by Jan Coffey
The group standing in the shallows halted. When the two men turned their backs, the leader slowly lowered himself back into the water. The rest followed suit. He looked at his watch— 3:53.
“I’m really hoping it’ll be a landslide,” the guard said as he took a cigarette from his friend. “I hate that last minute shit with Florida and Ohio deciding the future for everybody else in the country.”
“I never thought there’d be a day when I’d be agreeing with you about fucking politics.” He lit a match and held it out for his buddy. Their faces glowed in the light of it. “But, for chrissake, this last four years of Hawkins in the White House has meant nothing but shit for this country.”
The intruders were thirty-five yards away.
“I warned you at the last election that Hawkins would screw the pooch before he was done.”
“Look, I wasn’t the only one fooled.”
As the two argued, the leader of the intruders motioned to the men on his right. Silently, the pair stripped off their tanks and moved through the water until they reached the concrete wall. Using the darkness behind them, they emerged from the water and edged along the wall toward the guards, whose arguments were rising in intensity and volume.
“…don’t have to reinvent the fucking wheel just because the past four years was a mistake.”
“Hawkins isn’t the only president who’s wormed his way into office.”
Six feet away, they drew their knives.
~~~~
Chapter 2
Electric Boat Shipyard
4:01 a.m.
Cutting like a razor, the wind tore up the Thames River from Long Island Sound, driving the freezing rain into the submarine commander’s face.
Standing for a moment by his car, Darius McCann looked down at the mist-enshrouded shipyard as he adjusted his hat and buttoned up his raincoat. The smell of the changing tide bore into his senses. There had been a time not so long ago when this scene and the anticipation of the upcoming patrol would have excited him, energized him. But not today. At least, not at this godforsaken hour.
He shook his head. It was the day. It was his age. He was forty today. Another milestone. Another step closer to the grave.
He’d achieved every goal in his five-year, ten-year, twenty-year career plans. For what? His personal life sucked. He was forty years old and alone. No wife, no kids. Nothing of the everyday routines and the closeness that was the very essence of the way he’d been raised. That all traced back to his job. Six months away at sea at a time. Sometimes longer. Coming ashore only to start all over again. This time, he had just a few weeks ashore.
And here he was looking at some dark shipyard at four o’clock in the morning on his birthday.
His own sourness was in itself sobering—a slap of reality regarding what a miserable bastard he’d become. McCann ran a hand down his face, trying to brush away the rain, along with the feeling of gloom and doom.
He reached inside the car and grabbed his coffee and briefcase before locking up. He took a deep breath and shifted his attention from inside to outside, to the job that he’d signed on to do. The job that had to come first.
There were only a dozen cars scattered around the parking lot. Floodlights positioned on tops of tall poles and on adjacent buildings cast an amber glow over the cars.
A squall of rain blasted McCann as he wove his way through the restricted navy personnel lot and descended to the road that ran along the front of Electric Boat. Across Eastern Point Road, just inside the high chain link fence, a neat line of administration and engineering buildings formed the public face of the shipyard.
You couldn’t see it from the street, but beyond them, down the side of the steep hill to the river, a jumbled mix of buildings—brick, cement, wood and steel—formed an entire city. A rabbit warren of lanes and alleys threaded between machine shops and warehouses. Various trade huts and fabrication shops huddled against the huge steel buildings that housed the Ways, where subs in the earliest stages of construction were built. All along the riverfront, shops crowded the ends of piers and docks, and even barges held three-story workspaces—all for the thousands of tradesman who had been building the navy’s subs since the days of Teddy Roosevelt.
This was his life, McCann reminded himself. With each step, he buried deeper his discontent and focused on what was required of him.
There were few sounds of work coming up through the wide chain link gates tonight. Since the end of the Cold War, the need for new subs had dramatically decreased. Electric Boat’s third shift was now merely a formality, and as McCann approached the main gate, the smell of the burnt steel on the cold wind and the sound of heavy HVAC units running on the buildings were the only signs of anything going on below.
A solitary coffee-and-sandwich truck was parked on the side of the road, and McCann glanced at the driver who’d dozed off inside the cab. Gusts of wind continued to blow against his back as he headed down the hill toward EB’s main gate.
Across the street, the windows of the bars were empty and dark. Open to a steady stream of business until two o’clock in the morning each night, they’d be open again at 8:00 a.m. sharp. One day, out of curiosity, McCann had gone into one of them, a place popularly known as The Sink. A half hour before the shipyard whistle blew, the signal for the noon ‘dinner’, the bartenders were busily lining up mugs of beer six deep on the heavily marked bar. It was a constant source of surprise to the commander that any work got done after the yardbirds had finished drinking their dinner.
Not that submariners were exactly teetotalers, he thought. In fact, he could have used a shot of something strong himself right now. Anything to jolt his system back into gear. He entered the covered passageway that all pedestrians entering the shipyard had to pass through.
Behind the plate-glass windows of the security station, five armed security guards were visible, and one of them stood by an open door waiting to check badges. Another stood behind him.
As one of the guards came out of the booth and stood on the first step, McCann transferred the coffee into his briefcase hand, unbuttoned his raincoat and pulled it open to show his badge. “Commander McCann, USS Hartford. You’re doing some work on her.”
The guard glanced at the gold dolphins pinned to his chest, at the identification badge, and then at McCann’s face before looking down at the clipboard. “Can you spell your last name for me, sir?”
He did, and the guard scanned a list.
“It might be at the top,” McCann said dryly.
“One moment, sir.” He backed up into the booth and said something in a low voice to an older security guard who was sitting behind a desk. The older man looked at McCann through the glass and picked up a telephone.
McCann felt the first prickles of annoyance beginning to rise under his collar. The second annoyance of the morning, he quickly corrected himself. The first had happened when his X.O. had called an hour ago asking McCann to go in for him.
The entrance passageway was acting like a wind tunnel. McCann took a sip of his coffee, but it was already cold. He dumped the entire thing in a trashcan next to the door.
“Is there a problem?” he asked shortly.
The younger guard looked through the door. “No, sir. Just give us a second.”
Another damp gust of wind blew through him. His pant legs were already soaked, and feeling cold, he buttoned up his coat. The hill running down to the docks was deserted, with the exception of a few security guards walking up toward the gate. The work being done on his ship was considered an emergency, and the yard management had promised to bring in a special crew for it. McCann hoped they were already here.
The older guard in the booth was still waiting to talk to someone on the phone. Another level of management. More bureaucracy than the navy.
Another guard, bulked up in his winter rain gear, appeared at the other end of the passageway.
“Commander McCann?”
The voice came from the doorway, and McCann turned to look i
nto the round, ruddy face of an older man wearing a tie under a gray cardigan.
He read the man’s badge. Hale. He was the director of security. In early, McCann thought.
“What’s the problem, Commander?”
“You tell me, Mr. Hale.”
“No problem at all, sir. It’s just that we weren’t expecting you. My men have one of your officers on the list for this morning,” the director said pleasantly. “They’re pushing through the paperwork for you right now. Something happen to Lieutenant Commander Parker?”
“A last minute emergency. He couldn’t make it.” McCann flipped the collar of his coat up against the breeze. “I only got the call an hour ago.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Hale said amiably. “Couldn’t start this job at a civilized hour, could they?”
“I was promised it would be finished by noon. That’s all I care about.”
“We have it down here that the rest of the crew is due back this afternoon. Getting underway tonight?”
“We’ll see how it goes,” McCann answered. He wasn’t about to discuss sailing orders.
“Sounds like you’ve got a long day ahead.”
A long, wet day.
“But I guess it makes no difference if it’s night or day once you dive.”
McCann didn’t bother to answer as he looked down onto the shipyard. He could just see the stern of his sub tied to a dock near the North Yard Ways. A support building at the head of the dock blocked his view of the rest of it.
“So, how long will you be going out for?”
McCann had no interest in the man’s chitchat. “We won’t be going anywhere if I don’t get down to my ship,” he said impatiently.
“Right. Right.” Hale flushed bright red and turned in the doorway. Pointing to a form that was printing out on a machine in the corner, he told the younger guard to bring it over. He quickly slipped it onto a clipboard and handed it to the officer. “Please fill in this form, Commander, and you can be on your way.”
As McCann looked at the clipboard, a drop of rain fell from the peak of his hat onto the paper. His temper snapped.
“What the hell is this?” he said, shoving the paperwork back into Hale’s hands. “I’m not applying for a goddamn job, and I’m not trying to get security clearance. None of this applies. I’m the captain of a U.S. naval vessel that docked in this shipyard eight hours ago. I have a job to do, here, and—”
“Commander, we’re only following standard security procedures.”
“Bullshit. Hartford is here for a twenty-four hour stay. This is no different than any goddamn SRA. That ship is under my command, and no shipyard personnel are allowed on board without my permission. And if you think I’m going to stand here while precious time is wasted, you’ve got another thing coming.”
Nuclear submarines based in the Atlantic regularly returned to Electric Boat or Newport News shipyard for SRAs—Ship Restrictive Availability work. That was the equivalent of tune-ups or other related work that had to be done on cars. During the work, the crew generally stayed with the ship and shipyard security was well versed on how to handle the navy personnel. There was no reason for this confusion.
“Commander, you’re getting upset over—”
“I’ve wasted enough time here,” McCann snapped at him. “Where’s your office? I’m calling the DOD security coordinator from your phone. And I want the third shift yard superintendent here now.”
Hale glanced down at the form and looked as if he’d been hit with a bat.
“Christ. This is the wrong form.” He whirled around and started shouting at the younger guard. “What the hell is going on?”
If it weren’t for the fact that these morons were armed, McCann might have bulled his way through and let them straighten things out on their own. But he wouldn’t put it past them to shoot him in the back and explain later. Of course, that was assuming they could even hit him.
McCann stepped into the security booth.
“All right. I’m giving you exactly two minutes,” he warned. “Then I’m calling the director of NAVSEA and EB’s general manager...at home.”
“That won’t be necessary, Commander. I have the right form here,” the older man mumbled. He held another clipboard out for McCann. “This only requires your signature. Nothing else.”
He looked down at the list of his crewmembers on the piece of paper. “This is the same form I sent over to Security yesterday.”
“Correct. We need your signature to allow them to come back this afternoon.”
“I signed this form last night,” he said, moving down the list, double-checking the names.
Hale looked at him in embarrassment. “Just a signature, sir.”
McCann signed the paperwork and shoved it back into the security director’s hands.
“I can have one of the men drive you down to the dock, sir.”
McCann looked out through the glass. He didn’t see any of the shipyard security vehicles. He could only imagine how long he’d have to wait for them to bring one of those around. The rain seemed to have eased a little for the moment.
“No,” he said as he walked out the door and started down the hill to the shipyard.
There was certainly a different face on the yard at this hour. McCann took a deep breath as he walked down the steep hill, being careful not to slip on the wet pavement. The little dispute at security station had let him release some steam, but he didn’t feel much better.
He had one stop to make at the barge that housed the NAVSEA offices before boarding Hartford. That was what he needed, familiar territory. At the bottom of the hill, he turned down an alley that led to an area called the Wet Docks, where subs sat tied to piers during the final stages of construction before finally being commissioned by the navy. Because of some repairs Electric Boat was making to a number of those piers, there had been no open berths in the Wet Docks for his ship yesterday, so he’d been directed to tie up at the dock nearest the North Yard Ways. Since there was no new construction going on up there now, it actually made sense to use one of those docks.
McCann strode past the old brick Pipe Shop that was located at the head of a cluster of piers, then walked down a dimly lit alley that wove between other production shops to the gray navy barge. Most of the smaller shops were dark, but the few that had lights on inside seemed devoid of personnel. He tried to remember whose idea it was to get this job started at such a godforsaken hour. Definitely not his.
McCann finally crossed a small catwalk onto the navy barge. In the NAVSEA inspection office, a clerk had a file folder ready for him, and in just a few minutes the submarine commander was working his way back through the Wet Docks.
During the handful of times he’d been involved with different production issues in the shipyard, he’d heard a few stories about these alleys. About vendettas being paid with the flash of a blade and bodies reappearing only at the turn of the next tide. It was true, he thought; anyone could commit murder in one of these alleys and get away unseen. Like every shipyard, this one had its own unwritten code of conduct, its own methods of meting out justice.
The alleys were protected from the wind, but McCann could feel the rain coming down harder. He picked up his pace.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the shadowy form of a rat the size of a small cat scurrying along the base of the brick wall of a shop not ten feet from him. He watched it disappear into a corner behind some rusting metal barrels. As it did, a door slammed inside the building, rattling one of the smoke-blackened windows.
Intent on watching the rodent, McCann wasn’t aware of the figure emerging from the shadows and blocking his path until he nearly collided with him. He stopped short.
In the darkness, the white hardhat was the first thing that caught his eye. He was a member of the shipyard management.
“Lieutenant Commander Parker?” the voice asked.
McCann stood corrected. She was a member of shipyard management.
“No. Command
er McCann. Can I help you?”
“I’m sorry for the confusion, sir. I’m Amy Russell, the ship superintendent assigned to the Hartford for this job. I was told I could meet with the executive officer before I brought my crew on board.”
“Hartford is my ship,” he said pointedly. “There was an emergency that my X.O. needed to take care of this morning. I’m in charge.”
“An emergency?”
“That’s right.”
“Good thing for him you guys didn’t sail, after all.”
“I guess that’s one way to look at it.”
“Plus, we get the top dog.” She tucked the clipboard she was carrying under one arm and held out her hand. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Not out loud, anyway. My mouth tends to run sometimes.”
He shook her hand. She had a firm, confident grip. Because of the hardhat and the poorly lit alley, he couldn’t make out her face. And with the layers of clothes and the steel-toed boots the yardbirds wore, men and women all looked the same. From her voice, he guessed she was young.
“What can I do for you, Ms. Russell?”
“It’s Amy,” she said. “I’m in charge of the repair on your boat’s electrostatic gyro navigator.”
“Were you also in charge of the initial installation?” he asked sharply.
“Not on the Hartford, I wasn’t,” she said, not missing a beat. “And yes, I know this specific system went through an overhaul only four months ago. And no, there’s no excuse for it to fail.”
He was glad she’d done some of her homework. “I was told you have a replacement system on hand.”
“We do. The supplier of the ESGN on your boat is the marine navigation division of SPAWAR, the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, in San Diego. As it happens, we have three systems, refurbished with fiber optics and ready for installation. They were scheduled for other jobs, but we can switch any of them to the Hartford, so long as we’re sure what revision level your system was installed at.”
“Don’t you have drawings and specs level that tell you that?”
“We do. But the call for this job came at 6:00 p.m. last night. Our engineering department in charge of these systems closes up shop way before that. And I didn’t get in until little bit after ten, too late to even get the San Diego people on the line. And since then, I’ve been running around trying to put together crew, material, and testing equipment for your job. And that’s not the easiest thing to do these days on third shift. Especially when you are talking about a system as major as this one. I wasn’t even counting on the possibility of having three different rev levels of it on the shelf.”
