One Man's Island

by Thomas J. Wolfenden

  “I wouldn’t in his position either. With this weather blowing up, it’d be a fool’s errand anyway.”

  “That’s true, sir.”

  “Is there anything else?”

  “Well, sir, I’ve been thinking.... Why didn’t we just stay at Pearl and make the repairs?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the skipper was afraid of whoever was shooting at the landing party.”

  “That was some shit, eh?”

  “That it was. I asked the skipper why we were leaving, but he didn’t answer me. He just said to plot a course back to Midway.”

  “Ah shit, sir. There’s nothing there but fucking gooneybirds!”

  “I know, but that’s where he wants to go.”

  “Sir, I’ve got to ask about those missiles this morning. Where’d we fire them on?”

  “The captain thinks they were on Pearl Harbor and Honolulu. What he doesn’t know, won’t hurt him, right?” he said, raising his eyebrow.

  “Right, sir, he won’t hear it from me.”

  “Good. I targeted them for the jungle north of the city.”

  “What about the big explosion then?”

  “That was Hickam. I had to at least target something that would blow up spectacularly to make it look good.”

  “Good thinking, sir,” Suplee said, looking at the photo. “Do you think she’s still alive?”

  “I doubt it. Odds are too great to even begin to hope,” Johnson said, feeling terribly sad.

  “I was going to get married too, sir. Here’s a picture of her,” he said, pulling out his wallet, and offering up a photo of a skinny girl with stringy, bottle blonde hair, who was very pregnant. He looked at it for a minute, and handed the dog eared photo back. “She’s very pretty, Suplee.”

  “Jolene. She was my high school sweetheart. We’ve known each other since we were six years old.”

  “First time daddy?”

  “Yes, sir. It came as a surprise to us both,” he said smiling broadly, and then the smile quickly faded. “Sir, will everything ever get back to normal?”

  “Fuck if I know. I’d like to think so, but I see no end to this and no way to stop him,” he said, pointing overhead.

  “I saw this movie once, an old black and white job from long ago. That dude from Casablanca was in it, and played some nutty captain.”

  “The Caine Mutiny,” Ensign Johnson said, remembering the movie. “Humphrey Bogart.”

  “Yeah, that’s the one. The skipper reminds me of him. Being all crazy and shit, all he needs is those two little metal balls to play with all the time.”

  “So what are you thinking?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I thought you might have a few ideas.”

  “Well, do you think we could have a mutiny?”

  “Ah shit, sir, I don’t know…” He trailed off, looking at the deck.

  “Don’t think I haven’t thought of it. Especially after you told me what Stevens told you,” Johnson said, as the ship rose and fell violently and a shudder ran down the hull. “It’s definitely getting nautical tonight.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m remembering now why they call these ‘tin cans’.”

  “So let me ask you this, Suplee. Do you really think that just you and I can take over the ship?”

  “No,” he muttered.

  “Half the crew can’t speak English, and are quite happy to be going around the ocean spreading mayhem. And the skipper and Stevens have them so scared of anything else now, that they’ll follow them blindly. No, we can’t mutiny. If we did that, we might as well just go up to the deck and hang ourselves.”

  Suplee looked like he was about to throw up.

  “And why do you think the skipper won’t let us on any landing parties?”

  “Don’t know, sir. I wondered about that myself.”

  “It’s because he doesn’t trust us off the ship. We’re too valuable to him here on board, but he can’t take the chance we’d bolt. That would leave him with two less experienced sailors.”

  “So we’re just prisoners here?”

  Johnson nodded. “That’s exactly right. He’s just giving us the illusion of being free. We’re not. We might as well be slaves to him as far as he’s concerned.”

  “That goes against everything I was brought up to believe in, sir. I mean, what the fuck?”

  “He’s got us screaming across the Pacific now on some vengeful crusade. When Stevens locates all of those transmitters we’ll go and he’ll obliterate them.”

  “That’s insane!”

  “That it is.”

  “Mind if I smoke, sir?”

  “No, and give me one.”

  Suplee took out a pack of Marlboros and offered Johnson one. “I didn’t know you smoked, sir,” he said, lighting both smokes with a zippo lighter.

  “I quit a few years ago. Now seems like a good time to take it back up.” He took a deep drag and coughed a few times.

  “Sir, if you want, I can sabotage the radios.”

  “I thought of that too. They’d figure out at some point that it was one of us. Besides, once we get to Midway, Stevens will probably go over and use the huge

  transmitter there. You’ve seen all the antennas?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well there you go. It’d only be a temporary interruption, but in the long run they’ll still win.”

  “Shit, sir, I’ve never felt so helpless,” Suplee said, and the ship took another heavy roll to starboard.

  “Nor have I. We just have to go with the flow for now, and take an opportunity when we see it.”

  “When will that be, sir?”

  “I don’t know. It could be tomorrow, it could be next week, and it could be a few years.”

  “Ah fuck, sir. I don’t think I could stand this shit that long!”

  “Well, we’re going to have to. All we have is each other,” Johnson said, pointing at Suplee. “Don’t go gall squirrelly on me. I need you!”

  “Sir, every time I walk by the skipper’s cabin I hear that little girl whimpering, and I just want to vomit!”

  “I know. I feel the same way. We’ve just got to put on a face that they’ll like and hold it all in. We’ll get our chance, I just don’t know when.”

  “Okay, sir, if you say so.”

  “We have to, it’s the only hope we’ve got.”

  “The old man has the nukes. That scares me most of all.”

  “It scares me too,” Johnson said, a huge lump forming in his gut. The ship took another roll, this time to port. “I hope to hell that patch holds.”

  Suplee finished his smoke, looking around for somewhere to put it.

  “Here, use this,” Johnson said, handing over an empty soda can.

  “He still can’t use the nukes because he doesn’t have the codes, right?”

  “For now. He had Stevens get Nakamura working on it.”

  “Oh shit. Do you think he’ll be able to arm them?”

  “I don’t know. He is an industrious little fuck. He might just do it.”

  “That scares me even more.”

  “It does me too.”

  “So, do you think we’ll just stay in the Pacific? Not head back to the States at all?”

  “No, I think we’ll just stay here. I think the skipper got a little taste of what would await him if he went back to the States or out in the Atlantic. People on that side of the world are less likely to be cowed.”

  “Africa?”

  “Perhaps. No other First World nation though. Just like why we probably didn’t sail south to Australia. Anyone who is still alive with half a brain would tell him to get fucked and send him a lot of lead. Besides, sailing all the way to the Atlantic would take too long and use up too much fuel.”

  “What about the Panama Canal?”

  “No, that would probably be out. Even if it isn’t clogged with derelict ships, which it probably is, you’d need a whole crew just to run the locks. We’d have to sail around South Africa or South America. Take too
long, like I said. We’re stuck here by practicality. Besides, east of here there’s probably a lot of Asians, and once cowed, they’re easy to subjugate, or so the skipper thinks.”

  “So we’ll never see home again?”

  “I didn’t say that. Just that the skipper will probably want to stay in waters he feels comfortable in.”

  They felt the bow rise with another heavy swell, and when it slammed back down, they felt the shudder run through the hull, the vibrations of a ringing bell, then the ship heeled over again to port, worse this time.

  “Yeah, it’s nasty topside. I’ll bet no one sleeps a wink tonight.”

  “There’s already enough puke in the heads below. I’d better go and take another walkthrough,” he said, standing. “Thanks again for the talk, sir.”

  “Anytime, Suplee, and remember, we bide our time.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do. Do not go off and do anything stupid.”

  “Yes, sir. I won’t. I promise.”

  “Go on and get out of here. I’m going to try to get some sleep in this shit. You come to me if you find anything wrong, okay?”

  “Yes, sir,” Suplee said, walking out of the cabin, closing the door behind him. Johnson lay back down on his bunk and stared at the overhead for some time, sleepless, and it wasn’t because of the rough weather. Finally giving up after forty-five minutes, he stood and put his shoes back on, grabbed his hat and strapped back on his pistol, then headed out for a walkthrough himself. He made it through half the ship, and found nothing out of order, and he figured he was probably just following up Suplee, who would have made sure everything was secured. He wandered through an empty galley— the Indian women nowhere to be seen. He took another banana and ate as he walked along, grateful that at least they had fresh fruit.

  He got down to the crew’s berths and could already smell the vomit. He walked by one set of bunks in the red light and as soon as he passed, saw a man’s head appear from behind the curtain and vomit on the deck. The man wiped his mouth and went back into the bunk. Great, he thought. This place was really going to smell wonderful tomorrow morning. He’d have to get a gang together and swab out the whole place. The smell sickened him already. Heading further aft, he made his way to the hangar deck to where the helicopter was still tied down securely. That would be the last thing he needed, the explosion and tirade from the skipper if that tore from its moorings and was smashed against a bulkhead. He’d come unglued, and Johnson didn’t want to be anywhere near him if that happened.

  Everything checked alright here. He headed back forward through several passageways on the tossing ship, and heard several loud claps of thunder through the steel. He was passing the missile storage bay and he saw lights on through a half-open hatch that was swinging with the swells. He peered inside at Stevens and Nakamura hovering unsteadily over the access panel on one of the missiles still in its shipping crate. He stepped in and was still unnoticed, until he spoke up.

  “Stevens, what the hell do you think you are doing?” he asked, incredulously.

  The diminutive Japanese man looked up briefly, and went back to whatever it was he was doing.

  “Ensign Park…” he caught himself. “I mean Ensign Johnson. What brings you down here?”

  “I’m asking the questions, Stevens. What are you doing?”

  “What the skipper ordered, sir. He told me to get Nakamura here working on the warheads to see if he could arm them without the codes.”

  “In this weather? Are you completely insane? Use your fucking head. The ship’s being tossed around like a cork, and you’re here playing around with a nuclear weapon!” As if to emphasize his words, the ship crashed through another breaker so strong it threatened to rip the ship in two.

  “Sir,” Stevens said, patting the nosecone, “I give you the BGM109A tomahawk. It has a W80 thermonuclear warhead, with a nominal yield of 20 Kilotons, a lot bigger bang than the ones we dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, ain’t that right, Nakamura?” He looked down on the Japanese man, who looked up briefly, a dark cloud passing over his face, then he went back to working. He had a manual open in his lap and a screwdriver in his teeth.

  “That’s not funny, Stevens. And spare me the lecture on the weapon. I know full well what it’s capable of,” he said flatly, and his skin became cold and clammy looking at the white, smooth body of the missile, wishing he could throw them all overboard right now.

  “It won’t go off, sir,” Stevens said, still smiling.

  “Again, that’s not what I’m talking about, Stevens. Use that brain you have for once. What would happen if one of these broke loose from its shackles? Do you know how much that thing weighs? You both could be crushed!”

  “Oh fuck, sir. I didn’t think of that!”

  “I can see that. Now secure from this detail until we’re out of this weather.”

  “But the skipper said—”

  “I don’t care what the skipper said. This is too fucking dangerous. It can wait until we’ve got better weather. He says anything you tell him I ordered you to stop, and why. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir, right away, sir!” he said, but a dark look crossed over his face.

  “Do it now. Mr. Nakamura, you can get back to this when the weather clears. Head back to engineering so you can oversee things down there.”

  The little Japanese man looked relieved and gathered his tools, departing silently. Turning back to Stevens, Johnson gave a little sigh. “All I’m asking it to use your head. I know the skipper wants these armed. Fine, do it. I don’t care. But do it safely. Remember, we still don’t have a corpsman or a doctor. You get hurt bad, and you’re fucked.”

  “I wasn’t thinking, sir,” he said, and started to put the lid back on the shipping case.

  “Here, I’ll give you a hand with that.”

  After they were done, they exited the compartment, and Ensign Johnson secured the watertight hatch. Turning to Stevens, he asked, “Do you have anything else to do?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Head down to the goat locker and try to get some rest. We’ll have to get a work party together after the weather clears some and have a field day in the crew’s berths. There’s puke overflowing the scuppers down there.”

  Stevens cringed. “Yes, sir. Good night.”

  “Good night, Stevens,” he said, and continued to walk forward. He was only several yards forward on the same deck when he came across an East Indian man wearing a Nehru jacket and eating a sandwich. He was sitting on the deck in the middle of the passageway, eating away with no other sign that he was doing anything, and it struck him as odd.

  “Ah, Ensign Johnson, how are you this evening?” the smiling man asked. Johnson thought that he ought to get him trained up as a helmsman or something if this weather didn’t bother him. Even Johnson was starting to get a little ill from all the rolling and rocking.

  “I’m fine. And you?”

  “I am very, very good sir! You tell me, are we going to America soon?” ‘Very, very’ came out as ‘berry, berry’.

  “Sure, sometime soon we’ll be going to America. But not right now.”

  “Oh, that is most unfortunate. I look forward to going to America very, very much! You tell me about America?”

  “Not right now, maybe some other time. There are plenty of books in the ship’s library you can read in the meantime.”

  “Thank you! I will do that immediately!” the man said, standing up and walking away from him.

  Ensign Johnson watched him disappear down the passageway, and shook his head in disbelief. “I’m going crazy. I have to be,” he said, shaking his head and walking forward on a crazily pitching deck, he too looking like a drunken sailor…

  Chapter 13: Pass Interception

  Tim sat for a long time at the dinette table, the case lying before him. He brushed some dirt off the edges, but otherwise did nothing, just stared at it. Finally, he removed the ceramic ashtray with the Presidential Seal on it from one hi
s bellows pockets on his BDU pants and sat it down on the table in front of him.

  “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em,” he said, pulling out a pack of Winstons, and lighting a cigarette. “Don’t mind if I do, Mr. President!” he said. He sat back and scratched his forehead.

  “Dad, you’ve been sitting there for ages! What is it?” Robyn asked, exasperated.

  “This, young lady, is The Football,” he said, waving his hand over the case theatrically.

  “Doesn’t look like a football to me. Just looks like an old suitcase or something.”

  “Oh, but it’s not a football. It’s The Football. There is a difference.”

  “I don’t get it,” she said.

  Tim took a long drag of the cigarette, drummed his fingers on the case, and began to speak.

  “This here is what’s called The Football. Back in the bad old days of the Cold War, it was decided that only the President could order a nuclear strike. He had a list of codes to launch the strike, and he needed the codes and plans wherever he was. So they came up with a simple plan: An Army Warrant Officer would carry those codes with him, and follow the President everywhere he went. Even after the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union imploded, we still had thousands of nuclear weapons and he still controlled them.”

  “And?”

  “So this Army Warrant Officer had this,” he said, tapping on the scratched leather case, “and he went everywhere the President went. I think he even sat outside the Presidential shitter, while the Prez took a presidential dump.”

  “And you think that’s it?” she said.

  “That’s exactly what I think it is. They called it ‘The Football’.”

  “So why is it so important now?” she asked.

  “Well, if someone should get hold of this and have access to a laptop like mine, he could, in theory, launch a few nukes.”

  “That’s bad,” she said gravely.

  “That’s very, very bad.” At least she understood the gravity of it. He’d taught her history for a reason.

  “Those nukes sitting all over the world now are really quite harmless. But given the proper codes, you can arm them and launch them at anyone you want.”