Final Bearing

by George Wallace

  Rudi Sergiovski pulled his bulk slowly up the ladder to the pier as the thugs started passing bricks through the hatch and up to the waiting truck. Rashad handed the man the flask for his own welcome snort. The Russian did not bother to wipe the rim and finished most of the Scotch in a single gulp.

  Sergiovski bragged of his prowess in guiding the little submarine into the inlet without detection. Rashad pretended to listen as he watched the group loading the first truck.

  One thousand bricks, twenty-two hundred pounds per vehicle.

  Just a little over thirty minutes passed before the first brown truck was filled and headed for the warehouse at the head of the pier. Then the second one was backed into place and the first brick stacked inside it.

  Rashad shook his head as he blew smoke out his nose. At this pace it would take nineteen hours to off-load, even if his men could maintain the pace. That was about three full nights’ worth of work.

  Lots of time. Lots of exposure.

  He decided not to tell Zurko. The stupid Latino would figure it all out soon enough on his own.

  Ed Beasly called up the ladder to Ward on the bridge.

  "Skipper, got the message boards. Permission to come up?"

  Ward was enjoying the night wind blowing though his hair, the cool air on his face. It didn’t relieve the frustration of this final mission of the Spadefish but it helped. The submarine had steamed back up the Puget Sound, traveling all the way on the surface while most of the crew rested. Ward stayed up on the bridge with only Seaman Cortez at his side, making sure they got through all the hazards of these busy waters. Like this old boat he loved so much, he would have plenty of time to rest soon. Another two hours and they would be back out in open water. They would get Spadefish submerged once again, back down there where she belonged, then he could sleep.

  "Come on up, Nav. Anything interesting on the boards?"

  Beasly handed the aluminum clipboard up to Ward.

  "I think you'll want to read the top one." He clambered up the last short length of ladder, nodded to Cortez, and stood beside Ward. "Nice night. Wind’s kicking up but it’s good to get some fresh air."

  Ward squatted down so he could read the messages without the brisk breeze blowing the papers about. He held a small flashlight equipped with a red lens close to the board. It gave just enough illumination to make out the words without blinding anyone nearby.

  "Damn, they lost that rusty bucket,” he muttered. “Helena K headed almost due west and disappeared in a storm. No satellite. No air search. He just went away."

  "Yeah, I read it,” Beasly said. “Of course, you gotta know that they want us to go find him now."

  Ward slapped the board shut and handed it back to Beasly.

  "Why didn’t he wait there for the sub to come back? Where could he be going?” Ward turned to Beasly. “Nav, tell the XO we need to dive and move as fast as we can. Find me a hole to dive in and find it quick."

  As Beasly slid down the ladder he heard Ward's voice over the 7MC already.

  "Helm, bridge. Ahead flank."

  It was time for this old submarine to resume the hunt.

  Spadefish surged ahead as she rushed to meet the long rollers of the open ocean. They moved to sea and picked up speed. The waves broke higher and higher on the sail. A huge wall of water broke over the top of the sail and before he could grab hold of anything, the wave’s surge swept Cortez out of the tiny cockpit. If not for his harness tied to a stanchion on the bridge, the hapless seaman would have been washed over the side and disappeared far astern. The sub would have had to turn about and try to find a very small dot in a very big ocean.

  As it was, he was tossed over the side of the sail and slammed brutally into the hard steel when the lanyard pulled taut. He hung there, helpless, barely able to find the breath to call for help.

  "Skipper! Help! Help! I can't get back in."

  The motion of the boat threw him hard against the sail again, knocking the wind from his lungs.

  Ward quickly reached over and grabbed the lanyard with both hands. He pulled with all his strength, trying to haul Cortez back inside before he was hurt worse by the relentless crashing of the sea.

  Inch by inch, he managed to pull the lanyard up. Using every ounce of muscle he could muster, he hauled away on the rope, knowing he couldn’t let go long enough to call for help. He would have to pull the man back out of the grasp of the ocean.

  He managed to haul Cortez back to the edge of the cockpit, to where he could cling tightly to the combing. Ward was able to rest a moment, to gather the strength he needed to reach over and pull his man back in to safety.

  "You okay?" Ward asked as he gasped for air.

  "Yes, sir. Bruised some.” He winced when he tried to draw a deep breath, but there was unmistakable gratitude in his eyes when he looked up at Ward. “Thanks, Skipper. Thanks."

  Ward motioned toward the ladder.

  "Can you get down by yourself okay?"

  Cortez nodded.

  "I think so. I'll sure try."

  He gingerly slid over to the hatch on his backside, then made his way down the ladder one slow rung at a time.

  As soon as Cortez was safely down, Ward yelled down on the 7MC.

  "Shift control below. Captain coming below."

  He started down the ladder. Another big wave washed over the bridge, sending a cold column of water down the hatch with him. Ward spat and sputtered then slammed the hatch shut and dropped down to the control room.

  It was time for Spadefish to return to the deep where she belonged, to resume the hunt for which she was born.

  The Helena K steamed steadily westward. The raging storm had stopped as suddenly as it had started. One minute the rusty freighter was pitching and bucking in towering seas. The next it was rolling gently in only moderately choppy waters. Weather was like that sometimes up here in the North Pacific, a thousand miles west of Oregon. When a major front blew through, the back wall was often sharply defined. The difference of a couple of miles could mean being beaten by an unmerciful sea and sailing placidly under a star-studded sky.

  Serge Novstad grabbed a pair of binoculars and stepped out onto the bridge wing.

  That Chinese scow had to be around here someplace. Novstad had gotten his boat at the rendezvous spot and on time. Never could trust those little Orientals. They'd be late and try to blame it on him. Then they would have to do the transfer in broad, bright daylight. That would allow those damned American satellites to have a perfect view of the whole thing. The storm had hidden them so far and the clouds lingered. Now would be the perfect time to do the transfer, if only the damn Orientals would show.

  The radio speaker crackled to life.

  "Helena K, this is Malay Messenger. I hold you on radar, range ten miles, bearing zero-seven-one from me. Request you come to course two-four-nine."

  They had arrived on time. Novstad watched the bow of his ship swing slowly to the southwest. He replied and shut up, keeping radio traffic to a minimum.

  He trained his binoculars ahead, but still couldn't see the Chinese ship. If they were really only ten miles away, it would be but a few minutes before the white masthead light would pop over the horizon.

  The wait seemed interminable. Novstad spied the glimmer of a white smudge on the horizon. He could see the red and green running lights below and flanking the white light. The shape of the huge container ship slowly took form in the night, a darker black shadow against a dark sky.

  The two ships stopped abreast of each other, with a couple of yards of open sea between them. Someone stepped out of the wheelhouse of the Chinese ship and began talking into a loud-hailer.

  "Ahoy, Helena K. Glad to see you."

  "Ahoy, Malay Messenger! How do you want to do this?"

  "Have your men stand by, Captain. We will be sending lines over. Recommend we tie up port side to port side. My deck cranes will easily reach your main deck that way."

  Novstad saw several men rush out onto the main
deck of the Malay Messenger, each of them armed with shotguns. They spaced themselves out along the deck and aimed their guns high over the Helena K. When they fired, small rubber projectiles arced up and over the Helena K, trailing a light line behind each one. The deck crew on the Helena K grabbed the lines and pulled them in. Attached to those lines were heavier lines, and then still heavier ones, until finally the crew was winching the massive hawsers needed to secure the two ships together in the open sea.

  They made quick work of it. In less than an hour, the two ships were firmly tied together. The giant deck cranes on the Malay Messenger began to move. A container was selected from the hundred or more stacked on her deck and it was lifted effortlessly, moved out over the Helena K, and lowered gently. In minutes, it was chained and bolted securely in place.

  The procedure was repeated two more times.

  Novstad watched wide-eyed as the crane returned to lift something else, something not a cargo container. It was a dozen men in a large basket. He had not expected this, and he didn't like the looks of it. Even from a distance, he couldn’t help but notice the hardness of the men, the weapons each carried. Even as the men swung in the air in the basket, crossing the short distance between the two ships, Novstad was back on his own loud-hailer, yelling across at the Malay Messenger’s captain.

  "What is this? I can't take so many people. We don’t have provisions. This was not a part of the arrangements."

  "Captain, I'm afraid Master Sui insists. They are only joining you to help you guard Master Sui's valuable property."

  Novstad bit cleanly through his cigar and angrily spit the tip into the ocean.

  A cold shiver ran the length of his spine.

  33

  Jon Ward fell back into his bunk, completely exhausted. God, it felt good to lie down! Maybe he could finally get a good night's sleep. The tension of trailing the mini-sub into shallow water had taken a greater toll on him than he knew. And the bumps and bruises from the rough time on the bridge, from wrestling Cortez back aboard, still ached some, but the hot shower had helped ease that.

  Gratefully, the word on Cortez was good. He had only suffered a few bruises. No cracked ribs as Ward had feared. Doc said he should be good as new in the morning.

  For the resilience of youth once again.

  He lay there and tried to find sleep. Ward felt the subtle vibrations of the sub. They told him the boat was running all out, at one hundred percent power, smooth as silk, performing as well as she had the day she was commissioned. They had been running at flank, a little over twenty-five knots on this girl, since they dived a couple of hours before. This is one time when a Los Angeles class would be nice. Better, one of the new Seawolf-class boats. Their better speed would cut hours off this race. Still, he was proud of this old girl. Spadefish would get where she was going, and she would deliver when she got there, too.

  Half an hour later, Ward still lay there, flipped over on his stomach, still wide-awake as he reflected on the last few days. He couldn’t help but worry about the next couple. The run down Puget Sound had been exciting, a thrill for him and his crew to be doing something they knew was useful. It had been taxing, too. To have it end with the bastards getting away just didn’t seem right. In fact, it grated.

  He sure hoped Bethea could get word to Tom Kincaid in time for him to find where the son of a bitch surfaced. The DEA agent would turn the entire Pacific Northwest upside down to find those drugs. If anybody could, Kincaid could. The man was on a personal mission.

  When the chase collapsed, Ward’s first thought was that he could finally go back home to Ellen. He was wondering how he would feel when he disembarked from this old boat for the final time, what words he would say to the men who had served her so courageously.

  The message came from JDIA that they had to run out into the North Pacific and once again locate the Helena K. Spadefish had a reprieve. Another task, another challenge, another opportunity for the submarine and her crew to prove themselves.

  Ward rolled back over onto his back, found a position that didn’t hurt quite so bad, and fell into a deep slumber.

  Bert Jankowski had always loved fishing. There was nothing he enjoyed more than being out in an open boat, his line in the water even before the sun peeked over the shoulder of Mount Hood and painted the spruce along Carr Inlet with a golden glow. Nothing better than seeing the world come alive from a spot where his boat bobbed gently in the morning calm and big salmon longed to gobble up his hook.

  That’s why he headed out here every chance he got. If the truth be known, that was the real reason he had settled here when he retired from the Navy twenty years ago, instead of going back home to the family farm near Topeka. Martha was under the impression that it had been the job at the little shipyard in Tacoma. He never tried to explain that there were no fishing spots like this one back on the plains of Kansas.

  Jankowski carefully stowed his equipment in the little outboard. Too many years serving as a chief boatswain's mate had made him a creature of habit. Procedure was firmly imprinted on his psyche. Every bit of gear was stowed in its place and lashed in proper enough to pass any inspection. That even included the SAR buoy that Martha insisted he carry anytime he was to be out in the boat. She read some Readers’ Digest story about survivors of a sailboat sinking in the South Pacific, of how they were rescued when satellites pinpointed the location of their SAR buoy. Ever since, she insisted he carry one, along with the big thermos of hot coffee she always climbed out of bed to fix for him. Never mind that he was in Puget Sound and would never be more than a couple of miles from land. Or that he could easily stop by Miranda’s Bait and Grub and fill his thermos with the 30-weight java they sold there.

  He stowed the buoy and the big thermos and smiled. Bless her. She had waved ‘bye to him from plenty of piers and wharves all over the world. The least he could do was humor her nowadays when he left her for only a few hours, instead of for a few months.

  He paused for a moment, as he always did, to admire his boat. Jankowski had built it himself, carefully selecting the oak ribs and cedar hull planking one piece at a time. The teak brightwork was his particular joy. It reminded him of the brightwork on the Missouri, the pride of the fleet when he served aboard her. Yep, she was a beauty all right.

  It was still totally dark as Jankowski cast off the lines to the pier and headed out from East Cromwell, through the Hale Passage, into Carr Inlet. Three hours to sunrise. He should be able to get in some good fishing before the sun came up. His buddies back at Miranda’s reported the salmon fishing was especially good up by the old Navy sound lab on Fox Island. He decided he might as well try there first. At least it was deserted and nobody would shoo him away.

  He pointed the boat that way and reached for Martha’s thermos of coffee.

  The air temperature inside Spadefish's reactor compartment was normally 160 degrees. That was too hot for anyone to go inside there to work on anything. The space was locked shut anyway. The radiation levels would kill anyone who spent any time in there with the reactor critical. Thirty years of such intense temperatures and high radiation had taken their toll on the equipment. Metals weakened, plastics hardened, insulation broke down as a matter of course.

  With the old girl running all out, heat and radiation inside the compartment were at their highest. If something were going to fail, it would happen then. The main coolant valve position sensor that Dave Kuhn had repaired weeks earlier had been manufactured five years before the engineer was born. It was installed in Spadefish's reactor system the same year he learned to walk.

  The shellac insulating the transformer had done all it could do. A final bit of the stuff melted away and the coils of wires shorted together. There was a brief puff of smoke and the indicator failed.

  Bert Waters, the reactor operator, saw the green “valve-open” light flicker out a millisecond before the siren blasted in his ear. The red “reactor scram” light flashed brightly in his face, demanding his attention. Every needle
on the myriad of gauges in front of him started moving chaotically.

  Walters jumped up and shouted, "Reactor scram! Loss of open indication in the port loop! Shifting main coolant pumps to ‘one slow’ in starboard, shutting port steam stop."

  His hands moved wildly across the reactor control panel as his eyes took in every bit of information he could glean from the rapidly dancing needles in front of him.

  Scott Frost had been taking a swallow of coffee when the alarm blared just inches above his left ear. The cup fell to the deck and rolled out the maneuvering room door, instantly forgotten. He glanced for the barest instant at the reactor control panel and saw lights flash on, telling him the control rods were all on the bottom of the reactor. The reactor was shut down. It wasn't making any more heat but they were still drawing steam at an alarming rate. Steam that would be vital to get them started back up again.

  Frost grabbed the big chrome “Ahead” throttle and spun it with all his might. The howl of steam roaring down the twelve-inch pipes just overhead to satisfy the demands of the wide-open main engine throttles was silenced. Frost reached over and flipped the engine order telegraph to the “All Stop” position.

  Chris Durgan jumped from his seat behind Waters and stared wide-eyed for a second, startled by the sudden noise and activity. He knew what he had to do. With his heart in his throat, he reached up and behind him for the 7MC microphone. He keyed the button and yelled his command.

  "Reactor scram! Answering ‘All Stop!’ Request casualty assistance team lay aft."

  The reactor temperature had been dropping unbelievably fast. It slowed some, but it was still cooling too fast. The electrical operator turned a couple of large rheostats and shifted electrical power to the battery. That helped some.

  Steve Friedman grabbed the 1MC microphone behind the periscope stand.

  "Reactor scram! Rig ship for reduced electrical! Casualty assistance team lay aft. Prepare to snorkel!"