Cradle (7 page)

Because the cart would not fit through the door into the adjacent security office,
the footlocker was opened in the main clearing room of the marina headquarters. A
couple of curious passers-by, including one giant, friendly woman about forty named
Ellen (Troy knew her from somewhere, probably she was one of the boat owners, Carol
thought), came over and watched while Officer O’Rourke carefully compared the contents
of the locker with the list that Carol had prepared.

Carol was a little rattled as she and Troy pulled the cart down the jetty toward the
Florida Queen
. She had hoped to attract as little attention as possible and she was now angry with
herself for not anticipating the security check. Nick, meanwhile, after performing
a few routine preparations on the boat and opening another beer, had become engrossed
again in the basketball game. His beloved Harvard was now losing to Tennessee. He
did not even hear Troy’s whistling until his crewman and Carol were just a few yards
away.

‘Jesus,’ Nick turned around, ‘I thought you had gotten lost….’ His voice trailed off
as he saw the cart and the footlocker. ‘What the fuck is that?’

‘It’s Miss Dawson’s equipment, Professor,’ Troy answered with a big grin. He reached
into the locker, first picking up a cylinder with a clear glass face, a large object
like a flashlight on a mounting bracket. It was about two feet long and weighed about
twelve pounds. ‘Here, for example, is what she tells me is an ocean telescope. We
attach it to the bottom of the boat by this bracket and it takes pictures that are
displayed on this here television monitor and also stored on this other device, a
recorder of some—’

‘Hold it,’ Nick interrupted Troy imperiously. Nick walked up the gangplank and stared
incredulously into the locker. He shook his head and looked from Troy to Carol. ‘Do
I have this right? We are supposed to set up all this shit just to go out into the
Gulf for one afternoon to look for whales.’ He scowled at Troy. ‘Where is your head,
Jefferson? This stuff is heavy, it will take time to set it up, and it’s already after
noon.’

‘And as for you, sister,’ Nick continued, turning to Carol, ‘take your toys and your
treasure map elsewhere. We know what you’re up to and we have more important things
to do.’

‘Are you through?’ Carol shouted at Nick as he walked back down the gangplank on to
the
Florida Queen
. He stopped and turned partially around. ‘Look, you asshole,’ Carol raged, giving
vent to the frustration and anger that had been building inside her, ‘it is certainly
your right to deny me the use of your boat. But it is not your right to act like God
almighty and treat me or anyone else like shit just because I’m a woman and you feel
like pushing somebody around.’ She stepped toward him. Nick backed up a step in the
face of her continued offensive.

‘I told you that I want to look for whales and that’s what I intend to do. What you
might think I’m doing is really of no significance to me. As for the important things
that
you
have to do, you haven’t moved from that goddamn basketball game in the last hour,
except to get more beer. If you’ll just stay out of the way, Troy and I can set all
this gear in place in half an hour. And besides,’ Carol slowed down just a bit, starting
to feel a little embarrassed about her outburst, ‘I have already paid for the charter
and you know how hard it is to straighten out these computer credit card accounts.’

‘Oooeee, Professor,’ Troy grinned wickedly and winked at Carol. ‘Isn’t she something
else?’ He stopped and became serious. ‘Look, Nick, we need the money, both of us.
And I would be happy to help her. We can take off some of the excess diving gear if
it’s necessary to balance the weight.’

Nick walked back to the folding chair and the television. He took another drink from
his beer and did not turn around to look at Carol and Troy. ‘All right,’ he said,
somewhat reluctantly. ‘Get started. But if we’re not ready to sail by one o’clock
it’s no deal.’ The basketball players swam in front of his eyes. Harvard had tied
the game again. But this time he wasn’t watching. He was thinking about Carol’s outburst.
I wonder if she’s right. I wonder if I do think that women are inferior. Or worse
.

Commander Vernon Winters was trembling when he hung up the phone. He felt as if he
had just seen a ghost. He threw his apple core in the wastebasket and reached in his
pocket for one of his Pall Malls. Without thinking, he stood up and walked across
the room to the large bay window that opened on to the grassy courtyard of the main
administration building. Lunch hour had just finished at the US Naval Air Station.
The crowds of young men and women heading either toward or away from the cafeteria
had died out. A solitary young ensign was sitting on the grass reading a book, his
back against a large tree.

Commander Winters lit his untipped cigarette and inhaled deeply. He expelled the smoke
with a rush and quickly took another breath. ‘Hey, Indiana,’ the voice had said two
minutes before, ‘this is Randy. Remember me?’ As if he could ever forget that nasal
baritone. And then, without waiting for an answer, the voice had materialized into
an earnest face on the video monitor. Admiral Randolph Hilliard was sitting behind
his desk in a large Pentagon office. ‘Good,’ he continued, ‘now we can see each other.’

Hilliard had paused for a moment and then leaned forward toward the camera. ‘I was
glad to hear that Duckett put you in charge of this Panther business. It could be
nasty. We must find out what happened, quickly and with no publicity. Both the Secretary
and I are counting on you.’

What had he said in response to the admiral? Commander Winters couldn’t remember,
but he assumed that it must have been all right. And he did remember the last few
words, when Admiral Hilliard had said that he would call back for an update after
the meeting on Friday afternoon. Winters had not heard that voice for almost eight
years but the recognition was instantaneous. And the memories that flooded forth were
just a few milliseconds behind.

The commander took another drag from his cigarette and turned away from the window.
He walked slowly across the room. His eyes slid across but did not see the lovely,
soft print of the Renoir painting, ‘Deux Jeunes Filles au Piano’, that was the most
prominent object on his office wall. It was his favourite painting. His wife and son
had given him the special large reproduction for his fortieth birthday; usually several
times a week he would stand in front of it and admire the beautiful composition. But
two graceful young girls working on their afternoon piano lessons were not the order
for the day.

Vernon Winters sat back down at his desk and buried his face in his hands.
Here it comes again
, he thought,
I can’t hold it back now, not after seeing Randy and hearing that voice
. He looked around and then stubbed out the cigarette in the large ashtray on his
desk. For a few moments he played aimlessly with the two small framed photographs
on his desk (one was a portrait of a pale twelve-year-old boy together with a plain
woman in her early forties; the other was a cast photo from the Key West Players’
production of
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
, dated March 1993, in which Winters was dressed in a summer business suit). At length
the commander put the photographs aside, leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes,
and succumbed to the powerful pull of his memory. A curtain in his mind parted and
he was transported to a clear, warm night almost eight years before, in early April
of 1986. The first sound that he heard was the excited nasal voice of Lieutenant Randolph
Hilliard.

‘Psst, Indiana, wake up. How can you be asleep? It’s Randy. We’ve got to talk. I’m
so excited I could shit.’ Vernon Winters had only fallen asleep himself about an hour
before. He unconsciously looked at his watch. Almost two o’clock. His friend stood
next to his bunk, grinning from ear to ear. ‘Only three more hours and we attack.
Finally we’re going to blast that Arab lunatic and terrorist supporter into heaven
with Allah. Shit, big buddy, this is our moment. This is what we worked our whole
life for.’

Winters shook his head and began to come out of a deep sleep. It took him a moment
to remember that he was on board the USS
Nimitz
off the coast of Libya. The first action of his military career was about to occur.
‘Look, Randy,’ Winters had said eventually (on that night almost eight years ago),
‘shouldn’t we be sleeping? What if the Libyans attack us tomorrow? We’ll have to be
alert.’

‘Shit no,’ said his friend and fellow officer, helping him to sit up and handing him
a cigarette, ‘those geeks will never attack someone who can fight. They’re terrorists.
They only know how to fight unarmed people. The only one of them that has any guts
is that Colonel Gaddafi and he’s nutty as a fruitcake. After we blow him to kingdom
come, the battle will be over. Besides, I have enough adrenaline flowing that I could
stay awake for thirty-six hours with no sweat.’

Winters felt the nicotine coursing through his body. It reawakened the eager anticipation
that he had finally conquered when he had fallen asleep an hour earlier. Randy was
talking a blue streak. ‘I can’t believe how goddamn lucky we are. For six years I
have been wondering how an officer can stand out, distinguish himself, you know, in
peacetime. Now here we are. Some loonie plants a bomb in a club in Berlin and we just
happen to be on duty in the Med. Talk about being in the right place at the right
time. Shit. Think how many other midshipmen from our class would give their right
nut to be here instead of us. Tomorrow we kill that crazy man and we’re on our way
to captain, maybe even admiral, in five to eight years.’

Winters reacted negatively to his friend’s suggestion that one of the benefits of
the strike against Gaddafi would be an acceleration in their personal advancement.
But he said nothing. He was already deep in his own private thoughts. He too was excited
and he didn’t fully understand why. The excitement was similar to the way he had felt
before the state quarter-finals in basketball in high school. But Lieutenant Winters
couldn’t help wondering how much the excitement would be leavened by fear if they
were preparing to engage in a real battle.

For almost a week they had been getting ready for the strike. It was normal Navy business
to go through the preparations for combat and then have them called off, usually about
a day ahead of the planned encounter. But this time it had been different from the
beginning. Hilliard and Winters had quickly recognized that there was a seriousness
in the senior officers that had never been there before. None of the usual larking
around and nonsense had been tolerated in the tedious and boring checks of the planes,
the missiles, and the guns. The
Nimitz
was preparing for war. And then yesterday, the normal time for such a drill to be
called off, the captain had gathered all the officers together and told them that
he had received the order to attack at dawn. Winters’s heart had skipped a beat as
the commanding officer had briefed them on the full scope of the American action against
Libya.

Winters’s last assignment, just after evening mess, had been to go over the bombing
targets with the pilots one more time. Two separate planes were being sent to bomb
the residence where Gaddafi was supposedly sleeping. One of the two chosen pilots
was outwardly ecstatic; he realized that he had been given the prime target of the
raid. The other pilot, Lieutenant Gibson from Oregon, was quiet but thorough in his
preparations. He kept looking at the map with Winters and going over the Libyan gun
emplacements. Gibson also complained that his mouth was dry and drank several glasses
of water.

‘Shit, Indiana, you know what’s bothering me? Those flyboys will be in the battle
and we’ll be stuck here with no role unless the crazy Arabs decide to attack. How
can we get into the fight? Wait. I just had a thought.’ Lieutenant Hilliard was still
talking nonstop. It was after three o’clock and they had already gone over everything
associated with the attack at least twice. Winters was feeling lifeless and enervated
from lack of sleep but the astonishing Hilliard continued to exude exuberance.

‘What a great idea,’ Randy continued, talking to himself. ‘But we can do it. You briefed
the pilots tonight, didn’t you, so you know who’s going after what targets?’ Vernon
nodded his head. ‘Then that’s it. We’ll tape a personal “screw you” to the side of
the missile that’s going to get Gaddafi. That way part of us will go into battle.’

Vernon did not have the energy to dissuade Randy from his crazy plan. As the time
for the attack drew closer, Lieutenants Winters and Hilliard went into the hangar
on the
Nimitz
and found the airplane assigned to Lieutenant Gibson (Winters never knew why, but
he immediately assumed it would be Gibson who would score a missile on the Gaddafi
enclave). Laughingly, Randy explained to the fresh ensign on watch what he and Vernon
were going to try to do.

It took them almost half an hour to locate the right plane and then identify the missile
that would be the first to be launched against the Gaddafi household.

The two lieutenants argued for almost ten minutes about the message they were going
to write on the paper that would be taped on the missile. Winters wanted something
deep, almost philosophical, like ‘Such is the just end to the tyranny of terrorism’.
Hilliard argued persuasively that Winters’s concept was too obscure. At length a tired
Lieutenant Winters assented to the visceral communication written by his friend,
DIE, MOTHER-FUCKER
, was the message the two lieutenants inscribed on the side of the missile.

Winters returned to his bunk exhausted. Tired and still a little unsettled by the
magnitude of the coming day’s events, he pulled out his personal Bible to read a few
verses. There was no comfort in the good book for the Presbyterian from Indiana. He
tried praying, generic prayers at first and then more specific, as had been his custom
during critical moments in his life. He asked for the Lord to guard his wife and son
and to be with him in this moment of travail. And then, quickly and without thinking,
Lieutenant Vernon Winters asked God to rain down terror, in the form of the missile
with the taped message, on Colonel Gaddafi and all his family.