Crush Depth

“Jeffrey, do you want me to stay or not?”

His body posture stiffened. He drew a deep breath to say something. Ilse knew they were about to have a fight. The phone on the little desk rang.

“Crap,” Jeffrey said.

“Maybe you should answer it.” It had rung at midnight, but Jeffrey ignored it then. They were occupied, and he said that at that hour it was surely a wrong number. Now it was ringing again.

Jeffrey got out of bed and felt for the phone in the dark. The room was already cold. A draft got under the blanket, and Ilse shivered and pulled the covers close. Outside the window the storm blustered, but not as strong as before.

“Lieutenant Commander Fuller.” Jeffrey spoke firmly into the phone. He paused to listen. He listened for some time.

“Understood.” There was a shorter pause. “No, I’ll tell her…. Yes, I have her extension. I’ll do it. Very well.” He hung up.

“What was that all about?”

Jeffrey stayed standing, naked in the dark — as a SEAL in younger days, he was desensitized to cold that would make other people’s teeth chatter. Jeffrey cleared his throat. “They want us on the first train in the morning to Washington.”

Ilse almost groaned. “How come?”

“A debriefing at the Pentagon. More brass desire to hear of our recent adventures.”

“Again?”

“It’s an overnight trip this time. We’ll need to pack.”

“Why train? That’ll be slow.”

“No flights available on such short notice. Travel restrictions, Ilse, aviation-fuel shortages… There’s a war on.”

“Don’t we deserve a priority?”

“Last-minute changes like that raise eyebrows, draw attention, compromise security. This time we blend with the crowd on mass transit.”

“What time’s the train?”

“Six-fifteen.”

“How do you want to get over there? Shuttle van, or the water taxi?” The local railroad station was on the other side of the river.

“Water taxi. The aide said they’ll hold spaces. A messenger’ll meet us with our travel documents.”

“It’ll be freezing out on the Thames,” Ilse said.

“Yup, but at least we won’t miss the train. Have you seen the traffic on I-95?… I don’t trust the bridge. They’re still repairing the damage.” From a German high-explosive cruise missile raid, before Christmas.

“Won’t there be ice on the river, in this weather?”

“The tug can get through fine. The snow’s supposed to clear by morning. Colder, but clearing and sunny. A good day for travel.”

“Reset the alarm for four, will you? I need time to pack.” Ilse heard Jeffrey handling the alarm clock.

“Come back to bed,” Ilse said. “Gawd, less than three hours’ sleep. Barring more interruptions, that is.”

“Business as usual,” Jeffrey said. “You can nap on the train.” It was a five-hour trip, with the Acela electrified service. They’d be in the Pentagon by noon.

Jeffrey got under the blanket and held Ilse close, and this time didn’t ask her awkward questions. Soon, by his deep, steady breathing, she could tell he was asleep.

Ilse thought of the last time she’d made love to Jan, wildly and with carnal abandon, when she still thought she could trust him, before her whole world came unglued. She stared into the dark for a very long time, hating all wars and all warriors.

Next day, on the way to Washington, D.C.

Jeffrey glanced at Ilse snoozing next to him in the window seat. Then he gazed out as the New York City skyline loomed gradually larger. Their train was running late. It was already well past noon, and they were only now approaching Manhattan. Jeffrey was starving — the snack bar car had run out of everything hours ago, in large part because of food shortages nationwide.

After Jeffrey’s train entered the railroad tunnel under New York’s East River, the lights went out and the engineer braked to a halt. The powerless electric locomotive had to be pulled the rest of the way into Penn Station by a noisy, smelly diesel switching engine. Jeffrey found it strange that in the station, though the trains sitting on every track were dark and empty, the platforms were well lit.

Jeffrey looked up as a conductor came through the car. He told everybody to get off the train. Jeffrey nudged Ilse gently. She stirred.

Like all the other passengers, Jeffrey and Ilse grabbed their coats and luggage and gas-mask satchels, and took the stairs to the waiting room. It was wall-to-wall people, passing rumors and complaining, a continuous babbling din. Every train on the schedule board read DELAYED INDEFINITELY.

The stationmaster came on the loudspeakers. He said the railroad’s power and signals and switching systems in the entire northeast had suffered a massive Axis information-warfare attack. It would take hours to restore service. Computer programs had failed in a cascade, and it was complicated to find and then stamp out the viruses and test everything — and safety had to come first. He said that a USO club was in Times Square, not far. All passengers should report back to the station by 9 P.M.

Jeffrey heard a collective groan from the crowds in the station. No rail disruption this extensive, especially one triggered by the enemy, had happened in the U.S. homeland since the outbreak of the war. It was headline news, and unwelcome news. Jeffrey expected ground travel everywhere — from the nation’s capital, through Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and all the way toward Boston — would be a mess well into tomorrow.

“We need to call in again,” Jeffrey said to Ilse. He smiled and tried to sound stoic, to mask his irritation and concern. They should have been at the Pentagon by now.

Jeffrey considered the long lines at the pay phones. “We can probably do better if we find one on the street.” They’d been specifically ordered not to bring cell phones, to avoid interception by enemy signals intelligence.

“Can we get something to eat first, Jeffrey? Please?”

Jeffrey heard Ilse’s stomach rumble. They stood on line at a bagel stand, ate quickly, then agreed to walk to the USO. They were stranded in New York, by Axis hands — and Jeffrey couldn’t shake a sense of foreboding.

He was dismayed when they got to Times Square. All the colorful wide-screen TV displays — usually flashy and running all day — were dark, except for a handful of civil defense messages: Save energy. Watch out for spies. Is that e-mail really necessary? The sidewalks were half deserted, even taking into account the cold. Many people wore gas masks, though the radiation count today was normal.

A number of people’s overcoats were baggy, as if they’d lost a lot of weight since the previous, prewar winter. Now, like the rest of the population, they followed government urgings to wear what they had until it wore out. With imports squeezed to a trickle, and North American manufacturers cranking out uniforms and protective suits, civilian clothes had to take a backseat.

Jeffrey glanced around again at the dearth of people, the shops with closed doors. He turned to Ilse, and tried not to sound too glum. “This war has been death to restaurants and tourism.”

But it hadn’t dented the vehemence of the area’s curbside preachers. Repent your sins before it’s too late, the end of the world is nigh, they bellowed to whomever would listen.

“This time,” Jeffrey said under his breath, “they may have it right.”

He found an unused pay phone that actually worked. When he got off, he told Ilse they’d be expected in Washington tomorrow morning; he realized they’d have to sleep on the train.

They passed a construction site for an office tower. The site was completely quiet: no cement mixers running and no big cranes or hard hats working. The project had been abandoned months ago because of the war — materials and skilled labor were in very short supply. If things got bad enough, Jeffrey knew, the skeleton of the building would be dismantled, to reuse the valuable steel.

By the time they reached the USO club it was too crowded to possibly get in. There was also a long line of teenagers outside the Armed Forces Recruiting Center next door; the draft had been reinstated, but many were