by Michael Howe
Evans paused, then continued, “As we all know by now a tragic event occurred sometime last night. One of the ship’s crew fell overboard—I can only say that the man was a hero, a credit to merchant marines everywhere, and our prayers go out to his family. I want to assure every one of you that I am monitoring the situation minute by minute. I have just concluded a conference with Captain Covington and fully intend to ensure that everything possible is done and is done right. You may count on me to keep you informed and to keep your interests my top priority.”
Pete’s a damn ambitious sucker, thought Senator Alvin Bergstrom as he lay in bed, listening to the speech and fondling Linda Williams’s left breast. So, for that matter, was Linda. Perhaps even more so. He knew she had less than no real interest in his hairy, warty, tired old body; that what she really wanted was sponsorship of and votes for legislation. Well, she wasn’t going to get it. A little bit, maybe, but not all of it. Not from him. He’d undoubtedly dance around praising the noble intentions of those who did sponsor her legislation, but somehow, he would never end up voting for it. Because it cost too much. Because it conflicted with a better bill he was working on. Because any halfway plausible reason. If necessary he’d be sure to be out of town investigating some mega-disaster or other. Sometime, after the cruise was over, she would be told. Not by him, but by Babs. That’s what Babs was for. To clean up things like Linda. In the meantime Linda would simply have to settle for his hairy, warty, tired old body.
The senator leaned over and licked that which he had been fondling.
Arthur Covington sat at his desk and reread the message. Then he looked up at Mr. Winters. “You did read this?”
“Yes, Captain. The company wants us to head north across the Drake Channel again and prepare to receive a helicopter full of U.S naval personnel who are going to conduct some sort of courtesy security inspection.”
“Yes, very gracious of them.”
“Does it mean that they know something solid that we don’t?”
“I wish I knew. We don’t seem to have any choice but to go along with it.”
“What are you going to tell the passengers?”
“That at the owners’ request the United States Navy has arrived to give us a routine courtesy inspection and that there is absolutely nothing to be concerned about.”
“What’s this all really about?” demanded Congressman Pete Evans shortly before midnight, when he found Mr. Winters standing on the boat deck looking aft through the light but wind-driven snow at the brilliantly lit fantail.
“As the captain explained, sir, this is a routine security audit that the United States now conducts at the request of shipowners.” As he tried to soothe the congressman, Winters wondered just how successful the operation was going to be. Between the wind’s violent and unpredictable gusts and the ship’s rolling and heaving, he had trouble imagining a happy ending. But, presumably, their midnight visitors were all trained in this sort of thing.
“I never heard of any program like that.”
“I understand it’s very new. Maybe they are doing a few trial runs before announcing it.”
“Wendell Gardner tells me there’s more to it than that.”
“I can’t speak for Mr. Gardner, sir, he works for the sponsors of the voyage, but I’m sure the captain will tell you more—if there is more to tell—when he knows more. As it is, he’s satisfied these people are on legitimate official business.”
Before Evans could express more displeasure, a big, orange helicopter appeared out of the night astern and slowly approached, dragging its static wire below it. “Now please excuse me, sir,” said Winters as he started down one of the ladders. “I’m needed on the fantail.”
Feeling both intensely irritated and also a little nervous, Evans looked around. There were maybe a hundred or so other passengers standing there, watching and looking both confused and concerned. He might have expected more, but then it was almost midnight and the weather absolutely sucked. Even Penny had chosen to stay in bed. He did, however, count all three media teams on station.
Evans continued to watch as the helo made its approach. Its static wire clunked on the rolling, heaving deck then slid over the side as the helo was blown away by a ferocious gust. Back it came, lower this time, trying to line itself up over the ship’s rolling, pitching deck, only to be shoved away yet again by another gust, from the opposite direction.
On the third approach, a dark figure—Evans would later learn that it was Mike Chambers—in an orange survival suit and with a large duffel bag, could be seen swinging below the helo.
The gust that had been holding the Trident Force leader off the ship disappeared just as the helo had worked its way back over, and Mike swung forward as he dropped rapidly toward the deck. With what must have been a painful crash, he slammed into the rolling steel and stumbled. Even before he could gain his footing, the helo drifted off again, dragging him toward the side. Only at the last minute was Mike able to trip the quick release on the harness.
It was time, decided Congressman Evans as he exhaled the breath he’d been holding, to get over to the nearest media team and provide them with some informed commentary. As he walked along the rail and watched, the helo’s pilot—who was gritting his teeth and praying as he hadn’t prayed since he was six—returned and managed to deposit another package—Ted Anderson—on the deck safely before once again being blown downwind.
The helo came in again, this time to deliver Alex. The approach was from the starboard side of the ship. The altitude was about two hundred feet, and the wind seemed to have steadied for a moment or two.
With her duffel strapped beside her, Alex stepped out into the raging night, supported by the hoist wire. The helo’s crewman started to lower her until she was swinging about seventy-five feet below him.
Congressman Pete Evans watched in renewed shock as a downdraft slammed the helo. The black figure plummeted, almost in free fall. He grasped the rail even harder as he realized that whoever it was dangling at the end of the wire was either going to slam into the ship’s side at fifty miles per hour or disappear into the raging black-and-white madness below. And the helo was going to crash right on top of her.
He glanced at the media team, which was still fifty feet away. Maybe this wasn’t the sort of thing he wanted to be involved with.
Of course it was! It was high-impact news.
When Alex had stepped up to the open door and looked out into the screaming cold night, she’d come to the sudden conclusion that taking the next step, the big one, was not a particularly smart thing to do.
Maybe it was a lack of sleep—she’d spent the entire trip from Tampa to Ushuaia on the computer and not even a dead man could have slept in the helo. Maybe it was the bitter cold—she’d never experienced anything like it before. Maybe it was because she’d just turned thirty-two and might even be getting a little smarter.
She’d jumped out of aircraft at least fifty times before. On wires, with a parachute, and even to execute low-altitude free fall. All the same, on this particular pitch-black night, with the wind screaming and the Southern Ocean boiling as it slammed against the side of her tiny target, she felt an almost overpowering desire to be at home in her own living room, doing practically anything other than what she was about to do.
Stop screwing around and do it! She checked to make sure her crash helmet visor was locked up—so she could see what the hell was happening—then turned for one last look into the helo. The crewman—over whom Alex felt she towered—grinned, revealing his two missing front teeth. He gave her the thumbs-up sign, and she stepped out into the shrieking void. She returned the okay and he started to lower her rapidly, to get her clear of the bouncing helo. The survival suit was stiff but comfy, she thought, although her nose began to feel brittle almost immediately. But everything was fine. She’d trained for this sort of thing endlessly and was totally qualified.
Once clear of the helo, Alex began to recover her sense of adventure. T
he sensation of hanging between raging sky and boiling, barely visible sea was thrilling. Liberating. It was also, a little voice pointed out, stomach-turning. As she swayed in the gale, she looked ahead and down. There, visible through the spotty snow, was the lighted white form of Aurora Austalis glowing in the dark as she pitched in the nasty seas.
Alex had already concluded that the helo’s pilot and crew were good. Not only had they managed to survive countless trips in this impossible region, where horrific weather was considered run-of-the-mill, but she’d just seen them deliver two of her teammates more or less intact. If they could do it with them, they could undoubtedly do it for her. It was no more than a matter of faith, and faith was essential to people who jumped out of aircraft. She’d probably end up with a bruise or two—she tended to bruise easily—but that would be the end of it.
All of these cheerful preconceptions disappeared and Alex’s stomach rocketed several feet up her throat when a horribly powerful and totally unexpected downdraft slammed into the helo, causing her to plummet to within a few feet of the hungry Southern Ocean.
There she dangled. Rising a few feet then falling back. At one point a wave actually kissed her foot. And then she looked ahead and forgot about the presumptuous wave. A hundred feet or less away, the high white side of the ship was racing at her at an impossible speed. She assured herself the pilot was doing everything he could to prevent her imminent extinction, but somehow she didn’t feel much better for it. She tried to swing the duffel bag around to act as a bumper when she hit, but was unable to hold it in place. It was ridiculous to even consider trying to climb the hoist wire. There was no time, and she obviously couldn’t do it, anyway. Not with the duffel filled with two hundred pounds of weapons, sensors and clothes.
Oh shit! she thought. There was nothing else to say or think about the situation.
She felt a slight, grinding vibration through her left hand, which was wrapped around the life wire. She looked down and could have sworn she was rising. Then she looked ahead at the great, white wall, now maybe fifty feet away, and allowed herself to believe that it was no longer approaching but rather drifting off to one side. A gust of wind grabbed her and dragged her off to the left. Her tether, she realized, was now tending up at a sharp angle.
God! she thought in relief. The pilot was allowing the helo to be blown downwind from the ship, and the toothless one was cranking her up. She tried to keep from holding her breath as she waited to see what was to come, well aware that she was no longer a player in the drama—not even a bit player. She was merely a package.
Alex watched as the helo drifted astern of the ship and off to one side. At the same time the glowing white phantom hull slowly dropped below her. Wasting no time, the pilot worked his way upwind and alongside the ship and then charged in again. In what seemed but seconds Alex found herself looking down at Aurora’s deck as she descended toward it. She flexed her knees as she landed and tripped the harness’s quick release with desperate speed. As she did, the ship rolled, and she found herself stumbling toward the rail, dragging the damn duffel behind her. Four arms grabbed her and held her in place—which was good since the duffel would have made a fabulous anchor.
“We’re all damn glad you decided to join us, Alex,” said Mike, a big smile on his face.
Alex, momentarily speechless, responded with a thumbs-up sign, thinking of the toothless helo crewman as she did. She hoped he and the pilot would make it home in one piece. But they couldn’t leave quite yet. They still had to get Ray, Jerry and Ted down. They still had a chance to kill themselves. It also occurred to her that the time might well come when this sort of bullshit was no longer fun.
“The proud men and women of our military are not only brave,” intoned Peter Evans to Jen, the brunette, “but they have the best training in the world. I doubt there’s another force on earth that could carry out the sort of operation we’re now watching.”
As he spoke, Evans gripped the rail tightly, afraid that the ship’s increasingly violent behavior might throw him off to one side in a humiliating heap.
“Can you tell us, Congressman, exactly why this force has arrived? There are all sorts of rumors flying around—drugs, terrorists, environmental enforcement actions . . .”
“I’m sorry, Jen. I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to disclose the precise reason for this operation. I can only join you in applauding its execution. Not only by the party itself, but also by that fine helicopter crew of ours. They’re all doing a fantastic job.”
11
The Drake Passage
Jacob Rounding leaned on the fourth deck rail and watched as the dark packages descended from the sky, his slender, stooped frame hidden in one of the ankle-length thermal coats favored by engineers in all climes, when leaving the Venusian heat of the engineering spaces to view the outside world. Around him clustered half a dozen other engineers, all equally warmly packaged.
“This is insane,” remarked one of the enginemen. “They almost killed her then!”
“Her?” demanded another. “What makes you think it was a girl?”
“I can always tell. It was the way she ran when she almost went over the side as the ship rolled.”
“Are you in love again, Dobbs?”
“Probably. She’s got guts.”
“She can probably also break your neck with a flick of her wrist.”
“That doesn’t necessarily make her a bad person.”
Rounding listened to the chatter and was briefly tempted to remark that young Dobbs should fall in love just as often as he damn well pleased. At least that way he would be living. But he decided the subject of love was something he didn’t want to get into.
“Mr. Rounding,” asked one of his companions, “do you have any idea why these hotshots are coming to visit us? Really? I mean is it drugs or terrorists or are they here to arrest somebody?”
“We’d all like to know,” replied the third engineer carefully. “They said it is a courtesy inspection to check on the ship’s antiterrorist security.”
“You mean like carding us and checking our references and searching us every now and then?”
“Something like that.”
The announcement that a party of U.S. naval personnel was being delivered to the ship had set off an alarm in Jake Rounding’s highly stressed brain. While he couldn’t be precisely sure why they were coming, he did know they weren’t tourists who’d missed the ship’s sailing. What they were was authority. United States government authority.
And Dobbs may well have guessed right—they probably were there to arrest somebody. He hunched over in the howling wind, his stomach churning, and watched as the show continued.
They’d discovered it was him, he reproached himself, and now they’d found him. He’d begun to hope it had been so long ago that they’d forgotten about it. Or lost interest. He’d hoped that being on a ship a million miles from nowhere would protect him. The more he thought about it, though, the more he realized that instead of protecting himself he’d trapped himself. He was here and they were here and he had no place to run or hide.
Beginning to shake, Jake rested his forearms on the rail and looked down at the deck. Poor Annie! He’d been such a shit father for her! He’d been a shit non-husband for her mother! His whole life had reduced itself to shit. Just as he’d known it would even back when he was in junior high school.
It was all too late now. There was nothing to do but wait. They would summon him—or maybe they would show up at his cabin, kick in his door and shoot him right where he stood. Or, if he was really unlucky, they might not shoot him right away.
What he couldn’t understand was why here and why so many? There’d been five of them. Five to arrest a worn-out old bugger like him? But then he knew the procedure; he’d seen it on TV. Five big officers to arrest one ninety-year-old in a wheelchair. Cuff the felon and run him in front of the TV cameras. Give the onlookers a jolt of shock and awe to remind them who’s in charge. And, in the end,
if it began to look as if the bastard was innocent, remind the judge that one can never be too careful in this day and age.
Arthur Covington sat at the head of the table in his small conference room and looked up when Mike Chambers walked in, dressed now in a set of blue coveralls with “United States Navy” embroidered over the left breast.
“Captain Covington,” said Mike as he offered his credentials, “I’m Captain Michael Chambers, United States Navy.”
Chambers stood, accepted the credentials and studied them a moment. He then gave them back and offered his hand. “Welcome aboard, Captain Chambers. Please sit down.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
Like many other merchant mariners, Covington viewed the navy, any navy, with mixed emotions. In times of war they could be damn useful, but the rest of the time they had an irritating habit of descending on you shouting orders, screwing up your operating schedule and generally making your life miserable. Frequently for no discernible reason.
“To what do we owe your visit, if I’m allowed to know? The owners said it’s some sort of new, random security checkup that you Americans are now offering your friends . . .”
“I’m afraid we don’t offer it to just anybody, and it’s not totally random.”
“Oh?”
“To begin, you have a high-profile passenger list, a very tempting target to anybody with terrorist ambitions.”
“That has occurred to me.”
“What I doubt you know is that two shipfitters at the Tecmar yard, along with the girlfriend of one of them, disappeared shortly after your overhaul was completed. We have since learned that they seemed close to a person named Omar, about whom we know absolutely nothing except that the shipfitters seemed to have some sort of big plans and this Omar was central to them. We don’t even know at this point if Omar is his real name. Finally, not to be indelicate, there’s the matter of the yard’s ownership . . . and this man of yours who seems to have gone overboard.”
