by William Kerr
As the door opened and Good stepped back in, Matt asked Hammersmith, “What are you saying, Detective?”
Hammersmith jerked back in his chair and blasted, “Evidence—that’s what I said. We get the evidence, and I’m gonna personally see you rot, not in the jail, but under the jail.”
“But you mentioned—”
With a peripheral eyeshot at Good, Hammersmith cut Matt off with a rapid, “Shut up! I’ve heard enough of your crap.”
“You have become an unmitigated nuisance, Mr. Berkeley,” Good said, moving around the room, shaking her head, but keeping her eyes glued on Matt. “Quite honestly, like the detective here, I’m getting damned tired of it. At this point, if I had my way…”
Good stopped in front of Matt and propped herself, knuckles down, on the table. Pushing her face forward toward Matt, she said, “Apparently you’ve got friends in higher places than the Jacksonville Beach Police Force.”
“Whatta you sayin’?” Hammersmith asked, his right eyebrow cocked in Good’s direction.
“I’m saying, Mr. Berkeley is free to go.”
“No way,” Hammersmith blurted.
“You can go, Mr. Berkeley,” Good said, straightening up and walking to the door. Pulling the door open, she added, “Under no circumstance are you to leave Duval County. You will report your whereabouts every six hours to my office, commencing at noon today. Understood?”
Standing, but in shock over what was happening, Matt answered, “Understood, but who the hell—”
“No buts,” Good ordered, jabbing an index finger in Matt’s direction. “Report, or your ass will be grass and I’ll be the lawnmower.”
CHAPTER 43
The crime scene tape had finally been removed from Aunt Freddie’s house at 617 Fourth Avenue North when Matt arrived in the bright orange and white Gator City Taxi at a little after five that morning. The driver gave Matt a quizzical look when he handed him a still wet ten-dollar bill.
“It’ll dry,” Matt said as he stepped from the taxi. “Keep the change.”
“Big deal,” he heard the driver say as he shut the door and made his way beneath the empty carport to the front door. He was hungry, but he needed sleep. Sleep to erase the previous night, to erase Ashley’s death, to erase everything—at least for an hour, two hours, three.
Using the key Detective Sergeant Terri Good had returned to him, he made his way into the living room, shut the door behind him, and stopped. Silence, but he knew the house was alive with Ashley’s presence, her pain, her last moments. He could hear the walls crying, “Ashley died here. Your love, your life, your fault. If you hadn’t…” But it wasn’t the walls, he knew. It was his conscience. It had nagged at him constantly. He’d been able to move from one thing to another, to keep the thoughts pushed into some remote corner of his mind, but here, alone in this house, there was no escape.
He could still smell the mud from the marsh. He needed a shower. Maybe that would wash away some of the stench and some of the memories, if only for a few moments. Forcing back a deep yawn, he made it as far as the living room couch.
The door to the bedroom. He swung it open. In front of him, a bed, two figures, a man and a woman. His eyes centered on a gaping hole in the woman’s left cheek where a bullet had entered.
Blood ran like a river over the woman’s chin and along her throat, flowing crimson toward another hole in her lower left breast as she begged, “Matt, help me!”
“Ashley-y-y-y!”
The sound of his own voice, shouting Ashley’s name, jarred him awake. “Oh, God,” he moaned. Bolting upright and opening his eyes, he quickly covered them from the afternoon sunlight that poured through the window. He sat for a moment, allowing the tears to flow and slowly shaking his head back and forth. “I’m sorry, Ashley. So sorry.”
Except for the plywood sheets having been removed from the windows, and the sandbags carted away, Monkey’s Uncle Tavern, for the most part, looked the same as it had the last time Matt had entered. It took a moment for Matt to adjust his eyes to semi-darkness, having just come in out of the afternoon glare. Once acclimated to the change, he saw Steve Park at the far right end of the rectangular bar, beer in one hand, hamburger in the other, deep in conversation with an elderly black man. Thin as a rail and with white hair, the man appeared to be in his late sixties or seventies.
“There you are,” he said to Park, seated on one of the green vinyl-covered bar stools. “Checked at the dive shop. Steve Jr. said you had a message for me, and you’d be over here nursing a beer and feeding your face. How’s that ankle of yours?”
Park swung around on the bar stool, held up a walking cane, and shoved his left foot, soft cast and all, in Matt’s direction. “Cast makes it look worse than it is. For sympathy purposes. Two or three days and it’s off. And you? Terri Good said you’d been released and gone to your aunt’s house to get some sleep.”
“Yeah, roofers came while I was in the shower this afternoon and started ripping off the old shingles. Hopefully, the beginning of the end…of a lot of things. Already been chewed out by Good for not checking in with her on time.” Matt pointed to the cast. “Hurt?”
“Like hell, but at least it’s not broken. How’d you get sprung?”
“Good wouldn’t say. Just said it was somebody with more pull than the Jax Beach Police Department. I was so wrung out, I didn’t argue.”
“What’d you do to get here?” Park asked. “I know damn well you didn’t walk.”
“Believe it or not, remembered my aunt’s old bike in the back store room, pumped up the tires, and here I am. But you’re right. Beats walking, if some idiot doesn’t run over you.”
The bartender moved from another customer on the other side of the bar and stopped in front of Matt. “What’ll it be?”
Matt nodded toward the half-eaten hamburger on Park’s plate. “A burger with everything on it, an order of fries and onion rings, and a draft Killian’s Red.” Pointing, he added, “Beer now, hamburger at the booth over there. And mayonnaise for the fries.”
“Mayo with fries?” Park asked, the sides of his mouth drooping in disgust. “Gross!”
“Old European custom,” Matt answered with a laugh. At the same time, he reached for the frosted mug the bartender plunked down on the counter. “If you can make it to the table without me carrying you, I want to know, what was the message Steve Jr. talked about and who’s it from? I will, however, carry your plate.”
“No sweat.” As Park slid off the stool, beer mug in one hand, walking cane in the other, he nodded to the elderly man sitting next to him. “Roland, time for you to meet my friend here.”
Matt watched the man get off the stool, a short man, not more than five foot six, if that, but lean and weathered. “Think we need to talk privately, Steve,” Matt said. “Just the two of us.”
“Don’t worry,” Park said, again nodding in the man’s direction. “I read the message Steve Jr. told you about, and decided it’s time we brought a real pro on board.”
“Whatta you mean?”
As they reached the booth, Park said, “Roland, Matt Berkeley, former Commander, Navy Special Warfare.” Roland Davis extended his hand. “Matt, Roland Davis, Lieutenant Commander, U. S. Navy retired, and to be more specific, Submarine Force.”
Setting Park’s plate and his own beer mug on the table, Matt took Davis’s hand. “Submarines, huh?”
“Long time ago, but there are some things one never forgets. And you were SpecWar?”
“For most of my career. Moved over to Surface Warfare in my later years. Instead of ships, found I was driving too many desks for too many admirals who had forgotten how to think for themselves.” Sliding into one side of the booth, Matt turned his attention to Park as the other two men, first Davis, then Park, slid in opposite him. “Now, what is this all about?”
Taking a sip of his beer and clearing his throat, Park pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “One of the secretaries in Tallahassee called over fo
r a fax number. From Dr. Mason. For you in care of the store.” He gave the paper to Matt.
Matt unfolded the paper and read, then asked Park, “You read this?”
“Yeah. That’s why Roland’s here.”
Matt nodded in Roland Davis’s direction. “And you told him?”
“Yes, damn it, I told him. Dr. Mason says Starla Shoemaker admits there’s some kind of valuable document on the sub. The woman also admits they haven’t found it yet. That being the case, if I know you, you’ll try for it, won’t you?”
Matt sat very still, maneuvering the beer mug by its handle, back and forth, considering what he’d just learned. “Maybe.” Again nodding at Davis, Matt asked, “But why bring him into this?”
Park took a bite of his hamburger, chewed for a moment before swallowing, then said, “Roland joined the Navy just after the end of Second World War. Ended up in submarines.”
“Torpedoman’s Mate,” Davis threw in.
“Came up through the ranks,” Park added.
Matt studied the man. The set of his jaw lines seemed chiseled from a bar of stone-hard milk chocolate. His eyes deep set, piercing, each a pool of brown surrounded by a ring of off-white. Not an ounce of fat anywhere; only hard muscle and bone.
“Your commission, where?” Matt asked.
“Officer Candidate School, Newport, Rhode Island. First black enlisted man to go through and make it.”
Matt paid little attention to the cheeseburger, fries and onion rings that suddenly appeared before him. “Back to subs after you got your commission?” he asked.
“Right, but it’s a lotta years before then that I think you might find interesting.”
“Okay, guys, enlighten me.”
Davis looked at Park, who was washing down the last bite of his burger with a swig of beer. “Ball’s in your court, my friend.”
Park burped into his hand, settled back in his seat, and explained, “I knew Roland was Navy and in subs most of his career, but what I didn’t know…I told him about what we found out there.” Park nodded toward the east and the Atlantic.
“Why not? Everybody else seems to know,” Matt said, shaking his head in disgust.
“Don’t shake your head at me, goddamn it, ‘til you hear the rest.”
“So tell me.”
Park looked at Davis. “Your turn.”
Davis chuckled before leaning forward, his elbows on the table. “Ever hear of the U-Twenty-five thirteen, Mr. Berkeley?”
Matt set his cheeseburger down and, with his face knotted in a question mark, met Davis’s eyes with his own. “Yes. Why? Class Twenty-one German U-boat. Brought to the States after the war and used for tests and evaluation.” To Park, he said, “The one Sam Gravely told me about.”
Davis leaned back, arms folded. Matt read confidence in the man’s face, as well as certainty in his own intelligence and abilities. “Fall of nineteen forty-six. By then I was a Third Class Torpedoman’s Mate. Not knowing much what to do with a black sailor in those days, Navy stationed me with the Operational Development Force down in Key West when they brought the Twenty-five thirteen down from Charleston after an overhaul. I worked on her for six months of design evaluation of the boat itself in conjunction with development of submarine and antisubmarine tactics. Beat hell out of anything we had.”
“So?” Matt asked.
It was Park that answered. “So he knows that submarine like the back of his hand, damn it. Ashley said, and your friend in Germany as much as agreed, there’s something on that submarine besides gold. If there is and the AFI people haven’t found it as Dr. Mason says, Roland here is the man to do it.”
Matt chuckled in disbelief. “You might know your way around this thing,” he said to Davis, “but what good’s that gonna do Steve and me?”
“I’ll go down with you.”
Looking at Davis with a you’ll-do-what? frown on his face, Matt asked, “How old are you?”
“Seventy-seven, and I just got back from diving Truk Lagoon last July and the Jap ships we sunk there in ‘forty-four. Went down a hundred and thirty feet. If it wasn’t for all the trouble after Nine-eleven, I was headed for the Red Sea. Instead, decided on the Caymans. Going next week.”
“Satisfied?” Park asked with a chuckle.
Matt sat for a moment, savoring his French fries and mayo before answering, “I’m sold. As my favorite detective once said, ‘the game’s afoot, Watson,’ or in this case, gentlemen. This time, however, we approach our quarry a little differently.”
“How’s that?”
“We’ll be there, but then again, so far as Eric Bruder and his AFI friends are concerned, they won’t see us.”
“Clarify.”
Matt downed the last of his beer, wrapped what remained of his cheeseburger in a paper napkin to take with him, and said, “Let’s get back to the dive shop, and I’ll explain what we need. If we don’t have it or can’t get it locally, I’ll have NAARPA fly it down from Charleston tomorrow morning. This time, my friends, we do it right.” Looking at Park, he asked, “Weather?”
“That nor’easter the other day pretty well cleared everything out. Looks good for the next two to three days.”
“Perfect, and Roland,” Matt said, “don’t forget the old saying.”
“What’s that?”
With an index finger to his lips, he said, “Loose lips sink ships.”
CHAPTER 44
Wednesday, 7 November
Native Diver, still bearing some of the scars from its earlier confrontation with AFI, headed south with the distant lights of Jacksonville’s several beachfront communities off its starboard beam. Matt was relieved that the wind from earlier that day had dropped to little more than a breeze, allowing favorable seas for what they were about to do. And, thank God, no moon; only the stars to light their way. He couldn’t have asked for a better night if he’d paid for it. And with the Sea Rover’s anchor lights hovering protectively above the sunken U-boat less than a mile to the southwest, darkness and calm seas were a vital part of making it to the submarine and safely away without being detected.
“Five minutes,” Steve Park called from Native Diver’s topside controls.
“We’ll be ready,” Matt answered as he completed buckling the twin, stealth-black, 80-cubic-foot air tanks to the backpack mounted at the rear of the BC. “Need help?” he asked Roland Davis.
“No sweat,” Davis answered, his fins, BC and tanks, regulator and gauges, and full facemask already positioned for easy donning. “You’re a good teacher. Just hope I don’t get down there and lose control of the DPV,” he added. At the same time, Davis pointed toward one of two international orange, five-foot-long, torpedo-shaped diver propulsion vehicles Matt had received that morning via UPS Air Express from NAARPA headquarters. Both machines were nestled in slings extended from small, manually operated swinging booms installed the night before on Native Diver, one DPV on each side of the boat just forward of the stern dive platform. Park’s sandy haired son, Steve Jr., slightly larger but with the same rugged look of his dad, stood silently by the starboard boom.
“Don’t worry. Steer it with your body like you did this afternoon,” Matt said to Davis, “and the saddle will keep your legs from flying up behind you. That’s what I like about the Farallon Mark Eight. Relatively comfortable DPV and easy to maneuver.”
Matt had been impressed with how rapidly Davis caught on to working with the DPV during their training session that afternoon. Timing the release of the slings holding a 110-pound DPV with his own entry into the water had taken several runs, but the fourth time was the charm. That, coupled with how quickly Davis had taken to an unfamiliar full facemask with its finally repaired integrated communication system, had definitely increased Matt’s confidence in the man. Seventy-seven years old. Fantastic!
The whine of the repaired diesel engine dropped to a steady hum as the boat slowed, turning sufficient rpm’s to barely maintain headway. Park leaned over the back of the topside control are
a and said, “Using Sea Rover as my point of reference, three minutes to drop. Wish I was going with you, but my ankle—”
“Excuses, excuses,” Matt kidded.
“Tread lightly, my friend,” Park warned, jokingly. “Not nice to speak ill of the walking wounded.”
“Walking wounded, my ass,” Matt said, his words punctuated with a chuckle.
“Anyway, drop-off point’s one-half mile due east of the site. I can’t slow much more, or Sea Rover’ll get suspicious. Better believe they’re looking at us right now on radar to see if we’re just passing through.”
Matt nodded. “Understood.”
“Get your gear on, and we’ll do a comm check.”
Matt turned to tell Davis, but Davis was already buckled into his BC, with his regulator air hoses connected to the BC and full facemask. The mask’s straps were snugged tight around his head with the radio transceiver mounted over his left ear.
Within less than a minute, Matt was geared up. His final action was to ensure the six-inch, serrated dive knife was securely holstered in the plastic scabbard strapped to his inside left leg and a foot-long crowbar was tight inside a sheath against his right thigh. Naturally, as soon as the full facemask was on, his nose began to itch. “I can’t believe it! Soon as I get this damn thing on…” He wrinkled his nose to stop the itch, knowing once he was in the water, the itch and everything else would be secondary to the mission.
Matt heard Park’s voice through the transceiver. “This is Frog Base, radio check.”
Having set both diver transceivers to the voice-activated mode, bypassing the push-to-talk button on the side of his mask, Matt answered, “This is Frog One, loud and clear.”
“This is Frog Two,” he heard Davis say. “Read you five by five.” He could also hear the rhythmic inhale and exhale of Davis’s breath, the only drawback of the voice-activated system.
“This is Frog Base. Tank check.”