Vice Admiral E. G. Hastings turned around slowly as he took in the view from the center of the flight deck of the aircraft carrier Yorktown. "You've done a hell of a job," he said. "Even the deck surfaces look perfect. I noticed on my last inspection that some spots had begun to erode badly."
"That's correct, sir," Paul Talbot answered as he nodded in agreement. "In this case, the restoration wasn't purely cosmetic. An irregular deck surface is dangerous to the visitors." Talbot gestured toward a group of schoolchildren who marched across the deck a dozen feet in front of them.
"Yes. Of course." Admiral Hastings tilted his head back and took another look at the Island's superstructure. Satisfied that nothing had been added to the old warship to diminish its dignity — that was the official purpose of his periodic visits — he began to walk slowly toward the string of yellow arrows painted on the deck that marked the route of the Yorktown's self-guided tour. "I have to give you high marks for your attention to detail. Of all the vessels under my jurisdiction, the Yorktown is the best."
"Thank you. I've got good people." Talbot squirmed slightly, then changed the subject, "With the State behind the project, it makes this a great deal easier."
"The radio station, too." Hastings pointed toward the glass-enclosed area thirty feet above them on the aft side of the bridge. "Placing the State-owned public broadcasting station up there was a good utilization of space. I've recommended similar cross-functioning for other members of the association, but none of them have yet to act on the idea."
"It's worked well for us." Talbot glanced up at the row of angled windows above him. He could see the reflection of the station's panel lights and the dark silhouette of the announcer as he hunched forward in his chair.
"The arrangement has worked well because you've made it work. I can see that your personal efforts were behind it," Hastings added with a smile. He enjoyed complimenting Talbot. Of all the directors of technical standards of the exhibit ships, Paul Talbot was the best. He was a tall, thin man in his early sixties who had managed to blend the caution and intelligence of his many years with the innovations of someone far younger. Talbot was the most courteous, most cooperative, most technically competent technical director that Hastings dealt with. He was also ex-Navy, a retired chief, as the Admiral recalled. "These periodic trips to Charleston have become my favorite duty."
"It's nice of you to say that."
"But don't quote me," Hastings added with a laugh. "I'm not supposed to show any favoritism."
"I understand completely." Talbot forced a smile.
"You'd be surprised," Hastings continued as he began to walk ahead slowly, "how many stupid requests we get from the other members of the Historic Ships Association." He reached the hatchway in the Island's superstructure and stepped inside. "Too many of the governing boards want to turn these exhibits into nothing but circus sideshows. We can't permit that."
"Of course not." Talbot lingered at the hatchway for an instant before he stepped inside. He turned and glanced once more at the group of schoolchildren on the deck as they swarmed around the display aircraft on the port side. A young boy standing by the empty tail hole where the jet fighter's engine had once been caught Talbot's attention. The young boy had a certain quality about him that made him look like his grandson Keith. It wasn't so much any physical resemblance as it was the way he stood, the way he moved his head and poked quizzically at the rusting hulk that once was an airplane. Talbot sighed, shook his head imperceptibly, then turned and followed Vice Admiral Hastings inside.
"How is the engine room renovation going?" Hastings maneuvered himself behind a group of elderly visitors bunched at the throat of the passageway that led below-decks. The two men edged forward slowly.
"It's going very well." Talbot could hear the growing tightness in his own voice. Relax. Stay calm. The last thing he needed was for the Department of Navy representative to poke around in the engine room. Everything would probably appear ordinary enough, but there was no sense taking any chances. Hastings was sharp and he might spot the subtle differences. "It's one hell of a mess right now. Paint and grease. Puddles of oil."
"I can imagine." Admiral Hastings followed an overweight woman in a faded yellow dress as they began to descend the passageway steps. "We'll need to inspect that section before you put it on the official tour. If it's not far enough along right now, I'll have to come back."
"That would be best." Talbot's stomach muscles relaxed and he wiped a thin bead of perspiration off his pale, drawn face. "I'll notify you within the next thirty days."
"That'll be fine." Hastings reached the bottom of the passageway, turned toward the hatch that led to the hangar deck and stepped through it. "Be certain to give me plenty of advance notice. My schedule's pretty tight."
"I'll do that, sir." Talbot stepped behind the admiral and the two men looked up and down the hangar deck. The brightly colored pennants and flags draped from the overhead beams swung rhythmically in the slight draft that blew through the 800-foot length of the Yorktown's below-decks work area. A group of teenage boys huddled over the three brightly painted green torpedoes that surrounded the old Navy prop airplane parked on this end of the hangar deck. Several teenage girls stood a dozen feet behind the boys and giggled among themselves. Talbot strummed his fingers against the flashlight that dangled from his belt, then cleared his throat. "It there anything else you'd like to see?" He wanted, very badly, to have the Admiral satisfied with the technical end of his tour. Then he'd be able to deliver him back to the big shots upstairs. It was ironic that the Admiral had selected this particular week to do an inspection of the Yorktown. Deep down, Talbot knew it was an ominous sign, a mystical signal of some sort. Yet there was nothing he could do about it. It was too late.
"There is one more thing," the Admiral said as he turned around. "A personal thing."
"Sure." Talbot's heart began to beat rapidly again. "Whatever you'd like."
"That's very nice of you." Admiral Hastings took Talbot's arm and guided him gently toward a far bulkhead on the starboard side of the hangar deck. They walked around the bulkhead, then stepped over a security chain with a sign on it that said visitors were not allowed beyond that point. "Did I ever mention to you that I once served on this ship?"
"Yessir, I believe you did mention it once." Talbot could see from the gleam in Hastings' eye that he was about to hear that story again. But that would be okay, a welcomed diversion. Talbot wondered for a brief instant if Hastings remembered their discussion a year before when he had mentioned his own career in the Navy. Probably not. Officers — especially the high-ranking ones — had little recall of what the enlisted men had done, retired or otherwise. "What year did you first begin your tour of duty on the Yorktown?" Talbot asked politely, even though he thought he remembered the date.
"Nineteen fifty-six. I was a junior officer. I bunked in boys' town." Hastings steered Talbot through a restricted hatchway and out to the catwalk on the starboard side. The afternoon sun had ducked behind a growing layer of clouds to the west and the sky was bathed in a bright but one-dimensional glow. The two men edged forward along the narrow catwalk. "We called the junior officers' quarters boys' town. We were all kids, fresh out of the academy."
"Really?"
"Yes."
Talbot stepped around a puddle of water that lay in their path, then continued down the catwalk behind Hastings. He glanced up at the sky. The weather forecast seemed accurate so far. The cloud layers had increased rapidly since noon and, hopefully, it would begin — as predicted — to rain by nightfall. "Those bunks are up here somewhere, aren't they?" Talbot asked, even though he knew exactly where they were and what the nickname for the area had been. Although he had never served on the Yorktown before she was decommissioned and given to the State of South Carolina in 1975, his first shipboard combat duty had been on a sister-carrier, the Essex, during the fall of '44.
"That's right. My old bunk isn't far. I'd like to see it again."
"Certainly." Talbot ran his hand along the deck edging plates as they moved forward along the catwalk. During his thirty years in the Navy he had served on a great many ships, first as an enlisted man and then as a chief. But none of those years evoked as many memories as did those early days on the carrier Essex. He had served on the Essex during the Battle of the Philippine Sea when he was barely twenty-three years old — long before he had met Charlotte, years before they would have Amy. Talbot shivered at the rush of discomfiting associations those memories evoked. He quickly pushed them out of his mind.
"Boys' town was in here." Admiral Hastings stepped up to the heavy gray metal door, yanked on the lever to retract its latches, then pushed against it. The door creaked noisily as it slowly swung open. "This is the spot." The admiral stepped inside.
"Do you want my flashlight?" Talbot asked as he followed through the hatch.
"Yes." Hastings took the flashlight and clicked it on. "The forecastle deck, forward of the elevator trunk," he said, as if he were repeating a set of road instructions. Yet his voice had acquired a hushed, almost sepulchral tone. The Admiral led the way through the chipping gray-painted passageways which, with every passing step, became darker and darker. Soon they were totally dependent on the narrow white beam from the flashlight.
"I'm sorry we don't have the interior lights working in this section, Admiral. I think there's a wiring problem."
"Quite all right." They turned a corner, stepped over a doorsill and stood inside an enclosed area. Hastings swept the beam from the flashlight around in a slow arc several times before he finally turned back to Talbot. "This is it. No question about it." He reached out and touched the frame of the bunk that leaned against the wall. "This was mine. Fleming was to my right, Anderson below." Hastings allowed his gaze to wander around the cramped room. "It seems even smaller than I remember it."
"It always does."
"Right." Admiral Hastings cleared his throat, more out of embarrassment than for any other reason. "If you'd do me a favor..." he said, his voice trailing off as he reached into his pocket. He pulled out a small Japanese camera and handed it to Talbot. "It's for my grandson. He's studying World War II in school. When I told him that I once served on this ship — it's a ship he's read about — he begged me to get a picture of myself standing next to where I slept." Hastings shrugged his shoulders; there was a sheepish grin on his face. "I know it's foolish, I hope you understand..."
Without replying, Paul Talbot took the camera and stepped back across the room. He was out of range of the flashlight's beam and well into the darkness.
"Take a few of them," Hastings said as he leaned awkwardly against his old bunk. "The automatic flash will adjust for the bad light."
Talbot nodded, again without answering, even though he knew that the Admiral couldn't see him where he stood. Talbot put the camera to his eye and looked through the viewfinder. My grandson begged me. He clicked off one, two, then three pictures in rapid succession, hardly realizing whether or not he had aimed the camera properly.
"Take a few more. If you don't mind." Hastings changed his pose.
Talbot did not bother to respond at all this time. He kept the camera up to his eye and continued to work with the view-finder. But no matter how hard he tried to clear it, the image remained blurred and indistinct. My beloved grandsons. God help them. God help me. Paul Talbot raised his hand and wiped at his eyes, but as soon as he did they would blur again. His eyes overflowed their heavy load of tears.
<>
Dominick Trombetta glanced up at the wall clock, then out the window. The night sky was crystal clear, and beyond the group of floodlights that covered the terminal buildings, he could see the bright half-moon as it began to rise. It was a nice evening in New York, but according to McClure it was raining like hell in Charleston. Good. That was the condition they needed before they could go ahead with the plan. Trombetta thanked God that it was almost over for him — he hadn't slept worth a damn for the last week, and hadn't slept soundly for the past six months, not since he had agreed to go along with McClure.
"Here's the rundown on what we've got packed in the security section."
"Thanks." Trombetta reached for the stack of papers that Tom Baizley had brought in and, shuffling through them quickly, saw that none of them affected the things he had already planned for or the steps that still remained to be done.
"Are we going to move the security-class material tonight?" Baizley ran his fingers along the worn edge of Trombetta's desk as he shifted his weight. Normally, he wouldn't have questioned the boss about how and when they intended to transport valuable material, but he was getting too much heat from the men on the floor. "The security room is packed to the rafters. The guys say they can't fit another single thing in there." Baizley pointed his thumb toward the closed door that led to the main floor of Trans-American's airfreight warehouse. "They say we haven't moved a piece of that crap for the last three days."
Without looking up, Trombetta leaned back in his seat and slowly removed the half-rimmed reading glasses from where they had hung low on his nose. "Is that so?" he asked, in a tone that made it obvious he wasn't asking a question. He ran his hand through the small tufts of white hair that remained as a frame to his aged face and bald skull. Once he had turned sixty, Dominick Trombetta had grown increasingly weary and older looking almost daily, and he could sense that he didn't have too many years left. If he stayed with this job until he was sixty-five — three long years away — he didn't think he'd live much past his retirement. But he couldn't afford to retire early and take the cut in benefits. That was why he had listened to McClure that first time six months before, why he had done what he already had — and why he would tonight do the things that still remained.
Baizley cleared his throat. "They tell me," he repeated, not knowing what else he could say, "that we haven't moved a piece of that security-class material this week. Not since last Friday." Baizley had been off Tuesday and Wednesday, and he had been amazed that the security room was even more stuffed with valuable cargo when he came back for the Thursday shift. "When the boys suggested that I look into the security room, I was surprised to see as much as I did."
Trombetta turned and frowned, as much from the nervous rumblings in his stomach as the need to appear annoyed at any intrusions into his private domain. The scheduling of the movements of security-class cargo was solely the responsibility of the department supervisor. That was Trombetta, as it had been for the last dozen years. "Do the boys on the floor have any other suggestions? Have they been opening those crates and peeking inside? Have they been taking free samples again?"
"No. Of course not." Baizley was visibly agitated, and he held his hands up to indicate that he didn't want to pursue that matter any further. There had been too many security violations in airline cargo operations in the past, particularly there at Kennedy Airport in New York. Not more than one year before, the FBI had caught a Trans-American employee dipping into a few of the shipments of gold coins. The shit had really hit the fan over that one. "My men know better than that. It's just..."
"I sure as hell hope they do." Trombetta rose from his desk and walked over to the window. He ran his hand along a film of dirt along the sash, then looked outside again at the tarmac before he turned back to Baizley. "For your information," he began, his tone as cold and abrupt as he could force it to be, "we're shipping it in the morning. All of it. On Flight 255."
"All of it?" Baizley glanced down at the paper in his hand, confirming what he already knew. "That flight goes from here to Chicago, then Denver and Seattle. What about the Los Angeles consignment? What about the stuff for 'Frisco?"
"That, too." Trombetta paused for the effect. Even though what he was doing was highly irregular, as the supervisor of Trans-American's airfreight it was well within his authority to route valuable cargo any way he chose. "The Los Angeles freight will connect to Flight 944 in Chicago. San Francisco can connect to 88."
"Why?" Baizley looked down at his paperwork again, then back at Trombetta. "I don't understand," he said, genuinely puzzled. "It doesn't make any sense, not when we've got non-stops to the coast. They leave within an hour of the same departure time as 255 does."
Trombetta forced himself to smile. "Here. Let me show you. You'll learn something." He stepped back to his desk and flipped open a large black book. He hoped to hell that Baizley didn't notice how his hand had begun to shake. Everything would depend on how convincing this explanation was — an explanation he knew would need to be given to the police more than once during the next few days. "You know the policy on moving valuable material. We need armed guards for every phase of the operation. But here, you can see," Trombetta continued as he pointed down the columns of the work chart that he had opened to, "that we're too thin on personnel. Barrett's on vacation. Gordon's out sick. Fogarty, Weber and Brewster are on compensation days." Trombetta paused to see how Baizley was taking it.
"I wondered why you gave so many men time off this week," Baizley said with a shrug. "The coverage looked too thin to me. I think I even told you so," he added in a neutral voice.
"You were right. I'd forgotten that I had promised all three of them. I didn't realize that we'd be getting in so many security shipments." Trombetta had known about this batch of gold shipments for weeks, but he could easily cover up his early knowledge of them. The bottom line was that he could be faulted for the bad scheduling of his guards, but that should be as far as any investigation into his involvement would go. At least he hoped so. "With everyone off, we can only cover one outbound security-class departure. I picked Flight 255 because a great deal of the cargo is going to Chicago and Denver anyway, and our Chicago station has enough staffing to cover the transfer flights for the material that goes on to the West Coast."
Baizley nodded. "I see. Okay. Have you notified Chicago yet, or do you want me to do it?"
"I was going to do it myself, but you go ahead." Trombetta patted his young assistant on the shoulder. "I want Chicago to be prepared." But none of that cargo will ever get that far. Not if McClure is half as smart as he says he is. Trombetta broke into a big, artificial smile. "I'll be real glad to finally get that security room emptied. I probably shouldn't have waited this long." If Baizley had brought the explanations for shipping everything on 255 so easily, Trombetta felt certain that he wouldn't have a bit of trouble with the police. "We've had too much of that valuable crap around here for too long. It's begging for a problem."
"I know. I'll be glad to get rid of it too." Baizley glanced down at his work sheet. "I'll have the boys load the security carts — it'll probably take two carts to carry it all — around five in the morning." Baizley peeked up at the clock. It was almost midnight, which meant that it was almost time for a coffee break. He would brief the men when their break was over.
"Fine." Trombetta nodded his agreement, then cautiously added the last point he still needed to cover. "I'll supervise the loading myself. I'll go over to the aircraft when our crews and the guards do. With a shipment this large, I want to be damn sure it gets on the right airplane."
Baizley laughed. "Sure. Be my guest, I don't blame you. I'd hate to be in your shoes if we somehow screwed up and sent three thousand pounds of gold in the wrong direction."
"Right." Trombetta glanced down at his desk drawer, where he had hidden the two small satchels that McClure had given him. He needed to place one of the satchels — the bigger one — inside one of the boxes of gold, but that would be easy enough to do when he went into the security room to check the shipping manifest. The second satchel, the smaller one with the bands of double-sided tape around it, would be placed inside the upper corner of the airplane's galley. He could do that unnoticed while the cargo men loaded the hold below. Then he would meet McClure, get paid the rest of the money he had earned and finally be done with it. Trombetta glanced at the clock, then out across the wet airport ramp and, finally, back at Baizley. "Once we get that security room emptied, we'll be back to business as usual. That should be one hell of a relief."
<>
Paul Talbot stood at the edge of the deck and watched the fog that surrounded the pier. It continued to thicken slowly. He shifted his weight, exhaled nervously, then glanced at his wristwatch again. It was five minutes past midnight. The evening-shift radio announcer would be on his way down from the bridge. Very soon after that, the operation would begin.
Talbot ran his fingers along the gray-painted steel of the Yorktown's hangar deck. He silently prayed that everything would go according to schedule. His resolve had slipped drastically during the last few days, and one more postponement would put him in the impossible position of needing to tell Yang that he didn't want to go through with it. The whole thing had become an insane nightmare — but one that he had no way out of. He knew that neither his wife, Charlotte, nor their daughter, Amy, would understand. But it was something he had to do anyway. There was no other way to begin to make up for the past — even this wouldn't be anywhere near enough. Nothing ever would. But at least after tomorrow, he might be able to look at himself in the mirror again.
"Has he left?"
Talbot whirled around toward the sound of the man's voice. From out of the darkness of the hangar deck he could make out a silhouetted figure coming toward him. "Keep your voice down," he whispered angrily. Yet even as he said it, Talbot knew it was an unnecessary precaution. It was already too late for any one person to stop them, even if that person figured out what was about to happen and why.
"Sure thing," Richard Yang answered nonchalantly as he swaggered up to where Talbot stood on the starboard elevator platform. "Stay cool. Everything's cool."
"Sure." Talbot's skin crawled as he watched that ever-present insolent smirk grow at the corners of Yang's mouth. If he were thirty years younger, Talbot knew that he would take a swing at this young Oriental half-breed bastard. Yang couldn't be more than twenty-eight years old, yet he acted as if he had already been around a lifetime. Two lifetimes. "How are things below?" Talbot asked to change the subject. He had to face the facts; he was sixty-three years old. Too old to have any options left.
"Like I said, everything's cool."
"Does that mean that we're on schedule? No problems?" Talbot had allowed his exasperation to surface, and he worked very hard to try to keep control of his voice.
"Sure does, pop." Yang smiled maliciously. "Everything's cool."
"Fine." Talbot knew that his dislike for them — Yang and his group of madmen — was too strong to keep buried. He never should have dealt with them to start with. This crew of theirs — no, wrong word, it was no more than an undisciplined mob of misfits and lunatics — was impossible to work with. He was glad that, except for Yang, they all avoided him whenever they could. Yang's orders, probably. Just as well. Talbot turned to ask Yang a technical question about the progress below-decks when he heard footsteps echo through the empty hangar deck. "Someone's coming."
The two men turned and faced the growing, rhythmic sound as it vibrated off the cavernous hangar deck of the deserted aircraft carrier. It came from somewhere toward the bow, near where most of the exhibit aircraft and the movie theater were.
"Don't be worried," Yang said in a low but bored voice. "It's very normal that we should be here. He won't suspect a thing." Yang removed his eyeglasses, rubbed his eyes, then carefully hooked the wire half-circles around one ear then the other. The old-fashioned round silver frames glistened brightly where they poked through the tangled strands of his black and curly hair. Yang turned to face Talbot squarely. "Try not to look so nervous, pop. It's not fitting for a man in your position."
"Go to hell." Talbot watched as a solitary figure in the distance approached out of the shadows where the torpedo exhibit stood.
"Hello," the young radio announcer called as he noticed the two men standing ahead of him near the gangplank. "Working late, huh?"
"We've got final cleanups to finish before our new engine room parts are delivered at the end of the week," Talbot answered, using precisely the words that Yang had told him to use. "We want to have that engine room opened to the public within the next few weeks."
"Good. When it's open, I'd like to see it."
"Certainly."
The young man gave a friendly nod as he stepped around the two men. There was a stack of records under one of his arms, a raincoat under the other. "Looks like I'll need this," he said. He tried to put his raincoat on with one arm and after two records slipped from under his other arm he dropped the rest of the stack on a nearby table, put the slicker on correctly and then piled the records back under his arm. "Crummy night."
"Been raining steadily for the past few hours," Yang added. "Fog, too. Going to be a bitch driving home."
"Sure will be." The young man gave a polite wave with his free hand as he stepped quickly out from under the protective overhang of the Yorktown's flight deck and into the wind and rain. In a few seconds he was across the gangplank, down the wooden stairs and onto the expansive concrete pier that led to the parking lot.
Talbot and Yang stood silently as they watched the young man disappear into the bleakness of the rain-swollen night. Yang cleared his throat. "Perfect so far," he said. Even Yang had found it hard to believe that the moment had finally arrived. "Thirty more minutes should do it. We'll buzz the bridge when everything is ready."
"Okay." There was nothing else for Talbot to say, it had all been gone over a thousand times. He looked out into the night sky and wondered, for the millionth time since it had begun, if he were doing the right thing.
"Please," Yang said, his arm extended in an exaggerated gesture of politeness, "after you — Captain." He had overemphasized the last word enough to make it sound as sarcastic as he had intended.
Without saying a word, Paul Talbot turned and walked briskly into the overlapping shadows of the bow section of the hangar deck, the sound of his footsteps amplified by the acoustics of the metal ceiling and walls. By the time he had gone past the entrance to the ammunition elevator, he heard Yang's footsteps fade in the distance toward the stern of the ship.
Talbot stopped where he was. He took a deep breath. He knew he was the only person in the forward end of the Yorktown, that the other six were down in the engine and boiler rooms. Seven people onboard a ship large enough to accommodate 4,000 men. Talbot shivered, then glanced at his wrist-watch. There would be at least twenty-five more minutes before he had anything else to do. The last thing he wanted now was free time — time to think, time to reconsider, time to feel another surge of the guilt that had become so much a part of him. Instead, Talbot turned slowly around to look at what lay before him on the hangar deck, at sights he knew so well that he could have seen them with his eyes closed.
The white paint on the ceiling's big iron crossbeams had begun to flake slightly, but the paint on the corrugated wall panels still looked fresh. The colorful pennants that hung from above — signal flags, actually — gave the hangar deck too much of a carnival appearance, at least for Talbot's taste. The two airplanes on his left — World War II vintage — shone in their new coats of deep-blue paint, their engines sprayed a bright silver, their propellers handsomely polished. Talbot began to walk forward slowly, past the arrow of the visitor's sign that pointed toward the right, for those who wanted to go topside to tour the flight deck and the bridge. Ahead of him, where the elevator trunk once was, were the curved panels of masonry he had helped erect a few years before in order to set aside that area as the visitor's movie theater.
Talbot stopped. He let his gaze roam among the groups of plaques and photographs that lined the outside wall, a collection of Yorktown memorabilia that parents would read to their bored children while everyone waited for the next movie to start. Although the fathers might sometimes find the plaques interesting, the kids couldn't be pacified so easily. The kids wanted to get inside to see the actual combat movies of World War II — movies that were taken from the deck of the Yorktown.
Action newsreels of the old fighter airplanes — aircraft just like the two parked on the hangar deck behind Talbot — were shown launching in droves to go out on their missions. Pictures of the landings, too, with some of the aircraft torn up so badly by combat damage that the touchdown on the carrier's deck was hardly more than a controlled crash. Pictures of the pilots — those whose aircraft hadn't flipped over and burned on the landing, or skidded off the deck and into the water — being hauled out of their mangled airplanes, their life vests covered with blood, their young faces contorted in pain. The lucky ones.
There were also pictures of the Japanese. A wave of kamikaze aircraft — looking at first like no more than specks of dirt on the film, but growing rapidly with every passing moment — plunged headlong through the surrealist curtain of antiaircraft flack being sent up by the Yorktown and its escorts. In one remarkable sequence, a kamikaze pilot got so close to the Yorktown that you could make out the pilot's face in the cockpit. But the Japanese pilot had aimed slightly too far aft and high and, instead of crashing into the carrier's deck, he had passed harmlessly over the fantail and then crashed into the sea. All for honor and glory — all for nothing.
Talbot closed his eyes. Suddenly he could see Keith and Thomas sitting beside him, watching that same combat movie for the third or fourth time in succession, saying almost the identical things during each showing. That had been as recently as a year ago last summer, which was only a month or two before.... Talbot forced his eyes open, then turned and walked hastily toward where the arrow pointed to the steps that led to the bridge. He moved through the deserted passageways quickly, and soon found himself on the catwalk along the port side of the Island. He continued forward and entered the bridge.
Talbot made a cursory check to see that everything was exactly as he had left it. His coffee cup, empty for the moment, was in its holder beside the captain's chair in the forward left corner of the bridge. In the center of the room the control panel beside the helmsman's wheel still appeared to be functioning normally — and he could see that the interphone to the engine room was still turned on. The portable electronic devices Yang had brought aboard that night — the small radar set, the voice transmitter, the depth gauge — were lined up on the ledge beneath the row of windows that surrounded him. Talbot lifted his head and glanced outside. The weather, if anything, had gotten worse. There was nothing to see outside but fog and rain. Even the flight deck, no more than thirty feet below him, was nearly invisible through the dense swirls of gray mist.
Talbot turned and peeked into the captain's sea cabin, another spot he had allocated for himself so he wouldn't need to leave the bridge for any reason. Everything in that tiny cabin — the supply of food and water, the pillow and blanket, his toilet articles, the portable tape player that Amy had given him on his sixtieth birthday — were in place.
The interphone from the engine room buzzed once. Talbot took a step toward it, then stopped. He allowed it to buzz a second time before he finally picked it up. "Bridge."
"We're ready down here, pop."
"Good." Talbot looked around the bridge one more time, as if there was something else he needed to check, as if there was one more thing to do before he could go ahead. Yang's voice had sounded hollow and scratchy in the interphone, but there was no mistaking his arrogance. "Are both the boilers on line?" he asked. "Are the generators putting out okay? We can't take time later for electrical problems."
"Listen, pop," Yang answered. There was marked annoyance in his voice. "When I say that everything's ready, I mean everything's ready."
"Very well. Have Davis blow the ballast tanks. In the sequence we discussed. We may do some damage to the pier pilings, but it shouldn't be very much."
"I don't give a shit about the pier pilings. How's the radar working?"
"It seems to work fine." Talbot peered at the tiny ten-inch screen, a unit from a small airplane, he had been told. "I don't see any targets. It looks clear."
"Great." The sound of Yang's laughter filled the interphone line. "Then it sure sounds to me — you'll pardon me for the pun, pop — but it sure sounds to me as if we're going to be in for some clear sailing."
<>
Lee Burdick chugged ahead in his old Ford, the engine laboring under the need to keep itself throttled down because of his slow forward speed. The drive from his apartment in downtown Charleston to Patriot's Point seldom took more than fifteen minutes, especially at these early morning hours. Because of the weather, Burdick had allowed himself an extra ten — and he realized now that ten minutes might prove to be too little. As the old Ford climbed the incline of the Silas Pearman Bridge, he repeatedly rode both the gas pedal and the brake to keep his speed below twenty miles an hour. Someday he would need to get the engine and transmission adjusted or, better yet, buy a new car.
Although the rain had tapered off to no more than a misty drizzle, the fog was so thick that Burdick couldn't see much farther ahead than a few of the roadway's white strips. It was quarter to six already, and he still hadn't opened the station, hadn't warmed up his equipment, hadn't made his morning coffee. Okay, he would need to readjust his schedule. He decided he would play the Haydn symphony first, so then he'd have time to at least get the coffee made before he did much talking. He mulled over a few witty remarks about the morning fog to use on the show.
Burdick drove down the exit ramp, then steered carefully through the back streets. Within a few minutes he had entered the deserted Patriot's Point parking lot. The wide expanse of unmarked blacktop made it even harder for him to keep his bearings, and twice he almost ran off into the grass before he realized what part of the lot he was in. Burdick parked the Ford across from the entrance turnstile. The red, white and blue markings of the admission booth were no more than dimly visible through the fog, although the booth was hardly thirty feet away. He turned off the car's ignition, scooped up his notepad and records, then hustled out of the car and toward the pier.
Haydn number 93. A Chopin Polonaise. Two of the Beethoven sonatas by Perlman and Ashkenazy. Burdick splashed through the puddles on the concrete pier as he walked rapidly, the remainder of the first hour's show running through his thoughts. Read the piece from The New York Times about Horowitz. Burdick's eyes were straight ahead. The fog by the water's edge was even thicker, and it swirled around him with a consistency that gave the feeling he could almost pull it apart with his hands. Do the fund drive promo at least once every hour.
Lee Burdick was half the way through his next step when his thoughts started to focus on what his eyes had begun to see. He took that last step, then stopped. His mouth opened. The records in his left hand fell out of his fingers and dropped noisily onto the concrete pier. Ahead of him, where the dock turned at a right angle to provide for the entrance to the wooden stairs that led to the gangplank, there was...
Nothing.
The gray vapors of fog rested on the surface of the glass-smooth sea. "What in God's name..." Burdick spun around and looked down the pier he had just walked, thinking that he must have somehow come down the wrong one. But he knew better. Impossible. There was only one pier at Patriot's Point. This is the only pier. Christ Almighty.
He vaulted to the edge of the dock and, in amazement, looked up and down its length. "Oh, my God." The sound of his excited, strained voice contrasted sharply with the placid quiet of the early morning and the soft lapping of the tide against the pilings. The Yorktown is gone.
Burdick rubbed his eyes. He couldn't believe it. Yet the evidence was unmistakable. The wooden steps were still there, but their edging had been torn away. Splinters of the shattered wood lay on the surface of the water below. A dozen severed cables — telephone lines, the electric service — dangled incongruously from the adjacent poles. The Yorktown is missing.
Lee Burdick stumbled backward. He moved once, then twice, in a random, spastic motion before he finally got his wits together enough to turn himself around. "God." He walked across the stack of records that had fallen out of his hand and onto the pier, but he didn't feel them beneath his feet or notice the noise they made as they cracked.
Burdick took one more glance over his shoulder before he began to run. He ran back down the pier. He needed to reach a telephone, someone, anyone, to report the most insane thing he had ever witnessed in his entire life. Gone. He couldn't imagine what he would say to whomever was the first person he spoke with. An ancient relic of an aircraft carrier — 900 feet long, 27,000 tons in weight, a permanent exhibit owned by the State of South Carolina — was gone. Missing. Vanished. Even though he had seen it with his own eyes, Lee Burdick wondered how in hell he would ever get even himself to believe it.