“Come in, Commander,” Stein said.
“Thank you, sir.” He had met Stein several times before but shook hands with Holloway for the first time.
In the cramped cabin, the admiral had commandeered the sole chair at a built-in desk, and Holloway and Monahan sat on the bunk.
“Bing tells me you’re coordinating the search effort,” Stein said.
“Yes, sir. I thought I’d better take a look at the scene here, then run by your base and look around Pier Nine.”
“Unfortunately, you’re not going to see much at Pier Nine,” the admiral told him. “The bastards even helped themselves to two of our three spare engines. Plus a full stock of replacement parts.”
“Spare engines?”
Stein nodded. “Those rotaries aren’t common, of course. We have, or had, the only ones in existence, as far as I know. Somebody thought this thing out.”
“Somebody who is planning to use those boats, rather than just copy them,” Holloway suggested.
“Anything out of Walter Reed?” Stein asked.
The body found in the water off Pier Nine had been transferred to Walter Reed Army Hospital for autopsy.
“Definitely Middle Eastern,” Monahan said, “from the word I got around ten o’clock. His head was caved in, and the forensics people seem to think he was run over by a boat. He died by drowning.”
“Shit. Well, those stealth boats would be useful in the Persian Gulf. With their capability against oil tankers and even small warships, damned nearly any nation could be held hostage.”
“I haven’t even seen them,” Holloway said. “May I ask why we had them?”
“Sure, Commander,” the admiral said. “When we got tied up in Vietnam, we found out we didn’t have anything in inventory that was suitable for coastal and river fighting. We ended up using old LCMs until we could get Antelope class boats, like the one you’ve got here, built. After that nonwar, we gave away a few gunboats to friendly nations, because we knew we wouldn’t need them again. Then, we ran into a bunch of zealots in the Gulf, attacking tankers with anything from rowboats to high-power ski boats. The Sea Spectre was envisioned as a counter to those kinds of threats. They’re small, maneuverable, and very fast.”
“As well as being useful for reconnaissance and infiltration,” Monahan added.
“Extremely useful. We want them back.” Stein looked very determined. Recovering the boats would go a long way toward easing the censure he was bound to get for losing them in the first place.
Monahan was not going to say anything about the security measures that had been utilized. Bingham Clay had already ordered that investigation.
He turned to Holloway. “Are you finding anything of value here, Commander?”
Holloway looked directly at him. “Puzzles, maybe. It was a Scarab, but it was blown up on purpose.”
Monahan raised an eyebrow.
“The aft sections of the hull are peppered with shrapnel. We think they used a grenade to blow it.”
“After boarding the Zodiak?”
“Must have been,” Holloway said. “We thought we were chasing a guided boat, from the maneuvers it made. Hell, I still think it was manned. But from the other evidence, I guess they climbed out, set a timed grenade, shoved the throttles all the way in, and let her go.”
Monahan felt a little uneasy at Holloway’s indecision, but before he could pursue it, the commander continued. “The boat belonged to a man named Theodore Daimler. He’s a Washington lawyer, the way I heard it, and he has a cabin on the bay somewhere south of here. He had reported the Scarab missing this morning.”
Unbuttoning his shirt pocket, Monahan retrieved his small notebook and entered the information. “You know anything else about him?”
“No.”
“I’ll ask the FBI to check him out.”
They talked for a few more minutes, then Monahan said, “I think I’ll go on over to Ship R&D.”
Admiral Stein stood up. “You have room for me in your chopper?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, I’ll ride along.”
After they had been lifted aboard the Sea Knight and were en route to the Research and Development Center, Stein pulled his headset aside and leaned over to almost shout in Monahan’s ear.
Monahan pulled his own earpiece back. The racket of the turbines made nonintercom conversation difficult.
“You got your search grid set up?”
“Yes, sir.”
“As if they’re going to sneak those boats back to the Middle East.”
“That’s correct, Admiral.”
“You’d better tell Bing to check his back door.”
“Sir?”
“The Sea Spectre would be an effective guerilla weapon anywhere in the world, Commander. It doesn’t have to be in the Persian Gulf.”
“Newport News coming up, Captain.”
“Contact the Mitscher, Evans, and tell her we’ll join her outside the bay.” Captain Barry Norman’s voice was particularly raspy this afternoon, after spending the night and the morning overseeing the search efforts in Carr Bay.
“Aye aye sir.” The seaman crossed the Prebble’s bridge to an intercom station.
Norman could see the Chesapeake Bay Bridge coming up about five miles away. It was starkly outlined in black against a blue sky.
He turned to Commander Owen Edwards, his first mate. “Owen, you have the conn. I’m going down to my cabin to sack out for a couple hours.”
“Aye sir. Do you want me to notify you when we rendezvous with the Mitscher?”
“No. Just put us on the course CINCLANT designated.”
He scanned the instruments on the bridge’s forward bulkhead once again, then went aft and descended to the officer’s wardroom. He filled a mug with steaming coffee, added one cube of sugar, and carried it to his own quarters.
Inside, he sat on his bunk and unlaced his shoes, kicked them off. He was tired. Barry Norman was sixty-two years old, with over forty years in the Navy. His hair was short and gray, almost matching the color of his eyes. There was more sag to his jowls than he liked, more softness around his waist. He found that fatigue crowded him more easily.
Norman was a man of the sea. He had served on more classifications of ships than he bothered remembering. Only aircraft carriers and battleships had eluded him, but Bingham Clay had promised him at least a year on the New Jersey before he retired, now just three short years away.
Norman would never make flag rank, not that he cared. He did not have the ability to kowtow to either Navy or civilian politicians. On each of his shore-based assignments, he had managed to offend as many admirals, senators, and congressmen as possible, ensuring a return to sea duty.
He belonged on the bridge of a warship, especially since cancer took Elizabeth twelve years before. His instinct for unhesitating and appropriate command decisions was well known among his superiors. They could trust him with an expensive ship and a few hundred lives, though not with a congressional hearing room and thin-skinned legislative staffers. Norman’s comfort with naval strategy and tactics was the sole reason he was still in the United States Navy after being passed over for promotion so many times.
He shrugged out of his uniform jacket, tossed it toward a chair, and swung his feet up onto the bunk. Leaning back against the bulkhead, he sipped his coffee.