As he worked, Harold Smith wondered if this incident could have anything to do with the recent rash of missing fishing boats. There had been a surge in lost commercial-fishing vessels of late. He was aware of it because his ever-trolling system constantly offered up clusters of coincidences or related events for his analysis.
Smith had dismissed the cluster of lost vessels as occupational hazards of deep-water fishing during these lean times.
Now he wasn't so certain.
Chapter 14
Coast Guard Lieutenant Sandy Heckman didn't want to hear it.
A swab of a cadet came running up as she made sure the cutter Cayuga was ready to go out. The Cayuga had just returned to the Coast Guard air station at Cape Cod from search-and-rescue duty, and they were knocking the ice off her spidery electronics mast and superstructure while the hundred-and-ten-foot vessel was being refueled.
"The commander wants to see you in his office."
"Tell him the sea waits for no man or woman," Sandy retorted.
"It's important."
"So is search and rescue."
And Lieutenant Heckman went back to overseeing preparations to depart. She was in her glory. Unfortunately her glory meant that out there in the cruel ocean, there was a boat in distress.
This time her name was Santo Fado, an otter trawler out of Innsmouth and missing for thirty-six hours now.
There had been no distress call. That was a bad sign. The boat hadn't returned to port, nor had it been sighted or spotted adrift.
A Coast Guard Falcon surveillance jet was criss-crossing the North Atlantic looking for it. But jets can't land on water, so the entire complement of the Coast Guard stations at Cape Cod and Scituate were out there, too. White-hulled cutters and black-hulled buoy tenders and lifeboats and bright orange Jayhawk and Pelican helicopters.
After a day of around-the-clock searching, nothing had come to light. It didn't look good for the Santo Fado or her crew.
The cadet came huffing and puffing back, and this time the word was, "Commander is ordering you to the operations building."
"I'm about to go back out," Sandy protested.
"Someone else will take your watch. You're needed."
"God damn his hairy ass."
"Don't let him hear you say that. Sir."
"I don't care who hears me say it," Sandy snapped.
At the operations building, there was a white Falcon jet warming up, the diagonal red stripe of the U.S. Coast Guard on her forward fuselage and stabilizer.
An orderly said over the climbing engine whine, "You're on drop-master duty. Orders."
"What the hell is going on?"
"We have two VIPs. The commander wants to present the guard's prettiest face, I guess."
"Is that so? Well, I can fix that!"
Marching to the waiting Falcon, she mounted the air-stairs two at a time and thrust herself into the cabin. "Since when am I an airman!" she bellowed in her best fog-piercing voice.
A hand reached out and slammed her into a seat. Not hard, but very firmly. Sandy sat, very surprised.
The hatch was hauled up and the cabin closed. Whining, the Falcon moved out onto the main runway and, without any preliminaries, went screaming down its length and into the air.
Sandy was getting a good look at the VIPs as her bottom got over the shock of the sudden sit-down.
One was a skinny guy dressed for shooting summertime pool. The other was as old as the hills and dressed for a rousing game of mah-jongg. He looked Chinese, but he wore a turquoise Japanese-style kimono with facing sea horses on his thin chest. Out from his sleeve hems peeked the longest, wickedest fingernails Sandy had seen this side of Fu Manchu.
"I'm Remo Pike," said the tall white one. "This is Chiun." He showed her a card. It said National Marine Fisheries Service.
"So."
"We're looking for a submarine lurking out there."
"Whose sub?"
"That's the question of the hour."
"Isn't this more of a Navy mission?" Sandy demanded.
"We want this kept quiet."
"Look, all available CG vessels are on search-and-rescue duty right now. You're diverting important resources from their mission."
"No problem. While you search for a rescue, we'll look for our sub."
Sandy eyed the pair with what she hoped was her most skeptical look. "What's NMFS's interest in a submarine?"
"That's classified," said the one named Remo.
"All right," she declared, taking a jump seat next to a window. "You do your job and I'll do mine."
"No problem. The pilot has his orders."
"I swear, my commander must suffer from myxololus cerebralsis."
"Isn't that the stuff that regrows hair?"
"You're thinking of Monoxidil. Myxololus cerebralsis is Whirling Disease. Fish get it sometimes. They lose their orientation and just spin and flop out of control. I'm surprised you don't know that."
"We are new to the National Marines," said the Asian blandly.
Sandy said, "Uh-huh," and asked, "Ichthyologists?"