A Shark Out of Water

by Emma Lathen

  As soon as Gabler had made his courteous farewells Annamarie permitted herself an inward chuckle before turning to Zabriski’s latest memorandum on inadequate container facilities in the eastern Baltic. For six pages the report was a model. On the seventh page it strayed. As was happening all too frequently these days, the author had spied compelling proof for an immediate need to enlarge the capacity of the Kiel Canal.

  Madame Nordstrom shook her head. She had already fielded several protests from the delegates about this recurring hobbyhorse. For 18 months Stefan Zabriski had labored mightily by her side to structure a new institution. Now, with that herculean task behind, he was turning his attention to facets of BADA that he was far less fit to deal with. Zealous and dedicated, he not only believed that everything in the Baltic was BADA’s business, he honestly thought this was a universally recognized truth.

  “Poor Stefan,” she murmured tolerantly. “As if we’re going to be in any shape to consider the canal for another five years.”

  Chapter 2

  Crosscurrents

  Two floors below, Madame Nordstrom’s chief of staff was also speeding a parting guest. “Not at all, Herr Bach. It was my pleasure,” Stefan Zabriski declared.

  He sketched a formal bow and Leonhard Bach, a generation younger in years and style, responded with boyish enthusiasm: “And I sure learned a lot.”

  On this note of mutual satisfaction they separated. Zabriski was halfway back to his office before he discovered that he had been caught in the act.

  As luck would have it his secretary chose this inopportune moment to return from errands elsewhere. “Stefan,” said Wanda Jesilko with mild reproach, “wasn’t that Leonhard Bach I just passed in the hall?”

  “Why, yes,” said Zabriski vaguely. “Yes it was.”

  “The German shipper?” she continued. The one who’s here to lobby the council into modernizing his home port?”

  Wanda, a tall angular woman with enormous deep-set eyes, always dressed to emphasize her dramatic gypsy coloring. Today she was especially striking in a bold crimson blouse.

  “You know quite well it was Bach,” he said, falling back on quiet dignity. “Why these useless questions?”

  Zabriski, a compact wiry man with close-cropped graying hair, was now striding around his office at a military clip. Wanda paused in the doorway to adjust a long amber earring before planting herself in his path.

  “I thought we decided that you would not intrude yourself,” she reminded him. “At its next session the council will award the harbor grant to Estonia or Germany, to Tallinn or Rostock. Just wait for their decision, Stefan. No cozy talks with people who stand to benefit, like Herr Leonhard Bach from Rostock.”

  After an internal struggle he yielded slightly. “That is true enough. But believe me, Wanda, Rostock was barely mentioned. Nor was the council session, critical as that is. Bach and I were considering the larger aspects of Baltic development. In particular, a major renovation of the Kiel Canal, if you must know.”

  Shaking her head, she sighed deeply. After ten years as Zabriski’s secretary she knew her man in and out. The five years they had spent as lovers scarcely counted. The topic of your conversation with him is of no importance,” she began painstakingly.

  Pulling away from her he assumed a new stance. “Of no importance!” he thundered. The Kiel Canal is of vital significance to every member of BADA!”

  “Yes, yes,” she said hastily. “But so are appearances, and look at how you’re behaving. First you decline to see what’s-his-name—that Estonian from Tallinn. Then you open the door to Bach. When, instead, you should be keeping all private fleet owners at arm’s length.”

  “You’re calling what Jaan Hroka runs a fleet?” he scoffed. “Those two rusted-out tubs of his? Hroka’s nothing but a moneygrubbing little opportunist hoping for benefits he hasn’t earned.” Before ascending to the giddy heights of BADA, Zabriski had served a long term in the limbo of the Marine Bureau of communist Poland. Wanda Jesilko had made the same transition but, unlike him, had shed old ways of thinking.

  “You could say the same about Bach,” she observed.

  “Ridiculous,” Zabriski blustered. “He is well informed and forward looking. Besides, unlike Hroka, he’s a success.”

  “Because of a BADA loan.”

  “Exactly!” he cried, hearing only confirmation. Many of the small BADA loans doled out to newly freed Europe had disappeared without a trace. Leonhard Bach’s Valhalla Line was one of the happier exceptions. Zabriski persisted in regarding this achievement as a testament to his own acumen.

  “Stefan,” Wanda pleaded, “you’re supposed to be impartial. And ever since that toxic dumping people are claiming that you’re not.”

  “I was enforcing regulations that every member government has subscribed to,” he said self-righteously. “They think the whole incident was a setup.”

  She lowered her voice meaningfully. “And I happen to know that it was.”

  “Now you’re saying that I’m responsible for the crimes of others.”

  Ignoring the accusation, she continued: “You knew that stuff was being loaded on Hroka’s ship. One phone call would have taken care of the situation. But no, you had to have his ship boarded at sea by BADA inspectors, escorted back to Tallinn, and slapped with charges. You deliberately created a big public melodrama.”

  For a moment they stared at each other, narrowed light blue eyes challenging dark ones. As usual, it was Zabriski who blinked first. But his shamefaced grin was not an apology. “It worked, didn’t it? Nobody would have noticed if I’d simply aborted the loading. This way, the whole council knows exactly what tricks Estonia is up to.”

  “Not Estonia,” she said gently. “One wretched little man with, as you said, two rusted-out tubs.”

  Brushing aside his own words he replied stiffly: “Hroka operates under license from the Estonian government.”

  “And you wonder why some members think you’re pro-German!” she wailed. “You tell everybody you’re pro-Rostock, you go out of your way to embarrass an Estonian national, then you have Herr Bach in for a clubby little chat!”

  “You are making a mountain out of a molehill,” he insisted, resuming his march around the office. “There’s absolutely no doubt that Rostock will get the grant. After the delegates read my recommendations, by the way, you did get copies made, didn’t you?

  “Yes, they’re on my desk. That’s exactly what I’m trying to make you understand. The more the council suspects you of bias, the less faith they’re likely to place in your report.”

  He stopped dead, his face finally mirroring her anxiety. “Nonsense,” he declared. “That cannot be. My report embodies the technical findings of the staff. How can they possibly fail to give it full weight?”

  “Because,” she said, running out of patience, “when you start boarding ships on the high seas to make a point, people are not sure exactly what games you’re playing.”

  Instead of being insulted he identified a flaw in her reasoning. “Aha, that shows you don’t understand what I had in mind when I gave that order. I was not thinking about the harbor grant but about a display of BADA authority.”

  “One that nobody wanted!”

  Sinking into a chair, he snatched a pencil and stared at it balefully. “Nobody?” he mocked.

  “You know as well as I do that it was Madam Chairman. If she had authorized a suspension or a heavy fine, every dockside worker in the Baltic would realize that BADA is a force to be reckoned with. But no, she is satisfied with a warning, the merest rap on the knuckles.”

  Stefan brooding over good work undone was Stefan seeking a villain. At the maritime bureau under communism it had been clumsy political apparatchiks. Here it was Annamarie Nordstrom and her insistence on diplomatic discretion. These dark moments of his soul required judicious handling.

  “I know it was disappointing,” said Wanda, beginning with sympathy before moving on to the unpalatable truth. “But Madame Nord
strom consulted the whole council and they agreed unanimously that your action was ill-judged and ill-timed. That’s why she promised the Estonian delegate that there would be no sanctions.”

  “What do they know?” he muttered rebelliously.

  She knew better than to answer him. Instead, passing behind his chair, she began to knead his tight shoulder muscles with slow, rhythmic pressure, reciting the current mantra as she did so. “Now, you will not presume to tell a delegate or Madame Nordstrom how they should decide?”

  “Really, Wanda,” he protested in muted offense as the massage began to take effect. “After all this time I know how to deal with my so-called betters. These persons in fleeting authority are nothing new to me. I can deal with them very well, very well indeed.”

  Since there was no use puncturing this innocent vanity, she made another suggestion. “And if there isn’t anything urgent on your desk at the moment, why don’t you check the computer room now?”

  Every day Zabriski spent an hour before the monitors, tracking ship movements and simultaneously attaining psychic tranquility.

  “Good idea,” he said, stretching his neck luxuriantly. Then with a touch of slyness, he added: “And while I’m at it, I’ll just distribute some copies of my report”

  Secure in the knowledge that most delegates were absent, Wanda remained calm.

  * * *

  Within its five-story structure BADA was a house divided. Zabriski ruled over the three lower floors, responsible for day-to-day operations. Policy was debated on the fourth floor in the council chamber, in the private offices of the delegates, and in their spacious lounge. At the top of the heap, Madame Nordstrom’s suite shared the fifth floor with a small but elegant dining room.

  Today, without a single delegate to be found, there was no need for exertion. Zabriski delivered his reports to several uninterested underlings, then fled downstairs to the basement where his cherished communication center was located.

  The serried ranks of computers were stars in his personal crown. To the left was the BADA inspection service, enforcing uniform standards and safety measures on the flotilla of car and passenger ferries plying the Baltic. Nearby was the rescue command post, ready to answer emergency calls from St. Petersburg to Copenhagen. Straight ahead was his favorite station where shipping traffic was continuously scanned. But what was this? A container ship scheduled to depart Malmō earlier that morning was still in dock, wasting untold dollars by delay.

  “What’s wrong with the SS Leyden?”

  The response was immediate.

  “Transformer blew in the facility at 13 hours,” said the nearest disembodied voice. “Power outage for three hours.”

  Zabriski swelled with pride. Who else had his finger on the pulse of all this activity? No admiral viewing his operations table experienced a greater sense of command than BADA’s chief of staff in front of his screen. His compendious knowledge of Baltic ports transformed those green flickerings into a three-dimensional panorama.

  Insensibly, his thoughts drifted further afield to construct a vision unsupported by his database. In that dream a magnificent modern waterway appeared, its broad expanse supporting an endless stream of traffic, and every inch of it was inspired and engineered by BADA under Stefan Zabriski’s personal supervision.

  Reality returned when he switched off and the screen went blank. He remained motionless for a moment before straightening.

  “Something,” he decided martially, “must be done.”

  Chapter 3

  The Burning Deck

  In New York and Gdansk it was easy to think in terms of the Kiel Canal’s future. But that evening those actually operating and using it were just hoping to get through the night. The man in charge of the office on a small bluff overlooking the locks knew that he was in for some long, hard hours.

  “What kind of traffic is scheduled?” he asked.

  “Busier than usual.”

  “Naturally!” he snarled.

  With twilight had come the first fragile tendrils of fog. Writhing and coiling they had formed into balls. Then, with alarming speed, the balls became patches, the patches became drifts and, within the hour, a dense, suffocating blanket brought all traffic to a dead crawl. Normally, when the Baltic itself was hazardous, entry into the Kieler Fiord spelled salvation. It was a long, narrow inlet, buffered against crashing waves and gale winds by gently rolling terrain. Its shores were dotted with suburban homes, industrial sites, marinas and, at the end, the city of Kiel. Embellishing the waters were commuter ferries zigzagging from side to side, low-slung commercial traffic plowing an arrow-straight course, and the white sails of recreational vessels circling at will.

  But tonight the open sea was not the enemy. It was entry into the Fiord that was the beginning of a nightmare. Visibility, which that afternoon had been measured in kilometers, was now zero. Radar, with its multiplicity of blips, was proving useless. And the distorted echoes of foghorns, braying from every corner, added to the confusion. Pilots trying to negotiate the inlet in either direction were like blind men in a narrow corridor alive with moving obstacles.

  Simply locating the entrance to the canal, on the right-hand side of the Fiord, was fraught with difficulty. The brilliant illumination of the Holtenau locks that usually made error impossible was tonight another distraction. The lighting, refracted by the fog, produced an eerie glow extending for half a mile. Mishaps from those aiming at the canal soon began to bedevil the authorities. Immediately to the south of the locks two long moles thrust forward, sandwiching an inviting cul de sac into which a Greek freighter stumbled. Its plaintive call elicited scant sympathy.

  “Tell them to stay there for the night. All we need is an idiot like that trying to back out.” As the hours wore on more and more vessels found themselves where they did not want to be. For some, this meant accepting the unwelcome hospitality of strange dry docks and piers. For others, with perils on every side, it meant dropping anchor in midstream. At the canal, however, they had far too much to do with their own charges to worry about conditions in the harbor. Vessels exiting from the canal were relatively easy to handle, but coaxing new arrivals into their berths was a time-consuming and anxious business. Fortunately as navigation outside grew more difficult, the number seeking admission decreased.

  “Good!” said the official. “The fewer the better.”

  He did not realize that the congestion outside was matched, on a smaller scale, by a growing clot within the canal. Ships traveling northward had slowed upon entering the fog: Those to the rear steadily closed the customary gaps.

  “When are they going to let this lot through?” he asked. Instinctively he looked toward the window only to see nothing but a wooly curtain banked against the weeping panes. Down on the locks things were no better. The lockkeeper did not actually witness the arrival of new vessels. Instead there was a series of vibrating thumps, followed by the appearance of a ghostly visitor wreathed in white vapor. One and all, in a variety of accents, they made the same complaint.

  “I had to feel my way around the building to find the door. I’ve never seen it as thick as this.”

  “Yes, it’s a bad one all right. Here’s your toll receipt.”

  After a large, Panamanian-registered freighter filled the last berth, the lockkeeper nodded to his minions and the time-honored procedure took place. The gates closed and water gushed powerfully through outlets for several minutes, then the inner gates opened and another contingent of vessels spilled into the canal. After the hell in the fiord outside, every helmsman breathed a sigh of relief. In the canal he would become part of a two-way stream, as ordered as anything on the autobahn.

  Unfortunately the flotilla that had been inching its way upstream, growing with every kilometer, had lost its discipline. The abnormal crowding, the lack of visibility, and the diffused glow from Holtenau conspired to transform a defined string traveling northward into a loose wide-spread aggregate. Simultaneously the lead vessel released from the loc
ks chugged southward.

  The results were foredoomed. For the crews swept up in the ensuing chain collision, the most horrifying aspect of their night of terror was that they never knew what was happening. The sounds echoed and reechoed from every point of the compass, metal crunching against metal, sirens hooting alarm signals, the anguished whine of desperately revving diesels, high-pitched voices yelling mindless obscenities. As every lookout hopelessly tried to penetrate the white cocoon in which he was immured, fancied perils became more dangerous than real hazards. A slight darkening of the surrounding murk assumed the shape of a menacing hull to be frantically avoided. Sometimes the misleading shadow would propel the unfortunate craft into an actual obstacle. Too often a genuine threat materialized without any warning at all.

  The experience on board the Luanda, an early victim, was typical. The man at the wheel was thrown off his feet by the force of an unexpected shuddering impact. Scrambling erect, he hurled himself at the wheel, only to discover that it no longer responded. With the Lucinda veering helplessly off course, he flew to the bows screaming a warning. Minutes later he was knocked down again by a collision astern.

  But the ordeal had barely begun. The first flicker of fire appeared in the snarled tangle of two ships that had drifted into the center of the canal. Men who barely knew what they were doing downed crowbars to dive for extinguishers and hoses. Struggling along slippery decks and manhandling apparatus that felt covered with soapy scum, they were unaware of a greater threat spreading below. Ruptured fuel lines had long since deposited a flammable layer on the sea itself and now, beneath that opaque white blanket, the conflagration was burning viciously at water line.

  The first explosion occurred shortly thereafter.

  In the canal office the radio was jabbering nonstop. At first the brusque voices were controlled.