by Jan Coffey
McCann took the two heavy briefcases and stowed them away by the navigation panels. “We’re not going anywhere. They’ll be safe here.”
“I have to take the laptop,” she told him, looping the shoulder strap over her arm. “I can send some of this data to SPAWAR and leave a copy with our own engineering department so they can take a look while we’re here going over the wiring.”
She zipped up her jacket.
“How bad is the fire?”
“I’ll find out when I get there. The main reason they called was to take a head count to make sure everyone was out.”
“That’s a shame,” he said.
She gave a brief nod, still looking extremely tense. “Can I get out on my own or do I need an escort?”
“I can’t leave the conn, and we can’t let you roam around the boat alone, either.” He was reaching for the phone to call Cavallaro back to the control room when he saw him coming down the passageway.
“Done already?” Cav asked Amy.
“With the preliminary testing, yes. I’ll be back with my crew later.”
This wasn’t the right time to tell Cav that their findings yesterday had been off. “Did you find Gibbs?” McCann asked instead.
Cav nodded. “He’s on his way up, Skipper.”
“I’ll walk Ms. Russell out. Then we need to talk,” he told the officer before following Amy down the passageway.
“You said you worked out of that shop? How is that going to affect you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know how bad the fire is, yet, or what caused it. Depending on how the investigation goes, I might have bigger problems to worry about than losing my desk and a couple of framed pictures.”
She stopped by the ladder that led up to the hatch.
“If the need arises,” he said, “I can testify that you didn’t set a match to the place before we left.”
She almost smiled. “Thanks, Commander. I’ll let you know if I need you.” She placed one hand on the metal ladder, then hesitated before climbing.
McCann waited, but Amy continued to examine the bank of cables just outboard of the passageway. She climbed one rung, paused again, and then came back down.
“What is it?” he asked, curious now.
“I’m trying to remember. Right under the control room, under the GPS receiver and ESGN unit, is that the enlisted mess?”
“There are a number of spaces under there,” he explained. “The mess, the trash room, the officer’s wardroom, the ship’s office. They’re all below us here. Depends on where you mean exactly.”
“I’m thinking about the wiring under the unit.”
He thought for a moment. “That wiring runs along the underside of the decking. If it’s connections you’re looking for, they could be anywhere.”
She adjusted the shoulder strap of the laptop case. “On the last ESGN installation we did, on the Seawolf, there was a panel in the overhead of the space below that we could remove. With that out, we could get a clear shot at a panel of wiring connections leading to the navigation systems. Do you mind if I check it out before I go, just to see if we can do the same thing here? It shouldn’t take more than five minutes.”
He stepped back, motioning the way. “Be my guest.”
The stairs that led below were by the escape trunk. Shaking her head, she signaled for him to go ahead of her.
“After seeing your navigation officer’s reaction, I think I’d rather have you lead the way. I don’t want to startle anyone else.”
McCann decided that a sailor might have a slightly different reaction to the sight of such a good-looking woman in their living quarters. The fact that she was wearing a white hardhat and shipyard management gear wouldn’t really make a difference.
There was no one in the passageway. He led the way down to the enlisted mess. McCann poked his head in first. Surprisingly, no one was there, either.
This was the largest open area on the sub, capable of seating half of Hartford’s crew. The mess was a combination cafeteria, movie theater, game room, and training area. A place where the seamen could gather, it was rarely empty when they were on patrol.
Amy moved forward between the tables. Keeping her eyes fixed on the overhead, she turned into the adjoining galley.
“You’re sure stocked with food,” she commented, looking around.
“Before the problem with the navigation equipment yesterday, we had stores laid in for a normal patrol.”
“I’ll be really careful not to ruin anything.” She pulled a small flashlight out of her pocket and directed the light above. “Never mind the nuclear reactor. I know how precious food is to these guys.”
McCann leaned against the entry. The only galley crewman who’d stayed on board was Dunbar. He wondered why he wasn’t here getting breakfast ready. Amy zipped open her jacket and, as she looked up, her hardhat tipped off her head and clattered to the deck. Light brown, shoulder-length curls were barely held together in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. Their heads were close together as they both bent to retrieve the hard hat, and he smelled the fresh scent of shampoo mixed with the smell of rain and shipyard on Amy’s hair.
“This place is smaller than my kitchen,” she said as she put her hat back on. He noticed she seemed a little flushed.
“I’d wager that you don’t cook four meals a day for 130 men in a space this size.”
“No,” she told him, eying the arrangement. “I only cook for three. My kitchen is a little larger, but I don’t think it’s laid out as well.”
McCann wondered if the three were herself, a husband and a child. He hadn’t paid attention to whether she was wearing a ring. That was no indication anyway, as most shipyard workers didn’t wear rings at work. One touch of a welding rod to a wedding ring would send enough electrical current through it to melt the ring right off your finger. Not a pleasant experience.
Amy was searching the overhead and above the appliances. She stopped suddenly and turned around.
“I just remembered where that connector panel is on the 688-class subs. We’re too far aft,” she said. “We need to be about eight frames farther forward and about twelve feet starboard of centerline.”
McCann understood her. The shipyard production crews identified the work areas in the submarines by the frames, or curved I-beams, that formed the ‘ribs’ of the ship’s hull. Those frames were numbered consecutively from bow to stern. The centerline was an imaginary line that ran right up the middle of the ship, dividing the sub into starboard and port sides.
“That would put you in the ship’s office,” he said. “Below the sonar equipment room.”
“That’s right,” she said, heading out of the galley. “You’re my witness, Commander. I didn’t touch any of the food.”
As they went back out through the mess, McCann glanced at the steaming pot of coffee beckoning to him. His clothes were still wet, and he was ready for a hot cup of java. He considered asking Amy if she wanted a cup. He didn’t get a chance to ask.
“I have to hurry,” she said, looking at her watch. “I need to see what kind of damage that fire has done to the shop.”
He nodded and followed her out of the mess. Amy moved forward along the passageway, past the trash room and his stateroom. She was looking into the overhead and following a bank of cables that threaded between piping systems and ventilation ducts.
She stopped to let McCann move ahead of her in the passageway. As he passed the officer’s wardroom and enlisted quarters, he glanced in. It was strange not to see any of his crew at all. For a moment, he considered reaching for the nearest phone and having Cav get every crew on the watch to check in.
“I’m sorry this is taking more than five minutes,” she called after him.
“That’s perfectly okay,” he said over his shoulder. “You mentioned that you’ve been at work since ten o’clock last night. Are we going to lose you when the first-shift people get here?”
“I don’t punch a clock,” she told him. “
I’ll stay with the crew until I make sure you’re back in business.”
He went by the NCO’s quarters and stopped in the doorway of the ship’s office. “Sounds like you work some crazy hours. It must take its toll on your family.”
“It would…if it was a regular thing.” She avoided meeting his gaze and brushed past him to get inside the narrow office space.
The ship’s office was also a data center. It contained all the records and personal files that were part of submarine’s everyday life. Packed with file cabinets, shelves, a computer, a printer, and copier, the two-foot-wide aisle in the middle was filled with a single chair and several boxes of paper that must have been brought aboard at the last minute, before Hartford left the sub base. McCann frowned at the supplies that had not yet been stowed where they belong.
Amy climbed over the boxes and pushed in the chair before turning to him.
“You don’t waste an inch, do you?” she asked, peeling the laptop off her shoulder and placing it on the desk.
“We pack enough supplies to last us six months. There’s a place to stow these, though.”
“I’m glad I didn’t open either of those refrigerator doors in the galley. I’d hate to see what you’ve got in there.”
She looked away and took her hardhat off. Her hair looked soft, and it shone in the overhead lighting. She pointed upward and nodded toward a steel panel bolted to the decking overhead.
“Right there,” she said. “We have to remove the light fixture to be able to access the panel, but this will be the perfect place to start. Above it is the first main connector out of the unit.”
McCann climbed past the box to see if anything else needed to be removed to give her men access to the panel.
“Do you see it?”
He had to get very close to her in order to see past the light fixture. “It’s a crowd with the two of us in this space. How many are you going to put to work in here?”
He saw her glance past him at the door.
“What’s going on?” she asked someone behind him.
McCann whirled around in time to see the door to the ship’s office slam shut on them. He reached across the boxes on the floor for the doorknob. Before he could turn it, the lock clicked on the outside.
~~~~
Chapter 5
Electric Boat Shipyard
4:55 a.m.
More than fifty feet above the blazing roof of the old shop, flames and sparks mingled with the dense clouds of smoke. The roar of the fire was deafening now, and the heat was rolling off the building in waves. Most of the Groton firefighters and their trucks were already here. More from the neighboring towns were arriving by the minute. Three ambulances sat in a line by the main gate. So far, there had been no need for them. But smoke inhalation was always a serious concern.
Some of the firefighters battled the inferno while others hosed down the corrugated steel walls of the Ways next to the shop. No one wanted to let the high walls melt and buckle in the intense heat. If that happened, the structure of the building would be compromised, and the weight of the huge cranes situated just under the roof could bring the entire building down.
The old wooden shop would be a total loss; everyone could see that. A relic of the early 1940s, when the shipyard had expanded like a gold rush town to meet the wartime demand for fleet-type subs, the shop had gone up like a box of forty-year-old matches, in spite of the rain. The three men inside barely escaped the cluttered space, and the equipment left inside was history by now.
Everyone moved back from battling the blaze as the roof collapsed inward, sending another shower of sparks upward into the misting predawn sky.
The general manager of the shipyard had been called in, along with his top managers. Whoever hadn’t arrived already was on their way.
Hale, the shipyard director of security, crossed the wet pavement to where the Groton fire chief stood looking for other potential problems that the fire might trigger.
“We’ve shut down the gas lines through the building,” Hale shouted over the roar of the fire.
The chief nodded and gestured toward the huge bay doors leading through the Ways. A small door for foot traffic was swinging open in the breeze. The steel wall was showing signs of buckling.
“You need to have your guys make a more thorough sweep of that building,” he said. “If that wall starts to come down—and it might—we want to make sure that there’s nobody in there.”
“I have a group going through there right now,” Hale replied. “You’d figure that with all these sirens a person would have to be deaf or dead not to get his ass out of that building.”
The security director’s walkie-talkie crackled. He turned away from the fire, bringing it to his ear. “Hale here. Go ahead.”
“Need…bod…” The words coming through kept breaking up.
“Repeat. Do you read me?”
“…bulances…”
The communication was from the men he had inside the Ways. Turning to a security guard and two firefighters standing by, he pointed to the building. “They need help in the Ways.”
The three men rushed toward the door.
The walkie-talkie came alive again. “…need ambulances…”
Hale shouted to the fire chief over the din. “Ambulances. They need help in there.”
As the fire chief called for the ambulances, Hale rushed toward the door himself. The smell of melting paint burned his lungs. His men could have been overcome with smoke. As he reached the door, one of the security guards who’d been inside stumbled out, clutching the walkie-talkie in his hand. He doubled over, retching as Hale bent over him.
“What is it?”
“They’re dead.”
“Who?”
“Brian and Hodges. Dead.” He looked wildly into Hale’s eyes. “Somebody fucking stabbed them.”
Hale straightened up, stunned by the words. It took couple of seconds for him to find his bearings. The names rushed through his mind. They weren’t on the detail clearing the building. They must have been in there earlier. He thought of the young men, their families, their children. They were stabbed?
Hale yanked open the door. The handle burned his hand, and he jerked backward, startled. Before he could go through the door, an ambulance screeched to a stop behind him and the EMTs leaped out. He held the door open with his foot as they scrambled through carrying tanks of air and stretchers.
Shouting cut through all the other noise, drawing Hale’s attention. Everyone was looking toward the pier, and two security guards were running in that direction. Hale turned to look.
The footbridge to Hartford was dangling from the pier, one end of it in the river. With no tugboats in sight, with no one visible on the bridge at the top of the fairwater, the submarine was backing away from the pier, operating under its own power.
~~~~
Chapter 6
USS Hartford
5:10 a.m.
Amy would have crawled into one of the cabinet drawers to give him more room, but the narrow office had the maneuvering space of a coffin. There was nowhere to go. She managed to wedge herself sideways into a corner between a floor-to-ceiling cabinet and the paneled outboard bulkhead.
McCann attacked the door like a raging bull, but there was no moving the steel barrier. He’d shouted from the top of his lungs, but no one answered from the other side. Calling the control room over the intercom had produced no response, either.
Neither of them considered for a moment that his crew was pulling a prank on them. Amy had seen a masked man with a pistol in his hand reach into the room and grab the door handle. Before pulling the door shut, she’d seen another masked man behind him. She’d immediately told the commander what she’d seen.
“I’ll have every one of your sorry asses court-martialed,” McCann bellowed into the intercom before turning to where Amy was pinned against the wall.
His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. He was over six feet tall, very wide across the s
houlders. He exuded an explosive power, and his physical presence seemed to fill the small office space. His anger heightened the feeling. He appeared angry enough to break the entire submarine in two. Turning back to the intercom, he punched a button and held it down as he barked into the unit.
“Captain here. Code Red. Repeat…” He stopped, glancing at her and muttering. “The PA is down.”
Amy nodded. A phone hung on the wall, and he picked it up, listened, and slammed it back in the cradle. Whoever was responsible for this had taken down the communication system.
Her mind raced a hundred miles an hour as she tried to consider every possibility of what could be happening to them. Suddenly, in the middle of the confusion, the faces of Kaitlyn and Zack—her seven-year-old twins—came into sharp focus. Her neighbor Barbara was with them. She came over and stayed with the twins five nights a week, while Amy was working third shift. Most days, Amy got home before the two second-graders had to leave for school. Not today, though.
She’d known that she might be running late this morning, and Barbara was going to get the children ready and walk them to the bus stop. Still, what would happen when she didn’t show in the lunchroom? They knew Amy was scheduled for volunteer duty today. She’d never missed her turn before. The twins would know something was wrong. And what would happen when they took the bus home? No one would be there. Barbara had a doctor’s appointment this afternoon. And Amy’s parents were not flying back from California until Wednesday. Where would the kids go if no one were there to meet them?
She shook her head as panic clawed its way into her throat. She felt chilled and feverish at the same time. Amy looked around the tight quarters before her eyes settled on Commander McCann. He was doing something on the PC.
“What do you think is happening?” Her voice sounded strained even to herself. She tried to bind a tight rope around her emotions. The last thing the sub captain needed right now was a hysterical woman on his hands.
“Someone, a group of people, are trying to take over my sub,” he said tensely, continuing to type away on the keyboard.