Grey Lady

by Paul Kemprecos

  Not that I blamed him. It’s doubtful the Coast Guard has a protocol that tells a station commander what to do when a lunatic walks in the door and demands that a cutter be dispatched to chase down a private yacht. The captain was handling me a lot better than I would have handled me. I paced back and forth in front of his desk, ranting about bureaucracy, red tape and foot-dragging.

  Captain Tom Gwinn simply nodded in agreement and made an occasional note on the pad in front of him as if he dealt with crazies every day. From time to time, he glanced over at Flagg, but I doubt if he read anything in my friend’s bland expression.

  Captain Gwinn finally jumped in when I paused to take a breath. “Why don’t you and Mr. Flagg sit down and start from the beginning.”

  I wanted to tell him that there was no time. That there was a boat out there in the dark carrying armed underwater robots that could attack another ship and send it to the bottom. But even in my agitated state, I was aware that I walked a fine line between appearing upset and just plain bonkers.

  I plunked into a chair. Flagg took a seat beside me. I looked at him, then at the captain and let out a deep sigh. Nantucket is a genteel place. It’s not every day two scruffy characters in black Ninja outfits show up at your door with a drugged Bulgarian.

  I said, “Sorry to come down on you, Captain Gwinn. It’s a long story.”

  “We only know the part where you arrived at the station with the young lady who is now in sick bay. Could you tell us what happened?”

  Flagg was ready for the question. “My friend and I were taking a cruise around the harbor when we saw this young lady swimming. We pulled her out of the water. She said she had been on a yacht and had a fight with her boyfriend. He wouldn’t bring her back to shore, so she jumped overboard. She was drunk at the time she said, but her English is hard to understand.”

  Not a bad cover story, even if it was untrue. Tanya had been fully awake by the time we arrived at the station, and she was babbling as if she had too much to drink. Gwinn stared at Flagg for a few seconds and then looked at me. I nodded in agreement. I had replaced my raging lunatic face with a calm, innocent expression, but I don’t think the captain was buying.

  “Did she say what boat?” he said.

  Flagg and I shook our heads.

  Gwinn shrugged. “I’d better call the police in.”

  “Maybe not,” Flagg said.

  Gwinn narrowed his eyes and drummed his fingers on the desktop, a signal that he was getting annoyed. Flagg reached under his shirt for a waterproof pouch that hung around his neck. He unzipped the pouch, extracted a laminated ID, and placed it on the captain’s desk. Gwinn picked the card up, glanced at the photo, then at Flagg’s stolid face.

  “Looks like we work for the same employer, the federal government,” he said.

  “Looks that way.” Flagg retrieved the card and slipped it back into the pouch. “I could make a few calls, but that will take time. I’m wondering if you can help us out.”

  “Okay. What do you need?”

  “I’d like you to find a yacht called the Volga that left the harbor a little while ago.”

  Gwinn’s face lit up. “That’s some dreamboat. We can see it from the station. What’s going on?”

  Flagg said, “We have reason to believe that the Volga has armaments aboard and that if not stopped, it will use them in an attack against another vessel.”

  Gwinn’s smile vanished. He leaned forward onto his desk and stared at Flagg.

  “You’re serious, aren’t you? But what vessel and where?”

  “We don’t know that yet. Only that the attack will be made soon.”

  Gwinn shook his head. “You need the U.S. Navy. We’re not equipped for naval battles.”

  Flagg said, “I agree. If I can borrow your phone I can start the wheels moving, but we have to find the Volga in the meantime.”

  “Shouldn’t be hard to do. The yacht is a commercial vessel, so its transponder will be broadcasting its position.”

  “Don’t bet on it,” I said. “The yacht’s owner doesn’t want to be located.”

  “That could pose a problem. I can call the Otis air base and get a helicopter in the air for a rescue op, but I’m going to need you to make those telephone calls you mentioned.”

  Flagg asked him to get started. While Gwinn began the process to ask for the dispatch of the helicopter, Flagg used his cell phone to round up government backing for an interception. I paced the floor.

  Gwinn hung up the phone. “They can have a chopper in the air in thirty minutes,” he said. “I said I would call with more position info. Any idea where the yacht could be?”

  I pointed to a wall chart that showed Nantucket Sound. “It’s been about an hour since the yacht left. It moves fast, but there’s a lot of area to cover.”

  Gwinn rose from his desk and went to the chart. “There’s usually a lot of traffic out there, ferries and so on. But the Volga is a big vessel and should be easy to find.”

  “There’s a time issue,” I said. “The attack could come any minute.”

  We gazed at the chart as if the squiggles and lines could tell us a story. A young female Coastguardsman entered the office. She had been the one to wrap Tanya in a blanket and take her into the medical room.

  “Your friend is doing better,” she said. “She says she wants to talk to Feeshermenz.”

  “That would be me,” I said.

  While Flagg and Gwinn studied the charts and made more phone calls, I followed the Coastguardsman into a small room that held some medical cabinets and an examining table. Tanya sat on the table with the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Her hair had been pulled back and tied in a braid and her face was pale. Her beautiful eyes were no longer blurry and unfocused as they had been.

  “Hi, Tanya,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

  Her mouth widened in her usual careless smile. “Lak ded feesh,” she said.

  A puzzled look came to the Coast Guard woman’s face.

  “Tanya says she feels like a dead fish.”

  Tanya nodded vigorously. “This naz womens very good dekter.”

  I went to translate, but the young woman said, “I get it. Thanks, Tanya, but I’m not a doctor.”

  I asked if Tanya and I could have a few minutes alone. The woman must have assumed that we were boy and girl friend.

  She smiled and said, “Let me know if you need any help. I’ll be in the next room.”

  Tanya waved goodbye, then unwrapped the blanket and slid off the table. She was wearing borrowed jeans and a Coast Guard sweatshirt. She extended her arms wide in invitation to a hug. I obliged. For a slender woman, she had a lot of strength in her arms. I helped her into a chair and pulled up another to face her.

  “What happened with you on board the Volga?”

  Tanya’s linguistical locutions were a challenge even for someone who was used to them, but I got the gist of what she was saying. Chernko had told her the yacht was going out for the night again. She had arranged for her usual room at the Jared Coffin House. She had packed her overnight bag, but forgot her credit card and went back to look for it. She couldn’t find her wallet and decided to borrow money from Chernko.

  He kept a wad of cash in his office desk, which was off their living suite. Chernko was in his office talking to someone. She recognized Ramsey’s voice. They were arguing. She wasn’t sure about what they were saying, only that Ramsey felt strongly about something. He stormed out of the office with Chernko close behind him, so quickly that she didn’t have a chance to leave. Chernko told Ramsey he would see him after the event, grabbed her by the arm and asked how much she had overheard.

  She used her excuse, “My Angleesh steenks,” but he didn’t believe her. He called in two of his thugs, who punched something sharp in her arm.
She didn’t know what happened next. I told her she’d been drugged, and that Flagg and I had found her in the laundry room. She reached over and gave me another hug and a big wet kiss on the lips.

  “Do you remember anything about the argument?”

  She scrunched up her face in intense thought. “Remzee wants Ivan to wet.”

  “Wait for what?”

  Tanya shrugged. “Ivan sez Chineez here for tez. No goink bek.”

  Interesting. Ramsey wanted to postpone the test, but Chernko overruled him. I asked her to close her eyes and try to remember if she heard anything else.

  “Ok. I rimimber.” She paused, searching for the right adjective. “Lots talk about eeyanoh.” She smiled, proud of her recall.

  “You don’t know what?”

  She shook her head. “Not, ‘I don’t know.’ Eeyanooh.”

  I tried another tack. “Say the word slowly.”

  “Okay, feeshermenz.” She pursed her lips, then parted them. “Eeyanooh.” I told her to go even slower. She laughed and said, “Ee. Yan. Oh.”

  The alarm bells started clanging inside my thick skull.

  “Iyanough?”

  She nodded vigorously, and her arms went wide for another hug, only to find empty air. I was already out of my chair and making a dash for the door.

  CHAPTER 38

  Captain Gwinn was hanging up the phone when I barged back into his office. He said, “Good news. In addition to the helicopter out of Otis, Woods Hole station is sending a cutter to look for the Volga, and an unknown target.”

  “No longer unknown, Captain. It’s the steamship authority ferry, Iyanough,” I said.

  Gwinn’s jaw dropped. “The car ferry is the target? Are you sure?”

  “Very sure. I just talked to the woman we brought into your station. She was on the Volga and heard the attack plan being discussed.”

  Gwinn went to his computer and called up the ferry schedule. “The Iyanough is about mid-point in the crossing.”

  “Can you call the ferry and have it turn back?” I said.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  A moment later we were in the communications room and he was instructing a radio operator to contact the ferry. The ferry captain’s voice crackled over the speaker and identified himself and the boat.

  “This is Nantucket Coast Guard station,” Gwinn said. “I’d like you to turn your boat around and head back to Hyannis.”

  There was a pause, then the ferry captain said, “Say again?”

  “This is Captain Gwinn on Nantucket. Please reverse your course. Your boat may be in danger.”

  “Danger from what?”

  Captain Gwinn glanced at Flagg, who put his forefinger to his lips.

  Gwinn nodded. “I can’t tell you specifically, Captain. My source hasn’t told me the details. Only that the ferry is in danger. What’s your approximate position?”

  “We’re more than three-quarters of the way to Nantucket,” the ferry captain said.

  Gwinn told the ferry captain to stand by.

  I drew a map of the Cape and Islands in my head. The Coast Guard was used to emergencies and would have a boat underway with minutes, but the distance the cutter would have to cover to the intercept spot was too great for help to arrive on time.

  “How long before the cutter gets to the ferry?” I said.

  “Within an hour. Seas are kicking up, so it’s hard to say.”

  “That’s too long. What about the chopper?” I asked.

  “They’re about to lift off. When they get there, they may use up a few minutes searching before they find something.”

  They may not have a few minutes, I thought. The Volga could be already at midpoint, ready to ambush the ferry and send it and its passengers to the bottom. I turned to Flagg.

  “You’re the guy with clout,” I said. “Anything you can do?”

  “Lots I could do if I had the time,” he said.

  “You had the time,” I said. “This thing has been brewing for weeks, months maybe. While you were shooting off in your private jet saving the world, I practically stumbled over a big deal right in your backyard. What do you and your spook friends do down there?”

  He shrugged. “We do our best, Soc.”

  Flagg and I were friends, but I needed someone to blame for my frustration. Flagg was a convenient target. Mostly, I was in full fury at my own ineptness.

  “Okay. When and how are you going to prevent a lot of innocent people from getting killed?” I swept my hand toward the wall chart.

  He gave me an enigmatic smile. “Maybe I already have, Soc.”

  Gwinn cut in. He was on the phone talking to the air base again. “Chopper’s in the air,” he said. “Any ideas on what it should do if it finds the Volga?”

  “See if you can make contact with the yacht,” Flagg said. “Tell them that a Coast Guard chopper is on its way to locate them. They may not try anything if the chopper is keeping an eye on them.”

  At Gwinn’s order, the radioman made several attempts to reach the Volga, each with a warning about the imminent arrival of the chopper, but there was no answer.

  I felt bad about scolding Flagg, so said, “Good move. We may have given the bad guys something to think about.”

  “Thanks, Soc. You know this guy. Think we’ve scared him off?”

  “Probably not. That might have worked with anyone other than Chernko.”

  He asked Gwinn to contact the ferry captain.

  “Ask him if there are any other vessels in his vicinity.”

  Gwinn complied with the request.

  The captain’s voice back with an answer. “Yes and no. We can see someone on radar, about a half mile away. Just sitting there. But we can’t see their running lights. Visibility is bad with the rain coming in.”

  While Gwinn was dealing with the ferry captain, Flagg said, “What did Malloy say was the range of his little fishies?”

  “Half a mile.”

  Flagg turned to the captain. “Tell them to try to avoid the other boat. Tell them to keep at least a mile in between if they can.”

  Gwinn relayed the suggestion to the ferry captain. He asked for the ferry’s position and gave the coordinates to the chopper. After a few minutes of waiting, the helicopter called back.

  “Come in, Nantucket. Repeat coordinates please.”

  Gwinn gave them the ferry’s last position.

  We waited anxiously for a few minutes before the helicopter called back again. “Doing a circular search pattern.”

  Another tense wait. Then the voice from the helicopter again.

  “Seeing debris in the water.”

  Too late. The big slow-moving car ferry would have been an easy target. My heart felt as if it had been filled with molten lead.

  I had to go somewhere. Anywhere. I walked back to the sick bay. Tanya was lying on the gurney, her eyes closed. Sleeping. My shoulders sagged. I cursed myself for not figuring this thing out sooner, or moving faster. I knew there was nothing that I could have done, but it felt good to whip myself. I felt a hand on my shoulder. Flagg had come up behind me in that uncanny quiet way of his.

  “She going to be okay?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Just sleeping it off. Well, Flagg, at least we saved one person.”

  “Maybe more than one,” he said. “You ran off before we got the call.” He took my arm and guided me to the window which overlooked the harbor. A boat was rounding the Brant Point light. It was the Iyanough.

  “I must be hallucinating,” I murmured.

  “No such luck,” Flagg said. “That’s the real thing.”

  I stared at his grinning face. “You knew?”

  “Like I said, we do our best. Remember Malloy answerin
g your question about how the Volga put up a protective field to protect itself from those crazy little robots swarming around in search of the target?”

  “Sure. He said there were four hydro transponders hanging off the bow, stern, port and starboard. They were connected by cables.”

  “Like the cable we stepped over when we first got on board.”

  I remembered how Flagg had left me as we were trying to get Tanya off the yacht, his last-minute return, the knife arcing into the sea.

  “You cut the cables?”

  “Only had time to slice the one on the starboard hull. I figured that twenty-five percent was enough of an opening to find if those fish were as smart as Malloy claimed. I guess I was right.”

  The dark cloud I’d imagined hanging over my head vanished in a puff of smoke. I laughed so loudly that Tanya stirred in her sleep.

  “Finestkind, Cap,” I said. “Finestkind.”

  CHAPTER 39

  The ambulance showed up a few minutes later to give Tanya a ride to the hospital. She was fully conscious and talking non-stop in Bulgarian as she was loaded onto the stretcher. Captain Gwinn had called in the rescue squad as a precaution. My guess was that it had more to do with the distraction Tanya was causing at the station among his male subordinates.

  Flagg and I watched through the station window as the EMTs rolled Tanya into the ambulance and closed the doors.

  “Nice lady,” Flagg said. “Don’t understand a word she’s saying, though.”

  “Doesn’t matter. She saved the passengers on the ferry boat.”

  He made the rumbling sound in his throat that passes for a laugh. “We’re getting too old for this kind of stuff, Soc.”

  “I’m glad you made that a plural pronoun. I’m going to sooth my aching joints with some alcoholic painkillers. Want to join me?” Knowing Flagg doesn’t drink, I tried to entice him with an offer to buy him a Shirley Temple.