Undetected (18 page)

Bishop shook his head to toss wet hair and water out of his eyes. “Wallace, we've got to get more body weight on you. The water was tossing you around like a twig.”

“Felt like it too, sir.”

“Did we save the boat?” Bishop demanded of the training officer watching from above.

“First crew to do so.”

Back slaps among wet men made the battle with the torrent of water worth it.

“Open the drain,” the training officer called. “Weapons team, second watch, you're up. Let's run variation two.”

Bishop left the torpedo room for another view of the damage the charge had done to the missile tube. The training facility routinely set charges to take out pipes, valves, and casings, taking advantage of the decommissioned parts coming off the old diesel boats to bring realism to these training exercises. But this was the first time Bishop had felt a missile tube blow. He hoped he never experienced one in real life.

The hull had taken the blast with some compression dents, but had held. The outer door of the missile tube was in shreds, the inner core had held, but its form distended outward like a balloon filled with too much air. They were fortunate this was a salvageable failure. In order to teach flood officers how to make that final “abandon station” call, some tests were deliberately built as situations that could not be saved.

Bishop wiped water off his face. Three more drills to go. At least he was already wet.

“Mark.”

He swung around toward the door of the Squadron 17 ready room where he'd retreated to do some paperwork. He'd changed into a dry uniform and was finishing towel-drying his hair. He'd had his feet knocked out from under him three times before the afternoon was over. And he had a good-sized bruise on his thigh from a wrench that had slipped during the last drill. “Hey, Gina.”

He removed the towel from his head to get a better look
at his guest. “What's wrong?” Tear traces wet her cheeks, and she wiped her hands hard against them. He dumped the towel and went to meet her. “What's happened?”

“I got designated a national security asset,” she said. “The security is going to be permanent, even after I leave Bangor.”

Talk about bad timing for that news. He took her hand and pulled her through the building, pushed open the back door, and led her outside, heading by habit toward the gable-point picnic tables where they could have a conversation in private. “It's necessary,” he said quietly as they walked.

She wiped her eyes again. “It's going to mess with my life forever. I'll be attending mothers' meetings with a security guy driving me there, grocery shopping with someone tagging along. Do you know a mom who's going to want to have tea with the lady who has security there to check who's at the door?”

Mark couldn't hide the smile. She'd gotten up quite a head of steam. “Mothers' meetings—you're thinking PTA meetings?”

“Whatever they're called,” she muttered. “I stood out in college for my youth; now as an adult I get attention as the woman who can't go anywhere without security. People are going to think I'm some big-shot attorney, or a crime figure's wife, or just another pretentious rich person. I might as well stick a fork in having a new friendship of any substance.” She looked over at him and stopped abruptly. “It's not funny.”

“It's not remotely funny,” Mark said soberly, trying to stop his smile. “But your word choices and where your thoughts run to—imagination isn't your problem.” He sighed and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, tugged so she'd walk with him again. “Gina, you knew it had to be done. What's
in your head is dangerous information, and that makes you a target.”

“What I know will become dated. It might be new today, but it won't be a decade from now.”

“And you'll figure something new out next year, and the one after that. The Navy is rightfully worried about your safety. We don't need some country hijacking all that knowledge by snatching you one day. You're at risk not only for what you know today, but for what you'll figure out in the future.”

“It's that—I get no choice in this . . . the security. It just happens. It's yet one more thing that just happens because I'm smart. I wish I were average. There are days I so wish I were average.”

He stopped, turned her toward him, and hugged her. Eventually he felt her relax in his hold. “Pity party over?” he whispered.

She gave a broken laugh. “Yeah.”

He set her back from him, tipped up her face. “I talked with Rear Admiral Hardman about getting you designated a national security asset. I'd rather have you alive and mad at me in 10 years than missing and nobody sure which country snatched you.”

She was struggling with what to say, and he simply waited. Her life had just gotten more complicated, more restricted, and he was one of the causes. He'd take whatever she wanted to say as the consequence of his choice.

“You just
had
to protect me,” she finally whispered.

“Something like that.”

“You give me a headache, Mark.”

“You'll forgive me.” She had come to tell him about it—before or after she'd told Jeff? Daniel? He wondered at the
order even as he tried to figure out something, anything, to make this less of a burden on her. “I can't sugarcoat this, Gina. It's going to be difficult for the rest of your life. But on the bright side, you might as well come up with something profoundly earthshaking now. It can't get much worse than this, no matter what you discover.”

She laughed, and it sounded genuine.

“Come on, let's get something to eat. I don't mind if security is following you around.” He resolutely turned her toward the parking lot.

Mark stopped to buy carryout Mexican and turned the car back to Bangor base. They'd have their meal at the SCIF building, where she spent much of her time, where they could have a conversation without concerns about who might overhear. They settled in an empty conference room.

“Eat something, Gina. Don't just push it around the plate.”

“You can finish mine. My appetite is gone when I'm having a truly miserable day.”

“You like the three guys who provide security now. Is that going to change—more people, a new routine? Have they said?”

“Connolly told me it depends on where I decide to go after Bangor. If I move back to Chicago or head to Pasadena, the guys who work with him will likely change. But Connolly is pretty sure he's with me for the next year, possible two. He said a woman would likely join the group, so it's a little less intrusive when I'm out shopping or visiting friends. It's still a three-person team rotating on 12-hour shifts.”

“You can work with that.”

“Like I said, I don't have a choice.” She tried to smile, sighed instead, and pushed her plate over to him. “I've been through the five sea trial tests. I'll be ready to present the material in a couple of days. It's time to hand this off.”

He accepted the change of subject. “Then let me talk you through what will happen from here. You'll sit down with Rear Admiral Hardman and Lieutenant Commander Toombs, present the data to them. Jeff and I will be there to handle any questions they have regarding the sea trial. The admiral will then formally report to the Secretary of the Navy. He's been keeping the SecNav apprised that this idea exists and that it was looking promising.

“There will be a commanders' meeting here at Bangor next week. What you've discovered will be presented in an urgent meeting to the captains and the sonar chiefs of the ballistic missile submarine crews who are not out on patrol, and to as many of the captains and sonar chiefs from the fast-attacks as can make it here.”

“It's going to be a big group?”

“Probably 50 guys, maybe a few more.”

“I was thinking I would do a video for my presentation,” she offered, “similar to what I did during my college days. Present the data of the sea trial, show the wave forms, narrate over the video what this idea is and how it operates. I might be able to handle some questions at the end of the session, but asking me to present it to this group is asking for more than I can handle. I could do an accompanying paper with the mathematics of it, the theory, so it could be handed off to the Undersea Warfare Group without needing a lot more explanation from me. The algorithms are pretty simple to follow.”

“That will work, Gina. Whatever you are comfortable with will be fine.” Bishop hesitated, then added, “Daniel can help you put that video together. He can even do part of the presentation for you if you'd like. He's good at conversing on the finer points of sonar operations.”

“You think that would be possible?”

“I'll talk to the admiral. It would only take bumping Daniel's departure date for sub school back a couple days. I'm certain I can get it arranged.”

“That would help a great deal, Mark, thanks.”

Bishop already knew what it was like to be squeezed between a rock and a hard place. Organizing things for Daniel to help Gina prepare for the commanders' meeting was the right thing to do. But it also meant Daniel would be the one Gina was leaning on to get her through a very stressful day.

Bishop walked through the room where the meeting would be held tomorrow, confirmed the projection system was set up, that there were sufficient chairs for the 62 people now expected to be in attendance.

“I've got the final video.”

Bishop looked over as Daniel entered the room. “Good. Put it in to play and let's check the sound from the back of the room. How many times did she redo the intro?”

“Nine. I thought the fourth take was fine, but she was worried she was looking slightly off-center to the camera.”

“She's able to talk off the cuff for the rest of the video—what a cross-sonar ping is, how it operates. But the three minutes on who she is and what this meeting is about causes her enormous stress. I haven't yet figured that one out.”

“It's the only time she was on camera,” Daniel said.

“Okay. I should have recognized that one.”

Daniel started the video. Because Bishop knew her pretty well by now, he recognized the nerves Gina was feeling during the opening introduction. Then the image changed to computer-generated displays of the audio recordings taken during the sea trial, and her voice-over sounded comfortable and confident. The presentation was concise, detailed, effective. They had both heard the main section of the video several times now, and Daniel turned it off after they were comfortable with the sound levels.

Bishop slipped on the lapel microphone he would be wearing and moved to the front of the room, checked sound levels with Daniel at the back. Rear Admiral Hardman would be in attendance, but the presentation on what tactical changes would be implemented had been passed to Bishop. He didn't have to ask if he was being prepared for that flag officer rank one day. Hardman was good at pushing his line officers into new and greater responsibilities.