The USS Gerald R. Ford had been silent for three days.
One hundred thousand tons of the most advanced warship ever constructed sat motionless at Norfolk Naval Station, her nuclear turbines cold and unresponsive, her decks bristling with engineers who had run out of answers. From the pier, Captain William Evans could see the ship’s superstructure rising against the gray Virginia sky like a steel monument to a problem nobody could solve. Thirty engineers. Seventy-two hours. Seventeen failed diagnostic cycles. Millions of dollars in specialized equipment wheeled aboard and wheeled off again, its operators shaking their heads with the particular frustration of people who have applied every tool they know to a problem that refuses to cooperate.
Evans stood with his arms crossed, jaw set, watching the security gate at the far end of the pier. He had the rigid posture of a man who had decided, days ago, that his patience was a finite resource and it was nearly gone.
A 1986 Ford F-150 rattled through the gate.
