Undetected

by Dee Henderson

  Mark grinned at her emphatic answer. “I’ve been known to pack a decent snowball. Why do you stay in Chicago if the weather doesn’t appeal, now that your parents have passed away?”

  “Habit. It’s familiar territory, and a nice home with good memories I’m reluctant to sell. The years at the university led to open doors for me there, and the college’s connections with other institutes around the world means I can work on satellite data with an Australian researcher, or link into the NASA data feeds, and do both comfortably from their campus or from a high-speed connection at home.” She studied him as she broke a breadstick. “Your family is still in Chicago?”

  Bishop nodded. “Most of them. I’m planning to head back there to see my brother Bryce and meet his wife, Charlotte—he recently married—at some point during this shore rotation.” He picked up another breadstick. “Talk to me about growing up in the city.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m curious.” Before these five days were over, he’d like to fill in a lot of the holes about what he knew of Gina Gray. This particular trip had the one thing he rarely got: hours of time to talk between segments of the sea trial without the pressure of command resting on him. He planned to take advantage of that fact. Gina interested him.

  “I liked the tall buildings,” she said thoughtfully, “being downtown and looking up, wondering how someone had figured out how to build them so they wouldn’t fall down. And I liked the libraries. There were always books to read that interested me. The crowds I could have done without. I always felt like I got lost in a mass of people.”

  “Were you a popular kid?”

  Gina shrugged. “Lots of people were always in my life. I can’t say that was the same thing as being popular. I had friends from the chess club and from the Bible trivia team, and in the Young Explorers group—that was before I was 10. After that it started to be mostly tutors and high school students and academic camps where I could get ‘challenged.’”

  She paused, fork in hand. “What I mostly remember is I wasn’t sure what people wanted from me. If they wanted me to get an A on a test, I’d study for it and get an A. If they wanted me to discuss a subject, I’d learn enough to converse about it. People kept waiting for me to do something or choose something, I guess, and I had no idea what they really wanted from me. I was simply curious about things. I liked it when someone who knew what they were talking about would dive into a discussion of whatever was their passion. What I didn’t understand from what they said, I’d go find books and figure out later. That part was fun.”

  “You weren’t particular about the subject matter when you were young?”

  “Not really. I liked everything—music and math, astronomy and physics. I liked to understand how things worked. If they arranged for me to talk to someone with a passion for rocks, I’d dive into geology and have a good time. Or if someone wanted to take an engine apart and show me its parts, I’d enjoy being an auto mechanic. I was content to go with the flow, and the adults around me kept wanting me to select and focus on something. It was kind of frustrating, to tell the truth.”

  Bishop heard the remembered annoyance in her soft words and thought about her at age 10, waking up to a new day simply inquisitive about the world and everything in it. Jeff must have some interesting stories to tell about having breakfast with Gina when she was a child. “Tell me the first thing that really fascinated you.”

  “A caterpillar,” Gina replied promptly. “I was five. I was stunned at the realization God made this fabulous creature with all these little legs and fuzzy body, and it would transform into a butterfly and fly. I still haven’t seen anything as cool in all my years as an adult.”

  “You collected them?”

  She shook her head. “Just watched them. I’d go out into the yard and figure out where they created their cocoons, and Jeff would rig up video for me so I could watch them as they came out as butterflies.”

  “An awareness of God at age five. Did your parents raise you in the church?”

  “They did, but faith and church were more my thing and Jeff’s than theirs, I’m sad to say. I don’t think they ever connected personally with God. Whereas I connected on a personal level from the very first. I loved the fact there was a God who had made me, who had created everything around me. Jesus made sense to me. He’s real. He’s personal.”

  “He likes you,” Bishop remarked gently.

  She pointed her fork at him. “Exactly.” Gina gave a smile that seemed to come from a rich memory. “I wasn’t smarter than He was. I adored Jesus for that fact. Every question I had, Jesus knew how to answer. That was such a relief. Not that He would always answer, but I knew I could search for an answer and find one, and it often felt like God was helping me go the right direction with my search.” She pushed back her half-eaten plate of lasagna.

  “Jeff was always good at letting me talk about whatever topic or details were on my mind, but with everyone else I always was trying to calibrate what I would say to who my audience was. It got tiring. I didn’t have to do that with Jesus. I’d bump into something cool God had made, and I’d promptly tell Him all about what I’d found and bombard Him with questions about it.” Gina paused and smiled. “I still do.” She glanced over. “It must sound pretty childish, but I guess I haven’t outgrown that habit.”

  “I find it interesting that you’re self-conscious about it. God likes your enthusiasm. You must feel that at times.”

  “I do. You like church?”

  “Sure. God, faith—it’s the part of life that helps make sense of everything else. I don’t have to wonder at my foothold there. I mess up, God’s going to forgive me and help me pick up the pieces, get my life back on track. If I’m willing to listen, He’ll steer me away from trouble before I get into the mess in the first place. It’s one of the reasons Melinda and I had such a good marriage. I could apologize to her when I blew it, and she’d show me that same forgiveness even if I didn’t deserve it.” Bishop smiled. “Of course she’d nag God for a few weeks afterwards about what He asked her to put up with, and how she wanted to be a good wife, but not a saint, so would He please not let me do that again.”

  He glanced over, caught Gina’s gaze, realized he’d managed to shift onto very personal terrain and had left her uncertain what to say. She offered a soft smile. He relaxed. “You’ll have something similar, Gina, when you’re married and you’re working on how two people meld together to one. Faith in God, church—share those things with your husband. It helps makes the rest of living together work out okay.”

  “Did the two of you ever fight?”

  Bishop thought back on it, shook his head. “Not antagonism, butting heads, angry at each other. Melinda and I often wanted different things and couldn’t both have what we wanted—someone was going to have to give ground—and those situations could be very painful when it was something important to each of us. But we accepted the fact that we wanted different things and didn’t try to change what the other person wanted. We would simply figure out some kind of compromise together. There’s no such thing as not having to sacrifice in a marriage. We both made a lot of them. And marriage was a lot about learning to extend courtesy to the other—sharing schedules, calling when plans changed, not making commitments without first touching base with each other—adapting to being a couple.”

  “You liked being married.”

  Bishop nodded. “Ever have a moment when you were growing up where something had happened and your first thought was ‘I can’t wait to tell Jeff’?”

  “Sure.”

  “It was like that a lot during the years I was married. Sharing life with Melinda. It didn’t have to be profound or big; it was simply the fact I could share the details of what happened with her. Not that I was the one talking most of the time—Melinda was something of a chatterbox, and I’d get in a sentence every once in a while. But she listened well to what I did say.” He got lost in a memory for a moment, then glanced over at Gina. “What I miss mo
st . . . she always used to say good-night just before she’d drift off to sleep. I miss those words, the good-night.”

  “Someone was there, someone to share the end of the day,” Gina said softly.

  She understood. Bishop nodded. “Someone was there. That’s why you get married, Gina. Beyond all the other details of why, it’s having someone there when the day begins and when the day ends. It’s being together and sharing life.”

  Gina leaned back in her chair, reached for the soft drink, studied the ice as she spun the glass, then sighed and glanced up. “I bet Melinda said yes when you first asked her out, and you got married within a year and had a wonderful marriage without ever having had a breakup along the way or had the ‘maybe you’re not the one for me’ conversation.”

  “I got lucky, or better yet, blessed,” Bishop agreed, understanding her shift in the conversation to her situation.

  “I’m glad for you, Mark, I really am. You got the ideal at least once. It must hurt an extra amount to have lost something that was so good.”

  “It has.”

  “I’m tired of waiting for that to be my story.” She put down the glass. “What do you think of Daniel Field?”

  Bishop rapidly shifted mental gears to absorb the fact that she wanted to know his opinion, surprised by the question. He didn’t rush to answer and was careful to try and give her an honest one. “I think the right question is, what do you think of him? I’m not aware of any red flags—I’d tell you if I was. I think he’s a good man with a solid reputation, well liked around Bangor. Jeff chose well when he made that introduction for you. The two of you seem like a good match.”

  “I keep waiting for the crash into the wall.”

  Bishop laughed. “You debate and analyze too much, Gina. Nothing says this time is going to end in disaster.” She picked up her glass again, her expression staying on the edge of pensive, and Bishop wondered what she was thinking about so seriously. He wished he hadn’t attempted the light comment, which had managed to kill the conversation, and back-pedaled. “What can I help with?”

  She shook her head. “We should get back.”

  Bishop glanced at the time and nodded. She was going to leave him in the dark as to what was on her mind regarding Daniel, and it was going to nag at him for the next several hours.

  “There’s the last ping. The Ohio is coming to a stop off our port side,” Daniel said.

  Gina leaned forward to see the image on the waterfall screen. The ability Daniel had to decipher subtle changes was impressive to watch. She glanced around the sonar room. “An excellent job, guys. Thank you.”

  “It was fun,” Waller replied with a smile. “The rest of the trial plan—we do this test again in different ocean conditions over the next few days?”

  “Yes. The ping probably won’t work as well. It might even fail in a more noisy sea,” Gina cautioned.

  Daniel patted her shoulder and grinned. “O ye of little faith. It will keep working.” He tagged the audio files to off-load to the high-density drive. “You want the cross-sonar log too?”

  “Please.”

  He dumped the log file out to the drive as well. “One set of cross-sonar ping data, now archived for review.” Daniel reached for the phone. “Control, sonar. The first leg of the sea trial is complete.” He hung up. “I’m glad you decided to stay and see this trial in person, Gina. It’s an incredible piece of software.”

  “It was a good first test,” she agreed.

  “You’re for understatements, right?”

  The door opened, and Gina looked over and straightened as Commander John Neece stepped into the sonar room. “Congratulations, Miss Gray, for a brilliant idea and implementation.”

  She felt her face grow warm. “Thank you, Captain.”

  “Your second data request—we’re going to rig for all-quiet and let the Connecticut and the Ohio start a cross-sonar search to find us.”

  “That’s perfect, sir.”

  She hoped no one in the room asked why she wanted that all-quiet data, but as the captain left, the guys returned to discussing crew assignments for the next watch.

  “You should get some sleep, Gina,” Bishop suggested, closing the manual he was flipping through. “We’re the sitting target, so the boat isn’t going to be doing anything but drift here during this test.”

  Gina considered that and nodded. “Probably a good idea. I can tell I need it.”

  “Sharon can take you down to the stateroom. Plan to sleep as long as you can.”

  She nodded, glanced over at Bishop, reached over and rested her hand lightly on his. “Thanks for today,” she offered, her voice low. “I enjoyed it, both the sonar test and the conversation.”

  “It was my pleasure,” Daniel replied, rising to his feet to see her off. “Sleep well, Gina.”

  Gina did sleep very well. She headed to the officers’ wardroom seven hours after she had gone to stretch out. Bishop was reading a thick report. He looked up as she entered, smiled, and nodded to the seat opposite his. “Ready for breakfast?”

  “I’ve got time before the next test?”

  “Plenty of time. We’ll be over the Tufts Plain in about 40 minutes. If no other subs or surface ships are around to be concerned about, we’ll get started with the next test shortly thereafter. I’d like it if you were there at the start just to be sure the files you need collected are properly recording, but after that feel free to use the time as you like. I’ll find you if there’s a concern I need you to address.”

  “I was thinking I might have Sharon give me a more complete tour of the boat.”

  “You’ll enjoy it, Gina. A boomer grows on you the longer you’re aboard. You fall in love with the boat.”

  “I’m beginning to pick out all the things that make this submarine function. Blue pipes and valves are fresh water. Orange pipes are hydraulic fluid. What are the red arrows?”

  “Air outlets so crewmen can plug in masks and be able to breathe during a fire,” Bishop replied.

  The petty officer stepped in to get her breakfast order. She chose an omelet and hash browns. “I’d like to hear about your first command,” she said.

  Bishop simply smiled. “How about we talk about something not sub-related? What was the last book you read for pleasure, not work?”

  “Jerry McKowen’s biography—he’s a nuclear physicist—titled Fireball.”

  “You enjoy biographies?”

  “When it’s as much about the career someone has as it is the person. What about you, Mark? The last book you read for pleasure.”

  “I’m partial to a good mystery. The last one, John Sandford’s Dead Watch. Before that, Dean Koontz’s The Husband.”

  She shuddered. “Too vivid for my tastes. I don’t like to be scared, even when it’s make-believe.”

  He absorbed that answer, nodded. “Most recent movie?”

  That was more difficult to remember. “I watched Moneyball several times, as I enjoyed the math behind sabermetrics. You?”

  “I’ll go with a DVD, an old Hallmark movie called Duke. I’m a goner for a good dog flick.”

  Gina laughed at the admission.

  “Are you a baseball fan?” Bishop asked her.

  “I understand it, but I don’t follow a particular team. It takes too many hours to keep up with all the games played during a season.” Her breakfast arrived. “What should I ask Sharon to show me first?”

  “The laundry. When you mention to people you were able to spend a few days at sea on a submarine, the three questions you’re going to get asked the most are about the restrooms, showers, and food. The two questions after that are the sleeping berths and the laundry. No one ever asks to see the laundry and doesn’t know how to answer that one—it’s one washer and one dryer, for a 155-person crew.”

  Gina smiled. “I was thinking I would start with the torpedo room. Jeff mentioned the Nebraska carries a few MK48s.”

  Bishop nodded. “Boomers have four torpedo tubes, enough for defense and
a limited offense while we try to disengage and disappear from the fight. A fast-attack submarine like the Seawolf has eight torpedo tubes and can hold its own and re-engage in battle easily. If you want to start with the torpedo room, you’ll be heading down to the fourth level.”

  “I’m slowly getting the hang of the ladders. Will they mind a visit?”

  “No. Sharon will give a call ahead if she thinks a department needs to know to expect visitors. She’ll likely give a call to engineering so they have a radiation badge available for you.”

  “A lovely thought. The idea of being at sea is tough enough. Knowing I’m at sea with a nuclear reactor . . . I may skip visiting the back of the boat.”

  Bishop chuckled. “You can have Sharon stick to places like the radio room and kitchen.”

  Gina nodded. “She was heading up to the radio room to get a look at the Navy daily brief.”

  “It’s worth the read,” Bishop mentioned, glancing at the document he’d turned over when she joined him.

  She didn’t ask to see it. She’d seen the classified stamp on the cover. Her security clearance was high enough to cover it and about any other document on this boat, but there were times she would rather not know something. Her mind was already on overload with what she was learning about the sub operations. “You’ll be in the sonar room most of the day?”

  “Plan to be,” Bishop said.

  “After I confirm the sea trial files are recording properly, I’ll take that boat tour with Sharon, then come find you in the sonar room this afternoon.”

  9

  Gina was becoming used to the USS Nebraska. The sound was a constant hum of conversations that echoed through the sub’s corridors. The air was so clean of all bacteria it was odorless . . . until she passed close to a guy who’d been sweating on one of the treadmills. The various small rooms were packed with people no matter where she turned—submariners ready to offer her stories, laughter, and tall tales, men focused on monitoring screens, maintaining equipment, and tackling repairs.

  The stateroom Gina shared with Sharon and the other three women in the crew reminded her of a very small, very crowded dorm room. After three days aboard the Nebraska, Gina was well acquainted with the room and feeling a bit possessive of it. The room was a safe haven where she could slide into her assigned berth and stretch out, plug in headphones to listen to music through the sub’s internal audio system. If she closed her eyes, she could forget the next bunk was a foot above her head, and the wall was just inches from her shoulder. The berth was the only personal space she had—storage under the bunk could fit a few clothes and small belongings—and a curtain could be closed to block out sights if not sounds.