Final Bearing

by George Wallace

  “I see that we got the water,” Glass observed, looking at the wide area in which they were cleared to operate.

  “Yep,” Ward confirmed. “The clearance was on the last broadcast. We got ourselves a big operating box. It’s a hundred miles wide and two hundred miles deep, essentially centered on the Helena K. It moves at twelve knots. Good thing, too. Take a look at the SoCal op areas.”

  Ward flipped up a new chart, a larger scale one centered on the waters off the southern California coast. Glass whistled long and low.

  “Man, I’ve never seen ‘em that crowded.”

  “It’s that RIMPAC exercise Desseaux had his pantyhose all in a knot about before we left. He’s got to be boiling mad. We’re steaming straight through the center of his little invitation-only party.” Ward folded the chart and returned to the plot. “Anyway, we’re out ahead of the Helena K right now. I ran out ten miles ahead and five miles off track so we could go up and talk and not risk being seen.” He gave Glass an odd look. The XO wrinkled his brow. What dire message was Ward about to deliver? “By the way, the message boards are over on the conn. You might want to read them when you get a chance…Commander Joseph Glass.”

  The executive officer did a double take and stared hard at Ward, apparently sure he was still dreaming. Ward smiled broadly.

  “Joe, the selection board results are out. Congratulations! They somehow lowered their standards enough to pick you up. Looks like you’re in the first group to put the stripe on, too. You’re out of uniform.” Glass’s mouth was open, his eyes disbelieving. Ward pulled a set of silver oak leaves from his pocket. “Here, put these on. We’ll do it official and fancy when we get back.”

  He shook the XO’s hand as he passed over to him the insignia for a full Commander.

  Glass grinned, his face flushed red as he pulled the gold oak leaves of a Lieutenant Commander off his collar and replaced them with the new silver ones. Everyone in the control room broke into loud cheering and sincere congratulations.

  As the revelry died down, Ward finally continued his briefing.

  “Joe, we’re out here,” he said, pointing at a dot on the chart. “Right now, we’re steaming back in to close track. It’ll be time to go up and take a look at him when you get back to within eight thousand yards. By the way, we deployed the towed array last night. We didn’t want to risk losing sonar contact as we opened out. That guy is a real noisy trash bucket, though. We held him firm broadband on the sphere at thirty thousand yards. We really didn’t need the towed array after all. Let’s leave it out, though. It’ll make life easier when we steam through the SoCal op areas. We can use it to sort out all that traffic up there, and…God bless Tom Donnegan…we certainly have the room.”

  The towed array was a very sensitive line of sonar hydrophones towed almost a mile behind Spadefish, like a thick sausage at the end of a long string. The reel for the cable was up in the forward port side of the bow compartment. The array, roughly six inches in diameter and two hundred feet long, was housed in a tube that snaked along the sub’s hull and ended at the after edge of the port stabilizer when it was stowed. When in use, the array was far behind Spadefish’s own noise and that greatly increased its sensitivity. The hydrophones were tuned to detect very low frequency sounds in the water, allowing for long-range work. The one drawback was the cable. If the submarine backed down while the array was deployed, her great bronze screw could easily slice right through it. Then a two-million-dollar piece of equipment would sink slowly to the bottom of the sea.

  “Okay, Skipper. I have a handle on what’s happening. Why don’t you grab some chow and hit the rack? Cookie has some great sticky buns in the oven for breakfast.”

  Ward groaned as he answered.

  “I’ve been smelling them baking all night. I can’t wait to bite into one. Call me if you have any questions.” He paused to take one more look at the new insignia on his XO’s collar. “Looks damned natural there, Joe.”

  Then he shook Glass’s hand one more time, walked out of the control room, and turned to disappear down the ladder to the submarine’s middle level, following the enticing smell of cinnamon.

  Juan de Santiago strode proudly into their bedroom. There was time for her to service him quickly before he moved to other matters. The hurt look on her face said otherwise.

  “What is it? What have I done?” he asked pleadingly.

  Margarita erupted into tears.

  “I can’t believe you would forget. Not after all these years. But you have. You’ve forgotten again,” she sobbed.

  She stalked into the bathroom and slammed the door hard behind her. The pictures of the children on the nearby vanity fell over on their faces.

  De Santiago faced the wooden barrier, a perplexed look on his face.

  “Forgotten what?” he muttered, but not loud enough to be heard beyond the mute divider separating them. “What is it that I have forgotten?”

  He could control a rebel army, rouse a populace to revolt, call down the wrath of the most powerful nation on the earth on his humble country, but he had no hope of controlling this hot-blooded woman. He had to try to make amends for his transgression.

  “Margarita, my sweet. I haven’t forgotten. I’ve planned a picnic for us tomorrow. We’ll ride down to the old hacienda ruins, just you and I. Guzman is putting everything together now. I wanted to surprise you.”

  The door opened a crack. He could see one large brown eye, impossibly deep and luminous. She rushed out and fell into his arms.

  “You didn’t forget after all,” she gushed. “I’m so sorry for doubting you. Can you ever forgive me?”

  De Santiago laughed.

  “But of course, my sweet. There is nothing to forgive.”

  “A whole day, just for us! Juan, when was the last time we had a whole day just for ourselves?”

  With his free hand, he brushed her long, black hair from her beautiful face as he answered.

  “Too long ago, my parakeet. Much too long ago. But…”

  She heard the hesitation in his voice and pulled back away from him, the first flash of anger already returning to her eyes.

  “But what?”

  “I will have to leave late in the afternoon. I must meet some men at the old Alvarado hacienda ruins the next morning. We’ll be on horseback instead of going by river, so…”

  “But Juan, you will have to ride all night through the jungle to get there. Is it so important? Can’t you postpone this meeting or send someone else in your place? Send Alvene Dura. He doesn’t seem to do anything these days except hang around and harass the maids.” She snuggled comfortably into his arms, rubbing her body against his. He became aroused. “It would be such a wonderful day for both of us if you did not have to hurry away.”

  He continued stroking her shining black hair as he felt her wonderful body melting into his.

  “Yes, my love. But it is very important. I must attend to this myself, or else we could plan on a full day together. And Alvene will be accompanying me. Now, my sweet, I have a few things to attend to before we…hmmm…go to bed.”

  He playfully kneaded her bottom as he pulled away from her, then strode out of the room, shouting for Guzman even before he slammed the door shut behind him.

  Margarita Alvarado smiled. She should have listened to her uncle and become an actress. This performance merited some kind of an award. There was no date or event to be forgotten. He would never suspect she made up the whole thing.

  El Jefe was riding to the old ruins, visiting that spot once again. They were going deep into the jungle. Far from anything she knew about that he was involved in. He had been in that area not long ago and Margarita’s report had almost cost de Santiago his life in the government ambush.

  A sudden all-night ride through dense jungle, all the way to that place of ghosts. It had to be something important. El Falcone would report it as quickly as possible.

  John Bethea sat across the conference table from Bill Beaman and Chief Johnston.
The remnants of a tray of breakfast pastries and several half-empty coffee cups littered the polished wood surface between them. They were deep in the JDIA Command Bunker at the end of Cabrillo Point. The reinforced concrete walls were a sharp contrast to the modern walnut conference furniture and deep-piled, wine-colored carpeting. Brass and chrome halogen track lights brightly illuminated the room, but the charts on the wall behind Bethea dominated.

  The biggest chart showed the track of the Helena K and Spadefish as they laboriously made their way northwestward. Alongside the chart hung several large-scale maps of Colombia. Each was covered with various markings that Beaman neither recognized nor cared to ask about. One thing he had learned: it was better not to know anything at all about things he didn’t absolutely need to know about.

  He downed the last of the strong coffee. One map did attract his curiosity. It showed a circle a few miles from a little known river that was labeled “Rio Napo.” The circle jumped out at him. It was all by itself on the map, drawn in an area that Beaman knew held nothing more than nearly impenetrable jungle.

  Bethea followed Beaman’s gaze toward the map.

  “Bill, I see your powers of observation weren’t impaired by all the tequila you drank the other night. That circle that has so appropriately caught your attention is the reason for our little meeting this morning.”

  Beaman’s head snapped around.

  “Oh? I thought we were here to debrief from the mission,” he said as he leaned back in the padded leather chair.

  “That was my original intention when I set the meeting, but we just received some new intelligence.”

  He pointedly picked up a thick file from beneath an empty doughnut platter on the table. The legend across the file read, ‘Top Secret, Highly Sensitive Sources” in two-inch-tall red letters. Bethea put on a pair of half-rim glasses, opened the file, and began looking for something in its contents.

  “Chief Johnston and I both recognize the code words for a ‘spy,’” Beaman said. “I hope this particular spy is a good one. I’m too tired to go trekking through the jungle on some wild goose chase. And, in case you haven’t heard, they play pretty rough down there these days.”

  Bethea looked out over the top of his reading glasses. He fixed Beaman with a quizzical stare. Beaman felt like a rabbit caught in the glare of a hungry wolf.

  “Oh, he’s good all right. El Falcone seems to have access to very valid information. You might be interested in what he has to say here. It concerns your old friend, Juan de Santiago.”

  Beaman perked up.

  “Hardly an old friend.”

  “Seems he and one of his lieutenants rode on horseback though the jungle last night for an important meeting. Bethea turned to the map. “Right there in the middle of that circle. That meeting is happening as we speak. Unfortunately, El Falcone could not give us enough lead time to get any assets on the ground to observe the meeting more closely.”

  “You got a bird in the sky over them?” Johnston asked.

  Bethea pulled a couple of aerial photos out of the file and scooted them across the table to both men.

  “Funny you should ask. You can see from this that the area is pretty wild. That first one is visible spectrum. Nothing but jungle and some old, burned-out ruins of some kind of plantation that’s disappearing into the undergrowth. The second photo is near infrared. Nothing there either. Not even a stray body. Those two were taken early this morning. These two were taken an hour later. You can see two riders and horses quite plainly on the IR shot. We’re now keeping the site under near constant satellite surveillance. If El Falcone is correct, something is going on, and that’s a spot we need to investigate farther.”

  Johnston carefully laid down the photograph he was scrutinizing. He looked across the table at Bethea and asked the question both SEALs were thinking.

  “Why go there? Million miles from anywhere and nothing but some pretty tough jungle?”

  Bethea smiled.

  “Exactly, Chief. Why go there? De Santiago has a million choices if he just wants a secure, hidden site for some kind of a strategy meeting. All easier to get to than this one is. If it was simply a meeting place, we think he would pick one of those, or just hold it right there in his own hacienda like he usually does. He’s arrogant enough to think we don’t have ears there. But we’ve seen his propensity for hiding major facilities in very out-of-the-way places. You guys certainly have, first hand. I’m betting he has something important to him hidden near here. And as you might have suspected already, I want you to go in and find out what it is.”

  “But what could it be? You’d be sure to see another factory, fields.”

  “We don’t know. We know it’s important enough to send the leader of the revolution off on an all-night ride through rough territory. Secret enough that he didn’t take his bodyguard with him. We’ve seen him in that area once before. When the government troops almost got the son of a bitch in an ambush down on the Rio Napo.”

  “Any background on the place?” Beaman asked. “Some history that would tie it back to de Santiago some way?”

  Bethea pulled a small sheaf of papers out of the file and laid them on the table next to the folder.

  “Good question, Bill. We’re gathering information as fast as we can. It was once a hacienda owned by a wealthy family of cattle ranchers. The Alvarado family. The Alvarados were a very powerful family in the area, going all the way back to the original Spanish conquest and royal land grants. They got caught up sideways in the revolutionary politics. They died in some kind of massacre. All except one daughter that we’ve lost track of. Facts are hazy on what happened. The place was burned in what must have been a big showdown. It all happened years ago, back when de Santiago was beginning to gain power. Since then, the place has been deserted. The jungle’s reclaiming what was a very sophisticated ranch at one time. The local Indians claim the place is haunted. Ghosts of the murdered family come out and wander about at night, and no one goes anywhere near there anymore, not even the Indians.”

  “Well, one thing’s for certain,” Bill Beaman said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Those aren’t ghosts on that IR photo.”

  Juan de Santiago rode out of the jungle into the small clearing, reining in his heavily lathered sorrel stallion. The animal wheezed from the hard ride and the jungle heat. Alvene Dura emerged into the clearing a few seconds after him. His horse was also near exhaustion.

  De Santiago lowered himself to the ground, stretched, and began to remove the saddle from his mount.

  “Alvene, we are here. Rest your horse. We will need them shortly for the trip back.”

  Dura walked about stiffly, rubbing his backside.

  “I still do not understand why we had to come in on horseback. Would the river not have been more direct and an easier trip?”

  “This mission is too important to risk another showdown on the Rio Napo. No one will know of our visit this way. Your ass will heal from saddle sores quicker than from a bullet.”

  Dura gazed around the clearing. He had been charged with designing this lab and hiding it in this remote location. He had not been to the spot since they started construction.

  “Juan, nothing has changed since I was here last. Except for more jungle. The ruins of the old house are almost invisible.” His eyes grew distant. “I still remember the battle we fought here. The one that set ablaze the people’s revolution against Guitteriz. We were so young, so brave.”

  De Santiago chuckled as he, too, remembered one of the earliest battles of his youth.

  “Yes, and damned foolish. We almost lost our entire revolution that day before it had begun. Guitteriz surprised us with that battalion of his best troops. If we were smarter, we would have run for the trees. Come back and fight another day when the odds were more in our favor. We were much too brave, too idealistic for that. We came away with a new set of martyrs to the revolution. Guitteriz emerged with his first victory and that set him up to become
president.”

  “That was the day Guzman was wounded, wasn’t it?”

  Dura had heard the story many times, had been there, but he knew how much his leader loved recounting it over and over.

  “Yes. A squad had me cornered over there, near that hummock. It was the stable then. They set it afire and tried to burn me out. I was unconscious from the heat and smoke. Guzman fought his way in and carried me out on his own shoulders. They shot him in the back but he ran on until we were safe. We almost lost him that day.”

  Dura pointed over toward the ruins of what had been the large main house.

  “I was in the house when they tried to burn us out. The family hid in the wine cellar while we fought. All dead. Burned to death in the fire. It was sad.”

  De Santiago snorted.

  “Sacrifices are always necessary. People must die for the cause. Old man Alvarado made a fatal mistake when he refused to take sides. He thought he, his family, and his hacienda would be safe if he straddled the fence. In the end, no one was there to help him and both sides used him. He and his indecision ultimately caused the death of his entire family.”

  The two old warriors left their horses to graze in the clearing and strode together toward the vine-covered remnants of the stable. The shed that had been at the end of the stable and served as the tack room stood. But just barely. It threatened to tumble down and rot away along with the rest of the charred and overgrown ruins.

  They approached the ramshackle structure. Jorge Ortiez emerged from inside and waved a greeting to them.

  “El Jefe, it is so good to see you again!” he shouted as they neared. “Y Senor Dura. I hope your journey was not too arduous.”

  De Santiago leaned over and embraced the short, rotund scientist.

  “Jorge, you have done well. The revolution benefits greatly from your sacrifice out here in the jungle. You are already a hero of our people and soon, they will know it.”