8

Bishop stood at the back of the sonar room, monitoring events as the first of the sea trial tests got under way. Daniel Field was thumbing through the setup pages, pausing occasionally to consult with Gina beside him. Bishop was content to watch them work, knowing it would give Gina more confidence to be in the middle of things. He was responsible for the sea trial, but part of leadership was in knowing how to trust others to do their jobs, to monitor what was happening and step in only if necessary.

“Recorders are capturing all audio data?” Daniel asked.

“Affirmative,” Waller replied.

“The area is clear of other subs listening in on us?”

“All clear,” Kerns confirmed.

Daniel picked up the phone. “Control, sonar. We are ready to begin the sea trial, Captain.” He nodded, put down the phone, and turned the page in the trial plan. “Let’s get started. Gina, would you like to start cross-sonar? Link us with the Connecticut.”

She hesitated briefly, then leaned over to use his keyboard and typed the command to turn on cross-sonar. Bishop watched as the link came active and the screens filled in with the additional Connecticut sonar data.

“Cross-sonar is running. We’ve got a good link,” Daniel confirmed. “Running a cross-sonar search.” He sent the command. “Do we see the USS Ohio?”

“Yes, faintly,” Kerns replied. “He’s on bearing 260, moving directly away from us. Range is . . . 46 miles.”

“We wait for him to disappear outside the range of cross-sonar,” Daniel instructed.

Minutes passed with Daniel occasionally triggering a cross-sonar search.

“We’ve lost contact with the USS Ohio,” Kerns finally announced. “I’ve got a quiet screen.”

“Set a clock for five minutes,” Daniel told Dugin, who reached to set a timer on his console.

Bishop gave Gina a smile when she glanced back at him. This was the norm of submarine operations, the waiting between events. But when he was in charge of the boat, there was always something going on to occupy the captain. This time it was simply waiting.

Daniel picked up his headphones, moved a cursor over a line of noise patterns on the waterfall screen before him, listened, then tapped his screen as he smiled. “There may not be any submarines or surface ships around to hear your idea tried out for the first time, Gina, but you do have an audience of dolphins. Going by the sounds, I’d say 40 or more of them are fishing as a group, circling a school of mackerel, then darting through the mass to grab and catch a fish to eat.” He handed her the headphones to listen for herself.

Her smile widened. “All these clicks—they’re using their echo sonar to confuse the fish?”

“Yes. A school of fish gets spooked, they tighten the cluster they’re in, which makes for better fishing for the dolphins.”

Daniel took the headphones when she handed them back and cued the audio into a side file for the marine biologist.

The timer chimed. “That’s five minutes, Daniel.”

Bishop straightened. It was now or never for Gina’s idea. Daniel looked back at him, then at Gina. “You should do the honors,” Daniel offered.

“I’m too nervous. You do it. Send a cross-sonar ping,” Gina replied, leaning forward in the chair, her hands gripped between her knees.

Daniel typed the command.

Bishop scanned the numerous displays, watching for a change.

“He’s lit up like a Christmas tree!” Dugin exclaimed, jazzed. The broadband console stack showed the Ohio in bold brightness across the waterfall display. Even the narrowband console stack had a good picture of it in the trace.

Gina closed her eyes and laughed. Daniel reached over and patted her back. She used both hands to rub at her face, then push back her hair. “It’s still a surprise when that happens, when an idea works outside of the lab.”

“This one works beautifully,” Daniel said with a grin.

“Send a cross-sonar ping every 15 minutes. Let’s see how far away the Ohio can get and we can still find him,” Bishop told Daniel. He was watching for any change in the Ohio’s course and wasn’t seeing one. The Ohio hadn’t heard the ping, wasn’t changing course.

“Every 15 minutes, aye, sir.”

Gina swung around to look at him. Bishop stepped forward to gently squeeze her shoulder, share a smile, and then stepped out to have a word with Commander Neece. The world had just shifted. Let her enjoy the moment. Life was going to get more interesting in the months ahead as the Navy adapted to this science, and as the rest of the world came to realize the U.S. was finding their subs with ease.

Bishop spoke briefly to Commander Neece, then moved to the radio room and sent a one-word message to Rear Admiral Hardman. When he returned to the sonar room, he hunkered down near Gina. “Everything looks good on the recordings being made?”

“I just checked the files. I’m getting the data I need,” she confirmed.

The timer chimed.

“The 15 minutes have expired. Sending another ping,” Daniel announced as he typed the command.

“Got the Ohio again, bright and clear,” Dugin said.

“Here as well,” Waller said, studying the narrowband console stack.

“You were right, Gina, to come West to explore this sonar idea,” Bishop said softly. “Don’t ever think otherwise.”

She solemnly nodded. “Thanks for that, Mark.”

They found the USS Ohio every 15 minutes for the next five hours. A celebratory mood built inside the sonar room.

“This is an incredible sonar application,” Daniel said, tapping the screen.

Gina simply nodded, her eyes watching the Ohio. “Geological ocean noise doesn’t seem to bother the echo template. It’s still able to find a lock. The big question waits for the shore debrief: does he hear us?”

Bishop rested his hand on her shoulder. “Before departure I told the Ohio’s captain if he heard a ping, to break from the trial plan and give me a 45-degree turn starboard, followed by a 45-degree turn to port. The sub has been running straight away from us since the trial began. He hasn’t heard us.”

Gina swung around to look up at him. “That’s a really useful bit of news.”

He smiled. “I didn’t put it in the trial plan as I knew that would be the only thing you would remember after reading the document. How’s the thermal look? Is it a steep enough temperature contrast for what you need?”

“It looks good. He’s randomly moving above and below that thermal line, and the ping is still finding him.”

The timer expired again. Daniel sent another cross-sonar ping.

Silence followed.

“Anything, Dugin?”

“No.”

“Try again,” Gina said to Daniel.

He sent another ping.

“Nothing on the broadband, Daniel,” Dugin said.

“Nothing on the narrowband either,” Waller added.

“We’ve just found the effective range of a cross-sonar ping,” Gina guessed. “What’s the range on the last successful ping?”

Dugin ran back the data file and made the calculations. “Range is 62 miles beyond what could be done before.”

Daniel laughed. “Gina, that’s like turning on the lights at the front door of a dark house and seeing the burglar in the basement. It’s fabulous. And it’s an active ping. Even if the sub was sitting on the ocean floor and silent, this would be coming back as an echo.”

Gina looked faintly embarrassed by the praise, but she smiled. “The Ohio will keep moving away until he’s been traveling for six hours, then turn and come back to us. Increase the pings to every 10 minutes. He’ll come back toward us on a different heading of his choosing. Let’s see if we pick him up again around that additional 60-mile mark.”

Dugin nodded and set the timer for 10 minutes.

Bishop stepped out to have cold drinks sent up from the galley, then settled in to listen as Gina and Daniel resumed their casual conversation about boating during the winter months. One of the things Bishop had noted over the last few hours was how good Gina was at asking questions without saying much about herself. It was interesting that even in a casual setting she was trying not to be the focus of attention.

Bishop offered her one of the peanut-butter bars the chief cook had sent up along with the sodas. Food was frowned on in the sonar room, but snack bars fit into the gray area that most captains overlooked. He was personally partial to the blueberry bars the Nevada cooks had perfected, but the recipe was still a closely guarded secret and hadn’t filtered out to the other boats yet.

“New contact, bearing 020.” Dugin interrupted the conversation, sliding on the headphones to listen while he typed quickly, focusing in on the contact. “It’s the Ohio. We’ve got him back, Daniel.”

“Keep pinging every 15 minutes until he is beside us,” Gina suggested. “I want to know for certain he can’t hear us even when he’s close in.”

“Will do,” Daniel confirmed, reaching for the phone. “Control, sonar. New contact bearing 020, the Ohio on a return course.” He hung up the phone.

Bishop caught Gina’s attention. “Ready to get a proper dinner, Gina?”

“You should go,” Daniel agreed. “We’ve got this covered. We’ll run a cross-sonar ping every 15 minutes for the next few hours, and rotate people so everyone gets a break. We know the cross-sonar works and its range; now it’s just seeing if the Ohio ever realizes she’s being pinged. It’s a simple test from here.”

“Thanks, Daniel.” Gina looked over at Bishop. “Lead the way? I still get lost.”

Bishop motioned with his hand. “It’s a common problem on a boat this big. I’ll bring her back here, Daniel, before the test concludes. She’ll want to check the files to make sure the trial plan is complete and confirm what gets archived.”

“I’ll save that step until Gina can review it,” Daniel agreed.

Bishop waited until Gina was seated in the officers’ wardroom and had chosen her dinner preference—she selected the lasagna—before he brought out the box the chief cook had handed him.

“Congratulations, Gina, on another brilliant sonar idea,” he said as he handed the box to her. “I suggested to the cook a reward was in order.”

She tugged open the lid, grinned, and lifted out a richly iced cupcake from its holder. “Thanks, Mark. And to the cook.” She unwrapped the cupcake, and her smile relaxed. “I’m having dessert before dinner.”

“I’d say it’s earned. Tired?”

“Long-term tired, like a rung-out dishrag. All the nerves of ‘will it work?’ have popped. It feels great, but also like I’ve just finished a marathon since I landed at Bangor.”

“Another four days at sea to try out the various ocean noise conditions,” he said, “then back to port, a couple weeks of lab time to review the data, present your findings, and then insert the word vacation somewhere.”

Gina nodded. “Sounds about right for the near term.”

Their dinner arrived—he had echoed Gina’s choice—the plates of lasagna hot from the galley, served by a petty officer who also brought along hot breadsticks, salads, and cold soft drinks.

“Where do you like to go to relax?” Bishop asked Gina as they began the meal. “I can recommend a beach in Hawaii.”

“I’m more likely to curl up with a pile of novels and a TV remote, turn the phone off, and vegetate at home.”

“Have you ever been much of a traveler?” he asked, curious.

“I enjoyed tagging along with my parents, or joining Jeff somewhere, but I’m not one to announce a place, pack, and go. Travel for me is more a matter of who I’m going with—where is almost an incidental.”

“Interesting. Do you like snow?”

She shook her head. “Hate it. You?”

Mark grinned at her emphatic answer. “I’ve been known to pack a decent snowball. Why do you stay in Chicago if the weather doesn’t appeal, now that your parents have passed away?”

“Habit. It’s familiar territory, and a nice home with good memories I’m reluctant to sell. The years at the university led to open doors for me there, and the college’s connections with other institutes around the world means I can work on satellite data with an Australian researcher, or link into the NASA data feeds, and do both comfortably from their campus or from a high-speed connection at home.” She studied him as she broke a breadstick. “Your family is still in Chicago?”

Bishop nodded. “Most of them. I’m planning to head back there to see my brother Bryce and meet his wife, Charlotte—he recently married—at some point during this shore rotation.” He picked up another breadstick. “Talk to me about growing up in the city.”

“Why?”

“I’m curious.” Before these five days were over, he’d like to fill in a lot of the holes about what he knew of Gina Gray. This particular trip had the one thing he rarely got: hours of time to talk between segments of the sea trial without the pressure of command resting on him. He planned to take advantage of that fact. Gina interested him.

“I liked the tall buildings,” she said thoughtfully, “being downtown and looking up, wondering how someone had figured out how to build them so they wouldn’t fall down. And I liked the libraries. There were always books to read that interested me. The crowds I could have done without. I always felt like I got lost in a mass of people.”

“Were you a popular kid?”

Gina shrugged. “Lots of people were always in my life. I can’t say that was the same thing as being popular. I had friends from the chess club and from the Bible trivia team, and in the Young Explorers group—that was before I was 10. After that it started to be mostly tutors and high school students and academic camps where I could get ‘challenged.’”

She paused, fork in hand. “What I mostly remember is I wasn’t sure what people wanted from me. If they wanted me to get an A on a test, I’d study for it and get an A. If they wanted me to discuss a subject, I’d learn enough to converse about it. People kept waiting for me to do something or choose something, I guess, and I had no idea what they really wanted from me. I was simply curious about things. I liked it when someone who knew what they were talking about would dive into a discussion of whatever was their passion. What I didn’t understand from what they said, I’d go find books and figure out later. That part was fun.”

“You weren’t particular about the subject matter when you were young?”

“Not really. I liked everything—music and math, astronomy and physics. I liked to understand how things worked. If they arranged for me to talk to someone with a passion for rocks, I’d dive into geology and have a good time. Or if someone wanted to take an engine apart and show me its parts, I’d enjoy being an auto mechanic. I was content to go with the flow, and the adults around me kept wanting me to select and focus on something. It was kind of frustrating, to tell the truth.”

Bishop heard the remembered annoyance in her soft words and thought about her at age 10, waking up to a new day simply inquisitive about the world and everything in it. Jeff must have some interesting stories to tell about having breakfast with Gina when she was a child. “Tell me the first thing that really fascinated you.”

“A caterpillar,” Gina replied promptly. “I was five. I was stunned at the realization God made this fabulous creature with all these little legs and fuzzy body, and it would transform into a butterfly and fly. I still haven’t seen anything as cool in all my years as an adult.”

“You collected them?”

She shook her head. “Just watched them. I’d go out into the yard and figure out where they created their cocoons, and Jeff would rig up video for me so I could watch them as they came out as butterflies.”

“An awareness of God at age five. Did your parents raise you in the church?”

“They did, but faith and church were more my thing and Jeff’s than theirs, I’m sad to say. I don’t think they ever connected personally with God. Whereas I connected on a personal level from the very first. I loved the fact there was a God who had made me, who had created everything around me. Jesus made sense to me. He’s real. He’s personal.”

“He likes you,” Bishop remarked gently.

She pointed her fork at him. “Exactly.” Gina gave a smile that seemed to come from a rich memory. “I wasn’t smarter than He was. I adored Jesus for that fact. Every question I had, Jesus knew how to answer. That was such a relief. Not that He would always answer, but I knew I could search for an answer and find one, and it often felt like God was helping me go the right direction with my search.” She pushed back her half-eaten plate of lasagna.

“Jeff was always good at letting me talk about whatever topic or details were on my mind, but with everyone else I always was trying to calibrate what I would say to who my audience was. It got tiring. I didn’t have to do that with Jesus. I’d bump into something cool God had made, and I’d promptly tell Him all about what I’d found and bombard Him with questions about it.” Gina paused and smiled. “I still do.” She glanced over. “It must sound pretty childish, but I guess I haven’t outgrown that habit.”

“I find it interesting that you’re self-conscious about it. God likes your enthusiasm. You must feel that at times.”

“I do. You like church?”

“Sure. God, faith—it’s the part of life that helps make sense of everything else. I don’t have to wonder at my foothold there. I mess up, God’s going to forgive me and help me pick up the pieces, get my life back on track. If I’m willing to listen, He’ll steer me away from trouble before I get into the mess in the first place. It’s one of the reasons Melinda and I had such a good marriage. I could apologize to her when I blew it, and she’d show me that same forgiveness even if I didn’t deserve it.” Bishop smiled. “Of course she’d nag God for a few weeks afterwards about what He asked her to put up with, and how she wanted to be a good wife, but not a saint, so would He please not let me do that again.”

He glanced over, caught Gina’s gaze, realized he’d managed to shift onto very personal terrain and had left her uncertain what to say. She offered a soft smile. He relaxed. “You’ll have something similar, Gina, when you’re married and you’re working on how two people meld together to one. Faith in God, church—share those things with your husband. It helps makes the rest of living together work out okay.”

“Did the two of you ever fight?”

Bishop thought back on it, shook his head. “Not antagonism, butting heads, angry at each other. Melinda and I often wanted different things and couldn’t both have what we wanted—someone was going to have to give ground—and those situations could be very painful when it was something important to each of us. But we accepted the fact that we wanted different things and didn’t try to change what the other person wanted. We would simply figure out some kind of compromise together. There’s no such thing as not having to sacrifice in a marriage. We both made a lot of them. And marriage was a lot about learning to extend courtesy to the other—sharing schedules, calling when plans changed, not making commitments without first touching base with each other—adapting to being a couple.”

“You liked being married.”

Bishop nodded. “Ever have a moment when you were growing up where something had happened and your first thought was ‘I can’t wait to tell Jeff’?”

“Sure.”

“It was like that a lot during the years I was married. Sharing life with Melinda. It didn’t have to be profound or big; it was simply the fact I could share the details of what happened with her. Not that I was the one talking most of the time—Melinda was something of a chatterbox, and I’d get in a sentence every once in a while. But she listened well to what I did say.” He got lost in a memory for a moment, then glanced over at Gina. “What I miss most . . . she always used to say good-night just before she’d drift off to sleep. I miss those words, the good-night.”

“Someone was there, someone to share the end of the day,” Gina said softly.

She understood. Bishop nodded. “Someone was there. That’s why you get married, Gina. Beyond all the other details of why, it’s having someone there when the day begins and when the day ends. It’s being together and sharing life.”

Gina leaned back in her chair, reached for the soft drink, studied the ice as she spun the glass, then sighed and glanced up. “I bet Melinda said yes when you first asked her out, and you got married within a year and had a wonderful marriage without ever having had a breakup along the way or had the ‘maybe you’re not the one for me’ conversation.”

“I got lucky, or better yet, blessed,” Bishop agreed, understanding her shift in the conversation to her situation.

“I’m glad for you, Mark, I really am. You got the ideal at least once. It must hurt an extra amount to have lost something that was so good.”

“It has.”

“I’m tired of waiting for that to be my story.” She put down the glass. “What do you think of Daniel Field?”

Bishop rapidly shifted mental gears to absorb the fact that she wanted to know his opinion, surprised by the question. He didn’t rush to answer and was careful to try and give her an honest one. “I think the right question is, what do you think of him? I’m not aware of any red flags—I’d tell you if I was. I think he’s a good man with a solid reputation, well liked around Bangor. Jeff chose well when he made that introduction for you. The two of you seem like a good match.”

“I keep waiting for the crash into the wall.”

Bishop laughed. “You debate and analyze too much, Gina. Nothing says this time is going to end in disaster.” She picked up her glass again, her expression staying on the edge of pensive, and Bishop wondered what she was thinking about so seriously. He wished he hadn’t attempted the light comment, which had managed to kill the conversation, and back-pedaled. “What can I help with?”

She shook her head. “We should get back.”

Bishop glanced at the time and nodded. She was going to leave him in the dark as to what was on her mind regarding Daniel, and it was going to nag at him for the next several hours.

“There’s the last ping. The Ohio is coming to a stop off our port side,” Daniel said.

Gina leaned forward to see the image on the waterfall screen. The ability Daniel had to decipher subtle changes was impressive to watch. She glanced around the sonar room. “An excellent job, guys. Thank you.”

“It was fun,” Waller replied with a smile. “The rest of the trial plan—we do this test again in different ocean conditions over the next few days?”

“Yes. The ping probably won’t work as well. It might even fail in a more noisy sea,” Gina cautioned.

Daniel patted her shoulder and grinned. “O ye of little faith. It will keep working.” He tagged the audio files to off-load to the high-density drive. “You want the cross-sonar log too?”

“Please.”

He dumped the log file out to the drive as well. “One set of cross-sonar ping data, now archived for review.” Daniel reached for the phone. “Control, sonar. The first leg of the sea trial is complete.” He hung up. “I’m glad you decided to stay and see this trial in person, Gina. It’s an incredible piece of software.”

“It was a good first test,” she agreed.

“You’re for understatements, right?”

The door opened, and Gina looked over and straightened as Commander John Neece stepped into the sonar room. “Congratulations, Miss Gray, for a brilliant idea and implementation.”

She felt her face grow warm. “Thank you, Captain.”

“Your second data request—we’re going to rig for all-quiet and let the Connecticut and the Ohio start a cross-sonar search to find us.”

“That’s perfect, sir.”

She hoped no one in the room asked why she wanted that all-quiet data, but as the captain left, the guys returned to discussing crew assignments for the next watch.

“You should get some sleep, Gina,” Bishop suggested, closing the manual he was flipping through. “We’re the sitting target, so the boat isn’t going to be doing anything but drift here during this test.”

Gina considered that and nodded. “Probably a good idea. I can tell I need it.”

“Sharon can take you down to the stateroom. Plan to sleep as long as you can.”

She nodded, glanced over at Bishop, reached over and rested her hand lightly on his. “Thanks for today,” she offered, her voice low. “I enjoyed it, both the sonar test and the conversation.”

“It was my pleasure,” Daniel replied, rising to his feet to see her off. “Sleep well, Gina.”

Gina did sleep very well. She headed to the officers’ wardroom seven hours after she had gone to stretch out. Bishop was reading a thick report. He looked up as she entered, smiled, and nodded to the seat opposite his. “Ready for breakfast?”

“I’ve got time before the next test?”

“Plenty of time. We’ll be over the Tufts Plain in about 40 minutes. If no other subs or surface ships are around to be concerned about, we’ll get started with the next test shortly thereafter. I’d like it if you were there at the start just to be sure the files you need collected are properly recording, but after that feel free to use the time as you like. I’ll find you if there’s a concern I need you to address.”

“I was thinking I might have Sharon give me a more complete tour of the boat.”

“You’ll enjoy it, Gina. A boomer grows on you the longer you’re aboard. You fall in love with the boat.”

“I’m beginning to pick out all the things that make this submarine function. Blue pipes and valves are fresh water. Orange pipes are hydraulic fluid. What are the red arrows?”

“Air outlets so crewmen can plug in masks and be able to breathe during a fire,” Bishop replied.

The petty officer stepped in to get her breakfast order. She chose an omelet and hash browns. “I’d like to hear about your first command,” she said.

Bishop simply smiled. “How about we talk about something not sub-related? What was the last book you read for pleasure, not work?”

“Jerry McKowen’s biography—he’s a nuclear physicist—titled Fireball.”

“You enjoy biographies?”

“When it’s as much about the career someone has as it is the person. What about you, Mark? The last book you read for pleasure.”

“I’m partial to a good mystery. The last one, John Sandford’s Dead Watch. Before that, Dean Koontz’s The Husband.”

She shuddered. “Too vivid for my tastes. I don’t like to be scared, even when it’s make-believe.”

He absorbed that answer, nodded. “Most recent movie?”

That was more difficult to remember. “I watched Moneyball several times, as I enjoyed the math behind sabermetrics. You?”

“I’ll go with a DVD, an old Hallmark movie called Duke. I’m a goner for a good dog flick.”

Gina laughed at the admission.

“Are you a baseball fan?” Bishop asked her.

“I understand it, but I don’t follow a particular team. It takes too many hours to keep up with all the games played during a season.” Her breakfast arrived. “What should I ask Sharon to show me first?”

“The laundry. When you mention to people you were able to spend a few days at sea on a submarine, the three questions you’re going to get asked the most are about the restrooms, showers, and food. The two questions after that are the sleeping berths and the laundry. No one ever asks to see the laundry and doesn’t know how to answer that one—it’s one washer and one dryer, for a 155-person crew.”

Gina smiled. “I was thinking I would start with the torpedo room. Jeff mentioned the Nebraska carries a few MK48s.”

Bishop nodded. “Boomers have four torpedo tubes, enough for defense and a limited offense while we try to disengage and disappear from the fight. A fast-attack submarine like the Seawolf has eight torpedo tubes and can hold its own and re-engage in battle easily. If you want to start with the torpedo room, you’ll be heading down to the fourth level.”

“I’m slowly getting the hang of the ladders. Will they mind a visit?”

“No. Sharon will give a call ahead if she thinks a department needs to know to expect visitors. She’ll likely give a call to engineering so they have a radiation badge available for you.”

“A lovely thought. The idea of being at sea is tough enough. Knowing I’m at sea with a nuclear reactor . . . I may skip visiting the back of the boat.”

Bishop chuckled. “You can have Sharon stick to places like the radio room and kitchen.”

Gina nodded. “She was heading up to the radio room to get a look at the Navy daily brief.”

“It’s worth the read,” Bishop mentioned, glancing at the document he’d turned over when she joined him.

She didn’t ask to see it. She’d seen the classified stamp on the cover. Her security clearance was high enough to cover it and about any other document on this boat, but there were times she would rather not know something. Her mind was already on overload with what she was learning about the sub operations. “You’ll be in the sonar room most of the day?”

“Plan to be,” Bishop said.

“After I confirm the sea trial files are recording properly, I’ll take that boat tour with Sharon, then come find you in the sonar room this afternoon.”