Undetected (16 page)

“It was my pleasure,” Daniel replied, rising to his feet to see her off. “Sleep well, Gina.”

Gina did sleep very well. She headed to the officers' wardroom seven hours after she had gone to stretch out. Bishop was reading a thick report. He looked up as she entered, smiled, and nodded to the seat opposite his. “Ready for breakfast?”

“I've got time before the next test?”

“Plenty of time. We'll be over the Tufts Plain in about 40 minutes. If no other subs or surface ships are around to be concerned about, we'll get started with the next test shortly thereafter. I'd like it if you were there at the start just to be sure the files you need collected are properly recording, but after that feel free to use the time as you like. I'll find you if there's a concern I need you to address.”

“I was thinking I might have Sharon give me a more complete tour of the boat.”

“You'll enjoy it, Gina. A boomer grows on you the longer you're aboard. You fall in love with the boat.”

“I'm beginning to pick out all the things that make this submarine function. Blue pipes and valves are fresh water. Orange pipes are hydraulic fluid. What are the red arrows?”

“Air outlets so crewmen can plug in masks and be able to breathe during a fire,” Bishop replied.

The petty officer stepped in to get her breakfast order. She chose an omelet and hash browns. “I'd like to hear about your first command,” she said.

Bishop simply smiled. “How about we talk about something not sub-related? What was the last book you read for pleasure, not work?”

“Jerry McKowen's biography—he's a nuclear physicist—titled
Fireball
.”

“You enjoy biographies?”

“When it's as much about the career someone has as it is the person. What about you, Mark? The last book you read for pleasure.”

“I'm partial to a good mystery. The last one, John Sandford's
Dead Watch.
Before that, Dean Koontz's
The
Husband
.”

She shuddered. “Too vivid for my tastes. I don't like to be scared, even when it's make-believe.”

He absorbed that answer, nodded. “Most recent movie?”

That was more difficult to remember. “I watched
Moneyball
several times, as I enjoyed the math behind sabermetrics. You?”

“I'll go with a DVD, an old Hallmark movie called
Duke
. I'm a goner for a good dog flick.”

Gina laughed at the admission.

“Are you a baseball fan?” Bishop asked her.

“I understand it, but I don't follow a particular team. It takes too many hours to keep up with all the games played during a season.” Her breakfast arrived. “What should I ask Sharon to show me first?”

“The laundry. When you mention to people you were able to spend a few days at sea on a submarine, the three questions you're going to get asked the most are about the restrooms, showers, and food. The two questions after that are the sleeping berths and the laundry. No one ever asks to see the laundry and doesn't know how to answer that one—it's one washer and one dryer, for a 155-person crew.”

Gina smiled. “I was thinking I would start with the torpedo room. Jeff mentioned the
Nebraska
carries a few MK48s.”

Bishop nodded. “Boomers have four torpedo tubes, enough for defense and a limited offense while we try to disengage and disappear from the fight. A fast-attack submarine like the
Seawolf
has eight torpedo tubes and can hold its own and re-engage in battle easily. If you want to start with the torpedo room, you'll be heading down to the fourth level.”

“I'm slowly getting the hang of the ladders. Will they mind a visit?”

“No. Sharon will give a call ahead if she thinks a department needs to know to expect visitors. She'll likely give a call to engineering so they have a radiation badge available for you.”

“A lovely thought. The idea of being at sea is tough enough. Knowing I'm at sea with a nuclear reactor . . . I may skip visiting the back of the boat.”

Bishop chuckled. “You can have Sharon stick to places like the radio room and kitchen.”

Gina nodded. “She was heading up to the radio room to get a look at the Navy daily brief.”

“It's worth the read,” Bishop mentioned, glancing at the document he'd turned over when she joined him.

She didn't ask to see it. She'd seen the classified stamp on the cover. Her security clearance was high enough to cover it and about any other document on this boat, but there were times she would rather not know something. Her mind was already on overload with what she was learning about the sub operations. “You'll be in the sonar room most of the day?”

“Plan to be,” Bishop said.

“After I confirm the sea trial files are recording properly, I'll take that boat tour with Sharon, then come find you in the sonar room this afternoon.”

G
ina was becoming used to the USS
Nebraska
. The sound was a constant hum of conversations that echoed through the sub's corridors. The air was so clean of all bacteria it was odorless . . . until she passed close to a guy who'd been sweating on one of the treadmills. The various small rooms were packed with people no matter where she turned—submariners ready to offer her stories, laughter, and tall tales, men focused on monitoring screens, maintaining equipment, and tackling repairs.

The
stateroom
Gina
shared
with
Sharon
and
the
other
three
women
in
the
crew
reminded
her
of
a
very
small
,
very
crowded
dorm
room
.
After
three
days
aboard
the
Nebraska
,
Gina
was
well
acquainted
with
the
room
and
feeling
a
bit
possessive
of
it
.
The
room
was
a
safe
haven
where
she
could
slide
into
her
assigned
berth
and
stretch
out
,
plug
in
headphones
to
listen
to
music
through
the
sub
'
s
internal
audio
system
.
If
she
closed
her
eyes
,
she
could
forget
the
next
bunk
was
a
foot
above
her
head
,
and
the
wall
was
just
inches
from
her
shoulder
.
The
berth
was
the
only
personal
space
she
had
—
storage
under
the
bunk
could
fit
a
few
clothes
and
small
belongings
—
and
a
curtain
could
be
closed to block out sights if not sounds.

Gina relaxed on the bunk and let her mind drift. The temperature stayed cool, and she was glad for the layers Bishop had suggested she wear. Sleep was getting easier to come by. She was exhausted with the flow of people, along with the volume of information she was trying to absorb. This experience was intense. The nervousness about being underwater was still a constant edge, but if she stayed busy, she could push it aside. Bishop had been right to insist she come. She could do this for five days of a sea trial. But she didn't understand how men could face doing a 90-day patrol.

Life aboard the boat had an interesting tempo. There was not an extra man aboard the submarine—they each had a full job to do, with each depending on the other, and they worked hard. She had absorbed that fact early on. It was a privilege to watch them efficiently and competently go about their work.

The meals were good, better than most restaurants. She was getting used to Bishop's questions when they shared a meal. He had her talking about Chicago, high school, Jeff, movies she liked, people she had worked with, things she wanted to do in her lifetime—anything but the sea trial they were here to conduct. It felt like he was deliberately avoiding any conversation that had a work tone to it. She appreciated that.

So far she was handling the stress of it all reasonably well. Her speech had frozen twice with Bishop. Once when she was trying to answer a question he posed about her mom, and once when he surprised her with a question about Jeff and Tiffany. She appreciated that Bishop handled it by simply
settling back in his chair, his hands linked loosely across his knee as he waited, relaxed, for her to get past the freeze. He never asked about the speech problem. Bishop was simply good company. And he was doing his best to encourage things between her and Daniel.

Whenever Daniel came off watch, Bishop would within a few minutes excuse himself so Daniel could have her undivided attention. Gina was grateful and somewhat surprised by the effort Bishop was making to further the relationship. Bishop had concurred with Jeff that Daniel was a good man and was now going out of his way to be helpful in seeing that things had a chance to develop.

Knowing Jeff and Bishop both expected it to work out with Daniel felt like a bit of unexpected pressure—that if it didn't, it would surprise and disappoint them. She hadn't expected that when she asked for Jeff's help, but realized now that she should have. Of course, Jeff would expect it to work out. He'd chosen a good guy for her to meet, so why wouldn't it work out? The situation made her a bit uneasy, and she felt an odd burden that it needed to be a success or Jeff would be seen to have made the wrong choice for her.

“Quit borrowing trouble,” she whispered to herself. She liked Daniel Field. He made her laugh. He was good company. The sea trial was giving her some extended time in his company to talk about anything that interested her, to watch him work. Getting to know him was not hard. What to do with what she was learning about him was the question, and how was she supposed to sort out all those impressions in such a short period of time?

The events of the last couple of weeks felt like a compressed dating relationship. Since the dinner introduction, she had
been to a concert with Daniel, boating with him, met several of his friends, and enjoyed two evenings of music. After one dinner, he'd picked up the guitar to play part of a set with the group onstage. She'd even joined him for some batting practice. Added to that, she had now spent a large chunk of the last three days talking with him. What she was learning about Daniel was gradually making a full picture.

Was he the one? When she'd met him initially, she'd hoped he might be. Was there anything she had seen so far that told her something different? She hoped never to have another breakup with a guy, and she'd rather not get so heart-bruised if this one was also not going to work out. Was there anything that suggested they were not going to be a good match? She was pondering that all-important question when sleep finally overtook her.

One of the things Gina liked most about Daniel was watching him work. He loved his job. He brought the same focus to it as he did to the music he was passionate about. She was learning a lot about sonar just by observing what he would glance at and set aside as not a concern and what he would spot on the screen and focus in on, revealing something interesting in the waters around them.

Gina watched him now as he leaned forward in his seat, one hand pressed against the headphones he was wearing to bring the sound that much closer to his ear as he dialed in the focus. He smiled.

“Got it.” Daniel held out the headphones. “Gina, listen.”

She pressed them against her ears. Her eyes shot to his, and she grinned. Whales were singing. “This is wonderful.”

“One of the side benefits of patrolling around the oceans. These whales are far away, but it's a large group.”

“I listen to the tapes of these encounters in the lab, but it's not the same as hearing it firsthand.”

“It's beautiful. Hold on, let me give you another sound.” He moved the cursor.

She grimaced. “It sounds like fingernails across a blackboard. What is that?”

Daniel laughed. “A fishing vessel with a poorly maintained engine.”

“I see why you can tell ships apart without seeing them.”

“They sound very different from each other.” He moved the cursor to another spot on the screen.

“That's more like a deep bass, humming.”

“Very good. It's a freighter out of Hong Kong.”

“Give me another one.”

Daniel chose another line in the waterfall display.

“It sounds like a rockslide.”

“It is. An underwater one, about five miles from here. There have been repeated rockslides over the last half hour.”

“I can see why you like this job, Daniel. It's like a puzzle that you play by hearing rather than sight.”

“The more time listening, the better my memory for the subtle differences. I could teach you some of this if you like—you've got a good ear.”

They had been at sea five days now, the last of the sea trial tests were finished, and the sub was heading back toward Bangor. “Could you help me distinguish the
Ohio
from the
Connecticut
?”

Daniel nodded and shifted the display to a wider view. “You have to find them in the first place. Watch the middle
screen. We're looking for an interruption in the waterfall that looks a bit like a fishhook.”

Gina was enjoying herself, Mark thought, listening to her laughter as he moved through the control center to join her in the sonar room. If she had requested to stay onshore, they would have been okay on the sea trial, but she would have missed the rich experience of the last five days. The last of the planned maneuvers were complete, and they were now nearing home, the sea trial finished.

Bishop tapped on the sonar room door, and she turned from her conversation with Daniel, smiled at him. Bishop loved her smile. “We're getting ready to surface, Gina.”

“Oh, that's good news!”

He laughed at her relief. “Want to come to the control center and watch it?”

“I'm fine here. Thanks for asking. I'm learning how they tell ship traffic apart.”

Bishop nodded, shared a smile with Daniel, and headed back to join the
Nebraska
's captain.

Bishop tapped on the sonar room door again a few hours later. Gina slipped off the headphones.

“Come topside and see the ocean at night,” he invited.

She hesitated.

“Trust me, Gina. I won't steer you wrong.”

She set down the headphones and came to join him. “I'm not particularly brave, Mark,” she said softly.

“You won't need to be brave, just careful. Borrow from my experience and simply do what I do. It's well worth the risk to see what it's like topside right now.”

She nodded and came with him into the command-and-control center.

He held out an insulated jacket. “You'll find it helpful to wear this.”

She slid it on.

“Start up and I'll come up behind you. The XO is topside and expecting you. He'll help you step off the ladder when you enter the sail.”

She took a deep breath and started climbing the ladder. Bishop followed and stepped out beside her in the sail. It was like a balcony with a high, solid wall of the
Nebraska
hull on all sides of them, the lookout posts up yet another ladder to an even higher perch. The breeze was calm, the sky filled with stars, the water bright with reflections of the moon on gently rolling waves. She tucked her hands deep into the jacket pockets.