GEN13 - Version 2.0 (6 page)

Grunge gave a knowing look. “Looks like someone got herself a little—”    .

“A little
whatT
Bobby asked hastily.

Grunge caught himself. “Um ... piece of paper. Kat’s got a little piece of paper. In her hand, there.”

“Grunge, my perceptive friend, you are so right!” Kat could hardly contain her excitement as she held up the paper that she carried. “I do indeed have a piece of paper in my hand. And do you know what’s
on
this wonderful, little piece of paper?”

“Next week’s lottery number?” Sarah said with a bemused smile.

Kat pretended not to hear her. She carefully opened the paper. “On this paper is a schedule of interviews. For
me.
For tomorrow.”

“You’re being interviewed?” Bobby asked.

“Like, on TV?” said Roxy.

“Or in
Play
—,” said Grunge.

“What’s that?” Bobby asked him.

“Um... in a magazine?” said Grunge. “One that doesn’t have any pictures?”

Kat waved off the guesses with the back of her hand. “No, no, not that kind of interview,” she said. “This is much better. So much better. I’m being interviewed—

“—for a
job\”

Four pairs of eyes grew as wide as saucers. Kat beamed. For the longest time, no one spoke. Then, all four of her friends responded at once:

“A JOB?!"

Grinning widely, Kat nodded over and over. “Yes! A job! Can you believe it? Isn’t it great?”

“Are you
nuts
'!!” Roxy replied.

Grunge spread his arms wide and gestured around them. “What would you want a job for? Look around! We’re already livin’ large!”

It was true that the luxury apartment was something that most New Yorkers—who were used to paying four-figure rents each month for a single room the size of a closet—would kill for. The suite took up two floors of the posh building, and covered enough space to provide private bedrooms for each of the team, a study for Lynch, and even a small workout room. The sunken living room alone was three times the size of Kat’s old dorm room at college, with a fully stocked bar and a picture window that spanned most of one wall to display a spectacular view of the city.

But that wasn’t what was foremost in Kat’s mind right now. And even if the others didn’t see that, Sarah did. She stepped between Kat and the rest of the group. “Back off, you guys! She’s not doing it for the money. There’s more to life than fancy apartments.” She turned to Kat. “Right?”    '

“Right.”

Kat had known that, out of everyone, Sarah would understand. That was why, each week, Sarah spent several hours volunteering at a homeless shelter downtown.

Roxy stared up at Kat, her eyes starting to fill. “You mean you ... you’re gonna just, like, split? After all this time, you’d just up and leave ,.. um, the team?”

Kat flashed her a reassuring smile. “No way, silly! I’d never leave you guys. We do some important stuff here.

“Besides,” she added, putting her arm around Roxy and giving her a squeeze that nearly cracked a rib, “after nineteen years, I finally found my sister. Do you think I’d let you slip away now?”

Roxy managed to choke out a feeble “Thanks.. .” as the one-armed hug forced the air from her lungs.

Kat let go and went back to addressing the group as a whole. “But,” she said, “I’ve got an obligation to myself, too. I have to do something about this. I can’t just ignore my own needs.”

“Hey, while you’re at it, you can always pay some attention to
my
nee—,” Grunge joked. Then he looked at Bobby. “... Never mind.”

Bobby smirked at Grunge, enjoying his friend’s discomfort. But his smile faded and his face turned sincere when he spoke to Kat. “We get it, Kat. If this is what you need, it’s cool. You know we’ll always be behind you, no matter what.”

Kat smiled with relief. “Thanks.”

“But,” Bobby continued, “even if you’ve got us on board, you’re still going to have a mega-problem here.” Sarah looked serious as she nodded in agreement. She knew full well what Bobby was talking about. “Lynch isn’t going to like this.”

The team’s mentor had been away for the past few days. He hadn’t said where he was going. But his presence was still very much with them.

“I know,” Kat said. “That’s why you’ve got to help me out. I need to find some way to break it to him. so that—”

Kat stopped talking as soon as she heard the familiar, deep voice behind her. “I believe it’s already broken,” said the voice.

Kat looked up to see Lynch standing in the open front door. He was still wearing his coat and holding a leather carry-on bag. There was no way to know just how long he’d been standing there.

Dressed in a jet black shirt and trousers, Lynch cut a commanding figure. He was well into middle age, but his body was as taut and muscular as it had been twenty years earlier. His mutton chops and widow’s peak accentuated the sharp angles of his scarred face.

As a general rule, Lynch rarely smiled. But even by his own standards, he didn’t look happy.

Lynch turned to the others. “Would you excuse us, please? Caitlin and I need to talk.”

“You got it!” “Sure!” “Glad to have you home, Dad!” “Oh gee, is that the time?”

Before Kat could blink, they vanished in a chorus of slamming doors.

Lynch chuckled quietly. He put down his bag near the door and hung up his coat. Then, without a word, he walked to the sofa. He picked up the remote control, and turned off the video that was still playing, long forgotten. Kat squirmed uncomfortably as she waited.

Finally, Lynch crossed over to her.

“I understand, Kat,” he said, breaking the silence with a sigh. “Truly, I do. Can you imagine how many times Fve had the same thoughts myself over the years? A normal job, a house in the suburbs, a couple of kids?

“But that’s not for people like us. We’ve got a different path to follow. Different responsibilities. We’re the ones who keep those people safe so they can have those lives ... and stay alive to enjoy them.”

Lynch paused. As usual, his face gave little indication of the thoughts running through his mind.

“Where would you kids be today if I had chosen that route years ago?” he continued. “Where will countless other people be if you try to choose it now?”

No sooner had Lynch finished than the words poured out of Kat in a rush. “I hear what you’re saying, Mister

Lynch—really,” she said. “But with all due respect, that’s a load of bull!”

Lynch reacted with surprise. He wasn’t used to hearing even such mild euphemisms from Kat.

“First of all,” Kat said, “you and I are
not
the same. I’m not about to go spend my life as some sort of government super-spy. I want to help people, sure. But you’re not going to find me running some ultra-top-secret unit at

I.O. for years and years. I respect you—a lot—and we share some of the same values, but there’s no way that we’re the same person or that we’re going to make the same decisions.

“Second of all, like I told the team, I have no intention of leaving. Taking a job is not the same as busting up Gen
¹³
. I’ll be here when you need me. But it can’t be
all
that I do.”

Lynch shook his head impatiently. “Kat, you have to be practical. If you think this through . .

“I
have
thought it through!” she answered. “I mean, think back to when we moved to New York. Weren’t you the one who said that, now that we didn’t have to run anymore, you wanted us out there living our lives?

“Well, that’s what I’m doing. I’m living my life. And you know what? In its own way, it’s scarier than facing a
hundred
I.O.’s!”

Kat’s voice trailed off. She stared down at her feet, and her words grew more quiet. “That’s why I need you to understand. See, even if you don’t agree. ... Even if you can’t be happy for me ...

“... I could really use your support right now ...” Lynch frowned. He thought long and hard.

“Your mind is made up, isn’t it?” he said.

“Yes.”

“There’s nothing I can say to change it.”

“No.”    '    '

“All right then,” he said. “I still think it’s a bad idea. However, if it’s that important to you, then go do what you have to do.”

Kat rushed forward and threw her arms around her surprised mentor. “Thank you!” she yelled, before releasing him and dashing off down the hall. “I’ve got to go write a resume!”

Off in her bedroom, Roxy took her ear away from the door. She lifted her hand and, with a sniffle, wiped away a tear.

CHAPTER 4

The fleet ballistic missile submarine USS
Kolodny
was not a small ship. The
Kolodny
was three stories tail and, if you could stand it up on end, it would be taller than the Washington Monument. For the past two months, it had been home to about one hundred and sixty crewmen, who had spent almost all of that time underwater.

Apart from the crew, the sub was also home to a fully-functional nuclear reactor, which provided its power, as well as twenty-four Trident ballistic missiles. That translated into twenty-four nuclear ICBM missiles, every single one of which had an effective range of more than four thousand miles and the capacity to destroy a city.

Essentially, the mission of the
Kolodny
was to avoid human contact. In the time since the sub had left its home port in Groton, Connecticut, it had crisscrossed the North Atlantic, over and over, along a variety of routes. It wasn’t that the ship was going somewhere in particular. The idea was for the submarine and its cargo to avoid being found.

Many of the crewmen stationed on the
Kolodny
had originally joined the Navy looking for adventure, only to discover that what they’d really signed up for was just a job. Countless months of routine maneuvers and tedious maintenance work had managed to reduce even the responsibility of manning a submarine that could wipe out a small country to nothing more than “same old, same old.” Even though all of the crewmen wore dosimeters attached to their uniforms, to warn of any potential radiation leaks, it was really just a standard precaution. The shielding on the reactor and the missiles was strong enough that there was never any problem. The last time an American nuclear submarine had sunk was all the way back in 1968.

The
Kolodny
was cruising along at a comfortable speed of twenty knots, nine hundred feet below the surface of the ocean, when all of that changed.

Not that the problem was the fault of the captain or crew. For the past year and a half, the
Kolodny
had been under the command of Captain Robert Tyler. Tyler ran a tight, disciplined ship, with good morale and a model safety record. A beefy man in his late thirties, Tyler easily fit the mold of what, in an earlier time, would have been called a man whose mistress was the sea.

In some ways, actually, the description was almost too apt for his taste. Back in high school, Bob Tyler had been quite the golden boy, the captain of the school’s football team (a captain even then!). And, to no one’s surprise, his heart belonged to the head cheerleader, Chrissy Regan. Their relationship was more than a cliche, though, and it continued long after graduation, when Chrissy went off to college and Tyler joined the service. They continued to write and call each other regularly, and they saw each other as often as their personal commitments allowed.

When Tyler’s tour of duty ended, though, the friction began. Chrissy had assumed that once Tyler’s obligation to the Navy ended, he’d be coming home. He’d get a job, they’d get married, and they would settle down to raise children. However, Tyler had been bitten by the bug. He had his eye on an officer’s track, and couldn’t wait to re-up so that he could get back to sea. He hadn’t imagined that it would interfere with any of their plans for their future. Lots of the guys were married, like Smitty or Dwight or Aryeh, and when they were at sea, their wives lived comfortably and waited for them in the homes that the Navy provided back in port. But Chrissy had other ideas. After so much time apart, she wanted a family that wouldn’t be separated from each other for weeks or months at a time.

They tried to keep things going after that, but the lengthy absences and failure to compromise took their toll. Finally, Crissy gave Tyler an ultimatum: her or the sea.

The sea won.

Captain Tyler wasn’t'the first to man the bridge of the
Kolodny,
but it was his baby now—with all the pride, worry, and joy that implied. The Captain was in the mess hall, perusing the leftovers from that night’s dinner, when things started to go bad. There was a fair selection of midnight rations (or “mid-rats,” as they were known to the crew) to choose from. After a bit of consideration, Tyler stabbed a slice to meatloaf and added it to a late-night sandwich. As he squirted on some ketchhup as the finishing touch, he talked baseball with the ship’s supply officer.

“... Sorry, Captain. Looks like my Yanks are gonna go all the way again this year.”

“I don’t know, Evans. Don’t all those pennants get monotonous, year after year? The nice thing about us Bostonians is that being Red Sox fans teaches us humility.”