Without Remorse

'That isn't good for you, Dutch.'

'Don't I know it!' Maxwell grumbled.

'The freedom to do that is one of the things we defend,' Rear Admiral Casimir Podulski pointed out, not quite making that leap of faith despite his words. It was just a little too much. His son had died over Haiphong in an A-4 strike-fighter. The event had made the papers because of the young aviator's parentage, and fully eleven anonymous telephone calls had come in the following week, some just laughing, some asking his tormented wife where the blotter was supposed to be shipped. 'All those nice, peaceful, sensitive young people.'

'So why are you in such a great mood, Cas?'

'This one goes in the wall safe, Dutch.' Podulski handed over a heavy folder. Its edges were bordered in red-and-white striped tape, and it bore the coded designator boxwood green.

'They're going to let us play with it?' That was a surprise.

'It took me till oh-three-thirty, but yes. Just a few of us, though. We have authorization for a complete feasibility study.' Admiral Podulski settled into a deep leather chair and lit up a cigarette. His face was thinner since the death of his son, but the crystal-blue eyes burned as bright as ever.

'They're going to let us go ahead and do the planning?' Maxwell and Podulski had worked towards that end for several months, never in any real expectation that they'd be allowed to pursue it.

'Who'd ever suspect us?' the Polish-born Admiral asked with an ironic look. 'They want us to keep it off the books.'

'Jim Greer, too?' Dutch asked.

'Best intel guy I know, unless you're hiding one somewhere.'

'?? just started at CIA, I heard last week,' Maxwell warned.

'Good. We need a good spy, and his suit's still blue, last time I checked.'

'We're going to make enemies doing this, lots of 'em.'

Podulski gestured at the window and the noise. He hadn't changed all that much since 1944 and USS Essex. 'With all those a hundred feet away from us, what'll a few more matter?'

'How long have you had the boat?' Kelly asked about halfway through his second beer. Lunch was rudimentary, cold cuts and bread supplemented by bottled beer.

'We bought it last October, but we've only been running it two months,' the doctor admitted. 'But I took the Power Squadron courses, finished top in my class.' He was the sort who finished number one in nearly everything, Kelly figured.

'You're a pretty good line-handler,' he observed, mainly to make the man feel better.

'Surgeons are pretty good with knots, too.'

'You a doc, too, ma'am?' Kelly asked Sarah.

'Pharmacologist. I also teach at Hopkins.'

'How long have you and your wife lived here?' Sam asked, and the conversation ground to an awkward halt.

'Oh, we just met,' Pam told them artlessly. Naturally enough it was Kelly who was the most embarrassed. The two physicians merely accepted the news as a matter of course, but Kelly worried that they'd see him as a man taking advantage of a young girl. The thoughts associated with his behavior seemed to race in circles around the inside of his skull until he realized that no one else seemed to care all that much.

'Let's take a look at that propeller.' Kelly stood. 'Come on.'

Rosen followed him out the door. The heat was building outside, and it was best to get things done quickly. The secondary bunker on the island housed Kelly's workshop. He selected a couple of wrenches and wheeled a portable air compressor towards the door.

Two minutes later he had it sitting next to the doctor's Hatteras and buckled a pair of weight belts around his waist.

'Anything I have to do?' Rosen asked.

Kelly shook his head as he stripped off his shirt. 'Not really. If the compressor quits, I'll know pretty quick, and I'll only be down five feet or so.'

'I've never done that.' Rosen turned his surgeon's eyes to Kelly's torso, spotting three separate scars that a really good surgeon might have been skillful enough to conceal. Then he remembered that a combat surgeon didn't always have the time for cosmetic work.

'I have, here and there,' Kelly told him on the way to the ladder.

'I believe it,' Rosen said quietly to himself.

Four minutes later, by Rosen's watch, Kelly was climbing back up the ladder.

'Found your problem.' He set the remains of both props on the concrete dock.

'God! What did we hit?'

Kelly sat down for a moment to strip off the weights. It was all he could do not to laugh. 'Water, doc, just water.'

'What?'

'Did you have the boat surveyed before you bought it?'

'Sure, the insurance company made me do that. I got the best buy around, he charged me a hundred bucks.'

'Oh, yeah? What deficiencies did he give you?' Kelly stood back up and switched the compressor off.

'Practically nothing. He said there was something wrong with the sinks, and I had a plumber check it, but they were fine. I guess he had to say something for his money, right?'

'Sinks?'

'That's what he told me over the phone. I have the written survey somewhere, but I took the information over the phone.'

'Zincs,' Kelly said, laughing. 'Not sinks.'

'What?' Rosen was angry at not getting the joke.

'What destroyed your props was electrolysis. Galvanic reaction. It's caused by having more than one kind of metal in saltwater, corrodes the metal. All the sandbar did was to scuff them off. They were already wrecked. Didn't the Power Squadron tell you about that?'

'Well, yes, but -'

'But - you just learned something, Doctor Rosen.' Kelly held up the remains of the screw. The metal had the flaked consistency of a soda cracker. 'This used to be bronze.'

'Damn!' The surgeon took the wreckage in his hand and picked off a waferlike fragment.

'The surveyor meant for you to replace the zinc anodes on the strut. What they do is to absorb the galvanic energy. You replace them every couple of years, and that protects the screws and rudder by remote control, like. I don't know all the science of it, but I do know the effects, okay? Your rudder needs replacement, too, but it's not an emergency. Sure as hell, you need two new screws.'

Rosen looked out at the water and swore. 'Idiot.'

Kelly allowed himself a sympathetic laugh. 'Doc, if that's the biggest mistake you make this year, you're a lucky man.'

'So what do I do now?'

'I make a phone call and order you a couple of props. I'll call a guy I know over in Solomons, and he'll have somebody run them down here, probably tomorrow.' Kefly gestured. 'It's not that big a deal, okay? I want to see your charts, too.'

Sure enough, when he checked their dates, they were five years old. 'You need new ones every year, doc.'

'Damn!' Rosen said.

'Helpful hint?' Kelly asked with another smile. 'Don't take it so seriously. Best kind of lesson. It hurts a little but not much. You learn and you get on with it.'

The doctor relaxed, finally, allowing himself a smile. 'I suppose you're right, but Sarah'll never let me forget it.'

'Blame the charts,' Kelly suggested.

'Will you back me up?'

Kelly grinned. 'Men have to stick together at times like this.'

'I think I'm going to like you, Mr Kelly.'

'So where the fuck is she?' Billy demanded.

'How the hell should I know?' Rick replied, equally angry - and fearful of what Henry would say when he got back. Both their eyes turned to the woman in the room.

'You're her friend,' Billy said.

Doris was trembling already, wishing she could run from the room, but there was no safety in that. Her hands were shaking as Billy took the three steps to her, and she flinched but didn't evade the slap that landed her on the floor.