Oh me oh my but this was fun. Hope you like it. Time for tea, too.

Music? Spock’s Beard, Revelation. Then, I Know Your Secret.

5.7

Callahan and Sara stood the next watch – as Amaranth steamed past Roosevelt Island on the tide – then they rocketed through Hell Gate and up the East River, passing Rikers Island and LaGuardia before winding their way past Kings Point and then into Long Island Sound. Harry had been surprised how easy it was to steer such a massive boat, but then again he’d only been at the helm of smaller sailboats before, and such boats typically offered mechanical steering only. Amaranth’s was hydraulic, more like the power steering in a heavy automobile and as such the feel was easy and responsive; the experience had been relatively stress free – until they hit Hell Gate, anyway. There he’d run across swirling tidal eddies that tried to push the 120 foot boat around like it was a kid’s bathtub toy, and he and Sara had shared a few nervous moments, then a few nervous laughs after. And Callahan hadn’t been able to ignore the infamous prison complex on Rikers, with its manicured lawns lit up in the middle of the night like a football stadium, a million flood lights glinting off shards of razor wire that defined the limits of this vast network of cages. He decided the place reeked of Hate.

The sun was making its first appearance of the day when they passed the old lighthouse marking Execution Rocks, and the entrance to the Sound proper, and when Turner stepped up on the bridge Harry knew it was time to be relieved.

“That was almost fun,” Callahan said as Turner rubbed a little lingering sleep from his eyes. 

“Oh? How so?”

“That was my first time in New York,” Harry sighed. “It was an interesting way to see it, I guess.”

Turner seemed uninterested. “You have any idea when Mackenzie’s going to turn up?”

Callahan shrugged, then joined Sara heading down to the galley…but as he turned towards the stairs he heard Turner muttering “Asshole,” under his breath – which of course made Harry’s day.

“What do you feel like for breakfast,” Sara asked after they made it down to the galley.

“I’d like a little more of what we had yesterday.”

She smiled at that. “My, my, aren’t we feeling…”

“Young,” Callahan said, his smile incandescent.

“Exactly what I was thinking. But on a more practical level…”

He opened one of the massive Sub-Zero refrigerators and saw an unopened box of lump crabmeat and pulled that out, handing it to her as he rummaged around in the hydrator and pulled out some spinach and mushrooms. Eggs came next, then sourdough for toast.

“You want another Hollandaise?” she grinned.

“If you’re going to make it, then yeah, sure.”

She shook her head. “Why don’t you go see if the Richardsons are up.”

“Fuck them,” Callahan growled.

“Why do you hate them so, Harry?”

He shrugged. “I don’t trust people like him, Sara. The truth doesn’t come naturally to people like that.”

“The truth is important to you, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Everything falls apart without it, Sara.”

“Everything?”

“The Good in us falls apart.”

“Good?”

“The opposite of evil.”

“Ah. Are you sure that good and evil exist?”

He stood up straight and a stream of memories came back to him. Women spread out on sidewalks, beaten nearly to death by husbands or pimps. Drug dealers and serial killers…he’d seen them all…looked into their eyes before he killed them…

“Don’t you find that a little ironic, Harry?”

“Hm-m, what’s that?”

“You executed more than a few of those people, didn’t you? And yet you felt justified when you murdered them.”

“What?”

“I saw your thoughts, Harry. I just experienced what you experienced fifty years ago, through your eyes. I interpreted those experiences through your eyes, the memory of your feelings too…”

He turned and walked aft, out through the automatic doors and onto the aft deck, but she left him to confront the altered reality her abilities presented – because she felt the sudden flaring of his anger, then the helpless confusion that followed. 

Then she turned to the food he had given her and hoped he hadn’t lost his appetite, but she knew it was important that he remember such things, all the things he’d done as a cop – now, perhaps more than ever…

+++++

“That’s Fishers Island up there,” Turner said to Callahan as Amaranth made the turn north, a left turn towards New London, Connecticut. “Kind of exclusive, if you get my drift.”

Callahan shrugged. “Why are we putting in here?”

“Top off the tanks and get some fresh food onboard.”

“I thought we were going to hug the coast up to Maine?”

Turner shook his head. “Not now. We’ll bunker up here and head towards Nantucket, then turn for the Grand Banks. We’ll meet up with a couple of boats here then head out.”

“How much gas does this thing hold,” Harry asked.

“Not gas; diesel. And a lot, Harry.” Turner had received new orders from Mahoney two hours before, and he hadn’t had time to add all the new waypoints for New London into the chartplotter. Though the days were getting longer they’d arrive well after dark, and he’d asked for a Coast Guard escort into the fuel dock, conveniently located right across the Thames from the Electric Boat Division in Groton. 

Callahan was using the binoculars, sweeping the night ahead – looking for a red light flashing every two seconds – but with all the houses and cars along the shoreline it was hard to make out anything. “Okay, I think I have it. Compass in here says roughly 20 degrees,” he said, using the compass display inside the binoculars.

“That ought to be it, just keep in mind there are rocks and ledges on both sides of the channel so you can’t cheat and cut corners.”

“Okay, now I got that lighthouse on the ledge…”

“Which one?”

Harry looked at the plotter, then zoomed it in a little. “New London Ledge, between Red 2 and Red 4. Geesh, the depth there is like 6 feet in places…”

“And solid granite,” Turner added. “Too bad the sun isn’t out. It’s kind of a neat looking building.”

“There many sharks around here?” Callahan asked.

“Yup.”

“Great Whites?”

“Yup.”

“Swell.”

“Yeah, try not to fall overboard, okay?”

As they approached the ledge a Coast Guard 44 foot patrol boat pulled in alongside Amaranth and, as instructed, they maintained radio silence while both boats entered the main channel. At Green 9 they both turned towards the Coast Guard base at Fort Trumbull, and  Callahan saw that at least a half dozen people were waiting for them down on the long Navy pier that jutted out into the harbor. 

A small guided missile frigate was on the north side of the pier, so Turner used the thrusters to execute a 180, then he backed down on the south side of the pier. As soon as Amaranth was tied off Turner went down the checklist for shutting down the engines, then turned to Callahan. “You’d better head to your cabin now,” Turner said.

“Why? What’s up?” 

“SecDef’s down there. You probably don’t want to tangle with him.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“He’s kind of an asshole, Callahan.”

Harry grinned. “Oh goodie, that sounds like fun. Let’s go.”

Turner shook his head and sighed. “Okay, but you’ve been warned.”

Yet – before they could leave the bridge General Mahoney’s entourage had already come aboard Amaranth and was now streaming up the stairway from the main deck, so Callahan sat in one of the helm chairs and simply waited – with a mild grin waiting for anyone stupid enough to go after him.

But Mahoney came up and shook Turner’s hand before the general turned and looked over Callahan – in the same way a kid with a magnifying glass might look over an ant on the sidewalk. “So, you’re Callahan?”

“I am.”

“I went over your record on the way up. You were at Hue?”

“Yessir.”

“Got your Huey shot up out a C-Med?”

“That’s me.”

“That was some major league flying, Callahan, and I admire what you put together out in California. Not easy to start an airline.”

“Maybe not easy, but it sure was fun.”

“I bet. So tell me, and be honest with me if you can.”

“Sir?”

“You’ve met them,” he said, rolling his eyes skyward.”

“One or two, yessir.”

“And do you trust them?”

“Sir?”

“Do you trust them?”

“Sir, I trust Smith & Wesson but not a helluva lot more than that.”

Mahoney guffawed, turned red-faced and slapped Callahan on the back. “Damn, but I haven’t heard that one in a coon’s age.”

Callahan smiled – though he had no idea what a coon’s age was.

“So, do you really know where MacKenzie is?”

Callahan realized the general had been taking roundings on him, putting him at ease before the interrogation really got underway, so he just smiled – but he did not break eye contact.

Mahoney’s smile faded. “I really need to know, Mr. Callahan. We all do, the whole team does.”

Callahan nodded. “I understand.”

“But you’re not going to tell me, are you?”

Again, Harry just smiled – and that seemed to really piss off the general.

“Well, I brought along some folks who can get you to talk, in case you decide that’s the way you want to play this.”

Harry laughed at that. He laughed long and hard, then he stood up and made for the stairway.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going, Callahan?”

“I assumed you wanted to torture me somewhere else,” Harry said, still grinning, “or would you rather do it up here? Either one is fine with me.”

Mahoney shook his head, then turned to Jim Turner. “Okay, I guess he’ll do.” The general then held out his hand, and Callahan took it. “Take care out there, okay?”

Callahan nodded. “Yessir.”

After the entourage left Amaranth, Turner looked at Callahan and sighed. “Man, you are either one cool cucumber or one stupid sum-bitch…”

“Did you, by any chance, grow up in Texas?”

“Arkansas,” Turner said, and Callahan nodded as he rolled his eyes. “We’ll be pulling out of here in a half hour,” Turner added, “and you might want to stay up here on the bridge for a while.”

“Oh? What’s up?”

“Nothing…but this fog is getting dense and I could use an extra set of eyes when we leave, ya know?”

“Okay,” Harry said, then he turned and walked out onto the Portuguese bridge and took a deep breath of the chilly, far too humid air. The fog rolling was indeed thick, and within minutes water was running down the white GRP before running out scuppers, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. Something didn’t feel…right. Then on a hunch Callahan looked up and saw a little blue sphere hovering a few hundred feet overhead and he smiled. Then he heard men down on the dock working the fuel lines, finishing up filling Amaranth’s tanks, and a moment later he saw Mahoney walking off the yacht and into a waiting Suburban. His convoy disappeared into the fog, leaving Callahan alone with his thoughts. Again.

The door from the bridge opened and closed just then, and he felt Sara walk up to his side. She took his arm in hand then leaned into his shoulder, and he felt himself relax for a moment – though he wondered why. 

“You trust Smith & Wesson more than you trust me?” she said, her voice low and almost sultry. “Really?”

He chuckled at that little reminder of her abilities, then he pulled her close, wishing once again he was thirty years old, even if for just an hour or two. “When you get right down to it, I’d trust you with my life,” he whispered.

“Last night,” she said, “you were thinking about a man, when you were a cop, I think. You responded to a call, a family disturbance, and when you got there you found he’d beaten his wife and daughter to death, and once you’d walked through the house and seen what he’d done you just killed him. One shot, right in his neck, with that 44. Why, Harry. Why’d you do that?”

“Lawyers, Sara. After a while you figure out that lawyers can keep anyone out of jail – if you give ‘em enough money. But I was learning that some people are so evil they don’t deserve to live. They’re broken people, Sara, their souls have given in to pure evil, and after a while it got so I couldn’t stand the idea that people like that, that pure evil like that could walk around and do anything it wanted, and if they had enough money they didn’t face any consequences.”

“Interesting.”

“Interesting?” he sighed. “You think that’s interesting?”

“That sort of moral clarity is interesting to me.”

“To us, don’t you mean?”

“Yes. To us.”

“Why?” Callahan asked.

“It interests us because we’ve found that, among your people, there usually seems to be an unwillingness to act with such decisiveness. Hundreds, even thousands of years ago that was not the case.”

“But…you mean among humans, don’t you? Is that what you’re saying? Or is everyone everywhere like that?”

“Humans. I’m talking about human. And you.”

“So, what you’re saying…is that you represent a group of people that acts with that kind of moral clarity?”

“There are some among us who can, and do, but Harry, there are others, one group really, that can be very dangerous when they sense weakness. But then we have found that moral clarity is a strong defense against that kind of force.”

Harry had never heard her speak so directly about these things, and he wondered ‘why now’ and ‘something’s changed.’ He looked at her now, still holding him so close he couldn’t help but think she had real feelings for him, but what did that mean? What could that mean?

“You’re correct, Harry,” she said – and he kicked himself for not compartmentalizing his thoughts better, “things have changed between us. Things are changing even now. What you think of as new battle lines, these are being redrawn, alliances are shifting as once predictable outcomes, and alliances, grow less certain.”

“What was once predictable, Sara?”

She shrugged. “Harry, I don’t mean to hurt you, but I doubt you will live to see the outcome.”

“Because I’m old?”

“No. Because it is likely that you will fail.”

“And I’ll die?”

“Yes. That outcome now seems likely.”

“Do you mean just me, or do you mean humanity?”

She stepped away from him, but then she turned and ran her hand along his face – and while the gesture felt affectionate he wasn’t sure what she was doing, not really. He felt memories flashing through his mind and soon it almost felt like she was looking for something…like his mind was a catalogue of human emotion, and human frailty, that she could sift through at will.

“What are you doing, Sara?”

“I want to remember this moment,” she said – as a tear formed in her eye. “And I’d wish, really wish, Harry, that you will remember me, too. As we were, and as we might have been…”

“I’m curious, Sara. What are you when you aren’t human?”

She turned away for a moment, but then she turned back to face him – and now she simply stared into his eyes. He saw himself on the bridge just a few minutes ago, saw Mahoney asking him questions and he saw his responses to Mahoney through her eyes…then she smiled at him – just before she disappeared.

+++++

Callahan walked back into the bridge and took a seat in one of the two elevated helmsman’s chairs, and as he settled-in he took a deep breath. He knew he should feel something – maybe shock, maybe annoyance…something…anything – but when Sara winked out of this existence he suddenly found it hard to feel anything but loss. He sat there looking at all the instruments and displays that ran this little ship and he had to admit that he was forgetting how to feel. Anything. Least of all shock.

He heard someone coming up the stairs and saw Turner’s reflection in a display, and he looked exasperated.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked.

“I was down in Richardson’s stateroom, with him and Sumner and Eve…”

Turner paused, looked down and shook his head as he sighed.

“What happened?” Callahan asked.

“Eve. She just disappeared. No warning, no nothing. One second she was there, and then she was gone…”

“Sara too,” Harry said.

“What?”

“Sara was with me out on the bridge deck. We were talking and she smiled at me – then she was just gone.”

Turner looked up, looked out on the exterior bridge then just shrugged. “Fuck,” was all he managed to get out.

“Well said,” Harry added. “My sentiments exactly.”

“Well, what do you think?”

Harry leaned back then crossed his arms. “I think they left on purpose, for a reason.”

“Yeah…and?”

“We’re on our own now, and that means something. At least it does to them. I think they’re going to be watching us.”

“Watching us? Doing what?”

“Exactly. They’ll be watching us, to see what we do.”

“You mean…like judging us?”

Callahan nodded. “Yup.”

“Damn, I wish MacKenzie was here…”

“Yup.”

“So, what do we do?”

“What would we be doing if Spudz was here?”

“Harry, I got orders, ya know? From Mahoney.”

“And?”

“And we’re supposed to head on out of here and head straight to the Grand Banks, out to that Lat-Lon where the Titanic went down.”

“What else?”

“Well, we were supposed to be taking Sara out there, right? She was going to do something about that dude on the other boat…”

“Peter Weyland?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“Okay, so…whatever she was going to do…well…then it falls to us now, I reckon.”

“What falls to us, Harry?”

He closed his eyes and he could see her smile, feel her warming his soul – then he felt her inside his mind again…and he heard her now as clearly as she would have sounded if she had been standing next to him: “Harry, remember, don’t fight me. Live in the moment. Let tomorrow take care of itself…”

“Chief Turner,” Callahan said, his voice now full of purpose. “Make ready for sea. Get our lines shipped and inform whoever you need to that we’re ready to head out.”

“Aye, sir,” Turner said, because he recognized a clear command when he heard one. He picked up the radio and called the frigate on the other side of the pier. “Mason, Vine. We’re ready to go.”

“Vine, understood. We’ll be following the Coast Guard 44 out the channel, you’ll follow us, and New Hampshire will follow you out.”

“Roger. We’ll fall in behind you.”

Callahan looked at the frigate’s deck as ratings on her deck sprang to life, casting off heavy dock and power lines, and two tugs moved in and pushed her away from the pier then guided her bow out into the main channel. Turner hit the port bow thruster and put the radar and stabilizers into standby mode, then advanced the throttles a little, curving away from the pier now then cutting in behind the Mason. If there was a Coast Guard boat out there, Callahan couldn’t see it through this fog, but when Turner turned the radar from standby to active scan the order of departure became clear.

“What’s the New Hampshire?” Callahan asked.

“A fast attack sub. She’s loaded out with cruise missiles, a lot of them.”

“Cruise missiles? You mean…like with nuclear warheads?”

Turner looked at Harry and shrugged. “That’s what they do, Harry. They blow shit up, ya know?”

Callahan looked down and rubbed his eyes – and now he could see Sara again, see her smile, so maybe she was with him somehow. Maybe she was telling him he was doing the right thing…

Or maybe he was just full of shit.

+++++

Lieutenant Commander Cole Knight looked at the FMC on the quadrant and pulled up their remaining fuel, then he looked at the fuel burn rate and did the math in his head. He trusted Flight Management Computers – to a point – but he was Old School and liked doing the math in his head.

“Looks like six hours and some change,” Abramson sighed. “You any idea where we are?”

Knight nodded. “You ever do any celestial?” he asked.

“A couple of times in Academy,” she replied. “Why? What’s up?”

“WEPs? You still down back there?”

“Across the board, Skipper. Nothing on UHF, not even an identifier on ULF. Nothing.”

“No SatCOMMs?”

“Nothing Skipper.”

Knight nodded, then turned to Abramson. “Best guess is were between 65 and 70 degrees north latitude, and given where Orion is right now I’d say we’re about 25 degrees west longitude, so that puts us between the northwest coast of Iceland and Greenland, or smack-dab in the middle of the GIUK Gap. And given our fuel burn we got here in zero point zero seconds…”

“Skipper,” Abramson said under her breath, “that isn’t possible.”

“Improbable, but not impossible…”

“Sir?”

“You gotta look at the facts, Lieutenant. We are here. We got here how? Did you fly us? Did we refuel somewhere along the way that I managed to sleep through…?”

“No sir.”

He reached up and dialed 120 degrees into the autopilot’s heading selector, then he looked at their fuel burn and dropped their speed from Mach 0.78 to 0.76 and he watched the AP trim the aircraft for a slightly lower angle of attack as the auto throttles did their thing.

“Skipper!” WEPS cried.

“Don’t scream, Dalton!”

“Sorry, Skipper, but I got something on VHF, and I’m picking up Morse, too.”

“Can you read code?”

“I can, Skipper, but this ain’t in English.”

“Got a bearing or signal strength?”

“Variable bearing, Skipper, maybe like ship to ship – and at close range, too. And Skipper, I’d bet anything they’re close. Real close, like maybe within 50 miles, probably less. We could pick ‘em up on the sidescan radar, sir. Recommend you come to 2-5-0 degrees…”

Abramson looked at Knight, the big question in her eyes. “You want to burn fuel on this?”

“Yup.” He reached up to the AP control panel and dialed 250 into the heading select panel, then he set the roll rate to 5 degrees. “Slow and easy,” he muttered under his breath…

“Okay Skipper, we got ‘em. Five ships in all, a formation of two converging on two, no, make that three ships. Two in formation and one on an intercept course with those two.”

“ECM,” Knight called out, “go active NOW. WEPs, arm Harpoon on one.” Electronic countermeasures flooded the entire radar emissions spectrum, making Kestrel 1 look like an advancing armada one moment and a black hole the next.

“Harpoon armed,” the weapons officer replied. 

“Radar, gimme a bearing to the closest target,” Knight said.

“1-3-1 and 17 miles, Skip.”

“We should be able to see running lights at this altitude,” Knight muttered, “so they gotta be running dark.”

“Got him!” Abramson cried, pointing down and to her left, so Knight handed his binoculars to her.

“Take a look,” he said as he disconnected the autopilot, then he put the jet into a steep left turn.

“Looks like a freighter, Skipper. Kind of old, too. No, wait, I got lots of crewmen on deck moving big hoses…looks more like a fleet refueling tanker…lights on deck now…like they’re getting ready for a refueling op.”

“Radar, are those other two ships still on 2-5-0 degrees…?”

“Now 2-6-3 degrees, speed of advance now 2-3 knots, their course 2-6-0 degrees, call the closest target now 1-4 miles dead ahead.”

Knight cut the power back to 40 percent N1 and pushed the nose over hard. “Gimme some speed brakes, first detent.”

Knight watched the Boeing’s speed build but he wanted to get down in waves, get a good idea of what was down there, and he couldn’t drop 40,000 feet in ten miles without pushing the jet hard, but as his speed inched up to Mach 0.85 he pulled up on the stick just a little then put the Boeing into a right hand standard rate turn, bleeding speed and altitude at a safer rate. Two revolutions saw them down to 9,500 feet but the distance to intercept was now 15 miles, so he engaged the AP then dialed in the revised heading and set their speed to 400 knots.

“My binoculars, please?”

Abramson handed them over.

“Make sure we’re dark, Lieutenant. Not even our formation lights. Got it?”

“Got it, sir. What about the panel lights?”

“Dial ‘em down. Let’s make like a hole, Lieutenant.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Okay, set the AP to 5,000 AGL and keep our speed up.”

“On it.”

The Boeing settled into a shallow descent then leveled up at 5,000 feet Above Ground Level, and Knight trained his binoculars out the window to his right, his eyes peeking up from time to time…

“Okay, get our speed down to 225 knots.”

“225, got it.”

Knight looked out the window again and saw that a light misty fog was forming right down on the water, and that could only mean an eddy in the Gulfstream had made it this far north…

…then he caught a glimpse of a large…battleship…?

…running dark…?

And fifteen seconds later they flew almost directly over another ship, this one not quite as big as the first…

Knight took the controls and cut the AP, then dove for the surface, pushing the throttles to the stops, and when they were ten miles out he executed a one-eighty and leveled out a hundred feet over the waves…

“Commander? What is it? What did you see?”

“WEPs, gimme a range and bearing to the second ship, and keep ‘em coming…”

“WEPs, aye.”

“Commander?” Abramson repeated. “What’s going on?”

Knight retarded the throttles, dropping the Boeing’s speed to two hundred knots – which was about all his stomach could take at this altitude. “Flaps and slats 5, please.”

“Five, aye.”

“Okay, standby on the landing lights.”

“Landing lights, sir?”

“Hit ‘em when I say so. WEPS, get the FLIR up and start the cameras now.”

“WEPs aye.”

Abramson gasped: “There it is, Commander…Jeez, that’s a big fucker…”

“Okay, landing lights now,” Knight said as he pushed the throttles to 95 percent N1…

“Landing lights on,” Abramson said, but all she could see was a massive battleship now almost filling their view out the forward windshield…

…Knight pulled up gently on the yoke and the Boeing just cleared the huge ship’s radio masts…

+++++

“What the devil is that?!” Fleet Admiral Günther Lütjens growled, ducking instinctively as the peculiar whining roar passed just overhead again.

“Sound General Quarters!” Captain Ernst Lindemann said to the Officer of the Watch, and the sound of blaring klaxons soon filled the beating heart of the German battleship Bismarck. 

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