Jacobs noted that she had been un-customarily quiet during their dinner at DeLuca’s Italian Restaurant. “So what’s going on?”
She set her purse down on the kitchen counter and turned to face him. “I need more. I need things to change and I want you to be part of that change.” She approached him, sliding her hands up his chest and around his neck. He responded by putting his hands around her waist. She looked up into his eyes. “You’ve put your time into the Navy. You could retire. You would have a nice pension and if you want to work there are major military contractors who would give you an executive position, a good salary and benefits. We could get married, start a family. We could be together all of the time, not just one month out of every six to eight months. We could have a real life.”
“Look, you knew who I was when we first met. I’m a submarine captain. My life is at sea, protecting our country. I love you, you’re a wonderful woman, and I don’t want to lose what we have, but don’t ask me to choose between you and my country. I can’t do that.” Is she concerned about getting too old to have children? He’d been concerned about that for some time; it just hadn’t come into the conversation until now. “There’s nothing stopping us from getting married. I’d really like that. I’d like a family too. In two to four years the Navy may rotate me into a desk job, and then we can be together, just like you want.”
“They’ll transfer you far away from here. You know that,” she said in an irritated voice. “My family is here, my roots are here. I don’t want to have to pull up stakes and move to some strange place just so we can be together. I want to be here, so our kids can grow up with their grandparents and not be bounced all over the world. I’m ready to make that commitment to you — to be your wife, the mother of your children, but it has to be here, and it needs to be now. I need to know you can make the same commitment to me, here and now.” He pulled back and removed his hands from her waist. Her arms slid down and hung loosely at her side. Her expression shifted from hopeful to fearful. “Paul, if you really love me, you’ll do this for me. You’ll retire. Just put in your notice. They’ll find someone else to command the sub. Do this for me.”
Jacobs slowly backed away from her, staring down at the floor. Panic filled his heart and his mind felt like it was spinning. “I can’t… I…”
“You don’t have to decide tonight, Paul,” she said. “But it has to be soon. We can be a family; we can be happy. Just focus on that.”
Jacobs slowly turned and went to the door and opened it. He turned to face her and opened his mouth to speak, but there were no words that came. He closed his mouth, walked into the hallway and gently closed the door behind him.
Jacobs woke at 4:30 AM in his room in the Officers’ Quarters on the Bangor Submarine Base. He pulled his sweats on, tied his running shoes, draped a towel around his neck and headed to the athletic track. He pushed himself through a hard twenty laps on the quarter-mile oval, trying to force his conversation with Lynn out of his mind. It wasn’t working. Images of a baby and a toddler forced their way into his brain: a son, a daughter, a legacy in my life other than a rounded piece of hardened steel, a submarine that would someday be scrapped and forgotten. This was the first day the concept of leaving a legacy had come to him. Every day before now was simply about serving his country, leading his crew, doing his best. Only now did deeper thoughts and longer spans of time entangle his mind.
He walked back to the Officers’ Quarters, showered, changed and entered the Officers’ Mess Hall for breakfast. Commander John Silverton waved him over to a table. Silverton was his Executive Officer on the Massachusetts. Silverton was six feet tall, the maximum height for a submariner, due to the size of the water-tight doors that separate the rooms, known as compartments. He had sandy hair cut short with a slightly reddish face and an infectious smile. His blue eyes constantly moved from one place to another, quietly taking in every detail around him.
“You look down in the dumps,” Silverton commented. “What happened?”
“Lynn wants to get married, have a family.”
“Hey, congratulations! You guys set a date?”
Jacobs looked at him sadly. “But only if I retire.”
“Ahhh,” Silverton replied, the smile disappearing from his face. “Biological clock ticking?”
“I don’t know, maybe,” Jacobs replied. “Mostly, I think she has found a guy she loves and wants to create something more in her life. I think she’s tired of being left alone for months at a time. Honestly, I can’t blame her. I just don’t know if I can be that guy for her.”
Silverton sat back and studied him for a moment. “Damn. So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Jacobs said, his emotions vacillating at a rapid pace.
“Well, if you’re going to pull the plug and retire, the Squadron 5 Commander is going to need to know now. We’re due to deploy in ten days. He’s going to have to find a new captain.”
“I know,” Jacobs said. “I’ve got to figure this out today.”
“Well, if you need to talk this through, I’m here.”
As they left the Officers’ Mess Hall Jacobs paused to look at the Administration Building where the Squadron 5 Commander’s office was located. He tried to imagine himself walking in and handing his retirement request to the Admiral. It didn’t feel real. When they reached the sub, Jacobs walked slowly around the control room. He touched the tactical display, the periscope, and checked the familiar gauges mounted all around him. He tried to imagine walking away from the sub and having a family with Lynn. The image of a baby and a toddler pushed their way back into his mind along with thoughts of leaving a living legacy behind. He wandered the compartments of the sub imagining what it would be like to never see them again. By noon he knew what he had to do.
CHAPTER 6
Vice Admiral James Billingsly, Deputy Director of Covert Operations at the Pentagon, and his beautiful wife, Jessica, hosted their monthly dinner party in their palatial estate in Falls Church Virginia. The 6,280 square foot mansion was centered in 28 acres of sprawling countryside with picturesque landscaping and manicured lawns. The paver brick driveway entered through two large stone and mortar pillars with a wrought iron gate, and swept into a large circle in front of the house. A spur led to a five-car garage, behind which was the office for the Vice Admiral’s security detail in the back, out of sight of the road. A wrought iron fence surrounded the entire 28 acres and was patrolled regularly by Navy Shore Patrol and guard dogs.
Billingsly smiled and nodded politely through the social conversation during dinner. Damn waste of time, he thought. I can’t see why women want to go through the whole social ritual, but at least I can get some work done at the same time. He had carefully sought out and groomed the friendship with the two other men present at the dinner. The fact that they were top level bureaucrats in Washington excited his wife’s social sense, but it was their positions of power that interested him. Elected politicians lack the long-term experience of dealing with other countries, which makes them unreliable. Besides, how dependable is the word of a political hack who will be doing something else in four years. No. You have to depend on the people who do the real work, decade after decade, just under the political veneer.