Seaghost

by William H. Lovejoy

  “No attack last night, Admiral?” he asked.

  “No. Have a seat, Mr. Malgard.”

  Clay went around his gargantuan desk and sat in a swivel chair. Malgard and Andrews took seats on the sofa.

  Both Clay and Andrews looked haggard, and Malgard understood why. He had spent the night on the sofa in his den with the TV on, sleeping fitfully, waiting for a news alert. His thinking was muddied by tendrils of fatigue.

  His internal conviction that McCory had taken the Sea Spectres had been shaken by the events at Camp Lejeune and Kings Bay. At first, he could not imagine McCory having either the guts or the emotional drive to attack naval defense installations with the boats. The Navy must be right, this Badr was behind it.

  Then, the longer it took Chambers to run McCory down, he drifted back to his original theory. McCory had the boats, and out of some revenge-driven scenario, he was telling the Navy what he thought of it. Malgard kept thinking back to that phone call he had received from the pseudo attorney. If he had been willing to deal, maybe a couple hundred Marines would still be alive.

  It was a heavy load to carry. He had to keep telling himself that he was not at fault. He had not made the fatal decisions.

  Besides, he did not have the cash necessary to make deals with anyone. AMDI was up to its neck in loans.

  Clay was waiting expectantly.

  Malgard said, “I’m here to help in any way I can, Admiral. I’d like to be brought up-to-date on what you know, and perhaps I’ll think of something that will assist in capturing the boats.”

  “Right now,” Clay said, “we’re worried less about regaining the boats than we are about blowing them out of the water.”

  “You are certain that the Sea Spectre is involved?”

  Clay nodded toward Andrews. “Matt.”

  The intelligence chief leaned forward on the couch, his elbows resting on his knees. “The damage analysis is consistent with the use of the Mini-Harpoon missile. Those are available only at the testing ground, the Ship R&D Center, and aboard the Sea Spectres. Except for the missiles aboard the stealth boats, the rest are accounted for. At Kings Bay, we had a sonar contact with the attack boat. It was making fifty knots. It was the Sea Spectre.”

  “There haven’t been any radar contacts?” Malgard asked.

  “Should there be?”

  “I mean, was the boat’s radar radiating?”

  “Yes. A couple minimal contacts. At Kings Bay, the missiles were radar guided.”

  “Suggesting that someone who knows both radar and missiles was operating it.”

  “Badr has those specialties available to him,” Andrews said.

  “No one saw the boat?”

  “Not as far as we know. We had two boats pursuing, but lost them and the ten men aboard them.”

  “You don’t think the boat was being operated by one person, Admiral?”

  Andrews shook his head. “There were at least two, one tending the helm and radar, and one manning the missile launcher. The speed with which the missiles were reloaded suggests a third man assisting. There may be a fourth man on the radar.”

  That was about what Malgard had thought. McCory had friends. Maybe he had hired Arabs. That would certainly account for the dead man at Pier Nine.

  Where was Chambers?

  “How about communications from the terrorists, Admiral? They usually have to brag.”

  Clay intervened. “That point has bothered us to some extent, Mr. Malgard. We suspect, however, that they’re waiting until they’re done.”

  “In a way,” Andrews said, “we’d like to get the message, to feel like there’s an end to it. Unfortunately, they have another seventy missiles.”

  The papers and TV had not mentioned the number of missiles fired. “Where’s the Prebble?” Malgard asked. “She has the counterstrike systems.”

  “She’s in the area,” Clay said. Malgard thought he could have been more specific.

  “So,” Andrews said, “any ideas, Mr. Malgard?”

  “There are two vulnerabilities. Sonar and highly sensitive infrared detectors can pick up the Sea Spectre when she’s at speed. If, during the next attack, we can concentrate enough sea and air power to force a high-speed escape, we can follow her.”

  “You’re not telling us anything we don’t already know,” Andrews told him.

  “We know the advantages and the limitations of the technology,” Clay said. “What’s more important here are the people involved. We’ve got fifty people from the CIA, the FBI, and the Navy examining the way Ibrahim Badr thinks. If we can pin down a pattern in his strategy or tactics, we can be waiting for him the next time.”

  Malgard felt a twinge of guilt race down his spine. He almost told them about McCory.

  “We were damned certain,” Clay went on, “that he was going to attack an installation early this morning, perhaps further south on the coast. But he didn’t.”

  “Why were you so certain?”

  “Badr likes symbolism, and this is the Fourth of July.”

  *

  1030 hours, Kings Bay Submarine Support Base

  Monahan stood at the dock head and watched the activity aboard the two salvage barges that had been maneuvered alongside the slip where Pogy had gone down. The upper four feet and antenna heads of her conning tower were above the water. The rubber-clad heads of divers emerged from the oily waters, then disappeared as they worked at getting temporary patches over the six-foot hole in her side. Air hoses snaked across the water, up the conning tower, then disappeared inside the submarine. They were already pumping air into some of her ballast tanks and sealed compartments.

  Except for the clatter of machinery aboard the barges, it was a morguelike atmosphere. People seemed to whisper, careful of disturbing the dead.

  Monahan turned and walked along the quay, back toward the operations building.

  He was feeling morose. He had called Mona earlier to apologize for missing the picnic. Being a Navy wife, she had understood, but Geoffrey and Mark, aged nine and ten, had been less forgiving.

  His khakis were rumpled from sleeping on a borrowed cot the night before. He had only taken his shoes off, expecting to be called at any moment, when Badr hit some base in Florida.

  The absence of an attack was almost frustrating, because it seemed like the only way he would be able to find an enemy he couldn’t see.

  Inside the operations center, he checked the plotting board. Bingham Clay was apparently giving some consideration to Monahan’s suggestion. Ships that had been further at sea were drawing closer to the coast. TF22 was moving south now, a cluster of blue symbols off the northern Florida coast. The Prebble was also continuing southward.

  The men at the communications consoles all had blue-covered code books on the desks in front of them, flipping through them as they conversed. With Badr in control of a radio scrambler, and possibly scanning all the naval frequencies, they had been forced to encode messages manually.

  He picked up a phone and dialed the FBI headquarters in Washington, asking for a deputy director named Bulwark, the man who had been assigned to Clay’s request.

  After identifying himself, he asked, “Have you located Kevin McCory?”

  “Well, no, not just yet.”

  How hard can it be to find a responsible citizen? “What seems to be the problem?”

  “The address that Admiral Clay gave us was that of a marina in Fort Walton Beach. At one time, it was owned by Devlin McCory.”

  Barry Norman had told him all of that. “And?”

  “Back in January of ’87, something happened, and it was taken over by an insurance company. Kevin McCory left the area at about that time.”

  “So ask the insurance company where he is.”

  “Commander, it’s the Fourth of July. Everything’s closed for the day.”

  “Director Bulwark, people are dying whether it’s a holiday or not. Start calling people at home.”

  *

  1120 hours, Fort Pierce, F
lorida

  “Harold Davis, huh? You have a card?”

  He did have. Chambers used the Davis name frequently, and he had a variety of occupations listed on a variety of business cards. He gave Bernice the appropriate card.

  Bernice was almost six feet tall, supporting a ton of white-gold hair. She was tanned the color of a Seminole and had black hawk eyes filled with suspicion.

  “Wrong insurance company,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Mac told me all about the shithead company that ripped off his daddy’s marina. It wasn’t Marathon Equitable.”

  “Well, no. We weren’t the primary insurer. We had the secondary underwriting.”

  “And when those assholes finally settled last year, it liked to kill Mac.”

  The plastic nameplate taped to the front of the cash register read: Bernice Gold — Owner-Operator. Like a damned independent semi-truck driver.

  “Mrs. Gold, I don’t know anythin’ about the litigation. My company carried a supplemental policy and, as I understand it, was just waitin’ for the first company to reach agreement. All I know is that I’m supposed to find Mc-Cory and give him a check.”

  “How much?”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss that, Mrs. Gold.”

  Bernice Gold took a long swig from her tall, frosty can of Budweiser. Chambers was thirsty, but she didn’t offer him a beer.

  Bernice Gold eyed him for a long time, certainly with disfavor, then said, “Edgewater.”

  “Edgewater?”

  “Mac bought a marina up there.”

  Chambers smiled at her.

  *

  1122 hours

  Green had not been a popular color for automobiles for some time, Ibn el-Ziam thought. A lot of older cars were green, but very few of the newer models were painted green. It had helped him immensely in spotting the Ford Taurus that Rick Chambers was driving. A large number of people around the Miami marinas had remembered a man some of them called Davis, very tall and big, and driving a green Ford.

  He had caught up with the green Ford and its driver in Fort Lauderdale, and he had been following him since. It was a boring existence. He had eaten nothing but American fast food. He had slept in the Pontiac’s front seat outside of motels when Chambers stopped for the night.

  Now it was Fort Pierce.

  There seemed to be no end to the small towns along the eastern Florida coast. No end, also, to the marinas, salvage operations, and marine repair businesses that Chambers entered and left. And el-Ziam had been looking at an endless Atlantic Ocean for what felt like days.

  So much useless water depressed him. He was ready to return to his homeland.

  Chambers came out of the marina office, paused, and looked up at the sign that was lettered, “Gold and Silver.” He was grinning widely as he threaded his way through the parking lot to his Ford.

  There had been some sort of breakthrough, el-Ziam thought. He started the engine of the Pontiac, waited until Chambers had turned out of the lot, then backed out of his space and followed.

  The city of Fort Pierce was draped in red and white bunting. A parade of bands, automobiles, horses and decorated trailers was assembling on a side street. Throngs of people dashed about, laughing and smiling. One day, el-Ziam would have an independence of his own to celebrate.

  Chambers went right to a gas station.

  El-Ziam drove on for a block, then stopped at another station and filled his own tank. He had the feeling that a long drive was ahead of him.

  It was. When Chambers passed again, he drove only two blocks before turning inland, ignoring the coastal highway. He took the northbound on-ramp for Highway 95, and in seconds, had settled in at a steady seventy miles per hour.

  El-Ziam stayed a mile back, driving the same speed, but keeping six or seven cars between the two of them. The man named Rick Chambers was a simpleton who thought himself invincible. He seemed intent upon what was ahead of him, and he never once looked back.

  El-Ziam wondered how much farther, and how much longer, it would be before Chambers did whatever it was that he was supposed to do.

  He assumed that Rick Chambers would kill the man named McCory.

  Before or after Chambers located the boat?

  The fate of McCory did not matter to el-Ziam. The fate of the boat did.

  *

  2040 hours, Edgewater

  Ginger stacked cardboard boxes on the stern deck of Kathleen, hauling them up from the salon. She had come dressed to work, wearing Levi’s and an old, faded blue shirt of McCory’s, with a button-down collar.

  McCory had backed the motor yacht partway into the dry dock, stern-to-stern with SeaGhost, and the pumps were transferring diesel fuel at 150 gallons per minute. He was aboard the stealth boat, manning the fuel nozzle.

  One more tank to go.

  While he waited, kneeling on the smooth afterdeck, head drawn back to avoid the fumes, he dreaded the next billing from his bulk fuel supplier.

  The nozzle clicked off.

  McCory withdrew the nozzle, replaced the filler cap, disconnected the grounding strap, and pressed the filler panel back into place. The panel hid all four filler tubes, blending in with the rest of the deck.

  Sliding off the SeaGhost onto the stern platform of the Kathleen, he climbed the boarding ladder to the stern deck and shut down the pump. It took him five minutes to coil and stow the hose and pump, then remove the rest of the grounding straps.

  “Last box, Captain, sir.”

  “This is not a good idea, Ginger. Why don’t you take Kathleen back to the marina?”

  “Not on your life.”

  “It could mean your life. I don’t like that.”

  She moved up close to him in the dark, gripped his forearm, and looked up at him. “I haven’t done anything meaningful since university environmental protests, Kevin, and those were kind of hollow. Don’t deny me this.”

  Her voice was throaty, and her tone sincere.

  “Ginger…”

  “Please. I’ll get off if you tell me to get off, but I’ll hate you for it.”

  “Ah, damn.”

  “No, I won’t hate you, but I’ll be disappointed that I had the chance to contribute something and blew it.”

  “Even if it goes smoothly, you could lose your job. Ted tells me you could go to prison, along with me.”

  “There are better things than being a bank manager.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like being with you.”

  “I’m broke.”

  “You just need a financial advisor.”

  “Back to the point,” he told her. “I don’t want you at risk.”

  “I don’t want you at risk,” she said.

  “It’s different.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “All I’m going to do is patrol the area. Probably, nothing will come of it.”

  “Then the risk is less.”

  “Go home, Ginger.”

  “I am home.”

  He gave up for the moment and descended to the side dock to take the cardboard boxes she shoved through the boarding gate. When they were stacked on the dock, he climbed back aboard the yacht, cranked up the engines, and moved her out to the finger pier. Together, they secured the hatches, then walked around to the dry dock. He went out the side dock and shut the sea door, then turned on the lights.

  It took twenty minutes to load, then unpack the boxes. He’d brought linen, pillows, and blankets for a couple of the bunks, more coffee, a couple cases of beer and Coke, bread, condiments, hamburger, hot dogs, frozen potatoes, bacon, eggs. He was half afraid he’d be caught off-coast in daylight and have to hide out for a day.

  Additionally, he added to his store of tools and repair items — epoxy glues and powder, fiberglass cloth, engine and pump seals and bearings, oil, and grease. There was a portable electric pump, wiring cables, hoses. McCory liked to be prepared for anything, and he liked to have it stowed away neatly.

  He had also brought
additional maps and charts for inland waterways. From the classified code book, he had made up a sheet of frequencies and encryption and scrambler modes for the naval and air force installations in the immediate vicinity. He taped the sheet to the bulkhead next to the communications console.

  At 9:15, he opened the sea door and backed the SeaGhost out into the waterway.

  Ginger sat down in the radar seat next to him. “Thank you.”

  “I still don’t like it.”

  “But we’re a team. You’d never get a missile off by yourself.”

  As they crept down the waterway, the night’s fireworks displays erupted at Edgewater and New Smyrna Beach. Exploding star shells cascaded rivers of white fire, violet blossoms, and red and blue clusters.

  “Pretty,” Ginger said.

  “Unless you get in real close,” McCory told her.

  Chapter 12

  0220 hours, 30° 48’ North, 81° 14’ West

  Badr thought that his strategy was working well. It was evident in the radio traffic that had not been encoded between the Second Fleet headquarters and the ships of the task forces seeking him.

  The United States Navy was converging on the southern coast of the continent, as they were expected to do.

  The Hormuz, commanded by a reluctantly admiring Abdul Hakim, was still steaming steadily to the north. Hakim had faked breakdowns of his steam turbine twice in order to slow his pace, but he was now several hundred kilometers to the north and nearly a hundred kilometers off the coast.

  Ibrahim Badr had ranged far ahead of the tanker, beginning his attacks in North Carolina, then working his way south. He had set up a direction for the United States Navy, and they were following it. They were so predictable. He judged the main task force to be about 150 kilometers north of them.

  Now, there was the naval air station in Florida. This one did not even require that they move in close.

  In the dark of the night, the Sea Spectre was ten kilometers from the coast, at rest. The sea swells were heavy, suggesting an oncoming storm, and the boat bobbed up and down, rising several meters, then dropping. Amin Kadar sat at the dining table, gnawing on chunks of lamb left over from their meal. He stared out the window at the night, looking for whatever it was he longed for.