My Journal
By Harriman Nelson
59
It’s been impossible to get the smell of sickness out of the boat,
despite all hygienic protocols, including sanitizers and air scrubbers.
Chip had reduced all duty stations to skeleton coverage and only
assigned those who knew they would be less symptomatic on the surface. But coverage
was limited. Of these few, some still
had problems even on the calm seas.
Still nauseous but not as bad as I’d been a few hours previously,
I headed to the Control Room to offer relief to anyone more indisposed and
miserable than the rest. I found Chip sitting on the periscope island, barf bag
in hand but he pointed to Kowalski, equally equipped.
“I’ll take sonar, Ski,” I patted him on the shoulder, “get
yourself to your rack.”
“But you’re sick too, aren’t you? I heard you when I took the
shortcut through officer’s country to get here.”
“The worst of it’s over…now, get along…we’ll let you know when to
resume your post.”
He began to thank me but needed to use his barf bag before he
could continue.
“Or not,” I added and took his seat, setting my supply of bags on
my lap. Hopefully I wouldn’t need to use them.
To my utter shame I didn’t recognize the men seated next to me. (Lee
would have known their faces, names, their families, their homes, everything.)
I put on the headset and began the laborious task of listening to and
watching the console in front of me. It was so boring I decided right then and
there to give all Control Room qualified men a raise. In fact, I decided to give
everyone a raise.
The duty Sparks managed to groan, “BBC report…”and the monitor
came to life….
“Here we are in Corfu,” the reporter said dockside, a taxi waiting,
“where Captain Nelson-Crane and Commander Jackson have just returned with their
rented sailboat.
Lee, good captain that he was, finished tying up the sailboat as
Jackson dragged their luggage down the ramp and signed off on the rental
clipboard with one of the agents. Joe looked exhausted. Lee followed and looked
worse. The skin around his eyes was even darker than before, and both men were
unshaven.
“Captain,” the reporter asked, “do you know about Seaview’s
predicament? Our helicopters couldn’t see any evident damage.”
“Well, there could be any number of reasons a boat rides on the
surface. But since she’s declared an emergency, it could be a leak, ballast problems, any number of
injuries…er…damage, even her diving planes."
“You haven’t contacted the ship?”
“Boat,” Joe said, “submarines are called boats.”
“They’ve got too much going on right now for me to call,” Lee
answered the question, “I’m sure Captain Morton has things well in hand.”
“Captain, if I may digress, it’s believed that Admiral Nelson took
Seaview out of European waters because of an altercation between you two.”
“Admiral Nelson is not the kind of man to do any such thing out of
spite.”
“But there ‘was’ an argument?”
“We had a difference of opinion about something, yes,” Lee
admitted, “but that wouldn’t have made him change course unless it was due to a
contractual matter with some of our NIMR clients.”
“You’re saying he didn’t
keep the ship, sorry, boat, nearby Europe on account of
you?”
“I don’t know his reasons for that,” Lee said.“She’s his boat, to do
with as he pleases. For all I know, Seaview was busy exploring the clam and cephalopod
habitats all this time.”
“But….”
“Look,” he said, irritated, scratching his stitches, “I’m tired of
all the speculation about Harry and me.”
“Then you’re still calling him Harry? We know from eyewitnesses at
the Santorini police station that you pulled the Nelson family ring from your
finger and flung it at him. So we can only assume it was a serious argument."
“Assume anything you like, but if something happened between us
is not any of your business, is it? Now,
if you’ll excuse us, we have a ferry to catch.”
Without another word, Lee and Joe, their luggage already put into
the cab by the driver, hopped into the vehicle and drove away.
“Well, it might not be anyone’s business,” the reporter continued,
“but all reports we have do indicate a major rift between Captain
Nelson-Crane and his adopted father, Admiral Harriman Nelson. How long their familial
relationship will last, is anyone’s guess.”
I couldn’t help myself. My stomach had turned. The barf bag served
its purpose.
“Admiral?” Chip said, wearily making his way toward me, after
snagging a new can of Ginger Ale that was stacked with others on the periscope
island, and handed it to me, “don’t take it to heart. He didn’t exactly admit a
blow up.”
“He didn’t deny it either.”
Then was an aerial view of Seaview on the surface, tken from news helicopters, shipping, and aircraft.
“And so the submarine Seaview will arrive,” the reporter said,
“hopefully, in Lisbon tomorrow for repairs. Captain Nelson–Crane will not,
apparently, be meeting her. And now in
other news….”
Chip turned the monitor off, and looked at me as I gratefully
opened the pop top and guzzled down a little of the crisp tasting soda. It hurt
my throat, but it did help my stomach.
It wasn’t long before Chip called
for a change of watch and I found myself bumped by a recovering crewman.
“He looked sick to me,” Chip said taking me to the Observation
Nose, depositing one of his used barf bags into the covered trash can, the kind
with the foot pedal.
“I think so to. But we can’t very well ask him. He’ll consider it
an unjustified invasion of privacy.”
“Only if he knows about it,” Chip smirked.
“What are you up to, Lad?”
“Oh, just remembering one of those pesky little details that Lee happened
to mention about some of his former ONI assignments.”
“Out with it.”
“The gadgets that field agents have, including laptops probably, have special microchips. Microchips designed
to eavesdrop without giving any indication that they are. If the gadget's powered up it
can record audio and visual even if the monitor is turned off. The only
thing I need is ONI’s remote code to tell Joe’s laptop to start
spying.”
“Do you honestly think they’d agree to it? And how often do you
think Joe would even use his laptop on the tour?”
“He’s always on it. Fancies himself a writer.”
“Contact Admiral Cartwright. Tell him…tell him that we saw the
captain and commander on TV and Lee’s looks unwell. We want our CMO to take a
look and that it’s a sure bet Lee wouldn’t allow a more direct approach.”
It will be awhile before Lee and Joe get to Spain and their hotel.
I’m not sure if they’ll be able to join Mrs. Piccadilly’s group on time, but as
soon as Sparks receives the laptop’s ‘on’ signal, we’re going to be listening
and watching the boys, thanks to Cartwright, who’s interested as well.
No doubt Operation Sneaky Spy will mean another nail in my coffin as
far as Lee is concerned if he finds out about it. But I’m dead to Lee now
anyway. So what difference should it make to my broken heart?
