Finally, Barsky stood and waved him to the door. A different petty officer, as dour as the first one, waited and escorted him down the corridors to the entrance door, which slammed behind him. He climbed back in the Corvette and drove it to the officer parking lot for Pier 22, home of Squadron Eight and Submarine Development Group Twelve. This late in the day, the open parking spaces were a long way from the pier. He walked to the pier security building that displayed a large emblem of an angry shark pushing a billiards eight-ball, the logo of Squadron Eight, a separate emblem for SubDevGru 12, an image of King Neptune, his chest armor bearing the numeral 12. Pacino produced his identification, rescanned his fingerprints and submitted to the retinal scan. He put the contents of his pockets in a dog bowl that was scanned by the equipment. He walked through the millimeter wave body scanner, then collected his personal items. The guard pointed to his phone. “Your ship will be collecting that from you when you get to it, so any calls, texts or emails, you should send out now.”
“I’m good,” Pacino said, taking the phone and walking out into the early May sunshine to the long and wide concrete runway of the pier. He could see the ship in the distance. The pier was empty except for her. Perhaps an operational tempo surge or exercises were going on, but Vermont was the only submarine at the pier, her sister ships from the squadron at sea. He paused a few shiplengths away to look at her. As usual with nuclear attack submarines, there wasn’t much to see. Just a simple cigar-shaped black cylinder with a vertical conning tower — the sail — presiding over the bow, a number of masts pointing to the sky emerging out of the sail. The sloping hull aft angled into the brackish water of the slip, the rudder sticking straight up farther aft. Doubled up heavy lines bound the sub to the pier, coiling from the bollards on the concrete jetty to the cleats on the top of the ship’s hull. The hull itself was covered in a black, spongy, rubbery coating to avoid bouncing back sonar pings. A gangway, the brow, extended from the pier to the hull, and a banner was tied to the brow’s structure, reading USS VERMONT, SSN-792.
The ship’s seal was affixed to the banner. It showed an attack sub on the surface, a fragment of a Betsy Ross American flag, an image fragment of a square-rigged sailing vessel on the left, and on the right, the 1907 Connecticut-class battleship USS Vermont, BB-20, in the background, then below the sub image, gold and silver submarine dolphins, the seal’s written motto reading, “Vermont — Freedom & Unity.”
Pacino paused, remembering what little he knew about her, the information passed on by his father at one of their cocktail hours. Vermont was what the Navy called a “project boat.” By that, it meant that her missions were “special projects” or operations so secret that they couldn’t be spoken of aloud. She didn’t report like the other boats to the squadron commander or even to the normal command structure of the force, but directly to the National Security Council and to POTUS, the President of the United States.
He walked up to the topside watch sentry, a second-class petty officer in crackerjack dress blues with gleaming silver dolphins and a splash of ribbons above his pocket, the name badge reading WATSON. His emblem showed the symbol of a ship’s propeller, so he was one of the mechanical personnel onboard. Petty Officer Watson came to attention and saluted, and Pacino rigidly returned the salute.
Before he could announce himself, Watson said in a deep South accent, squinting, “You’re Lieutenant Pacino, reportin’ aboard, right?”
Pacino nodded. “How’d you know?”
Watson smirked. “Ain’t ever’ day the son of the Chief of Naval Operations himself walks aboard your ship, and a nub non-qual airbreathin’ puke at that.”
Pacino smiled despite the friendly insult. “Dad’s long retired,” he said. “And I’m just another non-qual junior officer.”
Watson seemed to appreciate Pacino’s humility. He half-smiled. “I’ll need to see your orders, Mr. Pacino, and your identification.”
Pacino took his phone from his back pocket and pulled up his digital orders, the terse text only directing him to report to the NavSecGru and then Vermont, SSN-792. Watson looked it over and compared it to what was displayed on his pad computer. Pacino handed over his identification. Watson put the identification card into a scanner while he held up a portable retinal scanner. After a few seconds, he seemed satisfied at the readout.
“I’ll need your phone,” Watson said. Pacino handed it over. Watson opened a washing machine-sized cabinet and put the phone into a drawer inside. “Faraday cage,” he said. “No signals going out or coming in. You can pick it up when you leave the ship for the day. The yeoman will have a pad computer waiting for you onboard — but remember, it never leaves the ship.”
Watson pulled a VHF radio from his belt. “Duty Officer, Topside.” The radio hissed with static. It took a moment for the duty officer to answer. While he waited, Pacino looked up at Vermont’s sail and saw the other topside watchstander, whose combat-helmeted head protruded from a cubbyhole on top of the tall fin, the man’s high-powered rifle visible. A sniper, Pacino thought. Defense from an invasion, assuming a commando force could penetrate the pier security. Odds were, though, he thought, any commandos would come from the sea, not the shore. Out in the slip between the piers on the starboard side, a heavily armed Coast Guard small boat patrolled slowly, a second one on the other side of the jetty toward the cruiser piers.
Watson’s radio finally clicked with the deep voice of an authoritative young man. “Duty Officer.”
“Sir, Mr. Pacino is here.”
“Roger, copy, on my way.”
A stocky officer in working khakis appeared from the canvas tent over the aft hatch, making Pacino feel out of uniform since he himself wore tropical whites, his shirt and pants white, his hat — his cover — white, and even his belt and shoes white. Tropical whites were the more formal summer uniform, for reporting aboard. The officer approaching had the double silver bars of a full lieutenant on his collars, gold submarine dolphins above his pocket, a key on an elaborate chain around his neck, his name badge reading, DANKLEFF. He was half a head shorter than Pacino, dark-complected, with pockmarked skin showing a distinct five o-clock shadow and wore thick-lensed glasses with thick black rims. Pacino came to attention and saluted, and the duty officer waved a sloppy salute back. He reached out and shook Pacino’s hand, smiling with what seemed genuine joy to meet him.
“I’m Dieter Dankleff,” he said. “I’ll be your sea daddy for the next few weeks.”
“Anthony Pacino,” Pacino said. “Glad to meet you.”
“‘Patch,’ right?” Dankleff asked.
Pacino nodded. “Patch,” his father’s nickname, had seemed to stick to him as well.
“Put this on your belt,” Dankleff ordered, handing Pacino a small black plastic cylinder the size of a cigarette lighter. “Thermoluminescent dosimeter, to be worn at all times on your belt to record your cumulative radiation dose. Even if you’re aboard in civilian clothes, the dosimeter goes on your belt.” Pacino strapped the dosimeter to his belt. “Now, come with me. The captain and exec are waiting for you below.”
Dankleff walked across the gangway, turning to salute the American flag flying aft. Pacino did the same, then stepped off the gangway onto the spongy hull of the submarine, the foam coating glued to the high tensile steel for sound quieting and minimization of returned sonar pings. Aft of the sail, the conning tower, there were two hatches. The forward one had a scaffold-and-canvas “dog house” over it with the emblem of the Navy SEALs — sea/air/land commandos — and was surrounded by a locked chain. Farther aft, a larger dog house had the emblem of the ship on it. Dankleff walked to the aft doghouse, opened the curtain and stepped inside. Pacino followed him into the relative gloom. Inside the doghouse was a huge hatch, twice the size of the hatchway on the Piranha. As if Dankleff knew what he was thinking, he said, “Plug trunk. Bigger hatch to load bigger things without making hull cuts, like widescreen flat panels. Usually, our access is through the lockout hatch forward, but the SEALs have that tied up, what with getting all their shit loaded in.”