by Paul Lally
“To the ground.”
She pats his hands like he’s a little boy. “Ramòn used to say, ‘Big plans have big problems.’”
“Your husband was a wise man—with a wise wife.”
“Who’s now a widow.”
Vargas keeps his face somber and thinks, if that idiot Ramòn had kept his nose out of the fentanyl business, would he be alive today? Unfortunately, no. The path to Señor Garcia’s kingdom includes “Princess Adriana” standing by his side. Her husband knew too much and had to go. Iván Zambadas will have to go too. But all in good time.
“How is little Hector?” he says.
Adriana tilts her head to one side. “A son needs a father.”
“As well he should.”
She squeezes his hands. “Poor baby. Of course you understand. To lose your family the way you did when you were such a little boy. So horrible.”
“Ernesto’s family saved my life.”
“He is such a kind man.”
“And I’m not?”
“I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that your brother can’t help having a tender heart. Yours is much harder because...because of what happened.”
“I am doing my best to make sure your son doesn’t feel the same way.”
“And for that I am forever grateful.”
“He used to go fishing with his father, right?”
“All the time.”
“Perhaps I could take him out on my boat some time.”
She ponders this. “I might need to come with you. He may be a little nervous.”
“But of course. It would do you both good.”
“And you as well. Let your workers solve the delivery problems, while you sail out into the deep blue waters where the big ones play.”
He stands. “It’s agreed. Another drink?”
“Yes, please.”
He goes over to the small bar and starts tossing watermelon chunks into the blender. As they purée with sugar and a little water, he slices a lime and muddles the glass with fresh mint leaves.
Adriana says, “Six weeks they say, before you can get back to delivery speed?”
“Yes. The first milling machine was a disaster. A pig in a poke, and fool that I was, I bought it. Never again do I trust those people”
“Worst case scenario?”
He sighs. “Two months.”
She takes his drink, tastes it, and smiles. “I could keep you quite busy for two months.”
“Fishing?”
“Among life’s other pleasures.”
Jack Riley’s farewell wish of “fair skies and following seas” comes true: the Portsmouth-to-Portland tow takes less than eight hours. The Rock seemed to glide effortlessly through sea states varying from one to two during her sixty-mile journey north.
The late October sunlight’s already fading fast when the tugs finally tie up just north of the drydock to await tomorrow’s sunrise and the delicate, time-consuming process of nudging the aging battleship in between the upright “wings” of the AHSD-1 drydock and positioning her precisely over the keel blocks.
The Bath Iron crews have already pre-flooded the dock and “sunk” it to almost the bottom of the harbor. Once inside and “over the blocks” the ballast pumps will start the slow process of raising the USS New Hampshire as assuredly as Jesus raised Lazarus.
Tommy, JJ and Captain Koga ponder this as they stand in the flag bridge, situated directly beneath the Rock’s navigation bridge. When occupied by a fleet admiral, it allowed him and his staff to plot and plan fleet strategies while staying out of the captain’s way, who was busy running the ship one deck above.
Tommy sniffs the air. “Still smell the fresh paint in here.”
JJ says, “We did a fine job restoring this part of the ship.”
Captain Koga touches the leather seat cushion on a chair mounted on a pylon. “It is here your flag admiral would sit, yes?”
“Affirmative,” JJ says. “Rear Admiral ‘Oley’ Oldendorf parked his two-star ass on that very chair when he knocked out the Japanese Southern Fleet.”
Koga’s eyes widen. “This very chair?”
“Surigao Strait. 20 October 1944.”
“Ah...” Koga brightens. “I remember you spoke of this event long ago. So here? This very ship?” He points to the forward main batteries. “Those very guns?”
“Straight out of the textbook. Admiral Oldendorf’s battle line crosses Admiral Nishimura’s ‘T’. They sink the battleships Fusō and Yamashiro. The rest of the enemy fleet turns tail and skedaddles. Oley saves the Leyte landing—some historians say the entire war, because from that moment on it was all downhill for Tokyo.”
Koga ponders this truth and slowly removes his hand from the chair. “So many brave Japanese sailors died that night.”
“About four thousand they reckon. Plenty of ours too.”
More silence. Then he looks up sharply. “Better Japan sells you automobiles than fires torpedoes.”
“Amen. Give me free trade over machine guns any day.”
Tommy pats the seat. “Rest your weary bones, Admiral Lewis. You’ve earned it.”
“Not until the Rock sails out of here under her own power. Then I will, in honor of Admiral Oldendorf… may he rest in well-deserved peace.”
Another long silence.
Tommy finally says, “I still can’t quite believe we’re actually here. That all this is really happening.”
“Me too. I gotta’ say when that kid of yours gets going, he gets things done—was Jack always this way?”
Tommy smiles. “I could tell you stories.”
Jack’s eating over the sink.
Again.
Tonight’s dinner is Lean Cuisine’s “Meat Loaf and Mashed Potatoes.”
Again.
He knows the microwave directions by heart:
Pierce covering film.
Cook three minutes on high power.
Uncover, stir potatoes, cook additional minute.
Let stand one minute.
Consume over sink.
He has fifty-eight of these exact same dinners stacked in his “down cellar” freezer like chips at a roulette table. Oh, and ice cubes, too. And yes, a single carton of Chocolate Truffle ice cream.
And that’s about it.
When eating by himself at his compound, Jack treats dinner like he treats his daily wardrobe; if it’s always the same, you don’t have to waste time deciding what to wear—or in the case of food, what to eat.
To Jack’s way of thinking, a meal’s nothing more than “gasoline” for an engine—or in his case, electricity for the imaginary supercapacitor stored inside his body, ready to convert food to glucose and send it into his bloodstream when needed.
A year ago, a different story.
He’d be in his dining room, sitting at the end of a custom-designed table that accommodates twenty guests, enjoying a three-course meal—dessert included—while talking with Bianca about her day, teaching elementary school. And then she would ask him about his day doing any number of things, and then vice versa, back and forth like happy tennis.
But that was a year ago when, after five long years of boy genius co-habiting with—but not committing to—a committed relationship, Bianca threw up her hands, threw in the towel, stated her case, packed her bags, called her dog, and hightailed it back home to Anchorage, Alaska.
Jack tries not to think about her anymore. Like picking at a scab, it won’t heal if you keep doing it.
The phone “pings” in the dish drainer, where he always puts it while he eats.
A message.
In between bites he reads:
“Outside. Got the goods. You home?”
Jack ponders whether to respond, and then does so. He tosses the plastic tray with what’s left of the meatloaf and mashed potatoes into the recycling bin, puts the ketchup back in the fridge (he squirted it over the meatloaf) then opens an app on his phone that unlocks the front door.
“Jesus Chr
ist, why are you dressed like a priest?” Jack says after he opens it.
The man fingers the white tab encircling his neck. “Nobody questions a collar.”
Then he holds up a tiny thumb drive. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to present Munroe Devillar in all her buck-naked glory.”
“That good, huh?”
He shrugs. “You’re the judge, I’m just the arresting officer.”
“If D.C. Metro ever finds out you’ve been up north moonlighting from your day job, you’re a dead dick.”
“No worries.” He steps inside and closes the door behind him. “If they take away my detective’s badge, you can always hire me to head up your security detail. You might need one after this.”
“Once a cop always a cop.”
“Correction; I’m an undercover detective—except when I’m a priest—got any popcorn in this fancy-ass, high-tech mansion of yours?”
A few minutes later, while the “priest” munches microwave popcorn, Munroe Devillar and Councilman Charlie Stein engage in full-blown, flagrante delicto. Jack’s theater-sized screen in his office is four-by-six feet, so their buck-naked antics leave nothing to the imagination.
After one of Munroe’s particularly vocal orgasms, Jack says, “These cameras are amazing, how many did you plant?”
The pretend priest finishes chewing before answering. “Three of those babies. Size of your little finger, I swear. Full-Rez, 8K, nothing but the best for a rich guy like you.”
“You retrieved them, I trust.”
“Not my first day on the job, sir.”
“What about her funding negotiations file?”
He makes a face. “Sorry. Couldn’t get near it in the time I had. Buried too deep in her system.”
“Shit.”
“What about the backdoor? You’re always bragging about how you can find stuff in the cloud that nobody else can. You’ve got high tech magicians who can do that for you, right?”
“I do. but if the Chinese are involved. And if they are, it’s going to be a much trickier business.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, I can’t flip the deal until I know exactly what Devillar’s equity percentage is. Her takeout financing, too. Plus the size of the incremental tax deals. Can’t do a damn thing until I find out who’s scratching whose back and using how many fingers. Keep at it. I will too.”
“If it’s any consolation, from what I could find out before I got locked out of her system is that I think you’re spot-on about the Chinese being principal investors. Two names kept popping up: Shinwei Capital and Tongcheng.”
“That figures. Or China Pacific, too.”
“Didn’t see that.”
“No surprise. They love doing business behind closed doors. And I’m betting they’d love to have skin in a game like the one Devillar’s playing.”
“Boss man, sounds to me like you’re looking for a tiny needle hiding in a big Beijing haystack.”
“At least I’ve got the councilman by his balls and Devillar’s ass in a vice.”
“Speaking of which, watch this.”
On the wide screen in hi-rez color, Munroe fiddles with Charlie’s package to get him up for some more fun. Then she hops on top and starts bronco-riding like there’s no tomorrow.
The priest says, “She’s gonna’ need some work on those boobs one of these days. They won’t last forever.”
“Neither will her luck.”
Portland, Maine
Three Months Later
W inter in New England is not for the faint of heart. Come February, it’s not what the photos in YANKEE magazine would have you believe; sleighs hissing through sparkling snow, sunny skies, and cherry-cheeked New Englanders loving the outdoors.
No way.
Especially in Portland, Maine.
Situated on a peninsula that pokes out into Casco Bay, its next-door-neighbor is the gunmetal grey and deeply cold Atlantic Ocean.
While strolling down Commercial Street in the Old Port District, any unfortunate souls who happen to pass you going the other way will seem to be missing their necks. That’s because the month of February, aided and abetted by a brisk offshore wind whistling down the brick-lined canyon of ancient buildings, would make you hunker down your head and hunch up your shoulders.
Since it’s still early morning, there’s not much going on as you stroll past somber brick warehouses. Back in the 19th century, shipborne commerce—both coming and going to the United States and Canada—filled these glum edifices to bursting and put this ice-free winter seaport on the map.
But that was then.
This is now.
The ancient brick warehouses have surrendered their cavernous insides to trendy restaurants and boutique shops that attract summer tourists by the tens of thousands, who read YANKEE Magazine all year long but always spend their Februarys far from Portland’s ice-incrusted shores.
By the time you draw abreast of Ocean Gateway Pier, the warehouses are far behind you, off to the left, an empty tour bus parking lot. To the right, looming before you like the mysterious, black monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, behold Bath Iron Works’ drydock in all its ominous splendor.
For the past three months, this venerable, 80-foot-high structure has held captive the Memorial Battleship USS New Hampshire (BB-70).
Not much to see from here, though, only her upper superstructure is visible. The rest of the mighty warship rests solidly upon keel blocks behind tall steel walls.
Work has proceeded smoothly during the past 90 days, providing plenty of much-needed jobs—including double and triple overtime—to skilled riggers, welders, and fabricators who willingly make the daily half-hour commute south from the “mother ship,” Bath Iron Works, to ply their various shipbuilding trades on the Rock.
Jack Riley’s bottomless wallet has been a godsend to these men and women, who during the long winter months, normally have to stretch family budgets to make ends meet.
You can spot their benefactor right now. He’s standing about halfway out along the pier, binoculars in hand. With relief unseen, but deeply felt, he’s watching an enormous floating crane mounted on a barge slowly move away from the drydock, its job done after four long weeks. Its primary job was to lower prefabricated “crew quarters” into a prepared area aft of Turret 4.
Like peeling back a sardine can, the workers opened up the main aft deck and removed the existing enlisted berthing below; double racks—and in some cases—triple racks that a twenty-year-old seaman could spring up and into one of them like a jackrabbit to curl up for forty winks. Not so for the sweepstakes winners when they arrive for the trip.
Bob Martin’s preliminary responses to his PR Agency’s “Anchors Aweigh” social media campaign for an all-expense-paid cruise on a navy battleship has been off the charts. What’s even more surprising, the campaign hasn’t even described the itinerary yet, other than saying it’s a “winter getaway cruise.” The final destination is still TBA until Jack can sort it out with his father. Nevertheless, the “sign-me-up” response has been fabulous, with over two thousand responses for 250 berths.
The age range of the officers and enlisted entrants who once served on US Navy battleships ranges from 45 to 70, skewing toward the older not younger. The new accommodations make sense, though. Old guys can’t be scooting down ladders, feet in the air while holding onto the railings. Nor can they act like jackrabbits.
Which is why Frank Marchetti tracked down a marine prefab company in Louisiana that builds pre-assembled berthing units for gigantic cruise ships like the Regal Caribbean that you see waddling around the world with over 6000 passengers on board.
At first, the prefab folks couldn’t be bothered with such a measly request for 250 prefab staterooms. I mean, c’mon, they had a Carnival Cruise Lines rush order for 3000 staterooms for one of their 230,000 ton behemoths nearing completion over in Sainte-Nazaire, France.
Then, Jack showed them his roll of bills—theor
etically speaking of course—and offered to pay twice as much. Frank Marchetti added that if they didn’t want to help celebrate these fine sailors in their patriotic cruise to salute our veterans, then Bath Iron Works would be more than happy to find a company that would.
And let the world know why.
They had five minutes to decide.
Took them less than thirty seconds to ponder the bottom line and Jack’s flush bank account before they said, “Hey, we’re on board.”
And now, thanks to that enormous crane and two 24-hour shifts, the Rock’s accommodation berths are on board too; 80% wired, 77% plumbed. The aft deck has been replaced, including a completely refurbished and reinforced aircraft landing pad. If all proceeds as planned, the Rock will be ready for sea trials in a week to ten days.
But a month earlier, this was hardly the case.
At about this same time of day, just after a wintry sunrise, Jack was at Portland International Jetport, four miles away from here, looking through binoculars again—not at a massive crane—but at an equally massive airplane moving his dream for his father another step closer to reality.
And not just any airplane.
A Russian-made Antonov An-225 Mriya.
The world’s heaviest transport aircraft is on final approach to Runway 29. A faraway howl erupts as the pilot throttles up all six D-18T Ivchenko turbofan engines in case he needs to shoot a missed approach.
Tommy Riley’s breath clouds the frigid January air as he stands beside his son near the perimeter fence that keeps them clear of the runway. In the distance, their taxi waits, its motor—and meter—both running. The driver’s as curious as they are to see what’s about to happen.
“How does that damn thing fly?” Tommy says.
“Wings, Pop.”
“Very funny. I mean, with that Azipod thing inside it. How much does it weigh?”
“Counting the steering module and propulsion module, about sixty tons, I’d say.”
He whistles appreciatively. “And just like that, you call up Helsinki and say, ‘Hey guys, the one you shipped us is busted. Send me a replacement.’ And damned if they don’t. By air, no less, not sea.”
