“Take her to full speed, Deck Officer. I’m laying below,” Alexeyev said, taking off his cap before it blew off.
“Full speed, aye, Captain,” Sobol said.
Alexeyev entered the command post and found Lebedev.
“Any sonar contacts?” he asked her.
Lebedev shook her head. “We had a good sonar look around when the tugs were clear before the speed increase. No contacts. We’re alone in the sea, sir.”
Alexeyev nodded. “Good.”
When he opened his eyes, he was on his small bed upstairs. The room was lit by a rotating globe that projected small points like stars on the ceiling and walls, but also by a blinking string of Christmas lights that Mommy had placed where the walls met the ceiling.
Mommy was downstairs screaming at Daddy. She was very angry. Daddy was trying to calm her down, speaking to her in a low voice. None of their words could be made out, only their emotions.
He got out of his bed and sat on the floor near the door, his legs crossed underneath him. He could hear better here. Mommy was shouting that it was almost Christmas and Daddy was supposed to stay home.
He heard heavy footfalls on the stair treads and his door opened slowly. Daddy stood there in his officer’s uniform, the three gold stripes on his sleeves, his submarine emblem above his ribbons, a circular pin below them that he had explained was given to him because he was the captain of a submarine. He put down a big duffel bag and knelt down.
“Anthony,” he said gently. “I have to go away. I’m sorry. I’m going to miss Christmas.”
Anthony Pacino looked up at his father, feeling tears fill his six-year-old eyes.
“No. Don’t go.”
“I have to, Son.”
Anthony narrowed his eyes at his father. “Are you going to the North Pole again?”
The elder Pacino hesitated as if he were carefully trying to choose his words. Finally he said, “Yes. I’m going to the North Pole.”
“Is there trouble?”
Again his father paused. “It’s a bad situation, Anthony. It’s very important I go up there with my submarine.”
Anthony drilled his eyes into his father’s. “It’s the Omega, isn’t it? Omega unit one?”
Commander Michael Pacino drew back in surprise. “What do
Anthony nodded. “You’re going to sink it, aren’t you?”
“I should go,” the older man said.
“It has those torpedoes, doesn’t it? Nuclear-tipped? One megaton warhead? A meter in diameter, can go sixty knots for an hour, right?”
Michael Pacino stood, crossing his arms over his chest, and Anthony also stood, still looking into his father’s eyes.
“We call them ‘Magnum’ torpedoes,” Commander Pacino said haltingly.
“The Russians call them
“How do you know what the Russians call them?”
“Perestroika,” the younger Pacino said. “Means ‘openness’ in Russian. We don’t have to use NATO code names anymore.”
“I have to go,” Michael Pacino said again.
“Be careful, Daddy. And good hunting.”
Michael Pacino stared at his son for a long moment, a look of shock on his face before he withdrew through the door. Again there were footsteps on the stairs, getting fainter. The front door of the house opened and shut. Daddy started the engine of his old Corvette and the engine roared and the tires shrieked as he drove off.
Anthony Pacino stood at the door and slowly opened it. But on the other side of the door, it wasn’t the upstairs hallway with the gallery view of the beach house’s main level, but the control room of a submarine. Anthony looked down at himself. He was still wearing his favorite pajamas, the ones with the dolphins swimming together. His feet were bare. No one in the room seemed to think it odd that a bare-footed six-year-old in pajamas stood in their control room.
Rachel Romanov noticed him standing beside her and wordlessly passed him a cordless, one-eared headset. He put it on and immediately heard the voice.
“
“I’m going below to take charge at the scene,” Romanov said to him, pulling on her emergency air breathing mask.
“No, Rachel, don’t go!” Anthony said. But by then she was gone.
As the room filled with thick smoke, he heard himself — as if from a distance — bark words into his boom microphone. “Maneuvering, Conn, report your status!”
As if answering him, he heard the sound of a bunk curtain being jerked aside.
“Why, the reactor is in natural circulation and the electric plant’s in a normal full-power lineup,” River Styxx’s voice said, her face close to his, but it was in shadow in the dim light of the stateroom. “Bad dream, Patch? Again?”
Pacino groaned as he climbed out of his rack. “Oh, damn, I’m so tired.”
“Complaints get you nowhere on a submarine,” Styxx said. “Now put on your game face. We’re manning battlestations. The BUFF is underway. Captain’s about to initiate trail ops.”
