Collapse Depth

by Todd Tucker

  “Hey Rick.”

  “How are you, Dean?”

  “Did you guys kill somebody out there?”

  Rick shook his head. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

  • • •

  The switch on Florida took longer than expected, which everyone expected. Then they moved all the hoses over to Alaska, where everyone was waiting, eager to get it over with. They were fairly well-practiced at the evolution by this point, and they efficiently evacuated the R-118. There was a moment of tension when they thought the truck might not contain enough R-114 to fill all their systems, and they would have to wait for the nearest truck….in Spokane…to make its way to the pier, probably well after 2200. Had that happened, Dean would have made sure that the Navy saw its second Freon-related death in a week. But they finally got a break and they were able to replace every ounce of the new Freon with the old with what was on the pier, and the entire evolution was complete and signed off by 1900. Dean grabbed his bag, went to the pier and got in his car without even considering asking anyone’s permission.

  At home, Dee Dee was waiting, still grouchy from being stood up the night before. She looked achingly beautiful, her body toned perfectly from her many hours at the gym. They had two nights left before he went to sea again, and Dean desperately wanted to make things right with her, wanted to explain to her how fucked up the last twenty-four hours had been, how he really, truly, had had no choice. And, as he imagined pulling the thin sweatshirt over her head without even leaving the living room, he wanted to explain it all to her in the shortest possible period of time.

  “Hey,” she said, hands on her hips, awaiting his justification.

  He hesitated for just a moment. “Somebody got killed on the Alabama.”

  • • •

  The next day was Thursday. A happy and satisfied Dee Dee Hysong told most of the class at the gym what she’d learned before Angi and Molly even showed up, their customary ten minutes late. By the time they took their positions, the entire group was chattering about death aboard the USS Alabama.

  • • •

  Jabo checked the position no the chart again, to verify they were making up track. The position was all DR, of course, just an estimate based on speed and heading. They would only be able to get a GPS fix every eight hours or so, during their furtive trips to PD. Any estimate of position between fixes was just a math problem, an educated guess represented by an X on a thin pencil line on a virtually unmarked chart based on course and speed. Whatever errors existed in those measurements were magnified by their high bell. Their location on the planet had become very abstract.

  And they were behind. At Ahead Flank, stopping the bare minimum number of times they had to in order to catch a broadcast and a GPS fix, they would arrive at Papa Zulu precisely on time, without a minute to spare. But they would be playing catch up the entire time.

  No one on the boat could remember running Ahead Flank for so long. The most strained part of the boat was the engine room, where everything was running at high speed, every back up seawater and coolant pump was on, and nothing could break, or even be secured for routine maintenance. The engineer and his team were managing to keep it together but the strain was showing on both the men and the machinery. Hot bearings alarmed, high pressures caused reliefs to lift, and water levels had to be watched and adjusted continuously.

  The pressures in the control room were different and scarier in some ways—they were going fast and deep in an unknown ocean. But other than check course and speed, there was little else the officer of the deck could do except worry about it.

  Flather walked into control from radio, a stack of messages in his hand.

  “More updates?” said Jabo.

  He nodded. He looked exhausted. “All for the chart we’re on: JO91747. I’m just barely keeping up with track.”

  “None for the next chart? It looks like we’ll be there in an hour or so.”

  Flather flipped up the corner of JO91747 to reveal the number of the next chart beneath it: JO90888. He then flipped through the messages in his hand. “Nothing for 0888. Good for us. All on 1747.”

  “Anything to worry about?”

  He shook his head. “Not yet. I won’t lie, though—this kind of navigation keeps me awake at night.”

  Jabo pointed to a faded line that had marked their track…it had been altered slightly, you could see the ghost of the line left by the eraser. “What’s this change?”

  Flather nodded. “I don’t know. The navigator did it last night. Steering us a few degrees south, it looks like.”

  “But it sounds like there’s nothing on the next chart to worry about, right? Was our original track wrong?”

  “There must be some reason. Who knows?”

  “Shouldn’t you know?”

  Flather bristled a little at that. “I’m trying to keep these charts up, sir. We’re going as fast as we can into an area we’ve never been. I haven’t had time to take a shit, much less ask the navigator to explain everything he’s done. I came up here after two hours of sleep and he’d made these changes. If you’ve got a question, why don’t you ask him? I’d like to know the answer too.”

  “Okay,” said Jabo. “Relax. I will ask him.” Flather walked over to the table, sat heavily down on the stool, and began marking up the chart.

  Jabo took the sound powered phone off the latch and growled the navigator’s stateroom; no one answered. He tried the wardroom and officers’ study…again no answer. He considered sending the messenger. He had every right to, as officer of the deck, but still there was something mildly untoward about a junior officer summoning the navigator to the conn. He would wait a few minutes; hopefully the navigator would find his way to the control room during the watch.

  Jabo turned to the stack of papers on his clipboard, the start of his investigation into Howard’s death. He scanned the yellow sheet of notebook paper that Howard had written.

  It was wrinkled, and smudged in some places by moisture. But it was by and large readable, thanks to Hallorann, who’d apparently saved it.

  It contained a column of information about the day of the laundry fire in boyish yet earnest handwriting. Each entry was dated, Jabo could see, in a way that mimicked the log sheets. There were lots question marks. Book in Dryer?? Paper towels in dryer??? The document reflected Howard’s youth in a way that would have brought a smile to Jabo’s face, had Howard not been dead, and had he not been accused of sabotage.

  Jabo turned to the Machinery Two logs, the last Howard had kept. These too were neat…extraordinarily neat. Each number was centered in its square, everything was legible, everything was perfect. Jabo turned it over to read the comments section.

  These too were neat and squared away, the only unusual thing being perhaps the number of comments—Howard was clearly trying hard to be diligent. Jabo scanned the comments. Oxygen Generator #2 drifting to high voltage. Navigator Running on treadmill. Jabo did smile at that. He could review a year’s worth of Machinery Two logs and no one would ever have recorded who was working out on what. Howard was trying to take the most complete set of logs ever taken in Machinery Two.

  Gurno appeared in front of him with a concerned look on his face.

  “What could be wrong? We’re not getting any traffic at this speed. You guys should be napping.”

  “You remember that Freon message you asked me about?” asked Gurno.

  “Sure. I wanted you to pull it again for the captain. And for my investigation.”

  “I can’t find it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Gurno shrugged. “It’s not anywhere, not even on any of the hard drives. And I can’t find a printed copy anywhere. It’s like we never got it.”

  “I don’t get it…I read it. I know we printed it out.”

  “I know. I don’t know what to tell you sir. It’s fucked up.”

  The captain hadn’t asked for it since the night of the casualty, it’s not like he was being hound
ed for it. But it did relate directly to what had befallen them…and they just shouldn’t be losing fucking messages like that.

  “Alright. Go take another look.”

  “Aye, aye sir,” said Gurno. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on.”

  • • •

  Kincaid appeared to relieve him just as the fatigue was settling in solidly. Jabo was trying to think about the cryptic notes left behind by Howard, the missing message, and their position on the chart, how much time they’d made up during his watch. It was all jumbled together in his mind inside a thick weary fog.

  “Duggan qualified EOOW while you were up here,” said Kincaid.

  “Really? Man, that’s pretty fast.”

  “Yep, I sat on his board. He’s smarter than he looks. Going back there to take the watch right now.”

  “So Morrissey gets the watch off? Is he qualified OOD yet?” He ran through the watchbill in his mind, calculating how an additional watchstander in the wardroom might somehow add a few hours of sleep to his week.

  “Not yet.”

  “But if Morrissey gets his OOD board scheduled…”

  “That’s right. Then it helps us,” said Kincaid. “So go down there and sign whatever’s left on his card.”

  “Not right now,” said Jabo. “I’m fucking exhausted.”

  Kincaid stepped up to the conn and scanned the night orders. He scowled.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Jabo.

  “Why can’t we untag the fucking treadmill yet?”

  Jabo laughed. “I think you’re the only one that still gives a shit.”

  “Must be,” said Kincaid. “My own private gym. Boats gonna be full of fat fucks when we pull in.”

  Jabo took lanyard heavy with keys from around his neck and handed it to Kincaid.

  “I relieve you,” said Kincaid.

  “I stand relieved,” said Jabo.

  “This is Lieutenant Kincaid; I have the deck and the conn.”

  The control room watchstanders acknowledged in turn.

  • • •

  Jabo intended on going directly to his rack; he dreaded even taking the time to undress. At his stateroom door, however, still bothered vaguely by the events of his last watch, he walked down the narrow passageway to the navigator’s stateroom.

  He got to the stateroom and the sliding door was shut…odd.

  He knocked, and knocked again. “Nav?’ He pulled the unlocked door open.

  The lights were on and the stateroom was, as always, neat and organized. His desktop was closed as were all his cabinets. The bed was made with the kind of anxious rigor that was the mark of most Academy-trained officers. The only thing out of order on it was the old book in the center of the rack: Rig for Dive, by Crush Martin. He stepped in and flipped it over; saw the black and white photo of Martin, a stern looking man with scars on his face and neck not completely hidden by the old-fashioned khaki dress uniform. He had commander’s shoulder boards, but other than that the only insignia on his uniform were his gold dolphins and a war patrol pin. Jabo flipped through it and saw, to his surprise, that the pages and margins were filled with dense notes in the nav’s tiny handwriting. Every page had passages highlighted, and on some pages every word had been highlighted. The notes seemed to bear little relation to the page, or to Martin’s story at all. On an early page detailing Martin’s childhood in rural Florida, Jabo saw where the nav had written the formula for the reactor average temperature calculation in three different colors of ink. It bothered Jabo: the formula was classified. Not exactly a state secret, but an odd lapse in discipline from a man as buttoned-up as the navigator.

  He hesitated, then opened the top cabinet above the nav’s desk, where he knew he kept hardcopies of every broadcast. And there they were, neatly organized in white, three-inch binders across the shelf, each with a range of dates printed in the navigator’s neat script across the spine. Jabo pulled the most recent one down, paged through it looking for the Freon message. He remembered the approximate date, remembered some of the other things in the broadcast, but couldn’t be certain where it would be exactly. It would take hours to page through them all to find it, if it was even in there. Jabo hoped that the navigator had pulled it for some reason, maybe because of the incident. Otherwise…it would be yet another set of hours Jabo would have to find, to pour through the binders one page at a time to look for the misplaced message.

  Jabo saw, as he removed the binder, a metal clipboard flat against the back of the cabinet: hidden? It was one of the thin clipboards used to move a single classified message around the boat, two thin sheets of metal joined by a hinge. He pulled it down.

  No classification page marked the front of it. Which would normally mean it was empty. But when Jabo opened it, there were several sheets of paper. He knew in an instant it was the Freon message.

  “Having a look around, Lieutenant?”

  Jabo almost dropped the board; it was the navigator, standing at the door to his stateroom. “Jesus, Nav, you scared the shit out of me.”

  “Guilty conscience?” He had a weird look on his face, twitchy and uncomfortable.

  “No, Nav, not at all. Just looking for this message…” Jabo realized suddenly that he was in the wrong, that he had no business digging through the nav’s stateroom like that. He saw the navigator glance toward his other hand, which held Rig for Dive. He tossed it back on the rack.

  “You’re the communicator, shouldn’t you have access to all this in radio?”

  “There’s a message missing…”

  “How come no one’s told me about it?”

  “I guess I’m telling you now. And it’s not missing anymore.” He held up the clipboard.

  There was a sudden shift between them. Jabo realized how small a man the navigator was. Jabo had been defensive at first, caught doing something he shouldn’t. But the nav, who’d looked absolutely haunted for days, suddenly looked off balance, almost frightened.

  The navigator gathered himself, trying to recapture the initiative. “Lieutenant Jabo, I really don’t appreciate you tearing through my stateroom. And I don’t appreciate the way you’ve decided to tell me about this lapse in radio. I think I’d like you to meet me in the captain’s stateroom in about ten minutes, after I’ve had chance to brief him about your work. Your attitude.”

  “Fine,” said Jabo. He welcomed the chance; wanted to put all the pieces of the puzzle in front of the captain and see what he could make out of it. The navigator’s face twitched again, and then he turned around, walking toward the captain’s stateroom.

  Jabo stood there, the thin clipboard still in his hand. He checked his watch, intending to the give the nav exactly his requested ten minutes. He tried to think of a legitimate reason the nav might have that message, by itself, hidden in his stateroom, while no one else in communications could find a copy. There were possibilities; perhaps the he had been tasked with his own investigation. Perhaps the Nav had pulled the message on the night of the incident, and just never returned it.

  But that kind of fuck up seemed unlikely in the nav’s ruthlessly ordered, organized world. Jabo had heard that at the academy, visitors weren’t allowed to see a midshipman’s dormitory room. Instead, they had a “model” room complete with neatly made racks and ownerless uniforms hung in the wardrobe. That’s what the nav’s stateroom seemed like, right down to his polished oxfords awaiting the return to port sticking out from his bed, right next to a pair of unblemished Nike running shoes that looked right out of the box.

  A slight buzz went through Jabo’s mind. He checked his watch; he still had eight minutes before he was supposed to meet with the navigator and the captain. He left the stateroom, clipboard still in his hand, and began walking aft.

  • • •

  The navigator stormed out of his stateroom, disappointed that he couldn’t actually drag Jabo before the captain. Jabo was long overdue for a humbling, and the nav was more than willing to deliver it. He knew the captain and the XO lov
ed the guy, but there’s no way even they would abide him digging through his stateroom, looking at his personal belongings. Jabo should be disciplined; he could have insisted upon it. It was flagrant disrespect, insubordination. But there was no time.

  As he rounded the corner from the staterooms, he saw a flash of khaki going down into Machinery One. It was something that got your attention at this point in patrol; everyone, officer, chief, and enlisted, were all wearing identical blue poopies. It didn’t surprise him; he was overdue for a briefing with the dark commander. He glanced around to see if anyone else had seen him. The only other person around was a young sailor reading the plan of the day, trying to avoid eye contact. The nav hurried down the ladder.

  • • •

  The commander was waiting for him in machinery one, sitting on a stool at the foot of the diesel engine. He had his legs crossed in a strange way; the nav thought maybe his posture was the result of an injury, some earlier encounter with the enemy. He was smoking an odd, wrinkled looking cigarette, one the nav thought was perhaps hand-rolled, or a product of wartime austerity.

  “Is your plan in motion?” he asked.

  “Yes sir,” said the navigator. “It’s too late to do anything now.”

  “You seem upset by that. Are you having second thoughts?”

  “No,” said the nav. “This has to be done.”

  “That’s right. Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do. Things other people may condemn. But they still have to be done.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “So, your plan is adequate this time? No more half-ass measures?”

  “No sir. It’s adequate. The ship won’t survive.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive,” said the navigator. “It will all be over soon. In minutes.”

  The commander nodded and smiled at that. He shut his eyes and took a deep drag from his cheap-looking cigarette, the tip glowing bright red. “No one knows?” he asked without opening his eyes.