Phoenix Sub Zero

by Michael Dimercurio

  He began to rebuke himself for being so self-important when Captain Emmitt Stevens rolled up in the white pickup truck. Stevens was grinning

  as he got out and joined Pacino at the dock lip.

  “I think you’ve spent the whole yard availability mooning over your ship from this handrail.”

  “I don’t like seeing the old girl in the dock, Emmitt. It’s just not right for a warship to be high and dry like this. And I’m just as out of place here as she is.”

  “I don’t know about that—after the meeting this evening I’d say you can run a shipyard. The way you put old Donchez up to overpowering Douchet, it’s too bad you’re going to a staff job. You could get a lot done here. We could use you.”

  Pacino smiled. “I didn’t talk to Donchez. He just wants us underway.”

  “Still, it was good to see that hard ass put in his place.”

  “Well, in a way he’s right, you know. I am risking the crew going down with that weld as it is. But sometimes you’ve got to take risks … What brings you here?”

  “Donchez. He’ll be here in a half-hour. His Falcon is landing at the naval station at NOB at twenty-three-thirty.

  He wants to make sure this boat leaves on time. He also said he wanted to brief you personally. This must be some mission, Patch. The C.N.O comes to wave his hanky as you shove off. How come?”

  “My dad and Donchez roomed together at Annapolis.

  They served on a couple subs together. Donchez took over the Piranha when my old man was the last skipper of the Stingray.”

  Stevens’s face went serious. It was common knowledge in the sub force that Stingray sank in 1973 when her own torpedo exploded and the flooding took her down below crush depth. There were no survivors.

  “I’m sorry, Mike. I had no idea—”

  “It’s ancient history. Donchez wanted to watch over me when Dad went down but at the same time he didn’t want to show favoritism.”

  “After that China mission I’d say you’ve done it on your own.”

  “Anyway, he probably wants to kick my rear end, motivate me. I’d better do a walk-through of the boat. Do me a favor and keep flooding the dock. I want out of here by zero five hundred.”

  “Will you be starting the reactor in the dock? You know Douchet will

  have a heart attack—”

  “If the plant is ready I’ll pull rods here. If not I’ll leave with tugs towing me and I’ll start the plant in midchannel.

  I don’t care either way, but at oh-five, we’re out of here.”

  “CAPTAIN, OFF’SA’DECK, SIR,” Pacino’s walkie-talkie squawked.

  “I’ve gotta run. Patch. Hang in.”

  “Thanks for everything, Emmitt. I hope I never see this god damned shipyard again.”

  Stevens waved and roared off in the pickup.

  “Captain here,” Pacino said to the radio.

  “SIR, ENGINEER REQUESTS PERMISSION TO PERFORM A NORMAL REACTOR STARTUP. AND THERE’S A PHONE CALL FOR YOU FROM MRS.

  PACINO, SIR. SHE SAYS IT’S URGENT.”

  “Tell Mrs. Pacino I’ll call her back from the security shack in five minutes. And tell the engineer I’ll call the engine room on the security

  line. Captain out.”

  The radio clicked twice in acknowledgement. Pacino stepped to the guard shack and nodded at the sentry and reached for the phone. The phone buzzed twice before the engineer’s voice came over.

  “What’s the status, Eng?” “We’re nonvisible, sir,” Hobart said, annoyed. “We’ll have to do a pull-and-wait startup. We’re so low in the startup range I don’t even see reactor power on the startup meter.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “Could go as long as twenty-four hours. We’ve been shut down so long the core’s barely radioactive.”

  “Engineer, abort the pull-and-wait startup and pull rods to criticality. We’re a few hours from clearing the dock and I don’t have time to wait on the procedure.”

  “Sir,” Hobart’s annoyed voice came back, “before I can do that I have to ask, is this a tactical situation as defined by the reactor-plant manual?”

  Pacino felt Dave Hobart would have made a hell of a lawyer, but something had called him to the sea and now he wore a poopysuit instead

  of a vested suit. Despite Pacino’s heavy reliance on Hobart’s expertise on Seawolfs highly complex reactor systems, he would have to be overridden. Procedures were for peacetime. Hobart was worried that the level of neutron activity in the core was so low that he couldn’t see the power level, and by pulling rods he could add enough reactively to go prompt critical—and blow the reactor apart— before he would be able to stop the runaway reaction. But Pacino knew the protection circuitry would scram the plant if that happened, and even if it wasn’t fast enough, it was a risk they had to take. The Destiny out there, somewhere in the Atlantic, didn’t give a damn about the health of their core.

  “It is,” Pacino said, referring to Hobart’s question about the tactical situation.

  Hobart paused, then: “Aye, aye, sir. Pulling to criticality.

  We’ll note it in the log that you ordered this.” Hobart was trying to see if Pacino would forget the dangerous order if he threatened to log it.

  “Captain, aye. Also note we’ll be heating up with emergency rates once you’re critical. I want the plant on line.

  Immediately.”

  “Aye, Captain.” The phone clicked as the engineer returned to his prestart-up work. Pacino hung up and dialed his own home at Sandbridge. Janice answered, her voice soft and quiet as it was when she first woke up.

  “It’s me.” “Michael, Dick Donchez called. He said he wants to meet you here at midnight. And come to think of it, I want to talk to you myself.”

  “On the way.”

  Pacino called the officer of the deck on the radio and told him he’d be at home for a few hours, found the executive officer on the phone and turned over the drydock flood operation to him, then walked to his car. Walked and wondered what Donchez was doing that required a personal appearance.

  sandbridge beach, virginia The wind blew spray onto the windshield a half-mile from the beach. By the time Pacino parked the old Corvette under the stilted house the car was covered with the slimy saltwater from the restless Atlantic. In front of the house was a black Lincoln with multiple antennae poking out of the trunk and the roof. The rear license plate had the emblem of comsublant—Admiral Steinman’s car. The windows were blacked out, but Pacino thought he saw the silhouette of someone moving in the front seat. He looked up at the massive beach

  house, a monument to Janice’s old money, and saw that every light in the house was blazing.

  A fugitive thought stole across his mind, that he should look at the house long and hard because he wouldn’t see it again for a long time. He found himself wondering why that had occurred to him, because the mission was a one or two-week excursion. Three at the most.

  When he walked into the house the curtain of warm air was overwhelming after the wet cold outside. He took off his heavy overcoat and went into the central living room to see Donchez and Steinman. And Janice.

  “Mikey,” Donchez’s rough voice boomed. “Long day, huh?”

  “One of many, sir.”

  The three sat down. Janice told Pacino she’d be upstairs, waiting for him.

  Donchez pulled out a Havana, shooting an inquiring look at Pacino. Pacino nodded, knowing Janice would be annoyed but also knowing that Donchez couldn’t think without a cigar shoved into his face. Donchez offered one to him and Steinman, and all of them lit up at once.

  “Mikey, you’ve heard about Rocket Ron’s Augusta. What have you heard

  about David Kane’s Phoenixt’ “Nothing. Should I have?” “Afraid so,” Steinman said.

  Pacino frowned as he listened to the story. He read David Kane’s last transmission, his emotions numbed, but his brain flashing through the tactical problems. By the time the cigars were cold stubs smoldering in the ash
tray, he had the ugly picture.

  “Mikey, your job is to find the Destiny before he finds you, then kill him with maximum possible force. I hate to saddle you with this last, but keep in mind that what has allowed us to come this far in tracking the Destiny are the messages from Daminski and Kane. I want you to try to get through to us what you’re up against.”

  “Anyone have any idea what this submarine is up to? He’s got to be doing something other than acting as a bus for Sihoud.” Pacino looked from Steinman’s face to Donchez’s.

  Whatever they knew, they weren’t telling. “Fine. Let me know whatever intel you get.”

  Donchez and Steinman stood. “We’ve bothered you enough tonight, Mikey.” All three walked to the door. A look passed between Donchez and Steinman.

  “I’ll be out at the car checking in with the watch officer at sublant,” Steinman said. He shook Pacino’s hand. “Good luck. Patch. Take this SOB down.”

  “Watch sublant for me, Roy,” Pacino said, trying to smile. “When I get back I want that outfit standing tall and waiting for me.”

  “I’ll be ready to be relieved by the time you get back.

  Hell, my desk’s already half full of your stuff. But are you sure you want a desk job?”

  Pacino glanced at Donchez. Steinman waved and took the stairs to sand level two at a time. His shoes crunched through the seashells on the walk out to the staff car.

  Donchez stood in the foyer, the cold wind blowing in the open door. “I asked Roy to give us a few minutes alone,” Donchez said, pulling out another cigar and bringing it to life with his old Piranha lighter.

  “The usual pep talk, right, sir?”

  “I just didn’t want Roy to know what I’m thinking about the Destiny,” Donchez said, annoyed at his own transparence.

  “Which is that Sihoud is up to something, something dirty he’d like to bring home to us here. That sub is invisible and invincible—if you were driving a 688 boat. Seawolf is the only thing that can put this guy on the bottom, and only then if you find him and surprise him. If you can’t sneak up on him I want you to clear datum and try later. You got that, Captain Pacino? I’m not just saying this for you, either. We can’t afford to lose your boat if you get impatient.”

  “Come on. Admiral. I’ll make sure I get a clean shot at him.”

  “I’ve lost two submarines already, Mikey. Daminski was one of my j.o.’s in the old days. It hurt bad to lose him. I can’t afford to lose a third. General Barczynski would have a few pounds of my posterior if Seawolf takes a hit.”

  “Admiral,” Pacino said, moving Donchez through the door, “don’t sweat it, I’ve got the bubble.”

  Donchez stood his ground in the doorway. “I could send your relief on this mission. Joe Cosworth. He could do it and leave you free to relieve Roy at sublant. Janice would like that. Have you considered that?”

  “No way, sir. Seawolfis still mine and I’m taking her out one last time.”

  Donchez looked over Pacino again, nodded.

  “Good luck. Patch. Good hunting. And be god damned careful.”

  On the third floor of the house, Pacino looked at Janice’s face, knew what was coming as he grabbed his duffel bag, threw in some fresh uniforms and zipped it shut.

  “He’s sending you on a suicide mission, Michael. I heard—they’ve already lost two ships, one with Rocket Ron, for God’s sake. And now you’re next. He said he’d let Cosworth go, let him.”

  Pacino waited for a pause. “Honey, you must not have heard Donchez say that Seawolf is the only ship that can knock out the Destiny. We’re driving the best submarine, the best warship, there is. All I have to do is find this guy and it’s over—”

  “For him or you?”

  Pacino looked at his wife for some moments, taking in her beauty, even in the midst of the anger.

  “I’ll be back in three weeks, Jan.” He moved out to the balcony hallway and opened Tony’s door, his eight-year-old son deep in sleep. He kissed the boy’s cheek, then walked quietly down the stairs. Janice followed

  him out the door to the car.

  “I’m sorry …” she said, “you’re right. You don’t need this for a sendoff.”

  Pacino kissed her. “I know you’ll worry, but we’ll be okay.”

  “I know you will, Michael. I know …”

  He backed the car out into the street and spun the wheels in first gear. He didn’t see her crying in the mirror but he knew she was.

  Tuesday, 31 December portsmouth, virginia norfolk naval shipyard graving dock 4

  Pacino felt better the moment he arrived at the dry dock. The dock was completely flooded, the gangway suspended by cables to one of the railroad-wheeled cranes. The dock roared with the sounds of powerful diesel engines, the loudest coming from Seawolf herself; a plume of diesel exhaust fumes poured out of the aft part of the submarine’s green sail, since the reactor was not yet self-sustaining and the emergency generator had to be run to supply ship’s electrical loads now that she was divorced from shorepower. Aft of the sub a tugboat was pulling backward, several lines attached to the caisson, the gate of the dock; soon the tug was halfway into the channel. Two other tugs idled further

  into the channel, waiting to pull the ship away from the dock and the shipyard and point her to sea. Pacino hated seeing the tugs, the fact that his submarine was still helpless irritated him. Somehow it was wrong for a warship to need a crutch to get to sea.

  But soon the ship would be plowing the channel with her own muscle, and until then at least she was free of the shipyard.

  Pacino crossed the gangway, hearing the blast of the sentry’s announcement on the ship’s Circuit One PA system, amplified on the dry dock’s outside loudspeakers: “SEAWOLF, ARRIVING!” Call it vain, but he did love hearing himself announced as he came aboard. He saluted the flag aft and the sentry and stepped onto the green hull. He tossed his bag down the ladder way and lowered himself into the ship, the familiar submarine smell somehow grabbing his attention, the thick vapor of cigarette smoke and cooking grease and diesel exhaust and ozone from the high-voltage equipment reminding him to leave home and Janice and Tony behind and concentrate on the Destiny and the mission ahead. He shouldered his way down the busy passageway to his middle-level stateroom, wondering what the captain of the Destiny was doing at that moment, what he was like, how he fought a submarine. Not that it mattered now, Pacino thought. He’d know from personal experience soon enough.

  He took a look around the stateroom. One of the walls had been

  demolished to gain access to the cables inside, and the yard had only had time to replace the steel structure of the wall but not the outer wood paneling. Pacino unpacked the duffel bag, raided his locker cabinet for his heavy olive drab parka, the early morning cool and wet, the sealanes at flank speed promising to turn cool into frigid.

  He found his blue baseball cap with the gold embroidery thread forming submarine dolphins with the ship’s name in block letters, the brim done up in gold scrambled eggs. He grabbed his binoculars and left the room to go to control.

  The control room was jammed with watchstanders. He found the executive officer. Commander Jackson “Lube Oil”

  Vaughn, who had reported aboard only a few months before, when the ship was preparing for the shipyard period; he had yet to go to sea with Pacino. Still, Pacino had full confidence in Vaughn’s capabilities, since Vaughn had played a major role in driving his last ship, the Tampa, out of the hands of the Chinese communists when the sub had been captured during a close offshore surveillance mission.

  Vaughn was a tall man who would be thought of as skinny were it not for a very slight but expanding paunch above the belt of his khakis. His face was thin to gaunt, his hair thick if prematurely gray. The gray, Vaughn claimed, was from dealing with a teenage daughter, but fleet

  rumors held that the escape from the Chinese piers had changed the mostly black mane to nearly white. Vaughn still spoke with a west-Texas accent, his home till the day he left
for Annapolis, the home of the high-school sweetheart he had married the day after graduation. Rumor held that he had a tendency to clomp around the ship in cowboy boots at sea, though Pacino had yet to see it in person. Vaughn’s nickname “Lube Oil” was a holdover from an incident during his junior officer tour on the Detroit when he himself had tried to repair a hopeless lube-oil pump and had succeeded just before flooding the lower level with oil. Vaughn hated the moniker but carried it with good humor.

  Vaughn, looking over the BPS-14 radar console, had already, Pacino noted, started on his at-sea beard. Pacino would humor him. After hearing about Vaughn’s performance on the Tampa, he had requested him as XO but it had taken time to pry him away from a shore tour teaching seamanship at the Academy, where the admiral in command had taken a liking to him and had been reluctant to let him leave. When he had reported aboard it had seemed a shame that it would be too late to go to sea with him, but now Pacino would have that chance. The two men had become close friends, seeing eye to eye on most things concerned with driving the ship and leading the men. So far their differences were on administrative matters, Vaughn a stickler for details, a perfectionist when it came to pushing Navy paper, while Pacino had always been relatively casual about the mountains of paperwork. Two weeks before, Vaughn had tracked Pacino to a remote office in the shipyard to obtain

  his signature on an oil-and-water report to some obscure squadron bureaucrat. Pacino had wadded up the report and made a hook shot into a trash can. “You ought to try not sending these reports, XO, and see who squawks when they’re late. My bet is that you could throw away ninety percent of them and the recipients would never know the difference.” But even in this the two had forged a working relationship—while the reports stopped coming across Pacino’s desk they still left the ship on time as Vaughn began to sign and send them without Pacino’s signature. It was all fine with Pacino, who had high on his list the elimination of much of the submarine’s paperwork as soon as he took over as comsublant.