To Kill the Potemkin

17

After a week in dry dock, the welding of the bow was completed and new sonars and torpedo doors installed. Barracuda was moved to a finger pier where electricians continued to work on the circuitry.

Sorensen and Fogarty were in the control room, pulling hundreds of feet of inch-thick cable up from the torpedo room and arranging it in coils. "This is going to help you qualify in record time," Sorensen said. "You might even make second class."

Panting with exertion, Fogarty said, "Pulling cable? You're nuts. You're just trying to keep me busy, keep my mind off what's happened—"

"C'mon, quit yer bitchin'. Heave."

They grunted and moved four hundred pounds of cable six inches. Fogarty wiped his brow.

"I sure could go for a cold beer."

Sorensen dropped the cable. "That's the most sensible thing I've heard you say since you've been aboard. I could go for a dozen myself."

"You been in Rota before?"

"Once."

"What's it like?"

"It's just another scumbag Navy town, kid. Don't get your hopes up." Sorensen raised his voice. "Willie Joe."

The redhead leaned out of the sonar room.

"Yo."

"You finish the circuit test on the new down-searching array?"

"Not yet."

"Forget it. Come give us a hand."

Willie Joe picked up a coil of cable. For an hour they dragged the coils out of the ship and stacked them on the pier. When the last coil was placed on top of the pile they lounged on the pier and watched the civilians work.

A light warm rain started to fall. They could see running lights on the bay. The Russian trawler moved along its picket line from Cádiz to Rota, then turned around and went back.

"What are they so interested in?" Fogarty asked.

"The Vallejo," Sorensen replied. "What else?"

The USS Mariano G. Vallejo, a missile submarine, was berthed at the next pier. Her sixteen Polaris A-3 missiles and their warheads represented more firepower than all the bullets and bombs in all the wars in history.

One of the missile hatches was open, and a team of technicians was removing the nose cone from a missile. The yardbirds stared inside at the bundles of wires and warheads. One grinned and whooshed his hands in a gesture of explosion.

Willie Joe sat down next to Fogarty, who appeared concentrated on the big missile ship.

"Say, Fogarty," he asked, "where'd you learn that karate?"

"It's not karate, it's tae kwan do."

"Tie what? What's that?"

"Korean martial art."

"I never figured a guy like you would know that stuff."

"Oh, yeah? What kind of guy are you supposed to be to know it."

"I dunno. Mean."

"Maybe you've seen too many movies, Willie Joe."

"Did you go to a school and all like that?"

"Sure."

"Will you teach me some of those moves?" Willie Joe tried to smile, but his teeth were bad and his attempt to hide them twisted his smile into more like a smirk.

"Why do you want to learn?"

"So I can whip your ass. Why do you think?"

Before Fogarty could answer, they heard pipes followed by the quartermaster's voice blaring from the loudspeakers on the pier.

"Now hear this. Liberty call, Liberty call. Liberty for the first division will commence at twenty hundred hours. Cards will be good for twenty-four hours. Be advised that by order of the base CO, all personnel are restricted to the naval station and the town of Rota. The city of Cádiz is off limits. That is all."

"That's us," said Sorensen. "I'll buy you sweethearts a beer."

Pisaro came down the gangway hollering, "Sorensen, what are you jawing about?"

"How much we love the navy, sir!"

"Is that a fact. Listen, Ace, I want you back here tomorrow night at twenty hundred hours. Make sure you're on time."

"Aye aye, sir."

"And sober."

"Yes, sir."

By the time they changed, members of the third division were straggling in. Among them was Corpsman Luther.

"I was hoping you'd show up," Sorensen said. Luther nodded and they slipped quietly into the tiny dispensary where the medical stores were kept.

"What's happening in town, Eddie?"

"The usual. A new guy named Buzz took over the Farolito."

"What's he like?"

"He's an old bubblehead with a red nose."

"That figures."

A moment later Sorensen emerged with enough Desoxyn to keep him going all night.

"Let's go, let's go," he said, hustling up the ladder. He popped a pill into his mouth. "Where's Willie Joe?"

"He caught the bus," Fogarty said. "We have to walk."

He was getting to feel as mean as Willie Jo figured he was.

Nothing looks more like a sailor than a sailor on liberty in civilian clothes. Fogarty had the haircut, the brand-new plaid shirt from the Navy Exchange, the creased Levis, the clumsy black leather shoes, and the all-American smile. Even Sorensen, who took pains to look like anything but a GI, was doomed to failure. The wraparound sunglasses and custom-made cowboy boots helped, as did the faded jeans and Guatemalan shirt, but there was nothing he could do about his swagger or his natural tendency to walk in step with his buddy.

The main gate to the naval station was in the middle of the town. Sorensen and Fogarty flashed IDs at the American and Spanish Marine guards in the sentry box and passed through the barriers. They repeated the process at a second checkpoint manned by the Guardia Civil, policemen with three-cornered leather hats and snub-nosed machine pistols. They crossed railroad tracks and skirted around a traffic rotary that spun off cars and trucks in five directions. Directly opposite the gate, at the foot of the Avenida de Sevilla, an eight-foot painted plaster statue of the Virgin Mary looked down on them from atop a thirty-foot pedestal. A halo of blue light surrounded the head of the idol. Sorensen looked up at the Virgin's merciless eyes and said, "That tells you everything you need to know about Spanish women. You leave them alone."

They stood on the Avenida de Sevilla, rocking on their heels, surveying the scene. A string of seedy bars and cheap hotels tailed away from the gate, their faint lights barely illuminating the dank slum. The rain had stopped, and the cobbled streets glistened. Tiny trucks and motorscooters buzzed past, sending a fine spray into the night. A few sailors in white hats, and many more in civilian clothes, milled from bar to bar, sharing narrow sidewalks with whores, hustlers, priests and old women dressed in black.

"So this is Spain," said Fogarty, staring into the darkness.

"They call this the Coast of Light," Sorensen said. "Light fingers, mostly."

"So where do we go from here, Sorensen?"

"Same old drill. Get drunk, get laid, get stoned, in that order."

"That's it?"

"So what are we, tourists? C'mon."

They strolled through the Avenida de Sevilla, passing bars, cafes and bodegas. A hundred yards from the gate they stopped in front of El Farolito, "the little lighthouse," and pushed through the door.

A blast of loud rock and roll greeted them inside. They stood for a moment on a small landing, looking down into the partially subterranean bar, while their eyes grew accustomed to the cherry glow of an old diesel sub "geared for red." A white hat flew through the air and landed on a table full of beer bottles. In the rear a pair of castanets danced above a ring of clapping sailors.

Machinist's Mate Barnes reclined on the steps that led down to the saloon, playing a drunken air-guitar in accompaniment to Jimi Hendrix. They stepped over him and picked their way through the crowd to the bar.

The bartender was a blotchy man of fifty.

"Das cervezas," said Sorensen.

"You can talk American here, Mac. A Bud okay?"

"Two cold ones."

Two bottles appeared on the bar. "You fellas off the Barracuda?"

They nodded.

"Hear you're in for repairs."

More nods.

"Hear you sank a Russian boat."

Sorensen did his best to look surprised. "That so? Where'd you hear that?"

The barkeep looked around the room as if he were searching the horizon for a ship. "The word gets around. Guys from your boat been comin' in here for a week. Seems like everybody knows what you don't."

"Well," said Sorensen, "that's news to me."

"Sure, the silent service. I served in subs for thirty years, Mac. I know the score."

"So let me buy you a beer, Chief. To your happy retirement in sunny Spain."

"I never made chief. If you want to get along in here, call me Buzz."

"Okay, Buzz. Have a beer."

Buzz's face cracked a cheerless smile. "Never touch it." He moved on down the bar.

Sorensen looked at Fogarty and laughed. "You want to tell the world about the collision? Seems the world already knows. So much for navy security. If an old alky lifer knows, then everybody knows. The Russians, everybody. Drink up, Fogarty. To freedom, truth, justice and the right to know."

Sorensen threw back his head and poured down half a bottle of beer.

Fogarty looked around. It was a large L-shaped room with sawdust on the floor and a high ceiling obscured by smoke. Several of his shipmates were lying in the sawdust, some in puddles. Others were dancing to the thumping tempo of Crosstown Traffic. Here and there in booths and tables clusters of Spanish men and women aloofly watched the action. Gypsies meandered through the crowd selling switchblades and watches.

Halfway down the bar a crowd of sailors broke into a cheer. Sorensen and Fogarty edged through the crowd A spring-loaded rat trap rested on the bar. Buzz cocked it and set it in front of Willie Joe.

"Place your bets."

"Double or nothin'," someone shouted.

"Ten he makes it."

"Five he don't."

"Place your bets, let's fade the main. Ten down and five to go."

The game was simple. All Willie Joe had to do was reach in, trip the spring bar and get his fingers out of the way before they were mangled and broken.

With no hesitation Willie Joe stuck in his fingers, touched the metal bar and jerked his hand away.

Buzz cocked the trap and put down ten dollars. "All right, who's next?"

Willie Joe looked around and spotted Fogarty. "Hey, sailor, let's see if you have any guts."

"You think it takes guts to do this, Willie Joe? All it takes is stupidity—"

"You chicken?"

In a flash Fogarty had reached into the trap with his hand turned palm up and tripped the lock, caught the guillotine bar in mid-air and crushed the trap to bits in his fist. He brushed the pieces of pine and steel onto the floor.

"Willie Joe," Fogarty said, "when you can do that, I'll teach you a few moves."

Buzz wailed, "Hey, hey, you can't do that. Where am I gonna get another trap like that? That was my big money maker."

Fogarty smiled and pushed the ten-dollar bill across the bar. "I'm sure you'll think of something."

Sorensen laughed so hard he spilled his beer. "Besides," he said to Buzz, "you should be ashamed of yourself. My people can't do their jobs with busted fingers."

Fogarty went in search of the head. Sorensen popped another pill, ordered another beer and scrutinized the whores, most of whom were frumpy Englishwomen from Gibraltar. There were also a few Scandinavians, Germans and Gypsies.

"Hey there. Ace."

From across the room Lopez waved his hat. A gaudy overstuffed Gypsy perched on his lap, and two torpedo-men slumped over his table, passed out. Lopez lifted one off his chair and dropped him in the sawdust. Sorensen sat down.

"I wanna buy you a drink, hero," Lopez said.

"Why aren't you in the CPO club, boozing it up with all the other old men?"

"Because that's what they are is a bunch of old men. Hey, baby…" He grabbed at a passing barmaid and ordered, "Dos cervezas."

"You gonna get a new bug. Chief?"

Lopez crossed himself and mournfully shook his head. In rapid Spanish he told the whore the tale of the lost scorpion. She made a face and stuck out her tongue.

"Chief, what do you know about Russian torpedoes?"

"They kill you dead."

"If it's a wire-guided fish and the wire breaks, what happens?"

"I dunno. With ours, the fish dies. Motor stops and she sinks. Can't have a torpedo run wild, no no no."

"You think theirs are the same?'

"The Russians aren't stupid."

"I dunno, Chief. We're alive, they're—"

"Yeah, they're dead."

The beers arrived. "Here's to all the suckers," Sorensen toasted, "on both sides of the curtain." He wouldn't correct Lopez about the Russian sub, not until he was one hundred percent certain. Why spoil his leave?…

"Oh, que guapo guerito," said the whore, flirting with Sorensen.

"You like?" Lopez said "Take her. I give her to you as a present. You saved the fucking ship. You deserve it."

"Thanks, Chief. Maybe later."

Lopez spotted Fogarty walking back through the bar, and asked, "That the kid who did the number on Davic?"

"That's him."

"You never reported it."

"I didn't see it. There was nothing to report. Seems like you found out anyway."

"I'm chief of the boat, Sorensen."

"Did you tell Pisaro?"

"No."

"All right."

"But I will next time."

Lopez buried his face in the whore's neck and spoke into her ear. Daintily, she climbed off his lap and Lopez stood up. "Time for business," he said.

Arm in arm, Lopez and the whore headed for the door.

Sorensen waved Fogarty over to the table and ordered another beer.

"Nice party, hey, kid?"

Fogarty nodded. "It's all right."

Sorensen laughed. "Relax, Fogarty. Throw all that heavy shit out of your mind and have yourself a time. Grab one of these Brits and fuck her brains out."

"I never did a whore before."

"Bully for you. You're not queer, are you?"

"I wasn't the last time I checked."

"You're not going to ease up, are you?"

Fogarty shrugged and drank some beer.

"Fogarty, you're a good boy, aren't you? All your life you've been a good boy. I'd bet anything that you've never been in trouble. I mean, real trouble. With the police, knock up a girl, burn down the house, like that."

"No."

"You've never done a mean thing in your life, right?"

"I wouldn't say that."

"You know karate, or whatever it is, but I'd bet you never really beat anybody up."

"You'd lose."

"No kidding. Who'd you mess up?"

"My brother."

"Okay. That's not too hard to figure out. Like he beat up on you for years, so you went out and learned how to fight, then one day he picked on you and pow! Right?"

"Something like that. Pretty close."

"But you never went out on the street and kicked ass. You're not that kind of guy. You're a good boy. You believe in peace, love, all that shit."

"I don't have to prove that I can break a few bones, if that's what you mean."

"How about a few Russian bones, Fogarty? Would you break them if you had to?"

"I hope I don't have to."

"So do I, kid, and don't forget it. But the question is, what are you going to do if and when the shit comes down? Maybe deep down you didn't really want to join the navy. Maybe you wanted to stay in school. Maybe you wanted to be an electrical engineer. Am I getting through to you?"

Fogarty nodded.

"What happened? You run out of money? You flunk out, what?"

"It was the money, partly."

"Yeah, I thought so."

"I joined the navy to see the world."

"There's lots of ways to see the world, and the Submarine Service is at the bottom of the list." Sorensen smiled, pleased at his turn of phrase.

Fogarty shrugged.

"Fogarty, I'd say you're all fucked up."

"That's what I like about you, Sorensen, your delicate way of putting things… But I guess you're right. Sure, I'm all fucked up. Ditto the navy, and the world, for that matter…"

"Hey, belay that shit. You're not drunk enough yet. It'll look a lot better later. Whoa, what's this?"

Cakes Colby was headed for their table. Thumbs in his belt, hat tipped down low on his forehead, he planted himself in front of Sorensen. "There's nucs and there's pukes, and then there's you, Jack. You want some reefer?"

"What would an old Tom like you know about reefer?"

"Son, how do you think I made it through twenty-five years of fixing coffee for snotnosed officers? Everybody has to get over one way or another."