“I’m sorry to hear,” Pacino said. “You two seemed good together.”
“We’ve been limping along for some time,” she said, blinking back tears, her jaw hardening as if she were trying to get control of herself. “But the mission didn’t help. Imagine what total radio silence for two months does to a marriage. Meanwhile, his dalliance with his chubby missile officer — I don’t even want to talk about it. I decided I’d had enough.” She swallowed hard and shook her beautiful chestnut hair, then looked at him. “But never mind about all that. What about you? Are you going to see that Wanda Styxx chick?” Was it Pacino’s imagination, or was there a trace of jealousy in her voice?
“She asked me out after the awards ceremony,” Pacino said, a slow smile spreading on his face. “But I gave her an excuse. You know. Dentist appointment on Saturday night.”
Romanov laughed. “I don’t suppose I could get you to cancel your dentist appointment, could I?”
Pacino drank her in with his eyes, feeling a sudden desire that was entirely inappropriate to feel for a senior officer. “I think my teeth are in pretty good shape, actually,” he said. “Got anything in mind?”
“Maybe a ride in that hotrod of yours?” she asked.
“That might be arranged, Nav,” he smiled.
“Call me Rachel,” she said. “Anthony.” She stood from the tub’s edge, took a step toward him and straddled him, then touched his face with one hand and ran her fingers through his hair with the other. Her eyes brightened as she looked at him.
Later, when he looked back on this moment, he realized how natural and inevitable it felt when her lips met his. And at that moment, as Rachel Romanov’s warm silky tongue explored his mouth, he thought about Ebenezer Fishman’s theory that this was all a simulation. And deep in his heart, Anthony Pacino fervently hoped it wasn’t, and that beautiful Rachel kissing him was the true reality.
Jeremiah Seamus Quinnivan pulled Dieter Dankleff over to the bar and said quietly in his ear, “who’s that fookin’ bloke?”
Dankleff grinned. “That, XO, is Captain Resa Ahmadi of the Iranian submarine Panther. Guy saved our lives at least three times, maybe four.” He waved and shouted at the Iranian. “Resa! Over here!”
The Iranian naval officer self-consciously stepped over to the bar. “Hello, U-Boat,” he said.
Dankleff introduced him to the XO, then asked him, “So Captain, what happens for you now?”
“Back to Bandar Abbas,” he said. “I’m being repatriated after all.”
“No hard feelings from the bosses?”
Ahmadi smiled. “In my debrief, I told the tale of how, when you first captured the ship, I sabotaged it and caused it to sink, exceeding test depth by at least fifty meters, but after you recovered with that emergency surfacing, you kept me tied up in the torpedo room. There’s no one to tell the Revolutionary Guards otherwise, what with Abakumov staying here. So, gentlemen, back in Iran, I’m a brave hero. But now that I’ve lied, all of you have to swear to it.”
Dankleff laughed. “Where’s Lipstick? He wanted to buy you that drink. Hey XO, what concoction from your almighty bar do we have for the good Panther captain, bearing in mind that when it comes to alcohol, he’s a bit of a non-qual?”
Quinnivan found a craft vodka, made in Austin, Texas, and poured two fingers in a crystal rocks glass. “Try this, Cap’n, yeah? It’s good for what ails ye.”
“A toast to the immortal spirit of the submarine Panther,” Dankleff said, raising his glass. “May she ever sail safe.”
“And to your Vermont,” Ahmadi said, taking a sip, then a second one, then looked at the glass. “You know, Commander, I can see now why my religion prohibits such a substance. It is frankly wonderful.”
Lieutenant Commander Mario Elvis Lewinsky left the party early, feeling exhausted. He hadn’t even had a drink at the gathering. There was just something about the end of this operation that left him feeling empty. The drama was over. Now it was back to working on meaningless reports to the squadron engineer and NavSea 08, division training and equipment preventive maintenance. There was no doubt — after being a submariner in combat, in mortal peril, the return to the mundane life of a nuclear submarine engineer was far beyond difficult. For a moment he looked up at the crescent moon, remembering how it had looked out the periscope in the Arabian Sea. His eyes came to rest on his prized possession, the Ferrari Testarossa, Italian for redhead, and for a moment, all he could feel was a crushing sadness that Redhead had left him.
And almost as if his thinking about her conjured her into being, the car door of a nondescript small blue SUV opened across the street, and Redhead climbed out of it. She walked over to him, wearing a tight black pencil dress with tall pumps, her luxurious red hair arrayed down past her nipples, the fabric of the dress tight around her slender waist and curving hips and struggling mightily able to contain her huge breasts. She confidently walked up to him, looked into his eyes and put her soft hand on his face. He suddenly became aware that his face was three days unshaved, stubble everywhere. He noticed her big brown eyes were almost liquid, moist with tears as she looked up at him.
“Hello Mario,” was all she said, her voice trembling.
He looked at her. “I’ve missed you so much, Redhead,” was all he could say, and he felt the moisture flood his eyes.
She took his face in both her hands and her soft red lips met his for a long, blissful kiss. He felt her warm, soft body as his arms brought her close. Finally, she pulled back and looked at him, her eyes drifting from looking at his left eye, then his right.
“How’d you know I’d be here?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Bruno Romanov told me there was a ship’s party here tonight. I was worried I’d have to walk in there with all those catcalling dogs you call your fellow officers.”
“Well, I’m glad you came, but why did you?”
“I came to say I’m sorry. And to pay for the damage to the car.”
He waved his hand in the air. “It’s okay. Fixed up better than new. Insurance paid for it all.”
She smiled. “At the cost of huge premium increases, I’m sure.”
“Well, that is true,” he said.
She drilled her soft eyes into his. “Perhaps I can do something that will make up for all that, Mario.”
Mario Elvis Lewinsky smiled at her. “I look forward to whatever that might be.”
“Give a girl a ride? There’s an amazing restaurant on the beach we just have to try.”
Lewinsky opened the passenger door of the Ferrari, careful not to dent the door of Lipstick Pacino’s classic black Corvette, and watched as Redhead slid into the passenger seat, her mile-long legs the things of boyhood fantasies.
He walked around and got into the driver’s seat and looked over at Redhead.
“I’m glad you came back,” he said as he started the V-12 engine, which shook the car with raw power.
“I couldn’t live without you, Mario,” she said, her expression serious.
“Redhead,” he said, “I know exactly how you feel.”
Lewinsky touched Redhead’s hand, then found reverse and backed the Ferrari out of the driveway, turned west, shifted into first, punched the gas and popped the clutch, his shrieking tires leaving black marks on the road in front of the Quinnivan residence.
In the situation room, National Security Director Michael Pacino took his habitual seat, waving Admirals Rob Catardi and Grayson Rand to seats on his side of the table. CIA Director Margo Allende and Deputy Director of Operations Angel Menendez took seats on the opposite side.