Los Angeles Class

16

"Jesus Christ, kid, what happened to you?"

Benson gaped at O'Brien. He'd scarcely recognized the nub, whose scalp was clean-shaven and polished, gleaming brightly beneath the overhead fluorescent lights.

"The Cult of Death," O'Brien said, his sepulcher tones low and measured as he sat down at the table, his food tray before him. "We have, verily, accepted our fate and are numbered now among the dead…. "

Douglas opened his mouth as if to say something, closed it, opened it again. "The Cult of what?… "

"The God of Radiation hath decreed it," O'Brien said, his eyes rolling back in his head. "I am the dead…. "

Scobey looked nonplussed. "Well, I guess the twenty-four-dollar question is, can the dead still work?"

"Until the final parting of the veil, until the final crossing of the River of Death, verily even so long as the spirit inhabits this shell, it shall perform the duties required of it."

"Shit!" Douglas said. "I think you lost your brains when you shaved your head!"

"No!" Scobey said, laughing hard. "No! This is great!"

"Zombie torpedomen," Benson said, laughing. "Does that mean we can work 'em double watches?"

"You know, I think we might be onto something here."

"I didn't know zombies had such a healthy appetite," Douglas said, nodding toward O'Brien's tray.

"No," Boyce said, "that's how you make zombies, you know. Feed 'em orange bug juice and sliders, hot off the galley grill. Turns 'em into stone, just like that!"

Scobey pinched O'Brien's arm, hard. "He ain't stone. Just zombified."

"He must've found your secret still in the torpedo room, then, Big C," Douglas said, "and been tapping the inventory. That stuff would pickle anything."

"I told you, I ain't got no still, I don't care what the tradition is."

"The radiation hath penetrated the forward compartments, and taken the first converts. But soon, verily, there shalt be more, and the Cult of Death shall increase, and verily we shalt take over the world…. "

At this point, Scobey, Benson, and the others all broke into hysterical laughter. "I think… I think we should get him a robe," Scobey said. "You know, like a magician-priest-Druid kind of thing! This is great!.. "

"Nah," Boyce said. "He'd look too much like Uncle Fester. The Addams Family?"

"He doesn't need to worry about getting gigged for no haircut, man," Benson added. "That's for damned sure!"

"Yeah," Boyce said, "and we can use his head as a mirror when we get up. It'll save us all kinds of time."

"Mirror, hell," Douglas said. "I'm gonna use his scalp for a freakin' reading lamp!"

Supper continued, with most of the commentary revolving around bald jokes, mystery radiation, and the Cult of

Death. Benson and Scobey had both decided that they wanted to be members, though Douglas had pointed out that if they were going to do that, they would have to shave their heads as well, and no one would be able to tell them apart.

"In death," O'Brien had intoned, arms crossed over his chest and eyes rolled back, "is ultimate anonymity!.. "

As they were carrying their trays back to the galley, Scobey clapped O'Brien on the shoulder. "You're okay, kid," was all he said.

"Bring forth the Crunchy Dragon Snacks!"

O'Brien had been grabbed out of his rack in the middle of the night, had his hands bound behind him, a pillowcase jammed over his head, and he'd been dragged in his boxer shorts the long way around up to the Crew's Mess. He'd been doused in a bucket of frigid seawater to "wake him up," then made to crawl on hands and knees through a passageway-turned-obstacle-course with fishnets and lengths of plastic piping.

Now he was standing and shivering with the other soaked nubs of the boat, newbies who'd never crossed the International Date Line before … Montgomery and three others who'd come aboard at Mare Island.

The Crew's Mess had been transformed, with spotlights and blue and green filters to give it an eerie, deep-sea atmosphere, and with seaweed, shells, and nets hanging everywhere — along with plenty of Japanese lanterns for a colorful, surreal touch.

The place was packed with grinning sailors, and even the boat's "special packages" and the Navy SEALs watched from the safety of the galley. Captain Gordon was present, but strictly as an observer, leaning against the forward entrance to the Crew's Mess, a cup of coffee in his hand.

Things had been arranged, though, to focus attention on the throne forward.

Master Chief Warren — O'Brien was pretty sure that's who it was from his size, age, and build — made a spectacular Golden Dragon, wearing gold bikini briefs, swim fins, and a truly bizarre, long-horned dragon mask made of what looked like papier mache. He was painted all over with gold paint, and with scales picked out in black Magic Marker. He wore gold-painted gloves with black claws, and a kind of crown made of seaweed and starfish. He was seated upon his throne — a commode from a submarine head decorated with plywood, fishing nets, and a lot of paint — and held in his hand a scepter improvised from a plumber's helper.

To either side were the "Ladies of the Court," Boyce and Benson, wearing black mop-head wigs, gold bikinis with tissue-stuffed bras, and with heavy eye makeup to give them a vaguely Oriental look. Archie Douglas was the Dragon's Special Executive Secretary in an outlandish costume that included an archaic quill pen with an immense plume. Other members of the court included Father Time — Scobey in a sheet and a long white beard — and various senior NCOs as the Seven Days of the Week.

The linoleum deck before the throne had been painted with a thick, dotted line. The word "Sunday" was painted on the Dragon's side of the line, just in front of his throne; the word "Saturday" was painted on the deck on O'Brien's side of the line.

Stepping between the nubs and the Dragon, Douglas knelt, head bowed. "O mighty Draconis orientalis rex, thou great, wise, noble, and hungry Golden Dragon of the East! The prisoners and worthless nubs come before you now, in humble supplication, begging forgiveness of their sins, and induction into the great, royal, and most secret ranks of those who have sought thee across the Mystic Line."

The dragon stood suddenly, bellowing forth a shrieking, wailing howl. "Read to us the listing of their sins!"

Rising, Douglas accepted a parchment scroll from Chief Allison, unrolled it, and began solemnly intoning the list of charges and offenses — the same offenses that had been listed on O'Brien's invitation, with a few new ones thrown in for good measure.

"These are charges most serious indeed!" Still standing, the Dragon pointed a wickedly curved claw at the nubs. "Know ye, miserable nubs, that it is never wise to meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste great when dipped in chocolate sauce!" Reaching out to either side, he grabbed Boyce and Benson by their waists, drawing them close, eliciting girlish squeals. "Know, too, that dragons are horny beasts, who like to play with their food!"

The next hour was sheer misery for the nubs. They wallowed in lime Jell-O, they crawled on hands and knees through a paddling gauntlet, they were drenched in chocolate sauce and spray-coated with whipped cream.

And they were subjected to a barrage of questions about what day it was on which side of the line, each contrived to trip them up in tumbling illogic and imponderables.

"Tell me if you can!" the dragon bellowed in his most imperious manner. "If it be Sunday in Tokyo, on this side of the line, and Saturday in San Francisco on that side of the line… well, doesn't that mean it's also Sunday in Ceylon, while it's also Saturday in Chicago? And if that be true, isn't it also true, then, that it's Sunday in London while it's Saturday in New York? And doesn't that, then mean, that it is Sunday in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and also Saturday in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean?…

"By which, of course, we see that all days are one, and time is an illusion… and you are all AWOL because you've already missed your watches tomorrow!.. "

"Captain!" Douglas called out. "We have to put these men on report!"

"I'll take that under advisement, Mr. Secretary," Gordon replied, laughing.

The Dragon extended a gold and scaly arm, pointing at O'Brien. "You! Baldy! Get down on your belly and squirm your way across the Date Line to me, that you may be recognized!"

O'Brien dropped onto the deck, which was already slick with lime Jell-O, and started crawling. The crowd was chanting, "Go, nub, go! Go, nub, go!.. "

"Crawl into tomorrow, miserable worm!" the dragon commanded.

"Captain, Sonar!" Kellerman's voice cut in, and instantly the crowd went silent.

Gordon went to a bulkhead intercom and pressed the switch. "Sonar, Captain. Whatcha got, Kellerman?"

"Contact, Captain, bearing two-zero-three, making turns for twenty knots. Sounds like our friend Sierra One is back… but he may just be passing us by."

"On my way." Gordon speared Rodriguez with a look. The sonar tech was one of the days of the week — Wednesday, as it happened — and was wearing a sheet. "Lay up to the Sonar Shack, Rodriguez. I want you on that baby."

"Aye aye, sir."

"COB, sorry, but I need you in the control room."

"Right, Skipper." The golden dragon removed its fearsome head and gloves, leaving them on a mess-room table. The ritual began to break up as both participants and onlookers headed for duty stations. Or to places where they could simply stand by. O'Brien got up off the deck, translated suddenly back to the familiar world of duty stations, boredom… and occasional moments of stark terror.

He decided to make his way forward to the torpedo room. If anything was going to happen, he wanted to be in on it, and that was his current training station.

As he hurried forward, though, squeezing past other crew- men moving swiftly through Pittsburgh's passageways, he found himself wondering what their Soviet opposite numbers in that other submarine would think if they saw Pittsburgh's crew now….

"He's definitely moving away, Captain," Rodriguez said. He was still wearing his sheet and a name tag that read "Wednesday," and presented a less than completely military look. But his voice was all crisp professionalism. "He's making turns for twenty-twenty-five knots, and he's in a hell of a hurry. I doubt that he can hear a thing at that speed."

Gordon nodded. "Okay, Wednesday. Stay on him as long as you can, and let me know if anything changes about the target. Aspect, speed, anything."

Rodriguez grinned. "You got it, Skipper."

Gordon left the sonar room and made his way back to the control room.

"Sorry to interrupt the show, Captain," Latham said.

"Not a problem. It's his fault," he said, nodding toward their unseen adversary somewhere beyond the port bulkhead and forward, "not yours."

He walked aft to the plotting tables. Latham and Master Chief Warren joined him. "I'm interested in this guy," Gordon told them. "You notice anything strange about him?"

"Well, he's in a hurry," COB said. "Not going flat out, but fast enough that it's obvious all he wants to do is get home in a hurry."

"On this course, where would home be?" COB's eyes narrowed as he studied the chart. "Maybe Petro. Pretty good chance, in fact. If not, then he's headed for Oshkosh, and that means one of the other sub bases in there. Magadan, maybe, or Vlad."

"Funny, isn't it? He comes all the way to 'Frisco and picks us up. Starts shadowing us. Then we lose him. He pokes around on that side of the Pacific for a few days, presumably looking for us… then up and tears like hell for home. Why?"

"You're saying he's going to warn them?" Latham asked, sounding puzzled.

"No. He could do that by coming shallow and sticking up a radio antenna. What if he's still hunting us?"

COB's eyes narrowed. "If that's true, it means he knows where we're going. You know, Skipper, I don't really like the implications of that."

"Nor do I, COB. Nor do I." Part of Gordon kept thinking that he was getting way too paranoid. It simply wasn't reasonable to suspect that the Russians were somehow luring Pittsburgh into a trap… that they knew where she was going, and were preparing for her arrival.

On the other hand, he was now captain of a several-hundred-million-dollar piece of United States government property. If he had reason, any reason at all to suspect an attempt to damage, capture, or otherwise dispose of that property, he was going to sit up and take notice.

Unfortunately, the mission he'd been handed required that he take his boat into one of the narrowest, most closely guarded stretches of water in the world, then bring her out again, a risky enough proposition no matter what the enemy knew or was trying to do.

If they knew Pittsburgh was coming, the job was damned near hopeless.

"Right," Chief Allison said. "What happens when the skipper calls down, 'Snapshot, two-one'?"

"Uh… it means the enemy has fired a torpedo at us," O'Brien said, "and we're going to try to launch one back before we're hit. We'll fire tube two, then tube one, and do it without waiting for a complete firing solution."

"Correct. What's 'polishing the cannonball'?"

"Polishing Baldy's head," TM2 Doershner put in.

"Ignore the jerk," Allison said. "Answer the question."

"That's where the Weapons Officer is working and working and working on a firing solution," O'Brien said, "trying to make it better and better, to the point that you might lose your opportunity for a shot. TVot," he added, "a smart idea."

"Never mind the commentary, nub," Allison said. "Just answer the damned questions."

O'Brien grinned. Chief Allison's caustic and often profane comments were an accepted part of life now, a guarantee that all was right with the world. "Aye aye, Chief."

He was still a nub, but he was an accepted nub. Shaving his head had proven that he could take a joke, and even turn it back on the perpetrators. The hazing had decreased significantly since they'd crossed the Line, and with a few exceptions, people called him by name now instead of "Nub," "Useless," or "Hey, you." He sensed the transformation as a kind of internal flowering, an inner growth or expansion that left him feeling like one of the guys… and damned good.

The torpedo room, as always, was crowded, holding as it did not only the regular compartment watch, but four SEALs and four spooks, who had to hot bunk over the Mark 48s in a system guaranteed to make sure none of them got much sleep.

One of the SEALs, the black guy seated on a rack above a torpedo, chuckled.

"What's so funny, frog-face?" Allison demanded.

"Polishing cannonballs," Fitch replied, grinning. "That's a good one."

"Like taking too long to take your shot," Nelson, another SEAL, said.

"So… what is idea, here?" Sergei asked. "Is some kind of class, yes?"

"All nubs have to pass their qualifying exams in each department aboard the boat," Benson replied. "He's finished with Sub School, but it'll take him another year to make a real submariner out of him."

"'Nub'?" Johnson asked.

"Non-Useful Body," TM2 Doershner explained. "On a submarine with a hundred and some crewmen, you don't have room for any nonessential personnel. Right now, Baldy here is a waste of perfectly good oxygen. But he'll learn."

"Everybody aboard knows at least something about every other job. The cooks know how to fight fires or give first aid. A torpedoman can stand a quartermaster's watch… or lend a hand in the reactor compartment aft. This is no place for supernumeraries."

"You mean, folks like us," Mr. Smith, the other American agent said, grinning.

"Well, now that you mention it," Chief Allison said, "yeah."

"What amazes me," Sergei said, shaking his head, "is how much responsibility ordinary seamen have aboard American submarine. In my country, officer runs torpedo room. Officers only man sonar watches. Officers only man key posts in control room. American sailors are trusted with more information, more responsibility than in Soviet Union."

"American sailors are better educated," Doershner said.

"No, this is not true," Grigor, the other Russian national, replied. "What is true is bureaucracy tends toward… how you say? Top-heavy."

"Well," Allison said, "we have that problem, too, in Washington. But on board the Pittsburgh, it's the enlisted men who make things happen."

"We know more, too," O'Brien put in. "I heard they never tell Russian enlisted men anything. But on an American sub—"

"Yeah?" Doershner said. "What do you know about this mission, nub?"

"I know we're headed for Oshkosh," O'Brien replied. "And probably we're going to be poking in and around real close to the coast, somewhere around northern Sakhalin Island, maybe."

"That is not a topic for discussion!" Johnson said, sitting upright so suddenly his head rammed the bottom of the rack above him like a bell. "Shit!"

"You okay, there, Mr. Johnson?" Chief Allison asked.

"Yeah." Gingerly, he rubbed his head. He shot an angry glance at O'Brien. "You're not supposed to know things like that!"

O'Brien shrugged. "I heard it from one of the quartermasters," he said. "He sees the charts, works with 'em every day."

"It's common knowledge on the boat, Mr. Johnson," Benson added. "Hell, we all know where we're headed, more or less. And the fact that you guys are on board tells us we're gonna slip in close to the shore."

"I'm going to have to speak to the captain about this."

"Aw, can it, Mr. Johnson," Chief Allison said. "Who are we gonna tell, anyway?"

"That doesn't matter. Does every man on this ship know the details of our mission? Fuck! He—"

"This secrecy shit is getting on my nerves," Lieutenant Randall said. He'd been sitting on one of the aft bunks, listening, saying nothing, which made the interruption that much more startling. "Look, we have three different groups here. CIA—"

"Who says we're CIA?" Johnson demanded. He seemed startled at the revelation.

"C'mon. You're not Military Intelligence, and certainly not Naval Intelligence, or you wouldn't call this vessel a 'ship.' I suppose you could be NSA. The 'Never Say Anything' boys might have active field operations units no one knows about, but generally they're concerned with electronic intelligence and not gathering intelligence from the field, SIGINT instead of HUMINT. The CIA's Directorate of Operations is pretty well known for the games it plays, though. And you boys were all trained at Camp Perry, I was told."

"What's Camp Perry?" O'Brien asked.

"They call it 'The Farm,' " Randall replied. "It's a big, closely guarded compound, mostly woods, in Virginia just outside of Williamsburg. The Agency runs it as a training camp for agents and field officers, including, among other things, a complete mock-up of an Eastern European town, complete with a border crossing. Some SEALs have trained there for special ops we don't talk about."

"You shouldn't be talking about this," Johnson said, angry.

"If you're not CIA," Randall asked pleasantly, "why are you upset? This information is not classified, by the way. It's been circulating in books available to the public for the past five or ten years at least. But the Agency still doesn't like to talk about it, right, Mr. Johnson?"

"Lots of people train at The Farm," Smith added, "under Agency auspices. That doesn't mean we are CIA."

"Okay, okay," Randall said, raising a hand. "It doesn't matter. What I was trying to say is that we have three groups of people here — you spooks, whatever alphabet-soup agency you really work for, our submariner friends here, and us SEALs. All three of us are on the same side, and all three of us know how to keep a secret." He winked at O'Brien. "This is the Silent Service, right, son?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Listen," Benson said abruptly. "I've got a question, something that's been bothering me for a long time, okay? And maybe you guys can answer it for me."

"If it's not classified," Randall said, his tone bantering. It sounded as though he enjoyed yanking Johnson's chain.

"Yes, sir. I understand that. But, well, it's more philosophical than practical, if you know what I mean."

"Whoa, there," Doershner said. "We got us a genu-wine philosopher on board!"

"Stuff it, Doershner. It's like this. Ever since I joined the boats, I've heard stories about American submarines moving into Russian and Chinese waters, getting in real close, I mean, right up to their port cities, sometimes. I've heard stories of SEALs and Navy divers going in to actually examine Russian ships up close, or tapping underwater cables. I heard they did that right here in Oshkosh, where we're going."

"It was only because a traitor sold secrets to the Russians that anyone knows about that," Smith said.

"Whatever. On our last mission out here, the 'Burgh went into Oshkosh and provided some sort of distraction. I haven't heard any skinny on what the mission was all about, but scuttlebutt has it that we were providing a diversion for some other classified operation in the area, maybe getting the Russians to chase us instead of some other boat, if you know what I mean."

"Damn it, sailor, you are not supposed to—"

"Let him talk, Johnson," Randall said. "We all know more than you people would like us to. Let's hear what he has to say."

"I'm just wondering," Benson said in a rush, as though trying to get the words out before someone stopped him, "what right we have to do these kinds of things. I mean, what if a Russian submarine came into San Francisco Bay, and sent divers up the Mare Island Channel to look at our boats? Wouldn't we be damned mad about that? Wouldn't we demand an apology, or something?

"And if we caught a Russian sub in there, wouldn't we try to sink it, and maybe start a war? I mean, it would be like an invasion or something, wouldn't it?"

"That's the way the game is played, kid," Johnson said with a shrug.

"Yeah, we've been doing this sort of thing since the late 1940s," Chief Allison said. Johnson gave him a dark look, but he kept talking. "American subs have been operating in Russian waters since the fifties. Old news."

"What makes you think the Russians haven't been doing just that?" Randall asked.

"You mean… they are?" O'Brien asked, shocked.

Randall appeared to turn something over in his mind, as though trying to decide what to say. "Um, let's just say that there are cases where the Soviets have entered our territorial waters, even come ashore on our territory. And we've done the same. But intelligence gathering is absolutely vital. Think of it this way. We have two guys who don't like each other, each one with a loaded pistol up against the other guy's head. The first guy is thinking something like, 'I don't want to fire first, but if I think he's going to fire, I'll have to fire first.' And the second guy is thinking exactly the same thing.

"Now, if the first guy knows what the second guy is thinking, he won't shoot. He might even take a bit of pressure off the trigger. If someone who knows the second guy comes and whispers in the first guy's ear, 'don't worry, he's just as scared as you are, and won't shoot unless he thinks you will,' well, that might make the first guy relax, just a little. Maybe he might even suggest the two of them talk about their differences… maybe get the other guy to agree that both of them should aim their pistols up in the air instead of at each other's heads.

"Of course, a lot of intelligence work has to do not so much with what the other guy is thinking as what he has. How good his ships and submarines are. How well his supply network and logistics work. How fast his response time is to a threat. The more we know about what he's capable of, the less likely we are to panic, assume he has an overwhelming advantage, and pull the trigger."

"Hear, hear," Chief Allison said, laughing. "And the submarine service leads the way, defenders of world peace!"

"Truck drivers," Johnson and Randall said in unplanned unison. The two looked at each other, and then laughed. Most of the men in the compartment joined in.

"Spooks!" Chief Allison said with a snort. "You wouldn't get there without the truck drivers, that's for damned sure!"

"It still just doesn't seem right," Benson said as the laughter died. "I mean, you keep hearing, on TV and stuff, about how one mistake could touch off a nuclear war. Well, doesn't it make sense not to provide the other guy with an excuse to start shooting?"

"There have been shots fired," Randall told him. "And people have died."

"There've been mistakes, too," Allison said. "Lots of times when one side's submarine was following a boat from the other side, got too close, and bumped. Hell, just last year, the Augusta bumped into a Russian missile sub in the Atlantic… and there's a story going around about a British boat, the Splendid, that got too close to a Soviet Typhoon right inside one of the Russian's bastions. The Typhoon brushed the Splendid, and snagged one of her towed sonar arrays."

"There've been incidents, sure," Randall added. "But they've been smoothed over. Both sides know how important it is not to overreact." He shrugged. "Maybe it's even done some good. Now that Gorbachev is in power in Moscow, the Russians have seemed a lot more willing to talk."

"You don't look convinced, Benson," O'Brien said.

"I dunno. I just keep wondering what we'd do if a Russian sub got caught in the Chesapeake Bay."

"Sink her, of course," Chief Allison said. "The idea is to sneak in and not be caught."

"But if it's a game, like Mr. Johnson says…. "

"It's a very serious, very deadly game," Randall said. "And all results are final."

"I find it fascinating," Sergei said, "that your sailors can question orders."

"American sailors are not robots, Sergei," Chief Allison said. "We're allowed to think what we want."

"It seems like anarchy way of doing things…."

"Torpedo Room, Conn," a voice cut in over the intercom. "Chief Allison, you there?"

"Allison here, Mr. Walberg."

"Heads up down there. We're having to maneuver. We have multiple targets, and things could get tight."

"Aye, sir. We're ready, warshots loaded."

When no further communications were forthcoming, Allison looked at the others, shrugged, and hung up the microphone. "On the other hand," he said, "sometimes they don't tell us nothin'!"

A few moments later, they heard a gentle but persistent throbbing sound that seemed to be coming from ahead and above. All eyes went to the overhead as the sound grew louder, stronger, and slowly churned overhead.

"ASW frigate," Doershner said softly.

"Nah," Allison said, listening. "Bigger. Cruiser. Maybe a Kresta____"

A sharp, metallic ping echoed through the torpedo room, a shrill chirp that left behind wavering, fading echoes.

"Whoever he is," Doershner said, "he's hunting active."

"What … what is that?" Smith wanted to know.

"Active sonar, Mr. Smith," Allison said. "He sends out a pulse of sound, and listens to the echoes that come back. One of those echoes is us."

"Then he knows we're here?"

"Maybe. And maybe the skipper's managed to tuck us in close enough to the bottom that we're lost in the ground clutter. Or maybe that ping is from an emitter trailing below a thermal, and the echoes'll be lost and scattered."

"So what do we do?" Johnson asked. He was clearly frightened.

"Is same in all submarine navies," Sergei said with a fatalistic shrug. He locked eyes with Allison, who nodded. "We wait… and pray."

Another ping rang through the compartment like a high-pitched, tolling bell.