Jefferson had always tried to keep the boat running smoothly, but now everything seemed to be careening out of control, falling apart at exactly the wrong time. Not only did they have an op to complete, but his chances for getting his own command were riding on how well it went. It had been a long, hard slog over many years to convince the navy that he deserved his own boat. It was within his grasp now, but he knew they would be looking for any reason to say no. Any reason at all to keep him down, keep him in his place. And damned if he was going to give them one. Whatever was happening on Roanoke, he intended to get to the bottom of it.
Jefferson left the auxiliary engine room and was returning to the main ladder when he noticed that a section of corridor closer to the torpedo room had gone dark. Strange. It hadn’t been dark a minute ago. As he drew closer, he saw shards of glass glittering on the floor. Someone had broken a light fixture down here too.
His jaw tightened. How was this possible? Stubic had broken the light up in the mess, but Stubic was dead. There were flecks of blood amid the shards on the floor. Fresh blood.
He looked up from the floor and froze where he was. A silhouette hugged the bulkhead within the patch of darkness. In the ambient light from the other fixtures, he could make out Steve Bodine’s features, wet with sweat.
“Bodine?” Jefferson said.
“Sir.” Bodine’s voice was raspy. He was cradling one hand in the other, and Jefferson could see dark blood oozing across the knuckles. “Don’t come any closer, sir.”
“Bodine, what have you done?” Jefferson asked.
“I—I couldn’t,” he stammered. “The light … I had to …” From the shadows, Bodine’s glistening eyes regarded him with undisguised terror. “It hurt my eyes. The light hurts so much. You can’t understand how much.”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but let me help you,” Jefferson said, trying to put him at ease.
“You can’t help me, sir. No one can.” Bodine slumped against the bulkhead, clutching the wounded hand closer to his chest. “Oh, God, Lieutenant Commander, I’m burning up. I feel like my whole body’s on fire.”
“Bodine, you’re sick. I think you’ve got the same thing Stubic had. Report to sick bay right now. Matson can take care of you.”
“Stay back,” Bodine insisted. His voice broke, and he started sobbing. “I—I don’t remember what happened, sir. Something took my memories away. Something is taking me away!”
“I don’t understand,” Jefferson said.
Bodine rubbed his neck. “These welts, sir. I don’t remember how I got them. I don’t even remember breaking this light, but I know I did it. I know it was me, but it’s like I’m not me anymore.”
“That’s it, you’re coming with me to sick bay, Bodine,” Jefferson said, moving toward him. “That’s an order.”
“I said stay away from me!” Bodine shouted.
Another metallic bang sounded from the auxiliary engine room behind him, followed by raised voices arguing. Jefferson turned away from Bodine for only a moment. While he was distracted, Bodine made a break for the ladder. Jefferson chased after him. He was still in good shape from his football days, in better shape than Bodine, he thought, and yet Bodine, despite his illness, was moving too fast for Jefferson to catch. He hadn’t seen anyone run this fast since his days on the field. It didn’t seem possible, and yet Bodine was scrambling up before Jefferson even reached the first rung.
He followed Bodine up to the middle level, emerging next to the mess, but the corridor was so crowded with sailors he didn’t see Bodine anywhere. Jefferson was tall enough to look over most of the sailors’ heads, but there was no sign of the helmsman. How the hell had he moved so quickly?
“Bodine?” he called. “Bodine, get your ass back here, that’s an order!”
Crewmen in the mess and the corridor stared at him, wondering what was going on and murmuring among themselves, but the helmsman didn’t appear. Jefferson cursed under his breath. Bodine was gone.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Still groggy after a restless sleep, Jerry White brushed his teeth over one of the stainless steel sinks in the head. He studied his reflection in the mirror. There were heavy bags under his eyes—evidence for all to see that he hadn’t slept well. He had gotten only an hour or two during his sleep section. His last encounter with Lieutenant Duncan had kept playing in his mind, keeping him awake. He hadn’t hesitated to follow an order in the control room, not even for a second. He was sure of it. He was a better planesman than that. But Duncan had it in for him, and he was going to see flaws in everything Jerry did, no matter what, because he blamed Jerry for the end of Lieutenant Commander Leonard’s navy career.
You’re on mighty thin ice—wouldn’t take much for you to fall through.
Christ, would he ever get to put USS Philadelphia behind him? That was why he had turned down Tim’s suggestion to go to the COB about Duncan. He just wanted a fresh start, a clean slate, but it seemed the universe had other ideas. Charles Duncan and Frank Leonard were buddies? What were the odds?
In his mind, he saw Lieutenant Commander Leonard’s face again, red with rage, spittle flying as he yelled at Jerry.
It was you who filed that complaint, White? You stupid son of a bitch. It’s going to hurt your buddy MacLeod a lot worse than it hurts me!
Jerry tried to shake the image out of his head.
He had spent the section before his rack time as part of a search party scouring the submarine for Steve Bodine. Lieutenant Commander Jefferson had put every available sailor on the job, letting them know Bodine was sick and possibly delirious. They had searched Roanoke from top level to bottom—even the nuclear reactor compartment and the maneuvering room in the aft section—but they hadn’t found him. It was clear that Bodine, in his delirium, was hiding from them, moving from space to space to avoid being found. But how could someone that sick move around quickly enough not to be discovered? And how could he stay hidden for so long on a vessel with so few places to hide?
But the worst part was that Jerry’s suspicions had been confirmed. First Stubic was sick, now Bodine. Something bad was going around—something that made men lose their minds and act erratically, even violently. How many other men on Roanoke had caught it? How many of his fellow sailors were ticking time bombs waiting to go off? That thought had kept him awake too.
He stowed his toothbrush and toothpaste away in his dopp kit, checked his coveralls in the mirror, and left the head, exiting through the hatch into his berthing area. Whereas the officers had their own staterooms, where most of them slept three to a room, the enlisted men had expansive spaces at the center of the middle level that were closed off with curtained doorways and filled with triple-decker bunks. Because a third of the enlisted men were asleep at any given hour, the only lights in the berthing areas were small red fluorescents near the doorways. Inside, the berthing area held four rows of bunks, with two rows built directly into the bulkheads, and another two rows bolted to the deck between them. Several sailors were milling about near the bunks, some getting ready to turn in for their six-hour sleep sections, others vacating their racks and preparing for their watches. Standing beside his bunk, Jerry opened the coffin locker under his rack, stowed his kit, and checked the time. His watch section started in nine minutes. Plenty of time to get to the control room.
Behind him, one of the sailors hissed a sharp, angry whisper and banged his fist on his bunk. Jerry turned around and saw a broad-shouldered machinist’s mate wearing a T-shirt and sweats. He pounded on the metal frame of the top rack, where the curtain was still closed.
“Come on, asshole!” the sailor said.
“Is everything all right?” Jerry asked.
“Mind your business, White,” the sailor snapped.
Fine, fuck you, Jerry thought, turning away again. He had enough on his mind already.
The sailor banged on the bunk again. Jerry tried to ignore it.
“Rise and shine, lazy-ass,” the machinist’s mate s
aid. “It’s my turn to sleep, so get your dead ass up.” There was no answer from the rack. “Okay, you asked for it. I’m opening the curtain. If you’re pullin’ your pud in there, get ready to say ‘cheese’!”
Jerry heard the rustling of the curtain being pushed aside, then a shocked gasp from the machinist’s mate. He spun around and saw the man take a step back from the bunk and cross himself. Jerry went over and looked inside the narrow rack.
Steve Bodine stared back at him. His face glistened with sweat, and the flesh under his bloodshot eyes was puffy and dark. Bodine didn’t say anything. He stared back, slack-jawed and dull-eyed, as though he didn’t recognize Jerry, despite having sat next to him in the control room during every one of his watch sections. Big drops of sweat ran down his forehead. In the red light of the berthing area, it looked almost like blood.
“Jesus,” Jerry murmured. Then, louder, to the machinist’s mate, “Get Matson!”
The sailor ran off. Crewmen in their racks pulled aside their curtains to see what all the noise was about. Several enlisted men gathered around the bunk, gawking.
“Careful,” Jerry told them. “We don’t know if he’s contagious.”
That was enough to draw them all back a few paces. Jerry took a step back too, just in case.
“Bodine, you all right, man?” Jerry asked. “Where have you been? We’ve been turning the boat inside out looking for you.”
But the helmsman continued to stare right through him, his breath coming short and fast.
Matson and the machinist’s mate came running into the berthing area. Matson, medical kit in hand, pushed his way through the gawkers, ordering them to get back. Jerry stepped aside to let him get closer to Bodine.
“He’s hyperventilating,” Matson said. “Bodine, can you hear me? How are you feeling?”
Bodine didn’t respond or even show any indication he knew that Matson was there. Matson pulled a penlight from his medical kit and shined it in Bodine’s eyes.
Bodine erupted, screaming and thrashing in his rack. He slapped at Matson, trying to knock the light away. When Matson turned off the light again, Bodine whimpered and calmed down.
“What the hell was that?” Jerry asked.
“I don’t know,” Matson said. “Extreme light sensitivity? An involuntary reaction to stimulus? He’s obviously got a fever, so it could be delirium from that.”
Bodine’s arm shot out of the rack, and he seized Matson by the wrist. The corpsman yelped in alarm and pain. The sailors surrounding them gasped, and some jumped back.
“Get him off me!” Matson yelled.
Jerry grabbed Bodine’s arm and jerked his hands back in surprise. Bodine’s skin was hot, much hotter than any fever Jerry had ever known. He took hold of Bodine’s arm again and pulled. Bodine’s grip on Matson’s wrist was like iron, and it took several tries to pry him loose. When Matson was free, he stepped back, rubbing his wrist and staring in shock at Bodine. The helmsman started to slide forward out of the rack, a strange, predatory grin on his face.
“Hold him!” Matson shouted, and started fishing through his medical bag.
Jerry grabbed Bodine, but the helmsman was far stronger than Jerry would have guessed. He almost knocked Jerry aside, until the machinist’s mate leaped forward and helped Jerry keep Bodine in his rack.
Matson felt in his kit and took out a hypodermic syringe, already filled with a clear liquid. He pulled the cap off with his teeth, then sank the needle into the flesh of Bodine’s arm. He pushed the plunger all the way down, but whatever was in the syringe seemed to have no effect. Bodine squirmed and kicked and tried to break free.
“Shit!” Matson growled. He pulled a second, identical hypodermic out of his kit and injected its contents in Bodine’s other arm. This time, Bodine went slack. Jerry let go, and the machinist’s mate stepped back, wide-eyed with shock, wiping Bodine’s sweat from his palms onto his T-shirt.
“I don’t understand,” Matson said, dropping the syringes back in his kit. “There was enough sedative in the first shot to knock out a sailor twice his size.”
He shined his penlight into the rack again. Despite Bodine’s display of almost superhuman strength, he was in bad shape. His face was an ashen gray, and he was as drenched as if he had just been fished out of the ocean. His pulse throbbed weakly under the glistening skin of his neck.
“Is he going to be all right?” Jerry asked.
Matson didn’t answer him. He grabbed a stethoscope from his kit, put the eartips in his ears, and held the diaphragm to Bodine’s chest. He listened for several seconds.
“The heartbeat is weak. His breathing is fast and erratic.” Matson pulled the eartips out of his ears and draped the stethoscope over his neck. “It’s definitely a fever. I can tell that much, at least.”
He held up each of Bodine’s limp hands. On the knuckles and back of his right hand were several dark-red cuts. Just like how Jefferson had described Stubic’s hand, Jerry realized. Matson gently lowered Bodine’s hand again.
“I heard about the broken light in the bottom-level corridor,” Matson said. “I suppose that was Bodine’s handiwork.”
“So he’s got the same thing Stubic did?” Jerry asked.
“Almost certainly. I can’t leave him here with the other crewmen. He’ll have to be quarantined. I’ll talk to Lieutenant Commander Jefferson about setting up a suitable space.”
Jerry looked at the time and realized he was about to be late for his watch section. Damn. Lieutenant Duncan was the watchstanding diving officer, and the last thing Jerry needed was to give the man more ammunition against him.
“I’ve got to report to the control room,” he told Matson.
“Thanks for your help, White,” Matson said. “I’ve got it from here. With luck, we may have just saved this man’s life.”
Jerry glanced at Bodine again. The helmsman’s chest was rising and falling rapidly. Sweat pooled in the hollow of his throat. Jerry hoped Matson was right, because Bodine looked to be at death’s door.
CHAPTER TWELVE
By the time Jerry got to the control room, Duncan was already fuming.
“You’re late, White,” he snarled. “They let you get away with murder on your previous boat, but I assure you I won’t tolerate any such nonsense here.”
“Sorry, sir,” Jerry said. “I was with the hospital corpsman—”
“I’m not interested in your excuses,” Duncan interrupted. “Take your seat.”
Jerry relieved the planesman of the previous watch, who fled the control room as if he couldn’t stand to be around Duncan another minute. Jerry didn’t blame him. The helmsman beside him was new—the sailor assigned to be Bodine’s replacement when Bodine went missing.
Duncan didn’t bother asking why Jerry had been with the hospital corpsman. If he had shown even a glimmer of concern or humanity, Jerry’s disdain for him might have lessened. Instead, Duncan likely assumed Jerry was sick or injured, and despised him too much to give a damn. Jerry swallowed the loathing he felt before it made him say something he would regret. He was already on thin ice—best not to hop.
The watch progressed routinely until an hour in, when the officer of the deck announced, “Captain on deck!”
Jerry looked up as Captain Weber entered the control room from the captain’s egress. He hadn’t seen the captain outside his stateroom since the launch. What brought him out of his cocoon now?
“The captain has the conn,” Captain Weber said, formally announcing his intention to take control of the boat. “Officer of the Deck, take us to periscope depth.”
“Periscope depth, aye,” the OOD replied. “Lieutenant Duncan, periscope depth.”
“Make our depth one-six-zero feet,” Duncan said.
“One-six-zero, aye,” Jerry replied. Periscope depth was actually 65 feet, but because planes and surface ships could spot a sub at that depth, submarines in hostile waters had to pause partway up while the sonar techs listened for signs of activity in the surroundin
g area. As soon as the report came back that they were alone, Captain Weber ordered the sub taken up the rest of the way to 65 feet. Jerry complied, using the hand wheel to adjust the hydroplanes.
The captain raised the observation periscope out of the floor, an action that raised the periscope head above the surface. Taking the handles, he brought his face up to the eyepiece. He turned 360 degrees, making one final sweep of the surface for any hostiles. Satisfied, he lowered the periscope again.
“Communications officer, I need to reach SUBPAC,” Captain Weber said. SUBPAC was the Pacific Submarine Force, overseen by the four-star admiral who commanded all the US Pacific Fleet. “Route communications through to my stateroom.”
“Radioing SUBPAC, aye,” the radioman replied, pulling on his bulky headphones in the radio room at the rear of the control room. He began fussing with the bank of switches and knobs in front of him, adjusting frequencies to find an open channel.
Now Jerry understood why they had come so close to the surface. There was no radio contact below the thermocline, the thin layer of water that separated the warmer surface waters from the cold depths. The thermocline played havoc with sound waves—a good thing when the sub needed to hide from surface traffic, but not so great when they needed to radio fleet headquarters.
Still, it was unusual—not to mention risky—to break radio silence this close to Soviet waters. He wondered whether it had anything to do with Stubic’s death and Bodine’s illness. If it turned out that a contagious disease was working its way through the submarine, they might be ordered back to port. Or would they be quarantined, left to float in their tin can until the disease had run its course? He forced the unpleasant thought out of his head and tried not to worry. The best he could do was accept that he didn’t know anything, and not give his imagination too much running room.
“Officer of the Deck, you have the conn,” Captain Weber said.
He started walking back to his stateroom, but the radioman stopped him.
“Captain, sir, there’s a problem with the radio.”
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