It wasn’t fair to Stone Silver, to Colon’s crew, or to the rest of the Ant Hill team. But Ernesto Colon couldn’t help it: He did not like Mike Carr. It was a downer just being in the same room with him, as they were now, sitting side by side in the rear admiral’s office, side by side in aggressive silence.
Mike Carr was not a team player, unless the team was his. He didn’t understand negotiation or compromise. Three years before, the two men had had their first brawl when Carr had refused to change the position of a rear stabilizer. It cut 1.3% of the view from the commander’s periscope. Colon did not want to hear that sonar could compensate: He wanted an unobstructed 360-degree sweep. Eventually, Charlotte told the team to move the stabilizer. That required a redesign of the aft section and, thus, the location of two top, rear-mounted propulsion fans. Carr avoided Colon for a month. On another occasion Carr had asked that plasma monitors be installed in the computer stations instead of traditional electron tube screens. His reasoning was sound: They would have far greater resolution of downloaded satellite images, among other imaging considerations. But the inert gas that was used to transmit the light in plasma systems became unstable in sharp turns on the simulations. Carr wanted to install the units and solve the problem at sea. Colon could live with the lesser resolution and one less headache. Again, Charlotte had sided with Colon. The battles even got down to square-foot details. Just a few weeks ago, a panel in the com-section could not be removed easily for repairs because of the location of a ventilator. One or the other had to be moved. Colon felt that ease of repair should take priority. If they couldn’t fix the hydrogen-removal system that gave them ballast, nothing else would matter. Carr suggested training the sailors to lie on their back and pop the four screws where they were, rather than having to reroute the air shaft. Carr had won that battle. Colon was still pissed.
Each week it was two or more “something elses” where science and function clashed. So the two men sat resolutely quiet in Rear Admiral Silver’s office. They were waiting for Silver to finish with his aide in the closet-sized room out front. It was almost comical to see poor, six-foot-five CPO Ron Farmer tucked into that small outer office. The Oklahoma native was a good-natured kid who didn’t seem to mind. The rear admiral’s office wasn’t big, but it was larger by half than the other offices and cubicles. It didn’t have a window but the fluorescent lights were white and thorough.
Silver was giving Farmer instructions for a very, very low-keyed naval participation in Charlotte Davies’s funeral. The rear admiral wanted a large, red-white-and-blue floral arrangement from “her friends at the office” but no other indication of where or for whom she worked. He also wanted someone watching the funeral home. Silver wanted to know if anyone came and asked questions about what Charlotte had been doing in Georgia.
She was running a smooth ship, Colon thought. Not like this other bonehead would do, given the chance. Hopefully, Silver wouldn’t give him the chance. He’d give him Charlotte’s job, but with restrictions.
What was most frustrating about Carr was not that he disagreed with Colon. If Colon were engaged in combat against a Russian or Chinese officer, he could respect the enemy’s abilities. Not here. The Tempest wasn’t supposed to be a pure-science wet dream. It had to be a functioning, habitable, first-and-foremost user-friendly vessel. One of the first things a good commander learned is that you shouldn’t try to change the instincts of a new recruit. One of the first things Colon had learned at the naval air station in Pensacola was that reactions were hardwired, like a man automatically protecting his groin in a fight or picking up something to read before hitting the head. To override those instincts took moments that would be better applied against a threat. Colon knew what a sailor’s instincts would tell him to do. Carr did not. He reminded Colon of the surfers Colon had encountered in Puerto Rico, at Tres Palmas. They’d laze at their tables, around plates of mofongo or chicharrónes de mero, plantain balls or fresh fish nuggets, and pray for the storms, cold fronts, and low-pressure pockets that brought on big waves. Never mind what that did to the livelihoods of fishermen, farmers, and those dependent on tourism. Forget about the floods and battering rains. These lanky, vacant-expression congers wanted their fucking waves.
Silver returned. He tossed his notes in the bin marked shred as he returned to his desk.
“Gentlemen, NORDSS has left the go, no-go decision to me,” the rear admiral said as he sat. “I’ve considered our assets and I’ve thought about the risks. I’ve decided I want Tempest to launch, as scheduled.”
Neither Carr nor Colon moved. But Colon cheered inside.
Silver fixed the scientist with his sharp eyes. “Mike, how do you feel about taking Charlotte’s place?”
Carr thought for a moment, then replied, “Very uneasy.”
The two naval officers stared him. Colon had been sure Carr would jump on the offer like a pit bull at a rib roast.
“Why?” Silver asked.
“To begin with, this is not the kind of job one steps into without preparation. There is too much at risk.”
“Steps into?” Colon said. “You’ve had six years to prepare!” Colon hated “no-can-do.” He loathed it more than he disliked candy-ass surfer boys.
“I’ve had six years of working with the team and buttoning up the technology,” Carr said. “But I don’t know all the science the way Charlotte did. She lived it. Last week I came to work at seven in the morning and found her sleeping upright in her chair, one of the Tempest B sims playing. I’m willing to bet that’s what she was doing last night. She fine-tuned the programs, looked for cracks and leaks, left no rivet or current or thermal variation unexamined. She earned the project director’s chair.”
“I appreciate your honesty,” Silver told him. “Most people would have thumped their chests and said, ‘Bring it on.’ ”
Colon took a quick hit from Silver’s eyes. He didn’t know whether the rear admiral was telling him Like you or Don’t open your mouth .
“But I’ll tell you something,” Silver went on. “I’ve spent my life assessing people’s abilities, whether they’re fit to command or even date my daughter. I wouldn’t have pulled the trigger if I didn’t think you could do this. And it’s not as if you’ll be alone. You’ll have top support here and from the team at sea.”
Carr was silent.
“If we stand down now, we have to ratchet the process back to zero,” Silver went on. “You know the drill. We’d have to reassess the weather conditions, the currents. We’d have to wait for another clear zone in scheduled Russian and Chinese patrols, in the number of research vessels crossing the region. We run the risk of losing our own edge.”
“Hell, we even have a window in seal migration so we don’t screw them up and piss off Greenpeace,” Colon said. “We need someone in that seat and you’re it.” Colon couldn’t believe he was arguing for this guy to take the job. But the rear admiral was right. Carr would have top support here and at sea.
“Mike, I guess I’m not really clear on what needs to be done,” Silver said. “We’ve got computer sims for virtually every conceivable situation. You can bring them up in seconds with the troubleshooting protocols right there.”
“I know that, Rear Admiral. I contributed to a number of those programs.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I’d like to ask the captain something,” Carr said.
“Please,” Colon said. One tight word with an affected chime at the end. That was his attempt at being affable. This was going to be good.
“You’re at sea. Suppose I detect a loose hydraulic valve that was not vital to the ship’s operation but could affect a future Sonar Warning and Control Antenna placement. What do you do?”
“I get on with the primary mission and look into it when we get back,” Colon said.
“I’d stop and fix it,” Carr said.
“Even if it threw off the timing of everything else?”
Carr nodded. “That’s the way a good scientist does things. Working here, I’ve discovered that the military holds things together with chewing gum until you reach port. I can’t do that.”
“You don’t have to,” Colon said. “You’ll be here, safe. We’ll be the ones who have to worry about it.”
“Captain, please,” Silver said. “Mike, it’s true that we sometimes—not always, but sometimes—do what you described out of necessity. If a destroyer is clipped by a torpedo or a mine or a terrorist charge, or an aircraft carrier takes an injured bird and suffers damage, you may not have much choice.”
“It’s called CIA, command-in-action,” Colon said. “That’s when you take whatever measures are necessary to get you through whatever the problem is.”
“And who decides what’s necessary?” Carr asked.
“The on-site commander,” Silver replied. “You know that.”
“Yes. The problem I’m having is that we’re not in a combat situation,” Carr said. “This isn’t even a shakedown cruise. It’s a test run of a new vessel. It’s an engineering mission.”
“With sailors risking their lives,” Colon said. “That makes it a military operation. That also means there’s a chain of command. That means even if we don’t always like the way the military does things, we do them anyway because we’re professionals.”
“In my business, the chain of command is ascendant, not descendent,” Carr said. “A professional builds on what he knows for certain.”
“Mike, you just lost me,” Silver said.
“Rear Admiral, this is a mission to study a vessel we all designed and built,” Carr said. “A scientist doesn’t get a better laboratory than the real world. Charlotte was able to live with a military mission that was science-driven. For me, it’s the other way around.”
“Nice work if you can get it,” Colon told him. “Unfortunately, things aren’t that way.”
Carr raised his hands in surrender. “Which is why I can’t take the project director’s chair.”
Colon shook his head angrily. “I don’t believe this. You’ll hold up this mission because of a loose screw in a nonessential section of the ship?”
“I won’t do something in a way I know isn’t the right way to do it.”
“Your way,” Colon said.
“If you like.”
“I don’t ‘like,’ Doctor,” Colon replied. “The military has paid your bills for six years.”
“To do my job, which I’ve done. Now you’re asking me to take Charlotte’s job. I’m honored, I’m flattered, but I can’t do it. Not the way the job description is written. You can’t let desire or instinct or bravado run over scientific procedure. At least, I can’t. That’s how you end up with the Titanic.”
“It’s also how you sail a tub like the Santa Maria from Spain to America,” Colon replied.
“Gentlemen, that will be all,” Silver said. He sat back and put his fists together, knuckles to knuckles. He looked at Carr. “Mike, I can’t force you to run this operation. We can put together a team to work as mission directors, but they wouldn’t be as effective as one good man. I don’t want to go that route. You’re the deputy director. You’re the one good man.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but—”
“Hear me out,” Silver said. “I believe your reservations are sincere. And I can’t order you to continue with the project. But I want to make very sure I understand something. I get the feeling you could live with the lack of sim-time. What you’re saying is that if we ran this as a scientific mission, you would take Charlotte’s place.”
“I believe I would, yes,” Carr said.
“No ‘I believes’ or ‘ifs,’ ” Silver replied. “Can you do the job backed by the other team leaders?”
“Yes.”
“No,” Colon said, shaking his head. “Sir, with respect, this is a bad idea—”
“I’ll talk to you about that in a minute,” Silver said.
“Sir, you can’t let a civilian run a sub! That’s how you ram fishing vessels—”
Silver ignored him. “Mike, if you’ll wait outside, I’d like to discuss this with Captain Colon.”
“Of course.”
Carr left, shutting the door behind him. The chill on Colon’s neck had spread through his arms and rolled down his spine. It was as cold as what he saw in the rear admiral’s eyes: the CIA apparatus about to iron-heel Colon into submission.
“You were out of line,” Silver said.
“Sir, I’m sorry, but he just snookered us. He set us up so he could run the operation.”
“I don’t believe that. I think he’s sincere.”
“About taking over, yes—”
“About his concerns. The question is, what do we do?”
Colon couldn’t believe this was happening. He couldn’t believe the rear admiral was considering the man’s back-door coup. “Fortunately, sir, I don’t have to make that decision. Sir, I still think—”
“If you did have to make the decision?” Silver asked.
“I’d run it with a team before I put Carr in charge,” Colon said. “Sir, he’s saying he can’t get over some personal anal shit for the good of the project.”
“Can you?” Silver asked.
“Yes.”
Damn him, that was good, Colon thought. Nice trap, perfectly sprung. “I’m a naval officer. I’ll do as I’m told, even if my superior officer allows a civilian to command a military mission.”
“The president does all right,” Silver said.
Shit. Another point for Silver. Colon should have anticipated that one, too. But he was tired and he was angry and he was a little hungover. He was most angry at Carr. He’d worked hard to command this operation and he didn’t want to lose it because of loose SWACA screws. He’d recover because he had to, but this rankled him. He was even angry at Charlotte Davies for having watched over the sub and its crew but not herself. He wanted to go to her cubicle and yell at her—
And that was the first time it really hit him. Charlotte Davies was dead.
“Ernie?”
Colon looked over. “Sir?”
“Are you with me?” Silver asked.
“Yes.”
“It looked like you went somewhere.”
“No, sir.” Colon squared his shoulders. He was thinking about what Charlotte would think of this dustup over issues that would probably never come up, or not matter much if they did. She would probably give this one to Carr. And she was a fair woman. “Truth is, I think I just came back.”
“Glad to hear that.” Silver smiled. “Look, Ernie. As far as I’m concerned, this is effectively the same mission we’ve planned all along. I think Mike is a little intimidated by what he has to do. He’s looking for some kind of comfort zone. When he takes the chair, I don’t think he’ll be unreasonable. We’ll have the team leaders stay a little closer to him than they were used to with Charlotte and have them run the sims with him when he’s not watching dataflow. It’s going to be all right.”
Colon rose. “You’re probably right, sir.”
“I like the sound of that. Never mind what we call Mike Carr, or what his specific duties are. When the mission is over, he’ll be the guy who sat at a computer in Georgia while you made history at the south pole. Your picture will be the one they paint on the cafeteria wall.”
“It’ll be the Tempest ’s portrait that goes on the wall. You haven’t spent much time at sea. Do you know what I’ll get?”
“What?” Silver asked.
“Tomorrow morning the crew will check the mission roster and see Dr. Mike’s name on top, not as project director but as mission commander. I’ll go to my station one morning and find a little G.I. Joe doll in a lab coat sitting in my chair, probably with a tiny slide-rule and stubby pencil.”
“I see.”
“It won’t be pretty.”
“Well, if that happens, there’ll be an upside,” Silver said.
“What’s that?”
“Maybe he’ll introduce you to Barbie.”
That was a truly bad joke. Colon tried to smile but it probably came out as a wince. Still, he appreciated the rear admiral’s efforts to lighten things.
Silver thanked the captain and reminded him about the 6 P.M. science team meeting. He would like Colon to attend. The captain said he’d be there and left the office. As he did, he passed Mike Carr. The scientist was standing with his back to the rear admiral’s office, looking out at the hall. Colon decided he would try again, just once more, to suck some life from this lemon.
“Look, Mike. I’m sorry if it got a little rough in there. I don’t react well when someone asks me to do a one-eighty without the proper turn radius.”
“I didn’t ask that,” Carr said. “I told the rear admiral what my issues were—”
“Okay, I know that.” Jeez, the guy didn’t know when to stop fussing. He fuckin’ won! He could show some grace. “What I want you to know is I’m on board. I’m with you. I want this to work. We need this to work.”
“I agree.”
“Great. We’ve got a final briefing scheduled for six. I’ll see you in the conference room?”
Carr nodded. He didn’t smile but at least he kept his mouth shut. Colon headed into the corridor.
Chief Petty Officer Farmer called after him in his low, slow Midwestern drawl, “Captain Colon, sir?”
Colon stopped and turned. “Yes, Farmer?”
“I hope you don’t mind, Captain sir, because I didn’t mean to be listening in. But it sounds to me like you’re fielding new ideas. If you are, then I have a suggestion for you.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, sir. I was thinking that maybe we should rechristen the D in Dr. Davies’s honor. You know, we’ve got the Abby—maybe call her the Charlotte or the CD or even the Doctor of the Bay, which happens to be my personal preference. Anyway, I think we should do something like that.”
Colon smiled. “Doc of the Bay. I like that, Chief Petty Officer. And we can still call her the D.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s the best idea I’ve heard today,” Colon said. “I’ll tell Cleveland to stencil that on the con.”
“Thank you, sir,” Farmer said.
The rear admiral called Carr back into the office and the scientist turned to go. He still seemed to be wincing slightly. Or maybe that was a smile. With Mike Carr and most of the other scientists, it was difficult to tell what they were thinking or feeling. Those men and women seemed to have two expressions: scrunched-in-thought or neutral-with-defeat.
But Colon did not want to think about them right now. He wanted to go upstairs to surface level and walk along the covered promenade to the Shed. He wanted to tell Major Cleveland about the unofficial name change and then have a good long look at the D. Major Gregory Cleveland was the officer in charge of dry-dock operations. He lived and worked in the Shed, where the D and her refitted tanker-transport were being kept.
Colon decided not to take the elevator but went to the stairwell. He ran up the four flights of concrete stairs. It felt good to get his heart chugging, to experience the burn in his legs, to hear “Anchors Away” playing in his head, sounding just as it had the first time he’d worn his dress blues in a parade in Pensacola, with his parents in the grandstand and the vice president of the United States on the viewing platform.
Don’t lose that feeling, the captain reminded himself. That’s really what this is about.
It wasn’t about a little setback but his years of labor and decades of preparing for this command and the success he had achieved by actually reaching this point. It was not about the titles of the players but the ship herself. It was not about the turf war they had just fought but the country they all served. And all of that was pretty damn special, he had to admit. Plus one more thing.
He was alive. And right now, that, too, suddenly seemed precious.
Major Cleveland once described entering the Shed as like walking into a big sock. He was right.
Outside, the Shed was a cinder-block structure with a corrugatedtin roof and rain-rust on the exterior walls. It sat on the bay and was designed to look like an old ship’s repair shop. If spies noticed the structure, they probably wouldn’t think it housed anything of importance. Inside, the Shed was not so simple or innocent. The “neck” of the sock was stretched through an eight-foot-wide entranceway on the shorter side of the rectangular building, an air lock that covered the outer door and led to the main area of the Shed. Captain Colon closed the door behind him and walked ten feet to the inside door of the air lock. A guard was seated at a small desk. The sergeant at arms stood and saluted the captain, then she parted the slit canvas. She used a key to open a second door. Colon stepped inside the rest of the sock, the main room of the Shed. It stood forty-five feet high, seventy-five feet across, and two hundred and twenty feet long. Thick black canvas was draped everywhere, double layers stretched loosely across the ceiling and walls. The canvas was used to mute sound, block the brutishly bright work-lights, and seal the interior from anyone who might want to have a peek from the outside. On the opposite side of the Shed were the wide doors that led to the harbor and the open sea. They, too, were covered with canvas.
A concrete walkway followed the inside walls of the Shed. It was wide enough to accommodate the compact three-cylinder tractors that were used to move parts of the D to and from the submarine.
Twenty-odd workers were in the Shed. Most were inside the converted tanker that filled the structure. Run by the Smithsonian’s Chesapeake Bay Oceanic Foundation, the Abigail Adams used to be the Hornet. It ran oil to drums in bays, inlets, and harbors that were not large enough to accommodate mid- to large-sized tankers. The DOD had selected it because the hold was large enough to carry the kinds of maneuverable, manned, and unmanned minisubs they were developing for future off-shore reconnaissance. For most of its five years under Smithsonian Institution control, the Abby, as she was nicknamed, had been used to transport research vessels used to conduct geologic surveys, study marine-animal migration, and chart climatic changes. The vessel had been to both poles, something the Pentagon had insisted on so they would know whether the Abby could function reliably in polar weather. They also needed to establish her presence around the world so she would not attract attention wherever she showed up. She had just returned from the Weddell Sea, a trial run for the Tempest mission.
The science missions of the Abby were under the command of Dr. Angela Albertson. Unlike Mike Carr, the tall, athletic African-American did not have a military off-switch in her brain. The thirty-one-year-old was happy not to go to committees and boards to beg for grants. She had all the money she needed to conduct research, as long as she was ready to drop it to do Pentagon business. And she was. She was particularly eager to be involved in this mission. She had been given a general briefing about the supercavitation drive, a form of propulsion that would make submarines of the U.S. military exponentially faster and more strike-ready than any other underwater force on earth. She was supposed to study its impact on the marine environment in the wake of the drive. The Pentagon wanted to make sure it did not send marine animals so far off normal migratory paths that other nations might notice and try to observe or block a Tempest. The nature of the drive had to be kept secret.
Major Cleveland was at his desk beside the Abby when Colon arrived. He rose and saluted. His expression lacked its usual sparkle and a question was in it.
“Morning, sir.”
“Morning,” the captain said, saluting. “The D get loaded without any trouble?”
“Yes, sir. We’ve got the hooks in, just checking the release circuits now.”
“Good. Major, I need a favor.”
“Of course.”
“I want you to have ‘Doc of the Bay’ painted in small letters on the front of the D. That’s ‘doc’ with no ‘k.’ ”
Major Cleveland stared at him.
“ ‘Doc.’ ‘Doctor.’ For Charlotte.”
The major’s beefy features grew a little smile. “Yes, sir. That’s sweet. Whose idea was that?”
“CPO Farmer.”
“Good kid. Sir? What about the mission?”
“You’ll be getting an official notification from the rear admiral,” Colon said. “But just between us sea jockeys, we’re still a ‘go’ for tomorrow.”
The major’s smile blossomed. “Now that’s the kind of tribute Dr. Davies would really appreciate. Thank you, sir.”
Colon went around the desk and walked up the aluminum ramp. He could hear soft clanging and softer voices as well as an occasional sizzle and pop coming from within the Abby ’s hull. The helmsman, former naval office Dr. Howard Ogden, was reviewing a checklist.
“How do we look?” Colon asked.
“She’s hooking up without complaint,” the thickly bearded oceanographer told him. “Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“The towline retractor doesn’t like having the weight, like a wild horse with a bridle. It’s been catching somewhere. We’ve got a team on it. Should have it fixed by tonight.”
“In enough time to run all the tests?”
“More than enough time,” Ogden said. “Major Cleveland said he’ll drown me if we’re late.”
“That’s what you get for being a civilian,” Colon said.
“Sorry?”
“Can’t submit a formal complaint for abuse.”
“Ah. If I thought he were serious, I’d be worried.”
“I am serious!” Cleveland said as he walked up the plank with Ensign Rosedale and a can of white paint.
Ogden frowned.
Colon glanced at Ogden’s printout. “I wouldn’t worry too much about the towline. Using it is like being a hooked fish. Good for the fisherman, bad for the fish.”
“Understood, sir. We’ll have it working just in case.”
Colon nodded and continued along the deck of the Abby. He made his way toward the stern. The deck was dry; he was used to ships being slippery with sea mist, even vessels in harbor. The forward section held the V-shaped bridge, while the midsection was the science center, which consisted of a slender observation shack with sonar, communications, and other electronics below. Just aft of it were the crew’s quarters and mess. The stairwell at the ship’s stern led to the hold.
Dr. Albertson was on the bridge. She saw Colon walk by on the lower deck, then ran out to join him. She was dressed in short shorts and a San Diego Sea Planet T-shirt. Colon hadn’t been thinking much about women today.
He did now. She was a great-looking woman, though when she came closer, he could see that her eyes were bloodshot.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Okay. Sorry I didn’t get to the briefing. I wanted to be here when the D was pulled in.”
“Understood.”
“With Dr. Davies—was it an accident?”
Colon nodded. “Fell asleep at the wheel.”
Angela shook her head slowly. “Poor soul. Charlotte Davies was one of the good people.”
“Amen.”
“What about the mission?” Angela asked. “We’ve been working this morning as if it’s going ahead—”
“It is,” Colon told her. “Dr. Carr will be running the science team.”
“I don’t know him very well.”
“You’re lucky.”
“Ouch.”
“Well, we don’t get along—”
“I gathered.”
“But he’ll be fine.”
“He seemed pretty absorbed in the few meetings I had with him. Not absorbent, if that makes any sense.”
“It does and that’s a good description. Meanwhile, Doctor, speaking of falling asleep—you’ll forgive me, but you look a little tired.”
“I am. We came through the Caribbean, got knocked around a little.”
“You were down there in Kim?”
She nodded. “We held up in Antigua till she got downgraded to a tropical storm. Then we bullied through to get here in time.”
“Well, you do your checks and then get rest. We need you at one hundred percent tomorrow.”
“You’ll have it,” she promised.
“No, I mean it.”
“I’ll rest. I promise. When we sail from the bay, I’ll be all over the ship with binoculars, cameras, and computers. Make it look and sound like we’re on a real science mission.”
“Thanks.”
“Now I’d better get back to it, make sure all the hammocks and food are properly stowed,” Angela said.
Angela left and Colon watched her go. She didn’t hear him clop down the stairs so she probably knew he was looking, which was fine. They had flirted a little the times they’d been together, never anything serious. Now Angela had been in a storm-swept ship with a couple of nerds for a couple of days. She would be around him in a confined space for a couple of weeks. He wanted her to know he was interested. They’d suffered a loss, he’d had to eat some shit, but life went on.
The canvas made the Shed extremely dark and still. It kept the air thick with sea-smell. Visiting the hold was like being born. The glow reached out to you, and when you stepped inside, it was like entering a new world.
The D sat in its steel cradle like an artisan’s handcrafted model. It was that, of course, but it had been built by dozens of brilliant and dedicated individuals, and it wasn’t a display piece. The blue-black submarine was cloaked in four stark white beams from spotlights fore and aft, starboard and port. Most of the activity was centered near Colon, at the nose. The towline was located there. One end was attached to a rotating cuff in the nose; the other was on a three-foot-diameter spool attached to the roof of the hold. Four naval engineers dressed in powder blue jumpsuits were making sure the three-hundred-foot copper-cadmium line had no rough spots that might catch the spool or another part of the strand. Two other engineers were on ladders making certain the spool itself was not what had caused the line to catch. They were checking the side-mounted axle and carefully applying a subzero-formula VCI—volatile corrosion inhibitor. What they used to just call grease when Colon first started sailing. That would keep the joints from rusting or freezing. The tow-line would not be significant once the engines were fired up. It would be popped from the D the way a sailplane cuts loose from the motored aircraft that pulls it upward. The line was there in case the engines did not light the way they were supposed to and the D had to be reeled back into the Abby.
Ensign Rosedale was there as well, painting the new nickname on the forward hull of the submarine.
The engineers on the outside saluted when they could. Men were inside the D as well. Colon could hear them working. He did not go in. He did not want to bother them. He had simply come to gaze at his girl.
Now this was a sexy woman, he thought. Smooth and shapely and requiring special handling, which was fine with Colon. He liked that challenge.
He stood with his hands clasped in the small of his back, just looking. There was a tart smell of shaved steel, a worked-metal smell that permeated dry docks everywhere. It was like visiting McDonald’s in a strange city. Wherever you were, it was a smell from home.
“One more day,” he said. His voice was lost in the grinding of the tow-spool. Not that it mattered. He was sure she had heard him.
Colon continued to stare for several more minutes. Then he turned and left the hold. He thought he caught a whiff of the deodorant Charlotte used to slather on in her cubicle because she didn’t always get to go home to shower. Maybe it was just his imagination. Maybe it was left over from her last visit.
Or maybe it was Charlotte checking things out. He’d like to believe that.
As he neared the air lock he thought back to the beginning. To the blueprints and computer constructs, the simulations and models. He thought back to two days ago when he and Charlotte had come to the Shed to run tests on the antenna after the casing had been installed. Charlotte had been focused on the work, as always. But as they’d left—were right here, in fact—Colon had caught her glancing over her shoulder. He saw her look back and for the first time her expression seemed to be relaxed. Content. It seemed a small thing then; now it seemed large.
He was glad he had shared the moment with her.
The science team meeting was held every Monday afternoon at 6:00 P.M. and usually ran an hour. This one took longer. Silver—and now Dr. Carr—wanted to make sure the leaders of the science and engineering crew knew the timetable and had the most recent pages in their playbooks. Once the Abby left the base, they would be monitoring every minute of the voyage from a small command center. The emphasis would be on the condition of the Tempest D. It would be watched like an astronaut in orbit, with sensors attached to key elements from hull to fans, from sonar to capillaries. The team at Kings Bay would make sure the submarine was unaffected by temperature, sea conditions, and any gremlin that might happen by. If problems were detected, engineers on board could deal with them.
The team leaders presented qualified “all-clear” assessments. With the exception of the towline and a few other minor components, everything on board was functioning as expected.
When the roundtable ended, Silver shooed everyone out to phone Admiral Grantham with an update. Colon was sure the top brass would be pleased. After all, Grantham and the others had nothing to lose. It was the crew’s life and Silver’s reputation that were at risk.
There was a saying among officers that a good general should be prepared to become a soldier, if necessary. The rear admiral was like that, which was probably why they got along relatively well. The rest—
The rest won’t know the thrill of what we’re about to undertake, Colon thought. Neither the risks nor the rewards nor the heightened living of life.
Maybe that’s why the word “brass” fit them so well. . .