by Jeff Noonan
Lee stared back at him thoughtfully. “Commander, I don’t understand why you’re here, talking about a simple personnel transfer matter. Surely you have more to do than worry about some obscure lieutenant’s transfer. Why’s this so important? Am I missing something here?”
Looking like a little boy with his hands caught in a cookie jar, the commander smiled sheepishly, “I think you’ll understand when we get through briefing you today. As for the delays, your transfer isn’t routine this time and making all the arrangements took some time. That’s the main reason for the delay in getting out here to see you. Is okay?”
Lee had recovered his composure now and he wasn’t particularly happy to find out that paper-pushers back in Washington DC had caused him those delays and all that lost sleep. So he answered firmly, looking the commander straight in the eye and speaking in a steely, carefully controlled tone. “Commander, I’d like to tell you that none of this is a problem and everything is hunky-dory. But it isn’t. You’ve strung this out far too long, and I still don’t have any idea what in the devil is going on with my life. That might not be a big deal to you, but it certainly is to me. Now, let’s have it. What in hell is going on?”
Captain Neilsen started laughing. “I told you he wouldn’t be a pushover, didn’t I?” The commander grinned a bit ruefully while the FBI agent just kept his gaze locked onto Lee’s face.
The commander stretched his legs and cupped his hands behind his head, as if he was lost in thought. “Okay Lieutenant, you’re going to get the whole story now. When we’re done, you’ll understand what it is that the Navy wants you to do. We’re going to offer you a job, a job that you don’t have to accept. This whole thing is strictly on a voluntary basis.” He paused, then went on. “But I do want to caution both of you that what we’re going to talk about here is classified Top Secret. Nothing we talk about is to be repeated by either of you, whether you take the job or not. Is that understood?” The captain and Lee said “Yes” in unison, so the commander continued, “To start this off, I’m going to give you some background info. Then I’ll turn the floor over to Tom Wright.”
The commander stood up and moved over to the little chalkboard affixed to the captain’s wall. He turned around and spoke directly to Lee. “Lieutenant, you recently completed a tour of duty in Bath Maine where you were involved in the DLG3 Modernization Program, the program that produced the ship we’re on now. So you’re familiar with ship overhauls and modernizations as well as the paperwork and management nightmares that go with this kind of big industrial program. You’re also very experienced with overhauling and maintaining the Terrier missile systems on these ships. Additionally, your record clearly shows that you don’t shy away from a fight. Your background is exactly what we need for this job. So here’s the story.”
“As you know, the DLG modernization program is massive. It completely overhauls and upgrades our major guided missile ships at an estimated cost, for just the shipyards’ end of the work, of about $35,000,000 per ship. The primary shipyards involved are Bath Iron Works, a privately owned shipyard that won the contract for some of the ships, and Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, which is doing the work on the rest of them.”
Commander Johnson paused to take a sip from his coffee cup, then continued, “To make a long story short, a serious problem started surfacing a couple of years ago. The ships in Bath are doing all right, staying on schedule and within the estimated cost envelope. But the costs of ships going through the program in Philly started going out of sight, and no one could explain the reason for the escalations. Mr. Wright will give you more details, but for now just understand that we are talking millions and millions of dollars that no one can explain.”
He paused to let this sink in and then went on, “To make matters worse, we think the problem has now spread to the routine overhauls of other guided missile ships in Philly. The Navy tried internally to resolve the problem, but failed. So they called in the Navy Criminal Investigative Service to investigate. NCIS was shorthanded and not used to investigations of this complexity, so they gave up and turned it over to the FBI. But even the FBI has been pretty ineffective so far. They just don’t have people with the kind of expertise it takes to go into a shipyard and do detective work. The yardbirds just steer them in circles and laugh while they’re doing it.” He looked at Lee inquisitively. “Are you with me so far?”
Lee nodded slowly, his face showing concern. “Are you planning to enlist me in the FBI or something?”
Commander Johnson actually laughed aloud at that. “Close, Mr. Raines. But no cigar. We want you to go into the shipyard as a naval officer. You would be, from all outward appearances, just be another officer sent in to work on ship overhauls. But your real job will be to investigate and try to figure out where all the Navy’s money is going. With your background, the yardbirds won’t be able to play games with you and we might finally figure out what’s going on.”
At that, Lee exploded, his face reddening as he interrupted the commander. “Dammit, Commander, I’m not a cop!” He paused and gathered his thoughts, holding a hand up to prevent anyone from commenting. “I wouldn’t have any idea how to even start an investigation, and if I did get lucky and find something, I wouldn’t know what to do with it. I know something about Philadelphia. There’s some tough hombres there. I might just end up dead if I start bumbling around in their personal little shipyard. Plus, I’ve never been in that particular shipyard. I’d be lost there.” At a loss for further words, Lee threw his hands in the air and sat back in his chair.
Tom Wright, the FBI agent, finally broke his silence. “Mr. Raines, please don’t get ahead of us. We have no intention of putting you in this position without training you first and then backing you up with all the assets at our disposal. This is a matter that has the attention of people at the highest levels in both the FBI and the Navy.”
Lee had a retort ready, but he decided to restrain himself. He nodded. “Okay. Let’s hear your plan.”
Agent Wright took over then. “If you don’t mind, Commander, I’d like to explain what we have in mind.” Commander Johnson agreed and Wright stood up, moving to the blackboard. “Okay Lee, the commander’s given you a look at the problem. The Navy is losing millions of dollars on guided missile ship overhauls, and nobody has figured out where the money is going. The FBI has gone as far as we can go. We do have a few ideas, but we have no one available who can find their way through the shipyard bureaucracy and its paperwork well enough to get any results. We need someone who knows: (A) his way around guided missile systems and the ships they’re installed on and, (B) how to interpret and analyze shipyard paperwork. That’s where you come in. If your record is any indicator, you have these requirements down cold. Right?”
Lee agreed reluctantly, “Yeah, I guess.”
“Okay then, if we assume that is true, the thing that you do lack is a knowledge of investigative techniques. So we’ve set up a crash course at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. The course has been tailored to fit these requirements and we think it will take you about two months to complete it. When you’re done, you’ll have all the tools you should need to do the job.”
The agent stopped to take a drink of his coffee, looking at Lee as if he were expecting a reaction. But Lee just sat there, his chin cupped by his hand as he leaned on the table and stared at the agent.
Wright continued, “Right now we’re trying to get some people hired and placed on site in the shipyard. They’re backup people who’ll be in laborer and clerical positions. This effort will continue during the time you’re in school, so we have some assets on site if you need them. We have absolutely no intention of leaving you in there all alone.” He stopped again, looking expectantly at Lee.
Lee directed his remarks, when they did finally come, to Commander Johnson. “Commander, I haven’t been in the Philadelphia shipyard, so I know nothing about it. But I was raised in a Philadelphia suburb. So I do know a bit about what happens in that area. If Phi
lly crooks are getting millions out of the shipyard, the whole deal smells like the mob. The Mafia. So I’m putting my life on the line if I take this job. Not only that, but I didn’t ever plan to live there again. Can you promise me, in writing, that you’ll transfer me out of there when I’m done?”
His remark caused immediate consternation. Johnson and Wright reacted almost as one, with both trying to talk at once. Finally the agent deferred to the commander who asked, “When were you in Pennsylvania? Your record shows your home to be somewhere in Montana.”
Lee smiled. “I was an only child, born in Philly and raised in the Philadelphia suburbs. I lived there until shortly after I graduated from high school. Then, during my first semester at Villanova, my parents were killed in a car wreck. I just wanted to get away, so I arranged to sell off everything we could get rid of in a hurry. Then I rented out our home, got in a car, and started driving.”
“When I got to Montana, my car broke down in a little logging town called St. Dubois. I had to wait for car parts to be delivered. While I waited for the parts, I met people and found that I really liked the place. So I stopped running and got a job in the local sawmill. I worked there for about six months, until the snow got deep and the sawmill closed for the winter. I kicked around for a while, and then a friend and I decided to join the Navy. Been here since then. Actually, I was in Montana for less than a year, back when I was a teenager, but I’ve been back to visit friends several times since then.”
He went silent, still looking at the commander. Then, as an afterthought, “I still own the home in Pennsylvania. My uncle manages its rental for me.”
Commander Johnson looked thoughtful. “Going back to the job. Lee, you’re right. This will be a tough, possibly dangerous, assignment. I can probably get you the duty station of your choice after this job is done, if that will help?”
Lee nodded. “I’d like to come back to San Diego when this is over.”
“I can arrange that.”
At that, Captain Neilsen spoke up. “Well, I do have a suggestion that Lee may or may not agree with. We’ve never talked about it. But here it is. Lee, as a former enlisted person, is classified as a limited duty officer. As an LDO, he can only compete for promotion against other LDO’s for a very limited number of available promotion opportunities. In other words, even though he is a phenomenal shiphandler, a certified fleet officer of the deck, a certified engineering officer of the watch, and a war hero, his promotional prospects are lousy. I would be willing to write a recommendation that Lee be re-designated from LDO to unrestricted line officer4. When I was stationed in BUPERS, there was authority to do this for certain individuals if their records warranted it. That would certainly apply here. I think that it would also give Lee more flexibility in this assignment. A line officer would probably have more freedom to snoop around than an LDO would have. I’d very heartily recommend this. Lee what would you think about that - assuming it can still be done?”
There was a long silence as Lee thought about this. He had never considered such a change, but it did make sense. “Yeah, I’d appreciate that if it can happen.”
Commander Johnson was not sure about this. “I really like the idea, but I don’t know if it’s possible. I’ll call back to BUPERS and see if we can do it. If we can, and Captain Neilsen writes a good recommendation, I don’t see that it would hurt anything.” With that, he excused himself and left the room to make phone calls to his superiors. The captain went along in case he was needed. Lee and Tom Wright took advantage of the time to talk at length about the situation in Philadelphia and the school the FBI had planned for Lee.
Lunchtime came and went. Lee called the wardroom steward and had sandwiches brought in for himself and the agent. They ate and talked, both thoroughly engrossed in the puzzle of the shipyard’s missing money. The FBI agent was of the opinion that somebody in the shipyard was finding ways to take money out of the yard’s work on the ships’ expensive missile systems. Lee listened, but he really didn’t agree with the agent. He kept his opinions to himself, saying that he wanted to take a look at the actual work before he could comment on specifics. In his mind, he had already realized that Wright was hopelessly naïve regarding shipyards and their processes. Wright was just looking at the big-ticket overhaul items and suspecting them of being problems without having any concept of either their complexity or their accurate overhaul costs.
It was after two o’clock before Commander Johnson returned. When he did, he had Captain Neilsen with him. The commander looked serious as he sat. “Lee, I’ve just been through two hours of argument. Apparently there is some old school bias against having line officers without college degrees. If it wasn’t for Captain Neilsen getting on the line, I wouldn’t have won the argument. But the captain did magic. It helped that he explained that this was his idea, not yours.”
He paused, then continued, “If you take this job, you’ll become a regular Navy line officer on the day that you satisfactorily complete the FBI training course.”
Lee nodded. “Thanks, Commander. I know that this wasn’t easy.” He thought for a moment as the others watched him. Then he relaxed visibly and released a long sigh, “Well, I guess I’m gonna do this. What’s the game plan? What’s the schedule?”
The commander reached behind his chair and pulled a briefcase onto the table. Opening it, he removed a sheaf of papers and returned the briefcase to the floor. “I have here a set of secret orders that won’t be seen by anyone outside this room. These are temporary additional duty orders that take you from here to the FBI Training Center in Quantico for two months. When you finish the course, you return to this ship. You leave here this Sunday and start school there on Monday. I also have plane tickets for you and a check for two months’ expenses. You and I will be the only people signing these orders and the only copies will be in your file back at BUPERS, under my control. Does this make sense so far?”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t give me much time to take care of things here.”
“Don’t worry, Lee. You’ll have plenty of time when you get done with Quantico. I also have a set of orders that take effect when you get back to the ship from Quantico. These are standard transfer orders that move you from this ship back to Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for duty. They have normal travel time and leave built into them. By using the two sets of orders, no one will see the training that we’re giving you. Anyone looking at your record will just see a normal personnel transfer package. Just another Navy officer going to the shipyard for duty.”
Lee was listening with half an ear as he studied the paperwork the commander handed him. After a short silence, he looked up. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
After some small talk, the commander took the signed papers and departed, saying that he had some other visits to make before heading back to D.C. Captain Neilsen left to perform his shipboard duties. The conversation between Lee and Tom Wright went on for several more hours, moving to the base Officer’s Club for dinner and a few beers. Before long, Lee found himself learning to like and trust the FBI agent. Finally, they talked themselves out and left the club, agreeing to meet again in Quantico.
Since Maggie was on an evening shift that day, Lee returned to the ship after leaving the club. This day had been overwhelming, and Lee lay awake for a long time, going over it again and again in his head. Finally he slept, a fitful sleep speckled with images of mobsters from old movies that floated through his dreams. None of them seemed to be particularly friendly.
CHAPTER THREE - MEMORIES AWAKENED
he next day Lee woke early as usual. Like most days, he pulled himself out of his bunk and threw on some jogging clothes. After brushing his teeth and splashing his face, he was out of the ship and off for his morning run. Although many of his shipmates gave him a tough time about working out and running, he was dedicated to the routine.
A few years ago, he had been like most of his shipmates, putting off anything that could be considered healthy. Then a few well-placed Viet Cong b
ullets had brought him face-to-face with death. He’d stopped smoking in the hospital. Then his rehabilitation therapy had mandated stringent physical work-outs. By the time he was discharged from the hospital, he found that he felt better than he had in years. So, after leaving the hospital, he had kept with it. Now his six-foot-two body was twenty pounds lighter than the two hundred twenty pounds it had weighed back on the gunboat. He was in far better shape than he had been even a decade earlier.
Today, as he ran lightly past the Navy piers with their gray ships looking down on him, he was deep in thought. His mind played back all the revelations of yesterday and tried to focus on the strange journey he was about to undertake. But, try as he might, the whole thing seemed surreal. He just couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that he’d been enlisted in a fight that would probably pit him against people he had known in another life, real American mobsters. Whenever he tried to focus on this, his mind shied away as if in disbelief. Finally he gave up and decided to take it one step at a time. The entirety of it all was just too much to grasp in one setting.
Okay, Lee. What’s step one? He’d been given a plane ticket that would take him east on Sunday. So he had a lot to accomplish before he left. Sunday was only two days away. He would have to arrange safe storage for his car. He was coming back to the ship before leaving for Philadelphia, so he could leave most of his belongings in the stateroom. But he had to do something about his wardrobe. He owned very few civilian clothes, since he only wore them when he was off the ship, and that hadn’t been very often recently. But now he was going to have to wear “civvies” exclusively at Quantico, so he had some shopping to do.
He also had to somehow explain this whole thing to Maggie. That was going to be rough. Another separation wasn’t something that either of them had anticipated or planned on. As he ran, Lee decided to go visit her later today. Maybe he could take her out for lunch and talk to her. He was still trying to decide how to tell her when he arrived back at the ship. Back in his stateroom, he stripped and headed for the shower, still mulling the problem.
