In Love and Law
Page 24
“ 21 Recovering the Buoy”
Musical Theme; I'll take care of you by The Dixie Chicks Everyone on deck came to starboard side to see the buoy recovered. Ronnie put the boat very close to the buoy. Josh took the hook of the crane
in one hand, and stepped over the rail. He pointed down and rotated his
hand, and Kevin let some cable out. Josh jumped onto the buoy and landed
with the cable still in hand. He clipped it off to a lift eye, and then went
hand over hand up the cable and dropped onto the deck.
Will chased everyone else off the deck, and Kevin lifted the buoy on board.
They pushed it to the rail and chained it down. Sassie came down from
second deck. “I got all that, Will. Josh is amazing.”
“He is. You can let the covey out. Roberta might want to look at the
barnacles on the buoy, and show them all. They can get some of those big
ones to keep. The buoy shop will blast them all off anyway.”
Roberta came out, and she did show the girls a lot of things on the buoy.
They got little pieces of the gigantic barnacle growth on it. A buoy is a
great place to be a barnacle until they clean it. Roberta took little crabs and
marine worms out of the barnacles, and showed them off. The deck gang
got back to fishing. Roberta saved some things for the 600 gallon aquarium below decks. She also chopped off some large masses of barnacles for it. The plan was
to cover the bottom with rocks that had barnacles, and such things, and then
put some unique fishes and things in there. Josh got in the tank, being wet
already, and put some of the barnacle masses in the tank for Roberta. She
found a tiny octopus in the barnacles, and of course he had to be put in.
They put the baffles back into the top of the tank, and the cover, which they
locked down. The temperatures were almost the same, so Will put the
circulation on for 20 minutes, which would put outside water in the tank to
compensate for what the ejector blew out. Quint was working on the details of a planned basement tank that
would go almost all the way around a central observation area, with some
rolling chairs under the stairway at one corner. It would be fed with water
pumped up from the Med, and not have filters. Roberta was very excited
about it. Marcie would write a check. Chrissie thought it would be a nice
place to be romantic. Will and Quint were trying to decide what the biggest
fish they would have would be. In a community tank, the biggest fish is
your first decision. Everything else has to be too big for him to eat. Or too
fast for him to catch. One plans a 35 thousand gallon aquarium a little bit
differently than putting a 10 on the bookcase. Marcie thought it would be more fun to see schools of little fishes cruising around than just one big bad guy sitting on the bottom. Roberta thought so, too. Then there was the issue of what would be on top of the tank, with Roberta suggesting a small office for biologists. Marcie thought that would be nice, too. A modest laboratory and office, and gee, we’re right here on the Med. How convenient. Roberta was wondering if she could get 100 thousand for it, and Marcie was wondering if 5 million would be enough. “It would be nice to have a few microscopes, some chem. lab stuff, some reference books, we could maybe get a couple of grad students. Maybe a couple of modest apartments, and we would get some samples from Jared, and around here.” “So you will need a few dozen 55 gallon tanks with input from the med, which will be cheaper than filters, since we’re going to have a submersible pump down at the dock anyway. A few desks and computers, filing cabinets. As to the main hardware, Will thinks the Apache S-T 51 is pretty much the way to go.” The Apache S-T 51 was a scanning electron microscope and also a transmission electron microscope. It could do micro spectrographic analysis. The FBI crime lab at Quantico had one. General Barnes certainly did, but wherever his was, you would never know. There were two at Apache industries in Yuma Arizona that could be rented for reasonable rates. Apache would even let you have an expert operator like Marie Two Cats. If she could do your microscopy in ten minutes, you could get out with a thousand dollar invoice. CIT had one, and MIT was thinking on it. The Carabiniere would want time on Marcie’s, and they would get it. “Marcie, that’s a very expensive piece of hardware.” “Darling, I own a seven three. Check the price tag on that.” “How would this work?” “I would buy it, and you would use it.” “We won’t be able to argue with that. Will, I’m supposed to be supervising the fishing.” “Mistress Galahad, you have the Grail. Do watch your duties on deck.” Chrissie hugged Will. “Is it more fun to catch a fish, or see them do it?” “You have the captain syndrome. When you start to get to think of hauling in a fish as kind of boring, and you want to watch someone who gets really excited have a try at it.” “I’ve never caught a marlin or something.” “You have to do that. Then you will be a for real fishing captain.” “I doubt I could do it.” “I don’t. You put the pressure on the fish and eventually he loses. The fish is elemental, powerful, savage. You’re the apex predator. You can think ahead, and you have a six million dollar boat and another apex predator at the wheel. It’s exciting, but you can usually win.” There was a commotion on deck, and they ran out to see what was happening. Roberta turned to Will. “Big Sailfish.” “Roll up, Roll up!” Everyone but the girl with the sailfish rolled up and put their rods into vertical holders against the cabin wall, with their sinkers in steel baskets welded to the wall. Ronnie eased the boat around to put the fish off the bow. Will and Chrissie moved to the girl with the fish on. “This is a nice one, kid, and you can take him. Keep the line tight. Don’t let it slack for a moment. Keep the pressure on, and don’t worry if he gets a lot of line out. You have a lot more line than what it would take to get to the bottom. The skipper is going to keep over him so he can’t get away.” Will’s guess was, he had a 75 pound girl fighting a 100 pound fish. It was possible. Maybe the sailfish was only 70 pounds. Maybe the girl could last longer than the fish. The deck crew was as good as you could get, short of the archangel Gabriel on gaff. Roberta intimated “Sails jump. That is where you lose them. Keep your pole down a little, and if he comes up, reel fast, and keep your tip down a little, so you can raise it. If he jumps, keep that line as tight as you can. They shake the hook in a jump. Never let your line go slack.” “He’s coming up but not to here.” “That’s fine. We don’t want him here yet. He may jump. When it looks like the line may go slack, you lift your pole tip and take the slack out. ” Sassie was looking through her viewfinder from second deck when he jumped. He was a big guy. He shook his head while he was in the air, but the fisherman was not intimidated. She pulled the pole back and cranked fast on the fast retrieve Penn Senator 4/0. When the fish hit the water, she was back to about 45 degrees with the pole, just as Will and Roberta wanted. Having jumped and done no good with that, the fish sounded. This suited the crew just fine. They were over sand and mud bottom not even a third of a reel deep. Ronnie followed him but not close. If he came back up, being close to the boat would be in his favor. They wanted him close to the boat when he was completely shot. Poquita came up. “I conferenced with her dad and Giuseppe, and he wants the fish mounted if we get it. Giuseppe says give him a good one behind the eyes on top of the head. The damage that would be hardest to fix would be if he thrashed and lost a lot of scales and that sort of thing.” “OK, we put him in the walk in if we get him, and call Giuseppe?” “Yeah. He will come to our dock no matter how late, take the fish, and he will give us the fillets the next day. His son will come out with them.” “I’d better get back on deck, Poquita. There isn’t anything they need to do that someone out there does not know just as well or better than me, but they want to have me to ask. I learned in the DA office that senior prosecutors want the DA to tell them wha
t to do, even though they won’t want to do it if he does. People want to be independent, but they want to have someone tell them they’re right.” “Don’t you like to have General Barnes tell you you’re right, go ahead with it?” “You got me on that, Poquita.” He went on deck, and the fish was still deep, working the fisherman very hard, but she was taking it. Roberta and Chrissie were there, the covey watching. Sassie was getting the drama on video. Will came up and motioned the covey to get back and let him have a clear shot. They did so, all of them looking great as they stood back. Will shot a few stills, and backed up to get everyone in. “Girls, look at the fishing action.” The covey looked intently at the fishing action, which consisted of one of their classmates with a seriously bent pole struggling with it. Chrissie and Roberta were on the other side of her, giving little bits of advice. Dressed in Aurora with Phillipa shoes, of course. Will put his camera inside his windbreaker and went to the fishing action. “How are you doing, here? Are you arms getting tired?” “Yes. Will, I don’t think I can do this.” “You sure can. Did you see Josh jump on that buoy?” “Sure. I can’t do that.” “Women tend to be more agile than men. That’s why I like to watch the
women gymnasts, but that iron cross on the rings stuff bores me to death. In six months, you could be doing handstands on buoys. Josh could never
do that. He’s too big and heavy. I can get you a harness that will take the
pressure off your arms. We can put it on you while you work your fish. It
would put the pressure on your shoulders, and you lean back some to keep
it off your back.”
“Sounds like changing the rules because I can’t win fair and square.”
“Maybe you can be one of us. The few, the deranged, the Jarheads.”
“Or a SEAL.”
“If you don’t think you could cut it as a scout/sniper in the Marines.”
“They don’t let women do that.”
“That’s going to change. What would Saint Ralph say?”
“Sue the bastards.”
“I would start either in the Fifth Circuit or DC. You could win there, and
make the military go to the Supreme Court of the United States. You could get one of the best lawyers in America to do your case for free. Women are going to show what they can do, Betty, like you’re going to take that fish. They need a real tough chick to walk point. Someone who never gives up. That’s what they teach you in any elite unit. In the Gulf war, I had a guy named Martin in my company. Little guy, you could probably have beat him wrestling. He could pick locks so fast people didn’t believe it. He could hot wire cars, bypass alarm systems, pick pockets, all that criminal stuff. He was a gang banger out of East LA. Today he is a First Sergeant in the Corps. He went from being on the bottom of society to a position I consider equal to my own. He got a medal once for picking a lock at the same time a corpsman was working on a wound on his leg. He got that door open, and we gave the residents a hell of a surprise. Martin does not give up, ever.” “My fish is softening, Will. What do I do now?” “Keep the pressure on, gently. Resist the urge to rush. Just pull him in easy.” “Gaff crew on deck, please!”