Panic Switch полностью

The boat had been towed to another building, where the stores load had been accomplished. The 140-day food loadout had been an all-hands evolution, bringing on and storing what fresh food they could — which would run out in two weeks — and canned food and frozen stores. Like they had before the Panther run, they’d loaded so many twelve-inch diameter cans of food that they were placed on all walkways forward of the engineering spaces, with plywood laid on top, making the headroom of occupied spaces restricted. More than one sailor had banged his head on a valve, unused to the overhead being closer by a foot. As time went by, the crew would eat their way down to the bare deck plates.

Perhaps most interesting items of the loadout, though, were the arctic supplies, all of them coming down the plug trunk hatch in large cylindrical modules with labels. ”Personnel shelter / arctic.” ”Snowmobile.” “Heavy weather gear / arctic.” ”Diesel heater / arctic.” ”Diesel generator / arctic.” Lewinsky had remarked that they would be ready for anything, but Pacino had doubts. After all, in the South Atlantic, Vermont had run out of torpedoes and it had almost proved their downfall.

The crew had been disappointed that there hadn’t been time to take in the sights of Scotland or experience the pubs — or the female companionship. They’d been in Faslane less than 24 hours and it was around-the-clock work. By the time they’d shoved off and headed north, the crew was exhausted. Hell of a way to start a mission.

And oddly, the SEALs hadn’t arrived until the very last minute, just before Pacino and Short Hull Cooper were ready to remove the gangway. And the SEAL officers had yet to eat a single meal in the wardroom. Wondering why they were so elusive, Pacino had sought out his friends, Commander “Tiny Tim” Fishman and Lieutenant (junior grade) “Grip” Aquatong, who were hiding out in the SEAL accommodations aft of the torpedo room. The SEAL area was self-contained, with a small galley, frozen and refrigerated stores, a conference room that doubled as a movie screening room, and a two-hole head with a shower. With this arrangement, the SEALs could isolate themselves in the thought that a top secret mission would preserve its secrets all the better if they didn’t mix with the rest of the crew, but it was a flawed idea, since the SEALs spent hours a day working out in the torpedo room where they rubbed elbows with the crew. That is, until the rig for ultraquiet was imposed, shutting down hot food from the galley and the makeshift torpedo room gym.

Fishman and Aquatong had greeted Pacino warmly enough, but they seemed preoccupied. They probably knew something that they couldn’t talk about, he considered. Fishman was Pacino’s height and solidly built, the clean-shaven and tough-looking black officer rarely smiling, his serious nature seldom reacting to humor. He was working on his doctorate in philosophy at a different university than the one that had rejected his thesis, a theory about life on earth that resembled a religion, but which had helped Pacino gather his courage to invade the Panther. Pacino had hoped Fishman would entertain them at Quinnivan’s midrats with his theory.

In contrast to Fishman, the taller and skinnier Grip Aquatong was the comedian of the pair, and he’d grinned at Pacino and delighted in showing him his new pistol, a Desert Eagle .50 cal, the gun heavier than a box of lead. Aquatong had a mop of black hair and still had his closely trimmed beard, which had started to come in gray, which was odd since the junior grade lieutenant was only twenty-three. But like Fishman, Aquatong had seemed somewhere else, cutting the visit short so he could attend a meeting that Fishman had called, which kept Pacino from greeting the SEAL medic, Senior Chief “Scooter” Tucker-Santos, or his right-hand man, Petty Officer “Swan Creek” Oneida, but Pacino figured the mission had plenty of time for them all to catch up.

Several days out of Faslane, they’d crossed the Arctic Circle and held the traditional Navy “Bluenose” ceremony, but somehow it had lacked the high spirits of the equatorial crossing on the Panther mission. The crew’s mood seemed somehow subdued, Pacino thought. Somber and serious. It just felt different. Pacino wondered if they were all feeling some darkness arriving from their future. And now, off the Russian submarine base, they were rigged for ultraquiet and tiptoeing. The boat seemed wound tighter than a piano wire.

“Petty Officer Sanders,” Pacino called from the chart table to sonarman Walrus Sanders, who had the sonar stack for this watch section. “Anything?”

Sanders had put his hand to his right ear under the headset as if listening hard to something, which had prompted Pacino’s question.

“New sonar contact, designate Sierra Seventeen, OOD. Diesel engine. Sounds like the same support ship we’ve been hearing. Back for another trip.”

“Probably delivering something,” Pacino said.