“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.
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 for 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.