Now that Tim was outdoors, it was appropriate for him to salute his superior officers. “Reporting as requested, Captain. Lieutenant Commander, sir.”
“Good to see you, Spicer,” Jefferson said with a nod.
“You too, sir,” he replied.
Tim hadn’t encountered a lot of black officers in the submarine service, especially senior officers, but it was the 1980s now, and it seemed things were finally changing. Here was a man who was going places. Talk among the crew was that Jefferson would have his own command within a year. Tim had served with him on previous underways and found him to be a good man with a sharp mind and a practical outlook. But more than that, Jefferson didn’t mind walking among the enlisted men. He didn’t keep them at arm’s length or consider them beneath him the way other officers did. Even Captain Weber fell into that mind-set much of the time. Tim liked and respected the captain, but the man rarely came out of his stateroom to talk to the crew.
Standing here with the two highest-ranking officers on the boat was an enormous honor, but Tim felt distinctly out of place. Still, he refused to let it bother him. He had always wondered what it would be like to see a launch from the top of the sail, the way the captain and a few lucky officers did, and now he finally had the chance, at the captain’s personal invitation. If anyone had a problem with his being here, they could take it up with Captain Weber.
The sail rose thirty feet above the water, with the observation periscope, attack periscope, and multipurpose antenna mast forming a gray metal forest overhead. From up here, Tim could see everything. It was a clear day with gentle swells in Pearl Harbor, and the Honolulu sun washed over them, bright and warm. Ever since he was assigned to Naval Station Pearl Harbor, Tim had marveled at how warm it stayed all year round, even in mid-November. Sometimes, he thought he would never get used to it. Other times, he felt that he’d rather die than go back home to Presque Isle, where everything was buried in snow, and the sun hid for months at a time.
He looked up into the sky, shielding his eyes. When Captain Weber had said it was his last chance to say goodbye to the sun, he wasn’t exaggerating. The three of them—Weber, Jefferson, and himself—would be the last to see the sky. Once the submarine went under, it would be three long months before anyone saw it again.
At 1530, USS Roanoke, SSN-709, pulled out of port. Captain Weber and Lieutenant Commander Jefferson stared straight ahead at the lane of open water before them. But this was Tim’s first time at the top of the sail, and he turned every which way, taking in the sights. He watched the braids of water twisting along the side of the hull, and the crewmen in bright green life jackets working briefly along the top of the hull, behind the sail, to secure the rigging. They were moving at about eight knots, Tim guessed, and the wind whispered in his ears.
Freighters and destroyers towered over them on either side. As they passed an oil tanker, Tim craned his neck to look up at its deck and saw the silhouettes of sailors staring down at him. He fantasized about waving at them, but that would be a costly breach of decorum. Still, the idea of one final interaction with other human beings above the surface of the ocean, one last gesture before it was just him and 139 other men in the dark water for months, was tempting.
The American flag was lowered from its pole and folded into a crisp military triangle. Their work finished, the life-vested crewmen on the hull below dropped back down into the sub, sealing the hatches behind them. Tim watched the Honolulu shoreline vanish in the distance as they moved out of the harbor and into Mamala Bay. Beyond the bay, the vast Pacific awaited, its depths as dark and quiet as a tomb.
The captain’s hand fell on Tim’s shoulder, pulling him from his thoughts. “Enough daydreaming, Spicer. Time to go below.”
“Aye, sir,” he replied.
He took one last look up at the sun, as if he could commit its light and warmth to memory. Then he followed Captain Weber and Lieutenant Commander Jefferson down the ladder into the sub. His heart sped up, and an expectant grin creased his face. He was feeling the same thrill of a new mission that he’d seen on the excited faces of the sailors in the corridor.
All except PO3 Stubic, he reminded himself. He couldn’t stop puzzling over how strangely the man had behaved, and the wild, disturbing look in his eye.
Once Tim reached the bottom of the ladder, another enlisted man scrambled up and secured the hatch to the bridge with a loud clang, sealing them all inside.
CHAPTER TWO
Being in the control room of a submarine felt like being in an egg carton. Calling it close quarters didn’t really convey how cramped it was. Crewmen were wedged into their seats practically on top of one another. Sailors couldn’t have issues about personal space on submarines, but especially not in the control room, where they were quite literally breathing down each other’s necks until the end of their watch section. When Tim, Captain Weber, and Lieutenant Commander Jefferson entered the control room, most of the men were at their stations already, including, Tim noted, the new planesman, Jerry White—the transfer Captain Weber had tasked him with keeping on the straight and narrow.
He was a couple of years younger than Tim, in his early twenties, with a skinny frame and sandy-blond hair. He sat at a control panel at the front of the room, with a yoke in front of him that he would use to steer Roanoke once they were underwater. As planesman, White operated the winglike horizontal hydroplanes on the boat’s bow and sail, steering the submarine up or down. He also controlled the vertical rudder at the stern, to make left and right turns. Seated beside him, separated by less than a foot of space, was the helmsman, with the yoke that controlled the angle of the submarine, through the horizontal hydroplanes at the stern. For the sub to run smoothly, both the helmsman and the planesman had to work in unison, developing a wordless rapport.
The helmsman on duty was Steve Bodine, a skinny kid out of Oklahoma and the only black sailor on Roanoke besides Lieutenant Commander Jefferson. Like White, Bodine was in his early 20s, but he was already halfway bald. He denied it strenuously, but everyone knew it was the real reason he kept his hair stubble-short. Bodine had the most stereotypically suburban middle-class background of any sailor Tim had met: swimming pool in the backyard, newspaper delivery route as a kid, Boy Scouts—the whole nine yards. He was a nice, uncomplicated guy, the kind you could have a beer with when you had a night off at the base. Tim figured that if anyone was going to be a good influence on White, helping keep him out of trouble as the captain wanted, it was Bodine. Captain Weber should have asked him instead.
The diving officer of the launch, Lieutenant Junior Grade Charles Duncan, sat behind White and Bodine in a chair so close he could reach past them to the control panel just by leaning forward if he wanted to. A cold and distant officer, Duncan wasn’t one for small talk. Indeed, he was extraordinarily strict with enlisted men. Tim had seen him ruthlessly dress down sailors for even small, easily fixed mistakes.