A Trace of Revenge

by Lyle Howard

  Stepping over four more crew members on the way to the control room, he realized that no one had been spared. His subordinates were lying limply draped over the chart table, the dim white light from below casting evil shadows across their contorted faces.

  Making his way up on deck, he found Ensign Hale curled up in the fetal position at the top of the stairway, his expression the same as the crewmen and technical staff below. He was checking his wristwatch when, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted it.

  It emerged out of the fog like a one-eyed leviathan. It was the Hydra, and not a moment too soon. The only running light was the one large spotlight above the helm. He could tell that the beam wasn’t on full power; it was just being used for navigation to prevent a collision with the Truman.

  They had better work fast, Sowell thought. If the gas burned off, they might be spotted by a commercial ship.

  The Hydra surprised Sowell with its stillness. Nearly twice as long as the Truman and undoubtedly faster, the Hydra smoothly pulled alongside the cutter, the huge rear fans dispersing the gas in immense whirlwinds that dissipated nearly a hundred yards behind the massive hydrofoil. The Hydra came about, turning its stern toward the Truman. Now the colossal rear fans were blowing directly at the Captain. At first, he thought the Hydra was turning to leave, but he soon caught on to the logic. He quickly braced himself for the onslaught of hurricane force winds, wrapping his elbows around the handrail.

  The Hydra’s fanbines were increased in power as the air brakes were applied at the hydrofoil’s bow. The result was monsoon force winds, which cleared any lingering gas from the deck of the Truman in a matter of seconds. The gas blew off to the west, carried by the trade winds far out into the ocean to eventually dissolve. It would be gone by sunrise.

  Sowell struggled to keep his footing on the slippery deck. He walked cautiously to the starboard side of his ship to help the boarding party from the Hydra. Within an hour he would be gone, and the crew would recover a few hours after that. In two weeks, he would have enough money to live out the few remaining months he had in a style he’d never even imagined. He owed it to himself; he was just a number to the Department of Homeland Security. When they found out about his cancer, they gave him two weeks leave. Now, he would leave them something to remember him by.

  Sowell moved to the railing and helped tie the two ships together. When the vessels were finally secured, a ramp emerged from the side of the Hydra. Sowell aided the Hydra crewmen in attaching the gangway to the Truman. Six men boarded the cutter and walked right past the Captain. None bothered with pleasantries; it was as if he didn’t exist. The men moved directly to the stern of the ship and their mission of removing all of the laser equipment.

  The two ships drifted silently in the water, bobbing up and down in the gentle swells. In the dim light, Sowell could just barely make out a figure on the bridge of the Hydra signaling him to come aboard. He stopped halfway across the gangway and tossed his gas mask into the water. It sank slowly and swayed methodically in the dark Atlantic until it settled onto the sandy silt nearly one hundred fifty feet below.

  “Welcome aboard the Hydra, Captain. Did everything go well?” Peter Mason asked as he swiveled the captain’s chair to face Sowell as he entered the control room.

  Captain Roy Sowell was rarely caught off guard, but Peter Mason himself at the helm of the Hydra had actually startled him.

  “I can see from your expression that you are surprised to see me running one of my own ships,” he smiled. “Not to worry. I’ve hired an entire staff of Norwegians to pilot my fleet of ships, but on special occasions such as this evening, I like to take them out for a spin personally.”

  Sowell toured slowly around the room, having never seen such sophisticated equipment. He had spent two tours of duty aboard a Trident submarine before accepting a promotion and switching branches of the service, but this technology was insane. “I don’t know if the test was a complete success, but the gas worked perfectly.”

  “We have all the confidence in the world that the test went off without a hitch; otherwise we would have left you out there with your crew.”

  “You don’t have to worry.”

  “I know I don’t,” Mason said, relaxing into the Captain’s chair. “Once the laser is secured, we’ll be on our way. We should be in Cockburn Town way before the sun comes up.”

  Sowell sounded shocked. “You can make it to the Turks and Caicos Islands by sunrise? That’s nearly nine hundred miles! Are you kidding me?”

  “Just watch this baby move once we hit top speed. With the seas as calm as they are tonight, we should be there with an hour to spare. The Hydra is the flagship of my hydrofoil fleet. She can fly like the wind and turn on a dime.”

  “This is truly an amazing vessel. Will you be selling any to the military?”

  Mason shook his head bitterly. “I wouldn’t sell anything to the Department of the Navy or any other department of the United States Government. The DEA threw the book at my father to set an example, while other families who were just as guilty walked away scot-free. Yeah, you could say I’ve got a bone to pick with our government, and tonight is just a small token of my loyalty.”

  Sowell stood over a piece of digital navigation equipment that used a three-dimensional display. “The Navy would pay a pretty penny for this new technology. I’m curious that they haven’t made an attempt to steal or seize it.”

  “Spoken like an honest military officer. Those are hard to come by.” Mason admitted. “No, this is strictly a passenger ship, privately owned. I won’t let anyone inspect her except for her monthly safety checks. This bridge is off limits. You are my honored guest here.”

  “Really remarkable,” Sowell said with the utmost reverence, as he peered out at the Truman. “You have every reason to sound like a proud papa.”

  Through the bridge window, Sowell spotted Ensign Hale’s body lying on the deck softly shrouded in the pale moonlight. The Truman looked like a ghost ship now, but by tomorrow afternoon, she would be back at the base, and the crew would be debriefed. They wouldn’t remember a thing. The Truman would be safe, but a little lighter and a little less expensive. By tomorrow night, once they realized he was missing, every government agency would have Sowell’s picture tacked on their bulletin boards, but he knew he’d be long dead before they ever caught up with him.

  A blinking semaphore signal coming from the deck of the Truman let Mason know that the transfer was completed.

  Sowell tried not to look at his old ship, but it was difficult not to. He was sorry for the pain and suffering he had put the technicians and the crew through, but by morning they would all be a bit queasy but otherwise healthy. The Ensign would be fully capable of getting the Truman back to port in Jacksonville. They might even think Sowell was lost at sea…for a while at least.

  Mason walked over and put his hand on Sowell’s shoulder to comfort him. The hand was cold and sent a chill through the Captain. “Are you ready to get underway?”

  Sowell nodded sadly without turning around. Mason picked up the microphone and let everyone aboard know that the Hydra was preparing to make way. The two ships were untied, and the Truman began to drift away aimlessly.

  Sowell couldn’t take his eyes off his Ensign lying prone on the deck as the Hydra backed off. He thought he saw the young man’s arm begin to move as the Truman floated further away. The hydrofoil turned slowly to port, and the fanbines started to spin faster. Sowell couldn’t believe how smooth the ride was. In an instant, there was over a mile between her and the Truman. Deciding to sit in the engineer’s seat, he was just starting to enjoy the trip when the ship began to slow down. The fanbines crept to a halt, and the Hydra started a slow turn to port. Now, Sowell could only make out the silhouette of the Truman from her running lights. They glowed like stars low on the horizon.

  Sowell looked over at Mason to see if something was wrong. Mason
never returned the stare; he was too busy holding a conversation with one of the crewmen below by radio. “And the depth beneath her is still seventeen hundred?”

  “Yes sir, but she’s drifting with the current,” came the response.

  Sowell assumed they were talking about the Hydra, but he would soon find out most horrifically that he was mistaken.

  The Truman sat alone on the sea like an orphaned child. She would return to port in shame. The Ensign’s career would probably be ruined.

  The next words Mason spoke would echo through Sowell’s mind for the rest of the time he had left in this life. He never expected to hear...

  “Do it now then!”

  Sowell looked on in terror as the explosion lifted the Truman out of the water amidships. The flames blossomed out of her side like a fiery orchid against the dark horizon. Shrapnel was blown out for hundreds of yards. It came down in an orange cascade of burning fuel. The Captain turned and looked at Mason with hatred in his eyes. “You never said anything about scuttling my ship! There were nearly fifty crew members aboard the Truman! That was mass murder!”

  Mason scratched the side of his face without the slightest hint of remorse or compunction. “No, Captain,” he began. “I’m just a businessman living in uncertain times who has to raise enough capital to build a baseball park bearing his family’s name. My motives are just that simple. As we speak, there are more than a dozen countries down on their knees bidding to make that dream a reality.”

  Sowell gritted his teeth. “So now you can add treason to your resume?”

  Peter Mason shrugged. “I guess you can take the pirate out of the family, but you can’t take the family out of the pirate.”

  Sowell fumed as he imagined Ensign Hale lying on the deck, starting to regain consciousness. Now, he was only a part of the molten mass of twisted metal sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic.

  It would probably be a day or two before the search and rescue teams were back to scour over the wreckage. It might be even longer before they would discover that the laser had been stolen and that the explosion aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Truman was more than just a horrific accident.

  That would be all the time that Roy Sowell would need.

  15

  As the sunrise painted the horizon in shades of yellow and orange, the Cyclone class cutter Intrepid glided through smooth seas at almost thirty knots. Unlike the Truman, this ship was built for speed. It was usually called upon to help in Coast Guard efforts to stop smugglers in the waters off the southeastern seaboard. The Intrepid was stripped of any unnecessary equipment which would hinder its ability to pursue the new ships being built for smuggling.

  Captain Richard Fitzpatrick paced on the foredeck as the crisp morning air rushed through his thick brown hair and beard. He gazed out at the emptiness of the ocean. In ten minutes, the Intrepid would be over the test site, and there was still no sign of the Truman. He picked up the intercom and called down for any radar contacts.

  “There’s nothing in the vicinity except for commercial traffic, Captain,” came the response. “Do you want us to run sonar?”

  Fitzpatrick hung his head. He knew what running the sonar check meant; besides, there were so many shipwrecks in this part of the ocean they could be chasing their tails for weeks. “Belay the sonar for now. Wait until we’re over the last known coordinates.”

  “That’s affirmative, Captain. We should be over the last position in approximately eight minutes.”

  “Very good, let me know when we’re close. I’ve got all eyes peeled for oil slicks and wreckage just in case.”

  Fitzpatrick could see a chain of reefs off to port where the water turned lighter and was more disturbed by the coral outcroppings. He prayed that the Truman had run aground, but the further out they traveled, the less likely those chances were. Just before leaving the base, Captain Fitzpatrick had been semi-briefed on the Truman’s situation. It had been nearly twenty-eight hours since the ship had sailed from port. His commanding officer had been very cryptic on the secrecy of Truman’s actual mission, but revealed that all of her communication equipment had been disabled or removed so she couldn’t be monitored by any foreign power. Inevitably, the Truman would have been spotted by reconnaissance aircraft at daybreak if they had hit a reef and run aground. He was surprised to find out that no such aircraft had been dispatched yet. The high command wanted to maintain secrecy as long as possible, and launching a conspicuous airborne search and rescue mission was not an option at this time. The investigation was still in its infancy, and there was a lot of ocean to explore.

  While he didn’t know Captain Roy Sowell personally, Fitzpatrick was aware of his distinguished reputation and had to assume that he was too good of a sailor to allow his two hundred foot cutter to misguidedly strike a reef and sink.

  The color of the water changed from light green where it was shallow to sapphire blue where it ran to its darkest depths. The Captain shielded his eyes from the bright sun, which was rapidly rising on the eastern horizon. He turned and looked up behind him at the railing of the bridge. He could just make out a pair of orange Coast Guard issue binoculars peering out at the ocean. “See anything, Ensign?” Fitzpatrick shouted above the wind.

  “Negative, Captain,” the Ensign replied, looking down over the railing. “We’re the only ones alive out here, sir.” The Ensign would have given his right eye not to have said what he did.

  “Mind your mouth, Ensign! When I want an editorial, I’ll watch the six o’clock news!” “I’m sorry, Captain, wrong choice of words.”

  Fitzpatrick turned back and watched the waves break across the bow. The last time he’d

  made a new wreck dive was an event he would never forget. A Navy cruiser was on a routine trip out of Norfolk when an engine fire caused an explosion at her stern. The blast ripped a hole in the hull the size of a small Toyota. The ship went down in two hundred feet of water in twelve minutes. Many of the crew members were caught below decks, still sleeping.

  When he had reached the wreck eight hours later, everything inside the ship had turned upside down like in the movie The Poseidon Adventure. Anything that wasn’t battened down was floating on the ceiling—including sailors. He had almost thrown up into his regulator when he first arrived at the wreck. To get in, he and another diver had had to use acetylene torches to cut open a waterproof hatch that had sealed itself automatically after the explosion. While the outside was secured, the compartment inside had still flooded: the inner bulkhead had been breached by the massive concussion of the blast.

  When they had finally managed to release the outside hatch, a grim procession of dead humanity floated through to the surface above. The sailors had been trying to get out when they drowned. There were nine of them, and they drifted out of the hatch in single file, one after another. It was a memory Fitzpatrick could never erase, and the sight of those men became more vivid the closer they got to the test site.

  The water surrounding the Intrepid began to turn a darker shade of blue as the bottom slowly began to slip away from the surface. “We’re almost there, Captain!” A voice came over the loudspeaker, as the cutter began to noticeably slow its forward progress. Fitzpatrick leaned over the bow railing and noticed that the water was becoming slick and oily. “Commence your scan, sonar.” He ordered.

  Less than a minute later, another voice boomed out of the squawk box above the Captain’s head. “This is Sonar, Captain. We have a large contact on the bottom, Sir!”

  He picked up the microphone and spoke down to the engineer.

  “All stop! Keep her right here.” The Captain looked up at the Ensign who was still scanning the area. “Do you see any signs of survivors or wreckage?”

  The Ensign cast his gaze off to the east and then slowly back to the west. “Nothing, sir. Wait...hold on. Two o’clock, sir. It looks like a body! It’s definitely a floater, sir. It’s wearing a
uniform!”

  Fitzpatrick reached down into a small storage hold and pulled out an identical set of binoculars. He tried to locate what the Ensign had spotted. The waves were pitching back and forth which was making it difficult to focus on one specific point in the dark water. Then he saw him, floating face up. He was off to port, about fifty yards. The body looked charred, the uniform shredded.

  A handful of the Intrepid’s rescue divers gathered out on deck to spot the body. The only sign of identification Fitzpatrick could recognize through the gently rolling swells was the officer’s insignia of rank. The crew of the Intrepid had recovered Ensign Hale.

  16

  A bright yellow inflatable was carefully lowered over the port side of the Intrepid to help with the rescue. Two seamen clad in fluorescent orange life vests climbed down a rope ladder to the tiny boat, where they attached a five-horsepower outboard motor securely to its stern. The little boat was tossed about by the swells bouncing off the cutter as she rolled gently in the dark, oily water.

  Fitzpatrick was almost ready, fully dressed in his bright yellow and black wetsuit when he heard the outboard engine kick to life. He stood up and awkwardly walked over to the railing with his flippers slapping the deck. Fitzpatrick was going to wait to slip on his fins until the body was brought on board. He called down to the two crewmembers that were pushing away from the Intrepid.

  “Look for any flotsam while you’re out there! Any scrap of wreckage that’s floating and you think you can handle, I want it brought back aboard!” The seamen acknowledged with waves of their hands. The Captain sat down on the deck and secured his diving knife around his right ankle. He looked over at his diving partner, who was checking out a high powered halogen light. They would need the most reliable light possible to see through all the oil in the water.