“It’s amazing,” Pacino said.
“Shawna recreated her father’s old English study and retreat, but I canceled the plans for the desk and work tables over there and decided on pool tables instead, yeah? The fook do I need an office for? It’s not like I can bring any of the ship’s work home, what with it all being classified, you know what I’m sayin’?”
“You, um, wanted me here early, sir?” Pacino asked, wondering if prompting Quinnivan might be a misstep.
Quinnivan guided Pacino to one of the club chairs. “Indeed I did, lad, and my apologies for flim-flammin’ ye to get ya here early.”
Pacino sank into the leather chair and put his glass down on a marble coaster on the table in front of him. Quinnivan stepped back to the bar, retrieved the Macallan bottle, refilled their glasses and put the bottle on the table, sat down and leaned forward in his chair, as if he were a coiled spring.
Away from the formality of the submarine’s XO’s stateroom, Pacino looked again at Quinnivan. As imposing a personality as the Irishman was, he was not tall, perhaps lacking six feet by four inches, and wiry, all of maybe 150 pounds. He was going bald, his hairline climbing up the crown of his skull, but the effect balanced by his closely-cropped black and gray-streaked beard that gave him a sinister look unless he were smiling. Quinnivan had narrow green eyes that often lit up in amusement, crinkling the crow’s feet at his temples. Pacino hadn’t seen him in any moods other than expansively cheerful or soberly somber — such as when he was telling Pacino about Vermont’s last operation, but Pacino imagined the Irishman’s expression could be frightening when he was angry.
“Listen, lad, the submarine functions as a ‘SCIF,’ a special compartmented information facility. When it’s rigged for an air gap, no radio waves or internet signals can leave the sub’s hull, avoiding a spy eavesdropping on our afternoon’s conversation, yeah? Nor can sound waves from in-hull be detected. We’re completely isolated from the physical universe. That was one reason the boat was a ghost town, yeah? Nobody can work very effectively when we unplug. That and this party. Anyway, places like this house are most assuredly not a SCIF. Anything you say here, you may as well have published in the Satellite News Network news files. So bear that in mind, yeah? Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, about what we do at sea or are getting ready for justifies talking about business when we’re outside the hull or the tender ship or at command HQ. And absolutely never email, text or talk on the phone about it. And that goes especially for what I told you today.”
“Understood, sir. I’m used to that. My father never talked about his boats. The only time I got any indication what it was like for him was when I visited his ships when he was in port.”
“Well, okay then,” Quinnivan said, relaxing slightly and leaning back in his seat. “Anyway, I wanted to let you in on something before this party starts. It’s a hail-and-farewell, so the crowd will be greeting and meeting you, but we’re also bidding farewell to communications officer Duke Vevera. Duke had a recent physical due to some abdominal pain, and turns out the fooker’s got stage four pancreatic cancer that’s spread almost everywhere. Probably has only a month or two left. If Monday happens the way I think it will, we’ll probably never see him again, and his funeral will happen when we’re a thousand feet under.”
“Holy shit,” Pacino gasped. “That’s terrible.”
“Aye, it is, but the youngster’s sensitive about it. He doesn’t like folks talking about his illness or making it seem like he’s a goner. So we’ve all agreed to act like it’s no big deal, yeah? We’re all just going to pretend like the diagnosis never happened. Just play along, right? It’ll be okay.”
“Aye aye, sir, will do.”
“Another thing, there, Patch. You’re going to hear people talk about ‘Monday’ and that ‘Monday’ is coming. Let me let you in on that concept. Back in the old days, bomber crews used to hang out when they were on duty, playin’ cards and makin’ jokes, takin’ naps, in a building a few feet from their airplanes, yeah? so that if the balloon went up, they could sprint to the cockpit and roar off. They called it ‘being on alert.’ Well, starting Monday at zero eight hundred, Vermont is on alert status. When we’re on alert, the lines are singled up, the reactor is critical and self-sustaining, steaming the engineroom, shorepower is disconnected and a manned crane awaits to remove the gangway. The battlecontrol system, weapons control and sonar are up and online. We’re fully loaded out for a forty-day run, with canned goods loaded on every deck surface forward with plywood on top, like you saw today. We’re rotating and radiating on the radar. We’re basically two minutes from tossing over our lines and getting our nuclear-powered asses out into the channel, yeah? There’s no cell phone communications with the wife or girlfriend. There’s no pizza delivery. We’re essentially at sea but with the hatches open. We get the word to go, we man the maneuvering watch and we fookin’ go.”
Pacino looked at Quinnivan. “So, how often have you had to leave port when you were previously on alert status?”
“Never. We don’t get into the duty rotation for alert status often, but the boats that do rarely leave. They’re just on stand-by just in case, yeah? Vermont being a project boat, we’re usually off doing our own thing with a special operation and don’t have to be on the alert status duty roster. But not this time. You noticed we’re the only boat at the piers.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, this alert status starting Monday seems different. It wouldn’t surprise me if we’re ordered out before sunset. So be ready to disappear Monday. Have someone looking after your car, your mail, your apartment, your bill payments. Make sure you don’t have any plans that will disappoint someone. Sister’s birthday, cousin’s baby shower, whatever. Cancel everything.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
A knock sounded from the entrance to the room. Captain Seagraves, dressed in chinos, brown shoes and a sweater appeared. “Gentlemen,” he greeted them in his deep baritone.
“Skipper,” Quinnivan called, grinning, bolting to his feet. “What’re ye drinkin’ tonight, boss? The usual? That rotgut corn-squeezin’ moonshine from Kentucky?” He headed to the bar to make the commander a drink.
Pacino stood and shook Seagraves’ hand. “Evening, sir,” he said. Seagraves seemed distracted, looking around the room.
“You started early, I see,” he said to Quinnivan as the exec handed him a glass with two fingers of bourbon. Seagraves sank into a club chair opposite Pacino. “Did you give Mr. Pacino the rundown on the scoundrels, misfits and pirates who form the officer cadre of our good ship?”