One thing was certain: drunk or hung over, Sorensen could go into the sonar room right now, sit down at his console and drive the ship to Naples.
"All right. Get out of your blues. I want you in sonar in fifteen minutes."
"Yes, sir."
"You're a disgusting mess, man. Take a shower."
"Aye aye, Commander."
Sorensen descended two decks to the forward crews quarters. The compartment was crowded with boisterous sailors changing from blues into shipboard uniforms, dark-blue nylon jumpsuits and rubber-soled shoes.
"What say. Ace? Where the hell you been?"
Sorensen searched the upper tier of bunks for the owner of the bayou drawl. A freckle-faced redhead peeked out from behind a technical manual.
"Hey, Willie Joe."
"Where you been, man?"
"Tokyo."
"Tokyo, Japan?"
"That's the one."
"You're puttin' me on. Lopez was pissed. You ain't never on time."
"It's a long ride back from Tokyo. Don't worry about the chief. We kissed and made up."
Sonarman Second Class Willie Joe Black lay down his booklet and yellow felt-tipped pen. "Tell me something, Ace. I know I shouldn't ask, but why the hell did you go to Japan with just three days' liberty?"
"I got a friend over there."
"That's a long way to go to get laid."
"Not that kind of friend," Sorensen laughed. "I know this guy, an old pal from sub school who lives over there. He's what you might call an advanced gadget freak. He likes to make toys a few years before anybody else."
"So what did he make for you?"
"This," Sorensen replied, tossing the tape recorder on Willie Joe's bunk.
"What is it?"
"What's it look like?"
"I dunno. I never seen anything like it."
Sorensen pushed a button and out came the Beatles "Can't Buy Me Love." Throughout the compartment, heads swiveled toward the music. A half-dozen sailors crowded around Willie Joe's bunk, all talking at once.
"What is that?"
"Whereja git that thing?"
"Is it a radio?"
"I hate the Beatles, ain't you got the Stones?"
"It's a tape recorder, the smallest in the world. Rechargeable battery, the works."
Shaking his head in amazement, Willie Joe asked, "Transistors?"
"Yeah, nothin' to it, really, except the heads."
Willie Joe picked up his pen and resumed his study of advanced hydraulics. Sorensen peeked at the cover of the manual. "You looking for a promotion, Willie Joe?"
"Yeah. My old lady wants a new Bonneville. If I make first class, I guess she can have it."
"You spend your liberty with her and your kids?"
"Sure did. I think I spent all three days buying carloads of crap in the Navy Exchange."
"You love it," Sorensen said.
"You went to Japan."
"For six hours."
The Beatles went into "Back in the USSR." Sorensen looked around at the faces shining in the bright fluorescent lights. The music seemed to pop the bubble of pressure that surrounded departure. He recognized all but one of the sailors.
"Willie Joe," he said, "I hear we got a green pea."
"That's right."
"Did you check him out?"
"No, he just got here. He's a good-lookin' kid, and he'd better watch his ass." Willie Joe grinned and nodded his head in the direction of a young sailor standing in the passageway, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jumpsuit, staring at the maze of piping and cables that ran through the top of the compartment. He didn't appear shy but he hung back from the crowd around Willie Joe's bunk and the little tape recorder. He had a pretty face and a look that wasn't so much cocky as confident.
Fogarty felt Sorensen's eyes looking him up and down. He lit a Lucky Strike and turned to meet Sorensen's stare.
Sorensen walked over to him. "Got another smoke, kid?"
"Sure." Fogarty held out his pack and offered his cigarette as a light. Sorensen noticed that Fogarty had not torn the aluminum foil away from the pack but had carefully folded it over the tobacco to keep it fresh. Sorensen took a cigarette and replaced the foil as he found it.
"Fogarty, right?"
"Right." Fogarty smiled. "You must be Sorensen."
"That's me."
"I heard about you in sonar school."
Sorensen waited.
"They played us tapes of all the different Soviet subs and told us you're the guy who made the tapes. They said you've collected more signatures of Soviet subs than anyone else."
"That's what they told you? It wasn't me, kid. It was Barracuda. Whatever we do here, we do together. Willie Joe there, he's done his share, too. It's the luck of the draw."
Fogarty nodded. "That makes me the luckiest guy in the navy. I asked for this ship."
"You must believe in miracles. I'll tell you straight, kid. Barracuda is going to get a special assignment in Naples, and they put you and all these other apprentices on this ship to foul us up and get in our way."
Sorensen was a good four inches taller than Fogarty, and his narrowed, unsmiling eyes bore down now on Fogarty. When he saw that Fogarty didn't flinch, kept cool, he relaxed.
"Well, you're here," he said. "We'll make the best of it. You stow your gear?"
"I did."
"Tell me something, Fogarty. Why'd you ask for this ship?"
"Because of you, Sorensen. I wanted to learn from the best."
"You mean you don't know everything yet?"
Fogarty seemed to blush and shook his head. Sorensen punched him in the shoulder and was surprised to find the muscle hard as steel. "All right, kid. Welcome aboard."
"Thanks."
"Thanks for the smoke. Catch you later."
Sorensen retrieved his tape recorder, switched off the music, and put the machine and tapes in his locker. "Show's over for today, gents. Tune in tomorrow."
Willie Joe leaned over the edge of his bunk. "We muster in ten minutes, Ace."
"Okay. Where's Davic?"
"Where do you think?"
"In the galley stuffing his face. Who's the sonar officer this trip?"
"Hoek. He's been made weapons officer, too."
"Oh, that's ducky. We'll have a regular fat guys' convention," Sorensen said. "You know something, Willie Joe? The navy's got its head up its ass."
He stripped off his blues and stashed them in his locker. In jockey shorts he paraded through the compartment, flexing his muscles and displaying his tattoo. Whistling, We all live in a yellow submarine, he headed for the showers.
A year out of Annapolis and fresh from Nuclear Power School, Lt. Fred Hoek was making his second patrol. Twenty-three years old, gung-ho, overweight and plagued by zits, Hoek was the ninth sonar officer to serve on Barracuda in eight years.
He was standing at attention in the executive officer's tiny cabin, watching Pisaro shuffle papers. Pisaro's thick lips and large teeth made Hoek nervous.
"You squared away, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, sir."
"At ease. Sit down."
"Thank you, sir."
Hoek sat at attention. Pisaro stacked his papers in a neat pile. "You're wearing two hats this cruise, Lieutenant, weapons and sonar. Did you go down to the torpedo room and have a chat with the boys down there?"
"Yes, sir."
"You run a check on the weapons console?"
"Yes, sir."
"All right, have you looked through the sonarmen's records?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well?"
"Davic and Black are solid, hard-working men. Davic is, ah, unusual."
"He wants to go to work for the CIA when his enlistment is up. He knows quite a lot about the Russians. You might learn something from him."