These slippers were only a few weeks old.
He shoved the emotions down deep and put the slippers carefully under his berth. He desperately wanted to see his beautiful wife and daughters again. He looked at their pictures on his desk, and that made him smile.
He had to get back to them, he thought, but now he really did need luck.
———————
Williams saw Graves sitting at the chart table, laughing playfully with MacFarland.
They both stood as soon as Williams came through the hatch from belowdecks.
Graves stepped forward and saw Williams’s red and bloodshot eyes. “How is he?”
“Buck’s gonna make it.”
Graves forced a deep exhale. “Ah, man!”
Williams looked at MacFarland. “The bullet didn’t get as deep as Doc thought.”
Marathyachi nodded and clasped his hands on top of his console.
“Way to go, Doc!” yelled MacFarland.
“Hey,” barked Williams. “Doc lost the sailor. He died down there.”
Graves nodded and looked down.
“Need you all to give him a hand down there. We got to clean up. Place is a mess. And, uh—.” Williams paused.
“Yessir?” asked MacFarland. She stood next to the captain’s chair.
“I think we should do a burial. At sea.” Williams looked out the window. It was much darker out now that the moon had set. “At sunrise.”
MacFarland suddenly looked uncomfortable and Williams noticed.
“Ensign, you take lead on planning that.” He watched her reaction.
She only wrinkled her brow. “Aye, sir.”
“And what’d you find out about the tides?”
She looked over at the chart table at the back of the cabin. “Still working it, sir.”
“What about sunrise and sunset?”
“That too, sir,” she answered.
“How long do you need, ensign?” Williams stared at her.
“I don’t know, sir. I’ve, uh, got no references. But I marked—”
“Just do it.”
She started to speak.
“Don’t talk. Just work.” Williams looked away.
Graves started for the belowdecks hatch.
“Corporal Graves?”
“Sir?”
“After you check on Buck, help clean up down there. We got to think about eating in there.”
“Oorah, sir.”
“Where’s Childress? And Brewster?”
“They’re still up top on watch, sir,” said MacFarland. “I tried to relieve one of ’em, but they said they’re waiting for something.”
“I want to be off this beach in thirty minutes.”
———————
The diesels rumbled to life, but Brewster didn’t move. He’d been sitting on the upper deck for the last two hours watching the northern horizon for the green sparks to appear. “What time is it now?” he asked.
“Nine thirty four,” said Childress. He slipped his phone back in his pocket.
“Do you think it’ll come back?”
“Got no idea,” answered Childress.
“I thought you figured it out?”
“No. Just figured it might come back at the same time gap as the last one.”
“We’re never getting home. Are we?” asked Brewster. He smacked his hands on his knees.
“We’re getting underway. Hold on,” said Williams over the intercom speaker.
“Ready, sir!” yelled Marathyachi from the fantail.
“Roger. Taking in the slack!” yelled Smith from the fore deck.
Childress walked to the port side of the upper deck. In the dim red tactical deck lights, he could see that Marathyachi had led the anchor rode from the fantail to the bow windlass through a series of block pulleys that had been clipped along the deck.
“You ain’t givin’ up, are you?”
“No, Brew. Keep looking. Holler if you see anything.”
The diesels growled and the water under the stern roiled.
“Hauling in!” yelled Smith. The bow windlass started spinning to haul in the anchor rode.
Even though the tide had come in nearly a foot since the Dauntless grounded on the beach, the boat didn’t start moving until the aft anchor bit in to the seabed. As the Dauntless broke free of the beach, the diesels quieted when the helm reduced power. Smith continued to haul in the rode with the windlass while watching Marathyachi’s hand signals.
Smith pressed his throat transducer. “Helm to idle.”
Marathyachi watched the line from the fantail. He raised his open hand when the rode transitioned from composite line to chain, and then closed his hand to a fist when the anchor broke the surface of the water. “All clear,” he said, holding the mic switch on his throat.
As Smith and Marathyachi cleared the anchor rode and block pulleys from the deck, the Dauntless growled and turned north toward open water.
“Stand by for burial detail,” said Williams.
“That’s me. Gotta go,” said Childress.
“No shit?” said Brewster, still looking north over the equipment mounted on top of the cabin.
“I’ll be back. Here, take my phone. If you see it, take a bunch of pictures.”
Brewster pressed the phone’s home button. 09:37. The time was obviously wrong. Brewster looked at the night sky, now moonless but absolutely glowing with stars. He opened the phone’s photo album and tapped on the pictures of the bubble’s last appearance.
He zoomed in to the blob of green. It was blurry and nearly without form, and it offered no clues to its origin or timing.
He looked to the horizon, then back down at the phone, and immediately back on the horizon. He’d missed the appearance of the green sparks, but he saw it just as it faded. Brewster tapped wildly on the phone to get to the camera application, but by the time he pointed the phone’s lens at the horizon, the green sparks had gone. He tapped over and over again on the shutter icon and recorded several images of the black horizon.
He lowered the phone to the railing. He’d missed it by only seconds.
Chapter 13
Sunrise
Childress tilted the medic’s litter and the sailor’s body, wrapped tightly in a white sheet, slid from under an American flag and dropped feet-first into the deep blue water.
The eastern horizon had just started to glow red when the morning’s call to prayer sounded from the city. Most of the crew had gathered on the Dauntless’s aft deck for the burial. Besides Ruiz and Rogers, who were still in the makeshift operating room in the galley below, only Grassley and Watts weren’t on board for the anonymous sailor’s committal.
“It’s odd. In his time, most Americans weren’t religious at all,” said Williams.
Smith nodded. “And here we are burying him at sea during a Muslim call to prayer.”
MacFarland waited a few minutes then looked at the horizon. She pulled out her notepad and phone and checked the time. She’d also set her phone’s clock to match LCDR Williams’s watch, but she was certain it wasn’t 10:37 in the morning.
Childress saw what she was doing and stood next to her. “D’you figure anything out, ensign?”
“Hmm?”
“The time. I’d say we’re off by four or five hours.”
She shrugged. “We didn’t save any of the time tables in the computer. Tides. Sunrise and sunset. We’re starting over.”
“It’s hard not having any piece of data you’d need right at your fingertips.” Childress crossed his arms. “Guess that’s why they invented books.”
MacFarland nodded. “Yeah. Guess so.” She turned to Williams. “Sir, I’ll be up top.”
Williams nodded and Childress followed her up the ladder.
“I got a pretty good guess on the tides,” she said when she saw him get to the upper deck.
“Oh, yeah?”
“I think we beached around low tide. It was already coming back in when I started checkin
g.”
“What time was that?” he asked.
“We beached around 5:35. So I figure low tide was around 5:00 or so.”
Childress pulled out his phone. “So high tide’ll be in the next half hour or so.”
She nodded. “Yep. I marked the beach with some numbered lines. Should be able to see ’em with these.” She lifted the binoculars around her neck up to her eyes and looked at where they’d been beached. “Still a few lines left. Uh—”
“What’s wrong.”
“Shit. Those are bodies.” She scanned the beach toward the harbor. “Must have been from last night. Washed ashore.”
“From the boats that sank?”
“Yeah. Still can’t believe everything that’s going on.” She lowered the binoculars. “Think your time travel idea’s the only thing that makes any sense.”
“That’s what I’m worried about.” He forced a smile. “But I’ve been doing a little more thinking about that.” He tapped on the screen of his phone.
She looked curiously at him.
“You know those green sparks we’ve been seeing?”
“Yeah.”
“They keep coming back, but the time’s different. Think I know why.”
Her eyes widened. “You figured it out?”
He nodded. “And I think I know when the next one’s coming.”
———————
Neither Grassley nor Watts had slept much, but the calls to morning prayer convinced Grassley that he wasn’t going to get much more sleep. The calls sounded clearer than others he’d heard in other countries, and the nearest caller was close enough that he didn’t need a sound system.
If they weren’t sitting on the cold ground of crushed shells and sand, they could have enjoyed the morning sun from their prison cell.
The sun was breaking over the harbor, casting a warm light on the red walls of the city’s castle. The castle reminded Grassley of the one he’d toured only a few days ago, but that one had been further in the city and was surrounded by tourist shops and cafes. In the harbor, scores of old wooden sail and rowing boats sat in the harbor and the morning sunlight scattered through the masts and sparkled on the water, and all were dwarfed by the massive but statuesque Philadelphia.
Watts shifted his posture against the cold stone wall and grunted in pain.
“This wouldn’t be so bad with coffee and a cigarette,” Grassley mumbled.
“Mmm,” moaned Watts.
“Get in the sun.” Grassley shifted to one side. “Feels great.”
Watts shuffled on his butt. “Dammit this hurts.” He leaned his good side against the door of rusting iron and let the warmth soak in. “That’s better,” he said quietly.
Grassley now had a chance to look around the three-meter by seven-meter cell. The iron door was primitive, but sturdy, and even though it was rusting from the salty environment, it still had plenty of strength. The walls were solid, made of black rock at least a hands-width thick at the door, and who knows how thick on the sides and back. The ceiling was made of a mixture of timbers, some old and rustic, others freshly hewn and sharply squared. The ground was an uncomfortable mixture of crushed shells, coarse sand and dust.
Their cellmates were still dressed in their costumes, though they all looked dirtier now having spent the night laying in the dirty gravel. Some wrapped themselves in their jackets like small blankets and others had them balled up into pillows. Two of them had wrapped their jackets around their heads to block out the light for a few more hours of sleep. Captain Bainbridge was on his back, snoring quietly, and somehow, his uniform still looked crisp.
It soon became clear to Grassley that the only way out was through the door, and no one seemed interested in trying to escape.
Grassley rested his face against the bars of the door and took a deep breath. He couldn’t tell if the smell was coming from the harbor-side buildings around them or the ten tired men filling their tiny cell. He couldn’t escape it, and he wondered how long he’d have to endure it.
At least their captors considered him important enough to be put into the officers cell, he thought. That could be useful.
———————
“First things first. We’ve got to start saving fuel,” said Williams.
MacFarland nodded. “Yessir. We’re down to half a tank. That will give us 300 miles at 30 knots, or about a week at idle.”
“A week, huh?”
Chavez rotated his chair. “Aye, skipper. If we run one diesel at a time, might be able to stretch it to eight days. That’ll keep the systems all running. Water de-sal, radar, HVAC. We’re idling on one diesel right now.”
Williams flexed his jaw muscles. “But you don’t think we’ll need that long?” he asked MacFarland.
“No sir. And it’s Tricky, actually.”
“Let’s hear it.”
Childress stood next to MacFarland. “Well, sir, I’ve been on deck for two of the light shows. Brewster saw the third.”
Williams pushed back in his chair. “All in the same spot?”
“Yessir. I took pictures, but we can’t tell how far out it is.”
“And you think it’s an echo of some sort?” asked Williams. “Maybe a way home?”
Childress nodded. “Maybe, sir.”
Smith took an exasperated breath. “Come on guys. You’re reaching for straws.”
“It’s all we got, LT,” said MacFarland.
“She’s right,” said Williams. “How do we find out where it is?”
“No clue, sir.” Childress pointed north. “But I think we should go north and try to get closer.”
“How much time we got?” asked Williams.
“About six hours,” replied Childress.
Williams looked at his watch. “And you know this how?”
“Don’t know for sure, sir,” said Childress. “But I did some math based on the observations.”
Smith raised his eyebrows. “Go ahead, Marine.”
Childress didn’t respond to Smith’s sarcasm. “The first one we saw, when Brewster came and got you, happened at 03:13, according to your watch.”
“But we know that’s not the right time,” said Smith.
“Right, sir, but it’s right in a certain frame of reference.” He saw Smith’s reaction. “Einstein. Relativity.” He shook his head. “I’ll get to it in a second, sir.”
Smith chuckled. “What bullshit.”
“Hey, LT? Give him a chance,” said Williams.
“After that, we all set our clocks to your watch.” Childress held up his phone. “When I was on watch last night, we saw another one. I took a picture of it. 05:21.”
“Two hours and change after the last one.”
“Right, sir. So, Lieutenant Smith and I figured we’d see it again around 07:30 or so.”
Smith shrugged. “But it didn’t show up until, what, 09:30 something?” He waved his arms. “It’s random. Doesn’t mean a thing.”
“I’m not so sure, sir. But it happened at 09:37. Brewster took a picture right after it faded.”
“So he got a picture of nothing. Doesn’t help us find it,” said Smith.
“No, sir. But it did time stamp them.”
MacFarland tried to speed things up. “So you did some math—”
“Yes ma’am. So between 03:13, 05:21, and 09:37, I found a pattern.”
“Doesn’t fit,” said Smith. “2:08 between the first two, and what, 4:16 between the second?”
“Exactly sir.” Childress paused. “2:08 doubled is 4:16.”
Williams nodded. “So 8:32 from the last one is when?”
“18:09 on your watch, sir.” Childress answered.
Smith shook his head. “So you want to waste more fuel by going out there to check it out, see if it comes back, and then wait another sixteen or seventeen hours to catch the next one?”
Childress shrugged his shoulders. “I think it’s worth it.”
“What about triangulation?” asked MacFarland.
Williams nodded. “Good idea. How many compasses do we have?”
MacFarland held up her digital binoculars. “We’ve got three of these, sir.”
“Perfect. They all charged up?” asked Williams.
“They will be,” she answered.
“We’re gambling fuel, skip,” said Smith. “How do we know it’s not just random? Just a coincidence that these three events are related?”
“This is the best part,” said MacFarland. She looked at Childress.
“Thanks, ma’am. I, uh, made a spreadsheet. Entered the times and did a little math between the events.”
“We know that,” said Smith.
“But I went backwards, too.”
“Backwards?” asked Williams.
Marathyachi smiled and tapped on his console’s display.
“I listed the time gap between each event as seconds.” Childress looked at the spreadsheet on his phone. “Four hours and sixteen minutes is 15,360 seconds.”
“Okay,” said Smith. “So we’ll do a little public math—”
“Lieutenant? Please.” Williams looked aggravated.
“Halving that takes us to 7,680, then 3,840, 1,920, et cetera. Until it gets down to less than a second.”
“Let me guess when that was,” said Marathyachi. “Yesterday at 13:05?”
Childress nodded. “Exactly.”
Williams looked at Marathyachi. “How’s that, Shiv?”
He pointed to his display showing the time-stamped image of the green arc from the NLE shooting across the simulated pirate skiff.
Williams looked at the image on the display. “That’s when we jumped. When we jumped back in time.”
“Holy shit,” said Smith. He looked at Childress. “You did it.”
“We’re not home yet, sir.”
———————
The area west of the red castle was busy this morning. News of the captured American frigate brought all manner of spectators to the fort on the jetty. Onlookers paraded by the holding cells where the crew would be held while the Pasha negotiated their ransom with the Consulate.
In the crowd, the two tall men from last night stood out from the rest. Grassley didn’t understand what they were saying, but one thing was clear: the older man wasn’t happy with the younger.
The Shores of Tripoli Page 12