“You didn’t read the classified citation from Rob Catardi on the Piranha incident, did you?”
Quinnivan shook his head. “It isn’t in the file, Skipper. Just the unclassified note of the award for, well, obviously, bravery.”
Seagraves pulled Quinnivan’s heavy weather gear off the room’s second chair, tossed it onto the upper rack, spun the chair backwards and plopped down into it, resting his forearms on the chair back.
“XO, lend an ear and let me tell you the top-secret tale that Admiral Catardi told me about the Piranha rescue.”
As the captain spoke, Quinnivan’s face changed from doubt to disbelief and then to pure awe.
A knock came at the door. The DCA, the Damage Control Assistant, Lieutenant Dieter Dankleff, cracked the door open. “Excuse me, XO, Captain, I have Lieutenant junior grade Pacino here to report aboard.”
“Send him in,” Quinnivan said, smiling. “And Duty Officer, rig ship for class alpha air gap.”
“Rig ship for class alpha air gap, aye sir.” Dankleff withdrew and Pacino stiffened his posture into rigid attention, his white officer’s cover tucked under his arm. Pacino shook the captain’s hand, then the exec’s, looking directly into each man’s eyes.
“Pacino, reporting aboard as ordered, Captain, XO.” The lieutenant’s voice wasn’t as deep as Seagraves, more of a low-pitched tenor, but a smooth tenor, with no discernable regional accent. The lad had confidence in his voice, but also a sort of weariness, Quinnivan thought.
Quinnivan, with a practiced eye coming from years of commanding officers and enlisted men, took in Pacino with a long glance. The lad was slender and tall, his uniform pressed, starched and spotless. He carried his cover, his hat, under his arm, cradled into his ribs. He wore several ribbons, most of them the usual awards for officers with his experience, but the lone ribbon on the top row, center, was the Navy Cross, which Quinnivan had never seen before. Above the ribbons were paratrooper wings. Quinnivan wondered how the hell a junior grade lieutenant had had paratrooper training.
This kid Pacino had odd looks to him, Quinnivan thought. He seemed rugged and tough overall, yet his individual features were refined — his lips had a full, puffy look to them and his almond-shaped eyes were large and emerald green with long lashes. His nose was straight, his cheekbones sculpted, his hair looking a little longer than it should, a shade of chestnut that reflected the overhead lights. Quinnivan thought it must be a hell-ride going to a nightclub with this kid — he had to be popular with the womenfolk, but he also had this look about him that showed he had no idea about his good looks, in contrast to Seagraves, Quinnivan thought, who knew he had a striking appearance and used it whenever he could.
There was something more here, though, Quinnivan thought. There was something about the young man standing in the room entrance. He seemed engulfed in a dense cloud of something. If Quinnivan were pressed, he would have described Pacino’s aura as one of exhaustion. He seemed as if he were carrying a thousand-pound backpack. He’d have to get to the bottom of that, and soon, he thought.
Seagraves spoke first after glancing quickly at Pacino’s ribbons. “Welcome aboard, Lieutenant. What have you heard about the Vermont?”
“Actually, nothing, sir. There’s not much in the open sources about her.”
“That’s good,” Seagraves said, seriously. “We’re a project boat. The things we do — well, let’s just say we never did them and leave it at that. There are a few unforgiveable sins in the submarine force and particularly on this boat, Mr. Pacino, and one of them is talking about our operations. To anyone. That includes family. Decorated war hero fathers. Girlfriends, wives, mistresses—”
Quinnivan interrupted. “Especially those fookin’ mistresses. And hookers too, yeah?”
Seagraves smiled, smirking at the XO: “Yes, XO, hookers too. Drinking buddies. Mothers. Family dog. Even submariners from other boats. Especially submariners from other boats. Even former bosses like Admiral Catardi. Anyone.”
Pacino looked at Seagraves, the point being made that he couldn’t talk to his father about anything that would happen aboard.
“Understood, sir.”
“Pacino, what’s the mission statement of the USS Vermont?”
Pacino frowned. “I don’t know it, sir.” Was Quinnivan talking about what was written on the Vermont logo on the banner strapped to the gangway, ‘Freedom and Unity’?
“It never happened,” Quinnivan began, looking at Seagraves.
Captain Seagraves finished with the companion statement: “We were never there.”
“Memorize that, young Pacino,” Quinnivan said.
Just then the ship-wide announcing 1MC circuit clicked. Pacino froze, knowing that in the submarine force, that click meant shut up and listen.
“Rig ship,” the overhead speakers rasped with Dankleff’s voice, “for class alpha air gap.”
Seagraves looked at Quinnivan. “Well, I’ll leave you to your work, XO. I’m going to shove off.” He nodded seriously at Pacino. “Good to have you aboard, Mr. Pacino. Oh, XO, cigars tonight?” Quinnivan nodded and smiled at that, and Seagraves ducked into the door to the shared head and from there into his stateroom.
Quinnivan waved Pacino to the empty seat. “Shut the door and relax, willya, laddie, while I tell you about the top-secret lore of the USS Vermont.”
Pacino shut the door and sank into the hard steel chair at the far bulkhead of the XO’s stateroom, keeping his posture rigid. Quinnivan reached over to this walkie-talkie and pulled the battery out of it and tossed it and the battery onto his bed, which was crowded with papers and books. Quinnivan’s desk phone buzzed. He picked up the handset. “XO. You’re rigged for class-A airgap? Okay, Duty Officer, good, good.” Quinnivan hung up and looked at Pacino.
“Well, okay, then, Mr. Pacino, I’m not going to tell you about all our operations in the last two years. That would take too long. But just to give you an idea what you’re signing onto here, I thought I’d give you the top-secret Fractal Chaos briefing on our last operation, which is typical of what we do at sea. Now, there’s a documentary video of this last operation, yeah? But it’s too long and boring to watch. So, I grabbed a few screenshots of the optronics mast videos for you.”
Quinnivan operated the software of his pad computer for a moment, authenticated himself with a retinal scan, then displayed a photograph of what looked like an aerial photo of a huge super-yacht. A second photo showed the same luxury yacht from the water level with crosshairs superimposed on it — a periscope photo.
“You’ve heard of Elias Sotheby, world famous billionaire industrialist, made his fortune in computer software and electric vehicles, went on to become a global philanthropist and activist, all into financing the medical health of the third world and saving the earth from dying of climate change, yeah?”
Pacino nodded. “It was all over the news. He disappeared off the face of the earth, what, a month ago? Two?”
Quinnivan shot a look at Pacino. “Yeah, forty-one days ago he disappeared, because we on the Vermont disappeared him.” Quinnivan clicked to a high-definition photo showing Sotheby held up by two men in black wetsuits. The background was black, as if the photo were shot at night. A bullet hole showed clearly in Sotheby’s left temple, with a gaping exit wound on the right side of his skull big enough to put a baseball in, but unmistakably Elias Sotheby. Quinnivan glanced over at Pacino, whose mouth hung open in disbelief.