said. “At some time during this journey, you will need to decide that I’ve earned your trust.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I pray that fate has no intention of placing more strafing aircraft or Miami’s in our path. Tell me, this accident you suffered where you suspected foul play and mentioned a sort of impotence. You’ve hinted that your captain was at fault, and your angst was obvious, but we’ve never discussed the details.”
“Why should I?”
“It could be therapeutic.”
“I’m not impotent.”
“I never thought so, because you seemed far more enraged than depressed,” Renard said. “Yet you refused an attractive woman’s advances and mentioned that you were sexually incapable. I’ve tried to remain reserved about it but must inquire.”
Jake lifted a mouthpiece to his lips.
“Rudder amidships,” he said.
The Colorado veered toward the Custom Venture’s starboard quarter.
“Much better,” Renard said. “I now see your angle.”
“I have HIV,” Jake said, “because that fucker Thomas Henry gave it to me.”
“Mon Dieu! How?”
“I’m one of four guys on the crew who had AB positive blood. The other three donated a pint each, but Henry made damn sure his got in me first.”
For the first time, Renard empathized with his recruit’s rage.
“Why?”
“To protect his own ass,” Jake said. “After my accident was reported in the Kings Bay base paper, praising everyone who helped save my life, a few gay sailors — still in the closet, of course, because the Navy makes them hide behind the ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy — figured out that I had Henry’s blood in me. One of them warned me. Wrote me a nice long anonymous letter explaining everything.”
“Henry was gay?” Renard asked.
“Married but bi-sexual and part of a sex ring that disbanded when a few of them discovered they were HIV-positive. Henry was due to have his HIV discovered at the next blood screening.”
Renard sucked his Marlboro to the butt and sought its replacement.
“And it would have ended his career?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Jake said. “HIV-positive sailors can’t deploy on combatant vessels.”
“And so neither could you, after he infected you.”
“Right.”
“But he did not do this out of pure malice?”
“No,” Jake said. “He cut one of his fingers in some sort of bullshit accident I’m sure he faked while running down the passageway to be by my side. Then he just laid his hand on me. Supposedly, he was trying to demonstrate concern for my well-being while I lay there bleeding, but he made damned sure there were witnesses.”
Renard realized the extent of the evil.
“And blood flowed both ways,” he said, “casting doubt on who infected whom?”
“You got it,” Jake said.
“Did you not bring this to your chain of command?”
“No, Pierre, those assholes brought it to me. Commander Henry has already been selected for promotion to captain, and he’s been deep-selected to replace the submarine community’s only black admiral. John Brody deserves it, but they selected Henry because he played politics and the race card better, I guess.”
“Deplorable,” Renard said, “yet I see how men who place politics above valor may have rallied to protect the man.”
“The Commodore and base admiral told me to keep it quiet until Henry commanded his last patrol. Then he would have been done with sea duty before the next periodic blood draw, and he would waltz through shore commands on his way to admiral, HIV or not.”
“And you?”
“I was supposed to transfer to the Trident Training Facility for instructor duty the morning the Colorado left for patrol. No one onboard knew about it but me, Henry, and our yeoman. Then from there, I was supposed to fester while my dream of commanding a submarine died.”
Renard chuckled. Jake narrowed his eyes and stared.
“No,” Renard said. “I’m not laughing at you. Do you not see, mon ami? This horrific, callous event strikes you, and you lament your lost dream of commanding a submarine. Yet here you are, with my help, of course, and the Colorado is yours.”
Renard thought he noticed Jake holding back a smile.
“Just worry about your own problems,” Jake said.
“What do you mean?”
“I heard you talking on the wireless.”
“You understood?”
“Caught a few choice words.”
“Such as?”
“Such as ‘je t’aime’. Even a first year French student recognizes that as ‘I love you’. I had no idea you had emotional baggage.”
“Until recently,” Renard said, “neither did I.”
As parallel steel arms lifted the skiff to the Custom Venture’s deck, Jake ordered the Colorado to all stop, then watched the cargo vessel’s forward capstan winch pull the nose of the Colorado alongside.
His gaze fell to the back of the Trident where McKenzie and commandos climbed topside through the missile compartment hatch. They carried wrench sets, crowbars, and coils of nylon line.
Jake looked through the Custom Venture’s open cargo bay door. A group of longshoremen, a mix of Latinos and Europeans, stood in artificial light in front of a background of towering steel crates.
“How should I address our man on the bridge?” he asked while fingering the controls to a bridge-to-bridge radio.
“Call him ‘Captain’,” Renard said.
“Captain, do you copy?” Jake asked.
“Yes, sir,” a man with a Mandarin accent said.
“Do you have communications with the cargo bay?” Jake asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Stand by to receive our second mooring line.”
“Mister Panther,” Jake said into his sound-powered phone, “have Scott cast over the line.”
From the Colorado’s deck, Scott McKenzie tossed a rubber ball up to the Custom Venture’s bay. The ball carried a string behind it, which in turn held the end of a nylon mooring line.
A Custom Venture worker fielded the ball and dragged at the string and rope until he held enough mooring line to wrap around a second capstan within the cargo ship.
The capstan wound the rope and pulled the Colorado flush against the Custom Venture. Men lowered rubber come-alongs to the water line to buffer the bumping ships.
McKenzie supervised commandos in removing buoy hatch covers. Two cranes from the cargo ship swung overhead. After the commandos snapped the steel hooks to the exposed buoys, McKenzie signaled Jake with a thumbs-up.
“Release the buoys,” Jake said.
A thump reverberated throughout the Colorado as a blast of compressed gas severed the links holding each buoy to its nest. Gas venting around them, the buoys jumped and were caught by the Custom Venture’s cranes.
McKenzie inspected the nests to verify that the hoisting paths were clear. He motioned with a counter-clockwise waving of his arm.
“Lift the buoys,” Jake said.