Cradle

by: Arthur C. Clarke

& Gentry Lee

THE emerald water smashes against the dark volcanic cliffs.  Fine white spray hovers over the harsh rock creating a misty veil that glimmers in the fading light.  In the distance, two yellow suns set simultaneously, separated by about forty degrees as they disappear together below the horizon.  Across the blue-black sky, on the opposite side of the isthmus that slopes gently downward from the volcanic cliffs to another ocean, a pair of full moons rise as the two suns vanish.  Their twin moonlight, although much weaker than the shine of the disappearing suns, is still strong enough to create dancing moon shadows on the ocean beneath the rocky overhang.

      As the dual moons rise on the eastern side of the isthmus, light begins to glow on the horizon beside them, about twenty degrees to the south.  At first the glow looks like the light of a distant city, but with each passing moment it brightens until it spreads across the sky.  At length an awesome third moon, its first chord coming over the horizon when the twin moons are maybe ten degrees into their arc, begins to rise.  Calm descends on both oceans for a few seconds, as if the world beneath the giant orb has paused to give homage to the spectacular sight.  This great yellow moon, its face clearly scarred by craters, appears to be surveying its dominion as it slowly rises in the sky and bathes the emerald oceans in a mysterious reflected light.  It is a hundred times the size of the smaller twin moons and its wide swath through the sky is greater in size than that cut minutes before by the pair of setting suns

      Below the cliffs, in the shadow of the newest moon, a long sinuous object arcs its way out of the water, rising nearly twenty feet above the surface.  The slender apparition twists itself toward the cliffs and thrusts itself forward as the piercing sound of a trumpet, a solo blast, reverberates against the rocks and carries across the isthmus.  A moment later another sound is heard, a muted echo or possibly a reply from the other sea.  The creature swims gracefully into the moonlight, its long, lithe neck a cobalt blue above a gray body mostly submerged in the ocean.  Now the bluenecked serpent extends itself upward again and leans toward the land, its face revealed in the expanding moonlight.  The facial features are convoluted and complex, with rows of orifices of unknown purpose.  At the peak of its extension, the creature contorts its face and a medley of sounds is heard; the trumpet blast is now accompanied by an oboe and an organ.  After a short pause a muted response, quieter but with the same rich complexity of sound, comes back across the isthmus.

      The serpent swims north along the shore.  Behind it in the moonlight half a dozen other swirling necks rise from the ocean.  These creatures are a little smaller, the hues of their cobalt necks not quite so vivid.  This ensemble turns as one, on cue, and blasts six trumpet calls to the east.  Again a pause precedes the expected response, the sound of several smaller trumpets from across the land.  Immediately the six new creatures and their distant friends begin a complex, interleaved musical pattern, slowly building in intensity until the overture reaches an inevitable crescendo and then abruptly abates.

      After a few moments more the oceans on both sides of the isthmus become alive with teeming serpents of all sizes.  Hundreds, even thousands, of serpents, covering the water for as far as the eye can see, begin languorously extending their necks, twisting as if looking around, and joining in the singing.  The serpents of the eastern sea are slightly smaller than their western cousins.  The necks of the eastern serpents are pale blue instead of cobalt.  These pale blue serpents are also joined by a nursery of tiny creatures, the palest of blue markings on their necks, whose singing is high-pitched and a trifle erratic and sounds like piccolos interspersed with crystal bells.

      The waters of the emerald oceans begin to surge forward in tidal frenzy, now rapidly moving up the rocky cliffs on the western side and quickly submerging great chunks of land on the sloping side that runs to the eastern ocean.  The concerted pull of all the moons produces a tide that will eventually cover the isthmus completely, uniting the two oceans.  As the waters draw ever closer together, the music from the thousand singing serpents swells to magnificence, flooding the entire area with a sound of mesmerizing beauty.  It is also a plaintive sound of longing and anticipation, the universal cry of long-suppressed desire on the verge of being satisfied.

      The great longnecked serpents of Canthor conclude their annual mating symphony as the two oceans become one and the inhabitants of each ocean seek out their lifelong mates in the united waters.  There are five nights out of each Canthorean year when the tidal forces act together to submerge the isthmus and permit the sexual mixing of the serpents.  Five nights of love play and frolicking, of renewal and promise, before the requisite return to the separate oceans and a year of waiting for the great tide to come again.

      For the little ones, the new serpents placed into gestation by the last annual gathering and hatched by their mothers in the eastern ocean, the great tide is a time of excitement and sadness.  They must now separate from their playmates, leave their infancy behind.  Half must depart from their mothers as well and go to swim among the cobalt blue adults that they have never met.  This half, having lived their lives among their mothers’ friends exclusively, will swim above and across the isthmus on the fifth night alongside their fathers.  Once into the western ocean, their pale blue necks will begin to deepen in color as they begin the transition through puberty into adulthood.  And next year, their tiny voices will have matured just enough that each of them may detect some arousing and positive response to his call during the mating symphony

      Thousands of years pass on the planet Canthor.  The forces of change conspire against the beautiful bluenecked serpents.  First a major ice age comes to the world, locking up more of the planet’s water in perennial polar caps and lowering the seas.  The number of days that the great tide submerges the isthmus is reduced to four, then three, and finally only two.  The elaborate mating ritual of the serpents, worked out over hundreds of generations, works best for a five-night courtship.  For the several hundred years that only two nights are available for mating, the number of serpent offspring produced each year drops precipitously.  The total number of Canthorean serpents becomes dangerously small.

      At length the radiative output of the dual suns increases slightly again and Canthor emerges from its ice age.  The sea level rises and the number of days for mating returns eventually to five.  The serpent symphony, which had added a saddened counterpoint during the trying years of reduced mating nights, again becomes charged with joy.  For several generations the number of serpents increases.  But then the lovely creatures encounter another foe.

      Evolving elsewhere on Canthor for almost a million years has been another intelligent species, a fierce, squat creature with an insatiable appetite for control.  The ice age stimulated the rapid evolution of these trolls by enforcing a strict survival of the fittest that naturally selected those individuals with the most resources (intelligence and power primarily) and, in a sense, purified the troll gene pool.

      The troll species that emerges from the thousands of years of ice domination on Canthor is sharper and more capable of dealing with the rest of its environment.  It has become a tool maker and has learned how to use the riches of the planet for its benefit.  No other living creatures on Canthor can match the cleverness of the trolls or threaten their existence.  So the trolls proliferate around the planet, dominating it completely with their rapaciousness.

      The bluenecked serpents have had no natural enemies on Canthor for hundreds of millennia.  Therefore they have not retained the aggression and territoriality necessary to survive when threatened.  Their diet has always consisted primarily of plants and animals that fill the Canthorean oceans.  The seas provide a virtual cornucopia of food, so it does not make much of an impression upon the serpents when the trolls begin to farm the oceans for their own food.  To the trolls, however, whose greed for territory knows no bounds, the serpents represent at least a rival for the plenty of the oceans and possibly, because of their size and intelligence, even a survival threat.

      It is again the time of the great tide and the male longnecked serpents have completed their ocean migration on time, swarming as usual just opposite the great volcanic cliffs.  There are only a few hundred male serpents now, down markedly from the halcyon years when they were so numerous they stretched as far as the eye could see.  The giant full moon rises as it has for thousands of years, following the twin smaller moons into the sky, and the overture announces the coming mating symphony.  But as the tide rolls in to submerge the isthmus, the serpents sense that something is wrong.  A growing cacophony creeps into the mystical mating song.  Anxiety spreads by sound across both sides of the land separating the serpents.  When the tide finally surges over the top of the volcanic rocks, the point in the original mating symphony for the magnificent final crescendo, the sound of the serpents’ pleading wail fills the Canthorean night.

      The trolls have erected a huge barrier down the spine of the isthmus.  Carefully calculated to be just tall enough to preclude passage to the largest of the serpents, this oppressive barrier allows the lovely bluenecked creatures, if they strain, to sense one another at close range but not to touch.  The nights of the great tide are extremely painful to watch.  From both sides the serpents hurl themselves repeatedly and ineffectually at the wall, trying desperately to make contact with their mates.  But it is all in vain.  The barrier holds.  The serpents are unable to mate.  Both sexes return eventually to their respective oceans, deeply saddened and profoundly aware of the implications of the barrier for their future.

      Some of the serpents batter themselves nearly senseless as they try to break down the wall.  These wounded ones on both sides of the isthmus remain behind to recover while the rest of the species, resuming the annual migration as if the normal mating had indeed taken place, slowly and sadly swim away, each sex heading for a separate reach of Canthor.

      It is two nights after the great tide has stopped submerging the land between the oceans.  Two older male serpents, their necks still bruised from the repeated bootless hammerings against the hated barrier, are swimming slowly together in the moonlight.  A strange light in the sky comes swiftly upon them from above.  It hovers over the serpents, seeming to spotlight them as they crane their necks to see what is happening.

      In a moment the graceful necks keel forward and slap down upon the moonlit ocean.  From out of the light above them comes an object, a basket of some kind, that descends to the water.  The two serpents are scooped up, lifted silently out of the sea into the air, reeled in by some unknown fisherman in the sky above them.  The same scene repeats a dozen times, first in the western ocean with the wounded serpents whose necks are cobalt blue, then in the eastern ocean with their pale blue counterparts.  It is as if a great roundup is taking place, removing all the exhausted serpents who had been unable to take their place with the rest of the species in the annual migration.

      Far above Canthor a gigantic cylindrical spaceship awaits the return of its robot minions.  Twenty miles on a side, this traveling planet opens itself to a fleet of returning vehicles the size of large airplanes that bring back the quarry from Canthor.  The cylinder rotates slowly as Canthor and its giant moon shine in the background.  A solo laggard vehicle returns a door opens to receive it in the back of the larger craft, and for a while there is no more activity.  At length the cylinder tips over on its side and fires several small rockets.  It is out of sight in seconds, departing Canthor for other worlds.

      The snow falls steadily on the huge man trudging silently through the forest.  Clad in skins, carrying a heavy load on his back and a large spear in one hand, he turns his hairy, unkempt face toward the others behind him, his family, and grunts at them to hurry.  There are five altogether, an infant carried by the woman and two teenage children.  The teenagers are wearing skins like their parents and have large bundles slung across their backs.  The teenage boy is also carrying a spear.  At close distance all of them look very weary, almost exhausted.

      They break free from the forest for a moment and enter a meadow that surrounds a frozen pond.  The snow continues to fall, adding to the three inches that already cover the ground.  The father motions to his family to stop and approaches the pond gingerly.  As the others huddle together against the cold, the man takes a crude tool from his bundle and, after brushing the snow off the surface of the pond in a small area, begins to cut the ice.  Almost an hour passes.  Finally he succeeds, utters a grunt of happiness, and bends down to drink the water.  He pulls out a skin, fills it, and brings the water to his wife and children.

      The teenage daughter smiles at her father, a smile of love and admiration, as he offers her the water.  Her face is tired, etched with the lines of sun and wind and cold.  She reaches up to take the skin.  Suddenly her face contorts with fear, she screams, and her father turns just in time to protect himself from a snarling wolf, midair in an attack.  He strikes the wolf full force with his powerful arm, knocking it away from its target, and then stumbles toward his spear on the ground beside the pond.  He grabs the spear and turns around quickly, prepared to defend his family.

      Three wolves have attacked them.  His son has deftly impaled one of the wolves through the midriff with his spear, but now a second wolf has pinioned the boy, defenseless in the snow, before he has been able to withdraw his weapon and strike again.  In a frenzy, the father jumps forward and thrusts his spear into the wolf attacking his son.  But it is too late.  The hungry wolf had already found the boy’s throat, severing the jugular vein with one quick snap of his powerful jaws.

      Whirling around, the caveman moves against the last of the wolves.  His wife lies bleeding in the snow and his infant child is unprotected, screaming in its wrappings some twenty feet from the mother.  The last wolf, wary of the huge man, feints an attack against the father and then leaps for the baby.  Before the man can respond, the wolf has grabbed the baby by its clothes and headed off for the forest.

      The young girl was spared physical injury in the attack but was devastated by the near instant death of her brother and the disappearance of her tiny sister.  She holds her dead brother’s hand and sobs uncontrollably.  The father stuffs virgin snow in the wife’s wounds and then lifts her upon his back along with the heavy bundles.  He grunts a couple of times to his daughter and she finally, reluctantly, picks herself up and starts gathering what remains of the family’s things into another bundle.

      As night falls the three surviving members of the family are approaching some caves at the edge of the forest.  The father is near exhaustion from the weight of his wife and the family’s meager belongings.  He sits down to rest for a moment.  His daughter stumbles down beside him, placing her head in his lap.  She cries silently and her father tenderly wipes away her tears.  A bright light suddenly shines down on them from above and an instant later all three are unconscious.

      A tethered metallic basket about fifteen feet long and five feet wide descends in the eerie snowy light and comes to rest softly on the ground beside the three humans.  The sides of the basket drop and metal belts extend themselves outward, wrapping around each of the people.  They are pulled into the basket, the sides of the basket are closed, and the strange object then ascends into the snowy night.  Seconds later the spotlight disappears and life returns to normal in the prehistoric forest.

      Above the Earth the giant cylinder sits quietly, waiting for its messengers to return.  The planet below is nearly cloudless and the great blue stretches of ocean tremble like jewels in the reflected sunlight.  Near the evening terminator, the low sun angles show a vast expanse of ice extending down from the North Pole, covering almost all of a large continent.  To the west, across a great ocean and an all white northern island, the midday sun shines on another large continent.  It is also mostly covered by ice.  Here the ice extends southward across two thirds of the land mass and only disappears completely as the continent begins to taper and the southern sea is reached.

      The hunting shuttles sent out from the great cylinder return to their base and unload their prey.  The father, injured mother, and teenage daughter are inside the small shuttle craft along with fifty to sixty other humans, obviously selected from disparate points around the world.  None of the humans is moving.  After the shuttle safely docks with the mother ship, all the prehistoric humans are moved in a large van to a receiving station.  Here they are admitted and catalogued, and then taken inside a vast module that re-creates the environment of Earth.

      Far above the Earth, the last of the drone scouts returns to the giant cylinder.  There is a momentary pause, as if some unknown checklist were being verified, and then the cylindrical space vehicle disappears.

THURSDAY

1

THEY were there on the beach at sunrise.  Sometime during the night seven whales had run aground at Deer Key, five miles east of Key West.  The powerful leviathans of the deep, ten to fifteen feet long, looked helpless as they lay floundering on the sand.  Another half dozen members of this misguided pod of false killer whales were swimming in circles in the shallow lagoon just off the beach, obviously lost and confused.

      By seven o’clock on the clear March morning, whale experts from Key West had arrived and were already beginning to coordinate what would later become a concerted effort by local fishermen and boating enthusiasts to push the beached animals back into the lagoon.  Once the whales were off the beach, the next task would be to coax the entire pod into the Gulf of Mexico.  There was little or no chance that the animals would survive unless they could be returned to open water.

      Carol Dawson was the first reporter to arrive.  She parked her sporty new Korean station wagon on the shoulder of the road, just off the beach, and jumped out to analyze the situation.  The beach and lagoon at Deer Key formed a cove that was shaped like a half moon.  An imaginary cord connecting the two points of land at the ends of the cove would extend almost half a mile across the water.  Outside the cord was the Gulf of Mexico.  The seven whales had penetrated the cove in the center and were beached at the point farthest from the open sea.  They were about thirty feet apart and maybe twenty-five feet up on the sand.  The rest of the whales were trapped in the shallows no more than a hundred feet offshore.

      Carol walked around to the back of her station wagon.  Before pulling out a large photographic case, she stopped to adjust the strings on her pants.  (She had dressed quickly this morning when awakened in her Key West hotel room by the call from Miami.  Her exercise sweat suit was hardly her usual working attire.  The sweats hid the assets of a shapely, finely tuned body that looked more like twenty than thirty.)  Inside the case was a collection of cameras, both still and video.  She selected three of the cameras, popped a couple of M & Ms from an old package into her mouth, and approached the beach.  As she walked across the sand toward the people and the beached whales, Carol stopped occasionally to photograph the scene.

      Carol first approached a man wearing a uniform from the South Florida Marine Research Center.  He was facing the ocean and talking to two Naval officers from the Marine Patrol section of the U.S.  Naval Air Station in Key West.  A dozen or so local volunteers were in close orbit around the speakers, keeping their distance but listening intently to the discussion.  Carol walked up to the man from the research center and took him by the arm.

      “Good morning, Jeff,” she said.

      He turned to look at her.  After a moment a vague smile of recognition crossed his face.

      “Carol Dawson, Miami Herald,” she said quickly.  “We met one night at MOI.  I was with Dale Michaels.”

      “Sure, I remember you,” he said.  “How could I forget a gorgeous face like yours?”  After a moment he continued, “But what are you doing here?  As far as I know, nobody in the world knew these whales were here until an hour ago.  And Miami is over a hundred miles away.”

      Carol laughed, her eyes politely acknowledging and thanking Jeff for the compliment.  She still didn’t like it but had grudgingly grown to accept the fact that people, men especially, remembered her for her looks.

      “I was already in Key West on another story, Dale called me this morning as soon as he heard about the whales.  Can I interrupt you for just a minute and get some expert comments?  For the record, of course.”

      As she was speaking, Carol reached down and picked up a video camera, one of the newest models, a 1993 SONY about the size of a small notebook, and began interviewing Dr. Jeff Marsden, “the leading authority on whales in the Florida Keys.”  The interview was standard stuff, of course, and Carol could have herself supplied all the answers.  But Ms.  Dawson was a good reporter and knew the value of an expert in situations like this.

      Dr. Marsden explained that marine biologists still did not understand the reasons for whale beachings, although their increased frequency in the late eighties and early nineties had provided ample opportunities for research.  According to him, most experts blamed the beachings on infestations of parasites in the individual whales leading each of the unfortunate pods.  The prevailing theory suggests that these parasites confuse the intricate navigation systems telling the whales where to go.  In other words, the lead whale somehow thinks his migration path is onto the beach and across the land; the others follow because of the rigorous hierarchy in the pod.

      “I’ve heard some people say, Dr. Marsden, that the increase in whale beachings is due to us and our pollution.  Would you care to comment on the accusation that our wastes as well as our acoustic and electronic pollution have undermined the sensitive biosystems that the whales use to navigate?”

      Carol used the zoom on her tiny video camera to record the furrowing of Jeff Marsden’s brow.  He was clearly not expecting such a leading question from her this early in the morning.

      After thinking for a moment, he answered.  “There have been several attempts to explain why there are so many more beachings now than were recorded in the past.  Most researchers come to the inescapable conclusion that something in the whales’ environment has changed in the last half-century.  It is not too farfetched to imagine that we may well have been responsible for the changes.”

      Carol knew she had the right quotes for a perfect short piece for television.  She then quickly and professionally wrapped up the interview, thanked Dr. Marsden, and walked over to the onlookers.  In a minute she had plenty of volunteers to take her out into the lagoon so that she could take some close-up photographs of the confused whales.  Within five minutes not only had Carol finished several discs of still photographs, but she also had rigged up her video camera with a stabilizing tripod on one of the little boats and done a video clip of herself explaining the beachings.

      Before leaving the beach at Deer Key, Carol Dawson opened up the back of her station wagon.  It served her well as a portable photo laboratory.  She first rewound and checked the video tape that she had taken, listening particularly to hear if the splashing of the whales could be heard behind her while she was in the boat.  Then she popped the discs from the still cameras into readers to see if she liked all the photographs.  They were good.  She smiled to herself, closed the back of the station wagon, and drove back to Key West.

2

CAROL finished the redundant transfer of the videotape through the modem to Joey Hernandez in Miami and then called another number.  She was sitting in one of the private cubicles inside the large new communications room at the Key West Marriott.  The screen in front of Carol indicated that the connection for her new number had been made, but there was not yet any picture.  She heard a woman’s voice say, “Good morning, Dr. Michaels’ office.”

      “Good morning, Bernice, it’s Carol.  I’m on video.”

      The monitor cleared up in a second and a pleasant middle-aged woman appeared.  “Oh, hi, Carol.  I’ll tell Dale you’re on the line.”

      Carol smiled as she watched Bernice swivel her chair and roll over to a panel of buttons on her left.  Bernice was almost surrounded by her desk.  In front of her were a couple of keyboards connected to two large screens, a variety of disc drives, and what looked like a phone embedded in another monitor.  Apparently there had been no room for the communications panel right next to the phone, so Bernice had to roll three to four feet in her chair to signal to Dr. Dale Michaels that he had a call, that it was on video, that it was Carol, and that it was coming from Key West.  Dr. Dale, as he was known by everyone except Carol, liked to have plenty of information before he answered the phone.

      Both to Bernice’s left and right were perpendicular extensions to the desk, upon which were arrayed stacks of floppy discs of different sizes (the stacks were labeled “read” or “file” or “outgoing correspondence”), interleaved with groups of magazines and manila folders containing hard copy printout from the computers.  Bernice pushed a button on the panel but nothing happened.  She looked apologetically at Carol on the screen above the phone.

      “I’m sorry, Carol.”  Bernice was a little flustered.  “Maybe I didn’t do it right.  Dr. Dale had a new system installed this week again and I’m not certain .  .  .”

      One of the two large monitors flashed a message.  “Oh good,” Bernice continued, now smiling, “I did it right.  He’ll be with you in a minute.  He has someone in there with him and will finish quickly so he can see you and speak with you.  I hope you don’t mind if I put you on hold.”

      Carol nodded and Bernice’s image faded away from the screen.  On the monitor Carol now watched the beginning of a short tutorial documentary on oyster farming.  The piece was beautifully filmed underwater using the most advanced photographic equipment.  The narration featured the mellifluous voice of Dr. Dale and the video pointed out the connection between the inventions at MOI (the Miami Oceanographic Institute, of which Dr. Dale Michaels was the founder and chief executive officer) and the rapid rise of sea farming of all kinds.  But Carol had to laugh.  Playing quietly behind the narration, and increasing in volume during periods of narrative silence, was Pachelbel’s “Canon.”  It was Dale’s favorite piece of mood music (he was so predictable — Carol always knew what was coming next when Dale put Pachelbel on the CD player in his apartment), but it seemed strange to her to listen to the lilting strings as the cameras moved in for close-ups of growing oysters.

      The oyster story was abruptly discontinued in medias res and the screen dissolved to the interior of a large executive office.  Dale Michaels was sitting on a couch, across the room from his modem desk, looking at one of three video monitors that could be seen in the room.  “Good morning again, Carol,” he said enthusiastically.  “So how did it go?  And where are you?  I didn’t know that they had videos in the Marriott rooms yet.”

      Dr. Michaels was tall and slim.  Blond, his hair was slightly curly and receding just a trace at the temples.  He flashed a ready smile that was too quick, almost practiced, but his green eyes were warm and open.

      “I’m down in the comm room here at the hotel,” Carol answered.  “I just sent the whale beaching story off to the Herald on disc.  Jesus, Dale, I felt so sorry for those poor animals.  How can they be so smart and still get their directions so fouled up?”

      “We don’t know, Carol,” Dale replied.  “But remember that our definition of intelligence and the whales’ definition are almost certainly completely different.  Besides, it’s not that surprising that they trust their internal navigation system even when it leads them to disaster.  Can you imagine a situation in which you would essentially disregard information that your eyes were giving you?  It’s the same thing.  We’re talking here about a malfunction in their primary sensor.”

      Carol was quiet for a moment.  “I guess I can see what you’re saying,” she said finally, “but it hurt to see them so helpless.  Oh, well, anyway, I got the story on video too.  Incidentally, the new integrated video technology is superb.  The Marriott here just installed a new higher data rate modem for video and I was able to transfer the entire eight-minute piece to Joey Hernandez at Channel 44 in only two minutes.  He loved it.  He does the noon news, you know.  Catch it if you can and tell me what you think.”

      Carol paused just a beat.  “And by the way, Dale, thanks again for the tip.”

      “Just glad to help.”  Dale was beaming.  He loved it when he could help Carol with her career.  He had been pursuing her single-mindedly, in his left brain scientific way, for almost a year and a half.  But he had been unable to convince her that a permanent relationship would be mutually beneficial.  Or at least he thought that was the problem.

      “I think this whale thing could be a great cover,” Carol was saying.  “You know I was worried about attracting too much attention with your telescope.  And the treasure hunter bit just doesn’t fit if someone down here recognizes me.  But I think I can use a whale follow-up story as the pretense.  What do you think?”

      “Sounds reasonable to me,” Dale answered.  “Incidentally, there have been a couple of other whale irregularities reported as well this morning — a partial pod beaching up at Sanibel and a supposed attack on a fishing boat north of Marathon.  The owner was Vietnamese and highly excitable.  Of course it’s almost unheard of that false killers attack anything related to humans.  But maybe you can use the whole thing somehow.”

      Carol saw that he was already up from the couch and walking around his office.  Dr. Dale Michaels had so much energy it was almost impossible for him to sit still or relax.  He was just a few months away from his fortieth birthday but he still had the zest and enthusiasm of a teenager.

      “Just try not to let anyone from the Navy know that you have the telescope,” he continued.  “They called again this morning and asked for a third set of equipment.  I told them the third telescope was loaned out and being used for research.  Whatever it is that they’re looking for must be very important.”  He turned and looked at the camera.  “And very secret.  This guy Lieutenant Todd reminded me again this morning, as soon as I made a normal scientific inquiry, that it was Navy business and he couldn’t tell me anything about it.”

      Carol made some notes on a small spiral pad.  “You know, Dale,” she began again, “I thought this story had tremendous potential as soon as you mentioned it to me yesterday.  Everything indicates that something unusual and secret is going on with the Navy.  I myself was amused by the amateur way that Todd stonewalled me on the phone yesterday and then demanded to know who had given me his name.  I told him that a source in the Pentagon had suggested that there was some high-priority activity at the Naval Air Station in Key West and that he, Todd, was associated with it.  He seemed to buy it.  And I’m convinced that the bozo Navy public affairs guy here knows nothing at all about anything that might be happening.”

      Carol yawned and quickly put her hand over her mouth.  “Well, it’s too late to go back to bed.  I guess I’ll exercise and then go find that boat we talked about.  I feel as if I’m looking for a needle in a haystack, but your guess could be right.  Anyway, I’ll start with the map you gave me.  And if they really have lost a cruise missile somewhere down here and are trying to cover it up, it would certainly be a great scoop for me.  Talk to you later.”

      Dale waved good-bye and hung up.  Carol left the communications area and walked out to the end of the hotel.  She had an oceanfront room on the first floor.  The Herald wouldn’t pay for that kind of luxury, but she had decided to splurge anyway this time and pamper herself.  As she was changing into her skin-tight workout swimsuit, she mused to herself about her conversation with Dale.  Nobody would ever know, she thought, that Dale and I are lovers.  Or at least sex partners It’s all so businesslike.  As if we’re teammates or something.  No darlings or dears.  She paused for a moment and then completed her thought.  Did I make it that way?  she wondered.

      It was almost nine o’clock and the resort was in the process of waking up when Carol walked out of her room and onto the hotel grounds.  On the beach, the staff had just arrived and were setting out the chaises and umbrellas on the sand for the early risers.  Carol walked over to the young man in charge (a typical Charlie Terrific, Carol thought sarcastically as she watched him strut along in front of his concession shack) and informed him that she was going for a long exercise swim.  Twice at hotels previously she had forgotten to tell the guardians of the beach that she was going to swim a half mile away from the shore.  Both times she had been “rescued,” much to her dismay, and had created an untoward scene.

      As Carol worked into the rhythm of her freestyle stroke, she began to feel the release of tension, the loosening of the knots that bound her most of the time.  Although she told most other people that she exercised regularly to stay fit, the real reason Carol spent at least forty-five minutes each morning running, swimming, or walking briskly was that she needed the exercise to deal with her fast-paced life.  Only after hard exercise could she really feel calm and at peace with her world.

      It was normal for Carol to let her mind drift idly from subject to subject while she was swimming long distances.  This morning she remembered swimming long ago in the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean near Laguna Beach in California.  Carol had been eight years old at the time and had gone to a birthday party given by a friend, Jessica was her name, whom Carol had met at soccer camp during the summer.  Jessica was rich.  Her house had cost more than a million dollars and Jessica had more toys and dolls than Carol could possibly imagine.

      Hmm, Carol was thinking as she recalled Jessica’s party and the clowns and the ponies.  That was when I still believed in fairy tales.  That was before the separation and divorce  .  .  .

      Her watch alarm sounded, breaking her reverie, and Carol turned around in the water and headed back to shore.  As she did so, she saw something strange out of the corner of her eye.  No more than twenty yards from her a great whale broke the water, sending chills down her spine and adrenaline rushing into her system.  The whale disappeared underwater and, despite the fact that Carol treaded water for a couple of minutes and scanned the horizon, she never saw him again.

      At length Carol began swimming back toward shore.  Her heart rate had started to return to normal after the bizarre encounter and now she was thinking about her lifelong fascination with whales.  She remembered having a toy whale from Sea World, in San Diego, when she was seven.  What was his name?  Shammy.  Shamu.  Something like that.  Then Carol remembered an earlier experience, one she had not thought about for twenty-five years.

      Carol was five or six and sitting in her room, ready for bed as requested, and her father came into the room carrying a picture book.  They sat together on the bed and leaned against the wallpaper with yellow flowers while he read to her.  She loved it when he put his arm around her and turned the pages in her lap.  She felt protected and comfortable.  He read to her a story about a whale that seemed human and a man named Captain Ahab.  The pictures were frightening, one in particular showed a boat being tossed about by a giant whale with a harpoon stuck in his back.

      When her father tucked her in that night he seemed to linger in the room, showering her with tender hugs and kisses.  She saw tears in his eyes and asked him if anything was wrong.  Her father just shook his head and told her that he loved her so much, sometimes it made him cry.

      Carol was so deep in this vivid memory that she wasn’t paying attention to where she was swimming.  She had drifted west with the current and could now barely see the hotel.  It took her a few minutes to orient herself and head back in the right direction.

3

LIEUTENANT Richard Todd waited impatiently while the data processing assistant made the last corrections on the master sheets.  “Come on, come on.  The meeting is supposed to start in five minutes.  And we have a couple more changes to make.”

      The poor girl was clearly hassled by the Navy officer hanging over her shoulder while she worked at the design monitor.  She corrected a couple of spelling errors on one sheet and pushed the return key.  On the screen in front of her appeared a computer line-drawn map of South Florida and the Keys.  With a light pen she tried to follow Lieutenant Todd’s instructions and highlight the specific areas described by him.

      “There,” he said finally, “that’s good.  That finishes the group.  Now hit the hard copy repro button.  What’s the initial key?  17BROK01?  Good.  On the Top Secret data base?  All right.  Today’s password?”

      “Matisse, Lieutenant,” she answered, standing up to walk around the machine and pick up a single collated hard copy of his presentation.  Todd had a blank look on his face.  “He was a French painter,” the girl said sarcastically, “M-A-T-I-S-S-E, in case you’re wondering.”

      Todd signed out for his copy of the material and then scribbled the spelling of Matisse on a sheet of scratch paper.  He awkwardly thanked the girl in a minimal way and left the room, heading out of the building and across the street.

      The conference center for the U.S.  Naval Air Station in Key West was next door.  It was a brand-new building of modem design, one of the few edifices on the base to break the architectural monotone that could best be described as “white stucco, World War II.”  Lieutenant Todd worked in one of the nondescript white buildings as head of Special Projects for the site.  Todd and his group were essentially troubleshooters for the command, crackerjack systems engineers who were moved from project to project depending upon where they were needed.  Todd himself was twenty-eight, an Annapolis graduate in aerospace engineering, a gung-ho Navy bachelor who had grown up in Littleton, a suburb of Denver in Colorado.  Todd was ambitious and in a hurry.  He felt as if he were out of the mainstream down here in Key West and longed for a chance to move to somewhere he could really prove his mettle, a weapons design center, for example, or even the Pentagon.

      The sign on the door in the conference center read TOP SECRET — BROKEN ARROW.  Lieutenant Todd checked his watch.  One minute remained before 0930, the time for the meeting.  He entered an alphanumeric code into the door lock and walked into the back of a midsized conference room with three large screens in the front.  His group of five younger officers and a couple of members of the senior staff had already arrived.  They were standing around the coffee and donuts that were on a table at the left.  Commander Vernon Winters was sitting alone at the center of a long table that ran across the room and virtually bisected it.  He was facing the screens with his back to the entrance.

      “All right, all right,” Winters said, first looking around the room and then at the digital time printout in the upper left corner of the front wall, “let’s get started.  Are you ready Lieutenant Todd?”  The other officers sat down at the table.  At the last minute another senior staff officer entered the room and took a seat in one of the chairs at the back.

      Todd walked around the table to the front of the room, to a podium with a built-in keyboard underneath a small monitor, and eyed Commander Winters.  “Yes, sir,” he answered.  He activated the computer system in the podium.  Todd indicated that he wanted access to the Top Secret Data Base.  He then entered a complicated keyed input that was the first pan of a password system.  The interactive monitor in the podium next requested the password of the day.  Todd’s first attempt was unsuccessful, for he hadn’t remembered the correct spelling.  He began to search his pockets for the piece of scrap paper.

      The only other keyboard in the room was in the center of the long table where Winters was sitting.  While Lieutenant Todd fumbled around at the podium, the commander smiled, entered the password, and then added some code of his own.  The center screen came alive in vivid color and showed a stylized woman in a yellow dress, sitting at a piano, while two young boys played checkers behind her.  A sense of red flooded forth from the picture.  It was a reproduction of one of Matisse’s paintings from his late years in Nice and was magnificently projected at the front of the room.  Lieutenant Todd looked startled.  A couple of the senior officers laughed.

      Winters smiled engagingly.  “There are some fairly amazing things that can be done with the resolution power of a 4K-by-4K image and a nearly infinite data base.” There was an awkward silence and then Winters continued.  “I guess it’s hopeless to keep trying to expand the education of you young officers on this base.  Go on.  Continue.  I’ve put you already into the Top Secret Data Base and any new input will override the picture.”

      Todd composed himself.  This man Winters is certainly a queer duck, he thought.  The admiral who was the commanding officer of the Key West base had assigned the commander last night to lead this important Panther missile investigation.  Winters had an impressive background in missiles and in systems engineering, but whoever heard of starting such a critical meeting by calling a painting up on the screen?  Todd now entered 17BROK01 and, after counting the people, the number nine.  In a few seconds a machine in the back corner of the room had copies of the presentation collated and stapled for the use of the participants.  Todd called his first image (entitled “Introduction and Background”) to the center screen with another touch of the keyboard.

      “Yesterday morning,” he began, “a demonstration test for the new Panther missile was conducted over the North Atlantic.  The missile was fired at 0700 from an airplane at eighty thousand feet off the coast of Labrador.  It was aimed at a target near the Bahamas, one of our old aircraft carriers.  After flying a normal ballistic trajectory into the region where the ship was located, the Panther was supposed to activate its terminal guidance that uses the Advanced Pattern Recognition System or APRS.  The missile should then have found the aircraft carrier and, using the reaction control jets as its primary control authority, made whatever vernier corrections were necessary to impact the old carrier on the main deck.”

      Todd pushed a key on the podium and a line drawing map of the American east coast, including the area from Labrador through Cuba, appeared on the left screen.  “The missile was a final test version,” he continued, “in the exact configuration of the production flight vehicle, except for the command test set and the warhead.  This was to be the longest test flight yet conducted and was designed to demonstrate thoroughly the new 4.2 version of the software that was recently installed in the APRS.  So of course the missile was not armed.”

      The lieutenant picked up a light pen from the podium and marked on the small monitor in front of him.  His markings were immediately translated to the larger screen behind him so that everyone could easily follow his discussion.  “On the screen you all can see the predicted versus actual overflight path of the bird yesterday.  Here, roughly ten miles east of Cape Canaveral on what appeared to be a nominal flight, the sequencer turned on the cameras.  After a couple of hundred calibration images, sort of a self-test of the APRS, the terminal guidance algorithms were activated as scheduled.  As far as we can tell from the realtime telemetry, nothing strange had occurred until this time.”

      The right screen now showed a detailed map of south Florida and the Keys that included the target in the Bahamas.  The maps on the two flanking screens remained in view during the rest of his presentation but Lieutenant Todd constantly changed the word charts in the middle to keep up with the discussion.  “The a priori location of the target, which was where the cameras should first have looked for the aircraft carrier, was here at Eleuthera, in the Bahamas.  The search algorithm should have fanned out in a circle from there and, if it had operated properly, found the target in about fifteen seconds.  This (Todd pointed toward a dotted line on the more detailed map) should have been the impact trajectory.

      “However,” Todd continued dramatically, “based on the telemetry data that we have analyzed to date, it appears that the missile veered sharply westward, toward the coast of Florida, soon after the terminal guidance system was activated.  We have only been able to reconstruct its path up to this point, where it was about three miles west of Miami Beach at an altitude of ten thousand feet.  After that the telemetry becomes intermittent and erratic.  But we do know that all the terminal guidance engines were on at the time we lost complete data.  Projecting the total control authority for the missile, the area highlighted here, covering the Everglades, the Keys, and even as far south as Cuba, represents where the bird might have landed.”

      Lieutenant Todd paused for a second and Commander Winters, who had been writing down major points in a small notebook during the presentation, immediately jumped in and started taking charge of the meeting.  “A couple of questions, Lieutenant, before we proceed,” Winters began in a businesslike manner with an obvious overtone of authority.  “First, why was the missile not destroyed soon after it veered off course?”

      “We’re not exactly certain, Commander.  The command test set and the small ordnance had been installed, of course, specifically for that purpose.  The change in the motion of the vehicle was so sudden and so unexpected that we reacted a little slowly at the beginning.  By the time we sent the command, it’s possible that we were out of range.  All we know is that we never saw an explosion of any kind.  We can only assume — ”

      “We’ll come back to this operational error later,” Winters interrupted him again.  Todd blanched at the word “error” and fidgeted behind the podium.  “Where would the impact point have been according to the guidance constants active at the time of the last complete telemetry packet?  And how long is it going to take us to extract additional information from the intermittent data?”

      Lieutenant Todd noted to himself that the commander was sharp.  Winters had obviously been associated with anomaly investigations before.  Todd then explained that if the active guidance constants had not changed again, the continued firing of the terminal engines would have brought the missile to an impact point about twenty miles south of Key West.  “However,” Todd added, “the constants were allowed, by the software, to change every five seconds.  And they had changed in two of the last five internal data updates.  So it’s unlikely they stayed the same as they were when our complete telemetry terminated.  Unfortunately, although all the constants — even the future predicted ones that are being calculated by the APRS-are stored in the onboard computer, because of bandwidth limitations we only transmit the active constants with the realtime telemetry.  We are now going through the dropout data manually to see if we can find out anything more about the constants.”

      One of the other staff officers asked a question about the probability of the missile actually having reached Cuba.  Lieutenant Todd answered “very low” and then activated an electronic overlay that placed a dotted and blinking trajectory on the right screen inset map.  The blinking dots followed a path that started just off Coral Gables, south of the city of Miami, and then continued across a portion of south Florida into the Gulf of Mexico, across the Keys, and finally into the ocean again.  “It is along this line that we intend to concentrate our search.  Unless the bird suddenly changed its mind its general heading would have been consistent with a perceived target located anywhere along this path.  And since we have no reports of any land impact near a populated area, we assume that the missile landed in the Everglades or the ocean.”

      Lieutenant Todd had consulted briefly with Winters the previous evening on the agenda for the meeting.  It had been scheduled to last only an hour, but the number of questions caused it to stretch to an hour and a half.  Todd was thorough and precise in his presentation but was obviously dismayed by Winters’ continued probing into the possibility of human error.  The lieutenant freely admitted that they had blown the procedure to destroy the missile when it went awry, but defended his men by citing the unusual circumstances and the nearly perfect previous record enjoyed by the Panther missile.  He also explained that they were going to equip their search vessels with the best possible instrumentation (“including the new ocean telescope developed by the Miami Oceanographic Institute”) and begin searching the outlined areas in earnest the next day.

      Winters asked many questions about the possible cause of the missile’s strange behavior.  Todd told him that he and his staff were convinced that it was a software problem, that some new or updated algorithm in the 4.2 version of the software had somehow scrambled both the initialization sequence and the optically stored target parameters.  Winters accepted their opinion eventually, but not until he ordered them to prepare a “top down” failure modes analysis that would list every possible hardware, software, or operational error (Todd winced when Winters mentioned operations again) that could lead to the kind of problem observed.

      Toward the end of the meeting Winters reiterated the secrecy of the activity and pointed out that the Broken Arrow project was to remain completely unknown to the press.  “Commander,” Todd broke in while Winters was explaining the press policy.  The lieutenant had begun the meeting with confidence but was feeling increasingly unsettled.  “Sir, I had a call late yesterday afternoon from a reporter, a Carolyn or Kathy Dawson I think, from the Miami Herald.  She told me that she had heard of some special activity down here and that I was supposedly connected with it.  She claimed her source was someone in the Pentagon.”

      Winters shook his head.  “Shit, Lieutenant, why didn’t you say something before this?  Can’t you imagine what will happen if the word gets out that one of our missiles wandered over Miami?”  He paused.  “What did you tell her?”

      “I didn’t tell her anything.  But I think she is still suspicious.  She called the public affairs office after she talked to me.”

      Winters gave an order that the existence of the Broken Arrow investigation was to be kept classified and that any and all inquiries about it were to be referred to him.  He then called for the next status meeting at 1500 on the following day, Friday, by which time (he told Lieutenant Todd) the commander expected to see the results of the analysis of the intermittent telemetry, a more complete logic breakdown of the failure modes, and a list of recent open items with the 4.2 software.

      Lieutenant Richard Todd left the meeting aware that this assignment was going to have a significant impact on his career.  It was clear to the lieutenant that his personal competence was already being questioned by this Commander Winters.  Todd intended to respond to the challenge in a positive way.  First he called a small postmortem meeting of the junior officers in his group.  He told them (they were all young ensigns, just out of the university after completing a Navy ROTC program) that their collective ass was on the line.  Then he defined a series of action items that would keep all of them up working for most of the night.  It was imperative to Todd that he be properly prepared for the next meeting.

4

      KEY West was proud of its new marina.  Completed in 1992 just after the explosion in cruises had brought an influx of new visitors to the old city, the marina was thoroughly modem.  Scattered around the jetties on high towers were automatic cameras that constantly surveyed the marina.  These cameras and the rest of the electronic surveillance systems were just one facet of an elaborate security setup that protected the slips when the boat owners were absent.  Another of the new features of the Hemmingway Marina (it was naturally named after the most famous resident of Key West) was a centralized navigation control center.  Here, using a virtually automatic traffic control system, a single controller was able to pass instructions to all the vessels in the harbor and provide for efficient handling of the burgeoning water traffic.

      The marina was built on Key West Bight, on what had been a decaying part of the waterfront.  It had slips for almost four hundred boats and its completion changed the nature of the city’s commerce.  Young professionals wanting to be near their boats at the marina quickly purchased and upgraded all the wonderful nineteenth-century houses that lined Caroline and Eaton streets on what was known as the Pelican Path.  Smart shops, toney restaurants, even little theaters crowded into the area around the marina to create an atmosphere of bustle and excitement.  There was even a new Japanese hotel, the Miyako Gardens, which was famous for its magnificent collection of tropical birds that played in the waterfalls and ferns of its atrium.

      Just before noon Carol Dawson walked into the marina headquarters and approached the circular information desk in the middle of the large room.  She was wearing a sharp silk blouse, light purple in color, and a pair of long white cotton slacks that covered the tops of her white tennis shoes.  Two petite ruby and gold bracelets were wrapped around her right wrist, and a huge amethyst set in a gold basket at the end of a neck chain dangled perfectly at the vertex of the “V” in her open blouse.  She looked stunning, like a well-heeled tourist about to rent a boat for the afternoon.

      The young girl behind the information desk was in her early twenties.  She was blonde, fairly attractive in the clean-cut American style originally typified by Cheryl Tiegs.  She watched Carol with just a tinge of competitive jealously as the journalist moved purposefully across the room.  “Can I help you?” she said with feigned cheer as Carol reached the desk.

      “I would like to charter a boat for the rest of the day.”  Carol began.  “I want to go out to do a little diving and a little swimming and maybe see some of the interesting ship-wrecks around here.”  She planned to say nothing about the whales until she had picked the boat.

      “Well, you’ve come to the right place,” the girl responded.  She turned to the computer on her left and prepared to use the keyboard.  “My name is Julianne and one of my jobs here is to help tourists find the boats that are just right for their recreational needs.”  Carol noted that Julianne sounded as if she had memorized the little speech.  “Did you have any particular price in mind?  Although most of the boats here at Hemingway are private vessels, we still do have all sorts of boats for charter and most of them meet your requirements.  Assuming of course that they’re still available.”

      Carol shook her head and in a few minutes she was handed a computer listing that included nine boats.  “Here are the boats that are possible,” the girl said.  “As I told you, there’s quite a range in price.”

      Carol’s eyes scanned down the list.  The biggest and most expensive boat was the Ambrosia, a fifty-four-footer that chartered for eight hundred dollars a day, or five hundred for a half day.  The list included a couple of intermediate entries as well as two small boats, twenty-six-footers, that rented for half the price of the Ambrosia.  “I’d like to talk to the captain of the Ambrosia first,” Carol said, after a moment’s hesitation.  “Where do I go?”

      “Do you know Captain Homer?”  Julianne replied, a strange smile starting to form at the corner of her mouth.  “Homer Ashford,” she said again slowly, as if the name should be recognized.  Carol’s mind began going through a memory search routine.  The name was familiar.  Where had she heard it?  A long time ago, in a news program .  .  .

      Carol had not quite retrieved the memory when the girl continued.  “I’ll let them know that you’re coming.” Below the desk counter on the right was a huge bank of relay switches, several hundred in all, apparently connected to a speaker system.  Julianne flipped one of the switches and turned to Carol.  “It should only be a minute,” she said.

      “Vat is it, Julianne?” a booming feminine voice inquired within about twenty seconds.  The voice was foreign, German Judging from the way the first word was pronounced.  And the voice was also impatient.

      “There’s a woman here, Greta, a Miss Carol Dawson from Miami, and she wants to come down to talk to Captain Homer about chartering the yacht for the afternoon.”

      After a moment’s silence, Greta was heard again, “Ya, okay, send her down.” Julianne motioned for Carol to walk halfway around the circular desk to where a familiar keyboard was sitting in a small well on the counter.  Carol had been through this process many times since the UIS (Universal Identification System) was first introduced in 1991.  Using the keyboard, she entered her name and her social security number.  Carol wondered which verification question it would be this time.  Her birthplace?  Her mother’s maiden name?  Her father’s birth date?  It was always random, selected from the twenty personal facts that were immutable and belonged to each individual.  To impersonate someone now really took an effort.

      “Miss Carol Dawson, 1418 Oakwood Gardens, Apt. 17, Miami Beach.”  Carol nodded her head.  Blonde Julianne obviously enjoyed her role of checking out the prospective clients.  “What was your birth date?”  Carol was asked.

      “December 27, 1963,” Carol responded.  Julianne’s face registered that Carol had given the correct answer.  But Carol could see something else in her face, something competitive and even supercilious, almost a “Ha-ha-de-ha-ha, I’m lots younger than you are and now I know it.”  Usually Carol didn’t pay attention to such trivia.  But for some reason, this morning she was uncomfortable about the fact that she was now thirty.  She started to indicate her annoyance to smug little Julianne but thought better of it and held her tongue.

      Julianne gave her instructions.  “Walk out that door over there, at the far right, and walk straight until you come to Jetty Number 4.  Then turn left and insert this card in the gate lock.  Slip “P” as in Peter is where the Ambrosia is berthed.  It’s a long walk, way down at the end of the jetty.  But you can’t miss the yacht, it’s one of the largest and most beautiful boats at Hemingway.”

      Julianne was right.  It was quite a hike to the end of Jetty Number 4.  Carol Dawson probably passed a total of thirty boats of all sizes, on both sides of the jetty, before she reached the Ambrosia.  By the time Carol could discern the bold blue identifying letters on the front of the cabin, she had started to sweat from the heat and humidity of late morning.

      Captain Homer Ashford walked up the gangplank to meet her when she finally reached the Ambrosia.  He was in his mid to late fifties, an enormous man, well over six feet tall and weighing close to two hundred and fifty pounds.  His hair was still thick, but the original black color had now almost completely surrendered to the gray.

      Captain Homer’s wild eyes had followed Carol’s approach with undisguised lubricious delight.  Carol recognized the look and her reaction was one of immediate disgust.  She started to turn around and go back to the marina headquarters.  But she stopped herself, realizing that it was a long walk back and that she was already hot and tired.  Captain Homer, apparently sensing her disapproval by the change in her gait, changed his leer to an avuncular smile.

      “Miss Dawson, I presume?” the captain said, bowing slightly with fake gallantry.  “Welcome to the Ambrosia.  Captain Homer Ashford and his crew at your service.  “Carol reluctantly smiled.  This buffoon in the outrageous blue Hawaiian shirt at least did not appear to take himself too seriously.  Still slightly wary, she took the proffered Coke from his out-stretched hand and followed him along the smaller side jetty beside the boat.  The two of them then descended onto the yacht.  It was huge.

      “We understand from Julianne that you are interested in a charter for this afternoon.  We would love to take you out to one of our favorite spots, Dolphin Key.” They were standing in front of the wheelhouse and the covered cabin area as they talked.  Captain Homer was clearly already into his sales pitch.  From somewhere nearby Carol could hear the clang of metal.  It sounded like barbells.

      “Dolphin Key is a marvelous isolated island,” Captain Homer continued, “perfect for swimming and even nude sunbathing, if you like that sort of thing.  There’s also a sunken wreck from the eighteenth century not more than a couple of miles away if you’re interested in doing some diving.”  Carol took another drink from her Coke and looked at Homer for an instant.  She quickly averted her eyes.  He was leering again.  His peculiar emphasis on the word “nude” had somehow changed Carol’s mental picture of Dolphin Key from a quiet tropical paradise to a gathering place for debauchery and peeping Toms.  Carol recoiled from Captain Homer’s light touch as he guided her around the side of the yacht.  This man is a creep, she thought.  I should have followed my first instincts and turned around.

      The clang of metal grew louder as they walked past the entrance to the cabin and approached the front of the luxurious boat.  Carol’s journalistic curiosity was piqued; the sound seemed so out of place.  She hardly paid attention as Captain Homer pointed out all the outstanding features of the yacht.  When they finally had a clear view of the front deck of the Ambrosia, Carol saw that the sound had indeed been barbells.  A blonde woman with her back toward them was working out with weights on the front deck.

      The woman’s body was magnificent, even breathtaking.  As she strained to finish her repetitive presses, she lifted the barbells high over her head Rivulets of sweat cascaded down the muscles that seemed to descend in ripples from her shoulders.  She was wearing a low-cut black leotard, almost backless, whose thin straps did not seem capable of holding up the rest of the outfit.  Captain Homer had stopped talking about the boat.  Carol noticed that he was standing in rapt admiration, apparently transfixed by the sensual beauty of the sweaty woman in the leotard.  This place is weird, Carol thought.  Maybe that’s why the girl asked me if I knew these people.

      The woman put the weights back on the small rack and picked up a towel When she turned around Carol could see that she was in her mid to late thirties, pretty in an athletic sort of way .  Her breasts were large and taut and clearly visible in the scant leotard.  But it was her eyes that were truly remarkable.  They were gray-blue in color and they seemed to look right through you.  Carol thought that the woman’s first piercing glance was hostile, almost threatening.

      “Greta,” said Captain Homer, when she looked at him after her first glance at Carol, “this is Miss Carol Dawson.  She may be our charter for this afternoon.”

      Greta did not smile or say anything.  She wiped the sweat off her brow, took a couple of deep breaths, and put the towel behind her neck and over her shoulders.  She squared herself off to face Carol and Captain Homer.  Then with her shoulders back and her hands on her hips, she flexed her chest muscles.  With each flexure her abundant breasts seemed to stretch up toward her neck.  Throughout this routine her incredibly clear eyes evaluated Carol, checking out her body and clothing in minute detail.  Carol squirmed involuntarily.

      “Well, hello, Greta,” she said, her usual aplomb strangely absent in this awkward moment, “nice to meet you.”  Jesus, Carol thought, as Greta just looked at Carol’s outstretched hand for several seconds, let me out of here.  I must be on a strange planet or having a nightmare.

      “Greta sometimes likes to have fun with our customers,” Captain Homer said to Carol, “but don’t let it put you off.”  Was he irritated with Greta?  Carol thought she detected some unspoken communication between Greta and Captain Homer, for at length Greta smiled.  But it was an artificial smile.

      “Velcome to the Ambrosia,” Greta said, mimicking Captain Homer’s first remarks to Carol.  “Our pleasure avaits you.”  Greta lifted her arms over her head, watching Carol again, and began to stretch.  “Come vit us to paradise,” Greta said.

      Carol felt Captain Homer’s burly hand on her elbow, turning her around.  She also thought she saw an angry glance from Homer to Greta.  “The Ambrosia is the finest charter vessel in Key West,” he said, guiding her back toward the stem and resuming his sales pitch.  “It has every possible convenience and luxury.  Giant screen cable television, compact disc player with quad speakers, automatic chef programmed with over a hundred gourmet dishes, robot massage.  And nobody knows the Keys like Captain Homer.  I’ve been diving and fishing these waters for fifty years.”

      They had stopped at the entrance to the cabin area in the middle of the yacht.  Through the glass door Carol could see stairs descending to another level.  “Would you like to come down and see the galley and the bedroom?”  Captain Homer said, without a trace of the earlier suggestiveness.  He was a clever chameleon, there was no doubt about that.  Carol revised her earlier judgment of him as a buffoon.  But what was this business with muscle-bound Greta, whoever she is, Carol wondered.  And just what is going on here?  Why are they so strange?

      “No, thank you, Captain Ashford.”  Carol saw her opportunity to exit gracefully.  She handed him what was left of the unfinished Coke.  “I’ve seen enough.  It’s a magnificent yacht but I can tell it’s much too expensive for a single woman wanting to spend a relaxing afternoon.  But thanks a lot for your time and the brief tour.”

      She started to walk toward the gangplank to the jetty.  Captain Homer’s eyes narrowed, “But we haven’t even discussed price, Miss Dawson.  I’m certain that for someone like you we could make a special deal .  .  .”

      Carol could tell that he was not going to let her go without some additional discussion.  As she started to leave the yacht, Greta came up beside Captain Homer.  “It vould give you sometink to write about for your paper,” Greta said with a bizarre smile.  “Sometink unusual.”

      Carol turned, startled.  “So you recognized me?” she said, stating the obvious.  The strange pair grinned back at her.  “Why didn’t you say something?”

      Captain Homer simply shrugged his huge shoulders.  “We thought maybe you were traveling incognito, or were looking for some special fun, or maybe even were working on a story .  .  .”  His voice trailed off Carol smiled and shook her head.  Then she waved good-bye, mounted the gangplank, and turned on the jetty toward the distant marina headquarters.  Who are those people? she asked herself again.  Now I’m certain that I have seen them before.  But where?

*     *     *     *     *

      Twice Carol looked over her shoulder to see if Captain Homer and Greta were still watching her.  The second time, when she was almost a hundred yards away, they were no longer in sight.  She sighed with relief.  The experience had definitely unnerved her.

      Carol walked on slowly.  She pulled the computer listing that Julianne had given her from a small purple beach bag.  Before she could look at it, she heard a telephone ring on her left and her eyes lifted naturally to follow the sound.  The telephone was ringing on a boat just in front of her.  A husky man in his early thirties was sitting in a folding chair on the same boat.  Wearing only a red baseball cap, a pair of swim trunks, dark sunglasses and some thongs, the man was intently watching a small television propped up on a flimsy tray of some kind.  He held a sandwich in one hand (Carol could see the white mayonnaise oozing out between the slices of bread even from her distance of ten yards or so) and a can of beer in the other.  There was no sign that the man in the red cap even heard the telephone.

      Carol moved closer, a little curious.  A basketball game was in progress on the television.  On about the sixth ring of the phone, the man gave a small cheer (with his mouth full of sandwich) in the direction of the six-inch picture tube, took a swig from his beer, and abruptly jumped up to answer the call.  The telephone was underneath a canopy in the center of the boat, on a wooden paneled wall behind the steering wheel and next to some built-in counters that appeared to contain the navigation and radio equipment for the boat.  The man fiddled with the steering wheel unconsciously during the brief conversation and never took his eyes off the television.  He hung up, issued another short cheer, and returned to his folding chair.

      Carol was now standing on the jetty, just inches away from the front of the boat and no more than ten feet away from where the man was sitting.  But he was oblivious to her, totally absorbed in his basketball game.  “All right,” he shouted all at once, reacting to something pleasing in the game.  He jumped up.  The sudden movement caused the boat to rock and the jerrybuilt tray underneath the television gave way.  The man reached out quickly and grabbed the TV before it hit the ground, but in so doing he lost his balance and fell forward on his elbows.

      “Shit,” he said to himself, wincing from the pain.  He was lying on the deck, his sunglasses cocked sideways on his head, the game still continuing on the little set in his hands.  Carol could not suppress her laughter.  Now aware that he was not alone for the first time, Nick Williams, the owner and operator of the Florida Queen, turned in the direction of the feminine laugh.

      “Excuse me,” Carol began in a friendly way, “I just happened to be walking by and I saw you fall .  .  .”  She stopped.  Nick was not amused.

      “What do you want?”  Nick fixed her with a truculent glare.  He stood up, still holding (and watching) the television and now trying as well to put the tray back together.  He didn’t have enough hands to do everything at once.

      “You know,” Carol said, still smiling, “I could help you with that, if it wouldn’t injure your masculine pride.”  Uh oh, Nick thought in a flash, Another pushy, assertive broad.

      Nick put the television down on the deck of the boat and began to reassemble the tray.  “No thank you,” he said.  “I can manage.”  Obviously ignoring Carol, he set the TV back on the tray, returned to his folding chair, and picked up his sandwich and beer.

      Carol was amused by what Nick had clearly intended as a putdown.  She looked around the boat.  Neatness was not one of the strengths of the proprietor.  Little odds and ends, including masks, snorkels, regulators, towels, and even old lunches from fast-food restaurants were scattered all over the front of the boat.  In one of the corners someone had obviously taken apart a piece of electronic equipment, perhaps for repair, and left the entire works a jumbled mess.  Mounted on the top of the blue canopy were two signs, each with a different type of print, one giving the name of the boat and the other saying THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING.

      The boat looked out of character for the sleek modern marina and Carol imagined the other boat owners reacting with disgust each day as they passed the Florida Queen.  On an impulse Carol looked at the computer listing in her hand.  She almost laughed out loud when she saw the boat listing as one of the nine available for hire.

      “Excuse me,” she began, intending to start the discussion about chartering the boat for the afternoon.

      Nick heaved an exaggerated sigh and turned away from his televised basketball game.  The miffed look on his face was unmistakable.  It said, What?  Are you still here?  I thought we’d finished our conversation.  Now go away and let me enjoy the afternoon on my boat.

      Mischievous Carol couldn’t resist the opportunity to harass the arrogant Mr. Williams (she assumed that the name on the computer listing and the man in front of her were the same, for she couldn’t imagine a crew member acting with such apparent confidence and authority on someone else’s boat).  “Who’s playing?” she said cheerfully, as if she had no idea that Nick was trying to get rid of her.

      “Harvard and Tennessee,” he answered gruffly, amazed that Carol hadn’t got the message.

      “What’s the score?” she said quickly, now enjoying the game she had just created.

      Nick turned around again, his quizzical look acknowledging his exasperation.  “It’s 31-29 Harvard,” he said sharply, “just before the end of the first half.”  Carol didn’t move.  She simply smiled and returned his fierce stare without blinking.  “And it’s the first round of the NCAA tournament and they’re playing in the Southeast Regional.  Any more questions?”

      “Just one,” she said.  “I would like to charter this boat for the afternoon.  Are you Nick Williams?”

      He was taken by surprise.  “Whaat?”  Nick said.  At that minute Tennessee tied the basketball game again, distracting Nick even further.  He watched the game for a couple of seconds and then tried to collect himself.  “But I have had no calls from Julianne.  Anyone who wants to charter a boat here at Hemingway has to sign in at the desk and .  .  .”

      “I came down to look at another boat first.  I didn’t like it.  So I stopped by here on the way back.”  Nick was watching the television again and Carol was losing her patience with him.  At first he had been amusing.  At least I don’t have to worry about his pawing me, she thought.  The guy can’t even concentrate on me enough to get his boat chartered.  “Look,” she added, “do you want a charter for this afternoon or not?

      The first half of the basketball game ended.  “All right .  .  .  I guess so,” Nick said slowly, thinking to himself, only because I need the money.  He gestured to Carol to descend onto the deck of the boat.  “Let me just call Julianne and make sure you’re legit.  You never know these days.”

      While Nick confirmed Carol’s identification with the marina headquarters, a jaunty young black man in his early twenties came down the jetty and stopped just opposite the Florida Queen.  “Hey, Professor,” he said, the moment Nick was off the phone, “am I in the wrong place?”  He motioned to Carol.  “You didn’t tell me you were entertaining beauty, style, and class today.  Wooee!  Look at that jewelry.  And that silk blouse.  Should I go now and come back to hear your stories later?”  He winked at Carol.  “He’s no good, angel.  All his girlfriends eventually end up with me.”

      “Cut the crap, Jefferson,” Nick reacted, “this woman is a potential customer.  And you’re late, as usual.  How do you expect me to run a charter dive boat when I don’t have any idea when or if my crew is going to show up?”

      “Professor,” the newcomer jumped down on the boat and walked up to Carol, “if I had known that you had something that looked like this down here, I would have been here before dawn.  Hello, there, young lady, my name is Troy Jefferson.  I am the rest of the crew on this lunatic asylum of a boat.”

      Carol had been slightly discombobulated by the arrival of Troy and the quick repartee that followed.  But she adapted swiftly and regained her composure.  She took Troy’s out-stretched hand and smiled.  He immediately leaned up and almost brushed his cheek against hers.  “Ooueee,” Troy pulled back grinning.  “I just caught a whiff of Oscar de la Renta.  Professor, didn’t I tell you this woman had class?  Well, angel,” he looked at Carol in mock admiration, “I just can’t tell you how much it means to me to finally meet up with someone like you on this tub.  Usually we get old ladies, I mean old ladies, who want to — ”

      “Enough, Jefferson,” Nick interrupted him.  “We have work to do.  It’s almost noon already and we’re still at least half an hour away from being ready to leave.  We don’t even know what Miss Dawson wants to do.”

      “Carol is fine,” she said.  She paused for a moment, assessing the two men in front of her.  Might as well, Carol thought, nobody is going to suspect anything if I’m with these two.  “Well, I told the desk that I wanted to go out to do some swimming and diving.  But that’s only partially true.  What I really want to do is go out here (she pulled a folded map out of her beach bag and showed them an area of about ten square miles in the Gulf of Mexico to the north of Key West) and look for whales.”

      Nick’s brow furrowed.  Troy peered over Carol’s shoulder at the map.  “There have been numerous irregularities in the behavior of whales in this area lately, including a major beaching at Deer Key this morning,” Carol continued.  “I want to see if I can find any pattern in their actions.  I may need to do some diving so one of you will have to accompany me.  I assume that at least one of you is a licensed diver and that your dive gear is onboard?”

      The two men regarded her with disbelieving stares.  Carol felt on the defensive.  “Really .  .  .  I’m a reporter.” she said as an explanation.  “I work for the Miami Herald.  I just did a story this morning on the Deer Key beaching.”

      Troy turned to Nick.  “Okay, Professor, I guess we have a live charter here.  One who says she wants to look for whales in the Gulf of Mexico.  What do you say?  Should we accept her money?”

      Nick shrugged his shoulders indifferently and Troy took it as assent.  “All right, angel,” Troy said to Carol, “we’ll be ready in half an hour.  We’re both licensed divers if we’re really needed.  Our gear is onboard and we can get more for you.  Why don’t you pay Julianne at the desk and get your things together.”

      Troy turned and walked over to the jumbled mess of electronics at the front of the boat.  He picked up one of the boxes with its housing partially removed and began toying with it.  Nick pulled another beer out of the refrigerator and opened the built-in counters, exposing racks of equipment.  Carol did not move.  After about twenty seconds Nick noticed that she was still there.  “Well,” he said in a tone of dismissal, “didn’t you hear Troy?  We won’t be ready for half an hour.”  He turned around and walked toward the back of the boat.

      Troy looked up from his repair work.  He was amused by the friction already developing between Nick and Carol.  “Is he always so pleasant?”  Carol said to Troy, nodding in Nick’s direction.  She was still smiling but her tone conveyed some irritation.  “I have a few pieces of equipment that I want to bring onboard.  Can you give me a hand with it?”

      Thirty minutes later Troy and Carol returned to the Florida Queen.  Troy was grinning and whistling “Zippity-Do-Dah” as he pulled a cart down the jetty and came to a stop in front of the boat.  A partially filled footlocker was resting on the cart.  Troy could hardly wait to see Nick’s face when he saw Carol’s “few pieces of equipment.” Troy was excited by the turn of events.  He knew that this was no casual afternoon charter.  Reporters, even successful ones (and Troy’s street intelligence had quickly informed him that Carol was not just an ordinary reporter), did not have everyday access to the kind of equipment that she was carrying.  Already Troy was certain that the whale story was just a cover.  But he wasn’t going to say anything just yet; he wanted to wait and see how things developed.

      Troy liked this confident young woman.  There was not a trace of superiority or prejudice in her manner.  And she had a good sense of humor.  After they had opened the back of her station wagon and she had showed him the footlocker full of equipment, Troy had demonstrated to Carol that he was fairly sophisticated about electronics.  He had recognized immediately the MOI insignia on Dale’s ocean telescope and Troy had even guessed the meaning of the MOI-IPL acronym on the back of the large monitor and data storage system.  When he had looked at her for an explanation, Carol had just laughed and said, “So I need some help finding the whales.  What can I say?”

      Carol and Troy had loaded the gear on the cart and wheeled it through the parking lot.  She had been a little dismayed at first by Troy’s recognition of the origin of the equipment and his friendly, probing questions (which she handled adroitly with vague answers — she was helped by the fact that Troy wanted mostly to know how the electronics worked and she, in truth, didn’t have the foggiest idea).  But as they talked, Carol developed a comfortable feeling about Troy.  Her intuitive sense told her that Troy was an ally and could be counted on to be discreet with any important information.

      Carol had not, however, planned for a security check inside the Hemingway Marina headquarters.  One of the primary selling points of the slips at the new marina had been the almost unparalleled security system offered the boat owners.  Every person who went in or out of the marina had to pass through computerized gates adjacent to the headquarters building.  A full listing of each individual entrance and exit, including the time of passage through the gate, was printed out each night and retained in the security office files as a precaution in case any suspicious or untoward events were reported.

      Materiel entering and leaving the marina was also routinely scrutinized (and logged) by the security chief to prevent the theft of expensive navigation equipment and other electronics.  Carol was only mildly irked when, after she paid for the charter, Julianne asked her to fill out a sheet describing the contents of the closed footlocker.  But Carol really objected when the summoned security chief, a typical Boston Irish policeman who had retired in the Key West area, Forced her to open the locker to verify the contents.  Carol’s objections and Troy’s attempts to help her were to no avail.  Rules were rules.

      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 passersby, 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 foot-locker.  “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 flashlight-looking object 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 onto 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 of 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.

5

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 onto the grassy courtyard of the main administration building.  Lunch hour had just finished at the U.S.  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 nonfilter 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 favorite 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 if 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 A-rab lunatic and terrorist supporter to 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 onboard 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 quarterfinals 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 horsing 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’ heart had skipped a beat as the commanding officer had briefed them on the full scope of the American action against Libya

      Winters’ 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 A-rabs 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’ concept was too obscure.  At length a tired Lieutenant Winters assented to the visceral communication written by his friend.  “DIE, MOTHERFUCKER,” 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.

      Eight years later, sitting in his office at the U.S.  Naval Air Station in Key West, Commander Winters would remember that prayer and cringe inside.  Even then, in 1986, just after he finished the prayer, he had felt weird and disoriented, almost as if he had somehow committed a blasphemy and displeased the Lord.  A brief hour of sleep that followed was torturous, full of dreams of hideous gargoyles and vampires.  He watched the planes leave the carrier the next morning at dawn in a dreamlike trance.  His mouth had a bitter metal taste when he mechanically shook Gibson’s hand and wished him luck.

      For all those years Winters had wished that he could have rescinded that prayer.  He was convinced that God had permitted that particular missile carried by Gibson to take the life of Gaddafi’s infant daughter just to teach Winters a personal lesson.  On that day, he thought as he sat in his office on a Thursday in March 1994, I committed sacrilege and violated Your trust.  I overstepped my bound and lost my privileged position in Your sanctuary.  I have asked for forgiveness many times since then but it has not been forthcoming.  How much longer must I wait?

6

VERNON Allen Winters was born on June 25, 1950, the day that the North Koreans invaded South Korea.  He was reminded of the significance of his birthdate throughout his life by his father, Martin Winters, a man who was a hardworking, deeply religious corn farmer in Indiana at the time Vernon was born.  When Vernon was three years old and his sister Linda was six, the family moved off the farm and into the town of Columbus, a white, middle-class town of thirty thousand or so in south central Indiana.  Vernon’s mother had felt isolated out on the farm.  particularly during the winter, and wanted more company.  The Winters’ farm provided a nice cash profit.  Mr. Winters, by now almost forty, put most of the nest egg aside as security for a rainy day and became a banker.

      Martin Winters was proud to be an American.  Whenever Mr. Winters would tell Vernon about the day of his birth, the story would inevitably center around the news of the start of the Korean War and how it was explained to the nation by President Harry Truman.  “I thought that day,” Mr. Winters would say, “that it was surely no coincidence.  The good Lord brought you to us that special day because of his purpose for you.  And I bet he meant for you to be a protector of this wonderful country we have created .  .  .”  Later banker Winters would always see to it that the Army-Navy football game was one of the key events of the year and he would tell his friends, particularly when it became obvious that young Vernon was a good student, that “the boy is still trying to choose which of the academies to attend.”  Vernon was never asked.

      The Winters family lived a simple Midwestern life.  Mr. Winters was moderately successful, eventually becoming the senior vice-president of the largest bank in Columbus.  The family’s chief social activity was church.  They were Presbyterians and spent almost all day Sunday at the church.  Mrs. Winters ran the Sunday school.  Mr. Winters was a deacon and voluntarily managed the church finances.  Vernon and Linda helped supervise the smaller children at Sunday school and were responsible for the special Bible displays on the bulletin boards in the kindergarten and primary school rooms.

      During the week Mrs. Winters sewed and watched soap operas and sometimes played bridge with friends.  She never worked outside the home.  Her husband and her children were her job.  She was an attentive, patient parent who deeply cared for her children and tirelessly chauffeured them to their many activities throughout their years of adolescence.

      Vernon played all sports in high school, football and basketball because it was expected of him, baseball because he loved it.  He was above average at all sports, not outstanding at anything.  “Activities are important, particularly sports,” banker Winters often told him approvingly.  “The academies look at much more than your grades “ The only significant decision that Vernon had to make in the first eighteen years of his life was which of the service academies he preferred.  (Mr. Winters, being cautious, was prepared politically to secure a nomination for Vernon to any of the academies.  He strongly urged Vernon to think about applying to all three just in case.) In his junior year at Columbus High School, Vernon took the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and made such a high score that it was obvious he would be able to pick his own favorite.  He chose Annapolis and was not questioned about the reasons.  If he had been, he would have answered that he just liked the idea of himself in a Navy uniform.

      Vernon’s teenage years were remarkably linear, particularly considering that they occurred at a time of great social turmoil in the United States.  The Winters family prayed together for hours after the Kennedy assassination, worried about local boys in the Vietnam War, remarked with concern when three prominent high school seniors refused to cut their hair and were expelled from school, and attended a couple of church-sponsored meetings on the evils of marijuana.  But all these anxieties were outside the daily harmony of the Winters family.  Music by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones did penetrate the controlled Winters culture, of course, and even some of the protest songs sung by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez were played on Vernon’s stereo.  But neither Vernon nor his sister Linda paid much serious attention to the lyrics.

      It was an easy existence.  Vernon’s closest friends were all from families like his.  Mothers did not work, fathers were bankers or lawyers or businessmen, almost all were Republicans (but a patriotic Democrat was accepted) and believed fervently in God, country, and the entire litany that ends in apple pie.  Vernon was a “good kid,” even an “exceptional kid,” who first drew attention to himself by his performances in the annual church pageants at Christmas and Easter.  The pastor of their church was a great believer that reenactment of the birth and crucifixion of Christ, performed by the children of the town, was a powerful way to reconfirm the faith of the local citizenry.  And Reverend Pendleton was correct.  The Columbus Presbyterian Church pageants were one of the highlights of the local year.  When the church congregation and their friends saw their own children acting in the roles of Joseph, Mary, and even Christ, they became involved in the depicted events at an emotional level that was virtually impossible to achieve in any other way.

      Reverend Pendleton had two casts for each pageant, so that more children could participate, but Vernon was always the star.  When he was eleven years old Vernon first portrayed Christ in the Easter pageant and it was mentioned in the religious column of the Columbus newspaper that his tortured dragging of the cross had “captured all of man’s suffering.”  He was Joseph at Christmas and Jesus at Easter for four years running, before he became too old and therefore no longer eligible for the pageants.  The last two years, when Vernon was thirteen and fourteen, the role of the Virgin Mary in the  “A” cast was played by the pastor’s daughter, Betty Vernon and Betty were together quite often while rehearsing and both families were delighted.  All four parents made no secret of the fact that they would generously approve if, “assuming God wills it,” the Vernon-Betty friendship would eventually mature into something more permanent.

      Vernon loved the attention he received from the pageants.  Although Betty was touched deeply by the religious aspects of their performances (she remained truly devoted to God, without wavering, through everything in her life), Vernon’s joy was standing by his proud parents after each performance and soaking up the praise.  In high school he gravitated naturally toward the small drama activity and was the lead in the school play every year.  His mother supported this over his father’s mild objections (“After all, dear,” she would say, “I don’t think anyone is really going to think Vernon’s a sissy when he’s playing three sports.”) and because she also vicariously enjoyed the applause.

      During the summer of 1968, just before he entered Annapolis, Vernon worked in his uncle’s cornfields.  Only a little more than a hundred miles away there were riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, but in Columbus Vernon spent his summer evenings with Betty, talking with chums and drinking root beer at the A & W Drive-in.  Mr. and Mrs. Winters played miniature golf or canasta with Vernon and Betty from time to time.  They were delighted and proud to have “good clean kids” who were not hippies or drug victims.  All in all, Vernon’s last summer in Indiana was ordered, constrained, and very pleasant.

      As expected, he was a model student at Annapolis.  He studied hard, obeyed all the rules, learned what his professors taught him, and dreamed of being the commander of an aircraft carrier or a nuclear submarine.  He was not outgoing for the big-city boys seemed way too sophisticated for him and he did not always feel comfortable when they talked about sex so casually.  He was a virgin and he was not ashamed of it.  He just didn’t feel the need to broadcast it around the U.S. Naval Academy.  He had a couple of dates a month, nothing special, just when the occasion called for it.  After a blind date early his junior year with Joanna Carr, a cheerleader at the University of Maryland, he took her out several more times.  She was vivacious, lovely, fun, and modem.  She drew out the best in Vernon, made him laugh and even relax.  She was his date for the weekend of the Army-Navy game in Philadelphia.

      (During his entire time at the Academy, Vernon went home every summer and every Christmas to Indiana.  He always saw Betty Pendleton when he was home.  Betty graduated from high school and entered a nearby state college to study education.  Once or twice a year, on special occasions such as the anniversary of their first kiss or New Year’s Eve, Betty and he would celebrate, in a sense, by doing a little something intimate.  Like controlled petting [outside only] or kissing lying down.  Neither of them ever suggested any variation in this well-established routine.)

      Vernon and Joanna were joined for the weekend by another midshipman, the closest acquaintance that Vernon had at Navy who was still not quite what one would call a friend, Duane Eller, and his date from Columbia, an extremely loud and pushy girl named Edith.  Vernon had never spent much time around a New York City girl and he found Edith absolutely obnoxious.  Edith was violently anti-Nixon and anti-Vietnam and seemed, despite the fact that her date for the weekend was going to be a military officer, anti-military as well.  The original plan for the weekend had been decidedly proper, even backward given that it was 1970 and casual intercourse was not unusual on college campuses.  Vernon and Duane were to share one motel room and the two girls were to share another.  Over a pizza dinner the night before the game, Edith frequently insulted Joanna and Vernon both (“Miss Betty Crocker-Go-Team-Go” and “Onward Christian Soldiers, God’s on Our Side”) and Duane did nothing to intercede.  Seeing that Edith was annoying Joanna, Vernon suggested to Joanna that it might be easier if the two of them shared a room instead of following the original game plan.  She readily agreed.

      Vernon had made no sexual moves on Joanna on the four or five dates that they had had together.  He had been attentive, had kissed her good night a couple of times, and had held her hand most of the evening on their last date.  Everything had always been extremely proper, but there had never actually been any opportunity for intimacy.  So Joanna really didn’t know what to expect.  She liked this handsome Hoosier midshipman and had thought, a couple of times, about the possibility of the involvement developing into something serious.  But Vernon was not yet anyone “super special” for her.