Seawolf Mask of Command (32 page)

Kristen realized she was still staring and averted her eyes, reminding herself to start breathing again. Then she saw his left bicep. But it wasn’t the clearly defined musculature that caught her eye, it was a tattoo on his arm.

She turned her head and stepped into the bathroom, shocked at what she’d just discovered. She climbed into the shower, her mind swimming with visions. An array of strange and conflicting emotions was assaulting her normally disciplined and perfectly logical train of thought. She scrubbed down, as if trying to wash the image imprinted in her mind from her. She’d seen that arm and more specifically, that tattoo before.

Avdentes fortuna juvat.

It was Latin, and now that she’d seen it again, she knew exactly where she’d seen it before. Memories of falling asleep in the wardroom the night before her failed attempt at the engineering exam flooded her mind. She’d dreamed about that incident ever since. She’d dreamed about powerful arms carrying her, and that tattoo.

She finished her shower, having been unable to wash the memories of that night away. The fact that it had been Brodie all along who’d been looking out for her caused her no small amount of confusion as she tried to sort it all out. She toweled off and dressed quickly, pushing her still wet hair back behind her, and then wiped everything down before trying to quietly slip out of the cabin without being noticed.

As she stepped from the bathroom, she saw the XO was now in the cabin. Brodie, still stripped to the waist and looking like some Greek god, was leaning over the small table staring at a chart.

“We’re already running a drill every watch, Sean,” the XO said softly.

“I know, but this nightmare just keeps getting worse,” Brodie replied with more strain in his voice than she’d ever heard from him.

The two men then noticed her and glanced her way.

“How was your rotation in sonar, Lieutenant?” Brodie asked, his voice returning to normal.

“It was fine, sir,” she replied, forcing her eyes to stare at the map and not him.

“Chief Miller says you’ve a real touch for the business,” Graves added as he nodded a polite greeting to her.

Kristen saw the map was of the Sea of Japan and the North Korean coast.

“Sorry to disturb you, gentlemen,” she apologized, stepped back out into the passageway, and closed the door, thankful to be out without any further discussion. Once in the passageway, she paused and took a deep breath.

You’re tired!
You just need to get some sleep!

Kristen returned to her makeshift cabin. She dried her hair and, despite her fatigue, took the time to braid it. She found the familiar and methodical routine helped to settle her down and allowed the strange sensation within her to fade. Unfortunately, it didn’t help her purge the images of Brodie from her mind.

He’s your captain!

But captains weren’t supposed to look like him.

USS Nimitz

R
ear Admiral Lionel Mitchell stood on the flag bridge and watched the coastline of Indonesia to the south slip by. The rest of his command, Carrier Strike Group Eleven, was positioned in line astern as they raced through the Singapore Straits. Besides the nuclear aircraft carrier, the group had a guided missile cruiser, two guided missile destroyers, a submarine and a tender assigned to it, and all were charging at flank speed toward the East China Sea from their normal patrol zone in and around the Persian Gulf.

The rapidly deteriorating situation on the Korean Peninsula had made this decision a no brainer. With the Iraq war over and the Persian Gulf relatively quiet, the National Command Authority had wisely realized that a carrier with its air wing sitting in the northern Indian Ocean acting as a deterrent to aggression wasn’t as important as a the same unit patrolling of the coast of North Korea threatening aerial attack if the DPRK’s government didn’t back down.

The decision hadn’t been an easy one for the President and his advisors, Mitchell was sure of it. The Persian Gulf was the world’s most important waterway. The crude oil flowing out of it was the industrial world’s lifeblood, which was the reason the United States Navy maintained a carrier battle group in the region. But with the DPRK apparently gearing up for a full-scale invasion of the South, the United States was scrambling to reposition her forces to best meet the greatest threat.

They would enter the South China Sea by the next afternoon, and then it would be more than a week before they could close to striking distance of North Korea. There was little he could do to get there any sooner. They were already pushing the vessels to the limit. The
Nimitz
could—in theory—go indefinitely at full speed on her nuclear reactors, but the other vessels needed constant refueling to maintain their current speed. Not to mention the wear and tear on machinery during the lengthy high-speed run. They would arrive in the Sea of Japan needing weeks of maintenance to their propulsion systems. But it couldn’t be helped. Every indicator said that war would be breaking out in earnest on the Korean Peninsula any day now, and Mitchell was determined that the
Nimitz
wouldn’t miss the show.

Wardroom, USS Seawolf

K
risten entered the wardroom following her latest duty rotation. She’d been working six hours in engineering and then another six in sonar for the previous week. This forced her to use her off time to study and get what little exercise she could. The result was a mounting fatigue that was leaving her feeling lethargic. In addition, she’d suffered a brief bought with a cold as the usual series of upper respiratory infections that accompanied all patrols swept through the crew. Terry was seated in a chair and finishing a bowl of cereal prior to starting his own watch rotation.

“Good morning,” she greeted him on her way to her usual chair.

“Or good evening,” Terry replied. “I’m never too sure which it is after week or so down deep.”

Kristen certainly understood what he meant now that she’d been in the watch rotation for a week. Her body still wasn’t accustomed to the eighteen-hour rotation. To help the crew keep track of when it was night on the surface, the lights on the submarine were dimmed to red lights only during the evening hours. But despite this, Kristen found the adjustment difficult at best.

“Anything new on the read board?” she asked as she found a technical manual on the shelf she hoped to study for a few hours before getting some sleep.

Terry shook his head. “We’re too deep to receive any regular messages,” he explained as Gibbs appeared with his ever-present smile.

“Good evening, Miss. What can I get you this evening?”

“Just tea, if you don’t mind, Mister Gibbs,” she answered.

“Are you sure, ma’am?” he asked. “We still have some fruit that hasn’t gone completely bad.”

“No, thank you,” she answered.

Many of the crew ate every six hours, but Kristen had resisted this impulse since her exercise on board was severely limited. Therefore, her irregular eating habits were adding to her inability to become accustomed to the unusual schedule.

“You’d better eat up,” Terry advised. “With all these drills the XO is running, you never know when the next meal will come around.”

Kristen understood his point. Although many of the crew were old hands from the previous deployment, at least thirty percent were fresh out of basic submarine school, and were pretty green—like herself. The XO, at Brodie’s orders, had increased the tempo of the drill schedule. Firefighting and damage control drills, flood control exercises, torpedo and missile drills, plus the demanding work schedule had pushed everyone on board to the limit.

Martin came in, looking haggard and having awakened for the next shift a little late. He took a seat across from Kristen as Gibbs returned with her tea. Martin had a writing pad with him, something he seemed to carry more often than his qualification manual.

“Watch rotation in ten minutes,” Terry said to Martin without glancing over at him.

“My alarm didn’t go off, sir,” Martin replied automatically. Normally, while in the wardroom, the junior officers were on a first name basis, but this privilege had not yet been extended to Martin.

“Imagine that,” Terry replied sarcastically, clearly fed up with Martin’s excuses.

Kristen opened her qualification manual after finishing with the message board. She knew she would regret stealing time from her sleep schedule to catch up on her studies, but the feeling she was still far behind her peers nagged at her.

Before Gibbs finished for the night and turned in himself, he brought her a fresh pot of tea. “Is there anything else I can bring you, ma’am?” Like the rest of the crew, Gibbs was suffering from a lack of sleep and a bout of patrol crud, but his cheerful smile never faded.

“No thank you, Mister Gibbs,” she replied. “Sleep well.”

“Don’t stay up too late, ma’am,” he advised and left her alone to read.

Kristen resumed her studying, but the lure of sleep was too much. She removed her reading glasses and set them down, telling herself she just needed to close her eyes for a few minutes.

Electrician’s mate Percy Darby was in a foul mood. He glanced at his watch and shook his head. “Man if this ain’t one fucked up way to spend Christmas.” Darby was working in the ship’s galley washing pots and pans. They’d finished cleaning up the last mess from the previous meal, and the cook, Gene Overton, had already begun preparing the next meal.

“You got that right, Bro,” Overton responded as he shoved another tray of biscuits in the oven. He glanced out of the galley and across the empty Wolf’s Den at the television where he and Darby were watching an action movie. Overton’s favorite part, which involved a topless woman running for her life, was coming up.

The clock had ticked past midnight and it was now officially Christmas Day on board the
Seawolf,
although the ship’s routine took no notice. Darby and Overton marked the moment by lamenting together. They watched Overton’s favorite part twice before he removed his apron and tossed it to Darby. “Yo, man. Keep an eye on everything in here, I gotta go drop a deuce,” he explained and stepped off toward the nearest head.

“I got it, man,” Darby replied and returned his attention to the television, thinking about what his mother in New York City would be doing at the moment. He was one of the newer men on board, and had joined the Navy for adventure. But, the luster of the Navy had tarnished somewhat. The idea of Christmas away from family and surrounded by the steel hull of the submarine seemed too cruel to possibly be true.

The thought he should be home kicked back with a beer and enjoying himself with his friends in Brooklyn instead of scrubbing dirty pots didn’t seem fair. He looked back at the galley and then the scullery where he’d just finished washing pots and pans. Then, in a moment of frustration, he tossed Overton’s greasy apron against the far bulkhead and walked back into the Wolf’s Den to change movies.

Overton’s apron, waded up in a ball, struck the wall as intended. But as it fell on the counter, part of the apron came to rest on one of two burners Overton had been using to heat water. Although the two burners were off, they were still near red hot, and within seconds of Darby stepping from the galley, the smoldering fabric erupted into flame. Unnoticed, the flames spread rapidly across the greasy apron.

Darby was kneeling down, going through the movie locker, and stood up to slip in a new film. He was removing the first DVD when he saw something reflecting off the surface of the television screen. At first he didn’t recognize what it was, but then cold realization struck him a moment later as he felt his heart nearly leap out of his chest. He turned abruptly and saw, now fully ablaze, Overton’s greasy apron.

Darby dropped the movie, forgetting all about it as well as the two fire extinguishers mounted along the bulkhead he could have used to quickly douse the fire. Instead, panicking, he ran into the galley. The fire was still not too large and he grabbed a towel. With a quick flip he tried to beat the fire out as he’d seen people do in the movies. Only, instead of putting the simple fire out, the towel struck the burning apron and knocked it off the burners and into the deep fat fryer. The fryer had just been turned off, and the grease was still boiling hot. Instantly, the oil ignited, and Darby’s panic became horror as flames leapt upward.