Chapter 3: What Goes Down

The three ballistic missile submarines slipped out of Bremerton under cover of darkness headed for the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Already the Lockheed P-3 Orion sub hunters were scrambling from Oak Harbor N.A.S., Whidbey Island. The initial rendezvous for the "convoy" was set for longitude 135, latitude 37.6. Cmdr. J. Stephen Waterson took a sip from his steaming hot coffee mug, then let out a curse under his breath as he struggled to regain control of the mug as the scalding liquid seared into his hand. "Damnit, ensign, you'd think you were from a part of the world that didn't know what coffee was. Now get the damn thing refilled and do it right this time or we might try to see if we can get the Navy to reinstitute keelhauling."

As the ensign scurried down the stairs, Waterson resumed gazing out across the water. Even after eighteen years of submarine duty, he always tried to delay as long as possible before going below for the dive. The San Juan Islands were coming up off the starboard bow. He tried not to think of his Catalina 32 anchored somewhere near Orcas Island with Susan on board, alone. He had promised her something special this weekend, an announcement he hadn't been prepared to make before now. And now he couldn't make it. In fact, he hadn't even been able to say goodbye. The call had come while he was in town picking up a bottle of Chateau St. Michelle Cabernet Sauvignon and the ingredients for the gourmet dinner he was going to prepare. He knew as well as any man in the Navy how to delay an order to ship out, except when the order carried the Presidential seal and was hand delivered by a young man on a bike, a young man seemingly like many others on the island, though the poncho could not hide his muscular physique. The weapons he carried were much less obvious, but Waterson had discerned two knives, a pistol, and a rifle. It's got to be serious when they use the seals as messengers, he thought to himself. He was glad to hear they gotten Selby for this one. A smile crept over his face. What was it, three, no four years since they done one of these. It seemed like the odds were always stacked against you, but with the right team ... well, they'd been lucky this far.

The clanging of the Port Townsend C-2 buoy broke his reverie. The other two subs had gone down a long time ago. It was time to join them. "Ah, I didn't want the coffee anyway," he said out loud but with no one to answer him. He signaled the bow watch, turned, and descended into the other life he knew so well.