Not that it mattered. Today was Friday, the sixth of May. His orders required him to report to the Naval Security Group U.S. Submarine Force—“NavSecGru SubFor”—at 1300 and get a security indoctrination, and when that was complete, report aboard the submarine USS Vermont at or around 1500. That was odd, he thought, in a Navy where seemingly everything important started well before dawn and new orders required reporting aboard on a Monday. He found the nondescript building marked only with the number “112” and handed his identification to a guard stationed behind heavy glass with only a slot for the ID card. He scanned his fingerprints and put his eyes up to the retinal scanner. The guard handed back his military ID and the entrance door clicked open. Pacino pushed through it, the steel door heavier than it looked.
A scowling first class petty officer waited for him. He wore the NWU Navy working uniform with its odd-looking multi-color digital camouflage print pattern and multiple pockets with combat boots and a cloth cover, the uniform new since Pacino had graduated from the academy. The petty officer didn’t salute but just escorted Pacino to a cramped, sparsely furnished cinderblock-walled room with only a metal table, metal chairs and a camera in the corner watching him, the dingy space looking like something from a Detroit police station’s interrogation room. The sailor left and shut the door, leaving Pacino to wait. He stared at the wall and for the first time all day, allowed himself to think about her. About Carrie Alameda. Today, like so many days, he was still sleepwalking in shock, almost a year after that night in Boston.
Lieutenant Commander and Engineer Carolyn Alameda had been his mentor on his long first class midshipman cruise on the Seawolf-class submarine USS Piranha, at first a hostile and harsh taskmaster, but softening later as he demonstrated capability in his diving officer qualifications and the studies of the submarine. They’d had to share a stateroom, and soon they both became aware of their mutual attraction, which they had both tried to keep locked down, but it had been a compelling force of nature. He would never forget the first time she had let her guard down enough to give him a smoldering look, igniting a desire in him he’d never experienced. Getting orders to evacuate the Piranha had been both a disappointment and a relief to Pacino — disappointment because he wanted to be with the submarine when she sailed into harm’s way, into genuine combat, but a relief that leaving Alameda behind would avoid them both getting disciplined by “Big Navy” for fraternization, a Naval Academy conduct offense for him but a full-blown court martial for her.
Carolyn Alameda had been unconscious and half-drowned when he had found her after his foolish re-entry into the doomed hull. The miracle of their rescue at the hands of the Royal Navy at first seemed like the universe smiling down upon both of them. Despite the prohibition of U.S. Navy Regulations, Pacino had secretly started to see her on weekends at grad school in Boston, when she would come up from DC, avoiding having him visit her in the town where seemingly everyone was military, where their relationship would raise eyebrows.
For a long moment in Pacino’s life, everything seemed so perfect. Carrie Alameda’s career was going into high gear and Pacino was celebrating completing his master’s thesis, only waiting for his advisor’s nod before graduating and going on to the Navy’s nuclear training program.
And then this brief ray of sunshine turned into black darkness. Carrie had been visiting him at the humble walk-up apartment he shared with two other grad students on Newbury Street in Back Bay Boston. They’d finished dinner, enjoying having the apartment to themselves with Pacino’s roommates out of town for the long Memorial Day weekend. Pacino had carried off the dishes and poured a Merlot for Carrie and three fingers of Balvenie scotch for himself and joined her on the sofa.
“Anthony,” she’d said, looking into his eyes, “I never asked you this. I didn’t want to upset you. But somehow now seems the right time.”
He looked at her, raising an eyebrow.
She went on. “When we were in the deep submergence vehicle and being rescued, you were clinically dead for a while. While you were, you know, out of it, did you see anything?”
Pacino nodded solemnly. “The more time that goes by,” he said haltingly, “the dimmer the memory gets and the more unreal it seems. By now, I only remember a few fragments, and what I do remember seems more like a fever dream than an experience.”
“What did you see,” she asked, her hand moving up to caress his face. “What happened?”
“I was watching myself from a distance for the whole rescue. I saw the DSV’s emergency ascent. I saw the inside of the rescue submersible. I could feel the Royal Navy commander’s thoughts and emotions. I saw the DSV surface. I saw the guys coming in the hatch to take us out. I saw the operating room. They were trying to resuscitate me, without any luck. Then a big black tunnel appeared, sucked me into it. I lost track of time, but I felt like I was inside for a few hours. Something happened while I was in there, and as much as I try, I can’t remember what it was, and it seems important, but it’s like trying to grab a cloud. And then I guess the tunnel sort of spit me back out into the rescue ship. From behind, I saw Colleen leaning over to look at my body and in an instant, I was back in my body again. I opened my eyes and I’m staring right at Colleen, blinking away the visions, trying to understand what the hell had happened.”
Carrie’s lovely smile shone on him for just a moment, then faded. Her face froze, then went blank, and her eyes rolled up into her head. She slumped over and fell to the floor, the wine glass breaking, the red wine spilling in a pool around her unmoving body.
Pacino rushed to kneel over her, trying to find her pulse, which was weak but present. He frantically pulled her into a fireman’s carry, grabbed his wallet, phone and keys and raced down four flights of stairs with her on his shoulder, hardly noticing how he was panting from the exertion. He unlocked his car and poured her into the passenger seat, slapped the seatbelt on her and roared off toward Mass General Back Bay, the emergency room entrance he had driven past a hundred times. He dialed 911 as he drove, barking at the operator to have a team standing by at the ER. He rounded a corner at a red light, the old Corvette’s tires slipping on the streets wetted by an evening drizzle. Finally, he skidded to a halt at the emergency entrance, set the parking brake and left the car running while he ran to the passenger side, pulled her out and carried her into the ER, where the crash team waited with a gurney. He was following when an administrator pulled him away to move his car. He opened his mouth to argue but realized he was blocking an ambulance. He ran to the car, threw it into gear, found what passed for parking in the absurdly crowded lot, then dashed back into the emergency room entrance.
He was forced to wait in misery and shock for what seemed hours, the nurses and administrators refusing to let him back to where Carolyn Alameda lay unconscious in surgery. When the sweat-soaked surgeon walked out, Pacino could see by his expression the news. “I’m sorry, Mr. Pacino, she had a brain aneurism and it was catastrophic. We couldn’t save her. There’s no telling whether the trauma from that submarine incident had caused this or if it were completely unrelated. It could have been waiting to happen for five years, or it could have started developing five weeks ago.”