Red Storm Rising

"Are you kidding? You know where I work now?"

"I heard you ended up at Fort Meade after you hung it up."

"Yeah, and there's bridge players at NSA who're wired into the damn computers-I'm talking assassins!"

"So how's the family?"

"Just great. How's yours?"

"Growing up too damned fast-makes you feel old."

"That's the truth," Morris chuckled. He jabbed a finger at his friend's star. "Now you can tell me about your new kid."

"Look at my car."

Toland turned around. Morris's Ford had a personalized license plate: FF-1094. To the uninitiated it was an ordinary license number, but to a sailor it advertised his command: antisubmarine frigate number one thousand ninety-four, USS PHARRIS.

"You always were nice and modest," Toland noted with a grin. "That's all right, Ed. How long you had her?"

"Two years. She's big, she's pretty, and she's mine! You should have stayed in, Bob. The day I took command-hell, it was like the day Jimmy was born."

"I hear you. The difference, Ed, is that I always knew you'd have your ship, and I always knew I wouldn't." In Toland's personnel jacket was a letter of admonishment for grounding a destroyer while he had the deck. It had been no more than bad luck. An ambiguity on the chart and adverse tidal conditions had caused the error, but it didn't take much to ruin a Navy career.

"So, doing your two weeks?"

"That's right."

"Celia is off visiting her parents, and I'm baching it. What're you doing for dinner tonight?"

"McDonald's?" Toland laughed.

"Like hell. Danny McCafferty's in town, too. He's got the Chicago, tied up at Pier 22. You know, if we can scare up a fourth, maybe we can play a little bridge, just like the old days." Morris poked his friend in the chest "I gotta head along. Meet me in the O-Club lobby at 1710, Bob. Danny invited me over to his boat for dinner at 1830, and we'll have an hour's worth of Attitude Adjustment before we drive over. We'll have dinner in the wardroom and a few hours of cards, just like old times."

"Aye, aye, Commander."

"Anyway, there I was on Will Rogers, " McCafferty said. "Fifty days out on patrol and I got the watch, right? Sonar says they have a goofy signal, bearing zero-five-two. We're at periscope depth, so I put the search scope up, train it out to zero-five-two, and sure enough, there's this Gulfstream36 sailboat, moving along at four or five knots with the autosteering set. What the hell, it's a dull day, so I flip the scope to hi-power, and guess what? The captain and the mate-there's one gal who'll never drown!-are on top the deckhouse, horizontal and superimposed. The boat was maybe a thousand yards away-just like being there. So we turn on the scope TV camera and get the tape machine running. Had to maneuver for a better view, of course. Lasted fifteen minutes. The crew ran the tape for the next week. Great for morale to know just what you're fighting for." All three officers laughed.

"Like I always told you, Bob," Morris noted. "These sub-drivers are a nasty, sneaky bunch. Not to mention perverts."

"So how long you had the Chicago, Danny" Toland asked over his second cup of after-dinner coffee. The three had the submarine's wardroom to themselves. The only officers aboard were either standing watch or asleep.

"Three busy months, not counting yard time," McCafferty said, finishing off his milk. He was the first skipper for the new attack sub, the best of all possible worlds, a captain and a "plankowner." Toland noted that Dan had not joined him and Morris for "attitude adjustment" at the base officers' club, during which they'd tossed down three stiff drinks apiece. It wasn't like the McCafferty of old. Perhaps he was unwilling to leave his sub, lest the dream of his career somehow end while he was away from her.

"Can't you tell from the pale, pasty look common to cave-dwellers and submariners?" Morris joked. "Not to mention the faint glow associated with nuclear reactor types" McCafferty grinned, and they waited for their fourth to arrive, He was a junior engineer, just about to come off reactor watch, Chicago's reactor wasn't operating. She was drawing electrical power from the dock, but regulations demanded a full reactor watch whether the teakettle was working or not.

"I tell you guys, I was a little pale four weeks ago." McCafferty turned serious-or about as serious as he ever got,

"How so?" Bob Toland asked.

"Well, you know the kinda shit we do with these boats, right"