"Thank you, sir. I'm flattered you would say so."
"Have you ever thought about accepting a commission?"
"No, sir. I like it fine where I am."
"You think about it."
Sorensen nodded, knowing he wouldn't think about it at all. Netts pushed the bottle across the table and stood up.
"Drink up, bucko. I'll see you in Norfolk."
Not if I see you first, bucko, thought Sorensen as he watched the admiral's back move away and out the door of the Farolito.
20
Sorensen returned to his room in the hotel, opened a warm beer, picked up his tape recorder and knocked on Fogarty's door.
Fogarty was asleep, dreaming he was inside the sinking Russian sub. Blaming him for their fate, the Russians were stuffing him into a torpedo tube…
Sorensen pounded on the door and woke him up. "Fogarty, you in there?"
"Yeah, just a minute…"
"You still got one of them ladies of the night in there with you?"
It was three o'clock in the afternoon. Fogarty unlocked the door. His eyes were red and puffy.
"No. She's gone."
"You hung over, kid?"
Fogarty's head and chest felt like pincushions. He stumbled into the bathroom and surrendered to his stomach.
Sorensen walked into the room and flopped on a chair. Fogarty returned, looking pale.
"You all right?" Sorensen asked.
"I drank too much."
"What's the matter, Fogarty? Didn't they teach you how to party in Minnesota?"
"Go to hell."
Sorensen laughed. "These Gypsy whores are all right. Not like the Italians. There's none of this Oh, Mister GI, take me to America bullshit."
"Mine was English."
"Your what?"
"My whore."
"No foolin'? Good for you. You got your wallet?"
A look of panic on his face, Fogarty pulled on his pants and shoved his hands in his pockets. His wallet was there.
"Just kidding," Sorensen said. "These ladies couldn't stay in business five minutes if they were picking pockets." He held out his beer. "Want breakfast?"
"Pass."
Fogarty sat down on the bed and wallowed in his hangover.
"We're due back on the ship in a couple hours," Sorensen said. "Want to go back to the Farolito? There's a party on."
Fogarty tried to shake his head, but the motion made him woozy. "Twenty dollars," he groaned.
Sorensen laughed. "Kid, you been had. Mine cost ten."
Fogarty tried to smile. "It was worth it."
"Oh? You feel like a real sailor now?"
This time Fogarty was able to shake his head. "Not yet. Ace. Maybe I never will."
"You still worried about the Russians?"
"Shit, yes."
"Forget 'em, sailor."
Fogarty looked disgusted. "You can be one cold son of a bitch, Sorensen."
Sorensen nodded. "I'd say that was a pretty fair assessment."
"The nuclear warrior."
Sorensen shrugged, took a pull on his beer, shoved a tape into his machine. Bob Dylan sang the opening lines of "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues." When you're lost in the rain in Juarez, and it's Easter time too…
While Fogarty closed his eyes and listened to the music Sorensen opened the windows and stepped onto the balcony. He watched a guided-missile frigate clear the harbor, pass Deflektor and head into the Atlantic, a gray ship in a gray sea.
Below, the street was nearly deserted. At the end of the block the sereno, the block watchman, contemplated the seawall. It was the hour of siesta. Sorensen went back into the room and pushed the rewind button on his recorder. He fished a roach out of his pocket, lit it, finished off his beer.
"Fogarty," he said. "I want you to get your head straight before we get back on the ship."
"What's the matter with my head?"
"There's nothing in it but half-baked ideas. You're not dumb, you're just impatient, or maybe the word is naive. I know because I used to be the same way."
"Thank you, doctor."
"How old are you? Twenty-one?"
"Yeah."
"You know, Fogarty, I think you're going to be a good sonarman. You've got good ears."
"Thank you. Coming from you, that's a real compliment." He meant it.
"Yeah, well, I want to give you a little test. I want to find out just how good you are. But to do that I have to let you in on a little secret."
Fogarty sat up straight and squinted in the dim sunlight coming through the windows.
"What kind of secret?"
Sorensen grinned. "Personal."
"Personal?"
"Yeah, that means I personally will strangle you if you tell anyone."
Sorensen retrieved his tape recorder, turned off Bob Dylan and put in a new tape.
"I wired this recorder into my console in the sonar room."
"But that's illegal. Jesus."
Sorensen grinned. "Yeah, that's my secret, and now it's yours too. If I did everything the navy's way I couldn't do my job. This way I can listen to any tape any old time I want."
"Why'd you bring it off the ship?"
"I wasn't about to leave it there for one of the yardbirds to find."
"Does Willie Joe know? Davic?"
"No. They're a bit too straight. Me" — he smiled— "I'm bent. Anyway, listen to this."
And Sorensen proceeded to play the original, unedited tape of the collision. Fogarty recognized it immediately. He heard the voices on the command intercom, then the crunch of metal on metal. Coming through the miniature speaker in the recorder it didn't sound quite so terrifying.
"My God," Fogarty said when the tape ended. "That's incredible."
"I kind of like it myself."
"That's a dangerous piece of tape, Sorensen."
"Only to me. Now, here comes the test."
Sorensen flipped over the tape and punched the play button. Once more they heard the Russian sub sinking. The torpedo motor howled across the sea. But this time there were no explosions, no bursting bulkheads.
Fogarty jumped up and shouted at Sorensen, "What did you do to the tape?"
"Shut up and listen."
The torpedo motor continued on for several seconds, and then the tape ended.
"What did you do to the tape?"
"That's the test, Fogarty. You tell me."
Fogarty lit a cigarette, laughed nervously. "What kind of a game is this, Ace?"
"This is the home version of Cowboys and Cossacks. C'mon, Fogarty, tell me what you hear."
"Play it again. Play it from where she shoots."
Sorensen backed up the tape and they listened to it again.
Fogarty said, "You took out the implosions."
"Correct."
"What's left is the torpedo. You're trying to find out what happened to the fish."
"Could be. What do you think happened to it?"
"It was wire-guided. It sank when the wire broke."
"You sure?"
"No… the motor keeps running."
"Very good. What else?"
"Maybe it's not a torpedo."
"Real good. So what is it?"
"A decoy?"
"Nope."
Fogarty picked up the recorder, carried it to the bed, sat down and listened once more to the torpedo. The motor churned out a high-pitched whine that reminded him of the little electric motors he used to put in his model subs.
And suddenly, he understood. Or did he? "You want me to believe that it's the sub? It never sank?" When Sorensen didn't reply, he sat perfectly still for a minute. Finally he said, "I can't believe it."
"You don't want to believe it, but it's true."
"You're trying to con me."
"Why would I do that?"
"I don't know. Something's not right."
"You bet something's not right. That torpedo's not right."
"But it went down to four thousand feet. No sub can go that deep."