Phoenix Sub Zero

Donchez got into the car, Rummel at the door ready to shut it.

“And, Dick—”

“Yes, General?”

“I’m very sorry.”

“So am I, sir. So am I.”

VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA

Myra Daminski blew out a breath of exhaustion as she sat at the kitchen table, the kids finally, after a long fight,

in bed and quiet. She sipped at the coffee, the milk she’d dumped in it making it a chocolate-brown color. The sudden glint of a policeman’s cruiser lights from outside the dining room window didn’t surprise her — it was the Friday night between Christmas and New Year’s, and the neighborhood parties were in full gear, the music blaring from the house across the street. Someone had probably complained. She flipped through a book, finally finding the page, the one all about comfort in confusion over a trying, or dying, marriage. The doorbell rang. Annoyed, she marked the page, put the book down, and walked through the hallway while straightening out her thick black hair.

She opened the door, expecting to see people who’d come to the wrong house for the party, but stared into the pressed uniform of a Virginia state police trooper, behind him two men in dark uniforms, the driveway blocked by a large black car behind the trooper’s cruiser. She turned on the outside light and immediately saw that the men in black uniforms were navy officers.

“Mrs. Daminski? I’m Admiral Dick Donchez. Could we come in?”

She opened the door wider, the men came in.

“I just made a pot of coffee, come on into the den, have a seat.” She ran into the kitchen, reaching for the coffeepot.

“Ma’am, I think you’d first better listen to the admiral,” Fred Rummel said.

Myra Daminski looked up, her hands on the island countertop.

“It’s about the Augusta,” Donchez said, his voice deep, gravelly. “Two hours ago the ship went down in the Mediterranean during an exercise with another submarine. We have reason to believe the entire crew was lost. I’m sorry …”

Myra’s eyes glazed over. Donchez wondered if she was registering the news.

“We headed down from D.C. as soon as we could. I’m the Chief of Naval Operations. Ron was an old hand on my former submarine Dace. He was a fine officer and a good friend of mine. I can’t tell you …”

The words seemed to rush over her. A lump formed in her throat as she wondered if the letter she had written him had gotten to the ship before it sailed from Sardinia. She hoped it hadn’t and would be returned to her.

“What happened?”

“We’re not sure yet. We’re doing everything possible to find the crew.

If any survived we’ll know in a few hours. We’ll be taking a deep submergence vehicle down tonight. But I don’t want you to get your hopes up, Mrs. Daminski. The other sub in the exercise radioed that it heard hull breakup noises on sonar.”

Myra looked up to see her son Joe in his pajamas, standing in the foyer at the base of the stairs.

Later, in the staff car, Donchez looked out the window at the dark trees, thinking about Myra Daminski’s reaction — or lack of reaction — and the tears of the boy. Mrs. Daminski had been rocking him in a big chair in the den when they had left. Myra’s face was, well, set. Stoic? perhaps.

For the next half-hour Donchez himself was lost in memories.

Daminski arm-wrestling in the wardroom, Daminski drinking beer at a ship’s softball game, Daminski arguing with the burly torpedoman Betts, Daminski teaching the younger officers the torpedo-tube interlocks. The first time he heard Betts call him Rocket Ron, and the way the crew took up the name, Donchez trying to put a stop to it, the nickname a violation of military discipline but finally giving up as the moniker stuck. The day Lieutenant Daminski showed up in Donchez’s XO stateroom to ask for emergency leave to see his dying father, the tough macho lieutenant suddenly seeming vulnerable, almost stuttering.

Daminski’s wedding to his first wife, an event for all the ship’s officers, the wardroom ganging up on the strutting Daminski and carrying him kicking and fighting to the pool and dumping him in, Daminski sputtering to the surface, a grin on his face as he climbed out and ran after his attackers, his once starched service dress whites soaked. The weeks of shock Daminski went through when the marriage foundered the next year, the junior officer burying himself in his work.