Brooke awoke in a bunk looking up at the distinctive architecture of the riveted bulkhead above her. The room smelled of metal, oil and men. She was on a ship. She felt her cheek and found a bandage covering it and a bandage covering the hand she used to inspect it. She looked down and saw she was wearing a blue pajama set. ‘USS Nebraska’ was stenciled across the pocket over her right breast. She remembered her knee and lifted the covers; she instinctively went to bend it and found it hard to move because it was wrapped in a Velcro bandage. There was a gentle whirring sound that came from everywhere; “Power plant,” she thought. She became aware of the sound of a click every few seconds. She followed a tube up from her other arm to an IV; the drip controlled by a machine that ticked as it released whatever they were mixing in it and pumping into her.
“Hello,” she called out.
A few seconds later, a young blonde-haired man in an ensign’s uniform entered. She saw the medical staff insignia on his collar and judged him to be a ‘California surfer dude’ turned ship’s doctor, or at least pharmacist mate.
“Good evening. I’m Ensign Howell and I run the sick bay. Are you in any pain?”
“No. But I am thirsty; got any water around here?”
“Sure thing.” Ice cubes banged around the inside of the plastic pitcher as he filled a Styrofoam cup and brought it under her chin. She tried to hold it herself…
“Better let me help till you get those ‘boxing gloves’ off.”
She drank and some dribbled; she used her bandaged hand as a napkin and dabbed her chin.
“How long have I been out?”
“About twelve hours. You were in pretty bad shape when they hauled you in.”
“I need to speak to the captain. I must make my report.”
“He’ll be here in a second; I rang for him when you awoke.”
On cue, Mush Morton walked into the compartment. He was a big fellow with a neatly trimmed red beard that flouted regulations, and soft eyes that were anything but regulation. His nose was well-defined, as was his scruffy jaw line, and he wore his skipper’s hat tilted back on his head, revealing a tuft of red. His uniform was loosely fitting and yet, despite all these non-regulation features, he still had the immediate effect of electrifying the room with command voltage as he entered.
“Happy with the accommodations? This, believe it or not, is a stateroom on a sub. Held in reserve for visiting brass. You seem like a pretty important VIP so I figured it was appropriate. Need anything?”
“I need to make my report.”
“Report to who?”
“Captain, can you excuse your man and close the door.”
“Sure. Mr. Howell, give us the room.”
The door shut and Mush pulled up a chair alongside the bed.
“I am on a mission, or was, for the President of the United States. I was blown off a ship as I was negotiating to get back some critical material that was stolen.”
“That explains the rerouting of a nuclear submarine on deep deterrent patrol. My orders are to take you to Midway so the hospital can get a crack at you and from there you’ll jump a Special Air Missions ride to D.C. We’ll make Midway by nightfall tomorrow.”
“Can I radio my report? You do have secure uplink on this boat, don’t you?”
“Yes, we have all the factory installed options on this model — cup holders, twenty-four multiple reentry Trident D5 strategic missiles, heated seats…”
Brooke gave him a confused look. Maybe she was still too groggy for Mush’s brand of humor.
“Lady, this is an Ohio-class fleet ballistic missile submarine, a stealth-operating, floating launch pad. I assure you, we’ve got all the bells and whistles.”
“Sorry, Captain, I was a little out of it when you came to my rescue.”
“Ma’am, who are you?”
“I guess we missed that part: Brooke Burrell, special agent FBI, attached to the Quarterback Group at the White House.”
“Means nothing to me. Is it some super-secret Presidential operations cluster?”
“Something like that.”
“How did you wind up on a capsized Kodiak?”
“What’s a Kodiak?”
“It’s what we call the Russian Zodiac-styled boat you were clinging to.”
“Russian!” It was starting to come back together for Brooke. “Captain… this entire boat might be in danger.”
“More than usual?”
“I was on a Somali tanker, I was in a cabin… negotiating with an intermediary to an arms merchant when the world exploded.”
“Tankers sometimes combust, especially if the crew is untrained in siphoning off built-up gases that collect in holding tanks and…”
Brooke held up her hand. “Wait, let me think…” She started pulling on the threads of her memory that were coming together as she focused. “I ran out to the deck. I was looking over the railing…” Brooke rubbed the bump on the back of her head. “I remember now; just before the explosion. A crewman ran in all agitated about something in the water — oh, what was it?”
“Well, we got surface radar, sonar and a few other gizmos so sensitive that we will know if a whale bumps into a minnow, so we should be safe.”
“Whale! That was it! He said a whale had come up to the hull and then something about a mine… a limpert mine?”
“Limpet mine?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
The captain reached over to the interphone on the bulkhead. “Con, this is the captain. Take her up! Fast. Emergency blow. I want to run the surface all the way to Midway. And double the lookouts.”
“What are we looking for, sir?”
“Whales, Mr. Sarin, whales.”
“Wow. That was quick.” Brooke said as a klaxon sounded three times and a voice came over the P.A. “Secure for emergency blow.”
“Better hold on here. We’re headed for the roof.” Mush said as he gently placed Brooke’s hand on the railing of her bunk. The boat took on a deep angle and then she felt the sudden stomach-wrenching feeling similar to the first drop of a rollercoaster, only in reverse. Seeing Brooke’s concern and uneasiness, Mush spoke in regular measured tones as if this gut-wrenching rapid ascent was commonplace. “You got me with the limpet mines.”
“What?” Brooke said, nervously looking around at the now almost vertical stateroom, as some things slid and collected in the corners.
“Nasty devices that frogmen attach to the side of an enemy’s vessel to sink them. I don’t know what’s going on, but we can’t see biologicals with our equipment; just the cavitation they leave in the water when they get spooked by us. But if there is a killer whale out there, armed with limpet mines, our only chance to see it coming is from the surface. In fact,” he reached for the interphone again, “Mr. Sarin, raise Diego-Garcia. Tell them we are on a special op for COMSUBPAC and request they scramble a TACAMO for around-the-clock air cover starting immediately. Compose the message; I’ll be up to authorize it in a minute.”
“Yes sir.”
He switched off the box and turned to her. It struck him how good looking she was. Not the frail, dainty features of a model, but the kind of pretty that endures and gets better as it gets older. “You can really see whales better from the air.”
“Captain, I have to tell you, I am a little surprised you reacted so strongly to my wild story. I mean, it sounded crazy to me as I was telling it to you.”
“I have one hundred fifty-five souls on this ship, Miss Burrell, you make one hundred fifty-six. We are also the fourth largest nuclear power on earth, all by our lonesome. And we cost about one thousand billion dollars when you add up all the special equipment and Trident D5 warheads. So let’s just say, erring on the side of caution is better than making a trillion dollar hole in the water.”