Quinnivan joined them, pouring another scotch for Pacino and himself. “Cheers, lads,” he said, toasting the captain. “I was just getting to that, Skipper. Our menagerie of zoo animals we generously call ‘officers.’”
But before Quinnivan could hold court, a call came from the intercom, Shawna’s English accented voice, saying, “Seamus, Elvis is here with his Ferrari. He wants to park it in the garage.”
“Come on, lads, let’s go see Elvis’s crazy-ass sports car,” Quinnivan called. He looked at Pacino. “Elvis is our engineer,” he explained as they climbed the stairs. “Academy grad like you. Bloke’s a little wobbly after his redheaded sexpot girlfriend left him, yeah? Anyway, he’s an amateur investor from some seed money from his deceased da’, and put together enough of a fortune to play with antique sports cars, but despite being the nuclear chief engineer and owning a barn full of rolling stock, the fooker can barely turn a wrench himself.”
Through a doorway from the kitchen, the pristine garage waited as the fire engine red 1985 Ferrari Testarossa slowly rolled into the garage, its V-12 roaring and purring as the driver brought it in and parked it. The room crashed into silence as the driver cut the engine. The door opened and a blonde-haired, crew-cut, blue-eyed, tall skinny man unfolded himself up to his full height.
“Elvis!” Quinnivan yelled at the engineer. The engineer immediately screamed back at the XO—“Bullfrog!”
The exec pulled the engineer into a bear hug and smiled at him. “Lad, you’re much too fookin’ sober. Come on down to the lower level engineroom and grab a drink, yeah?” Quinnivan looked over at Pacino. “Eng, this young one here, Mr. Anthony Pacino, is newly reportin’ aboard. He’s the replacement for Mr. Vevera. And Patch, this here is Mario ‘Elvis’ Lewinsky, chief fookin’ engineer.” He’d pronounced the name Mary-oh. Quinnivan put his hand to his mouth as if he were disclosing a deep secret to Pacino. “Elvis is Lieutenant Commander Lewinsky’s middle name, and he hates it, which is why we call him that.” Pacino nodded, remembering from Piranha that one thing about the submarine force was that anything that annoyed a sub sailor would be relentlessly thrown in that sailor’s face, as part of the force’s mysterious traditions.
The engineer shook Pacino’s hand while showing his teeth to the laughing executive officer. “Dammit, Bullfrog, you know damned well it’s Mar-rhymes-with-far-ee-oh. Pacino, glad to have you aboard, non-qual,” he said, in a deep authoritative but friendly voice, smiling. A reminder to Pacino that he remained a second-class citizen until he could get qualified in submarines and earn his dolphins.
“Thank you, sir,” Pacino said.
“Don’t ever call me sir,” the engineer said. “Even if I’m chewing your ass. I’m Elvis or Feng.”
“I thought you hated your middle name,” Pacino said, thinking the ‘Feng’ moniker seemed to embrace that he wasn’t just the engineer, he was the fucking engineer.
The engineer rolled his eyes. “Listen, non-qual, one thing you’ll quickly learn aboard a submarine is that anything that bothers you will be picked up by the crew and thrown at you a hundred times over. Why? To make sure you can don’t break under pressure. Scared of spiders? For fuck’s sake, don’t tell anyone, or there will be a hundred spiders in your rack. So the whole ‘Elvis’ thing? Whatever, I no longer give a shit.”
“Anyway,” Pacino said, “Beautiful car.”
“Testarossa,” the engineer said. “Italian for ‘redhead.’ With all that goes with the spirit of a beautiful, sexy redhead.” He sounded sad as he said that, Pacino noticed, imagining that the engineer must be missing his redheaded ex-girlfriend. Idly, Pacino wondered what had happened to the two of them. Probably the unpredictable and long absences from the schedule of the submarine.
Pacino asked to see its engine. The V-12 sparkled in the overhead lights of the garage.
Quinnivan grabbed Elvis’ shoulder. “Ya know, lad, Mr. Pacino here has a classic ’69 Corvette, yeah? and he changed out its engine and tranny himself with a first decade LS V-8. You should check it out.” It almost seemed to Pacino like the XO was trying to cheer the engineer up.
Lewinsky looked at Pacino, blinking. “Seriously?” Pacino waved him over to the Corvette across the street. He walked to the front and hit the latch and raised the hood. Lewinsky stared at the big and modern LS engine crammed into the tiny engine compartment for several long moments before he whistled. “Wow. You swapped this out yourself? Computer control and all? And a manual six speed? And a supercharger?”
Pacino nodded.
“Jesus, this thing must have five hundred horsepower.”
“Six hundred and forty, but who’s counting,” Pacino smiled.
“It’d be interesting to see which car is faster on the track, yours or mine. But listen. I could use a good mechanic,” Lewinsky said. “Not on this, but I have a restoration project I could use help with. We’ll talk about it after Monday.”
There it was again, Pacino thought, the reference to ‘Monday’ as if it were a scheduled event rather than just waiting at the pier for orders that may or may not come.
Lewinsky straightened up when he saw the gray limo bus round the corner and roll to a stop in front of Quinnivan’s house. A dozen or more people with duffel bags climbed out and headed into Quinnivan’s house through the garage.
“Let’s go meet the guys,” Elvis said.
4
Pacino followed the engineer into the house and down the stairs, where in just the few minutes since the limo bus arrived, the previously whisper quiet lower-level room was crowded with people, making noise and shouting at each other. He found his rocks glass on the coffee table and turned toward the bar. U-Boat Dankleff walked up, smiling as usual. He was wearing black jeans and a black hoodie and his usual black-framed glasses.
“Wow, I hear Bullfrog gave you some of the two-grand-a-bottle scotch. You’re definitely a VIP, he’s been saving that for months.”
Pacino grimaced. “I don’t think a non-qual can be a VIP,” he said. “I have a question for you, U-Boat.”
“Sure. Shoot.”
“How did you get the name ‘U-Boat’? Because you’re the damage control assistant and own the diesel generator?”
“Nope,” Dankleff said, smiling mysteriously. “I’m the great-grandson of Oberleutnant Zur See Walter Dankleff, the captain of the German U-Boat U-767, which went down in the English Channel on June 18, 1944, but not before he took down a buttload of Allied shipping.”
“Whoa, talk about a pedigree.”
“Not really. We could have a long debate about how much talent is hereditary. You’re in good shape if it is, what with your admiral father and sub captain grandfather.”
“U-Boat, let’s hope it is hereditary.”
“So,” U-Boat said, “have you met the navigator? ‘Dominatrix Navigatrix’?” Pacino shook his head. Dankleff waved over a tall, slender woman wearing tight jeans and tall boots with a red sweater. Her dirty blonde hair was long, obviously attended to before the party, sweeping gracefully below her shoulders, some of it curled. She walked up and smiled with a mouthful of white, even teeth. She was compellingly beautiful, Pacino thought, reminding himself that she was a senior officer.
“So you’re the new nub,” she asked, extending her hand. “I’m Rachel Romanov, ship’s navigator and TAO.”