Such antics were especially risky now, in the ongoing aftermath of the Cole and of the paranoia of 9-11. The United States was at war, whether her citizens were always aware of that or not. Garrett would have been justified in opening fire on that speedboat. Those Sea Cobras buzzing overhead most certainly would have fired if the Cigarette boat hadn't cut power.
What price freedom?
An old, old question, one American military personnel had pondered since Lexington and Concord. Virginia's primary ongoing mission was to safeguard American lives, property, and rights ashore and at sea. By extension, that included the rights of those Greenpeace advocates to protest the policies of the U.S. government.
But when those protests risked damage to an American naval vessel, worse, when they risked lives, civilian or military…
He could see the security boat grappling with the speedboat now, and armed Coast Guardsmen in black Kevlar vests clambering into the wallowing craft's well deck. Her crew would be in for some rough handling, he thought — complete with handcuffs and arrest. He hoped they thought it was all worth it, a fair exchange for making their dramatic statement. They were damned lucky not to have been blown out of the water.
"Conn, this is the Captain. Secure from general quarters." He would have to file a report on the incident later, justifying his decisions and orders. In the meantime, he needed to see to a harsher duty. "Who's got the radar watch?"
"Uh… Seaman Wallace has the radar watch, sir."
What the hell was a seaman doing on the radar watch at a critical moment like the Virginia's passage out of New London's crowded waters? "Tell Wallace that he is relieved from duty and that he is on report. Who is his department head?"
"Sir, that would be Chief Kurzweil."
"Tell him I want to see him in my office at…" He checked his wristwatch. "Ten hundred."
"Aye aye, sir."
Garrett remained on the weather bridge for a time longer, watching the rolling hills of Connecticut fall away astern. An hour later, Virginia was cutting through the heavier seas beyond the shelter of Block Island Sound. Fishers Island now lay well astern, sixteen miles, to be exact, and was little more than a shadow against the horizon. Seven miles to the northeast, off the port quarter, lay Block Island, marked by the 200-foot prominence of Beacon Hill. Eight miles to the southwest lay Montauk Point, easternmost tip of Long Island, and the much gentler swell of Prospect Hill beyond.
Ahead lay only open ocean, and the freedom of the depths—Virginia's proper domain.
"Diving Officer, this is the Captain. Depth below keel."
"Captain, DO. Depth below keel is now sixty-eight feet."
Deep enough — barely. "Very well. Prepare to take us down."
"Prepare to submerge, aye aye, sir."
"Lookouts below."
The two lookouts scrambled down out of their perches and vanished through the sail's hatch. Garrett took a last look around, savoring the taste of the cool, salt-laden air, the warmth of the sun still low in the east. Then he followed the lookouts down the ladder, securing the weather bridge deck grating and hatch above him.
He knew it would be a while before any of them felt sun or sea breeze again.
"Jesus, Wall-eye, you are in a world of shit!"
TM2 Ron Titelman's pleasant jibe did nothing to improve Wallace's spirits. Since he'd been relieved from duty a couple of hours ago, he'd holed up in the one place on board where he could be out of the way— in his rack. Unfortunately, Titelman had found him, yanked back the privacy curtain, and was leaning on the side of the bunk now, grinning with evil pleasure.
"Give me a break, Ron," Wallace said. "I don't even know what I did!"
"Well, you'll find out when you pay a little visit to the captain, that's for sure. Man, he's gonna ream you a new one with a live Mark 48. Warshot loaded!"
"Whadja find there, Titsy?" EM1 Jack Kirkpatrick said, coming up the narrow passageway beside Titelman. "Well! If it ain't the perpetrator hisself! Trying to hide from your shipmates, there?"
Wallace groaned and covered his eyes.
"I told you about making the department look bad, twerp!" Kirkpatrick growled. "Right now, your ass is grass!"
"What is this, a goddamn convention?" TM3 Rodriguez joined the conclave in an already crowded passageway. "Hey, Wall-eye! Out that rack! I'm off-duty until the first dogwatch and I want some rack time!"
Rodriguez was the man with whom Wallace had to hot-bunk, sharing the same rack space in staggered shifts of duty.
Clumsily, Wallace rolled out of the narrow confines of the bunk, landing on the deck and bumping against both Kirkpatrick and Titelman.
"Watch the fuckin' feet, newbie!" Kirkpatrick barked. "Why don't you make yourself useful and go outside and scrape down the hull?"
"Yeah. And requisition a gallon of polka-dot paint from ship's stores while you're at it," Titelman added. Wallace hurriedly pulled on his boondockers and moved off down the passageway forward, as the others exploded into raucous laughter at his back.
That first phrase Titelman had used raised unpleasant memories. Wallace remembered the first march of his newly formed boot company back at Great Lakes, a small age ago. They'd walked across from Mainside, where they'd been in a holding company, through the tunnel to the recruit training center. In time-honored tradition, other, much more experienced recruits — all of six weeks, perhaps? — had leaned out of windows to taunt the scared newbies. "You guys are in a w-o-o-o-o-orld of shit!"
As they marched through the tunnel that connected the two halves of the base beneath Sheridan Road, they'd been ordered to sing "Anchors Aweigh" at the top of their lungs.
A bizarre, bizarre experience, and one that for a long time had seemed a world away.
Now, though, he was as scared and as anxious about the future as he'd been then, as though he hadn't changed, hadn't grown at all.
He'd known privacy was an issue on board an attack sub, but he'd not expected it to be like this. How was he going to even survive these next months at sea?
If he was lucky, maybe the captain would kill him.
"Jesus Christ, Chief! What were you thinking?" Garrett glared across the tiny desk at Chief Kurzweil, a look that others more than once had told him would peel paint from the bulkhead at fifty paces. "Have you forgotten how hard it is to read a radarscope in waters that cluttered?"
"No, sir. I guess… I guess I wasn't thinking, sir."
"I think you guess right."
"But Wallace is fresh out of ET school. He's about due for his crow. He's had training reading a scope!"
"Sure, training. But the real thing is never like training. Never. I don't care how good the simulators are."
"Yes, sir. But it's SOP to run all the newbies through every department. It's part of the training regimen."
"Of course it is. But you don't give a problem like that to someone with no experience! Why the hell weren't you backing him up?"
"I was, Captain. I was right behind him."
"Ah. Then why didn't you pick up that speedboat?"
"I… well, the picture was pretty cluttered, sir."