The Hydra Conspiracy

by Len Levinson

  He walked to the waterfront, where he saw ships lined up at the piers, glowing in the light of lamps attached to their masts. Men went up and down the gangplanks of the ships as Butler made his way to Pier 54.

  A big oil tanker was tied up there; on the hull was lettered:

  LAUREL CANYON

  Noble Oil Company

  Butler puffed his cigarette and sauntered past ranks of barrels and stacks of cargo to the gangplank, where a sailor wearing a peaked hat was coming down, his sea bag on his shoulder.

  “When’d she get in?” Butler asked.

  “About an hour ago,” the seaman replied, walking off toward the nearest bar.

  Butler stepped back from the gangplank and looked at the tanker. It was huge, ugly, painted black. They were going to store a bomb on it, and somehow he’d have to find the bomb, take it apart and put it back together again.

  He hoped he could do it.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  In the morning Butler reported to the hiring hall of the Maritime Union, a huge room filled with seamen hunching around waiting for their names to be called. Butler checked in at the desk at one end of the room and then milled around with the others, carrying his satchel and smoking. He was up to a pack and a half of cigarettes a day but swore he’d give them up once this operation was over.

  At eleven o’clock his name was called and he walked to the hiring desk. The man sitting there handed him a chit and said, “The Laurel Canyon, Pier 54.”

  Butler put the chit in his jeans pocket and walked down the hill to the docks. Seagulls flew over the warehouses and saloons, which already were filled with drunks. He came to Pier 54 and climbed the gangplank of the Laurel Canyon. At the top of the gang plank was a gnarled old sailor with a broken nose, wearing a baseball cap with the Milwaukee Braves insignia in front.

  “Who the fuck are you?” the sailor asked, squinting his eyes.

  Butler showed him the chit. “I’m the new cook.”

  “I hope you’re better than the last one. Go below and get yourself a bunk. By the way, I’m First Mate Stearns. Whenever you see me coming you’d better look sharp.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Butler crossed the desk to the bridge, entered a door, descended a ladder. He passed a recreation room and the mess hall, then came to a labyrinth of corridors barely wide enough for two men to pass side by side. The corridors were lined with doors. Opening the first one he saw, he walked in on a man reading a copy of Playboy magazine.

  “What the hell do you want?” the man asked, obviously angry at being disturbed.

  “I’m looking for a bunk.”

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Joe Gray, the hew cook.”

  “The cooks are down the corridor and to the left.”

  Butler walked in that direction and turned to the left. He saw a man in white clothes coming at him. “You a cook?” Butler asked.

  “Some people seem to think so.”

  “So am I. Where do I bunk?”

  The man squinted at him. “You don’t look like a cook to me.”

  “What the fuck can I tell you, buddy?”

  “Anybody ever tell you that you look like Clark Gable, the movie star?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Joe Gray.”

  “I’m Bennie Walmsley, the first cook. How do you do? There’s an empty bunk in 23A. You’ll be working the day shift with me. There are some whites in the room; put them on, then report to the kitchen.”

  “Right.”

  Butler opened the door of 23A, which was a tiny cubicle with a bunk bed and some drawers underneath it. There wasn’t enough room to pace the floor and there was only one light, which was above the bed. On the bed were clean sheets, a pillow and a white uniform. Butler changed into the white uniform and went up to the kitchen.

  Bennie Walmsley put him to work peeling potatoes and carrots, then slicing up some meat. Next he had to mix dough in the mixing machine. Finally he had to move some boxes around in the storeroom.

  He went off duty at six o’clock, went up on deck, and saw the long fat hoses connected from the ship to oil tanks on the dock. Apparently the oil was still being pumped out. He wondered when they were going to bring the bomb aboard, and realized that the only way he’d find out about it was to stand watch someplace and wait.

  He fixed a couple of sandwiches for himself in the kitchen and took them up to the deck, where he ate while watching the activity on the dock. After eating he sat on the deck leaning against the bulkhead. He was determined to wait and watch until a Noble Oil Company truck arrived with the bomb. It grew dark and late, and still he waited, sitting silently on the deck, hoping the bomb would arrive soon.

  “What the hell are you doing out here?”

  Butler looked up and saw First Mate Stearns. “Oh, just taking it easy.”

  “Why the hell don’t you go into town?”

  “Ain’t got no money.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad. Payday ain’t till Friday.”

  “I know.”

  “I can lend you ten bucks.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t like to borrow money.”

  “Well I sure as fuck ain’t gonna give you any!”

  “I don’t expect you to,” Butler said. “It’s okay. I’m happy right here.”

  “Crazy son of a bitch,” Stearns muttered as he walked away.

  Butler sat on the deck until midnight, then went to the recreation room, got a lounge chair, brought it back, lay down on it. He thought he’d doze lightly, so if there were any commotion on the dock he’d hear it and wake up. He’d certainly hear a Noble Oil truck arrive and a bomb being unloaded, he hoped.

  In the darkness, he leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. No one could see him against the bulkhead. He was awakened a few times by drunken sailors returning to the ship, and a fight that broke out down on the pier. But no Noble Oil truck arrived that night and no bomb came on board the Laurel Canyon.

  The next day he worked his shift in the kitchen and the next night he took his post on the deck once more. He drowsed and awakened, thinking about the bomb, the home he’d like to have someday in Big Sur, and whether Wilma B. Willoughby was sleeping alone that night. He contemplated the educated middle class that lived in comfortable suburban homes and didn’t give a shit about anybody else. Yet they considered themselves religious moral people. Butler thought that very strange.

  Half asleep at three o’clock in the morning, he heard the sound of a motor approaching. Looking to his left, he saw a vehicle coming down the road to the pier. He was about to get up and take a closer look, when he heard voices and noises on deck. Peering into the night, he saw some men on the deck. It appeared that they were unscrewing some of the metal plates that made up the deck. He heard creaking sounds overhead and looked up to see one of the dock derricks swinging around to the pier.

  Butler sat up quietly. He couldn’t see the pier beside the ship but he could hear the vehicle stop. Then there were various mechanical clanging sounds that went on for a long time. On deck, the sailors had removed several steel plates and were standing to the side. The pulleys on the derrick began to squeal. Butler looked to the side and saw a huge box being lifted into the air. The box was roughly the size of that bomb that Doctor Levinson had shown him, and he realized that the bomb was finally being loaded on the Laurel Canyon. He sat still and saw the box get lifted high in the air, then slowly lowered into the hole the sailors had made in the deck. The sailors disappeared into the hold and the sound of the motor started up again. Butler looked toward the pier and saw the truck driving away. His heart skipped when he made out the sign on back. It said, “Noble Oil Company.”

  After a while the sailors came up from the hold of the ship. The refastened the steel plates, stood around awhile, then walked toward the bridge where Butler was sitting. Quietly he lay back and closed his eyes.

  “Hey, who the fuck’s that?” asked a sailor.
/>   “It’s one of the cooks,” replied First Mate Stearns.

  “What’s he doing out here?”

  “How the fuck should I know. He likes to sleep in the fresh air, I guess.”

  The sailors went below deck and Butler lay still for a long time. Then he arose and stealthily crossed the deck to the spot where the sailors had removed the steel plates. He knew that below was a compartment for the storage of oil. The tanker had twenty or thirty such compartments, each with a hatch and a ladder leading inside so the crew could periodically clean out the sludge that accumulated in the bottom. Butler found the hatch near the starboard bulkhead of the hull.

  Now he knew where the bomb was and how to get to it. He’d wait until the tanker left port, then one night on some foreign sea he’d go down there and sabotage it.

  And maybe, if Lady Luck were smiling on him, he wouldn’t get caught.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The next day he reported for his normal tour of duty in the kitchen. Beans were being served for dinner and he was assigned the task of watching the cauldron in which they were cooking. At intervals throughout the day he was able to go up on deck, and he noticed that no one was guarding the compartment where the bomb was. That made sense to him, because guards would attract attention and inspire curiosity. It was best to behave as if there were no bomb around. Who would dream that the Laurel Canyon was earring an atom bomb?

  After dinner Butler went off duty. He hung around the ship, going to the recreation room for games of Ping-Pong, occasionally going up on deck. There were still no guards at the compartment where the bomb was stashed.

  He decided that there was no reason for him to stay on board the ship, so he went ashore to one of the sleazy waterfront bars and picked up a dopey young girl who was reasonably attractive, although she had a front tooth missing. He took her and a bottle of Canadian Club to the Curtis Hotel and got a room with a double bed for the night.

  By morning he no longer felt anxious or melancholy.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The Laurel Canyon sailed out of Corpus Christi harbor at six o’clock on Friday morning and set a southerly course for the Panama Canal. Butler was in the kitchen bright and early helping to prepare the luncheon meal of hash and mashed potatoes, and in the afternoon he worked on the liver and onions that would be the dinner meal.

  He thought the food aboard the tanker was abominable, and although he had contempt for people who considered themselves gourmets and wine experts, he found himself craving a decent meal. Foremost in his mind were the steaks he’d enjoyed at Gallagher’s Steak House in New York, the thick pastrami sandwiches at the Carnegie Hall Delicatessen and the shrimp with black bean sauce at Lee Chang’s in Chinatown.

  He went off duty after the dinner meal and proceeded directly to his cabin to get some rest, because that night he intended to sabotage the bomb. In his satchel were the tools Doctor Levinson had given him, plus a hammer and awl he’d picked up in a hardware store for use in getting into the wooden crate that held the bomb.

  He smoked a cigarette (he was up to two packs a day) and thought of the girl he’d slept with the previous night. She’d been dumb as a broom handle but sexy as hell. He wondered why the women who attracted him sexually were usually dumb, and the women who stimulated his mind were usually not very sexy. An exception was Wilma B. Willoughby, and he wondered whose bedroom she was in right now. He hoped that she was alone thinking of him and feeling intensely frustrated.

  Stubbing out the cigarette in the ashtray, he closed his eyes and tried to get some sleep, because he figured he’d be up most of the night working on the bomb. He had to sabotage it—otherwise it might be the end of Wilma B. Willoughby, himself and probably civilization itself. All that would remain would be rats, cockroaches and madmen like Phillip Noble. Butler thought it strange that the fate of the world was dependent on a man like him, a rather unexceptional fellow with simple tastes and common vices.

  But it was.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  It was one o’clock in the morning and the Laurel Canyon was plowing south through the Gulf of Mexico. On the bridge the duty officer was peering through his binoculars into the night, looking for flashing lights that would indicate other ships. There was no moon and it was pitch black out there. Behind the duty officer was the radar man watching his screen for suspicious blips. To his left was First Mate Stearns, steering the ship toward Panama.

  On the deck a dark figure moved furtively alongside the railing. It was Butler in jeans and denim jacket, with his face darkened by cigarette ashes. He carried his satchel, inside which were flashlight, hammer, awl, wire cutter and two screwdrivers. Waves crashed against the hull of the tanker as he crept along through the darkness, hoping that no sailors with insomnia would come out on the deck.

  Finally he reached the hatch of the compartment where the bomb was stowed. The hatch was opened by a wheel that you turned to the left, and he spun it around slowly, trying not to let it squeak. When it was turned all the way he opened the hatch quickly, climbed down the iron ladder and pulled the hatch shut.

  It was as dark in the compartment as though his eyes were closed. He turned the wheel on the inside the hatch until it was fast, then climbed down the ladder through the inky blackness. It was a long way down and his eyes started playing tricks on him, materializing suns, stars and comets streaking about.

  His foot touched the bottom of the compartment. He took out his flashlight and turned it on, sending the shaft of light over the walls and floor of the compartment. It smelled oily and vile, but evidently the floor had been washed before the bomb was stowed away. His beam of light came to rest on the crate and a shiver passed through him when he realized what was in it. If he did something wrong it was conceivable that the Laurel Canyon and several surrounding miles of ocean would disappear off the face of the earth.

  He approached the crate, opened his satchel, took out the hammer and awl. Jabbing the awl into the corner of the wooden crate, he tapped lightly with the hammer, then ripped. The joint came apart. He pulled apart the other joints in a similar manner, perspiration coming out on his forehead. He took the top off the crate and then removed the sides. Underneath was plastic packing which he unwrapped and moved out of his way.

  The bomb slowly emerged from the plastic packing, glowing evilly in the light of his flash. It was perched on a metal cradle on the bottom section of the crate.

  Chewing his lower lip, Butler got out the Phillips head screwdriver and began removing the screws that held the bomb’s nose on. Perspiration dripped from his cheeks as he pulled off the nose and looked inside the bomb. He saw the wires, the tubes, and the uranium detonator shaped like his flashlight. Below that lurked the casing holding the critical mass that could set the world aflame.

  Butler took his wire cutter and regular screwdriver. He had cut the wires that led to the detonator, and was removing the first screw, when he heard the sound.

  He froze.

  The sound came from up above; it was the hatch wheel being opened. Quickly Butler grabbed the top of the crate and balanced it on top of the bomb. Running, he grabbed the sides of the crate and leaned them against the sides of the bomb. Then he took his satchel and huddled on the side of the crate farthest from the hatch.

  The hatch wheel stopped turning and the hatch was opened. A column of light flashed into the compartment and came to rest on the bomb’s crate.

  “It’s okay,” a voice said.

  “We ought to go down and take a look,” another voice replied.

  “What the fuck for?”

  “To make sure.”

  “To make sure of what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Asshole.”

  The hatch was closed and the wheel was turned. Butler knelt in the darkness and waited for a while to make sure everything was all right. He wondered if he’d been heard, or if that were just a routine check. He decided it was a routine check; otherwise they would certainly have come
down. He was glad the compartment was deep, making it difficult for someone above to see that the crate wasn’t put together the way it should be.

  Butler resumed work. He took the top and sides of the crate away and peered inside again at the guts of the bomb. Taking his screwdriver in hand, he removed the four screws that held the detonator in place. Then he pulled the detonator out of the bomb and jammed it in his belt. To make sure that the bomb would never go off, he reached in with his wire cutters and severed all the wires he could find. Then he replaced the nose and screwed it on.

  The big job was putting the crate back together without making noise. He looked at his watch; it was three in the morning. At five the sun would come up and he’d be observed creeping out of the compartment. He’d have to work fast.

  He replaced the plastic packing around the bomb and then reassembled the crate, tapping lightly with the hammer so he wouldn’t make much noise. He put all the nails in the holes where they’d been before.

  When the crate was together he got down on his hands and knees with his flashlight and examined the floor for splinters or other pieces of debris that might indicate the crate had been tampered with. He picked up everything he could find and put the stuff in a pocket in his denim jacket. Then he gathered up his tools and put them in his satchel. Checking the crate once more to make certain there was nothing to arouse anybody’s suspicion, he climbed the ladder, paused and listened for a few moments, then turned the wheel and opened the hatch.

  He poked his head through the hole and smelled the salty night air. It was still dark and the deck was clear. He could see the lights on the bridge and a vague figure of a man standing watch up there. Creeping out of the compartment, he closed the hatch tightly. Then he turned around and faced the rolling sea. Taking the detonator from his belt, he heaved it as far as he could. It disappeared into the waves. Then he opened his satchel and threw away all his tools.