Ahead of the Seahawk, Jeffrey saw land instead of water. The bridge-and-tunnel road link across the mouth of Chesapeake Bay loomed ahead of him, at an angle on the Seahawk’s left. The Seahawk banked to the right, into the now-setting sun. The Apaches peeled off and headed back toward Washington. The cargo ships moored on the water gave way to navy ships tied up at piers. The Seahawk’s engine noise changed pitch again, and the aircraft leaned back on its tail. The ground came up quickly, and the helo settled down on a concrete pad. It took a moment for Jeffrey’s senses to reorient from the heady exhilaration of flying to the mundane, narrowed perspective of a creature tied to solid land.
Fun’s over. Now back to work.
The crew chief squeezed past Jeffrey and Ilse and opened the passenger-compartment door. Jeffrey unbuckled, then followed Ilse and Wilson out of the aircraft. At first his legs wobbled a bit as he readjusted to walking on the ground. A safe distance from the helo, he and Ilse and Wilson took off their goggles and folding helmets and floatation vests, handing them to the crew chief. The pilot and copilot, still in the cockpit, shut down the engines and systems; maintenance and refueling teams already were setting up; heat rippled off the now-silent turbine engines atop the fuselage.
Jeffrey glanced around. He and Wilson and Ilse were in the middle of the sprawling, bustling, heavily defended Norfolk Navy Base. Nearby, Jeffrey knew well from his younger days as a SEAL, was the separate and equally sprawling Norfolk Amphibious Warfare Base. In that direction, at the far end of Pamlico Sound, sat the U.S. Marine Corps’ Camp Lejeune, with its barracks and obstacle courses, its shooting ranges and beaches for practice assaults. Closer lay the runways and hardened hangars of Oceana Naval Air Station. And in that direction, just across the nearby waters of historic Hampton Roads, were the Newport News Shipbuilding yards, where they made nuclear subs and nuclear-powered supercarriers. It had been right there in Hampton Roads that the world’s first ironclads, the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia — formerly the Merrimack — fought each other to a standstill in the Civil War.
Next to the helicopter pad, an aide stood by an unmarked but very navy-looking white van. He waved for Wilson’s party to come over.
Jeffrey yelled into Wilson’s ear, above the noise of other helos taking off or landing. “Sir, I thought we were supposed to go back to New London.”
Wilson gave him a disapproving look, but then smiled. He cupped a hand to Jeffrey’s ear; with the decibels roaring all around them, the exchange would be totally private. “Captain Fuller, view today as practice for tomorrow, and learn from it. Sometimes you don’t think enough. Other times, like right now, you assume too much. They’re both bad habits. Fix them pronto.”
Wilson walked on, and Jeffrey followed. Wilson leaned to Jeffrey’s ear again.
“The Medal you lost on that street back there in Washington can be replaced. You, as my most hot-running ship commander, I’d rather not lose. I want you to live long enough to win another Medal, not come back in a box yourself, or end up as radioactive fish food.”
Jeffrey and Wilson and Ilse were seated in a conference room deep underground, in Norfolk’s hardened communications and planning facilities belonging to commander, U.S. Atlantic Fleet. There were more than two dozen people crammed in the room — most of them generals or commodores or admirals, or high-level members of their staffs. One side of the conference room was made of soundproof glass, and the curtains were drawn open. Through the glass, Jeffrey could see the main war room itself. Large maps and situation plots covered the walls on big flat-screen displays. Men and women in uniform sat at consoles. Officers, with the gold cords around one shoulder denoting an admiral’s aide, hurried back and forth purposefully. Enlisted messengers dashed hither and yon.
The preliminaries in the conference room were long over, and the four-star admiral himself, Admiral Hodgkiss — commander, U.S. Atlantic Fleet — had the floor. The atmosphere was very tense. The feeling of urgency in the big war room, right outside, was infectious and mounting. Hodgkiss himself was a stiff and formal man at the best of times, and Jeffrey could see that this evening he was feeling the pressure like everyone else: the pressure of the relief convoy’s impending confrontation with the modern U-boat packs, of the Axis land offensive soon to open in Central Africa, and of the sailing of the von Scheer. The admiral finished laying out the many knowns and unknowns and uncertainties — the uncertainties seemed to predominate.
The admiral looked around the room. “All of you. My staff, the submarine squadron commanders, carrier battle-group commanders, everybody. We need a total effort now. I expect each of you to use your head, and stay sharp and put your forces in harm’s way aggressively. Show me real initiative every minute when the shooting starts, or I won’t hesitate to relieve you. Take a deep breath and savor the smell of gun smoke clinging to Captain Fuller’s clothes. Get addicted to it! Don’t defend yourselves against the U-boats. Attack the U-boats! We’re gambling everything on this throw of the dice. We have to get our convoy through, and we have to keep the pocket open. If we don’t, the war is probably as good as lost.”
Just then a messenger knocked. Hodgkiss’s aide, a full captain, let the man in. He handed Hodgkiss a communiqué. Hodgkiss read it and frowned. He turned to the room at large.
“This is as good a time as any to take a short break…. Everybody be back here in ten minutes. We need to discuss fleet dispositions to protect the convoy en route and sink or scatter the wolf packs. We need to go over the plans for landing and off-loading on the Central African coast, depending on whether we still have control of the beaches and surrounding waterspace and airspace, or not, when the convoy and escorts get there…. And Captain Fuller, I want to seeyou in private.”
Jeffrey followed Hodgkiss nervously down the hall, to a smaller meeting room that was unoccupied. The admiral sat, gesturing for Jeffrey to sit facing him across the table.
Hodgkiss stared at Jeffrey very hard, without saying anything, as if to take Jeffrey’s measure, to weigh him in Hodgkiss’s unforgivingly objective hand.
Hodgkiss was short and skinny, and incredibly intelligent. As a former submariner who now bore immensely broad responsibilities, he tended at times to distance himself from the submariner community. He controlled huge numbers of naval assets, going far beyond fast-attack subs. His empire included such surface combatants as Aegis cruisers, and naval aviation — both the planes and their carriers — plus powerful marine amphibious warfare groups. Hodgkiss could be rough on his subordinates and had the reputation of being a man you did not want to displease. In both his wiry build and his overbearing manner, he reminded Jeffrey a lot of the late Hyman Rickover, self-proclaimed father of America’s nuclear navy, the maker and destroyer of careers.
Hodgkiss had been the admiral Jeffrey could barely get himself to talk with in the reception back at the Omni Shoreham Hotel.