as he entered the wardroom and saw an actual string quartet. Young McAllister was among them, playing viola.
“Mind a little music?” Dixon asked. “Helps the digestion, I believe.”
“It’s Schubert!” Henry exclaimed.
“I figured you for a man of some refinement,” said Dixon. “Jazz is more my thing. Ellington. Monk. Miles Davis, when Herbie was on the keys and Wayne Shorter on sax. That’s my man, Wayne.”
“Yes, I heard you. You could say your music brought me back to life.”
“That’s a really nice thought.” Dixon indicated the quartet. “Took me years to assemble this group. I’m still on the lookout for a clarinetist. There’s some Benny Goodman tunes I’d love to play.”
Henry laughed. “I played clarinet in high school. ‘Moonglow.’ ‘Body and Soul.’ ”
“Oh, man!” Dixon said, looking genuinely pained. “Why didn’t you join the Navy? Maybe not too late!”
“I think I’ve still got it stuck in a closet somewhere,” Henry said.
They both grew contemplative as the mood that Schubert cast took hold—deep, melancholy, profound. “I guess you’re not up on the news,” Dixon said.
“Hardly.”
“Picture we get is pretty bad. Government broken. Mobs in the street. This is America we’re talking about, can you believe it? Land of opportunity.” He paused a moment as he chewed a piece of T-bone. “Who did this to us, Henry? You don’t believe it’s just chance, do you?”
“It could be,” Henry said cautiously.
“Way I see it, it’s a part of a pattern. I can’t tell you what I’ve been picking up in our communications—not everything, anyway—but there’s a very strong indication that there’s a foreign hand in all this.”
“You mean Russia?”
“They’ve been poking holes in our society. Attacking our infrastructure. So, yes, Russia. But they’re not alone. We’ve been under attack for years. Iran. China. North Korea. And, yeah, a lot of it is our fault, picking fights we didn’t need to get in. Now they’re ganging up. They sense the weakness. Like a wolf pack. It’s all coming to a head.” Dixon went quiet again, leaving the implications hanging in the air. Then he said, “You’re welcome to stay aboard for as long as you like. It’s a dangerous world out there.”
“I’ve got to find my family,” Henry said. “See if they’re still alive.”
“Of course you do. I don’t know why I said that.” Dixon seemed embarrassed by the personal appeal implied by his invitation. “In any case, we gotta stop in Kings Bay to fix the damn piston,” he said in his usual gruff manner. “Speaking of which, those three ships you may have seen? Russian. They picked up our piston clatter in Suez and have been bird-dogging us ever since. I decided to surface to ascertain their intention. Pretty clear now. They’re just hovering. Gonna encircle us and move in. They’ve been waiting, and now they know they’ve got a wounded duck. I bet they wouldn’t mind getting hold of our nuclear fuel rods, either. Most valuable substance in the world, now that oil’s done. Travel forever….Dig in, you haven’t touched your chow. If you want one last breath of fresh air, hike up top after your meal. We’ll be taking her down shortly.”
47
The Party Begins
BONG! BONG!
Henry jerked awake. The noise seemed to be banging on the inside of his skull. Then came the voice: “Battle stations! Battle stations! Now man your battle stations!” He dressed hurriedly, but realized he didn’t know where his battle station was, or even if he had one.
He waited until the rushing about had subsided—the last thing he needed was to be run over by a well-fed six-footer and become a liability himself—and then he ventured down the hall and into the submarine control room, uncertain whether he should be present. He spotted Dixon with other officers. Henry stood attentively and, he hoped, inconspicuously in the back of the room.
“I’ve got two additional targets, Sierra Four bearing 270, range 60,000 yards, Sierra Five bearing 185 at 75,000 yards,” the sonar operator said.
“So that’s what they’ve been waiting for,” Dixon said. “The party’s about to start.”
The crew was frozen at their posts. No one took the time to explain what was happening, nor would Henry dare to ask, but the extreme peril was like a suffocating odor suffusing the command center. The only noise was the beeping of the sonar as the dial swept past the Russian warships maneuvering into their search formation. An hour passed. Despite the tension, Henry’s stomach growled.