"By the way, how'd your presentation go?"
"Good. Pratt & Whitney invited us back to their Hartford headquarters for a final proposal in two weeks. It's a real shoot‑out. We're in the top three, now."
"Hey, that's great!"
Silence. She pressed her thumbs together.
"What did you do before you were full‑time at Butler Engineering?" he asked softly.
"Yeah." She sighed. "Married. Our son, Tim, he's ten now." She twirled her wedding band, looked up, and turned to Lofton. Then her gaze swept forward to the conning station, the pilot berth, the periscope, the....
"Bob is...was...a pharmacist. He did well, had two drugstores and a third was under construction." She paused. Her eyes were wide, empty, her voice was low. "He worked very hard. It was too late when we found out. That stuff is available, so tempting, all he had to do was grab it off the shelf. They audited him, the state. He'd been juggling the narcotics on his books and they discovered it. They threatened to revoke his license and put him on six months' probation. That's when I found out.
"He kept working but," she bit her lip, "he just went out and bought it on the street. We were already stretched tight and that's why I started part‑time with Daddy. We couldn't pay our bills. Eventually, we lost the third store, which had become the most profitable. That really got to him. Plus he couldn't afford to stop working and he couldn't stop sniffing coke." Her voice trailed off.
"Then, that one night." She shook her head. "He bought a bad batch. Something was wrong, it was laced with--I don't know. They tried to explain it to me. He went crazy, it did something to him...it scrambled his brains..." Bonnie studied a scratch on the table, her fingers knotted together.
Lofton's chair creaked.
"He's been catatonic for the past four months. Not a blink, not a groan, nothing. His weight is down to about 110 and he's almost incontinent. We have him in a special home, a sanatorium. I had to sell our house and the drugstores. Tim and I live with Daddy."
"And, your mom?"
"She's gone, died three years ago."
"I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't mean to pry."
"You didn't. I...ah...I don't know, I just wanted to talk. Maybe it's this Kool‑Aid or beetle juice."
"Bug juice," he said softly.
"What'd you put in it?" She looked at him, her eyes, black pools, glistened over a forced smile. "It's been a long time since I've talked to--to someone. I'm sorry, that sounds stupid."
"No."
Lofton looked up, then cocked an ear. Bonnie heard it, too: a low, deep, steady "whump, whump, whump."
She turned her face to the hatch and rolled her eyes down to him. "What's that?"
The whumps grew louder.
"Cargo ship, by the sound of it, single screw. Probably heading out."
"You sure?" She looked at him.
"Well, uh, I think so. I'm sure it's not a helicopter."
Bonnie grinned, then broke into a short giggle. Lofton watched her glow with a marvelous, gorgeous, genuine smile. It was lost to him when she covered her mouth but her eyes still crinkled. They listened as the cargo ship whumped on into the Pacific.
"You're going out there?" She nodded toward the fading propeller. "You have to?"
"It would be easy to say `no.' To stick around and let Kirby talk to his admiral friends. But that could take too much time. And they might lock Kirby up for all I know. Especially with Renkin out there and all his pull.
He tapped a finger on the small table. "Those sailors on the Truman are just twelve days from being blown up. And I need that defector. I can't leave it to chance."
"Brad." She reached over and took his hand, their eyes met.
"I have to, Bonnie," he said slowly. "It's the only--"
The control console gave a low, steady buzz.
"--way to be sure."
He rose slowly. "Duty calls. We're almost to the Long Beach entrance buoy. What say we go to periscope depth and take a look?"
Lofton took the console armchair while Bonnie sat across from him on the starboard pilot berth and watched. He tapped the keyboard, then touched the large master CRT.
He looked at her. "Like clockwork. Disengage autopilot." Then he grabbed the joystick and eased it back slightly. A stopwatch hanging by a lanyard from an overhead bracket swung toward her head.
She watched the depth gauge click off the distance to the surface. They'd been at four hundred feet. It changed steadily: 90, 60, 45, 35, 25, 20. It stopped at 15. Brutus rolled and pitched, but not uncomfortably. The stopwatch swung in lazy circles.
"Still crappy topside," Lofton muttered. "Here, let's have a look. There's nothing on sonar." He punched a button on the panel to his left, then pulled the periscope housing from the overhead.
Leaning forward slightly, he put his eye to the lens and slewed electrically with a trigger handle mounted under the housing. "Hm, how 'bout that?" he grinned.
"What?" She leaned toward him, away from the stopwatch. It had clunked her head a couple of times.
"Storm's blown over, no more rain, and the visibility is good." He hunched a shoulder and studied something. "Yeah, the channel is still rough. The Long Beach entrance buoy is about fifty yards off our port beam now. It's really bouncing around."
He paused. "The entrance looks clear. I can't see any traffic and the water inside looks fairly calm."
He checked his wristwatch, then looked at her. "We're in good shape timewise. I guess we better head in and see if Kirby's made it with your truckload of Jet 'A.'" Lofton went back to his eyepiece.
Bonnie sat on the edge of the pilot berth watching Lofton as he slowed to five knots.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The thought hit her. Bonnie had known for the past fifteen minutes, but it finally sank in. Lofton intended to take Brutus submerged through Queensgate, the Long Beach Harbor entrance. How wide was it? Six, seven hundred yards, she couldn't remember. Big enough when you were on the surface. But down here? She hoped his aim was good as she recalled the thick jagged rocks that formed the breakwater on either side of Queensgate. She closed her eyes, then opened them again. The minisubmarine rolled and pitched gently but it was quiet, no swishing or gurgling sounds, no blooping and bleeping as in submarine movies.
She twisted her hands and looked at Lofton, concentrating, his eye jammed to the periscope housing. She rose with a start, leaned over his chair and watched the control panel. A televised display flashed on the master CRT, fuzzy in some spots, but she clearly saw the Long Beach breakwater rocks. Breakers tore at them, spray shot high in the air, and whole combers rolled over the top.
But Queensgate lay dead ahead. Good.
Lofton turned his magnification knob: derricks, cranes, towers, masts, a large pile of shipping containers took shape in the distance. A scale on the lower part of the screen blinked with: 357/05.
"Are you steering now?" she asked softly.
"Yes, the NAV system is in semiautomatic so I'm steering manually to the recommended course. But, like a DC-10, Brutus can do everything by computer, even land in a dense fog. I just feel better driving this thing." He waved a hand to the upper right NAV CRT. "That's the program. I 'match pointers' from either the screen or periscope displays." He grunted. "It seems to be working OK. Easier than when I left San Diego."
The computer bleeped, he checked the NAV CRT and went back to his periscope. "OK. We're through the breakwater." He moved the joystick.
Bonnie sighed as Brutus swung gently to the left. The rolling became less pronounced, then stopped altogether. She clutched her shoulders. It was quiet, very quiet. She heard her own breathing, a motor whirred softly back aft. Nothing else.
She checked the NAV CRT:
WAY POINT CS DIST TIME ETA‑Z
d hr m m d hr
l. Long Beach Buoy ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ - 09 14 1005
2. Long Beach Entrance - - ‑ ‑ - 09 14 1021
3. Basin 6 Channel 310 1.4 ‑ ‑ 17 09 14 1038
4. Mid‑Channel 042
0.4 ‑ ‑ 1 09 14 1039
5. Berth 209 316 0.6 - - 7 09 14 1046
2.4 0 0 25
SPD = 5.0
DEPTH = 15.0
Lofton looked up again, then slewed the periscope. "Nobody is underway and we have another seventeen minutes to the basin six channel."
He rose, saying, "Tell you what. You sit here and keep watch through the periscope. I'm going aft to dig out your clothes. We must have you looking decent for Dr. Kirby."
"Me? Sit there?"
"Don't worry, it's dead topside, we have plenty of depth beneath us. Just yell if you see any ships coming or red lights start zapping on the console. Back in a minute."
Bonnie sat down. Her stomach churned as she scanned Brutus's CRTs. Lights flashed, she tried to sort out which ones were imminent. She recognized a navigation subroutine, similar to the HUD displays she had seen in fighter cockpits.
It didn't take long for Lofton to negotiate the crawlway and return with her dry clothes. She changed in the divers' trunk and when she stepped out Lofton was at his periscope again, twiddling the high power adjustment.
He pulled away, ran an eye up and down, and went back to his eyepiece. "I liked you better in the poopie suit."
"Sorry, it didn't match my plastic jewelry."
Lofton twirled the magnification knob. "We have a tighter, more snug model in your size, with pink panels, purple piping and--whoa! Here we are. Take a look."
The computer bleeped and Lofton eased in right rudder. Docks, pilings, shipping containers flashed darkly on the screen.
A minute passed and the computer bleeped again. They turned to port and entered the triangular basin six. To starboard, a large bulk loader hovered over immense coal mounds. Towering cranes and conveyer belts stood silhouetted against the sky. Lofton flipped the scope to port quickly, the picture whizzed on the CRT, focusing finally on sprawling two‑story warehouses.
Lofton checked the clock. "Three-forty. I told Kirby three thirty. Not bad."
He trained the periscope ahead. A wharf filled the screen. It had black, tightly packed pilings like creosoted rotten teeth. A building loomed above with a sign reading "Banana Terminal," and two rail cranes rose before it, their hooks dangling against the overcast.
Bonnie asked, "Is that berth 209?"
"Um, the Banana Terminal is 208; 209 is the empty space to the right just in front of that fenced parking lot." His hand waved. "Hey, look at that on the other side of 209."
Bonnie bent over Lofton's shoulder. "Tugboat. Moored outboard to a barge of some kind."
"A fuel barge, I think. See the hoses? Looks like nobody's home. All tucked away for the night."
"What kind of fuel, do you suppose?" She looked at him.
"Either diesel or, most likely, fuel oil for the big ships." He caught Bonnie's eye, her face inches away. "I don't think they have Jet 'A,' do you?"
"No." She drew back.
"I think we'll moor starboard side to, right aft of it. It'll be good cover."
He scanned the screen. "Ah, there's the jeep. No sign of Kirby, though."
"How close are we?"
"About a hundred yards, time to slow down." Lofton pulled the throttle through neutral and reversed momentarily. Brutus shuddered, then stillness. Lofton studied the wharf through the periscope. "No Kirby," he muttered, "nothing moving at all. He was supposed to park the truck next to the jeep. Damn!"
He took a full, careful sweep around basin six. Everything seemed frozen, no ships, no headlights, no movement of any kind. Drumming his fingers he said, "I'm going to surface and put us against the pilings. I have to see what's going on." He squeezed the joystick trigger. Air roared and gurgled. Brutus tilted, slightly nose‑up.
"You sure he knows how to get here?" she asked, watching the depth gauge until it stopped at 8.0.
"He knows. He was with me when we dropped off the jeep."
Brutus lurched as Lofton nudged him against the pilings. "Welcome to Long Beach," he said, then went aft to the hatch; it gave a small hiss when he spun the wheel. He eased the hatch open and slowly looked around. "Seems OK," he muttered and scrambled topside.
Bonnie followed him up the ladder, glad to exit the submarine. Topside, she was surprised the air didn't taste really different, just a bit sharper and colder from the rain. She realized the submarine's atmosphere hadn't been stale and close. She wrapped her arms around her waist. In fact, it had been a comfortable ride.
Enormous football-field lights glared from the bulk loading terminal, casting long, sharp shadows over the basin. A pair of long warehouses and a giant grain elevator stood on the basin's other two sides. The lapping oily water was thick with the basin's odors as Styrofoam cups, grapefruit rinds, apple cores, paper wrappers, and dunnage wallowed in the sheen. A barnacle‑encrusted oil drum clunked against a nearby piling.
Fifty feet aft, the tug and barge sat mute, lifeless. Tiny wavelets slapped at the barge's twin rudder skags. A bloated, dead fish, its mouth wide, eyes popping, bobbed against Brutus's hull. Rainwater dripped from the wharf while a storm drain vomited street runoff.
Lofton pulled a half-inch nylon line from a small deck lazaret and whipped it around a piling. Kicking open a two‑piece recessed roller cleat at the bow, he tied the line's other end with quick half-hitches then swiftly padded aft and secured their mooring with a stern line. Finally, he looked up to the wharf fifteen feet above, his hands on his hips.
Nothing.
He brushed past Bonnie and disappeared down the hatch. In a minute, he returned with a coil of rope over his shoulder.
"I have to get up there. Something's wrong." He turned to her. "Would you mind helping with the stores? Kirby was supposed to hand down the food while we were refueling. I'm behind schedule and have nine trash bags full of canned goods, potatoes, cereal, condensed milk, even some perishables."
Not waiting for her nod, Lofton jumped to a piling, holding on for a moment as he tested the slick, creosoted surface. He shinnied up, slowly at first, then faster. His hands found the wharf, he threw a leg over and gained the top. Bonnie shuddered. It looked all too easy. She hadn't heard a grunt or groan from Lofton. Just up and over. Bonnie began to shiver; she tightened her parka and waited.
Lofton checked his Casio: 4:20. Where the hell was Kirby? What to do? Pull the plug and wait on the bottom for twenty‑four hours? Sunup would be around six-thirty. He had to get moving.
Bonnie wrestled the last clanking bag of foodstuffs down Brutus's hatch. She'd offered to pack it while Lofton waited for Kirby. That would take a good hour, at least, giving Lofton time to get the fuel truck situation in hand. But, where was the damn thing? Where was Kirby?
Pumping fuel would be no problem once he connected the hose. And the Butler Engineering truck was like ones found at smaller airports. Bonnie had said it was a black Ford that carried thirty-five hundred gallons and pumped 300 gallons a minute at forty pounds per square inch. Brutus could handle the velocity; Lofton had insisted on that capability in the design. All he needed was the damn truck, then twelve minutes to pump thirty‑five hundred gallons of Jet "A," and he'd be gone.
He looked down to Brutus. He had asked Bonnie to dim the interior lights so prying eyes couldn't see anything unusual, like a midget hi‑tech submarine moored to berth 209. He heard clinking and the occasional rustle of a trash bag but that was it for basin six. Nothing else, except drain water gushing.
Maybe Kirby had forgotten. Lofton scratched his head. He began to walk through the parking lot to Panorama Drive. He stopped near the road, hovered in the shadow of the Banana Terminal, and studied his surroundings.
An immense, brightly lighted container terminal stood across the road that was part of the pier A east basin complex. Long rows of stacked container boxes stretched hundreds of yards in either direction and trucks zipped through the lot delivering them to a large ship. He squinted for a name on the ship's fantail: Oriental Executive. Standing proudly at pier A, dockside cranes roared and plopped boxes into h
er hold and abovedecks while trucks ripped through the yard hunting for more cargo. Some escaped to Panorama Drive without their trailers and snarled away like sports cars.
Lofton checked the road in both directions. Nothing except hotrod trucks tearing around with faceless drivers in their blacked cabins. He checked his watch, then saw a truck without a trailer pull from the gate and head toward him. He looked in the other direction. A guard draw a gate open, the truck barreled past and ground down through its gears. It turned right, exhaust blasted as it swirled through the entrance.
There! He'd missed it before. The truck's headlights had swept over the trunk of a four‑door Lincoln. Its reflectors winked briefly and two figures inside were momentarily caught in the glare. He'd seen that Lincoln.
Where?
Carrington's! It was the government pool car he'd seen in front of Brutus's San Diego pen. And now, two men sat inside. Lofton's mind raced; they must have figured it out. Computerized tracing of jet fuel purchases had probably led them to the Ford--Renkin had infinite resources. All he had to do was snap his fingers.
Bonnie--Brutus--he had to get out. He turned, then stopped. Wait. He bit a thumbnail while another truck caromed past. Lofton stooped to reduce his silhouette. Hold on. Those guys were hanging around for something. Maybe Kirby was close by. He could be hiding. Or maybe he was still on his way.
Damnit!
Lofton double‑checked the road, looking for telltale reflections, dark silhouettes, a careless metallic glint. Nothing--Panorama Drive was clear except for the Lincoln; the two occupants sat motionless, like cameos.
He waited as another truck rumbled toward him. It drew abreast. He ran across the road through the van's swirling wake and gained shadows by a tall chain-link fence. He knelt, barely making out the Lincoln fifty yards on the other side of the gate.
The next truck trailer pulled out and roared past. Lofton stood and ran, hard. He reached the gate just as the trailer's taillights bounced over the potholed access road and into the cavernous yard. In the dark again, Lofton dashed across the road and ran at a crouch, then duck‑walked the last twenty yards and dropped to his hands and knees. He crept to the right rear fender just as another truck swung through the gate. Its headlights flashed over the Lincoln and Lofton could see Dr. Felix L. Renkin's bald head gleaming in the passenger seat.
THE BRUTUS LIE Page 12