The responsibility was Mancuso’s. He was the squadron commander. The boats were his. The skippers and crews were his. He rated the COs. That was it, wasn’t it?
But was it right? All he had was anecdotal information and coincidence. What if Jones was just pissed off at the guy? What if the transfer requests had just been a statistical blip?
Dodging the issue, Bart. They pay you to make the tough decisions. Ensigns and chiefs get the easy ones. Senior captains are supposed to know what to do. That was one of the Navy’s more entertaining fictions.
Mancuso lifted his carphone. “I want Maine’s XO in my office in thirty minutes.”
“Yes, sir,” his yeoman responded.
Mancuso closed his eyes and dozed for the rest of the ride. Nothing like a catnap to clear the mind. It had always worked on USS Dallas.
Hospital food, Cathy thought. Even at Hopkins it was still hospital food. There had to be a special school somewhere for hospital chefs. The curriculum would be devoted to eliminating whatever fresh ideas they had, along with any skills they might have with spices, knowledge of recipes.... About the only thing they couldn’t ruin was the Jell-O.
“Bernie, I need some advice.”
“What’s the problem, Cath?” He knew already what it had to be, just from the look on her face and the tone of her voice. He waited as sympathetically as he could. Cathy was a proud woman, as she had every right to be. This had to be dreadfully hard on her.
“It’s Jack.” The words came out rapidly, as though by a spasm, then stopped again.
The pain Katz saw in her eyes was more than he could bear. “You think he’s ...”
“What? No—I mean—how, why did you ... ?”
“Cathy, I’m not supposed to do this, but you’re too important a friend for that. Screw the rules! Look, I had a guy in here last week, asking about you and Jack.”
The hurt only got worse. “What do you mean? Who was here? Where from?”
“Government guy, some kind of investigator. Cathy, I’m sorry, but he asked me if there—if you had said anything about trouble at home. This guy was checking up on Jack, and he wanted to know if I knew anything that you were saying.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him I didn’t know anything. I told him that you’re one of the best people I know. You are, Cathy. You’re not alone. You have friends, and if there is anything I can do—that any of us can do—to help you, we will help you. Cathy, you’re like family. You’re probably feeling very hurt, and you’re probably feeling very embarrassed. That is stupid, Cathy, that is very stupid. You know it’s stupid, don’t you?” Those pretty blue eyes were covered in tears, Katz saw, and in this moment he craved the chance to kill Jack Ryan, maybe do it on a table with a very sharp, very small surgical knife. “Cathy, being alone doesn’t help. This is what friends are really for. You are not alone.”
“I just can’t believe it, Bernie. I just can’t. ”
“Come on, let’s talk in my office, where it’s private. Food’s crummy today anyway.” Katz got her out of there, and he was sure that no one noticed. Two minutes later they were in his private office. He moved a stack of case files from the only other chair and sat her in it.
“He’s just been acting different lately.”
“Do you really think it’s possible that Jack is fooling around?” It took half a minute. Katz watched her eyes go up and down, finally staying down as she faced reality.
“It’s possible. Yes.”
Bastard! “Have you talked to him about it?” Katz kept his voice low and reasonable, but not dispassionate. She needed a friend now, and friends had to share pain to be useful.
A shake of the head. “No, I don’t know how.”
“You know that you have to do that.”
“Yeah.” Not so much a word as a gasp.
“It’s not going to be easy. Remember,” Katz said with gentle hope in his voice, “it could all be a mistake. Just some crazy misunderstanding.” Which Bernie Katz didn’t believe for a moment.
She looked up, and her eyes were streaming now. “Bernie, is there something wrong with me?”
“No!” Katz managed not to shout. “Cathy, if there’s a better person in this hospital than you, goddamn if I’ve ever met them! There is nothing wrong with you! You hear me? Whatever the hell this is, it is not your fault!”
“Bernie, I want another baby, I don’t want to lose Jack—”
“Then if you really think that, you have to win him back.”
“I can‘t! He isn’t, he doesn’t—” She broke down completely.
Katz learned then and there that anger has few limits. Having to keep it in, being denied a target, didn’t help, but Cathy needed a friend more than she needed anything else.
“Dutch, this whole conversation is off the record.”
Lieutenant Commander Claggett was instantly on guard. “As you say, Commodore.”
“Tell me about Captain Ricks.”
“Sir, he’s my CO.”
“I’m aware of that, Dutch,” Mancuso said. “I’m the squadron commander. If there’s a problem with one of my skippers, there’s a problem with one of my boats. Those boats cost a billion a copy, and I have to know about the problems. Is that clear, Commander?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Talk. That’s an order.”
Dutch Claggett sat ramrod straight and spoke rapidly. “Sir, he couldn’t lead a three-year-old to the crapper. He treats the troops like they’re robots. He demands a lot, but he never praises even when the guys put out. That’s not the way I was taught to officer. He doesn’t listen, sir. He doesn’t listen to me, doesn’t listen to the troops. Okay, fine, he’s the CO. He owns the boat, but a smart skipper listens.”
“That’s the reason for the transfers?”
“Yes, sir. He gave the chief torpedoman a bad time—I think he was wrong. Chief Getty was showing some initiative. He had the weapons on line, he had his people well trained, but Captain Ricks didn’t like the way he did it and came down on him. I counseled against it, but the CO didn’t listen. So Getty put in for transfer, and the skipper was glad to get rid of him, and endorsed it.”
“Do you have confidence in him?” Mancuso asked.
“Technically he’s very good. Engineering-wise, he’s brilliant. He just doesn’t know people and he doesn’t know tactics.”
“He told me he wants to prove otherwise. Can he?”
“Sir, you’re going too far now. I don’t know that I have the right to answer that.”
Mancuso knew it was true, but pressed on anyway. “You’re supposed to be qualified for command, Dutch. Get used to making some hard calls.”
“Can he do it? Yes, sir. We have a good boat and a good crew. What he can’t do the rest of us will do for him.”
The Commodore nodded and went silent for a moment. “If you have any trouble with your next FitRep, I want to know about it. I think you may be a better XO than he’s entitled to, Commander.”
“Sir, he’s not a bad guy. I hear he’s a good father and all that. His wife’s a sweetie. It’s just that he never learned to handle people, and nobody ever bothered teaching him right. Despite that he is a capable officer. If he’d only give an inch on the humanity side, he’d be a real star.”
“Are you comfortable with your op-orders?”
“If we sniff out an Akula to go in and track him—safe distance and all that. Am I comfortable? Hell, yes. Come on, Commodore, we’re so quiet there’s not a thing to worry about. I was surprised Washington approved this thing, and all, but that’s bureaucratic stuff. The short version is, anybody can drive this boat. Okay, maybe Cap’n Ricks isn’t perfect, but unless our boat breaks, Popeye could do the mission.”
They put the Secondary assembly in before the Primary. The collection of lithium compounds was contained in a metal cylinder roughly the size of a 105mm artillery casing, 65 centimeters high and 11 centimeters in diameter. It even had a rim machined on the bottom end
so that it would fit in exactly the right spot. There was a small curved tube at the bottom that attached to what would soon be the tritium reservoir. On the outside of the casing were the fins made of spent uranium 238. They looked like rows of thick, black soda crackers, Fromm thought. Their mission, of course, was to be immolated to plasma. Beneath the cylinder were the first bundles of “soda straws”—even Fromm was calling them that now, though they actually were not; they were of the wrong diameter. Sixty centimeters in length, each bundle of a hundred was held together by thin but strong plastic spacers, and the bottom of each had been given a half-turn to make each bundle into a helix, a shape rather like that of a spiral staircase. The hard part in this segment of the design was to arrange the helixes to nest together perfectly. Seemingly trivial, it had taken fully two days for Fromm to figure out, but as with all aspects of his design, the pieces all fit into proper place until that portion of the design seemed a perfectly assembled mass of ... soda straws. It almost made the German laugh. With tape measure, micrometer, and an expert eye—gradation marks had been machined into many of the parts, a small detail that had impressed Ghosn very greatly indeed. When Fromm was satisfied, they went on. First came the plastic foam blocks, each cut to precise specifications. They fit into the elliptical bombcase. Ghosn and Fromm were now doing all the work. Slowly, carefully, they eased the first block into place within the flanges on the interior of the case. The straw bundles came next, one at a time, nesting perfectly with those immediately under them. At every step both men stopped to check the work. Fromm and Ghosn both checked the work, checked the plans, checked the work again, and checked the plans again.
For Bock and Qati, watching a few meters away, it was the most tedious thing they had ever seen.
“The people who do this work in America and Russia must die of boredom,” the German said quietly.
“Perhaps.”
“Next bundle, number thirty-six,” Fromm said.
“Thirty-six,” Ghosn replied, examining the three tags on the next batch of a hundred straws. “Bundle thirty-six.”
“Thirty-six,” Fromm agreed, looking at the tags. He took it and maneuvered it into place. It fit perfectly, Qati saw, coming closer. The German’s skilled hands moved it slightly, so that the slits on its plastic jigs dropped into the slots on the jigs directly underneath. When Fromm was satisfied, Ghosn looked.
“Correct position,” Ibrahim said for what must have been the hundredth time of the day.
“I agree,” Fromm announced, and both men wired it firmly into place.
“Like assembling a gun,” Qati whispered to Günther as he walked away from the worktable.
“No.” Bock shook his head. “Worse than that. More like a child’s toy.” The two men looked at each other and started laughing.
“Enough of that!” Fromm said in annoyance. “This is serious work! We need silence! Next bundle, number thirty-seven!”
“Thirty-seven,” Ghosn dutifully replied.
Bock and Qati walked out of the room together.
“Watching a woman having a baby cannot be as dreadful as this!” Qati raged when they got outside.
Bock lit a cigarette. “It isn’t. I know. Women move faster than this.”
“Indeed, that is unskilled labor.” Qati laughed again. The humor vanished, and the Commander became serious. “It’s a pity.”
“Yes, it is. They have all served us well. When?”
“Very soon.” Qati paused. “Günther, your part in the plan ... it is very dangerous.”
Bock took a long pull on his cigarette, blowing the smoke out into the chilled air. “It is my plan, is it not? I know the risks.”
“I do not approve of suicidal plans,” Qati observed after a moment.
“Nor do I. It is dangerous, but I expect to survive. Ismael, if we wanted a safe life, we would be working in offices—and we would never have met. What binds us is the danger and the mission. I’ve lost my Petra, my daughters, but I still have my mission. I do not say that this is enough, but is it not more than most men have?” Günther looked up at the stars. “I have thought often of this, my friend. How does one change the world? Not in safety. The safe ones, the timid ones, they benefit from our work. They rage at life, but they lack the courage to act. We are the ones who act. We take the risks, we face the danger, we deny ourselves for others. It is our task. My friend, it is far too late to have second thoughts.”
“Günther, it is easier for me. I am a dying man.”
“I know.” He turned to look at his friend. “We’re all dying men. We’ve cheated death, you and I. Eventually death will win, and the death we face lies not in bed. You chose this path, and so did I. Can we turn back now?”
“I cannot, but facing death is a hard thing.”
“That is true.” Günther flipped his cigarette into the dirt. “But at least we have the privilege of knowing. The little people do not. In choosing not to act, they choose not to know. That is their choice. One can either be an agent of destiny or a victim of it. Everyone has that choice.” Bock led his friend back in. “We have made ours.”
“Bundle thirty-eight!” Fromm commanded as they entered.
“Thirty-eight,” Ghosn acknowledged.
“Yes, Commodore?”
“Sit down, Harry, we need to talk over some things.”
“Well, I have the crew all ready. The sonar troops are hot.”
Mancuso looked at his subordinate. At what point, he wondered, does a positive can-do attitude become a lie? “I’m a little concerned with the transfer rate from your ship.”
Ricks didn’t go defensive. “Well, we had some guys with family concerns. No sense holding on to people whose minds are in the wrong place. A statistical blip. I had it happen once before.”
I bet you did. “How’s morale?” Mancuso asked next.
“You’ve seen the results of our drills and exams. That must tell you something,” Captain Ricks replied.
Clever son of a bitch. “Okay, let me make it clear, Harry. You had a run-in with Dr. Jones.”
“So?”
“So I talked with him about it.”
“How formal is this?”
“Informal as you like, Harry.”
“Fine. Your Jones fellow is a pretty good technician, but he seems to have forgotten the fact that he left the Navy as an enlisted man. If he wants to talk to me as an equal, it would help if he’d bothered to accomplish something.”
“That man has a doctor’s degree in physics from CalTech, Harry.”
Ricks took on a puzzled expression. “So?”
“So he’s one of the smartest people I know, and he was the best enlisted man I ever met.”
“That’s fine, but if enlisted were as smart as officers, we’d pay them more.” It was the supreme arrogance of the statement that angered Bart Mancuso.
“Captain, when I was driving Dallas, and Jones talked, I listened. If life had worked out a little different, he’d be on his XO tour right now and on his way to command of a fast-attack. Ron would have made a superb CO.”
Ricks dismissed that. “We’ll never know that, will we? I always figured that those who can, do. Those who can’t make excuses. Okay, fine, he’s a good technician. I don’t dispute that. He did good work with my sonar department, and I’m grateful for that, but let’s not get too excited. There are lots of technicians, and lots of contractors.”
This was going nowhere, Mancuso saw. It was time to lay the law down. “Look, Harry, I’m catching rumbles about morale on your boat. I see that many transfer requests, and it tells me there might be a problem. So I nose around, and my impression is confirmed. You have a problem whether you know it or not.”
“That, sir, is bullshit. It’s like the alcohol-counseling weenies. People with no drinking problem say they have no drinking problem, but the counselors say that denial of a problem is the first indication there is one. It’s a circular argument. If I had a morale problem on my boat, performance figures would show it
. But they don’t. My record is pretty clear. I drive submarines for a living. I’ve been in the top one percent of the top one percent since I put this suit on. Okay, my style isn’t the same as the next guy’s. I don’t kiss butt, and I don’t mollycoddle. I demand performance, and I get it. You show me one hard indicator that I’m not doing it right, and I’ll listen, but until you do, sir, it isn’t broke, and I’m not going to try and fix it.”
Bartolomeo Vito Mancuso, Captain (Rear Admiral selectee), United States Navy, did not come out of his chair only because his mainly Sicilian ancestry had been somewhat diluted in America. In the old country, he was instantly sure, his great-great-grandfather would have leveled his lupara and blown a wide, bloody hole through Ricks’ chest for that. Instead he kept his face impassive and coldly decided on the spot that Ricks would never get beyond captain’s rank. It was in his power to do that. He had a large collection of COs working for him. Only the top two, maybe the top three, would screen for flag rank. Ricks would be rated no higher than fourth in that group. It might be dishonest, Mancuso told himself in a moment of dispassionate integrity, but it was still the right thing to do. This man could not be trusted with command higher than he now held, and he had probably come too far already. It would be so easy. Ricks would object loudly and passionately to being rated fourth in a group of fourteen, but Mancuso would simply say, Sorry, Harry—I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with you, just that Andy, Bill, and Chuck are a little better. Just bad luck to be in a squadron of aces, Harry. I have to make an honest call, and they’re just a whisker better.