Phoenix Sub Zero

Donchez stood his ground in the doorway. “I could send your relief on this mission. Joe Cosworth. He could do it and leave you free to relieve Roy at sublant. Janice would like that. Have you considered that?”

“No way, sir. Seawolfis still mine and I’m taking her out one last time.”

Donchez looked over Pacino again, nodded.

“Good luck. Patch. Good hunting. And be god damned careful.”

On the third floor of the house, Pacino looked at Janice’s face, knew what was coming as he grabbed his duffel bag, threw in some fresh uniforms and zipped it shut.

“He’s sending you on a suicide mission, Michael. I heard — they’ve already lost two ships, one with Rocket Ron, for God’s sake. And now you’re next. He said he’d let Cosworth go, let him.”

Pacino waited for a pause. “Honey, you must not have heard Donchez say that Seawolf is the only ship that can knock out the Destiny. We’re driving the best submarine, the best warship, there is. All I have to do is find this guy and it’s over—”

“For him or you?”

Pacino looked at his wife for some moments, taking in her beauty, even in the midst of the anger.

“I’ll be back in three weeks, Jan.” He moved out to the balcony hallway and opened Tony’s door, his eight-year-old son deep in sleep. He kissed the boy’s cheek, then walked quietly down the stairs. Janice followed him out the door to the car.

“I’m sorry …” she said, “you’re right. You don’t need this for a sendoff.”

Pacino kissed her. “I know you’ll worry, but we’ll be okay.”

“I know you will, Michael. I know …”

He backed the car out into the street and spun the wheels in first gear. He didn’t see her crying in the mirror but he knew she was.

Chapter 22 Tuesday, 31 December

PORTSMOUTH, VIRGINIA

NORFOLK NAVAL SHIPYARD

GRAVING DOCK 4

Pacino felt better the moment he arrived at the dry dock. The dock was completely flooded, the gangway suspended by cables to one of the railroad-wheeled cranes. The dock roared with the sounds of powerful diesel engines, the loudest coming from Seawolf herself; a plume of diesel exhaust fumes poured out of the aft part of the submarine’s green sail, since the reactor was not yet self-sustaining and the emergency generator had to be run to supply ship’s electrical loads now that she was divorced from shorepower. Aft of the sub a tugboat was pulling backward, several lines attached to the caisson, the gate of the dock; soon the tug was halfway into the channel. Two other tugs idled further into the channel, waiting to pull the ship away from the dock and the shipyard and point her to sea. Pacino hated seeing the tugs, the fact that his submarine was still helpless irritated him. Somehow it was wrong for a warship to need a crutch to get to sea.

But soon the ship would be plowing the channel with her own muscle, and until then at least she was free of the shipyard.

Pacino crossed the gangway, hearing the blast of the sentry’s announcement on the ship’s Circuit One PA system, amplified on the dry dock’s outside loudspeakers: “SEAWOLF, ARRIVING!” Call it vain, but he did love hearing himself announced as he came aboard. He saluted the flag aft and the sentry and stepped onto the green hull. He tossed his bag down the ladder way and lowered himself into the ship, the familiar submarine smell somehow grabbing his attention, the thick vapor of cigarette smoke and cooking grease and diesel exhaust and ozone from the high-voltage equipment reminding him to leave home and Janice and Tony behind and concentrate on the Destiny and the mission ahead. He shouldered his way down the busy passageway to his middle-level stateroom, wondering what the captain of the Destiny was doing at that moment, what he was like, how he fought a submarine. Not that it mattered now, Pacino thought. He’d know from personal experience soon enough.

He took a look around the stateroom. One of the walls had been demolished to gain access to the cables inside, and the yard had only had time to replace the steel structure of the wall but not the outer wood paneling. Pacino unpacked the duffel bag, raided his locker cabinet for his heavy olive drab parka, the early morning cool and wet, the sealanes at flank speed promising to turn cool into frigid.

He found his blue baseball cap with the gold embroidery thread forming submarine dolphins with the ship’s name in block letters, the brim done up in gold scrambled eggs. He grabbed his binoculars and left the room to go to control.

The control room was jammed with watchstanders. He found the executive officer. Commander Jackson “Lube Oil”

Vaughn, who had reported aboard only a few months before, when the ship was preparing for the shipyard period; he had yet to go to sea with Pacino. Still, Pacino had full confidence in Vaughn’s capabilities, since Vaughn had played a major role in driving his last ship, the Tampa, out of the hands of the Chinese communists when the sub had been captured during a close offshore surveillance mission.