Two Navy Stallion helicopters flew in close formation above the crippled Nebraska as it made headway on one turbine back to Midway. Two F-18 Hornets, off the deck of the Enterprise, flew Combat Air Patrol ten thousand feet above, alternately topping off their tanks from KC-135 tankers out of Diego Garcia. The entire CAP was under the watchful eye of the TACAMO. The ‘Take Command and Move Out’ aircraft that was a flying command center for tactical operations. All this because a boomer and her mission were secret and silent; the Navy wasn’t comfortable with her exposed on the surface unable to submerge. So this elegant machine, this marvel of U.S. technology packed with the ultra-top secret systems, this battleship of the nuclear age, got the escort befitting her status as America’s random player in the still very deadly game of ‘who can launch and kill the other guy without getting too bloody a nose.’
In her stateroom, Brooke was writing her report on USS Nebraska stationary when Mush knocked on the jamb. “May I come in?”
“Sure.”
“Well Miss Burrell, now we are even. If that mine had gone off while we were submerged, none of us would have made it. So we may have saved you, but you saved our boat with that warning about the whale and the limpet.”
“I felt the explosion. Is anyone hurt?”
“Four men wounded, one seriously. Bennis got the worst of it. I’m watching him now, but he’s a tough sailor. He’ll beat it. No whale’s going to beach him.”
“It sounds so Jules Verne; how can they use a whale like that?”
“Well, whales are mammals, and most mammals can be trained. But…”
“But what?”
“There was something fishy about that whale.”
“Did you capture it?”
“No, it slipped back under and, as far as we can tell, hasn’t resurfaced.”
“I heard shots fired.”
“We laced into the thing and it stopped advancing for the second strike, but it was odd; not what you’d expect.”
“How so?”
“We hit it point blank with heavy weapons fire but there was no blood, no whale blubber, no mournful cry or spouting air hole… fishy!”
“You know a bullet is deflected when it hits the water; maybe all you did was shock and sting it. Maybe they only lodged in the skin but didn’t perforate the layer of fat.”
“Got to be something like that, ’cause it just sounds crazy, and they’re going to think I’m crazy when I report this to fleet.”
“We’ll if they don’t believe you, we’ll run a Section Twenty-One B.O.I., and I’ll be a witness.”
“How do you know about Naval Boards of Inquiries?”
“I was JAG for four years out of Harvard Law.”
“Wow, you are full of surprises. So how’d you go from being a Navy adjutant to FBI?”
“I enlisted because my oldest brother Harley — I’ve got four brothers — died in the first Iraq war.”
“I am sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you. Yeah, he and his platoon were in a firefight for twelve hours, and right before they were extracted, his corporal took a hit fifty yards from him. He scrambled over the wall they were using as cover and retrieved him. As he was lifting him back over the wall to safety, a sniper got him in the back. He didn’t make it back to the forward operating base.”
“That must have been quite a loss for you.”
“I was devastated; he was always there for me, pushing me to do better, caring about my feelings. He protected me in school when the boys weren’t so nice. And I’d swear, Captain, he was with me out there in the ocean.”
“Sounds like a great guy; I would have liked to meet him.”
“At his funeral, I just made up my mind to enlist. Anyway, out of the Navy with my law degree, I was easy pickins’ for the FBI, so I survived Quantico and started up the glass ladder. And now I am floating around the vast Pacific with a character right out of Moby Dick, not to mention the big whale out there as well.”
Mush straightened up a bit. “You don’t like the cut of my jib?”
“Captain, you look like Hollywood’s idea of what a dashing scallywag of a captain should look like.”
“In the Johnny Depp or Fred Thompson mold? Please say Depp, please say Depp.”
“More like a young Harrison Ford with the beard from The Fugitive.”
“I can live with that.”
She smiled, “Me too.”
The obligatory long moment passed between them and then Mush turned his brain back on. “And like, you’re not some picture mogul’s idea of a damsel in distress? Flailing about the ocean, stunning every man-child on the boat with a face that would relegate Helen of Troy to launching a thousand Staten Island ferries?”
“Okay, this is starting to get a little thick in here. Truce, Captain?”
“Thank God you called for it; that’s hard to do.”
Hiccock was home by eight. He found Janice just putting 18-month-old Richard Ross Hiccock to bed. He was glad that tonight he made it home in time to catch the ritual. Afterward, he decided to put off going through his e-mails in favor of watching his old alma mater try to secure a berth in one of the many new college bowls. So many that now it seemed every team had a shot at being in at least the Corner Grocery Store Bowl. Still, a good ranking meant a school could attract better players, and Stanford was due for a new crop. His own playing time there was still a matter of much focus these days, due to his current stint as the science advisor to the president; mostly because he was the first science advisor anyone had ever heard of. To Bill it was a good trade-off; his grid-iron notoriety got people talking about science again, and his non-traditional route to his post, from college football quarterback to scientist serving the president, was a bit of glitter that gave the average science teacher, fighting for the attention of students, a little more “cool.”
He looked across the room to see his Heisman Trophy adorned with Richie’s baby duck plush toy stuffed under the outstretched arm. It made him laugh and smile at the wonderful way his life turned out.
Janice came down the stairs and flopped on the couch beside him. “Who’s winning?”
“Not us. Richie give you any problem?”
“No, he went right off after you told him that ‘touching’ bedtime story.”
“It’s a good story.”
“Bill, a one-and-a-half-year-old doesn’t even understand most of the words you used in telling him how Thomas Edison discovered the filamajingy.”
“Filament! And Edison made up the word, and as made-up words go, it’s as good as goo-goo or blankie, so why can’t an almost two-year-old know it? It wasn’t really a real word. It’s like getting one free.”
“What?”
Bill noticed for the first time that she and Richie both ‘squinched’ their faces, a cute combination of squinting and wincing when they were confused by something. “Never mind. I made popcorn, you want some?”
“Where is it?” Janice asked looking around the living room.
“I left it in the microwave.”
“So it’s not, ‘do I want some?’ It’s more like you want some and you want me to go get it?”
“Well, they scored a touchdown just as the oven dinged.”
“I’m going to ding you. Want anything to drink with that?”
“There’s a diet Coke in the fridge.”
Janice left to go to the kitchen, and when she returned she handed him a bottle of Electrolyte water and some carrot sticks. “Here these are healthier for you and will keep you around long enough to do my bidding.” Then she saw it — a vase with two-dozen roses in it. “Oh Bill, these are gorgeous. How did you sneak them in here?”