Chapter Two
January 6, 2006
Deterrent Patrol Area, Atlantic Ocean:
The USS Colorado’s eighteen thousand tons carved a conical swath through the Atlantic Ocean. Seven stories tall at its conning tower sail, the submarine shouldered twenty-four Trident D-5 ballistic missiles, an arsenal of nuclear destruction born of Cold War nightmares.
Few people knew more about the Colorado than the twenty-six-year-old naval officer from Connecticut, Lieutenant Jacob Slate, who preferred that his friends call him ‘Jake’.
Four months prior to his seizing of the vessel, Jake had considered the Colorado a second home and its crew like a family. He had been a model officer, but that was about to change.
*
As Jake descended a stairwell en route to the Colorado’s wardroom, a lanky, dark-haired man caught his eye. He stared at a grimy face.
“McKenzie, you been playing in the lube oil tanks again?” Jake asked.
“No, sir. Diesel fuel oil tank. Can we talk? In the machinery room?”
Jake followed McKenzie down a ladder.
Electric generators whirred. A refrigeration compressor caged within silvery piping droned. Jake welcomed the familiar sounds that kept conversations private and rested his hand on Scott McKenzie’s shoulder.
“You stupid shit,” Jake said. “Who else knows you’re banging a shipmate’s wife?”
“I’m not banging her. I love her. You don’t understand,” McKenzie said.
“You’ve got a good heart, Scotty, but you’re also a twenty-two-year-old swinging dick.”
A sound like snapping bamboo cracked. A hiss followed. Jake cringed and gazed at a junior mechanic crawling around piping in the back of the room.
“What the hell’s Hicks doing?” he asked.
“Dumping the accumulator on the external hydraulic plant,” McKenzie said.
“I thought we fixed it twice already this patrol.”
“It’s broke again.”
“We’ll check on Hicks in a minute. We still have your problem to deal with.”
“What should I do?” McKenzie asked.
“The last time a guy had an affair with a crewman’s wife they found him left for dead in the bilge. If you stay here, this is going to leak out. We’re going to have to transfer you before the next patrol.”
“I don’t want to leave.”
“It’s too late,” Jake said. “Everyone on this old steel pig likes you, and I’m going to miss you, but I don’t want to scrape your corpse out of the bilge.”
“I can’t leave. She needs me. He doesn’t love her anymore. He’s cheating on her and-”
“And banging her is going to make it better?”
Thunder rang from the back of the room. Hicks, the junior mechanic, stumbled through a spray of oil. Jake trotted toward him, stopped at an emergency circuit, and tore the handset from its cradle.
“Hydraulic rupture, machinery room!” Jake said.
“Hydraulic rupture in the machinery room,” the ship-wide speaker said over the hydraulic hiss. “Ascending to periscope depth to ventilate.”
The hissing died.
“I got it!” McKenzie said. “Relief valve shut. Leak isolated.”
“Sir, I was dumping the accumulator when the relief lifted,” Hicks said.
Over the ringing in his ears Jake discerned the chopping of pumps that pounded the hydraulic plant.
“You left the pumps on!” Jake said and reached for a red ‘off’ button.
He saw aging, bent piping bulge just before it ruptured and launched copper shards. His forehead smacked an electrical panel and his shoulder slammed metal.
Lacerations burned deep within him. His knees splashed into a chocolate colored pool of oil and blood. He fell into McKenzie’s arms and slipped into unconsciousness.
Jake awoke under the lights of the Colorado’s wardroom. He felt a tug at his blood-soaked sleeve and heard scissors ripping cotton. Dizzy, he recognized the Colorado’s corpsman.
“It’s not pretty. I’m going to try to patch you up,” the corpsman said.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jake saw the large figure of Commander Thomas Henry enter the room. He wondered if his commanding officer cared or was feigning requisite concern. As morphine saturated him, he accepted Henry’s image as the Angel of Death.
Jake awoke again on the wardroom table. Pillows canted him toward his uninjured left side, and an intravenous tube fed him fluid.
“Don’t move, Mister Slate,” a medical technician said. “There’s still metal in you.”
“I can feel it,” Jake said.
“I’m calling the corpsman. Don’t move, sir.”
“Holy shit, Jake,” a man said. “You look like crap.”
“Thanks, Riley. You don’t look much better,” Jake said while craning his neck to see his friend, Lieutenant Riley Demorse.
Demorse’s chestnut hair was disheveled. Green eyes beamed through dark circles painted over olive skin.
“I had the midnight watch. Dude, you’re so lucky Walker is our corpsman. He says you’re still low on blood, but you should be okay until we can evacuate you.”
Jake trembled at the thought of his mortality, and metal shards heightened his sensations as the Colorado vibrated at its top speed.
“Feels like we’re running at a flank bell.”
“Yeah, to get you out of here. We’re dumping you off in Bermuda, you son of a bitch. You get a free ride off this pig via helicopter. We’ve already relinquished nuclear target coverage to the Maryland so we can dump your ass off. I’m so jealous except-”
“Except what?”
“Well,” Demorse said. “I’ve got bad news – or maybe it’s good news – depending on your sense of humor.”
Demorse recounted the story of how the ship’s corpsman and volunteers from the crew rallied to save him. Jake’s sense of humor was dark, and it had helped him stomach plenty of bad news in his life. But during the moments of silence that followed his friend’s tale, he wished he had died on the wardroom table.
*
A month passed, and Jake’s flesh had recovered from his injuries on the Colorado, but he was only beginning to understand how the accident would continue to destroy him.
He tried to clear the accident from his mind by riding his dirt bike in a power line clearing outside the naval submarine base in Kings Bay Georgia. The Colorado had returned, and his friend Riley Demorse, joined him.
Jake shielded his eyes from the sunlight reflecting off Demorse’s helmet. Foam helmet pads flipped tufts of chestnut hair as Riley took off the helmet. Steam rose from Demorse’s Honda four-stroke XR-250 dirt bike.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re not going to do it?” Demorse asked.
Jake pointed his motorcycle at a ramp that rose above the sage grass. He revved his Kawasaki KX-500 two stroke monster - a beast that few riders dared push to its mechanical limits.
“You’re nuts!” Riley said.
Jake bent forward and gunned the green monster’s single piston engine. The motor howled a chainsaw chorus. Blue-gray smoke from the black muffler wafted over him. Leather-gloved hands gripped rubber handles.
Jake kicked the gear shifter down straight into second gear. He relaxed his fingers and popped the clutch shut. The drive train clicked. The chain snapped taut. A knobby tire spewed earth.
Jake’s head snapped, and moist air whipped over his mouth guard and abraded his cheeks. He pulled the twist-throttle back and ripped the bike through second gear. He tapped the clutch and kicked the Kawasaki into third.
Engine howling, the Kawasaki hit the ramp. The handlebar jerked upward, jammed Jake’s arms, and stunned him.
He awoke in ballistic flight and felt his stomach ten feet below. He looked down and tried to align the bike, but the front wheel swung high. He tapped the brake pedal, and the wheel lowered but slanted as it hit the ground. The landing tore the bike from under him and catapulted him over the handlebars.
His shoulder hit the ground and his helmet slapped hard earth. Sprawling on the dirt, Jake felt numb. As he began to feel his body, he performed a self-assessment. All limbs were attached and working, but he throbbed everywhere and his wrist burned. Nothing felt broken, and he judged the rush worth the pain.
“That was awesome,” Demorse said. “You’re a lunatic!”
“Hey, if you’re not biking above your abilities, you’re not biking,” Jake said.
“Let me help you up, dude,” Riley said.
“Just get the fuck away!”
Jake felt horrible the second he snapped. The accident at the Colorado’s hydraulic plant had turned every waking moment into a battle to control his anger.
“Easy, killer,” Demorse said. “What’s wrong?”
“Look, Riley, I didn’t mean to take it out on you, but I’ve got some serious shit on my mind.”
“Like what?”
Jake stood and limped to his bike. Oozing oil glistened on the engine. He grabbed the handlebars and walked the Kawasaki back to Demorse.
“Like I’m trying to figure out how to beat our commanding officer to death and get away with it.”
“Shit, Jake,” Demorse said. “I hate him, too, but I wouldn’t kill him. What’s going on?”
“There’s more wrong than you know,” Jake said. “And it wasn’t all an accident.”