“TAO?” Pacino asked.
“Tactical action officer. In days gone by the position would be called the operations officer, or the ops boss, the person who’s in charge of setting up the ship’s mission, but now the term tactical action officer is used. I suppose it sounds more specific. So reporting to me in the operations department, I have the navigation electronics technicians, the radiomen and the crypto-spies. And the communications officer, Mr. Eisenhart, reports to me. I run the department, but tactical action operational planning is also my thing. That and, as navigator, obviously, knowing where the fuck we are.”
It sounded strange to Pacino’s ears to hear an elegant, attractive woman like her curse. Suddenly she yelled over his head. “Bruno! Get Mr. Pacino another Macallan! And another Merlot for me!” Then back to him, she said, “Sorry to scream like a fishwife, but it’s so loud in here. Bruno’s my husband. Get over here, Bruno, goddammit!”
A man a half-head taller than Romanov carefully ducked through the crowd to join them. His round head was shaved, giving him a tough look, but the skin at his eyes wrinkled into laugh lines as he handed Pacino the whisky. “Must be a hundred dollars’ worth of scotch in that glass,” he said in a deep commanding voice with an odd accent, almost German or east European.
“Bruno, this is Patch Pacino, our new non-qual. Mr. Pacino, meet Commander Bruno Romanov, in command of the missile cruiser Javelin,” Rachel explained. “We were assigned to a destroyer together a million years ago, back before I left the Navy.”
Pacino shook Bruno’s hand, nodded and said, “Good to meet you, sir.” Then to Rachel, “You left? You were a skimmer?” Surface navy sailors were called, somewhat dismissively, “skimmers,” although Pacino dropped the second half of the epithet, avoiding saying “skimmer puke” in deference to Bruno.
“I had a dream of being a contented housewife and having children, but it turns out that medically, it’s just not meant to be. I got bored and applied for reinstatement. Submarine force recruited me. Turns out I have mad skills at navigation and tactics.”
“It’s true,” Bruno said, just before Quinnivan heaved to, placing his arms around Bruno and Rachel.
“Ah, just the two I’m lookin’ for,” Quinnivan said. “Bruno, Rachel, I see you’ve met Lieutenant junior grade Anthony “Patch” Pacino, the replacement for Squirt Gun Vevera. Pacino here qualified dive and pilot on the ill-fated Piranha, ya know, just before the disaster, but he seems all healed up now, yeah?”
Healed up except for missing Carrie Alameda, Pacino thought.
“Anyway, Patch,” Quinnivan said, grinning, “be careful around the navigator for two very good reasons. The first is how mean she is.”
“Bullfrog!” Rachel said, exasperated. “I am not mean!” Apparently this exchange had been going on for some time, as it seemed a running joke between the two of them.
“You’ve heard of ‘velvet glove, iron fist,’ yeah?” Quinnivan addressed Pacino directly, grinning. “Well, the navigator here is ‘silk glove, titanium fist.’ We’ve taken to calling her ‘Silky’ for short.”
Rachel rolled her eyes and whispered into Bruno’s ear, who took her wine glass and headed back to the bar to get her a refill.
“The other reason?” Pacino asked.
Quinnivan put his hand up to make it look like he was disclosing something confidential, but his stage whisper was loud enough to be heard all the way at the bar. “She’s been known to get just a wee bit slutty when we’re in liberty ports, yeah? You’ll want to watch yourself, or Silky might try to throw a fook into ya.”
Rachel tilted her head back and laughed loudly, coughing and choking. “I am not slutty in foreign ports!” she squealed, laughing, but even more exasperated. Quinnivan laughed uproariously, enjoying the look on the navigator’s face.
She caught her breath and looked at Pacino. “It was a case of mistaken identity,” she explained, just as Bruno showed up with her refilled wine glass. “Bruno and I were in this cozy bar in La Spezia when he unaccountably disappeared downstairs—”
“I told you I had to hit the head—”
“And he was gone so long I think I’d had two rounds waiting for him—”
“Let’s just say there was a loud argument in the men’s room—”
“And so his bar stool is unoccupied for so long and then he shows back up—”
“You mean some stranger shows up,” Bruno added.
“He looked just like you,” Rachel said.
“He had long hair,” Bruno reminded her.
“You did too, back then, and anyway, I was feeling romantic and started kissing him—”
Bruno leaned in to interject to Pacino. “I had to peel her off the poor man.”
“Poor man? He seemed to enjoy it,” she laughed.
“I ended up having to buy him a few rounds just to get him to agree to leave her alone after that.”
“So you see, Mr. Pacino, it was not a case of being slutty in-port.”
Quinnivan laughed. “You didn’t tell him about the other incident, though, did ye?”
“Oh my God, Bullfrog, shut the fuck up!”
Quinnivan, Bruno and Rachel laughed together at what must be another inside joke. Eventually Quinnivan and Bruno went back to the bar. Rachel took a last sip of her second wine.
“Anyway, it’s good to have you aboard. You go by ‘Anthony’?”
“Patch,” Pacino said. “My inevitable nickname.”
She nodded. “Anyway, Patch, Monday’s coming, so get in early, pack a bag for a month — that means both pair of underwear — and be ready to go.”
“You think we’ll leave?”
She shook her head. “Not here. We’ll talk more Monday.” She saw someone in the crowd and a sour expression came to her face. “See you later, non-qual,” she said, and walked to the bar. Pacino did his best not to watch her walk away, but he couldn’t help but admire her perfect body. He looked up to see Dankleff, who was joined by a slightly older man. “Patch, I suppose it’s time for you to meet your new boss, Sprocket Spichovich.” He pronounced it Spick-ah-vick.
A dark-haired, youthful and underweight man shook Pacino’s hand. He had a mop of too-long hair over his eyebrows, a round open face, a dark mustache and large ears. He was better dressed than most in the room, with a starched button-down white shirt, dark wool trousers and a brown herring-bone sport jacket with patches on the elbows. “You’re Pacino,” he said in a smooth tenor voice with a slight New England accent, not quite Boston, not quite Maine. “I’m Al Spichovich. Weapons officer.”
“Sprocket,” U-Boat Dankleff said. “Not drinking tonight?”
Spichovich made an unhappy face. “Duty after midnight when I relieve Doctor No.” Spichovich looked at Pacino. “On the nights of a ship’s party, we split the duty officer duties so everyone can enjoy, except the early half attendee has to remain sober. Which kind of flies in the face of the whole mission of a ship’s party.”
“You mean you want to let the others get drunk, then lure them into a poker game and walk off with all their earthly possessions?” Dankleff looked at Pacino. “This guy’s a card shark. Do not ever get talked into playing a couple of hands with him.”
Pacino noticed the weapons officer looking over at Romanov with an angry expression.
“Something wrong?” Pacino asked. Spichovich seemed to snap out of it.
“No, everything’s fine,” he said, and wandered absently off.
“Anyway,” Dankleff said, “Lieutenant Commander Spichovich — Sprocket — is the weapons officer. So the torpedomen and missile techs report to him, and firecontrol, sonar and the IT guys. And of course, the torpedo division officer, Doctor No. You’re relieving Easy Eisenhart as sonar officer so he can take over communications from Man Mountain Vevera. Have you met Easy Eisy?”