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Authors: David Poyer

BOOK: The Passage
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T
HE house was a five-bedroom on a cul-de-sac in a quiet subdivision, one of many carved out of the flat piney land west of the Ashley as the city had grown. Leighty, in slacks and a cotton sweater, was in the kitchen slicing carrots when he heard the door chimes.
“We're a little early,” said George Vysotsky.
“I'd be surprised if you weren't. Come on in. Hi, Carol.” He shook Vysotsky's hand, gave his wife a hug. Then he followed them into the high-beamed living room. An older couple smiled up from the sofa. “George, Carol, I'd like you to meet the Kavanaughs; they live down the street. Robert's retired. Joan, George is my number two on the ship. Carol has three little ones at the moment, but she runs a framing shop in her spare time. Grab a chair, the sofa, whatever. Jeannette's warming up dinner. How about a drink? We've got wine, beer—”
“Beer for me,” said Vysotsky, settling himself into a recliner. He looked casual in a sports shirt and slacks. Carol stood at a floor-to-ceiling window for a moment, then said, “I'll see if Jeannette needs any help.”
“George, what'd you think of the game?”
“Not much. I had guys on my team back on the
Shangri-La
that could have outpitched that Reasoner. Say you were ex-Navy, Bob?”
“Army, does that get me thrown out?”
“No, hell. Europe? Asia?”
“I'd date myself if I told you,” said Kavanaugh. “But what the hell. North Africa, Sicily, south of France, Germany. Then a very cold place called Korea. I got out after that, started a food-service business.”
They talked about baseball for a while, then Leighty cleared his
throat and caught Vysotsky's eye. The XO followed him out into the backyard, where dusk was falling. They looked across the pool to a metal framework draped with vines. “You get any grapes on those?” Vysotsky asked him.
“A few, but the birds get them first. I never seem to be around at the right time.”
“I know what you mean.”
“I don't like to take business home, George.”
“I know that, Tom.”
“When I walk off that brow, I try to put it out of my mind till the next day. But we've got to do something about this yeomanpersonnelman situation, and we've got to do it soon.”
“Benner's trying hard.”
“He does okay, but he's a three-oh sailor at best, and shorthanded he's getting further and further behind.” The captain took a pull off his mug of beer. “I mentioned it to Fieler—he's got the
Ingram.
They're getting ready to go into overhaul and he says he's got a second-class personnelman he'll let me have outright. Straight transfer.”
“What's wrong with that gift horse?”
“My thoughts exactly. You might call his exec and check it out, though. It could be the guy just doesn't want to go to Philadelphia in the winter.”
“That would still leave us short. I was thinking of pulling Cephas out of the Weapons office, but then what does Lenson do? I don't want to throw any sticks in his wheels.”
“It would be great if we could get somebody aboard before we shove off for Gitmo. Make them part of the shakedown.”
“I'll call
Ingram'
s XO first thing in the morning, sir. But I want to get on the phone again with the squadron.”
“Sure, keep pushing that button. The system's supposed to man us to a hundred percent for deployment.” Leighty thought for a moment, hands thrust into his slacks. “There was something else I wanted to—oh, the beard issue. Is that put to bed?”
“The men have the word. The usual bitching and moaning, but they'll show up clean-shaven. The only hitch is Mr. Deshowits.”
“Religious objections?”
“Yes.”
“That could be difficult.”
“I called Chief Hone; he's checking it out. I know there's a medical exemption for people who have that ingrown beard problem. But he said he didn't think they'd be making any other exceptions.”
“Dinner's ready, guys,” said Mrs. Leighty, coming out into the backyard. She picked up a tricycle, moved it out of the way. Smoothing her hair, she said briskly, “I hope you all like lamb.”
 
 
“SO long, thanks for coming.” He shook Kavanaugh's hand, slapped Vysotsky's back, smiled at the women. Leighty stood with his wife as they went down the walk. “Good dinner,” he told her. “I think they enjoyed themselves.”
“I like Carol. We ought to see more of them.”
“Maybe we need to start thinking about a predeployment party. We haven't had the wardroom together since the commissioning.”
“I could make chili—”
“No, I don't want you to do it. See if that woman can cater it—what was her name, the one who did the crab bisque?”
“Peggy.”
“We need to look at a night and get it set up for when we get back from Gitmo. Maybe do a pool party … . How's Dougie doing?”
“He's not feeling well. He went to bed early.”
“You're not coming down with anything, are you?”
“No, I feel all right. And Heather's still fine.”
“How did you like the Kavanaughs?” he asked her, looking at a stairway that led off the living room.
“They seemed all right. Quiet.”
“He's ex-enlisted. He probably felt a little ill at ease.”
“Really? After all those years, and having his own company?”
“I've seen it before,” Leighty said. “Look, I'm going up to the office for a while. Got a lot of stuff to read through before we get under way.”
“Are you going to be up late?”
“Not too late.”
“I'm just going to put these things in the dishwasher,” she said.
He patted her and went up a narrow flight of stairs and turned on a light at the top.
The third floor was almost a separate apartment: a large room with a table in the center stacked with books and official references in binders, a set of weights and a rowing machine; a wall mirror. The rug was old, greasy, smelling of dog. A door led to a bathroom and shower; in an alcove was a single bed with a reading lamp clipped to the headboard. A long table held a Radio Shack computer and a printer converted from a Selectric typewriter. Leighty flicked them on as he walked by, stripping off his shirt, and sat at the rowing machine. He fitted his feet to the straps, and for twenty minutes there was no sound but the rapid click of the machine, the barking of a dog downstairs, the hum of the computer and printer as they waited, screen empty. After that, he did a hundred push-ups in sets of twenty, seventy-five sit-ups, then finished with twenty fast pull-ups on a bar in the door to the bathroom.
He stood in front of the mirror, looking at his body, the muscles hard and defined, engorged with blood from the fast, hard workout. He touched his chest lightly, feeling the resistance of muscle. He looked into his eyes. Me, he thought. This is me. Now is now. I am at home. Everything I need is right here.
He turned away, looking angry, and sat down in front of the computer.
 
 
LATER he stood in his bare feet, listening outside one of the bedrooms. His hand rested on the doorknob. Then he turned it silently and eased the room within into visibility.
The boy lay amid rumpled covers, legs flung out. In the dim light coming through the window, the man stood looking down at him. The faint roughness of the boy's breathing was just discernible. He'd had a virus for the past few days, been cranky and tired. His hand reached out to the boy's forehead, brushed his hair lightly. The child turned his head, drew his limbs in, flung them out restlessly, turned over. He waited motionless till all was silent again, then eased the door closed. He looked in on his daughter next. She was sleeping with a large stuffed clown. He knew it was silly—she was fine—but he still watched the covers till he could see the rise and fall of her chest.
He padded down the stairs into the darkened living room. Moving silently, he policed up glasses and ashtrays and carried them in and left them in the sink. Then he went back to the stairwell.
He paused at the second floor, looking out the window at the end of the bedroom hall. He just stood there, looking out.
The streets in this subdivision were empty at night. Only occasionally did a car roll past. But from up here, he looked down on a square of light several houses over. Leaping shadows moved back and forth across it. He couldn't see faces, just bodies. Only when he leaned close to the glass could he hear very faintly the distant shouts, the faint scrape and thud and thump as a basketball was lofted, missed, kissed asphalt, lofted again, shuddered off the backboard into a flurry of young lithe bodies that knotted, then broke again into a run.
Watching the leaping shadows, he remembered the first time his brother had taken him to the Y to swim. He'd undressed in the cold cubicle and come out, to find everyone naked. Then they'd gone through a little tunnel and come out into a wide white echoing place. Sun streamed down from high windows, outside which you could see the upper parts of trees. And all around the pool were naked young men—diving from a low board, clinging to the edge of the pool as they talked, jumping from the sides, seeming to float in the
air before plunging down into the foaming, slightly murky water. The chlorine tang made his eyes smart. He saw their penises glistening, water running from them as they climbed out of the pool. Arms, muscles, legs, thighs, ribs, flesh. He hadn't even swum that day, not till his brother threw him in. He'd wanted nothing but to stand by the pool, shivering, and look.
It was the first time he'd realized that men were beautiful.
“Tom?”
He turned and saw his wife standing in the doorway to their bedroom, holding her housecoat closed at the neck. Her hair was down and her bare face shone, floating in the darkness.
“You startled me. I thought you were asleep.”
“I'm sorry. I was waiting for you. Are you coming to bed?”
“I've got a couple things to do yet. I don't want to bother you. Maybe I'll just take my shower upstairs.”
She didn't answer and he added, “Is that all right?”
“I guess so,” she said.
“Good night, if I don't come down before you go to sleep.”
“Good night.”
At the top of the stairs, he stopped and leaned into the wall. He held his hand over his face, then took it away, breathing rapidly several times. Crossing the room, he sat down again in front of the keyboard.
“
W
ITH all due respect, you don't want to do it, Captain. It's too close to your sailing date.”
“I'm not sure that's the right approach, Mr. Grobmyer.”
“Sir, we see this day in and day out. NAVSEA tells you this; type commander tells you that. You can waste a lot of time and money running back and forth on that treadmill.”
“You're saying these specifications may change?”
“Hell, I'll flat out guarantee they will, Captain.”
Leighty leaned back. His eyes followed Pedersen as the steward bent with the coffee server. “What do you think, Jay? Is this a major project? What exactly's involved?”
Shit, Dan thought angrily. There he goes again, asking Harper.
Another day in the yard. They were in the wardroom, progress conference again, and in the middle of a wrangle about electrical repair benches. The Naval Safety Center had come out with new requirements, and the question was whether
Barrett
had to meet them now or wait till the next yard period. He tuned back in as Harper cleared his throat. “According to
Ships Safety Bulletin
, you got to insulate all vertical surfaces with eighth-inch plastic laminate. That means the knee knockers under the table, the ends of the workbenches, the back panel, the top shelf—”
“What about horizontal surfaces?” Leighty asked him.
“They're already insulated. Then you got to cover the foundation with either rubber matting or more laminate, and check the hinges, door handles, and catches to make sure they're nonconducting material.”
“What about the sign?”
“We can do the sign for you, Captain,” said the shipyard rep, doodling on his pad. “Not a problem. But all this laminate has got to be hand-measured, hand-cut, hand-fitted. That's four, five mandays
we're talking, times three workbenches, and you're pulling chocks out of here day after tomorrow.”
“I'm aware of when we get under way, Mr. Grobmyer.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry.”
“But I'm not sure this is something we don't need. Jay, how about it, do we need this?”
“No, sir,” said Harper. He tapped the message. “We're grandfathered. Paragraph four. ‘Commands meeting specs of NAVAIR drawing sixty-three A one fourteen'—that's us—‘may defer action until the next regular overhaul period.'”
“There you go, sir,” said Grobmyer. “Now, let's go to the helicopter deck-edge net modifications—”
“Hold on,” said Leighty. “That's not what I meant. This sounds like something that could protect our guys.” His eye snagged Dan's and he blinked. “Uh, what's your take on this, Lieutenant?”
“I tend to agree with the Chief Warrant, sir.”
“How many volts are they playing with on those benches?”
“There's around twenty thousand volts on the CRTs, sir.”
“That's a lot of juice.”
“The guys know it's dangerous. They ground everything.”
“I'm sure they do. But what if we have to make repairs in a seaway and we're rolling? I can see somebody losing his balance, falling.” Leighty turned to the civilian. “We'll comply with the new directive, Mr. Grobmyer.”
Grobmyer doodled, then shrugged. “Your call, captain. But like I said, I got to get ship supe's chop. An' I don't think I'm gonna get it for anything you get grandfathered for, like your chief warrant says.”
“How about this, then: Cut us three sets of the lucite, or whatever it is, and our guys will install it themselves. Can you do that for us?”
“That's gonna take time, too, to do the measurements, do the cutting—”
“I seem to recall my men assisted yours on the reinstallation of the launcher guiderails,” said Leighty.
“Yeah, they did.” Grobmyer looked startled, then his jowls went bland again and he made a note. “Okay, sir. Can do. Okay, next issue. We got the nets rewired, put them on starting tomorrow. Crane'll be here Thursday for the weight test … .”
Dan half-listened to the rest of the report. He wondered why Leighty was making such a big deal out of the workbench issue. Generally, if you had any leverage over the yardbirds, you saved it—there was always something critical they forgot to do or had to do over. But Leighty had just cashed in his chips.
A flicker of motion caught his eye. He looked at the bulkhead,
then through it, through the porthole, to where the mast of a sailboat was tracing slowly across the circle of inch-thick glass.
He remembered Little Mary's hands, firm and expert, her lips.
He still felt badly that she was married. But he hadn't known. She didn't wear a ring or anything.
Anyway, so what?
The captain got to his feet, and Vysotsky and the other officers jumped up. “Carry on,” Leighty said.
The meeting broke. The joiner door slammed as some officers left, and others who'd been waiting outside came in. One was Mark Deshowits. Dan nodded, noticing he still had his beard.
“I heard a good one,” said a voice behind him.
Dan swung. It was Lieutenant (jg) Van Cleef, the communications officer. He would have been movie-star material, but his jaw jutted too far, making his face seem deformed when you first met him. His nickname was “Cowcatcher.” “What's that, Keon?” he said.
“There were these three gay guys in bed together, professional athletes, and they're shooting the shit. And the conversation turns to what game's the most fun. And the first guy says, ‘Basketball. It's gotta be my game. I love it when you go up in the air and just rub up against all the other players.'”
Dan cleared his throat, glancing involuntarily toward a whiteuniformed back at the coffee urn.
“And the second faggot says, ‘Naw, it's gotta be football. You can't imagine how good it is in a huddle, everybody pressed together, and then—a pileup! I come every time it happens.'”
The other officers had gone silent. Was it his imagination or were their eyes making the same traverse … from Van Cleef to the man who stood, back still to them, at the coffee urn? “And then the third guy says, ‘You're both full of shit. The best sport's what I do. Baseball.' And they both go, ‘What!' ‘You're putting us on, man! What's so great about baseball? Shit, you play way the hell out in the outfield!'
“And the guy says, ‘Yeah, that's right. And when a fly comes out my way and bounces and I catch it, and the guy's tearing ass for second base, and I'm standing there tossing the ball up and down and looking where to throw, and there's thirty thousand people yelling, “Throw it, you
cocksucker!”
See—I love the
recognition
.'”
A snigger ran around the wardroom, then stopped. Dan eased his head around.
The captain had turned around to face them, coffee cup lifted from the saucer, hanging in the air like one of those floating magnet toys for bored executives. He didn't smile. And for that frozen second, Dan felt as if a door had come open, and he didn't want to look
inside. Beside him, Vysotsky began, “Look, you people—” but Leighty interrupted him: “Mr. Van Cleef.”
“Yes, sir?”
“What was the result of the classified-materials inspection? I don't recall getting a report on that.”
“Uh, I sent it up via the XO, sir.”
“Have you seen it, George? What were the results?”
“Uh, there were some discrepancies.”
“Such as?”
Van Cleef stammered, “There's a … a card supposed to be on the outside of all of our safes. That you initial who opened it every day, who closed it. A Form eight thirty-three. And—”
“And what?”
“And we needed to change some of the combinations—and the letters of access, we've got them being retyped—”
“What was your overall grade, Mr. Van Cleef?”
“Satisfactory, sir.”
“Not outstanding?”
“No, sir.”
“Not excellent?”
“No, sir, Captain.”
“Was there a number grade, Mr. Van Cleef?”
“Seventy-two, sir,” said the comm officer miserably.
“Barely
satisfactory, I would say. I'd like to see a copy of the original inspection report, along with your section of the Fleet Training Center inspection guide.”
“Yes, sir, I'll … I'll bring it right up.”
Taking his time, Leighty finished his coffee, replaced the cup on the sideboard, and knocked twice on the sliding door. Pedersen's face showed for a second before it and the cup disappeared.
“I'll be in my cabin,” Leighty said. He went to the joiner door, opened it, and left.
The comm officer sat down. The other officers looked at him curiously, then, as if by tacit agreement, drifted away. Dan saw Harper sitting by the aft bulkhead, a copy of
Navy Times
on his lap.
Slowly, deliberately, the chief warrant winked at Dan.
 
 
THE rest of the day went by in a blur. There were dozens of things to be done to get ready for sea. A bright spot was the report from Chief Mainhardt. DS2 Williams had gotten Version Three of the ACDADS operating software to run over the weekend. Dan was glad to hear it. Without a running combat system, they couldn't do the at-sea gun and missile shoot. But they had to in order to align systems before going to Gitmo, and they had to pass Gitmo before
deploying overseas. Everything was scheduled so fucking tight, he thought. But now it was up.
So he was on a high, standing on the forecastle, actually feeling pretty good, when the police car and van shot past him on the pier and squealed to a halt by the brow. He went to the lifeline and leaned out to see around the bulge of the ship. Chief Glasser was on the quarterdeck. He said something to the petty officer of the watch, then strolled down the gangway. Glasser leaned into the lead car as behind it the doors of the van popped open and two uniformed base cops got out and went around to the back.
Dan put his hands in his pockets and drifted aft through the breaker.
It was Sanderling. The slight seaman looked as if he'd been washed too hot and dried on high. The husky cops, ex-marines probably, flanked him, made him look about ten years old. One was showing Glasser some paperwork. The chief bent to sign it, the cop tore it off and handed it to him, and Glasser nodded curtly to Sanderling.
Dan was waiting when they reached the quarterdeck. “What's going on, Chief?”
“Morning, sir. Sanderling here, they caught him over in the Exchange shoplifting cassettes.”
“No, sir, that ain't it at all.” A hot, unjustly accused face turned toward Dan. “They got it all wrong. I was getting some tapes for the captain. I was lookin' at 'em, and I got six or seven. My hands was full, so I put two in my pocket. And they was watching me and they—”
“What are you doing in civvies in the middle of the day, Sanderling?”
“Captain told me to pick them up on the way in, take my time.”
“But it's three hours after quarters—” Dan cut himself off; he wasn't Sanderling's division officer. “That the charge sheet, Chief?”
“Yes sir. Want to see it?”
“No. Get Mr. Harper up here.”
“Aye aye, sir. Flipper, pass the word: Chief Warrant Officer Harper, quarterdeck.”
“Sir, just ask the captain. He'll tell you—”
“We'll see, Seaman Sanderling. You'll probably be telling him about it at mast, anyway.”
“Chief Harper, lay to the quarterdeck,” said the 1MC. Glasser closed his eyes in exasperation. “Stay here,” he grunted to Sanderling, and went inside the quarterdeck shack.
“Damn it, Sandy. You're damage control team-trained, fire fighting—trained—we're going to need every man in Gitmo. Didn't you think about that?”
“But they got it all wrong, Mr. Lenson. Like I said—”
“Chief Warrant Officer Harper, quarterdeck.”
The phone beeped and the petty officer snatched it. “Yeah. One of your guys up here, base police just brought him back … Sanderling … . Yes, sir.” He hung up. “He'll be right up, sir,” he told Dan.
Looking at the seaman's hurt face, his torn pockets, he felt a momentary doubt. Then he remembered the mutterings in the computer room.
“I'm gonna talk to him a minute, okay, Chief?”
“Suit yourself, sir.”
When they were out of earshot, he leaned against the king post for conrep station number 3. “What's the story on you and the captain, Sanderling?”

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