The waves pounding against the hull of the big tugboat were rougher than they had been when she’d first laid down. The boat rolled up and then back down, sliding over the water. Every now and then she glanced over at the digital clock on her small desk. She’d not brought any clocks with dials, and she had insisted that all hands be equipped with digital chronometers. She didn’t know if it would matter, but in the years since Phil’s disappearance, she’d become somewhat of an expert on disappearances in “The Devil’s Triangle,” and she’d not read any reports of digital devices being affected in the way analog watches and time-pieces seemed to be. They didn’t need any further confusion, and if they were going to disappear for the next thirty years, she would wait to find out the hard way. If the interference with the radio sets was a symptom of what Phil had experienced, she didn’t want to know until the U.S. Navy of 2036 was pulling her from the battered shell of the tugboat.
Finally she gave up, rolled off the cot, slipped on her boots and Phil’s peacoat and headed for the bridge. She found Captain Greenwood there ahead of her, and without a word, he handed her a hot cup of black coffee. The night was dark. There was still light from the almost full moon, but clouds scudded across the sky, and the wind was much stronger than it had been when she’d first gone below.
“We’ll be in position to release the first barge by eight o’clock this morning,” he told her quietly. “We still haven’t heard anything from the cutters.”
He let the silence hang, as if expecting her to fill it, but Andrea merely nodded, sipping her coffee.
Captain Greenwood turned to stare out over the choppy sea. “We should have them all in place by no later than one o’clock in the afternoon.”
“How far out is the storm?” Andrea asked.
He turned back to her. “It hasn’t changed course or speed. The projections you gave me match precisely what we’re getting off the radar. If we get in position on schedule, the boats can get out ahead of the storm.”
Andrea nodded again, thinking. “But if the cutters don’t show up soon, the crews will be stranded.”
“Exactly,” he replied. “I’m not sure what to do, to be frank. We have a commitment to keep these people safe, but . . .”
“But the storm is going to kill thousands before it’s done,” she continued for him, “and if we can stop it . . .”
Captain Greenwood nodded. “I don’t like being the one to leave,” he said at last. “I wish I could take the place of someone on the barge and meet the storm myself. Then I would know I’m doing the right thing, but I wouldn’t be making that decision for anyone else.”
“We’ll gather the crews at sunrise,” Andrea said, deciding on the spot. “If there are those who don’t want to go through with this, we’ll transfer them to the tug. Whoever is willing to remain will transfer to the barges and get the pumps running. There is shelter on the barges, and in the last test most of them rode out the storm, so it isn’t a suicide mission, though with this storm it might be close . . .”
Captain Greenwood nodded slowly. “If there are not enough to stay,” he said at last, “I’ll put the first mate in charge and take one of their places. I don’t know if we can really do what you say we can, but . . .”
He waved his hand in the direction of his radarscope. “I’ve never seen anything like that. I have family back on the coast, and if I can keep that thing from crashing down on their heads . . .”
Andrea smiled. “Let’s just hope the cutters show up in the next few hours, and it isn’t an issue. I think most of those who are out here with me will stick through to the end, cutter or no cutter. We’ve worked together for a long time, and sometimes you just have to know if you were right. That probably doesn’t make any sense,” she mused, “but it’s true. I’ve been fighting this storm in one way or another for three decades. I’ve seen that swirl on my computer thousands of times, gone to bed with it running into the coast as I slept and seen it stopped cold any number of times—and none. It’s become very personal.”
Greenwood nodded.
There was a burst of static from the radio, and both turned toward the cabin. A voice called out, breaking up every few syllables, but loud enough to be made out over the dull throb of the engines.
“What was that?” Captain Greenwood called to the seaman on watch. “Did you catch that?”
“Not sure, sir,” the young man answered. “I couldn’t make it all out, but I think . . . sir, do you know a ship called the USS Cyclops?”
Greenwood didn’t answer. He stared at the cabin in silence.
Andrea studied his face, but she couldn’t read his expression. “What is it?”
The Captain shook his head. “Static,” he said. “It was only static.”
The message wasn’t repeated. Andrea thought about asking what was wrong, but he turned away before she had a chance. She thought he was going to ignore her, but at last he spoke.
“The USS Cyclops pulled out of Rio de Janiero in 1918, stopped in the Barbados, and entered the Devil’s Triangle,” he said, watching the waves as if he expected something to sail out of the shadowy mist at any moment. “It disappeared with more than three hundred crew members and was never seen again. No trace of wreckage, no storms to speak of—she just vanished.”
Andrea stared out at the sea, following Captain Greenwood's gaze.
“Wouldn’t the radio be on a much lower frequency?” she asked, her heart suddenly pounding, though there was nothing to see, or to hear.
“If those men can still broadcast out here,” the captain said, “anything is possible.”
They fell silent again and watched together as the last hazy shroud of night slowly leaked from the sky and the sun tinted the skyline bright red. Andrea closed her eyes, and couldn’t suppress a shudder. The Captain, if he noticed the red sky at all, showed no sign of it. He was absorbed in his own thoughts.
When the radio crackled a second time, they both jumped. The young seaman on watch had grabbed the headset before either of them could react. The speaker crackled again, and then they heard a voice clearly.
“Stormfury One, this is Moontide, over.”
Andrea turned to Captain Greenwood, and they almost collided in their efforts to reach the radio set. The young sailor, Seth, who’d been on the helm the night before, was the operator. He pulled off the headset quickly and handed it to Greenwood. Andrea stood by anxiously as the Captain took the microphone.
“This is Stormfury One, calling Moontide. Read you five by five. Good to hear your voice.”
There was a momentary silence, then a new voice washed out through the speaker, older and with authority. Andrea assumed the Captain at the other end had taken over the radio set as well.
“Is that you, Jay?” there was no attempt at protocol this time. The voice was steady, but tense.
“Yeah, is that you, Al?”
“Affirmative,” came the immediate reply. “Listen, Jay, we may have a situation.”
Captain Greenwood said nothing, and the Moontide’s captain continued. “We left the second cutter just off the coast,” he continued. “They were having engine trouble. We last heard from them about three hours ago. They had completed repairs and were on their way—but we lost them. I can’t contact them on the radio, and I can’t reach base.”
“So you don’t know for sure they’re still behind you,” Captain Greenwood finished.
“Exactly. I assume that they are, and that the same interference that cut us off from you is now preventing us from communicating with them as well, but they could have had more trouble and veered off course to avoid the storm. There’s no way that I can see to find out without turning around and going back far enough to pick up their signal. If we do that we might not be on time to get you guys out of there.”
“Come on ahead,” Captain Greenwood said without hesitation. “We’ll tell the crews what the deal is, and we’ll put those most concerned on the last two barges. You can pick those two crews up, and the
second barge will have to get the last two. If it doesn’t show up . . .”
“Are you sure, Jay?” the voice at the other end seemed anything but sure.
“I’m sure,” Captain Greenwood replied. “We lost radio communications a long time ago, and there’s no reason to assume that isn’t the case now. We’ll hear from the other cutter in time.”
“Roger. And Jay?”
Greenwood didn’t answer.
“Good luck.”
“You too,” the Captain replied. “You too, Al. Let’s go kick that storm’s butt, what do you say?”
“You got it. Moontide, over, and out.”
The radio fell silent again, and Jay turned to Andrea. “Well, it seems the odds have shifted slightly in our favor. Let’s get everyone out on deck and tell them what’s going on. Then we’ll contact the crews on the barges. I want to give everyone a chance to think this through. It won’t do you or anyone else any good to have someone panic out there.”
Andrea nodded. The sun was rising now, but the daylight was as ominous as the twilight had been the night before. The storm’s presence was heavy in the air, and she felt her nerves tingle with some indefinable energy. She thought the crew felt it too. Every movement was a little too crisp, and more than once she caught others staring off at the horizon. The closer they got to the drop zones for the barges, the more real their situation, and the inherent danger associated with it, became.
~ * ~
As it turned out, only two members of the barge crews had to be transferred, and they were able to handle this easily enough with a sling that was sometimes used during underway replenishment details. They rigged what was known as a hi-line and using pulleys and ropes they were able to transfer goods, or personnel, from one boat to the other. Most of the personnel had been handpicked by Andrea long before, and they knew the risks. It was difficult to know if the actual seriousness of those risks had sunk in, but they weren’t backing down. Once everyone was in place for his or her final assignment, they moved into position, and the first barge was detached from the second tug. Immediately the crew began dropping the anchors at each end, and on each side.
Once the barge was locked as firmly in position as possible, they set to work priming and activating the pumps. Andrea saw them scurry about the deck of the barge, growing smaller and smaller in her sight as the tug paralleled them and moved on toward the next drop. They would be long out of sight of the first barge when they placed the second, even further than she would have liked, but they had to make do with what they had.
Andrea and Captain Greenwood stood at the bow of their tug. They were making much faster time than the second tug. Their own first drop wouldn’t be until after the first three barges were in place, and they had to move as quickly as they could if they wanted to allow for enough time. If it hadn’t been necessary to meet with all the personnel at once, they would have veered off early in the morning, reached their positions, and been gone. Now they had to make up the time, and they were running across the swells, which were growing taller and rougher. Time had grown critical, and there was still no word from the second cutter.
Around ten A.M. they reached their first drop. Captain Greenwood was everywhere at once, calling out orders to the hands on the barges and overseeing the release of the lines. Andrea stayed out of his way, but she watched anxiously as the seas tugged at the barge, making it dance like a cork. She was afraid the lines would snap before they were able to get it in place and drop the anchors, but soon four solid lines were grappling the bottom, and she watched the crews fan out around the pumps as the tug’s engines revved and they moved on down the line. They had three more to release before the final barge, and that was the one Andrea would board.
As they moved north, the seas calmed somewhat, but it didn’t take long for the swells to rise again. She hoped they had not miscalculated how far ahead of the storm they would have to start the pumps, or how close they could be to the storm and still safely pick up the personnel with the cutters. There were so many factors that you could talk about and think about, but never really foresee. So many ways this could go horribly wrong.
If they had had a perfect setup, she would have been much further ahead of the approaching storm, and the pumps would have been in place and operational hours earlier. The cooling action was intense, and would not take very long, but they were spreading the pumps so thinly that there would be shifts in the temperature across the face of the storm. At the center of the gap between any two barges, the temperature would be warmer. What if the storm just burst through the gaps, swallowed the barges and pumps and blasted on its way?
She shook her head and concentrated on watching as the lines for the second to last barge were released. The waves were still heavy, but did not seem any worse than they had when the first barge had been released. She saw her people scramble over the flat, bobbing decks like mice. Each time the barge was lifted on one of the long, flowing swells, it dropped on the far side, shuddering as it fell. When this happened Andrea knew the men and women on that deck felt as if they’d tripled their weight as gravity dragged at them unmercifully.
She smiled ruefully and flexed her knees, wondering how her sixty-nine year old legs were going to take that kind of stress. She was in good condition. She’d worked out every day of her adult life, and had competed in two marathons over the past ten years, just so she could add that to her list of accomplishments, but this was not going to be easy. A world where people ran for pleasure and fitness seemed a million miles away from where she stood at that moment.
They made much faster time with only the one barge attached, and before she knew it they were in place. She knew that there were five more barges down the line—or there would be if Gabrielle had come through. She stared out over the ocean in every direction, but there was nothing but the rolling expanse of waves. The sensation of entering another world was so sharp that she wondered, just for an instant, if they’d already disappeared into that other place, where Philip had been for so long. That place where nothing worked right, and watches spun backward.
Seth was at the helm again, and he glanced over at her with a smile. She smiled back, her own expression more tentative. Then the speaker crackled. She rushed into the bridge, closing the door against the sound beyond and waited. No one was manning the radio at that moment. The speaker crackled again, and a voice came across, faintly. She stepped close, leaning down to listen, but couldn’t make out all the words. She heard the words Daybreak—Moontide—and ‘over,’ but that was all.
She grabbed the headset and slipped it on, keying the microphone quickly. “Moontide, this is Stormfury One, over.” There was no response. She repeated herself several times. Once there was a faint break in the static, as if someone had keyed a microphone far away, but no message followed.
She removed the headset and turned to Seth.
“They said Daybreak,” he confirmed, nodding as if she’d asked a question. “That’s the other cutter.”
Andrea took a deep breath and nodded. She wanted to say something, to thank him for . . .what? Confirming her own senses? She couldn’t quite get the words out, but she did manage a slightly better smile. Then she turned, exited the cabin, and readied herself to transfer to the last barge. It was time to get to work, and if that last message had been nothing more than a tease from God, at least she’d do what she could.
On deck, Captain Greenwood had rigged the hi-line to the barge, and the sling was in place. The rest of the barge’s crew was already in place, and they were standing by to drop the anchors, once the lines from the tugboat were released.
Andrea slipped into the harness and tugged at the lines nervously. It had not seemed a big deal when she’d watched the others doing this earlier, but now, with the seas rolling beneath her and the sensation of the lines growing taut, then slack between the barge and the tug, it was an entirely new proposition.
Captain Greenwood laid a hand on her shoulder. “Are you sure you want to go thr
ough with this? They have enough people over there to get the job done.”
Shaking her head, Andrea tightened the last strap. “I have to go. I have to see this through. And if I were to leave with you, and something went wrong . . .”
The Captain nodded. “I wish I was going with you, but it seems as if you’ll have enough people without me, and I might just be in the way.”
She smiled at him. “You get your boat and your people out of here,” she said, “and thank you for everything, Captain.”
He nodded, but didn’t speak, and she thought she caught an odd glitter at the corner of his eye, just before he turned and gave the order to lower her.
After that, she could think of nothing but the wind, the roaring of the water below her, though she could not for the life of her remember it being so loud moments before, and the swaying of the ropes. Just for a moment, as one swell passed, the rope dipped, and she shot down toward the surface, but the crew of the barge worked the lines quickly and with her eyes closed and her hands gripping the rope harness tightly, she shot across the gap as quickly as they could draw her.
Then she was loose, standing on wobbly knees as they supported her long enough to get the harness free and get her to a seat. The lines were cast off quickly, and she felt the deep, vibrating grate of chains sliding through chocks as the anchors were dropped, first on both ends, then in the center.
Captain Greenwood stood on the fantail of the tug as it pulled away, growing to a tiny speck on the horizon. Andrea shook her head and rose unsteadily. Then, as her balance returned, she turned to the others. “Let’s do this!” she called over the sound of the water splashing against the sides of the barge. “We don’t have much time!”
They moved without further instruction, one group to each pump. As she worked, Andrea scanned the skyline, but there was no sign of the cutters. Above them, and to the south, the sky had started to darken with the first hints of rain.
Mote in Andrea's Eye Page 23