Ghostboat

by Neal R. Burger

  The sub took another shake and leaned starboard. Lopez’s head filled the hatch. “Mr. Stanhill’s out cold—Mr. Hardy’s shaken up a bit—but nothing else, sir!”

  Basquine lurched over to the intercom. “All compartments, report!”

  The Candlefish’s superstructure took one quivering jolt after another, and Hardy heard responsive cursing from the con.

  From the forward engine room came Walinsky’s distraught bellow: “Skipper—we’re getting screwy readings! I think we should shift to batteries!”

  Hardy struggled to his feet when the diesels cut out. He grabbed the Target Bearing Transmitter as the sub heeled sharply to port, whipping and bucking like a long steel shake. The panic welling up inside him subsided as the boat righted herself in a shower of spray. He ducked instinctively, then straightened and looked forward. Swirling fog was closing in, drifting higher. Then, as the bow disappeared in the mist, the Candlefish bucked again. Hardy gaped at seas that he could barely glimpse around the boat. The glassy smoothness was gone, replaced by churning, frothing waters. A teeth-rattling crash and flying spray blurred his vision. The sub was trembling and twitching in the throes of some incomprehensible disease. Hardy’s grip on the TBT loosened. He tried to shield his head as he fell. He got a fleeting glimpse of Lopez and the lookouts hanging on to the shearwaters. Stanhill was still down.

  The next crunch slammed Basquine into the periscope shaft. Stunned and hanging on, he watched Jordan slide past him, his head bouncing off the back of Collins’s seat. He was dimly aware of a cry of pain, then saw the quartermaster clutch his face and reel back, blood streaming through his hands.

  “Bates! Get topside! Report!” Bates nodded to the Captain, then staggered to the ladder and started up. Water showered through the hatch and knocked him loose. Doggedly, trying to match his steps to the now constant spasms of the submarine, he started up again.

  Hardy felt the next big shake coming—a flutter fast and hard, rippling through the boat, followed by a wrenching convulsion. The juggernaut churning through the Candlefish refused to stop. And then he heard a godawful metal-grinding screech coming from somewhere below—somewhere aft—

  “Main engine number one just jumped its mounting—God, what a mess!” The voice boomed up through the con. Basquine cut Mm off and screamed something unintelligible through the mike.

  The submarine took to plunging up and down, in addition to its rapid sideward shakes. Two hands shot out of the dark, and Bates pulled himself up out of the conning-tower hatch. He looked into Hardy’s surprised face. In the fog and darkness, they could barely make each other out. Basquine’s bellows filtered up from below as he yelled instructions to the helmsman, trying to fight the starboard lean. Hardy and Bates lay face down on the twitching bridge. Bates used Hardy’s body for support and lunged upward, grabbing the side of the bridge to survey the boat. Over the roar of a howling wind that had come up from nowhere and now whipped around them in concentric circles he could hear the Candlefish’s plates groaning, but he could not see any signs of attack.

  “Where the hell did this storm come from?” he yelled at Hardy. He moved to the voice tube, but Hardy, also on his feet, went spinning into the Exec, almost knocking his teeth out on the lip of the voice tube.

  “Dammit, Jack. Make yourself useful. Get Stanhill below!”

  Hardy ducked as a wall of spray hit them. He looked for Stanhill, then thought of Cyclops. Where was the sextant? A heavier wall of spray hit the bridge, and the sub was caught in an epileptic seizure. Bates wedged his hands around the voice tube, closed his eyes against the salt spray, and hung on. But Hardy went down again. His fingers splayed out, trying to get purchase on the wet metal. He rolled past the con structure and kept going, past the after machine gun and out the cigarette deck. His hands shot out too late as the lower railing of the cigarette deck passed over him. He fell on the top deck and landed with a crunch on his right knee. His scream was lost as the rushing water carried him back, slamming him into the base of the huge deck gun. He snatched at the traversing gear and tried to stand. His right leg was like jelly; it went out from under him. He fell, still clutching the gear, conscious of acute pain and terror. The submarine’s jolting tremors were even more severe on the deck than on the bridge. He held on tightly as the Candlefish shimmied and frothy waves formed high over his head and crashed down on top of him.

  In the conning tower, Basquine grabbed the Intercom mike and shouted, “Come to battle stations! All hands to battle stations! Secure all compartments!” He whipped around to the helmsman. “Maitless, what’s our course?”

  Maitless glanced at the compass as the alarm rang through the boat.

  “Two-five-three, sir.”

  “Left full rudder. Come to two-zero-five.”

  Maitless strained at the wheel. It was frozen. “She won’t answer, sir.”

  “Emergency helm!” Basquine shouted below.

  Bates flipped up the cover of the voice tube and shouted over the howling wind, “Captain—there’s nothing shooting at us. I’m positive!”

  Basquine’s voice crackled up: “Mr. Bates, stay on the bridge!”

  Reports were pouring into the control room from all stations. Gauges and dials were getting so hot, the glass was shattering right out of them. Main diesel number one was still sliding around in the forward engine room. Shackles had snapped; a torpedo had rolled off its skid. The reports spelled pandemonium.

  Basquine hit the diving, alarm and yelled, “Clear the bridge! Dive! Dive!”

  Hardy sloshed around on the afterdeck, still clinging weakly to the traversing gear of the deck gun. He heard the OOGA! OOGA! of the diving alarm and felt a rush of fear—they were going to submerge and leave him. He could just make out fog-shrouded silhouettes on the top of the conning tower, the lookouts rushing down from their perches and disappearing below. He was alone on the deck of a twisting, bucking sub, and she was going to drop right out from under him.

  Bates, the last man down the ladder, watched Quartermaster Jenavin secure the hatch, his face still streaked with blood. The sub’s trembling gathered momentum, and their teeth chattered in time to it.

  “Bates! Where’s Hardy?” bellowed the Captain.

  “Didn’t he get Stanhill below?” Looking around, Bates could see he hadn’t. He leaped for the intercom, swearing out loud, “Shit! Hold the dive! Surface! Surface!”

  Basquine hit the alarm—three blasts. Bates was already up the ladder again, opening the hatch. The pumps reversed, and he could hear the air-intake valves.

  Hardy heard the rush of high-pressure air as the Candlefish forced out the water ballast she had so eagerly sought seconds before. He had already started to make his peace with God, desperately cried out for his wife, Elena, and Peter, the son he would never see. Through the mist and flying water and the awful trembling of the boat he made out a figure standing on the bridge, looking for him.

  Yelling into the wind, he hailed, “Down here! By the deck gun!”

  He saw the figure turn, homing in on his voice. His joy turned to horror as the entire superstructure of the Candlefish lit up in a blue-white display of electricity. Bates froze. Still crying out for help, Hardy dragged himself along the strakes. The roar of air and the extra shudder that ran through the boat told him that the Candlefish was getting ready to submerge again.

  The sub took a bonebreaking spasm, and Hardy was ripped loose of his hold on the slatting. Water rushed up around him and flung him hard against the base of the conning tower. For a moment he was bathed clearly in the blue-white light from the flickering St. Elmo’s fire on the antenna cables, and Bates flopped down on the cigarette deck and flung out a hand to grab him—too late. The decks went awash, and Hardy was carried away on a wave. The bow dug in deeply; Bates could feel the stern rising, the water cascading off the afterdeck. He jumped to his feet and, with a last glimpse at Hardy thrashing around in the sea, Lieutenant Bates struggled back to the hatch and rode the lanyard down. He secured the ha
tch himself, avoiding Basquine’s gaze. He could hear men starting to yell around him and below as the sub tilted forward. His eyes met Basquine’s, and he saw at once horror, anguish, and total, mind-bending fury.

  “Not now!” Basquine let out a roar that reverberated through the boat as he felt glory slipping through his fingers. The deck canted, and somewhere forward Bates heard a grinding noise.

  The rending screech of metal cut through Hardy’s numbed senses. He watched through fog and heaving waters as the stern of the Candlefish lifted high in the air and loomed almost directly overhead, then slowly slipped beneath the ocean surface.

  After a few moments, silence descended. The sea stopped churning. The fog wisped around him, and he looked about for some trace of the submarine. It was gone. The quickness of it all overwhelmed him. He let his arms dangle around the life jacket, and his heart began to slow its powerful thumping. After a long time just drifting around the little patch of sea, he began to swim away...

  PART II

  CHAPTER 2

  Octobers 5, 1974

  Ed Frank lay sound asleep on rumpled blue sheets. One of those hot, muggy Washington nights. Joanne was beside him on her back, her half of the sheet tossed carelessly away sometime during the night, her body splayed out over two thirds of the bed, long hair swept across her face and breast.

  Frank’s eyes fluttered open at twelve minutes past two. After a few moments of groggy consideration, he knew he wasn’t going to sleep any more that night. He rubbed his scratchy chin and ran one hand through his stiff black hair.

  He rolled over on one side and studied Joanne. One of her arms was crooked up at the elbow, the hand trailing over her bare midriff. Her mouth was open; he could hear her breathing. Her skin was burned red in all but a few strategic places, but Frank was tired of sympathizing. He couldn’t even work up a convincing cluck; he had spent two hours last night covering her with ointment and listening to her plaintive cries and half-assed excuses. Sunburns are deserved, he had told her, the result of unforgiveable carelessness. And if Joanne possessed one serious character flaw, it was her consistent, mind-numbing, monumental carelessness.

  During a recent disastrous evening at a posh nightclub, the White Pelican, she had managed to demolish one wine glass, one tablecloth, and one waiter carrying a fully loaded tray. Frank’s five-and-a-half-foot frame had shrunk into a corner, ten degrees right of embarrassed. He hadn’t let her hear the end of it for three days.

  He would flare up at Joanne, as he had with all his women, and say things he didn’t mean, and go on saying them because once he was into it there was no way out But at least she was able to take it calmly, without being intimidated.

  And Joanne had other compensations. Frank sat up on one elbow and studied them: long legs, a tapering waist, a full, round bust, and a soft, heart-melting face. Perfect. Except that Frank thought she could do with a bit more in the way of brains: opinions on matters beyond TV, movies, shopping, and suntans. He would grow bored with Joanne, as he had with all the others. But he was determined to make the best of it while it lasted. At least she wasn’t in love with him, sparing him those embarrassing complications. She loved sex—but she only liked him. He smiled broadly and scratched his leg. Then he scratched hers. She stirred, and he waited to see if she was going to wake up.

  Joanne moved, just an inch, and Frank traced a finger across her flattened breast. Again she stirred, and he anticipated the bell signaling round three for tonight...

  The phone rang.

  “Jesus!”

  Frank jumped out of bed and ran to the dresser to grab it before Joanne woke up. He snatched up the receiver, capped his hand over it, and muttered, “Hello?” He looked back at the bed—she was still asleep.

  “Ed? This is Ray Cook.” The voice on the phone waited for Frank to grumble back. “Hey, I’m sorry I woke you, but something’s come up. You’re needed right now.”

  “What for? I’m in the middle—” He didn’t have to finish. Cook couldn’t miss the implication.

  “Ed, this is really urgent.”

  Frank sighed. “Where are you?”

  “Guard desk, Pentagon.”

  Frank digested that, and his mind began to race.

  “Okay, I’ll be over in thirty minutes.”

  He hung up and frowned. Joanne still seemed fast asleep. Frank stumbled to the window and looked out across the capital. He could pick out landmarks silhouetted against the moonlit sky, streetlights bathing parked cars below.

  Fifteen minutes to the Pentagon. Gotta shower and shave and get into uniform, the whole bit. He knew he would be late. He swore under his breath. The Navy calling at two in the rooming. Wouldn’t do that to a goddamned married officer, he growled to himself.

  He padded over to the bed and looked down at Joanne. Suddenly he was hungry for her again. He fell on her and snuggled into her shoulder. Her eyes flew open, and her arms came around him hard.

  Mystifying, he thought. They all mystify. That’s how these things last...

  One hour later, he pulled into his parking space at the Pentagon and locked up the Ford. Indian summer. The heat was stultifying. He strode wearily across the lot and nodded to the gaping guard.

  “It’s three fifteen, Commander.”

  “It’s also Saturday, Charlie.”

  The outer lobby was deserted except for the security guard. Frank was admitted and then walked over to an ashtray to load his pipe. He looked out at the floodlit Pentagon grounds and waited while the security guard informed Lieutenant Cook of his arrival. Frank tamped the tobacco down deep into his pipe and lit it. He sucked the smoke and sniffed at the nutty aroma.

  It was five minutes before Lieutenant Cook emerged from a long hallway in a crisp, fresh uniform, his heels clicking across the room, his blond hair and tall good looks contrasting sharply with Frank’s own dark swarthiness and short frame.

  “Hullo, Ed, did I tear you away from something good?” Cook’s grin was infectious during working hours, but not before dawn on a Saturday.

  “You better have a good reason,” growled Frank.

  “I do. We have a little submarine situation. Follow me.” He led the way to the escalators, and they glided up to the third floor in silence.

  Frank waited patiently. This was a little game they played: Cook in possession of vital national secrets and Frank obliged to pry them out of him like sardines from a can. Cook was young and sharp and assigned to the Naval Investigative Service because he had zeal, brains, and big ears. He was twenty-eight years old, quick, efficient, dedicated, and sometimes a downright pain in the ass.

  Finally Frank broke the silence. “What submarine situation?”

  “A sub surfaced in the Pacific a couple of hours ago about six hundred miles northwest of Pearl Harbor.”

  “So what?”

  “She broached right in front of a Japanese freighter. Scared the hell out of her captain. He got on the line to his people, and they got on the line to ours, and then everybody got on the line to us.”

  “Who called you?”

  “Somebody in the State Department.”

  “Anybody I know?”

  “Somebody from Henry the K.”

  Frank grunted, then spread his hands. “What’s so earthshaking about a submarine?”

  They stepped off on the third floor and went on down the angular halls. “No identification,” mumbled Cook.

  “What are you talking about? Is she ours?”

  “Yes. Seems to be one of our fleet types. But there are no markings.”

  “None at all?”

  Cook shook his head. “That’s what the telex said.” They arrived at Room 3012, and Cook unlocked the door marked NAVAL INVESTIGATIVE SERVICE.

  “Let me see the telex,” demanded Frank.

  Cook swung open the door and paused to pull a rumpled cable from his shirt pocket. Frank spread it open and turned on a wall switch. A large office sprang to life. Fluorescent tubes lit up reception desks, partitioned cubic
les, and the telex.

  COMSUBPAC

  P050221Z OCT 24

  FROM COMSUBPAC TO COMNIS WASH DC

  CDR JAPANESE CLASS 5 FRTR SHIMUI MARU POSIT 34-56N 149-12W COURSE 0B4 SPEED 4 DEST SAN FRAN REPORTS UNIDENT SUB SURFACED 0124 HRS BEARING 000 POSIT ANGLE 90 STOP SUB HAILED NO RESPONSE STOP NO RADIO CONTACT STOP SUB UNCONFIRMED USN FLEET STOP ADVISED STATE DEPT AT REQ JAPANESE ADMIRALTY STOP SITUAHON VERY HOT ADVISE ACTION STOP

  “This doesn’t say anything about markings.”

  “No,” said Cook, leading the way back toward their cubicles, “that must have been in the phone call.”

  “From Henry the K?”

  “You betcha. And the one from DOD, and the one from SubPac, even.”

  “By George, you have been busy.” If the Submarine Force was already involved—and the Department of Defense—who was going to listen to the NIS?

  Cook opened one of the glass-partitioned cubicles and let Frank pass through first. “I’ve got a pot of coffee going, Ed. Maybe you’d like some.”

  “Yeah.”

  Cook went to an adjoining cubicle. Frank sat behind his desk and stared at the telex. An unidentified United States fleet boat pops up and scares the hell out of some Japs? Why no markings? Why no response to the radio?

  “Cook!”

  “Yessir?”

  “What the hell is SubPac doing about that boat?”

  Cook walked back in with two cups of coffee and sat down opposite Frank. “Defense Intelligence Command has scrambled a recon from Pearl. There’s a carrier in the area, about a hundred miles away, and they’re sending up a chopper to take pictures. Should be coming over the wire shortly. I called in our photo division and they’re standing by downstairs. That’s where I was when you came in.”

  “Have any units tried to make contact with this sub?”