Pacino emerged into the passageway, and the messenger took him aft down the centerline passageway to a steep staircase to the middle level. Back along a dogleg to another centerline passageway, forward again to a door marked executive officer. Pacino knocked and entered. The stateroom, vacated by Dobrowski for them, was simple and small. Against the far bulkhead two racks were set into a curtained area, one rack above the other. The aft bulkhead was taken up by a fold-down desk and two chairs. The forward bulkhead had cabinets and drawers set into it, a small sink area and the door to the common head shared with the captain’s stateroom.
Pacino unpacked his canister into one of the lockers, tossing his Writepad down on the desk. Paully was sitting at one of the chairs, looking up at Pacino expectantly.
“Have we got a ship-control readout?” Pacino asked.
Paully nodded. “It’s in the corner inside the lower rack.”
Pacino craned his neck and squinted his good eye. A small panel with three dials glowed in the darkness of the rack interior. The readouts were course, speed and depth. The ship was heading 330 true, the direction of the Oparea, the depth was 654 feet, the speed 44.8 knots — flank speed. Pacino rolled out his chart electronic pad, wondering where they were.
“We’ve got about twenty minutes before we have to talk to the president,” Paully said, looking at his watch.
“We need to bring Kane into the loop,” Pacino said.
“But let’s be careful. I don’t want to call him to this stateroom — that’s a power play. We should do this in his stateroom, with him at his command seat. I want you to be particularly respectful of Kane, Paully — this is a guy who’s not too happy with us aboard. When Kane talks, you and I listen hard. We don’t make phone calls to his officer of the deck. We don’t ask his officers tactical questions. We don’t even ask the nav tech the ship’s position. Our information has to come through Kane.
And for that to work, Kane’s got to be on the team.”
Paully found the phone, the special command circuit between the conn, CO’s stateroom, the XO’s stateroom and maneuvering. He buzzed the captain’s stateroom, listened, then spoke quietly, looking up at Pacino.
“Captain Kane would love to speak with us in his stateroom. He said to pop on in through the head door.”
Pacino remembered how uncomfortable he had been as a submarine skipper when an admiral, even though it was Dick Donchez, had been riding the ship at sea. The situation was miserable, all he could wait for was the moment the admiral left. But though he could empathize with Kane now, nothing he could do short of leaving Kane’s ship would make the situation completely comfortable for Kane, but as he had said to Murphy a lifetime ago, they would all need to operate outside their comfort zones. He knocked on the door to the commanding officer’s stateroom. Kane’s voice was muffled as he called Pacino in.
“Thanks for the reception. Captain Kane,” Pacino said. “That shower made me a new man. Your ship is impressive.”
Kane stood, offering Pacino his command chair. Pa cino waved Kane into it, sitting in a seat at Kane’s right against the bulkhead.
“Great layout,” Paully said. Pacino poured a cup of coffee, admiring the ship’s emblem on the cup, the snarling fish swimming past the sail of a submarine, and felt the old urge to command his own ship again.
“The video camera is above the status panels on the centerline soffit. Admiral,” Kane said. “I’ll pipe the Oval Office into the central screen.” “We’ve still got a few minutes,” Pacino said. “I wanted to brief you on what our approach is going to be. Paully, roll out the chartpad and show Captain Kane what we’re suggesting.”
White dropped his semisarcastic style and slipped into a crisp just-the-facts briefing, showing Kane the Oparea and the deployment of the seven attack submarines on the Pacific side, where he envisioned the placement of the Barracuda. If Kane was upset by the Barracuda acting as a standoff command and control ship, he didn’t show it. But there was also no enthusiasm on his face either, which might have been due to the commitment of the seven ships against the entire Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force submarines.
“Sir,” Kane said to Pacino, “we’ve got the better part of a squadron of submarines steaming two days to a week behind us. There were boats out of Pearl that couldn’t get out of repair for a weekend and worked to get going for a few days before they deployed. Before I’d put a half-dozen 688s into the Oparea I’d recommend a coordinated attack with the other two-dozen ships. We could put that together by, say, the day after tomorrow. We could go into that Oparea and clean it up.” “I know,” Pacino said. “But the president wants to see results by Christmas. That’s hours away. I can’t wait a week. The blockade has to go back up now.”
“I think the wolfpack idea is a good one, but seven ships, sir, that’s just—”
