Voyage of the Devilfish

“You son of a bitch,” he said quietly. “I ain’t done hazin’ your ass yet. Now goddammit, you get better and get back to your wife and kid and you and me’ll take up where we left off.” Pacino, for once, had no answer.

EPILOGUE

TWO MONTHS LATER

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA

COMSUBLANT HEADQUARTERS

“Admiral, Captain Pacino is here to see you, sir,” the intercom buzzed.

“Send him in.” Donchez stood and walked around his desk to the door to greet Pacino. Pacino had been released from Portsmouth Naval Hospital only the day before. Pacino slouched over his crutches and braced himself so as to hold out his hand to Donchez. He was dressed in blues, his fourth gold-braid stripe added onto the end of his sleeve since his promotion from commander to captain. His extended hand shook slightly. He was thin, twenty pounds underweight. His eyes were shrouded by dark circles and his cheeks hollow. His once nearly black hair showed distinct traces of gray. Donchez took Pacino’s hand, noticing it was clammy.

“Mikey, come on over here and have a seat. You look a helluva lot better since last time.” He had visited Pacino the week before when Pacino had looked white enough to be embalmed. “Hey, you’ve made an incredible recovery, thanks in part at least to sheer guts. Even the medical people didn’t give you much of a chance.”

“Thanks,” Pacino said, his voice still hoarse. He sat on the couch facing the wide glass window that looked out on the Stingray monument. “It looks good from here,” he said, and Donchez knew what he meant.

“I think your old man would have liked it. Well, I’m sure Commodore Adams is happy to get you back.”

“Not exactly. He doesn’t know what to do with me. And without a ship I’m not much good to him.”

“You want me to talk with him?” Pacino said nothing. An embarrassed silence followed. Pacino was right in a way, Donchez thought, he’d been labelled a captain who had lost his ship, a captain who’d come back without his crew. Never mind what really happened… once again international politics prescribed a cover-up for a nuclear confrontation and exchange. At least in the days of the Stingray the U.S. and Russia were still cold-war adversaries. Today they were officially friends. Pacino had been promoted to full captain and his Navy Cross was sailing through the Chief of Naval Operations’ office, signed personally by Admiral McGee. But a Navy Cross was not much to a man who had commanded a ship and who now had none.

“Admiral,” Pacino said, “I came to give you this.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper on Squadron Seven letterhead. Donchez put on his reading glasses. The letter was Pacino’s resignation of his officer’s commission. Donchez said slowly, “Have you seriously thought about this?”

“Yes and no, sir. But it’s where I am now. Later, maybe…”

“What would you do if you leave the Navy?” Donchez pressed. Pacino shrugged. “The first thing I’m going to do when I get sprung from the hospital… they’re still doing tests to see if I need that damn bone-marrow thing on account of the radiation… is go home and get reacquainted with my wife and son.”

“Mikey, after things shake down at home, you’ve got to do something. Any ideas at all?”

“Well, maybe, if they want me, I’ll go back to Annapolis. There’s an opening in Rickover Hall, I hear, teaching fluid mechanics. I could work some more on boundarylayer polymer injection. At least now I know it works.” He didn’t smile when he said it.

“Sounds interesting… just don’t be a stranger, Mikey.”

“Absolutely not. Admiral. And, sir… thank you for sending me on the OP. I got to go one-on-one with Novskoyy. It didn’t work out the way anybody could predict, but at least our collision with the Kaliningrad kept Novskoyy from getting a chance to send his go-order. Jesus, when I think of that…”

“Right. We were lucky to neutralize that SSN-X-27 cruise missile seconds from detonation. If it wasn’t for you, 119 more of those things might well have been flown at us.”

“I’ll try to remember that, sir,” Pacino said as he saluted and left the office. Neither man needed to mention the pilot who had lost his life defeating that single cruise missile. There’d be no monuments to him. By orders from on high…

OUTSIDE WASHINGTON, D.C.

ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE

The black sedan screeched to a halt. Inside were four men in suits and overcoats, with mirrored sunglasses and shoulder holsters. Around the car United States Marines gathered, in utilities and carrying M-16s. To the east the Tupolev jet transport landed, jets roaring as the pilot applied reverse thrust, then taxied to the concrete apron, where the black sedan was parked.