Piranha Firing Point

by Michael Dimercurio

  You’ll be okay. Patch. I’ll see you tomorrow.” The hand clapped his shoulder twice, and Pacino turned to the tall man next to him, connected to the deep voice, O’Shaughnessy. He’d called Pacino by his father’s old nickname. He nodded, unable to speak.

  The dignitaries and staffers and officers and enlisted men evaporated, slowly at first, then clearing out as the sun drifted toward the horizon, until he sat alone on one of the folding chairs in front of the coffin.

  He’d awakened in another strange room, the master bedroom of the Annapolis house. An unease gripped him. He’d dressed quickly, walked through his office on the way to the deck, grabbing the hat and cigar and photograph on the way. The bourbon had come on the second trip, and the third and fourth.

  He felt a sudden urge to type a resignation letter. Why not? he thought. Sell the houses, take the sailboat to the Caribbean, be close to the sea, maybe feel closer to the wife and the two fathers and the shipmates he’d lost.

  The idea started to make sense. Then he swore he heard a voice in his head. A gravelly, cigar-smoke-laden voice, strong and certain and steely, saying only four angry words: Like hell you will.

  old town, alexandria, virginia

  The house was painted yellow with red shutters. A bronze plaque was hung by the carved wood framing the doorway, pronouncing the house a historical building, erected in 1817. Before it was a wide brick walkway, the cobblestone street beyond winding through Old Town.

  The house was tucked in with a row of other houses built the same year, fronting another similar row on the other side of the street. In the door hung an oval white pottery plaque with a single shamrock above green script reading o’shaughnessy.

  The door opened to reveal a smiling woman in her mid-forties, attractive and graceful, her straight blond hair falling to her shoulders in a chin-length bob. She swung her arm around his back, pulling him into the house.

  “Admiral Pacino,” she said warmly, “it’s so good to meet you finally. I’m Deanna. I’ve heard so much about you. That article about you in March in the Washington Post was just amazing. Did you read it?”

  A glass of single malt scotch was pressed into his hand. Then he was swept on a tour of the house, seeing pictures of their children on every shelf, every table. His eyes seemed to find Colleen O’Shaughnessy everywhere.

  In one picture she was laughing, her black hair was windblown around a close-up of her face, her dark eyes filled with mischief. In another shot she was an awkward pre-teen, her hair penned and cut strangely, her hand up to the camera in protest. He stopped at a prom photo, her gown flowing to the door, the movie star teeth shining. Deanna remarked lightly, “Colleen is beautiful, isn’t she?”

  He found himself agreeing, adding that she was extremely intelligent. Admiral Dick O’Shaughnessy came into the room then, wearing a sweater and chinos, seeming imposing, one of the few men Pacino had to look up to, despite his being taller by only an inch. He smiled at Pacino, his hand outstretched, his handshake firm. In his face Pacino saw Colleen’s nose and eyebrows. He forced himself to smile back, to engage in the small talk as O’Shaughnessy led him back to a study in back.

  The window behind a big cherry desk looked out onto a yard overwhelmed by a single large oak, towering over the houses. Autumn leaves blew aimlessly in the fading daylight. Pacino sat in one of two overstuffed leather seats in front of a fireplace, O’Shaughnessy taking the seat beside him. In the fireplace several logs were snapping.

  O’Shaughnessy tipped back his scotch, then put it on a cherry lamp stand between the chairs.

  “You know. Patch,” he said. “I worked for Dick Donchez for years. I was his deputy for special warfare before the Islamic War. You know, he used to talk about you all the time.”

  Pacino looked into his drink, now empty.

  “One time Donchez said you were the best submarine captain ever born, bar none.”

  Pacino made a sound in his throat, a noise of dismissal.

  “He told me about your Arctic mission. I read the entire patrol report, the real one, not the cover story. I also read the patrol report from Go Hai Bay and the Labrador Sea when the Seawolf was lost. I read the debrief from Operation Enlightened Curtain after the Japanese blockade. I couldn’t wait to meet this great Michael Pacino, winner of three Navy Crosses, one of which should have been a Medal of Honor, according to Donchez. But there’s something bothering me. Maybe you can help me with it.”

  Pacino looked up.

  “The man I’ve read about, this modern-day Admiral Nelson, maybe you can tell me. Patch. Where the hell is he?”

  “Sir?”

  O’Shaughnessy stared at Pacino, his brows low over his eyes, the irises black in the dimness of the room.

  “A year ago, maybe more, Donchez came to my office.

  Said he’d been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Said he had only a few weeks to live. Goes to show you what doctor’s time lines are worth—he beat the hell out of that estimate. But he asked me if I’d do something for him. He called it one of his last two requests to me, said I’d been a great staffer for him, and needed two last favors. And here I am, I mean, what the hell am I gonna say?” O’Shaughnessy’s big hands spread apart in a comical gesture of helplessness. “I ask him what he wants.

  He looks at me and says, ‘Richard, you gotta take care of Mikey Pacino for me.’ I bite my tongue and say, ‘Look, from what I can see, that guy doesn’t need anybody to take care of him.’ He gets pissed off, throws a spaz attack, just like the classic Donchez of old, and just like the days when I used to bring him coffee, I back up and say, ‘Okay, okay, yessir.’ So then I asked him what he meant, what he wanted me to do, how he wanted me to do it, and Jesus, you know that crusty old bastard Dick Donchez, he just looks at me, fires up a cigar and says, ‘O’Shaughnessy, you’re a grown-up, a bright SOB, tough-guy Navy Seal, made CNO, four-star admiral, you figure it out.’ I’m not biting. I mean, what the hell is he talking about?”

  O’Shaughnessy got up to poke the fire, threw two more logs on. He went to the desk and poured more scotch from a crystal decanter, gestured at Pacino, who nodded. The Irishman carried the glasses over, handed one to Pacino, and sat back down.

  “All he says is, ‘Look, Richard, Mikey’s not just like my son, he is my son. But I’m not gonna be here anymore, so I want you to protect him.’ He points the cigar at me, and I say, ‘Fine.’ He gets up to leave, go back to his NSA headquarters, and I say, ‘Listen, you said there were two requests. What’s the other?’ He stops at the door and hands me an envelope. ‘Don’t open that till I’m gone,’ he says, then slams the door behind him.”

  “What was it?” Pacino asked.

  “I’m getting to that. But before I do, I have to go back to my original question. Where did Patch Pacino go? What happened to him?”

  “I’m not sure—”

  “Yeah, you do. Patch,” O’Shaughnessy said, looking at Pacino with his trademark stare. An uncomfortable silence lingered in the room, the logs popping in the fireplace the only sound.

  Finally Pacino grew tired of the look.

  “Sir, I don’t know what you want. Maybe I should just go,” he said, standing.

  “Sit the fuck down,” O’Shaughnessy said, cold steel in his voice. Pacino sat. O’Shaughnessy continued, “Two years ago, after the blockade was over. President Warner decides to push the SSNX submarine program, you’re in charge of it, and it’s kicking ass. Now, a year after that, the ship is pulled out of Electric Boat and taken to Hawaii, a zillion miles from the experts, progress is crappy, your reports don’t say why, in fact, they don’t say anything at all. You’ve deserted your command, your staff is doing your job for you out in Norfolk, the Unified Submarine Command is a shambles, and the entire Navy, Congress, and the White House want to know why. I want to know why.”

  “Sir—”

  “Shut up, I’m not finished. Now I find out that SS/Ws Cyclops computer battlecontrol system failed its Cl test. Which, as I understand it, pu
ts the ship a year behind schedule. And I don’t find that out from you. I don’t find it out from your staff, I don’t find it out from the Dynacorp ship superintendent.”

  “How did you find out?” Colleen, Pacino figured.

  O’Shaughnessy reached below the lamp stand and pulled out his Writepad. He clicked the software until the on-line version of the Washington Post came up on the screen. He handed the computer to Pacino. The headline read:

  SSNX SUPERSUB CALLED ‘SCRAPMETAL’ BY TRACHEA Pacino scanned the article. Senator Eve Trachea, the National Party leading member of the Armed Services Committee and Warner’s opponent in the coming election, had blown the whistle on the SSNX, saying that its computer system was hopelessly fouled up, that the submarine would likely never sail, that the trillion-dollar weapon system was a hopeless failure, indicative of the Warner administration’s wasteful and unwise defense spending during a time of peace.

  “I don’t get it, Pacino. You blow off your command, you decide to work on your new sub program as your only duty, and you screw that up. Hell, from what I’ve seen, the only thing that’s kept you in office is that President Wamer liked you. I say that in the past tense, by the way, because she also liked the SSNX program, and it’s not exaggerating to say that that submarine may cost her the next election. So I’ll ask again. Patch, what’s going on with you?”

  Pacino looked at him, wondering why he was taking this approach. If he was to be fired, why didn’t the admiral just get on with it? Then the older man’s voice mellowed.

  “Look, Patch, I know about your wife, Eileen. I was at the funeral. And I know you loved her and your life came apart when she passed away. I also know you tried to leave the Navy when she died, and that Donchez wouldn’t hear of it. But he’s gone now, and honoring his dying request, you’re my responsibility now, besides which, I’m your boss. And listen, I know what it’s like to lose your wife. Colleen’s mother, Mary, passed away when Colleen was just eighteen. It was a horrible time for her. It was a horrible time for me. I never thought I’d shake it. I thought I’d live the rest of my life lonely and hurting.” He leaned forward. “And you know something? It still hurts, I’m still not over her.

  I say her name in my sleep. But you keep living, and one day it gets easier. None of the pain goes away, it doesn’t even ease, but you get stronger, you become able to carry a heavier load. And when that happens, you can move on. What I need to know is, for Admiral Pacino, when is that going to be? I can’t let an entire fleet rust away while you pick up the pieces. Patch.

  So, are you going to get out of the Navy or are you going to be in it?” “Well, sir,” Pacino said slowly, “I think I’m leaving.

  I’ll have my resignation on your desk Monday.” He stood for the second time.

  “Maybe you’d better look at this first,” O’Shaughnessy said, a mysterious note in his voice.

  “What is it?”

  “Damn, I knew I had it here somewhere.” O’Shaughnessy cursed under his breath, rifling his briefcase, his desk drawers, the cabinets opposite the fireplace. Pacino stood behind him, embarrassed.

  “Hold on. Deanna? Deanna! Have you seen that letter?”

  “What letter, honey?”

  “The one from Donchez, the one he wanted me to save.”

  “Sir, what letter is this?”

  O’Shaughnessy was half out of the door of the study, waiting for his wife. He looked back for an instant and said, “Donchez’s second dying wish. Deanna!”

  She came into the office, smiling mischievously at Pacino. “Honestly,” she said, going straight to a small side table, in matching cherry to the desk and lamp stand, “Dick, you’d lose your head if I didn’t keep an eye on it for you.” She shot a look at Pacino, smiling again. In spite of himself, he smiled back. “Here,” she said, handing O’Shaughnessy an envelope. “Don’t be in here too long, guys. Dinner’s almost ready.”

  The door shut behind her. O’Shaughnessy handed the envelope to Pacino, who sat back down. The letter had been opened neatly along the top by a letter opener.

  The printing was unmistakable, Donchez’s handwriting, cramped and untidy with his age.

  O’Shaughnessy, I hope you’re watching out for Mikey like you promised. pacino looked up at O’Shaughnessy. “I was thinking we could name the SSNX the USS Richard Donchez.,” he said. “Not that it matters. But I’d still like to see it that way.”

  “Just read the damned letter.” Pacino looked back to the page.

  You do whatever the hell it is you have to do, O’Shaughnessy. I don’t care what it takes, but you give that submarine the right name, and you make goddamned sure Mikey stays in charge of it.

  The name of the new submarine will be— Devilfish Pacino coughed, then looked up at O’Shaughnessy, handing the letter back.

  “Well?” O’Shaughnessy asked.

  “Well, what?”

  “What do you think?”

  Pacino took a deep breath, thinking of an answer for O’Shaughnessy, then realized he didn’t have an answer.

  That Donchez would want to name the submarine after Pacino’s first command seemed at first a cheap gimmick, something Donchez would pull at the last minute, but then something clicked.

  As he pictured the hull of the SSNX towering over him in the floating dock, he imagined that she was christened the USS Devilfish. He could see the banners, reading USS Devilfish, SSNX-1, he could hear the shipyard workers talking about “hull X-l, the Devilfish,” and he could see the documents, the procedures, one of them in his mind labeled uss devilfishinst 5510.1B, and he could see the radio messages reading from: comusubCOM, TO: USS DEVILFISH SSNX-1, SUBJ: OPORDER 13-001 …

  And as he saw all that, something inside him began to move, to change shape. It was a feeling he’d had years ago, the first time he’d read the orders from the commander of Naval Personnel ordering him to report for duty and take command of the old Devilfish, for the first time linking his name with the name of that submarine, and for just a moment he could feel again how he had been back then, long before any of this had happened to him. He had a certain something back then, an attitude, a self-confidence, a cockiness. That was the word. Cockiness. And as he imagined the SSNX under the name of his old command, he felt some of that flow back into him, just a shadow of what he had once possessed, that old certainty, this time not coming from his genes or his upbringing, but as a gift from Richard Donchez. He felt it fill his chest as he looked at O’Shaughnessy.

  “Boss, we’ll name the SSNX the USS Devilfish. And we’ll tell Wamer that she’ll go to sea, one way or the other, on schedule. Trachea will have to eat that goddamned headline. And don’t worry about me or the Unified Submarine Command. I’m on the case.”

  O’Shaughnessy smiled, clapped him on the shoulder, and the two men abandoned the study for the dinner table. The smell of the filet made Pacino hungry for the first time he could remember in almost a year.

  But as the staff car drove Pacino back to the Annapolis house, he felt the cockiness leave him again, the emptiness filling him back up. Eileen was gone, Donchez was gone, and now, again, it felt like he himself was gone.

  Maybe it had been the scotch talking when he’d told O’Shaughnessy he’d stay, he thought. He wondered whether he’d been right the first time, whether he should resign.

  He looked down at the gold embroidered ball cap.

  How would it look if instead of reading uss devilfish SSN-666 it read uss devilfish ssnx-i? Would it change anything in a life that had seen too many changes?

  ACROSS THE LINE

  MONDAY NOVEMBER 4 shanghai, white china

  It was a few minutes past two in the morning. A few miles out to sea from the shimmering lights of Shanghai, the Shining March cruise missile’s onboard computer noted the stars’ positions overhead, giving it a stellar fix.

  It was time to turn back west, in accordance with the mission profile. The fins in the aft part of the ten-ton missile rotated, putting the weapon into a two G-force turn
. The onboard gyro rotated through the numerals, the stars spinning overhead. The lights of the city appeared in the nose-cone camera, the reflections glittering on the black water five meters below as the missile sailed west, throttling up to attack velocity. The airframe shuddered momentarily as the unit passed through sonic velocity on the way to MacH 1.2. Over the water, the sonic boom was unnoticed. The city lights grew brighter as Shanghai approached.

  The target was within the city center. A palace surrounded by rows of fences, patrols of security troops, and airborne helicopter patrols. The missile was designated as unit number one, its target considered the highest in priority for its mission planners. Along with another three missiles cruising under the detection altitude of the fourteen air-traffic-control radars and the occasional military air-search radar, there was a squadron of Mig-51 Flicker fighters, four of them assigned the same target as missile number one.

  The attack would be coordinated. The missiles were arriving from the four points of the compass, missile number one to hit first, the north, west, and south units to come in at 1.5-second intervals afterward. The Flicker squadron aircraft assigned to the palace would come in two waves, the first ten seconds after the last missile, the second thirty seconds after that. In order to accomplish this pinpoint timing, the missile required exact navigation aids. The star fix obtained before was sufficiently imprecise as to mandate another fix on the shoreline.

  The coastline approached rapidly. The throttles on the turbojet engine slowed, descending back below sonic velocity.

  The weapon was slightly ahead of schedule, and the mission profile called for it to fly slowly past its initial navigation aids. A casino building, the Spade Palace, came into view. The edifice was lit up brighter than a lighthouse, lights of every color shining from each facet of the crystal facade, blinking lights outlining the planes of the soaring skyscraper. Chinese and English signs invited gamblers to enter, even at this late—or early— hour. The casino was the first of three way points the missile needed. It aimed south of the building. The shoreline passed beneath the fuselage as the missile headed over dry land.