Kristen now felt she knew what death row inmates felt like as they made their final walk to the electric chair. She was scared, in fact she was more afraid than she could ever recall. It was like a dream, and she kept expecting to wake up, but every time she closed her eyes and opened them again, she was still dressed in full combat gear and looking like she might actually know what she was doing.
She didn’t, and she had no doubt that if things went bad, she would be worse than useless. Seamen in the passageways moved out of the way as Kristen and the fours SEALs moved aft. Kristen knew all of the men she passed by. To a man, each of them offered her words of encouragement. Then, as they moved through the Wolf’s Den, she saw Gibbs. She paused, seeing that he looked like he might be about to cry. She did her best to give him a confident smile and paused to say goodbye. “Do you think you might have a pot of tea waiting for me when I get back, Mister Gibbs?” She tried to sound calm and steady but was afraid she simply sounded stupid.
Gibbs responded by giving her a hug. “Please be careful, Miss.”
“I’ll see you in a few hours,” she answered and returned the tender hug.
“Are you coming, Ell-Tee?” Hoover called back to her as he exited the mess deck.
“I’m right behind you,” she answered.
“Shake a leg, Ell-Tee,” Grogan called from way up ahead. “The war’s this way!”
“Great,” she whispered under her breath.
As they approached the forward escape hatch, Kristen saw almost all of her fellow officers. One by one they filed by, shaking her hand and offering a few parting words, mostly wishing her luck. None looked very happy about her going ashore. Terry looked most upset. “You shouldn’t be doing this, Kristen,” he whispered to her. “This is no place for a woman.” His tone was steady, but she could see genuine concern in his eyes.
“That’s why I’m doing it,” she told him, tired of being told what she could and couldn’t do because of her sex.
They reached the bottom of the escape hatch, and Kristen saw Grogan hand his dive bag up to the personnel already in the escape trunk. Kristen was on the verge of panic now. She could feel her heart threatening to pound itself through her spine and felt the need to urinate again. She looked around, struggling to avoid hitting anything vital with all the gear she was carrying as she looked about, hoping to see the captain.
But he wasn’t there.
Kristen had expected to see Brodie somewhere between the torpedo room and the lockout chamber. But he was nowhere to be seen, and she felt a twinge of disappointment. She set her dive bag down as Alvarez climbed up into the lockout chamber behind Grogan. Then Kristen saw Hamilton.
He’d been chewing gum. He now took it out of his mouth and jammed the piece on the outside of the lockout chamber. She assumed this was some sort of good luck ritual he’d adopted over the years. With this complete, Hamilton went up next and then Hoover took her bag and handed it up for her before he climbed up.
Kristen stood underneath the hatch and glanced around a final time. The possibility she would never see the Seawolf again weighed heavy upon her and was almost too much for her to bear. She then thought of Brodie. She wished he’d been there. She was scared. She honestly didn’t think she would return. The mission was just too improbable to have a chance of success. She would die in North Korea on some god forsaken stretch of beach and…
Stop it!
Kristen knew she was panicking, and allowing her fears to overwhelm her. She was breathing rapidly, and felt a tightness in her throat she didn’t recognize as she looked around a final time, wishing the captain had come down to see them off. But he wasn’t there.
“Are you coming, Ell-Tee?” Grogan called down from inside the escape trunk.
Kristen turned, gripped the ladder and started climbing. As she climbed, a man from above offered her a hand.
She looked up and saw, looking down at her, was Brodie. “Can I give you a hand, Lieutenant?” She gripped his hand and he helped her into the chamber.
A bandage still covered his lacerated left hand, but with his good hand he started passing the dive bags up into the Dry Deck Shelter mated to the escape trunk directly above their heads. Kristen stepped out of the way in the crowded lockout chamber.
Above her, Hoover and Hamilton were in the center module of the Dry Deck Storage. It was the transfer trunk and connected to the DDS’ two other modules. They dragged the heavy dive bags up, and once all the bags were loaded, Grogan went up followed by Alvarez.
Brodie said nothing to her as they waited for her turn. But he didn’t have to. For reasons she found unidentifiable, just his being there was enough. She was still scared, but the tension was no longer threatening to overwhelm her. “Thank you, Captain,” she said softly, well aware that she might never see him again.
“No sweat, Lieutenant,” he replied and looked up. “I think they’re waiting for you.”
Kristen climbed up the last ladder into the transfer trunk and found a seat next to Hoover. The chamber was ball shaped with the mating collar for the submarine in the bottom and hatches on the forward and aft section of the trunk. Forward, Kristen knew there was a hyperbaric chamber for divers suffering from the bends. The rear hatch led to the huge “garage” section where the mini submarine was stored during transport.
Brodie followed her up into the chamber and paused for a moment, looking around at the five of them. Just a few hours earlier he’d mercilessly looked each of them in the eye and ordered them to their — potential — deaths. Now he looked at each of them and offered his hand. One by one, he shook their hands and addressed them by name. With each of the SEALs, he paused and said a few brief, but powerful words that caused the man addressed to sit a little straighter and look a little prouder.
“Bring them all back safe and sound, Chief,” Brodie said in parting to Grogan.
“Count on it, Captain,” Grogan answered confidently.
Brodie then turned to Kristen, and as he had with the men, he offered her his hand. She took it and accepted a firm handshake. “You seem to have a strange fascination with getting wet, Lieutenant.”
She smiled knowingly, recalling their brief history together. “Yes, sir.”
He nodded thoughtfully, and then she saw his jaw tense.
For a brief moment she thought he was about to order her out of the DDS and back into the submarine. A part of her — the terrified part — wished he would. The rest of her knew she would hate herself the rest of her life if she allowed herself to back out now. But instead of begging her not to go, he took a deep breath and exhaled. “Stay safe, Lieutenant,” he told her. “I need you back here.”
“I will, sir,”
He released her hand and then spoke to all of them.
“All right you five, we’ll keep the light on.” With that, he lowered himself back into the steel pressure hull of the Seawolf. Then, with his one good hand, pulled the heavy steel hatch closed.
“Fuckin-A,” Hamilton summarized his feelings at the unexpected appearance of the captain. “Let’s roll.”
Kristen was still staring at the closed hatch, her panic now a memory. Although still nervous, the paralyzing fear was gone.
Hoover patted her on the shoulder, “Let’s go Ell-Tee. Unless you plan on growing gills, you best get your gear on.”
They heard Brodie dogging down the submarine hatch and then three heavy pounding sounds caused by a rubber mallet on the inside of the submarine’s hatch, letting the SEALs know the sub hatch was locked down tight and they could pressurize the transfer trunk.
The LAR-7 had been much easier to put on in the torpedo room when she wasn’t wearing forty pounds of combat gear, but with Hoover’s help, she managed to get it on plus the life vest. She pulled on the hood of her wetsuit and strapped on a dive knife to her calf in the event she got entangled in something. A dive watch, depth and gas supply gauges were secured along with a Combat Survival Evader Locator or CSEL. It was essentially a waterproof beacon she could turn on to help search teams find her if she got into trouble and couldn’t get back to the sub.