Charles Taylor - Boomer

Nelson nodded thoughtfully. Funny how everyone was anticipating his thoughts. “I’d been planning on helping you out anyway, Chief. I thought we’d just ease around to do that at the same time we’re exposing our tubes to these guests of ours. Sort of a long, slow turn so they can’t figure out what we’re doing, and they shouldn’t be able to hear much anyway … and then.…”

But they were interrupted by one of the sonarmen. “Chief, if that’s a 688 on our port quarter, she’s just put on the brakes. I got a definite change in her signal here. Almost drifting in and out.”

“That means,” Nelson commented slowly, “that either they don’t know who we are, or they do and they don’t want to run up our ass.” He remembered SUBPAC had increased their alert condition, but that had been done before. “So that could be a 688 doing strange things, or someone.…” He tilted his head to one side and pursed his thin lips. “Someone could have a surprise for us. I can’t imagine SUBPAC sending someone out here to play games with us without some kind of warning, at least more than they have. It never makes sense to trust anyone in this life, you know.”

“No, sir,” Delaney agreed.

“But it’s a hell of a lot more fun than we’ve had in days, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.” The chief was absolutely convinced now that he sure didn’t understand what made the captain tick.

“I don’t think I can avoid both of them. So we’ll let them come nearer. Chief, I’m going to be in control from now on, I think. You let me know about the slightest change in either one of those contacts.” He eased by the chief on his way out and added, “You ever have a feeling like I’ve got now?”

“Yes, sir,” Delaney wasn’t sure what Nelson was driving at, but he was glad the man was his captain. You survived with men like him.

“Good. I think between us we can handle everything.” With that, he was gone.

When the Navy demands information — especially when the Chief of Naval Operations directs that he requires that information instantly — it can be done. The tomorrow-is-good-enough slogan can be tossed out the window. Secure fax lines hum.

Ray Larsen waved the glossy sheets of fax paper in Mark Bennett’s direction. “So you’ve only read these once. You also got those stars because once is all the reading you need. The Navy can’t afford to have you take any more time than that. Do you agree with what that says?” It was a copy of Wayne Newell’s background investigation for a security clearance. “Is that Wayne Newell they’re talking about?”

“Essentially.” Bennett appeared startled by the CNO’s attitude. “I mean the Newell I knew aboard Stonewall Jackson was an outstanding junior officer in every regard, but I didn’t waste my time looking into his background. What do you expect after a guy has done sub school, nuclear power, and tours on a boomer and an attack boat before he shows up?” He spread his hands in question. “You assume that the security clearances in his jacket are exactly what they say. So you don’t ask him about his family,” he concluded defensively.

“I always did,” Larsen responded instantly, pointing his finger at Bennett’s chest. “I knew everything about my wardroom on every command I ever had.”

“You never commanded a boomer, Ray … and stop pointing that goddamn thing at me,” he said angrily. “I thought you got that out of your system.”

“Sorry. How about you, Neil? Didn’t you ever snoop?”

Arrow appeared troubled. “Not to that extent. Not like you, I guess. I have to go along with Mark. If someone passes a complete background investigation, there’s a right to privacy. What is there in that wad of paper that says there’s anything wrong with Wayne?”

“Naval Intelligence says the investigators they sent can’t find any family records back in his hometown, nothing to establish his background, for Christ sake.”

“I remember Myra Newell telling me that he was an only child and that his parents died right after he came to Berkeley, even before she’d met him. Everything he got, she said, he got on his own. I always respected that. Wouldn’t you?” he asked defensively.

“That’s beside the point.”

“What the real point is here,” Robbie Newman said, “is that we’re chasing rainbows with that report. Four hours ago it didn’t exist in our minds. Ray asks every agency that ever snooped into someone’s life to come up with a report super quick and that’s what we get. Wayne Newell had all the necessary clearances. His nose is squeaky clean. Fitness reports are all close to 4.0, including the ones from the man who is Mr. Undersea Warfare and sits at this table with us. All it says is that the man has no past before he showed up on the Berkeley campus, according to old records. — or no old records, if you want to look at it that way.” He leaned forward with his elbows on the table. They were in Neil Arrow’s office. “Have any of you ever been in a town clerk’s office in a small town and seen how records are handled?”

There was no response, Larsen fidgeted but thought better of speaking.

“I have. I did a little looking after my own roots once. It’s entirely possible that the files on his family were pulled when his parents died, to finish everything off just right, and then the phone rang and the clerk never got back to completing the job and the files went out with the trash months later. End of the Newell family. It happens.”

Ray Larsen plucked nervously with a fingernail at an imaginary something between his front teeth. Neil Arrow nodded without commenting. Mark Bennett had nothing more to say and shuffled through the sheaf of papers until he acted like he’d come to a page he was looking for.

“I’m not saying that’s what happened,” Newman said defensively. “I’m just saying that we can’t run off and convict a man for lack of information.”

“Does anyone else have any other ideas?” the CNO finally asked. “If you can’t offer anything solid, then I go back to my original idea that we could have a maverick out there who has the ability to sneak up on one of our boomers and fire torpedoes before they know what’s going on.” It sounded absurd when he thought about it, and not much better now. But there was nothing else to go on.

“How do you explain the other hundred thirty men on Pasadena ? Do you figure they’re sitting on their asses eating bonbons?” Arrow inquired.

“I don’t.” Larsen’s response was more a shout of anger at himself than the others around the table. “I don’t even know how he could get to Alaska or Nevada from where he was either. I couldn’t come up with a reason if you were squeezing my nuts. I have no answers. All I know is that Pasadena has not responded to our emergency signal. Either she’s a goner, too, or she’s involved in something I don’t understand.” He licked his lips and looked around the table at each of his friends. “With a report on a man like this one — regardless of how fast it’s been prepared — we wouldn’t send him out in command of one of our 688’s today. If whatever I’m reading into this is correct, the only way it could have happened is to have the Newell family records doctored when a background investigation was conducted, and then to have them disappear once the Navy was satisfied,” His glance was threatening. “I’m building sand castles. Tell me I’m wrong,” he growled.

Robbie Newman was about to respond when there was a sharp knock at the door.

“Come,” Arrow called out.

His flag lieutenant slipped quietly into the room to hand him a clipboard containing a single message which Arrow read while the young officer muttered something softly in his ear. Arrow removed the message and waved the officer out the door politely.