Seaghost

by William H. Lovejoy

  “How’s the knee?”

  “Hurts like hell. You’re going to get a stack of medical bills, too.”

  They stood up, and Daimler tested his weight on his knee. He could hobble along, but he, too, had lost his shoes. Unlike McCory’s feet, Daimler’s were no longer accustomed to barefooting it on alien surfaces. Ted Daimler’s feet were normally encased in lovingly hand-fitted leather appropriate to a Washington, D.C. attorney, who acquired large fees for introducing one set of influential people to another set of influential people.

  Daimler looked daggers at him.

  “Okay, I’ll spring for a pair of Reeboks, too.”

  “Those maybe you can afford.”

  With Daimler leaning on him, the two of them worked their way along the dock toward the boats. As outside the building, there was a lot of equipment parked on or bolted to the pier. Winches, bollards, welders, lathes, drill presses. Set against the walls were large, metal-clad cabinets that McCory guessed were ovens and casting machines. Everything inside the building was clean and appeared to be well maintained.

  There were two boats backed into the slip, moored one behind the other on the right finger of the pier.

  They appeared identical from the exterior view.

  McCory’s practiced eye measured each of them at forty-four feet in length and about fourteen feet in width. Exactly as on the preliminary drawings. The bow was blunt, curving in abruptly from the sides, sharply angled toward the back and downward on the lower side. Along the gunwale edges, the deck also curved downward to meet the sides of the hull, the stern, and the bow. There wasn’t a sharp angle visible. No railings, no safety lines. Chocks and bitts were countersunk into the deck, hidden when sliding doors were closed over them.

  There was no cockpit and no apparent cabin.

  Instead, from the stern forward, the deck angled upward, curving to level at midships, flowing forward, then rolling into the compound-curved, black Plexiglas windshield eight feet back from the bow. Along the sides, more curved, black Plexiglas had been molded into the plastic sides. The sun would not reflect off of those windows, and nothing of the interior could be seen through them.

  Nothing protruded from the sleek surface. No radio or radar antennae, no stanchions, no masts. The top of the craft was almost level with the dock, making its above-surface profile about five feet above waterline.

  The night-lights sixty feet up didn’t provide much illumination, but there was enough to tell that the boats were finished in a flat medium blue that seemed to absorb light. On a sunny day at sea, they would be all but invisible. On a cloudy day, they would also blend into the ocean.

  And that was the idea.

  “It is a fucking boat, isn’t it, Mac? I mean, I’m just taking a wild guess.”

  “Sure enough.”

  “Not a sub?”

  “Wasn’t planned that way.”

  “How’d you know it was here?”

  “Article in The Washington Post. There’s nothing like a hungry reporter delving into the Pentagon’s secrets, Ted. They’re better at revealing classified data than the KGB. They even had a fuzzy picture of it, taken during sea trials.”

  “And you liked it, huh?”

  “Hell, the minute I saw it, I knew it was mine.”

  Daimler gave him a look that McCory knew was searching for his sanity.

  “Not mine, really. It belonged to Devlin.”

  “Your dad?” Daimler was beginning to get the picture. The attorney had met Devlin first in 1972.

  “That’s right. He called it the SeaGhost.”

  “What does the Navy call it?”

  “I’m dammed if I know. X-twenty-two, I think.”

  “So now you’ve seen it,” Daimler said. “What do we do about it?”

  “I’m going to take it home.”

  “Bullshit.”

  McCory shook his head. “Nope. And I’m going to get myself a few spare parts, too.”

  He pointed to the far corner of the building where three oddly shaped gray blobs rested on wheeled dollies.

  Daimler sighed. “I’m not going to be surprised anymore. What are those?”

  “Engines. They’re made from ceramic castings.”

  “No shit? No radar echo?”

  “You got it, my friend.”

  McCory left Daimler standing on the dock, walked past the bow of the first boat until he found the hatchway, then sat down and dangled his feet just above the curved outer gunwale. Leaning way out, he was able to reach a recessed latch and pop it open. The hatch rose with hydraulic silence, like the doors on a classic Gull-wing Mercedes. Reaching out with his left foot, he wrapped his toes around the surgical rubber weather stripping at the bottom of the doorway, then pushed off the dock.

  The interior wasn’t laid out quite like he had expected. A short, steep flight of three steps took him down to the inside deck level. He was in a narrow cross passage with another hatch on the starboard side. Several coiled lines hung on the bulkheads on either side, secured by Velcro loops. A couple of flashlights and two fire extinguishers were also mounted on the bulkhead. He noticed they were made of plastic. Midway across the corridor, there was a door leading aft and a corridor leading forward. The overhead was low, barely two inches above McCory’s six-two stance.

  Dropping his vinyl bag on the deck, McCory tried the door. It opened easily, and he felt around until he found a light switch.

  Flipped it. Bright light from several recessed overhead and bulkhead bulbs.

  Cargo bay.

  Or weapons bay. It depended upon the mission for which the boat was outfitted. Somebody was testing this boat as a weapons platform. Part of the cargo bay was taken up with a collapsed missile launch platform of some kind. Locked into racks along both sides were about forty slim, short missiles. They didn’t look like any missile he had ever seen before.

  Oh well. Something new to play with.

  There was a control panel next to the light switch, protected by a clear plastic door. Opening the door, he located a toggle identified as “CRGO DRS” and flipped it upward. He heard the repetitive clicks of bolts being drawn, then the decking above him began to lift. The whine of electric hydraulic pumps could be heard. The molded plastic doors each served as half of the outer deck and opened initially like the clamshell doors of the space shuttle, then slid downward into recesses between the hull and the cargo bay’s inner lining.

  He went back through the corridor and scrambled up onto the dock.

  “You’re actually going to do this?”

  “Damned right.”

  “I’m an unwitting accessory,” the lawyer told him. “Jesus! Grand theft, boat. Boats. Let’s count mine. Classified DOD secrets. Probably traitorous activities. Conspiracy. When the rookie lawyers at Justice get done with me, I won’t have anything left. Won’t need it in maximum security, though.”

  “You worry too much,” McCory said.

  “I’d worry less if I’d never met you.”

  “Go on aboard, and see if you can figure out how we start her.”

  While Daimler grimaced and shuffled his way aboard, McCory went to the far corner and moved two dollies out to the edge of the dock. The strange engines were big, about twice the size of a Caterpillar diesel, but flattened, the major component standing about sixteen inches high. They appeared to be complete, with compressor, starter, pumps, tubing, and other accessories already attached. A wiring harness led to a black box resting on top of each engine. That would be the controlling computer. The design was similar to that of the Wankel rotary engine, which McCory expected. They were rotary engines, though they were fueled by diesel. They were also heavy as hell, requiring a great deal of effort to get each dolly underway, then just about as much effort to stop it before it went over the edge of the dock.

  Fortunately, he had powered assistance available. An electrically driven block and tackle, suspended from an overhead track, was parked near the wall. McCory grabbed the cable, moved it out from the w
all, snapped its hook into a lifting yoke attached to the first engine, then pressed the lift button on the suspended control box. The electric winch whined, the engine lifted clear of the dolly and of the foot-high exposed edge of the cargo door, and he pushed it gently out over the cargo bay.

  Daimler emerged into the hold and guided the descent clear of the missile launcher to the far, starboard side of the bay, then disengaged the hook. The boat settled in the water a little, canted to starboard. Six minutes later, they had the second engine loaded and the boat back on an even keel. McCory walked back to the tall metal shelves in the corner, picked up a couple of empty cardboard boxes, and began filling them with odds and ends from the shelves. He didn’t know what he was grabbing, since they were in clear plastic bags identified only with part numbers, but he wanted at least two of each — gaskets, seals, bearings, valves, solenoids, filters, and the like. He had to get another box when he ran into sets of large turbine blades that appeared to have been cast in carbon-impregnated plastic. Then he reboarded to stow the boxes and help Daimler rope the engines in place, tying them down to nylon loops sunken into the deck.

  As McCory was closing the cargo hatches, Daimler asked, “You realize, of course, that this son of a bitch is armed? With missiles?”

  “Yeah, I saw that.”

  Daimler shook his head sadly. “Now we can leave?”

  “Now we can leave.”

  McCory went back to the pier to release three of the four mooring lines, then walked out to the end of the dock, looking for the switches controlling the roll-up door.

  He found them easily enough and was about to try a momentary test, checking on the noise level, when he heard an outboard motor.

  He froze in place, listening, but the sound died away, replaced by the whir of an electric motor and the whistle of moving air as Daimler blew the bilges.

  Pressing the UP button, McCory raised the door six feet, just enough for clearance, then stopped it. He walked back to the SeaGhost, released the last line, then stepped aboard and closed the hatch.

  In the corridor leading forward, he found a small storage compartment, opposite a narrow head that included a shower. Forward of those spaces were two tiny cabins, each with two bunks stacked against the outside bulkhead. Storage drawers were built-in under the lower bunks. A pair of narrow hanging lockers were the only other amenities in each of the cabins.

  The main cabin was dimly lit with red light. It contained a small galley and a banquette-type booth on the port side, aft, and a complicated radio console and a desk on the starboard side. Daimler was in the helmsman’s seat, a heavily cushioned, gray Naugahyde, bucket-type seat bolted to the deck. It was located on the starboard side behind an ultra-tech instrument panel with an amazing array of red and blue digital readouts. Opposite the helm side were two more of the bucket seats, situated behind electronic consoles mounted in the forward bulkhead. Vision through the tinted windows was good forward and to the sides but blind toward the stern.

  The boat rocked a little, and McCory could see that they were drifting away from the pier. He looked around again at all of the electronics and estimated that there was a couple hundred thousand dollars tied up in the SeaGhost. Hell, he thought, given that it was the Department of Defense, double the dollar estimate.

  He began to have doubts about what he was doing but quickly brushed them aside.

  “I’m going to try ’em,” Daimler said.

  “Go.”

  The lawyer hit an ignition switch, but McCory didn’t hear anything.

  “That one’s alive,” Daimler said.

  “You’re shitting me.” McCory leaned over his shoulder, found a blue readout labeled “PORT RPM,” and saw that it was registering 825.

  Daimler started the starboard engine, and the RPM indicator quickly came to life on that one, too. McCory became aware of a minute vibration in the deck, just a shiver under his bare feet.

  “They’re jets, Mac.”

  “I thought they would be.” The propulsion system sucked water from vents in the lower hull, channeled it through the rotary engine-driven turbines, and streamed it out the transom through steerable nozzles.

  Daimler crawled out of the seat and moved to the port side. “I don’t know from jets, Mac. You run it. Besides, you have to remember that I’m a hostage.”

  McCory grinned at him and dropped into the seat. He found that the throttles were the two longest of four short levers mounted in the front of the right armrest. The two outboard, short levers were marked for “Forward” and “Neutral.” Beyond those controls were two even shorter levers marked “Reverse.” He suspected that they would drop cuplike devices over the jet nozzles, channeling the thrust forward.

  He tried the throttles and ran the RPMs up to 4000. The result was a baritone whine rising from the stern quarters. The power-rumble of a typical V-8 was absent.

  Pulling the throttles back, McCory slapped the shift levers into forward, then eased the throttles back in.

  The SeaGhost responded immediately and headed for the gap under the overhead door. They slid under the door, into the thin light from shore-based lamps, and McCory felt free.

  As soon as he was clear of the pier, he pushed the throttles forward some more. The boat reacted, leaped forward.

  “Jesus Christ!” Daimler shouted.

  McCory squinted his eyes and saw the rubber boat in the darkness.

  Just as he hit it.

  Chapter 3

  0611 hours, CINCLANT, Norfolk, Virginia

  It was a few minutes after six in the morning in Norfolk, Virginia, and the dawn mist had already burned off. The sun was up, casting its rays through the partially opened slats of the Venetian blinds in Admiral Bingham Clay’s office. The gray carpet was striped in sun, as were Commander James Monahan’s khaki-clad legs.

  Monahan sat in one of two low chairs on either side of a matching couch, self-consciously rubbing his cheeks with the fingers of his right hand. He had not shaved very well in the sleepy moments after he got the call to report. There was a minor forest of stubble below his left ear. The day was shaping up badly. He was supposed to have a three-day weekend, he and Mona and the boys going over to Fredericksburg.

  A rear admiral, a captain, and a lieutenant commander took up the rest of the conversational seating. The diminutive Admiral Clay, commander of the Atlantic Fleet, sat in his tall swivel chair behind a teak desk the size of an aircraft carrier. A large model of an F-18 Hornet was parked in one corner of the desk.

  Clay was talking to Admiral Aaron Stein, who headed the U.S. Navy Ship Research and Development Center. The conversation was amplified over the telephone’s speaker and shared with the visitors.

  “Hit me with it again, Aaron; my people are all here, now. Some civilian boat has been sunk?”

  “It’s worse than that. Both of the Sea Spectres are gone, Bing. Vanished.”

  “They can’t be.”

  “They are.”

  “Shit. What did the Antelope recover?”

  “No bodies yet, if that’s what you mean. But we’ve got lots of fiberglass and cushions, and we’ve got a registration number. We’re tracing the owner now.”

  “As if that’s going to lead us anywhere. Any media people show up yet?”

  “No, and I’m not holding any press conferences, Bing. Hell, if it hadn’t been for that Post story, nobody would have known about the Sea Spectres. The damned Air Force kept the F-117 Stealth fighter buried for seven years.”

  “Yes, well, that’s history, Aaron. We’ve got to…”

  “Hold on, Bing. My exec just came in.”

  Clay wiped his hand across his eyes. They were reddened and droopy. The admiral had been called away from his bed early, too. Clay was only five feet, six inches tall, but he had the presence of a six-footer. His build was blocky, with a strong torso always clad in an immaculate uniform. Monahan could picture him at sea, in the middle of a Force 10 typhoon, every crease in place. He had hard, dark eyes under thick gr
ay eyebrows that matched the iron in his hair. Rusty iron, as the original red hung on for as long as it could. There were a lot of lines in his face, brought on by weather, worry, and the weight of command.

  Stein came back. “Now we’ve got a body, Bing.”

  “Damn! That’s just great. It’s going to be difficult to keep it quiet now. Civilian?”

  “Yeah, but get this. My people recovered the body off Pier Nine, not at the site of the sunken boat.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right. And we’ve also got a sunken Zodiak.”

  “What’s going on, Aaron?”

  “Damned if I know. I’ve got Navy Intelligence on the way over here from suitland.”

  Monahan was not so sure that would help matters. He knew some people who belonged to the NIS, and he had yet to be impressed.

  “Any ID on the body?”

  “None. It’s been mangled pretty good. And Captain Melchor tells me it appears to be of Latin heritage, or possibly Middle Eastern.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not now. I’ll keep you posted.”

  Clay leaned forward and cut off the phone. Resting his elbows on the arms of his chair, he pursed his lips and swiveled his chair toward the couch. “Gentlemen?”

  Rear Admiral Matthew Andrews, who headed the Second Fleet’s intelligence arm, said, “Seems to me, Bing, the bigger boat brought the Zodiak in from somewhere. They may have intended to scuttle the larger craft but blew it up as a diversion when the Antelope spotted them. After they transferred to the Zodiak.”

  “Perhaps, Matt. Check it out. What about the body?”

  Andrews shrugged. “Accident? Discord within the group? Who knows.”

  “Okay,” Clay said. “I want you to get in touch with Defense Intelligence, the CIA, and the FBI. Let’s see what they know about any group who would be interested in having their own Sea Spectres. What’s the mission for them, Jim?”

  Monahan sat up straighter. “Night assault and reconnaissance, Admiral. The prototypes use stealth technology. The RCS — radar cross section — is so thin, the boat has to be within a couple miles of a heavy duty radar to be picked up. And then on the screen, it looks like a sea gull at rest. Sonar can ping it, but by the time it does, it’s probably too late. During daylight hours, they can be spotted visually, but at night, they’re all but invisible.”