To make matters worse, his immediate superior in the watch section, Lieutenant Commander Brian Cowlings, was no happier about having duty than Forsythe was. And, furthermore, Cowlings didn’t like him. Didn’t like him one little bit. So Forsythe anticipated that to work off his own frustrations, Lieutenant Commander Cowlings would probably spend a good deal of the next twenty-four hours chewing on Forsythe’s ass.
Cowlings was an engineer, the chief engineer of the boat. He was one of the men Forsythe would have to convince that he was qualified in order to earn his submarine pin.
Forsythe watched as the off-going duty section streamed down the wooden planked gangway connecting the submarine to the pier.
Since the submarine had gotten in late last night, the off-going duty section had stood watch from around midnight until 0700. After Forsythe had double-checked everything in his division — he was the auxiliaries officer — gone over his duty roster again, worked out a few small problems connecting to shore services, it was well after 0200. He had contemplated heading ashore for a couple of quick beers and coming back to the submarine and getting up an hour later to assume the watch, but immediately realized that that would be a bad idea. Standing your first in-port duty while still blotto from the night before was no way to impress anyone, and he was quite certain that Lieutenant Commander Cowlings would not only smell the stale beer on his breath but would also be able to peer deep inside his soul and realize just how unworthy a submarine officer Ensign Forsythe was.
“Ready for colors?” a voice behind him asked. “If you don’t check, it will go wrong.”
A submariner’s motto. Check, recheck, and triple-check. Because when you were a couple of thousand feet below the surface of the sea, it was highly probable that anything that went wrong would kill you. Professional paranoia was part of being a submariner.
Forsythe turned and snapped off a smart salute to Lieutenant Commander Cowlings. “Yes, sir. Just went over the roster and verified that everyone is on board. They all know their assignments, we checked with harbor local for the correct time, and there are no special holidays or days of mourning to observe.”
“Where’s the flag?” Cowlings waited. Forsythe’s blood ran cold.
Cowlings smiled slightly. “It’s considered highly inappropriate to hold morning colors without an American flag, Ensign. Now, unless you want to get your boys together and start coloring a tablecloth, I suggest you find it. You have—” Cowlings glanced at his watch—“fifteen minutes.”
“Sir, if I might have the master keys, I can—”
Cowlings pulled the keys out of his pocket and dangled them enticingly in front of Forsythe. “You mean these?”
Forsythe reached for them, but Cowlings pulled them back, keeping them just slightly out of his reach. A red flush spread up his face, burning over his cheek bones.
“Fourteen minutes, Lieutenant. And counting.” Cowlings waited.
Forsythe turned to Chief Petty Officer Billdown, the chief of the watch, who was standing slightly behind him. “Chief?”
“Yes, Ensign?” Forsythe could tell by the chief’s tone of voice that he’s been expecting it, and he detected a note of approval.
“Chief, please locate the American flag and assemble the color guard.”
“Right away, Ensign.” Forsythe watched him go, resenting the trick that Cowlings had played on him, but knowing he would remember the lesson well.
Cowlings nodded. “Good job. They still teach that story about the new army officer?”
“Yes, sir.”
Forsythe knew the story well. A group of army lieutenants was tasked with putting up a standard issue field tent. None of them had ever done so before, and the results, as they issued a series of highly confusing and explicit orders to their troops, were ludicrous. The troops had been told beforehand to obey every order precisely as it was given.
The last second lieutenant watched the others carefully. When his turn came, he turned to his sergeant, and said, “Sergeant, have the men put up the tent.” The tent went up in minutes. The moral was that any task could be accomplished much faster and more accurately by doing what an officer was supposed to do: using the chain of command to get the most out of the talents and skills of the men assigned to him.
“Sinks in better with an actual lesson.” Cowlings tossed him the master keys. “I’ll observe colors with you, then I’ll be in my stateroom. Call me if you need me.”
They stood side by side as the national anthem rang out and the flag soared quickly to the top of the flag pole. As he listened to the music that never failed to set something aquiver inside of him, Forsythe suppressed a grin. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad duty day after all.
FOUR
Lab Rat shrugged down deeper in his parka. It was a cold morning, with a biting wind blowing out of the northeast. The sun was still below the horizon.
“This better be good,” he grumbled, shooting an aggrieved look at the senior chief. “May I remind you we’re supposed to be in Bermuda?”
The senior chief stole a look at his commander and suppressed a snort of laughter. The diminutive man had pulled out a ski mask and pulled it down over his chapped face. He looked like the world’s smallest ninja. “You said you wanted to see it, sir. Trust me, it’ll be worth freezing your ass off.” The senior chief’s voice was calm, with just a trace of anticipation in it.
“So, what happens now?”
Just then, the radio that the senior chief held crackled to life. It was connected to the control center of the testing facility, and Lab Rat recognized the voice as the senior controller he’d met the night before. The controller was a former Navy intelligence specialist, and a former shipmate of Senior Chief Armstrong.
“Observation teams, standby for launch. Five, four, three, two — we have a launch.”
“Look to the southeast, sir,” the senior chief said. “Red lights — it’s an old Talos missile, but they have it rigged with reflectors all over it as well as a few embedded red lights. The reflectors are for telemetry as well as visibility.”
