Terminal Run

Pacino dived deep, but not deep enough. A slicing pain shot through his left shoulder, another one hitting his right thigh. A third seemed to slice into his ear, and that was when he opened his eyes and tried to see Novskoyy in the water. All he could see was a dim shape thrashing in front of him, one of his hands above the surface, a glint of silver coming from above. Pacino swam in, needles of pain invading his mind from his leg, and he lunged for the pistol. He found it, but as he curled his fingers over it, the muzzle flashed and it seemed as if that last bit of light drew the rest of the world’s light away, and Pacino was plunged into darkness, and it was as if one moment he was alive and fighting and the next he was in a deep dungeon and his body was swimming away from him and he couldn’t seem to catch it.

He remembered thinking of Anthony Michael and trying to say his name, but it was as if he had forgotten how to talk, and he was floating and the words up and down no longer meant anything, and the world rotated slowly around him and he fell and spun away, gradually at first, and then rapidly, until he forgot his son’s name and Colleen’s name and his own name and he stopped existing and so did the world, and it was over.

Epilogue

It was like coming to periscope depth.

At first it was complete darkness, with only the awareness that soon there would be light, and a watchfulness for the brightness. Then there was a blackness that was just a shade lighter than black, the blackness giving way to a deep blue, and the blue lightened until a distant world came into view, with no structure to it, until finally the bottoms of the waves could be seen at a distance of what seemed miles, until they came more clearly into view, closer until the wave crests and troughs could be made out, and finally a trough came closer and another world peeked through for just an instant, and disappeared again as a wave crest splashed onto the view and there was the blue world again for a moment, until the view splashed with angry foam and the new world existed again, more solidly this time, and then there was focus and structure and the new conscious world became real.

“Where am I?” he tried to say, but all that came out was a choked rattle. He tried again, seeing that the world was made completely of white, and the person coming close was draped in white, and for an instant he felt a terrible fear that he had died, but then the face of the other came nearer and the face had a bandage on the forehead, and the eyes were his own, but the nose was different and he blinked and realized that it was the face of his son, Anthony Michael, and Pacino tried to find his voice again, and this time it made a sound. “Anthony,” he said.

And then there was another face, this one framed in raven black long hair, large dark liquid eyes, eyes he had first seen in a shipyard laboring over a ship they had only called the SSNX, a ship that was now a forlorn debris field on the bottom of the Atlantic.

“Colleen,” he croaked.

“Don’t try to talk, Michael,” she said.

“Yeah, Dad,” Anthony Michael’s voice said.

“I have to know,” he said, his voice barely audible.

“What, honey?” Colleen asked.

“Novskoyy. What happened to Novskoyy?”

“You mean Krivak?”

Pacino nodded.

“He’s dead, dear,” Colleen said. “Now be quiet and sleep.”

Michael Pacino did as his wife told him and faded back away. A smile remained on his face.

Out in the corridor Commander Jeff Vermeers waited with the surviving crew of the Devilfish, with the commanding admiral of the submarine force, Kelly McKee, and with the Chief of Naval Operations, John Patton. Colleen came out and smiled, and the crowd broke into cheers until she fiercely quieted them down and ushered them out of the hospital.

“Colleen,” Anthony Pacino said, “I have to be somewhere.”

Colleen kissed the youth’s cheek, and he walked down the hall on his crutches to the elevator and down the hall to another room. When he came in, the woman in the bed smiled, her face relaxing into lines of beauty as she did.

“Patch,” she said tenderly.

“Carrie, how are you?”

“I’m good,” she said weakly. “Better now. How’s your father?”

“He’s going to be okay.”

“I’m glad.” She shut her eyes.

Pacino saw someone in the corner of the room. It was Commander Rob Catardi.

“Evening, sir,” Patch said.

Catardi smiled and clapped Pacino on the shoulder. “Good to see you, Patch. Carrie, I think I’ll go visit Patch Senior now, if you’re okay.”

She nodded. When Catardi left, Pacino leaned over and kissed her gently. She kissed him back, but was not gentle in return. Her arm pulled him down to her, her fingers in his hair. After several minutes she sat up higher in bed so she could see him.

“What’s this on your uniform?” she asked, touching his ribbons.

Pacino shrugged. “Navy Cross,” he said slowly. “I think a medal like that is for someone who rescues more than three people. We lost the rest of the ship.”