100 Fathoms Below

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Still groggy after a restless sleep, Jerry White brushed his teeth over one of the stainless steel sinks in the head. He studied his reflection in the mirror. There were heavy bags under his eyes—evidence for all to see that he hadn’t slept well. He had gotten only an hour or two during his sleep section. His last encounter with Lieutenant Duncan had kept playing in his mind, keeping him awake. He hadn’t hesitated to follow an order in the control room, not even for a second. He was sure of it. He was a better planesman than that. But Duncan had it in for him, and he was going to see flaws in everything Jerry did, no matter what, because he blamed Jerry for the end of Lieutenant Commander Leonard’s navy career.

You’re on mighty thin ice—wouldn’t take much for you to fall through.

Christ, would he ever get to put USS Philadelphia behind him? That was why he had turned down Tim’s suggestion to go to the COB about Duncan. He just wanted a fresh start, a clean slate, but it seemed the universe had other ideas. Charles Duncan and Frank Leonard were buddies? What were the odds?

In his mind, he saw Lieutenant Commander Leonard’s face again, red with rage, spittle flying as he yelled at Jerry.

It was you who filed that complaint, White? You stupid son of a bitch. It’s going to hurt your buddy MacLeod a lot worse than it hurts me!

Jerry tried to shake the image out of his head.

He had spent the section before his rack time as part of a search party scouring the submarine for Steve Bodine. Lieutenant Commander Jefferson had put every available sailor on the job, letting them know Bodine was sick and possibly delirious. They had searched Roanoke from top level to bottom—even the nuclear reactor compartment and the maneuvering room in the aft section—but they hadn’t found him. It was clear that Bodine, in his delirium, was hiding from them, moving from space to space to avoid being found. But how could someone that sick move around quickly enough not to be discovered? And how could he stay hidden for so long on a vessel with so few places to hide?

But the worst part was that Jerry’s suspicions had been confirmed. First Stubic was sick, now Bodine. Something bad was going around—something that made men lose their minds and act erratically, even violently. How many other men on Roanoke had caught it? How many of his fellow sailors were ticking time bombs waiting to go off? That thought had kept him awake too.

He stowed his toothbrush and toothpaste away in his dopp kit, checked his coveralls in the mirror, and left the head, exiting through the hatch into his berthing area. Whereas the officers had their own staterooms, where most of them slept three to a room, the enlisted men had expansive spaces at the center of the middle level that were closed off with curtained doorways and filled with triple-decker bunks. Because a third of the enlisted men were asleep at any given hour, the only lights in the berthing areas were small red fluorescents near the doorways. Inside, the berthing area held four rows of bunks, with two rows built directly into the bulkheads, and another two rows bolted to the deck between them. Several sailors were milling about near the bunks, some getting ready to turn in for their six-hour sleep sections, others vacating their racks and preparing for their watches. Standing beside his bunk, Jerry opened the coffin locker under his rack, stowed his kit, and checked the time. His watch section started in nine minutes. Plenty of time to get to the control room.

Behind him, one of the sailors hissed a sharp, angry whisper and banged his fist on his bunk. Jerry turned around and saw a broad-­shouldered machinist’s mate wearing a T-shirt and sweats. He pounded on the metal frame of the top rack, where the curtain was still closed.

“Come on, asshole!” the sailor said.

“Is everything all right?” Jerry asked.

“Mind your business, White,” the sailor snapped.

Fine, fuck you, Jerry thought, turning away again. He had enough on his mind already.

The sailor banged on the bunk again. Jerry tried to ignore it.

“Rise and shine, lazy-ass,” the machinist’s mate said. “It’s my turn to sleep, so get your dead ass up.” There was no answer from the rack. “Okay, you asked for it. I’m opening the curtain. If you’re pullin’ your pud in there, get ready to say ‘cheese’!”

Jerry heard the rustling of the curtain being pushed aside, then a shocked gasp from the machinist’s mate. He spun around and saw the man take a step back from the bunk and cross himself. Jerry went over and looked inside the narrow rack.

Steve Bodine stared back at him. His face glistened with sweat, and the flesh under his bloodshot eyes was puffy and dark. Bodine didn’t say anything. He stared back, slack-jawed and dull-eyed, as though he didn’t recognize Jerry, despite having sat next to him in the control room during every one of his watch sections. Big drops of sweat ran down his forehead. In the red light of the berthing area, it looked almost like blood.

“Jesus,” Jerry murmured. Then, louder, to the machinist’s mate, “Get Matson!”

The sailor ran off. Crewmen in their racks pulled aside their curtains to see what all the noise was about. Several enlisted men gathered around the bunk, gawking.

“Careful,” Jerry told them. “We don’t know if he’s contagious.”

That was enough to draw them all back a few paces. Jerry took a step back too, just in case.

“Bodine, you all right, man?” Jerry asked. “Where have you been? We’ve been turning the boat inside out looking for you.”

But the helmsman continued to stare right through him, his breath coming short and fast.

Matson and the machinist’s mate came running into the berthing area. Matson, medical kit in hand, pushed his way through the gawkers, ordering them to get back. Jerry stepped aside to let him get closer to Bodine.

“He’s hyperventilating,” Matson said. “Bodine, can you hear me? How are you feeling?”

Bodine didn’t respond or even show any indication he knew that Matson was there. Matson pulled a penlight from his medical kit and shined it in Bodine’s eyes.

Bodine erupted, screaming and thrashing in his rack. He slapped at Matson, trying to knock the light away. When Matson turned off the light again, Bodine whimpered and calmed down.

“What the hell was that?” Jerry asked.

“I don’t know,” Matson said. “Extreme light sensitivity? An involuntary reaction to stimulus? He’s obviously got a fever, so it could be delirium from that.”

Bodine’s arm shot out of the rack, and he seized Matson by the wrist. The corpsman yelped in alarm and pain. The sailors surrounding them gasped, and some jumped back.

“Get him off me!” Matson yelled.

Jerry grabbed Bodine’s arm and jerked his hands back in surprise. Bodine’s skin was hot, much hotter than any fever Jerry had ever known. He took hold of Bodine’s arm again and pulled. Bodine’s grip on Matson’s wrist was like iron, and it took several tries to pry him loose. When Matson was free, he stepped back, rubbing his wrist and staring in shock at Bodine. The helmsman started to slide forward out of the rack, a strange, predatory grin on his face.

“Hold him!” Matson shouted, and started fishing through his medical bag.

Jerry grabbed Bodine, but the helmsman was far stronger than Jerry would have guessed. He almost knocked Jerry aside, until the machinist’s mate leaped forward and helped Jerry keep Bodine in his rack.

Matson felt in his kit and took out a hypodermic syringe, already filled with a clear liquid. He pulled the cap off with his teeth, then sank the needle into the flesh of Bodine’s arm. He pushed the plunger all the way down, but whatever was in the syringe seemed to have no effect. Bodine squirmed and kicked and tried to break free.

“Shit!” Matson growled. He pulled a second, identical hypodermic out of his kit and injected its contents in Bodine’s other arm. This time, Bodine went slack. Jerry let go, and the machinist’s mate stepped back, wide-eyed with shock, wiping Bodine’s sweat from his palms onto his T-shirt.

“I don’t understand,” Matson said, dropping the syringes back in his kit. “There was enough sedative in the first shot to knock out a sailor twice his size.”

He shined his penlight into the rack again. Despite Bodine’s display of almost superhuman strength, he was in bad shape. His face was an ashen gray, and he was as drenched as if he had just been fished out of the ocean. His pulse throbbed weakly under the glistening skin of his neck.

“Is he going to be all right?” Jerry asked.

Matson didn’t answer him. He grabbed a stethoscope from his kit, put the eartips in his ears, and held the diaphragm to Bodine’s chest. He listened for several seconds.

“The heartbeat is weak. His breathing is fast and erratic.” Matson pulled the eartips out of his ears and draped the stethoscope over his neck. “It’s definitely a fever. I can tell that much, at least.”

He held up each of Bodine’s limp hands. On the knuckles and back of his right hand were several dark-red cuts. Just like how Jefferson had described Stubic’s hand, Jerry realized. Matson gently lowered Bodine’s hand again.

“I heard about the broken light in the bottom-level corridor,” Matson said. “I suppose that was Bodine’s handiwork.”

“So he’s got the same thing Stubic did?” Jerry asked.

“Almost certainly. I can’t leave him here with the other crewmen. He’ll have to be quarantined. I’ll talk to Lieutenant Commander Jefferson about setting up a suitable space.”

Jerry looked at the time and realized he was about to be late for his watch section. Damn. Lieutenant Duncan was the watchstanding diving officer, and the last thing Jerry needed was to give the man more ammunition against him.

“I’ve got to report to the control room,” he told Matson.

“Thanks for your help, White,” Matson said. “I’ve got it from here. With luck, we may have just saved this man’s life.”

Jerry glanced at Bodine again. The helmsman’s chest was rising and falling rapidly. Sweat pooled in the hollow of his throat. Jerry hoped Matson was right, because Bodine looked to be at death’s door.