“Is that a good thing?” asked Fiske.
“I guess we’ll find out,” said Ralph. Fiske pressed his hand against the ring. “You keep doing that,” said Ralph, nodding toward Fiske’s hand.
Fiske scrambled to think of something to say, but he was saved by the crackle of the intercom.
“Reactor stable. Repeat: reactor stable. Relax, boys. We’ll make it out of this one yet.” The faint sound of cheering echoed down the empty halls, and Fiske felt his body relax for a moment. Jelly rippled through his muscles, and warmth swept over him. But it was only for a moment. Because even if he wasn’t going to blow up in a nuclear explosion, he still had a raging Vesper to handle.
A Vesper who would stop at nothing to kill him. A Vesper he couldn’t get away from.
“Ralph,” said Fiske. “I — I need to get off the boat.”
“What?” said Ralph. “You — that’s not how submarines work, Fiske.”
“No, but I have to,” said Fiske. “Everyone is going to stay at their emergency stations for a while, right?”
“Yeah, but — ”
“Then George will find me. And he’ll try to kill me. And I can’t let that happen, Ralph. I can’t let that happen. Not for me. It’s not — it’s not for me. Help me get off the boat. Please?”
Ralph looked at him, his face a mud puddle of confusion and concern and sadness. “Why are you down here, really?”
“To hide,” said Fiske. “A lot of good I am at that, I guess.”
The boys looked at each other for a moment, as Fiske silently begged the sailor to help him escape.
“Come on,” said Ralph, grabbing Fiske’s arm and leading him through the hallways to the ladder that Fiske had first used to board the submarine. “Climb quickly.”
Fiske scrambled up the ladder, driven by adrenaline and fear.
“You might die doing this, too, you know,” said Ralph, unscrewing the airtight door to the escape trunk.
“If I die in the water, what I have will die with me. If I die here, and George gets it . . .” Fiske didn’t want to shake and shiver in front of Ralph. But he was, and he couldn’t help it.
Ralph grabbed a great rubber vest down from a hook. It looked like what the astronauts in B movies wore while exploring Mars or the moon. “Put this on. This is a Momsen lung. Listen to me — are you listening to me?”
Fiske nodded while pulling the vest around his body and buckling it.
“This goes in your mouth,” Ralph said, handing him a mouthpiece connected to two rubber tubes that ran around to the vest. “Do not hold your breath. You’re going to want to hold your breath. You’re out in the middle of the ocean, you’re deep underwater, every single part of you is going to be screaming for you to hold your breath. Hold your breath, and you die. You listening to me? Hold your breath and you die. There’s so much pressure down here that the air in your lungs is under pressure, too. As you go up, it’s going to expand, and if you hold your breath, your lungs will explode.”
Fiske went pale.
“You’ve got to breathe normally,” said Ralph, tightening straps and hooking buckles. “In through this tube, and out through the other. Breathe normal. Don’t explode. You got it?”
Fiske nodded. Breathe normally. Don’t explode.
“See that green button right there?” Ralph said. “There’s another one on the outside of the door, too. Hit that green button once the hatch is closed and you’re ready to go. If you chicken out and don’t push it, then I will. You understand? Get ready,” said Ralph. He looked at Fiske. “You might be the bravest kid I ever met. Or the stupidest.”
“Probably both,” said Fiske. Ralph grinned at him, just for a moment.
“Stupidest,” said George. He was standing in the door, sopping wet with submarine water rolling down his temples. His shock gun sparked at his side, half-broken from the water but all the more dangerous for it. “Absolutely the stupidest.” He lifted the gun and pointed it.
At Ralph.
“Give me what you’re hiding,” said George.
“I don’t have anything,” said Ralph. But George shook his head.
“Not you. Cahill. Give it to me, Cahill. Wouldn’t this be just what you hate? Didn’t it just wreck you when Lieutenant Oppowitz died? Wouldn’t you hate for it to happen again, right in front of you?”
Fiske would. And George knew it, which just meant that Fiske was about as transparent as glass.
“Don’t get him involved,” said Fiske. “He doesn’t have anything.”
“Shut up, Fiske,” said Ralph, his eyes darting between Fiske, George, and the sparking end of the gun. “It’s no use pretending anymore.”
“What are you talking about?” said George, turning to Fiske in confusion. “What is he talking about?”
Fiske had no idea.
“We’re on the same side,” said Ralph. “I’m with you, George. I’m a — a Vesper.”
Fiske was stunned into frozen silence. How was that possible? How could he be so impossibly stupid as to trust a Vesper? Again?
“You’re what?” said George. “You’re on my side? Why? Why are you here? Who sent you? Didn’t they think I could do it on my own?”
“That doesn’t matter,” said Ralph. “I caught him. Isn’t that what counts?”
“Shut up,” snapped George, his eyes darting back and forth between the hooded Fiske and Ralph.
Fiske’s mind was spinning rapidly out of control as he tried to wrap it around what was happening in front of him. How could he be so stupid? How could he have disappointed Grace this much?
“I caught him first. He’s mine,” said Ralph, again.
“He’s not!” said George. “I’ve been stalking him this whole time! I killed that officer to get to him! You’re not going to take my hard work right out from under my nose.” He cocked the gun at Ralph.
“You’re really going to shoot your comrade?” said Ralph. “I don’t think they’d look very kindly on that. Do you?”
George faltered. “You were going to help him escape.”
That was true, thought Fiske. He glanced at Ralph. Ralph was looking at him with steady eyes, an unflinching face.
Fiske wanted to give up. He couldn’t begin to put into words how much he wanted to give up. Part of him wanted to just give them the ring — one of them, both of them, it didn’t matter.
But the other part knew that there was more to the story. Knew that there was something going on here. That if he could only trust himself, he would figure it out.
“I lied,” said Ralph to George. “I was just about to figure out what he was hiding when you showed up. Then I could take it and flush him.”
“Well,” said George, a self-satisfied smile creeping over his face. “I don’t know what it is, but I know where. Take off that vest, Cahill.”
Fiske didn’t move. He couldn’t if he had wanted to, and he definitely didn’t want to.
“I know it’s in the front of your suit, whatever you have!” George yelled, waving his sparking gun. Fiske shook his head the slightest bit. But George didn’t believe that. He marched up to Fiske and grabbed the Momsen lung with one hand, the other pointing the weapon straight at Fiske’s face. “I should just fry you and take it for myself.”
In that moment of distraction, Ralph darted to the door.
“Breathe!” Ralph yelled, slamming the hatch door shut.
There was a moment of soft quiet.
George had whipped around when Ralph slammed the hatch shut. Fiske’s gaze went to the green button, and when George turned back around, his eyes followed there.
“What — ”
Fiske looked back at George and then upward at the hatch. He knew what was coming. He knew what Ralph would do.
If Fiske had been scared before, it didn’t compare at all to this moment — this moment before the ship opened, and Fiske and George were swept out into the ocean.
Fiske was breathing. His eyes were squeezed shut tight but he breathed in a
nd out, slowly rising to the surface. It was terrifying and surreal. The Nautilus sped off and upward, too, rising to the surface as well.
Fiske broke the water with a pop, bobbing like a rubber duck. He tore the mouthpiece away and he couldn’t help it — he screamed. He screamed in fear and in relief, in sadness and in uncut joy. He’d made it. He’d escaped the submarine. He wasn’t dead. He still had the ring. Puerto Rico was in sight. He was above the water.
George was not.
The swim to shore was exhausting, but Fiske was so glad to be off the boat that he didn’t care at all. His mind spun with questions, but the physical need to lift one arm and then another, to kick through the ocean, kept his thoughts from wandering too far from the task at hand.
It was a long swim. But so long as there weren’t any sharks around, he’d be fine.
Before he was too tired to go on, he felt the sand beneath his soggily sneakered feet and he pulled himself up onto a beach.
His shoes were full of sand and water; his poopy suit not only smelled of salt and fish and seaweed, but it stuck to him like a second skin. Fiske unbuckled the Momsen lung and cast it aside on the sand. He desperately wished that he had some of that clean underwear that he had left in his cubby on the submarine.
He fell face-first onto the beach, utterly exhausted. There was sand in his mouth, his ears, and every other part of him, but he didn’t care. He was never leaving land again, not for anything in the world. Fiske rolled over onto his back and spread out his arms and legs, basking in the sun. Alive. He was alive. Mission accomplished.
His hand flew to his chest again, pressing frantically into the fabric of the suit. And there it was.
He’d hidden away on a submarine. He’d kept the ring safe.
His mission was, to all intents and purposes, a success.
But it didn’t feel that way. He stared up at the bluest sky he’d ever seen and he thought about Lieutenant Oppowitz, and Beth and Peter and Lucy in Saint Louis. He thought about the lieutenant’s jokes and his sense of duty and pride.
And Fiske realized he was a miserable failure.
Grace had arranged everything, and soon Fiske found himself on a plane headed for Attleboro.
She was waiting for him on the tarmac, and Fiske ran to her as soon as he was on the ground. She wrapped her arms around him in the best big-sisterly way possible; there would be no more danger, no more death for at least the next ten seconds, and that was all Fiske wanted in the world.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, taking his face in her hands and giving him a good looking over. “Fiske, I’m so sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I didn’t know — I just wasn’t thinking straight, and I’m so sorry.”
“I’m okay,” said Fiske. “I’m really okay. I promise.” Still, it was nice to be fussed over. “But how do you know that they won’t be waiting for us at home? Or the next place you go?”
Grace cleared her throat. “I took care of it.”
“What do you mean you — what happened to your car?” he asked. It had been black before; now it was a blue convertible.
“I had to drive the old one off a cliff,” said Grace. “But I like this one better anyway.”
“You had to drive it . . . you had to drive it off a . . . Grace!”
“I told you I took care of it.”
“Grace!”
“I’m fine,” she said. “You’re fine. Everyone’s fine.”
Except they weren’t. Not everyone.
He and Grace went back home for a few days; after the Nautilus, school would seem like a breeze. Still, Fiske needed a few days of simple quiet before he would be able to do anything at all, whether that was a Cahill mission or a geometry exam.
He’d scoured the papers for news of the Nautilus crew — of the reactor’s breakdown, the death of Lieutenant Oppowitz. But the only thing he could find was an article praising the crew for their unprecedented, record-shattering trip from Connecticut to Puerto Rico.
Still, just because it was in the papers as having happened one way didn’t mean that was the whole truth. Guilt still ate at him day and night, and he could feel it sucking at him like quicksand.
And then he had to go back to school, on top of everything.
“You’ve been quieter than usual,” said Grace one morning. It was Sunday, which meant that he’d be flying back to school that night. “I know you’ve had a . . . a time of things, so if you ever want to talk about any of it, you know I’m here for you, Fiske.”
He looked at her. He knew she meant it. He knew that she loved him and that she wanted what was best for him. “I just can’t believe it happened,” he said. “I can’t believe that I . . . and that you . . . you had to drive your car off of a cliff?”
“Yes,” said Grace. “But I’m fine. And you’re fine. Everyone is fine, Fiske. You have to focus on that.”
“No, they’re not,” said Fiske, running a hand over his hair. “Grace, you could have died. I could have died. And Lieutenant Oppowitz is dead, Grace. He’s not fine. You know he had two little kids? Just little, just barely even — and now he’s dead.”
Grace looked down at the ground. “I’m very sorry to hear it, Fiske.”
“And you know what the worst part of it is? It’s not like he died for his country. It’s not like he died for something he even believed in, or wanted. He was murdered because we lied to him. You and me, Grace. He thought that I was someone I wasn’t, and we told him that. He didn’t know anything about the ring, or the Clues, or the Vespers. He’s dead because of us. Because of me.”
So was George. Fiske tried not to think about it. He hadn’t been the one to push the button, to open the gate to the water above, sure. But George hadn’t seen it coming. He’d killed the lieutenant and he was going to kill Fiske, given the chance. But did that make it right? Anyone else would think he was crazy for mourning a Vesper. Still, it wasn’t something that Fiske could shake.
“No, Fiske,” said Grace. She put her hands on his shoulders and squared her face directly in front of his. “They died because of the Vespers. The Vespers, Fiske. It wasn’t you.”
Fiske looked at her, disbelief carved into his face like hieroglyphs on a tomb. How could she say that? How could she think that it wasn’t his fault? Didn’t Grace realize that if Fiske had never been on that boat, then the lieutenant would still be alive?
“You kept the ring safe. You kept yourself safe. I’m incredibly sorry about the lieutenant, Fiske, you know I am. But there are things at stake — huge, world-changing risks that need to be taken. Look what you did, Fiske,” said Grace. “You were so brave. So brave, Fiske. I’ve never been prouder.”
“I don’t want you to be proud of me for this,” said Fiske. “I’m going to send something to Lieutenant Oppowitz’s wife. Her name is Beth. We’ll . . . I don’t know. I can’t buy them another dad. I can’t go back in time. But I’m going to do something.”
“You’re a good person, Fiske,” said Grace.
But he didn’t feel like it.
It was strange, to be back at school. The grounds were still green and the bricks were still red, even though Fiske had faked his way onto a nuclear submarine, traveled underwater from Connecticut to Puerto Rico, avoided being killed by a Vesper spy, escaped from said submarine, and then swam to shore. Fiske didn’t think that the sky needed to be orange or anything from now on — things didn’t have to be that drastically different — but wasn’t something supposed to have changed?
It took him a minute to realize, though, that something had — him. Before, he had scurried from class to class, from dorm to dining room with his head down and his books clutched to his chest as if all of his guts would fall out if he weren’t holding himself together. Now, he looked around him as he walked. His chin wasn’t buried in his chest.
It was a small change, but it made all the difference.
He went back to school, but only for exams. On his last day, a package arrived for him. He had to go to the headmaster�
��s office to pick it up.
Sitting at the secretary’s desk was a young woman with brown hair and a yellow sweater. “You’re Fiske Cahill?” she said.
“Yeah,” said Fiske, looking behind him to make sure that there weren’t any other Fiske Cahills around. “You’re new.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said, handing over his package. “The other lady had a family thing that she had to leave town for. I hear she was quite the piece of work. Have a nice summer!”
“Thanks for this,” said Fiske, holding up the package and walking back outside. He stopped at one of the benches and opened his package. There was a small box and a letter. He opened the box first. It was a shiny silver pin — two dolphins with a rope wrapped around them. The Navy’s Dolphins — what Ralph had been working so hard toward.
He opened the letter next. It read:
Dear Fiske,
First off, all is well on the Nautilus. The nuke boys got the reactor fixed once we reached port and they’ve assured us that now we’ll be able to go even faster. Ranker says it does feel like they juiced it up some, so we’ll see. Our official commission is going to happen in September, I hear. I sincerely hope that you’ll be able to make it to the New London docks for the ceremony.
In the box, you’ll find your Dolphins. Welcome to the crew, officially. I’ve got mine now, too. Let’s not forget that I had to study a lot harder for mine, but both me and Commander Wilkinson think that you deserve a pair of your own. I told the commander about George being on board to scope all of the nuke stuff and he was going to take it to a shady organization, and that you stopped him. Took him off the boat at a risk to yourself. For being something of a puke when you started, you sure proved yourself along the way. We all say well done to you.
At the end there, I’m sorry if I spooked you. I had to figure out if you were telling the truth, and that’s the way that came to me. I don’t know or understand exactly what was happening down there, but I’m betting it’s way beyond me. Whatever it was, I hope you’re managing okay and that everything’s going all right.
You’re a brave kid, Fiske. If no one ever told you that, now I have.
The Submarine Job Page 7