Cradle (28 page)

Carol recognized how difficult it had been for Nick to apologize. She accepted gracefully
with a short smile and a gesture with her hands. ‘You keep the trident for a little
while longer,’ she said after a brief silence. ‘We have a lot of other things to talk
about.’ She looked around. ‘But this may be the wrong place and the wrong time.’

Both Nick and Troy were giving her questioning looks. ‘I have some very exciting news,’
she explained, ‘some of which is here in your copy of the pictures that I developed
this morning. Bottom line is that the telescope picked up an infrared signal coming
out of the fissure from some kind of large object or objects.’ She turned to Nick.
‘It may be more treasure. We can’t be certain what it is based on the images.’

Nick reached for the envelope. Carol pulled it away. ‘Not here, not now. Too many
eyes and ears. Take my word for it. What we have to do now is make plans. Can you
two take me out again tomorrow morning early, and be prepared to salvage objects possibly
as big as two hundred pounds? Of course, I intend to pay for chartering the boat again.’

‘Wow,’ whistled Nick, ‘two hundred pounds! I can hardly wait to see the pictures.’
He was sobering up rapidly. ‘We’ll need to borrow a dredger and—’

‘I still have the telescope, so we can use it again,’ Carol added. She looked at her
watch. ‘It’s almost five o’clock now, how much preparation time do you need?’

‘Three hours, four hours at the most,’ Nick said, calculating swiftly. ‘With Troy’s
help, of course,’ he added.

‘Gladly, my friends,’ Troy replied. ‘And since Angie has reserved a special table
for me at Sloppy Joe’s for her ten-thirty show tonight, why don’t we meet there and
go over the details for tomorrow?’

‘Angie Leatherwood is a friend of yours?’ Carol said, obviously impressed. ‘I haven’t
seen her since she made the big time.’ She paused for a second and handed the envelope
to Nick. ‘Look at these images in private. The whole set was taken just under the
boat where we were diving. Some are obviously blowups of others. It may take a little
time for your eyes to adjust to all the colours. But it’s the brown object or objects
that we’re after.’ Carol could tell that both of the men were eager to see the pictures.
She walked with them toward Nick’s car. ‘So I’ll see both of you tonight at Sloppy
Joe’s at about ten-fifteen.’ She turned to head for her own parking place.

‘Uh, Carol, just a minute.’ Nick stopped her. Carol waited while Nick, suddenly awkward,
tried to figure out a nice way to ask his question. ‘Would you mind telling us why
you were talking to Captain Homer?’ he at last said tactfully.

Carol looked at Nick and Troy for a minute and then laughed. ‘I ran into him while
I was in the office trying to call you guys. He wanted to know about the piece we
retrieved yesterday. I put him off the track by telling him I was doing a feature
article on the members of the crew that found the
Santa Rosa
treasure eight years ago.’

Nick glanced at Troy with mock disgust. ‘You see, Jefferson,’ he said with exaggerated
emphasis, ‘I told you there was a legitimate explanation.’ The two men waved at Carol
as she headed for her car.

‘Lieutenant Todd,’ the commander said with exasperation, ‘I am beginning to think
that the US Navy has overestimated your intelligence or experience or both. It is
beyond me how you can continue even to consider the possibility that the Panther was
commanded
off course by the Russians, particularly in light of the new information you presented
this afternoon.’

‘But, sir,’ the younger man answered stubbornly, ‘it is still a viable hypothesis.
And you yourself said in the meeting that a good failure analysis does not exclude
any reasonable possibility.’

The two men were in Commander Winters’s office. The commander walked over to look
out the window. It was almost dark outside. The air was heavy, still, and humid. Thunderstorms
were building over the ocean to the south. The base was nearly empty. At length Winters
looked at his watch, heaved a sigh, and came back across the room toward Lieutenant
Todd. He was smiling only slightly.

‘You listened well, Lieutenant. But the operative word here is “reasonable”. Let’s
review the facts. Did I or did I not hear correctly that your telemetry analysis unit
found this afternoon that the commands rejected counter on the bird also incremented
during the flight, beginning as early as off the coast of New Brunswick? And that,
apparently, over one
thousand
command messages were rejected as the missile made its way down the Atlantic Coast?
How do you propose to explain all this in terms of your scenario? Did the Russians
deploy an entire fleet of ships along the flight path, just to confuse and capture
one solitary Navy test missile?’

Commander Winters was now standing directly in front of the taller young lieutenant.
‘Or maybe you believe,’ he continued sarcastically, before Todd could respond, ‘that
the Russians have a new secret weapon that flies alongside a missile going at Mach
6 and talks to it en route. Come on, Lieutenant, on what reasonable grounds do you
consider this bizarre Russian hypothesis of yours still viable?’

Lieutenant Todd did not yield. ‘Sir,’ he answered, ‘none of the other possible explanations
for the missile’s behaviour makes any more sense at this stage. You now say that you
believe it’s a software problem; however, our very brightest programmers cannot imagine
how the only external indication of a major, system-level software malfunction could
be that two, and only two, command counters go haywire. They have checked all the
internal software diagnostic data that was telemetered to the ground and they can
find no problems. Besides, the pre-release checkout indicates that all the software
was working fine just seconds before the flight began.

‘And we know something else. Ramirez has learned from Washington that there have been
peculiar movements in the Russian submarine fleet off the Florida coast in the last
forty-eight hours. I’m not saying that the Russian hypothesis, as you call it, is
the answer. Just that until we have a more satisfactory explanation of a failure mechanism
that could cause both command counters to increment, it makes sense to carry one option
that assumes maybe the Panther was actually commanded.’

Winters shook his head. ‘All right, Lieutenant,’ he said finally. ‘I will not order
you to take it off the list. But I will order you to concentrate this weekend on finding
the missile in the ocean somewhere and identifying a hardware and/or software problem
that could have caused either the command counter anomaly or the change in the flight
path or both. There must be an explanation that does not involve operations on a massive
scale by the Russians.’

Todd started to walk around Winters and leave. ‘Just a minute,’ the commander said,
his eyes narrowing. ‘I don’t believe it’s necessary, is it, Lieutenant, to remind
you of who will be held responsible if the outside world gets wind of this Russian
business?’

‘No, Commander… sir,’ was the answer.

‘Then carry on,’ said Winters, ‘and let me know if there are any significant new developments.’

Commander Winters was in a hurry. He had called the theatre immediately after Todd
had left and told Melvin Burton that he was going to be late. He drove quickly into
a hamburger stand, wolfed down a burger and chips, and headed for the marina area.

When he arrived at the theatre most of the rest of the cast were already dressed.
Melvin met him at the door. ‘Quickly now, Commander, we have no time to spare. The
make-up must be correct the first time.’ He looked nervously at his watch. ‘You’re
in the pulpit in exactly forty-two minutes.’ The commander entered the men’s dressing
room, took off his Navy uniform, and put on the dour black and white regalia of an
Episcopal priest. Outside the door to the dressing room, Melvin paced back and forth,
going through a final checklist in his mind.

Commander Winters was in the pulpit when the curtain rose. He had a strong case of
normal opening night jitters. He looked across the three rows of his stage congregation
to the full audience in the theatre. He saw his wife Betty and son Hap in the second
row. Winters smiled at them quickly before the applause died down. Then his nervousness
disappeared as he launched into Shannon’s sermon.

The short prologue sped by quickly. The lights again dimmed for fifteen seconds, the
set changed automatically, and he was in the final, walking into his hotel room in
Mexico and still mumbling to himself phrases from his letter. Shannon/Winters sat
down on his bed. He heard a noise in the corner of the room and looked up. It was
Charlotte/Tiffani. Her gorgeous auburn hair was down over her shoulders. She was wearing
a light blue silk nightshirt, cut low in the middle, which her ample and upright breasts
filled completely. He heard her say, ‘Larry, oh Larry, finally we’re alone together’,
and she came to sit beside him on the bed. Her perfume filled his nostrils. Her hand
was behind his head. Her lips pressed against his, insistent, hard, searching. He
pulled back. Her lips followed, then her body. He fell back on the bed. She crawled
on top, her kisses continuing, her breasts pushed against his pounding chest. He put
his arms around her, slowly at first, and then, lying on his back, he enveloped her
with a deep embrace.

The lights flashed off and on for several seconds. Charlotte/Tiffani slid off of Winters
and lay beside him on the bed. He could hear her laboured breathing. A voice was heard,
‘Charlotte!’ Then again, with a loud knock on the door, ‘Charlotte, I know you’re
in there.’ The door sprang open. The two lovers half sat up in bed. The lights went
off and the curtain came down. The applause was loud and sustained.

Commander Vernon Winters pushed open the door and stumbled outside. He was at the
back entrance to the theatre. The door, over which was a single light bulb covered
with insects, opened on to a small wooden platform a few steps above the pavement.
Winters walked down the three steps and stood beside the red brick wall of the theatre.
He pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

He watched the smoke curl upward against the red brick. In the distance there was
a burst of lightning, then a pause before the sound of rolling thunder. He inhaled
deeply again and tried to understand what he had been feeling during those five or
ten seconds with Tiffani.
I wonder if they could tell
, he thought.
I wonder if it was obvious to everyone
. When he had changed clothes for the first full act of the play, he had noticed the
telltale tracks on his underpants. He expelled some more smoke and winced.
And that little girl. My God. She knows for sure. She must have felt it when she was
on top of me
.

Despite himself, he recaptured for an instant his excitement when Tiffani had pressed
herself against him. His breath shortened. A first tinge of guilt began to manifest
itself.
My God
, he thought again.
What am I? I’m a dirty old man
. For some reason he found himself thinking of Joanna Carr, of a night almost twenty-five
years ago. He remembered the moment when he took her….

‘Commander,’ he heard a voice say. He turned around. Tiffani was standing on the platform
in her T-shirt and jeans, her long hair down over her shoulders. Now she was walking
down the steps toward him. ‘Commander,’ she said again with a mysterious smile, ‘may
I have a cigarette?’

He was dumbfounded, stupefied. He said nothing. Winters automatically reached into
his pocket and pulled out his pack of Pall Malls. The girl took one, packed it against
her fingernail, and slid it into her mouth. She waited a second, maybe two. Then she
gave him another smile. Winters at last woke up and produced his cheap supermarket
lighter. She cupped his trembling hand and inhaled vigorously on the cigarette.

Winters watched her, fascinated, as she pulled the smoke into her lungs. He studied
her mouth, her white neck, her uplifted chest as she caressed the smoke. With the
same rapt attention, he watched her diaphragm subside and the smoke curl out of her
pursed lips.

They stood there together, quietly smoking, neither speaking. Over the ocean there
was another flash of lightning, another roll of thunder. Each time that Tiffani would
put the cigarette in her mouth, the mesmerized Winters would follow her every move.
She would inhale deeply, intently, pulling hard on the cigarette for the nicotine
her body cherished. He was only vaguely aware of his jumbled thoughts.

She’s beautiful, so beautiful. Young and fresh and full of life. And that hair. How
I would love to wrap it around my neck… but she’s not a little girl. She’s a young
woman. She must sense what I’m feeling, my fascination for her… She smokes as I do.
With complete concentration. She caresses…
.

‘I love stormy nights,’ Tiffani broke the silence as still another distant flash of
lightning lit up the sky. She moved closer to him and then craned her neck to see
around a group of trees that was blocking her view of the cloud formation where the
lightning was occurring. She brushed against Commander Winters ever so slightly. He
was electrified.

His mouth was dry. His body was suffused with desire, a desire he barely recognized.
He could not answer her comment. Instead he stared off at the growing storm and took
the final drag from his cigarette.

She too finished her cigarette and dropped it on the pavement. As she turned to face
him and their eyes met, the last wisps of smoke were playfully wandering across her
lips. She gave a quick, flirtatious blow with her mouth and Winters felt a burst of
lust in his groin. He retained his self-control and they entered the theatre in silence.

The applause continued. Commander Winters brought the women who had played Maxine
and Hannah forward, one on either side of him, for their final bow, just as they had
planned before the performance began. The applause intensified. Again he stared at
the empty seats where Betty and Hap had been before the intermission. He heard a voice
from the audience shout ‘Charlotte Goodall’ and Winters improvised. He took the two
ladies back to the line of the assembled cast and walked down the line to Tiffani.
For a moment she did not understand. Then her face broke into a radiant smile and
she took his hand.