My mouth got dry and I wished I hadn't turned down that drink offer.
"Yeah," I said. "That's poorly enough for me."
Chapter Fifteen
Laura Reeves rubbed at her face again and started talking. "Here's the deal. Our little friend out in the North African desert, the one who's hot to trot to get a hold of this uranium, it seems like he's made more progress than anybody thought. The necessary equipment and machinery have been assembled and are in a series of caves at the base of a range in the Atlas Mountains. Intelligence estimates show that they've geared up, and they're waiting for one little piece of the puzzle to start work on a North African bomb."
"The German uranium."
She took her hands down, clasped them across her flat belly. "The same. So the boys and girls down south in DC are getting nervous, quite nervous. If we don't get a handle on this uranium soon, and I mean quite soon, Lewis, then something is going to happen to that installation in the Atlas Mountains." She reached over and poked through the piles of folders and envelopes, and then flipped over a photocopy of a newspaper article. "Sec this? It appeared in today's Washington Post. You don't get that paper up here, do you?”
I picked up the paper, saw that it was a facsimile. “I see it on the Web, when I feel a need to see what’s going on in DC. Thankfully, that doesn’t happen that often.
I scanned the article. It was buried in one of the A sections of the newspaper, and the small headline said CARRIER GROUP ON MANEUVERS, and mentioned that the USS George Washington and its support fleet had left a port-of-call visit in Tel Aviv a day early to conduct maneuvers in the central Mediterranean. I looked up at Laura. "Gulf of Sidra again?"
She smiled. "Very good. Sure we can't get you a job here when this is all over?"
"Positive."
Laura shifted some in the chair. "Gulf of Sidra, back in '86, was just a little exercise, looking for an excuse to punch al-Qaddafi in the nose. Al-Qaddafi claimed the entire Gulf as his own, and we sent in a carrier group to quote, exercise the right of free passage through the seas, or some damn thing. He sent up a couple of MiGs to tangle with a couple of our Tomcats ---- always a bad idea --- and those MiGs were shot down. A couple of more clashes later we sent in a flight of F-111s to give him a heavy dose of punches in the nose. But still he's there, and every now and then he makes trouble. Lewis, one of our raids back in the eighties killed an adopted daughter of his. You think if he had the bomb, he might not use it over here somewhere?"
"This carrier group, I take it, is not going to be tooling around the Gulf of Sidra on some routine exercise."
A quick shake of the head. "Nope. And a reminder about the non-disclosure form you signed, Lewis, because it covers everything and anything we discuss. Such as the fact that the carrier group is going to be in a certain position in a few short days, and they aren't bringing flowers."
It was as if the whole hotel room and the two of us had been picked up and transported back in time, back when I worked at the Pentagon and dealt with these kinds of issues all the time, month after month. Now I knew why this room had seemed eerily familiar to me. I had been in similar rooms before, years ago.
"If you don't get the uranium under your control soon, the carrier group is going to attack, won’t they?
“They will.”
I thought for another moment. "If I read correctly last week, the current Mideast peace negotiations are in a rather delicate phase, aren't they. I'd imagine they'd collapse for a long, long while if our bombers and cruise missiles are going into North Africa and killing Libyans and blowing up installations."
"So true," she said. "And after that happens, you can bet that the news will come out that we went ahead and blasted an aspirin factory or baby-milk factory or textile factory, and whatever low prestige we have in the Arab world will get even lower. It might be another four or five years before the peace negotiations get back on track, if then."
"Some pressure," I said.
"Some understatement," she said.
"You getting any additional resources coming your way?" I asked.
"Yeah, another NEST team is winging its way east, and the local FBI offices have been placed at my disposal. But you know the FBI guys are more experienced dealing with mob matters or bank robberies or white-collar crime. There's a special unit coming up from Quantico, but by the time everyone's landed and gone to the rest room and been debriefed, it'll be a couple of days before they can make a contribution. By then, the trade-off most likely will have taken place, and that uranium will be out of the country. And then the bombers and the missiles will start flying."
"No news on who the new contact might be?"
She shook her head, kept on moving her leg back and forth.
"We were lucky once. We weren't so lucky again. Speaking of luck, you got anything for me, anything at all?"
I began to tug nervously at the end of my coat zipper. "I know this sounds melodramatic and all, but someone tried to kill me today. Plus, I've gotten two threatening messages at home, from a woman who wants to know if my affairs are in order. Would you call that luck?"
Her leg stopped swinging. "Are you serious?"
“If you want, I can take you over to my house and show you the bullet hole in my Ford. Came a few inches from taking off the top of my head. I’m afraid I’ve erased the threatening message.”
Laura moved around in the chair, eyes now excited. "The gunshot. Where did this happen?"
"At the submarine museum in Porter. I was trying to get more information from the museum director on leads to retirees who might have been at the shipyard when the German U-boat was brought in. The guy running the place didn't have anything for me, and when I left and got to my car, that's when it happened."
"The cops up there in Porter know what happened?"
"They do," I said. "It's under investigation, but I'm not sure what they can do."
She clasped her hands together and squeezed them tight, her eyes still excited. "That's the best news I've heard all day."
I said, "I hope you wouldn't have been so excited if I'd ended up dead."
"Oh, no, no, no, you don't understand," she said. "Sorry, I know it sounded cold and all that. But you getting shot at was good news. It means that whoever's out there, in control of the uranium, he's nervous that you've been poking around and asking questions. It must mean you're on the right track Retirees, right?”
"Yeah, that's right," I said. "I figured ---"
"You figured well," she said, picking up a pen and starting to make some notes. "Gus was in charge of looking through the retiree records, trying to see if anything out there matched. There were thousands of people working at the shipyard when those U-boats came in. Thing is, it'd be very easy to overlook something." She looked up from her note-taking and grinned. "This is great. I've got some FBI agents heading over here in a few hours, and I'll get them to work on tracing those old records. That's what they're experts at, seeing old connections, old evidence. Damn it, Lewis, I think you might have given us the key."
I tried to keep my voice even. "You want I should get shot al again?"
Now her smile was affected. "I was told by Clem that you’re carrying a weapon. True?”
"Quite true."
She wiggled the pen some in her grasp. "I wish I could say I had the resources to give you twenty-four-hour protection. But I'd be lying. I'm stretched thin as it is, and even these new bodies won't help that much. Maybe you should take a couple of days off, go on a trip."
"And not see this one to the finish?" I asked. "After all you clowns did to me to get me to sign up, you think I'm going to bail out?”
"No, but I'd think ---“
I stood up. "Nope. I get the message. I'm on my own, right?”
Now her eyes were locked on to me, cold and clear. "My objective is to get the uranium back as soon as possible, and prevent lots of people from being killed, either in this country or overseas. I have to work with the resources I have. Sorry."
"Yes?" I said, turning, and damn if her smile hadn't come back "The other night. At your place. I enjoyed the meal and the kiss. No matter what I might have said at the time. I'd like a chance for a repeat performance, if you don't mind."
I was going to shoot something back about it only happening if I didn't get killed over the next few days, but that seemed too obvious, so I said, "Sorry, right now I don't have the resources to even consider it."
Then I left.
Outside, armed once again, I slowly walked back home in the gathering twilight. The April air was getting cooler, teasing the residents of the New Hampshire seacoast once again. During the day the sun would warm things up, tempting one to break out the shorts and T-shirts, but when the sun went down and the wind came up from the ocean, one was thankful for a nice jacket and a heating system at home.
I stopped at the side of Atlantic Avenue, waiting for the traffic to ease up before crossing the street. Of course, having a nice jacket also worked to hide one's weapon, and the weight of the Beretta was clearing up my mind. So. I was on my own. Nothing new, nothing I hadn't encountered before.
When the road was clear, I strode across and stopped for a moment in the parking lot of the Lafayette House. In the darkening sky, Jupiter was making its appearance in the west, accompanied by the dimmer star that marked Saturn. I looked up there for a bit, waiting to see if I could spot a fast-moving dot of light that'd mark the space shuttle Endeavour, but nothing was there. No doubt she was on the other side of the planet at this hour, and when I got home, I'd fire up my new Macintosh and get on the Web, to find out the latest orbit information.
I stopped looking up at the night sky and headed past the parked cars to my dirt driveway. All right, then, I thought. Once I had the computer work wrapped up, then what? Maybe a call to Paula, a peace offering. Maybe a call to Felix, to see how his love life was doing.
Maybe. And what about the missing uranium? It was just a few days before a North African desert would blossom with flames and explosions, death and destruction, all because of a secret almost six decades old on this stretch of coastline. A well-hidden secret, one that someone was ready to kill for to keep it hidden.
As I reached the edge of my driveway, I stopped thinking for a moment as a heavyweight blasted me across the backs of my legs.
I tripped and fell on the dirt, started rolling and rolling, reaching underneath my coat, grabbed the Beretta as a shape came running after me, and I yelled out, "Freeze, right there, or I blow your damn head off."
The shape stopped, came closer, and formed itself into Keith Emerson. His hands were empty, and he swayed a bit as he stood over me. "You serious?"
I clicked the hammer back on my pistol, the sound of metal on metal quite loud. “That I am."
He stood there for a long moment, still swaying, hands empty, staring down at me, and then he shook his head and went over a few feet and sat down on a boulder marking the edge of the parking lot. He shook his head again. "Damn it. You're not serious, not at all."
I sat up, kept my pistol aimed at him. "What makes you think that?"
He sniffed a few times, and I realized he was weeping. "I was counting on it, just for a moment or two, that you'd splatter me. That you'd end it for me; make me have some quiet nights for once in my life. And now it ain't gonna happen."
Keith crossed his arms and squeezed himself tight, and then started rocking back and forth, murmuring to himself. I got up on my feet and walked over to another boulder, about six feet away from Keith. I sat down and held the pistol down between my legs.
"Why are you here, Keith? Coming through on your threat?"
He slowed his movements, looked over at me. "So I did do that, huh? I threatened you, right?"
"Yes, you did, back at the submarine museum, earlier today."
"Knew it!" he said, his voice triumphant. "Knew it, knew it, and that's why I came here. Took me a bit to track you down. I came here to apologize to you, for threatening you. I don't remember it that well, but when it came to me, I decided to come down and apologize to you, face-to-face."
I touched my own face, where I had scraped it some against the gravel of my driveway. "That's a hell of a way to apologize, by knocking me off my feet."
His back-and-forth movements slowed even more. "Oh, I had a reason for that, a very good reason. You want to hear it?"
"Sure," I said.
"Well, I figured I was here to apologize to you, for what happened up at the museum. But suppose I hadn't done anything wrong to you at the museum? Then my trip here would be a waste of' time… Lord, how I hate to think of wasting any time, any time at all. So I figured I’d knock your ass over end, and if I hadn’t threatened you, then I’d have to something to apologize to you for.
I touched my face again. "About as much as anything else has today."
Now he had stopped moving. He said, "I can tell by your look, and by your tone. You think I'm nuts, don't you?"
"No, I---"
"Please don't insult what little intelligence I have left, Mr. Cole," he said. "I know what I am, know quite well. A long time ago I was something else, something to look up to."
"Your dad told me. You were a Marine pilot, on an F/A-18. That must have been something, to fly jets on and off aircraft carriers."
"You have no idea," he said, his voice toneless.
"You're right," I said. "I have no idea."
"It's ... it's ... " He paused, seemed to look over my shoulder. "It's a like a tall pyramid you're climbing, day after day. When you first start out, as a recruit, the pyramid's pretty wide and the steps are real easy, to get up to the next level. Then you become an officer, then you enter flight school. The pyramid gets steeper, the steps narrower. You suck it in and keep on moving, no matter what. Then you fly solo, then you fly jets, then you fly carrier jets... The ocean's a big place, Mr. Cole, especially at night when you're looking for a place to land. By then the pyramid's so steep and the steps are so narrow... Doesn't take much to fall off."
"Your dad told me a little bit about it. You had an electrical problem in your jet, right?"
He grinned. "Sounds so innocuous, here on the ground, nice and safe, doesn't it? Electrical problem. Like a refrigerator light burned out, or a fuse that needs replacing. Let me tell you what an electrical problem is, my friend. Flying a huge piece of machinery at night, everything in your grasp and under your feet, everything you can control. A flick of the wrist here and you'r heading to Oman. Another flick of the wrist, and you're heading to Qatar. All that power. All that authority. In your little hands. And this night, you’ve done your patrol, you’re heading back to the ship, heading back to that couple of acres of moving steel on a wide ocean, heading back to you squadron and your buds.”
I kept quiet, letting him talk, now trying to hide the fact that I was still holding the pistol, firm behind my legs. Keith went on. "Amazing thing, from one second to another how things can change. Second one, you're a spit-and-polish Marine aviator, flying a multimillion-dollar piece of machinery. Second two, your electrical equipment fries out. Second three, you're a frightened little child, wondering how you're going to get home and live."
I spoke up, trying to keep my voice calm and not accusatory, not at all. "Did you consider ejecting?"
It looked as if he shivered. "Sure I did. But you've heard stories... about guys snapping their spines, breaking their legs, drowning in the water with the parachute wrapped around your head... Plus, well, it's hard to explain. There's a sense of pride in what you do. You want to bring that jet home to the carrier. You don't want to dump it in the water and face all that bullshit later on. So. Electrical problem pops up and you go through your training, and flip on the backup battery systems. And you look at your dials, and you can't believe what you see. The battery system is dying. You have just a few minutes to land that plane, before everything fails on you.
.. I... I'm sorry. I can't go on anymore or I won't sleep at all tonight. Let's just say I got on the carrier and they had to carry me out of the cockpit. And I never flew again. Never."
"What did you do then?"
He shrugged. "I tried a couple of times to get back into my Hornet, and I couldn't do it. My legs would just freeze as I'd walk across the flight deck. Could not move. So I was assigned to desk duty. First tumble off the pyramid. Then I started having the shakes just thinking of everything that could go wrong on the ship. Even in peacetime, military people die all the time, don’t they.”
"Sure," I said. "Training accidents. Equipment problems. Aircraft collisions.”
“You’re so very right,” he said. “And a two- or three-paragraph story in the newspaper later, and nobody cares anymore. It got so I couldn’t stand being on the carrier anymore. All those steam pipes, the live ammunition, jets taking off and landing... I started spending more and more time in my bunk staring at the bulkheads, just with the shakes, imagining everything that could go wrong... Pretty soon I was shipped back to the States, to a regular base, and after that, I was discharged... More and more tumbles off the pyramid."
"The Porter Naval Shipyard," I said. "It must have been just as hard there. All the machinery. Hazardous waste. Radioactive materials. Welding and cutting of metal. You couldn't stay, could you?"
"Nope. Nobody understood, nobody. The world is such a dangerous place, especially when you've been dumped off that pyramid and are down in the mud. Am I right?"
I turned for a moment and looked at my house. Remembered how it had been the first few months I had lived there after my own little tumble off the pyramid, when my little world had been destroyed and people I knew and had loved had been killed. The long hours spent just looking out at the ocean, or, at night, up at the stars. The hurried trips to the bookstore and grocery store, to pick up reading material and food, so I could stay hunkered down in my new home without having to speak to or see anyone.
Oh yes, I knew it well. Living down there at the bottom of the pyramid, living in the fear and mud and squalor. I looked over at Keith, now saw him almost as a brother. We had both been there. I had been lucky enough to fight and find my own path out. This poor ex-Marine, ex-member of a group dedicated to the service of their country, was still a lost soul. I felt a flush of shame, remembering how quickly I had grabbed him and wrestled him to the ground.
Killer Waves Page 20