At 2:00 PM, a sailor appeared in the mess deck doorway.
"Dr. Franklin? There's someone here to see you. From Washington."
Franklin frowned. "Washington? Who?"
The sailor hesitated. "He says he's from the Office of Naval Research. But he doesn't look like a scientist. He looks like—" The sailor lowered his voice. "He looks like the kind of man who makes problems go away."
Franklin and Hollister exchanged glances.
"Show him in," Franklin said.
The man who entered was medium height, medium build, medium everything. Medium brown hair, medium brown suit, medium pleasant face. The kind of man you'd pass on the street and forget immediately. The kind of man designed to be unmemorable.
Which meant, Sal knew, that he was very memorable indeed.
"Dr. Franklin." The man extended a hand. "My name is Reynolds. I'm with the Office of Naval Research. I've been sent to assess the situation and provide... guidance."
Franklin shook his hand reluctantly. "Guidance."
"The Navy is aware of what happened here last night. They're also aware that certain... aspects... of the incident may require specialized handling." Reynolds's eyes swept the room, taking in Sal, the coffee cups, the exhausted scientists. "I'm here to ensure that handling occurs."
"You're here to bury it," Hollister said flatly.
Reynolds smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "I'm here to ensure that the families of our brave sailors receive the information they need, that the security of the United States is maintained, and that incidents like this do not happen again. Call that what you will."
"The men in the ship—" Sal started.
Reynolds's gaze shifted to him. Cool. Assessing. "And you are?"
"Sal Lombardi. Plumbing."
"Plumbing." Reynolds's eyebrow rose a fraction. "How fascinating. And what, exactly, is a plumber doing aboard a classified naval vessel during a sensitive operational review?"
"He's consulting," Franklin said quickly. "His expertise has been... valuable."
"His expertise in plumbing."
"In systems. Flow. Pressure. The things that happen when energy builds in unexpected places." Franklin met Reynolds's gaze steadily. "He's been able to communicate with the affected personnel in ways our instruments cannot."
Reynolds was quiet for a moment. Then he nodded slowly. "I see. Well. That's... unexpected." He turned back to Franklin. "I'll need a full briefing. Everything you know. Everything you suspect. And then we'll discuss next steps."
Franklin nodded. "Of course. This way, please."
He led Reynolds out of the mess deck. At the door, Reynolds paused and looked back at Sal.
"Mr. Lombardi. A word of advice. Whatever you think you've seen here, whatever you think you've heard—it would be wise to forget it. For your sake. For your family's sake. Do you understand?"
Sal met his eyes. "I understand."
Reynolds nodded and was gone.
Hollister waited until the door closed, then let out a long breath. "Well. That's not good."
"Who is he really?"
"ONR, probably. That part's true. But ONR doesn't send men like that to assess scientific problems. They send them to assess... problems." Hollister lit a cigarette with shaking hands. "He's here to make this go away, Lombardi. And men like that don't care about trapped sailors. They care about headlines."
Sal looked at the bulkhead. At the steel that held thirty men.
"Then we better figure this out before he does."
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of planning and argument.
Franklin briefed Reynolds while Hollister and the other scientists pored over their data, looking for anything that might help. Sal sat in the corner, listening to the hum, feeling the presence of the trapped men pressing against his awareness like water against a dam.
They were getting stronger. More coherent. More desperate.
...help us... Miller's voice came through, clearer now. ...please... can't stay here... fading...
I hear you, Sal thought back. We're working on it. Hold on.
...trying... hard to hold on... pieces of us... drifting...
Sal's heart clenched. They were losing themselves. Spreading thinner, like steam dissipating in cold air. If they didn't act soon, there might be nothing left to save.
He stood abruptly and walked to the bulkhead. Pressed his palm against the steel.
All of you, he thought, projecting as hard as he could. All of you listen. I'm Sal Lombardi. I'm a plumber. I fix things. And I'm going to fix this. But I need you to hold on. I need you to stay together. Can you do that?
For a long moment, nothing.
Then, from everywhere and nowhere at once, a chorus of voices—faint, scattered, but unmistakable:
...yes...
...trying...
...we'll try...
...hurry...
Sal pulled his hand back. His palm tingled where it had touched the steel.
"They're fading," he said to Hollister. "Spreading out. Losing cohesion. If we don't do something soon, there won't be anything left to save."
Hollister's face went pale. "How long?"
"I don't know. A day. Two. Maybe less."
Hollister looked at the data spread across the table. At the equations that refused to solve. At the instruments that couldn't measure what was happening.
"Then we need a miracle," he said quietly.
Sal looked at the steel. At the men trapped inside.
"I'm a plumber," he said. "Miracles are above my pay grade. But I've unclogged a lot of pipes in my time. And this? This is just a different kind of clog."
Hollister stared at him. "You really think so?"
Sal thought about it. About pressure and flow and the way things got stuck. About the reverse pulse Franklin had mentioned. About the voice in the steel, desperate to come home.
"Yeah," he said. "I think so. Now let's figure out how."
ns216.73.216.253da2
and then Add to home screen.