by Tom Clancy
Jack entered the bedroom and paused to hang up his clothes, donning a bathrobe before joining his wife at the bedside. She rose to wrap her arms around his neck, and he kissed her.
“You sure about this, babe?”
“Does it bother you?”
“Cathy, to please you—anything you want that I can get or give, honey. Anything.”
I wish you’d cut back on the drinking, Cathy didn’t say. It wasn’t the time. She felt his hands through the peignoir. Jack had strong but gentle hands that now traced her figure through the outfit. It was cheap and tarty, but every woman was entitled to look cheap and tarty once in a while, even an associate professor of ophthalmologic surgery at The Wilmer Eye Institute of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Jack’s mouth tasted like toothpaste and cheap white wine, but the rest of him smelled like a man, the man who’d made her life into a dream—mostly a dream. He was working too hard, drinking too much, not sleeping enough. But underneath all that was her man. And they didn’t come any better, weaknesses, absences, and all.
Cathy made the proper noises when Jack’s hands found the buttons. He got the message, but his fingers were clumsy. Annoying, the buttons were small and in those damned little fabric loops, but behind the buttons and the fabric were her breasts, and that fact ensured that he would not stop. Cathy took in a deep breath and smelled her favorite dusting powder. She didn’t like perfume. A woman generated all the smells a man needed, she thought. There. Now his hands found her bare, smooth and still young skin. Thirty-six was not old, not too old for one more child. One more was all she craved, one more time to feel a new life growing within her. She’d accept the stomach upsets, the compressed bladder, the odd discomfort that merely gave detail to the wonder and the miracle of new life. The pain of birth—it was not fun, not at all, but to be able to do it, to have Jack at her side as he’d done with Sally and Little Jack, it was the most profound act of love that she had ever known. It was what being a woman meant, to be able to bring life to the world, to give a man the only kind of immortality that was, as he gave it to her.
And besides, she thought with a suppressed giggle, getting pregnant beat the hell out of jogging as a form of exercise.
Jack’s hands removed her garment completely and eased her onto the bed. He was good at this, always had been, from their first nervous time, and at that moment she’d known that he would ask for her hand ... after he’d sampled the other parts. Another giggle of past and present as his hands slid over skin that was now both hot and cold to the touch. And when he’d asked, when he’d worked up the courage, she’d seen the fear in his eyes, the terror at the possibility of rejection, when she was the one who had worried—even cried once—for a week that he might not ask, might change his mind, might find someone else. From before their first lovemaking, Cathy had known. This was the one. Jack was the man with whom she would share her life, whose children she would bear, whom she would love to the grave, maybe beyond if the priests were right. It wasn’t his size or his strength, not even the bravery he’d had to show twice in her sight—and, she suspected, more than that in other places she’d never know about—it was his goodness, his gentleness, and a strength that only the perceptive knew about. Her husband was in some ways ordinary, in others unique, but in all ways a man, with all the strengths and few of the weaknesses....
And tonight he would give her another child. Her cycle, predictable as always, was confirmed by her morning temperature. Well, she admitted, it was mainly a statistical probability, but a very high probability in her case. Mustn’t get too clinical, not with Jack, and not at a time like this.
Her skin was on fire now. Jack was so good at this. His kisses both gentle and passionate, his hands so wonderfully skilled. He was wrecking her hair, but that didn’t matter. Surgical caps made perms a waste of time and money. Through the scent of the dusting powder now came the more significant smells of a woman who was nearly ready. Ordinarily she was more of a participant in these episodes, but tonight she was letting Jack take complete charge, searching over her silky skin for the ... interesting parts. He liked that occasionally. He also liked it when she played a more active role. More than one way to do this. It came almost as a surprise. Cathy arched her back and whimpered the first time, not really saying anything. It wasn’t necessary. They’d been married long enough that he knew all the signals. She kissed him hard and wantonly, digging her nails into his shoulders. That signal meant now!
But nothing happened.
She took his hand, kissed it, and moved it down so that he would know that she was ready.
He seemed unusually tense. Okay, she was rushing him ... why not let ... after all, she’d let him take charge, and if she changed now.... She moved the hand back to her breast and was not disappointed. Cathy paid closer attention to him now. Tried to. His skills in exciting her were unchanged. She cried out again, kissed him hard, gasping a little, letting him know that he was the one, that her world centered on him as his centered on her. But still his back and shoulders were tense and knotted. What was the matter?
Her hands moved again, running over his chest, pulling playfully on the black hairs. That always set him off ... especially as her hands followed the hairy trail down to ...
What?
“Jack, what’s wrong?” It seemed forever before she heard him speak.
“I don’t know.” Jack rolled over, away from his wife, onto his back, and his eyes stared in the ceiling.
“Tired?”
“I guess that’s it.” Jack slurred the words. “Sorry, honey.”
Damn damn damn! But before she could think to say something else, his eyes closed.
It’s the hours he’s working, and all that drinking. But it wasn’t fair! This was the day, this was the moment, and—
You’re being selfish.
Cathy rose from the bed and collected her peignoir from the floor. She hung it up neatly before getting another that was fit to sleep in and heading into the bathroom.
He’s a man, not a machine. He’s tired. He’s been working too goddamned hard. Everyone has a bad day. Sometimes he wants it and you’re not in the mood, and sometimes that makes him a little mad, and it’s not his fault and it’s not your fault. You have a wonderful marriage, but not a perfect one. Jack’s as good a man as you have ever known, but he is not perfect either.
But I wanted ...
I want another baby, and the timing is so right, right now!
Cathy’s eyes filled with tears of disappointment. She knew she was being unfair. But she was still disappointed. And a little angry.
“Well, Commodore, I can’t knock the service.”
“Hell, Ron, you expect me to have an old shipmate pick up a rental?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
Mancuso snorted. His driver tossed the bags into the back of the Navy Plymouth while he and Jones let themselves into the back.
“How’s the family?”
“Great, thank you, Commodore—”
“You can call me Bart now, Dr. Jones. Besides, I just screened for Admiral.”
“All right!” Dr. Ron Jones observed. “Bart. I like that. Just don’t call me Indy. Let’s see, the family. Kim’s back in school for her doctorate. The kids are all in school—day-care, whatever—and I’m turning into a damned businessman.”
“Entrepreneur, I believe, is the correct term,” Mancuso observed.
“Okay, be technical. Yeah, I own a big piece of the company. But I still get my hands dirty. I got a business guy to do the accounting bullshit. I still like to do real work. Last month I was down at AUTEC on the Tennessee checking out a new system.” Jones looked at the driver. “Okay to talk here?”
“Petty Officer Vincent is cleared higher than I am. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes, sir, Admiral’s always right, sir,” the driver observed as he headed off toward Bangor.
“You got a problem, Bart.”
“How big?”
“A unique problem, skipp
er,” Jones said, lapsing back to the time when he and Mancuso had done some interesting things aboard USS Dallas. “It’s never happened before.”
Mancuso read his eyes. “Got pictures of the kids?”
Jones nodded. “You bet. How are Mike and Dominic doing?”
“Well, Mike’s looking at the Air Force Academy.”
“Tell him the oxygen rots your brain.”
“Dominic’s thinking CalTech.”
“No kidding? Hell, I can help him out.”
The rest of the drive occupied itself with small talk. Mancuso swept into his office and closed the soundproof door behind Jones after ordering coffee from his steward.
“What’s the problem, Ron?”
Jones hesitated just a fraction before answering. “I think somebody was tracking Maine. ”
“Track an Ohio? Come on.”
“Where is she now?”
“Heading back out to sea, as a matter of fact. Blue Crew is embarked. She links up with a 688 when she clears the strait for some noise checks, then clears to her patrol area.” Mancuso could discuss almost anything with Jones. His company consulted on the sonar technology for all submarines and antisubmarine platforms in the U.S. fleet, and that necessarily included a lot of operational information.
“Got any Gold Crew guys on base now?”
“The Captain’s off on vacation. XO’s here, Dutch Claggett. Know him?”
“Wasn’t he on the Norfolk? Black guy, right?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ve heard good stuff about him. He did a nice job on a carrier group on his command quals. I was riding a P-3 when he kicked their ass.”
“You heard right. He’s being deep-dipped. This time next year he’ll be taking command of a fast-attack.”
“Who’s his skipper?”
“Harry Ricks. Heard of him, too?”
Jones looked at the floor and muttered something. “I got a new guy working for me, retired chief whose last tour was with Ricks. Is he as bad as I hear?”
“Ricks is a super engineer,” Mancuso said. “I mean it. He’s a genius at that stuff.”
“Fine, skipper, so are you, but does Ricks know how to drive?”
“Want some coffee, Ron?” Mancuso gestured at the pot.
“You might want Commander Claggett here, sir.” Jones rose and got his own coffee. “Since when have you turned diplomat?”
“Command responsibilities, Ron. I never told outsiders about the crazy stuff you did on Dallas.”
Jones turned and laughed. “Okay, you got me there. I have the sonar analysis in my briefcase. I need to see his course tracks, depth records, that stuff. I think there’s a good chance Maine had a trailer, and that, Bart, is no shit.”
Mancuso lifted his phone. “Find Lieutenant Commander Claggett. I need him in my office at once. Thank you. Ron, how sure—”
“I did the analysis myself. One of my people looked it over and caught a whiff. I spent fifty hours massaging the data. One chance in three, maybe more, that she was being trailed.”
Bart Mancuso set his coffee cup down. “That’s really hard to believe.”
“I know. That very fact may be skewing my analysis. It is kinda incredible.”
It was an article of faith in the United States Navy that its fleet ballistic-missile submarines had never, not ever, not once been tracked while on deterrence patrol. As with most articles of faith, however, it had caveats.
The location of American missile-sub bases was not a secret. Even the United Parcel Service deliverymen who dropped off packages knew what to look for. In its quest for cost-efficiency, the Navy mainly used civilian security officers—“rentacops” —at its bases. Except that Marines were used wherever there were nuclear weapons. Wherever you saw Marines, there were nukes about. That was called a security measure. The missile boats themselves were unmistakably different from the smaller fast-attack subs. The ship names were on the Navy register, and the sailors of those ships wore ballcaps identifying them by name and hull number. With knowledge available to anyone, the Soviets knew where to station their own fast-attack boats to catch the American “boomers” on the way out to sea.
At first this had not been a problem. The first classes of Soviet fast-attack submarines had been equipped with “Helen Keller” sonars that could neither see nor hear, and the boats themselves had been noisier than unmuffled automobiles. All that had changed with the advent of the Victor-III class, which approximated a late American 594-class in radiated noise levels, and began to approach adequacy in sonar performance. Victor-IIIs had occasionally turned up at the Juan de Fuca Strait—and elsewhere—waiting for a U.S. missile sub to deploy, and in some cases, since harbor entrances are typically restricted waters, they had established contact and held on tight. That occasionally had included active sonar-lashing, both unnerving and annoying to American sub crews. As a result, U.S. fast-attack subs often accompanied missile submarines to sea. Their mission was to force the Soviet subs off. This was accomplished by the simple expedient of offering an additional target for sonar, confusing the tactical situation, or sometimes by forcing the Russian submarine off-track by ramming—called “shouldering,” to defuse that most obscene of marine terms. In fact, American boomers had been tracked, only in shallow water, only near well-known harbors, and only for brief periods of time. As soon as the American subs reached deep water, their tactics were to increase speed to degrade the trailing sub’s sonar performance, to maneuver evasively, and then go quiet. At that point—every time—the American submarine broke contact. The Soviet sub lost its track, and became the prey instead of the hunter. Missile submarines typically had highly drilled torpedo departments, and the more aggressive skippers would have all four of their tubes loaded with Mark 48 torpedoes with solutions set on the now-blinded Soviet sub as they watched them wander away in vulnerable befuddlement.
The simple fact was that American missile submarines were invulnerable in their patrol areas. When fast-attack boats were sent in to hunt them, care had to be given to operating depths—much like traffic control for commercial aircraft—lest an inadvertent ramming occur. American fast-attack boats, even the most advanced 688-class, had rarely tracked missile submarines, and the cases where Ohios had been tracked could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Nearly all involved a grievous mistake made by the missile-boat skippers, the ultimate “black mark in the copybook,” and even then only a very good and very lucky fast-attack skipper had managed to pull it off—and never ever without being counterdetected. Omaha had one of the best drivers in the Pacific Fleet, and he had failed to find Maine despite having some good intelligence data provided—better than anything a Soviet commander would ever get.
“Good morning, sir,” Dutch Claggett said on his way through the door. “I was right down the hall at personnel.”
“Commander, this is Dr. Ron Jones.”
“This the Jonesy you like to brag on, sir?” Claggett took the civilian’s hand.
“None of those stories are true,” Jones said.
Claggett stopped cold when he saw the looks. “Somebody die or something?”
“Grab a seat,” Mancuso said. “Ron thinks you might have been tracked on your last patrol.”
“Bullshit,” Claggett observed. “Excuse me, sir.”
“You’re pretty confident,” Jones said.
“Maine is the best submarine we own, Dr. Jones. We are a black hole. We don’t radiate sound, we suck it in from around us.”
“You know the party line, Commander. Now, can we talk business?” Ron unlocked his briefcase and pulled out a heavy sheaf of computer printouts. “Right around the halfway point in your patrol.”
“Okay, yeah, that’s when we snuck up behind Omaha.”
“I’m not talking about that. Omaha was in front of you,” Jones said, flipping to the right page.
“I still don’t believe it, but I’ll look at what you got.”
The computer pages were essentially a graphic
printout of two “waterfall” sonar displays. They bore time and true-bearing references. A separate set showed environmental data, mainly water temperature.
“You had a lot of clutter to worry about,” Jones said, pointing to notations on the pages. “Fourteen fishing boats, half a dozen deep-draft merchant ships, and I see the humpbacks were up to thin out the krill. So your sonar crew was busy, maybe a little overloaded. You also had a pretty hard layer.”
“All that’s right,” Claggett allowed.
“What’s this?” Jones pointed to a blossom of noise on the display.
“Well, we were tracking Omaha, and the Captain decided to rattle their cage with a water slug.”
“No shit?” Jones asked. “Well, that explains his reaction. I guess they changed their underwear and headed north. You never would have pulled that off on me, by the way.”
“Think so?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Jones replied. “I always paid real good attention to what was aft of us. I’ve been out on Ohios, Commander, okay? You can be tracked. Anybody can. It isn’t just the platform. Now, look here.”
The printout was a computer-generated cacophony of dots that seemed for the most part to show nothing but random noise, as though a convention of ants had walked across the pages for hours. As with all truly random events, this one had irregularities, places where for one reason or another the ants had never trod, or places where a large number had congregated and then dispersed.
“This line of bearing,” Jones said. “This pattern comes back eight times, and it comes back only when the layer thins out.”
Commander Claggett frowned. “Eight, you say? These two could be reverbs from the fishing boats, or really distant CZ-CONTACTS.” He flipped through the pages. Claggett knew his sonar. “This is thin.”
