Battleship Boys

by Paul Lally

  “In my day we slept three in a stack...SIR.”

  “In your day, you were a teenage kid. This time around, you’ll be resting your ninety-three-year-old, highly opinionated bones on a nice soft mattress in your private quarters below. You’re in Berth 116, by the way, if memory serves.”

  “Where are you stowing your gear?”

  JJ looks momentarily sheepish. “Tommy and I are sharing the flag officer’s quarters.”

  “Roughing it, huh?”

  “Just following orders.”

  “Whose?”

  “The guy writing the checks, that’s who.”

  They both ponder this for a moment as they regard the organized chaos happening before their eyes as work crews go about the business of restoring the Rock. Near Main Battery Turret 4, a team of six workers wrestle with a heavy black rubber sleeve called a “buckler.”

  So far, they’ve see-sawed it back and forth about halfway down along the port gun barrel. Affectionately called “bloomers” by the ship’s crew, each of the Rock’s twelve main battery guns used these rubberized sleeves to keep sea water out of the turret and “back blast” (overpressure) from harming the gun crews inside.

  Elevating the barrel thirty-degrees has allowed the workers take advantage of gravity to use heavy lines attached to the buckler ring as they continue tugging the 3-ply, 500 pound “bloomer” to the base of the turret before bolting into place.

  “That’s the last of them,” JJ says.

  “I remember one time we tore one up and they had to swap it out while underway. Didn’t have all this fancy rigs, though. Plain muscle power.”

  “Your turret?”

  “Affirmative. Starboard barrel. My buddy Dave Schwenk was the gun captain. Took over his dad’s hardware store when he mustered out. Built it into a chain of them. Good-looking guy. Always got the girls. A millionaire before he turned fifty. Died way too young, though.”

  “Glad you’re still kicking, Stanley.”

  “You and me both, admiral—by the way, are you on the level with firing my baby?”

  “Affirmative. But keep it under your hat until we get the okay.”

  “When will you know?”

  “I’m helping Jack run the request up the chain-of-command for final approval. So far, he’s got permission to “make inquiries” out at Butler Arsenal, where they store the 16-inch rounds. I’m tagging along.”

  “Nothing like a guy with three stars on his shoulder to get things done in a hurry.”

  “Not really. I’m retired, remember?”

  “They still see the stars, believe me—what kind of rounds?”

  “Not much armor-piercing stuff left, but plenty of HC.”

  As Stanley computes this, the years magically drop from his face. If you look carefully, you’ll see eighteen-year-old gun Gunners Mate Albertini smile as he says, “You’re telling me Jack’s got the greenlight from the top brass?”

  “So far.”

  Stanley whistles appreciatively. “Tommy did a good job with that boy of his.”

  “How so?”

  “Raising him to be the kind of man he turned out to be.”

  “Don’t forget to include Eileen Riley in your compliment.”

  This prompts another silence. Again, it’s Stanley who finally speaks. “She was a beautiful woman.”

  “Amen. One-of-a-kind beauty.”

  “Loved that she could speak Italian after all these years.”

  “When you learn something growing up as a kid, you don’t forget it.”

  “Those two made Jack what he is today.”

  JJ laughs. “Not the genius part, though, or the inventor part, or the nutty part that made him do what he’s doing right now—I mean, look at him down there on the barge with his dad, smiling away, happier than I’ve seen him in a long time.”

  A swarm of riggers fiddle and fuss with the lifting cables, while the traveling crane operator waits patiently in his cupola high above, checking his e-mail.

  Jack seems gifted with the admiral’s mind-reading skills, too, because at that exact moment he looks up and waves. Then he points to the Azipod, cups his hands and shouts, “Hey, guys, you want fries with this?”

  Sunday’s usually a day of rest. That is, unless you just received confirmation that a long-anticipated drug shipment north is finally scheduled to roll in ten days, and that your job as a Drug Enforcement Agency employee is to make sure that never happens.

  DEA Agent Christopher Jensen is one such employee.

  And even if he doesn’t look old enough to have a driver’s license, let along be the leader of a FAST team (Foreign-deployed Advisory and Support Team), remember that appearances can be deceiving.

  And even though he only shaves every other day, this 41-year-old, divorced-remarried, still-no-children, ex-Army Ranger’s in the prime of his life; top physical condition, speaks fluent Mexican, and enough Yucatec Maya to get by, as long as the person talks slowly.

  Unfortunately, the SIU (Sensitive Investigative Unit) agent on the other end of Jensen’s encrypted phone line keeps lapsing into Maya, so excited is he to report the latest developments.

  Jensen finally manages to shift him over to English. “Probability?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “Nothing’s that certain.”

  “I have seen the shipping manifest with my own eyes.”

  Jensen sits up straight. “How the hell did you manage that? Who’s your contact?”

  Pride-of-ownership sneaks into the Mexican police officer’s voice. “I must keep his name confidential, you above all, should know that the DEA must respect my sensitive position.”

  “Look, my friend, the United States pays you to do your job, not to tell us how to do ours—Brownsville Veterans Bridge still the crossing point?”

  “Si.”

  “Vehicle types?”

  “Just one.”

  Jensen chuckles. “You call that a ‘big’ shipment?”

  “With this particular product, señor, a little goes a very long way.”

  “Any change on the type? Still that fancy cocktail they’ve been working on?”

  “Cocktail?”

  “Figure of speech, sorry. Is it the same combo-drug they’ve been developing? The fentanyl/heroin thing.”

  “He says it is improved. Muchos más poderosa. Much more powerful.”

  “I’m assuming ‘he’ is the same guy you’re keeping quiet about.”

  A fraction of a hesitation. “Si.”

  Jensen duly notes the brief pause. These SIU undercover agents that the DEA works with are a tricky bunch. Being a policeman in Mexico is hard enough. Doing it in in the Yucatán demands the patience of Job and the courage of Daniel in the Lions’ Den. Not many can do it for long without hedging their bets on getting out of the “den” in one piece—and doing so by taking bribes left and right from the bad guys.

  This particular SIU’s been with them for two years. Most of his tip-offs have proven reliable. They’ve allowed Jensen and his FAST team to pull off a string of “mutual assistance” drug-busting joint ops with the Mexican Marine Corps. But despite success after success, they’ve been mostly peanuts when it comes to putting a dent in any of the cartels.

  Until now, that is.

  No question, there’s a turf-war brewing between the Garcia Cartel and Los Cobras. And not your run-of-the-mill, Hollywood-style shoot-‘em-up. The winner is going to take all, for sure, and become an unstoppable force. If that happens, the DEA and their Mexican allies may as well hang it up.

  Based on the UIN (Mexican Naval Intelligence) reports Jensen has been wading through for the past month, one of the key names that keeps appearing more and more is a guy named Miguel Lopez-Vargas. Once Garcia’s trusted security “enforcer” with a trail of body parts found in dumpsters, burnt-out vans, and garbage pits, he’s been climbing the tower of power at light-speed.

  To bust this shipment and use “extraordinary rendition” to haul Vargas’s sorry as
s back to the U.S for some not-so-friendly “interrogation” would be a black-and-white message, not only to Garcia’s gang but also to Los Cobras too; better watch your backs unless you want to be next.

  Feathers in caps all around.

  If Jensen is lucky—and he firmly believes he is—it’ll be a promotion that boots him so far upstairs in the DEA hierarchy that he’ll never have to pull a Sunday shift again, let alone wet nurse a skittery SIU at the other end of a shitty phone line.

  Cops. Mexican or American. Can’t live with them. Can’t live without them.

  Jensen smiles as he says, “We will speak twenty-four hours before jump-off. Agreed?”

  “Si.”

  “Keep up the good work, my friend. We couldn’t do this without you.”

  “Chowak kuxtal Yucatán.”

  It takes him a second to mentally translate the agent’s tongue-twisting Maya.

  “Je’el. Long live Yucatán, for sure.”

  “Butler Army Ammunition Activity Arsenal” is a mouthful. But nothing compared to what this sprawling facility in the middle of godforsaken central Ohio does in it 72,000 square foot machine shop, 200 production buildings, 1800 storage buildings (4 million square feet available, folks), an 80-acre demolition range, and 40 additional acres reserved for blowing up obsolete ammunition to kingdom come.

  Need bombs, mines, demolition charges, burster tubes, cluster bomb, and projectiles?

  Hold my beer.

  What about pyrotechnics, like signal smoke, marine location markers, infrared flares to use with night-vision devices? Need some of those?

  Hold my other beer.

  Oh, and by the way, we’re not afraid of packing Tetryl, Composition A-3, or all sorts of PBXs into the latest Sidewinder and Sparrow missile warheads. We treat these high explosives like so much toothpaste.

  Got enough beer for now?

  Butler Army Ammunition Activity—or “B-Triple-A” as the 700+ person workforce refers to this complex—is a one-stop shopping center for munitions for the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard. If you need something to go bang, boom, or burn, they’ll make it that same day and ship it out tomorrow.

  BAAA’s in the business of dealing with the present, that’s for sure, but they’re also responsible for disposing the past—they use their demolition range to blow up de-militarized munitions—with one very big exception: over 16,000 surplus 16-inch projectiles.

  Silent sentinels to America’s past wars, these finely machined messengers of death have sat motionless in an underground storage facility ever since the Gulf War, twenty years ago. Despite countless attempt to “bid them out” for demilitarization, there’ve been no takers.

  It’s understandable. Check out the bid specs:

  “Methods and degree range from removal and destruction of critical features to total destruction by cutting, crushing, shredding, melting, burning, etc. Demil is required to prevent property from being used for its originally intended purpose and to prevent the release of inherent design information that could be used against the United States.”

  So there they still sit.

  But when it comes to smaller stuff, BAAA’s more than able to dispose of it without the “inherent design information” song and dance. And they do so on a regular basis, like the Fourth of July. But to repeat, not the 16-inch behemoth rounds. Their size alone requires special treatment. Each one weighs as much as a compact car. Not to mention what’s packed inside.

  The 2700 pound AP (Armor Piercing) rounds are packed with Comp A5/RDX grenades. The 1900-pound HC (High Capacity) rounds are jammed with 164 pounds of Explosive D. Then there’s the tracer-filled rounds for shot-practice. The bright-blue-painted dummy projectiles tip the scale at a hefty 2700 pounds—and are used for gun-handling crew training, like the sailors Stanley Albertini supervised when he served on the Rock during WWII.

  The bent-over man leading Jack and JJ down one narrow storage aisle and up another in the dimly lit underground storage facility is not nearly as old as Stanley, but for sure, he’s got to be a lot older than normal retirement age.

  JJ senses this and says, “Something tells me you’re an army vet. Am I right? Or was it the marines.”

  He nods and grins. “Army Specialist fourth class Edward Parker reporting for duty, sir. Folks call me Eddie.”

  “Last unit?”

  “Sixth Battalion, Fourth Field Artillery Regiment.”

  “Let me take another wild guess: Vietnam.”

  “Yes, sir. Two tours, how’d you—

  “—what’d you shoot, Eddie?”

  “M110, eight-inch howitzers—modified with a 175mm gun tube for long shots.”

  “I heard about that the self-propelled beast. You worked one of those? Nice.”

  Eddie stands a touch taller hearing this and peers through his dusty spectacles. “Yes, sir, I did. Drove that damn beast through the mud and muck. Could make thirty-five on a paved road—although I never saw a one the whole time I was in-country.”

  JJ smiles. “I served in ‘Nam, too. On a battleship, though. The New Hampshire, along with this young man’s father.”

  “We’re talking ancient history, admiral.”

  “But not forgotten, am I right?”

  “No sir. Not ever.”

  “What’d the artillery guys in your unit call yourselves, by the way?”

  “The Thunderbirds.”

  “Awesome. While you were bunker-busting the Cong on the ground, we were doing the same thing from out at sea.”

  “That so?” The old-timer pats one of the olive-drab HC rounds with a bright yellow top that identifies it as a live round filled with Explosive D. “You used plenty of these puppies, I’ll bet.”

  “Affirmative your last.”

  Former SP4 Edward Parker slides his arthritic forefinger along its smoothly machine length. “Must have been something to see them do their job.”

  Jack joins in the conversation and says, “You’re invited to watch firsthand.”

  A long beat of silence. The old man looks puzzled. “Say again?”

  “Admiral Lewis, would you do the honors?”

  JJ pulls out a folded sheet of paper and hands it over. “We’ll take three dozen.”

  Ed peers at the authorization. “Blind Load and Plug rounds, huh? Those’ll be over on aisle 16B. We need to—”

  The admiral touches Ed’s shoulder. “As I recall, we fired a bunch of BL&Ps on our way over to ‘Nam. Helped the spotters and gun crews stay sharp.”

  “They’d make a mighty big splash, I reckon.”

  “True.” JJ sighs. “But no ‘boom’ at the end. With no explosive D inside, just a piddly-ass hole in the water that nobody on board ever saw because it happened twenty miles away.”

  “Just a hunk of iron,” Jack says, “A heavy hunk, mind you, but nothing else. A shame really. For what we’re planning to do for the guys.”

  “Which is?”

  Jack shrugs. “Do you want to know what the folks here at the arsenal think, or what we’re really going to do?”

  Eddie rears back, purses his lips for a second, then a smile of sly cunning as he gets the drift of what Jack’s suggesting. “You serious about me taking that cruise of yours?”

  Jack raises his hand, “All expenses paid, including a town car that picks you up from and takes you to the airport, where my personal jet will fly you east to Boston. That’s where we’re boarding our guests. Providing...”

  Eddie grins. “Here comes the fine print, am I right, admiral?”

  “So tiny it’s invisible.”

  “Say again?”

  JJ pats the live round. “If memory serves, this HC is color-coded olive drab to be a live round, and blue for dummy rounds, right?”

  “Affirmative, sir.”

  “As far as the civilian powers-that-be who signed our document know, we’re going to ‘demonstrate’ the operation of one of the main battery guns by firing a series of dummy rounds well out to sea and clear of any design
ated shipping lanes. But...”

  Jack joins in. “But instead of digging holes in the ocean, we’re going to sink an abandoned oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s scheduled for scrapping, anyhow, so we’re going to beat them to it with our sixteen-inchers.”

  “But how can you—”

  “I own what’s left of the rig. Bought salvage rights last week. It’s an eyesore, not to mention a hazard to shipping, and besides, they were going to scrap it anyhow. Three weeks from now, that won’t be necessary, if you’ll help us.”

  “How?”

  Jack and JJ exchange looks.

  Then the admiral clears his throat and says quietly, “You can’t sink an abandoned oil rig with dummy rounds.” He pats the live round. “But you damn well can with a few of these bad boys.”

  “But how—”

  “—paint.” Jack says. “God invented it to help a battleship full of old heroes have the cruise of a lifetime.”

  He mimic’s “painting” the HC round. “A little blue paint to cover things up...and voilà, your private jet is waiting. Hope you like champagne. We’ll be serving it in the crew’s mess every night during the cruise. No limit.”

  Eddie leans closer to look at the live round and shakes his head. “I’ll lose my job if they ever find out. And knowing these jokers, they will.”

  “Never happen,” JJ says.

  “Why not?”

  “Because the fix is in.”

  “Who with?”

  The admiral leans closer and speaks softly. “Friends of mine who still wear stars on their shoulder. Lots of stars.”

  “You’re talking admirals?”

  “Couple generals, too. Pentagon’s crawling with them.”

  Jack says, “This cruise is our way of thanking the old men who once upon a time were young men and went to sea to fight for our country. The guys at the Pentagon want it to happen too.”

  The ex-artilleryman ponders this. “So.... what you’re saying is that the military mucky-mucks are in on this switcheroo you want to do. And they’re on board?”

  JJ says, “One thousand percent. They even provided paint. It’s—"

  “—out in the trunk of our car,” Jack adds. “Brushes, too. But—"