Brody waved them off and stepped into the narrow passageway outside the mess deck. He wanted to get into the sonar room and take some notes for the manual. Remembering his notebook, he started toward the NCO’s quarters.
As he passed the gangway leading down to the torpedo room, a movement below caught his eye. Someone was down there. Brody paused, doing a quick recount of who was on board. Himself. The two in the mess. The deck officer and a radio man in the control room. The reactor technician. In the engine room, the machinist’s mate and one motor monkey. A seaman topside, standing watch.
Even though there were auxiliary power plant units aft of the torpedo room, the reactor man wouldn’t have been checking them now. He wouldn’t leave his station in Maneuvering where he was monitoring the reactor. Nobody should have been in the torpedo room.
He peered down through the opening and listened. Two pairs of legs moved into his line of vision. Black stretch pants. Black sneakers. Nothing any of the crew would wear.
“Who the hell’s down there?” Brody shouted.
A sharp blow to the back of his head was the only answer he received.
Chapter 4
“Would you mind giving me a hand with one of these?”
McCann turned around and saw the ship super walking toward him. She was trying to juggle her clipboard and two hard-plastic carrying cases. Another large bag hung from her shoulder.
He fought back any comment about her claim of being able to handle it on her own. “You got saxophones in those cases, Ms. Russell?”
“How did you know? I thought we could jam a little in our down time.”
He took one of the cases from her. The thing was damned heavy. “Sax nothing. You’ve got a dead body in here.”
“Yeah, but the identity of the body, I’m afraid, falls under the category of ‘need to know.’”
He tried to take the other briefcase, too, but she shook her head and led the way out of the shop.
Crossing the road, McCann glanced up the alley where the security guards had gone. There was no sign of them. Amy led him through the same door into the Ways. The place was dark, except for a few security lights along the walls of the vast building. They walked along the wall toward the pier that extended out into the river. The fifty-foot high doors at the end of the building were closed, but there was an exit door to the left of them.
“So, other than a dead body, what else are you hiding in these suitcases?” he asked as the two of them walked out onto the rain-swept pier.
“Testing equipment that SPAWAR insists on us using before we do an ESGN replacement,” Russell explained. “It runs the diagnostics that tests the lateral systems, too, including the GPS.”
“We don’t have one of those on board.”
“Of course. It takes a highly qualified individual to run and handle the data analysis.”
He shot her a sideways glance. “Come again?”
“I guess the navy must be too cheap to buy you one,” she deadpanned. She looked over at him and smiled. “Actually, this unit’s brand new. And I’m not complaining that you don’t have it yet. As one of three who went out for the training, it’s job security for me.”
A squall of rain whipped across the pier, and McCann breathed in the salty smell of the tide.
“It’s Amy, you said?”
“That’s right.”
“You said ‘job security’. I thought women engineers are in high demand.”
“I hear they are, too. But not in Groton, Connecticut. And not anywhere around here, either. At least, not for someone with my specific qualifications.”
McCann knew all about Electric Boat’s layoffs over the past two decades or so. Only a skeleton of the old workforce remained. He doubted any of the remaining personnel had any feelings of job security. “You could always relocate if there are more cuts.”
“Easier said than done. I have more than myself to worry about.”
It was none of his business to ask, but his curiosity won out. “Family?”
She nodded but didn’t elaborate.
Amy stopped when they reached the gangway leading out onto Hartford and looked across at the submarine. The curved top of the hull and the sail shone in the rain. McCann looked over at her and was surprised by the expression on her face. It matched the one he used to wear whenever he looked at the boat. Those were the days when he was smitten with his job, his life. He’d been much younger then. The wind and rain swept around them, but she didn’t appear to mind.
“She is beautiful.”
He couldn’t argue with that. “That’s a nice thing to hear, coming from someone who builds them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the cabinetmaker is the one who sees all the flaws invisible to everyone else.”
“True, but a successful cabinetmaker never points them out.”
“Point taken.”
“But she’s still a beautiful boat,” she said in a low voice, adjusting her shoulder bag before stepping onto the gangway.
The sailor standing the topside watch saluted McCann as they boarded the vessel.
“Nice night. Eh, Barclay?” McCann said. The seaman was from Mississippi and right out of sub school. Hartford was his first submarine after serving on two surface crafts. “Must feel just like home.”
“I only came on watch at 0300, Captain. I can still feel my toes.”
“That’s good. We don’t want to amputate anything, if we can help it.”
Amy put everything down next to the open hatch.
“After you,” she told him.
Maneuvering down the ladder was a little tight. McCann knew it was often a challenge for surface types, especially when they were carrying gear. He descended first, pausing on a rung of the ladder to help her find her footing. Instead, she stood waiting to hand the test equipment down to him. He took down the case he was carrying and came back up to find the next case being lowered to him. When the equipment was all down, he didn’t have to go back up because she was right behind him, climbing down the ladder like a seasoned sub rider. She landed on two feet, unzipped her jacket and wiped the rain off her face.
“I’ll start in the control room.” She pointed in the right direction, picking up all the equipment except the case he’d been carrying.
McCann followed her lead, heading for the sub’s command center. The passageways were empty. It was quiet on board, the normal human sounds that were part of submarine living not there yet. Still, it was cool and dry, and it felt like coming home for McCann. The pathetic thing was that Hartford was more of a home to him than his small, empty house overlooking the river in Mystic. She stepped into the control room ahead of him.
“Stop right there. What are you doing on board?”
When McCann heard his officer of the watch bark at the ship super, he pushed past Russell.
Paul Cavallaro immediately came to his feet. “Sorry, Skipper, I didn’t see you.” A lieutenant assigned to Navigation, Cav had been left in command of the vessel during the night when McCann had given the X.O. permission to go home.
McCann looked around and into the adjoining radio room and found his officer was the only one on deck. There should have been a communications man on duty.
“Lieutenant Cavallaro, this is Amy Russell. She’s the ship super who’ll be running the equipment installation.”
The two nodded, and the ship superintendent began setting up her testing equipment in front of the GPS system. She was standing on the port side of the control room and didn’t go any farther forward than the unit panels. McCann left her to her work and went to the conn.
“I didn’t think they’d get started until 0600,” Cav said quietly.