McCann leaned against the entry. The only galley crewman who’d stayed on board was Dunbar. He wondered why he wasn’t here getting breakfast ready. Amy zipped open her jacket and, as she looked up, her hardhat tipped off her head and clattered to the deck. Light brown, shoulder-length curls were barely held together in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. Their heads were close together as they both bent to retrieve the hard hat, and he smelled the fresh scent of shampoo mixed with the smell of rain and shipyard on Amy’s hair.
“This place is smaller than my kitchen,” she said as she put her hat back on. He noticed she seemed a little flushed.
“I’d wager that you don’t cook four meals a day for 130 men in a space this size.”
“No,” she told him, eying the arrangement. “I only cook for three. My kitchen is a little larger, but I don’t think it’s laid out as well.”
McCann wondered if the three were herself, a husband and a child. He hadn’t paid attention to whether she was wearing a ring. That was no indication anyway, as most shipyard workers didn’t wear rings at work. One touch of a welding rod to a wedding ring would send enough electrical current through it to melt the ring right off your finger. Not a pleasant experience.
Amy was searching the overhead and above the appliances. She stopped suddenly and turned around.
“I just remembered where that connector panel is on the 688-class subs. We’re too far aft,” she said. “We need to be about eight frames farther forward and about twelve feet starboard of centerline.”
McCann understood her. The shipyard production crews identified the work areas in the submarines by the frames, or curved I-beams, that formed the ‘ribs’ of the ship’s hull. Those frames were numbered consecutively from bow to stern. The centerline was an imaginary line that ran right up the middle of the ship, dividing the sub into starboard and port sides.
“That would put you in the ship’s office,” he said. “Below the sonar equipment room.”
“That’s right,” she said, heading out of the galley. “You’re my witness, Commander. I didn’t touch any of the food.”
As they went back out through the mess, McCann glanced at the steaming pot of coffee beckoning to him. His clothes were still wet, and he was ready for a hot cup of java. He considered asking Amy if she wanted a cup. He didn’t get a chance to ask.
“I have to hurry,” she said, looking at her watch. “I need to see what kind of damage that fire has done to the shop.”
He nodded and followed her out of the mess. Amy moved forward along the passageway, past the trash room and his stateroom. She was looking into the overhead and following a bank of cables that threaded between piping systems and ventilation ducts.
She stopped to let McCann move ahead of her in the passageway. As he passed the officer’s wardroom and enlisted quarters, he glanced in. It was strange not to see any of his crew at all. For a moment, he considered reaching for the nearest phone and having Cav get every crew on the watch to check in.
“I’m sorry this is taking more than five minutes,” she called after him.
“That’s perfectly okay,” he said over his shoulder. “You mentioned that you’ve been at work since ten o’clock last night. Are we going to lose you when the first-shift people get here?”
“I don’t punch a clock,” she told him. “I’ll stay with the crew until I make sure you’re back in business.”
He went by the NCO’s quarters and stopped in the doorway of the ship’s office. “Sounds like you work some crazy hours. It must take its toll on your family.”
“It would… if it was a regular thing.” She avoided meeting his gaze and brushed past him to get inside the narrow office space.
The ship’s office was also a data center. It contained all the records and personal files that were part of submarine’s everyday life. Packed with file cabinets, shelves, a computer, a printer, and copier, the two-foot-wide aisle in the middle was filled with a single chair and several boxes of paper that must have been brought aboard at the last minute, before Hartford left the sub base. McCann frowned at the supplies that had not yet been stowed where they belong.
Amy climbed over the boxes and pushed in the chair before turning to him.
“You don’t waste an inch, do you?” she asked, peeling the laptop off her shoulder and placing it on the desk.
“We pack enough supplies to last us six months. There’s a place to stow these, though.”
“I’m glad I didn’t open either of those refrigerator doors in the galley. I’d hate to see what you’ve got in there.”
She looked away and took her hardhat off. Her hair looked soft, and it shone in the overhead lighting. She pointed upward and nodded toward a steel panel bolted to the decking overhead.
“Right there,” she said. “We have to remove the light fixture to be able to access the panel, but this will be the perfect place to start. Above it is the first main connector out of the unit.”
McCann climbed past the box to see if anything else needed to be removed to give her men access to the panel.
“Do you see it?”
He had to get very close to her in order to see past the light fixture. “It’s a crowd with the two of us in this space. How many are you going to put to work in here?”
He saw her glance past him at the door.
“What’s going on?” she asked someone behind him.
McCann whirled around in time to see the door to the ship’s office slam shut on them. He reached across the boxes on the floor for the doorknob. Before he could turn it, the lock clicked on the outside.
Chapter 5
More than fifty feet above the blazing roof of the old shop, flames and sparks mingled with the dense clouds of smoke. The roar of the fire was deafening now, and the heat was rolling off the building in waves. Most of the Groton firefighters and their trucks were already here. More from the neighboring towns were arriving by the minute. Three ambulances sat in a line by the main gate. So far, there had been no need for them. But smoke inhalation was always a serious concern.
Some of the firefighters battled the inferno while others hosed down the corrugated steel walls of the Ways next to the shop. No one wanted to let the high walls melt and buckle in the intense heat. If that happened, the structure of the building would be compromised, and the weight of the huge cranes situated just under the roof could bring the entire building down.
The old wooden shop would be a total loss; everyone could see that. A relic of the early 1940s, when the shipyard had expanded like a gold rush town to meet the wartime demand for fleet-type subs, the shop had gone up like a box of forty-year-old matches, in spite of the rain. The three men inside barely escaped the cluttered space, and the equipment left inside was history by now.
Everyone moved back from battling the blaze as the roof collapsed inward, sending another shower of sparks upward into the misting predawn sky.
The general manager of the shipyard had been called in, along with his top managers. Whoever hadn’t arrived already was on their way.
Hale, the shipyard director of security, crossed the wet pavement to where the Groton fire chief stood looking for other potential problems that the fire might trigger.
“We’ve shut down the gas lines through the building,” Hale shouted over the roar of the fire.
The chief nodded and gestured toward the huge bay doors leading through the Ways. A small door for foot traffic was swinging open in the breeze. The steel wall was showing signs of buckling.