Thunder In The Deep (02) (13 page)

Jeffrey sat at his fold-down desk, littered with maps and briefing papers. His laptop Was open and on. She ed to peer at the screen. He shook his head and close, the computer.

"How's your leg feeling?" Ilse tried to bring up something from their shared experience two weeks ago. "What?" Jeffrey seemed puzzled. "Oh. Yeah. It's funny, it stopped hurting before we got to Cape Verde. It must've been stress, not decompression sickness after all."

Ilse sat down in the only guest chair. Jeffrey frowned.

"You mean, like psychosomatic or something?"

"I don't like big words like that," Jeffrey said, a bit sternly. "How can I help you?" Ilse tried to recover. "I, urn, I wanted to mention. I took a first look at the data you gave me."

"And . . . ?"

"It isn't quite as bad as I thought. There's this thing called the Navy Meteorological and Oceanographic Command."

"Yes. METOC."

"They, they have an assessment of basic tactics, for infiltration and stealth. You know, into the Baltic? It needs some work, and it does lack recent cyclical trends, but it seems pretty good for a start."

Jeffrey looked right at her. "Did you think you were the first oceanographer to ever think about undersea war-fighting?"

Ilse decided to get to the point, before Jeffrey threw her out of his office. It dawned on her, all at once, that he was a very busy, very important man. The shy, stammering guy who'd tried to ask her out at Cape Verde was gone from her reach, maybe gone forever.

"I wanted to ask you, Jeffrey. What exactly is my status now?"

"First of all, it's Captain, or Commander Fuller."

Ilse looked for something in Jeffrey's eyes, some hint of personal feeling behind the mask of authority. She didn't find it.

"I mean, sir, where do I fit in on the ship? Am I part of the crew? What am I supposed to be?"

This was the first time she'd called him sir in private, too. "So far as I know, a formal status hasn't been specified.

I suggest you concentrate on the immediate task."

Ilse took a deep breath, and exhaled, and felt like half

her spirit left her body with the exhalation.

"Do you know what will happen to me, after this mission?" This was her last attempt to hold open a bridge to Jeffrey Fuller. Maybe they'd have time later, after the mission, when he could unwind.

"Frankly, I hadn't thought that far ahead."

"I mean, do I—"

"Look. Miss Reebeck. Does Lieutenant Bell even know you're here?" Oh, God, Ilse told herself. What the hell was going on?

"Er, no, Captain."

Jeffrey went back to his desk and picked up a map. Ilse could see it was a topographic chart for Greifswald. Without even looking at her, he cleared his throat. Ilse stood. On different levels she felt humiliated, badly embarrassed, and angry. She left without saying another word.

Since Ilse wasn't a watchstander, her schedule was fluid. She decided to go to the enlisted mess for coffee—less chance of running into one of the officers. But then she heard Shajo Clayton's voice from in the mess, busy practicing with his SEAL team. She turned around.

There in the passageway she bumped into COB. "You look so serious," COB teased her.

"Thanks for noticing," Ilse said. Maybe COB would be the right person to talk to. He was mature, and a great people manager, dealing with all kind of issues with the enlisted men and their families.

Ilse forced a smile. "1 guess I'm trying to figure out, what do I want to be when I grow up?"

"Having one of those days, are we?" COB smiled back, a warm and reassuring smile. Ilse figured he'd taken a whole bunch of training courses on interpersonal leadership. For all she knew, he had two dozen kinds of smiles,

for different occasions, and 'could turn them on or off at will.

But, not COB. He was just too genuine.

"Is there somewhere we can talk in private?"

COB laughed. "On a nuclear submarine? Are you kidding?" He seemed to step back from her, internally. His face hardened subtly, and he began to rock slightly on the balls of his feet. As if he were saying, Whatever it is, don't cling or whine. Ilse blushed again, and felt very lonely. She knew COB could see it.

"Actually," COB said, "right here is good. People come and go in the corridor, but nobody'll linger. It's an unwritten rule on Challenger, my rule, that if you see people whispering here, you make a point not to listen."

Ilse frowned.

COB shrugged. "Best I can do." He looked at his wristwatch.

"You don't use the chiefs' quarters for one-on-one meetings?" COB laughed again. "If we aren't at battle stations, Ilse, there'll be lots of guys working or sleeping in there. So, what's up?"

"I'm not sure I should say this."

"Say it," COB said. "I'm half the crew's father confessor and surrogate mommy as it is."

"I guess you could say I'm having anidentity crisis."

Ilse saw a junior enlisted man coming down the passageway. The man nodded and quickly wriggled-by.

When he was out of earshot, COB said, "Welcome to the U.S. Navy, Ilse. Last mission was an adventure, right? This time, the novelty's worn off, you realize it's hard work and dangerous, and you feel you've lost control of your life. Right?" Ilse nodded reluctantly. "I keep trying to figure out how I fit in."

"You mean, the gender thing?"

"It's not that. Everyone's been perfectly nice. . . . No problems at all in that respect." Except for Jeffrey now, Ilse told herself, and whose fault is that?

"Good," COB said. "I put the word out, you and Lieutenant Milgrom are part of the family"

"Thanks." Ilse said.

"I told the guys to think of you as their sisters. . . . That makes hanky-panky incest."

"You don't pull punches, do you?"

"I leave it to officers to speak in tongues," COB said. "If that's their style. It isn't mine. It was never Captain Wilson's."

"Which is your clever way of getting right to the point, isn't it? About Captain Fuller."

"Look," COB said. "I know the two of you kind of, well, noticed each other, a while ago."

"Definitely make that past tense."

COB sighed. "That was then, this is now." He got formal. "Commander Fuller first and foremost must comport himself as the captain of this ship. He can't show favoritism, or allow any personal feelings whatsoever between him and someone in the crew. It's regulations, and tradition. And it's essential in combat. It has nothing to do with you."

"But that's just it. I'm not part of the crew. Refugee, partisan, mercenary. What am I, COB?"

"You're on this ship. We're going in harm's way together. That's good enough in my book for you to be part of this extended family."

"Thanks. . . ." Ilse felt tears coming. She blinked hard. Good, no tears.

"Look," COB said, "I know it's tough. If it's any comfort, none of us here in uniform, of any rank or rate, turn off our feelings just because we're here. Everybody wants to be liked and wants to fit in. . . . I think you're doing just fine."

"You do?"

"You did a terrific job at Durban, and everybody knows that. People know you haven't had their kind of training in teamwork and self-assessment." Ilse stiffened. That last bit.

She saw COB read her face again. He hesitated. "What is it?" she said.

"You just need to beware of the celebrity syndrome." "Excuse me?"

"Sometimes when we have riders, they get kind of overwhelmed. By the bigness of it all. You know, the United States Navy, an SSN at sea, and now with this war."

"What are you getting at, COB?"

"It can get a bit depersonalizing, I know. Sometimes. well, people, they react, sort of overcompensate, by acting like a prima donna."

"A what?"

"Look, Ilse. Everyone here has self-esteem, self-confidence, an ego. They're the best, or they wouldn't be here." "COB?"

He made hard eye contact. "Look deep inside yourself, and ask if you haven't been thinking and acting like this whole show was being put on for you. That you were the most important and special person here. That the whole mission to South Africa was set up just so you could get even with some people."

"Where the hell did that come from?"

COB didn't say anything.

"I've been discussed, haven't I? There's some kind of personnel file on me, isn't there?"

"See, Ilse? There you go again. There's a file on everybody."

"So you and Jeffrey talked about me. You two think I'm a prima donna."

"You said it, not me."

"But you did say it, before. In private."

COB paused. "Yes."

"Now I feel really awful. . . . I'm such an idiot."

"Ilse, do a little soul-searching. You're still new. People know you're an outsider. They'll cut you slack, up to a point."

"Thanks a lot."

"Watch it." Now COB wasn't smiling. "That sort of attitude, there's no room for here at all."

Two hours later, Ilse was bent over the laptop they'd given her. She was grateful for the privacy of her cabin. She really didn't feel like seeing anyone right now. Kathy Milgrom came in without knocking, and shut the door.

"Working hard?" Kathy said.

Ilse nodded. She felt herself perk up. "This stuff is neat. Saltwater transport processes, from the North Sea into the Baltic and back."

Kathy started getting undressed.

"All quite relevant," Kathy said. "Buoyancy, sound propagation, biologics." Ilse yawned. As Kathy stripped to her underwear, Ilse turned away to be polite. In a minute Kathy said, dramatically, "You can look now." She was wearing flannel pajamas, navy blue with little red and white submarines all over.

"Is that official issue?" Ilse said.

"No, no. I found these once in Harrods. They had them in different patterns, sailboats, dolphins, whales. . . . I wanted to be a submariner since I was a little girl."

"You come from a naval family?"

"Eighth generation, and proud of it."

Kathy put her eyeglasses and wristwatch in the little storage space beneath her mattress. Ilse watched as Kathy reached up, and with both hands grabbed the heavy rod that supported the curtain in front of the top sleeping rack.

Kathy's face grimaced. She scrunched her stomach

muscles, took as much weight as she could on her arms, and literally walked up the bulkhead. She rolled into the top rack in one smooth motion.

"I didn't know people could do that." Ilse used the middle rack—easy to get in or out. The bottom one held stationery supplies.

"I need all the exercise I can get," Kathy said, "which is why I didn't buy the pajamas with the whales." Both of them giggled. Ilse yawned.

"You look completely exhausted," Kathy said.

"I am."

"When was the last time you got some sleep?" "About twenty-four hours ago." Ilse reached for her coffee, which was cold and stale. "Don't," Kathy said. "Change and turn in. You have to

rest."

"I have so much to do."

"That's an order," Kathy said, as a joke.

"Ouch," Ilse groaned.

If Kathy was surprised, she let it pass. "Look, you've got to grab sleep whenever you can. Put on your pajamas. Get in your rack. The messenger will wake you when he 'mocks for me. In about four hours."

Ilse remembered what COB had said. She realized how right he was. She wanted to resist Kathy, and she resented being told what to do—by anyone.

Instead, Ilse changed. She slept in heavy cotton p.j.'s, green-and-black plaid. She also wore thick mountain-climbing socks, and used an extra blanket. It got cold on USS

Challenger.

"Mmmm," Kathy said. "Delicious beddie-bye."

"Yes," Ilse said. She got in her rack. She knew she sounded depressed.

"Jeffrey trouble?" Kathy said, from inside the top bunk. "Crap, is it that obvious?"

"Basically, it is."

Ilse didn't say anything.

"Don't worry" Kathy said. "These little flirtations do occur. It's meaningless, mostly just displaced stress, homesickness, fear of getting killed in action. . . . I think guys do it aboard ship sometimes because they know it's safe."

"You mean, nothing really happens."

"Usually not. Maybe I should say, hopefully not."

But that didn't fit, Ilse told herself. Jeffrey wasn't a flirt. And I'm not sure anyone who used to be a SEAL, wounded on some secret op in Iraq back in the '90s, could possibly be considered "safe." But in a way, Jeffrey was safe.

"Still," Kathy said, "he is single, so that's all right. Love and family are natural. . . . Not my type at all, but I can see he might be yours."

"I'd rather not talk about it."

"Okay. My advice, which you didn't ask for, is just relax and be patient."

"I'm sure you're right," Ilse said. But she wondered what would happen if and when they did reach port. "Do you have a steady boyfriend?" Ilse said.

"We talked about getting married. He got killed." "At sea?"

"His destroyer was vaporized."

"I'm sorry"

Kathy sighed. "I miss him a lot, but life goes on." "You're okay about the way Captain Fuller treated you before?"

"Certainly." Kathy put on a mock upper-class accent. "One cannot take it personally when a superior officer criticizes one, justified or no." She went back to her normal voice. "If someone's landing all over you, Ilse, you just act like a helo pad. It's for the good of the ship."

"I guess that's the whole point. The ship comes first." "Starting to feel your individuality get submerged?" Ilse didn't say anything.

"That was a pun," Kathy said. "Submerged."

"Very funny."

"I know what you mean, though. It's part of being in

the Navy. Everyone has a boss. Every captain has a commodore, or an admiral. The First Sea Lord has the First Lord of the Admiralty. He has the Minister of Defence, and she has the PM and the King. It's the same in the U.S. Navy, just different titles, and they spell defense with an s while we Brits use a c."

"I'm beginning to see how war is so depersonalizing."

"To me that's the worst part of it," Kathy said. "I'm not afraid to die. I've led a clean life. I say my prayers. But war-fighting is so relentless, so complicated, so huge, it can make you feel very small. You get completely gobbled up."