Steven Kent - 100 Fathoms Below

Jefferson had always tried to keep the boat running smoothly, but now everything seemed to be careening out of control, falling apart at exactly the wrong time. Not only did they have an op to complete, but his chances for getting his own command were riding on how well it went. It had been a long, hard slog over many years to convince the navy that he deserved his own boat. It was within his grasp now, but he knew they would be looking for any reason to say no. Any reason at all to keep him down, keep him in his place. And damned if he was going to give them one. Whatever was happening on Roanoke , he intended to get to the bottom of it.

Jefferson left the auxiliary engine room and was returning to the main ladder when he noticed that a section of corridor closer to the torpedo room had gone dark. Strange. It hadn’t been dark a minute ago. As he drew closer, he saw shards of glass glittering on the floor. Someone had broken a light fixture down here too.

His jaw tightened. How was this possible? Stubic had broken the light up in the mess, but Stubic was dead. There were flecks of blood amid the shards on the floor. Fresh blood.

He looked up from the floor and froze where he was. A silhouette hugged the bulkhead within the patch of darkness. In the ambient light from the other fixtures, he could make out Steve Bodine’s features, wet with sweat.

“Bodine?” Jefferson said.

“Sir.” Bodine’s voice was raspy. He was cradling one hand in the other, and Jefferson could see dark blood oozing across the knuckles. “Don’t come any closer, sir.”

“Bodine, what have you done?” Jefferson asked.

“I—I couldn’t,” he stammered. “The light… I had to…” From the shadows, Bodine’s glistening eyes regarded him with undisguised terror. “It hurt my eyes. The light hurts so much. You can’t understand how much.”

“I don’t know what’s going on, but let me help you,” Jefferson said, trying to put him at ease.

“You can’t help me, sir. No one can.” Bodine slumped against the bulkhead, clutching the wounded hand closer to his chest. “Oh, God, Lieutenant Commander, I’m burning up. I feel like my whole body’s on fire.”

“Bodine, you’re sick. I think you’ve got the same thing Stubic had. Report to sick bay right now. Matson can take care of you.”

“Stay back,” Bodine insisted. His voice broke, and he started sobbing. “I—I don’t remember what happened, sir. Something took my memories away. Something is taking me away!”

“I don’t understand,” Jefferson said.

Bodine rubbed his neck. “These welts, sir. I don’t remember how I got them. I don’t even remember breaking this light, but I know I did it. I know it was me, but it’s like I’m not me anymore.”

“That’s it, you’re coming with me to sick bay, Bodine,” Jefferson said, moving toward him. “That’s an order.”

“I said stay away from me!” Bodine shouted.

Another metallic bang sounded from the auxiliary engine room behind him, followed by raised voices arguing. Jefferson turned away from Bodine for only a moment. While he was distracted, Bodine made a break for the ladder. Jefferson chased after him. He was still in good shape from his football days, in better shape than Bodine, he thought, and yet Bodine, despite his illness, was moving too fast for Jefferson to catch. He hadn’t seen anyone run this fast since his days on the field. It didn’t seem possible, and yet Bodine was scrambling up before Jefferson even reached the first rung.

He followed Bodine up to the middle level, emerging next to the mess, but the corridor was so crowded with sailors he didn’t see Bodine anywhere. Jefferson was tall enough to look over most of the sailors’ heads, but there was no sign of the helmsman. How the hell had he moved so quickly?

“Bodine?” he called. “Bodine, get your ass back here, that’s an order!”

Crewmen in the mess and the corridor stared at him, wondering what was going on and murmuring among themselves, but the helmsman didn’t appear. Jefferson cursed under his breath. Bodine was gone.

Still groggy after a restless sleep, Jerry White brushed his teeth over one of the stainless steel sinks in the head. He studied his reflection in the mirror. There were heavy bags under his eyes—evidence for all to see that he hadn’t slept well. He had gotten only an hour or two during his sleep section. His last encounter with Lieutenant Duncan had kept playing in his mind, keeping him awake. He hadn’t hesitated to follow an order in the control room, not even for a second. He was sure of it. He was a better planesman than that. But Duncan had it in for him, and he was going to see flaws in everything Jerry did, no matter what, because he blamed Jerry for the end of Lieutenant Commander Leonard’s navy career.

You’re on mighty thin ice—wouldn’t take much for you to fall through.

Christ, would he ever get to put USS Philadelphia behind him? That was why he had turned down Tim’s suggestion to go to the COB about Duncan. He just wanted a fresh start, a clean slate, but it seemed the universe had other ideas. Charles Duncan and Frank Leonard were buddies? What were the odds?

In his mind, he saw Lieutenant Commander Leonard’s face again, red with rage, spittle flying as he yelled at Jerry.

It was you who filed that complaint, White? You stupid son of a bitch. It’s going to hurt your buddy MacLeod a lot worse than it hurts me!

Jerry tried to shake the image out of his head.

He had spent the section before his rack time as part of a search party scouring the submarine for Steve Bodine. Lieutenant Commander Jefferson had put every available sailor on the job, letting them know Bodine was sick and possibly delirious. They had searched Roanoke from top level to bottom—even the nuclear reactor compartment and the maneuvering room in the aft section—but they hadn’t found him. It was clear that Bodine, in his delirium, was hiding from them, moving from space to space to avoid being found. But how could someone that sick move around quickly enough not to be discovered? And how could he stay hidden for so long on a vessel with so few places to hide?

But the worst part was that Jerry’s suspicions had been confirmed. First Stubic was sick, now Bodine. Something bad was going around—something that made men lose their minds and act erratically, even violently. How many other men on Roanoke had caught it? How many of his fellow sailors were ticking time bombs waiting to go off? That thought had kept him awake too.

He stowed his toothbrush and toothpaste away in his dopp kit, checked his coveralls in the mirror, and left the head, exiting through the hatch into his berthing area. Whereas the officers had their own staterooms, where most of them slept three to a room, the enlisted men had expansive spaces at the center of the middle level that were closed off with curtained doorways and filled with triple-decker bunks. Because a third of the enlisted men were asleep at any given hour, the only lights in the berthing areas were small red fluorescents near the doorways. Inside, the berthing area held four rows of bunks, with two rows built directly into the bulkheads, and another two rows bolted to the deck between them. Several sailors were milling about near the bunks, some getting ready to turn in for their six-hour sleep sections, others vacating their racks and preparing for their watches. Standing beside his bunk, Jerry opened the coffin locker under his rack, stowed his kit, and checked the time. His watch section started in nine minutes. Plenty of time to get to the control room.

Behind him, one of the sailors hissed a sharp, angry whisper and banged his fist on his bunk. Jerry turned around and saw a broad-­shouldered machinist’s mate wearing a T-shirt and sweats. He pounded on the metal frame of the top rack, where the curtain was still closed.