Authors: David Poyer
Hatteras Blue
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HATTERAS BLUE
"Fast-paced and convincing ... TERRIFIC!"
—Baltimore Sun
"A CLASSIC! ... Poyer knows his territory well and leads his reader through it masterfully."
—Robert Houston, author of
Blood Tango
"GRIPPING! ... A tale of mystery and adventure by a superb storyteller."
—William P. Mack, Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy (Ret.), co-author of
South to Java
"A can't-put-it-down-til-you're-done book ... FANTASTIC!"
—Times World News,
Roanoke, VA
"Plot twists and turns that chart a tricky course through the deep waters of human need and greed.
A
yarn to make readers keep turning the pages."
—Ocala Star-Banner
"COMPELLING! ... One of the best mystery adventures about the sea that I've encountered!"
—Muncie Star
It was a foot-long, three-inch tube, dull gray. Attached to his starboard shaft by a loop of cheap yellow polypropelene rope. Strategically placed, right underneath the fuel tanks. It was meant to kill.
Galloway began to want air. Sculling his hands, he moved closer. The yellow rope did not foul the prop, which meant that his first thought, that it was rigged to go when the shaft began to turn, was wrong.
The desire for air became a need. He'd been down for over two minutes. It seemed to take forever to reach the surface. When he did, coming up off the counter, there was no one in sight on the deck.
"Keyes!"
"We've got a bomb on our hull ..."
Novels by D. C. Poyer
Stepfather Bank The Shiloh Project
By David Poyer
The Gulf The Med The Dead of Winter The Return of Philo T. McGiffin White Continent
ST. MAR WS PAPERBACKS
NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as 'unsold and destroyed' to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this 'stripped book'.
HATTERAS BLUE
Copyright © 1989 by D. C. Poyer.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 89-30125
ISBN 0-312-92749-5
Printed in the United States of America
St. Martin's Press hardcover edition published 1989 St. Martin's Paperbacks edition/March 1992
10 987654321
For all my friends on the Banks
"Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good from evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties
either—but right through every human heart____"
A. Solzhenitsyn,
The Gulag Archipelago
Note C: Caution Hydrography is not charted on Diamond Shoals due to the changeable nature of the area. Navigation in the area is extremely hazardous to all types of craft.
NOAA Chart 12200; Cape May to CapeHatteras
Prologue
H
alfway down the atlantic coast a beak
of sand juts into the sea, curved and cruel as the beaks of the falcons that soar above its dunes.
This is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, the sea-wardmost point of the Outer Banks. For four centuries mariners have approached it with apprehension. Sometimes they passed safely, close-reefed, and gave thanks. Sometimes, as the timbers that still litter its beaches testify, they lost their gamble.
This is no myth, no Devil's Triangle or Sargasso Sea. Two ocean currents meet here, one warm, one cold; their eternal struggle is shrouded in fog and storm. The low, deceptive coastline has lured hundreds of ships to their deaths, the roar of surf muffling the screams of the drowning. And when war last came to America, it came first to Hatteras.
Seamen still call it the Graveyard of the Atlantic.
Fifty miles to the southeast of Cape Point, close enough that on a clear night one might see the loom of Hatteras Light, a wreck lies motionless on the bottom.
Almost undamaged, except for the slow fingers of encroaching coral, it lies on its side on hard gray sand. Its bow planes are jammed on hard dive. Its hatches gape open, wells to the dark interior. Cold silt swirls slowly amid dead gauges, twisted air lines, half-loaded torpedoes, the occasional writhe of a moray. Its cannon points upward, toward the faint glow that is all that remains of the sun at thirty fathoms. Its conning tower, flaked with corrosion, lies frozen in a roll to starboard that will last till its metal dissolves in the all-devouring sea.
Over forty years have passed since the sunlight touched it. The memories of men have eroded, eaten away by time as salt eats steel. Yet far beneath, silent except for the stir of sheltering fish, the de^d ship waits.
Above it the Atlantic rolls relentlessly inshore. Below the gray light filters weakly down. Only the sleepless shark swims now beside and over the patiently waiting hull.
Beyond the rolling curve of sea is the shore. A narrow strip of wet sand where sanderlings skitter like windup toys. Then dunes, waving with sea oats and panic grass.
Beyond the dune line several men are working. In the glaring sun sweat glistens on their chests; light flashes from the sand-polished blades of their shovels. A heap of torn-up yaupon crackles as it burns. Plastic flaps listlessly atop a stack of concrete blocks. Beyond the workers a yellow machine rolls to and fro on steel tracks, spewing smoke into the clean wind, gouging away the side of a sandhill. A sign by the highway proclaims
find your place in the sun. site of the new pirates' rest time-share resort. marketed by o r. galloway realty & construction.
The heavy blade gouges deep into the dune. A moment later it pauses. A man shouts. Two of the laborers amble over and begin clearing sand. At first they think the black layer is trash. It is rotten and flakes as their shovels bite into it. The dune slides away reluctantly.
Both stop at the same time. Desiccated, fragile, but still recognizable, a boot sticks out from the sand. They look at it and at each other. They shovel again, less willingly.
There are bones above the boots. There are the bones of three human beings under the remains of a rubber raft. The laborers stare at them wordlessly. At last one of them shakes his head. Dropping his shovel, he trudges back to the truck and climbs in. A moment later the engine roars.
The long wait is over.
1945
one
L
ieutenant commander lyle galloway h,
u.s.
coast guard, dug his fingers around his eyes in indecision and fatigue. When the colored patterns stopped he straightened, and stared around the dimly illuminated bridge of his ship.
Galloway was tired. He and the
Russell
were the same age, twenty-seven, and she was tired too. After a year of near war and four of the real thing, after supporting the landings in North Africa, and North Atlantic convoy duty in winter, he was glad of this assignment: coastal patrol off Cape Hatteras, a quiet sector for two years now.
Best of all, the war with Germany had ended two days before.
Now they were running south from the mouth of the Chesapeake on the fourth day of a two-week patrol. The night was clear and starry, and at eighteen knots the knife bow of the old destroyer pared phosphorescence from the sea. No one expected contact. The European war was over, this was a milk run. Yet five minutes earlier the officer of the deck had called him from a warm bunk. The radar on the bridge showed a pip ten miles ahead.
Galloway ground a fist into his palm. "Going back to CIC," he said aloud.
"Aye, Captain/' said an anonymous voice from the darkness.
Russell's
makeshift combat center was dark except for the green glow of the scope. He leaned over the radarman's shoulder, watching the flickering point of light. The day before, he remembered, the sailor had been raucous with the news of peace. Tonight he was silent, intent, moving his dials slowly as if afraid to startle whatever was ahead of them.