The training began immediately, but it wasn’t real training. There were no calisthenics or any of what was so common to Marine training, but there was running, not in the outside, racing through the wondrous areas of conditioned and well-managed tropical paradise. No, the running was on a machine, modified ot provide inclines that took everything out of me in less than an hour. It was hard to run at speeds not set by myself or that changed in speed and angle all the time, while attached to wiring and breath measuring equipment. I was being tested, not conditioned or trained. I gave the book several times. I was questioned by one smock-wearing member after another, not normal UDT specialists. The first day was the expected hell I thought it would be, but not in any way that I could have predicted. The second half of the day was spent in and out of the pool, a pool commandeered from the common public, whatever that was composed of on the island. I swam miles and then dived the deep end, one of only about eight feet in depth, and stayed underwater for long periods, again under machine and human observation and management. As it had been in OCS so many years before, there was no freedom of anything and no social time whatever. There was the ‘training’ and work.

There was no class. I was it, which meant I got a lot of attention, but not the kind I might have wanted. I fell into a hard bunk for six hours and then rose at five in the morning of my second day. To my relief, Nguyen and Kingsley were at breakfast, which was all liquids. I’d been informed as I fell into a shower and revived myself before bed the night before that I would be eating no solid foods through the training. There was no explanation, but I didn’t need one.

They wanted no air or any other gas in my system that could suffer compression and potentially destroy the mission and me along with it.

Nguyen and Kingsley wore the same gray sweat clothes that were my only attire, other than a single swimming suit. My sweatshirt had the number six printed large in black on the front and back, while both Nguyen and Kingsley had a big zero each, likely denoting that they weren’t a part of the training at all, but the center had no choice but to admit them. I was running in unknown territory and trusting people and situations without much knowledge at all, and that made me intensely uncomfortable. With my two lifelines at my side, no changes might be made given any emergency, but at least they would be there for me in whatever way anyone could be there for me.

Both men would sleep in the same room, as the room had six double bunks, from which I presumed that classes usually consisted of six men unless there were more rooms in the structure with bunk beds in them. There was no one to ask questions of, however, as all my ‘trainers’ seemed analytically committed to scientific, medical, or therapeutic specialties. The macho men I’d met coming in and assumed would be the normal trainer material had disappeared, and no one like them had taken their place. I’d already learned and brought both my men along in understanding that nobody answered questions that weren’t related to their field of study…or rather, their study of me.

The second day was spent mostly in the pool. The UDT Frogmen appeared, all looking like Adonis creatures of great physical conditioning. I was okay, but nothing like them, although none of them said anything. I took a dozen swimming tests and passed all of them I knew. I held my breath underwater for six laps of the pool, which meant more than a hundred yards, and I knew that was okay without anyone doing anything but timing and writing things down. I wanted to call my wife to see if she’d arrived with the kids on Kauai, but was told that all three of us in the class were remotely barred from outside contact until the mission was over.

I looked at the woman, a supposed psychiatrist, as I finished my final swimming test and dried off. Nguyen and Kingsley sat on a nearby bench, never having to dress for entry into the water at all. The woman’s name was Doctor Hitachi. I had a rice cooker at home, given to me by my parents for Christmas, and the company was called Hitachi, too, but I said nothing. Commander Doris and Doctor Hitachi. Strange names, if real.
“Dr. Hitachi,” I began, sitting down in a folding chair next to a similar one she occupied. She was dressed in the usual smock and was writing nearly constantly on a clipboard. “It would seem that this is my mission, and therefore I should be the one making the decisions on nearly everything instead of nothing at all.”

“You are training for the mission, not on it yet, and your superiors are very impressed with your ability to understand without having to be furnished unnecessary details.”

“My family is not a detail,” I said back, trying to keep my temper under control.

“Your family is secure on Kauai in the Princeville Resort with a set of rooms bigger than this pool,” she replied, waving her free hand out to indicate the pool I’d been swimming in. The nice feature about the pool was that it was outside, which was wonderful, but the ten-foot-high walls around it allowed for no outside viewing or vice versa.

“Thank you,” I replied, softly, mollified but wondering why no one had thought to tell me.

“The next step is to get into the rig they’re bringing into the pool area in a few minutes. The men helping you and within the water will be wearing normal SCUBA gear, but not you. I was sent to prepare you mentally for what’s ahead.”

Hitachi then gently placed her clipboard on the concrete next to her chair and gave me her full attention.

“My information is deliberately scant, so please stay with me about the necessity of paying close attention to what you need to acquire to react in the best survival mode possible.”

“Yes, doctor,” I replied, taken a bit aback by her delivery. Nobody had mentioned the word survival to me, or not surviving for that matter.

“Steady state,” she said back, and then waited, as if I was supposed to say something at that point, but I had no reply I could think of. “Your coming adventure is as much about mental control of your physical presence as the physical things that will be applied to you and affect you. Panic can kill a SCUBA diver in minutes. Panic in the use of this equipment can kill you in a few seconds.”

“Breathing the liquid,” I finally said, glancing at Kingsley and Nguyen as I did so and watching both men visibly recoil a bit. Neither man said a word, however.

“You can’t cough. You can’t fight the intake and outflow. You can control your chest muscles and draw in and out, but you must never forget that the liquid must continue to flow at all times, regardless of that. It’s not air. It’s a thousand times as dense. Part of the equipment will ensure that your mouth remains always connected to your trachea. There can be no closure, no ‘holding one’s breath,’ so to speak. The nitrogen and oxygen in the liquid come into your tissues much faster and more effectively than air.”

I stared into the woman’s opaque black eyes. She was no therapist. She was the one person who understood and operated the entire liquid breathing invention and operation.

“Has anyone died using this?” I asked, as two double doors opened across the pool and the UDT team brought in all the equipment on carts, headed through and moved slowly to other side of the pool.

“No human,” Hitachi replied curtly, looking away.

“Other animals?” I continued, having guessed that the answer would be yes.

“What killed them?” I asked, truly curious.

“I could not talk to them or give them what they needed to know,” Hitachi replied, her brow knotting up over her thin, dark eyebrows.

“It will take a few minutes for them to hook you up, so I’ll come back momentarily,” Hitachi said, picking up her clipboard and then departing without saying another word.

The coxswain from the longboat came around the pool, decked out in SCUBA gear, all except for the swim fins. The water and air were Hawaii warm so he also wore no wetsuit.

“We need you now,” he said, his voice and tone different from what it had been back at the docks. “We didn’t know you were the one,” he half whispered, leaning toward me.

“Give me ten seconds with my men,” I said to him, without waiting for an answer. I walked the few steps over to where Nguyen and Kingsley sat watching silently.

“Okay, where do you come in?” I asked, but then went right on talking. “You come in when they bring me up from the bottom. I want to make sure that I make the transition back to being a man again. This is mermaid stuff, and I’m not sure anyone would be ready for it. I know I sure as hell am not. But this has to be done, for a whole lot of reasons I have no understanding about, any more than I do about why I have become ‘the one.’”

“Star Trek,” Kingsley said, with a gentle laugh. “There was an episode in the movie when the crew was trapped inside a planet with no means of getting to the surface. After a while, Captain Kirk pulls out a flip phone communicator and calls the Enterprise to beam them out. Nobody expected the Enterprise to be anywhere close enough to do that. A crewman asked Spock how Kirk had pulled that off.

Spock said: “That’s what he does. He makes the impossible possible.”

I shook my head to clear my thoughts and try to understand what Kingsley was saying.

“That means what? I finally asked, about to throw up my hands and get back into the pool.

“That’s what you do,” Kingsley said, as if coming to a mathematical conclusion that was patently obvious, “It’s why you are here, why they chose you, and why you are doing what you are doing.”

The pool water felt cold as I turned and entered the shallow end. I’d shed my sweatshirt but kept my Marine Corps red and gold “T” shirt on. I had scars, and I wasn’t going to put on that kind of show to all the fit people around me. I was damaged goods, but it appeared that I was the only one who thought that way, or at least so it seemed.

The team spent an hour getting the umbilical connected, along with attiring me with a depth gauge, an electronic unit of some sort, and then the complexity of the mouth and throat devices so the liquid could be started. Part of the robotic device covered my teeth, and instead of my mouth working the normal hinge way it did, there was like a delay, as the machine seemed to permit me to open or close my mouth at will, but certainly let me know it could control that if necessary. I understood. Hitachi had clued me in. The liquid would be pumped in and out of my lungs no matter what action I might take, because if that didn’t happen, I only had seconds to live.

“We’re going to hydrate for the first time,” the coxswain said, his face only inches from mine. I tried to answer, but the device wouldn’t allow me the ability to speak. I could only grunt, which is what I did. “It’s said to be uncomfortable but tolerable, and the feeling of choking or vomiting will pass in seconds if you only hang on.”

The liquid came without warning, almost immediately filling my lungs but feeling more like it was filling up my whole torso. Hands on my shoulders gently pushed me down until I was underwater. I wanted to look to see if my belly was swollen, but I didn’t, as the itching was too great. My lungs itched from the inside, and I wasn’t aware that this was possible. I felt no need to cough or reject the stuff; instead, I helped it come in and out, until after a couple of minutes, I reached an equilibrium where there was no point in resisting. I breathed, slow and steady, like I’d been told, although I was now certain that none of my trainers or even the scientists had tried it before me. Everyone was there, above and below the water with me. I let the umbilical tow me around the pool, its connection in the center of my upper back keeping me head down as I moved.

Suddenly, without warning, I was being pulled up. I came to the surface but then was brought out of the water by three UDT guys, unidentifiable in their masks and snorkels, until I was out of the water before two of them grabbed my ankles and upended me. I was taken by others, head down and suspended, as the mouthpiece and machinery inside were removed. I drained, and then the coughing and convulsing began. I fought it, but there was no stopping for several minutes, which seemed a lot longer. Finally, all that stopped, and I was let down to lie back down on a thick rubber mat.

“How do you feel?” Hitachi’s voice said, although I could not see her. All I could do was breathe in and out and stare up into the cumulus cloudy sky above and be happy that I was alive and back.

“Nguyen,” I rasped out, lifting my head slightly.

His face almost instantly appeared in front of my own.

“Am I okay?” I asked, immediately feeling stupid. It was like I’d died and come back, although I’d never lost consciousness at all.

The extremely uncommon smile appeared across his lower face, and his eyes were lit up like tiny lanterns.

“Your vitals are normal,” Hitachi replied, although I hadn’t been talking to her.

I was stripped of everything but my swimsuit, then guided to the showers and on into my room. I lay on the bunk with Nguyen and Kingsley sitting on the one below mine.

Hitachi came into the room without announcing herself or knocking.

“We will repeat this series three more times today and then four more tomorrow,” she said, as if reading the words from her clipboard. My mind went back to the movie Right Stuff. She was exactly like the attendants portrayed in that movie.

“I want someone to call my wife since neither of us is allowed,” I said to her, my voice coming out normal, which gave me a sense of relief.

“I will make the call,” Hitachi replied, making a note when she said the words.

“No, not a woman,” I objected. “It’s got to be a man. She has no idea what’s going on, except she knows this is mission-related. There will be no suspicions if she talks to someone like Commander Doris. She must have regular updates at least twice a day until this is over.”

“You are in no position…” Hitachi began, but I cut her off.

“I’m in exactly the correct position. This is my mission, and nothing is going to happen concerning its success without me. I’m not missing any of what I’m feeling from everyone here, so let’s not pretend this right now isn’t for all the chips.”

Hitachi gave me another one of her frowns, but then surprised me. “It is as you say, and so it will be done, however, your control officer will make the necessary calls.”

“He’s not here,” I replied in frustration.

“He’s at the bachelor’s officer’s quarters at Pearl Harbor Sub Base as we speak, waiting for the update which I will give him.”

“He’s here?” I asked, more shocked than surprised. “Why isn’t he present?

“Not authorized and not my department or call,” Hitachi replied before walking out through the open door.

I lay atop my bunk, preparing myself mentally for what lay ahead.

“What are your thoughts?” I asked into the air, not being specific as to which one of my friends I was speaking.

“It would appear that you will be the only prime diver,” Kingsley replied, “with others only available to support you much higher up. This is a bit common, I know, in SCUBA, and especially not with work diving.”

“True,” Nguyen added, in his usual laconic style.

I thought about the oddity of that, but got nowhere with the thinking as Hitachi and the UDT guys were back at the door to get me ready for the next dive.

The day went fast, and the repeat exercises did not seem to add any elements of unusual wear and tear on me, and the next day was the same until mid-afternoon. I was used to the liquid, to the entry part, the moving and swimming part, and also the withdrawal from it. Being prepared for the coughing and spewing the stuff out upside down would never be something I got used to, but I could handle it. If liquid breathing ever reached the public as part of SCUBA sport diving, it would be interesting to discover the kind of divers who came to accept and enjoy its usage. Due to the large amount of liquid it seemed to take to sustain me in a dive, I presumed that it would never be available with anything but an attached umbilical.

I received frequent reports about Herbert’s contacts with Mary, and I believed she was doing fine. I also wished that I had never forced the Agency’s hand in making her an even as distant part of the mission. If I could talk to her, I’d tell her to get off the islands immediately, but that would have its repercussions, inside her as well as within whatever elements of power were organized to run the mission inside the Agency. I

I went to bed on the last night, and the next day lay out in front of me. The mission dive would take place just after dawn, and three ROV robotic undersea vehicles would accompany me to the site. Everything would be automatic. There were no external controls or indications of arming on the outside of the weapon. My proximity to the weapon was why I was there, as no signals were responded to that had been sent through the ROV machines. I would have no codes or be involved in any of that or any of the remainder of the bomb’s recovery. Whether it was to be recovered or not wasn’t even discussed.

The next morning, in darkness, Nguyen, Kingsley, and I boarded a longboat and headed out toward the tender. When we got out of the harbor, the wind kicked up and the boat plowed head-on into six-foot swells. The trip took less than twenty minutes, which surprised me. The tender was anything but a tender, I realized, as we pulled up next to its hull. I realized that the ship was the Rush, a Hamilton-class ship and one of the first powered by both diesels and gas turbines. It had a top speed of over 33 knots, faster than most U.S. Navy ships.

Dawn was breaking as we boarded, using a staircase lowered over and hugging the starboard side of the ship, which was the side not facing nearby Honolulu, which had to be only a few miles off the port side.

Everything went like clockwork, and I was prepared and ready to get in the water just as the sun came up over the north-south facing Koolau mountain range the divided the windward from the leeward sides of the island.

There was no ceremony. Hitachi had filled me in the night before about how I had to approach the tube-shaped device and then, using my hands and body, feel my way along its entire surface while hoping to connect to sensors that should have been approachable from a good distance from it.

“Don’t let them give up on me,” were my last words to Nguyen, although I knew I was saying them for my comfort. If anything went truly wrong at the bottom, then it would be terminal, and I knew it. Just the look on everyone’s faces and in all communications with them told me just how seriously the mission was being taken.

Once in the water, the other divers retreated as my attachment to the umbilical had been made immediately before I entered the water. I was on my own and going down as the liquid pumped through me without giving me much in the way of evidence that it was there and keeping me very much alive.

The descent took half an hour, although it became totally dark before I was fully down. I turned on the lights, and the ocean floor lit up, although there was nothing on it except the object I’d been sent to visit. The tender crew had gotten my landing perfectly with only a few feet separating me from the bomb.
I looked at the depth gauge strapped and then double-taped to my left forearm. The white needle was just a tiny bit past 800. I was on the bottom. Not a mud flat, not a roll of continuing sand, but a hard bottom lit by attached fixtures on the sides of my head. I inhaled the water, easily and slowly, yet still with fear. What if there were the tiniest of foreign objects in whatever the supposed water was? I closed my eyes and tried to relax my body.

Moving slightly forward, very tentatively, I touched the giant great cigar before me with both hands. My gloves were not the gloves of a Jim or heavy, thick, wet suit. I was wearing only common rubber gloves that any mechanic or surgeon might choose. At 54 degrees, the water pressing so invisibly and unfeelingly hard on all of me felt like a film of rather thin Jello, covering but not protecting, distancing, but not without allowing a sense of attaching touch to come through.

The bomb was damaged by a seeming impact. Dented but not with an auto collision, sharp-edged certainty. I’d been sent to the bottom to feel. To engage the weapon, which was not in any condition to transmit what the receivers might have wanted to receive. The words ‘danger close’ reverberated through my brain, bouncing here and there. My intellectual capability wasn’t being challenged. My value was my close physical presence encountering the bomb’s close physical presence. I hugged the bomb and waited, watching the small screen on the outside of my right wrist. The receiver. I had no face mask. The pressure was too great to allow for any air to be held between my eye’s lenses and any object ahead of them. Everything was a disturbing but expected blur, although all I needed was that blurring. I moved up and over the bomb, hugging, patting, and feeling my way along its length, turning and then returning. There were no fins and no traditional nose cone to denote front from back, stem from stern, but it didn’t matter.

Suddenly, a few feet from one end, as I crawled and cruised over the surface of the metal object, my wrist exploded with light. Lights. Many of them. I stopped all movement and waited, inhaling the water into my lungs and then back out, wondering how anything I was doing was possible and starting to think about whether the Agency might have sent me on a one-way mission.

‘Your mission is complete,’ came through the special earphones I wore. “You will be retrieved to the surface over the next few minutes. Prepare yourself.”

I gently disengaged from my full-body hug of the bomb, only floating a few inches away, no longer looking at my wrist because I could not make out the letters or numbers it had to be showing, and then transmitting at the speed of light up to the Coast Guard tender so high above.
I waited.

Tom Thorkelson and Chuck Bartok from Massachusetts Mutual flew through my mind. Perfect. I had to say nothing because I had no means of saying anything. There was no way to screw up the sale. I smiled but could not laugh, as I realized I was occupying my thoughts with nonsense in case nothing really did happen.