To Kill the Potemkin

26

Twenty-two hours had passed since contact was lost with Potemkin. Barracuda had continued southwest at full speed, stopping frequently to clear baffles, and now was one hundred miles south of the Azores.

"Prepare for all stop. We're going to transmit a position report."

"Aye aye, sir."

"Control to engineering, all stop."

A moment later the roar of Barracuda's propulsion plant slackened, and the ship rocked in its own turbulence.

"Control to sonar. Clear baffles."

"Sonar to control. Clearing baffles, aye."

Barracuda circled and Sorensen echo-ranged three hundred sixty degrees.

"Sonar to control. All clear."

"Very well, sonar. Radio depth. Take us up, Leo."

Above on the surface it was seven minutes after midnight. May 21. A new year greeted the ancient sky whose stars gleamed like pearls above the clean ocean air. To the west, America tossed and turned in troubled sleep. Much farther west, in southeast Asia, soldiers died in the noonday sun. To the east in the Soviet Union tank battalions prepared for the invasion of Czechoslovakia, scheduled for later in the summer. Much farther east. Red Guards burned books in the Great Square of Peking.

They were far into the Atlantic now, alone in the great ocean. Sorensen heard no ships, no whales, no sign of life. Alone. Fogarty was in the control room, learning from Hoek how to track a target on the weapons console. Sorensen felt weary. He had sat through three consecutive watches and was an hour into a fourth, obstinately refusing to relinquish the console to less experienced hands while there was a possibility of Barracuda chancing on the Alpha. The cards, he thought, were in Barracuda's favor. The North Atlantic was the U.S. Navy's mare nostrum. They could track the Alpha just about all the way to Murmansk if they had to. Of course the closer they came to Mother Russia, the greater the risk. Not that the tracking itself wasn't a risk. But that was the order — track, observe, photograph. Aye aye, sir.

A moment later Barracuda's radio antenna broke the surface and a message flashed the ship's position to Norfolk. A radio operator in Virginia immediately sent a reply. Springfield and Pisaro decoded the message in the captain's cabin.

"We hit the bull's-eye! Dherzinski's coming right at us. She must be going for a rendezvous with the Alpha. We're going to catch up with them both."

Pisaro sounded more excited than any time Springfield could remember. He tried to sound especially calm as he said, "Call the officers into the ward room. We need to brief everyone. Meanwhile, set course two three zero. All ahead full. Let's not waste time."

Lt. Hoek went directly from the officers' briefing to the sonar room, where he found Sorensen mesmerized by the blank screen.

"You trying to set a world record for consecutive watches, Ace? You've been in here for thirteen hours."

"What's the word from Norfolk, Lieutenant?"

"They picked up the Alpha three hours ago. She was two hundred twelve miles southwest of our present position."

"That it?"

"No. They found traces of titanium in the hull sections cut out of the bow."

"Titanium? Son of a bitch. That explains how they go so deep and how they survived the collision. Titanium, Jesus, that stuff is unbelievably hard. What else, Lieutenant?"

"They're tracking Dherzinski. She's coming this way."

"Dherzinski? That's the Cuban boat. We put a tail on her for a couple of days last year. Lord, talk about out of the frying pan into the fire. Do you know what this means, Lieutenant?"

"You're goddamn right I know what it means."

"The Russians aren't going to like this."

"Well, tough shit for them. They've been throwing their weight around, it's time we get them to back down… Look, Ace, you're beat. Willie Joe is on his way in. Take a break, get outta here."

"Aye aye, sir."

"By the way, I heard a rumor about a new batch of plutonium wine back in engineering."

"No shit? Is it any good?"

"Is what any good? I didn't say anything."

Sorensen stood up, stretched, went out and shut the door and paused in the control room to watch Fogarty practice on the weapons console. In the center of the CRT a pulsing red blip simulated a target, a Soviet FBM. Red speckles danced in Fogarty's eyes as he jabbed a finger at his keyboard.

The red blip disappeared. "Very good, Fogarty. Only, that time we nuked ourselves too. That gets you a posthumous Navy Cross and your kid can go to the Naval Academy."

Unaware that Sorensen had been observing him, Fogarty swiveled around in his seat. "If we ever get the order… well, there won't be a Naval Academy."

"So, what are we now, kid? Kamikazes?"

"It's just the simulator, Sorensen. Like you like to say, cool it."

"Yeah, right. In a few hours you won't need a simulator. You're going to have a real boomer on the screen. You'd better pull all the Soviet FBM tapes. You'll like the Dherzinski tape. I made it last year."

Sorensen shuffled through the passageways to the engine room, where Chief Wong gave him a Dixie cup of distilled grapefruit juice.

"Happy days, Chief. Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

Sorensen drained the cup and Wong gave him another. "How come you're so jazzed on this Alpha, Sorensen? It ain't nothin' but another boat."

"Maybe you're right, Chief. I hope you're right."

"I mean, this is for officers, not for us. I know you're pals with that cherry admiral, what's his name?"

"Netts."

"Yeah, him, Netts. I'll bet a dollar against your dime that he's never told you the whole story. And probably even Springfield isn't telling the whole story, although he's a good guy. Why sweat it? Sorensen, you been around for a long time. You know nothin' is what it looks like. You should follow your own advice. Leave your mind behind. Jack."

Sorensen smiled. "Just keep up a good head of steam. Chief. We may have to drive all the way to Murmansk."

He continued aft to Sorensen's Beach, snapped on the sunlamps, put on his wraparound Italian sunglasses, stripped off his jumpsuit and began doing pushups in his red Bermudas.

"One two, one two, one two…"

He wanted to flush the Russians out his pores. After five minutes he stopped, opened the cabinet and pulled out the deck chair. Casually, he unfolded the chair, set it on the deck and dug into the stock of magazines.

As he was about to sit down he glanced down — and there was long lost Zapata.

The scorpion eyed him, tail aquiver.

"Jesus H. Christ, I almost sat on you."

He didn't know whether to kill it, catch it or walk out and leave it. Before he could make up his mind, Zapata scrambled off the chair and disappeared under the pipes at the rear of the compartment.

Sorensen got down on hands and knees and searched the shadows under the machinery, but the little arachnid was invisible. Cautiously, he backed up to the chair and stretched out, keeping one eye on the pipes beyond his feet.

"I'll make a deal with you, bug. You stay out of sight and I won't step on you."

The heat from the lamps felt good. After a few minutes of lying perfectly still, Sorensen noticed the scorpion crawling out of the shadow of a pipe. It came to rest in a pool of warm light.

"You little devil. I get it," said Sorensen to Zapata. "You found your way in here because it's warm. Those steam pipes are real cozy, aren't they? Like the desert. I bet you miss the desert. Hot sand, cactus, real rocks, lots of bugs to eat. Maybe I should take you down to Mexico and turn you loose on a pyramid. Would you like that, or would you rather go back and live with Lopez in the torpedo room? You don't have to make up your mind until we get back to Norfolk, but you can't stay on this boat. She's going into the yard. They're going to cut her into pieces, rip her guts out and use her for target practice. The only Barracuda left will be this one right here." Sorensen tapped himself on his tattoo, and suddenly felt foolish. The scorpion must think he was a jerk. Don't rat on me, you scorpion. You do and you'll be a damn scorpion-rat. Now there's a combo for you…

He grabbed a magazine. National Geographic. Clean, slick. He flipped through it, knowing he would never find the article he wanted to read… "Inside the Newest Soviet Submarine — the Alpha, a Marvel of the Deep." He wondered what its name was. The Russians named their subs for cities or heroes of the People. They didn't have one named Joseph Stalin, so maybe that was it. After all, it had sounded like a tank division. Whatever had made it quiet at first had stopped working for good — he caught himself. He had hoped he could forget about the Russians for an hour but apparently he couldn't. Whenever he pushed them out of his mind for five minutes, one popped up again where he wasn't expected — sort of like old Zapata there.

It was, it seemed, finally getting to him. He had left his mind behind a long time ago, and it occurred to him that if he stayed underwater much longer he would damn well lose it forever. As a young man, hardly more than a boy, he had found a perfect niche for his talent. His temperament was suited to life underwater. He enjoyed it so much he never pulled back and questioned it. Now, for the first time in his life he was confused by doubts. By tears. Yes, the Ace was afraid. He began to speak again to Zapata.

"Listen up, bug. They want to make me chief of the boat. What do you make of that? If I was chief, for once things would get done right. No Muzak on my boat, no way. And no bullshit, definitely no bullshit. Better movies too. And Star Trek every day if I want it. Man, being chief is better than being captain. I would own the pharmacist's mate. The supply officer would be mine.

"Would you like to hear a secret? I'll tell you why I really joined the navy. When I was a kid in Oakland my dad used to take me to watch the Giants play in old Seals Stadium in San Francisco. We'd go to watch Willie Mays. Willie was different. He was the best. He never let up and never gave less than one hundred percent. When he stepped between the white lines he was all there, and I wanted to be like him. One day we drove across the bridge to watch the Giants and the Cardinals. Bob Gibson hung a curve ball and Willie sent it into the parking lot. After the game we found the ball lying on the front seat of our car. Willie had smashed the windshield five hundred feet from home plate. That busted windshield was like a monument to true greatness, and we drove downtown with the wind of Willie's bat in our faces.

"After the game we went downtown to eat. Market Street was always jammed with sailors from Hunter's Point. I thought they were pretty sharp in their uniforms and cocky hats. They all had Lucky Strikes stuffed into their jumper pockets, and they strutted up and down the sidewalk like recruiting posters. On the day that Willie hit that home run I knew I'd never be a ballplayer, so in the back of my mind I figured the next best thing was to be a sailor. So, here I am, and you want to know something? I'm the best at what I do. Like Willie. I ain't braggin', it's the truth. Anyway, there's no one here but you and me, right?… Except just what do I have to show for it? Ten years underwater, an ex-wife, string of dockside whores, binges, brawls and a bunch of stripes down my arm. Nothing fixed, no lady. In this life nothing matters except the ship, a set of earphones and the screen. Well, they're taking the ship away and want to give me a new one. I've done my bit, just like Barracuda. Me and the ship, we're finishing together… That Netts, he's trying to jack me off with his line of baloney. He knows I can make thirty, forty grand a year in any sound studio in the world, so he wants to make me chief of the boat. Wang it, Netts. Chief of the boat and then what? Another five years of Cowboys and Cossacks? Making the world safe for World War Three?… Well, old buddy, I ain't gonna be no chief of no boat. Fuck no. I'll get my own studio somewhere. Sorensen Sound, three hundred dollars an hour. Not bad. Right on Market Street. No more chasing around. Besides, nobody in his right mind wants to live underwater. So why am I doing this?" He grinned. "I know why, because I'm alive down here. I also love it. Well, I'd better learn to live topside, love something else."

Sorensen noticed that Zapata was ignoring him. "Listen up, bug. I'm talking to you. I've done my job, this kid Fogarty has talent, let him be the new Sorensen, ace of the fleet. The next ten years can be his. I don't need any more Cowboys and Cossacks. You and me, Zapata, we're going to fade into the goddamn sunset…"

Sorensen closed his eyes and for the first time in years slept without nightmares. Zapata basked silently in the light, observing him.