“Still, you must’ve thought I was a real bastard all those years. I felt like one.”
“Then why didn’t you do something to change it?”
“I was human. Humans are fuckups, and I fucked up big-time. See, there’s something else your mother and I never told you.”
“What?”
“I’m gay… Or rather, I was gay. Now I’m just a head.”
I stopped. “Excuse me?”
“I shoulda told you while we were both still alive, and it woulda meant something.” His black eyes rolled back in his skull, lubricated by their greasy lids; his mouth worked like a gasping fish. “I’m-I’m… sorry.”
At Fred’s unexpected confession, I did something I hadn’t done since becoming a Xombie.
I laughed.
“It ain’t that funny,” he said.
Testing him, I asked, “So if you weren’t my father, who was?”
“Another Navy man-a NATO officer named Alaric Despineau. She met him while we were stationed in Europe.”
“So she cheated on you?”
“It ain’t that simple and you know it. We were all… confused. I was at sea for months at a time, which made it easy for me to pretend I had no part in it. Truth was, Grace needed something I couldn’t give her. He could.”
“You mean children.”
“Among other things. I had no understanding at the time and hung her out to dry. Now I see how she had no choice… any more than I did. Biology is a bastard.”
“What caused them to break up?”
“Your mother had an unfortunate attraction to men who weren’t available. It was her independent streak. Alaric was always away at sea, so Grace was stuck raising you alone. Over time they just drifted apart.”
“Who was Brenda?”
He blinked. “Brenda?”
“I just heard of a woman named Brenda Despineau.”
He paused a long time. “That was Grace’s first child. Your sister.”
“Sister. How come I never knew about her?”
“She was a good bit older. At first she helped raise you, but eventually she and your mother had a falling-out. Grace had troubles, as you know. Brenda left home as soon as it was humanly possible… and took your brother with her. She woulda taken you, too, if she could have.”
A brother now, too. I felt a long-dead nerve throb to life in my skull. “What happened to them?”
He shook his head. “Brenda didn’t want my help, or anybody’s. She was a real tough cookie. What she really wanted was you, but your mother took you and went on the run. After that, we all lost touch with each other for years. That is, until you and your mother found me.”
“You never heard from any of the others? Or bothered looking?”
“Honey, I don’t go where I’m not wanted. Just a little fatherly advice.”
“You’re not my father.”
“I can dream, can’t I?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
PETROPOLIS
As we approached the north channel of the great Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, the hydrophones detected curiously subterranean noises, rushing from one shore to the other. This wasn’t the clear swish of boat propellers but a deeper rumble, like bowling balls hurtling through a pipe.
“Traffic,” said Phil Tran, listening over the headset.
“Ship traffic?” asked Coombs.
“Traffic traffic-there’s some heavy machinery passing through the Bridge Tunnel. Big rigs.”
“I told you so,” said Alton Webb. “We should have come here in the first place.”
“Hindsight is twenty-twenty.” To me, Coombs asked, “Want to take a sighting?”
“A sighting… sure.”
“Periscope depth.” The command flitted through the ship like a dead leaf. Flesh and metal moved fluidly to comply.
“Periscope depth, aye.”
“Raise periscope. She’s all yours, Lulu.”
My stone-cold hands seized stone-cold handles, my stone black eyes drank in daylight. I walked the periscope in a circle, taking a series of pictures, then quickly lowered it.
“Anything to report?”
“Just that bridge causeway, about zero ten degrees. Visibility is bad.”
Coombs said, “It’s gonna take a miracle to get past that thing.”
“What exactly is the Bridge Tunnel?” I asked.
“You’ve never seen the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel? It’s only one of the engineering wonders of the world: twenty miles of highway crossing the mouth of the Chesapeake, with three elevated bridge segments and two offshore tunnels. The center bridge is actually out of sight of land and has a rest stop on an artificial island. I’d bet dollars to donuts they’ve got the north passage netted and probably mined.”
“Reapers again?”
“Or somebody more legitimate. Either way, they’re bound to not like us.”
“So what do you think?”
“You speak for the skipper. What does he think?”
“He thinks we don’t have any choice. They’re doomed if we leave them like this.”
“Concur. So how do you propose we get past their defenses?”
I consulted with Cowper, closing my eyes and putting my hand on my forehead like a cheap psychic communing with spirits. “The captain proposes that we look closer.”
“It’s risky. We’re out of range of their sonar buoys out here, but any closer, and they might ping us.”
“We need to know what we’re up against.”
“Long as we don’t find out the hard way. Once they know we’re here, we lose all our advantage.”
“Oh, not all our advantage… ”
We proceeded south on the surface, the submarine’s fair-water silhouetted against the sun as it approached the bay’s south entrance. Coombs and Robles climbed up to the bridge cockpit and scanned the sea with binoculars. Neither shore was visible, but the elevated causeway crossed the horizon, abruptly cut short where it dipped underwater-a bridge to nowhere.
Nearing the deep channel, we submerged, running silent right to the mouth of the bay. It was strange to think of that huge tunnel passing beneath us, cars and trucks driving beneath the bottom of the sea. Just beyond rose a strange black tower, jutting into the sky like a gigantic sentinel.
Before we could discuss it, I heard a high-pitched whirring noise from outside the hull. The unmistakable whine of a high-speed propeller.
“What is that?” I demanded.
“Torpedo,” said Vic Noteiro. “MK-60. We must have triggered a CAPTOR mine.”
“Everybody brace for impact,” said Robles.
Before we could brace or do much of anything, a massive shock wave ran the length of the ship, causing floors to buckle and loose objects to go flying. We also went airborne, banging around the works like crash-test dummies, which probably would have killed some of us if we weren’t already dead. But everyone just got up and went back to work, leaning right to compensate for a sudden list to port.
“Full reverse,” ordered Coombs.
“Full reverse, aye.”
“Won’t they hear us?” I asked.
“Can’t possibly make more noise than we already have. Damage reports.”
Phil Tran said, “Looks like we caught a torpedo broadside, port midships, between frames sixty and seventy. Pressure vessel is intact, but there’s a breach in the outer hull-we’ve lost the main port ballast tank. We’re also losing hydraulic pressure on the aft port stabilizer. Reactor efficiency is down by sixty percent and still dropping-looks like damage to the fuel rods.”
“Any sign of pursuit?”
“Not yet. The mine was probably a stray.”
“Just in case, get us below the thermocline and play dead.”
“If we go too deep in this shape, we won’t have to play dead.”
“We have to risk it.”
We stabilized the boat as much as was possible at the bottom of the sea. The damage was severe, but not immediately critical; we could still limp along.
Under cover of darkness, we tested the buoyancy and hydraulic controls, surfacing the periscope and slowly cruising the northern Virginia coast, studying the barrier islands at full spectrum and full magnification. We knew from the charts that there were many quaint tourist towns and fishing villages all along these shores, but not a single light was visible. The place looked deserted. It felt deserted.