some crazy misunderstanding.” Which Bernie Katz didn't believe for a moment.
She looked up, and her eyes were streaming now. “Bernie, is there something wrong with me?”
“No!” Katz managed not to shout. “Cathy, if there's a better person in this hospital than you, goddamn if I've ever met them! There is nothing wrong with you! You hear me? Whatever the hell this is, it is not your fault!”
“Bernie, I want another baby, I don't want to lose Jack—”
“Then if you really think that you have to win him back.”
“I can't! He isn't, he doesn't—” She broke down completely.
Katz learned then and there that anger has few limits. Having to keep it in, being denied a target, didn't help, but Cathy needed a friend more than she needed anything else.
“Dutch, this whole conversation is off the record.”
Lieutenant Commander Claggett was instantly on guard. “As you say, Commodore.”
“Tell me about Captain Ricks.”
“Sir, he's my CO.”
“I'm aware of that, Dutch,” Mancuso said. “I'm the squadron commander. If there's a problem with one of my skippers, there's a problem with one of my boats. Those boats cost a billion a copy, and I have to know about the problems. Is that clear, Commander?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Talk. That's an order.”
Dutch Claggett sat ramrod straight and spoke rapidly. “Sir, he couldn't lead a three-year-old to the crapper. He treats the troops like they're robots. He demands a lot, but he never praises even when the guys put out. That's not the way I was taught to officer. He doesn't listen, sir. He doesn't listen to me, doesn't listen to the troops. Okay, fine, he's the CO. He owns the boat, but a smart skipper listens.”
“That's the reason for the transfers?”
“Yes, sir. He gave the chief torpedoman a bad time — I think he was wrong. Chief Getty was showing some initiative. He had the weapons on line, he had his people well-trained, but Captain Ricks didn't like the way he did it, and came down on him. I counseled against it, but the CO didn't listen. So Getty put in for transfer, and the skipper was glad to get rid of him, and endorsed it.”
“Do you have confidence in him?” Mancuso asked.
“Technically he's very good. Engineering-wise, he's brilliant. He just doesn't know people and he doesn't know tactics.”
“He told me he wants to prove otherwise. Can he?”
“Sir, you're going too far now. I don't know that I have the right to answer that.”
Mancuso knew it was true, but pressed on anyway. “You're supposed to be qualified for command, Dutch. Get used to making some hard calls.”
“Can he do it? Yes, sir. We have a good boat and a good crew. What he can't do the rest of us will do for him.”
The Commodore nodded and went silent for a moment. “If you have any trouble with your next FitRep, I want to know about it. I think you may be a better XO than he's entitled to, Commander.”
“Sir, he's not a bad guy. I hear he's a good father and all that. His wife's a sweetie. It's just that he never learned to handle people, and nobody ever bothered teaching him right. Despite that he is a capable officer. If he'd only give an inch on the humanity side, he'd be a real star.”
“Are you comfortable with your op-orders?”
“If we sniff out an Akula to go in and track him — safe distance and all that. Am I comfortable? Hell, yes. Come on, Commodore, we're so quiet there's not a thing to worry about. I was surprised Washington approved this thing, and all, but that's bureaucratic stuff. The short version is, anybody can drive this boat. Okay, maybe Cap'n Ricks isn't perfect, but unless our boat breaks, Popeye could do the mission.”
They put the Secondary assembly in before the Primary. The collection of lithium compounds was contained in a metal cylinder roughly the size of a 105mm artillery casing, sixty-five centimeters high and eleven centimeters in diameter. It even had a rim machined on the bottom end so that it would fit exactly the right spot. There was a small curved tube at the bottom that attached to what would soon be the tritium reservoir. On the outside of the casing were the fins made of spent uranium 238. They looked like rows of thick, black soda crackers, Fromm thought. Their mission, of course, was to be immolated to plasma. Beneath the cylinder were the first bundles of “soda-straws”—even Fromm was calling them that now, though they actually were not; they were of the wrong diameter. Sixty centimeters in length, each bundle of a hundred was held together by thin but strong plastic spacers, and the bottom of each had been given a half-turn to make each bundle into a helix, a shape rather like that of a spiral staircase. The hard part in this segment of the design was to arrange the helixes to nest together perfectly. Seemingly trivial, it had taken fully two days for Fromm to figure out, but as with all aspects of his design, the pieces all fit into proper place until that portion of the design seemed a perfectly assembled mass of… soda straws. It almost made the German laugh. With tape measure, micrometer, and an expert eye — gradation marks had been machined into many of the parts, a small detail that had impressed Ghosn very greatly indeed. When Fromm was satisfied, they went on. First came the plastic foam blocks, each cut to precise specifications. They fit into the elliptical bomb-case. Ghosn and Fromm were now doing all the work. Slowly, carefully, they eased the first block into place within the flanges on the interior of the case. The straw bundles came next, one at a time, nesting perfectly with those immediately under them. At every step both men stopped to check the work. Fromm and Ghosn both checked the work, checked the plans, checked the work again, and checked the plans again.
For Bock and Qati, watching a few meters away, it was the most tedious thing they had ever seen.
“The people who do this work in America and Russia must die of boredom,” the German said quietly.
“Perhaps.”
“Next bundle, number thirty-six,” Fromm said.
“Thirty-six,” Ghosn replied, examining the three tags on the next batch of a hundred straws. “Bundle thirty- six.”
“Thirty-six,” Fromm agreed, looking at the tags. He took it and maneuvered it into place. It fit perfectly, Qati saw, coming closer. The German's skilled hands moved it slightly, so that the slits on its plastic jigs dropped into the slots on the jigs directly underneath. When Fromm was satisfied, Ghosn looked.
“Correct position,” Ibrahim said, for what must have been the hundredth time of the day.
“I agree,” Fromm announced, and both men wired it firmly into place.
“Like assembling a gun,” Qati whispered to Gunther, as he walked away from the work table.
“No.” Bock shook his head. “Worse than that. More like a child's toy.” The two men looked at each other and started laughing.
“Enough of that!” Fromm said in annoyance. “This is serious work! We need silence! Next bundle, number thirty-seven!”
“Thirty-seven,” Ghosn dutifully replied.
Bock and Qati walked out of the room together.
“Watching a woman having a baby cannot be as dreadful as this!” Qati raged when they got outside.
Bock lit a cigarette. “It isn't. I know. Women move faster than this.”
“Indeed, that is unskilled labor.” Qati laughed again. The humor vanished, and the Commander became serious. “It's a pity.”
“Yes, it is. They have all served us well. When?”
“Very soon.” Qati paused. “Gunther, your part in the plan… it is very dangerous.”
Bock took a long pull on his cigarette, blowing the smoke out into the chilled air. “It is my plan, is it not? I know the risks.”
“I do not approve of suicidal plans,” Qati observed after a moment.
“Nor do I. It is dangerous, but I expect to survive. Ismael, if we wanted a safe life, we would be working in offices — and we would never have met. What binds us is the danger and the mission. I've lost my Petra, my daughters, but I still have my mission. I do not say that this is enough, but is it not more than most men have?” Gunther looked up at the stars. “I have thought often of this, my friend. How does one change the world? Not in safety. The safe ones, the timid ones, they benefit from our work. They rage at life, but they lack the courage to
