Voyage of the Devilfish mp-1

by Michael Dimercurio

  Frankly, she once told him, she was scared to death of losing him, and that fear was a live thing between them. She had tried to convince him to leave the Navy and come to work for her father, an executive for Dynacorp International, a defense contractor. Pacino couldn’t see it. Money meant little to him. He still drove his midshipman car, the beat-up ‘69 Corvette. To Pacino, resigning from the Navy was just unthinkable. He was a submariner, his reason for living was to poke holes in the ocean, to be where he was needed. Like his father. He understood her feelings, worried about them, but he couldn’t quit. And she was no cliched rich bitch who selfishly wanted it all her way. She had tried hard, as he had, but it hadn’t been easy… Tonight would be a repetition of the old conflicts, he suspected. Once through the door he found he was right.

  “Michael, we waited on that pier for hours. Neither you nor squadron gave me any idea you wouldn’t be on the boat. I had to find out from Jon Rapier that you got called downtown. And now Julie Rapier calls and wants to know why you’re taking the boat out to sea for Christmas. My God, Michael, what’s going on?”

  She trailed him upstairs as he pulled off his uniform, the khakis still smelling like a submarine, shrugged into an old black sweatshirt with the faded legend on the front reading “DEEP, SILENT, FAST, DEADLY — U.S. SUBMARINE FORCE.”

  Once in his jeans he took the stairs down to the lodge room and headed for the bar. Once he found the Jack Daniel’s he splashed the gold liquid over four ice cubes in a highball glass and drained half of it in one gulp. How, he wondered, could he tell Hillary what he was about to do? If he could tell her, she might understand, but this trip was top secret.

  “Hillary, please—” and stopped as he saw the tears. He was about to go to her when he heard Tony calling from the loft above. He hurried to the stairs, and as he climbed the risers saw Hillary going out on the deck. At the top of the stairs Pacino took Tony in his arms and carried the boy to his room, turning on the light, taking up the boy’s teddy bear and sitting down in the easy chair where they read together on the rare nights when he got home at a decent hour.

  “Daddy,” Tony said, “mommy said you’re going away for Christmas. She said she doesn’t know when you’re coming back.”

  “Tony, I have to go. I’m sorry but there’s something very important we have to do on the boat. I’m really sorry, Ace, but it has to be done now. I’ll be back soon, though, and when I’m home we’ll have our Christmas then. Okay?” Of course not okay. Tony’s tears proved it.

  “It’s way past your bedtime, and I’ve got to pack. Let’s get you tucked in.”

  As Pacino repeated the words of Tony’s prayer — “if I die before I wake, pray the Lord my soul to take” — his eyes seemed to get heavy. He hoped Tony wouldn’t notice. But Tony’s eyes were shut, and by the end of the prayer his son’s breaths were slow and deep. Pacino kissed Tony’s cheek and moved out of the room, shutting the door gently. Darkness. Hillary already in bed. A single dim light in the kitchen. Pacino went down the stairs, intending to try Hillary’s therapy of staring out to sea when the phone rang, making him jump.

  “Pacino.”

  “Duty Officer, sir.” Lieutenant Stokes. “You wanted a zero one hundred status report, sir. Are you awake?”

  “Go ahead. Stokes,” Pacino said, forcing himself to concentrate on the needs of the Devilfish, to respond to the request to start up the reactor, to hear the package of data needed to plug himself into his ship from forty miles away and guide the actions of young Stokes.

  “Station section three watches aft and start up the reactor,” Pacino ordered. “Divorce from shore power and get the squadron crane on the pier by six. When you’re ready take off the shorepower cables.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Stokes said, repeating back the order. “Sir, should I call for tugs and a pilot?”

  “No tugs. Stokes, and no pilot. Devilfish will get under way on her own steam.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Do you want a call when the reactor’s critical?”

  “No. I’ll see you in a few hours. Make sure the coffee’s very damn hot.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Good night. Captain.”

  “Good night Stokes.” Pacino put the phone down slowly, moving in a sea of molasses, his eyes roving to the pictures on the wall, the wedding photographs, the crossed swords at the Naval Academy Chapel, Hillary kissing him under the swords of his classmates, Hillary holding newborn Tony, himself saluting on the deck of Devilfish at the change-of-command ceremony, his whites starched and shiny in the Virginia sunshine. So long ago. So very damn long ago. Finally his attention went to the one faded photograph of him and his father taken during his plebe summer, his father in dress whites with the three stripes of the rank of commander, looking so damned proud.

  For the next two hours Pacino stood on the deck facing the Atlantic. He considered waking Hillary and talking it out but knew it was a dumb idea. Finally he went in to pack, washing his khakis, ironing some shirts, filling the duffel bag with his gear. After an hour he decided to write a note to Hillary and one to Tony. It occurred to him that if he didn’t return he wanted Tony to hear the story from him firsthand. He let it spill from his pen — not the specifics of the mission but that he was going especially because of his father. He tried to push a lifetime of fatherly advice and love into one twelve-page letter, remembering how he had searched his own father’s effects for some sign, some note. How there had been nothing.

  He wrote a second letter to Hillary, telling her how he felt, trying to bring her back to the days when they were drunk with their discovery of each other… the first time they made love in her car, the windows steamed up on the parking strip of Halsey Field, and how the Jimmylegs security guard had pounded on the window with a flashlight, how she had giggled at him as he tried to get back into uniform, his shirttail hanging out, his hair a mess, lipstick all over his face from her kisses, how he’d told her about when he’d been placed on report for the infraction, a “Class A” offense for public displays of affection, and had been restricted to his spartan room in Bancroft Hall for six weeks.

  After he had tried to evoke the good times, and a few of the bad, Pacino sealed the letter and inserted it into the coffee can in the freezer, where she was sure to see it in the morning long after Devilfish would have slipped away from the pier. Tony’s letter, intended to be read only if Pacino failed to come back from the OP, was placed in the file cabinet in the folder marked WILL, where Pacino knew it would be found if…

  He checked his watch. The night had evaporated. He hurried into his khakis, put his bag by the door and went up the stairs to Tony’s room. For a moment he watched his sleeping son, so quiet and handsome in his sleep. He huched his hair, and left. Hillary was curled in a ball in the center of the bed, lying on her side, a pillow between her knees. Pacino walked to the head of the bed and kneeled down so his face was even with hers, kissed her lips and she sighed, and for a moment a trace of a smile was on her face. Pacino’s wristwatch alarm beeped — time to go. He looked at Hillary one last time, then left the room, shutting the door quietly.

  CHAPTER 6

  TUESDAY, 14 DECEMBER, 0756 EST

  NORFOLK, VIRGINIA

  NORFOLK NAVAL BASE PIER 7

  The sun was just rising over the Squadron Seven piers as Pacino pulled his duffel bag out of his car and began walking toward Devilfish. The dim orange light gave little warmth. The air was crisp and cool. Pacino walked up to the end of the pier and returned the salutes of the guards, then reached for his identification. Pier 7 had changed quite a bit in the last two decades, he thought. At the head of the pier concrete crash barriers had been set up, along with a barbed wire double-chain-link fence. The guardhouse was manned by a contingent of U.S. Marines, all armed with M-16s. Every submarine tied up at the pier had a sniper with a high-powered rifle in the sail. The quarterdeck watch sailors no longer carried Colt .45s with the ammo in their belts. They had loaded machine pistols.

  Such anti-terrorist measures hadn�
�t existed in the fall of 1973 when his father’s Stingray had sailed for deployment. That day the families and children and girlfriends had all been on the pier. The squadron staff made a bon-voyage party of it — brass band playing, crepe banners in red, white and blue, a banner reading GOOD LUCK, STINGRAY, tables covered with cookies, pies, sandwiches. The crews of the other boats waving. Michael Pacino in his fourth-class midshipman’s uniform, his brass anchor pins on the lapels, saluting the officers who passed by. This underway would be different. Devilfish would leave without fanfare. A crowd on the pier was considered a security problem. It was as if the boat was already gone.

  Pacino walked down the pier, the eyes of the bridge snipers on him. The other boats were quiet. By his request, Devilfish was always parked at the very end of the pier so he could drive out without tugs. To Pacino it seemed somehow inappropriate for a warship to pull out with two tugs.

  The sleek destroyers and frigates two piers down would pull out with a Back Emergency-Ahead Flank under way, their wakes boiling up astern, their radars rotating in quick circles, flags fluttering smartly from the masts, smoke pouring out their stacks. Envious submariners would watch the cocky surface officers while two tugs pulled their delicate submarines gently away from the piers, being careful of the fiberglass nosecones covering the sonar spherical arrays. No, no tugs for Pacino.

  When he reached the berth of the Devilfish, he received a salute from the Duty Officer, Lieutenant Stokes.

  “Good morning. Captain. I thought you’d want a report before getting onboard, sir.”

  “Go ahead. Stokes.”

  “Sir, reactor’s critical. We got a normal full power lineup, reactor main coolant pumps in two slow/two slow, divorced from shorepower, main engines warm, clutch disengaged, section three watches manned aft. I’ve had the shorepower cables removed from the ship. The XO has gone over the pre-underway checklist with department heads and reports the ship is ready in all respects to get under way. XO briefed the officers, and the Chief of the Boat briefed the men. XO recommends stationing the maneuvering watch in preparation to get under way. Sir, request permission to station the maneuvering watch.”

  Pacino looked at the river, measuring the wind and current. He turned back to Stokes. “Station the maneuvering watch. Rig out the outboard, raise and lower masts as necessary and when you’re ready, rotate and radiate on the radar.” Pacino had just saved the Duty Officer three phonecalls for permission. “And send the XO to my stateroom.”

  Stokes repeated back the captain’s orders and walked to the boat. Pacino lingered on the pier for a moment, looking at Devilfish’s sleek hull, then crossing the gangway.

  “DEVILFISH… ARRIVING,” boomed throughout the ship, announcing the captain’s arrival. Pacino saluted the topside watch and crouched over the operations compartment hatch, the same hatch used to load weapons.

  “Down ladder,” he said, tossing his bag down the hatch, then lowering himself through the small opening. The smell of submarine hit Pacino. A mix of lubrication and diesel oil, stale cigarette smoke, cooking grease, ozone, old sweat and raw sewage. The smell wasn’t particularly bad, just strong and characteristic. It lingered on the clothes, in the hair. Hillary hated it, and who could blame her? He heard the sounds of the boat — the high whine of the ship’s inertial navigation system, the low roar of the ventilation ducts. He climbed down the ladder, and his feet hit the deck of the operations upper-level passageway across from the XO’s stateroom. The narrow passageway forward opened into the control room. One door to starboard was the sonar room. The door to port was the captain’s stateroom. Between the captain’s stateroom and the control room was a steep staircase to operations middle level, home of officers’ country and the crews’ mess.

  Pacino opened the door to his stateroom, noting the room clean and tidied, a steaming cup of coffee on the table. The Duty Officer must have had it sent to the stateroom when he was walking down the pier. Pacino tossed his bag onto one of the seats of the table, opened his fold-down desktop and sat down to drink the coffee from the mug with the Devilfish’s emblem painted on it. The Devilfish name and emblem had been controversial from the beginning. A circular field framed a leering ram’s head. The ram’s horns curled up and back in a curving spiral. Between the horns was the shape of a modern nuclear attack submarine seen from the side. Above the ram’s head were the words USS DEVILFISH, below the letters SSN666. The hull number had inspired someone in NAVSHIPS to name the boat Devilfish. Protests were lodged with Congress but controversy had never reached the front page. Nixon had resigned that same week. With no media outrage to fan the flames the Devilfish name-flap had died out. Pacino liked it. It sounded vicious and fierce.

  On his second sip of coffee he heard Stokes’ Kentucky twang boom out over the P.A. Circuit One announcing system: “STATION … THE MANEUVERING WATCH.”

  A knock came on the door from the head. Commander Rapier coming to brief him on the ship’s readiness.

  “Come in,” he said. The door opened and Rapier walked in from the head, wearing a canvas green parka over khakis, hands full of papers and the radio message-board. He handed the clipboard to Pacino. The XO tour was considered by many the hump of a Navy career, defined as making another man, the captain, happy, taking the paperwork burden off him and allowing him to concentrate on tactics instead of plans, weapons employment instead of weapons inventories. The idea was to suffer through the XO tour, doing the hard work while the captain got the credit, so that when it was your turn another officer would do it for you.

  Rapier looked down now at Captain Michael Pacino and for a moment he could forget all his gripes. With Pacino on the boat, with the hatches shut and dogged, the boat rigged for dive, life changed. Suddenly the submarine created its own universe, and he and Pacino alone took it on, fought the elements, the cold depths of a sea intent on killing them at their first inattention. Submerged with Michael Pacino, life had purpose. Sometimes he wondered whether the captain had the power to brainwash him, so powerful were the feelings of his own dedication when he was at sea. But just when an OP would be clicking, with the submarine and himself and Pacino operating together like a machine, they would pull into port and the paperwork mountains would be brought in by forktruck… messages demanding reports, sailors demanding evaluations, medical reviewers wanting radiation records of the personnel, fiscal auditors wanting to see the ship’s operating funds, supply auditors wanting to review the ship’s food service, admirals coming and going, hours of cleaning the ship, the gear breaking, the parts missing, the men stressed by demands on their time to fix the boat in port while annoyed wives and children wanted them home. And now the cycle was to start again. A fresh OP. A fresh attitude. Just them and the boat and the sea. Rapier inhaled slowly.

  “Morning, sir.”

  “Morning, XO.” Pacino smiled slightly. “How pissed off is the crew?”

  “Very, sir. I think the Devilfish Wives’ Club is hanging us in effigy.”

  “Me, you mean. Can’t be helped. I’ll brief the officers once we’re submerged.”

  “How long’ll we be out, sir?”

  “Could be as few as three weeks.”

  “Must be important.”

  Pacino looked at Rapier over his coffee mug. “It is. What’s the status of the underway?”

  “Engineering is ready. Propulsion is on both main engines. Lines are being singled up topside. Forward spaces are rigged and ready. All checklists completed last night. All personnel onboard and ready. We’re go, with the exception of getting permission from Squadron to get under way.”

  Pacino drained his cup. His communication console speaker blasted out a call from the bridge.

  “CAPTAIN, OFF’SA’DECK, SIR,” Stokes’ Kentucky accent boomed. Pacino clicked on the speaker toggle switch.

  “Captain.”

  “OFF’SA’DECK, SIR. COMMODORE IS ON THE PIER WAITING FOR YOU, CAP’N.”

  “Very well. You ready to get under way up there, Stokes?”

/>   “YESSIR. SOON AS YOU GET BACK ABOARD WE’LL PULL THE GANGWAY OFF WITH THE LAST CRANE AND WE’RE ALL SET. AND THE JOLLY ROGER FLAG IS UP HERE, READY TO RAISE WHEN WE SHIFT COLORS.”

  “Captain, aye,” Pacino said. “I’ll be up after I see the Commodore, XO. See you later.”

  Rapier walked out toward the control room, and Pacino climbed back out the operations upper-level hatch to the curving deck topside, blinking in the cold early morning sun.

  * * *

  In the bridge cockpit, a small space atop the sail, Lieutenant Nathanial Stokes accepted the cup of coffee handed up to him from the bridge-access tunnel by the messenger of the watch. He had been up all night getting the ship ready to go, with last minute pre-underway checks, last minute repairs, the arctic gear and the emergency supplies. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to tell that the ship was to go under ice.

  Stokes and the Duty Chief had gotten out the Standard Operating Procedure for underice operations, which required them to put duct tape on every crack or hole in the top surface of the hull to further quiet the ship. The most minute cracks or holes on the hull could cause a flow-induced resonance, with a noise like a hillbilly blowing over a bottle neck, noises that could give them away.

  Stokes, of medium height, dark-haired, a tight beard on his chin and thick neck, was built like a bull, huge shoulders, thighs to match. A southerner and damn proud of it, the first thing Stokes’ molasses-thick Kentucky accent would say to someone he met was that he was from Mayfield, Kentucky, and anywhere else on God’s green earth was a sorry disappointment by comparison. A star offensive tackle on the varsity football squad at Navy, his twin claims to fame were his interception of a short over-the-line pass at his senior year’s Army-Navy game, which he had run in for the go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter, and his seduction of the Naval Academy Superintendent’s daughter, having been caught in her bed by the admiral himself. The only thing that had saved Stokes from dismissal from the Academy was the daughter’s temper tantrum over his pending Conduct Hearing. Stokes had reported to Devilfish with his reputation as a ballplayer and ladies’ man preceding him.