Silent Waters

by Jan Coffey

  “Can’t tell, yet. Give me a little time to work on it first.”

  She reconnected a couple of probes to the module and started running another program. Her face registered everything going through her head. He could tell the moment she had something.

  “What have you got?” he repeated.

  “Must be a pain in the ass to work for,” she murmured under her breath.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said your crew must be fast workers, Commander.”

  “Right,” he retorted. “Just tell me what you see.”

  “The first possibility is that you might have a local area network failure,” she told him. “Everything looked good before, but as soon as I test for results through the next system, I pick up some malfunctioning.”

  “What could cause that? Wiring?”

  She shrugged. “Any number of things. Could be faulty wiring. The good news is that, at this point, I don’t think you’ll have to replace the ESGN unit. The bad news is that unless we can retrace what specific functions were being performed when the problem started, we’ll be searching in the dark for the faulty connections…if that’s what it is.”

  He thought about that for a moment. “We’d barely gotten out of the harbor. We didn’t do anything complicated.”

  “In that case, we’re searching in the dark,” she concluded.

  “You’re going to have to do better than that. I’ve got a thousand miles of wiring on Hartford. I want a plan on how you’re going to resolve this.”

  “We’ll start with a check of the connections that feed out of the ESGN,” she suggested. “I’ll get a handful of guys in here and go to work. I’d say that if all goes well, we should be able to pinpoint the problem in a couple of hours. If we get really lucky, we might nail it in just a few min—”

  She stopped as her pager went off. She sat back on her heels and dug the unit out of the pocket of her blue coat. He saw her frown as she looked at the display.

  “The boss. Have you already been complaining about me, Commander?”

  “Not me. It must have been some other pain in the ass.”

  She smiled at him. She was damn pretty when she smiled, he thought.

  “Just so long as it wasn’t you. Mind if I use your phone?”

  “Not at all.” He pointed to the quartermaster’s telephone.

  She pushed up to her feet, heading that way. McCann watched the program that she was running on the laptop, then followed the connection hook-ups she’d made. Common sense stuff. Four months ago, Hartford had been sitting in dry dock for a massive changeover to fiber optics. He wondered if that’s where the problem had originated. But they hadn’t faced any trouble on the subsequent sea trials or the trip south to load Hartford’s weapons.

  Where the hell was Cav?

  “Christ, it can’t be,” she snapped at the person on line. “I was there ten minutes ago. How did it happen?”

  He looked up at her. She was staring straight ahead and was clearly upset.

  “Did they get everyone out?” she asked.

  McCann guessed there had to have been an accident. The shipyard was a dangerous place to work. Inside the sub, though, you couldn’t hear any of the sirens, if there were any.

  She looked down at her watch. “No, we probably won’t need it, but we still have to get the crew lined up for six o’clock.” She nodded at something that was being said on the other end. “I’m coming over. No, that’s okay. I’ll take care of it.”

  McCann stood and watched her as she hung up. “An accident?”

  “A fire.” She moved briskly to the laptop and test equipment. “The same shop we were in a few minutes ago is burning right now. I work out of that shop a lot.”

  “The three guys that were working inside?”

  “They got out, thank God.” She started disconnecting the wires, shut down the computer and quickly rolled the cables. She was all concentration, in spite of obviously being upset. “I have what I need for now. I’ll be back at six with the crew. We’ll comb through these units and find the culprit.”

  She closed one briefcase after the other with a snap, zipping up the shoulder case with the laptop in it.

  “You can leave everything here until you get back,” he suggested.

  She looked around the control room. “I don’t want them to be in your way.”

  McCann took the two heavy briefcases and stowed them away by the navigation panels. “We’re not going anywhere. They’ll be safe here.”

  “I have to take the laptop,” she told him, looping the shoulder strap over her arm. “I can send some of this data to SPAWAR and leave a copy with our own engineering department so they can take a look while we’re here going over the wiring.”

  She zipped up her jacket.

  “How bad is the fire?”

  “I’ll find out when I get there. The main reason they called was to take a head count to make sure everyone was out.”

  “That’s a shame,” he said.

  She gave a brief nod, still looking extremely tense. “Can I get out on my own or do I need an escort?”

  “I can’t leave the conn, and we can’t let you roam around the boat alone, either.” He was reaching for the phone to call Cavallaro back to the control room when he saw him coming down the passageway.

  “Done already?” Cav asked Amy.

  “With the preliminary testing, yes. I’ll be back with my crew later.”

  This wasn’t the right time to tell Cav that their findings yesterday had been off. “Did you find Gibbs?” McCann asked instead.

  Cav nodded. “He’s on his way up, Skipper.”

  “I’ll walk Ms. Russell out. Then we need to talk,” he told the officer before following Amy down the passageway.

  “You said you worked out of that shop? How is that going to affect you?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know how bad the fire is, yet, or what caused it. Depending on how the investigation goes, I might have bigger problems to worry about than losing my desk and a couple of framed pictures.”

  She stopped by the ladder that led up to the hatch.

  “If the need arises,” he said, “I can testify that you didn’t set a match to the place before we left.”

  She almost smiled. “Thanks, Commander. I’ll let you know if I need you.” She placed one hand on the metal ladder, then hesitated before climbing.

  McCann waited, but Amy continued to examine the bank of cables just outboard of the passageway. She climbed one rung, paused again, and then came back down.

  “What is it?” he asked, curious now.

  “I’m trying to remember. Right under the control room, under the GPS receiver and ESGN unit, is that the enlisted mess?”

  “There are a number of spaces under there,” he explained. “The mess, the trash room, the officer’s wardroom, the ship’s office. They’re all below us here. Depends on where you mean exactly.”

  “I’m thinking about the wiring under the unit.”

  He thought for a moment. “That wiring runs along the underside of the decking. If it’s connections you’re looking for, they could be anywhere.”

  She adjusted the shoulder strap of the laptop case. “On the last ESGN installation we did, on the Seawolf, there was a panel in the overhead of the space below that we could remove. With that out, we could get a clear shot at a panel of wiring connections leading to the navigation systems. Do you mind if I check it out before I go, just to see if we can do the same thing here? It shouldn’t take more than five minutes.”

  He stepped back, motioning the way. “Be my guest.”

  The stairs that led below were by the escape trunk. Shaking her head, she signaled for him to go ahead of her.

  “After seeing your navigation officer’s reaction, I think I’d rather have you lead the way. I don’t want to startle anyone else.”

  McCann decided that a sailor might have a slightly different reaction to the sight of such a good-looking woman in their livi
ng quarters. The fact that she was wearing a white hardhat and shipyard management gear wouldn’t really make a difference.

  There was no one in the passageway. He led the way down to the enlisted mess. McCann poked his head in first. Surprisingly, no one was there, either.

  This was the largest open area on the sub, capable of seating half of Hartford’s crew. The mess was a combination cafeteria, movie theater, game room, and training area. A place where the seamen could gather, it was rarely empty when they were on patrol.

  Amy moved forward between the tables. Keeping her eyes fixed on the overhead, she turned into the adjoining galley.

  “You’re sure stocked with food,” she commented, looking around.

  “Before the problem with the navigation equipment yesterday, we had stores laid in for a normal patrol.”

  “I’ll be really careful not to ruin anything.” She pulled a small flashlight out of her pocket and directed the light above. “Never mind the nuclear reactor. I know how precious food is to these guys.”

  McCann leaned against the entry. The only galley crewman who’d stayed on board was Dunbar. He wondered why he wasn’t here getting breakfast ready. Amy zipped open her jacket and, as she looked up, her hardhat tipped off her head and clattered to the deck. Light brown, shoulder-length curls were barely held together in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. Their heads were close together as they both bent to retrieve the hard hat, and he smelled the fresh scent of shampoo mixed with the smell of rain and shipyard on Amy’s hair.

  “This place is smaller than my kitchen,” she said as she put her hat back on. He noticed she seemed a little flushed.

  “I’d wager that you don’t cook four meals a day for 130 men in a space this size.”

  “No,” she told him, eying the arrangement. “I only cook for three. My kitchen is a little larger, but I don’t think it’s laid out as well.”

  McCann wondered if the three were herself, a husband and a child. He hadn’t paid attention to whether she was wearing a ring. That was no indication anyway, as most shipyard workers didn’t wear rings at work. One touch of a welding rod to a wedding ring would send enough electrical current through it to melt the ring right off your finger. Not a pleasant experience.

  Amy was searching the overhead and above the appliances. She stopped suddenly and turned around.

  “I just remembered where that connector panel is on the 688-class subs. We’re too far aft,” she said. “We need to be about eight frames farther forward and about twelve feet starboard of centerline.”

  McCann understood her. The shipyard production crews identified the work areas in the submarines by the frames, or curved I-beams, that formed the ‘ribs’ of the ship’s hull. Those frames were numbered consecutively from bow to stern. The centerline was an imaginary line that ran right up the middle of the ship, dividing the sub into starboard and port sides.

  “That would put you in the ship’s office,” he said. “Below the sonar equipment room.”

  “That’s right,” she said, heading out of the galley. “You’re my witness, Commander. I didn’t touch any of the food.”

  As they went back out through the mess, McCann glanced at the steaming pot of coffee beckoning to him. His clothes were still wet, and he was ready for a hot cup of java. He considered asking Amy if she wanted a cup. He didn’t get a chance to ask.

  “I have to hurry,” she said, looking at her watch. “I need to see what kind of damage that fire has done to the shop.”

  He nodded and followed her out of the mess. Amy moved forward along the passageway, past the trash room and his stateroom. She was looking into the overhead and following a bank of cables that threaded between piping systems and ventilation ducts.

  She stopped to let McCann move ahead of her in the passageway. As he passed the officer’s wardroom and enlisted quarters, he glanced in. It was strange not to see any of his crew at all. For a moment, he considered reaching for the nearest phone and having Cav get every crew on the watch to check in.

  “I’m sorry this is taking more than five minutes,” she called after him.

  “That’s perfectly okay,” he said over his shoulder. “You mentioned that you’ve been at work since ten o’clock last night. Are we going to lose you when the first-shift people get here?”

  “I don’t punch a clock,” she told him. “I’ll stay with the crew until I make sure you’re back in business.”

  He went by the NCO’s quarters and stopped in the doorway of the ship’s office. “Sounds like you work some crazy hours. It must take its toll on your family.”

  “It would…if it was a regular thing.” She avoided meeting his gaze and brushed past him to get inside the narrow office space.

  The ship’s office was also a data center. It contained all the records and personal files that were part of submarine’s everyday life. Packed with file cabinets, shelves, a computer, a printer, and copier, the two-foot-wide aisle in the middle was filled with a single chair and several boxes of paper that must have been brought aboard at the last minute, before Hartford left the sub base. McCann frowned at the supplies that had not yet been stowed where they belong.

  Amy climbed over the boxes and pushed in the chair before turning to him.

  “You don’t waste an inch, do you?” she asked, peeling the laptop off her shoulder and placing it on the desk.

  “We pack enough supplies to last us six months. There’s a place to stow these, though.”

  “I’m glad I didn’t open either of those refrigerator doors in the galley. I’d hate to see what you’ve got in there.”

  She looked away and took her hardhat off. Her hair looked soft, and it shone in the overhead lighting. She pointed upward and nodded toward a steel panel bolted to the decking overhead.

  “Right there,” she said. “We have to remove the light fixture to be able to access the panel, but this will be the perfect place to start. Above it is the first main connector out of the unit.”

  McCann climbed past the box to see if anything else needed to be removed to give her men access to the panel.

  “Do you see it?”

  He had to get very close to her in order to see past the light fixture. “It’s a crowd with the two of us in this space. How many are you going to put to work in here?”

  He saw her glance past him at the door.

  “What’s going on?” she asked someone behind him.

  McCann whirled around in time to see the door to the ship’s office slam shut on them. He reached across the boxes on the floor for the doorknob. Before he could turn it, the lock clicked on the outside.

  ~~~~

  Chapter 5

  Electric Boat Shipyard

  4:55 a.m.

  More than fifty feet above the blazing roof of the old shop, flames and sparks mingled with the dense clouds of smoke. The roar of the fire was deafening now, and the heat was rolling off the building in waves. Most of the Groton firefighters and their trucks were already here. More from the neighboring towns were arriving by the minute. Three ambulances sat in a line by the main gate. So far, there had been no need for them. But smoke inhalation was always a serious concern.

  Some of the firefighters battled the inferno while others hosed down the corrugated steel walls of the Ways next to the shop. No one wanted to let the high walls melt and buckle in the intense heat. If that happened, the structure of the building would be compromised, and the weight of the huge cranes situated just under the roof could bring the entire building down.

  The old wooden shop would be a total loss; everyone could see that. A relic of the early 1940s, when the shipyard had expanded like a gold rush town to meet the wartime demand for fleet-type subs, the shop had gone up like a box of forty-year-old matches, in spite of the rain. The three men inside barely escaped the cluttered space, and the equipment left inside was history by now.

  Everyone moved back from battling the blaze as the roof collapsed inward, sending another shower of sparks upward int
o the misting predawn sky.

  The general manager of the shipyard had been called in, along with his top managers. Whoever hadn’t arrived already was on their way.

  Hale, the shipyard director of security, crossed the wet pavement to where the Groton fire chief stood looking for other potential problems that the fire might trigger.

  “We’ve shut down the gas lines through the building,” Hale shouted over the roar of the fire.

  The chief nodded and gestured toward the huge bay doors leading through the Ways. A small door for foot traffic was swinging open in the breeze. The steel wall was showing signs of buckling.

  “You need to have your guys make a more thorough sweep of that building,” he said. “If that wall starts to come down—and it might—we want to make sure that there’s nobody in there.”

  “I have a group going through there right now,” Hale replied. “You’d figure that with all these sirens a person would have to be deaf or dead not to get his ass out of that building.”

  The security director’s walkie-talkie crackled. He turned away from the fire, bringing it to his ear. “Hale here. Go ahead.”

  “Need…bod…” The words coming through kept breaking up.

  “Repeat. Do you read me?”

  “…bulances…”

  The communication was from the men he had inside the Ways. Turning to a security guard and two firefighters standing by, he pointed to the building. “They need help in the Ways.”

  The three men rushed toward the door.

  The walkie-talkie came alive again. “…need ambulances…”

  Hale shouted to the fire chief over the din. “Ambulances. They need help in there.”

  As the fire chief called for the ambulances, Hale rushed toward the door himself. The smell of melting paint burned his lungs. His men could have been overcome with smoke. As he reached the door, one of the security guards who’d been inside stumbled out, clutching the walkie-talkie in his hand. He doubled over, retching as Hale bent over him.

  “What is it?”

  “They’re dead.”