To Kill the Potemkin (2 page)

This
time it was
closer than ever before, so
close he could hear men breathing inside. They wore black uniforms. One
of them
was the sonar operator, sitting at a console. Sorensen listened to his
beating
heart, and when the man turned around, Sorensen saw his own face.

After
an hour
Lorraine gently shook his
shoulder.

"Jack,
wake up."

"Go
'way."

"Listen,
you told
me to wake you up at
four. It's a quarter after."

She
heard him
sigh. "Okay. Give me a
minute. Turn off the light."

Awake,
he
realized the dream would never end.
It was too deeply rooted in his psyche to disappear completely.
Sorensen wasn't
sure what it meant. Perhaps he had lived underwater too long. On each
patrol
Barracuda
seemed to get closer to the Russians. Or maybe the Russians were
getting closer
to him.

Lorraine
was
standing next to the bed, her
dressing gown parted in the middle. Between the wine-red folds of
satin, a
streak of creamy flesh was visible from her neck to her blond pubic
hair.
Sorensen kissed her thigh. She smelled of strawberries.

"Did
you have a
bad dream?"

"Why?
Did I say
anything?"

"You
said, 'It's
a Russian,' but the
rest was mumbo jumbo."

He
slapped
himself in the cheek. "Shut
up, Sorensen. You talk too much."

She
lay down
beside him and fondled him until
he grew hard. He ran his hand over her rump and stroked the back of her
legs.
She was a bit overweight, which was why he had chosen her from the
lineup in
Suzy's parlor. Skinny women reminded him of his ex-wife.

She
rolled over
and straddled him.

"This
one's for
free," she said,
and leaned over to lick his chest.

It
had been a
steamy night. After eight years
of living on a submarine, Sorensen knew how to get his money's worth.
Expensive, but worth it. Blowing his brains out with sex and booze made
as much
sense as anything else. Nothing he did ashore made any difference
because
nothing ashore was real. Life ashore was layer after layer of illusion,
like
the TV news. Nothing important ever got on TV. Anything important was
classified. Reality was top secret.

"Can
I turn on
the light?"

"Sure."

Sorensen
shaded
his eyes with his hands and
looked at Lorraine. She was pretty. At Suzy's they were always pretty.
She
slipped off and lit a cigarette.

"Is
there any
beer left?" he asked.

"It's
warm."

"That's
okay."

He
stood up and
teetered. "Christ
almighty." He grinned his off-center grin. "I must be getting
old."

He
found a bottle
of beer, opened it and sat
back down on the bed. The room was decorated in a Victorian style with
paisley
wallpaper and velour couches. Suzy's was the best whorehouse in
Norfolk, and he
was comfortable there. He liked the whores. They didn't complain when
he
babbled nonsense about the navy, the nucs, the officers or even the
Russians.
They didn't try to pry secrets out of him, or ask him to explain what
he did or
why he did it. They just fucked him and laughed at his jokes. Sometimes
they
gave him the clap.

Through
an open
window he heard trucks
passing on a highway. Norfolk droned, a city asleep. The ocean never
slept.
Underwater there was neither night nor day, only the passing of the
watches and
blinking numbers on a digital chronometer.

It
was time to go.
Barracuda
sailed at
dawn. The reactor in his mind was critical. The chain reaction had
started.

While
he was
putting on his uniform, there
was a knock on the door.

"Sorensen,
you
pinche cabron,
are
you in there?"

The
voice was
pure East Los Angeles.

"Who's
that?"
Lorraine asked.

"Open
it up,"
Sorensen said.

Jesus
Manuel
Lopez y Corona stood in the
corridor, two hundred fifty pounds of Mexican torpedoman dressed in the
full
regalia of a chief petty officer.

"I
ain't gonna
let you screw up, Ace.
Come on outta there. You're late."

"Want
a beer,
Chief? Meet my friend,
Lorraine."

"Pleased
to make
your acquaintance.
You'll excuse me, but it's a little early in the day for breakfast. The
shore
patrol has kindly lent me a car and driver. He's waiting downstairs."

"How'd
you know I
was here?"
Sorensen wasn't angry, merely curious.

"I'm
chief of the
boat, Sorensen. It's
my job to know where every one of you
cabrones
is
every minute.
Besides"—Lopez lowered his voice and winked—"me and Suzy are old
pals. She called the ship and told me you were here. Let's go."

Sorensen
looked
at himself in the mirror. His
eyes were bloodshot and he needed a shave. His uniform was rumpled. He
drew
himself to attention, placed his hat two fingers above his eyebrows and
saluted.

"Listen,
Lorraine, did I pay you?"

"You
paid Suzy."

Sorensen
picked
up his kit bag, checked to
make sure he had his recorder and tapes, and pulled out a fifty dollar
bill.

"Here's
a little
extra. For truth,
justice and the American way. See ya later, baby."

Sorensen
sat in the back of the jeep, peering with underwater eyes at the shabby
streets
and rotting Victorians of Norfolk. He felt as though a sheet of water
was
between him and
Barracuda
's home port. To him,
Norfolk was a target, a
blip on a Soviet attack console, and when he was there, he felt naked
and
exposed, like a sub on the surface.

The
jeep
turned a corner and he caught a glimpse of lights on the river and the
darkness
of the Atlantic beyond.

"What's
the word, Chief? We got us a Russkie out there?"

Lopez
shook his head. "Nah. There was one sub that tried to get in yesterday,
but Ivan hasn't figured out yet that we can track him anywhere in the
Atlantic.
We let this November class get in as far as fifty miles offshore, but
Mako
flushed her last night. She won't be back. She's heading for the ice
pack."

"Why
didn't they leave it for us?"

"You're
nuts, Sorensen, you know that? All you ever want to do is chase the
Russians
around the ocean. Me, I like a nice quiet patrol with no excitement."

"That's
because you're a torpedoman, Lopez. It makes you nervous to think that
someday
you may even have to blow off one of your fish."

"This
is my last
patrol, Sorensen. I
been down below for twenty years and I've never fired a war shot yet. I
want to
go out the same way."

"I'm
gonna miss
you, Chief."

"You
won't miss
me. Ace. You'll be too
busy playing Cowboys and Cossacks to think about me. You'll be a
thousand feet
down, worrying about a saltwater pipe bursting and a jet of water
cutting you
in half. You'll be eating radiation and turning in your film badge.
While
you're trying to get into the Gulf of Finland, waiting for the Russians
to drop
sonic depth bombs all over the place, I'll be in L.A. lyin' around the
pool
sippin' a cold beer."

"Sure,
Lopez. And
what about your seven
kids? You gonna buy them a beer, too?"

Lopez
laughed,
his heavy jaw hanging open and
his gold teeth glinting in the street light. "My kids don't drink beer.
They smoke reefer and drink mescal."

Traffic
picked up
as they neared the navy
base. The day shift was going to work in the dark. The shore patrol
driver
stopped at the gate, and the Marine guard waved them through.

Sorensen
said, "I
heard a nasty rumor,
Chief. I heard they assigned thirteen apprentice seamen to the ship
yesterday."

Lopez
turned
around to face the back seat.
"You heard wrong. They're not all apprentices. Yours is a third
class."

"Mine?
What do
you mean, mine?"
Sorensen groaned.

"That's
the way
it is. You get Sonarman
Third Class Michael Fogarty."

"I don't suppose
he's qualified in
subs."

"You
suppose
right. But he's supposed to
be another hotshot, just like you, Ace. He's your baby, you keep him in
line."

The
first red
splashes of dawn appeared over
Hampton Roads, turning the Elizabeth River to blood. The jeep wound its
way
through the base, past shops guarded by Marines, past the quonset hut
that
served as headquarters for Submarine Squadron Six.

Two
hundred
people lined the Submarine pier.
Families clustered around their sailors, touching them in little ways.
Mothers
patted flat their sons' collars, fingering the white piping. Little
boys
saluted their fathers. One by one the sailors kissed their wives and
children
and disappeared down the hatch.

There
was a
commotion as the crowd parted
before the jeep. Lopez and the driver sat in front, faces impassive,
eyes
straight ahead. From the back seat Sorensen waved his hat to the crowd
like an
astronaut on parade. "I love ya, I love ya," he shouted to the kids.

Out
of the side
of his mouth Lopez growled,
"Shut up, Sorensen. You ain't no movie star."

Sorensen
smiled
at the crowd and continued to
wave. The kids waved back.

The
jeep stopped
at the gangway. Straining at
her lines,
Barracuda
rode low in the water with
littft more than her
sail and rudder above the surface. She had the look of a great black
shark, a
predator of the deep come momentarily into the light. Bunting hung from
the
gangway, and for a moment the white stars in the fabric shimmered red.

Sorensen
smartly
squared his hat and climbed
out of the jeep. Reaching inside his jumper pocket, he extracted a five
dollar
bill and dropped it in the shore patrolman's lap.

"Thanks
for the
lift, pal. This is my
stop."

From
his perch on
the bridge Captain John
Springfield watched the proceedings on the pier. He enjoyed the pomp,
if only
because it meant a brief respite from the tension of preparing his ship
for
patrol.

The
tall, slender
Texan had been in command
of
Barracuda
for eighteen months, long enough, he
thought, to have
become intimately acquainted with the ship and her crew. He scrutinized
the
sailors as they went aboard. Torpedomen, yeomen, reactor technicians,
the
quartermaster. The eldest was the steward, forty-three-year-old Jimmy
"Cakes" Colby. The youngest was an eighteen-year-old Seaman
apprentice, Duane Hicks. Springfield was thirty-five.

He
watched
Sorensen come aboard. At sea
Sorensen was perfectly disciplined. Ashore, well, at least this time
they
didn't have to salvage him from the drunk tank at Newport News.

The
ship tugged
gently at her lines. The tide
had peaked, stopped for an instant and now was ebbing back to the sea.
A flurry
of butterflies churned up his stomach. A navy band struck up "The Stars
and Stripes Forever."

In
the control
room the executive officer,
Lt. Commander Leo Pisaro, was going through the departure checklist
when
Sorensen came through the hatch. Pisaro held up his hand for Sorensen
to wait
and went on with his list. He spoke into a headset with division heads
throughout the ship.

"Reactor
control,
report."

"Steam,
thirty-one percent."

"Very
well.
Engine room, report."

"Engine
room
standing by on number one
turbine."

"Very
well. Helm,
report."

"Helm
standing
by."

"Very
well. Stern
planes, report."

"Stern
planes
standing by."

"Good
afternoon,
Sorensen, good of you
to join us."

Sorensen
snapped
to attention. "Petty
Officer First Class Sorensen reporting for duty, sir."

Starkly
bald,
swarthy, tenacious, Pisaro was
the only officer aboard who was not an Annapolis graduate. His jumpsuit
was
covered with patches and insignia, a quilt of blazing lightning bolts,
missiles, guns, swords and antique engines of destruction. The newest
and most
prominent patch was a sub whose bow tapered into the snout of a great
barracuda. "SSN 593," it read. "Shipkiller."

He
snapped open a
heavy Zippo and lit a Pall
Mall.

"You're
four
hours late, Sorensen."

"Yes,
sir."

"It's
a good
thing Chief Lopez knew
where to find you."

"Yes,
sir."

"You
drunk?"

"No,
sir. Hung
over." Sorensen
tugged at his crotch.

Pisaro
shook his
head, smiling to himself.
Every cruise was the same. Either the shore patrol or the civilian
police would
drag Sorensen back to the ship, and he would stand in the control room
with a
shit-eating grin on his face and scratch his balls. His uniform was a
mess. His
hat was dirty. He smelled.

One
thing was
certain: drunk or hung over,
Sorensen could go into the sonar room right now, sit down at his
console and
drive the ship to Naples.

"All
right. Get
out of your blues. I
want you in sonar in fifteen minutes."

"Yes,
sir."

"You're
a
disgusting mess, man. Take a
shower."

"Aye
aye,
Commander."

Sorensen
descended two decks to the forward
crews quarters. The compartment was crowded with boisterous sailors
changing
from blues into shipboard uniforms, dark-blue nylon jumpsuits and
rubber-soled
shoes.

"What
say. Ace? Where the hell you been?"

Sorensen
searched the upper tier of bunks for the owner of the bayou drawl. A
freckle-faced redhead peeked out from behind a technical manual.