He began to wonder if too much of the West had become ingrained in him.
Carl Unruh had slept for six straight hours in his own bed, next to his own wife, but he did not feel rested. He got back to the White House basement in time to take a call from the Deputy Director of Operations.
Patterson asked, “Is the boss around?”
“Which one?”
“Stebbins, you ass.”
Unruh placed his hand over the mouthpiece and called out to the men and two women lolling around the Situation Room. “Anyone seen the DCI?”
“Upstairs with the President,” Denise Something-or-other told him. She was with the State Department, but he did not know in what capacity.
“He’s closeted with the big boss, Oren. You got something hot?”
“Yeah, maybe. Can you get him out?”
“I can try.”
“Well, hell, skip it. I guess you’re in operational charge, right?”
“Mark mentioned something to that effect,” Unruh said, looking around the room at the people who mostly ignored him, “but I don’t think it means much to the group assembled here. You want to trade places?”
“Emphatic no.”
“So what do you have?”
“Computer tape”
“Good one?”
“I don’t know. It turned up at the embassy in Moscow after a trip across the country from Plesetsk.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“I don’t think so, Carl. It’s nothing the embassy can interpret, and rather than wait for it to ship out in the diplomatic bag, I told them to do a direct data transfer of what’s on the tape.”
“To where?”
“Fort Meade.”
“Okay, good. What do you think is on it, Oren?”
“If it came from the Cosmodrome, it may be what we’re looking for. We’re doing the transfer by microwave relay, in the clear, because I don’t want to take the chance of destroying it by trying to encode it. I don’t give a damn if Moscow Center overhears us.”
“I agree. How soon?”
“They’re going to transmit as soon as NSA is ready to accept it.”
“I’ll go up to the Office and knock on the door. What are they going to need out there?”
“I’m damned if I know. It might just be data, or it might be an applications program, or it might be both. If it’s what we want it to be, we’ll need computer, aerospace, and nuclear experts. Maybe some computer people who are intimately conversant with the Russian language.”
“You’ll get them,” Unruh said, dropping the phone in its cradle and heading for the door.
Kaylene Thomas and Okey Dokey had been the designated inspection team for the two o’clock rounds of the ROVs. They found a weak battery aboard Atlas, but otherwise, every system checked out.
Okey stayed behind to charge out the battery pack, and Thomas climbed to the bridge, then went aft to the guest staterooms.
Ingrid Roskens was not in the cabin they shared, and Thomas supposed she was down helping Larry Emry. Reports from some of the submarines were starting to filter in, channeled through the Kane to CINCPAC and the Orion. Like Ingrid and most of the people who were supposed to be resting today, Thomas was not very tired.
Spread across her bunk were the stacks of paper and folders she had been perusing.
She did not feel very much like reorganizing the company, either.
Since her embarrassing crying jag with Dane, she had been unable to focus well. Maybe it was the realization of the danger zone they were entering. Maybe it was something else.
In fact, she was pretty sure it was something else.
Closing the door, she peeled off her T-shirt and jeans, then her underwear, and sidled into the tiny bathroom for a quick shower. It was quick because Mel Sorenson had decreed a two-minute limit for the fresh water showers. He had threatened random, unannounced inspections if he heard showers running for longer than the allotted time.
Still, she felt refreshed when she came out. She toweled off, then found a pair of white shorts and an old, but hardy, blue blouse. Stacking the paper from the bunk on the deck next to it, she fluffed the pillow, then sprawled out.
And somebody rapped on the door.
“Iʼm asleep,” she called.
Til come back,” Brande said.
She sat up. “No, come on in.”
Brande pushed open the louvered door.
“I was lying when I said I was asleep.”
“I guessed that,” he said, taking a seat on the bunk opposite her. “How are you doing?”
She smiled weakly, “I’m coming to grips with reality, I guess.”
“It happens.”
She pointed at the stack of paper. “Iʼm rattled enough that I don’t even care about that.”
“That’s okay, too. Paper will always wait.”
His deep blue eyes probed her own. Was he looking for weak spots? Having second thoughts after her emotional scene?
“I feel kind of foolish,” she said.
“Why?” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.
“The president is supposed to maintain a strong, solid front.”
-“Hey, you’re doing fine, Rae. Be yourself. That’s what we all want. If you go making up a new role for yourself, you’ll disappoint some people.”
“Like you?”
“Not me,” he said.
There seemed to be a fair amount of sincerity reflected in his eyes. Nice eyes.
“Do you miss it?” she asked.
“Being boss? I thought I would, but damned if I’m not happier without it.”
She glanced down at his hands. They were big and scarred and presently at a loss for what to do with themselves. His fingers flexed. They looked incongruously gentle.
Thomas suddenly felt her throat flush. Her nipples hardened. She wondered if Brande was aware of that, but she was afraid to look down to check the front of her blouse, and his eyes did not leave hers, anyway.
“Dane…”
“Uh-huh?”
She was going to ask him about his wife, then quickly decided not to break her own spell.
“Ah, nothing.”
He reached out and took her hands in his own. She could feel the calluses on his fingers. Hard yet soft. Her stomach felt queasy.
“What?” he asked.
To hell with it.
You only get what you ask for. His grandma had probably already told him that one.
“You want to take a nap with me?”
His eyes widened, and his mouth went wide with a lazy smile.
“I’m not very tired,” he said.
“I’m not, either.”
“I’ll lock the door.”
“Damned good idea.”
At the northeast quadrant of the search area, the Los Angeles deployed a transponder.
The cannister was ejected from the Number Three torpedo tube and rose immediately to the surface where its radio antenna could function. The sub continued to cruise at a depth of sixty feet with its antenna deployed until Lt. (j.g.) Arthur Cover, who had the conn, was certain that the transponder was operating properly.
Lieutenant Cover then ordered a wide 180-degree turn and a gradual descent back to 2,000 feet, to resume the search. Alfred Taylor, who was watching the young officer closely, though not overtly, approved of Cover’s cautious maneuvers, though he did not say as much. That would come later, when he wrote Cover’s officer efficiency report.
Abrupt maneuvers were not recommended when they were towing the deep-diving sonar array.