act. We are the ones who act. We take the risks, we face the danger, we deny ourselves for others. It is our task. My friend, it is far too late to have second thoughts.”
“Gunther, it is easier for me. I am a dying man.”
“I know.” He turned to look at his friend. “We're all dying men. We've cheated death, you and I. Eventually death will win, and the death we face lies not in bed. You chose this path, and so did I. Can we turn back now?”
“I cannot, but facing death is a hard thing.”
“That is true.” Gunther flipped his cigarette into the dirt. “But at least we have the privilege of knowing. The little people do not. In choosing not to act, they choose not to know. That is their choice. One can either be an agent of destiny or a victim of it. Everyone has that choice.” Bock led his friend back in. “We have made ours.”
“Bundle thirty-eight!” Fromm commanded as they entered.
“Thirty-eight,” Ghosn acknowledged.
“Yes, Commodore?”
“Sit down, Harry, we need to talk over some things.”
“Well, I have the crew all ready. The sonar troops are hot.”
Mancuso looked at his subordinate. At what point, he wondered, does a positive can-do attitude become a lie? “I'm a little concerned with the transfer rate from your ship.”
Ricks didn't go defensive. “Well, we had some guys with family concerns. No sense holding onto people whose minds are in the wrong place. A statistical blip. I had it happen once before.”
I bet you did. “How's morale?” Mancuso asked next.
“You've seen the results of our drills and exams. That must tell you something,” Captain Ricks replied.
Clever son of a bitch. “Okay, let me make it clear, Harry. You had a run-in with Dr. Jones.”
“So?”
“So, I talked with him about it.”
“How formal is this?”
“Informal as you like, Harry.”
“Fine. Your Jones fellow is a pretty good technician, but he seems to have forgotten the fact that he left the Navy as an enlisted man. If he wants to talk to me as an equal, it would help if he'd bothered to accomplish something.”
“That man has a doctor's degree in physics from Cal-Tech, Harry.”
Ricks took on a puzzled expression. “So?”
“So, he's one of the smartest people I know, and he was the best enlisted man I ever met.”
“That's fine, but if enlisted were as smart as officers, we'd pay them more.” It was the supreme arrogance of the statement that angered Bart Mancuso.
“Captain, when I was driving Dallas, and Jones talked, I listened. If life had worked out a little different, he'd be on his XO tour right now and on his way to command of a fast-attack. Ron would have made a superb CO.”
Ricks dismissed that. “We'll never know that, will we? I always figured that those who can, do. Those who can't, make excuses. Okay, fine, he's a good technician. I don't dispute that. He did good work with my sonar department, and I'm grateful for that, but let's not get too excited. There are lots of technicians, and lots of contractors.”
This was going nowhere, Mancuso saw. It was time to lay the law down. “Look, Harry, I'm catching rumbles about morale on your boat. I see that many transfer requests, and it tells me there might be a problem. So, I nose around, and my impression is confirmed. You have a problem whether you know it or not.”
“That, sir, is bullshit. It's like the alcohol-counseling weenies. People with no drinking problem say they have no drinking problem, but the counselors say that denial of a problem is the first indication there is one. It's a circular argument. If I had a morale problem on my boat, performance figures would show it. But they don't. My record is pretty clear. I drive submarines for a living. I've been in the top one percent of the top one percent since I put this suit on. Okay, my style isn't the same as the next guy's. I don't kiss butt, and I don't mollycoddle. I demand performance, and I get it. You show me one hard indicator that I'm not doing it right, and I'll listen, but until you do, sir, it isn't broke, and I'm not going to try and fix it.”
Bartolomeo Vito Mancuso, Captain (Rear Admiral selectee), United States Navy, did not come out of his chair only because his mainly Sicilian ancestry had been somewhat diluted in America. In the old country, he was instantly sure, his great-great-grandfather would have leveled his lupara and blown a wide, bloody hole through Rick's chest for that. Instead he kept his face impassive and coldly decided on the spot that Ricks would never get beyond captain's rank. It was in his power to do that. He had a large collection of COs working for him. Only the top two, maybe the top three, would screen for flag rank. Ricks would be rated no higher than fourth in that group. It might be dishonest, Mancuso told himself in a moment of dispassionate integrity, but it was still the right thing to do. This man could not be trusted with command higher than he now held and he had probably come too far already. It would be so easy. Ricks would object loudly and passionately to being rated fourth in a group of fourteen, but Mancuso would simply say, Sorry, Harry — I'm not saying there's anything wrong with you, just that Andy, Bill, and Chuck are a little better. Just bad luck to be in a squadron of aces, Harry. I have to make an honest call, and they're just a whisker better.
Ricks was just fast enough to realize that he had crossed over a line, that there really were no “off the record” talks in the Navy. He had defied his squadron commander, a man already on the fast track, a man trusted and believed by the Pentagon and the Op-o2 bureaucracy.
“Sir, excuse me for being so positive. It's just that nobody likes to be called down when—”
Mancuso smiled as he cut the man off. “No problem, Harry. We Italians tend to be a little passionate, too.” Too late, Harry…
“Maybe you're right. Let me think it over. Besides, if I tangle with that Akula, I'll show you what my people can do.”
Little late to talk about “my people,” fella. But Mancuso had to give him the chance, didn't he? Not much of a chance, but a little one. If there were a miracle, then he might reconsider. Might, Bart told himself, if this arrogant little prick decides to kiss my ass at the main gate at noon on the Fourth of fuly while the marching band passes by.
“Sessions like this are supposed to be uncomfortable for everybody,” the squadron commander said. Ricks would end up as an engineering expert, and a good one, once Mancuso got rid of him, and there was no disgrace in topping out as a captain, was there? Not for a good man, anyway.
“Nothing else?” Golovko asked.
“Not a thing,” the Colonel replied.
“And our officer?”
“I saw his widow two days ago. I told her that he was dead, but that we were unable to recover the body. She took the news badly. It is a hard thing to see so lovely a face in tears,” the man reported quietly.
“What about the pension, other arrangements?”
“I am seeing to it myself.”
“Good, those damned paper-pushers don't seem to care about anyone or anything. If there's a problem, let me know.”
“I have nothing more to suggest from the technical-intelligence side,” the Colonel went on. “Can you follow up elsewhere?”
“We're still rebuilding our network inside their defense ministry. Preliminary indications are that there is nothing, that the new Germany has disavowed the whole DDR project,” Golovko said. “There is a hint that American and British agencies have made similar inquiries and come away satisfied.”
“It is unlikely, I think, that German nuclear weapons would be a matter of immediate concern to the Americans or the English.”
“True. We are carrying on, but I do not expect to find anything. I think this is an empty hole.”
“In that case, Sergey Nikolayevich, why was our man murdered?”
“We still don't know that, damn it!”
“Yes, I suppose he might now be working for the Argentinians…”
