Undetected (45 page)

“I hope you're right.” Gina ate another bite of the sandwich. “It was nice to realize the topology maps could be used this way. I wouldn't have thought of before-and-after maps to see a collision until the particulars of this event suggested it. And the solar flare photo worked, even if it was still a pretty fuzzy image.”

“It told us right where to look. It was wonderful. You said it was a hot solar flare. What are the odds we have another flare in the next week or two?”

“Maybe five percent. There won't be another one of size for another three weeks is my guess.”

“You'll be able to get some sleep then. They're talking about lifting the lockdown in a couple of hours. Would you rather stay around here, or would you like me to see about getting you home?”

Gina looked at the ocean board. “Any word on where the
Seawolf
is heading next?”

“My guess, the
Seawolf
will move to provide fast-attack security for the
Nevada
and
Michigan
.”

That made sense to her. Something had to be done about the North Korea missile on the launch pad. But if she waited for the world to get more peaceful, she would never leave the building. Her husband and her brother were good at their jobs; they would handle whatever came. And she was going to trust them. “I'm ready to go home now.”

“We are in agreement this EAM message is properly authenticated and decoded?” Bishop asked, looking around the assembled officers.

“I concur, sir,” each officer said in turn.

Bishop turned to his weapons chief. “Bring the missile system back to quiet status.”

“Yes, sir.”

The weapons officer headed down a level to the missile control room. North Korea had removed its second missile from the launch pad. This particular crisis was coming to a close. “Thank you, gentlemen. Return to your stations.”

Bishop went back to command-and-control, reached for the intercom and turned the setting to 1MC. “
Nevada
, this
is the captain. We have authenticated EAM traffic. Stand down from launch.”

He saw the palpable relief among those on duty and knew the feeling was now rippling through the boat.

The light on the commander's panel turned off, showing the missile system aboard the USS
Nevada
now disengaged. Ten days with the
Nevada
at launch status had ended without a missile being fired.

“Petty Officer Hill, how many days remain in this patrol?”

The officer reached into his pocket and pulled out a scorecard. “Days remaining . . . 26, sir.”

“Circle today, if you would.”

They would be coming off hard-alert in another two days—the USS
Louisiana
would take their place—and they would no longer be required to stay within the patrol box, only be near enough to return to it in a few hours should they be called back to hard-alert status. Bishop studied the charts on the navigation table. He was looking for an area in the northern half of the Pacific where it was unlikely they would meet someone else. There was normally a pod or two of whales traveling along the deep ocean current toward Alaska this time of year. “Conn, bring us to heading 030, make our depth 700 feet.”

“Bearing 030, depth 700 feet, aye, Captain.”

He'd go find those whales and follow them around for a while. The boat was facing a packed 26 days getting caught up on the maintenance deferred while the missile system was enabled. The normal halfway celebration with skits and jokes and videos from home, the surf-and-turf meal of lobster and steak, had been set aside by events. Off hard-alert now, he'd find something to give the crew some laughter and much-needed stress relief.

Nevada
gold families would have seen the missile launch and the damaged sub on the news. Would they have anticipated the rest of it? The orders their husbands had received? When they reached shore, the crew would never talk about the fact they had enabled the missile system and prepared to fire—what happened on the boat stayed on the boat. But they would take the urgency, the weight of this patrol, home with them just the same.

Bishop pulled a photo out of his pocket, glanced at it, and slipped it back into the pocket over his heart. His wife knew. She would have been in the TCC and seen most, if not all, of what had occurred—enough to know the danger to her brother and to himself. He wondered what shape his wife and his marriage was going to be in when he got back to shore.

His XO stepped into the command-and-control center. “We've got a problem, sir.”

“What is it?”

Kingman took his hand from behind his back and held up a full-sized lobster. “The cook says it doesn't fit in the pot.”

Laughter rippled through the room.

Bishop smiled. Apparently the culinary crew had decided on a celebration for tonight. Bishop could see some obstacles with it, but nothing they couldn't work around. “I'll take that one broiled, butter on the side. Surf and turf at seven bells. We'll rotate one-hour watches. Ask Nicholas not to burn my steak this time.”

“Yes, sir,” Kingman said with a grin, then spun on his heel and left with the lobster. The culinary crew brought one live lobster aboard for the halfway night feast so they could fashion a center display and offer it to the captain. The rest of the
lobster for the crew was in the freezer. Lobster and steak—it would serve a good purpose and give the crew a nice break.

Bishop felt himself relax. His crew was fine, his boat in good shape. The world was heading back toward peaceful. Twenty-six days from now he'd no longer be carrying the enormous responsibility of the
Nevada
and her mission. He'd end this patrol with a few more gray hairs, tired to the bone, but he'd get the boat home safely.
Nevada
gold could handle the rest of the patrol with the same skill they had displayed over the last several weeks. He settled into the captain's chair. And he said a prayer for his crew and their safety.

B
ishop had long ago memorized the checklist a ballistic missile submarine executed once it nudged the pier. He scanned power settings on the command-and-control consoles, watched engineering reconfigure the boat to take power from shore in preparation for shutdown of the nuclear reactor. The officer manning the sequence had it well in hand. Bishop waited until the hand-off was ready for the pier crew to physically connect the cables. “You did a solid job during this patrol, Olson,” he said.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Family waiting for you?”

“At the Squadron 17 ready room, sir. You?”

Bishop found the photo in his pocket that the ombudsman had handed him, along with her shore summary, and turned the photo to show the sailor. “My wife is at the vet with a sick puppy.” Pongo had grown so much in three months he looked ungainly. Gina's note of welcome, along with the news, was scrawled on the back of the photo. It also had a border of X's and O's and a nicely drawn smiley face. Mark was taking it
as good indication she'd meet him with a welcoming smile when they finally both got free.

The fact Gina was electing to take the dog to the vet rather than be on the pier to meet him—struggling to hide her emotions about what had almost happened—didn't escape his notice. He had the distinct impression her absence was deliberate. Gina was keeping arrival day low-key, trying to say with her actions that this was just a normal part of life and what a commander's wife did. She waved him off on patrol, said “hello” and “welcome home” when he got back. It wasn't what Mark had been expecting, but it had its interesting merits. She knew his focus had to be on the boat for the first few hours pier-side.

The photo told him she was okay—
that
was the important news. There wasn't anything in the ombudsman's shore summary about his wife having fallen and broken a leg or something of that nature. He'd scanned it for her name as soon as he was handed the document. His wife would find her way to him eventually.

Bishop pulled the note pad from his pocket and jotted down another three items to remember on his hand-over report.
Nevada
blue was going to be given a boat that showed the stress of this patrol. Missiles 9 and 16 were going to have to be lifted out and put on the test bench to confirm their guidance systems had properly cleared. Bishop was considering making the move to the Explosives Handling Wharf tomorrow evening to deal with those missiles before hand-over. But it might be better to leave it for
Nevada
blue to oversee, as the loading of new missiles without incident would be high on their own concerns list.

“Sir, your wife is topside.”

Mark swiftly turned, nodded his thanks to his sonar chief, reached for his sunglasses, and hurried up the ladder into the sail. Gina Bishop had crossed the walkway and was standing on the steel deck of the
Nevada
, talking with his chief engineer and the
Nevada
's ombudsman. Mark smiled when he looked down from the sail and saw her, then leaned his arms against the metal warmed by the sun. “Hi there, precious.”

She looked up, smiled, lifted her hand. “Hey, sailor, welcome home.”

“How's our dog?”

“No longer enamored with the flowers I planted by the back porch,” she called up to him. “He ate a few, and the insecticide I used made him sick. At least the vet thinks that was the culprit.”

“That would do it.” He moved over to the ladder and left the sail for the deck.

She came to meet him and leaned against his chest in an embrace that turned into more than just a welcome home. It became a sanctuary for them both. “I'm so glad you're home, Mark,” she whispered.

He smoothed a hand across her back. “Glad to be here.” He waited to see if she wanted to say anything else, and when she didn't, he dropped a kiss on her hair and circled her shoulders with an arm. “How much new science did you have to invent to get us out of that jam?” he asked softly.

“I may have reapplied a bit of it,” she answered with a small smile. “You had a busy patrol.”

“I think you probably saw the worst of it,” he reassured. “The
Seawolf
got home safely?”

“Docked last week,” she said. “Jeff is getting married.
He proposed to Tiffany about an hour after he stepped off the boat.”

Bishop grinned. “Good for him.”

“Going to be a few more hours before you can get away?”

“About four.”

“I'm thinking a fruit salad and omelet, hot shower and back rub, whenever you manage to cross the threshold of home. I'll tell you the rest of the news then.”

“You've got yourself a deal and a date.”

She held out car keys and a cell phone. “Security will give me a lift home. Call if you aren't going to make it before midnight.” There was just the edge of a tremor in her hand as he accepted the keys, and he shot her a more careful look. Joy, not stress, but she was fighting not to shed tears, determined to make this casual for the sake of the crew. No scenes by the captain's wife, even though her emotions were running high.

He leaned down and kissed her. “Thank you for marrying me, Gina,” he whispered.

Her full smile about stopped his heart, and she added to the emotion when she lifted her hand, rested it against his chest over his heart, and lightly patted him twice. “You look pretty good to me, sailor. Come home when you can.”

Bishop laughed and pocketed the keys as she walked back across the gangway to the pier. His wife was learning to flirt.

Mark walked through the door to his home shortly after nine p.m. At first the dog growled at him, but then he recognized Mark and floppily jumped and bumped his hand. Both cats stalked into the hall to see what the fuss was about and took a perch on the stairs to consider him.

The hall light turned on near the kitchen. “Your welcome-home committee needs more practice. I didn't hear the car.”

He smiled and dropped his bag by the door. “They'll remember me after a few days.” He joined her and folded her in his arms, content to simply hold her for a long while, relearning the smell of her shampoo and her habit of burrowing her hands against his chest between them. She let him take all her weight. She belonged here in his arms. Life felt good again. “Hi.”

She leaned back and pulled his head down to kiss him lightly. “Let me get you fed.”

She'd changed during the last three months, and he was beginning to notice a number of the ways. Definitely lost some weight—she'd felt thin in that hug. Her smile was more confident. And something else . . . “You changed your hair.”

She laughed as she stepped into the kitchen. “Blame the wives of
Nevada
gold. We had this get-together at the beauty shop, a ‘before the guys get home' party. It was a riot, but I nearly got turned into a redhead. I managed to get a hair color a shade lighter, plus highlights to go with a trim.”

He gratefully accepted the glass of iced tea she held out. “Your husband likes it.”

“Good, because the only option is to watch it grow out.”

Melinda's colored bottles on display had been joined by pottery, the counter had acquired three cookbooks, a cake plate with glass dome had donuts under its lid, the kitchen table had been covered with a red-and-white-checkered cloth, and irises clustered in a tall vase.

Gina cracked eggs for an omelet. “Bacon, ham, mushrooms, and cheese sound okay?”

“Wonderful. Powdered eggs just don't cut it after a while.”
He got a spoon out of the drawer, retrieved the already made fruit salad from the top shelf of the refrigerator, found a smaller bowl, and pulled out a chair at the table. Fresh fruit had disappeared from the
Nevada
a few days before the eggs, and he'd been craving a good peach. To his delight he found a layer of peach slices in the fruit salad. “Anything else you ladies did together?”

“We had baking days, garage sales, kid-fun trips. There are a lot of casseroles shoved into freezers, so time doesn't have to be spent cooking meals, scrapbooks on what happened during the patrol, and a few houses with new paint jobs inside. We wives stayed busy.”

Bishop laughed at the way she said it. Gina had settled in with the group, that much was clear. As the captain's wife she would have been invited to everything. Opportunities to make friends among the gold crew must have been abundant. “No major accidents or problems?”

“A snake in the yard I could have done without. I fell asleep one day and burned a pan of brownies, set off the smoke detector. And there are too many sounds in this house at night I'm not accustomed to yet, so security walked the place a few times when I was uncomfortable. I lost a cat on three different occasions—eventually figured out they were sleeping in an odd spot and ignoring me.”

Bishop looked down at the cats now stalking the dog's tail. Pongo had crashed on his shoe to anchor Bishop from moving anywhere. “Cats will be cats,” he offered. “I see bells on their collars—those are new.”

“They've figured out how to move slowly enough so the bells don't ring.”

Bishop grinned. “Of course.”

She turned the eggs and added items to the omelet. “Jeff is off on R and R somewhere, but he promised he'll make Chicago on the 20th for our wedding celebration. Your mom and I have the invitations ready to go in the mail tomorrow if the date still works for you.”

Bishop smiled. “It does.”

“Good, because I already ordered the cake for that date.”

She folded over the omelet and slid it onto a plate, brought it over to the table for him. She took a seat next to his.

“How's Daniel?” Mark asked.

“Good.” She rested her chin on her palm. “He was invaluable at the TCC. He headed out with the
Nebraska
five days ago. I made him a dozen music playlists to take with him—our credit card kind of whimpered,” she admitted. When he only chuckled, she went on, “I promised I'd keep an eye on the new saltwater aquarium he's added to his place.”

Mark nodded and reached for a napkin.

“He pulled me into the TCC just before lockdown closed the doors, so we had a front-row seat to everything that happened. It was helpful to have him as a sounding board while it was unfolding.”

“That's one of the reasons I wanted him with you.”

“It helped, Mark, hearing his perspective. We figured out what happened with China's sub by creating new topology maps for the East China Sea before and after the sub went missing. We spotted the seamount it hit. From there, it was simply a matter of figuring out where the crippled sub was, and a photo helped with that.”

“Your science did its job.”

“A very good job,” she agreed. “By the way, Daniel has recently met an ocean biologist. She's finishing a Ph.D. thesis
on porpoise vocalizations, and the Navy has a lot of audio recordings that fit what she needs.” Gina smiled. “I just might have introduced them.”

Bishop leaned over and kissed her. “You might have, indeed. Does she like the sea?”

“Grew up in Hawaii, surfing for an hour before school most mornings. Her father runs a deep-sea fishing charter.”

“Nicely done.” He finished half the omelet. “What else did you do while I was away?”

“Missed you. Wrote you a bunch of letters. Thought about how much I'm going to enjoy Montana for a honeymoon.”

“Three days to hand-over, and then it's a big wedding and a long honeymoon,” he promised.

She reached over and ruffled his hair. “You need a haircut before then. I like it, but it's so not the normal you.”

Bishop caught her hand and kissed the inside of her palm. “I lost a crew challenge at the halfway-night party and conceded not to see the crew barber until we were back onshore.”

“Going to tell me the challenge?”

“Never.”

She laughed. “The guys would have needed some levity by the end of the patrol.”

“We got through it.” He finished the meal and pushed back his plate. “I've missed your face, Gina, and your smile.” He brushed her hair back. “I should have taken more pictures with me than I did. I nearly wore out the ones I had.”

“I'll remember that for the next patrol. I kept finding your notes for weeks after you left. They were really nice, Mark.”

“I hoped they would bring a smile.”

“They did. Oh, hold on. I found something of yours.” She
left the kitchen and returned a moment later with a book in her hand, setting it beside him on the table.

It was a book of poetry, one he recognized. He picked it up slowly, and it opened to a page his first wife had often stopped at. A note fluttered out. Mark picked it up. It was addressed to Melinda.

“Did you read it?”

“Yes. I was too curious not to,” she admitted, sitting again beside him.

He nodded and opened the folded page.