Maxwell was taken aback. “Ah, it wasn’t relevant, Admiral. I don’t bring up my father’s name in connection with my own career.”
Fletcher nodded. “Knowing you as I do now, I understand. It so happens I’m well acquainted with your father. Served under him when he had the Second Fleet. He was a very good officer, a hard man to work for sometimes, rather blunt and fixed in his opinions. But you always knew where you stood with Harlan Maxwell. Sort of like you, I suspect.”
Maxwell kept his silence, wondering where this was going.
Fletcher pulled an envelope from his shirt pocket. “This came in on the Athena net the day before yesterday. It seems that your father was worried and wanted to know if you were okay. I didn’t answer, because at the time you weren’t okay. You had been shot down in Yemen.”
Maxwell felt an old familiar emptiness as he listened to Fletcher. How long had it been? More than two years since he and his father had communicated, and then only to exchange terse Christmas greetings. It had been that way for most of his adult life, this discordant relationship. The elder Maxwell could never stop being the Admiral — the senior presence in his life. He could never stop being the rebellious son.
Now the Admiral was worried about his son.
“I’m probably violating a confidence by telling you this,” Fletcher said. “In his note, Harlan asked me not to let you know. But I find it troubling, such a disconnect between father and son.”
Disconnect. There was an understatement, thought Maxwell. He and his father had been disconnected since the day Sam — that was before he received the call sign “Brick” — announced that he had declined his appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy.
His father, an academy grad and the son and grandson of academy alumni, was apoplectic. The chill lasted until Sam graduated from Rensselaer and took his commission in the U.S. Navy.
The next major rift occurred when Brick, then a test pilot, left active Navy duty to become an astronaut. To his father, it was a breach of tradition. Maxwells were seagoing naval officers, not space cowboys.
No one, however, stood taller or prouder in the viewing area than Harlan Maxwell on the day his son lifted off in the shuttle Atlantis. It was his first flight into space and, as it turned out, his last, which caused the next rift between the Maxwells.
His father had not spoken to him since he had resigned from NASA.
“My father and I don’t see eye to eye,” Brick heard himself saying.
“I never had a son, just daughters,” said Fletcher. “But I know something about trying to live up to someone else’s expectations. My own father was an admiral, you know.”
Maxwell nodded. He knew that he liked Fletcher.
“I’m going to answer Harlan’s letter,” Fletcher said. “You know what I’m going to say?”
Maxwell shook his head.
“I’m going to tell him that if I had a son like you, I would be the proudest man in the world. If he doesn’t immediately sit down and tell you he loves you, he doesn’t deserve to be a father.”
Maxwell didn’t know what to say. Old emotions were whirling around inside him like a storm. “Sir, I don’t—”
“Do the same thing. Go write a letter to your old man. Tell him you love him. Trust me, son; he wants to hear that more than anything.”
Maxwell fought back a well of tears. He nodded and said, “Yes, sir. I’ll do that.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
DESTINY
“Range increasing on the primary target, Captain.”
Manilov looked at the technician on the sonar console. “Bearing and distance?”
“Zero-eight-five degrees, 5,200 meters on the primary. The two trailing targets, same bearing, 3,500 meters.”
Manilov acknowledged with a headshake. The battle group was moving away to the east. He had managed to stymie the searchers by concealing the Mourmetz directly beneath the huge mass of the aircraft carrier, then transitioning to a totally silent operating mode. For over six hours they had been concealed here, emitting no signal, registering no audible sound. The boat was only partially stable, and he had been compelled to use his crew for balance, moving them fore and aft, to help maintain the Mourmetz’s attitude.
In every direction he could hear the sub hunters scouring the Gulf of Aden. They had failed to find the Ilia Mourmetz.
Now he could strike again.
Five thousand meters was still a suitable range for the SET-16 torpedo. He would not ascend to periscope depth. From where they were, at a depth of 210 meters, he would fire a salvo of four torpedoes.
Perhaps it would be enough to kill the Reagan. If he was lucky, he would strike a vital organ of the carrier.
“What are your intentions, Captain?”
Manilov glanced up at his executive officer, Dimitri Popov. The young officer had proven himself to be a capable second-in-command. With his cool, unruffled composure during the tense hours of combat, he had earned the respect of the men.
All his crew, even the lowest-ranking enlisted seamen, had discharged their duties honorably. Since they had entered the Gulf of Aden, he himself had acquired a feeling for these men that was very much like familial love. In their crisp, unswerving response to his orders, he knew that they respected him.
Even in his most bizarre fantasies, he could not have imagined a sweeter finish to an otherwise dreary career. The epic adventure they had undertaken was the stuff of Russian fables. He and his gallant young crew had sailed into the teeth of an impossibly powerful foe. They had kept their appointment with destiny.
Popov was waiting for an answer.
“I think we should complete our mission, Mr. Popov.”
The executive officer’s expression didn’t change. “The men will follow your orders, whatever you decide, Captain.”
“And you, Mr. Popov?”
Popov brought his heels together with a click. “I am at your command, sir.”
Manilov nodded, touched by the display of loyalty. He gazed around the control compartment at the tense young faces — Antonin, Popov, Borodin, Keretsky — the eager warrants, the conscripted sailors. Each trusted him with his life. Each had his own soaring hopes, aspirations, dreams of the future. Many had left young wives and infant children back in Mother Russia.
They had a right to live.
For the first time since their voyage began, Manilov’s sense of ultimate destiny was tempered by another emotion. It nibbled at him now, buzzing in his brain like a gnat.
They trust you with their lives.
The men had done everything he had asked of them. More, actually. None had volunteered for a suicide mission. They were mercenaries, not martyrs. They had taken unthinkable risks, completed their assigned mission with skill and daring. It was not their fault the damned obsolete SET- 16 torpedoes had failed to kill the Reagan, not their doing that the hull of the carrier had been constructed to resist conventional warheads.
Ah, if the Mourmetz’s torpedoes had been tipped with nuclear warheads, it would have been a different story. The invincible Reagan would be vaporized in a cloud of steam.
“Fifty-four hundred meters, Captain, range increasing. We still have a valid firing solution.”
Four more torpedoes. He could expect at least two to strike the primary target. And then what? The damned ship still might not sink. The antisubmarine force hovering around the Reagan would pounce like a pack of jackals. The Mourmetz would be doomed.