Seaghost Read online

  SeaGhost

  William Lovejoy

  © William Lovejoy 1991

  William Lovejoy has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1991 by Avon Books.

  This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  As always, for Jane, Jodi, and David, and for Clete,

  who once shared twenty-eight days at sea with me

  Chapter 1

  0114 hours EST, Carr Bay, Maryland

  The light from a three-quarter moon left a blue-white trail on the black water to starboard. A mile ahead on the right, sodium vapor lights floated on the shoreline like yellow polka dots. A foggy haze obscured similar lamps on the coast to the left. Low-lying clouds hid the stars from the western horizon to almost directly overhead. Black on black.

  The Scarab gurgled along, piercing the bay and the blackness at less than ten knots, but McCory could feel the subdued vibration of the 350-cubic-inch V-8 engines in the steering wheel. A light breeze plucked at his shirt sleeves.

  White light of a marker buoy a quarter mile to starboard.

  “Jesus, Mac. Turn on the running lights.”

  “And have somebody spot us?”

  “And get out of here,” Daimler told him. “We get caught, it’s my ass.”

  “And mine.”

  “My boat. They’ll confiscate it, and I paid sixty grand, damn it!”

  “Not so loud, Ted. Sound carries.”

  “Shit! Look…”

  The night filled suddenly with halogen light off the port side, starkly bright. McCory was on stage again, high school production of The Man Who Came to Dinner.

  A bullhorn blared. “This is the U.S. Navy gunboat Antelope. You are in restricted waters. Heave to, and prepare to be boar…”

  McCory slammed his palm at the twin throttles, and the Scarab surged forward, leaped to the plane, and shot out of the floodlight.

  “Mac! Goddamn it, Mac! Shut her down!”

  He spun the wheel slightly and rolled into a broad turn to the right as the searchlight chased him, missing, going far to the left.

  The instrument panel was unlit, but McCory figured he had forty knots by the time he swung back to the left. The engines screamed, rising close to maximum revolutions. The coast on the starboard was much closer.

  The man controlling the searchlight would be looking for a wake.

  Whipping his head around, he saw the running lights of the gunboat illuminate as it rose to the chase. Sneaky bastard had come up on him unlit in the darkness of the fog. Probably had him on radar.

  Searchlight sweeping back, probing.

  Forty-five knots? The windstream tore at his shirt sleeves.

  “Goddamn it, Mac!”

  “We can outrun him!” McCory had to shout over the scream of the wind.

  “Not in here!”

  The gunboat was behind them to port and had the mile-wide mouth of Carr Bay covered. The bay would narrow rapidly on him from here on in. Already, the dim lights in the mist on the left coastline were becoming sharper.

  Daimler was right.

  A siren started to scream from the Antelope.

  “They’ll sink my boat!” Daimler yelled. He was getting panicky.

  Fifty knots? The Scarab could do it.

  The gunboat could only make a bit over forty knots, but it had time and space and angle for advantages. Probably calling his friends on the radio, too.

  McCory reached below the helmsman’s seat, found his blue plastic bag, and pulled it up onto his lap. Probing with his left hand, he located a fragmentation grenade, removed it, and rezipped the bag.

  He pulled the pin and tossed it overboard.

  The searchlight swung close, passing just off the port side. The coast was about a quarter mile off the starboard bow. Shallow waters ahead.

  McCory turned the helm left as soon as the light went behind him.

  Tapping Daimler on the right shoulder with his left hand, he held the grenade close enough for him to see.

  Daimler’s face was not visible, but McCory heard the man groan.

  “Hey, Ted!” McCory called. “What say we get out right here?”

  “You son of a bitch! Sixty thousand bucks!”

  The searchlight found the boat’s wake and raced toward them.

  McCory dropped the grenade.

  It bounced once, then rolled aft down the incline of the deck.

  He scrambled out of his seat listening to Daimler’s screams as the boat’s owner did his own scrambling. Hanging on tight to his plastic tote, McCory pulled himself up to the gunwale, rolled over it, and hit the bay on his back.

  At sixty miles per hour, he skipped like a flat stone six times before the water caught his leg, flipped him over, and dragged him down.

  When it came, the concussion hurt his ears.

  Chapter 2

  0118 hours, Carr Bay

  “Allah Akbar!” yelled the young man in the bow.

  Ibrahim Badr kept his own exclamation to himself. He had more self-discipline than the young Muhammed Hakkar.

  Still, the detonations were impressive. He gauged them to be almost two kilometers away, near the western coast. A boat or ship, of course. In the dark, the first explosion had been a flare, a blue-white visual crash that stunned eyes accustomed to the night, followed momentarily by deep thunder. The second explosion — fuel tanks, no doubt — was yellow-red. Flaming debris arced out of the center of the fiery maelstrom.

  Badr turned the handle throttle of the outboard motor to full idle. The rubber Zodiak boat slowed, skewed about, and bobbed in the light chop of the Chesapeake Bay. Far away to his left, he could see the lights of Annapolis struggling through the fog.

  The explosion receded and became simply fire on the water. The ship with the searchlight and siren — the one that had first caused him to retard his throttle — was slowing, moving in on the wreckage.

  “We must leave,” Hakkar said from his seat in the bow of the rubber boat.

  “It appears to be the best course,” Badr agreed.

  Already, the lights of another ship had appeared in the north, coming toward the scene of the fire — and toward them — at a fast pace.

  A night that had been so shining with promise had become a disaster.

  “And we must hurry,” Hakkar urged.

  “No,” the leader said. “We must think.”

  Too many of his subordinates were disadvantaged in the matter of thinking. They promoted action without thought, reacting on impulse to outside stimuli. They thought little of consequences and almost never developed credible or practical alternatives.

  “There is nothing to think about, Ibrahim Badr. We must try another time.”

  “But time grows short, young Muhammed, and opportunity slips away. Instead, we must remember that at the eye of the hurricane there is calm.”

  He could not see Hakkar’s face but knew there would be a grimace of disgust on it.

  “I do not know what you speak of.”

  Which is why it is I who am in command, Badr thought.

  “The hurricane is over there, and we are in the eye. We will take advantage of this diversion,” Badr said.

  He twisted the throttle grip and turned the bow of the Zodiak toward the west.

  *

  0121 hours

  Commander Martin Holloway stood to the left of his helmsman in the wheelhouse and looked down on the bows of his gunboat. The decks were crowded with crewmen, but few were gawking. His crew was well trained.

  Beyond, the flames were dying away as the flammable liquids were consumed. Tongues of fire reached a few feet off the surface. Several searchlights were in pl
ay now, their beams slicing the night, seeking whatever was left. The forward half of the civilian boat was still floating, but barely. As he watched, a deck hatch popped open from internal pressure, let the air escape, and the bow started sinking.

  “Mr. D’Angelo, let’s come to five knots.”

  “Aye sir, five knots.”

  “And, Jones, we’ll circle counter clockwise.”

  “Aye aye sir,” the helmsman said.

  “Mr. D’Angelo, contact Lieutenant Dyer on deck. He’s to put two boats out. We want survivors, and we want anything that will identify the intruder.”

  “Aye aye sir.” Chief Petty Officer Dennis D’Angelo turned to his intercom station.

  The phone on the bulkhead in front of him buzzed, and Holloway picked up.

  “Commander, Captain Norman of the Prebble wants to speak with you. He’s on Tac-Two.”

  The Prebble was a destroyer, probably the ship converging from the north. She had been around the bay for months, and Holloway supposed she was being outfitted with some kind of experimental gear.

  “Patch him through, then notify CINCLANT that we are investigating debris from an unknown civilian boat that exploded within restricted waters of the Research and Development Center. Explosion of undetermined origin. We did not, repeat, not, open fire.”

  “Aye aye sir.”

  Holloway waited for the two clicks, then said, “Captain Norman, Commander Holloway here.”

  “We’re bearing on you, Commander,” a gravel-filled voice told him. “What have you got?”

  “I’m not certain, Captain.” Holloway repeated the gist of the message that he had sent to the Commander in Chief of the Atlantic Fleet.

  “Pleasure boat?”

  “Yes sir. Forty feet, at least, and fast. My radar man said she was doing fifty-two knots when she exploded.”

  “Survivors?”

  “We’re just starting to circle the area. There are none as yet.”

  “All right, Commander. We’ll be joining you in about…four minutes.”

  Holloway hit the intercom button for the communications room. “Comm, Bridge.”

  “Comm. Milliken, sir.”

  “Milliken, send a copy of the CINCLANT message to the commander, Naval Ship Research and Development Center.”

  The center was the site of innumerable classified projects. Holloway had no idea what they were. His job was simply to patrol the area.

  By the time Lieutenant Dyer had his boats in the water, the destroyer Prebble had arrived, and the flames were almost extinguished. The two naval ships flooded the scene with their lights, but there were no bodies, or parts of bodies, to be found.

  *

  0127 hours

  McCory had abandoned his shoes, then unbuckled his belt, slipped it through the handle of the plastic bag, and rebuckled it. Swimming with the bundle dragging at his midsection was hard work, but he was a good swimmer. He had grown up in and on the waters around Fort Walton Beach, Florida, where the elder McCory, Devlin, had operated his marina. Kevin McCory was built for swimming, lean and long, with elongated and sinewy musculature. He was firm and hard, but he wouldn’t be mistaken for Mr. Atlas by anyone.

  The U.S. Navy was four hundred yards behind him, now two ships strong as they patrolled the spot where the Scarab had gone down. When he stopped to rest, dogpaddling in the oily water, he saw by their running lights that two launches were now cruising the waters closer to the western shore of the bay. The people commanding the small boats would naturally think that anyone who had lived through the explosion would head for the closest available land.

  Which was why he had struck out for the eastern shore.

  The bay waters were relatively calm, mediocre swells passing under him, bobbing him up and down a foot in either direction. To the east, the ships were clearly outlined against their own searchlights. To the west, the view was more forbidding. Dank. Mist hanging low. At the apex of a wave, he could see the diffused lights around the naval complex. It looked to be a long way off.

  Voices from the ships floated across the water, but he couldn’t decipher any meanings. The sounds and the words overlapped.

  He heard water slapping to his left.

  “Ted?”

  “Asshole.” Daimler’s voice was a stage whisper.

  “Glad you made it, buddy.” McCory started swimming toward the whisper.

  He found Daimler floating on his back twenty feet away and moved in close enough to see his friend’s face, a pale blob against the dark water.

  “You all right?”

  “Twisted my knee, I think. I’ll live, thank you. But I’m not sure I want to.”

  “Sure you do.”

  “Not in prison.”

  “We’re not going to prison.”

  “You son of a bitch. What’re you doing with grenades?”

  “Souvenirs. Happened to have them along.” In reality, he had chased down an arms dealer in Miami. Arms dealers in Miami were easy to find.

  Daimler mulled that over for a bit, then said, “You broke my boat.”

  McCory grinned, but it probably went unseen. “Insured, wasn’t it?”

  “You actually think I’d make a claim?”

  “I’ll buy you a new one.”

  “You don’t have any money.”

  “I’ll figure out something.”

  “Figure out how we’re getting out of here.”

  “What we want,” McCory said, “is Pier Nine.”

  “Pier Nine, what?”

  “Pier Nine of the Ship R&D center.”

  “You’re out of your everlovin’ mind, you know that?” Daimler continued to float on his back, taking deep breaths.

  “That’s where I was going to have you drop me off.”

  “Midnight boat ride, that’s what you told me. Just like college days, ol’ buddy, buddy.”

  McCory and Daimler had attended the University of Florida together, then spent four years in the Navy SEALS together, mostly in San Diego. A long time ago, it seemed now.

  “I could apologize, I guess,” McCory said.

  “Good goddamned start, but far short of need.”

  “Can you swim?”

  “How far?”

  “Less than a mile, looks like.”

  Daimler swung his head to look to the northwest. “You’re lying to me again.”

  “Maybe a little more than that.”

  “Shit. How come I owe you so much?”

  “You don’t owe me.”

  “The sheet’s going to be even after this, for damned sure. Let’s get going.”

  Daimler rolled over onto his stomach and launched himself toward an objective that could barely be seen in the dark and the fog.

  McCory watched the remembered easy, slow, and strong stroke until Daimler disappeared into the darkness, then he swam after him. There had been uncounted night operations, albeit training operations, when the two of them had parachuted into a similar situation, then swum side by side for miles.

  It took them nearly an hour, making four rest stops before they made landfall. And then it was the wrong place, Pier Seventeen. McCory figured out the right direction, and they swam parallel to the maze of docks and warehouses, a hundred yards offshore. The security lights spaced along the quay lit a skeletal array of cranes and booms, transfer platforms, and other equipment. They were eerie forms, almost alive in the writhing movement of the thin fog. Trucks and tractors were parked in haphazard fashion. Moored at the docks were a wide variety of vessels — a frigate, a missile cruiser, several destroyers, and smaller boats. Two hydrofoils. Something that looked like a miniature helicopter carrier, big enough to handle five or six choppers. He saw the glow of a cigarette near the bow of the cruiser, on board her.

  Behind them, over a mile away, a third ship had joined the search for ex-passengers aboard Daimler’s ex-boat.

  Through a gap between buildings, McCory saw a navy blue sedan pass by. Night patrol, maybe.

  He kept looking f
or SPs on foot, working the docks, but didn’t see any. Except for a possible personnel contingent aboard the cruiser, the place was as deserted as he had hoped it would be on a Friday night. He could hear the wave motion against the nearby concrete docks. There was a high level of fuel oil in the water. It burned his nostrils and made his hands feel slippery.

  Pier Nine was long and wide, about five hundred feet by a hundred feet, and enclosed. There were windows in the corrugated steel sides, but they were high above the surface of the bay. A faint glow from inside suggested someone had left a night-light on for them.

  “This is it?” Daimler whispered.

  “Yup.”

  “What is it?”

  “Follow me.”

  McCory breaststroked his way to the corner of the dock, studying the wall facing the bay. There was a large rollup door in the center of it, indicating that the pier was actually two fingered, with open water between the fingers, inside the building.

  It was.

  He had to dive six feet down to find the bottom edge of the door, pull himself under, then rise slowly until his head broke the surface inside.

  McCory used his left hand to wipe the polluted water from his eyes. His eyes were stinging badly. The inside of the building was partially lit from half a dozen ceiling-mounted bulbs.

  And there it was.

  Daimler’s head emerged soundlessly from the water beside him — the SEAL training had stayed with both of them.

  “Jesus Christ!” he whispered. “What in the hell is that, Mac?”

  “That’s mine.”

  “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

  “Come on.”

  McCory swam quietly toward a ladder mounted on the right side of the pier. The ladder rungs were of steel bar, bent into U-shapes, and sunk into the concrete of the pier. When he reached the ladder, he worked his way slowly out of the water, aware of the greasy water sluicing off of him. He moved slowly, diminishing the noise, alert to the movement of any guard. But there was no guard. This was a classified project, but not a high priority one.

  When he reached the top, five feet above water level, he rolled out onto the pier. His muscles yelled damnations at him, complaining about over-utilization. As Daimler climbed up beside him, dripping loudly, McCory unbuckled his belt and freed the plastic bag.