Sea Devil

by Richard P. Henrick

  “Perhaps in a wee bit, Eamon,” replied the jolly fisherman as he strode through the pub’s double doors.

  It was dark inside, and the room smelled of cabbage and cigarettes. Perched at their usual places at the bar were his two weathered associates. Liam climbed onto a stool beside them as Henry Morrison was in the midst of one of his infamous stories.

  “… Why, I heard it from the lips of Roddy O’Neill himself. He saw it come out of the water with his very own eyes. And then he looked on in amazement as a group of seaman climbed out of a hatch and scurried over to the propeller shaft to cut them free. Before Roddy could go and call the Coast

  Guard, they succeeded in their efforts, and the thing sank back down into the black depths from which it had come. And there was old Roddy, awestruck at his helm, and out his best net to boot.

  “I tell you, it’s an insult to the Republic to have such a thing happen in our own territorial waters.

  And it’s not only the Brits who are responsible, but the Yanks and the commies as well. What do you think about those damned submarines that have been fouling our nets recently, Liam?”

  Liam waited until he was finished packing his pipe with tobacco before voicing himself.

  “Personally, Henry, I think it’s all balderdash. What in the world would a submarine be doing in Ireland’s waters? We don’t have any sensitive military installations to speak of, and there’s plenty of places more important for them to go poking their noses in. If you ask me, old Roddy just made up the story to explain to his wife how he went and lost his new net. We all know the real reason was because he drank too much of that poteen that he’s so famous for.”

  “I beg to differ with you, Liam Lafferty,” countered the storyteller with a shake of his bald head.

  “I say it’s submarines, and if we don’t do something about them soon, none of us will be able to make a decent living anymore. Why, even as we speak, there’s those supposed American naval exercises going on off our coast. And now they say we’ll be arrested just for fishing there.”

  “First it’s chemicals falling out of the heavens, and now it’s submarines coming up out of the depths, and naval exercises. If it’s getting so dangerous out there, why do you even bother going out to sea anymore, Henry?” queried Liam as he put a match to his pipe.

  The bald fisherman finished off his pint before answering.

  “Liam Lafferty, I’m ashamed at you for even asking such a question. You know that danger doesn’t mean a thing to me. I love the sea, just like you and Billy do, and I’ll keep working her till my dying day.”

  Billy Kelly could sense an argument brewing, and he did his best to change the subject.

  “Whatever are you doing gracing us with your presence this early in the afternoon, Liam? I thought you were going to properly overhaul that carburetor of yours today.”

  Tempted to tell his friends the real reason behind his decision to stop at the pub, Liam decided to wait until the Doc was back with the reward.

  “My bones were hurting something fierce, Billy, and I thought that a little Guinness would be just the tonic to take away the pain. But now I’m beginning to wonder if they even serve the stuff in here anymore.”

  Just then Eamon McGilligan slipped behind the bar and got to work preparing three pints.

  “And make sure to make ‘em good ones, Eamon,” warned Liam, who supervised the bartender’s efforts as carefully as if Eamon was a bank teller counting out his change.

  It took several minutes for the creamy head of the stout to settle so that the bartender was able to fill the pint glasses as full as possible. Satisfied that Eamon did his job properly, Liam held up his glass before him.

  “Here’s to old friends and full pints,” he toasted.

  He appreciatively sipped the rich Guinness and added, “You know I was just wondering, gents, if you fellows were really to hit it big, like a lottery jackpot or something of the sort, how would you go about spending the money?”

  Billy Kelly was the first to respond.

  “That’s a very interesting question, Liam. If such a godsend were to come my way, I’d buy me a big estate down south in County Cork, and raise thoroughbreds for suckers like you fellows to bet on. And then I’d travel to Kentucky each and every spring to replenish my stock, and stop off at Broadway and Hollywood along the way.”

  “How about you. Henry?” continued Liam.

  The bald-headed fisherman took a sip of stout arid answered.

  “That’s easy, mate. Since I’d spend my time in one even if I had a fortune, I’d buy me a nice quiet little pub.”

  “I’d be willing to sell mine real cheap,” returned Eamon McGilligan.

  “Because if I had the dough, I’d get a sleek yacht and sail off for Tahiti to marry one of those topless native girls. Now that would be living like a real king!”

  “Since you asked the question, what would you spend it on, Liam?” queried Billy Kelly.

  Liam thoughtfully tamped down the tobacco in his pipe. Yet before he could express himself, the double doors to the pub swung open, and in walked a tall, sandy-haired stranger. Finding something about this man disturbingly familiar, Liam racked his brain in an effort to place him. And then it came to him: this was the fellow who had been over at his house the other night asking questions about Sean’s whereabouts.

  Immediately sensing trouble, Liam slouched down on his stool and tried to look as inconspicuous as possible. Even then the stranger carefully scanned the room and headed his way. In a last-ditch effort at anonymity, Liam purposely dropped his pipe tool on the floor and went to his knees to search for it. This only served to inflame his arthritic joints as he located the tool beside a pair of mud-stained combat boots.

  “Liam Lafferty?” quizzed an icy voice from above.

  Sheepishly Liam looked up and as defiantly as possible answered, “Who wants to know?”

  “We met the other night when I stopped by your cottage to ask about your son,” returned the stranger.

  “I just talked to your wife, and she said that I’d find you either here or on your boat. Is it possible that I could have a few more minutes of your time, in private?”

  Not willing to make a scene in front of his friends, Liam stood stiffly and forced a cordial reply.

  “Why, of course, my friend. If you’d like, we can take one of the booths in the back.”

  Conscious of the curious stares of his drinking companions, Liam followed the stranger over to the booth. Only when they were well out of hearing distance did Liam speak out angrily.

  “What is it this time? As it turns out, my son is just fine. And here you went and scared me and my wife to death for absolutely nothing!”

  Colin Stewart studied the heavily lined face of the old fisherman.

  “Right now I’m not interested in Sean.

  What I want to know is more about that object you mentioned fishing out of the sea on the night you saw the mysterious fire light up the sky.”

  Shocked that the stranger remembered his misguided revelation, Liam tried to play ignorant.

  “I don’t know what in the world you’re talking about, sir.”

  “Oh yes you do,” rejoined the Highlander forcefully.

  “When we first met, you apparently thought we were there on another matter, and babbled away about a piece of satellite that you pulled from the sea. You even thought that we were sent by the United States Navy to retrieve it. Now I realize you don’t understand the real significance of this matter.

  But all I can tell you is that your son will be in big trouble if that object you found doesn’t get back to its rightful owner.”

  “But it will!” sputtered Liam excitedly.

  “In fact, its on its way right now!”

  “What do you mean by that?” shot back Colin Stewart.

  Well aware that his interrogator wasn’t the type of man he could easily fool, Liam decided to be truthful.

  “The satellite’s on its way to Port Glasgow
even as we speak. I saw Dr. Blackwater and Sean load it onto a tug with my very own eyes this morning. So if you have any idea of trying to take the reward for yourself, you can forget all about it.”

  “Believe me, it’s not the reward that I’m concerned with. Could you describe this so-called satellite that you recovered, Mr. Lafferty?”

  His mind set at ease by the way in which the Scotsman’s tone of voice had suddenly lightened, Liam did his best to describe his treasure in words. As he did so, the stranger’s probing eyes never left his face, and the fisherman could tell just how important this description was to his interrogator.

  While Liam went on to explain each detail of the recovery effort, Colin Stewart intently listened, appalled by what he was hearing. His first instinct was to immediately notify the commander of the Royal Navy headquarters unit at Northwood. With his assistance, the tug could perhaps be apprehended. And if that couldn’t be achieved, at the very least the Royal Family could be kept as far away from Gare Loch as possible.

  Though this would have been the prudent course of action, the Highlander knew that his case was still pitifully weak. Command would want solid evidence to begin a search of this scope. And this was particularly the case if the Queen’s plans were to be altered.

  Right now, all he had was the word of a drunken old fisherman, and a few bits of circumstantial evidence that made great sense to him, but would appear inconsequential as far as Command was concerned.

  It was with this circumspect realization that Stewart decided to take a vastly different tack. The fisherman was in the process of explaining the engine problems that he’d had on the night of the find when the Scotsman interrupted.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Lafferty, but would it be possible for you to take me out to the spot where you found the object in your boat right now? I’d be willing to pay you for a full day’s charter.”

  “I don’t think that I’d have any trouble finding it,” replied Liam.

  “But you do realize that there’s some sort of naval exercise going on out there, and that we’ll most likely get stopped by the authorities along the way.”

  Praying that just such a thing would happen, Colin Stewart anxiously stood and instructed the fisherman to lead the way down to the docks.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The utter enormity of the job at hand was finally beginning to register in Mac’s consciousness. They had been unbelievably lucky to find the first of the two missing bombs when they had. Now, as the search went on in earnest for the final weapon, he realized that it could be almost anywhere in a fifty-mile radius of water. This was the current extent of the debris field as determined by the latest information relayed to him by the various platforms of the ever-expanding search fleet.

  To better coordinate this effort, Mac decided to remain on the oceanographic ship. Its communications systems were a bit more flexible than the attack sub’s.

  Staying on the Lynch also meant that he could become more closely involved with CURV, and the other ROV’s currently hard at work scanning the seafloor for any sign of their elusive quarry.

  Just recently one of the minesweepers had relayed to them a promising contact. The object in question was located at a depth of 636 feet, lying on its side on a base of sandy sediment. Ever hopeful that this would signal the end of their search, Mac ordered the Lynch in to investigate.

  He sat at the controls as CURV was dispatched down into the depths. It was with the greatest of expectations that he triggered the device’s mercury-vapor floodlights and activated its fiberoptic camera. A hushed tension prevailed in the control room as Mac maneuvered CURV down to the coordinates given to them by the minesweeper.

  His eyes glued to the monitor screen, Mac watched as the seafloor came into focus. Soon afterward, a cylindrical object could be seen in the distance, and with his pulse ever quickening, Mac opened up the ROV’s throttle. Already looking forward to the triumphant dispatch he’d soon be sending to Admiral Long, he reached forward to fine-tune the camera’s focus. It was then that he noticed that the object was not the missing nuclear device at all, but a rusted-out water heater that someone had unceremoniously dumped here.

  With his high hopes dashed, Mac guided CURV back to. the surface. He couldn’t hide his disappointment as he made his way to the chart table to cross off one more promising contact.

  He was in the process of recording the current location of the K-l mini-sub when an ensign informed him that he was wanted down in the radio room. Supposing that he had a call coming in from Washington, Mac went to see what it was all about.

  The radio room was situated on the deck below. Being no stranger to this portion of the Lynch, he found it on his own, and expecting next to hear Admiral Long’s voice at the end of the line, picked up the handset.

  “Commander Mackenzie here.”

  The voice on the other end was a bit scratchy, but otherwise clear.

  “Commander, this is Lieutenant Newton aboard the frigate USS Hawes. We’re out here on picket duty, and have just intercepted a fishing trawler.

  There are two individuals on board this vessel, and they’re insisting that they speak to the person in charge of the nuclear bomb recovery.”

  This hadn’t been the first trespasser that they’d had to contend with, though one element of the lieutenant’s report immediately caught Mac’s attention.

  “Did they explicitly say nuclear bomb recovery, Lieutenant Newton?”

  “Yes they did, Commander. That’s why I decided to inform you personally, because I didn’t think that our real purpose out here was public knowledge.”

  “It most definitely is not, Lieutenant. You have my permission to escort them over to the Lynch at once.”

  Not having the vaguest idea how these outsiders had learned about the true nature of their search, Mac hung up the handset. He arrived up on the Lynch’s bridge in time to see the frigate approaching from the west. He needed binoculars to spot the small wooden trawler that followed in the sleek warship’s wake. Supposing that this could all be nothing but a wild guess on the part of these fishermen, Mac waited until the trawler was only a few hundred yards away before climbing down to the main deck and making his way to the gangway.

  The Lynch’s deck crew alertly deployed several thick rubberized fenders as the trawler moved in to complete its rendezvous. As the two bobbing ships got closer together, a tall, sandy-haired man called out from the trawler’s transom.

  “Is Commander Mackenzie there?”

  “I’m Mackenzie,” answered Mac, who stood amidships, at the deck’s edge.

  “I’m Major Colin Stewart, commanding officer of Her Majesty’s 75th Highlanders, and I’ve got some rather distressing news about your efforts out here.

  You see, I believe I know where one of those missing bombs that you’re searching for can be located.”

  This was all that Mac had to hear to signal the Scotsman to join him on the Lynch. With a bit of effort the battered trawler tied up to the oceanographic ship’s side, and its two occupants climbed aboard using a portable rope ladder.

  The Scotsman proved to be about Mac’s height. Mac guessed that he was in his early forties, though his build was solid and muscular.

  “I realize that this whole meeting is a bit unusual, Commander. But I’m certain that you’ll soon enough understand the unique circumstances surrounding it. I’d like you to meet Liam Lafferty. Mr. Lafferty is a fisherman from Dundalk. It was his trawler that brought us out here.”

  “I suppose you’d be the fellow responsible for putting those fliers down at the docks,” remarked Liam as he studied the blond-haired Yank naval officer.

  “I guess I should have contacted you when I first found the blasted thing. From what it looks out here, it would have sure saved you a lot of time and trouble.”

  Mac had to look to the Scotsman for an explanation of Liam’s puzzling confession.

  “What Mr. Lafferty’s trying to say is that he was out at sea on the night that your B-52 wen
t down here.”

  “May I ask how it is that you know about the crash, Major?” asked a perplexed Mac.

  “Not at all, Commander. You see, I’m the C.O. of one of the units that the First Sea Lord informed of the accident soon after it occurred. And it’s a good thing that I was included in this group, because otherwise I might have never been able to figure it all out as I have. Is there somewhere a bit more private where we can hash this whole thing out?”

  His curiosity fully piqued, Mac nodded and led them inside. An empty compartment that had been set up for use as a classroom served their purposes perfectly.

  And with the hatch secured, Colin Stewart continued.

  “Though a lot of the details are unnecessary at this point, for expedience’ sake, let’s just say that my personal involvement with this whole thing began when I arrived in Ireland on the trail of a suspected terrorist.

  It was while I was in the midst of this search that I met Mr. Lafferty here, and first heard about the object that he fished from these waters. Liam, why don’t you share with the Commander the story you told me earlier?”

  Liam proceeded to repeat his account of the fated night when the sky caught fire. The blond-haired Yank seemed genuinely fascinated with his tale, and was particularly eager to know more about the exact shape of the object.

  “Would you mind drawing it on the blackboard for me?” asked the likable American.

  A bit shyly, Liam walked up to the portable blackboard at the head of the classroom. Never known for his drawing skills, he did his best to convey the object’s cylindrical shape. He even went so far as to include the narrow fins that were attached to one end of it.

  “Why, that’s incredible!” remarked the Yank as he studied Liam’s rendering.

  “You say that you actually brought it aboard all by yourself and then took it back to Dundalk with you?”

  “That I did,” returned the fisherman.

  “It’s just too bad that the Doc’s already left for Port Glasgow, because it seems he could have saved a lot of trouble merely by bringing it directly to you.”