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Authors: Gordon Kessler
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a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Dead Reckoning
Copyright © 2001 Gordon A Kessler
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.
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Cover
Designed by: Gordon A Kessler. Copyright © 2001 Gordon A Kessler
http://GordonKessler.com
,
http://www.ReadersMatrix.com
Paperback version;
ISBN-10:
1401026494
ISBN-13:
978-1401026493
Dedicated to the thousands of American citizens who have lost their lives to terrorism. Ma
ny thanks and much love to Colleen, Hazel, Orville, Roxy, Suzann, Bonnie, Richard, Brad, Robin and Bob.
Special thanks to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service for their willing help and to Leonard Bishop writer and teacher extraordinaire for “daring me to be a great writer.”
Also a special dedication to my grandson Parker and granddaughter Priya
.
Dead reckoning
: an inexact calculation of position considering direction and speed and using allowances for wind, current and compass error. Navigation of a ship underway in a very unstable environment (water) using basic instruments and without the use of electronics, lines of position, or reference to visible objects whose positions are known.
dead
: those deprived of life.
reckoning
: a settlement for debts owed.
Contents
MURDER ON DECK
April 27, 0200
- USS Atchison, Mediterranean Sea
SENIOR CHIEF PETTY Officer Gustauve Franken was trying to enjoy a
Cohiba Robusto
cigar when Ensign Nader fell to his death from the signal bridge.
Moments before, Chief Franken had been taking in the rare night’s solitude with a satisfied curl on his lips. He enjoyed good Scotch—preferably Chivas—full-figured women, light seas during clear moonless nights and, of course, the hard to come by Cuban cigars. Over the years, he’d experienced his share of all of these things, and tonight, with the help of God and a Russian sailor in the last port, at least he was able to enjoy two of them.
Darken ship
was the order on the
USS Atchison.
With only starlight to outline the features of the small frigate and the churning water’s white phosphorescence off the fantail, the world was simple and black and gray. Celestial reflections winking from the ebony water on both sides of the ship gave the sea the illusion of subdued life. But the chief knew first hand from countless onslaughts the anger the unconquerable Mother Ocean could unleash. He’d seen the sleeping water that was life to so many awaken from a nurturing calmness into massive swells—and take life as she had given it; without warning, reason or conscience. Tonight, under the glitter of a million stars, she slept peacefully leaving man to do his own killing.
This was the best place to absorb the serene night, twenty feet above and behind the signal bridge, with nothing to block the view of the entire superstructure of the small ship. It was also the best place to sneak a smoke. During a
darken ship
exercise, smoking wasn’t allowed topside, but since the skipper had banned all smoking below, the chief had no choice. After all, it was just an exercise. This night had been too beautiful to savor without a flavorful smoke to help bring out its full-bodied effect.
A metallic screech interrupted the calm. Chief Franken turned forward and frowned down at the signal deck. The hatch to the Combat Information Center swung open and seemed to hurl out an intruder into the charmed night.
It was that new
ring
, the Annapolis man. The chief recognized the young, black ensign in the explosion of light from the hatchway, but he could see little else from his now nearly disabled eyes even after the complaining hatch closed. He wondered why the hatch curtain hadn’t captured the light as it should have. In times of
darken ship
the curtain was supposed to prevent inside light from being seen by other ships or planes when a hatch was opened. He decided that it must have either caught on something or someone had held it.
Ensign Charles Nader secured the steel door and then stood shirtless, jerking his head around warily.
Hidden in the shadowy grid work of the mast, the chief squinted at the dark figure, forcing his eyes to adjust. The young ensign seemed to be looking for someone—or was being looked for.
Franken ducked and considered smashing out the prized cigar’s fire
against the back of a steel support. Instead, he turned away from the disturbance and faced aft. He placed one foot on the first crossbar of the radar mast and crossed his arms over his bony knee. The hull of the small ship was barely longer than a football field, making it pitch even in the lightest seas, but tonight the old salt hardly noticed its mild rocking. He paid no attention to the continuous vibration of the steel deck from the
Atchison’s
two steam-turbine engines spinning her twin screws. He ignored their rhythmic pulsing—and the young ensign below—hearing only the sibilant water rushing from stem to stern along the vessel’s flanks.
Glancing up with hooded, gray eyes at the great star-speckled void above, Franken quickly picked out his old companions, Orion and Taurus, fighting their eternal battle in the heavens. He gave a big smile and drew hard on the fat cigar then looked down at the seven hash marks covering his left sleeve and considered his long, eventful career. Those marks symbolized more than twenty-eight years of faithful service to the US Navy. He gazed back out to sea thinking that even though he’d spent ten thousand nights on the water, he could recall few when he’d felt this kind of peace. Extraordinary nights like these made life worthwhile.
He released the smoke slowly from below his trim mustache as the ship began a turn to starboard as part of an evasive maneuver. It would make several course changes over the next few minutes in a mock attempt to avoid a nonexistent enemy submarine. The Navy loved its drills. It was what it did best.
The chief adjusted his stance to compensate for the slightly rougher seas caused by the ship’s slow turn. He had another pull from his cigar, feeling little guilt at taking advantage of his Rusky counterpart back in the last port-of-call. A man could buy or barter for about
anything
in Marseilles, France. A pack of American Camel cigarettes in trade for half a dozen of Cuba’s finest cigars seemed too much of a bargain to pass up. He blew the smoke out in a small stream and watched as the gray plume floated aft, to the starboard side. The fifteen knots of ship’s speed and the five knot
leste
wind, bringing warm, dry air from the north of Africa, carried it away in a protracted curve.
A soft thumping came from below like rapid footsteps on the signal-deck ladder. Franken grimaced at the disturbance. Ensign Nader, the ship’s new weapon’s officer, wa
s spoiling his evening. But perhaps Nader was leaving. More likely, there was another intruder coming up to join the young man.
The chief placed his cigar on the joint between one of the radar-mast crossbars and a vertical support where he thought it would be secure and not show its glow. He would wait until Nader left before continuing his peac
eful diversion. If the young officer caught him smoking during
darken ship
with the
smoking lamp
out, there’d be a hassle, but not a big one, since Franken was the senior enlisted man. He could talk his way out of most any reprimand. But still, there’d be a hassle, and on this fine night the chief wished to avoid it.
With the obtrus
ive light from the hatchway hidden behind the steel door for a couple of minutes now, the chief’s eyes had again become acclimated to the night’s dark depth. When he looked below, he was shocked at what he could
now
see. The Ensign clutched what appeared to be a Beretta pistol in his right hand.
What the hell is that boy doing with a gun? Gawd, this is nuts!
Nader took a step
back. He patted his pants pockets with his left hand, then turned the semiautomatic pistol upside down and raised it, grip first, to his face. He appeared to be inspecting its magazine port. After a pause, he flipped it over, then clutched its slide and pulled it back to reveal the chamber.
“Shit!” he said and let the slide snap into place. He stepped cautiously to the signal light pedestal used for Morse code communications during radio silence.
Again, hasty footfalls clanked from one of the ladders on the side of the deck.
Chief Franken’s pulse accelerated as he hunkered lower.
Young Nader raised the pistol. He backed away. A shadowy figure emerged, his back angled to Franken.
Then a second dark shape appeared—a much larger man—his back also angled to the chief. Nader stepped back to the waist-high safety bulwarks that bordered the signal bridge, forty feet above the main deck.
The young man was cut off. He wouldn’t have time to open the secured hatch back into the CIC before being intercepted by the two aggressive shadows. The only other way to leave the signal bridge was from one of the two ladders that were now blocked by the new intruders.
“Don’t come any closer,” Nader said to the smaller shadow edging up from the left.
The unrecognizable shape heeded.
The chief’s eyes widened. He couldn’t understand what was happening. It didn’t make sense.
This is a US Navy warship, for Christ’s sake!
A low voice came from one of the shadows, both now moving closer from each end of the small deck. The chief couldn’t tell from which the voice came and he had to strain to hear, “Don’t do anything stupid, kid.”
Both pursuers leaned anxiously, predator-like, getting closer.
“I mean it!” Nader blurted.
“Keep your voice down!” the bigger shape said still speaking just above a whisper but a notch louder than before. He advanced another step but the smaller one held his ground.
Enough of this foolishness
. Franken picked up the cigar and cupped his hand over the smoldering end. He rose, thinking that he’d call out and put a stop to this nonsense, but then paused, and considered what was being said.
“Get a hold of yourself,” the smaller guy said. “We’re not going to hurt you. Relax. All you’ve got to do is hang on for another two weeks and this’ll all be over. Come on. We both wear the
ring.
We’re brothers. Let’s go to my stateroom where we can talk.”
The chief was stunned as he realized that this might have something to do with the strange goings
-on on the ship lately. Now, he thought better of disturbing them. Something was happening on the
Atchison
—an accidental death and two AWOLs all in the last week. He might get to the bottom of it if he didn’t interrupt them and listened carefully. If only the moon were out so he could get a better look at them—see their faces. One thing he knew regardless of the lack of light was that if the smaller guy had a stateroom and wore the Annapolis
ring
, he was an officer.
“No way, you treasonous
son-of-a-bitch,” Nader said. “That ring must not mean a thing to you.”
“Okay, you want out? You’re out.”
“I was never in.”
“Have it your way, but give us the gun,” the larger man said and drew nearer, now within eight feet.
Chief Franken strained to hear anything familiar in the voices, but the whispering disguised them. It still didn’t jell. He wondered if it could be some kind of racial confrontation. So far, it didn’t seem so.
“I’m going to report you, by God,” Nader said. “They’ll put you away.”
“Our word against yours, kid,” said the smaller one. He seemed to be calmer than the other man, a cooler head. “What can you prove? Who do you think they’re going to believe? You point the finger at us and you can be damn sure we’ll take you along for the ride.”
Ensign Nader raised the gun to his own temple.
“I’ll kill myself—I will. Then they’ll get you.”
Franken was sure the young ensign was bluffing. From the way Nader acted when he cocked the weapon earlier, he doubted if the gun was even loaded.
The big man said, “That won’t do shit, you dumb snitch. They’ll just call it a suicide.”
The smoother talking, calmer one chimed in, “Drug related. High on coke.”
Franken raised his eyebrows and began rolling the cigar between his fingers.
Drugs! A dope deal gone bad, maybe
.
“Bullshit!” Nader said. “I’ve never touched that crap. They’ll get you. They’ll find out before you have a chance to go through with it. You lied to me. There’s more to it than just the drugs—a lot more. They’ll find out.”
“They’ll find out that you were just another mixed up junkie, kid,” the calmer one said. “Won’t that be a shame for your folks—for your girlfriend back home? They’ll think their sweet little Annapolis boy was a dope head—and a traitor.”
Nader spat his words, “Bastards, murdering bastards!”
Laughter broke out from the main deck far below as two sailors came outside for fresh air. One was jokingly accusing the other of cheating at spades.
Franken watched as the three on the signal bridge froze in place. After a few seconds, the young ensign moved first. He brought the gun down from his temple and hefted one leg over the short safety wall.
“I’ll jump,” he said, then nodded toward the new voices below. “They’ll get to me first. You won’t have time to do anything. They’ll find the gun and think I was pushed. There’ll be an investigation, and they’ll have your asses!”
Franken gaped at the young man. He wondered what could cause a bright young
gung ho
officer like Nader to threaten suicide. What could be so important?
This is insane
. Maybe he
should
say something now. If he’d just ask what’s going on, maybe they’d leave Nader alone and this could be sorted out.
But a gut feeling told Franken that it wouldn’t be that easy. He didn’t know who the other two men were, and they also could have guns—loaded ones. If he stopped them now, maybe they’d come after
him
. After all, Nader did call them
murdering bastards
. Maybe they’d wait until he least expected and then slip a shiv between his ribs while he slept.
This drug stuff bothered Franken. This suicide stuff knotted his stomach. This treason stuff scared him shitless. And this whole confusing mess caused his skin to break out in cold sweat.
Surely, these bastards will give the boy some room
.