Barracuda: Final Bearing

Adm. Richard Donchez — the “admiral” ceremonial now that Donchez was retired from the Navy — was the director of the National Security Agency, which had responsibility for electronic intelligence, whether by eavesdropping, satellite surveillance or any other nonhuman intelligence methods. The CIA had once had its own spy satellites until the Whitman Act reorganized the intelligence agencies, combining the old Central Intelligence Agency with the Defense Intelligence Agency, the new organization called the Combined Intelligence Agency. There had been momentum enough in the frenzy of government reorganization that Congress threatened to make NSA part of CIA, but Donchez’s predecessor had called in favors from Capitol Hill and the result was an independent NSA with a meaty budget, a highly skilled staff and magnificent gadgets, among them the Big Bird III keyhole series satellites and several special operations nuclear subs. The subs gathered intelligence by driving close to a subject’s shores and keeping an antenna up to listen for short-range clear transmissions. It was this that made Pacino wonder what NSA Director Donchez was up to. The subs that reported to NSA could be one reason to call for him, since Donchez had to work closely with USUBCOM to deal with his special operations ships. But now that the Dayton was gathering intel in Tokyo Bay and the Cincinnati was doing the same in Port Artom in Greater Manchuria, the current trouble spots of the world, there usually would be little else official that Donchez would come to him about. Which brought Pacino back to the top secret code words “Scenario Orange.” Scenario Orange was the classified term for the possibility of war between the United States and Japan. War plans against other nations, even allies such as the UK, were routinely written, scrutinized and fed to a Dynacorp Frame 90 supercomputer for simulation and refinement. Until the tension surfaced between Greater Manchuria and Japan, those war plans would be expected to gather dust for the next half-century, but now things were very different. The helicopter shuddered, the engine noises rising and falling again as the chopper neared Donchez’s Fort Meade helipad, the compound nestled in suburban Maryland between Baltimore and Washington. It was getting dark by the time the helicopter made its final approach. The harsh glare of the helipad landing lights flooded into the cabin. Even before the pilot throttled down Pacino got up from his seat, grabbed his hat and held it against the rotor wash, waved to the pilots and stepped out into the cold night. His light working khaki jacket was no match for the cold front that had just moved over the area. At least it was no longer raining, he thought as he jogged to the edge of the pad, where Donchez was waiting, an unlit Havana cigar clenched in one hand, a smile crinkling his aging features. Pacino smiled back as he approached. Dick Dohchez had been Pacino’s father’s roommate at Annapolis decades before, the two men joining the submarine force together, always home-ported in the same town, usually taking shore duty at the same command. When Pacino was born Donchez and Pacino’s father were both at sea, both under the polar icecap. By the time they came home, Pacino was two months old. His earliest memories of his father always seemed to include Donchez. He remembered countless Saturdays spent on his father’s ship, the two Pacinos visiting Donchez’s boat for a meal. Eventually when Pacino went to Annapolis, his father commanded the Stingray, berthed one pier over from Donchez’s original Piranha. When Stingray sank in mid-Atlantic from the detonation of her own torpedo — as the official story had it— Pacino was eighteen years old, a plebe at the Naval Academy. It had been Donchez himself who had broken the news to Pacino that the Sting ray had gone down with all hands, and since then the older man had tried to fashion himself as a mentor and surrogate father to Pacino. Yet for twenty years Pacino had distanced himself from Donchez, perhaps, he admitted, linking Donchez to the sinking because he had been the messenger. Eventually Donchez had become a rear admiral in command of the Atlantic Fleet’s submarine force, and hence Pacino’s boss during Pacino’s first command tour on the USS Devilfish. Donchez had risen to command the service as Chief of Naval (operations, but afterward had left the Navy. There was nowhere upward to go. Donchez had always had an interest in intelligence work and had confided to Pacino that he wouldn’t mind an appointment to CIA, which had always been tight with the upper echelons of the Navy, largely because of the spy duty that US subs had done in the past. But CIA was the personal fiefdom of Boswell Farnesworth Leach III, one of the previous president’s cronies, not to be replaced for some time. Donchez had been appointed Dirnsa, with the implied understanding that someday CIA would be his. That had been eleven months ago. Donchez looked odd in a business suit, the gold braided stripes that once climbed all the way to his elbows now giving way to the Armani material. The last ten years had worn heavily on Richard Donchez, Pacino thought. It seemed each time he saw him Donchez had shrunk, until he was over a head shorter than Pacino. He had grown thinner, his shirt collars no longer acquainted with his neck. Pacino remembered that Donchez’s hairless head had seemed macho, but now that Donchez was older the baldness added to a look of infirmity that worried Pacino. Pacino held out his hand to the older man, who pulled him into a bear hug, slapping his back. “Mikey, you look great.”