As Dwight stepped onto the deck of the Dorothy, assisted by Bill, Tommy emerged from the cabin. Dwight gave Bill a puzzled look. “This is my boss, Tommy. You know, his assistant is the one who was sick.”
“Was sick?”
Tommy smiled, but his eyes were not smiling. He momentarily exposed the butt of a pistol in his jacket pocket just enough for Dwight to see.
“Oh, yeah. That’s right, Freddy is in the cabin, and Ronnie, my assistant, is keeping him company. We don’t have a lot of time so it would be good if you would escort Bill and me to your deck. Ronnie will follow and escort Freddy.” Tommy indicated to Dwight to lead the way. “Bill, tell Paulie to keep the engines idling while we take on the fuel. If something goes wrong, take off and intercept the Angelina. Paulie knows where it will be.”
Tommy put his hand in Dwight’s back, “Dwight, if you please.”
“What about Freddy?”
“He will follow with Bill and Ronnie once I’m on the deck and signal that everything is okay. Now, let’s go.”
Dwight looked up to the deck above where George stood at the edge. “We’re comin’ up, Newt!”
Tommy shoved something hard into Dwight’s back. “Just climb. No need for chatter!”
George, with his beard, coveralls, and hardhat, looked just like any other roughneck on the rig, but the minute he heard “Newt,” he moved into action and stepped back a few paces from the edge of the deck so that he was out of sight of the men climbing up. He turned and signaled to Sergeant Ramirez and Corporal Williams to get ready, and then stood waiting for Dwight and Tommy to climb the last couple of rungs and step onto the deck. George had his hand inside the big pocket on his coveralls tightly gripping the handle of his pistol. It was then that he noticed Tommy had a weapon. Looked like a 38-caliber Smith and Wesson, and it was pointed directly at Dwight’s back. George saw that he didn’t have a chance to pick the guy off without putting Dwight in jeopardy. At least, not yet.
George looked at Dwight. “What’s goin’ on?” he asked in a put-on accent. “Where are Freddy and the sick lady? I was just fixin’ to go down and help out.” George was playing dumb. No sense giving away anything yet.
“It’s okay, Newt. Tommy here is interested in touring our rig.” Dwight’s sarcasm was evident.
Tommy waved the gun at Dwight ordering him to move over next to George. “Yeah, and if I like the tour, you and the rest of the crew will be able to vacation in Mexico real soon.” Tommy leaned over the side of the platform and waved down at the Dorothy.
George and Dwight both looked down at the boat and watched as a man and a woman emerged from the cabin and started to climb the ladder.
“Is that the sick lady? She looks all right to me. Say, where’s Freddy?” George was edging toward the stairs and at the same time getting closer to Tommy.
Tommy turned the gun on George. “Move back, asshole. I can kill you now, or I can kill you later.”
George retreated to Dwight’s side. All the time, Tommy was taking stock of the number of crewmen that were on the rig. He figured about fifteen or twenty including some that were probably not visible. With Dwight standing right here, they were probably without a leader and without any plan for resistance.
Tommy looked at Dwight, and with faked sincerity continued, “Please understand, if we are able to come to an agreement, there needs to be no bloodshed. You see—”
“Hey, Tommy, I see everything is under control,” said Ronnie as she stepped onto the deck with Bill directly behind her.
“Yeah.”
Dwight turned to George, “This is your sick lady, Newt. She’s not sick at all—just a decoy.” He turned to Ronnie. “Why isn’t Freddy with you?”
Ronnie looked at Dwight with a steady gaze, “We won’t be needing his miserable services.” She laughed shrilly as if she had made a hilarious joke. “Besides, he made a pass at me, and I had to defend my honor.” She shrilly laughed again, brandishing her Glock proudly. Then, changing the subject with as little emotion as changing the channel on a TV, Ronnie continued, “Tommy, it’s cold; let’s go in where it’s warm.”
“You cold-blooded bitch! You killed Freddy!” Dwight started toward her without a serious plan, just wanting to rip her head off.
George grabbed Dwight around the neck and pulled him back. “Hold on, Dwight. Back off.”
Ronnie didn’t flinch. Tommy and Bill both had weapons pointed at Dwight.
“These sons-a-bitches just killed Freddy! You assholes are dead meat!”
Ronnie calmly pointed the Glock at Dwight’s head. “I said he made a pass at me; we struggled, and my gun went off.”
“That’s a bunch of crap—Freddy’s gay!”
“Oh, my! Well, then I guess I lied. Tommy, let’s get out of this wind and go inside!”
Tommy waved his pistol toward the control room. “OK, you heard her. Control room. Now!”
Dwight and George turned around and started to walk toward the control room. The three from the Dorothy followed about three yards behind.
George signaled to Dwight as if to say, “Walk a little slower and follow my lead.”
Dwight nodded.
George stopped and turned around, as did Dwight.
“Keep moving. Stay alive a little longer guys; you might get lucky,” as Tommy raised his weapon and pointed it at Dwight’s head.
Dwight, seeing everything clearly now, said through clenched teeth, “What do you filthy assholes want on your tombstones?”
Tommy, slightly amused, smiled. “Maybe that’s the question I should ask you? Right, Bill?…Bill?” He turned his head to the right where Bill had been standing, and Corporal Williams was silently laying Bill’s body on the deck, blood streaming from a huge gash across his neck. Tommy started to turn back to shoot Dwight, when he felt a sharp searing pain in his wrist, and the gun fell to the deck with a muffled thud. He grabbed his wrist while turning to the left to get help from Ronnie, only to find Sergeant Ramirez crouching over her now lifeless body.
Tommy started to lunge for his gun, but began screaming as he saw a stump where his hand used to be. He looked at the deck and saw his gun, still gripped in his now-severed hand. Sergeant Ramirez began wiping the blood off his knife blade with the sleeve of Tommy’s jacket. He stopped as Tommy fell to his knees.
Dwight stepped in front of Tommy and glared down at him. “Oooh,” he said in mock sympathy. “I bet that’s gonna leave a mark!”
Sergeant Ramirez turned to George. “Captain Adams, sir! I apologize for the late arrival. These two—” indicating the recently deceased Bill and Ronnie—“took too long coming up the stairs, and we wanted to cover our backside. So we hit the boat first. We found Freddy. She shot him in the back of the head. Must have had a silencer on that Glock. We took out the other hostile.”
“YOU ASSHOLE! WHY DID YOU KILL FREDDY?” Dwight grabbed Tommy by the throat.
As Dwight started shaking him, Tommy moaned, “Ronnie did it. She did it. Help me, I’m bleeding to death!”
“Yeah, she did it, but it was your idea.” Dwight released Tommy’s neck, letting him fall back to the deck.
George stepped in. “Dwight, we’re going to have company soon when these guys’ drug ship arrives. Take the marines down to the boat and get Freddy’s body.”
George then spoke evenly to Tommy, “If you want to save your life, tell me about the ship that’s coming.”
Tommy, grasping at anything, babbled out the whole plan about the trawler arriving in about an hour and the five pleasure boats, which would be arriving in three hours. He knew he was dying, in pain, and bleeding badly.
George leaned over Tommy and gently stood him up. He took a wiping rag and tied it in a tourniquet around Tommy’s arm above the wrist. “Now Tommy,” George said close to Tommy’s ear, “I want you to go down to your boat, start her up, and leave this rig. It’s only twenty miles north to the next rig. Hey, you might make it.”
Tommy looked at George, “You mean it? Y
ou’re letting me go?”
“Yes.”
Tommy started backing toward the ladder as Dwight, Sergeant Ramirez, and Corporal Williams arrived on the deck with Freddy’s body.
Dwight stood over the body with his fists clenched. “George, you’re not lettin’ this son of a bitch go!”
George blocked Dwight from going after Tommy, as he watched Tommy, cradling his right arm, start down the ladder, grasping the rail with his good hand. When he was about halfway down, George stepped back and pulled a walkie-talkie from his pocket. He keyed the mike, “XO.”
“Yes, sir! Is everything all right?”
“It is now. We had a little run-in with some drug runners. Prepare to launch SF-2 for an attack mission. Give her a full load of rockets, armed and ready. We’ll recover you with the net.”
“Aye-aye, sir. What are we going after?”
“Your first target is this pleasure boat about to pull away from the northeast corner of the rig. He’ll probably head south-southeast to rendezvous with another bad guy—a fake fishing trawler that’s about ten miles out, headed this direction. Take them both out.”
“It’ll be our pleasure, sir.”
George chuckled. This was valuable training for the XO and his sonar man. They were going to need some combat experience down the line, and this would give them confidence in the sub-fighter’s capabilities. “There will be three additional targets, pleasure boats, converging on the platform in approximately three hours. They’ll probably be coming from the north. They’re all bad guys—druggies—and they have to be taken out. Got it?”
“Yes, sir! We aim to please!”
“One more thing…make sure you take them out as far from Platform Alpha as possible. We don’t want any survivors swimming up or paddling up in rubber dinghies.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
George looked out as the Dorothy was moving at a high speed across the chop, headed south-southeast from the rig.
He turned to Dwight. “Tommy will be lucky to stay conscious long enough to rendezvous with that trawler. SF-2 should take him out long before that, though, and a one-armed man isn’t going to swim very far.”
“Yeah, but he could warn ‘em by radio.”
“No, Sergeant Ramirez disabled his communications, so he won’t be able to warn them until he gets on board…if he gets on board. I expect that about the time he would be getting there, SF-2 will be making its presence known once again. The folks on that trawler will never know what hit them. Hell, Dwight, even though we’re about to challenge the whole world, we can’t let that evil white powder get into the U.S. now can we? That’s just plain wrong! You know? Plus after SF-2 finishes with them, there will be five fewer boats and crews bringing that stuff in.”
Dwight was fighting back tears.
“Hey, Cousin, I didn’t know you were so emotional about the drug trade.”
“Very funny. I was just thinking about Freddy. The poor guy was just back from his third tour in Iraq. It’s a shame to think about surviving that, only to die a pointless death on an out-of-commission oil rig!”
George looked at the lifeless body lying on the deck and, to his surprise, found himself fighting back tears as well. George put his arm around Dwight’s shoulders. “I’m truly sorry about Freddy. It’s a shock to me, too. After seventeen years in the military, he’s the first person who has died carrying out one of my orders. I never knew how I would react, and I hoped I would never find out.”
Leona came and stood at George’s side. “It’s awful, George, but if it’s any consolation, his death was by no means pointless. He helped to keep our mission secret.”
“I know. Still, I feel responsible.”
“She’s right, you know,” said Dwight. “Helping to keep our mission secret and to defeat these drug-running scumbags may well be the most important thing Freddy ever did.”
George nodded. “We’ll include Freddy and his family in our prayers tonight.”
“Thanks, George. I’ll make sure his remains get back to his family and that they know he helped put these scumbags out of business.” Dwight turned to the crew who had gathered around the bodies of Bill and Ronnie. “Toss this trash over the side, boys. The sharks need to eat, too. And weigh ‘em down. We don’t want ‘em floating up. And get the recovery net down—we’ve got a fighter to recover in about three hours.”
Chapter 30
At 1800 hours, the captain called a meeting of all crewmembers, including the twelve teams going ashore from Platform Alpha.
“Ladies and gentlemen, to repeat the phrase of a famous American president, this is it—a date that will live in infamy. To those of you leaving us here, may you have fair winds and following seas. You’re all highly trained, highly skilled, and highly dedicated. You are a testament to those who make a positive difference in the world. You can forever be proud of the part you are playing to maintain world peace and to save perhaps millions of lives.
After you leave here, there can never be any communication with another team. You are on your own. You all know your targets, but as you have been briefed, there is only one thing that can trigger your use of the weapons for which you take responsibility. Should such an event take place, God forbid, do not hesitate—perform the duty you have been trained to carry out.
Never reveal the location of your warheads to anyone other than your teammate. Do not reside with your teammate. Within your team you may develop your own protocols and your own means of communication. If each team develops its own protocols, there will be no pattern that can be detected by those searching for us. Remember to contact your teammate at least every other day. A missed communication may indicate your partner has been captured. Should such an event occur, move your warheads to an alternative location, and go into hiding immediately. If you are the captured teammate, resist your interrogators for as long as possible, at least twenty-four hours. Give your teammate time to relocate.”
George looked around the room at his dedicated team members. “If anyone has any questions, comments, misgivings, or doubts please see me after the meeting. Godspeed and good luck to us all.”
After the meeting, John Ellis, the nuclear weapons expert, approached the captain and said, “Captain, I’d like to go with you on the Louisiana. You are still going to have twelve teams and sixty warheads aboard, and you’re going to be dropping off teams periodically over the next several weeks. I’d like to be there to watch over the warheads and to refresh each team’s training regarding arming and disarming procedures before they disembark.”
The captain had reviewed the information from John’s background investigation in great detail and had not found anything negative in his history. He liked John, and in the two days they had spent together on Platform Alpha, the captain had come to respect his knowledge and professionalism.
“Thanks, John,” answered the captain. “We would love to have you. If you don’t mind, we will keep you aboard until all of the warheads have been sent ashore.”
“No problem, Captain. It will be an honor to serve under your command.”
That evening, the captain and the XO each recorded a video message on DVDs. The captain and the XO each took his own DVD and left a copy of each with Dwight as a backup in case the Louisiana was sunk before completing her mission.
The captain ordered the XO, “If anything happens to me or my DVD, use yours.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.”
Once darkness came, SF-1 was mounted on the Louisiana’s deck, and SF-2 was remounted following her successful first combat mission. As the last deck hatch was closed, and George descended the stairway from Platform Alpha to the top of the Louisiana’s conning tower, Dwight looked down from above and with a parting salute said, “Adios, George. Live long and prosper.”
At 0300 hours, the Louisiana got underway for her final mission.
Chapter 31
Dwight stood at the head of the ladder and watched the Louisiana take on ballast and begin to submerge. He visual
ly swept the horizon and the sky overhead and could not see any lights or any stars. It was still overcast. On Platform Alpha, only the deck edge lights were on to keep the men from falling off the deck. There were only a few men up and moving around. One of those men was Remy McGillivray, a good old Alabama boy, and Dwight called out to him, “Remy! Hey Remy!”
Dwight had recruited Remy especially for this mission. He wasn’t well educated, but what Remy lacked in book learning he made up for in common sense. Remy laid down the line he had been coiling. “Yeah, Dwight?”
“We need to get the RV crated. Let’s get started.” The RV was an empty reentry vehicle taken from one of the Louisiana’s ballistic missiles. This particular RV, a cone about forty-eight inches long, was the last one to have its DOE package removed and disarmed by John Ellis the night before. Although the RV itself was not a radioactive component, it carried a slight amount of residual radioactivity picked up from the now-removed warhead. “Get Junior and pack it up for a long trip.”
Remy smiled at the mention of a long trip and shouted back, “You bet!” Remy was descended from Creek Indian warriors, and although he was not getting in the fight personally, he knew what the plans were for the RV and approved. If he couldn’t take the battle directly to the enemy, he would do whatever he could to assist those who were.
“Junior!” Remy shouted in the direction of the storage shed. “Hey Junior. Let’s get packin’.”
Dwight watched as Remy walked over to the storage shed and grabbed the handle of a pallet jack, which was supporting a crate marked with the familiar yellow and black radiation label: “DANGER—RADIOACTIVE”—and on another line—“Radiation Probes—Count: 36”. The probes were used in downhole drilling operations to log the oil and gas content of the different strata. This particular shipment was headed for the new wells being drilled by GenCon in the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia.
Remy and Junior opened the crate and loaded the RV into the bottom, nestled between support blocks. Over the top, Remy placed a layer of rigid foam. The rigid foam had pockets, which Junior filled with six radiation probes. Remy and Junior placed two more layers of rigid foam and probes on top of the RV, bringing the total contents of the crate to eighteen probes covering and concealing one empty RV. They screwed on the wooden top and sealed the edges with sealing tape.
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