This time, the voice of the officer of the deck came in remarkably clear, despite the many miles that separated them. And there was no mistaking in it a mild Tennessee twang.
“Thank you Hanson,” said Soldato, turning toward the steps. Bushbaum reflexively turned to follow him, a look of confusion still on his face. “You wait here,” said Soldato. “Meet me in the van in ten minutes.”
“Aye aye, sir,” said Bushbaum, looking a little stung, a hint of reproach behind his eyes. He didn’t know what Soldato was doing, but it was something he didn’t want his Chief of Staff to hear.
And Soldato didn’t give a shit.
He strode out of Group Nine into the van, sat in the passenger seat, and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He dialed a number that he had stored.
“Hello?” Angi picked up before the first ring was over, her voice weak with worry. He could hear a news station in the background. She was waiting for CNN to tell her what the Navy wouldn’t.
“Angi, this is Mario. I can’t tell you anything else, but…Danny is fine.”
The wounded submarine limped eastward on the surface, crippled but operating under her own power. For a time the Navy had two sea-going tugs standing by, but towing was a humiliation the proud boat was able to avoid.
The XO took over the navigator’s duties, and spent almost all his time in Control. While the navigator had been crushed by his responsibilities, the XO was energized. With a sharpened pencil tucked behind his ear, he studied the chart like a general looking for weaknesses in an enemy position. Between fixes and DRs, he updated the charts, coached the JOs on the conn, and told dirty stories about the glory days of Subic Bay and Olongapo.
Jabo was the last one into the Officers’ Study, having just left the watch. The captain and Chief Flora were there waiting to begin the qualification board.
As dictated by tradition, Hallorann had supplied the room with snacks and beverages; the coffee pot was full, and a pitcher of coke sat in the middle of the table. A mixing bowl full of Hershey’s Kisses was being passed around. Jabo was handed Hallorann’s battered yellow qualification book to review for completeness. He flipped through it, saw signatures from the men he knew so well in every blank. He stopped at one page and felt a pang seeing the signature JUONI, TM1, one of their dead.
Hallorann stood at the front, in a neatly pressed poopie suit, dry erase marker in hand. As Jabo took his seat, the captain said, “Ok, chief, why don’t you start us off?”
Flora cleared his throat. “Diagram our ship’s sonar system.”
Jabo fought back a chuckle. It was a very hard question…and Hallorann, when he saw that a nuke chief was on his board, had probably boned up on all the engine room stuff. But if he got through this…
Hallorann paused, and then turned to the board. He drew a crude approximation of the spherical array, and then the towed array. He took a red marker and drew acoustic beams emanating from it. When the drawing was complete, he turned and began to explain it to them.
Jabo’s mind wandered as he spoke; he could tell immediately that Hallorann knew the system passably well. Better than that — he seemed to actually understand what he was saying, and wasn’t just repeating back by rote something that he’d read. Jabo, and everyone else on the boat, already knew Hallorann was smart. They also knew that he worked his ass off. The only thing he had left to prove during the board was that he could function under pressure. And this, too, was something Jabo already knew, he’d seen Hallorann perform under much greater pressure than this, in the heat of a fire and the cold of nearly freezing ocean water pouring in under such pressure that the noise alone was a hazard.
“Any follow up questions?” said the captain when Hallorann paused. “Lieutenant Jabo?”
“What’s the status of the spherical array right now?” said Jabo.
Hallorann hesitated. “It’s out of commission, sir.”
They all chuckled at that. “That’s one way to put it,” said Jabo.
“Ok,” said the captain. “Lieutenant, I believe it’s your turn to ask young Hallorann a question.
Jabo paused. He was really pulling for the kid, wanted to ask him something hard enough that it would impress the captain, but not so hard that he would stumble and drop the ball. He thought about all that Hallorann might know, the things he’d learned at sea.
“Hallorann, can you explain how the torpedo room flood control works?”
Hallorann turned, erased the board, and started drawing a line diagram of the system.
Twenty-four hours before Alabama was due to pull in to Pearl Harbor, a tug pulled alongside to make a brief exchange. From the tug came three boxes of critical spare parts, a bright orange bag of mail, and some fresh food that the chop, in a small act of heroism, had somehow managed to requisition: fresh lettuce, tomatoes, apples, oranges, and real milk. The last container of milk was followed by a lieutenant commander in dress whites. Jabo waited for him at the bottom of the forward LET as the XO had requested him to do; he was Lieutenant Commander Carr of the Naval Investigative Service.
“Lieutenant Jabo, sir,” he said, feeling sloppy in his poopie suit.
He extended his hand. “Lieutenant Commander Carr. Nice to meet you lieutenant.”
Jabo led him to the navigator’s stateroom.
He looked it over. Flipped through the copy of Rig for Dive that was still on his rack. The messages he’d hidden. Nodded his head thoughtfully. He seemed more down to earth than the few other NIS agents Jabo had met before; he suspected based on his age and that air of confidence that he was prior enlisted. He also suspected that the NIS had probably sent one of their top men to get the initial groundwork done. He was a good listener, barely saying a word as Jabo told the whole story, from the leg stabbing before their departure to seeing the Nav’s dead body in Machinery One. He found himself recalling scenes he’d almost forgotten, like the time he’d heard the Nav talking to himself in the Officers’ Study. Jabo wondered if he was getting too comfortable, and forced himself to stop.
“Well,” said the commander. “I’m just here to do the preliminaries. There’s never been a case like this — sabotage on a nuclear submarine. So the final report will be signed by someone several pay grades above me.”
“But what do you think?” said Jabo. He found himself wanting answers.
“I think…based on my initial investigation…that you’re navigator was fucking nuts.”
“And that’s it?”
“Lieutenant, you’ve been in the Navy long enough to know what’s coming next. Something this major…there will have to be consequences. Maybe someone could have seen this coming. Maybe there were enough signs…” He jabbed his finger into his leg with a stabbing motion.
There was a rap at the door…the yeoman. Danny wondered how long he’d been standing there. He had a courtier’s aptitude for eavesdropping.
“Any outgoing mail, lieutenant?”
Danny shook his head.
“Are you sure? The bag is getting ready to go across and the captain specifically told me to ask you.”
Danny thought for a moment, wondering what that could mean. He’d already written a short note to Angi and put it in the bag, but that’s nothing the Captain would take an interest in. Then he remembered, the letter that had passed between them on their first day at sea.
“No,” he said. “No letter from me.”
The yeoman nodded and walked back to his office to seal the outgoing mail bag.
“Lieutenant, let’s go take a look at the body,” said Carr. “And then maybe you can help me find a cup of coffee.”
“Aye sir,” said Jabo, backing out of the stateroom.