Seaghost

by William H. Lovejoy

  *

  1350 hours, 27° 16’ North, 80° 44’ West

  The eastern coast of Florida was hazy, muted, and variegated greens that muddied into one another. Seven miles offshore, the Kathleen cut the long swells easily, cruising at twenty knots. The stereo speakers on the flying bridge and the stern deck reverberated with Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets.” Unfortunately, the clients had brought along their own cassette tapes.

  McCory was on the bridge, dressed in cutoffs and a red-and-white striped soccer shirt, his feet up on the instrument panel. He wore sunglasses and a baseball cap adorned with the Miami Dolphins’ logo. From time to time, he checked the automatic pilot.

  On the wrap-around bridge lounge seat, the two kids — boys, ten and twelve years old — were playing checkers. The view of the sea had bored them a half hour out of Edgewater.

  The clients, two couples in their thirties, were on the aft deck, in the shade of the white canvas awning he had rigged. They were sitting in deck chairs around the table, drinking margaritas. Having a good time. Their laughter swelled and ebbed.

  McCory didn’t run many charters. He didn’t want to infringe on the business of the charter captains who based themselves at Marina Kathleen. Occasionally, if they were fully booked, he would take a party out on the Starshine, his thirty-eight-foot sport fisherman. Today was different. The outing was an early-morning run down to Cape Canaveral to watch a Titan IV launch. It had been booked three weeks before by the two men, who were engineers with one of the aerospace companies.

  The launch had been expectedly delayed three times before it got off successfully and spectacularly. White fire and heavy contrails arcing into the bright blue Atlantic skies. McCory had enjoyed it. Then, he had grilled sirloin steaks for lunch, hot dogs for the boys.

  He kept resisting the impulse to nudge the throttles forward, hunting for the Kathleen’s top end of thirty knots. He felt restless. It was difficult to maintain his normal, easygoing demeanor. He wanted to get up and pace the deck.

  Grab an airplane for Washington.

  March into the Hoover Building and say, “I did it.”

  The fact that the Sunday papers down in the salon reported that the dead man, Muhammed Something-or-other, was some kind of terrorist didn’t make it any easier.

  McCory had killed another human being.

  Didn’t know the man but tried to paint a picture of him. Guessed he was a killer of innocents, assumed he had created carnage in Italy, Beirut, the Gaza strip, somewhere, but it still caused him to ache deep inside.

  Like a drunk, driving a lethal weapon, swerving into a teenager on a dark road. Didn’t mean it, officer.

  Didn’t make it right.

  He was beginning to question his own motives in taking the SeaGhost, too. When he first saw the newspaper photos, it had been anger that ruled heart and head. That had evolved into a basically simple plan of grabbing the boat, composing an elaborate analysis of the boat in comparison with Devlin’s drawings, then making some kind of big splash. Press conference, maybe. Humiliate the damned Navy.

  That had changed in the millisecond of impact with the Zodiak.

  Everything was different. From the papers and newscasts, it was apparent that the Navy thought the…Warriors of Allah had taken both boats. There was a massive search underway all over the western Atlantic. McCory had seen the Navy and Coast Guard ships out in force. A Coast Guard cutter had put into New Smyrna Beach and Edgewater on Saturday afternoon, disgorging a bunch of sailors who ran along the coast asking the citizens if they had seen anything. Showing them The Post photo of the SeaGhost.

  A lieutenant (j.g.) had hit up Marge Hepburn, she told him. Marge hadn’t seen any strange boats.

  Now, he wasn’t certain what he would do. Admitting to the Navy that he had taken the SeaGhost also meant submitting to a charge of manslaughter, or reckless endangerment, or something along that line. Daimler could tell him. Would tell him, in fact.

  McCory had been on the run before, but he had been running from an insurance company, not the law or the Navy. He was tired of running.

  Still, he had to do something.

  By the time he tied up in Slip 1, disembarked his clients, hosed the salt rime from the decks, and cleaned the salon, he had not stumbled over any solutions. He changed the sheets in the bow cabin. The sea had made one of his couples romantic. It was three-fifteen.

  McCory checked the office and found that Marla Fox had replaced Marge. She already had the Windex and the paper towels out and was eyeing the back windows with some distaste. She was a cheery and chunky seventeen-year-old. She was also a trusting soul, somewhat daring, and not afraid of some of the things she should be afraid of.

  “You really think those windows need cleaning?”

  “Marla, you can’t see the other side of the waterway.”

  “Isn’t this supposed to be in my contract, or something?”

  “You don’t have a contract.”

  “Oh.”

  “Anything new?” he asked.

  “Dan called in and told me to credit him with a couple hours on his time sheet. Somebody lost a water pump, and he replaced it.”

  “I can’t believe Crips would work on Sunday.”

  “He was probably drunk,” Marla said, and she had a point.

  He spent a couple more minutes talking with her, then searched under the kneehole of his desk for the cardboard tube he wanted. He went out to the fueling dock where he kept the Camrose tied up. She was a nineteen-foot Chris Craft runabout that he had fully disassembled, rebuilt, and refinished. Born in the same year as McCory, she sported a Vee-drive and a Chrysler marine engine. Mahogany wood and blue leather. More elegance than get-up-and-go, but he liked her. The Kathleen and the Camrose, he owned outright. He owed over fifty thousand dollars on the Starshine, but her charters brought in just enough to meet the payments and the maintenance. No profit in her, just yet.

  He also owed a quarter-million dollars on the marina. The cash flow was sufficient to meet his overhead and give him a couple thousand a month in salary. McCory had long since given up the notion that he would one day be a millionaire. More likely, he would die owing a million.

  Then again, he had never aspired to millionaire status. One day at a time, with enough left over to buy a bottle of Dos Equis.

  Releasing the spring lines, he clambered aboard and blew the bilges while she drifted from the dock. The engine caught on the first revolution, and McCory slipped it into gear and eased out of the marina while the engine warmed up. The exhaust gurgled in the water behind.

  The flat planes of the windshield glass reflected the bright sun in little shatters of light that bounced back onto the highly polished mahogany of the foredeck. He guessed the afternoon temperature at above ninety. The sweat trickled down his sides.

  The five-mile trip down to Barley’s Marine Refitters took eleven minutes, and he tied up at the finger pier next to Dry Dock One. John Barley was up near his office and had the hood off of a big Merc outboard motor. The motor was mounted on a small ski boat sitting on a trailer behind a GMC Suburban. The boat’s owner stood by anxiously as Barley probed for the solution to some fault in the motor.

  McCory waved at him, and Barley waved back. Spit a wad of chewing tobacco in a twelve-foot curve.

  McCory entered his rented building and locked the door behind him. He turned on the lights.

  God, she’s beautiful. Like you knew she’d be, Devlin.

  He walked down the side dock, reached out, and opened the hatch.

  Thought about the articles in the Sunday paper.

  Thought about Ted Daimler.

  He tossed the cardboard tube aboard the boat and went back to the telephone over the workbench. He had to check his wallet for the phone number of Daimler’s home in Chevy Chase.

  “Daimler residence. This is Ricky.”

  “Hi, Ricky. This is Uncle Kevin.”

  “Hey, Mac! How you doing?”

  “I’m doing just
fine. How are you?”

  “Somebody stole Dad’s boat. You know that?”

  “I heard about it. You’ll have to come down here and go fishing with me.”

  “Neat. When?”

  “Maybe later this summer. We’ll talk about it. Is your father around?”

  “Yeah, hold on.”

  Daimler picked up the phone a couple of minutes later. “You trying to steal my boy, now?”

  “Must have picked up a new habit.”

  “Jesus. That’s all Reba and I will hear about for the next two months. When can I go, when can I go? By the way, get rid of the habit.”

  “You read the papers, Ted?”

  “Read the papers! For Christ’s sake, Mac! I’ve been calling you for two days.”

  “Yeah, I saw some notes Marge left. I’ve been busy.”

  “Get yourself an answering machine. Then answer it.”

  “I’ve got an answering service. She’s a nice lady.”

  Daimler paused for a moment. Maybe composing himself. Then, he asked, “You get that thing hidden away?”

  “Yep. In fact, I’m standing here looking at it right now.”

  “This is getting way out of hand, Mac.”

  “I know. Shit, I feel awful.”

  Surprisingly, Daimler didn’t chastise him. “I don’t know that you need to feel too badly. The guy was a real asshole. The CIA links him to the murders of some twenty people, Mac. We probably did the world a favor.”

  “It may take me a while to come around to that point of view. What have you heard?”

  “The Pentagon’s in an uproar. The White House is alarmed. The FBI is investigating me.”

  “What!”

  “Probably checking my story. They talked to one of my partners and a couple clients, but it got back to me. Reba said a strange sedan was poking around the neighborhood, checking our house. She thinks they’re burglars casing the joint. So far, I’ve kept her from calling the cops.”

  “Damn. I’m sorry I got you involved, Ted.”

  “Well, let’s not worry about the history. Let’s worry about you and me. What are the plans?”

  McCory told him about his original scheme, including the press conference.

  “Not a good idea, not now,” Daimler said.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  “Time is our best bet. Let’s let it blow over, drop back to page fifty in the papers. As long as the Navy thinks the Arabs have both boats, we’ve got some breathing room. Hell, maybe they’ll catch them.”

  “It’ll be tough, Ted. That’s one fine boat.”

  “Keep in mind that I was the second civilian to ride in one, Mac.”

  “Yeah. I want to find some solution that keeps you out of it.”

  “Hey! You’re my kind of man.”

  “I mean it.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t be surprised if I told you the same thing has been on my mind? Keeping me out of it?”

  “I’m not surprised,” McCory told him.

  “I’m still working on it. There’s a conflict of interest, since I was part of the caper, unwilling participant though I was. We don’t want to be in court, where the wrong questions could come up, the kind I’d have to answer. At some point, we’re going to have to negotiate a settlement, but let’s not rush into it until we’re ready. Send me a check for a hundred bucks.”

  “What for?”

  “Retainer. I want the attorney-client privilege locked in.”

  “Hell, you’ve always been my lawyer,” McCory said. “You settled the insurance deal.”

  “Earned my fee, too.”

  “Took you four years.”

  “Did it right.”

  “Debatable.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “You think I’m in deep shit?” McCory asked.

  “Of course. What else? But send me the check. I want it formalized.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then we wait and watch. There’ll be a place where we can jump in.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “What are you doing now?” Daimler asked.

  “I’ve got Devlin’s drawings, and I’m going to start comparing them to the craft.”

  “Okay. Take your time. Stay out of trouble.”

  “I intend to. I’m maintaining my normal schedule.”

  “You have a normal schedule? Look, Mac, not a word of this to anyone. Got that?”

  Involuntarily, McCory cleared his throat.

  “Oh Christ! Who’d you tell?”

  “Ginger.”

  “Ginger? She’s the dream girl we met last time we were down?”

  “Hey, you dreaming about my woman?”

  “You planning on marriage?” Daimler asked.

  “It hasn’t been discussed.”

  “Start discussing it.”

  “What the hell? You my social advisor now?”

  “We don’t want her testifying against you.”

  “You just said we weren’t going to court.”

  “Just in case.”

  After he hung up, McCory spent an hour lifting the spare rotary engines out of the cargo bay with an overhead engine hoist. He parked them in one corner of the dock-head, stacked the cardboard boxes of parts with them, and covered everything with a paint-splattered tarpaulin. Then he inserted several clean sheets of paper in a clipboard, found a tape measure and a roll of black electrical tape, and climbed aboard the SeaGhost.

  First things first. McCory went forward to the helm and used his pocket knife to cut a small piece of plastic tape. He carefully pressed it in place on the instrument panel, covering the title, Sea Spectre. She was the SeaGhost, and he was going to prove it.

  He pulled Devlin’s drawings from the cardboard tube and started at the stern. There was a small access door in the aft end of the cargo bay. He had to stoop to get through it.

  He found a light switch and flipped it on. Four small bulbs lit up, and he looked around. Most of the space was taken up by four individual fuel bladders. There was an electronics compartment that contained another radar antenna, a camera, and a few black boxes. He skipped all of that, since Devlin hadn’t included specifics about the electronics in his drawings.

  In the decking was a large hatch. He pulled it up and found the jet housings below. The rotary engines were mounted forward of them, under the cargo bay. It was a nice installation. Everything was clean, painted gray. There was a sheen on the housings, and when he tested it with his finger, he discovered light oil. A leak somewhere, but then, there were always leaks.

  Spreading the large drawings on the deck near the hatch, McCory extended the tape measure and started by measuring the width of the keel.

  If he stayed busy enough, he wouldn’t think about Coast Guard lieutenants questioning his employees or prison or dead Arabs.

  Chapter 6

  1520 hours, CINCLANT

  Monahan and Andrews got back from Washington at three o’clock on Sunday afternoon and went their separate ways, Andrews’s driver dropping Monahan off on Mitcher Avenue, near the headquarters building. Monahan was halfway amazed that the day spent with the intelligence chief had gone so smoothly. So far, apparently, Monahan had not issued silly orders, stepped on the wrong toes, or otherwise gotten in the way of Rear Admiral Matthew Andrews and his concise view of naval life and command.

  Monahan went directly to Operations.

  The Operations Center of the Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet was a well-disciplined beehive. Behind the scenes, a few thousand people all around the world and a large number of electronic surveillance mechanisms fed data to the computers at CINCLANTFLT. Routine reports from warships, task forces, and fleets were entered into the database. CIA, Defense Intelligence, and Navy agents in foreign ports, satellites, reconnaissance aircraft, and hydrophones resting on the sea bottom provided their information about the movement of both hostile and friendly sea vessels.

  Most of the activity — telex, data, and voice communications, data e
ntry, analysis — took place in another room. In the Operations Center, the focal point was the massive electronic plotting screen mounted on one wall. Currently on the screen was a map of the normal operations area of the Second Fleet. All of the Atlantic Ocean area was displayed, as well as the Caribbean. Land masses — the eastern coasts of North America and South America and the western coasts of Europe and Africa — were shaded in gray. A hodge-podge of symbols defined ship types at sea, each colored to represent its nationality. The predominating color was blue, for American ships. Dotted blue rectangles outlined the operating sectors of ballistic missile submarines. Nobody knew exactly where they were, which was the idea.

  Soviet naval vessels were shown in red. The assumed location of Soviet submarines was projected by dotted lines from their last point of contact by a U.S. ship, an ASW helicopter strewing sonobuoys, or with SOSUS — the Sound Surveillance system composed of listening devices sited at “choke points,” narrow passages above the sea bed.

  COMSUBLANT, the commander of the submarine fleet, had responsibility for all subsurface vessels. The rest belonged to Admiral Bingham Clay, and he took his responsibility seriously.

  Captain Aubrey Nelson was the watch officer when Monahan entered the center. He waved Monahan to a chair beside him at the long table in the center of the room.

  “Well, Jim?”

  Monahan sagged into the chair. His sleep was coming in two-hour chunks lately. “Nothing, Aubrey. Personally, I think Malgard is behind the leak to The Post, though I don’t think we’d ever prove it. I don’t think he’s involved in the theft.”

  “Intuition working for you?”

  “Basically, yes. Plus, from what NI can find of Advanced Marine’s financial records they look to be right on the edge of solvency. They’re borrowed to the hilt, using the XMC-22 contract as collateral. My gut tells me he leaked the data, trying to pressure Ship R&D into completing the tests and approving the construction phase.”

  “So we’re back to the Warriors of Allah?”

  “If Hakkar hadn’t jumped ship to another group before he met Allah.” Monahan retrieved a sheet of paper from the inside pocket of his uniform blouse. “This is the listing I got from CIA.”