"Urn, we're going to adjourn for the day," Ridge said, his voice oddly elevated. "Ms. Pacino, could I speak to you, please?"
The room was emptying around her as she made her way to the table, the aides and congressmen filing out.
"Colleen, it's about your husband," Ridge said quietly, turning the screen of the WritePad facedown on the table.
Colleen O'Shaughnessy Pacino, raised by a Seal officer and as tough as her father had ever been, by his own admission, gave Ridge an iron-hard look.
"Let me see the screen," she said in a low, threatening tone, the same voice her father would have used on a disobedient subordinate.
"Colleen, I think it best if—"
"Give me the computer."
Ridge slid it over to her, his lined face grandfa-therly as he watched her expression change, silent
tears flooding her eyes and spilling onto her face, her fist pressed to her mouth.
"Oh my God," was all she could say, her voice trembling.
Midshipman Third Class Anthony Pacino slouched in one of the seats in Michelson Hall's "Yankee Stadium," the bowl-shaped room half full of third class midshipmen, newly advanced from plebes when the seniors, the firsties, graduated a few weeks before. The briefing was being held on the upcoming third class cruise, this contingent of the U.S. Naval Academy class of 2021 going to the Mediterranean aboard the surface ships of the Unified Surface Command. Pacino's group would be airlifted to the USS George Washington, a nuclear aircraft carrier on deployment with the Fifth Surface Action Group.
As the lieutenant commander droned on about the logistics of the cruise, Pacino slouched even farther into the seat, his eyes half shut, boredom and lack of sleep making the briefing unbearable. The evening before had been one of the first times that young Pacino had been granted liberty in the town of Annapolis, having been under restriction since six weeks before, thanks to his failing conduct grades. It wasn't that he had done one terrible thing, but a whole range of them. He'd gone "over the wall" with a group of his classmates during Dead Week before finals, a common experience in which midshipmen would disregard the regulations and make an escape to town, where a diner named Chick's stayed open all night catering to such ad-
ventures. And although the experience of escaping the walls of the Academy was common, it was also a Class-A offense, serious enough to merit being considered for dismissal. Pacino had quoted John Paul Jones as he got his friends together, saying, "Gentlemen, he who will not risk cannot win," and they'd donned jeans and gone out the basement locker-room window.
They'd had a large Chick's breakfast at three in the morning, relishing the feeling of forbidden freedom, then attempted to sneak back into the Academy, but Pacino had had the bad fortune of rushing by Admiral Murphy himself, the commanding admiral—the Superintendent—out walking his Dalmatian during the wee hours, obviously suffering from insomnia. Pacino, trapped, had slowed to a walk, trying to maintain his composure, and said, "Good evening, sir," as if strolling the grounds at three in the morning was normal. But by then it was too late. Pacino's face, with its shadow of his famous father's countenance, coupled with his frequent rubs with authority, made him immediately recognizable—in addition to the fact that Murphy and Pacino's father went way back to their own Annapolis days. Despite the fact that the admiral was a family friend, Pacino was keenly aware that his father had given instructions that young Pacino was to receive no favoritism. For just a second, Pacino wondered if the old man would simply let him go, but then Murphy ordered him to halt. The recrimination, however, didn't come, as the older man chatted amiably with him for a moment, talking about the puppy. Pacino even sank to one knee
and petted the dog while getting his face licked. He said good-bye to the admiral, shaking the Supe's hand, then hurrying back to Bancroft Hall, thinking he'd been given grace and finally scraped by without being punished, that Murphy had given him amnesty—that is, until he found three first-class midshipmen, seniors, in his room, all of them wearing bathrobes and dark expressions of anger.
"You're class-A'd, Pacino," the company commander had snarled at him, putting him back on restriction. The punishment had finally come to an end yesterday at noon, allowing Pacino to go out legally into town, where he sat at Riordan's, ordered a Harp, and talked with his friends until the delicious blonde sat down next to him. Her name was Helen, and she seemed interested in him, even kissing him as they parted at closing time. The memory of her kiss and her face drifted lazily across Pacino's mind as the excruciating briefing rolled slowly on in the hot academic hall, luring him closer to an in-class nap.
Pacino's features were soft and feminine, his lips full and perfectly shaped, his face graced with his father's prominent cheekbones, but his mother's softer nose and elegant blue eyes. He had even inherited her lighter hair, which was straight and longer than Navy regulations allowed. He was taller than average, yet nowhere near the towering height of his father. He was barely aware of the room around him when he felt the hand of an officer on his shoulder. Startled and guilty, he sat up immediately in his seat, wishing he'd been more vigilant. Sleeping during a military briefing was punishable
by several weeks of restriction, which during cruise would be harsh, restricting him to the ship while the others went on liberty in the foreign ports. He couldn't believe that he was in trouble yet again, the horrible thought coming to him that he could well be approaching the last straw.
"Mister Pacino," the lieutenant said. Pacino gulped. At the Academy, first class midshipmen were like gods, and officers like this lieutenant were celestial beings. "The Superintendent wants to see you. Now."
This was it. Pacino's mediocre grades and military conduct failures were catching up to him, he thought. Not even his father would be able to help him now, and what would Dad say when he heard that his son had been dismissed from Annapolis? Pacino followed the lieutenant out of the room, being stared at by the others, while a Marine Corps second lieutenant whispered in the ear of the briefing officer, but Pacino barely noticed. The walk to Leahy Hall seemed to take forever, the tropical-white-clad lieutenant grim, the march seeming like a trip to the gallows.
The Superintendent's office was on the first floor, occupying most of the building. A cherry-paneled outer office was busy with aides and secretaries. Pacino was too anxious to notice much until the huge wooden doors opened and he found himself in the room with Vice Admiral Sean Murphy. Pacino walked in slowly, his shoulders slumped, his heart racing, wondering how he would explain this to his father. He looked up at Murphy's face, the lines at the admiral's eyes crinkling into crow's-feet. The
old man's expression was gentle, however, and perhaps a little sad. Could it be that Murphy was going to ask him to leave? Pacino felt the contents of his stomach turn in anxiety. Murphy emerged from behind a desk the size of a small boat and clapped him on the shoulder, his dry hand shaking Pacino's. Pacino stared into Murphy's dull blue eyes, confused.
"Sit down, son," Murphy's hoarse voice said.
"Yessir," Pacino said, his knees bending, sitting on the front three inches of the chair, the seat barely taking his weight. Murphy leaned against the overhang of the desk.
"I'm afraid I have some hard news for you, Anthony. The stand-down cruise ship your father was on has been attacked. Some kind of terrorist thing, we think, and the TV news is saying there were no survivors. We may have to face the fact that your dad is dead. I'm so sorry, son, I'm so sorry. . . ."
But Anthony Michael Pacino couldn't hear the words anymore. Tears began streaking down his cheeks, his head in his hands, the sounds of someone crying the only sound, Pacino realizing dully that the sound was coming from him.
sleeping. As they were pulled up on the hull, the medic, Chief Corpsman Richard Keiths, examined them to see if they were alive. He listened to their chests, peered into their eyes, and occasionally looked up at the sail, shaking his head. A news helicopter flew overhead, filming the scene, the only noise other than the shouting on deck. A second
and third chopper joined them, then two Coast Guard cutters and three V-55 Sea Witch search-and-rescue tiltrotor aircraft. The coasties concentrated on the destroyer and cruiser graves while Devilfish completed the harvest of bodies from the cruise ship.
Petri slowly drove the ship in decreasing-radius circles, pulling the bodies from the ocean. The pitifully small number of them put a lump in her throat. There had been over thirteen hundred senior and midgrade officers on board the Princess Dragon when she went down, over forty admirals, and they had pulled less than a hundred casualties from the flaming seas. Of those pulled up onto the hull, only nineteen were clinging to life, and those had been hoisted aboard the tiltrotors for medevac to Portsmouth Naval Hospital. The dead were carried below. Eventually, the wind picked up and the fires died down, along with the smoke, leaving only an acrid stench iand acres of floating debris, but no more corpses. Finally Petri ordered the deck rigged for dive, and the body-laden ship turned around to return to Norfolk.
As if in a nightmare, she lowered herself down the bridge hatch, walking over the deck plates of the upper level to the crew's mess. The tables were
unbolted and cleared away, the bodies in blankets on the deck, the room a makeshift morgue. The burning smell invaded her nostrils, making her want to choke. She bent to one knee at each body and uncovered the corpse, trying to see if she could identify any of them. One by one she undraped them. The third corpse made her gasp—the boss, Admiral Phillips himself, his face gray, a deep gash across his throat half decapitating him. The fourth body was another admiral, still in uniform, the na-metag reading paul white. The next was someone looking vaguely familiar, a man whose lower body had been blown off—Vice Admiral David "Sugar" Kane, the former captain of the Phoenix. The admirals must have been on the promenade deck, Petri figured, accounting for the high body count of brass they'd recovered.
Petri slowly covered Kane's face and lifted the blanket off another corpse, and found herself staring at the tanned, lifeless face of the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael Pacino. Or, she corrected herself, the former Chief of Naval Operations. She reached her hand out to touch his forehead tenderly as if taking the temperature of a beloved child, wondering who had done this evil.
The man who had been Michael Pacino was surrounded by a light, a whiteness so bright that it should have made his eyes ache, but instead it was a beautiful glow. A strangely familiar feeling of warmth and joy coursed through him as he looked at his father and Richard Donchez. But they stopped smiling at him as if something serious had
occurred to them at the same time. Without opening his mouth to speak, his father addressed him.
Son, you have to go back.
"No," Pacino said. "I can't. I'll never go back. I want to be here. With you and Dick. I want to be in this place."
It is not your time, my son. And there are things you have to do.
"No, Dad, there's nothing more to do. I've done everything I could."
No, my son.
The new, bright, joyful world evaporated instantly.
Obviously, it had just been a dream all along.
Commander Karen Petri's hand touched the flesh of Admiral Pacino's forehead, and to her astonishment it was warm. An eyelid of the corpse twitched, just slightly but definitely.
"Corpsman!" Petri shouted. "Chief Keiths! One of the men is alive! Get an ambu kit in here now!"
Keiths leaped from the door on the other side of the passageway, a bag in his hand. Petri was already sprinting to the control room.
Within five minutes, a Coast Guard search-and-rescue V-55 tiltrotor hovered over the hull of the Devilfish, pulling up one last figure in a full body sling. The wings rotated to the full horizontal as the aircraft picked up speed, accelerating toward Norfolk Naval Air Station.
Katrina Murphy was forty-six and looked fifteen years younger. Her blond hair was wavy and long,
and her body was toned from constant workouts. Her sky-blue eyes swept across the entranceway as Sean opened the door and limped into the foyer, barely able to stand on his own. She rushed to him and held him up. He pointed at his study adjacent to the hallway, and she pulled him in and gently put him down on his favorite leather chair, then rushed to get him some water. When she returned, he was sweating. She pulled off his jacket and loosened his tie.
"Thanks," he said.
"How's Tony?"
"He took the news hard," Murphy said in his gravelly voice. "Hell, we all did. Patch was the hub of the Navy. Without him I don't know where I'd be. In a Chinese prison somewhere, or an unmarked Beijing grave. I can't believe he's gone."
She rubbed his back for several moments, and when she stopped she realized he'd fallen asleep. After summoning the help and having them put him to bed, she went into the den to watch the news reports, the channels all covering the sinking of the Princess Dragon. She was busy thanking heaven that Sean hadn't gone to sea on the doomed cruise ship when the front doorbell rang. She let one of the stewards get it. Probably a delivery, she thought. But then her steward led in a big man with a handlebar mustache. He wore an Army uniform with five stars on his epaulettes and a nametag reading nickers. He pulled off his hat, stuck it under his arm, introduced himself, and spoke slowly.
"Ma'am, I'm here to take Admiral Murphy to
the White House. He's now the acting Chief of Naval Operations, and the President wants him there now."
"He won't be going," Katrina said. "Find someone else."
Nickers stared at her. "Urn, ma'am, the next-highest-ranking naval officer in active duty is only a captain."
"Fine," Katrina said. "Tell the President she can promote that guy. Sean's staying here. He's too sick to be—"
In the entranceway Murphy appeared, wearing his service dress khakis, weaving slightly on his feet as he leaned on a cane.
"Let's go, General," he said.
"Sean!"
"Warner needs me," he said. "And I'll be back in a few hours."
General Nickers grabbed Murphy's briefcase and walked the admiral to the Army staff car, looking over his shoulder at the admiral's quarters.
"You said something inaccurate back there," he said.
"What do you mean, General?"
"Nick. Call me Nick. You said you'd be back in a few hours. You won't. Admiral, we are at war with whoever did this act of terrorism on the high seas. You're the Chief of Naval Operations now, and you're running the show."
Murphy nodded, slowly sinking into the backseat. As the limo rolled, he glanced at the house, where Katrina could be seen peering through the window.
"Tell me again why you failed to shoot the American SSNX submarine."
Novskoyy's voice was harsh and accusing, but his eyes were expressionless and black.
"Oh, the hell with you, Novskoyy," Grachev said, smiling, his tone light. "This was not a 'failure' and you know it. I printed this down for you after the last time you asked that question."
Grachev slid his handheld computer across his stateroom table to Novskoyy. Novskoyy didn't look at it but kept glaring at Grachev. Grachev moved over and picked up the computer and put it right in front of Novskoyy's eyes, undaunted by the consultant's attitude. "As you can plainly see here, Novskoyy, this is a shot pulled down from Shchuka sensor four. You do remember we shot the Shchuka, don't you?"
"Go on, Captain," Novskoyy said.
"The large oblong object in the right lower portion of the screen is us. We're very photogenic, don't you think? But good God, we do stand out. The contrast is startling, even to the naked human eye, without a computer enhancement. If someone with acoustic daylight imaging had been looking, we would have been in hot water."
Novskoyy dropped his eyes to the table.
"Ah-hah!" Grachev grinned. "You are listening. So, if you can listen, perhaps you can reason, too, even if you are a consultant. And if you can reason, maybe you can agree with me what would happen if the SSNX—with its acoustic daylight imaging capability—were to happen by, mad as hell and spoil
-
ing for a fight. Would it be your consulting opinion that perhaps it was wise to sneak out of the bay while the SSNX was picking up survivors?"
"Captain, you had a perfect opportunity while the sub was in the middle of the explosions, with her sonar gear half deaf from plasma blasts. Four, five wake-homing Berkut torpedoes, or half as many Bora lis, and the SSNX would be dust on the sea. Instead you devoted your energies to sneaking away like a thief in the night." Novskoyy's voice was resigned, tired.
Grachev clapped the older man on the shoulder. "Good, glad you finally see things my way. We will set up on the SSNX as it leaves Port Norfolk, which it is bound to do any time—"
"Why do you think that, sir?" Svyatoslov asked.
"Because, Mr. First, the remainder of the American Navy's leadership—probably some retired admirals reactivated or whoever couldn't make the cruise trip because of a death in the family or gall bladder surgery—now suspect a submarine attack. They'll send the SSNX out to find us."
"Maybe," Svyatoslov said. "Maybe they'll send her with some 688 Improved subs and a group of sub-hunting destroyers and helicopters."
"Maybe an armada. Mr. First, Mr. Novskoyy, I'm going to get some sleep," Grachev said, almost jovially. "If you'll excuse me, gentlemen."
The men walked out. Grachev got undressed and climbed under his bedsheets as Monday, July 23, became Tuesday, July 24. He stared at the overhead in the dark room for some time. Tomorrow,
Michael DiMercurio
or even in the next hours, the American vengeance would come, righteous and furious and deadly.
He would have to command the ship beyond her limits, because the SSNX submarine was coming after him, of that he could be sure. In the next few days one of them would be sent to the bottom of the sea.
Grachev yawned, stretched, and shut his eyes. His breathing became slow and deep as he fell into a dreamless sleep.
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