The Maltese Incident

by Russell Moran

  The return of the Melody of the Seas, along with the passengers and crew of the Maltese, was met with nationwide jubilation. The good cheer, however, did not result in an increase in bookings. Cruise ship companies were growing accustomed to offering deep discounts to lure travelers to sea, and struggled to create a happy cruise experience with a skeleton crew.

  Management of the cruise ship companies realized that they didn’t just compete against each other, but against a phenomenon that nobody understood. The two near-disasters had happy endings, but nobody knew why, and nobody knew how to prevent the next ship from disappearing. Competing against the unknown is something that would take some getting used to. The cruise lines began a massive public relations campaign to get people to start booking cruises again. A divorce attorney with a morbid sense of humor took out an ad that read: “Show your ex-spouse that you care. Book her on a cruise.”

  ***

  “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, this is Martha MacCallum for Fox News.

  We welcome as our guest in the Fox Studio, Mr. Jeremy Escondido, a vice president with Viking Cruise Line, a company that has seen a 90 percent drop in bookings, just like all cruise ship companies. Jeremy, please convince me and our audience that we should book a cruise for our next vacation.”

  “Martha, it’s no secret why people are wary about cruising these days. The strange events that happened to the Maltese and the Melody of the Seas caught everyone’s imagination. But there’s a happy ending. Everybody is home safe and sound. What looked like disasters turned out to be fascinating adventures.”

  “Adventures?” MacCallum gasped, her face appearing stunned. “The ship Maltese is still missing, although its crew and passengers have been rescued. And I remind you that there’s no official explanation yet as to what exactly happened to either the Maltese or the Melody of the Seas.”

  “Martha, I think it’s important to note that both disappearances occurred in the Azores, and both near a certain position in the ocean. Bulletins have gone out to all shipping companies, cruise ship lines, national coast guards and navies, to beware of that section of the ocean in the Azores. It’s a shame that people are giving up wonderful vacation experiences because of a strange anomaly in one small area of the vast ocean.”

  “Jeremy, thank you for coming on our show. So, folks, it’s your choice; avoid the Azores—or avoid cruising altogether.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Dereck Burton, Captain of the Ocean Magic, ordered the ship’s horn to sound as she cast off her lines from the dock at Port Liberty in Bayonne, New Jersey. She sailed into a warm, calm July night. As the ship glided under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, Captain Burton ordered the first officer to sound the horn again, although the Rules of the Road didn’t call for, or even sanction such a tactic. Burton didn’t care. If the Coast Guard questioned him about it, he would say that he did it to alert harbor traffic. The real reason he sounded the horn was to call attention to the ship as she sailed under the bridge, because he wanted to do everything he could to promote cruising vacations. He hated that people avoided cruising because of a couple of strange event thousands of miles away. He hated it, but he couldn’t blame them. Whenever he thought about the Maltese or the Melody of the Seas, he forced the ideas from his head. The reason he forced the thoughts from his head was because he didn’t want to think about it. He had passengers—and a career—to be concerned about.

  He looked forward to a short, pleasant cruise. The ship would spend the next two days at sea, and then put into Hamilton, Bermuda. Following cruise ship custom, the captain would dine with a different group of people each night. Burton anticipated the conversations—the same conversations. People would want to know everything about his thoughts on the Maltese and Melody incidents. He would explain to the passengers, as he explained to anybody who would listen, that those two events were oddballs and they both occurred in the same small area of the ocean, far away in the Azores. There was nothing to worry about when taking a sea cruise. He always emphasized that people shouldn’t worry about something that wouldn’t happen and spoil their vacation.

  But Burton was lying, and he knew it. He did enough worrying for everybody. He listened to the executives from the home office making their rounds on TV shows, telling everybody what he told his passengers—there’s nothing to worry about. But why, Burton wondered, hasn’t any scientist come forward with an explanation of just what the hell happened? That’s the missing element in all the public relations efforts—simply tell the truth or admit that you don’t know the truth. And even though he did his best to join in the cruise industry public relations campaign, he knew that he really didn’t have any answers.

  Burton stepped outside onto the open bridge after telling Peter Dugan, his first officer, to take over. He lit a cigarette, which always relaxed him when something was on his mind. The ship traveled at 18 knots with a trailing wind of the same speed. It made for a comfortable smoke without ashes flying all over the place. The sky was beautiful, with sparkling stars and a three-quarter moon.

  Burton’s heart skipped a beat when he thought he saw a plane heading straight for the bridge, its bright lights bathing the area in sudden illumination. Then he realized that it wasn’t a plane, but a sky full of daylight. He unconsciously dropped his cigarette into his shirt pocket, where it began to smolder. He beat his hand against the pocket and ran inside to get some water. As he reached for a water bottle he felt the ship begin to rumble. He looked at Dugan.

  “Dear God,” Dugan said, “this is what those other ships went through.”

  But they weren’t in the Azores. They were 50 miles off the coast of New Jersey. The daylight returned to darkness, pitch darkness. They could no longer see the stars. The moon was no longer three-quarters but had disappeared.

  “Captain, do you think you should make an announcement?” Dugan asked.

  “And tell them what? That all those times I said not to worry I was lying?”

  He picked up the microphone.

  “We’ve experienced a strange weather event, ladies and gentlemen. I’ll provide you with more information in the morning.”

  Dugan looked at him and said nothing.

  “How’d I do Peter? Do you think I put their fears to rest? Be honest with me.”

  “I’ll be perfectly honest with you, captain. I wouldn’t be surprised if we confront an angry mob shortly. You told them nothing, and that means they’ll fill in the blanks by themselves. These passengers read newspapers and watch TV just like everybody. I’m sure most of them read all about the Maltese and the Melody incidents. In the morning you’ll need to go through with your promise to provide more information.”

  ***

  Morning came for the crew and passengers of the Ocean Magic. No clouds were visible in the sky, but the day was gray and bleak and totally overcast.

  “Our navigational instruments are shot to shit, captain. Last night you turned the ship around to head back to New York. We should be there by now, but there’s nothing but wide-open ocean around us. Our compass heading says that we’re head west, but the mainland is nowhere in sight. Even our inertial navigation system isn’t working. We’ve sent out a mayday, but nobody answers. We have no idea where we are.

  Dugan convinced Captain Burton that he should deliver a detailed announcement to the crew and passengers. His brief address right after the event just wouldn’t do, and probably made things worse. Nothing gets people angrier than being lied to.

  “Be honest with them captain. I suggest that you tell them what we know about the Maltese and Melody events, and describe the similarities.”

  “But to be honest with them I would need to say that I haven’t the foggiest fucking idea what happened.”

  “So, tell them that, Captain. Just leave out the f-bomb.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Burton. Last night, we experienced a strange phenomenon—strange to say the least. We’ve all read about the experience of the ships Maltese a
nd Melody of the Seas. Those two incidents occurred over a thousand miles from here in the Azores, off the coast of Portugal. Well, here we are steaming off New Jersey, and it appears that we’ve encountered a similar event. Because we’re in American waters, we expect that assistance from the Coast Guard is on its way.”

  He looked at Dugan.

  “The event occurred over eight hours ago, so where the hell is the Coast Guard?” Dugan whispered. “Shoot straight with them, captain, or they’ll panic.”

  “The Coast Guard often takes time to arrive on a scene because they like to be thorough,” Burton said into the microphone. “Please enjoy your breakfast. I’ll keep you advised throughout the day.”

  “I can tell from the look on your face, Pete, that you didn’t find my talk impressive.”

  “Forget about me, captain. It’s the others you need to impress. I suggest an up-date at least every couple of hours.”

  “Look about 10 points off the port bow,” Captain Burton said, “a couple of miles from us. Have you ever seen ships like that?”

  “As you know, Captain, I’m a naval history buff. Those four ships we’re looking at are German men of war, about 1930s vintage. Remember from the public hearings about the Maltese and the Melody. Both of those ships found themselves millions of years in the past.”

  “You don’t mean to fucking tell me that…”

  “Yes, captain, we’ve traveled through time.”

  ***

  Meg and I were sipping FBI coffee in the snack room during a break.

  “Honey, we’re not cops,” Meg said. “I think the FBI and the CIA are on top of this case and they don’t need our help. And what’s that bullshit about your security clearance being updated?”

  “Didn’t you hear Watson?” I asked. “They also ran a background check on you. Apparently, she is impressed with our teamwork. Hey, maybe we can wear those cool flak vests with ‘FBI’ emblazoned across the front and back.”

  “Don’t be an asshole,” Meg recommended.

  “Let’s catch the news while we’re standing here,” I said. “In Malta Town, we were always starved for news.”

  We looked at the TV in the corner of the snack room while we sipped our coffee.

  “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, Wolf Blitzer reporting for CNN. I have something shocking news that got mixed into today’s happy story. Just as New York and the entire country are celebrating the safe return of the people from the Maltese and Melody Incidents, we’re hit with yet another maritime mystery. The Celebrity Line cruise ship, Ocean Magic, disappeared last night. This incident didn’t happen in the Azores as did the other two events, but 50 miles off the coast of New Jersey. Just as with the previous two incidents, the ship simply disappeared. The search-and-rescue operation is just getting underway, so there’s still hope that there may be survivors. The Maltese and Melody Incidents are under intense scrutiny by law enforcement and intelligence agencies as well as academic institutions, especially around the subject of time travel. At this point, we have no solid news to bring you about the Ocean Magic, except that it’s missing. We will update you throughout the day as we hear more.”

  Meg looked at me. “Oh shit,” we both said.

  Everyone began to file back into the meeting area after the break. An agent we hadn’t met stood at the front of the room. She introduced herself as Agent Pat Blackwell.

  “Director Watson will be with us shortly after she gets off the phone,” Blackwell said. “She’s talking to the White House. I don’t know if any of you heard about it during the break, but another ship has gone missing, this one off the coast of New Jersey. Same familiar stuff—no debris, no sonar return, nothing. It happened last night.”

  “I think the cruise ship industry has seen better times,” Lars said.

  “Leave it to a Scandinavian to come up with a studied understatement,” I whispered to Meg.

  Meg still thought the idea of working for the FBI sucked. I was inclined to agree with her.

  ***

  “A gentleman is here to see you, Buster.”

  I was sitting in my temporary office at 26 Federal Plaza.

  “What’s his name?”

  “He said you know him.”

  “Welcome home, Buster,” CIA Director Bill Carlini said as he walked into the conference room. He wore a pulled-down hat, dark sunglasses, and an upturned collar.

  “I figured I’d try looking like a spook rather than just being one. I understand that the cruise I sent you on turned out to be interesting.”

  Bill and I, although we’re old friends, both share the same preference for getting right to the point.

  “You heard the news about the ship that disappeared off New Jersey?” I said.

  “I heard it on the morning news while having breakfast,” Carlini said. “I almost lost what I had just eaten.”

  “And the craziest thing about this incident is that it didn’t happen in the Azores but 50 miles from New Jersey,” I said. “This shit is getting out of hand.”

  “As far as the CIA is concerned, it got out of hand when the first ship disappeared,” Carlini said. “With most disasters there’s either a feeling of hope or despair. When you people all came back safely, we thought that the weird story was over. The ship that disappeared off New Jersey puts a whole new light on all this crap. It’s no longer a phenomenon of the Azores. Look at a model of the globe and ask yourself if you would feel safe in any ocean.”

  “Mr. Director”—I always call him Mr. Director when I want to hit him over the head with something important. “You sent me on that cruise to solve the case of the Maltese Incident. Well, I not only encountered the Maltese, but I got personally involved with the Melody of the Seas Incident. Sarah Watson tells me that I’ve got the ingenuity of a hungry rat. I used every bit of that ingenuity scurrying along the decks on my lovely cruise.”

  “So, my hungry rat friend, can you give me an executive summary of your findings?”

  “Yes, sir, I can, and here’s my summary—I don’t have a goddam clue as to what happened.”

  “But you must know more than when you started,” Carlini said.

  “Well sure, but I didn’t solve anything. Here’s what we’ve learned, and it’s all on the record from Sarah Watson’s office over the past few days. The Maltese, and then the Melody of the Seas hit a thing called a wormhole in the Azores. A wormhole is a portal from one dimension of time to another. The people on the Maltese thought they had been gone for 10 years. But they were only gone for two months, local time. A scientist from the Maltese group named Bob Flowers figured out that to return to the present we had to cross over the same wormhole. We did, and here we are. Fascinating stuff, and you should read it. But the bottom line, Bill, is that I have not solved a fucking thing.”

  “Buster, we’ve known each other for a long time, so let me ask you a question. What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m going to huddle with a guy who always seems to unblock cases for me when I’m stuck, a guy with the perception of a finely tuned radio receiver.”

  “You mean Imam Mike?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly who I mean. I have no idea how he can help, but then I never do. He has a wonderful habit of surprising me. I guess I won’t get a sea cruise out of this.”

  “Not unless you can cruise from here to Brooklyn.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Meg and I went to Sarah Watson’s office, as she requested. All the people from the previous meeting had left, and we would be the only ones in this meeting. When we walked through the door, Watson’s aide almost ran us over to escort us to her inner office.

  “I think Watson is in a hurry to see us,” I said.

  “I can’t wait,” Meg said. She didn’t look happy.

  When we entered Watson’s office she sat at her desk with her hands folded in front of her, adopting a demeanor that announced, “I’ve got something heavy to lay on you.”

  “Harry, let me come right out and ask you
something,” Watson said. “Can you guess what it is?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I think I do.” Meg nodded, as if she knew too.

  “You want us to appear on Jeopardy,” I said. Wiseasses often find it difficult to control themselves, as Meg’s elbow to my arm reminded me.

  Watson laughed.

  “I’m guessing that you want me to try to find that ship, the Ocean Magic,” I said, this time shooting for seriousness.

  “You hit the nail right on the head, Harry. Since the amazing experience you folks went through, we’ve all become educated in this thing called time travel, which I used to think was a subject for science fiction novels. Before this incident, I thought a wormhole was a hole in your lawn left by a worm.”

  I could tell she expected us to laugh.

  We didn’t.

  “Do we have a reliable fix of the location where the ship disappeared?” I asked.

  “Yes, we do,” Sarah said. “Since the incidents involving the Maltese and the Melody, cruise ship companies keep careful satellite tracks of all their ships at sea. So, we think we’ve got an exact fix on where the Ocean Magic left us, which means we know where the wormhole is.”

  “Madam Director,” Meg said, with a clear edge on her voice, “we’d all be crazy, not just the FBI but our whole society, if we didn’t go after that ship and its people. I say that because we’re all pretty sure what happened. I just hope that you’re not looking to Harry to lead the charge.”