Trident Force

by Michael Howe

  He and Ted had initially hoped they would be able to speed up the process by using their sensors for a preliminary survey, but problems had developed. Jerry’s radiation detector had done its job by not sounding off once except when he’d first calibrated it. Unfortunately, Ted’s sniffer—designed to detect a variety of molecules given off by various explosives—had proved utterly useless for surveying. There are an almost limitless number of oils and other solvents used aboard a ship. And the air in the engine room was full of them. Not only did many give off volatile molecules similar or identical to a variety of known explosives, but many could be used to make explosives themselves. Until something was found, neither the sniffer nor the small X-ray machine they’d brought would be of any use, reducing their high-tech arsenal to the Geiger counter and the sonar.

  Despite the challenges, they’d already come across several items of interest—all of which turned out to be contraband. Three bottles of rum and half a dozen little caches of marijuana. Then one of the enginemen found a parcel wrapped in brown paper carefully hidden under a fixed air flask.

  “Chief Andrews, I’ve found something,” shouted the man, waving as he did to get Jerry’s attention in the cacophonous engine room.

  Jerry hustled over, knelt down and studied the parcel for a moment. He then reached under the flask and pulled the parcel out. With a chuckle he opened it, revealing somebody’s collection of pornographic magazines.

  “Why the hell’d they bother to hide that?” asked one of the enginemen to nobody in particular.

  Jerry just shrugged his shoulders

  “That tank’s clean,” shouted Ted as he walked over beside Andrews, still carrying the sonar unit. “You think this is getting us anywhere?”

  “I think I wish we had more to go on.”

  “Yeah. I’m with you. You think we’ll be home by Christmas? Hannah’s really going to be pissed if I miss another.”

  “I sure as hell hope so. I think we all believed that since this counts as a shore-duty rotation we might be home from time to time.”

  “Even Captain Chambers?”

  “He got suckered along with the rest of us. Anybody look under the reduction gears?”

  “I did. First place.”

  “Just for the hell of it, let’s take a walk down the shaft alley. See if we can find anything. If these guys find anything, the second engineer will beep us.”

  “Why not!”

  With Jerry leading, they walked behind the reduction gear and stepped onto the catwalk that led to the long, narrow space through which the propeller shafts made their almost two-hundred-foot trip to the propellers. As they followed the catwalk aft, they could sense the icy waters flowing past the steel plate on either side of them, as well as the churning under the stem as the propellers rotated, forcing the water to flow aft. Every now and then they stopped to look under or behind something. All the while the two eight-inch counter-rotating propeller shafts, their oily surfaces glistening slightly, spun on either side of them, making a very faint whirring sound as they passed through the bearings that supported them.

  Suddenly Ted stopped.

  “You got something?” asked Jerry.

  Ted knelt down and shined his flashlight behind a bearing support.

  “Hell no. It’s just an empty beer bottle.”

  Mike was sitting in his shared suite, eating a sandwich, when there was a knock on the door. With a twinge of irritation he put down the food and opened the door to find Rod Johnson, complete with plaid shirt, standing there, a look of anger on his face. “Mr. Johnson, please come in.”

  Johnson nodded and entered, then came right to the point. “I understand you interrogated Linda Williams an hour or two ago. Gave her a hard time. Why?”

  “Does she work for you?”

  “Not directly. She’s an ally.”

  “She also has a conviction for committing a terrorist act.”

  “That’s open to debate.”

  “As we discussed before, my people and I are here because there are hints, strong hints, that something is wrong aboard this ship. It may well be drugs—which is not of significant interest to us. It may also be terrorism, which is.”

  “We’re very sensitive with respect to terrorism. Remember, it was our ship the French government blew up about forty years ago, and it’s our inflatables the whalers and tuna fishermen keep trying to sink. But what you’re doing is beginning to look like harassment, an effort to torpedo this educational cruise. With every passing day, we have more and more friends in Washington, but we still have enemies. The Department of Defense, to name one. I think it would be best if you cleared it with me before talking to any of our people—or close friends.”

  “Mr. Johnson, although I personally agree with much of what you people are pushing, I insist upon conducting this operation as I see fit.”

  “By whose authority?”

  “Captain Covington’s.”

  “I’ll talk to the owners, then. They’re very sympathetic to us.”

  “I doubt they will interfere with their captain in a matter like this.”

  “We will see,” snorted Johnson as he turned and walked out.

  12

  The Bellingshausen Sea

  Using a cane borrowed from the ship’s doctor to keep from toppling over, Ray Fuentes hobbled into the crew’s lounge, looked around and spotted his target. “Ivan Singh?” he said as he approached a small, thin young man sitting in a corner, watching a soccer match on TV.

  “Yes?” said Singh.

  “May I see your mariner’s card?”

  “You one of the American navy guys doing the security check?”

  “Yes,” replied Ray, thinking the blue coveralls must not be as self-explanatory as they seemed to him.

  “Sure,” said Singh, standing and taking out his wallet.

  Ray studied the card. It looked in order. For that matter, Singh had shown up on none of Alex’s lists, except the crew list. And the list of Hensen’s roommates.

  “You’re not a United States citizen,” observed Ray.

  “No, I’m Argentine.”

  “And you’re an electrician?”

  “No, an electronic tech, actually.”

  “How long have you been on this ship?”

  “This is my first trip. I joined her in Rio.” As he spoke, Singh’s eyes returned periodically to the soccer match.

  “How well did you know your roommate?”

  “You mean my late roommate? Not very well, but well enough to know he was the ship’s drug merchant.”

  “Did you buy from him?”

  “No. Of course not. But everybody knew that Hensen was the man.”

  “What about your other roommate?”

  “Swaboda? Hell no. He’s young, like me . . . has a family and likes to think he has a future too.”

  “You knew what he was doing but you didn’t report it to Mr. Ellison or any of the officers?”

  “I try to mind my own business. At least when it comes to other people fucking up their own lives. Anyway, talking about things like that can be dangerous.”

  “Have any idea where he kept his inventory?”

  “Not the slightest.”

  “Not in your room?”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “We’ll have to look.”

  “Of course, amigo.”

  “Have you ever been in trouble with the law?”

  “Whose?”

  “Anybody’s”

  “A couple speeding tickets.”

  “Did Hensen ever say anything about politics?”

  “You mean did he talk like a terrorist? No, I don’t think so. His only interest was money as far as I could tell. That’s why I always kept my locker locked.”

  “Did he have any special buddies?”

  “Only his customers, and I don’t imagine even they liked him. He was greedy and he liked to push people around just for the hell of it.”

  You joined the ship in Rio. Did
you know anybody at the Tecmar shipyard?”

  “No, the ship had moved down to a commercial pier before I joined her.”

  “How about Coccoli? Rojas? A guy named Omar?”

  “No. Never heard of any of them. Your Spanish is very good.”

  “I’m Puerto Rican. Just slumming with the gringos.”

  “Sorry,” said Singh, smiling for the first time. “I shouldn’t be so defensive. If you’re here to check on security, then that must mean that we have a problem, and I haven’t the slightest desire to be a victim. As I said, I’ve got a wife and kid and I still like both of them.”

  “Can you think of anything you’ve heard, seen, smelled or even imagined that might help us determine if there is a problem and what it is?”

  “No, I really can’t. I mean, there’re all sorts of oddballs in the crew—half of them, I’d say—but I wouldn’t know where to start. A lot of the Latins think I’m a little strange with my turban and long hair. In India there’re a lot of Singhs who the government suspects of being terrorists because they’re Sikhs. But then there are millions of Singhs in India.”

  “Okay. Thanks. If anything occurs to you, no matter how harebrained, please find me. I’m Fuentes, Ray Fuentes.” As he spoke, the marine pointed at his name on his coveralls.

  “You can count on me. As I told you, I like things the way they are.”

  Wrapped in a purple ski parka that might have been a little too large for her, along with a PFD on top, Katie Sanders held her mother’s hand almost as tightly as she was holding her breath. “Hey, Mom, this is great,” she managed to whisper without seeming to exhale. “I think I can see them already.”

  Aurora Australis had anchored in the lee of a low, rocky islet about five hundred yards off the rocky, snow-covered, western shore of the Antarctic Peninsula. The temperature was well below freezing, but thanks to the islet, the sea was reduced to a nasty chop. Despite the waves’ shrinkage, Captain Covington had twisted the ship across the wind to create an even greater lee on the port side. None of this mattered in the slightest to Katie. What mattered to Katie was that there were penguins ashore. And all sorts of other great and wonderful stuff.

  “Okay, People,” shouted Wendell Gardner as a forty-foot hard bottom inflatable boat bounced over the chop and surged up next to the landing stage built into the ship’s port side. “Before we board the HBI, I want you all to note that there is no pack ice in sight. None. This is what we’ve done to ourselves. Take a good look! Now let’s board the boats.

  “Hi, Pete,” said Wendell to Peter Evans as the first group of twenty passengers emerged from the big cargo door in the ship’s side and out onto the landing. “Hi, Penny.”

  “Good to see you, Wendell,” responded Evans with an extra large smile pasted on his face, just in case one of the camera crews had him in their sights.

  “Hi, Wendell,” said Penny cheerfully. And Penny was cheerful, anticipating the adventure almost as much as Katie. “I can’t wait to get ashore and see the sights.” The fact that her husband didn’t share her enthusiasm didn’t bother her a bit. In fact, she was beginning to enjoy his hidden discomfort. She’d long known he disliked water almost as much as he feared making a fool of himself in public. Or his wife’s making a fool of him.

  Thanks to the chop, the boat was rising and falling despite Arthur Covington’s best efforts. And the stage was a little slick and the water looked terribly cold. Much to Evans’s relief, however, both Wendell and the stony-faced Ecuadorian deckhand working with him were well practiced at getting passengers, including Penny, off the landing and into the boat with surprising grace.

  Once aboard, Pete Evans still didn’t feel comfortable. In addition to pitching and rolling, the damn inflatable twisted, buckled and sagged. And nothing felt truly solid. It was as if the damn thing were made of Jell-O.

  While the first boat pulled away and the second approached, the Ecuadorian deckhand scanned the next batch of passengers. His eyes settled for a moment on the Sanders. They struck him as unusually close, yet the adults also emitted the faintest hint of deep pain. The condition was all-too-familiar to him—the mixture of happiness and intense pain. He’d seen it in countless friends, relatives and neighbors over the years. He’d felt it himself.

  The man who was obviously the father nodded at him and smiled. He nodded back. Then his eyes returned to the little girl in the purple coat who was occupied blowing puffs of steam into the thin, icy air. His own daughter would adore a purple coat like that. He’d have to get her one just as soon as he got home.

  “Okay, Chris, you’re number one,” said Wendell as the second HBI pulled alongside. Chrissie, who’d been talking with Dana Sanders, turned and nodded. With her, but not really with her, was Brad. He was standing to one side with the expression of a whipped dog on his face.

  After Wendell had taken great care to ensure Chrissie’s comfortable transfer—and considerably less care with Brad—Tim was boarded with almost mechanical efficiency.

  When Katie stepped forward, Wendell paused ever so slightly. He really didn’t like kids, especially this screaming advertisement for mandatory Ritalin therapy. Leaving personalities aside, he was of the opinion that educating children was a waste of time when what was really needed was a massive reduction in their numbers. Children humans grew up to be adult humans, and it was humans who were trashing the world.

  The Ecuadorian deckhand didn’t pause in the slightest. Replacing his chronic expression of Andean angst with a glowing smile, he reached down to Katie and swung her up and over the side. “Arriba, niña,” he said, half to himself, as he transferred her safely to her father’s custody. And the smile remained as he and Wendell helped the mother, after which it immediately disappeared. He had learned early that smiles, like every other valuable commodity, are not to be wasted. As for the missing engineman, about whom he’d been thinking for no particular reason, good riddance! Either he had enemies or he had a competitor even more vicious than he was.

  “Damn it, Mike, this thing is getting out of hand and nothing’s even happened yet,” snapped Alan Parker. “It’s those continuous news broadcasts—they’re already tired of talking about global warming, so now they’re pushing the terror bit. I’m getting calls from members of Congress demanding to know why you’re really there and when you plan to get some results. We need closure on this and we need it damn fast!”

  Mike, dressed in a layer of thermal diving underwear below a dry suit, stood at the open cargo door in the side of the ship. He listened to Parker on the satellite phone as he watched the last of the HBIs head ashore with its load of passengers. “I’m going to say it again, Alan, we’re doing everything we can. Jerry and I are about to perform a hull inspection. We’ve got to get going now before the passengers return.”

  “You trying to hide it from them?”

  “No, there’re technical reasons that I don’t have time to go into. I’ll call you in two hours.”

  As soon as the last HBI was well clear of the ship, Captain Covington stopped the shafts. The ship swung back to a heading somewhere between the wind and the wind-generated current along the peninsula shore.

  “You ready, Chief?” called Mike across the bay.

  “I’m ready, Captain,” replied Andrews as he stuffed his head into the wet suit hood and then let Kim Ackerman, who was also in a dry suit, lift the air bottle assembly up and strap it on his back.

  They were, thought Kim, a real Mutt and Jeff team. The tall captain and the stocky chief, both dressed in black.

  Andrews looked out at the cold, dark water with distaste. Because of his age, he’d needed a special dispensation to continue active-duty diving. He was beginning to wonder why he’d bothered to get it.

  “This your first polar dive, Captain?”

  “Yes. Yours?”

  “Up till now I’ve always managed to avoid them.”

  Congressman Peter Evans stood alone on the slippery, rocky shore of the Antarctic Peninsula and looked arou
nd him at the utter bleakness. Gray sky, gray rocks, gray-blue sea—all highlighted by icy, off-white snow. The only color he could find, besides the clothes of his fellow passengers, were the here-and-there orange blobs on the flightless birds. At least, he comforted himself, he wasn’t in that damn rubber boat. Not at the moment, anyway.

  Most of the other passengers—including his wife, the Sanders and that singer—were still with the birds, seemingly mesmerized by them. He’d taken one quick look and decided that was enough wildlife for him.

  Although he could still hear Wendell Gardner explaining the life cycle of penguins and their role in the environmental chain of life, he tried to concentrate on more important matters. His image, specifically. To clear his head, Evans turned and looked out into the Bellinghausen Sea, at the dark water and the white hints of ice far off to the left.

  “Desolate, isn’t it, Congressman? Off the record, the attraction this place holds for some people mystifies me.”

  Evans turned to find James Ives, CEO of Universal Solutions and Systems, standing beside him. “Yes, it gives us all a taste of what our Planet Earth will be like if these abuses aren’t brought under control.”

  Evans knew Ives slightly. Both were from Connecticut, although Ives had backed Evans’s opponent in the last election. But, Evans reminded himself, there was always the chance, if he handled it right, that he might get Ives aboard for next year.

  “Pick that up right now!” Wendell’s bark cut through Evans’s calculations. “The rule is that you carry out everything you carry in.”

  Both the congressman and the businessman turned to see a startled, and undoubtedly remorseful, Katie bend down and pick up a Kleenex that had fallen out of her jacket pocket. Had they been closer, they might have noticed the near-murderous fury that erupted from Dana’s eyes as she put her arm around her wayward daughter’s shoulders.