100 Fathoms Below

by Steven L. Kent

  “That’s what I thought. Watch where you step, White. You’re on mighty thin ice—wouldn’t take much for you to fall through.”

  With a steely parting glare, Duncan turned and continued toward the officers’ staterooms.

  “What was that about?” Tim asked once Duncan was out of earshot.

  “He thinks I killed his friend’s navy career.”

  “Your former XO?” Tim asked. Jerry looked at him in surprise, and Tim shrugged. “Like you said, word gets around. So did you really hesitate, or was the lieutenant just looking for an excuse to bust your balls?”

  Jerry didn’t meet his eye. He glanced sharply down the corridor in the direction Duncan had gone. “He’s my diving officer. If he says I hesitated, then I must have hesitated. That’s just the way it is.”

  “Bullshit,” Tim said. “We could talk to the COB, maybe get Lieutenant Duncan to back off.”

  “Forget it,” Jerry said. “It’s nothing.”

  “You sure about that? Because I don’t see him easing up on his own, and you’re going to be stuck on this boat with him for three months.”

  “Just let it go, okay, Tim?”

  Jerry headed off toward the mess. Tim hung back a moment, then followed. From what he had seen so far, Jerry seemed like a solid guy who took pride in his work. So why was he content to let Duncan keep hassling him? Was he just a masochist, or did he maybe feel guilty about something? What went down on Philadelphia that made Jerry file that complaint?

  Up ahead, Tim spotted Lieutenant Commander Jefferson coming out of the mess, followed by Senior Chief Matson, Lieutenant Abrams, and one of the new culinary specialists, Oran Guidry. They were carrying a heavy bundle between them. It took Tim a second to register that it was a black body bag, zipped shut and bulging from the rigid, asymmetrical mass inside. He ran over to them, pushing past the knot of curious sailors that was forming around them. Jerry was right behind him.

  “Sir, what happened?” Tim asked just as Abrams lost his grip on the bag for a moment and nearly dropped it.

  “Spicer, White, give us a hand with this,” Jefferson said.

  Jerry got his hands under one side of the body bag, and Tim lifted from the other side. He winced in surprise. Whoever was inside the bag was so cold, Tim’s hands started to ache. He kept his grip, though, and helped the other five men carry it to the main ladder. Maneuvering the load down the ladder to the bottom level without dropping it was difficult, but between the six of them they managed.

  There were only two enlisted men inside the long, narrow torpedo room, a skeleton crew that mostly did maintenance while the boat was still in friendly waters. Both looked surprised to see Lieutenant Commander Jefferson’s imposing bulk in the doorway.

  “Clear the room,” Jefferson ordered.

  The two torpedomen hustled out into the corridor, gawking in shock at the body bag. Jefferson led Tim and the others in, then ordered them to lay the body bag on the floor in back, near the torpedo tubes. When Tim straightened again, he stuck his freezing hands under his armpits to warm them.

  Oran Guidry turned to his boss. “Suh, permission to return to the galley? Best not leave Monje alone up there or he start screwin’ thangs up.”

  “Yes, that’s fine, Guidry, thank you,” Abrams replied, and Oran hurried out of the torpedo room.

  Tim watched him leave and saw the two torpedomen reappear in the doorway. Tim had the same questions they did, but his experience with officers told him this was something they would prefer to handle without him and Jerry getting in the way. He expected Abrams or Jefferson to dismiss them both, but they seemed too focused on the dead man to care about their presence.

  “How the hell did he get inside your freezer, Lieutenant?” Jefferson asked.

  Gordon wiped one arm across his forehead. “I don’t have an answer for that yet, sir, but I plan to. All I know is, he was dead when I found him.”

  “How long was he in there?” Jefferson asked.

  “Couldn’t have been more than a few hours, sir.”

  “It wouldn’t take long to freeze to death in there,” Matson added. “The freezer is kept at subzero temperatures, and depending on any number of factors, he would have been dead of exposure anywhere between 15 and 45 minutes.”

  “Was he trapped inside?”

  “Not possible, sir,” Gordon replied. “The freezer opens from the inside, and you can’t lock it. He couldn’t have been trapped.”

  Jefferson looked down at the body bag with a grimace. “I hate to ask this, Matson, but is it possible someone killed him first and then put him in the deep freeze?”

  “I didn’t see any signs of trauma, sir,” Matson said. “Nothing to indicate he was strangled, stabbed, shot …”

  Jefferson shook his head in bewilderment. “When you showed me those cuts on his hands, I almost couldn’t believe it. First he breaks the light fixture in the mess; then he turns up dead?”

  Tim glanced at Jerry, but Jerry looked deep in thought.

  “We have to bring the body to a medical facility where they can perform a proper autopsy on him and find out what happened,” Jefferson continued. “Right now, the closest base is still Pearl Harbor. It’s a straight shot down the Pacific, and if we turn around now we can be there in a week. I’ll inform Captain Weber, but that’s one hell of a detour. He’s not going to be happy.” He called one of the torpedomen watching from the doorway back into the room. “Your name’s Cameron, isn’t it?”

  “Aye, sir,” the sailor replied. He looked to be early 30s—older than most of the enlisted men aboard.

  “You and the other torpedomen will be assigned to new stations until we reach the base and the body can be removed,” Jefferson said. “I’ll inform the weapons officer. But until we get to Pearl, this room is now officially the morgue.”

  Cameron eyed the body bag nervously. “Aye, sir.”

  “Dismissed, Cameron,” Jefferson said.

  “Aye-aye, sir,” the torpedoman replied. He turned around and started to leave.

  “Cameron, hold on,” Jefferson called after him.

  The sailor turned back to him. “Sir?”

  “You worked with the deceased, Warren Stubic. What can you tell me about him? Did you notice anything unusual lately? Anything off?”

  Stubic? Tim thought back to the strange encounter he’d had with the man on the day of the launch—that wild, almost panicked look in his eye. After that, it almost didn’t come as a surprise to hear that Stubic had smashed the light fixture. But frozen to death in the galley’s freezer? That was a shock.

  Cameron glanced at the bag again, a sadness in his eyes. Tim wondered whether they had been close. “Stubic is—was—a good torpedoman, sir. At least, he used to be. He was different this time, sir.”

  “What do you mean?” Jefferson asked.

  “He wasn’t acting like himself, sir,” Cameron said. “He wasn’t focusing on his duties. Kept complaining about headaches, and the lights hurting his eyes. Last time I saw him, he was sweating something awful. I mean drenched. I worked with him on two previous underways, sir. This definitely wasn’t like him. Something must have happened to him.”

  “Sir, if I may?” Tim said.

  “You have something to add, Spicer?” Jefferson asked.

  “Yes, sir. I noticed the same things about Stubic that Cameron did. I ran into him on the first day of the underway. Something was definitely wrong with him, sir. He said he was fine, but he didn’t look it. He just seemed … out of it.”

  Jefferson nodded. “Thank you. You’re dismissed, Cameron. Spicer, White, you too. Get back to your duties.”

  “Aye, sir,” Tim said.

  The three enlisted men left the room. Cameron joined his colleague from the torpedo room, while Tim and Jerry went back up the main ladder to the middle level. They entered the mess, but Tim wasn’t hungry anymore. Just a week into the underway, and a crewman was already dead. Everyone in the mess was already talking about it. The rumors were flyi
ng. Stubic was on drugs. Stubic sneaked alcohol aboard. Stubic was poisoned in Hawaii by a jealous husband using a slow-acting toxin that drove him insane. It all sounded like nonsense to Tim, but how plausible an explanation could you expect for a man putting his fist through a glass light fixture and winding up frozen solid? Nothing sounded right.

  “Tim, hold up a second,” Jerry said.

  He stopped. “Yeah, what is it?”

  “I’m worried,” Jerry said.

  Tim nodded. “Me too. It’s nuts what happened to Stubic. I can’t get my mind around it.”

  “It’s not just that,” Jerry said. “You heard what Cameron said. Stubic couldn’t focus, and he was sweating like a whore in church. Sound familiar? It’s just like what’s happening to Bodine.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Jefferson crouched down beside the body bag on the floor of the torpedo room. He was tempted to unzip it and take another look at the man inside, but that first look had been enough. Face covered in white crystals of frost, eyes open and staring blankly.

  “Do you think he was sick?” he asked Senior Chief Matson.

  Matson frowned. “It’s possible. From what the crewmen told us—inability to focus, his persistent sweating—it sounds like he might have had a serious fever.”

  “Right,” Lieutenant Abrams muttered with a mirthless chuckle. “And maybe he was looking for someplace to cool off.”

  “As strange as it may sound, sir, you might not be wrong about that,” Matson said. “If Stubic’s fever was high enough, he could have been delirious, even hallucinating. In that state of mind, he might not have understood what he was doing.”

  “Are you saying he could have shut himself in the freezer on purpose?” Jefferson said.

  Matson sighed. “I don’t know, sir. It’s just conjecture right now, but I’m saying it’s not impossible.”

  Jefferson stood and rubbed a hand over his short, tightly curled hair in exasperation. “Let me get this straight. Sometime between midrats and first meal, Stubic entered the mess during a rare moment when it was empty, smashed one of the lights, and then walked into the freezer and shut himself in. All because he was delirious. That’s what you’re saying?”

  “It does sound pretty far-fetched, sir,” Matson admitted. “The only other explanation I can think of is that he just snapped.”

  “But supposing that’s true, why snap now?” Jefferson asked. “He’s no first-timer. He’s an experienced submariner who’s been on a couple of underways with us already.”

  Neither Matson nor Abrams had an answer.

  Jefferson sighed. “I’d better go inform the captain.”

  ***

  On the top level, Jefferson found the door to Captain Weber’s stateroom closed. He knocked.

  “Who is it?” The captain’s voice sounded terse and preoccupied.

  “Lieutenant Commander Jefferson, sir.”

  “Come in.”

  Jefferson opened the door and hunched over to step inside. There were no height restrictions for officers in the submarine service, but anyone over six feet risked bumping his head in the cramped staterooms, which didn’t seem designed so much as carved out of available space as an afterthought. And the marine architect certainly wasn’t thinking of a six-and-a-half-foot linebacker. Captain Weber was poring over a map spread across his fold-down desk. He didn’t look up.

  “Close the door behind you, Lieutenant Commander,” the captain said, drawing lines across the map with a pencil and ruler. “I’ll be right with you.”

  Jefferson could see the coast of Alaska on one side of the map, and the Siberian coast directly across. The Kamchatka Peninsula jutted down from the eastern end of the Soviet Union like a whale’s fin, with the Sea of Okhotsk on one side, and on the other, the Pacific Ocean and the Rybachiy Nuclear Submarine Base. Captain Weber had circled the location of the base and was currently drawing several lines between Roanoke’s current position and the peninsula, plotting possible courses. And from where Jefferson stood, a lot of those lines looked as though they reached significantly closer to the shoreline than international maritime law allowed.

  “What can I do for you, Jefferson?” Captain Weber finally asked, looking up from his work.

  Jefferson pulled his gaze away from the map. “Sir, I’m sorry to say I have bad news. There’s been a death among the crew.”

  The captain straightened in his chair. “My God. Who?”

  “PO3 Warren Stubic, a torpedoman, sir. We believe he’s responsible for that broken light in the mess, as well.”

  Captain Weber sat back and stared past his XO. “Jesus! What happened?”

  “We’re not sure yet, sir. Matson’s working theory is that Stubic might have been sick, possibly delirious with fever. We won’t know for certain until there’s an autopsy.”

  “I see. Where is the body now?”

  “I’ve authorized that it be stored in the torpedo room, sir. Senior Chief Matson is with the body now.”

  Captain Weber nodded. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Jefferson. As soon as we can, we’ll radio back and make sure his family is informed.”

  “Sir, the nearest medical facility—”

  “It’s going to have to wait,” the captain said, cutting him off. “I can’t take the time now.”

  “Sir, I mean no disrespect, but this is protocol. The navy expects us to bring dead sailors to the nearest medical facility without delay, sir.”

  “It’s going to have to wait!” the captain repeated, a notch louder.

  “Aye, sir,” Jefferson said, coming to attention. “Understood, sir.”

  Captain Weber took a deep breath. “I’m well aware of navy protocol, Lieutenant Commander. But if you knew how important this operation is, how much is riding on it …”

  “Sir, I thought this was just a reconnaissance op,” Jefferson said.

  The captain picked up his pencil and a divider and returned his attention to the map, ignoring Jefferson’s statement. “I need you to keep this boat running smoothly, Lieutenant Commander. I need the crew focused and ready. It won’t be much farther now.”

  What wouldn’t be much farther now? Jefferson’s eyes darted to the map again, but it offered no answers, and the captain’s expression invited no questions. There were things about this op he was keeping close to the vest. Of course, that was a captain’s prerogative. Jefferson didn’t have to like it; he only had to accept it.

  “Dismissed,” Captain Weber told him.

  ***

  Back in the torpedo room, Jefferson found Matson alone, attending the body. Lieutenant Abrams had returned to the galley. The hospital corpsman wasn’t happy to hear that the captain wouldn’t be turning back to Pearl.

  “So what are we supposed to do, sir, just keep him down here?” the corpsman asked.

  “Captain’s orders,” Jefferson told him. He didn’t like it any more than Matson did, but the captain had made his decision. And judging from the way he had snapped at Jefferson, there would be no changing his mind. It had something to do with the op; that much was clear.

  “I suppose you want me to stay down here with him, sir?” Matson asked. He didn’t sound happy with the idea.

  “No, there’s no need. Stubic’s not going anywhere, and I’ve informed the weapons officer that the torpedo room is to remain off-limits until I say otherwise. We’ll keep the hatch closed in the meantime.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Matson said, relieved. “I was worried I’d go stir crazy if I had to stay down here for an entire section. I don’t know how the torpedomen do it, sir. This has got to be the loneliest place on the sub.”

  Jefferson looked around. Matson wasn’t wrong. The torpedo room was cramped and unfriendly, full of metal and machinery and hard edges, with torpedoes resting in their steel trays along the bulkhead, and only a narrow corridor from the doorway to the torpedo tubes. It had an isolated, inhospitable feel.

  “I suppose that’s why it makes a good morgue,” Jefferson said. �
��Nobody wants to be here.”

  They left the torpedo room. Matson climbed the main ladder to the middle level while Jefferson secured the hatch. When he was finished, he walked the length of the corridor to the main ladder and was about to start climbing when he heard a loud metallic bang come from the auxiliary engine room at the aft end of the bottom level, followed by a loud, frustrated curse.

  The auxiliary engine, also known as the Big Red Machine, had gotten its nickname from its bright red color, although some swore it was in honor of the Cincinnati Reds, who had dominated the National League all throughout the 1970s. An enormous diesel generator, the Big Red Machine was designed to power the boat if the nuclear reactor ever shut down. Jefferson entered the auxiliary engine room and found three sailors from Engineering standing in front of the engine, a scattering of tools at their feet.

  “Everything all right in here?” he asked.

  “Aye, sir,” one of the sailors replied. “Just doing our weekly maintenance check, sir.”

  “Carry on,” Jefferson told them.

  Along one bulkhead, he saw the stack of food crates the engineers had allowed Lieutenant Abrams to store here while his pantry was full. In a few more weeks, once more of the food had been consumed and shelf space became available, the crates of big number 10 cans of vegetables, coffee, fruit, and soup would go up to the pantry for unpacking. Jefferson had been in the navy a long time now, and in submarines for most of it, but every once in a while it still amazed him how well things ran, how efficient it was when everyone pulled together. If duties were performed properly and everything was where it was supposed to be, an underway could run as smoothly as clockwork.

  But it was a delicate balance. It didn’t take much for things to go FUBAR on a sub, and Warren Stubic had damn well turned things FUBAR for Roanoke. But why? He still couldn’t puzzle it out. The theory that Stubic had snapped didn’t fly. He had to pass a psych eval when he first joined the navy, and they certainly would have spotted any potential for a psychotic break. An illness, then? Possibly, but that opened a whole other can of worms. Where had Stubic picked it up? Was it contagious?