Seaghost

by William H. Lovejoy

  He was on an operation, and attention was the last thing he needed, even in an airport restaurant.

  There hadn’t been many interesting operations in the last few years. Sometimes, it seemed like he’d become nothing more than an errand boy. He didn’t like the feeling, though the salary and the free time were acceptable.

  And he wasn’t a boy. Richard Chambers was fifty-one years old. He’d done his twenty years as a Special Forces trooper, rising to master sergeant, after a couple of demotions, before his retirement. If he cared about proving his competency in the Green Berets, he could point to a stack of blue, flat, cardboard boxes somewhere in his mother’s house that contained a Distinguished Service Medal, a couple of Silver Stars, three Bronze Stars, two Army Commendation Medals, four Purple Hearts, and a few other trinkets with his name engraved on the backs.

  He didn’t much care about the jewelry anymore. A Silver Star didn’t buy zilch. Greenbacks were better. He had become a little complacent, enjoying the restaurants around D.C. a bit more than he should have, lolling around his Arlington Heights condominium, taking long weekends at AMDI’s hospitality condo in Palm Springs.

  There were maybe fifteen pounds around his waist that shouldn’t be there. Otherwise, he was still fit enough. The shoulders and neck were as thick, hard, and strong as ever. His hair was a trifle longer than in his military days but still maintained in a brush cut. His cheeks and jaw were slightly padded with new flesh, but the hard angles of his cheekbones and the somewhat sunken sockets gave his hazel eyes a menacing appearance. His nose had been broken a couple of times and wasn’t quite lined up with the rest of his face. On the left side of his neck was a thin, angry white scar, the result of a 7.62 round that had passed a little close.

  Chambers wore thousand-dollar suits that were tailored to his six-four, 240-pound frame. This morning’s suit was a silver-gray with thin, dark red stripes, and as customary, he didn’t wear a tie. On the table beside his plate — wiped clean except for the sprig of parsley — was a thin leather portfolio. It contained all of the paperwork that Malgard had given him. There wasn’t much there.

  He had sent his carryon through Delta’s baggage check, because he didn’t want the magnetometer sounding off when he entered the concourse.

  Checking the time on the stainless steel Rolex strapped to his wrist, Chambers tossed a couple of bills on the table, stood up, and strolled back into the terminal. He never gave anyone the impression that he was in a hurry or late for an appointment. He sauntered his way down the concourse to his gate in the Delta Airlines section, leaned against a post, and studied the Boeing 737 parked on the ramp.

  When the girl at the counter called the flight and the people clambered out of their chairs and scrambled for a place in line, Chambers remained where he was. He didn’t like fighting mobs. Besides, he had reserved a first-class ticket. Window seat. He always got a window seat.

  The line dwindled down, and Chambers joined the end of it, passed down the skyway, and entered the aircraft. He pulled his ticket and boarding pass from the inside jacket pocket and handed it to the girl.

  “Good morning, sir. Off to Tallahassee?”

  “Right.” Connecting to Pensacola. He hadn’t been down that way in years.

  “Fine, sir.” Glancing at the boarding pass, she said, “You’re in row three, on the right, aisle seat.”

  “No.”

  “Sir?”

  “I reserved a window seat.”

  She checked the ticket, then the boarding pass. “Oh, I believe there’s been a mistake. The window seat’s been taken.”

  “Then correct it.”

  “Sir?”

  “Correct your mistake.”

  She studied his face for a moment, then said, “Just a moment, sir. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Rick Chambers always got his way.

  *

  1120 hours, Carr Bay

  The Antelope was holding position some two miles off the western coast of the bay. Nearby, a salvage barge had been anchored, and a hill of fiberglass chunks was slowly growing on its deck. The two V-8 engines and part of an outdrive from the once-proud Scarab were lashed down near the gunwale.

  Several small boats and launches chugged about. Sailors in blue work uniforms scampered about the decks or leaned against railings, grabbing a smoke. Infrequently, a diver’s head popped free of the water’s surface.

  The gunboat was not large enough to take a helicopter, and James Monahan was lowered to the aft deck by the helicopter’s winch. He was met by a chief petty officer and led forward to the bridge.

  He heard a triumphant shout and looked over the railing. A scuba diver was treading water, holding aloft a bottle of Chivas Regal. Treasure from the deep.

  The sun had come up hot and gotten hotter. The armpits of Monahan’s khakis were already stained after the long flight from Norfolk in the back of the Sea Knight.

  The CPO rapped on the door of the captain’s quarters aft of the bridge, then opened the door for him. He found Commander Martin Holloway and Admiral Aaron Stein inside. Holloway was bleary-eyed and a little bedraggled and, like Monahan, young for his rank. Stein was in whites, the space above his left breast pocket rainbowed with ribbons picked up in Vietnam and Grenada. He was of medium build but sported a beginning paunch.

  “Come in, Commander,” Stein said.

  “Thank you, sir.” He had met Stein several times before but shook hands with Holloway for the first time.

  In the cramped cabin, the admiral had commandeered the sole chair at a built-in desk, and Holloway and Monahan sat on the bunk.

  “Bing tells me you’re coordinating the search effort,” Stein said.

  “Yes, sir. I thought I’d better take a look at the scene here, then run by your base and look around Pier Nine.”

  “Unfortunately, you’re not going to see much at Pier Nine,” the admiral told him. “The bastards even helped themselves to two of our three spare engines. Plus a full stock of replacement parts.”

  “Spare engines?”

  Stein nodded. “Those rotaries aren’t common, of course. We have, or had, the only ones in existence, as far as I know. Somebody thought this thing out.”

  “Somebody who is planning to use those boats, rather than just copy them,” Holloway suggested.

  “Anything out of Walter Reed?” Stein asked.

  The body found in the water off Pier Nine had been transferred to Walter Reed Army Hospital for autopsy.

  “Definitely Middle Eastern,” Monahan said, “from the word I got around ten o’clock. His head was caved in, and the forensics people seem to think he was run over by a boat. He died by drowning.”

  “Shit. Well, those stealth boats would be useful in the Persian Gulf. With their capability against oil tankers and even small warships, damned nearly any nation could be held hostage.”

  “I haven’t even seen them,” Holloway said. “May I ask why we had them?”

  “Sure, Commander,” the admiral said. “When we got tied up in Vietnam, we found out we didn’t have anything in inventory that was suitable for coastal and river fighting. We ended up using old LCMs until we could get Antelope class boats, like the one you’ve got here, built. After that nonwar, we gave away a few gunboats to friendly nations, because we knew we wouldn’t need them again. Then, we ran into a bunch of zealots in the Gulf, attacking tankers with anything from rowboats to high-power ski boats. The Sea Spectre was envisioned as a counter to those kinds of threats. They’re small, maneuverable, and very fast.”

  “As well as being useful for reconnaissance and infiltration,” Monahan added.

  “Extremely useful. We want them back.” Stein looked very determined. Recovering the boats would go a long way toward easing the censure he was bound to get for losing them in the first place.

  Monahan was not going to say anything about the security measures that had been utilized. Bingham Clay had already ordered that investigation.

  He turned to Holloway. “Ar
e you finding anything of value here, Commander?”

  Holloway looked directly at him. “Puzzles, maybe. It was a Scarab, but it was blown up on purpose.”

  Monahan raised an eyebrow.

  “The aft sections of the hull are peppered with shrapnel. We think they used a grenade to blow it.”

  “After boarding the Zodiak?”

  “Must have been,” Holloway said. “We thought we were chasing a guided boat, from the maneuvers it made. Hell, I still think it was manned. But from the other evidence, I guess they climbed out, set a timed grenade, shoved the throttles all the way in, and let her go.”

  Monahan felt a little uneasy at Holloway’s indecision, but before he could pursue it, the commander continued. “The boat belonged to a man named Theodore Daimler. He’s a Washington lawyer, the way I heard it, and he has a cabin on the bay somewhere south of here. He had reported the Scarab missing this morning.”

  Unbuttoning his shirt pocket, Monahan retrieved his small notebook and entered the information. “You know anything else about him?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll ask the FBI to check him out.”

  They talked for a few more minutes, then Monahan said, “I think I’ll go on over to Ship R&D.”

  Admiral Stein stood up. “You have room for me in your chopper?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, I’ll ride along.”

  After they had been lifted aboard the Sea Knight and were en route to the Research and Development Center, Stein pulled his headset aside and leaned over to almost shout in Monahan’s ear.

  Monahan pulled his own earpiece back. The racket of the turbines made nonintercom conversation difficult.

  “You got your search grid set up?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “As if they’re going to sneak those boats back to the Middle East.”

  “That’s correct, Admiral.”

  “You’d better tell Bing to check his back door.”

  “Sir?”

  “The Sea Spectre would be an effective guerilla weapon anywhere in the world, Commander. It doesn’t have to be in the Persian Gulf.”

  *

  1530 hours, Southern Chesapeake Bay

  “Newport News coming up, Captain.”

  “Contact the Mitscher, Evans, and tell her we’ll join her outside the bay.” Captain Barry Norman’s voice was particularly raspy this afternoon, after spending the night and the morning overseeing the search efforts in Carr Bay.

  “Aye aye sir.” The seaman crossed the Prebble’s bridge to an intercom station.

  Norman could see the Chesapeake Bay Bridge coming up about five miles away. It was starkly outlined in black against a blue sky.

  He turned to Commander Owen Edwards, his first mate. “Owen, you have the conn. I’m going down to my cabin to sack out for a couple hours.”

  “Aye sir. Do you want me to notify you when we rendezvous with the Mitscher?”

  “No. Just put us on the course CINCLANT designated.”

  He scanned the instruments on the bridge’s forward bulkhead once again, then went aft and descended to the officer’s wardroom. He filled a mug with steaming coffee, added one cube of sugar, and carried it to his own quarters.

  Inside, he sat on his bunk and unlaced his shoes, kicked them off. He was tired. Barry Norman was sixty-two years old, with over forty years in the Navy. His hair was short and gray, almost matching the color of his eyes. There was more sag to his jowls than he liked, more softness around his waist. He found that fatigue crowded him more easily.

  Norman was a man of the sea. He had served on more classifications of ships than he bothered remembering. Only aircraft carriers and battleships had eluded him, but Bingham Clay had promised him at least a year on the New Jersey before he retired, now just three short years away.

  Norman would never make flag rank, not that he cared. He did not have the ability to kowtow to either Navy or civilian politicians. On each of his shore-based assignments, he had managed to offend as many admirals, senators, and congressmen as possible, ensuring a return to sea duty.

  He belonged on the bridge of a warship, especially since cancer took Elizabeth twelve years before. His instinct for unhesitating and appropriate command decisions was well known among his superiors. They could trust him with an expensive ship and a few hundred lives, though not with a congressional hearing room and thin-skinned legislative staffers. Norman’s comfort with naval strategy and tactics was the sole reason he was still in the United States Navy after being passed over for promotion so many times.

  He shrugged out of his uniform jacket, tossed it toward a chair, and swung his feet up onto the bunk. Leaning back against the bulkhead, he sipped his coffee.

  Norman had been rethinking his desire to command the New Jersey. Sure as hell, some admiral would have his flag aboard her, and Norman would not really have full command.

  Besides, in the two years he had been aboard the Prebble, he had come to appreciate the competency and loyalty of her crew. Even Susan Inge, his second mate. He had damn nearly rebelled when Inge had first been assigned, but after a couple of months, he had also rethought his position on women aboard warships and changed it.

  Additionally, the last ten months working out of Ship R&D had been interesting. The Navy was not totally stupid. When they developed a weapons system, they also considered a counter system. For almost a year, the Prebble had been serving as a test platform for weapons systems that could cope with the Sea Spectre.

  High-power, sea-level radar had been tried, but without success.

  Enhanced infrared sensors mounted on the Prebble’s two Seasprite helicopters had been able to detect the heat of the Sea Spectres at five miles.

  The Sea Spectre engines and exhaust systems had been altered with coolant wraps to decrease the heat radiation.

  The helicopters’ infrared sensors had been boosted once again, and they were able to locate a stealth boat that was within a range of four miles, providing the boat was operating on both engines at over two thousand RPMs. They were great boats.

  The five-inch guns — one forward and one right aft — were computer controlled but were now linked, not only with radar but with laser designator and night-sight targeting systems. In computer-controlled games in the past three months, the Prebble had sunk four Sea Spectres in simulation. Of course, the Prebble had lost five encounters. Still, Norman thought that, given more training, his people would change those results.

  If any ship in the U.S. Navy could locate and destroy the Sea Spectres, it was the destroyer Prebble.

  Which was why CINCLANT had pulled her out of the northern Chesapeake and sent her on the search for the missing assault boats.

  Barry Norman had taken a few rides in the Sea Spectre to acquaint himself with her weapons and capabilities. He had liked the boat.

  He did not want to blow it out of the water.

  But he would.

  *

  2145 hours, Edgewater

  Kevin McCory remembered that his father had often taken late-night walks through the marina at Fort Walton Beach, acting as his own security guard, stopping to talk to the live-aboard residents, checking for safety violations, yanking on the padlocks attached to storage cabinets placed along the docks.

  It was something he liked to do, too. Marina Kathleen was not a large enterprise. It would not be described as thriving. Still, in the eighteen months he had owned it, he had made some transformations. The office, storage buildings, and docks had been repainted white. Slowly, as he could afford it, he was replacing sections of the floating docks that had rotted or canted due to corroded metal. The original docks floated on empty fifty-five-gallon drums. The replacement sections were attached to foam-filled fiberglass canisters.

  There were a hundred slips available, and seventy of them were rented, mostly to people who weekended aboard small cruisers, sailing boats, and ski boats. Twenty-two people lived aboard houseboats, sloops, fishermen, and cruisers that would no
t be called yachts. Six charter fishing boats operated out of Marina Kathleen.

  On the south side was a storage yard for boats on cradles or trailers, a maintenance building, and a small dry dock. McCory employed a super-mechanic and a lazy, but expert, hull and fitting man. Dan Crips and Ben Avery. He also employed two high school girls who tended the office-cum-general store after school hours on alternate days. Marge Hepburn, who was sixty-six years old and lived aboard an old Cape Hatteras, watched over the office — and everyone else — in the mornings and early afternoons in exchange for her slip rental, her groceries, and an occasional six-pack of Dos Equis.

  Debbie Trewartha, a green-eyed senior at Edgewater High, was sitting on the counter talking to Hanna Wilcox when Ginger arrived.

  Ginger Adams’s parents had named her before she was born, expecting a redhead. What they got instead was a platinum blonde, hazel-eyed package of frenetic energy. Though she was now twenty-eight, five-ten, and proportioned along the lines Hugh Hefner demanded, she had not lost any of the energy. It did go dormant in the mornings, which was a problem, since McCory was a morning person.

  She was sometimes irritatingly independent, maintaining her own apartment and working her twelve-to-eight shift at the Edgewater Bank and Trust, where she was a vice president and assistant manager. She had been almost married once, when she was eighteen. The union had faltered when she discovered the groom was not planning on letting her go to college. Ginger took on causes. Whales, seals, environment, politicians, bureaucracies, Kevin McCory. Nothing was sacred to her.

  Ginger came through the front door like she owned the place, said hello to Debbie and Hanna, and leaned on the counter to stare at McCory. Her eyes were full of fire and ice.

  McCory got up from behind his beat-up, ancient teacher’s desk, crossed to the counter, and kissed her lightly on the lips.

  “Hi, hon.”

  “I’m awake now.”

  “How was your day?”

  “Fine.”

  “Nobody robbed the bank?”

  “Not illegally, anyway.”

  “Want a beer?”