Charles Taylor - Boomer

“Right, Captain. Sounds fine to me. Grits at least twice a day would be perfect.” Jimmy Cross rose to his feet and pushed the chair into the corner. “If I’m wrong about this contact, I’ll be the first one to admit it.”

“In this business, every contact is an enemy until they show me otherwise, Jimmy.”

Pertsovka!

The General Secretary had forgotten about that bottle. It had obviously been in his freezer for some time. When did he…? Then he remembered. That was a happier time. It was a gift from two Congress of People’s Deputies members who came from his hometown. It was a local brand they’d carried to Moscow with them, and they had taken great pains to make an appointment with him to present the bottle.

How proud they’d been. He remembered offering a glass to them. They insisted that it should be iced first and after all … yes, be remembered they had been shy about drinking with him because he was the General Secretary. So he had reached into that same freezer and taken out a frosted bottle of lime vodka and poured three glasses before they could decline.

Yes, more than they would ever know, he had enjoyed those few moments with men who could tell him what things were like back home. And then they were gone, proud that the General Secretary had been willing to have a drink with them. Oh, how he longed for the simple pleasures of camaraderie with one’s own kind.

The bottle of pertsovka was instantly covered with a layer of frost, and he could tell the removal of the cap was going to be a slippery contest. He reached in his back pocket for a handkerchief and was struggling for a grip with that around the top when his wife brought him a towel from the wet bar.

“Here, hold the bottle with this. That will make it much easier, and you wouldn’t want to drop it, would you?” Her sad smile mirrored her understanding. She was aware of the gravity of his problems. It wasn’t a day for friendly teasing.

“This is a wonderful bottle of pertsovka from a little town where I once lived. I’m sorry you don’t care for the pepper flavoring.…” He had been clasping the top of the bottle tightly in his hand and the heat had melted the ice around the cap. It unscrewed easily then and the very faint aroma of the hot peppers escaped. “Ah, don’t you wish you liked this?”

She had gone back to the pantry for glasses and found two cold ones in the refrigerator. “I think perhaps there has never been a better time to learn.” She went up on her tiptoes and gently kissed his cheek. “I will enjoy whatever you’re having.”

He poured a couple of ounces of the rusty liquid into the glasses she held. It looked perfect, flowing thickly, like reddish oil. She handed one of them to him and they silently touched the glasses together. His was drained in one gulp. She sipped curiously at first, then drank half, holding it on her tongue for a moment before swallowing.

“Well?” he inquired as the liquid hit home and the heat bounced back from his stomach.

“It’s better than I expected.” She imitated him and tossed back the remainder without holding it in her mouth. Then she smiled and tilted her head to one side, pushing a wisp of gray hair off her forehead. “Come.” She held out her hand and led him to the sofa at one end of the room. “Let’s talk, before we drink too much of this. Tell me what you are thinking.”

How he loved her at times like this. There was no one else — none at all — to listen. It was one of those rare moments he could say whatever came to his mind without being accountable for it later. He poured two more ounces in each glass. “I’m not sure what I’m thinking … or if I’m thinking.…” And then the rush of diverse thoughts in his mind coalesced into a logical explanation of the entire situation. The reasons for his frustration became more clear as he related his concerns to his wife. She listened patiently without interruption.

“What you’re telling me,” she responded when he finally stopped long enough to pour them both another glass, “is that you are trapped by other men’s philosophies. You don’t believe—”

“I don’t know what to believe,” he interrupted vehemently. “I don’t know whether a first strike is an inevitability … a culmination of our histories.” He sipped at the liquid in the glass like a puppy, taking little tastes. “Or if I will become a traitor to our history. Or, for that matter, perhaps there will be no further need for history.”

“Do you have any indication of what Washington is thinking?” His wife had never cared for the Americans. They were too unpredictable.

“They’ve done nothing yet. They know their submarines are lost. But I have no idea if they know why. My intelligence agencies seem to have more advice than hard facts.”

She could feel the warmth of the vodka penetrating her soul, an indulgence she rarely allowed herself. Life was good, at least it was if they could occasionally find moments like this one. “How many of them are really loyal to you … and how many are loyal to that original plan?”

“It can almost be broken down by age.”

“You can always give an order to fire the missiles, if you absolutely have to. But there is a time to follow your instincts, and yours are to wait … just a little longer. But I think you must arrange for the old ones to disappear now.”

Peter Simonds folded his arms and stared blankly across at the chart table. The quartermaster had just wandered aft. Manchester’ s executive officer was seated at one of the four attack console positions on the starboard side of control and had swung around to gain a view of the entire control room. It was tempting, habitually so, to get up and take a look at the chart. But he knew that their last position, marked with a neat, black X on the overlay, would be no more than a quarter of an inch from the previous one. And when the quartermaster returned with Lieutenant Commander Burch at his side, the next position would advance no more than that same distance on the projected course line that the captain allowed the SEAL officer to lay out.

Simonds unconsciously pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose with his right index finger. He continued on to his right ear and scratched just behind it as each man in control knew he would. Then he shifted his ample weight and scratched one of his buttocks. That had also been anticipated by the entire watch.

The OOD was in his usual position behind the planesmen and diving officer, his hand wrapped around the overhead support. When he heard the diving officer snicker, he glanced over at the XO, nodded and smiled, and turned back to murmur something to one of his planesmen.

“Mr. Simonds.” It was Chief Moroney standing in the entrance to sonar just a few feet away. “There’s something off our port bow,” he commented matter-of-factly.

“Talk to me, Chief.” The XO was on his feet, tucking his shirt into the back of his pants. “I was beginning to think the only thing we were going to hear was constipated whales for the rest of this cruise.”

“No whale, sir,” Moroney answered calmly as the XO stepped into sonar. “It’s another submarine. At least I’m pretty damn sure it is.”

“How do you know that so soon?” His hoarse voice carried a tone of exasperation. “You just picked it up. What’s happened to the old chief I remember who used to keep us hanging forever without a classification in the middle of all those exercises?”

“I don’t have any instructors leaning over my shoulder grading everything I do, XO. There’s only one thing we’re looking for now, another submarine, so that makes it all a hell of a lot easier when you’re evaluating a contact.”