Trident Force (18 page)

With Captain Covington leading, the party proceeded up to the fantail, where an old barber's chair had been set up. Surrounding the barber's chair were eight veteran Rednoses, each with a big red nose and a long fake turtle flipper attached to one hand.

After settling onto his throne, King Neptune, who bore a strange resemblance to the ship's boatswain, welcomed all to his domain. He then ordered the polliwogs to form a line for their initiation.

The first batch of initiates was composed of the younger members of the ship's crew—those who had never crossed the line before. Dressed in their oldest, rattiest work clothes, they were ordered to run toward the king while being thoroughly hosed down with cold water. They were then directed to slow down and walk a gauntlet between two rows of Rednoses, who thwacked them with their flippers. Once they were past the gauntlet, their noses were painted red with face paint and they were sent below to dry off and warm up.

Predictably, the first passenger at the head of their line was Katie Sanders, followed by her parents. Before anything happened, each passenger participant was interviewed by Davy Jones—who bore a faint resemblance to the chief mate. Being the youngest person aboard, she was assigned a special initiation fee—instead of running across the deck, she had to walk like a penguin while a fine spray of chilly water soaked her. When she reached the gauntlet, giggling uncontrollably, she was greeted by a multitude of pats on the back from the Rednoses. When that ordeal was over, King Neptune touched her on each shoulder with a very dead fish of some sort and pronounced her a genuine Rednose, at which point her nose was painted. With a tremendous smile of pride, she turned to watch her parents jog side by side across the deck under the now-familiar spray. Once Dana's and Tim's noses had been redecorated, the show continued.

“Ms. Clark,” asked Davy Jones when Chrissie reached the head of the line, “how much of this would you like?”

“Everything, Davy, everything.”

Peter Evans and Penny insisted on the same, although Peter made a point of ensuring that the video cameras were running when he started.

Some passengers wanted more water, some less, and only about one-half participated, but all, participants and spectators, seemed to enjoy the event, and many a red nose was still visible at midnight.

As soon as the ceremony had been completed, King Neptune and his court returned to their kelpie realm and
Aurora
turned southeast, toward her first stop.

 

Jerry Andrews stopped next to the main reduction gear behind one of
Aurora
's two monster diesels—piles of metal so big that they didn't even look like engines—and looked forward. The engine room was incredibly noisy and hot as the two huge steel beasts pounded, causing the deck to quiver slightly, driving the ship forward and expending monumental amounts of energy in the process. The room was three stories high, ringed by catwalks, and every level was filled with things—the engines themselves, motors, pumps, boxes, tanks, lockers and an infinite number of pipes, conduits and wires. And between and behind every one of those things were spaces—spaces in which other things could be hidden.

As Jerry watched, twelve of the ship's engineers worked their way slowly through the space, looking between and behind things—looking for anything that they knew didn't belong there and then making check marks on lists. Then he watched Ted lowering a small transducer into a tank of pneumatic fluid. The transducer was connected to a specialized sonar unit that scanned the tank's inside wall so they could see if it matched the outside.

He and Ted had initially hoped they would be able to speed up the process by using their sensors for a preliminary survey, but problems had developed. Jerry's radiation detector had done its job by not sounding off once except when he'd first calibrated it. Unfortunately, Ted's sniffer—designed to detect a variety of molecules given off by various explosives—had proved utterly useless for surveying. There are an almost limitless number of oils and other solvents used aboard a ship. And the air in the engine room was full of them. Not only did many give off volatile molecules similar or identical to a variety of known explosives, but many could be used to make explosives themselves. Until something was found, neither the sniffer nor the small X-ray machine they'd brought would be of any use, reducing their high-tech arsenal to the Geiger counter and the sonar.

Despite the challenges, they'd already come across several items of interest—all of which turned out to be contraband. Three bottles of rum and half a dozen little caches of marijuana. Then one of the enginemen found a parcel wrapped in brown paper carefully hidden under a fixed air flask.

“Chief Andrews, I've found something,” shouted the man, waving as he did to get Jerry's attention in the cacophonous engine room.

Jerry hustled over, knelt down and studied the parcel for a moment. He then reached under the flask and pulled the parcel out. With a chuckle he opened it, revealing somebody's collection of pornographic magazines.

“Why the hell'd they bother to hide that?” asked one of the enginemen to nobody in particular.

Jerry just shrugged his shoulders

“That tank's clean,” shouted Ted as he walked over beside Andrews, still carrying the sonar unit. “You think this is getting us anywhere?”

“I think I wish we had more to go on.”

“Yeah. I'm with you. You think we'll be home by Christmas? Hannah's really going to be pissed if I miss another.”

“I sure as hell hope so. I think we all believed that since this counts as a shore-duty rotation we might be home from time to time.”

“Even Captain Chambers?”

“He got suckered along with the rest of us. Anybody look under the reduction gears?”

“I did. First place.”

“Just for the hell of it, let's take a walk down the shaft alley. See if we can find anything. If these guys find anything, the second engineer will beep us.”

“Why not!”

With Jerry leading, they walked behind the reduction gear and stepped onto the catwalk that led to the long, narrow space through which the propeller shafts made their almost two-hundred-foot trip to the propellers. As they followed the catwalk aft, they could sense the icy waters flowing past the steel plate on either side of them, as well as the churning under the stem as the propellers rotated, forcing the water to flow aft. Every now and then they stopped to look under or behind something. All the while the two eight-inch counter-rotating propeller shafts, their oily surfaces glistening slightly, spun on either side of them, making a very faint whirring sound as they passed through the bearings that supported them.

Suddenly Ted stopped.

“You got something?” asked Jerry.

Ted knelt down and shined his flashlight behind a bearing support.

“Hell no. It's just an empty beer bottle.”

 

Mike was sitting in his shared suite, eating a sandwich, when there was a knock on the door. With a twinge of irritation he put down the food and opened the door to find Rod Johnson, complete with plaid shirt, standing there, a look of anger on his face. “Mr. Johnson, please come in.”

Johnson nodded and entered, then came right to the point. “I understand you interrogated Linda Williams an hour or two ago. Gave her a hard time. Why?”

“Does she work for you?”

“Not directly. She's an ally.”

“She also has a conviction for committing a terrorist act.”

“That's open to debate.”

“As we discussed before, my people and I are here because there are hints, strong hints, that something is wrong aboard this ship. It may well be drugs—which is not of significant interest to us. It may also be terrorism, which is.”

“We're very sensitive with respect to terrorism. Remember, it was our ship the French government blew up about forty years ago, and it's our inflatables the whalers and tuna fishermen keep trying to sink. But what you're doing is beginning to look like harassment, an effort to torpedo this educational cruise. With every passing day, we have more and more friends in Washington, but we still have enemies. The Department of Defense, to name one. I think it would be best if you cleared it with me before talking to any of our people—or close friends.”

“Mr. Johnson, although I personally agree with much of what you people are pushing, I insist upon conducting this operation as I see fit.”

“By whose authority?”

“Captain Covington's.”

“I'll talk to the owners, then. They're very sympathetic to us.”

“I doubt they will interfere with their captain in a matter like this.”

“We will see,” snorted Johnson as he turned and walked out.

12

The Bellingshausen Sea

Using a cane borrowed from the ship's doctor to keep from toppling over, Ray Fuentes hobbled into the crew's lounge, looked around and spotted his target. “Ivan Singh?” he said as he approached a small, thin young man sitting in a corner, watching a soccer match on TV.

“Yes?” said Singh.

“May I see your mariner's card?”

“You one of the American navy guys doing the security check?”

“Yes,” replied Ray, thinking the blue coveralls must not be as self-explanatory as they seemed to him.

“Sure,” said Singh, standing and taking out his wallet.

Ray studied the card. It looked in order. For that matter, Singh had shown up on none of Alex's lists, except the crew list. And the list of Hensen's roommates.

“You're not a United States citizen,” observed Ray.

“No, I'm Argentine.”

“And you're an electrician?”

“No, an electronic tech, actually.”

“How long have you been on this ship?”

“This is my first trip. I joined her in Rio.” As he spoke, Singh's eyes returned periodically to the soccer match.

“How well did you know your roommate?”

“You mean my late roommate? Not very well, but well enough to know he was the ship's drug merchant.”

“Did you buy from him?”

“No. Of course not. But everybody knew that Hensen was the man.”

“What about your other roommate?”

“Swaboda? Hell no. He's young, like me . . . has a family and likes to think he has a future too.”

“You knew what he was doing but you didn't report it to Mr. Ellison or any of the officers?”

“I try to mind my own business. At least when it comes to other people fucking up their own lives. Anyway, talking about things like that can be dangerous.”

“Have any idea where he kept his inventory?”

“Not the slightest.”

“Not in your room?”

“I don't see how.”

“We'll have to look.”

“Of course, amigo.”

“Have you ever been in trouble with the law?”

“Whose?”

“Anybody's”

“A couple speeding tickets.”

“Did Hensen ever say anything about politics?”

“You mean did he talk like a terrorist? No, I don't think so. His only interest was money as far as I could tell. That's why I always kept my locker locked.”

“Did he have any special buddies?”

“Only his customers, and I don't imagine even they liked him. He was greedy and he liked to push people around just for the hell of it.”

You joined the ship in Rio. Did you know anybody at the Tecmar shipyard?”

“No, the ship had moved down to a commercial pier before I joined her.”

“How about Coccoli? Rojas? A guy named Omar?”

“No. Never heard of any of them. Your Spanish is very good.”

“I'm Puerto Rican. Just slumming with the gringos.”

“Sorry,” said Singh, smiling for the first time. “I shouldn't be so defensive. If you're here to check on security, then that must mean that we have a problem, and I haven't the slightest desire to be a victim. As I said, I've got a wife and kid and I still like both of them.”

“Can you think of anything you've heard, seen, smelled or even imagined that might help us determine if there is a problem and what it is?”

“No, I really can't. I mean, there're all sorts of oddballs in the crew—half of them, I'd say—but I wouldn't know where to start. A lot of the Latins think I'm a little strange with my turban and long hair. In India there're a lot of Singhs who the government suspects of being terrorists because they're Sikhs. But then there are millions of Singhs in India.”

“Okay. Thanks. If anything occurs to you, no matter how harebrained, please find me. I'm Fuentes, Ray Fuentes.” As he spoke, the marine pointed at his name on his coveralls.

“You can count on me. As I told you, I like things the way they are.”

 

Wrapped in a purple ski parka that might have been a little too large for her, along with a PFD on top, Katie Sanders held her mother's hand almost as tightly as she was holding her breath. “Hey, Mom, this is great,” she managed to whisper without seeming to exhale. “I think I can see them already.”

Aurora Australis
had anchored in the lee of a low, rocky islet about five hundred yards off the rocky, snow-covered, western shore of the Antarctic Peninsula. The temperature was well below freezing, but thanks to the islet, the sea was reduced to a nasty chop. Despite the waves' shrinkage, Captain Covington had twisted the ship across the wind to create an even greater lee on the port side. None of this mattered in the slightest to Katie. What mattered to Katie was that there were penguins ashore. And all sorts of other great and wonderful stuff.