Charles Taylor - Boomer

Tim Sanford’s large body eased through the door to the executive officer’s stateroom before Makin had a chance to respond to the quick knock. “Sorry to interrupt, XO, but we’ve got to do something, sir.” The chief torpedoman tossed his rumpled Pasadena baseball cap on the cluttered desk and pulled the single chair back to sit down, all in one motion. He was as comfortable with officers as he was in chiefs’ quarters.

Makin’s face brightened into a wide smile. Something about the unruly red hair hanging over Sanford’s forehead and the freckles covering his broad Irish face was a source of amusement at a time like this. The man was obviously concerned, yet his good nature was still reflected in his eyes. Wally would go off in a blue funk and think dark thoughts for a long time. Sanford was exactly the opposite. He’d get whatever was chewing on him off his chest and then it would be all over chiefs’ quarters and back to the men in less than an hour. “Well, Chief, let’s try to fix whatever’s got you down. Talk to me.”

“Tommy Lott again, sir. He’s losing it fast. And you — or the captain, I meant to say — put him off. Captain Newell even said he wanted the tapes — and you just can’t do that. No one can. They belong to SUBPAC. You can’t do something like that with Tommy. He’s chief of the boat. Every man aboard looks up to him more than any of us. Now he’s about as blue as I’ve ever seen him, sir, and it’s spreading just like an infection. Every man’s talking about him, and those sonarmen aren’t helping—”

“Time out, Chief, time out.” Those goddamn tapes! “Are we going to spend the rest of this patrol worrying over those tapes he’s got of those Soviet masking devices?”

“Yes, sir. That’s it. Only Tommy says there’s no masking device any human being can put together that would sound like that. He’s playing it for anyone who’ll listen. He stops it, runs it backward, then forward … backward and forward. Says it’s like listening to ghosts.” Sanford’s freckles appeared to lose their definition as he continued. “Says each submarine has a personality of its own, and no computer could build a specific personality like Alaska or Nevada. And he points it out when he plays those tapes. Hell, I can’t tell. No one else can either, except some of the sonarmen say they do. It’s eerie, XO, Tommy says it’s like being in bed with a woman in a dark room — you could tell who she was after a while just by what she did without seeing or hearing her. Do you know what I mean?”

Makin nodded. He knew. The ultimate comparison. That came to every man within days after they got under way. The memories increased rather than disappeared as the days on patrol grew longer. Each time you got in your bunk, the imagination would take over, no matter you were by yourself, no matter you were dead tired. You remembered that woman — just like Tommy Lott was absolutely certain he could sense a submarine’s personality.

“What else, Chief?” He could see Sanford wasn’t finished.

“Mr. Makin, the Navy’s my life. It’s the only one I know.” He paused, pushing red hair away from his forehead. It fell back, as it always did, when he leaned forward. “I understand why Navy regs are the way they are … and I respect that.” He bit his lower lip. “Tommy’s the best friend I ever had, and he’s the finest chief of the boat in the Navy. But it’s almost as if he’s gone out of his head. He’s saying things about the captain that could get him in trouble, sir.” The words spilled out as if an invisible switch had been snapped on. “He’ll hate himself later. He can’t mean what he’s saying — and he respects Captain Newell as much as any of us — but—” Sanford stopped, searching for the proper words.

“I won’t say anything to anyone, Chief. You know that. Everything stays right here for now.”

“He thinks Captain Newell’s the one who’s flipped. He says the captain’s refusing to listen to him and then wanting custody of those tapes are because he knows that was Alaska and Nevada we sank.” Sanford pushed his hair back again before looking sadly at Makin. “I don’t know what else to say, sir. I don’t know what to do.”

“You just did it. It’s the best you could do for both of them. See what you can do to keep Lott under wraps for the next couple of hours. Better yet, I don’t want to hear about him until I’ve had a chance to sit down again with the captain. Now go on — get out of here,” he said with a half smile.

A telltale click preceded the hum of Pasadena’ s IMC system as Chief Sanford moved off down the passageway. “This is Captain Newell speaking. As you all know, we anticipate contact with the next Soviet boomer within twenty-four hours or less. We know the limits of her sector, but she could be anywhere within it. Pasadena is privileged, perhaps one of the most honored submarines in American naval history. While we don’t have the necessary backup information to confirm this, it appears to me that we have been singled out for a vital mission that all of us hoped would never take place. To date, we have performed professionally and with highest honor. I want each of you to know that I am unable to put into words the pride I’ve experienced in serving with you.”

Makin nodded to himself. The captain knew how to control an audience with simple words.

“My purpose now is to let you know that I understand exactly what each of you is going through. I am experiencing the same doubts as you … even the same fears for my family ashore. But there have also been some advantages. I don’t think any single event brought us so closely together as that final Pasadena cookout before we got under way. You met my family and I was honored to meet each member of yours. I was just in my stateroom looking at the picture of my wife Myra and those two beautiful kids of ours, Charlie and Kathy — even my pooch, old Jack Tar — and I got to thinking about your families in the same instant.”

Dick Makin found himself staring at the speaker in the corner as Wayne Newell’s evenly modulated voice flowed calmly into his stateroom. The man sure as hell had a talent — a silver-tongued orator! And timing? His timing was superb. He understood how tension was building. Hell, the two of them had been talking about it just hours ago. But Newell must have sensed the sudden increase … must have known the men were looking for something.…

“I’m not sure why we were singled out to perform this duty, but I like to think it’s because we’re the best boat in SUBPAC. And I don’t mind telling you that I’ve told Admiral Arrow time and again that I had the finest crew in the entire Navy. Anyway, it seems that our mission is to protect the mainland United States during our nation’s most crucial moments. We have responded twice, and both times we have been victorious. We faced one of the most devious inventions in modern warfare, a device that would convince us that we were firing on one of our own. Only through the brilliance of our intelligence branch were we forewarned.

“If we hadn’t known of that insidious masking device that imitates our boomers so perfectly, I can promise you that Pasadena and each one of us would be at the bottom of the Pacific right this moment.” Newell drew a deep breath, audible in each compartment, before he added, “And our cities right now might have been smoking rubble, our nation driven to its knees by the Russians. I like to think that our homes remain intact because of Pasadena’ s actions.”

Makin was surprised to find himself hanging on each word, acknowledging each statement as if he’d said those very words himself. He understood Newell’s motivation, even agreed how vital it was at this moment. And he knew that if he were captain of Pasadena, it would have been unlikely that he could have employed either the timing or the sense of drama to put across such a speech. After what he’d just experienced with Wally Snyder, and the conversation with Tim Sanford, there was no doubt that Newell’s amazing sixth sense was operating perfectly.