Kilo Class by Patrick Robinson Page A

efficiency of the US Navy was on display for their military leader. Admiral Mulligan led the way out, followed by Admiral Morgan. Commander Dunning brought up the rear. And as he made his exit, he heard the Chairman say in a soft voice, “Boomer… good luck.”
     
3
     
    J O DUNNING WAS NOT HAVING MUCH LUCK attempting to back the family Boston Whaler into the garage for the winter. She had run over and probably ruined an expensive deep-sea fishing rod, and had somehow succeeded in jamming the white forty-horsepower Johnson outboard motor on the stern of the boat firmly into the right-hand wall of the wooden garage. She was not anxious to drive the jeep forward, in case she went over the fishing rod again, and anyway she was half afraid the entire building might cave in.
    The phone was ringing in the house, however, and with huge relief she opened the door and fled the hideous scene, hoping against hope that the call would be from Boomer. Even harassed and angry, dressed in old jeans and a white Irish-knit fisherman’s sweater, Jo Dunning was a spectacular sight. Her long, dark red hair, long slim legs, and what Hollywood describes as “drop-dead good looks” somehow betrayed her. It was impossible to believe she was merely a Naval officer’s wife: here, surely, was a lady from
show business
.
    Half right. Jo was very definitely the wife of the nuclear submarine commanding officer Boomer Dunning. But she had retired from her career as a television actress on the day she had met him, fifteen years previously. This was not, incidentally, an incident that had threatened to bring CBS to its knees, since at the time Jo had been resting for several months and, in the less-than-original words of her own mother, was wondering if indeed her “career was down the toilet.”
    And now, as she ran to the telephone in the big house that would one day be theirs, she hoped her luck on this wretched day would change — that Boomer would be calling to confirm their plans to spend three days at Christmas together with the children in this waterfront house on the western Cape.
    But Jo’s luck had not turned, except for the worse. The voice on the line was that of a young lieutenant junior grade from the SUBLANT headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, where Boomer was now stationed.
    “Mrs. Dunning?”
    “Speaking.”
    “Mrs. Dunning, this is Lieutenant Davis down here at SUBLANT calling to let you know that Commander Dunning has been assigned to a special operation, beginning immediately. As you know, it will be difficult for him to speak with anyone outside the base. You may of course call here anytime, and we’ll do our best to let you know how long he’s going to be. But for the moment, he’s terribly busy — he’ll try to call you tonight.”
    Jo Dunning had had a few conversations like this before, and she knew better than to probe. She was so anxious about Christmas, however — which would be their first together for three years — that she asked the question directly.
    “Will he be home in a few days?”
    “No, ma’am.”
    Her heart fell. “How long, Lieutenant?”
    “Right now, he’s expected to return toward the end of January. We’re looking at a five-week window.”
    “A five-week widow,” she murmured. And then, “Thank you, Lieutenant. Please tell my husband I’ll be thinking of him.”
    “I certainly will, ma’am.”
    “Oh, Lieutenant, are you going with him?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Tell him to drive carefully, won’t you?”
    “I sure will, ma’am.”
    At which point Jo Dunning put the phone down and wept. Just as she had wept last summer when all of their plans were ruined because of another operation at the end of the world down in the South Atlantic. Except she had not known at the time
where
he was.
    And as she sat now in her father-in-law’s wooden rocking chair, staring out at the sunlit waters of Cotuit Bay, she could think only of the terrible, deep waters in which she knew her husband