“Well,” Sinclair said in a different tone, “now that we’ve dispensed with the usual pleasantries, Admiral, what boat do you have for us?”
“The Providence’s coming off deployment,” Chappell said in a voice so low and resigned it was almost a whisper. “She should arrive home any day now.”
“Ah, the Providence!” Sinclair said, finally with some emotion. “Captain Christopher, isn’t it? He’ll do nicely, I must say, if his past missions with us are any gauge to measure him by. That man has always come through for us, no matter the danger.”
“It was Captain Christopher,” Chappell corrected him. “Providence has a new captain now. Dave Edwards. He’s a good man.”
“Well, if he’s anything like his predecessor, he’s sure to measure up.”
What the hell do you know about submarine captains? Chappell thought. What do you know about what it takes to command a submarine on one of your damned missions?
“This should be a nice easy mission for your new captain. A simple agent extraction,” Sinclair said as he held out his hand for the young man to fill it with a red file folder. Without even looking at it, he tossed the file onto the desk in front of Chappell. “It’s all right there, Admiral. Everything you need to know about this operation. As usual, your captain is to know as little as possible. We’ve outlined in blue highlights what you can tell him. This is a tedious precaution, as you well know, but we can’t have every sailor in the Pacific in the know, now can we?”
Chappell nodded. He knew the drill. Compartments within compartments within compartments. Classified information was never an easy thing to handle. He hated sending any captain into a mission blind, but he had a special affection for Dave Edwards. Dave had done wonders on the Providence during his first months of command. He’d worked hard to turn a demoralized crew into one brimming with pride, something Providence’s crew had not experienced for many years, despite what Sinclair might think. Now, Chappell wondered how much this mission would tear down what Edwards had worked hard to build up. The news would not break easily. Any sailor hated to be denied a home port he’d been promised for the last six months.
But, of course, Edwards was a submarine captain. He would overcome this adversity, and accomplish the mission, just as he was expected to do.
As Chappell ran his fingers over the red folder he noticed the classification markings, and the odd name for this “simple” agent extraction mission.
TOP SECRET: OPERATION HYDRA-IOLAUS
Chapter 1
The digital wristwatch chimed in Lieutenant Scott Lake’s ear and woke him from a deep sleep. Reaching under his pillow he silenced the alarm and struggled to find the switch to the small fluorescent lamp hanging above his head. The lamp flickered a few times as if it too had been sleeping and then suddenly shined with its full wattage only eight inches from his face. The brightness stung his eyes and, unable to turn over, he lifted one arm to bury his face in the crook of his elbow.
Lake took a few moments to gather his senses. Like so many previous nights, he had been dreaming about a place far from this one, and the return to reality was never a happy one.
The coffin-like bed felt small and cramped. He was not overweight, but the top was too low for him to turn over onto his side. Some smaller men could do it, but not him. Likewise, the walls on either end of his bed were a few inches too short to be comfortable. Without stretching, he could touch both ends at the same time with the bottoms of his feet and the top of his head. The bed itself was not wide enough for him either, but that was not as much of a problem because, while one side was a solid wall, the other was bordered by a dark blue curtain through which his arm could protrude without obstruction. The rack was indeed small. Small, but in some ways cozy since the rest of the ship was always cold.
The gentle hum of the ventilation system and the dull vibration of the hull were soothing, almost hypnotic in nature, and in the pitch blackness of his stateroom, Lake always managed to get to sleep.
As his eyes became accustomed to the light, Lake remembered what day it was, and a broad smile crossed his face. Normally, waking up to go on watch would be a miserable task for Scott Lake, but today of all days, he was happy, even eager to do it.
Thrusting aside the blue curtain, Lake swung his legs out to emerge from the hole that was his bed into the cold air of the ship. He silently cursed as his bare feet touched the stateroom’s cold deck and in the dark he almost tripped over one of the desk chairs. He steadied himself against one of the side lockers, taking care not to rouse the other two officers sleeping in their racks. Not out of any courtesy to the other two men, he just did not feel like the annoyance of a conversation with either one of them.
There was a small knock at the stateroom door and Lake glanced at his watch. It read 0448.
The door cracked open slightly and a sheepish teenage boy of no more than eighteen stuck his head in.
“Mr. Lake?” the boy said, squinting to see in the dark stateroom. “Lieutenant Lake? Your wake-up call, sir.”
“You’re late,” Lake said from the darkness, causing the boy to start and pull back. He obviously did not expect to find Lake up and out of his rack.
“My wake-up call was for 0445. Now go away!”
The boy looked injured by the abrupt reply. He mumbled a weak “Aye, aye, sir” and silently closed the stateroom door.
Lake grinned in the dark. He knew that he had hurt the boy’s feelings, but he didn’t care. He no longer had to pretend to care for this pathetic crew or his loser fellow officers. After today, he would not care one damn bit about this ship either, and he would never see these idiots ever again. This was his last day.
The deck tilted slightly and Lake felt the ship decelerate. The ship was coming shallower. Soon they would be surfacing and he would need to relieve the watch. He was in no rush. It would only take him fifteen minutes to shower, shave, and don his uniform. An effortless ritual he had performed a thousand times. There would be plenty of time to get a quick breakfast and do his pre-watch tour of the ship.
He sat in the chair and flipped down a panel from the wall until it rested horizontally. It was his desk and, just like everything else on this godforsaken ship, it barely provided enough room to do anything. He could fit his laptop computer and perhaps one drink on the surface at the same time, but that was all. Lake flipped the switch that activated the desk lamp and a calendar appeared in front of his face, hanging from the locker above the desk. The calendar had most of the dates crossed out, like a giant game of tick-tack-toe filled only with Xs and no Os. Each box had a handwritten number in the lower right-hand corner. With each successive day the numbers counted down until they reached today’s date, the only date not yet crossed off. The box for today’s date had a “1” in the lower right-hand corner.
Lake stared at it for a few minutes, tapping his fingers on the desk. Then, yawning with a long sigh, he reached for the felt tip pen dangling from a nearby string and nonchalantly crossed off the last date, adding a crooked smiley face to it.
Today he ended five years in the navy, three of which had been spent in anguish on this vessel. It had been a long and miserable five years. From the incompetent men placed in seniority above him to the simpleminded enlisted sailors he had to work with, he had grown to hate every aspect of the navy. He longed for the professionalism and efficiency of the business world. Or so he assumed it would be. Never having been on his own in the civilian world, he did not know. But nothing could be worse than this. Since his first day in the navy, he had counted the days until his service commitment would be fulfilled and he could get out. Many times over the last few years, he had cursed his decision to take the navy ROTC scholarship. It had seemed like a good idea when he was a starving engineering student at UCLA. But he quickly came to regret it.