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“The worst is probably Lieutenant Jabo,” he said. “Lost two fingers and went right back to the fire.”

“I heard about it,” said the captain.

“Captain, I know it’s not my place…but if I had any say in it, that young officer should really get some kind of citation for what he did today.”

The captain looked at Cote, and for a moment, the difference in their ranks fell away, and they were just the two oldest, most experienced men on the boat, two men with over fifty years at sea between them. And they both knew what the score was.

“Well,” said the captain. “That’s something you’ll probably have to discuss with my replacement.”

• • •

Data about Alabama trickled in to Soldato’s office, as he sat helplessly behind the desk that he despised, the plaques of the ships he loved on the wall behind him.

First came the word the ship was not sunk, via a transmission of the ship itself, a flash message saying virtually nothing other than that most important facts: the ship had suffered a severe casualty: collision, flooding, and fire, but was now on the surface and apparently moving under her own power. It was a message that raised more questions than it answered, but it was with absolute profound relief that Soldato read it. Not just relief for the ship, and for the men he knew onboard, but profound relief for his country: the United States had not lost a submarine.

Ten minutes later came a follow-on message that set his mood back: three men dead. Two enlisted, one officer. He thought of Angi Jabo at the gate again, and vowed that somehow, if the dead officer was Jabo, he would be the one to tell her. He thought about what it would feel like to drive to her house, ringing that door bell…then forced himself to put that thought away. Telling Angi about her husband’s death might very well be the last thing he ever did in a Navy uniform. The message, of course, contained no names, and Soldato would have no way of finding out more details until the ship came in. But he knew that the dead man was probably a junior officer…they were the first to the scene of a casualty. And the best ones, like Jabo, were usually the first ones to get there.

Information of a more banal nature dripped in. Group Nine got involved to handle the press that they would inevitably have to deal with when word got out: only Group Nine had dedicated PR staff, a group of three officers who set up a press “command center” at the Group Nine building. Anything involving the words “nuclear” and “collision” would have to be explained endlessly, and the anti-nuke groups were always ready to pounce on news like this. Thank God he didn’t have to screw with that, and he probably never would, since dealing with twenty-five year old journalists was deemed a crucial enough activity that only an Admiral was capable of handling it.

A message came in from Alabama with a warning about the collision, an uncharted seamount. Soldato referenced the chart he had in his office. He couldn’t find anything on that vast expanse of ocean that the ship might have run into. Group Nine wrote orders for Alabama to turn around and go the floating drydock in Pearl, entirely on the surface. Soldato approved the orders and they went to the Group Nine radio room to be transmitted. The Taiwanese wouldn’t be getting their nuclear warheads, at least, not from the Alabama.

He’d been at his desk for almost eight hours when Commander Bushbaum knocked and stuck his head in the door. “Sir, the Navajo is in visual contact with Alabama.”

Despite the fact that he’d been reading radio transmissions from the boat for hours, that made him feel good, a shot of optimism, the thought that of real human eyes seeing the ship on the ocean. “What do they see?”

Bushbaum shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary, but probably most of the damage is below the waterline. These guys are skimmers anyway, not sure they would know what they were looking at if something was wrong.”

“True,” said the Captain. He wished he was out there, on the bow of the Navajo, speeding toward his old boat with salt spray soaking through his uniform.

“The two OODs are communicating with each other on bridge-to-bridge, sounds like the Alabama is making about eight knots.”

Soldato looked up at that “They’re talking on VHF?”

“Yes,” said Bushbaum, a little startled by the strength of Soldato’s reaction. “They’re no longer on alert, and they’re using call signs anyway, so it’s acceptable.”

“Can we hear them?”

“Yes,” said Bushbaum. “It’s being patched through in Group Nine’s radio room….I was just down there.”

Soldato stood and darted past Bushbaum, who followed him. They took the drab Navy van in front of the pier up to Group Nine, whose headquarters looked as nondescript as a small insurance agency, or a public library built sometime in the late seventies. Only the prickly array of exotic radio antennas atop the roof gave away the fact that interesting things might occur inside.