She could feel the same sense of loss come over her, the same feeling of confusion and fear, the sense of total loneliness she’d experienced on the terrible day so many years earlier. “I could smell something,” her voice was now barely audible, “a sickening, strange, metallic odor. It was like nothing I’d ever smelled before. It filled every room in the house.”
Kristen paused again, her thoughts remembering every detail of each room, seeing his lunch pail in the kitchen, a briefcase, a note on the kitchen table telling her he was sorry. “Then I went into his bathroom and found him…” she closed her eyes tight, trying to blot out the images flooding her thoughts. They were still too real, too painful.
She felt the gentle hands touch her side tentatively, and she leaned forward into the arms she longed to feel around her. Kristen felt the cold fabric of his foul weather jacket. The jacket was not zipped — he never zipped it up — and her head found the warmth of his uniform beneath as his arms enfolded her. She could feel the awesome strength lying just beneath the fabric of his uniform. But the raw power she’d seen unleashed on Fitzgerald was now just incredible tenderness encircling her with the promise of her never having to feel alone again.
Kristen felt her insides splitting open as the grief, the pain, and the sadness she’d always kept bottled up finally burst forth. And with the sudden outpouring of grief, the tears she didn’t think she could shed came in a seemingly endless flood. But along with the outpouring of pain for her father, came the rest of the emotional baggage she’d kept damned up for nineteen years. Raw memories of her mother drinking and leaving her alone for days on end, more recollections of being ostracized as a teenager because she was weird and unattractive, more tears for the torturous and painful years she’d spent fighting what felt like the whole world to serve her nation. Grief and shame for Chief Grogan and Alvarez, whom she’d left behind in North Korea. Their families wouldn’t even have bodies to bury. Two decades worth of bottled up pain and suppressed emotion came out in a great torrent.
Kristen trembled slightly as his arms held her gently. “He was just lying there,” she cried, “still in his uniform and staring at me.” She trembled as she struggled even now to make sense of it.
“Go ahead, Kris,” he offered warmly, “let it out. Just let it all out.”
“Why?” Kristen asked, her hands on Brodie’s chest. “I kept asking him why he did it. I wanted to know what I had done wrong. How had I made him so mad he would hurt me like that? I begged him to tell me, but he just stared at me all night…”
Kristen felt a gentle shudder in the man holding her and felt his arms tighten slightly, rocking her gently. “It wasn’t you,” he whispered understandingly. “It wasn’t you.”
Kristen cried into his chest until she felt there couldn’t possibly be any tears left in the whole world. But with each tear shed, she could feel her father’s memory releasing her from her self-imposed obligation to be good enough for him. Her whole life had been about trying to make up for what she’d failed to do to please him. She’d been forced to be the best. She had to not just be in the Navy but go to Annapolis. She simply couldn’t graduate or finish near the top, she had to be number one. She couldn’t simply serve, but she had to do the one thing she couldn’t do: be in the submarines he’d loved. She couldn’t let anything stop her from proving to her long-gone father she was deserving of his love.
How long the tears flowed she wasn’t certain, but he held her as the years of pent up emotion were released and with it the guilt for something she’d never done. Slowly the tears stopped and a blessed peace came over her. Only like no peace she’d ever imagined. She was finally free. Free of the self-doubt that ruled her life. Free of the constant need to prove herself worthy of a father’s love she’d never lost. The pain, the remorse, the regrets of so many years sacrificed no longer plagued her. She had cried it all away. She hadn’t realized the weight she’d been carrying until she was finally free of it.
She wanted to stay on the bridge with him forever. She wanted to ignore the rest of the world, to ignore their duty, ignore everything but him. She didn’t want to let go. She never wanted to let go. Her head rested against his chest as comfort she’d never believed possible engulfed her, filling her and chasing the demons away. But, the fantasy was one they couldn’t embrace. Kristen reluctantly moved her hands away from his chest, and as she did, he released her and slipped a clean handkerchief into her hands.
Kristen stepped back, feeling the cold walls of the bridge behind her and the icy wind against her face. The same errant lock of hair swept across her face, and she brushed it aside with one hand as she looked across the few feet separating her from the dark silhouette facing her. She briefly considered telling him what he’d come to mean to her. But although the physical distance between them was less than four feet, the chasm existing between who they were felt larger than ever.
Kristen loved him, but the love came at a terrible price. She could see him, she could be around him, she might briefly brush against him and catch his scent. But there would be — could be — nothing more.
“They’re going to think we fell overboard,” she muttered softly as she wiped her eyes free of tears. The brief, precious moment they’d shared passed. Whatever fantasy world she might desire was pushed aside by the cruel reality of their situation.
He didn’t reply. Instead, he gave an understanding nod of his head. He then knelt down and lifted the hatch for her. Kristen saw the red glow of the tunnel and stepped toward it, bending down to the hatch.
“Watch your step, Lieutenant,” his voice was once again as cold and professional as it had been the first day they met.
“Yes, sir,” she replied dutifully.
Chapter Nine
Senior Captain Andre Konolov was puzzled. He’d spent his adult life studying American submarine tactics. He knew their ships and senior officers. He’d read everything the Russian Navy had on their operations, and he was considered an expert on everything involving American submarine operations.
As captain of the Gerpa, the only Akula III class submarine yet built, Konolov had much to be proud of. His submarine was — in his opinion — the finest yet built by the Russian Navy and, he believed, capable of handling anything the Americans might throw his way. It was because of this fact that he was here. His boat had been dispatched to the Sea of Japan as part of the major deployment by Russian submarine forces around the globe. But unlike most of those submarines, his mission was more than quiet observation.
The Gerpa was here because the Seawolf was here.
Russian intelligence had reported the Seawolf’s presence when she’d arrived in Sasebo over a week earlier carrying a heavily damaged Dry Deck Shelter. The Gerpa had been redirected from her patrol area in the Sea of Japan to shadow the Seawolf when she left Sasebo. They’d waited patiently for the American boat to emerge, and he’d spied her hull number earlier in the day and began his careful pursuit. The challenge of taking on the American was one he welcomed. He knew the Seawolf’s characteristics and had even read an intelligence report on the American captain. A bit eccentric, Konolov considered the American commander to be like a cowboy in the American movies — a bit reckless. But the boat, like the captain, was considered the best the American Navy had, and Konolov was anxious for the encounter to test himself against the best. Regardless, Konolov was supremely confident in his boat and crew. He had the advantage of surprise, and was determined to latch onto the Seawolf’s acoustic signature and not let her go. He’d anticipated every move and planned his countermoves far ahead and had been certain he was ready for whatever the American tried.