“They’re better than nothing, and if you get free then you can use the edge around the hole on it to cut through these things.”
“Ouch! What are you doing?”
“She’s working on your plastic, sir. Just sit there and let our Commander do her thing. You’ll have a great story to tell when we get back to the squadron.”
For the next few hours, Early nibbled on the plastic between mouthfuls of water. They stopped for a couple of hours when their captors arrived with the evening meal. It was hard to tell what time it was. Their watches had been taken the day they had been captured, and the meals the silent captors provided were always the same light soup with bread thrown on the deck.
Early was about to quit. Her jaws and neck hurt. Her teeth hurt, too, and the warm iron-like taste of blood told her she had ripped her gums doing this. She was tired. Two more tries and then she was going to hang it up for the night and get some sleep. Maybe tomorrow she would be more successful.
Early leaned forward and bit into the plastic. Getting a grip on it between her front teeth, she shook her head back and forth, hoping the movement simulated a sawing motion. Suddenly, part of the plastic gave way, a strip of it ripping her lip as it sprung apart. The pain brought tears to her eyes.
“I felt that,” Kelly said. “I felt something give.”
Early leaned back, breathing heavy and trying to stop the bleeding with her tongue. the Senior Chief Leary wiggled forward on his hips and leaned toward Kelly’s hands for a better look.
“Shit, man. There’s only a thin strip of plastic holding those things together. Try to pull them apart.”
“I don’t know—”
“Lieutenant, try to pull them apart,” the older man said, a slight trace of urgency in his voice.
Kelly pulled.
“Come on, Lieutenant! You gotta put some strength about it. If you ain’t gonna try, then it ain’t gonna break.”
Early leaned against the bulkhead. Her strength was gone. She had spent hours with the Senior Chief and at least the same amount of time with Kelly. This had better work. Scott had his head down, and she could see from the movement of his shoulders that he was trying to break free. She also saw when he stopped.
“It’s not working,” he said.
“Here,” Senior Chief said, sliding forward. “Push your hands out behind you as far as you can. I’m going to slide forward and put my feet between your arms. Then, you’re gonna pull while I push your arms apart with my legs.”
Kelly raised his arms as high as he could.
“Lean forward, Lieutenant. That’ll take those arms a little higher.”
He did as the Senior Chief ordered.
“Now straighten up, Lieutenant.”
Kelly raised himself. The space between his arms slid over the Senior Chief’s boots with his tied hands stopping near the top of Leary’s ankles.
“This is gonna hurt, Lieutenant, because I’m gonna use my legs to push your hands apart. At the same time, you’ve gotta pull your hands apart. Together we might be able to break the plastic.”
Early opened her mouth to say something about the possibility of this effort dislocating Kelly’s shoulders, but realized they had no choice.
“It can’t hurt any worse than it already does, Senior Chief.”
“Think of it as visit to the dentist, Scott,” Early offered through deep breaths. “Pain for a few seconds and then it’s over.”
“A few seconds! What dentist you been going to?”
“On the count of three, we push and pull,” Leary said. “One, two, three…”
Grunts from both men filled the compartment, over-riding the low monotonous vibration of the ship’s engine. Early held her breath and mentally crossed her fingers. This had to work. This was their only chance. She glanced at the small window in the hatch. If someone happened along now, there was no way the two men could separate, and this single opportunity to escape would be gone. They knew their captors would kill them rather than be bothered with them trying to escape.
A sharp twang caused Early to jump. Kelly was falling forward. Both hands of the copilot came around to break his fall, but they didn’t make it past his shoulders. They flapped uselessly by his side. Kelly continued forward, his cheek bouncing once off the metal deck. He was free. She glanced toward the small porthole, expecting to see a face. But no one was there. The faint light continued to shine into the compartment. Kelly pulled himself up with his legs and stomach muscles. The copilot used his shoulders to flop his arms, one at a time, into his lap. He moaned, “Christ! This hurts.”
“It’s the blood returning, Lieutenant. Give it a few minutes and keep trying to move those fingers. It’ll hasten the—”
“My left hand,” Kelly muttered, staring down at his twitching hands.
The man’s right hand was free of the plastic handcuff. The remnants of that half hung from the remaining portion still pulled tightly around the man’s left wrist.
“You’re free.”
Kelly looked down at his left wrist. “I think we pulled it tighter when we broke it.”
“No time for that, Lieutenant,” the Senior Chief said. “Untie my flight boot and take my dog tag off the shoe lace.”
Kelly moved forward. “Damn,” he said softly, scrunching his eyes shut. “Damn! That hurts!” He waved his right hand back and forth, forcing his hand into a loose fist. He reached over and squeezed his left hand a couple of times, then looked up at Early and the Senior Chief. “They’re not working,” he said in a high voice.
“Keep squeezing your hands, Scott. They’ve been tied up for a few days. Give the blood a chance to circulate and you’ll be okay in a few minutes.”
“Meanwhile, Lieutenant,” the Senior Chief said. “Start getting that dog tag off my flight boot before someone comes along.”
Kelly shook his head. “With what, Senior Chief? These fingers? I can only wiggle them.”
Early leaned over, grabbed the end of a shoelace with her teeth and pulled it. The knot came loose easily.
“Thanks, boss, but I was thinking of Lieutenant Kelly untying it.”
Kelly reached over and, with fingers returning to life, pulled the laces through the holes until the dog tag fell away, the sound of metal hitting metal as it bounced off the compartment deck. “I didn’t even feel that.”
“I’ve been meaning for about a month to take a file and shave off the sharp edges from where maintenance had bored that hole for me. Just never got around to it, and it seemed the only time I remembered to do it was when tying my boots and the damn thing would prick me.”
Kelly squeezed his hand together in a tight fist. “I think I’ve got some feeling.”
They looked at the copilot’s right hand. Even in the low light, the hand had a pinkish color to it. The left hand had turned blue. Freeing Kelly had pulled the cuff on the left hand too tight, cutting off circulation completely. Early knew they had to free that hand quickly before the lack of blood permanently damaged it, if it wasn’t already permanently damaged after four days of these damn things.
It took two tries before Kelly was able to pick up the dog tag. He ran his fingers over the hole where the shoelace had been threaded. “Yeah, it’s sharp,” he said, holding the dog tag between his finger and thumb while he briefly sucked the cut on the knuckle of the finger.
“Lieutenant, you gotta get that other half off your left wrist ASAP!” the Senior Chief said urgently, keeping his voice low. “If you don’t, you ain’t gonna have a left hand.”
“And if I don’t free you, my left hand will be the least of our worries.”
“Scott, take a moment and cut your left hand free. You’ll work better with two hands.”
He opened his mouth as if to protest and then shut it as if he knew he would lose an argument with Early. A minute later, the sharp edges on the dog tag cut through the remaining cuff, freeing the left hand.
“Get the Senior Chief next, Scott.”
Kelly crawled
forward on his knees, dragging his still-useless left hand, but already Early could see the blue being replaced by a pink tint as blood flowed back into the limb. The Senior Chief turned so his hands faced the copilot. Several minutes later Leary was free, rubbing his wrists as Kelly worked on Early. She watched as Leary rubbed his hands together, muttering to himself as he worked to get the blood flowing freely through them.
“Ouch,” she said when the sharp edge of the dog tag nicked her wrist.
“Sorry.”
“They’re coming back,” Leary said, holding up his hands and making loose fists with them. “Yeah, they’re coming back.” He looked at the hatch. “Now, assholes, let’s see how you like these hands untied.”
Early’s hands fell apart at the same moment a face in the porthole obscured the light from the compartment. The three captives stopped what they were doing, staring at the face as its eyes squinted. Then the face disappeared.
“He may be opening the door,” Early suggested.
“No, ma’am. I don’t think they can see in here when they look. Ain’t enough light. I think they just look because someone told them to. They’re so dumb that they don’t know what they’re supposed to be looking for.” Senior Chief Leary leaned back against the bulkhead and, using his feet, forced himself upright.
Early watched as the senior chief’s hands fought to close into a fist. The pain must have been excruciating, for his wrists had been tied a lot tighter than hers. The tingling of blood rushing through her hands tickled at first and then as feeling returned it brought with it pain across her shoulders, down her arms, and in her hands. She blinked away the tears from the pain. “Damn,” she said in a low voice.
“It ain’t pleasant,” Leary offered as he rubbed his hands together. “You two, stop looking at your hands and rub them together. Squeeze them into fists. It ain’t gonna be pleasant, but the alternate is less so.”
Early followed the Senior Chief’s direction, even though as her hands rubbed against each other, it was as if they were touching someone else’s. She could see them entwined but could barely feel them. Minutes later, the pain seemed to ease. For a brief moment, several tears flowed down her cheeks, not from the pain but from realizing they at least had a chance. A poor one, but if you’re going to die, then any chance is a good one. Their captors were planning to kill them. To believe otherwise was to overlook past events. If they were going to die then at least they could go down fighting. She recalled her father telling her after September 11th that deep within each American burned that spark of bravery that, once stirred, rose and burned with patriotic fever. The war on terrorism, now in its twelfth year, had revealed one startling difference between the United States and countries such as Britain and Israel in the fight against terrorism. Other countries took out individuals; America took out whole countries.
“Eventually they are going to bring us more water and food. When they do, that’s when we do it.”
“Do it?” Kelly asked, looking at the Senior Chief.
“Yes sir. Here is what I suggest…”
* * *
Tucker walked softly up the stairs leading to the observation room at the top of the tower. He had been unable to sleep, and after tossing and turning for most of the night, he had finally reached over, pushed the clock alarm off, and rolled out of bed, knocking over the neatly aligned combat boots. This new pair he would have to break in. The other pair was sitting near a radiator drying out. Three-thirty.
A dark compartment greeted him at the top of the stairs. He didn’t know why he expected the tower to be manned. The green glow of a radarscope drew his attention. During the daylight hours, a rubber eyepiece shielded the scope, but at night, the green glow helped light the darkened compartment. Rain drummed against the windows with rising and falling intensity. When it slackened for a second or two, Tucker could see the faint lights of the distant shore that made up Hampton Roads.
Tucker set down the cup of hot coffee. A gray color when he’d put in the instant creamer told him the coffee had been there for quite a while. The First Class manning the quarterdeck had mumbled apologies but hadn’t offered to make any fresh. And Tucker hadn’t felt up to doing it himself.
He crossed to the set of windows overlooking the piers beneath. Bright harbor lights lit the double piers running at a ninety-degree angle to the dock. As he watched, MacOlson emerged from the shadows near the end of the first pier and with his leading Boatswain Mate walked along it, checking the lines. Both men had a hand across their hats, holding them against the wind.
He had been gratified to hear that the young sailor he had rescued was going to live. The man had drunk a lot of harbor water — and from what he’d heard, that alone should have been enough to kill him. If it hadn’t been for his quick action and Sam’s emergency medical attention, the young man would be in a plastic bag somewhere waiting for the chaplains to knock on his parents’ door somewhere back in middle America. For that he was very thankful.
Tucker took a sip of the old coffee, grimacing at the heavy tannin taste caused by the after-perc drippings through old coffee grounds. He made a note to himself to tell the watch to remove the grounds after the coffee was made and then, just as quickly, told himself that it wouldn’t be appreciated by the enlisted troops who had to make it. Sometimes leadership meant leaving well-enough alone. Nothing was ever perfect. Not even Sam.
It had surprised him to discover the two of them in each other’s arms after the ambulance departed with the sailor. Was this moving too fast? She was attractive. He enjoyed her company and looked forward to the times they were together. She must feel the same way, otherwise why would she travel all the way down from Washington in weather such as this? Of course, she said it was because she was detached to Portsmouth Naval Hospital as part of Bethesda’s ready-response team, but did he really believe that? It raised another question — if he doubted her telling him the truth, then why was he so happy when they were together? The life of a Navy SEAL wasn’t a safe, honeymoon-making life.
He let out a very audible sigh.
“It’s nights like these that really make me glad to have made the Navy my life,” said someone from the other side of the tower, startling Tucker.
He looked to where the voice came from as a captain’s chair twirled on its single stanchion, revealing Commodore West.
“Sorry, Commodore, I didn’t know you were up here.”
West crawled down from his chair and made his way over to where Tucker stood. His head came up to Tucker’s shoulder. Tucker had the height on West, but the Commodore had the width.
“Sometimes you can do your best thinking up here. I sent John home to check on his family. Me? I’m a widower and this is my home,” he said, waving his hand around the compartment. “This, the small building I call headquarters about a mile from here, and those sailors down there who man those six boats.”
Tucker picked up his coffee.
“Anyone who’d drink quarterdeck coffee at this time of the night is a brave man, Commander Raleigh.”
“It is terrible, but it’s the only drink in town.”
West nodded. “Sometimes the only drink in town isn’t worth the effort. Now, why are you really up here, Commander?”
“Couldn’t sleep, sir. Thought I’d come up and see what was going on.”
West took a couple of steps to the table that occupied the center of the tower. “Not too much so far. The storm has slowed its approach from twenty-five knots to fifteen and started the slow curve northward away from us. Winds are still fluctuating between sixty-five and seventy knots. Hasn’t crossed that magical seventy-two knots for any length of time to where the National Weather Service could change its designation to a hurricane.”
Tucker joined the Commodore at the table. “Any news from Admiral Holman, sir?”
West shook his head. “Last intelligence report we got showed no contact. Joint Task Force America has turned back to the East Coast. Joint Chiefs of Staff are concerned that
we may have acted in haste in deploying the fleet toward Europe based on a less than fully evaluated report by the missing Recce Flight 62.” Commodore West chuckled. “Admiral Holman is going to have to sail through this tropical storm on his way back. Don’t envy him one bit.” West glanced up for a moment at Tucker before returning his gaze to the chart taped down to the old metal table. He tapped the chart a couple of times with his finger. “They’re having slightly less of a problem with the weather on his side of the Atlantic than we are here. According to another message I read, we, the British, French, Portuguese, and, I think, the Spanish also will be able to launch our maritime patrol aircraft tomorrow. With luck they will regain contact with the freighter that Recce Flight sixty-two reported before it disappeared.”
“How is the rescue operation going for the P-3, Commodore?”
The shorter officer cinched his teeth for a moment as he shook his head. “It isn’t. We haven’t been able to put aircraft out for the past forty-eight hours. With the storm turning away, my fine friend at Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico — Admiral Sagan — intends to recommence searching at daybreak.” He looked at his watch. “Which should be right about now for Puerto Rico.”
“I hope they made it.”
“We always hope they made it, whenever a plane crashes, even when we’re standing on the deck of a carrier and see the aircraft disappear beneath the bow. You always hope they survive even when you know there is little to no hope. It’s hard to accept mortality, especially your own. I think I was in my mid-forties when…”
Tucker nodded. The forlorn voice of the Commodore told more than his words. The man was speaking from experience; what experience, Tucker wondered. No one completes a full career in the military without encountering death at least once. Tucker could tell the older mustang officer would do more than what was expected if it meant saving sailors. There is a phenomenon in the Navy where you transition from being a member of the Navy to becoming part of it. No one could really tell you how long you had to serve in the Navy for that subtle transition to occur, or even how to recognize it, but standing here beside him was one of those who considered the Navy his. Tucker didn’t. For him, he worked for the Navy — a Navy he truly enjoyed. The Commodore mentioned Sam, disrupting Tucker’s thoughts, bringing awareness back to the senior officer who stood beside him.
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