Trident Force

by Michael Howe

  The third engineer peeked around the corner of the passageway and saw two figures in blue coveralls disappear into the Auxiliary Room. He stepped back from the corner, half-paralyzed by fear and guilt. After all these years it had come back to get him!

  It was such a stupid thing to do—writing three letters to the president saying he was an asshole, an asshole vampire, and that when he got the chance he’d drive a stake through his fucking chest. He’d been between ships then—his sour personality seeming to mask his basically high level of competence—wondering if he’d ever get another and drinking heavily. It was about five years after Annie had been murdered, and he’d been so terribly lonely and discouraged. That was back when he could still feel lonely and discouraged, instead of just numb. Then he’d sobered up and concluded that the president gets thousands of letters like that every year and that there was no way they could track down each and every one of them.

  The relief had been great but far from complete. The sharp fear that he would be detected and apprehended receded, but a lingering unease had remained, along with his burning anger and cancerous feelings of guilt. Both had continued to smolder, slowly burning out his soul, over all the intervening years.

  Now, what the hell to do? He could turn himself in to them—but he was undoubtedly now classified as a terrorist, and everybody knew what they did to suspected terrorists! He couldn’t face that. A wave of abject fear, of terror if you will, swept through him.

  He could turn himself in to Captain Covington and ask to be turned over to the Ecuadorians since the ship was flagged there. That would probably be worse. Anyway, the American government would take him no matter what Covington said.

  He would return to his cabin and shoot himself. He didn’t really want to die, but he couldn’t bear the thought of spending the rest of his life in a cell, beaten and tormented. His mind now settled, Rounding turned and walked rapidly back down the passageway, up two ladders and into his cabin. Trembling, he removed the small automatic from the lower drawer of his desk, sat down and studied the weapon. How do you do it so it hurts the least? he wondered. Through the temple or through the top of the mouth?

  He knew damn well he didn’t want to die, but what choice did he have? His life was shit, but he didn’t want to end it, either. But neither did he want to live the nightmare the government would force him to endure.

  Maybe he could escape. No, that was stupid. To Antarctica? There were a bunch of foreign research stations within fifty or so miles. One of them might be Russian, he thought. He could claim to be a political prisoner. They might go for that.

  Without putting down the automatic, without even thinking more about what he was doing, Jake Rounding grabbed his heavy thermal jacket and dashed out the door. He paused as he pulled the cabin door shut behind him. He heard voices coming from his left, from the direction of the Auxiliary Room. He turned to his right and ran as quietly as he could down the passageway. He came to a watertight door, which he stepped through and slammed behind him. Then he jammed the dogs so it would be impossible to open from the other side.

  As he ran through the twisting corridors, up and down ladders, he passed various other crew members, some of whom noticed the look of alarm on his face. “What’s going on, Mr. Rounding? Is there trouble? Did they find a bomb?”

  The third engineer didn’t reply. He just charged on past them.

  “Mr. Rounding,” boomed the PA system, “Mr. Jacob Rounding, please report to the bridge. Anybody knowing the whereabouts of Third Engineer Rounding are instructed to report this information to the bridge and, if possible, detain him.”

  Jake paused for a second and then continued on toward the cargo bay. When he burst into the big, open space, twenty startled eyes turned in his direction.

  “Stand back,” snarled the fugitive, drawing the automatic from his pocket as he dashed across the space, knocking down Marcello Cagayan, who was helping flush the outboards with fresh water.

  Cagayan landed on the deck with a thump. Startled and shocked at first, he quickly reached into his pocket for the cell phone. While everybody else watched Rounding dart over to the ramp down to the landing stage, Cagayan took out the phone and examined it carefully, terrified that it might be broken.

  It seemed okay.

  “Get that HBI back into the water,” snapped Rounding, pointing the gun at Kim Ackerman. Understandably, nobody was interested in arguing with the automatic, so the HBI splashed back into the water almost immediately. Without saying another word, Jake Rounding jumped into the boat, lit off the two big outboards and, after backing away from the stage, roared off into the Antarctic afternoon, headed south.

  “It should be on the passageway that branches off to the right, up ahead,” said Ray as he hobbled along, trying to keep up with Alex. “There’s a nameplate on the door.”

  “Roger,” said Alex. She was tempted to slow down a little for Ray, but at the same time, she knew she shouldn’t. Their job was to find this guy and Ray was able to take care of himself. Just as they reached the place where one passageway branched off from the other, they heard a muted thunk.

  “What was that?”

  “A watertight door being slammed shut,” replied Ray, drawing his sidearm as he did and starting to hobble faster than Alex would have ever believed possible for someone in his condition. They sprinted around the corner and past the door that said “Jacob Rounding.” They came to a screeching halt at the watertight door at the end of the passageway. Panting and sweating, Ray grabbed the dogging wheel and tried to turn it.

  “Shit, he’s jammed it.”

  Alex threw her long, thin frame into the fight, but between them, they still couldn’t get the wheel to budge.

  “Okay, we’ve got to backtrack,” puffed Alex.

  “Backtrack to where?” asked Ray. “Where do we think he’s going?”

  Alex pulled her walkie-talkie out of her pocket and called Captain Covington. “This is Alex Mahan, Captain. We finally tracked this Mr. Rounding down—he was leaving his quarters—but he ran and has managed to lose us. Would you pass the word again for all hands to report if they see him and, if possible, try to detain him? We have no way of knowing whether he’s armed or not and why he’s running.”

  “Very well, Ms. Mahan.” Covington didn’t sound very happy, she thought.

  No more than three minutes after the second announcement boomed over the ship’s PA system, Alex’s walkie-talkie came to life again. “He’s in the cargo bay, Ms. Mahan. He’s armed and is in the process of commandeering an HBI.”

  “An HBI? Where in God’s name can he go?”

  “The man’s always been a little strange . . . maybe he thinks he can reach one of the research stations, although I can’t see what good that would do for him. What, precisely, do you suspect him of doing? Is there an explosive device?”

  “That’s the worst part of it, Captain. All we know is that he had a daughter who was killed in a political demonstration fifteen or twenty years ago.”

  “If you want to try to catch him, you’d better get down to the cargo bay.”

  By the time they reached the bay, Rounding was long gone. Fortunately, Captain Covington had thought to order another HBI put back in the water. While they were waiting for the almost empty fuel tank to be topped off, Alex called Ted. “Where are you?”

  “In the forward storerooms. What the hell’s going on?”

  “Ray and I went to question the third engineer, whose daughter, it turns out, was killed fifteen years ago in a political demonstration. Instead of talking to us, he’s run. He’s grabbed an HBI and headed off to God knows where. Ray and I are going to follow in another HBI. You get up here so you’ll be available when Captain Chambers pops up.”

  “Roger.”

  Jake Rounding stood behind the HBI’s steering console, braced between it and the helmsman’s seat, while the boat pounded, skidded and twisted over the choppy seas—flying at times into the sharp air and then crashing back onto the col
d, hard water. Suddenly, with absolutely no warning, he burst into a laugh of true joy. Where it came from he neither knew nor cared, but a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders and for the first time in over twenty years he felt alive. Totally alive.

  He hadn’t the slightest idea where the nearest research station was. Neither did he know which country operated it. The whole idea had been stupid, foolish, but it had indirectly saved him by driving him to take the HBI. Now, all the dreary years of empty wandering were over. He knew exactly where he was going—Fiddler’s Green as the real oldsters still sometimes called it—and he eagerly looked forward to his arrival.

  He’d deserted his little daughter and allowed her to be shot down in the street. He’d treated her mother like trash and had done penance for it all by not allowing himself to live for so much as thirty seconds over the intervening years. But his penance was now over.

  He looked back at Aurora and saw that another orange HBI had left the ship and was following him. It was at least half an hour behind him. He had half an hour to live a lifetime and he intended to do just that. He felt and tasted the icy wind; he absorbed the stark beauty of the pitiless, icy land lying to his left and the gray waves breaking all around him. He thought back to Annie when she was four. He relished it all and made it all part of him. Yesterday disappeared, as did tomorrow. Only today mattered. Only this particular instant, which now seemed a lifetime. He felt his heart pounding and his blood flowing and the cold air flowing in and out of his lungs. He found himself standing up straight after decades of stooping.

  Driven by its twin 350-horsepower outboards, the HBI charged up and over another wave, taking wing in the process.

  Oh my God, I’m flying, thought Jake with delight as the boat, its engines screaming, hung suspended in the air for what seemed to him an eternity.

  “Can you see what the hell he’s doing?” asked Mike over the radio as he looked at the radar screen on the console of his HBI.

  “He’s still headed south,” replied Ray. “We’re not close enough yet to see any more than you can on your radar.”

  “You seem to be gaining on him.”

  “I think the HBI rides a little better with two people in it.”

  “Remember, we need him alive.”

  “Roger.”

  “And he’s armed.”

  “Roger.”

  Mike continued to chase the other two HBIs with both throttles jammed full ahead. Bending in the middle, the boat’s bow drove up and over a wave, tossing the HBI into the air, where the wind blew it off to one side. It landed on the crest of the next wave and flexed again as the bow tried to dive into the trough, only to be forced skyward once more. And again it lunged off to one side. Driving one of these things, he thought, is like riding on the head of a snake hunting for a rat. Thanks to the dry suit he was still wearing and his mostly dry undergarments, he was at least beginning to warm up. His body, that is, not his soul.

  What had the man done that caused him to run? Left an explosive device? Poured arsenic in the potable water supply?

  Shit! He had to find out before it was too late.

  He picked up the radio again. “Aurora, this is Captain Chambers.”

  “Roger, Captain, this is the mate of the watch.”

  “I want you to get hold of the ship’s doctor and have her test the water supply for every possible poison she can think of.”

  “She tests the water once a day, sir.”

  “For bacteria. Now please forward my request to her. I’m sure Captain Covington will approve.”

  “Roger.”

  “Congressman Evans, Congressman Evans!”

  Pete Evans, who was standing with about fifty other passengers on the boat deck, watching the HBIs race across the gray waters, turned to find Jen, the brunette, with her video person.

  “Can you confirm that the man they’re chasing is a terrorist?”

  “I’m sorry but I can neither confirm nor deny that,” replied Evans, his face ashen as he squirmed inwardly. It was becoming clear to him that an icy death was an increasingly real possibility.

  “Does that mean that there definitely is an explosive device somewhere aboard this ship?” The mention of an explosive device elicited a gasp from some of the nearby passengers, many of whom had turned their attention from the now-distant HBIs to the interview.

  “I’m really not at liberty to go into details at this time.”

  “Why haven’t the FBI or Homeland Security been called in?”

  “You can rest assured they will be if necessary.”

  In hope of getting something a little more newsworthy, Jen turned to a female passenger standing bundled up against the weather. “Can you tell me what you think? Is that man a terrorist? Are you satisfied with the authorities’ response?”

  The woman looked confused, her eyes as big as saucers. “I don’t know what to think . . . Nobody is telling us anything.”

  Now there’re two of them, thought Jake as he looked aft over the two big outboards. And the first was getting close, close enough to start shooting very soon. If they did shoot, they might only wound him.

  He looked around at his desolate surroundings and continued to feel an overwhelming joy. The glow of the past half hour still warmed him through and through, like the mindless buzz of too much rum. The universe was a big place, he told himself. Much bigger than he had ever imagined before. Everything was possible, all regrets washed away. Anticipation was folly and fear irrelevant. Now was now and that was it. Now was the wind screaming through his hair, the pounding of the boat, the sense of flight, of freedom. He had sinned and he had done his penance, and now he had been permitted to live out what was left of his life in a state of near ecstasy. So great was the universe, he told himself, that he might yet get a chance to see his Annie again.

  The time had come. He felt no fear, no hesitation. Off to his right lay a large, rocky islet, faced with high cliffs. He turned and headed for the highest cliff, locking the steering wheel as he did. He then sat back in the chair, drew the pistol and pushed the barrel against his temple.

  There wasn’t a tremor in Jake Rounding’s body, not the slightest hesitation in his mind, but the HBI was pitching and shaking wildly. Fearful that he might only injure himself, Jake placed his left hand on the barrel to steady it and then fired. So great was the roar of the engines and the howling of the wind that the crack of the pistol was inaudible fifty yards away.

  Mike drove his HBI over and around the curling waves, keeping one eye ahead and one on the radar. “What the hell’s he doing now?’ he snapped into the radio.

  “He just turned right, Boss, and is headed for that islet,” replied Alex.

  “I can see that. What’s he doing?”

  “As far as we can tell, he’s just sitting in the driver’s seat, driving the HBI into the rocks.”

  “God damn it! That makes no sense,” growled Mike into the wind.

  “Jeez, Ray!”

  “I don’t believe it! You’d better tell the boss.”

  “Boss, this is Alex,” she spoke into the radio. “Rounding just drove the HBI right into the rocks. A wave picked it up and slammed it into the cliff . . . it did a backward somersault and now it’s lying upside down, tangled in the rocks at the base of the cliff with the surf breaking over it.”

  “Get in there and get him.”

  “Aye, aye, Boss,” replied Alex, a note of asperity in her voice. “He’s wearing the dry suit, isn’t he?” she added to Ray.

  Ray throttled back and cruised slowly back and forth along the rocky shore, looking for any sign of life, any hint of ambush. The man did, after all, have an automatic with him. Meanwhile, Alex rooted through the HBI’s lockers. “Here’s one,” she finally almost shouted. “I knew there had to be at least one. In fact, here’s a second.”

  “What?”

  “Emergency thermal survival wraps. In case somebody gets soaked and doesn’t have any dry clothes.”

  “How fortu
nate we found them,” said Ray, dryly. “Now the boss won’t have to feel guilty about us. You see any sign of him ashore?”

  Alex studied the islet. “No. And I don’t see where he could hide. He must have been pretty badly beaten up when the HBI went ashore.”

  Ray slowed and turned in toward the wrecked HBI.

  “How deep is it up forward?”

  “About four feet where there aren’t any rocks.”

  “Good. We’re going to do it the way Jerry would.”

  “It’s too bad Jerry isn’t here to demonstrate.”

  Gunning the two big engines, each billowing clouds of blue-white smoke, which were immediately blown away, Ray backed into the waves. The waves returned the favor by breaking furiously over the transom and pouring cascades of icy water into the boat.

  “Okay,” Ray finally said when they were about a hundred feet out, “let go.” Alex, who was up to her knees in water, pushed the largest anchor they could find over the side.

  With the backing engines throttled way down and Alex keeping a strain on the anchor line, the boat drifted forward. “Okay,” she reported, “I think it’s set.”

  “Good. Now you come and take the helm.”

  Once Alex was at the controls, Ray worked his way forward—his eyes still scanning the islet for any sign of movement—as the HBI pitched and rolled and twisted, until he was hanging over the bow. By now, both were totally soaked and shivering.

  “Stop the engines and raise them,” shouted Ray, his teeth beginning to chatter, as he tumbled over the bow with the HBI’s painter in his hand. “Shit,” he gasped as he landed in the water, his heart stopping for a beat or two and his legs going numb almost instantly. At least his ankle didn’t hurt anymore. “Go, Alex!” he shouted again as he turned and, placing the painter over his shoulder, started to march in place toward the rocks.