Excerpt of Silent Waters by Jan Coffey

Electric Boat Shipyard
Groton, Connecticut
Monday, November 3
3:50 a.m.

They emerged from the black water of the river thirty feet from where the rain swept the shore. Like primor-dial beasts rising from the deep, the divers turned their heads to take in the surroundings.

The wind whipped across the dark waters, the swells rising up to meet the rain and the night. The leader looked at the huge steel doors of the shipyard's North Yard Ways. Then, silently, they moved as one behind him toward the building.

Close to the doors, the leader's feet touched the sloping concrete on the river's bottom. To his right, he could see the submarine tied to the far side of the wide, flat concrete pier. USS Hartford glistened in the floodlights and the icy rain. A single crewman stood on top of the curved hull, huddled against the black sail.

Together, the group waded without making a sound beneath the huge doors overhanging the water. The rain beat against the steel walls, pellets of water ricocheting off hollow tin.

Inside, the shipyard's cavernous building was dark and empty. The metal skids coming out of the water disappeared up the incline into the darkness, re-emerging a hundred yards up, beneath dim amber floodlights.

Before the intruders had a chance to leave the black water, though, a door opened halfway up the Ways. Two security guards entered, silhouetted by the amber light in the distance.

"Jeez, do you think it could rain any fucking harder?" one of them said as he unsnapped his orange rain gear and shook the water off.

The other guard muttered something and reached inside his coat for a smoke.

The group standing in the shallows halted. When the two men turned their backs, the leader slowly lowered himself back into the water. The rest followed suit. He looked at his watch — 3:53.

"I'm really hoping it'll be a landslide," the guard said as he took a cigarette from his friend. "I hate that last- minute shit with Florida and Ohio deciding the future for everybody else in the country."

"I never thought there'd be a day when I'd agree with you about friggin' politics." He lit a match and held it out for his buddy. Their faces glowed in the light of it.

"But, for chrissake, these last four years of Hawkins in the White House has been a waste of jobs, lives and every other goddamn thing this country stands for."

The intruders were thirty-five yards away. "I warned you at the last election that Hawkins would screw the pooch before he was done."

"Look, I wasn't the only one fooled. The guy was elected legally, wasn't he?"

"Not by the popular vote."

"You're not going to get on that soapbox about electoral and popular votes again, are you?"

"You bet I am. I'm telling you, in spite of all our big talk about democracy in this country, not you or me or any other individual has a fucking word to say about who gets elected president."

"No. You're talking out of your ass...."

As the two argued, the leader of the intruders motioned to the two men on his right. Silently, the pair stripped off their tanks and moved through the water until they reached the concrete wall. Using the darkness behind them, they emerged from the water and edged along the wall toward the guards, whose argument was rising in intensity and volume.

"...don't have to reinvent the friggin' wheel just because the past four years was a mistake."

"Hawkins isn't the only president who's wormed his way into office."

Six feet away, they drew their knives.

Electric Boat Shipyard 4:01 a.m.

Cutting like a razor, the wind tore up the Thames River from Long Island Sound, driving the freezing rain into the submarine commander's face.

Standing for a moment by his car, Darius McCann looked down at the mist-enshrouded shipyard as he adjusted his hat and buttoned up his raincoat. The smell of the changing tide bore into his senses. There had been a time not so long ago when this scene and the anticipation of the upcoming patrol would have excited him, energized him. But not today. At least, not at this godforsaken hour.

He shook his head. It was the day. It was his age. He was forty today. Another milestone. Another step closer to the grave.

He'd achieved every goal in his five-year, ten-year, twenty-year career plans. For what? His personal life sucked. He was forty years old and alone. No wife, no kids. Nothing of the everyday routines and the closeness that was the very essence of the way he'd been raised. That all traced back to his job. Six months away at sea at a time, sometimes longer. Coming ashore only to start all over again. This time, he had just a few weeks ashore.

And here he was looking at some dark shipyard at four o'clock in the morning on his birthday.

His own sourness was in itself sobering — a slap of reality regarding what a miserable bastard he'd become. McCann ran a hand down his face, trying to brush away the rain, along with the feeling of gloom and doom.

He reached inside the car and grabbed his coffee and briefcase before locking up. He took a deep breath and shifted his attention from inside to outside, to the job that he'd signed on to do. The job that had to come first.

There were only a dozen cars scattered around the parking lot. Floodlights positioned on tops of tall poles and on adjacent buildings cast an amber glow over the cars. The security cameras were plainly visible. Since 9/11, even the defense contractors had smartened up. They were watching everything a little better now.

A squall of rain blasted McCann as he wove his way through the restricted navy personnel lot and descended to the road that ran along the front of Electric Boat. Across Eastern Point Road, just inside the high chain-link fence, a neat line of administration and engineering buildings formed the public face of the shipyard.

You couldn't see it from the street, but beyond them, down the side of the steep hill to the river, a jumbled mix of buildings — brick, cement, wood and steel — formed an entire city. A rabbit warren of lanes and alleys threaded between machine shops and warehouses. Various trade huts and fabrication shops huddled against the huge steel buildings that housed the Ways, where subs in the earliest stages of construction were built. All along the riverfront, shops crowded the ends of piers and docks, and even barges held three-story work spaces — all for the thousands of tradesmen who had been building the navy's subs since the days of Teddy Roosevelt.

This was his life, McCann reminded himself. With each step, he buried deeper his discontent and focused more on what was required of him.

There were few sounds of work coming up through the wide chain-link gates tonight. Since the end of the Cold War, the need for new subs had dramatically decreased. Electric Boat's third shift was now merely a formality, and as McCann approached the main gate, the smell of burnt steel on the cold wind and the sound of heavy HVAC units running on the buildings were the only signs of anything going on below.

A solitary coffee-and-sandwich truck was parked on the side of the road, and McCann glanced at the driver who'd dozed off inside the cab. Gusts of wind continued to blow against his back as he headed down the hill toward EB's main gate.

Across the street, the windows of the bars were empty and dark. Open to a steady stream of business until two o'clock in the morning each night, they'd be open again at 8:00 a.m. sharp. One day, out of curiosity, McCann had gone into one of them, a place popularly known as the Sink. A half hour before the shipyard whistle blew the signal for the noon "dinner," the bartenders were busily lining up mugs of beer six deep on the heavily marked bar. It was a constant source of surprise to the commander that any work got done after the yardbirds had finished drinking their dinner.

Not that submariners were exactly teetotalers, he thought. In fact, he could have used a shot of something strong himself right now. Anything to jolt his system back into gear. He entered the covered passageway that all pedestrians entering the shipyard had to pass through.

Behind the plate-glass windows of the security station, five armed security guards were visible, and one of them stood by an open door waiting to check badges. Another stood behind him.

As one of the guards came out of the booth and stood on the first step, McCann transferred the coffee into his briefcase hand, unbuttoned his raincoat and pulled it open to show his badge. "Commander McCann, USS Hartford. You're doing some work on her."

The guard glanced at the gold dolphins pinned to his chest, at the identification badge, and then at McCann's face before looking down at the clipboard. "Can you spell your last name for me, sir?"

He did, and the guard scanned a list. "It might be at the top," McCann said dryly. "One moment, sir." He backed up into the booth and said something in a low voice to an older security guard who was sitting behind a desk. The older man looked at McCann through the glass and picked up a telephone.

McCann felt the first prickles of annoyance beginning to rise under his collar. The second annoyance of the morning, he quickly corrected himself. The first had happened when his X.O. had called an hour ago asking McCann to go in for him.

The entrance passageway was acting like a wind tunnel. McCann took a sip of his coffee, but it was already cold. He dumped the entire thing in a trash can next to the door.

"Is there a problem?" he asked shortly.

The younger guard looked through the door. "No, sir. Just give us a second."

Another damp gust of wind blew through him. His pant legs were already soaked, and feeling cold, he buttoned up his coat. The hill running down to the docks was deserted, with the exception of a few security guards walking up toward the gate. The work being done on his ship was considered an emergency, though, and the yard management had promised to bring in a special crew for it. McCann hoped they were already here.

The older guard in the booth was still waiting to talk to someone on the phone. Another level of management. More bureaucracy than the navy.

Another guard, bulked up in his winter rain gear, appeared at the other end of the passageway.

"Commander McCann?"

The voice came from the doorway, and McCann turned to look into the round, ruddy face of an older man wearing a tie under a gray cardigan.

He read the man's badge. Hale. He was the director of security. In early, McCann thought.

"What's the problem, Commander?"

"You tell me, Mr. Hale."