Counter Poised

by John Spikenard

  On the third day, they located SF-2 in a small cove on the west side of the island. The XO had done his job well. The fighter was hidden under some low-hanging tree branches in water shallow enough to allow George and MacKenzie to enter the fighter through the top hatch. They checked out the fighter’s systems and, to their dismay, found the batteries almost totally depleted.

  “What now, Captain? We can’t get far on this charge. And we surely don’t want to get out into the ocean and run out of power.”

  “You’re right. On this charge we can run for maybe half an hour. That means we have a maximum range of about twenty miles.”

  “Twenty miles? There’s nothing within a twenty-mile range!” said MacKenzie despondently.

  George sat thoughtfully looking through his porthole at the beautiful little South Pacific cove. On a different day, under different circumstances, it would be an ideal spot for a romantic getaway with Leona. Now it seemed it might be the last place he ever saw in his life.

  George turned to MacKenzie. “Okay…Plan B, Mac.”

  “Only B, sir?”

  “Okay, okay, you’re right—with the way this mission has gone, let’s call it Plan Z.”

  MacKenzie laughed, starting to perk up a little. “All right, Plan Zebra. What did you have in mind?”

  “There’s a daily freighter that runs between Auckland and Tonga. They use several old freighters similar to the Nuku since the trip takes several days. The trade route runs just west of the Kermandec Island chain. I’m not sure how far out from the islands they run, but if we climb up that hill next to the cove, we may be able to spot one of the freighters as it passes by.”

  “And then what?”

  “From the height of that hill, we should be able to see about twenty or twenty-five miles—pretty much our max range.”

  “Ah…so if we can see a freighter, we should be able to reach it.”

  “Exactly. Let’s get up that hill today so we can see if anything passes within range. If so, we can estimate how far out they are and how fast they’re moving. Then we can plan our rendezvous for tomorrow.”

  “We’re going to have to plan it carefully, Captain. We’ll have to see the freighter early enough to run down the hill, launch the fighter, and get out to their track before they pass us by. If we fall behind, we may run out of power before we can catch up.”

  “That’s true. The problem is like a quarterback throwing a pass to a wide receiver running a crossing route. The quarterback has to make sure he leads the receiver enough so that the ball and the receiver arrive at the same point at the same time.”

  “That’s right, Captain.”

  “The only thing is we only have one shot at it. If we miss and have to bail out again, we’ll be west of the islands and the current will carry us away. We’ll never make it back.”

  “Understood, Captain. We’ll just have to throw a touchdown!”

  George and MacKenzie climbed to the top of the small hill overlooking the cove. Around three o’clock that afternoon, they spotted a freighter moving south toward Auckland. By their estimates, it was about ten miles out.

  “They probably keep in sight of the islands as they make their way back and forth,” said George. “It makes their navigation a lot easier.”

  “Get a good fix on where they are right now, Captain, and I’ll run down to the fighter. When I get there, get another fix so that we can see how far they move in that time period. That will help us determine how much we have to lead them in order to effect the rendezvous.”

  “Good thinking, Mac. Let me get a time hack, too, so we know how long it takes to run from here to the fighter.”

  After MacKenzie made his run, George came down to the cove and with sticks picked up from the beach, they drew out the situation in the sand. Using an estimate of the angle that the freighter traversed during MacKenzie’s run, and the estimated distance from the island to the freighter, they were able to use basic trigonometry to calculate how far the freighter traveled. Knowing the elapsed time, they were able to calculate the freighter’s speed. Finally, knowing the speed at which they intended to fly the fighter, they were able to calculate a lead angle by which they would have to lead the freighter in order to keep from falling behind. Armed with this information, they were ready to go and settled into their shelter for the night.

  “Enjoy this hearty meal of coconut and papaya, Mac. Hopefully, it will be our last.”

  “And the condemned man ate a hearty meal…”

  “There you go again.”

  “Sorry, Captain. I know—positive thinking. Our next meal will be a hamburger, fries, and a shake. I’m getting tired of this low-carb, low-fat diet!”

  “Let’s get some sleep. We’re going to need to be thinking clearly tomorrow.”

  The next morning, George instructed MacKenzie to remove his name tag and all other insignia from his poopie suit uniform. “We don’t want anyone to be able to identify us or trace us to the Louisiana,” he said. “We’ll tell these guys on the freighter we’re…uh…oceanographers, and our research vessel had a ballast tank failure.”

  “Roger that, sir. I guess that’s as good a story as any as to why two guys are all alone in a minisub in the middle of the Pacific!”

  With that, George positioned himself next to SF-2 in the cove while MacKenzie climbed the hill to their lookout position. By midmorning, MacKenzie spotted a ship coming into view. He signaled to George and started down the hill. George got into SF-2 and brought its systems online, and by the time MacKenzie arrived, SF-2 was ready to go.

  “Lock the hatch and strap yourself in,” said George, as MacKenzie lowered himself into the cockpit.

  “Aye-aye, sir. I’m ready to go!”

  George advanced the throttle, and SF-2 smoothly glided out of the cove and into the open ocean.

  “Just head due west, sir. As soon as we get a little distance from the island I should be able to get a good sonar bearing on the freighter. Then we can adjust the heading to hold the lead angle we calculated yesterday.”

  “Roger that. We’re headed two-seven-zero degrees, speed twenty-five knots to conserve battery power.”

  Once they picked up the sonar bearing, George drove SF-2 to a position approximately two hundred yards ahead of the freighter. Battery power was extremely low, so he drove the fighter to the surface at minimum speed and held it there.

  “Open the hatch and stand up through it and start yelling for help,” he ordered. “Let me know when they see you, and we’ll bail out.”

  MacKenzie opened the hatch and stood up, with his head and shoulders extending out of the fighter. He began waving and yelling for help. Suddenly, MacKenzie ducked his head inside and exclaimed, “Captain! It’s not the freighter!”

  “What? What is it?” Surely they hadn’t been suckered out of hiding to surrender to a naval patrol boat! Had they?

  MacKenzie stood up to look again. “It looks like a deepsea fishing charter boat of some sort. It has a big banner on the side. They’re turning…I think it says…Greenpeace! They’re slowing down and turning toward us. They’ve seen me, Captain. One of the crewmembers is waving, and he has a life ring in his hand.”

  “Okay, bail out, Mac! I’m right behind you—I’m getting out this time before the flooding starts!”

  The two of them bailed out, and as George jumped from the deck of SF-2, the momentum was just enough to push the open hatch under the surface of the water. The water rushed in, and with a burst of bubbles, the fighter immediately sank from view.

  The Greenpeace boat pulled up next to the two men, and three or four of their crew members hauled them safely aboard.

  George flopped on the deck, exhausted from the exertion. Turning to the nearest crew member, he said, “Thank God you guys were here! We barely made it to the surface. We’d be goners without you!”

  “Who are you guys?” asked the Greenpeace captain. “And what are you doing way out here? What was that vessel you were in?”

&nbs
p; “We’re oceanographers. We were trying to document the damage being done to the environment by this submarine wreckage and the armada of navy ships east of the island. Unfortunately, our small research submarine cracked a seal, and we started to take on water. We had to bail out—I couldn’t hold it on the surface any longer!”

  “Well, you two are real lucky,” said one of the crew members. “The current around here is real strong to the west. Even if you’re strong swimmers, you never would have made it to that island to the east.”

  “Yeah, probably not,” said George. “We’ve been fighting against that current for a couple of days. I just wish we hadn’t lost all the evidence we had gathered about how those navy guys are polluting the sea. We had a couple hundred water samples that would have made them look real bad.”

  “Oh yeah?” responded the Greenpeace captain. “I like the sounds of this—maybe we can use your testimony when we get back to Auckland.”

  George and MacKenzie exchanged a quick glance before George coolly responded, “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Without the water samples, the testimony would be useless. It’ll just make Greenpeace look like idiots. Besides, my colleague and I are going to be in enough trouble as it is for losing our research sub. I don’t want repercussions from the authorities on top of that! Can we please keep this whole thing confidential?”

  George found a very sympathetic audience in the Greenpeace crew members. They fully understood the kinds of pressures the military-industrial complex could put on people trying to save the planet. George and MacKenzie had nothing to worry about—the Greenpeace crew members would never tell anyone about this rescue.

  Two days later, the Greenpeace boat arrived in Auckland. Their Greenpeace friends gave George and MacKenzie some fresh clothes and a few dollars to tide them over since they had lost everything when their research sub went down. After a fond farewell and vows to continue the fight to save Earth, George and MacKenzie left the boat and walked down the seaside pier into the bustle of the city.

  “Where to now, Captain?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I have a hunch. Let’s head down to the office of the shipping company that runs those freighters. That’s probably where the Nuku came from anyway. We may get some leads there.”

  “This is certainly not the best part of town…or the best smelling…I hope.” The smell of dead and rotting fish rose from the bay and pervaded the air.

  “No, the area in any seaport around the docks is usually rundown and dangerous. Watch our backs, Mac. I’d hate to have gone through all we have, just to get mugged and stabbed at the Auckland docks.”

  “Likewise, Captain.”

  “And stop calling me captain. Let’s use…Brad for now.”

  “Okay, Brad.”

  The office was in an old, dilapidated, three-story red brick building, which appeared to be part offices and part warehouse. Many years of abuse by the South Pacific weather had taken its toll. Next to the door was a small, freshly painted plaque that read, “Able Bros. Shipping, Ltd.”

  George pushed open the door and walked in. A number of wooden chairs were scattered around the dimly lit room as if the room was used as a waiting area by crewmembers or passengers while waiting for the next boat to Tonga. The far wall was covered by a blackboard with schedules for each freighter drawn in with chalk. In front of the blackboard, a young man sat behind a desk facing them. He was busy writing in a ledger. Without looking up, he said, “The boat’s already left for today. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

  “We weren’t really interested in going anywhere,” said George. “We’re looking for some information.”

  The young man looked up from his ledger. “What kind of information?”

  “Do you ever lease your boats?”

  “No.”

  “Never?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  George was about to give up, figuring he had been wrong and this was not where Dwight had leased the Nuku. As he turned to leave, he suddenly saw a small detail in the room that he had not noticed before. Along the top and the bottom of the blackboard were narrow strips of cork. Their shiny frames indicated they had been recently added. Stretching across the blackboard from top to bottom, and tied to tacks stuck into the cork strips, was a string. The string indicated present time for the chalkboard schedules. George’s heart practically skipped a beat!

  “Are you under new management?” he asked.

  “Yeah. The company was purchased by a new owner just this week.”

  “I’d like to talk to the manager.”

  The young man stood up. “Can I tell him what it’s about?”

  “I think we’re old friends.”

  The young man scoffed skeptically. “What’s your name, mate?”

  “Uh…Brad. Brad Land.”

  The young man left the room to fetch the manager.

  George turned to MacKenzie. “There can’t be more than one person in the world that still tracks schedules like that. It’s so oldfashioned and low tech…”

  Just then behind him, George heard a familiar voice ask, “So where the heck have you been, Brad?”

  He whirled around and there was Dwight, with a huge smile on his face and his arms spread wide ready to give George the hug of his life!

  “Well, glad to see you, too!” George exclaimed as the cousins shared a long bear hug.

  MacKenzie stood patiently by, and then was surprised when Dwight turned and hugged him, too! “Good to see you, too, young man. Glad you could make it.”

  “Thanks!” MacKenzie stammered.

  “Both of you come on back to my office where we can have a little privacy,” said Dwight. “I want to hear all about how you got here. And by the way, Brad, the DVD has already been sent by your old…assistant. We didn’t know whether you were coming or not.”

  They walked down a narrow hallway with offices on each side to Dwight’s office in the back of the building. As they approached the office, Dwight turned to George and gave him a wink. “You probably remember my secretary,” he said, letting George go ahead. Dwight stopped MacKenzie in the hallway and said, “Let’s wait here for a few minutes. We can talk about getting you back on a team.”

  George entered the room, and there was Leona with her arms full of files standing next to Dwight’s desk. Her eyes were red from crying, but they still sparkled like no one else’s. She was as devastatingly beautiful as ever. She saw George and immediately dropped everything she was carrying, screamed, and rushed into his arms! As they hugged and kissed, Leona sobbed, “Oh George, I thought you were dead! It’s been so awful. I didn’t know how I was going to go on. I’ve just been dying inside.”

  “I’m sorry, Leona. I got here as fast as I could. I missed you terribly, too, and it was killing me knowing that you didn’t know whether I was dead or alive. I knew it was hard for you.”

  “I’m just so glad you’re here,” said Leona as she continued to cling to George, not letting him out of her grasp.

  “Well, from now on, we will always be together. I’m never going to leave you again.”

  Chapter 48

  The President’s Office, Philadelphia, PA

  “Mister President,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs explained, “the Louisiana went down in the Kermandec Trench, in over twenty-eight thousand feet of water. There’s absolutely no way to raise her.”

  “Jeezum Crow, General Daramus! The international community demands proof the Louisiana actually went down. Muslim nations, in particular, are concerned. From their perspective, we had an American ballistic missile submarine run amok, with a crazy man at the helm! The only witness to the sub’s alleged destruction is another American sub commander—a friend—who cannot say for certain it went down, only that they heard noises from a distance of over ten miles that indicated the Louisiana had probably imploded. Now when we’re faced with the fact that we had a madman in control of twenty-four long-range ballistic missiles, with a total of one hundred an
d twenty nuclear warheads, we need better proof than that. We need absolute proof the threat has been eliminated!”

  “I agree, Mister President. That’s why we are preparing an automated robotic camera platform, which can be lowered to the bottom of the trench. Photographic evidence of the wreckage will be the best we can provide at that depth.”

  “Well, let’s get it done as quickly as possible. The entire Muslim world is still sitting on pins and needles, not sure whether to breathe a sigh of relief or run for cover.”

  “Understood, Mister President. If the weather cooperates, and our expected location of the wreckage is accurate, we should have your photographic evidence within a week to ten days.”

  “Good. Now what’s this item on the agenda about the battle action report from the Texas?

  “Well, Mister President, there are some peculiarities in the report that I think you should be aware of.”

  “What kind of peculiarities?”

  “First of all, the navigator reports that when they departed Cape Horn and began pursuing the Louisiana, they were at least two days behind her. She was well out of sonar range. Nevertheless, Captain Sewell gave the navigator a heading, from which they deviated only slightly over the next four days.”

  “So?”

  “That heading took them directly to the Louisiana. Captain Sewell did not provide any explanation of how he apparently knew where the Louisiana would be located four days later.”

  “Hmm. What else?” asked the president.

  “The XO and the operations officer of the Texas report that when it came time to fire on the Louisiana, Captain Sewell’s choice of torpedoes was questionable at best. He elected to fire a high-speed torpedo first, knowing that the Louisiana was out of range. He then waited a full twenty minutes before firing a longer range slow-speed torpedo.”

  “And…”

  “Well, sir, the first torpedo could have been fired to alert the Louisiana to the presence of the Texas while still not putting the Louisiana in any danger because the torpedo didn’t have the necessary range. The second, slow-speed torpedo had the range, but Captain Sewell may have waited for twenty minutes to give the Louisiana time to take evasive action.