"Testing target-seeking frequency. Test positive."
Sorensen lit a Lucky Strike. "How'd you do in sonar school, kid?"
Fogarty flushed. It seemed he did that easily. "I was first in the class."
"No foolin'? Good for you. You look like a smart kid. Why didn't you go to nuclear power school? How come you're not a nuc?"
"I'm not that fond of radiation."
Sorensen blew smoke at the air-conditioning vent. "Can't say I blame you for that. Where you from?"
"Minnesota."
"Oh yeah? A child of the frozen north. You don't look like an Eskimo."
Fogarty grinned. "I'm from Minneapolis, and I hate snow."
"Well, at least you've got some sense, you left."
"At the first chance."
Sorensen said, "Okay, read the notice on the door. Read it out loud."
Fogarty twisted around in his seat and read. " 'WARNING! This Is A Secure Area. Any Unauthorized Use Of Classified Material Will Result In Imprisonment And Forfeiture Of Pay. Removal Of Classified Material Is A Violation Of The National Security Act.' "
"That's not all," Sorensen said.
At the bottom, scribbled in large block letters, Fogarty read, " 'LEAVE YOUR MIND BEHIND.' "
"That's what you do when you come in here," Sorensen said.
On the bridge the captain told the lookouts to be sharp. Two tugs stood off the bow, but Springfield intended to take his ship into the channel without assistance. The wind was in his favor, blowing from the south.
"Deck party, stand by to cast off lines," he shouted to the sailors fore and aft. He watched the shore as the ship drifted with the wind and current, then spoke quietly into his microphone, "Bridge to navigation, how's our tide?"
"Navigation to bridge, the tide is running with us."
"Very well. Cast off the stern line."
"Stern line away."
Some people on the pier began to cheer and wave. The band played "The Star Spangled Banner."
"Cast off the bow line."
"Bow line away."
"Steer right ten degrees."
"Right ten degrees."
When Barracuda cleared the dock and there was no danger of fouling her huge propeller, he ordered, "All ahead slow."
Sorensen and Fogarty listened intently to the sounds coming through their earphones. With infinite smoothness, sixteen thousand horsepower surged out of number one turbine, passed through the reduction gears, and the five blades of the massive propeller began to turn. They heard the whoosh of water as it began to wash over the hull, and the cavitation of the prop, the chunk chunk chunk of every revolution that would be audible until they submerged to four hundred feet. Sorensen punched several buttons on his console and the computer began to filter out the sounds of Barracuda's machinery. Ungainly on the surface, the ship rolled and pitched slightly as they headed for the channel.
"Sonar to control. Do you have the beacon on the repeater?"
The repeater was the sonar console in the control room that duplicated what the sonarmen saw and heard. Hoek sat at the repeater, but it was Pisaro who replied, "Control to sonar, we have it."
Twenty minutes after leaving the pier the captain and the lookouts came down from the sail. Springfield closed the hatch.
"Prepare to dive," said the captain. "Take her down, Leo."
Pisaro gave orders to retract the radars and systematically went through his diving panel.
"Mark two degrees down bubble."
"Mark two degrees down bubble, aye."
"Flood forward ballast tanks."
"Flood forward ballast tanks, aye."
"Half speed."
"All ahead half, aye."
"Stern planes down three degrees."
"Three degrees down, aye." Barracuda angled over and slid silently beneath the sea.
3
Barracuda steamed through the Atlantic at twenty-four knots, four hundred feet beneath the surface. There was no wind, no waves, no turbulence. At four hundred feet the water pressure was so great there was no cavitation behind the prop. No bubbles, no energy lost to drag. As the screw turned, the ship moved ahead with maximum efficiency. Three precise inertial navigation gyroscopes recorded every movement of the ship in three dimensions. Without contacting the surface, the navigation computer determined Barracuda's exact position.
The crew settled into the patrol routine of repetitious drills — damage control drill, collision drill, atmosphere systems failure drill, weapons drill. When not practicing for calamity or battle, they were kept busy continuously maintaining machinery and studying technical journals for rating exams and promotions.
Muzak wafted through the ship. Two days out of Norfolk Cool Hand Luke was rolling in the mess. Air conditioners maintained a comfortable seventy-two degrees.
From the conning station the captain looked around the brilliantly illuminated control room. The green hue of fluorescent lighting, accented by the CRTs, gave the compartment an unearthly glow.
Springfield was not a religious man, but he often thought the control room had the solemn atmosphere of a church — an inner sanctum of high technology. Men watched their instruments with the faith of true-believers. Every act was a ritual prescribed by regulations, perfected by repetition. Barracuda represented the highest order of human artifice, and Springfield thought it ironic that such engineering genius was devoted to a man-o'-war. If Barracuda resembled a church, it was the church militant.
"Lieutenant Hoek," the captain was now saying to the weapons officer, "you have the conn."
Fred Hoek felt as if he had just stuck his finger into an electric socket. As he moved his heavy frame up a step to the conning station, his heart was palpitating and his face was white. He put on a headset.
"Aye aye, sir. I relieve you of the conn."
Lt. Hoek scanned the displays in the conning station. Sweat began to collect on his upper lip. He was in heaven. He was radioactive. He had the conn.
Springfield strolled over to the reactor displays that monitored the chain reaction taking place at six hundred degrees fifteen feet away. Instinctively, he fondled his film badge, a strip of sensitive celluloid that measured the amount of radiation he was receiving. Like everyone else, the captain turned in his badge once a month to a hospital corpsman, who processed the film in the darkroom and determined how much radiation each crew member was receiving.
In the stern of the ship, in the steering machinery room. Machinist's Mate Barnes was standing his watch amid the jungle of pipes and compressors that moved the rudder and stern planes. Barnes worked at an exquisitely compact lathe, turning parts for the constant maintenance and repair of the ship's intricate machinery. From the engine room came the high whine of turbines and the throttling noises of high pressure steam.
"Howdy, Barnes."
It was Sorensen, standing in the hatch in a pair of red Bermuda shorts, thongs and wraparound sunglasses. He held out a set of schematic diagrams. "I'll need this in Naples."
Barnes shifted his goggles to his forehead and looked at the diagrams. "No sweat. Ace. Throw it on the bench." He turned back to his lathe.
"Barnes."
"Yeah."
"Don't fuck it up."
Portside was a small door with a brass plaque that shone brilliantly amid the flat navy gray of the compartment: "WELCOME TO SORENSEN'S BEACH. NO VOLLEYBALL ALLOWED. PLEASE KNOCK." Sorensen went in without knocking.
Designated in the ship's plans as storage space for electronic parts, Sorensen's Beach was barely six and a half feet long by four feet wide. Stooping under the low tapered ceiling, he switched on a pair of bright sunlamps and pulled a plastic mat and wooden beach chair from a cabinet. Taped to the door was a travel poster. Santa Cruz, California. Sun, surf, sand, pier, golden bodies.