The Keeper

by George C. Chesbro

  Jade smiled and said in a mild tone. “Indeed. And now you’ve got an interesting situation that you can really sink your teeth into, don’t you?”

  Marley looked at Jade strangely, mild surprise mirrored in his pale blue eyes. “Heard you had a little trouble upriver last night. Jail break?”

  “I suppose that’s as good a way as any to describe it. The term ‘military extraction’ also comes to mind.”

  “The news accounts made it sound like something out of a John Wayne movie.”

  “It was more like Rambo.”

  “How can I help you, Jade?”

  “I’d like to know more about the communications between the Coast Guard and the Navy concerning the thing the Cairn fisherman netted.”

  The portly captain shrugged. His manner was still friendly, but now shadows had begun to move in his eyes. He shifted slightly in his chair and averted his gaze. “The information given us was routed to the watch commander, who checked with me. I told him to immediately notify the Navy base in Groton.”

  “Why? It can’t be SOP for the Coast Guard to contact a submarine base concerning a situation thirty-five miles up the Hudson River. It’s not even close to anything that would fall under their jurisdiction.”

  Now Captain Richard Marley met Jade’s gaze, and his eyes narrowed slightly as he studied her face. He suddenly appeared uncomfortable. “Are you sure you really want to have this discussion?”

  “Yes. Why inform the Navy of a situation in a marina in Cairn?”

  “You tell me.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that I know a few things about you that don’t appear on the resume you offered to the Cairn Fishermen’s Association. I hear you were a top gun in Naval Intelligence—constantly drooled over by the C.I.A., which doesn’t use female operatives. If you hadn’t been so stubborn and insistent about staying in the field, you’d have made admiral easily. You were awarded the Navy Cross. Rumor has it that you did something to seriously piss off the Army brass, and the Navy hung you out to dry in the name of collegiality between service branches. I’d dearly love to get more details on that story, but they’re hard to come by. All this is supposed to be deep, dark secret, of course.”

  Now it was Jade’s turn to be surprised. “Who the hell told you that?”

  Marley smiled thinly. “My point is that I made sure the Navy was apprised of the situation for the same reason you told the fishing boat captain to call the Coast Guard instead of just dumping the thing back in the river. We both passed the buck because we both knew there was something fishy going on, in a manner of speaking. A carcass that size with a metal device—most likely a mine, judging from the description that was given—isn’t exactly native to the Hudson, is it? I’m betting you know what that thing was. What I knew from the description of the thing was that it was almost certainly Navy business, and probably classified. I figured that if I were wrong they’d just get back to me and tell me to handle it. They never did that. You smelled trouble and tried to cover your beautiful ass by having the fisherman call us, and I was trying to cover my ugly ass by dumping it off on the Navy. There it is. If you knew there was even a remote possibility of the kind of shitstorm that came down, then you should have handled things differently and contacted the Navy directly. The Navy people are your buddies, not mine.”

  “They’re not my buddies, Dick.”

  “I don’t mean to thump on you, Jade, because I consider you my friend. I’m just trying to be plain spoken. If you’re looking for somebody to pin blame on for what happened, you’ve come to the wrong place. I won’t have the Coast Guard smeared because of this incident.”

  Jade sighed. “I don’t necessarily disagree with anything you’ve said, Dick. Believe me, I wish I had that day to live over. But why couldn’t you at least have immediately sent a team just to make sure the mine was a dummy, or to disarm it?”

  Marley stiffened slightly, and his tone grew colder. “Why don’t you ask the people at Groton why they didn’t immediately send a team? For that matter, why didn’t you check out the mine yourself? You have the skills. The only people left in the dark about the real nature and potential danger posed by that thing was the Coast Guard.”

  “Dick, I don’t have a single friend left in the Navy. There’s no one who will talk to me. The Navy denies even calling the Cairn police, much less requesting a quarantine until morning, and they have the phone logs to back them up. The question is why they didn’t call the Cairn police to, at the least, issue a warning?”

  “You’ll have to ask the Navy. I assume they’ll tell you the same thing they’ve been telling the newspaper and television reporters; the Coast Guard didn’t give enough indication that there was a clear and present danger, and they were taking time to evaluate the situation. You see, they don’t mind shafting us when it suits them. In any case, they must have assumed the mine was a dummy, just like I did.”

  “No. There’s more to it than that. I think we both know what happened at Groton. The delay wasn’t a snafu; it was arranged. Somebody at that base called a time out. The message from here was going through normal channels, and then it was intercepted and sat on. Everything was frozen in place for hours, allowing time for what happened. That was a criminal action, and one or more people up there in Connecticut should be looking at courts martial.”

  “Don’t hold your breath, Jade.”

  “Whoever intercepted that message and passed the information on to certain other people is guilty of criminal conspiracy and being an accessory to manslaughter. The delay gave the men who blew up the boat the time they needed.”

  Marley raised his eyebrows slightly. “Who says anybody blew up the boat?”

  “Come on, Dick. If you’ve read the reports of your own investigators or heard news accounts of the blast and damage, you know damn well it wasn’t a conventional mine that exploded. Sappers were sent in to make sure there wasn’t a trace left of the carcass or the device, not a shred of evidence. They took the mine with them.”

  “Interesting speculation.”

  “My point is that there most certainly are terrorists of some flavor involved in this business. In fact, if I remember correctly, the Coast Guard itself is blaming terrorists for releasing the thing in the Hudson in the first place. So, since the Coast Guard’s official line is that a band of terrorists were involved in a deadly incident in a major inland waterway under your jurisdiction, I assume you have an investigative team in the field working independently of the F.B.I. and other law enforcement agencies. Am I right?”

  “Of course,” Richard Marley said, and quickly looked away.

  Suddenly Jade felt embarrassed for the Coast Guard captain, for she sensed he was lying. Worse, he probably knew she knew. “Dick,” she said quietly, “I’m not trying to pin anything on the Coast Guard. If investigating what happened in Cairn isn’t high on your list of priorities, I understand it’s because you and your superiors have been getting signals from the Pentagon.”

  The only decoration in the office was a framed color photograph of The Eagle, the tall ship that was the Coast Guard training vessel. Richard Marley stared at the picture for a few moments, then said tersely, “I told you we’re investigating. Did you come all the way down here to call me a liar?”

  “Dick, I need your help.”

  When Marley turned back to look at her, his face was slightly flushed, his eyes cold. “What’s your interest in this, Jade? You’re a pollution monitor, not a law enforcement officer. Why are you stepping over the line here? What’s your problem?”

  “I desperately need a source of information that’s outside official channels, Dick. I came here to ask you what you know, or what you think you can find out. I’m asking as a friend.”

  “You still haven’t told me why you’re taking this so personally. Nobody’s blaming you for what happened.”

  “I take it very personally when somebody tries to kill me.”

  Marley studied Jade’s face
for a few moments, and then shook his head slightly. “What are you talking about?”

  “The explosion in the marina and the jailbreak last night are connected. The three men who were sprung from the Cairn jail last night ambushed me out on the river and tried to kill me.”

  The coldness left the Coast Guard captain’s eyes, replaced first by surprise and concern, and then anger. “I haven’t been briefed on that, and I should have been. All I know is what I heard on the radio this morning, and there weren’t many details.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. I need information, not more publicity. I believe they were the same men, or they know the men, who blew up Jack Trex’s boat and killed the family. I assume their employers wanted me taken out because they were afraid I might share information that could be embarrassing and cause trouble for the Navy—and yet I find it hard to believe that the Navy itself is involved. At this point I really don’t care. I’m not out to nail the Navy, and I’m not playing policewoman. My sole concern is with one man, a psychopath who’s probably on the big boys’ payroll. One day, probably sooner rather than later, he’s going to come looking to kill me. I have to find him first. To do that, I need more information about what’s going on and who may be involved. Do you think I’m wrong about the Navy? Do you think they’re responsible for what’s happened?”

  Marley continued to meet Jade’s gaze, but he did not reply.

  “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think my life and the lives of my children were seriously at risk, Dick. If you know so much about my background, then you know why I can’t talk to police or reporters.”

  “What about the F.B.I.? They should be able to guarantee your safety.”

  “I don’t trust the F.B.I. not to look the other way and hang me out to dry if there are government agencies involved, which is why I’m asking you if you think the Navy itself is actually involved, whether I might be dealing with renegade officers, or if it’s some private organization.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “That information will determine the way I go about looking for this man. If these people ever found out about this conversation we’re having, I’d have a lot more than this one man to worry about. They’d send a team after me again, and next time I might not be so lucky.”

  Marley again turned in his chair to stare at the photograph on the wall for what seemed to Jade a long time. When he looked back at her, his features were grim, and even deeper shadows that Jade thought might be something akin to fear moved in his eyes. He said in a low voice, “I will state to you categorically that no Coast Guard personnel are involved in this matter. I will also state to you categorically that the Coast Guard is not involved in any cover up.”

  Jade frowned slightly and shook her head. “Dick, I never implied either of those things.”

  “I was making that statement for the record, just in case you were thinking along those lines.”

  “But is the Coast Guard doing anything to find these men?”

  “Cairn jailhouses aren’t in our jurisdiction.”

  “I’m not referring to the jailbreak. Why are you playing word games with me, Dick?”

  “Word games? I thought I’d been rather forthcoming, particularly in view of the fact that you have no passport to be sailing these waters.”

  “I’ve explained my situation, but you haven’t told me what I need to know. If you can’t, or won’t, help me, just say so. Is the man I’m looking for working for other men who wear Navy uniforms? Was what happened in Cairn part of an official Navy operation? Do you have enough information to confirm or deny that for me?”

  Captain Richard Marley sighed, looked down at his desk and shook his head. “Jesus Christ, Jade,” he said in the same low voice. “How the hell did you ever get involved in this Goddamn circus?”

  Jade suddenly felt short of breath. She sat up straighter in her chair and swallowed hard. “What circus is that?” she asked in a voice just above a whisper.

  Marley did not reply.

  “Please talk to me, Dick,” she continued, leaning forward and putting the palms of her hands on the edge of the captain’s desk. “This man has an address in Florida, but it’s just a mail drop and forwarding service. They wouldn’t give me any information. I believe he’s close by, and he’s going to be coming after me. I need to find him, and I need to find him quickly. To do that, I first have to identify who he’s working for.”

  When the man looked up at her, anger had returned to his eyes. “I hope you do find them,” he said curtly. “The Coast Guard doesn’t have a damn thing to do with these idiots, and they’ve never had anything to do with us. As I’m sure you’re aware, the command people in the other services look down their noses at us. We’re cut out of the old boy network. You won’t find retired Coast Guard officers serving as consultants or sitting on the boards of every damn defense contractor in the country. So now some of these hot shots screw up on our turf, and we’re the ones who are going to take a beating. You’ve already got people in the media blaming us for not immediately taking charge of the situation and acting sooner. You don’t hear much criticism of the Navy, because the public doesn’t associate the Navy with anything that happens that far up the Hudson. You’re going to be reading and hearing a lot more about how the Coast Guard is to blame for the deaths of those people, and the sources for some of that shit will be right in the Pentagon.”

  Jade’s heart had begun to beat rapidly, and her mouth was dry. “Dick, are you confirming that the Navy is behind this?”

  “Negative. No Navy orders were ever cut to blow up a commercial fishing vessel or send assassins after you. My point is that the Navy is trying to protect their image, and they’re not above wiping their feet on the Coast Guard to do it. Since they don’t want to look like bunglers, they’ve decided we should wear the clown’s hat.”

  “Who, then? Renegades? Retired officers? Do you know?”

  Richard Marley’s manner abruptly changed. He shrugged, and then pointedly glanced at his watch. “Sorry about my little outburst,” he said easily. “Put it down to inter-service rivalries and resentments. Neither of us has time for that kind of pettiness, do we?”

  Jade knew that the conversation was at an end, and she rose from her chair. For a few moments she had been certain Richard Marley was going to tell her something she could use, but he had not. Now she felt drained and defeated. “Of course not,” she said woodenly as she headed for the door.

  “Jade?”

  Jade paused in the doorway and turned to look back at the man. “Yes?”

  “I guarantee you that this command will take care of business, within its proper jurisdiction. You should stay out of the line of fire.”

  “I can’t stay out of the line of fire, Dick. That’s why I came to see you.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of help. And there is one other thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “This conversation never took place.”

  “That’s even more imperative for me than it is for you, Captain. Thanks for your time.”

  ii

  But the conversation had, of course, taken place, and she had listened very carefully not only to what Richard Marley had said, but how he had said it. At two o’clock in the morning she still lay awake staring up at the dark ceiling of her bedroom and replaying the scene in the Coast Guard commander’s office, listening again to his words, watching his face and the strange shadows playing in his eyes.

  Richard Marley was not a man given to emotional outbursts, Jade thought, and his sudden, harsh words about the other military branches and their dismissive attitude toward the Coast Guard were most uncharacteristic of him.

  In his office she had sensed that he indeed knew certain things, and felt he was completely stonewalling her. Now she realized that he had, in effect, revealed a great deal. What had seemed at the time almost a diatribe might well, in fact, have been intended as a clear signal to her: He had clearly implied that there was inde
ed a conspiracy, a “circus”, at the same time as he had adamantly denied that any Coast Guard personnel, presumably active or retired, were involved.

  To be so certain of that, he would have to know, or strongly suspect, the identities of some of the major players.

  The question then arose as to why he hadn’t shared his information or suspicions with either the F.B.I. or appropriate military authorities, or why he wouldn’t tell her if he had. She had not known the Coast Guard commander long, but they had quickly developed what she considered an excellent relationship. She had been in innumerable dangerous situations where her life had depended on a quick and accurate read of people’s character and intentions, and she did not believe Richard Marley could be part of, or help to cover up, a criminal conspiracy.

  But she could be wrong. If she was, her visit to Governor’s Island could cost her life.

  How the hell did you get involved in this Goddamn circus?

  Richard Marley had to know what was going on, she thought. What else could those words have meant? And why send any signal at all if he did not wish to confide in her? For a few brief moments in the man’s office she thought she had seen something like fear moving in his eyes. What or who could he be afraid of? Richard Marley was certainly not a coward.

  But she could be wrong about that too.

  On the nightstand next to her bed the base unit of the homemade motion detector and field indicator she had installed around her property suddenly beeped loudly twice, and the grid screen lit up. Jade sat bolt upright in bed, her heart pounding. She began to hyperventilate, and she covered her mouth with both hands and took deep breaths in an effort to calm herself. In even the most dangerous situations in the field in which she had found herself over the years, she had never felt as frightened and close to panic as she did now—but then, her children had never accompanied her on her assignments. Now, more than ever, she needed her warrior.