Attack of the Seawolf

“We’re giving Seawolf a new captain for this operation, someone who’s been in combat before, the best sub driver we’ve got.”

“Combat, sir? Our best? The only U.S. sub skipper in the last few decades to launch a torpedo in anger is Michael Pacino, and not only did he lose the Devilfish under the polar icecap, he left the Navy for medical reasons. And maybe personal reasons, too, if I remember. So who have you got in mind?”

“Right on the first time, Fred. We’re bringing Mikey Pacino out of retirement for this OP. He’s got the guts to do it, plus the brains and experience. The other captains, they’re okay, but like our friend Marty Steuber, they seem allergic to risk. We need someone who isn’t afraid to take chances. That’s the only reason he had Devilfish shot out from under him. And let’s not forget what happened to the other submarine in that incident — anyone other than Pacino would have come back dead or not at all.”

“So, how are you going to convince him to go back to sea?”

“I’ll personally order him. Get out a message to NAVPERS transferring Pacino back to active duty.”

“I don’t know. Admiral. We’re talking about the most sensitive mission in maybe forty years. Even if Pacino comes back, he’s a Piranhaclass sailor — he won’t know the first thing about the Seawolf. And as a civilian, he’s under no obligation to go back to active duty to do this—” “Leave all that to me,” Donchez said.

“Just get those messages on the wire.”

CHAPTER 7 THURSDAY, 9 MAY 1150 GREENWICH MEAN TIME

SEVERN RIVER INLET ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND

0650 EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME

Michael Pacino finished his morning run with a sprint to the back of the waterfront property, stopping in the middle of the yard to rest with Max, his big golden retriever. The sun was already turning the morning into a humid furnace. Legs aching, Pacino climbed the steps to the deck, leaned on the railing and stared across the river at the Naval Academy complex.

For a long time he stood there, staring at the copper roofs of the 150-year-old granite buildings, but seeing instead his own past. Himself as a midshipman two and a half decades earlier. The Academy had always been a time machine, taking him back to his youth, the years that were the best and worst of his life. He had chosen the house for its water view, but not just the view of the water, but the spectacular vista of the harbor of Annapolis, teeming with sailboats, the Capitol dome in the background dueling for grandeur with the Academy’s copper-domed chapel. It was not the only way he brought back the past.

For a moment he looked down at the baseball cap he had been wearing on the run. Dark blue, soaked with sweat, the brim white where the accumulated salt had stained the cap. The cap’s bill had an emblem, the golden embroidery thread forming twin-fish facing a submarine conning tower — submariner’s dolphins.

Above the dolphins, block embroidery letters spelled USS TAMPA; below, the letters read SSN-774. A gift from Sean Murphy, his best friend and former Annapolis roommate who now commanded the Tampa, a new Los Angelesclass nuclear fast-attack submarine out of San Diego.

But when Pacino looked at the cap’s letters they reformed into the name USS DEVILFISH, SSN-666, the name and number of the ship he had lost two years before. The Devilfish was now a crumpled wreck at the bottom of the ocean, the bodies of the men he had lost trapped aboard. Pacino looked away at the water, unaware that his wife Hillary was looking at him from inside the house.

Hillary walked out onto the deck, a glass of ice water in her hand. She set the glass on the deck railing in front of him. He ignored it.

“Michael. You okay?”

There was no answer. She tried again.

“Honey, isn’t it time you got ready for work?”

“I guess,” he mumbled, passing her on the way inside, the glass door sliding shut behind him and the dog.

Hillary looked back at him for a moment, then out at the sun-drenched harbor and the quaint village, the boats getting underway one by one for a day of pleasure sailing. She had hoped the setting and the Academy would help Michael heal, but the truth was, it was making him worse. She and their son missed the man he had been two years before, a confident man, a nuclear submarine commander. Maybe they needed to move inland, get away from the bay and the water and the Academy and all the reminders of his past.

Or maybe what he really needed was to go back to sea, exorcise the beast that haunted him. If the Navy would take him, and if he would go back, and if there were another submarine for him … Finally she too went inside, the ice water still on the deck rail, forgotten.

U.S. NAVAL ACADEMY ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND

0830 EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME