Wings of Steele - Destination Unknown (Book 1) (67 page)

The
Ensign nodded thoughtfully... "Do you think the Vice Admiral
will
really
court-martial you?"

Kelarez
ran his fingers across the row of gold pips on his collar.
"I'm
sure he'll try, but after we tell the brass at Phi Lanka he fired at
his own cruisers, I think he'll cease to be a problem." Vince
Kelarez had an exemplary and decorated field career. There were many
benefits to this, primarily the honor of credibility that rose above
mere rank.

He
headed for his ready room to study his charts. Good luck, Captain
Steele,
he thought, I look forward to meeting you again. Maybe someday we'll
get a chance to tip a glass and toast to our health. Kelarez
couldn't help but admire the admittedly odd but tenacious Earth man.

After
setting the program, Vince Kelarez sat back and put his feet
up.
He knew this might take awhile and closed his eyes. The holochart
flickered on and began to search the vast stores of its memory to
find in the great expanses of the universe, a quiet sector of space
containing a small, little traveled planet... called Earth.

■ ■ ■

The
first thing Steele noticed was the dull pain above his left eye
that
seemed to reach deep into his skull. Trying to open his eyes made it
sharper, so he stopped. Wherever he was, it was warm. It was dark.
And it was very, very quiet. He tried to think back, but that hurt
too. As he lay there, he slowly became aware of weight upon his
body, the sound of steady breathing. He tried to reach out with his
left hand and found that he could not. But his right hand was free.
It felt as if it were made of lead, but it moved.

Jack
touched the body that lay across his. "Fritzer?" The
weight
shifted
as the dog moved forward to nuzzle and lick his chin. Jack also
found he could now move his left arm. "Hey, buddy..." He
rubbed the Shepherd's coat. "Where are we...?"

"You're
in sick bay," came a voice from across the room.

"Zat
you, Doc?" Jack's speech was slow and slurred.

"No.
Name's Lil Toncaresh. I'm an ABS,
Able
Bodied Spaceman
.
You
can
call me Lefty."

"Lefty?"

"Yeah,"
continued Toncaresh with a sigh, "lost my right arm in an
explosion
in Engine Room One, a few days ago. Doc tells me that animal with
you saved my life. Wish I knew how to tell him, thanks."

"You
just did," said Jack. "He udernerstan... unnerstanns...
understands
..."
Jack felt guilty about the
man's
injuries and wondered if all the decisions he'd made lately had been
good ones. "Sorry about your arm..."

The
ABS shrugged. "It's Ok. Doc says he'll fit me for a replacement
in
a few days. I'll be good as new. Hell, Commander Edgars has one and
you can't even tell..." Toncaresh shifted in his bed. "How's
your head..." he realized he didn't know the name of the man
with the dog. "What
is
your name anyway?"

"This
is Fritzzz...” He patted the dog. “I'm Jack. Jack
Sssteele. And my head hurts like the
blazes."

"Steele?
As in
Captain
Steele?"

"That
would be the one... but call me Jack. Ok?"

"Uh...
yeah, sure," he stammered. "Geez, sir, I mean Jack. We
were all
pullin'
for you..."

"Who
all?"

"All
of us here in sickbay," answered Toncaresh. "There's about
ten
of
us here. We were worried. You've been out cold since you came in."

"Howww
long have I been here?"

"This
is the sixth day," said another voice.

"Six
days..?" Jack tried to sit up but pain lanced through his
brain
in a white hot flash.

"His
eyes!" said the second voice.

"L
ay
down, s
ir!
Lay
down!
"
urged Toncaresh.

Jack
dropped back down to the pillow in agony. "Jesus!" he
groaned.
He
brought his hands over his eyes to keep his head from exploding and
felt the wires and IV lines emerging from under the bandages across
his face. It took him several moments to recover, catch his breath
and clear the pain. Then a chill raced up his back. "Who said
eyes? What about my eyes? Oh God... am I blind?"

"No.
No, not completely," said the second voice. "At least I
don't
think
so..."

"We
were awake when they bought you in," said Toncaresh. "The
Doc
said
something about a fractured skull and your left eye..."

Jack
ran his fingertips gingerly across the bandages producing a
spike
of pain where his left eye should be. "Oh God," he
whispered. His left eye was gone, the tubes and lines seemed to run
into the empty socket. "What happened?" he mumbled.

"We
got rammed," said a third voice. "That's how most of us
ended
up
here. Bounced around. You know."

"I
am
so
sorry..." The bandage became wet around his right eye.

"For
what?" asked the second voice. "It wasn't your fault.
Besides,
most
are just bumps and bruises. Most went right back to duty."

"Doc
only lost two..." said the third.

"Shut
up, you dope!" Hissed the second.

"Who?"
shot Jack.

"Try
to get some sleep, sir."

"God
damn it, Toncaresh! Who?"

"ABS
Mystic..." He paused.

"
And?!
"

"
Please,
sir..." pleaded the ABS.

"Who
else, dammit!"

"Chief
Engineer Trigoss..."

For
a moment, there was silence. Steele's stomach knotted. "Aw
damn...
Trigoss..."
it was barely a whisper. "Damn. Damn, damn, damn..." He
took a deep breath to choke back a sob and swallowed hard. "What
happened?"

Toncaresh's
voice was deadpan. He liked the Captain and didn't want
to
see him put himself through this. "The collision ruptured the
interlink connectors and started a fuel leak on two of the thrust
engines. There was a fire. Mystic was trapped and the Chief went in
to get him. He didn't even hesitate. They never came out..."

The
three crewmen lay awake in their beds and listened to their
Captain
cry himself to sleep grieving for the loss of a crew member - a
friend. In a moment of unspoken communication, they realized how
much this man cared and agreed never to reveal to anyone, what some
might perceive to be a moment of weakness. But they would never
forget the compassion he displayed.

EARTH,
CHICAGO ILLINOIS:
OH
WHAT A TANGLED WEB WE WEAVE

Lynnette
Steele sat bolt upright in bed and stared wide eyed into
the
darkness, cold with sweat. Sliding out from under the covers, she
padded across the bedroom carpet, her flannel nightgown clinging
damply and causing her chill. She found comfort in the heavy robe
she retrieved from the back of the bedroom door. Wrapping it tightly
around her, she made her way through the darkened house, the only
light, coming through the dining room window from the streetlight
outside. She stopped on her way back from the kitchen, brandy glass
in hand and stared at the falling snow. The quiet Chicago side
street was covered in a thick blanket of pure white. Clean and
pristine, it sparkled in the light of the streetlights. She wondered
if it was snowing where he was and tried not to think of his name
because she knew it would make her cry. She shivered as a blast of
wind whipped the snow against the windowpane, then sipped the
brandy, letting it warm her, numb her, so she could sleep.

She
was still there when Kyle found her. He put his arms around her,
embracing
her from behind and watched the swirling snow for a moment in
silence. "Another nightmare?"

She
sipped her brandy. "Uh huh."

He
kissed the top of her head. "Are you ok?"

She
patted his hand and nodded. "He's alive you know..."

"I
know." Kyle learned long ago to trust her intuitions about
certain
things,
but he also knew the realities and the inherent dangers involved in
clandestine operations. He wanted to believe Jack was still alive,
but he had serious doubts. Lynnette began having nightmares about a
month ago, when more details of Jack's disappearance came to light
via an old friend of Kyle's who was still in the FBI.

■ ■ ■

"He's
in it way over his head, Kyle," said Cooper. "I'm sure he
had no
idea.
They were just using him as a delivery boy." Phil Cooper went
on to explain that the CIA had set up a semi-legal operation, but it
had some terrible snags which doomed it from the start.

"The
whole thing was the brain child of some CIA big shot named
Stephen
Miles who'd cooked up this scheme to catch a Russian named Colonel
Restonovich," explained Cooper. "He's KGB, supposedly
backing someone in the Vasquez drug cartel somewhere near Sao Palo.”

“
But
the CIA is supposed to be limited to actions outside of the US and
its territories...”

“
True,”
agreed Cooper, “but the principal was a Russian KGB agent, and
Vasquez was a Brazilian national operating out of Sao Palo, Brazil.
He was often in Puerto Rico and that's where things crossed the
line, but they can rationalize that they were tracking a foreign
national - the higher-ups will look the other way. We're supposed to
share information across agency lines - but that rarely happens.
Everybody's competing for budgetary allowances - the most successful
agency gets the lion's share of the pot - nobody
wants
to share.”

"What
about the B25?"asked Kyle, unmoved.

"Yes,
well, Miles' personal pet project..." Cooper answered.
"Evidently, it inspired an idea for
disguising
a large number of operatives in the same place at the same time. A
movie set. The whole thing was a cover. But, of course, Restonovich
and the Vasquez people already knew that."

"How?"
wondered Kyle.

"Simple.
A double agent. Miles routed all the planes through Puerto
Rico
where he had an agent posing as a mechanic. She would inspect and
fuel the planes, make sure everything was ok. Well I don't know how
the CIA got her, but she was a Soviet first and foremost. She's
actually Cuban, posing as Puerto Rican. She's also Restonovich's
niece. He lived and got married in Cuba during the missile crisis in
the early sixties."