Cradle Read online

  ‘Just one,’ she said. ‘I would like to charter this boat for the afternoon. Are you Nick Williams?’

  He was taken by surprise. ‘Whaat?’ Nick said. At that minute Tennessee tied the basketball game again, distracting Nick even further. He watched the game for a couple of seconds and then tried to collect himself. ‘But I’ve had no calls from Julianne. Anyone who wants to charter a boat here at Hemingway has to sign in at the desk and….’

  ‘I came down to look at another boat first. I didn’t like it. So I stopped by here on the way back.’ Nick was watching the television again and Carol was losing her patience with him. At first he had been amusing. At least I don’t have to worry about his pawing me, she thought. The guy can’t even concentrate on me enough to get his boat chartered. ‘Look,’ she added, ‘do you want a charter for this afternoon or not?’

  The first half of the basketball game ended. ‘All right… I guess so,’ Nick said slowly, thinking to himself, only because I need the money. He gestured to Carol to descend on to the deck of the boat. ‘Let me just call Julianne and make sure you’re legit. You never know these days.’

  While Nick confirmed Carol’s identification with the marina headquarters, a jaunty young black man in his early twenties came down the jetty and stopped just opposite the Florida Queen. ‘Hey, Professor,’ he said, the moment Nick was off the phone, ‘am I in the wrong place?’ He motioned to Carol. ‘You didn’t tell me you were entertaining beauty, style, and class today. Wooee! Look at that jewellery. And that silk blouse. Should I go now and come back to hear your stories later?’ He winked at Carol. ‘He’s no good, angel. All his girlfriends eventually end up with me.’

  ‘Cut the crap, Jefferson,’ Nick said, ‘this woman is a potential customer. And you’re late, as usual. How do you expect me to run a charter dive boat when I don’t have any idea when or if my crew is going to show up?’

  ‘Professor’—the newcomer jumped down on the boat and walked up to Carol—‘if I had known that you had something that looked like this down here, I would have been here before dawn. Hello, there, young lady, my name is Troy Jefferson. I am the rest of the crew on this lunatic asylum of a boat.’

  Carol had been slightly discomfited by the arrival of Troy and the quick repartee that followed. But she adapted swiftly and regained her composure. She took Troy’s outstretched hand and smiled. He immediately leaned up and almost brushed his cheek against hers. ‘Oooeee.’ Troy pulled back grinning. ‘I just caught a whiff of Oscar de la Renta. Professor, didn’t I tell you this woman had class? Well, angel’—he looked at Carol in mock admiration—‘I just can’t tell you how much it means to me to finally meet up with someone like you on this tub. Usually we get old ladies, I mean old ladies, who want to—’

  ‘Enough, Jefferson,’ Nick interrupted him. ‘We have work to do. It’s almost noon already and we’re still at least half an hour away from being ready to leave. We don’t even know what Miss Dawson wants to do.’

  ‘Carol is fine,’ she said. She paused for a moment, assessing the two men in front of her. Might as well, Carol thought, nobody is going to suspect anything if I’m with these two. ‘Well, I told the desk that I wanted to go out to do some swimming and diving. But that’s only partially true. What I really want to do is go out here’ (she pulled a folded map out of her beach bag and showed them an area of about ten square miles in the Gulf of Mexico to the north of Key West) ‘and look for whales.’

  Nick’s brow furrowed. Troy peered over Carol’s shoulder at the map. ‘There have been numerous irregularities in the behaviour of whales in this area lately, including a major beaching at Deer Key this morning,’ Carol continued. ‘I want to see if I can find any pattern in their actions. I may need to do some diving, so one of you will have to accompany me. I assume that at least one of you is a licensed diver and that your dive gear is on board?’

  The two men regarded her with disbelieving stares. Carol felt on the defensive. ‘Really… I’m a reporter,’ she said as an explanation. ‘I work for the Miami Herald. I just did a story this morning on the Deer Key beaching.’

  Troy turned to Nick. ‘Okay, Professor, I guess we have a live charter here. One who says she wants to look for whales in the Gulf of Mexico. What do you say? Should we accept her money?’

  Nick shrugged his shoulders indifferently and Troy took it as assent. ‘All right, angel,’ Troy said to Carol, ‘we’ll be ready in half an hour. We’re both licensed divers if we’re really needed. Our gear is on board and we can get more for you. Why don’t you pay Julianne at the desk and get your things together.’

  Troy turned and walked over to the jumbled mess of electronics at the front of the boat. He picked up one of the boxes with its housing partially removed and began toying with it. Nick pulled another beer out of the refrigerator and opened the built-in counters, exposing racks of equipment. Carol did not move. After about twenty seconds Nick noticed that she was still there. ‘Well,’ he said in a tone of dismissal, ‘didn’t you hear Troy? We won’t be ready for half an hour.’ He turned around and walked toward the back of the boat.

  Troy looked up from his repair work. He was amused by the friction already developing between Nick and Carol. ‘Is he always so pleasant?’ Carol said to Troy, nodding in Nick’s direction. She was still smiling but her tone conveyed some irritation. ‘I have a few pieces of equipment that I want to bring on board. Can you give me a hand with it?’

  Thirty minutes later Troy and Carol returned to the Florida Queen. Troy was grinning and whistling ‘Zippity-Do-Dah’ as he pulled a cart down the jetty and came to a stop in front of the boat. A partially-filled footlocker was resting on the cart. Troy could hardly wait to see Nick’s face when he saw Carol’s ‘few pieces of equipment’. Troy was excited by the turn of events. He knew that this was no casual afternoon charter. Reporters, even successful ones (and Troy’s street intelligence had quickly informed him that Carol was not just an ordinary reporter), did not have everyday access to the kind of equipment that she was carrying. Already Troy was certain that the whale story was just a cover. But he wasn’t going to say anything just yet; he wanted to wait and see how things developed.

  Troy liked this confident young woman. There was no trace of superiority or prejudice in her manner. And she had a good sense of humour. After they had opened the back of her station wagon and she had showed him the footlocker full of equipment, Troy had demonstrated to Carol that he was fairly sophisticated about electronics. He had recognized immediately the MOI insignia on Dale’s ocean telescope and had even guessed the meaning of the MOI-IPL acronym on the back of the large monitor and data storage system. When he had looked at her for an explanation, Carol had just laughed and said, ‘So I need some help finding the whales. What can I say?’

  Carol and Troy had loaded the gear on the cart and wheeled it through the parking lot. She had been a little dismayed at first by Troy’s recognition of the equipment’s origin and his friendly, probing questions (which she handled adroitly with vague answers—she was helped by the fact that Troy wanted mostly to know how the electronics worked and she, in truth, didn’t have the foggiest idea). But as they talked, Carol developed a comfortable feeling about Troy. Her intuitive sense told her that Troy was an ally and could be counted on to be discreet with any important information.

  Carol had not, however, planned for a security check inside the Hemingway Marina headquarters. One of the primary selling points of the slips at the new marina had been the almost unparalleled security system offered the boat owners. Every person who went into or out of the marina had to pass through computerized gates adjacent to the headquarters building. A full listing of each individual entrance and exit, including the time of passage through the gate, was printed out each night and retained in the security office files as a precaution in case any suspicious or untoward events were reported.

  Matériel entering and leaving the marina was also routinely scrutinized (and logged) by the security chief to preve
nt the theft of expensive navigation equipment and other electronics. Carol was only mildly irked when, after she had paid for the charter, Julianne asked her to fill out a sheet describing the contents of the closed footlocker. But Carol really objected when the summoned security chief, a typical Boston Irish policeman who had retired in the Key West area, forced her to open the locker to verify the contents. Carol’s objections and Troy’s attempts to help her were to no avail. Rules were rules.

  Because the cart would not fit through the door into the adjacent security office, the footlocker was opened in the main clearing room of the marina headquarters. A couple of curious passers-by, including one giant, friendly woman about forty named Ellen (Troy knew her from somewhere, probably she was one of the boat owners, Carol thought), came over and watched while Officer O’Rourke carefully compared the contents of the locker with the list that Carol had prepared.

  Carol was a little rattled as she and Troy pulled the cart down the jetty toward the Florida Queen. She had hoped to attract as little attention as possible and she was now angry with herself for not anticipating the security check. Nick, meanwhile, after performing a few routine preparations on the boat and opening another beer, had become engrossed again in the basketball game. His beloved Harvard was now losing to Tennessee. He did not even hear Troy’s whistling until his crewman and Carol were just a few yards away.

  ‘Jesus,’ Nick turned around, ‘I thought you had gotten lost….’ His voice trailed off as he saw the cart and the footlocker. ‘What the fuck is that?’

  ‘It’s Miss Dawson’s equipment, Professor,’ Troy answered with a big grin. He reached into the locker, first picking up a cylinder with a clear glass face, a large object like a flashlight on a mounting bracket. It was about two feet long and weighed about twelve pounds. ‘Here, for example, is what she tells me is an ocean telescope. We attach it to the bottom of the boat by this bracket and it takes pictures that are displayed on this here television monitor and also stored on this other device, a recorder of some—’

  ‘Hold it,’ Nick interrupted Troy imperiously. Nick walked up the gangplank and stared incredulously into the locker. He shook his head and looked from Troy to Carol. ‘Do I have this right? We are supposed to set up all this shit just to go out into the Gulf for one afternoon to look for whales.’ He scowled at Troy. ‘Where is your head, Jefferson? This stuff is heavy, it will take time to set it up, and it’s already after noon.’

  ‘And as for you, sister,’ Nick continued, turning to Carol, ‘take your toys and your treasure map elsewhere. We know what you’re up to and we have more important things to do.’

  ‘Are you through?’ Carol shouted at Nick as he walked back down the gangplank on to the Florida Queen. He stopped and turned partially around. ‘Look, you asshole,’ Carol raged, giving vent to the frustration and anger that had been building inside her, ‘it is certainly your right to deny me the use of your boat. But it is not your right to act like God almighty and treat me or anyone else like shit just because I’m a woman and you feel like pushing somebody around.’ She stepped toward him. Nick backed up a step in the face of her continued offensive.

  ‘I told you that I want to look for whales and that’s what I intend to do. What you might think I’m doing is really of no significance to me. As for the important things that you have to do, you haven’t moved from that goddamn basketball game in the last hour, except to get more beer. If you’ll just stay out of the way, Troy and I can set all this gear in place in half an hour. And besides,’ Carol slowed down just a bit, starting to feel a little embarrassed about her outburst, ‘I have already paid for the charter and you know how hard it is to straighten out these computer credit card accounts.’

  ‘Oooeee, Professor,’ Troy grinned wickedly and winked at Carol. ‘Isn’t she something else?’ He stopped and became serious. ‘Look, Nick, we need the money, both of us. And I would be happy to help her. We can take off some of the excess diving gear if it’s necessary to balance the weight.’

  Nick walked back to the folding chair and the television. He took another drink from his beer and did not turn around to look at Carol and Troy. ‘All right,’ he said, somewhat reluctantly. ‘Get started. But if we’re not ready to sail by one o’clock it’s no deal.’ The basketball players swam in front of his eyes. Harvard had tied the game again. But this time he wasn’t watching. He was thinking about Carol’s outburst. I wonder if she’s right. I wonder if I do think that women are inferior. Or worse.

  5

  Commander Vernon Winters was trembling when he hung up the phone. He felt as if he had just seen a ghost. He threw his apple core in the wastebasket and reached in his pocket for one of his Pall Malls. Without thinking, he stood up and walked across the room to the large bay window that opened on to the grassy courtyard of the main administration building. Lunch hour had just finished at the US Naval Air Station. The crowds of young men and women heading either toward or away from the cafeteria had died out. A solitary young ensign was sitting on the grass reading a book, his back against a large tree.

  Commander Winters lit his untipped cigarette and inhaled deeply. He expelled the smoke with a rush and quickly took another breath. ‘Hey, Indiana,’ the voice had said two minutes before, ‘this is Randy. Remember me?’ As if he could ever forget that nasal baritone. And then, without waiting for an answer, the voice had materialized into an earnest face on the video monitor. Admiral Randolph Hilliard was sitting behind his desk in a large Pentagon office. ‘Good,’ he continued, ‘now we can see each other.’

  Hilliard had paused for a moment and then leaned forward toward the camera. ‘I was glad to hear that Duckett put you in charge of this Panther business. It could be nasty. We must find out what happened, quickly and with no publicity. Both the Secretary and I are counting on you.’

  What had he said in response to the admiral? Commander Winters couldn’t remember, but he assumed that it must have been all right. And he did remember the last few words, when Admiral Hilliard had said that he would call back for an update after the meeting on Friday afternoon. Winters had not heard that voice for almost eight years but the recognition was instantaneous. And the memories that flooded forth were just a few milliseconds behind.

  The commander took another drag from his cigarette and turned away from the window. He walked slowly across the room. His eyes slid across but did not see the lovely, soft print of the Renoir painting, ‘Deux Jeunes Filles au Piano’, that was the most prominent object on his office wall. It was his favourite painting. His wife and son had given him the special large reproduction for his fortieth birthday; usually several times a week he would stand in front of it and admire the beautiful composition. But two graceful young girls working on their afternoon piano lessons were not the order for the day.

  Vernon Winters sat back down at his desk and buried his face in his hands. Here it comes again, he thought, I can’t hold it back now, not after seeing Randy and hearing that voice. He looked around and then stubbed out the cigarette in the large ashtray on his desk. For a few moments he played aimlessly with the two small framed photographs on his desk (one was a portrait of a pale twelve-year-old boy together with a plain woman in her early forties; the other was a cast photo from the Key West Players’ production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, dated March 1993, in which Winters was dressed in a summer business suit). At length the commander put the photographs aside, leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and succumbed to the powerful pull of his memory. A curtain in his mind parted and he was transported to a clear, warm night almost eight years before, in early April of 1986. The first sound that he heard was the excited nasal voice of Lieutenant Randolph Hilliard.

  ‘Psst, Indiana, wake up. How can you be asleep? It’s Randy. We’ve got to talk. I’m so excited I could shit.’ Vernon Winters had only fallen asleep himself about an hour before. He unconsciously looked at his watch. Almost two o’clock. His friend stood next to his bunk, grinning from ear to ear. ‘Only three more h
ours and we attack. Finally we’re going to blast that Arab lunatic and terrorist supporter into heaven with Allah. Shit, big buddy, this is our moment. This is what we worked our whole life for.’

  Winters shook his head and began to come out of a deep sleep. It took him a moment to remember that he was on board the USS Nimitz off the coast of Libya. The first action of his military career was about to occur. ‘Look, Randy,’ Winters had said eventually (on that night almost eight years ago), ‘shouldn’t we be sleeping? What if the Libyans attack us tomorrow? We’ll have to be alert.’

  ‘Shit no,’ said his friend and fellow officer, helping him to sit up and handing him a cigarette, ‘those geeks will never attack someone who can fight. They’re terrorists. They only know how to fight unarmed people. The only one of them that has any guts is that Colonel Gaddafi and he’s nutty as a fruitcake. After we blow him to kingdom come, the battle will be over. Besides, I have enough adrenaline flowing that I could stay awake for thirty-six hours with no sweat.’

  Winters felt the nicotine coursing through his body. It reawakened the eager anticipation that he had finally conquered when he had fallen asleep an hour earlier. Randy was talking a blue streak. ‘I can’t believe how goddamn lucky we are. For six years I have been wondering how an officer can stand out, distinguish himself, you know, in peacetime. Now here we are. Some loonie plants a bomb in a club in Berlin and we just happen to be on duty in the Med. Talk about being in the right place at the right time. Shit. Think how many other midshipmen from our class would give their right nut to be here instead of us. Tomorrow we kill that crazy man and we’re on our way to captain, maybe even admiral, in five to eight years.’

  Winters reacted negatively to his friend’s suggestion that one of the benefits of the strike against Gaddafi would be an acceleration in their personal advancement. But he said nothing. He was already deep in his own private thoughts. He too was excited and he didn’t fully understand why. The excitement was similar to the way he had felt before the state quarter-finals in basketball in high school. But Lieutenant Winters couldn’t help wondering how much the excitement would be leavened by fear if they were preparing to engage in a real battle.