"Had. He got away. His own people wasted him."
"What did you get out of him?" asked Smith in a sharp voice.
"'Ga to hell, bloody Yank.' Unquote."
"No Frenchman would say 'Yank.' He would say 'anglo.'"
"You know better than me," said Remo. "His accent wasn't particularly French, either. It was more Irish or Scottish."
"Which? Irish or Scottish?" asked Smith eagerly.
"Search me."
"Was it a brogue or a burr?"
Remo's forehead wrinkled up. "I know what a brogue is, but what's a burr?"
"Scotsmen speak in a burr. Irishmen affect a brogue. Was what you heard a brogue?"
"Kinda."
"You must be certain, Remo. This is important. If it was not a brogue, it must have been a burr."
"You'd have to hum a few bars."
Smith made a noise in his throat.
"No, it wasn't like that."
"I was not attempting a burr," Smith test testily. "I was clearing my throat."
"Whatever you were doing, it was kinda in the ballpark, but not exactly right."
"Never mind," said Smith, his voice tart.
"Listen, Smitty," Remo continued, "the sub went down with all hands. They could have saved themselves but they didn't want to."
"Only a very determined crew chooses death over capture."
"We're looking at professionals, all right."
Smith was silent for the better part of a minute. "Return to land," he finally snapped.
"Can't. We're still on search-and-rescue duty."
"I will fix that."
"That's up to you. Want me to hand the phone over to Lieutenant Queeg here?"
"No," Smith said sharply. "I will do this through channels."
Less than fifteen minutes later the radio call came from the Coast Guard air station at Cape Cod.
"We've been ordered to return to port," Sparks reported.
"The way this wind is picking up, I'm surprised you could hear them through all that static," Sandy remarked, casting a weather eye toward the cumulus clouds that scudded across the sky like a flock of dirty scared sheep.
"What static?" asked Sparks.
"I'll show you."
In the radio shack Sandy tried to raise Cape Cod. She was having trouble being heard over the ball of crumpled paper she was holding up to the mike.
"Say again?" she shouted "I'm getting interference."
"If that's static, I'm a penguin," a voice called back.
"I can't hear you."
"Then stop squeezing whatever it is you're squeezing."
"Coast Guard Station Cape Cod. Come in, Cape Cod. You're breaking up. This is CGC Cayuga Come in, Cape Cod."
"Your passengers are urgently required on land, Heckman, and if my ass is in a sling over this, your ass is in an even bigger sling," a radio voice barked.
At the radio shack door, Remo said, "We're in no big rush."
Sandy snapped off the radio set. "Make sure that's your story when we make landfall."
"You're a real grateful sailor."
"I'm a professional on a search-and-rescue mission who's wondering what the hell is going on out here."
"You know as much as we do," said Remo.
Back on deck the wind was biting. As they raced through the turbulent green-gray waters, Sandy took up a bow position and was scanning the threatening horizon with her binoculars.
"There's big trouble on the horizon," Sandy muttered half under her breath.
Remo looked in the direction she had her binoculars trained. Chiun did, too. Neither of them saw anything unusual.
"What are you looking at?" asked Remo.
"Nothing in particular. I'm thinking out loud. We're smack in the middle of what may be the battleground for the twenty-first century the way these waters have been overfished."
"Maybe."
"Look around you. Show me the difference between sovereign Canadian waters and U.S."
"Can't. It all looks the same to me."
"How about international waters? Can you tell it apart from the others?"
"No," Remo admitted.
"No. Not by color of sea or sky. Not by the crinkling of the waves. Nor by the peaks of the waves or the depths of the troughs or the taste of the salt spray. You can't fence it off or build on it or grow food on it, but you're looking at something that other nations have fought over before. The right to take fish. NAFO's got this area treatied up pretty well now, but it can't hold. The center cannot hold."
"What center?" asked Chiun.
"Figure of speech. NAFO treaties stipulate the takings. But the way the groundfish stocks are dwindling, it's only a matter of time before those treaties are discarded. People have to eat. And fishermen are going to fish. It's in their blood."
"Don't you mean NATO?" asked Remo.
"No. NATO's the North American Treaty Organization. NAFO stands for Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization."
"Never heard of it," grunted Remo.
"You will. Everyone will. When I joined the Coast Guard out of Ketchikan, I thought I'd be rescuing boaters and breathing clean salt air. Instead I ended up chasing drug runners and gun runners and trading shots with low-life scum who figured it was better to burn their own boats to the waterline than be boarded. Finally I got so sick of it I requested to transfer to Atlantic duty. I have a feeling deep in my nautical bones that I'm on the front line in the next great global war, and before long all this foggy salt air is going to be full of hot, burned gunpowder."
"Not a chance," said Remo. "People don't kill over fish."
Sandy looked at him steadily. "You were down there. See much life?"
"No."
"Seafloor looked like it had been dredged clean, correct?"
"Yeah. But it's winter."
"Where do you think the fish are? Wintering off Florida? Hah! The big factory ships just come along with nets the size of football fields, weighted down with chain and tires, and scoop everything up. The fish they don't want, they throw back dead. They call that the by-catch. Only now people have to eat by-catch trawler trash because the prime fish are gone."
"It's a big ocean and it's not the only one," Remo said defensively.
"Today was Fort Sumter. Tomorrow we'll have Pearl Harbor," Sandy replied, turning her gaze back on the seemingly limitless sea. "And it's happening the world over. The Pacific salmon catch is verging on collapse. In the Gulf of Mexico red snapper is down. Russian trawlers are trading shots with Japanese and Korean poachers in the Sea of Okhotsk. The Scots are shooting at Russians in their waters. French and English destroyers have faced off over Channel Islands fishing rights. So have Norway and Iceland up in the Arctic. The Palestinians and Israelis are at each other's throats in the Mediterranean over grouper. The marine food web is coming part, and we're all responsible."
"Fishmongers!" Chiun hissed venomously. "I will not be denied my rightful share of the ocean's bounty."
"Another port heard from," Sandy said quietly.
Remo said nothing. He was thinking of how close he had come to being fish food.
AS DUSK DESCENDED, they came upon a great gray ship.
"Take a look," Sandy said. "You are looking at the prime reason fisheries are falling to ruin. That's a factory ship. A floating butcher shop for unlucky fish."
Remo sniffed the air. "I can smell it."
Sandy trained her glasses on the gray vessel's fat stern. "Let's see if she belongs in these waters or not."
Remo read the stern. "Hareng Saur?"
"French," said Sandy.
"What's it mean?"
"Don't know. My French is stuck in the fourth grade."
Remo looked down at the Master of Sinanju. "Little Father?"
Chiun's hazel eyes were on the name on the boat's stern. "Pah! It is only a red herring."
"What's that supposed to mean?" said Remo.
"That is the name of the vessel. Red Herring."
Sandy made a face. "
Strange. I never heard of red herring."
"Nor have I. I do not care for herring. Too many bones."
"A red herring is a fake clue in a mystery story," said Remo. "What kind of ship would have a name like that?"
"A ship of death," grunted Sandy, turning her field glasses elsewhere.
They left the Hareng Saur behind them, where it was swallowed by the gray of the sea and the lowering leaden sky.
An hour later the sonar scope started to ping strangely.
"What's wrong with this thing?" the helmsman wondered aloud.
Sandy Heckman took one look and said, "The scope's blank. It's pinging."
She grabbed up a set of hydrophones. "It's even worse on this." She listened intently.
Chiun leaned in, interest on his parchment mask of a face.
"Pingers," Sandy said, snapping her fingers suddenly.
"Is that like static for sonar?" asked Remo.
"You'll see." She lifted her voice. "All engines stop. Bring out the grapples."
Floating over the spot minutes later, they lowered grappling hooks, swirling them around until they encountered drag, and winched them up.
Up came a clump of netting festooned with seaweed and orange flotation balls and two wooden panels the size of doors.
"Otter net," Sandy said, examining it. "Looks like it was cut or released in an awful hurry. Only a few cod in the cod end."
"So what made the pinging?" Remo inquired.
Sandy fingered a small electrical stud sewn into the net.
"See these? They're radio transmitters called pingers. They're attached to the nets to scare off porpoises. Environmental regulations mandate them to keep porpoises from getting caught with the cod."
"Very wise," said Chiun.
"Think this is off the missing boat?" asked Remo.
"I'd bet my sea legs on it," Sandy said. "The Santo Fado was in this area." She stood up. "Maybe it still is."
They trolled the area until the sonar scope came up with a big undersea contact.
They lowered an underwater camera by a cable and found the wreck.
"That's it. The Santo Fado. No sign of storm damage. Maybe a big wave capsized her."
"So where are the crew?" asked Remo.
"Maybe drowned. Hypothermia got them otherwise. Bad way to go. All alone in the drink with no hope of rescue." She frowned. "Still and all, they should have gotten off a distress signal."
Ordering the underwater camera recalled, Sandy Heckman gave the order to return to the Cape Cod Coast Guard station.
"So," Remo said after the cutter was charging back toward land, "you interested in dinner when we get back?"
"No."
"How about a movie?"
"Not a chance."
"Then I suppose sex is out, too?"
Sandy Heckman looked at Remo as if he were a bug. "I wouldn't have sex with you if you came with a winning lottery ticket."
Remo grinned. "Great."
She looked at him, then stomped off.
After she disappeared below, the Master of Sinanju joined Remo at the rail.
"I cannot believe your crudity. That was inexcusable," Chiun scolded.
"Had to make sure it was the shark scent and not her sweet disposition," said Remo happily.
"If you desire a woman who does not desire you, take her. Do not ask. Asking is the same as apologizing. It shows weakness. Women are not attracted to weakness, not that it matters what they want or do not want. Unless, of course, you intend to marry the female you desire. Wives matter. Other women do not."
"I'll keep that in mind. Meanwhile I'm enjoying a break from being chased around the quarterdeck."
"It will wear off," Chiun warned.
"There's plenty more shark in the sea ...."
"You will eat duck until I say otherwise," Chiun said darkly.
Chapter 19
Harold Smith sat on the horns of a dilemma.
In actual fact he sat in the cracked leather executive's chair with his back to Long Island Sound and his pinched, patrician face washed by the amber glow of his computer terminal.
Smith was waiting for the medical examiner's report on the body pulled out of the Atlantic by the Cutter Cayuga. While he waited, he created a simple table of organization.
What had begun with the inexplicable sinking of the Korean fishing vessel Ingo Pungo had apparently been going on for some time. Smith saw that clearly now. Commercial-fishing-vessel losses were at a twelve-year high. Statistically that was significant. The winter had been cold, but not particularly stormy.
The list of lost vessels filled the screen:
Maria D.
Eliese A.
Rimwracked II
Doreen G.
Miss Fortune
Mary Rita
Jeannie I
Santo Fado
All had been lost without a trace. All had vanished in a period of less than six weeks. No survivors found. The whitefaced corpse now being autopsied by the Barnstable County medical examiner in Cape Cod was the first. And the turbot inserted into his rectum was at least as significant as the blue fleur-de-lis smeared on his dead face.
Up in Canada, Parti Quebecois separatists were inching toward another referendum on separation. It was impossible to say this many months before the event whether it would result in the secession of Quebec from the rest of Canada. It wasn't impossible.
In Ottawa the Canadian federal government was busy appeasing the separatists. This was only causing English Canada to grow more resentful of French-speaking Canada.
The political situation was approaching flash point once more. Even if Quebec did not secede this time, there would be another referendum in another year or two at most. Not even the efforts of the current French-speaking prime minister could stave off that storm forever.
For U.S. concerns, this had serious ramifications. Quebec was a major trading partner with New England. A significant amount of its electrical power was purchased from Quebec Hydro. Beyond that, the most stable nation on the U.S. border-the longest undefended border in world history-threatened to come apart. In the most civilized country of the modern world, civil war wasn't out of the question.
The prospects were difficult at best. Unforeseeable. And it was the unforeseeable that was most troubling. Secessionist rumblings were starting to be felt in British Columbia, the westernmost Canadian province. Created by the enormous distance from Ottawa, resentment had been fueled by the federal decision to closely curtail the Pacific salmon fisheries, throwing many out of work, just as the Maritime crisis had devastated the economies of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland in the east.
Smith's thoughts veered back to the matter of the submarine christened Fier D'Etre des Grenouilles. It seemed incredible that a naval vessel manned by French or French-speaking crew would adopt such an undignified name. But Smith had punched up the phrase on his computer. And up had popped the fact-intelligence was too serious a term for the datum-that it was the name of a saloon song popular in France. It was possible the song had migrated to Quebec. Probable, in fact.
Smith accessed the Jane's Fighting Ships data base for the names of Canadian navy submarines.
The list was short. Canada did not have much of a military in geopolitical terms. There were only three subs:
The Whitehorse/Le Chevalblanc
The Yellowknife/Le Couteaujaune
Le Jacques Cartier/The John Carter
Smith blinked at the list. It indicated twice as many ships as Jane's reported. Then he noticed that the slash mark separating both columns, and recalled the federal law designed to appease French-speaking Canadians that required all Canadian signs and labels to carry bilingual names. The submarines, already commissioned when the law had been passed by the Canadian parliament, had been renamed with the most appropriate English and French equivalent names permissible.
"Absurd," Smith muttered. But there was no other explanation.
But none of the vessels had been designated Fier D'
Etre des Grenouilles/Proud to be Frogs.
The French submarine fleet had no such vessel, Smith quickly determined.
Smith decided to look elsewhere. The more links the better. There were too many threads that went nowhere.
Using a paint-box program, Smith created a white fleur-de-lis against the blue background and executed a global search of the World Wide Web, using multiple-search engines. It was a very long shot. He wasn't accustomed to searching for iconography, only language strings. He didn't anticipate useful results.
Smith was astounded three minutes into the execution when the Altavista search engine displayed a wire-service photo of the previous Quebec secessionist referendum. An AP color photo showed two supporters wearing white greasepaint on their faces. The blue fleur-de-lis spread over mouth, lips and both cheeks just as Remo had described.
"Could it be this simple?" Smith muttered.
He decided it was time to bring this matter to the attention of the Oval Office.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. was feeling relaxed. It was the first time he felt really, truly relaxed in a very long time. The election was behind him. The campaign over. The long swim out of perilous political white waters to clear, untroubled seas was at last over.
Now all he had to do was survive the next four years.
From the standpoint of midwinter, it looked pretty good. Better than he expected, in fact.
Then his beeper beeped. The beeper was tied into a baby monitor up in the Lincoln Bedroom. But it wasn't monitoring a baby but a fire-engine red telephone nestled in an end table next to the bed Abraham Lincoln had slept in so many Chief Executives ago.
Snapping off the beeper, the President took the cramped White House elevator to the top floor and locked the Lincoln Bedroom door behind him.
"Yes?" he said into the red receiver.
The President recognized the tight, lemony voice. He did not know where Dr. Smith held forth, only that in times of crisis he could be counted on.
Smith calling him was another matter.
"Do we have a crisis?" the President asked in a hoarse, hushed tone.
"I do not know," Harold Smith said frankly.
The President relaxed. "Then everything is all right?"
"No."
"Explain."
Harold Smith cleared his throat. His voice was respectful but not awed. It was the voice of a man whose government position was all but unassailable. Rather like the White House valet staff. Presidents came and went. True continuity lay in those who knew where the keys were and how to change the White House fuses. Harold Smith, appointed in secret by a previous President, could not be fired or replaced. CURE could be disbanded by presidential decree, but to date no President had had the courage to issue that order.
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