Sloth

by kashkow

Sometimes you can take the measure of a man by the enemies that he has...Part 5 of the 'Seven Deadly Sins' cycle.

Author's Note: Number 5 in the "7 Deadly Sins" series. Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas said Sloth is "sluggishness of the mind which neglects to begin good... [it] is evil in its effect, if it so oppresses man as to draw him away entirely from good deeds." This happens to be one of my favorite of the sins, being as how I am very good at sloth myself, but I overcame it. This was really supposed to be short, but I got caught up in it and it just kept going, and going, and going. As always, huge thanks to my Beta, who really needs to stop fixing my stuff and get to writing some of her own.

Sloth by Ellen H.

Chapter 1-

The man sat on the window seat of the small, darkened, residential hotel room, looking out over the moonlit warehouses toward the small patch of harbor that could be seen from this top floor window. The window seat was the only place to sit besides the small, lumpy bed that was the only piece of actual furniture in the room. There was a small bedside ledge that doubled as a table, and four hooks screwed into the wall behind the door acted as a closet. The single room had not been painted in many years, and the paint was peeling away in spots. The threadbare rug had dark anonymous stains that had been there almost as long as the paint. It was not a room where one spent much time if there was any choice in the matter, at least for most people. The man on the window seat had a choice, and he had chosen this place. Call it protective coloring, call it blending in with the crowd, or call it what it was, part of the façade he was building. He reached up a hand and absently stroked his hand over the short beard that now covered the lower part of his face.

He had never thought he would be grateful for the speed his beard grew in. It had taken only two weeks for the beard to reach its present length. His hair had been at the point he had been planning on getting it cut again, but he had let it continue to grow and the curl he usually ruthlessly suppressed was now making itself known. It had been a long enough time for him to make the arrangements he needed to make and to find this hotel room. He had settled in, and had made the rounds looking for a job. He had finally felt justified in not destroying the persona he had created over a year before. He hadn't known why he was reluctant to put an end to Lee Cosigian, but he was glad he hadn't. There had been some necessary tweaks to the job history, and he had made some very expensive overseas phone calls, but it had been a quick fix when he needed it. He had been sure to leave a good impression with all of the places he had applied to. You never knew who might be checking up. He glanced down at the paper in his hand, not able to read it in the silvery light of the moon. Plus, his eyes were still tearing a little from the unfamiliar contacts that changed his eye color to a soft brown. He had turned off the single yellowish light that lit the shabby lodging, preferring the natural light of the moon in which to do his brooding.

He could admit to himself that it was brooding. He was lonely, and for the second time in his adult life he had come to understand the terrible desolation of being alone. He was not a man afraid of solitude usually; in fact, he had found in himself a need for the occasional time alone with only his own thoughts. But his current isolation was different from when he knew he had but to place a call or take a short drive and he would be in the company of friends or family. That was not an option for him now. He had cut himself off. Set himself adrift from the familiar, the loved. He was on a mission, and that had to be what mattered now. He looked back at the small piece of harbor sparkling in the moonlight. Out there was the boat. He had been on it once, not that he could admit that. Tomorrow he would find out if the last two weeks had been for nothing, or if he was able to take the next step in his plan.

He leaned his head against the cold glass, glancing back at the bed. It was lumpy and too short and offered no appeal to the man, not that he had been sleeping well anyway. He sighed. It looked like another long night of planning and replanning. Trying to expect the unexpected; trying to out-think his enemy. If wishing would make it so he would be on HIS boat, sleeping in HIS bunk, feeling the throb of the engines, the subtle beat of life that was the workings of his Gray Lady. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself walking her corridors, going into his cabin and sitting at his desk. He was almost happy to imagine the pile of paperwork there. He could see Chip sitting in the visitor chair, leaned back and grinning that silly grin he got after telling some impossibly bad joke that he had picked up from Sharkey. He could see the pictures hanging on his bulkhead. No, those were gone; he had taken them down himself, when he had packed his stuff, after... His eyes popped open and his head snapped up. The fantasy ran into reality in an unpleasant way. Oh well, he had never been one to avoid reality. He leaned his head back against the glass and started going over his plan once again in his mind.

Chapter 2-

Chip Morton sat back in his office chair, sighing as he finished the last of the reports that required his signature. It had been a long day, hell, a long week and month. His eyes strayed to the letter that lay on one side of his desktop. He had read and reread it in the last two weeks so many times that the folds of the paper were getting ragged. He picked it up again, and let his eyes fall to the words written there.

Chip,

I know when you get this your first urge is going to be to call me several names. I just want to remind you that I am a superior officer, and you need to be careful where you do it. Two of us up on charges is more than the JAG can handle at one time. I won't bother to apologize for what I am about to do. You don't want to hear it, and to be frank, I am not sorry that I am doing it. It had to be done, Chip, and I think you know it had to be me. We couldn't just hand this off to some investigator who had no stake in the matter. The people that are behind this have money. More money than you or I will see in our lifetime. That kind of money corrupts. Even the most honest of men have weaknesses, weaknesses that can be exploited by people who have a lot to lose.

I cannot, will not, give you the details of what I am doing. Plausible deniability; I can at least give you that. Should I fail in this no one will be to blame but me. I can hear you cursing me again. But it has to be. I know that you know that there is nowhere I would rather be than on the Seaview. However, if I cannot be there, I have at least the comfort of knowing that you are there. You hide it better than I, but I know how you love her. I trust you to look after her and the crew until I am able to return. I look forward to that day, and it makes the job ahead easier.

I have enclosed an envelope with the signed confession of Jason R. Foggerty, the man who pretended to be an orderly at the hospital and injected something in the admiral's IV. He has named names, including our friends Pritchard and Ortiz. I believe that since Foggerty is now dead it would be taken as a deathbed confession and be admissible in court. Regardless of that, there is obviously nothing that can be done to him, and I am not sure of the extent of any prosecution that could be brought against Ortiz or Pritchard. The papers are perhaps only good for use as a figurative two by four to get their attention while you tell them how things are going to be. Pritchard has it in for the admiral. That has become clear. He is not going to stop until Nelson is ruined, maybe until he is dead. I won't allow that, and I have been taking steps to counter his attempts.

I have, in the course of the last year, found four employees that Pritchard has suborned among the Institute staff. One of them was highly placed in the finance section. We managed to find him before the damage he did was irreversible; in fact, we managed to get to him at just the right time and it put us in a better situation than we would have been otherwise. Needless to say he is gone, as are two of the others. The fourth one I have been using as a disinformation source for the last five months. Chief Harmon is aware of his identity and has been quietly keeping him under surveillance and will continue to make sure the spy is given only the information you want Pritchard to have. Talk to the Chief, he has a lot of details you will need to know. I apologize now for keeping you in the dark about this. Maybe it will make you happier to know that the admiral doesn't know either. You will wonder why I have not informed him, and all I have to say is that I know how it would bother him to think of the people he hired in good faith, and in the case of the guy in finance, in friendship, selling him out for money. What Pritchard has done to him already has been enough I won't let him do this too. We think we have found all of the spies. Chief Harmon is doing everything he can to make sure that there are no more, but we can't do too much without violating the privacy of our employees and I won't let Pritchard drive us to that.

I cannot tell you everything I would like to in this letter. You are my friend, and I hope always will be. Take care of yourself. Take care of the Seaview and her crew, and take care of the admiral, no matter how angry you might be with him now. I would count it as a personal favor, one of many that I will owe you when this is over.

Lee

He folded the letter and put it back in the envelope it had come in. He had put the other envelope in his safe after reading the papers. He had shown them to only one other person so far, the Institute's head lawyer. He, being a former judge who had tried many a criminal case, had determined that while the confession was damning for the man writing it, it would have little impact in any criminal action against Ortiz or Pritchard. However, he felt a civil trial might be another matter. As Crane had said, it would make a nice bargaining chip if it came down to warning Pritchard off. Both the lawyer and Morton were sure that the threat of monetary damages would be the best weapon they could muster against Pritchard as far as this matter was concerned. He had not shared the information with Nelson. Chip preferred to think that if Lee had wanted Nelson to know he would have given the information to Nelson in his envelope, and not that he was doing it out of lingering anger. He resolutely refused to consider that denial could be a very deep river.

When he thought of all that Crane had been keeping to himself, Morton felt the anger well up in him again, though this time with a new focus. The man just couldn't get away from that intelligence 'need to know' mentality. It was something they were going to have a long talk about when he got back from whatever he was doing. That was another sore point with the acting captain. Lee hadn't even dropped a hint about what he was doing. He was going after Pritchard, that much was a given, but Morton would give his eyeteeth to know how- plausible deniability be damned. He had taken the opportunity yesterday to talk with Harmon, the Chief of Security at the Institute. The man had been reluctant at first to speak of the matter, until Morton had shown him the letter. It never ceased to amaze him the amount of loyalty that Crane could inspire in the people with whom he worked.

The chief was extremely reticent about exactly what they had done, but he had showed Morton the files of those that had been let go. Chip had been amazed at the clandestine doings at what he had always considered the quiet part of the Institute. It seemed intrigue didn't only happen on board Seaview. The chief had briefed him about how Crane had come to him not long after the first 'incident' with Pritchard, and had instituted some new protocols for performing pre-employment inquiries. After the second encounter, they had turned their attention to the current employees. Since every employee had signed a disclosure form at hiring, there was no question of there being any problem about the inquiries. Thus the two men had turned up the four spies in the Institute. Lee had practically blackmailed the man in the finance division into silence. He had promised not to prosecute him for what he had done if he simply retired and stayed away from Nelson and let Pritchard think that the damage had been done. They also had been very sly in the way they had handled the other two who had been involved. Each had found their positions suddenly redundant and had been let go with a nice severance package As far as they were concerned there had been no suspicion regarding their affiliation with Pritchard. In fact, Harmon said that he and the skipper were both sure that all but the man in finance had not even known exactly for whom they were working. They had simply been slipping information to a man in a bar and getting an envelope with money in return. Lee and Harmon had carefully picked the one person that they allowed to remain. He was an assistant in Nelson's own lab.

Morton had questioned the wisdom of having a man so close to Nelson when they knew he was leaking information. Harmon had grinned like an ape and said the skipper had handled that. The work schedule had been kept on the computer. The technician in question for some reason never was assigned to work directly with Nelson. He was constantly assigned to work on the more prosaic of Nelson's research, and was currently assigned to a less than exciting study of kelp growth that was of very little interest except to pure research scientists. Between them, however, Harmon and Crane had managed to make sure that the man had a constant stream of misinformation thrown his way, seemingly innocently. They had enlisted the help of several other employees to dribble out the information they wanted him to pass on. It seemed to Chip that both the chief and Lee had a heretofore unexplored talent for fiction writing.

Floored by the extent of the program that Crane had instituted without not only his knowledge but also Nelson's, Morton had retreated back to the Seaview, wondering what else his friend might not have told him about his counterattack on Pritchard and his forces. Chip knew how Crane thought when it came to tactics. They had fought together on enough occasions that their styles had meshed, and if there was one thing that Morton knew, it was that Crane would not simply accept the defensive position. While defense was important, Crane was strongest on offense. He had to smile a little when he thought about that. One of the first times he had really noticed Crane had been in a Naval history class when the topic of tactics had been raised. The 16-year old plebe had stood up and contested a statement regarding the tactics used in one of the first naval battles during the American Revolution. The young man had argued that the battle would have been won a lot sooner if the captain of the second ship had attacked from a different quarter, rather than the direction he had chosen. A brief but hearty argument had ensued, one that had been something of an ongoing dispute between Crane and the instructor. To this day, Nelson and Crane still occasionally argued the point. Morton had told them he fully expected to find them some day on the Institute dive pool with remote controlled ships recreating the battle. Nelson had gotten a strange look in his eyes, and Morton knew he should be on the lookout for remote control devices.

In any event, he knew that while Crane had taken the necessary defensive steps in identifying the spies, plugging any future holes, and only Crane knew what else, he would not have left it at that. He would have been looking for an opportunity to attack, and he had found one. The fact he had done it on his own without involving anyone else was typical of his style. Chip shook his head. He knew better than most that Lee, even under the most pressing crisis, never lost sight of the goal. Nor would he take unnecessary chances, especially with the lives of his crew. And despite what he himself had yelled at Lee on occasion, Chip knew that what appeared to others as wild, spur-of-the-moment decisions were actually carefully thought out multi-layered plans. It was just that Lee thought so fast that his actions sometimes seemed to come out of nowhere. Chip could usually figure out what Lee had been thinking once the crisis was over and was willing to follow his captain's lead while it was ongoing. He had a healthy respect for Crane's ability to think – and act – fast on many levels. In fact, it was one of the reasons Chip didn't play chess much with Lee.

Crane could map out an entire game in his head with strike and counterstrike based on all possible moves for any given situation. Nelson was the only man on the boat that gave Crane a run for his money. Their games tended to run on for days. Morton hoped that Crane was not underestimating his opponent in this new game he was playing. For all his experience with the dark side of people, Lee had a strange innocence when it came to the true depths of evil that could exist in a man like Pritchard. For all Crane's experience with ONI, Morton was afraid that his friend was going to be overmatched by the other man. He was ruthless and unprincipled, two traits that Lee Crane had not even a nodding acquaintance with. Lee would go after Pritchard in the same honorable way that he lived his life; Pritchard would not be bound by such constraints. It seemed an uneven fight, but Chip was not going to count Crane out. Crane had triumphed in the past over people just as bad as Pritchard, and Chip had to hope that he could again. A knock on his office door brought his mind back to the present. He glanced at the clock; Tish had gone home over three hours ago. He had a feeling he knew who it was on the other side of the door.

"Come in," he called, and was unsurprised when Nelson entered the office. The older man sat in one of the chairs in front of Chip's desk and looked at the envelope in his hand. Morton followed his gaze and realized he was still holding Lee's letter. He put it on the desk and raised an eyebrow at Nelson. "What can I do for you, Admiral?" he asked. He was actually surprised at Nelson's appearance. The scientist had practically confined himself to his lab since they had returned. On the trip back, he had been in his cabin or the lab on the Seaview. He rested only when Jamieson hounded him into it, and ate only when the doctor sat there with him and supervised. Jamieson was getting very frustrated, and Nelson was at the boiling point but was holding it back. It was if he was afraid to let it out; afraid that he once again would get out of control. An irrational fear, as far as Jamieson could ascertain, but to Chip it seemed reasonable given the happenings of the previous month. The realization of the effect this was having on Nelson had finally sunk in for Chip.

He found himself finally getting some distance from the situation, and his anger at Nelson started to fade. He was actually starting to feel sorry for the man. He had to be in quite a bit of mental pain. Not only had he been victimized by being injected with an unknown drug but also, while in the grip of its effects, had driven away the man he considered a son. Then, to add insult to the injury, that son had taken it upon himself to disappear on the trail of those responsible without so much as a by your leave. He had been left with no chance to explain, no not explain, to apologize. They had no idea where Crane was, or if he was even alive. That had to be wearing on the admiral heavily, despite his determination that any interference would be a detriment to whatever Lee might be doing, might even possibly get him killed. The blue eyes that normally were bright with interest and energy were now dark and dull as they looked at the envelope on the desk. Nelson raised those eyes to look at Morton then back down.

"I see you've been rereading your letter too. I am afraid I've read and reread mine looking for a clue to what he had in mind, but there's nothing. I don't imagine that yours..." He trailed off as Morton shook his head. Nelson sighed. "I was afraid not. I could not help but notice that your envelope was thicker than mine. I assume he had some additional information about something. Would you mind if I saw it?"

Morton found he could not refuse the request. He rose to his feet and went to his safe. He took the envelope out and handed it across to Nelson who, with a quick glance at Morton's face, opened the envelope and took out the papers. He read through them once quickly, then again at a slower pace. When he was done he slowly folded the papers as they had been and put them back in the envelope. He placed the envelope on Morton's desk. He then sat back in the chair with a sigh.

"I had hoped that I was wrong in my supposition that Pritchard was somehow involved in this. He has hated me since I put a stop to one of his strip-mining plans. I understand he lost a lot of money and had to back out on several deals with some very powerful men, men who were not very understanding about failure. He was just starting out and it took him years to recover from that but I never expected him to hold such a grudge. In retrospect, I'm not sure the saving of that bed of coral was worth all this."

"I don't think Lee would agree with you, sir," Morton said, a little surprised by his need to make Nelson feel better. He was unprepared for this Nelson. All the years that he had been with the Seaview he had never seen Nelson regret an action to save the oceans. It was his primary mission in life, his reason for forming the Institute and building the Seaview. To have him do so now showed Chip the depth of the man's feelings for Lee Crane and washed the last of the anger out of his heart.

"I drove him off. I made him lose face in front of his crew. Physically attacked him in his own control room, and never had the chance to tell him how much I regretted my actions. Now he's taking chances with his life because of ME, to save ME from an enemy of my own making. He has already been made to suffer because of that man's hatred of me, and I can do nothing to stop him from possibly sacrificing himself."

Morton found himself at a loss for words. He knew that Lee would sacrifice himself willingly for Nelson and he couldn't lie to the admiral and say that he wasn't worried that it might come to that. Finally he decided that truth, as always, was the best way to go. "You would have done the same for him if the situations had been reversed. If Pritchard were after him and not you, you would do anything to save him."

Nelson looked back up at him, and after a moment smiled a small humorless smile. "Yes, yes, I would. If I thought it would do any good, I would attempt to make peace with Pritchard and damn my own pride and principles, but it wouldn't do any good. It would give him the scent of blood in the water and he would be on it like a shark on a wounded swimmer. He'd step up whatever plans he has. I just wish..."

Morton suspected he knew exactly what he wished, and held the same wish himself. He sat back in his chair and sighed. As he did his eyes fell on the envelope holding his own letter, and he had a thought. Maybe it was time for Nelson to know just how far Pritchard had gone in his search for revenge. He lifted the envelope and held it out across the desk toward Nelson, who seemed to be deep in thought. The admiral blinked at it for a moment then shook his head. "It's private, between you and Lee. I don't expect..." Morton just shook his head and kept proffering the envelope. He really didn't care if Nelson read it. What was between him and Lee Crane was well known, and the rest of what was in there Nelson needed to know.

The admiral took the envelope and took out the letter, smiling at the condition of the single sheet. Obviously he wasn't the only one who had reread his letter into pieces. It did not take him long to read it. Chip knew exactly when he reached the part about the spies; he could see the color rise in Nelson's face. Nelson finished the letter, and put it back in the envelope with shaking hands. He put it on Morton's desk and, rising, went to the window. Morton could see one hand, clenched into a fist, shaking against the wall. He sighed again. He might regret this.

"You know, Admiral. There is nothing wrong with being angry, sometimes it's necessary. It seems to me that the only problem with anger is not knowing how much is appropriate to the occasion and when it is time to let it go. You have never had that problem when you weren't under the influence of the drug; I have no reason to believe that you will in the future. Lee expected you to be mad at him. Hell, I'm mad at him and he knows it. Don't make yourself ill holding it back." Nelson's back seemed to bow for a moment then he turned and faced Morton. His eyes were blazing with temper and the color was high in his face. Chip was surprised to realize that he was glad to see it.

"Damn him! Who does he think he is, keeping something like this from me? It's my Institute and Ronald was my friend." Obviously the admiral had known by the description who the financial officer had to have been. "Does he think I can't handle knowing that a friend of mine can be bought? I'm not a child who doesn't understand that people can betray you, even those you trust. I don't need to be protected from reality." He started pacing up and down the room with more energy than Morton had seen from him in days. Jamieson might not approve of the method but at least Nelson was getting back to himself. The admiral was continuing to get it all out. "And damn Pritchard for this rabid hatred that has made him twist good men into betrayers. It was bad enough when he just went after me financially, that I could counter, but this..."

Morton felt he needed to defend his friend a little, even if he did agree with Nelson that he should have been told. "I don't think Lee meant to hurt you by not telling you. I think he thought that if you didn't need to know then it was a way of keeping Pritchard from winning, to keep him from scoring in this war he seems to have declared."

Nelson continued to pace, though the color had faded a little in his face. He waved a hand. "I know he didn't mean to hurt me; I also know that he tends to try to solve things on his own rather than involve someone else, hence his disappearance now. But he can't keep doing this! How do I make him understand that part of being a family is letting the others in that family help you and not keep them in the dark about what is going on?"

Morton shook his head. "If you can figure that out, you ARE a genius. I've been trying to pound it into his head for years."

Nelson gave a barking laugh. He came back to the chair and sat down, his posture straight, far from the defeated man that had come into the room not long before. "Do you have any more coffee?" he asked. Chip got up and poured him a cup from the pot that was on the sideboard. It was old and strong, but Nelson didn't seem to notice. Morton refilled his own cup and sat back down behind his desk. "I assume you have spoken with Chief Hanson?" Nelson inquired. At Morton's nod he leaned back in the chair. "Tell me about it." Morton smiled at him and began to tell him what he had found out from the chief.

Chapter 3-

Captain Ian Porter, US Navy, retired, stepped gingerly up the gangplank that led onto the deck of the submarine Tantalus. He had never thought to set foot on a submarine again after leaving the Navy, but circumstances had conspired against him. He had planned to live comfortably on his pension and the interest of his wife's trust fund, as they had done throughout his years in the Navy. He had been well on his way to establishing himself in the proper circles – joining the right clubs, meeting the right people, buying the right house, in the right neighborhood of course – when it had all fallen apart.

He had been out late one night at the club where he had been playing in a high stakes poker game. He liked to tell himself that he was a good player, and that his current run of bad luck would turn around soon. It wasn't as if he was losing any actual money anyway; he was still well below his credit limit at the club, and when his luck turned he would be able to pay back what he owed. It was like a bar bill, no more, no less. Anyway, the bills would be presented to their accountant at the end of the month, the interest would be paid, and that would be that. So, completely unconcerned about his losses, and slightly tipsy from the free drinks that had flowed, he had returned to the new house that his wife had been decorating with the help of the most sought after interior decorator in town. He had expected her to be asleep in her room and had been surprised to see a light under the door. Usually he would have simply shrugged it off and retreated to his own room across the hall to have a nightcap and retire for the night. However he had thought of an appointment that he was sure they had the next day to golf with two of their acquaintances, but he had forgotten the tee time. He entered the room without knocking as was his habit, and he started to speak as he was trying to unbutton the cuff of his shirt.

"Helen, when do we tee..." He looked up, expecting to find his wife in bed reading a book or magazine. She was in bed, but she wasn't reading; in fact, she wasn't alone. As he came to a stupefied stop in the middle of her room, the two occupants of the bed rolled apart from each other. His wife, an attractive woman in her fifties, clutched the satin sheets to her naked breasts, and looked from him to her companion. Her mouth worked several times, but she didn't seem to be able to get out a word. Her companion, on the other hand, seemed completely casual, as if a husband walking in on a tryst with his wife were a common occurrence in his life. He leaned back against the pillows and let the sheet puddle at his waist. As Porter came to a halt, he reached over and lit a cigarette using a golden Zippo lighter. He blew out a puff of smoke, and smiled at Porter.

"Ah, the man of the house. See, Helen, I told you it would all come out when the time came. It seems fate has decided that the time is now," he said jocularly. As he spoke, Porter realized that he was one of the two they were supposed to be golfing with the next day. Dr. Alan Holt, recently divorced, a handsome forty-five year old plastic surgeon who drove a Porsche and always had a beautiful woman on his arm. Porter finally found his voice.

"What the hell is going on here!" he demanded. "Get out of my wife's bed this instant. Get out of my house!" He was aware that he was sounding pompous, but he could do little to change that.

"I'm afraid I can't do that, old buddy," the other man said with a smile. He waved a hand at himself. "In the all together, you know. I never have been an exhibitionist. You'll have to leave the room."

Porter, not knowing what to do in the face of this assured man and the continued silence of his wife, retreated out of the room without another word. He went downstairs to the study and poured himself a large whiskey. He was most of the way through it when his wife and Holt appeared in the doorway. Helen was carrying a suitcase and was dressed to leave the house.

"What the hell is going on?" he demanded again. "Why are you dressed? HE'S the one that's leaving!"

He had been floored when his wife had informed him in a matter of fact tone that she was leaving him, and had already filed for divorce. The papers would be delivered to him tomorrow. She would be leaving with "Dear Alan" and would be staying at her sister's home in Langston until the divorce was final. She had directed the administrator of her trust to no longer pay any bills incurred by him, and she was going to put the house on the market since it was in her name. With that she and a smirking Holt had left.

Things had rapidly gone down hill from there. He had been able to stay in the house until it was sold, but being an attractive property in a good neighborhood it hadn't been listed long before he was forced to move to an apartment. His credit lines at the clubs had rapidly dried up as he was forced to make minimum payments on the balances due. He had been forced to move to an even cheaper apartment, and to stop visiting the clubs and places he had formerly enjoyed. People he had played poker with just months before now passed him in the street as if he were a stranger. He had been forced to return the leased jaguar he had been using; thankfully the lease period was almost up and the penalty was minimal. He had slowly come to realize that he would be forced to live on his pension from the Navy. The lawyer he hired to represent him in the divorce had told him there was little hope of getting any alimony since all his wife's money was tied up in the trust, and since the home had been purchased using her funds, the proceeds of the sale would go back to her. She had no skills, having been a housewife all her life and she would require the funds to live. He had his pension, and the judge would view it as a fair trade off.

In the end, the lawyer had proved correct and Porter had found himself with only the pension, a lot of debt, and no job. There wasn't much call for an ex-submarine captain, especially one that had not distinguished himself in his naval career. He had his bachelor's degree in marine engineering, but he had not really kept up on the newest developments. He had made captain only three years before he retired, and while he had been in command of a submarine, he had not been in the more glamorous and newer cruise missile boats. His boats had been older and on standard picket duty in the North Sea or South Atlantic. He had applied for and been turned down for positions at numerous places; everyone was apparently looking for more experience, more education, or something else he didn't have. He had been ready to take a job as a manager at a local restaurant when he had heard about the Tantalus.

Porter absently saluted aft and then flushed when he realized his preoccupation had led him to miss the fact that no ensign flew on this boat. His teeth clenched; one more indication that the Tantalus was a different prospect from the USN sub he had captained and not just because she was built by a corporation wanting to go into ocean mining in a big way. There had been rumors about this boat that had made him think twice about applying for the position. Evidently there had been some problem with the boat the first time it was launched, but it had now been refitted and was ready to go again. PritCorp had been looking for a captain for several months. Word had spread that the boat was unlucky, and even in this day and age, seaman were a superstitious lot. Porter knew that the corporation had approached several of his acquaintances from the Navy, all of whom had turned down the position. It was rumored that they had even tried to get Crane, that showboat that worked for Nelson. Porter knew Crane only by name and from an occasional command officers' meeting; but he had come to dislike the much younger officer as he was everything Porter knew himself not to be. Not that he was being petty, Porter assured himself. After all, Crane had to be trading on his acquaintance with Nelson or he wouldn't have made commander so quickly. And all that other stuff you saw in the papers about him? Well, a good press agent could make anyone sound good.

It was not of any great concern to Porter that he was not the corporation's top choice for the job. While he had his pride, he was also a practical man who recognized a chance when he saw it. And there were those debts... still, he had demanded, and got, the right to choose his own officers to some degree, especially his XO. When that demand had been met, he had accepted the position and set forth to hire people who could do their jobs without too much oversight. After all, he was 'The Captain'; he shouldn't have to be hovering over everyone's shoulder making sure that the job got done. He was there to make sure that the boat got to where it was supposed to go; the rest of it was up to the crew. As for handling the men, that was what a good executive officer did, and his XO was the best.

Porter stopped once he reached the deck and studied his new command and thought about his XO with satisfaction. He had been fortunate indeed to find that Williams was available. They had worked together on his last submarine, and had developed a good working relationship. Porter had been happy with the prestige of being a submarine captain – knowing that it was as far as he would be able to go in the Navy – but had found himself impatient with the responsibilities. Williams, on the other hand, had somehow managed to stall at Lt. Commander and had little hope of ever achieving his own command. Porter had been happy to leave most of the day-to-day routine running of the submarine in Williams' capable hands, and Williams had enjoyed the power. The XO had resigned his commission shortly after Porter had retired, and had been between jobs when Porter had contacted him. Now they would work together again, and both were satisfied with the prospect.

The corporation wanted the boat run more like a business than a Naval vessel so Porter had taken to seeing himself as the top manager of a division of PritCorp, in control of his own little domain, and answerable only to the main office. And what they didn't know wouldn't hurt him. The corporation had hired the majority of the crew and he knew they had almost a full complement already. Despite his demand to hire those men he wanted, Porter admitted that it made sense for the corporation to hire the men who would work with the more unique engineering aspects of the Tantalus. It wasn't, as he kept reminding himself, a Navy boat. His only remaining position was for a cook and Porter was willing to bet that cooks were cooks and he could certainly hire one. Hopefully the interview this morning would take care of that position. The man looked good for the cooking berth, and was a certified master diver. His resume was impressive without being spectacular. He had been the chief cook on submarines in the Navy for two years before he resigned, no reason given; as an added bonus he had been the assistant cargo master on the last boat he was on and that skill could come in very handy now. He seemed to be the perfect choice. Of course there was that pre-employment check with the last employer, but he didn't see that as a reason to not at least interview the man; after all, they had said he was competent, just not easy to deal with management-wise. Williams would soon have him toeing the line, so that would not be a problem.

Porter had arranged to meet him here at the boat where supplies were being loaded. He frowned; he could see that the men were dogging it since it seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time to move the mountain of supplies that lined the dock. He would have to see about getting someone up here to make them work. They were less than a week away from sailing and he did not think his new bosses would be impressed with a late departure. It looked as if coming aboard early had been a smart move. He made a mental note to check that the rest of his gear was moved into the captain's cabin when it arrived. He grinned at the thought. Nothing like the Navy there; the cabin was huge and very well appointed. He ducked through the hatch and made his way to that cabin. He dropped off his bag for his steward to put away and went to the control room where the six junior officers and the COB were working over the boards. He had ordered them to go over each board so that all officers would be familiar with every station. With the small complement of men and officers on board due to the increased automation, it was necessary for everyone to be able to fill in at least one other station. He himself had gone through the manuals and expected to get up to speed on the actual workings as they went. He worked his way toward the ladder leading up top but had to step back as a crewman dropped swiftly down the ladder and almost bowled him over as he turned. The captain vaguely recognized him as an engine room hand as they ended up face to face. The hand grinned at him and gave what could have been a salute.

"Guy here to see you... uh...Captain," the man said. At Porter's nod he went back up the ladder, not bothering to wait for his captain to go first, Porter noted bitterly. There would have to be some discipline imposed, another task for Williams. He understood that Nelson's private boat ran under a sort of loose naval regulation. That seemed a likely option for this boat as well. He went on deck, and saw a man standing near the gangplank. He studied him as he approached.

The man was tall and despite what looked like several layers of clothes, lean. Dark hair with stands of gray and a definite curl blew in the cold wind off the harbor. The man was looking out into the harbor watching the ships moving about. As Porter moved up along side the man he turned to face the captain. The face was young despite the gray in the beard and hair, and Porter frowned mentally. Young might not be such a good idea for a cook. It was a position requiring experience in handling schedules as well as the food preparation. The men who worked on submarines expected good food, in large quantities, and a bad cook could put a crew on edge quicker than almost anything else on a boat. Any captain knew the value of a good cook, and competition to score the services of a reportedly good one was sometimes quite cutthroat in the Navy. The man's resume had looked good, however, and since they had no other candidates he would have to take the chance. Plus, the man would be able to act in several other capacities. Multitasking was the word of the day. In fact, a sudden idea on how to test the man's competence in one of the areas came to mind. He glanced at where the supply loading was proceeding at a slow pace. He looked into the brown eyes of the younger man and held out a hand.

"Ian Porter. Captain Ian Porter. I assume you are Mr. Cosigian?" At the nod he continued, "Glad to meet you. Let's go below and get some coffee in the mess while we talk." Actually he wasn't sure that there would be coffee, but it seemed likely, and it would give the man a chance to see where he would be working. Any cook used to working in the tight quarters of a Navy submarine should be more than happy with the facilities of the Tantalus. The two men went below, Porter noticing that the other man moved easily and with assurance through the boat. Reaching the mess hall, they found an urn of coffee available and sat at a table in the rear of the compartment. Porter was not happy that there wasn't a separate officers' mess, but obviously the designers had believed that the more business-oriented mission of this submarine did not warrant the separation of officers and crew. He opened the file he had been carrying with the man's resume and cover letter. He read them over again, mentally ticking off the items he wanted to discuss. He looked back up at the man who was sitting across from him, calmly sipping his coffee. There was no sign of the nervousness you might expect in a job applicant. Porter noticed that the man seemed to be paying attention to the comings and goings of the crew into the mess hall and looking around with interest. He started asking the questions he had thought up for the situation, testing for competence and experience. All of the questions were answered quickly, though thoughtfully, and in a manner that gave Porter a good feeling about the man. When he was done with the questions he closed the file and looked down at it for a moment. The man looked good on paper and seemed to have all the right answers, but could he manage the kitchens and keep the crew happy? They were something of a ragtag lot, he thought, not what he would have preferred at all, but then he hadn't had the interest to do the hiring himself and had to make do with what the company provided. Having a good cook would help to make the job more attractive to them, and keep them working well. His earlier idea about how to find out what the man was made of was looking better and better. This way he would get the loading and stowing of supplies done faster and wouldn't have to take one of his officers away from their training. But there was also the matter of the reference. He cleared his throat.

"I'm very impressed by your resume; you seem to have everything we need. But, there is a question I would like to ask. We contacted your former employer, that uh...German Institute. They said your work was good but that you had an attitude problem, and that's why you left. Care to explain?"

The other man shrugged. "I just didn't get on with the head of the expedition. He wanted to micromanage everything and I'm a bit more of a self-starter. Don't really need someone hovering over me all the time to get my work done. You tell me what you want then leave me to it. They were satisfied with my cooking, but wanted to keep telling me how to do my job. I couldn't work that way."

"You will, of course, be answerable to myself and the other officers on this boat should I decide to hire you," Porter reminded the man. He was intrigued in spite of the man's seeming independence.

The man shrugged again. "I understand. I don't mind answering to someone; it's just the hovering that gets on my nerves. Like those captains that gotta be in everything on the boat. Gotta poke their nose in the ovens every five minutes and wonder why they ain't cleaner. Wandering all over the boat and popping in on you like he's trying to catch you at something. It isn't right. That's what the Exec is for anyway. I don't need every officer on the boat buggin' me about the same thing. I don't need that, if that's what you mean."

"I run a tight ship," Porter found himself saying, despite the arrogance of the speech. Cooks, especially good ones, were notoriously quirky. "I expect my officers to take care of their area of responsibility and leave others to their own. If they can't handle it I'll soon have them out of there. If you do your job, there will be no reason for anyone to hover as you say." He considered. "Would you be open to a small test? The galley is not set up yet, so I can't have you cook, but I see you have experience as cargo master as well. I would like to see how you handle the supplies that they are moving on board. I will warn you that the men seem an undisciplined lot and it will take a firm hand to keep them in line. Frankly, I am concerned that at your age you might not have the experience to handle them."

"I do have experience," the other man said, gesturing to the file. "I've handled men before. Give me a chance and I'll prove it to you. What do you want done?"

"You probably saw them loading the supplies out there earlier?" Porter asked. At the affirmation he continued, "Well, they've been stretching it out forever. You take over and get it done in a reasonable amount of time and the job is yours. I want it done right though, not just fast. I don't want to have trim problems right out of the dock," he warned. "I can't spare any of my officers right now. They're going over the boards and familiarizing themselves with the boat. I don't want them interrupted." He wasn't sure why he was justifying his decision to this man, but he shrugged it off. He couldn't take the explanation back in any event.

The man calling himself Lee Cosigian nodded. He had trouble keeping the disbelief he felt about this whole experience off his face. He could not believe that Pritchard was so foolish as to put his boat into the hands of this man. He had no personal knowledge of Porter but he had read over his file, obtained through a contact at ONI. Even a service known for its exemplary officers had a few who did not distinguish themselves, and Porter was one of them. Unremarkable in everything, including his command style, he had been almost encouraged to take an early retirement. Having met the man, he had little problem believing everything in the file. He couldn't believe how blasé the man was regarding the crew being hired for the boat, apart from those he had hired on personally. As for those – well, Lee wasn't all that impressed by their quality. It looked to him as if they had been hired because they would make Porter look good rather than be good for the boat and crew. The officers he had hired were young and had limited experience; Cosigian felt that the man was afraid to hire anyone who might be actually competent; it would show him up too much. As much as he had come to hate Pritchard, he was surprised that the man would settle for someone like Porter even given the fact that Lee had done his best to limit Pritchard's choice. He had done everything in his power to make sure that those men of character and experience who might have been on Pritchard's prospective hiring list were aware of the possible career problems that could result from taking such a position. He had known a few of them, and they had been easy to warn off. Others, unknown to him personally, but of good character, had received calls from friends or former commanders who urged caution. Some foreign prospects suddenly had found themselves with passport, visa, or other problems. There had been a limit to the number of strings he had been able to pull, however, and Porter had evidently slipped through the process. Now that he considered it, Pritchard probably deserved a captain like Porter.

Not that he could complain too much about the hiring policies of the Tantalus given his current persona and the resume he had presented. He had found in his many years of doing undercover work for ONI that to do it right you had to forget who you really were while you were undercover and become the person you were supposed to be. He was now Lee Cosigian, former Navy non-commissioned submariner and cook with diving experience, looking for work. His only purpose here now was to make nice to the captain of the Tantalus, not critique his command style. However, he could not but regret that the boat and crew would have to put up with the man and his 'handpicked' officers. He pulled his wandering attention back to Porter, sure at least that he had not let his abstraction show as he agreed to the test. He was confident that he could not help but do better than the unsupervised men were doing for themselves. As to the actual stowing to allow for the correct trim, that also would be no problem as long as he could get the manifests and see the weights. It would be tedious work, work he had not been forced to do for many years since he had become a commander of his own sub, and could assign junior officers or the COB to oversee the process. Not that it had kept him from dropping by, he thought to himself. He wondered sometimes if the junior officers and crew got tired of him wandering around and poking his nose into everything instead of staying in the control room. So far he had not gotten that impression, and even if he had, he couldn't change. He couldn't understand a captain who didn't want to know everything about his boat. It was unnatural. Lee Crane couldn't imagine not knowing – not wanting to know – everything there was to know about Seaview. But he wasn't on his Gray Lady now and thinking about her, about his friends, his crew, could get him killed. He pushed aside his yearning. It was time to beCosigian

Parting from Porter he went first to the aft storage areas to see what was being done. A group of five men were standing around at the large freight hatch, smoking and talking. As he approached they straightened away from the bulkheads and smashed out their cigarettes. He frowned as one man did so on the deck. He saw another of the men nudge the offender who, after a meaningful look from the first, bent and picked up the stub. He looked at the supplies stacked neatly in the starboard storage area; the boxes appeared to be a mix of food, paper goods, spare parts and medical supplies, along with several containers marked for the scientists on board. Through the open hatch to the port side storage area he could see it was empty. Well, that wouldn't do. He saw one of the men had a clipboard with papers on it.

"Are you in charge here?" he asked. The man shrugged and waved the clipboard.

"I was marking things off. Don't know if that makes me in charge or not. They just gave me the clipboard 'cause I was closest I expect. You here to help?" the man asked. Cosigian nodded and took the clipboard.

"I'm Cosigian, I'm here to relieve you. Can I assume that you are standing around for a reason?" he inquired as he leafed through the manifest.

The same man who had handed him the clipboard spoke up. "Jenkins up there don't know jack about using that winch. He keeps fouling the cable. So we wait." Cosigian found himself comparing the man to a certain tough acting rating he knew, and gave himself a mental shake.

"Hmm, well I'll deal with that soon enough. For now we need to get the supplies that are here sorted and properly stowed." He flipped through the papers on the clipboard and came to a stowage chart as he suspected there must be. He glanced over it quickly and then back at the men. "You two," he pointed to two of them, "You start separating out the items marked as parts and engine room supplies. They'll be stowed on the port side. Move them over as you find them." He pointed to two others. "You two, start on getting the food supplies separated and moved forward on this side." The men moved off to start, and he looked at the remaining man. "What's your name?" he asked.

The man was in his thirties, African American, and while trim, had impressive shoulders and biceps. "The name's Peterson, engine man."

Cosigian handed him back the clipboard. "From now on as the load comes down, check off the item and route it to the appropriate storage compartment. Keep track of what boxes you are moving into each compartment and make a list for each area. Have you had experience with cargo stowage?" Cosigian asked.

"No, but I guess with a short crew we all have to do double duty now and then," the other man responded. He seemed doubtful about the job he was being given. Cosigian knew he was referring to the fact that the Tantalus required only a 60-man crew as opposed to over a hundred for a standard submarine. Cosigian was not enthused by the amount of automation on the boat, which if anything had increased since he had last been aboard, but at least that navigation controller was gone. Pritchard did learn from something it seemed. Of course the automation was mostly for use when the boat was at sea, not at the dock preparing to sail. Then, the crew was forced to fill in for the missing men.

"It will be good experience for you. It's an important job. Once you've done it a few times it becomes more natural. You start looking at the weights and the available space and you'll be able to work quickly and smoothly. Give it a try. I'll be back down once we get things moving dockside."

Reassured, the other man nodded and watched as the slim figure turned and started down the corridor. "Hey!" he called after the other man. Cosigian turned. "You an officer?" Peterson asked.

The man smiled and shook his head. "I'm the cook," he said, and disappeared around a turn in the corridor. Peterson stood there with his mouth hanging open for a time, then shook himself and looked at the clipboard he had been handed back. He wasn't sure why, but he felt slightly better about the job he had been given. Previously they had simply handed him the clipboard and said get it done. He wasn't expecting to have any actual responsibility about the boat's trim, and had anticipated a full day of shifting things back and forth until they were right. He was an Engine mate with some diving experience; he didn't know squat about trim, other than you needed it. Now he had a feeling he was going to find out and that it might not be the painful lesson that trial and error had looked to be. Why that should be just because the cook had said so, he didn't know. He started toward the starboard compartment. He better get to checking off the boxes before too many got moved. He wanted to be ready when the next load came down, and something told him it wasn't going to be too long before that happened.

Cosigian found the men topside were standing around much like the ones below had been, with the exception of two men who were working on the winch. Another man, sitting behind the controls and looking sheepish, Cosigian took to be the reportedly incompetent Jenkins. He took a close look at what the two men were working on and saw the problem. An inexperienced winch operator could easily make the mistake that had fouled the cable. As he came up to the group he looked the men over. They didn't seem to be too motivated to get back to work. He knew from the clandestine hacking that he had done into the PritCorp computers that most of the men were ex-Navy, and ex-sub service, so they should be used to discipline; it was only a matter of making sure they knew what to do and who was in charge.

He got their attention by stepping up on the nearest crate of parts and clearing his throat. "Listen up! My name is Cosigian. I'm in charge of getting these supplies below. While they are resetting the cable, I want you all to start sorting these crates by content. Any crate that isn't clearly marked needs to be matched up to the manifest by its number and marked. Looks like the winch should be active in about five minutes. If we get everything sorted out we can have this part of the job done before lunch and everything properly stowed by 1300." He jumped off the crate and headed for the winch. The men looked at each other for a moment and then, with a collective shrug, started to sort the boxes. The promise of a quick end to this detail was a good incentive.

The men working on the winch had heard the announcement and watched as the bearded man approached. They could see he was young, but he moved with assurance. Each man subconsciously recognized something, some quality, they had come to associate with the officers and non-coms they had known on the subs they had served on –a sense of authority. They straightened as he looked up at them.

"You two carry on. When you are finished, join the rest in sorting the crates." He headed for the winch controls. Jenkins looked at him with trepidation, expecting to be bawled out. Instead, the other man came up beside him at the controls and gave him a smile. "What experience have you had with a winch?" he asked.

Jenkins shrugged. "I worked one a couple of times when I was in the Navy, but I was discharged before I really learned much. I guess I didn't quite get to the part about how to keep from messing it up. This is the third time I fouled the cable. The only thing that's kept the rest from hauling me out of here is that none of them know any more about it and they don't want to look as silly as I do." He spoke with a California accent, and was thin with shaggy blond hair and blue eyes. He appeared to be around 25 or so. Another bout of homesickness touched Cosigian.

"It takes some experience before you can do it smoothly without having the cable kick back and foul the pulleys. I can show you a trick that a COB showed me when I first tried it." He started explaining the process slowly, going over the steps one at a time and explaining why each step was necessary.

By the time he was finished the two men who had been fixing the cable had finished and had come to stand by the controls. One man, slightly overweight and looking to be around 35 or 40 years old, listened to the last of the advice, nodding as he did so.

"There you go, Jenkins," he said, "Now maybe you can get it right." He started to laugh, but found himself the cynosure of intense brown eyes. He found himself straightening up and becoming serious.

"Jenkins will do fine. He can't be expected to do a job he hasn't been trained for as if he were. Now let's get this back underway." The newcomer spoke firmly, letting his voice express his displeasure at the comment. Jenkins gave him a relieved smile and felt better about his lot. He didn't know who this guy was, but he liked him.

Two hours later the two groups were coming back to work after breaking for lunch. The crates were all loaded and now it was just a matter of moving the supplies to the correct places. The group below had most of the crates sorted and moved into the correct areas. Only four of the previous men had been required for this portion of the work. Cosigian had tasked Peterson, Jenkins, the older man he had spoken to near the winch whose name was Feldman, and a skinny, ebony-skinned young man that the others called Lucky. He had been pleased to note that Peterson had checked off everything and that most crates were already well placed. He looked over the manifest and mentally began tallying the weights. He made some notes on the sheets and handed it to Peterson.

"This is what we need to move to keep trim. You look at not only what you have, but also the configuration of the sub and where her weight is concentrated. With the mining equipment stored in the bay on the port side, she's heavier there so you need to concentrate most of the weight to starboard, but you don't want to over compensate. You also have to look at the weight of the forward part of the boat, with the majority of the ballast tanks, versus the aft section of the sub with the engines and reactor. "

"Well, that's great, but how do I know about the weight of the equipment and stuff like that?" Peterson asked.

"You ask and you read. That's what I did," Cosigian said. Actually he had gotten most of that from the computer along with the rest of the information, but it was the logical answer. The majority of the information was also on the stowage chart. At least someone had been on the ball enough to provide that, though it might have been good if someone had explained that to the men working the cargo. It would have made for a long day of moving crates around if they had just been allowed to stack things wherever they found convenient. An hour later Cosigian presented himself at the open door to the captain's cabin. Seeing Porter inside, Cosigian knocked and waited for acknowledgment.

"Come in, come in," Porter bade him. "Done already?" he asked with a glance at the clock. Cosigian saw him raise both eyebrows as he realized the time. In the interest of his persona, he allowed a small, satisfied smile to cross his face as he handed the captain the clipboard with the weights recorded for each compartment.

"Very good, very good indeed. I would say that the job is yours if you want it. We have only to come to terms about the pay," Porter said cheerfully. Such efficiency would make this job much easier, and make him look better to the people in the main office he had to answer to. There was always a question of making things look good.

Cosigian shrugged. "The terms we spoke of were fine with me." He had no intention of taking so much as a penny from Pritchard or any of his companies in any event. Let Porter think he was desperate for a job. It played into his part. They signed several papers. The captain seemed to be in an expansive mood as he mentioned that the boat was scheduled to sail in four days and that the engineers that ran the mining equipment would be boarding tomorrow, as would the XO. With the hiring of Cosigian, they had a full crew. Porter actually cracked a smile as he commented that they would be ready to go. Cosigian nodded and promised to return with his belongings later that evening and that he would have the galley operating for breakfast. He was dismissed with a casual wave as if the captain had already forgotten his existence.

Cosigian climbed the ladder and crossed the gangplank, walking up the dock. As he reached the gate that sealed off the dock from unauthorized personnel he turned and looked back at the boat. He had chosen this method of attacking Pritchard because it was the way he knew best. He had not thought to ever set foot aboard the Tantalus again, but it was a way of getting to Pritchard. The computer aboard the state of the art boat was hooked via satellite to PritCorp's main computer. Pritchard had made a point of mentioning that during their ill-fated tour. He would have access to everything that went on at the main offices that utilized computers. Continuing to hack in the way he had been doing until now would have eventually set off alarms. This way he could use the Tantalus' computer to gain access to the main computer and use that foothold to delve deeper, using the codes and passwords he had already gleaned. He intended to find proof of the criminal activities that he knew PritCorp, and Pritchard, supported. He was going to be sure that Pritchard and his minions would not be around to harm Nelson much longer.

He turned up the collar of his blue woolen pea jacket against the wind that blew in off the harbor. It was perhaps his imagination that made that wind more biting, colder, as he turned away from the boat and headed toward the small room where he had been staying. His small bag was packed already, though he would make a show of delaying. He would say that the rest of his things were still being shipped from Germany, and he had only a few personal items. He was ready to take the next step in his plan. He was satisfied that even should someone notice a resemblance between the captain of the Seaview and the cook of the Tantalus, the difference in status should throw them off the track. He didn't expect any problems.

Chapter 4-

Admiral Harriman Nelson stood at the large window in his office and stared down at the Seaview docked below. He was not really seeing her or the men who were moving about her doing maintenance or loading supplies aboard. His thoughts were far away; he wondered where Lee Crane was now. After his discussion with Chip Morton the evening before he had found it impossible to sleep. He had finally risen from his bed and had come here to his office to work, or rather to sit and look at the work he had to do. He could not concentrate. He had been angry when he had learned that Crane had kept his discovery of spies at the Institute secret. While he trusted Crane implicitly with anything he had, he still resented being kept in the dark. After he calmed down – and it had actually felt good to finally let himself be genuinely angry and to be able to regain his equilibrium with little effort – he had simply felt wrung out.

It still puzzled him how with Lee Crane he had almost from the first been able to show any emotion and know that it would be accepted. Nelson had once been a stranger to such things. His own parents, while providing him and Edith with everything material, had been restrained in their feelings. While both he and Edith knew they were loved, no extreme of emotions were ever displayed in the Nelson home. He realized that even in his own relationship with Edith the same general principle had held. They had been deeply devoted to each other, even across the years that separated them, but in the end their displays of affection had been limited to restrained hugs and an occasional peck on the cheek. Nelson, and Edith to a lesser degree, had never had any problem displaying anger, no doubt a throwback to their hot-blooded Celtic ancestors, but everything else seemed out of bounds. It was probably one of the reasons he was still single at his age and that Edith had never been able to sustain a long-term relationship. With Crane, Nelson had found that while he was still the same restrained person, when he did want or need to express himself he was able to do so without embarrassment. This last thing with the anger though, he had almost pushed it too far. He still couldn't believe that Lee held nothing against him and, in fact, had gone into a potentially deadly situation to make sure that something like that never happened again.

He stepped back to his desk and sat down in the chair. He picked up the envelope that had been sitting there since he had returned from Washington, DC. He had read the contents a thousand times if he had read it once. Now he reached for it and pulled out the letter it contained. He unfolded it and read once again the words Lee Crane had written there.

Harry,

I know that as you are reading this you are probably angry; angry with me. I am also sure, knowing you that you are feeling guilty about the circumstances that led up to my decision to take this step. I want you to know, to believe, that I do not in any way blame you. I place the blame where it belongs, with Pritchard, and with those on his payroll who are determined to cause you pain, and I think eventually, see you dead. I can't let that happen, Harry. I can't ask you to forgive me, because I am not repentant. Maybe I am overstepping my bounds, taking for granted things that are not my concern, only you can say, and when I return, I will accept your judgment on that.

I have wondered throughout my life why things happened as they have. When I was younger I didn't appreciate the skills I had learned because of the way I learned them. When I became an agent for ONI, I found those skills helped me survive when others didn't, and I appreciated them, but still wondered why I had to learn them as I did. It seems those same skills are going to help me repay some of what you have done for me over the years. For that, I now find it in myself to be grateful for those years. I am also grateful for what you have given me – a sense of self. I didn't like Lee Crane much before you got a hold of him. You helped him grow past that child. You gave him a place where he could belong and a family. You gave me life, Harry, just as if you had been my father by blood. I owe you.

Don't let guilt eat you, and if you are angry with me, let it flow. Don't hold it back; you have a right to that anger and also a right to express it. The only thing I can ask of you is to consider what I know to be true: You would have done the same for me.

Lee

He sat for a long time staring at the letter. Hell yes, he was angry... and guilty. Unfortunately Lee's understanding did nothing to ease that. Until Lee was back here, where he belonged, and they could talk over what had happened nothing would ease it. He carefully put the letter back in the envelope and then dropped it in his desk. His intercom buzzed and Angie's voice came across.

"Admiral. Mr. Pearson is here for your 0900 appointment," she said.

"Send him in, Angie," Nelson said. He turned in his chair and called on the years of practice he had at hiding his formidable temper. He turned around as a man of about his own age, slim and white haired, entered the room. Jules Pearson had been the head of the Institute's financial department since before there was an Institute. He had helped Nelson set up the trusts that funded the Institute and continued to oversee the large department that handled all financial aspects of its operations. Nelson might promote the grants and paying customers, but it was Pearson and his people that did the endless paperwork and the billing. He had also for the last 20 years handled all of Nelson's personal finances. It might have been true that his parents had left him and Edith excessively well off and that he had added to the amounts with the proceeds from his many patents, but he was well aware that his fortune would not be anywhere near as large as it was without the clever financial planning that this man had done. Investments, trusts, precious metals, mutual funds, bonds, municipals, they were all just words to Nelson. He could understand the delicate balance needed to turn the fury of a nuclear explosion into a power source, but finance was outside his realm. And with Jules Pearson on the job, he didn't have to worry about it. Up until a short time ago he would have said the same for their mutual friend, Ronald Lawrence, Pearson's right hand man, and the man in charge of managing the trusts that supplied the Institute with the day-to-day monies that it needed. As Nelson turned to face Pearson, he could see by the look in the man's eyes that he knew why Nelson had requested the meeting. He sat in the chair in front of Nelson's desk and leaned back casually and, as was typical of the man, attacked.

"So, Harry, someone blew the gaff, I can tell by the look in your eye. Never was one to accept something being done for your own good. Don't suppose you'd just let it go and take my word that everything is all right?" He took out a small thin cigar of the type he favored and lit it, his twinkling and sharp blue eyes on Nelson. The admiral frowned at him, and lit a cigarette. The two friends sat there smoking for several minutes and finally Nelson spoke.

"Tell me what Ron was doing," he said, quietly.

"Basically, he was doing his best to get the Institute, me, and you indicted for insider trading. The feds would have seized everything in the trusts and started auditing back from the formation of the Institute. They would have been looking at every stock sale or purchase that was ever made with trust monies, and would be ready to classify anything even close to insider information as sufficient to justify seizing the assets of the Institute and, quite possibly, you personally. We did things right, but if they looked hard enough they would find something. They always do. The letter of the law doesn't give anyone the benefit of the doubt, and they would find SOMETHING to make it stick."

"But... how?" Nelson asked finally. Not even sure exactly what he was asking. Jules shook his head and smiled fondly at Nelson. He was well aware of the intentional blind spot Nelson had for finance.

"You wouldn't understand it even if I told you. Suffice it to say that he evidently had done some insider trading on his own behalf, and quite possibly for the trust even before Pritchard got hold of him. What he did is what I would call a gray area in the law. Not quite the same thing you've probably read about in the newspapers. Those cases are pretty cut and dried before they allow the media a hint of them. It's the gray area between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law that Lawrence was using to his advantage and then later... to set us up." Nelson noted the use of Lawrence's last name. Jules and Ron Lawrence had been friends since childhood. It spoke of the depths of betrayal that had gone on. Pearson was continuing. "We also found out that he was leaking information on our finances to Pritchard. What we were investing in, where we were going on municipals or metals. We've been paying premium prices for things we could have got at half the price. He was giving out confidential information about what we were doing and about our plans for the future. We've had to revamp our whole financial plan and reset all of our computer passwords. Security sent up one of their wizard hackers and he found a 'back door,' I think he called it, that allowed anyone who had the right code to enter our system and look over anything they damn well pleased. They were using Lawrence's codes to do it. At least the firewall to the main computer was keeping them from accessing anything there. The SOB was doing his best to help bring us down." Nelson listened in disbelief. He could not believe the man he had known for so long could do this.

"Why?" he finally asked, his eyes meeting Pearson's. He could now see the sorrow there, under the bluster and anger. He waited as Pearson took another puff on his cigar.

"Because he didn't have enough, Harry. The house on the beach, the winter cabin in Vail, the condo in Hawaii, the cars, the boats, the jewelry for Nancy, the Ivy League colleges for the kids, it wasn't enough. He wanted to be richer, and Pritchard offered him more. As far as we can tell, he had gotten an amount almost equal to a year's salary in the last month he was here. There is evidence that he had gotten similar amounts several times before. He was weak, Harry, and he sold us out to our enemy for money. That's why." Nelson was silent again, contemplating what he had heard. He mentally cursed Pritchard for exploiting another man's weakness, but he could not excuse what his former friend had done. Speaking of friends, time for the next issue.

"Why didn't you tell me? I am sure that Captain Crane told you that he planned to keep this from me. Evidently he didn't think I was able to handle the betrayal. Did you think so too?" he said, hearing the faint sarcasm in his tone even as he spoke.

Pearson sat up and jabbed the cigar in his direction. "Don't play stupid, Harry! I know you are not, and it's unbecoming in a man our age," he exclaimed and jumped to his feet to pace. He waved the hand holding the cigar as he did so and Nelson wondered vaguely if he was going to have ashes all over his office. "That boy was only trying to save you from yourself. It wasn't that he didn't think you could handle it. It was that he didn't think you should HAVE to. For some reason he seems to think you have better things to turn your mind to than the petty machinations of a spiteful SOB like Pritchard or a slug like Ron Lawrence. It hasn't been an easy year for you, Harry, or for any of us for that matter. You got to admit that even for you and your boys things have been a bit dramatic of late. He just didn't want to burden you with having to deal with it. So he let me take care of it, and YES, I agreed to not tell you. You know as well as I do that we don't tell you everything that goes on here. We do our jobs so that you and your expensive toy can do yours without thinking too much about the details. That's what you hired us for. Crane was doing what he felt you counted on him to do, take care of things." He puffed vigorously at his cigar and then rounded on Nelson again. "Do you know the kind of person you have in that boy, Harry? I'd die a happy man if I knew that all my kids together had half the consideration for my feelings that that boy does for yours. He thinks you hung the moon and probably the sun. He didn't want you hurt, and so he offered Lawrence a way out if he just folded his tent and took a hike, quietly. To be frank, I wanted to burn his ass. As it was I settled on him retiring with no pension or benefits and the promise he would never show his face anywhere I was likely to be." Pearson threw himself back in the chair. Nelson found himself vaguely amused. Jules hadn't shown this much emotion over anything in years. He turned his attention back to Pearson as he made a harrumphing sound.

"I don't understand it myself really. I can't imagine doing that to anyone, much less as good a friend as I know you were to him." Obviously he was speaking of Lawrence now. He gave a laugh. "Boy do I remember when Crane came and told me what he had found out. He didn't know exactly what Lawrence had been up to at that point, just that he was taking bribes and passing information. He got an appointment with me and proceeded to lay it out." He looked sheepish. "I can't say I took it well at first. I used several words that I have since apologized for at a volume that didn't seem to faze him at all. I suspect I have you to thank for that. You always could yell louder." He gave Nelson a small humorless smile and then continued the sorrow now obvious in his voice. "But he persisted until I actually listened to what he had to say and then I started looking at what Lawrence had been up to. It made me physically sick, Harry, seeing what he had been doing. Luckily, nothing he had done was irreversible. I contacted some friends at the SEC and made some inquiries and a few deals. Should Lawrence try to get another job in the industry he'll find out that there will be someone watching everything he does." He sighed. "The Institute is in the clear for now, and of course everything has been changed on the computers as I said. Nothing can be done about the information he leaked about our contracts. I have made some inquiries there too. Several of our regular customers have been approached about and I quote, 'alternative research platforms'. We haven't lost anyone but I understand that our prices are being undercut by just enough to make it attractive."

Nelson rocked back in his chair and considered what he had heard. To be honest with himself, he would not have taken the news any better than Pearson. His first response would have been that Crane must have made a mistake, and when faced with the incontrovertible evidence he would have been just as angry, and sad, as he was now. Now that he thought about it, Pearson was probably right in what he said about Lee simply doing what Nelson had hired him to do. Over the time he had been here, Crane had slowly taken over many of the management functions of the Institute, freeing Nelson for other things. Nelson, never happier than when he could be doing research, had been more than happy to allow it, and had not wanted or needed to know what it was Crane was doing. He knew that the young captain had only the Institute's, and Nelson's, interests at heart. He wasn't sure why he was second-guessing that now. He didn't doubt that it was a culmination of what Pearson had pointed out had been a very dramatic year. Thinking Lee was dead, almost dying himself, and then the incident with the unmanageable anger. He sighed and looked at Pearson.

"Did you know about the others, the ones Lee found that were also leaking information?" He could see the answer on the man's face even as he finished the question. Well it was at least good to know that it wasn't common knowledge to everyone but him. He explained what Crane and the security chief had found. Pearson shook his head in disgust.

"What's the world coming to, Harry? When even people you trust turn on you, what's left to count on?" he asked disgustedly. Pearson rose to his feet and went to the built-in bar. He poured himself a generous tot of the private label. He raised the bottle in inquiry to Nelson who shook his head and glanced at the clock. Pearson shrugged. "So it's early. At our age it may not get any later. Why take the chance?" He went to the window and looked out on the activity around the submarine. He sipped at the drink then looked back at Nelson. "The rumor mill is running furiously as you might expect. I don't usually give it much credence, but this time it looks as if I should. Everyone pretty much knows what went on during your last cruise, including the... incident in the control room. I don't have to tell you how everyone is taking Captain Crane's continued absence I'm sure."

"'Incident,'" Nelson said, "That's as good a word for it as any I guess." He had a vivid recollection of the whole thing; it made him wish the drug had included an amnesia component as well. Not that it would be any better. He sighed. Perhaps it was time to break his silence on the matter. He had authorized Morton to inform the crew of what had caused the problem, and had apologized himself both over the ship-wide intercom and to the individual people on whom he had taken out his temper. However, both he and Morton had thought it best if no further information about Crane was released. They had simply said that the captain was taking care of some personal business on shore and left it at that. That rumors would fly was a foregone conclusion, but they thought it safer than revealing anything about what Crane was really doing. Nelson knew he could trust Pearson to be discrete; in fact, with what he was about to propose, he had to be sure of it.

"He's gone after Pritchard. Alone," he finally said. He smiled grimly as Pearson nearly choked on the drink he had been taking.

"Why the hell would you let him do that?" Pearson asked incredulously. "Pritchard is a shark, and he doesn't have any problem eating anyone that gets in his way." Pearson had familiarized himself with the man through various friends who had dealt with him. To a man they had said Pritchard was someone it was best to avoid, and if you had something he wanted, you would best stand aside and let him have it.

Nelson stood and went to stand by the window. "It wasn't my choice, damn it. He took off while I was still unconscious and disappeared before we could get back to shore. He's got contacts throughout the intelligence community. If he wants to disappear, he is more than capable of getting lost enough that no one can find him. He's done it before," he said bleakly. "The only thing I could do by hunting for him is tip off people that he's up to something. So, we decided to say nothing and let the gossip go where it will. It seemed the lesser of the possible evils."

Pearson nodded in understanding and returned to his chair. "I take it then we won't need to be dealing with some lawyer over a breach of contract issue?"

"No, at least not from my side. I have yet to speak with the captain in person; I have only a letter stating his intent. I take it from that he means to return."

"And when he does?" Pearson asked with his eyes locked on Nelson.

"When he does we'll have a discussion about what I wish to be appraised of in the future, and... a few other things, private things, nothing that will affect his contract in any way if I have anything to say about it. Then maybe things can get back to normal, or what passes for normal for us"

Pearson nodded a smile on his face. He sat back. "Well, it's nice to hear that. I was worried when I heard the rumors, but I am sure you didn't call me here just for this. What's on your mind, Harry?"

Nelson took a deep breath and met Pearson's sharp gaze. "Lee's going after Pritchard from the inside. I want to attack from the outside. If I make enough trouble for him in the public venue he might not be looking wherever Lee is. I want to make his life as miserable as possible, and I believe that his finances and his power base are the places to start."

Pearson looked startled for a moment then began nodding. "Always go for the jugular, Harry, that's what they teach you on Wall Street when it comes to hostile actions. I assume you know that this could backfire big time. He's got a lot of money and a lot of friends," he warned.

"So do I." Nelson said matter-of-factly. "I have never been one to trade on my acquaintances, but I know a lot of people in some powerful places. I am prepared to talk to whomever necessary and pull whatever strings I can get a hold of. I know I don't have to mention it to you, but I will anyway. I want everything done legally."

"You're right, you don't have to mention it," Pearson said. He sat there for several minutes, thinking. Slowly an evil grin started to form on his face. "I believe I have just the way to do this. In fact, I have a couple of ideas, might even make us some money while we do it."

"What do you have in mind?" Nelson said,

"I'd rather not tell you right now. It's going to take some planning, and a whole lot of money. Let me run some numbers and contact some people and see what I can start then I'll get back to you. You'll have to work the power side of it yourself. I'll work the money end." He sprang to his feet with more vigor than he had displayed in years and headed for the door. He paused about half-way there and spun around to face Nelson; his eyes were sharp and Nelson could see the excitement in them. "How much, Harry? How much is too much to sink into this?" he asked.

Nelson didn't hesitate. "Everything. I don't care if it takes the last penny of my personal fortune. Leave the Institute out of it, but take everything else. Mortgage the houses, the properties, I don't care, spend it all if you have to."

Pearson grinned a devil may care grin and nodded. He spun back around to the door. He was pulling his cell phone out of his pocket before he reached it, and dialed a number. As he pulled the door closed behind him, Nelson heard him speak. "Hello, can I speak to the director? Tell him it's Jules Pearson calling..." The rest was cut off as the door closed.

Nelson sat in his chair, rocking gently for a moment, contemplating what he had set in motion. He had every confidence in Pearson's abilities. He had had ample proof of the man's canniness over the years as he had watched his fortune grow to astronomical levels. He really didn't care if he made money or not. He was prepared to put it all into ruining Pritchard. He didn't like to think of it as revenge. Rather say that it was justice, and if that cost all the money he could beg or borrow so be it. The Institute had its own funding and, if necessary, he could live off the salary he received from the Institute and the royalties of his various patents. In fact he could live quite nicely off them, so it made no difference. He smiled to himself and reached for the phone, time to start clipping Pritchard's wings in Washington. He knew that to Pritchard the power was more important than the money. To Pritchard, the money was a means of gaining power. It had infuriated Pritchard before to find out how much power Nelson was able to bring to bear on the matter of the shortcuts on the submarine PritCorp had constructed, the one that had nearly killed Lee and the other men aboard her when a vengeful software creator had tried to destroy it. He had arranged for every agency from the Coast Guard to OSHA to have a hand in setting the rules for any refit of the boat. As far as he knew, it had cost Pritchard almost as much to refit the boat as it had cost to construct it originally due to the changes required by those agencies. Pritchard thought he had a nice network of paid lobbyists, bought congressmen, and information suppliers. He was about to find out that he might not have everything he thought he did. He jabbed the intercom button.

"Angie, get me Jerry Guthrie in the Secretary of the Navy's offices at the Pentagon. He's the CIA liaison. Tell him it's urgent." He released the button and sat back in his chair. They had one end of the string on the aide who had been dealing with Pritchard's man Foggerty, time to start pulling on that string and see where it led.

Chapter 5

It had been two days after he had been hired that he had leaned back against the sail and watched as Jason Pritchard III walked down the gangplank, followed closely by Greg Summers, mineralogist extraordinaire, at least in his own mind. Pritchard was leaving. Summers, unfortunately, was not. It had been something of a surprise to see Pritchard here this morning, getting coffee in the mess hall, though he should not have been so startled. This project was Pritchard's baby, his own personal project. It was Cosigian's understanding that even the board of directors of PritCorp were against it. Only Pritchard's control of a majority portion of the shares allowed him to continue. He was determined to have a working submarine so that he could take advantage of the mining opportunities that were not available to other ocean mining firms with more conventional surface vessels.

Cosigian was sure that the real reason, a reason never revealed to the board, was that Pritchard wanted to have what he perceived Nelson had, his own personal submarine. When he had first met Pritchard, had first visited this boat, he had not realized the obsessive hatred that the man had for Nelson. He had seemed simply a businessman looking to seize the market. Only after further acquaintance did the nature of the man become obvious. Since then it had become more than obvious. With one strike after another, Pritchard had done everything short of outright murder to make Nelson's life miserable. This last effort, the use of the drug on Nelson, had been the final straw as far as Cosigian was concerned. Even if it had not been Pritchard himself who orchestrated the attack, it had been done with his approval and by one of his employees. The earlier attack on Nelson had been a spur of the moment thing, a stopgap attempt to keep Nelson from seeing the corals that marked the uranium deposits. But this...it was a direct attack. And he could only see it escalating.

Cosigian was not prepared to allow them the opportunity to strike again, perhaps fatally the next time. He was taking the fight to Pritchard, but he hadn't planned on coming face to face with the man at this early date. Summers he had known about because of his hacking into the crew list. He had been prepared for him, though he didn't see him as much of a threat. He had watched the man while he was on the Seaview. The mineralogist was conceited and self-absorbed. He only paid true attention to those that could further his cause, pad his wallet, or stroke his ego. Captain Lee Crane had not been able to do either of the first, and had refused to do the last, so he doubted if he really had registered on the man's radar much beyond being a presence on board that he had to deal with to appease Nelson. Several face-to-face meetings in the corridors of the Tantalus in the last few days had reinforced that idea. To Summers he was only "Cookie" and the assistant cargo master, a menial whose only jobs were to get Summers' equipment on board, make sure it was stowed correctly, and to make sure his steak was cooked just right. Cosigian doubted that Summers could describe him if pressed to do so, which was just fine with the new cook. As far as Cosigian was concerned, he would rather have Summers on board so that he knew exactly where the man was, and knew that he wasn't actively involved in any plot against Nelson.

Pritchard on the other hand, he avoided like the plague throughout the day. As much as he had come to hate the man, he had to acknowledge that he was sharp, and that there would be little chance of fooling him with a beard and longer hair. Even the contacts would not have been enough he felt. Pritchard had toured the boat quickly and then lunched with Porter and the officers. When he was informed of this schedule, the cook had instantly suggested that he arrange a special table and assign one of his stewards to act as server. The plan had appealed to the self-importance of the captain, and had kept Pritchard out of the serving line thus avoiding a face-to-face meeting. Afterwards the men had retreated with Porter and Summers into the captain's cabin for a long talk, no doubt about their destination. Cosigian had arranged for an afternoon of baking fresh bread. That had kept him busy through most of the visit. The COB had summoned him less than thirty minutes before Pritchard left to see to the last piece of mining equipment that had just arrived dockside as the COB was currently dancing attendance on the V.I.P. and could not do it himself.

He hustled Jenkins out of the electrical room and found several other men and swiftly arranged to hoist the machine on board. He was supervising the process when Pritchard and Summers had appeared. The two men had paused on the bridge, and Cosigian sidled to port so that he was hidden from their sight. He was in the shadow of the sail as they came down the ladder and stood watching the heavy machine disappear into the hold. They moved toward the gangplank, Pritchard talking and Summers nodding in agreement. It seemed the geologist was well aware that Pritchard was the only one who was willing to hire him and was more than willing to be a 'yes' man if necessary. Crane smiled to himself wolfishly and thought that was only part of what he deserved after almost killing Nelson. The admiral had moved swiftly to make sure that all of his contacts in the various institutes and universities where Summers might have gone for employment knew what had gone on about the Niobe. He had refused Crane's urging to take further steps against the man, saying that the loss of prestige would be sufficient. Now, seeing the formally proud and self satisfied scientist brought to this level it was somehow satisfying he had to admit. Cosigian slipped to the edge of the shadow, leaned against the sail and watched them go toward the limo parked on the dock. He was glad to see Pritchard leaving, and impatient to see what the bug he had hidden in the captain's cabin would reveal. So far no member of the crew had been told what the destination of the boat was, and most did not care as long as they were paid.

Cosigian on the other hand was deeply interested. Pritchard had a penchant for ignoring laws, both domestic and international. He wanted to know what they were mining and where. The answer to one or both of the questions could be a pivotal part of bringing Pritchard down. The limo bearing the big man drove off, and Cosigian turned back to the task at hand. The sling was released from the machine and Jenkins retracted the cable. Cosigian summoned Jenkins back with a wave and had the other men start closing up the cargo doors. A quick glance below before they closed showed several men moving the machine into the davits that would hold it in place. Cosigian released the other men back to their regular duties and turned to find Summers standing at the base of the ladder. He moved aside to allow the men to go up, but stopped Cosigian with a hand on the arm. Cosigian pulled back from the contact casually and raised an inquiring eyebrow.

"Something I can do for you?" he asked, intentionally not adding the 'sir' as he would have added for a guest on the Seaview, even as her captain. This man deserved no respect from him, and would get none. He had noticed that several of the crew had obviously developed their own opinion regarding the man and had also dropped the honorific. He had seen Summers grumble to himself at the lack of what he felt was proper respect but so far it had not been brought to the captain's attention, or if it had, the captain had done nothing about it. Summers scowled at his tone, but said nothing. "I want that machine run through diagnostics. It's been a pain in the ass since it came off the assembly line and I want to make sure it's ready to go. Those idiots at the factory don't have a clue how it's supposed to work and I'm not taking their word that it's okay now. We have a week until we are on site, and I want it run through every test."

"I'll inform the Chief; I'm sure he'll get the techs on it immediately. You want printouts of the diagnostics?" Cosigian said.

"Yes. Have someone bring them to my cabin as they are run. I'll double-check them for accuracy. I can't get anyone I can trust to do the work right. Wish I knew what had happened to the two deadbeats I hired. They could at least have showed up and quit like men instead of skulking off somewhere. They won't get a reference out of me," the scientist grumped almost to himself. With that he turned and went up the ladder, leaving Cosigian to watch him go. The cook could have told him what had happened to his two assistants, at least in general. They had been killed in separate 'accidents' less than two months after the cruise on the Seaview.

One research assistant had been killed in a single car accident. His car had gone over a cliff on a rainy night. There had been very little left of his car or his body by the time the rescue workers reached it and it had been written off as an accident. There had been no signs that the man had tried to stop. The investigators had put it down to losing control or simply falling asleep at the wheel. At almost the same time, over three hundred miles away, the second man had also had an 'accident'. He had fallen down the stairs in his home, breaking his neck. There had been no sign of foul play, and an empty bottle of vodka under the body had led the local coroner to declare it accidental death. Cosigian had viewed it not as coincidence, but instead as Pritchard's men cleaning up after themselves. He had presented the full story to an investigator in the town where the second victim had lived. The investigator had been intrigued and had agreed, with the cooperation of the local district attorney, to discretely look into the possibility that the two deaths were connected. Before he had immersed himself into his role, Cosigian had learned that the detective had found proof that the man – who had shown a high blood alcohol level – was in fact a life-long teetotaler. A quiet exhumation and more careful autopsy of the first assistant's body had revealed that there were signs that the man was dead before he went over the cliff. Cosigian doubted if anything would come of it, after all Pritchard would not have done it himself, but if something could be found, it would be another nail in Pritchard's coffin. Lee turned to carry out Summers' orders, hoping that what he did on Tantalus would provide the coffin for that nail.

Chapter 6-

COB Francis Sharkey growled at Riley who had just dropped two small crates of engine parts, sending the man scrambling to pick up the boxes and hurry them to the place the chief had indicated they were to be stowed. The experienced hand ignored the muttering coming from the chief as he stood with a clipboard, almost stabbing it with the pencil he held. The chief had been on the warpath for the last two months. In fact he had been this way since shortly after it became obvious that the captain was not coming back anytime soon. This duty was a perfect illustration. The Chief had decided to move the boxes from one storage unit to another, then had changed his mind and decided to move them back. Of course that meant that the crew got to do the moving, and put up with Sharkey.

Speculation had run rife in the crew lounge. Some of the older hands, like Kowalski and Patterson, said that the Skipper was just off on one of his ONI assignments, and would be back when he was done. Some of the newer men, not as familiar with the command officers, whispered that after what had gone on in the control room, Nelson was probably looking for another captain for his boat. Not that they blamed the skipper for taking a hike, a man could only take so much. There was some talk of finding out where he went and going along with him.

The crew was pretty much divided down the middle, and the two camps were at daggers drawn at any given moment. Patterson, normally one of the mildest of men had been put on report twice for fighting. As for Kowalski, well word had it that by the time Mr. Morton let him and Tompkins out of the port and starboard bilge tanks, respectively, they would have either gills or scales and the tanks would shine like diamonds. Thinking of Mr. Morton made Riley step along that much faster, not wanting to get caught by the XO 'dawdling'. If the Chief was in a bad mood, then Mr. Morton was just about over the edge. He had actually YELLED at a new man the other day, and not for something that was really serious either. It had been an infraction of the rules to be sure, but before, before the skipper had left, it would have only drawn a reprimand and some time on KP or deck scrubbing. Instead the XO had practically peeled the man's skin off with a sharp and loud diatribe on his incompetence. The XO had later apologized to the man, in front of the crew as a matter of fact, but still, for the calm and cool XO to have done such a thing was almost like... well it was like the skipper leaving the Seaview. It just didn't happen.

Riley himself really didn't know what to think. He knew that the skipper often did things for ONI, and that the XO and the admiral didn't like it. He wondered if maybe the whole thing with the admiral had been some sort of set up. The XO had announced that he admiral had been under the influence of some drug when he was raging around the boat, and the admiral himself had apologized to the crew, but that could have all been some kind of act to make it look like the skipper had been fired or quit or something. Maybe it was all part of the plan. The idea that it NOT be was something he didn't even want to consider.

He had joined the Seaview because of Crane. He had been approached before to hire on, but he had been reluctant to join what he had perceived as an 'old man's' boat. It had seemed a staid and boring kind of work, but then Crane had come along and stories started to leak out. Suddenly it didn't seem boring anymore, and Crane wasn't old or staid. Oh the man could be stern and strict, but only when it was necessary, and only for the good of the boat. When you sailed with the skipper you knew he was looking out for you, for all the crew. Riley had seen the lengths Crane would go to for his boat, for his crew, and there wasn't another man that Riley would trust to be the same. If Crane was gone... His musings were interrupted as he came around the corner and bumped into Paterson.

The senior rating was flushed, and Riley saw that his fists were clenched tightly at his side. Obviously another 'discussion' had gone on. At least this one had not come to blows. With the mood the Chief was in Paterson could have found himself beached for the next cruise. Even if it was just a re-supply run, Riley knew the electrician's mate would not want that. Riley cast a glance back down the corridor looking for Sharkey or Morton. It was all clear. He grabbed Paterson's arm.

"What's going on Pat?" he asked quietly. "You aren't looking too good."

Paterson shook his head. "I can't get over these guys. They keep talking like they're going to leave. Like that's what the skipper would want." He snorted. "They don't know the skipper like I do, like Ski does, like you do Riley. He wouldn't abandon ship like this, not the skipper. If he was going to go for good, he would have said something, no matter what the admiral said or did. I'm just tired of hearing it is all."

Riley nodded. He guessed he did believe that Crane was coming back, that he wouldn't have just up and left without a word. It all had to be some kind of plan, something was going on, had been going on for a long time. Look at all the stuff that had happened in the last year. Even for the Seaview things had been a little... suspenseful. He smiled at Paterson.

"You're right. The skipper is coming back, and I for one, intend to be here to welcome him back aboard. I say we let those guys say what they want. If they don't have faith in the skipper and in the admiral and Mr. Morton well then we don't need them here. Don't go getting yourself beached, or down in the bilges with Ski, the skipper wouldn't like it." he reasoned.

Paterson took several deep breaths and slowly nodded. He seemed calmer, maybe calmer then he had for a while. He patted Riley on the shoulder "You're right. The skipper wouldn't like us fighting over him, and you're also right about us not needing those guys that don't understand." He took another deep breath and grinned at Riley, one of the first smiles the younger rating had seen for a long time. "I'm going to go get some coffee before I start my shift, and I might even go see how Ski is doing on that cleaning detail." He started down the corridor, a bit of a spring in his step. He stopped at the cross corridor that would take him to the mess hall and looked back. "Thanks Riley. I guess I just needed to hear it from someone to make it stick." He called back down the corridor, and then he disappeared around the corner.

Riley stood there for a minute, a big grin on his face. He hadn't really thought out the things that he had said to Paterson, they had just spilled out, feeling right. And just as Paterson had felt better hearing it, Riley now felt better having said it. He was feeling pretty damn fine as a matter of fact! He rocked back and forth on his feet. Yes sir, things were looking a lot better.

"RILEY!" The young rating jumped at the sound of Sharkey's yell. Suddenly he wasn't all that satisfied with himself, and he darted down the corridor toward the port storage area where he was supposed to be.

The skipper couldn't get back any too soon for him.

Chapter 7

Lee Cosigian moved slowly past the food choices in the mess hall, finally allowing the stewards to give him a little bit of stew and some bread. It was almost the end of the dinner hour. His two stewards were finishing the serving and would start the cleanup when everyone had gone through the line. In his position as head cook, he could avoid that job but he was careful to make sure his stewards knew he was interested in and appreciated their work. Even if he had a different agenda for being there, they were good men. He had signed on for the responsibility of feeding this crew, and he owed it to his people to give them the support they needed to carry out their duties. He turned toward the coffee urn and got himself a cup of joe that still wasn't quite up to Seaview standards, even if no one was complaining. He sank wearily into a chair. Ignoring the tray, he let his mind wonder over the last week.

He'd been chief cook on Tantalus for five days now and it was a wonder he had time to do his "real" job. But he had, and since he had listened to the tape of the conference in Porter's cabin, he was beginning to hope that he had a chance to take Pritchard down. He knew, as did no one else on the crew save the officers, where they were going, and what they were doing; and while he wasn't a lawyer, he was pretty sure that it was illegal as hell. However, he had found himself hesitant to report it to his contact so that action could be taken. He had told the man what was going on between Pritchard and Nelson, about his suspicion what it was leading to, about his determination to stop it. But, would he really understand? Would he be able to see beyond the immediate need to put a stop to an illegal activity? Could he see how much better it would be if they were caught in the act? The man should have a good understanding of the means justifying the ends, so maybe he was just stalling because he knew what the response was going to be.

This upped the danger level considerably. He knew he would be hard pressed to calm the natural fears his contact would have. If the People's Republic should board them there was always the possibility that his cover would not hold. He had not made himself popular there, or maybe he should say he was TOO popular. Quite a few people in the present government would like to have him as a permanent guest. There should be no problem though. Obviously Pritchard had made some sort of deal with the powers that currently be, and with their agreement should come some degree of safety for the crew. No, he was in more danger from Pritchard than he was from agents of the People's Republic. He decided not to tempt fate, and kept the destination to himself until they had been out to sea four days and were within a few days of their destination. His contact had a long reach, and it turned out, a very good command of invective. The return message he had received had left him in no doubt as to exactly what his contact thought of his timing. He seemed to be striking out with retired admirals all the way around. He had counted on the bad feelings between the two men to keep them apart, and thus keep Nelson in the dark as to exactly what he was doing thus giving him deniability, but Cosigian had a very deep suspicion that the cat was about to be let out of the bag. He had fatalistically decided to let it be since there was nothing he could do to stop it.

And so, he went about his job as cook. He gained a new respect for the job Cookie did, feeding twice as many men on a larger vessel but with slightly smaller facilities. He did enjoy the closer working relationship with the crew, one he had always been forbidden as an officer. He took up the habit of prowling the boat from stem to stern on the pretext that he liked to stretch his legs, and got bored just sitting around. In the same vein he had volunteered to help out the COB with anything that needed doing that didn't interfere with the cooking schedule. His resume had more than provided the necessary experience, so the COB had been happy to take him up on it, assigning him to the damage control. He had become familiar with almost every compartment except for the one in the nose that was strictly off limits to everyone except the captain and XO. Not that they seemed to go there, but they were the only ones with keys to the rather complicated lock that barred the door, a lock that had frustrated his best attempts to pick it. He was going to have to mention that to his trainer back at the ONI facility. He had been told the methods would work on anything.

Last evening he had finally managed to manufacture an opportunity to use what Chip had always referred to as his favorite method of clandestine entry into submarine compartments. The ventilation system on the Tantalus was, if anything, even better for getting around in than Seaview's, fewer twists and turns. He had entered the system well down the corridor in a small compartment filled with firefighting supplies. He was ostensibly doing an inventory of safety equipment for the chief, and had already done the other similar lockers throughout the boat. He closed his eyes and relived the experience.

He left the clipboard in a handy hiding place and had climbed into the vent. A short crawl later found him pushing open the vent on the small compartment. He lowered himself to the deck after visually checking for any type of intruder alert system. There was none in evidence, and he moved to study the system boards that were there. They were active, but seemed to be in a sleep mode of sorts, no doubt a coded lock out of unauthorized personnel. He could discern little from the panels, but there were several buttons that raised his interest. Four buttons, not unlike those on a torpedo or missile firing board, bore numbers and beneath the numbers the word 'fire.' It was some type of weapon, of that he was sure.

The Tantalus was listed as an unarmed mining vessel; he knew that for a fact. Whatever this was, it was completely illegal, and it had not been there when he was on board before. This had been a storage area. Whatever this was, Pritchard had added it during the refit. He moved down the panel scanning for some indication of what exactly he was looking at. He found what he was sure was a direct tap to the boat's power plant. The weapon used nuclear power, and that meant that it could have the potential to be deadly. Further study did not yield any further revelations. He suspected if Nelson had been here the man could have divined the purpose of the equipment in a matter of moments, and for not the first time, Cosigian longed to be back on his boat, back with his friends, back with Nelson.

He took out a small digital camera that he carried with him. He took numerous pictures of the panels, making sure he got a good shot of the firing buttons. He could use his laptop computer to turn the pictures into digital bytes that could be sent along with his coded message. It would be reassembled at the message destination, and could be viewed there as clearly as if they had been taken directly from the camera. If his supposition regarding the meeting of the minds that should have taken place was correct, Nelson might just get the chance to determine what type of poison this particular scorpion was carrying. Forewarned was forearmed. He hoped that little bromide worked. Somehow he felt that the Seaview and the Tantalus would be meeting sometime in the future.

He took one last look at the room then climbed back into the ventilation duct. Once back in the storage locker, he straightened his clothes, grateful for the lack of uniforms on the boat. They would have shown the wrinkles and dirt from the crawl too easily. His Levis and long sleeved t-shirt, on the other hand, seemed pretty much as they had been. Any powdery dust he could explain as flour. Messy to be sure, but acceptable in the laxer discipline of the Tantalus. He retrieved his clipboard, took a quick inventory of the contents and went out into corridor.

Lee came back to himself as he heard voices in the passageway. They carried on past and he finished taking stock of last night's adventure. Remembering that moment when he had closed the door and turned to find himself almost nose to nose with the XO, who didn't look happy. But then the two men had clashed almost from the start. Williams had instantly wanted to know why he was there, and had been only barely pacified by the ostensible inventory. He had watched as Cosigian had left, and the cook could feel the man's eyes burning into his back. He added the XO to his list of dangerous people. The man might not be much of an officer as far as Cosigian was concerned, but he was clever and ambitious, and would be willing to do whatever he had to keep his position. Lee took a sip of the cooling coffee. His judgment of Williams wasn't based solely on instinct.

He had looked up the man's service record when he had found his name on the crew manifest. It had seemed expedient to know who he would be dealing with. He had not been impressed by the man's file. He noted that Porter had been the next to last commanding officer for Williams, and had been the only one to make a truly favorable report on the man. In fact it was due to Porter that the man had been promoted to Lt. Commander. Strings had been pulled at the promotion board, though no names were mentioned. All his other commanders, including his last one before he resigned, had noted that while the man was technically skilled he lacked in the leadership area. He was not popular with the crews that he commanded, and had been reprimanded on several occasions for unnecessarily putative actions against non-commissioned crewmen and junior officers. It was generally held that the man would not be promoted to commander, and there was not a chance of getting his own boat. Cosigian found it interesting that Williams had resigned his commission not long after Porter had retired. It seemed more than a coincidence.

The XO had been one of the last officers to come aboard even though he had been one of the earliest hires. He had arrived the day after Cosigian had come aboard, and they had been at each other's throats almost since the beginning. Call it clashing auras or bad chemistry, whatever it was they had disliked each other on sight, and the XO had not been shy about letting Cosigian know it. The man knew submarines, Cosigian gave him that, but he didn't know how to deal with men. He had managed to get himself universally hated by crew and junior officers alike in a matter of hours. The only one on board that seemed to tolerate him was the captain, and that was because the captain seemed to be the only recipient of the polite side of Terrance Williams. Williams had come aboard, unpacked his sea bag, and had proceeded to run the boat through a series of exercises. Well enough as far as Cosigian was concerned, he would have done the same himself, but the man had kept them at it for almost twelve hours straight, shooting for '100% response,' whatever that meant. To Cosigian, who had run his share of exercises, the man wasn't looking for improvement, he was making sure that every one on board knew that when the XO said jump he expected a collective 'How high?'

The crew had done well considering their unfamiliarity with each other and the boat, at least as far as Cosigian was concerned. There was a lot of room for improvement, but that would come with familiarity with the boat and with the other members of the crew. In his capacity as a member of the damage control party, another reason for being in places around the boat he had volunteered for, he had several times been present as the XO had given the crew the sharp edge of his tongue. If any of his officers had ever spoken to a member of his crew in such a manner the man would have been rowing himself back to land in a rubber raft. Cosigian had found himself soothing the ruffled feathers of both crew and junior officers with fresh coffee and sandwiches delivered to their duty stations. Finally, after eleven and a half hours, the XO had decided he had seen enough. He had made sure to mention his disappointment regarding their performance over the intercom before he had released everyone to their quarters. He had then mentioned there would be surprise inspections for the next several days. From then on he had treated the men as if they were green seamen on their first sail. Cosigian longed for Chip Morton, who even on his worst days always treated the crew as human beings. They might not feel too good after he had chewed their six, but they knew it was because they deserved it, and that he would give them the opportunity and training to improve. Cosigian, acting on an instinct to protect the men he had started to think of as his crew, did some clandestine hacking into the executive officer's files that were kept on the central computer. It seemed the first officer was rather anal about schedules and writing things down. His program from ONI had made short work of cracking the password on the files and the information he harvested allowed him to casually drop by the department scheduled for the next inspection and casually point out any problems he could see. It had seemed to be very frustrating for the XO to find that each department seemed prepared for him, giving him few opportunities to gripe about their performance and preparation. Even in the midst of one of the dreariest times in his life, Cosigian found it amusing. Score one for the good guys, he had thought. He now had to figure out when he was going to break the news about the weapon to a contact that was going to be very unhappy. And this time he might just find himself dealing with not just one admiral, but two.

His wandering mind was snapped back to the present as a group of men entered the mess hall. They had to be about the last of the crew coming in as the dinner hour was almost over. The rest of the mess hall was almost empty. He noticed that his stew had grown cool while he contemplated. If he hadn't been the cook he was sure he would have been very unpopular in the galley with his seeming disdain of their efforts, but he just didn't have much of an appetite. He was going to have to work on that. It didn't look good for a cook to not eat his own food. He watched as the men worked their way through the line and then headed for the tables. He was surprised to see them heading in his direction.

"Can we sit here Cookie?" Peterson asked with a smile. The engineer's mate had become one of the men that Cosigian had made a connection with. The group included three of the men who had been assigned to the cargo loading and Jenkins, the hapless winch operator, who it turned out was a very good electrician. Cosigian had quickly come to realize that these men, and a good portion of the rest of the crew, were good men and simply here to do a job. He had found himself slipping into the mindset that anyone who willingly worked for Pritchard had to be part of the man's evil plans, but that wasn't so. He had been forced to take a close look at his own feelings on the matter, and had managed to excise the anger from his planning. He had to approach this with all the cool logic he had learned from Nelson over the years. He could not let his emotions make him less efficient, or less humane. There was too much riding on the success of his self imposed mission. He smiled up at Peterson and the other.

"Pull up a chair. To what do I owe this honor?" he asked outright. Usually the men sat apart from the officers, or 'the management' as Cosigian was coming to think of them. While he was not an officer, he was outside the regular groups and he had found himself in something of a no-man's land between the officers and men when it came to mealtimes. Not that he really minded. The men exchanged glances and Peterson, who seemed to be the ringleader of the group, went ahead and sat down. The others followed suit. Peterson looked around again, and seemed to get some kind of affirmation from his fellow crewmembers. He looked back at Cosigian who was leaning back in his chair waiting. Lee didn't think it was anything serious, though he had to admit he did a quick mental review of his more damning activities for the last day or so.

"Uh... me and the guys, we were wanting to know if we were doing really bad, with the XO, ya know? He's all over the boat all the time, and kinda seem to be looking at everything and isn't happy with anything. We know it's a shake down cruise and all but if we're gonna get the boot when we get back to land we'd kinda like to know it now, if you know what I mean." He glanced at the others again. "We thought maybe you'd tell us if we was, you know? You hear all kinds of things here, and we noticed you been showing up and pointing out where things aren't just right before the XO can do it. You seem to be in the know somehow and we thought maybe you mighta heard something else. We'll understand if you can't say."

Cosigian kept his face straight as he met the solemn eyes across from him. Well, at least they had come up with a plausible reason for him to be aware of the XO's schedule. Cooks and stewards always seemed to blend into the background during meals, and it was true he had heard a few things that way he would not have in any other capacity. He shouldn't have been surprised that some of the crew had noticed his little hobby. He had been sloppy in his desire to stick it to Williams. He could not afford to get sloppy. Amusing as it was to frustrate the XO and help out these men, he had to keep his eye on the goal. This was the one part of his plan to bring Pritchard's empire down that he truly regretted. He didn't want to see all the man's employees suffer too, but there was no way that he could figure out how to keep the company alive without Pritchard having a hand in how it was run. Also, there were a few employees he wanted to take down as well. These men, and most of the others, were simply doing their jobs and didn't know what type of man signed their checks, probably wouldn't care it they did. It was simply a matter of supporting themselves and their families with the skills they had. This industrial espionage was just as convoluted as the other type. He would have never suspected it. It seemed that always you had to be concerned about collateral damage. He gave the group a small smile.

"You don't have anything to worry about that I know of. The XO is just being... thorough. He's tough but he should let up eventually once he gets things running like he wants them. I'm sure you all have had a tough XO in the past. It takes some getting used to, but things calm down after a bit," he finally said. He would not speak ill of Williams to the men. No matter what HE thought of the man, Williams was supposedly his superior, and you didn't bad mouth superiors to your crewmates.

The men looked happier, but Peterson leaned forward again and spoke quietly. "And you, Cookie? We kind of noticed that you poke around a lot too. You're always looking around, and showing up all over, even when Mr. Williams isn't prowling. We... uh... we were wondering if you were maybe working for the main office or something?" It was getting harder to keep his reactions off his face. Well, that wasn't a question he had been expecting either. He had thought his excuse to the chief had been enough. He had not thought that someone would interpret his natural prowling as being part of a management spying assignment. He guessed he had gotten so used to doing it on the Seaview where the men took no notice of him that he had not considered how it would look for the cook to be doing the same. However, now that the idea had presented itself, it was something to file away for possible use later.

This time Cosigian didn't hide his expression. He flashed them all a smile and gave them a wink. "Call it a superstition. I like to KNOW the boat I'm on, from stem to stern. One day that knowledge could keep me alive. Also, I'm on damage control, and I don't want to have Williams chewing my six because I can't tell the difference between frame 21 and frame 23," he said. He watched as they nodded and exchanged relieved smiles. They could relate to his not wanting to be caught out by the XO, and they could also understand superstition. Most bubbleheads were superstitious, and maybe it was truer than he wanted to admit. The men, their minds at ease evidently, started to eat, speaking among themselves. He felt a surge of appreciation that they had not left, including him in their group. He must be lonelier than he thought. He listened as they talked about the regular things: things that happened on their watch, friends and relatives at home, future plans, etc. It was very much like being back in the wardroom on Seaview. He was nearly overcome by a feeling of homesickness, and something of it must have shown on his face as he heard Peterson, who was seated across from him, speaking. The man looked concerned.

"You okay, Cookie? You're looking kind of... upset. It isn't the food is it? I know you're the cook and all..." Peterson joked. Cosigian smiled, consciously moving back into the part he was playing. Lee Cosigian wouldn't be homesick. He didn't have a home; he had only THIS boat, THIS crew. He picked up his spoon and took a bite of the stew. It hadn't come out too bad, though it seemed to need a touch more basil and was pretty much cold now. He felt a strange sense of pride as he watched the other men dig into their food with every evidence of enjoyment. He was going to have to be more careful from here on out.

Chapter 8

Nelson climbed wearily from the back of the limo, feeling every one of his years. Chip, with the firm backing of Chief Hanson, the security chief, had insisted that, instead of driving himself, Nelson should have a security driver. If Lee Crane felt worried enough about Nelson to do what he had done, then there must be a threat. When Nelson objected, Morton had cleverly asked if Nelson was prepared to negate the sacrifice that Crane was making by getting himself killed or kidnapped. Nelson had glared at him and acquiesced. He waved to the driver as he drove off, and headed toward the door. He knew that the place had been cleared by security personnel less than five minutes before. Hanson was thorough. He started to place the key in the door and stared dumbly for a moment as the door simply pushed open at his movement. He could hardly believe that one of the Chief's men would have made the mistake of leaving the door unlocked, even for such a short time. He set the briefcase he was carrying on the porch and reached behind him to pull the automatic from the holster he had at the small of his back. He moved to the side of the door and pushed it open. He could see no one in the foyer, and so he moved in, his earlier tiredness forgotten in a surge of adrenaline.

He glanced up the stairs but saw no movement, and decided to clear the ground floor first. He moved first into the kitchen, which was empty. From there he went to the dining room and the living room. The last room on this floor was his study. The double doors leading into the room were closed. He had left them open that morning. Nelson gripped the gun more firmly and pushed open one of the doors. He instantly knew that whoever the intruder was, they had been here. The light on the desk was on, and Nelson knew it had been off when he left that morning, also there was the smell of cigar smoke, very expensive cigar smoke. Leading with the automatic, he slid around the closed door, standing with it at his back as he surveyed the room. The small desk lamp only lit the area close to the desk and Nelson peered into the shadows trying to see if anyone was there. He jumped as the desk chair suddenly turned toward him, and he could see a man seated there. He recognized the man almost immediately, and for a second he considered shooting and saying that he had done so in self-defense. The grin that crossed the face of the man sitting in the chair told him that the other man was reading his mind.

"You couldn't do it, Harry. Even with it being me, you are not a cold-blooded killer. Put the gun up and come help me drink your booze. The family label is as good as I remember," the man said, raising a glass of amber liquid in a toast. Nelson bitterly noticed that the bottle at his elbow was one of the very old ones that he kept locked in the wine cellar for special occasions. This wasn't one of them. He also noticed that the cigar that was in the man's left hand seemed to be one of the Cohiba cigars that had been a gift from the president himself. Nelson put up the automatic and, without a word, left the room. He retrieved his briefcase from the porch and closed and locked the door. He stood for a moment in the foyer with his eyes closed and breathing deeply then headed back to his study.

While he had been gone the other man had moved from behind the desk and had taken a seat in one of the comfortable visitors' chairs that stood in front of the desk. Nelson snorted and went to get a glass from the bar. He filled it and sat down in the chair behind the desk. He drank a good portion of the liquor then set the glass down and turned his attention to the smiling man who sat watching him. Nelson raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"Still hate me, Harry?" the other man asked. "I would have thought that you would have given it up by now. It's not like I'm in charge at ONI anymore, haven't been for over five years now."

Nelson leaned back in the chair, and felt the adrenaline rush fading. Other emotions were replacing it now. He shook his head. "Just because you aren't there anymore doesn't absolve you from past crimes in my eyes. What do you want, Hickock?" he demanded. He didn't bother to inquire about how the man had gotten in. Edward Hickock was more than capable of getting into almost any place he damn well pleased, even at the age of 70. The man was still lean to the point of emaciation, but his dark eyes were bright and his movements were vigorous.

The other man snorted in amusement and took another sip of whiskey and a puff of his cigar. "We used to be friends. I regret that we can't be again. There's not so many of us left now. Retired admirals don't seem to last well, short shelf life, don't you know. You can never have too many friends, Harry. Take it from a man who spent his adult life surrounded by people who were NOT friends and who didn't give a damn. I thank God daily for the ones that did."

Nelson frowned. "You're not here to make amends. That would mean you regretted something and you once told me you have no regrets. You're also not here to renew a long dead friendship, so cut to the chase."

The grin flashed again. "No, I'm not here for that. In fact, should anyone check, I'm not here at all. I'm on a marlin boat off of Baja. You may not like me, Harry, but I'm here for someone you do like, a mutual acquaintance that is in a little more trouble than perhaps even he counted on. You'll have to tell me how you got him to do it for you. I didn't think Crane would give up the Seaview for anyone or anything." At the mention of Lee's name Nelson's head shot up.

"Lee? You're here about Lee?" he asked surging forward in his chair, hands tightening to fists. "You know where he is?"

"Yes, I'm here about Lee. You may not believe it but I care for him too. He's the only reason I'm still around to make your life miserable. Maybe some day you'll understand that the boy means almost as much to me as he does to you." It was too much for Nelson. He surged to his feet, leaning over the desk menacingly.

"Don't give me that load of bullshit, Ned. You used Lee to further ONI's cause, regardless of the cost to him. You saw the talent he had as a means to an end and didn't care about the consequences to him. Don't you dare try to tell me that you care about him like I do."

"Yes, it's true that I used him for ONI. He was the best man for the job and you know it. Or you should since you're the one that brought him to our attention. Your report about what happened with that project of yours made quite a few people sit up and take notice of that young man. You may not believe it now, but I was the lesser of the evils that could have gotten their hands on him." Nelson had paled at the reminder that it was his own report that had brought Lee Crane to the attention of the ONI, but at the last comment his face flushed red.

"Don't give me that. I know what you've had Lee do over the years. Short of turning him into an assassin there's not much worse you could have done, and he would never have agreed to that. As to my involvement, I would have falsified the report if I had known what it would lead to." He flung himself back in the chair. Hickock smiled again.

"Doing it up a bit brown, as they say, Harry. We only did what you've done with him. Put him to work at what he does best. It's not our fault the boy is so good at so many things. You've got to admit your simple sub captain's job hasn't exactly been the safest position either. Don't see you coming up all guilty about that and firing him for his own good." He waved away the protest he could see rising in Nelson's eyes. "We're not going to agree on it, and you don't have to like me, but you do have to listen to me." Hickock put down his drink and rose to his feet to retrieve a briefcase he had leaned against the desk. He sat with it in his lap and opened it up. He tossed a thick file on the desk blotter in front of Nelson, who looked from the file to him. Hickock closed the briefcase and put it on the floor.

"Between the two of us we've made one hell of an agent, even if he does tend to do things his own way more often than not. He made the plan about how he was going to attack Pritchard, figured out the logistics, and implemented his strategy. Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead, in the best naval tradition. He realized he needed someone to gather the information and act on anything that he dug out. Someone he could trust to not be in Pritchard's pocket, someone with a lot of connections."

"You," Nelson interrupted, seeing where this was going, and not liking it. Lee was aware of his antipathy for Hickock and usually never mentioned the other retired admiral. Nelson was aware that Lee had done something for Hickock several years before he had come to the Seaview. Rumors had it that certain disgruntled ex-agents had attempted to exact revenge on the recently retired head of ONI for having them discharged and that another agent had stepped in to stop the plot, despite being ordered to leave it be by the new head of ONI who had little love for his predecessor. There had been no specifics mentioned and none of Nelson's contacts had been able to expand on the rumor. He had dismissed it from his mind, though he knew that Lee had stayed in contact with the other man. One of the things he valued about Lee was the fact that he was very much his own man, with his own opinions, and was not afraid to defend them. But he chose his battles, and since Nelson had not spoken of it, neither had the captain. There were times when Crane had disappeared for dinner dates when they were in Washington, DC and he had been reticent about mentioning who he was dining with. Morton had always kidded his captain about dating a married woman, but Nelson had always suspected that he was going out to the Virginia home of Ned Hickock and his wife, Bertrice. It seemed that suspicion was proved out. He wasn't happy to be proven right. He shook his head, knowing this was getting him nowhere. His animosity toward Hickock was not the important thing here, Lee Crane was. He looked at the other man who had been watching him with a smile. "Where is Lee?" he demanded again.

"I knew you'd get past it for him, Harry. Now are you ready to listen?" he asked. At Nelson's nod he sat back in his chair and sipped his drink. "Crane called me almost a month ago now. He told me what had been going on between you and Pritchard. He also told me part of his plan. I don't mind telling you that I tried to talk him out of it. Told him you probably wouldn't appreciate it, and he just might get himself killed in the bargain. That worked about as well as you would think. He asked me if I was doing anything right now, hobby wise, how I was keeping busy, and had I kept up my contacts. You wouldn't know this, Harry, and probably don't care much, but I had a triple bypass about eight months ago. The operation went okay but I've been... depressed since then. My doctor says it's not unusual, but it was driving me and the missus nuts. She even moved out once, went to her sister's, left me with a hired nurse and a housekeeper, and told me to call when I got over feeling sorry for myself and got some help. That snapped me out of it and I went to a shrink for a while. Faced my own mortality and all that garbage, but I was feeling better. Bertrice had moved back and things were getting back to normal, but I was at a bit of a loss on how to keep myself busy." Hickock sighed and continued.

"Not one to just sit around, you know, and I was missing the intrigue a bit. I agreed to help him, mostly because I knew he would do it all himself if I didn't, or go to someone else that might not do the job right and get him killed. We set up some frequencies for communication, and set up a code we both knew. He started digging from his end, and I started digging from mine." He rose to his feet and started pacing, moving in and out of the circle of light. He continued to speak as if to himself, almost as if Nelson weren't there. "Found out almost right away that Pritchard is a bastard of the first water with a finger in most of the pies in Washington. Know of two senators that he owns outright, and a few that he has a short term lease on. I've had a private word with them. I guess you know already about his man in the SecNav's office?" He stopped in front of the desk.

Nelson nodded. "Lee made sure that the man's name was passed on to us. We've been pulling at that string already. He didn't know anyone above his contact, but he let us know what they were interested in, and it's given us some clues about what Pritchard has planned. We haven't been able to make any direct connections though. Now enough with the back story; tell me where Lee is."

The retired admiral slipped back into his seat, indolently picking up his almost empty glass and drinking the last of the whiskey. Finally he smiled, as Nelson's eyes remained locked on him. "He's on the Tantalus. He's been feeding me information from the inside to look into. He's got a hook up to Pritchard's home office computers and has been searching the databases for information we can use. He's found some interesting things. It's all there in the folder, along with what I've done to further the cause. I ran into a young man who seemed to be on something of the same mission when I was poking around the SecNav's office. He's one of Lee's friends and works for the CIA so I asked a few direct questions and he finally admitted that he was looking into the same thing at your behest. Dare I assume that you have finally pulled your head out and have decided to take the fight to Pritchard?"

"You can assume all you want. Did you really think I was going to just sit back here and let Lee risk his life and do nothing? He's doing this for ME. Pritchard is after ME. I let it go before and look what it's gotten me. He wanted a war. I'll bring him one." This time it was Nelson who rose and paced. "Don't think that I approve of your involvement in this, but I am glad that Lee had someone helping him. I hadn't thought about him going back to the Tantalus. I would have thought the chance of him being found out would be too high, and with no chance for escape when they are at sea."

"My argument exactly; didn't get me anywhere," Hickock grumbled. Nelson ignored him.

"Has the Tantalus sailed?" he asked. The other man nodded. "Do you know where they are going? The last time we met some of Pritchard's machinations he was trying to mine uranium against the international accord. I don't see him changing his spots now. Whatever he's up to, it's more than likely illegal."

Hickock nodded again. "You're right there, and that's why I'm here. Lee finally told me where they are headed. Damn pup had known since they left port five days ago. He's got the captain's cabin wired and heard it from Pritchard himself who dropped by to give the captain his sailing orders," the older man grumped. Nelson stared at in puzzlement. Why would Lee have waited to tell the destination? Unless... he had thought that Hickock would somehow stop the boat from sailing. Several possibilities crossed his mind, and then he knew where it would have to be.

"He's mining in People's Republic waters, isn't he?"

Hickock nodded. "Lee didn't want me to stop the Tantalus from sailing. He wanted to make sure that the Tantalus was caught in the act. Even with his contacts, Pritchard won't be able to cover up that he will be in direct violation of the economic sanctions. Ever since that incident with the oil company buying crude out of the republic, the administration has cracked down on anybody so much as buying a trinket at the airport. Pritchard's tame congressmen won't be able to save him if it comes out he's made a deal to mine their territorial waters, even if I hadn't warned them off. The law is very clear. It would destroy PritCorp's domestic divisions. The government would take everything they could get their hands on, no matter how obscure the connection. I've made arrangements for certain satellites to take some pictures of the area. Those should offer plenty of damning evidence to the right people." Nelson was nodding, seeing the trap that Lee was trying to set. But he understood the implications of the younger man's position. He was trapped on a submarine, in enemy waters, surrounded by men loyal to the man that wanted Nelson ruined, or maybe even dead. If the Republican Guard should board the boat and Lee was recognized...but no, he had to count on Lee to have an exit strategy. He looked at Hickock, who stared back. "Time to put it all aside, my friend. If we're going to keep him alive, we're going to have to work together on this. I know you have things going, so do I. Before we start stepping on each other's tails, we need to coordinate our attacks. What do you say?"

Nelson pounded his fist lightly on the desk. He didn't like the thought of working with Hickock. But then, he hadn't liked much of this from the start. He definitely didn't like to think about Lee being alone out there somewhere, with no backup, and counting on HIM to act rationally. He nodded. "Very well. I'll show you mine and you show me yours. But I want something to be very clear. I don't like you. I am never going to like you. You used the best qualities of a young man to your advantage and drew him into your nasty, dangerous little games, and you used me to get him there. When this is done, I am going to continue to do my damnedest to get Lee away from ONI." And away from you. Both men heard the unspoken words. Blue eyes and black met and clashed, and they read each other's intentions there. They nodded to each other in mutual understanding. Nelson reached for his own briefcase and drew out the file that Pearson had given him an hour earlier. He tossed it toward Hickock, and then opened the file on the desk in front of him. He was aware of Hickock opening the other file. The two men settled down for a long night.

Half a mile away from the house a man sitting in a dark car took off the headphones that he had been wearing. He turned off the recorder that had been running on the seat beside him, and put the implement he had been holding on the floor on the passenger's side. This information was definitely going to net him a bonus. He would ask for it up front, he thought, making sure he didn't turn over the tape until the money was in his hands. Of course, he didn't have to offer this information to just one bidder either. He was sure that he could run the price up pretty high by setting the two groups against each other. He had a number for his contact and pulled out a cell phone. He left a message on the machine that answered. He started the car and merged into the light traffic. As he returned to his home, he had a thought. Why just have one group pay. There was no way for them to know that he had sold it to the other. He could take payment from both, give them the information, and simply disappear. He had done it before. He would call the Institute tomorrow and see what price they were willing to pay to keep this information out of the hands of Pritchard. Yes indeed, he had fallen in the deep money now!

Chapter 9

On board the Tantalus they had reached the mining site and were getting everything set up for when the support ships arrived in two days. Summers and the techs had been taking samples and mapping the ore bodies they would be mining. They had mapped out their plans for when the ships arrived and actual mining could begin. The techs had taken the opportunity to test out the machines in the environment they were made to run in. Since the submarine was basically at station keeping on the site, and most of the hands would now be busy helping with deployment of the machines and any maintenance problems that might arise, Cosigian took the opportunity to talk to the techs about the machines. He watched as they worked the remote controls and learned what he could about their operations. Most of the machines were simply diggers, designed to take the ore off the bottom and deliver it to the big drag chains that would take the ore to the surface. But there were also some that were made to break up the substrate so that the diggers could fill their large buckets, and some sampling machines mounted on crawler treads that could be used as either remote controlled or manned.

Summers and Williams, as unlikely a pair as Cosigian could have imagined hitting it off, had become fast friends it seemed. The two men had taken to eating their meals together, usually alone at one table separated from the rest of the crew. Williams had given up the inspections, but had not made himself any more popular. He had everyone working twelve-hour shifts, justifying the additional four hours by noting their short complement and the fact that the techs would now be concentrating on operating the mining machines. No one had raised the point that the boat was to all intents and purposes dead in the water, and would not be moving for the next several days, keeping station near the mining site. The twelve-hour shifts were long and boring. The captain, who seemed to leave the control room only to eat or go to his cabin, seemed happy with the decision. Cosigian had noted that the man seemed to send a voluminous amount of reports to the main office. All of them noting the efficiency of the boat's passage and arrival while making it sound as if the captain was personally responsible.

Cosigian had kept busy in the galley, running through his repertoire of recipes. He was becoming more and more grateful for that class he had taken last year when he was on medical leave. He had been confined to his house for almost two weeks. Jamie had all but barricaded him in, and had strictly forbidden him to even go out on the beach. He hadn't seen that it was necessary; after all, he had passed the communicable stage while he was still in the Yucatan. Now it was just a matter of getting over the light sensitivity and the joint pain. He had pointed out to the doctor that he could go out at night with no problem – after all, that was how he got back to the boat to begin with – but Jamieson had reminded him that some sorts of incandescent lights were just as bad as sunlight and unless he wanted to permanently damage his skin or his eyes, he needed to stay put. He had been unable to convince anyone to bring him any work from the office, and he had quickly grown bored with the reading material provided. He just wasn't much for magazines and newspapers. The few novels that did catch his attention went quickly, and his eyes were not really up to all that much reading. He had been flipping through the channels on the TV, looking for something beside vacuous sitcom reruns, soap operas, and talk shows when he had come upon the distance education channel from the local university. By chance his period of incarceration had coincided with the beginning of several classes. The list had been scrolling across the screen when he tuned in. He had read them all, disappointed to see that most were too long, extending past his sentence, or uninteresting. Then he had seen the "Cooking Good Food for Large Groups" class. It was a daily class lasting two weeks. He had always liked cooking, but had never had much chance to do it. The class syllabus indicated that the students would be working in their home on the recipes but instead of creating large piles of food would simply be learning the techniques for scaling up almost any given recipe to suit the needs of whatever size group they needed to feed. He had signed up almost immediately. The class started that afternoon, and he had to make some quick calls to various local markets with delivery services to get everything he needed. But soon he was set, and he had produced a very nice casserole, which he had served to Nelson and Morton that night along with salad and garlic bread.

Upon finding out what he was up to, Morton had teased him unmercifully, kidding him about dishpan hands and buying him an apron. Crane had met his friend at the door wearing the apron the next day, and Morton had about died laughing. Nelson had simply smiled at their antics and had enjoyed the fruits of Crane's labors, no doubt grateful that he didn't have to place a guard on the house to keep Crane in and that he had yet to break up one argument between the usually restive captain and his Chief Medical Officer. Jamieson had raised an eyebrow at the choice of pastimes, and had suggested that he would be looking in his textbooks to find out if the virus had been known to cause these side effects in other patients. Despite the good natured kidding, Crane had found himself enjoying the daily two hour classes and had retained much of what he had learned.

He had never thought that the knowledge would come in handy, but it had paid off for him on his next ONI assignment. He had been assigned to find and get information from a certain arms smuggler. The man was very cagey and infiltrating his organization would have taken too much time. Careful study of his habits had shown that the man seemed to do a lot of his business out of a small café using a laptop and cell phone. Crane had gotten himself a job as a cook in the kitchen, and it was there he had learned how serving people tended to blend into the background. He had managed over the course of a two-week period to not only tap the man's cell phone but also the computer. They had been able see and hear everything he did, bringing down his organization before he could sell a small backpack nuclear weapon to a terrorist organization. He had been overwhelmed at first, but the head cook at the café had been a jovial, understanding man who had helped him apply the lessons that he had learned. By the end of the assignment he had used most of the skills he had been taught, and he had a new respect for food service personnel. He had also remembered the access that the anonymity of the position brought the server, and he had used it when he made his plans to get aboard the Tantalus. Making sure that he was the only applicant was easy. He had simply deleted the names and phone numbers of the other applicants for the position when he added his own. Still, looking around his domain, he had to admit that he found being the captain more to his liking than being the cook. Not that he had a choice at the moment. He got up wearily and went to check his casseroles. He smiled a little – Chip would have field day when he found out what he had been up to on the Tantalus. The only thing that might save him from terminal teasing was that Chip wouldn't want to upset their own Cookie by implying that cooking wasn't one of the most important positions aboard.

Over the next week he practiced his cooking and spent the rest of the time hanging over the techs' shoulders. Since a good portion of the crew who were not either on duty or asleep also were doing it he blended right in. He didn't have to worry about dealing with Summers since he spent most of his time in the labs assaying ore samples and evaluating new areas. He even managed to get one of the techs to let him drive one of the tracked sample vehicles. It moved easily over the seabed, avoiding the broken area that was being worked. The tank-sized machine was taking samples of the next area to be mined, and Cosigian guided it around the sea floor moving it toward the area that the tech indicated was the next area to be sampled. The screens here on the Tantalus echoed what was on the screens in the small crawler, so it was almost like being aboard except for the more roomy accommodations and the lack of movement. Cosigian was surprised at how mobile and fast the machine was, while the tech was amazed at the ease with which the cook picked up the techniques of driving the machine. Finally word was passed that the XO was on the prowl again and everyone hastened to tidy the area. The generous tech shrugged an apology and took over once again. By the time the XO arrived, Cosigian was the only observer present and the techs were all concentrating on their jobs.

Williams came into the room and looked disdainfully around. He moved from station to station watching over shoulders and generally making everyone nervous with his cryptic grunts and occasional hums. To Cosigian it was one of the more blatant misuses of power he had seen so far from the man. Williams had no more knowledge about these things then Cosigian did, and probably less since he had not availed himself of the opportunity to learn from the techs. This was another power play. Finally the XO came to a stop in front of Cosigian. The man moved closer than was acceptable in most polite societies, trying to intimidate the slighter man by infringing on his space. Cosigian refused to step back or look away. He met the green eyes of the other man straight on, being of a height as they were, and let a small smile lift the corner of his mouth. The XO, not getting the response he was expecting, attacked in frustration.

"Don't you have things to be doing, Mister?" he growled. "I believe this company pays you to cook, not stand around bothering the other workers. Surely there are some dishes you could be washing, or coffee you could be brewing."

Cosigian kept the small smile and held the other's gaze. He had played this game before. "Lunch is over. The galley is cleaned up and dinner is ready to be put in the ovens in about," he paused and looked at his watch, "thirty five minutes. There's fresh coffee available along with both hot and iced tea. I'm sure one of my stewards would be happy to bring you a cup in the control room. As for me, I'm on my own time. The captain indicated that anyone interested could come in and watch as long as they did not interfere with operations. I haven't bothered anyone here and, in fact, I believe they are ahead of schedule and are waiting on the next ore transport to move into position, as I am sure you could tell by looking over all the boards." He couldn't help adding that last not so subtle dig. The man was really getting on his nerves.

Williams' face first paled and then reddened. "Of course I could see that. I don't need the likes of you telling me what's going on. I want these men to be concentrating on their jobs, and I want you out of here. If you are on your own time, spend it in your quarters or the crew lounge. Is that understood?"

Cosigian stared at Williams for a minute, still keeping that half smile on his face. Finally he shrugged and turned on his heel, heading for the hatch. "Aye aye, sir. You don't need anyone telling you what is going on. I understand. See you at dinner." He went out the hatch, but not before he heard a muffled snort from one of the techs. Williams spun around to see who had made the noise, ready to chew someone's six, but everyone was concentrating on the boards, and no face gave away who had done it. He spun back around to have the last word with the cook but he was already out the hatch and headed down the corridor. Williams cursed under his breath and sent one last nasty look at all the techs, though he knew the damage had been done. He stomped out of the compartment and headed towards the control room. There at least the men were properly trained and knew how to treat an officer. He was going to have to see what he could do about getting a new cook after this cruise. He was sure that with a word or two in the captain's ear he could make a good case for how Cosigian just didn't seem to be fitting in.

Cosigian returned to his cabin and was glad to see that his cabin mate, the chief engineer, was nowhere to be seen. Probably down polishing his turbines or something. The man was so proud of his new, clean engine room he doubted there was a speck of dust in there anywhere. Peterson had been grumbling about the cleaning details the men had been pulling since arriving on site at almost every meal. With the chief being out, he was free to send out the message that he had been planning. He had finally decided to send the pictures and description of the small compartment in the nose. He had managed to avoid any direct contact lately by logging in only when it was late at night there. He had sent a simple message, one that had been preset, to let Hickock know he was still alive, and had logged off as fast as he could. His avoidance skills were improving it seemed. He checked his watch; he was right on time to send his signal out along with the afternoon report to the main office. He booted his computer and hooked it to the small computer port that the company had thoughtfully provided in each compartment. God bless the profusion of technology; it made a spy's job much easier. He downloaded his digital camera and prepared the file for transmission. Then he tapped in the sequence of codes that would connect him to the satellite that would feed the signal to the only receiver that should be set to receive it. He waited patiently as the computer went about its work. Finally he got the prompt telling him that the connection had been made. He quickly typed in an explanation of the photos and sent them along. He then sent the files of information he had downloaded from the company computers. His inside contact had left some markers for him to find the places he needed to go, since his own clearance would not allow him to go where the files were hidden. Nothing illegal for him to have to explain should he be questioned later. Just the way Cosigian had asked him.

He was very pleased with what his 'mining' of the computers had yielded. He had lists of bribed officials in Washington and in the states where PritCorp had offices. He had various financial files that looked suspect to him. They seemed to indicate that certain funds were not being reported to the IRS. There was information on some international trading that had been done that seemed to him to be a violation of the technology sharing laws. He would leave it for Hickock to work out. The man knew who to talk to find out exactly what was legal and what wasn't. He would have a few minutes to wait for the files to send, so he sat back in the chair and closed his eyes for a moment. He was very tired. He wasn't sleeping very well and since he didn't have the regular release of being able to prowl the boat at his pleasure, he didn't see that changing anytime soon.

He felt... alien. Maybe he had been too long as Lee Cosigian. It was almost two months now since he had started, longer than he had ever been undercover before. He had never been a deep cover operative, a mole, who just burrowed into the made up life and stayed. He hadn't realized the psychological ramifications of splitting yourself into two different people. How did some people do this for years, or even decades, on end? He opened his eyes and thought about what he would send once the files were downloaded.

He found himself unsure suddenly. He knew, deep inside somehow, that Hickock had told Nelson where he was and what he was doing. It was almost as if he could feel Nelson's thoughts turning to him here, like a searchlight picking out a plane in the darkness. He was doing this FOR Nelson, in the belief that he was acting for Nelson's safety, for the security of the Institute, for the continuation of all that had come to be his life. But what if... He shook his head. He wasn't going to let the depression that seemed to be growing in him make him doubt his purpose. Even if Nelson would not have him back, even if he never set foot on Seaview again, even if he had known that from the start, he would still be here, for the past, for the memories, for the love. He HAD to trust. He HAD to push aside the memories of before. He had to... The beeping of the computer signaling that the upload was complete interrupted him. He had to stop dithering and send a message. He was sure that the men on the other side of the connection would have a few things to say to him. Shrugging, he settled for a simple question.

"Did you get the files? I think these might be what we were looking for," he typed. He hit the send key and the powerful cryptology program converted it to code and sent it. He didn't have long to wait for the response.

"Damn it, Lee, forget about the files. You have to get off that boat right now!"

Chapter 10

Harriman Nelson sat back in his chair and stretched his neck to try to get the persistent kink that had formed there to release his muscles. It didn't work. In fact it had been there over a week, ever since he had come home to find Hickock sitting in his study, smoking his cigars and drinking the family label. Of course, while it was bad enough to have to deal with the man, it was the news he carried that had really made his muscles tighten up. Lee Crane was undercover on Pritchard's mining submarine, the Tantalus. He was using the computer connections on the sub to prowl through the computer files of PritCorp looking for way to bring down Pritchard's empire. The files that Hickock had provided had given them several new leads.

One printout, a listing of PritCorp subsidiaries, some of them hidden, and of prospective takeovers had been seized gleefully by Pearson who, with an evil grin, had headed for the door, once again pulling out his cell. The papers that Nelson had signed over the next several days had moved a very large sum of money into an account that, if the balance sheets he saw were any indication, was rapidly dwindling. He didn't know what Pearson was doing but whatever it was, it was expensive and he was having the time of his life doing it. Nelson had given him free rein so he didn't interfere. Explanations would come later he was sure. The rest of the information Hickock had provided had given them the start of several lines of investigation. They were working with several law enforcement bodies looking into corruption, money laundering, illegal technology sales, tax evasion, and several other illegal activities. So far it was looking very likely that an indictment would be handed down on several levels.

To add to the frustration, they had not heard from Lee. Or at least Hickock said he hadn't heard from Lee. Nelson trusted the other retired admiral about as far as he could throw him. For all he knew the man could be having long conversations with Lee every night. The ex-head of ONI would not reveal his frequencies, and had made sure that Nelson understood that no attempts could be made to contact Crane from this end. He had to be the one that contacted them as his opportunities arose and on a preset schedule. Hickock had also made sure that Nelson knew that only his computer had the encryption key to decode Crane's transmission. Obviously he was well aware that Nelson would have found a way to push him out of the entire process if he could.

Occasionally when he stopped and thought about it, Nelson knew that the two of them were being petty and childish over this rivalry for Lee. It was like two kids fighting over a toy. In his more honest moments, Nelson acknowledged that Crane's attachment to Hickock took nothing away from his regard for Nelson. It was Nelson whom he had left his life for, not Hickock, and it was Nelson who had become the father he had never known, not the other man. The admiral tried to remember that when dealing with Hickock but it didn't always work, and they often ended up yelling at each other. Chip Morton had suggested with a smile to a worried Angie that they have a time out and each admiral should sit in a corner for five minutes and think about his behavior. With neither man willing to back off, it looked as if getting Lee back would be a noisy process.

Nelson reached out and slammed the file he had been rereading for the umpteenth time closed. He was tired of looking at it. He wanted to talk to Lee, face to face. He wanted to see him here at the Institute ambling down the corridor laughing with Chip Morton or in the control room of the Seaview where he belonged. He wanted... too many things to even count. He really wanted the last three months to go away. He felt another flare of hate for Pritchard. He had never been a man who hated. It was a waste of time and did nothing to those who were the focus of the enmity. But the hate he was feeling for Pritchard was becoming a continuous cold fire burning in his belly, driving him to destroy the man who had taken the one thing that his money and his intellect alone could not have brought him. Harriman Nelson had never wanted for anything. His had been a childhood of privilege, and while the emotional support had been less than ideal, he had not known the difference, and so he didn't miss it. His later life had been much the same. Anything he wanted to do, he had done. He had either the money to make it happen, the intelligence to make it possible, or both, and so nothing had been forbidden him. People courted his attention. But Lee Crane had been a different prospect.

From their first meeting, it had been obvious to Nelson that while Crane was impressed by his knowledge and had more than a bit of hero worship; his monetary worth had no impact. In fact, even as far as his intellect went, the younger man wasn't really impressed so much with the genius itself as how he applied it. He wasn't intimidated or threatened by it, or afraid of voicing his own opinion on how he thought things should be. He had seen past the money and the intellect to Harriman Nelson the man, and valued him for that. It had been a refreshing change. Slowly their relationship had grown from midshipman and mentor to friends and then to the complicated thing it was now: friends, coworkers, superior/subordinate, family. He wanted him here. He needed to find a way to let him know that he had finally seen the light where Pritchard was concerned. He was prepared to continue what Lee had started. He hadn't wanted the war, but he was prepared to do what was necessary to win it. He would give up all the things that meant so little, to keep those things that meant so much if it came to that. He stood and moved to the window, looking out over the empty sub bay.

For the first time that he could remember, the Seaview was at sea without any of its top three officers. Bobby O'Brien was in command this cruise, a scheduled resupply of two undersea labs in the South Pacific. There had been no way to opt out of the job and since he would not go himself, he could not force Chip to go either. He suspected exactly what her captain might think about that reasoning, but he didn't really care. They were concentrating their efforts, and certain things had to be changed to accommodate that. O'Brien was a capable, well-trained officer who was able to do the job, and all three of the senior officers trusted him to do so. He was calling in on regular schedules not only to check in, Nelson was amused to notice, but also to check up on the current standing of the battle. Every man on Seaview knew something was going on with their skipper, even though they had not allowed any mention of his whereabouts to be leaked. They were anxiously awaiting news of him, and knew that while there was nothing forthcoming now, there would be eventually. Nelson was really quite moved by both their concern for their captain and for the faith they had in him and Morton to get Crane back from wherever he had gone. He heartily hoped their faith was not misplaced.

Down the hall from Nelson's office, Chip Morton hung up his phone with a bang and started cursing. He wasn't much for coarse language, and Crane frowned on his officers and crew using it while on board, but he had picked up a full vocabulary in all his years in the Navy. He used them all now and was preparing to start over when he noticed Tish in the doorway smiling at him. He felt his face flush and scowled at her. She started to laugh, but then something in his face made her stop.

"What is it? Bad news?"

He nodded. "Yeah, yeah it's bad news. Do you know if the admiral is here?"

She nodded, her face creased with concern. "When isn't he here anymore? I just saw Angie down the hall and she said he was there." The secretaries, like the crew of the Seaview, were deeply concerned about whatever it was that was going on. Everyone knew it had to do with Captain Crane's disappearance, but no specifics were being discussed. She watched as Morton surged to his feet and started for the door.

"I'll be with him. This is probably going to take a while so if you are gone before I get back have a good night." He was out the door and gone before she could reply. This did not look good.

Morton strode down the hall, his mind a whirl of thoughts. He could not believe that this was happening. It was bad enough that his best friend, his brother in everything but blood, had been gone for almost two months now, bent on a trail of vengeance it seemed. Morton wasn't so much against that as he was against him going alone. Now there was this. It was going to make Nelson go off like a firecracker. No, more like dynamite. Morton himself had already had a not so calm chat with Chief Hanson regarding reasonable precautions and he was barely holding his temper now. He entered the outer office and Angie looked at him inquiringly.

"I need to see him. Urgently," he said. She nodded and picked up the intercom. She wasn't going to protest that the admiral was with someone when Morton had that look. She spoke briefly and then nodded to Morton. She watched as the blond man marched to the door and went in, closing it firmly behind him. She had never seen Morton so angry, though he was disguising it well. Whatever was going on wasn't good. She hoped it wasn't something about the captain, but she suspected it had to be. Morton was normally incredibly level headed, acting as a damper to the more volatile Crane and Nelson. But, with Crane gone, it seemed that Morton was allowing his own temper free reign more often. No doubt it was the worry. Angie put a tape that she needed to transcribe in the steno machine and slipped on her headphones. She had a feeling there was going to be some yelling soon.

Morton closed the door and turned to find himself being watched by two retired admirals. Nelson and Hickock were on either side of the desk, both with color in their faces, both with sparkling eyes, and he suspected he had interrupted another... discussion. He had pointed out that most people 'discussed' at lower decibel levels, but he had simply gotten a grimace from Nelson. He really didn't feel like playing referee. He guessed it would be best to just drop the bomb and then duck and cover as best he could. He came to stand at the far corner of Nelson's desk.

"What is it Chip? We're going over the latest reports from Washington," Nelson growled. Hickock had just come in minutes before and only slightly after that the first argument had begun. He was getting tired of having to justify every step he took to this man. If it wasn't for the link to Lee, he would have the security chief thrown him off the Institute property and refuse him further entry. Barring that, he would settle for just hauling off and hitting him. Unfortunately, that thought always brought up memories of the last person he had hit and the path it had put them on. Whatever Chip wanted he hoped it would at least give him time to regroup and get his temper under control. Then he looked in Morton's eyes and saw the anger there, and something more, fear. "Chip, what is it?" Could he have heard something about Lee?

Morton fought for the composure that served him so well as the XO of the Seaview, and managed to get calm enough to say what he had to say clearly. "We just got a call. It went in to security. A man who would not identify himself said he had some information that he felt we would be willing to pay for. Information about Lee." He started to pace, aware that the two men were focused on him. "He played a portion of a tape, a tape of the two of you talking about Lee being on the Tantalus. He says he's offered the information to Pritchard's agent here and that if we don't beat the agent's bid, he'll give the information to Pritchard." He stopped pacing and turned to look at the two men. Even in his own anger and fear he had to admit it was strange, watching two men go from flushed and angry to pale, scared and, strangest of all, old. He had never really thought of Nelson as old. He, of course, respected the man's experience and rank, but the vitality of his intellect made him seem so much younger than he was. This whole experience had aged him and Morton's last statement had seemed to hit him like a brick. The other admiral, Hickock, Morton did not know very well. He knew that this was the man who had gotten Lee involved in ONI, and he shared Nelson's dislike of the man for that. But, for all that, he had to admit that the man was in pretty good shape for a seventy year old man. Now he too looked every year.

"But... The chief said he swept the house and Institute for bugs. He said they used the newest detectors. How could they have missed...?" Nelson started to protest, but stopped when Morton shook his head. "It wasn't a bug. It was one of those laser microphones. All it needs is a line of sight to a window. The laser reads the sound vibration in the glass, or something like that. It's very high tech, very effective, very new, and not something anyone considered." Morton could see Hickock nodding, an angry look building in his eyes, but he kept focused on Nelson. "Best Hanson can figure, the man was probably down the road with the mike focused on the window of the study. No telling how long he had been waiting for something to happen."

"Waiting for two old fools to natter away Lee's life you mean," Nelson said and launched himself out of his chair to pace the room like a caged tiger. He pounded one fist into another. "Damn it. How much does he want?" he finally said.

Hickock also rose to his feet and held out a hand. "You can't pay the man. It's blackmail. We can..."

"No!" Nelson cut him off. He moved to stand face to face with the other man. "WE can't do anything. I will pay whatever is necessary to keep that information from Pritchard. If he finds out what Lee has been up to, do you think he'll have any problem making sure that Lee doesn't make it back to port?" He turned to Morton. "Pay whatever he wants. Tell Hanson I authorize it and set up the meet. I'll get the money from Pearson. I'll even take it if that's what he wants."

Morton, who had known that Nelson would pay, nodded. "He wants someone to meet him in a bar on the south end of town. One person only and if he sees more than one, he'll leave. He says he wants either you, me, or one of the security men who worked your house."

"Someone he'll recognize from watching the house," Hickock said, un-intimidated by Nelson. The best had tried to intimidate him and failed. "I'll take it." He held up a hand to stop Nelson's retort. "I'm the best one to do it. I'm not threatening, like someone from security, or even Morton here, would be. I'm not a kidnap possibility like you, Harry, and he knows me from the house. I've dealt with these types of people before. I know how they think and how they react. I'm the best choice, and if you stop and think about it rationally, you'll see I'm right. If you are set on paying this man, then I'm the best choice."

Morton watched Nelson struggle to accept what even he had to see was the best course. Hickock wasn't threatening that was true, but he was dangerous. Of that Morton had no doubt. The man was a veteran of the same organization that had turned Lee into the agent that he was, and he had not just been a figurehead. He had been in the field himself, and had the skills to perform even if he was no longer an active part of ONI. Morton was prepared to trust this part of the job to him. It really didn't matter who did it as long as someone did it. Nelson finally nodded. He looked at Morton.

"Set it up," he said, and went to throw himself in the chair behind the desk. He turned the chair around and stared out the window, ignoring the other two men. Hickock looked at him thoughtfully then turned back to Morton.

"You let me know when and where. I'll be ready." Morton, with one last glance at Nelson, nodded and left to make the arrangements with the chief. They were going to work out something so that there were men nearby, maybe even slip someone who had not been to the house into the bar before the meet, if the chief thought it was worth the chance. He spared a moment to think about the two men in the office he had just left. This was harder on them. They had effectively given Lee up to their enemy, even if it had been unknowingly. It probably didn't make it any better. He punched the button for the elevator. It was going to be a long day.

Back in Nelson's office, Hickock sat back down in the chair across from Nelson as the door closed behind Morton. He leaned back and shut his eyes. He was getting too old for this. He thought he had left the life and death moments behind, and had definitely not counted on his possibly being the instrument of death for a man that he had come to think of as a close friend if not another son. He felt suddenly like a foolish old man. He had prided himself on always knowing the newest technology when he was head of ONI. None of his field agents knew more than he did, but now he had been caught out with a technology that had been in use for several years. He should have considered it; there were several ways to defeat it, and he had taken not even the simplest precaution of turning on a radio near the window. He opened his eyes to see Nelson looking at him. He had never thought to see the level of fear he now saw in the light blue eyes. He had been a field agent when Nelson had spent his brief time with ONI. The other man was a good agent, but had been hamstrung by his own morals and ethics. Hickock, a veteran of many assignments, had come to realize that you couldn't always do things morally or ethically when it came down to getting the job done. It had been one of the reasons that Nelson had left ONI, and the main reason that he was so upset when he had found out that Crane had been recruited early in his career. That Hickock cared for Lee in his own way, and had tried his best to steer him to assignments he could actually survive, made no difference to the other man. The younger man was the only thing the two admirals had in common, and they might have just gotten him killed.

"We have to contact Lee. Now!" Nelson said.

Hickock shook his head. "Can't be done. He has to contact us when he can. It's not like he can just get on the ship-to-shore and make a phone call, and we can't exactly just dial up the Tantalus and ask for Lee Crane, the industrial spy that's on board hacking the computers and getting ready to put your chairman of the board in jail."

Nelson pounded his fist. "You keep saying that. Surely you had to have another way to get a hold of him in the case of an emergency. Some form of back up?" he demanded.

Again the other admiral shook his head. "There was nothing we could think of that would be safe for him if he were searched. His laptop with the communication gear is protected by a series of fail-safes. If he doesn't enter certain codes at certain times throughout the day it reformats the entire hard drive to make sure that there is no evidence of what it was used for. The communications program itself translates everything into a one of a kind cipher that can only be broken if you have the key that goes to that particular cipher. Even cryptologists cannot break it without knowing that key, and it changes in a random sequence each time he communicates. The two laptops are in sync. He hasn't done anything for days other than the prearranged 'okay' signal once a day. If he doesn't stay on I can't send any message."

Nelson surged to his feet and leaned over the desk. "Typical of you, Hickock! Send a man in with no back up and let him fend for himself. I believe you lost many of your best agents that way. Well I don't intend to lose Lee. If you have the only means of communicating with him then I expect you to bring it here and share it with us. When is he next scheduled to check in?"

Hickock swallowed his reply. Nelson was right even if his method of delivery left something to be desired. The time had come to share everything. "It'll be a little after 0300 our time," he replied.

Nelson took up his pacing again. "The meet with this... blackmailer should be done by then. Any bar that he wants to meet in will be closed at 0200 by state ordinance. Hopefully we can tell Lee that he could have been compromised, but that we have sealed the leak for now. It should give him time to arrange a way off that boat. He might be able to feign some sort of sickness that the on board medic can't deal with, get himself airlifted off," Nelson posited hopefully. He suspected it wouldn't be that easy to convince Lee to abandon his quest if there was no imminent danger, but Nelson was going to do his best to make sure that he did. They had enough information to make it uncomfortable for Pritchard, and that would be enough to start with. The problem was convincing Lee. He ignored Hickock's murmured agreement and kept pacing, trying to marshal his arguments, knowing he might only have this one chance to get Lee off that boat.

Five hours later Nelson sat in a dark van parked in an alley a half block from the bar where the blackmailer had demanded that they meet. He, Morton, Hanson, and a technician from communications were crowded into the back of the van, sitting in the dark except for the glow from the two screens they were watching. One screen gave them a wide shot of the entire bar, looking down on the room from what Nelson was told was a shelf above the bar. The camera was disguised as an old bottle of port, one of many old bottles that lined the shelves. It had been placed there almost three hours earlier by the bartender who happened to be a friend of one of Hanson's men. The man had been able to provide them with a layout of the bar, and had agreed to place two cameras and a microphone. The second camera was focused on two tables in the back of the bar that their informant said got little use. A directional microphone was focused on a space between the two tables, and would pick up conversations at either table. The meet was due to go down in thirty minutes. As he waited for Hickock to arrive with the money, Nelson reviewed the previous hours.

After Morton had gotten back from conferring with the chief, Nelson had arranged with Pearson to get the money. It, of course, had needed to be in small bills, and several local banks had been tapped to get all that the man had demanded. There had been a short argument regarding the possible marking of the money, but Nelson was not prepared to take any chances with this man and had scotched the idea. The money had been packed into a large duffel bag, and Morton had handed it to Hickock, who had hefted it thoughtfully.

"You realize that this is no guarantee that the man still won't sell the information to Pritchard too," the retired spy had asked.

Nelson shrugged. "He could very well do so, but this way we have at least bought Lee this much time, and may buy him even more if the man keeps the bargain."

"Honor among thieves is a myth, Harry. There are other ways we can deal with this man besides playing his game." Hickock had suggested that they just find out who the man was, give him the money, then kidnap him outside the bar and hold him until Crane was safe

"I'll not be dragged down to Pritchard's level. If I allow that then I'm no better than he is and he'll have won. I won't allow that," Nelson had said, "Besides, what if he's made arrangements to have the tape sent to Pritchard if anything happens to him, or if he's not working alone? Then we'll have nailed Lee's coffin shut. We were careless before. It will not happen again." With that the plan had developed. They had contacted the friendly bartender, who had agreed to help them. The meet was set for 2100, and they were ready to follow the man once he met with Hickock and took the money. They would only be following him though; there would be no kidnapping, surveillance only.

On the wide angle screen a slim form entered the bar carrying a duffel bag. Nelson saw that Hickock had changed into dark pants and shirt with a dark jacket. For the first time in over two months he found a spark of amusement. So that's where Lee got the 'uniform'He thought of the many times he had seen Lee Crane preparing for a mission, dressed in dark jeans and a black turtleneck. Hickock was right about the two of them being a large influence in the life of a certain commander. He watched as Hickock made his way to one of the two tables and sat down. The bartender came over and took his drink order, and a few moments later set a glass in front of the old man. Hickock sat nursing the drink, looking for the entire world like an old man with no more thought on his mind than his next drink. In the next twenty minutes four other men came into the bar, all of them seemingly only intent on getting a drink. Nelson was beginning to fear that their covert observation had been discovered when a man approached Hickock's table and slid into the chair across from the admiral. It looked like something was about to happen.

Hickock sipped his drink and surreptitiously studied his fellow drinkers. No one seemed to be paying particular attention to him, but if the man was experienced, he would not give himself away so easily. Hickock was contemplating the wisdom of ordering another drink when a man stood up from one of the booths and slid into the chair across from him. The man was best described as average; average height, average weight, brown hair and eyes. He would blend into most crowds, and would be remembered by few. The perfect spy, Hickock thought. He raised an eyebrow.

"Do you have the money?" the man asked. Hickock nodded and kicked the duffel bag at his feet. The other man looked at it as if figuring if it could hold what he had demanded. He looked back at Hickock. "Open it up. I want to see it." With a quick glance around the admiral complied, unzipping the bag and holding it open for the other to see the money stacked within. The man started to reach for the handle, but Hickock jerked the bag away and re-zipped it.

"The tape," he said firmly. The other man frowned at him and looked around. He finally reached into his pocket and pulled out a tape that he slid across the table to Hickock. The older man reached into his pocket and pulled out a small tape player with headphones. He snapped the tape into place and put on the earphones. He pushed the play button and listened for several minutes. He stopped the tape, and put the player, tape and all, in his jacket. The other man started to protest, but he stopped as Hickock nudged the bag toward him with his foot. He started to pick it up, but found Hickock's hand clamped on his arm with surprising strength. "And what guarantee do we have that there are no other copies?" The man seemed taken aback by the question, and the older, more experienced man saw something flash in his eyes, but it was gone quickly.

"Hey, I made a deal. If all the money is there you got no worries," the younger man said almost petulantly, as if offended that Hickock would question his honesty. Hickock maintained eye contact for several seconds before he released the bag. As soon as he was free, the younger man stood and started toward the door. He didn't look back. Hickock sat back in his chair and tossed off the last of his drink. He looked toward the camera and spoke in a normal tone that he knew the mike would pick up.

"He's all yours now, Harry. I don't know that I would trust him further than I can see him." He motioned to the bartender for another drink, and sat back to wait. The instructions had said he had to remain in the bar for at least fifteen minutes after the other man left. He doubted if it would matter, but he would take no chances.

Outside the bar the man with the duffel walked to a nondescript dark sedan and climbed behind the wheel. He pulled out and headed south. Overhead, a helicopter, its pilot and observer equipped with night vision glasses, started after the car at a discrete distance. The observer would keep the car in sight and notify Institute security personnel who would follow at a distance. The driver would see no car following him. They would follow him until he stopped, hopefully at a home or place of business that would allow them to find out who the man was. The observer radioed back the license plate number, and the chief was on the phone with a friend at the local police department, having the plates run a second later. Things seemed to be going well. Morton, his legs cramped from the small space, and bored with the wait, opened the back doors and climbed out. Nelson joined him, and the two men stood there listening to the reports coming over the radio.

"I think we'll be fine, sir. It doesn't sound like he's going anywhere to meet someone; that's mostly residential down in there. Now if we can just convince Lee that it's time to give it up we'll be in fine shape. We can get back to normal." He saw Nelson sigh.

"I hope you are right, Chip. I am so tired of this whole thing. Not that Lee coming back would end it, but it would be so much better. We are strongest when we fight together, at each other's side. Maybe I can make him see that."

"He'll listen to you, sir. I have a feeling that he's just as tired as we are of this. He's never been undercover so long before. I can't see him liking it much. He's got such a strong sense of who he is; I have always wondered how he can become someone else so easily. Of course I have never really understood the appeal of that work for him. You didn't seem to have any problem breaking away from it; why is it so hard for him to let it go?"

"That strong sense of self came at a great cost," Nelson replied. "I don't have to tell you about his early life. Being able to be whatever you had to be was a survival skill he learned early." He paused and lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke up to the sky. He listened for a moment to the reports coming in from the helicopter. "I left ONI because what they accomplished wasn't justified by the means that they employed. You have to remember that they were a new department when I was there, under the control of a man who had come from the CIA. By the time Lee was recruited and Hickock was in charge, things had changed for the better. Assassination was no longer the ultimate way of dealing with problems. Not that there weren't those who continued to support the practice. To my knowledge Lee never bowed to that mentality. He always found another way. The fact that he was consistently successful led to a permanent change in policy. As much as I hated that he had gotten drawn in, and you know I tried to persuade him to stop when he was on the Nautilus and since then, I have to give him the credit for the changes he brought about."

Morton nodded and looked up at the sky, seeking some familiar stars in the narrow view they had there in the alley. He felt a sudden urge to be at sea, on the bridge of the Seaview. Lee Crane would be at his side, they would be taking a star sighting and kidding each other about something, or maybe they would be silent and watching the silver light of the moon dance on their bow wave. After that they would go down and have a cup of coffee in the nose before they retired to their cabins for the night. The next day they would go about whatever purpose they had for that cruise. Hell, he would even take some of those huge deep-sea squids or a homicidal great blue whale. He drew the line at frog-like aliens though. He was startled from his small fantasy by a yell from the speaker. He saw Nelson startle beside him, as the older man was also taken by surprise.

"Hey! What the hell! We need some cops here now!" The observer was yelling into the mike. He started giving their coordinates, and Morton saw Hanson reaching for the phone. The communications man jumped in as soon as the helicopter stopped broadcasting.

"Come in, 482, what is your status? What is your emergency?" he asked calmly.

"Base, this is 482. Target was just overtaken by a dark sedan. They pulled up along side and just... opened up with some kind of automatic weapons. The target has gone off the road and into a tree. The other car is gone. We are looking for a place to land. Are the police on the way and an ambulance?" The observer's reply was calmer than before but still excited. They could hear the change of engine sounds in the background that signaled that the helicopter was landing. The communications man glanced at Hanson who was still on the phone, nodding.

"Affirmative, 482. Police and emergency services have been notified. Please keep us updated on what is going on. The chase cars should be there in just a moment as well." He stopped as Hanson waved a hand. "Hold one."

"Tell them to watch out for the other car. They could come back to make sure they were successful. Make sure everyone is on their toes and that they don't flash any weapons when the cops get there. We don't want anyone getting shot by mistake." The communications tech nodded his understanding and passed on the information. The men at the van listened in silence as the observer kept up a running commentary on what was going on. By the time he made it to the wreck from where the helicopter had landed one of the chase cars was there. A security man was at the wreck trying to find out their target's status. The ambulance and police were close behind. When they arrived on scene, the men were moved back by the police. The second chase car had returned to the Institute, not wanting to raise too many questions. The men from the first chase car left after the EMTs arrived to take over at the wreck. The observer reported after about fifteen minutes that the EMTs had extracted the driver and had removed him from the site in a body bag. The observer had told the police that they were a training flight out of the local airport, and had happened to see the shooting and had called it in. He had given his statement and had returned to the helicopter. It had returned to the Institute also.

The men at the van had stood almost as statues through the whole thing. Hickock had appeared moments after the first yell, and Morton had filled him in on what they knew up to that point. With the last report from the observer they began moving again. Hanson went to get the cameras out of the bar, and the communications man shut down the systems and retracted his antennas. Nelson, Hickock, and Morton stood to the side; each shocked at the turn of events. Finally Hickock, more used to the sudden changes that could happen in an ostensibly simple mission, shook himself into action.

"Come on, Harry. I'll give you and Morton a ride back to the Institute. We have a few hours before Lee is due to make contact. Maybe we can get a little bit of rest. These old bones aren't up to all this activity this late in the evening." He tried to lighten the moment. Nelson nodded, and with a glance at Morton to be sure he was following, they headed toward the car. They were just getting in the car when Hanson appeared at Nelson's elbow. His face was grim in the light of the streetlight. He drew himself to attention. Morton, who had seen the chief coming, felt a chill run down his spine. Nelson turned to face the chief. His face paled in the dim light as he took in the chief's expression.

"Chief?" he asked.

"Sir, my men just got back from the site of the wreck. They wanted to report in person and not over the radio. Larson is an EMT and he went to see if there was anything he could do for the guy. I guess there wasn't much even a doctor could have done for him, but Eddie stayed with him so he wouldn't be alone. The guy was in pretty bad shape but he was conscious for a bit. He uh...he wanted Eddie to give you a message." The chief paused, and looked at the three men who were riveted to his words. "He said that he sold the information to Pritchard's man earlier today. He was playing both sides and planned to go home and pack and disappear before anyone found out. Eddie uh...grabbed the duffel bag as he was leaving. We'll keep it at the Institute tonight." As he finished, Nelson sagged back against the car as if he was unable to remain standing.

Morton stepped to his side and grabbed his arm; afraid this last blow would be the one that was too much for the older man. He heard Hickock cursing from the other side of the car in a ragged monotone. He could feel a tremor running through Nelson, and feared the man might collapse. He wasn't feeling any too steady himself. Pritchard knew about Lee. Knew where he was and what he was doing. To use Nelson's analogy, he had just heard the first nail pounded into the lid of his friend's coffin. His heart literally ached. He could not allow himself the luxury to feel that pain now however. He had to do what Lee would have wanted him to do, what Lee had asked him to do, take care of Nelson. He opened the back door of the car and, with a tug on the admiral's arm, tried to guide him there. He found he had underestimated the man yet again. Nelson stood away from the car and shook his head. He drew himself up, and even in the faint light Morton could see the resolve in those light blue eyes.

"Chief, get back to the Institute. I want every Institute property on high alert, full security procedures. I don't care if it's a weather station inside the Arctic Circle. I want everyone covered." He barely waited for the chief's "Aye, sir" before he turned to Morton. "Get on the phone to the Institute. I want FS1 pre-flighted and ready to go by the time we get back. Have communications connect you to the Seaview. They should have finished the restock this afternoon. They were scheduled to leave in the morning, but tell them to get moving now, emergency flank speed toward the People's Republic territorial waters. We'll meet them en route." He stopped and got into the car. Hickock was already in his seat and cranking the engine as Nelson slammed the passenger door. Morton moved quickly into the backseat, already on the phone to the Institute repeating the orders, sure he would be left behind to fend for himself if he didn't. As soon as he closed the door the car surged forward. Nelson turned to Hickock.

"We have to make sure that Lee stays on line tonight. If Pritchard has known since this afternoon he will have taken steps to make sure that Lee can no longer access the computers from the sub. He'll be looking at what has been accessed, and the more damning the information Lee managed to get, the more deadly the reaction will be. At least with the boat at sea he can't get someone who knows Lee there right away, he should have some degree of anonymity until then." Hickock made strangled sound, and Morton's heart took another twist. "What?" Nelson demanded.

"Lee reported last week that Greg Summers is aboard the Tantalus," Hickock said. Nelson slammed his fist into the dashboard.

"How many more little tidbits of information are you withholding?" Nelson growled dangerously. Hickock seemed unmoved by the anger in Nelson's voice, guiding the car calmly toward the Institute. Morton had to admire his cool, even as he felt a surge of anger at the secrets the man seemed determined to keep.

"That's about it. He didn't see the man as a threat. Said he was too self-absorbed to notice a member of the crew. Besides which, it's not like Lee's the captain of the boat. You don't expect to see people that you know in a different job, the brain just doesn't make the connection. That's why he chose the position he did." Morton, who had been told most of the information about Crane's sojourn, had yet to hear in exactly what capacity his friend was serving aboard the Tantalus. He cleared his throat, and saw Hickock's eyes shift to him in the rearview mirror. He hoped his question would defuse a little of the tension in the front seat.

"Exactly what position would that be, sir?" he asked. Hickock grinned at him in the mirror, a grim smile it was, but a smile nonetheless.

"Where would you least expect him to show up, Mr. Morton?" the ONI admiral asked. Nelson had sat back in his seat, seemingly ignoring the others. Morton considered.

"The least likely would be Sickbay, if his past performance is any indication, but he doesn't have the training for that." He pondered aloud. Where else would he... He stopped the thought, and looked at Hickock. "The galley, he's working in the galley?" The smile in the mirror confirmed his guess, and he sat back against the seat, shaking his head. Lee Crane, who sometimes had to be reminded, nay almost forced, to eat, was working in the galley. Another thought came to him, and he sat forward again. "Is he cooking?" he asked. Hickock nodded, the smile growing.

"Head cook. He's doing a pretty good job he says. So far the crew hasn't mutinied."

Morton snorted with amusement. Leave it to Lee to pick something so contrary to his usual position. He had a sudden flash of memory. Lee Crane meeting him at the door to his house wearing jeans and a baggy tee shirt, an apron tied around his waist, and the scent of baking in the air. Those cooking classes he had taken when he was stuck in the house for two weeks were obviously being put to good use. He shook his head. "Amazing," he thought. The rest of the drive was spent in silence.

The next several hours went by in a flurry of activity. They returned to the Institute only long enough to grab what was needed and board the flying sub. In a matter of minutes after their return they were airborne and heading for the rendezvous site with Seaview which was moving at emergency flank in the direction of the People's Republic. Hickock had provided the exact coordinates of the mining site and the Seaview was headed there. So far no one had raised the question of the legalities of Seaview entering the sovereign waters of an enemy nation, though Morton knew it had to be addressed. Nelson would have to tread a fine line. Technically the boat was not currently under the auspices of the Navy, and so could go wherever the owner wished and the law of the sea allowed. However, because the Seaview was well known to the People's Republic as an armed warship, they would not be viewing her as a simple private boat on a rescue mission. They could expect no understanding from them; indeed, they were more likely to lob a few depth charges at them out of general principle.

They were at the rendezvous two hours later, Nelson having pushed the FS1 to the maximum speed. Morton doubted that anyone except maybe Crane had ever had her up into the red as Nelson had. They docked with the Seaview and Nelson was up the ladder almost as soon as he shut down the systems. As was typical, Sharkey met them at the hatch, his face a mixture of welcome and trepidation. Nelson came out of the hatch like he was on springs and was halfway to the chart table by the time Hickock got his head above the deck. He ordered the boat back to emergency flank, and O'Brien relayed the order.

O'Brien, who had only the barest notion of what was going on, had the charts for the area for which they were heading on the table. He watched as Nelson looked them over. He acknowledged Hickock, who he did not know, with a polite nod, and Morton with a puzzled look. Morton saw that Nelson was busy with his figures and decided to fill in O'Brien. He took him by the arm and led him away from the table where Hickock had leaned over watching Nelson plot a course that took them along the edges of the territorial waters to the point closest to the mining site.

"We have a line on the skipper, Bobby," Morton said quietly, seeing the surge of excitement in O'Brien's eyes quickly quenched as he glanced at Nelson and Hickock.

"He's in trouble, isn't he?" he more stated than asked. Morton could not keep a small smile from crossing his lips. How well the crew knew their captain. He nodded.

"He's on a submarine, a private submarine, inside the People's Republic's waters. He's been undercover, and it's been blown, blown wide open. He's going to have to get off by himself, but once he's off he's going to need somewhere to go."

"And that's us?" O'Brien said in understanding. Then he frowned. "But we can't move in. If they catch us inside their waters they can blow us out of the water with no repercussions. They won't get so much as a wrist slap. What are we going to do?"

"What we are going to do, Mr. O'Brien," Nelson said from the chart table, obviously having overheard, "is get as close as possible, and then go in with the FS1. The Seaview would be too hard to hide. The FS1 is another matter. There should only be surface support vessels on hand, nothing with high tech location equipment. We'll be in touch with Captain Crane tonight; if he can meet us halfway, this will work."

"And if he can't do that, Harry, what are you going to do then? Engage the Tantalus?" Hickock asked from where he was leaning against the chart table. Nelson cast him a nasty glance.

"No. I'm not going to engage the Tantalus. She's unarmed and a civilian vessel. What I plan to do is get her to surface. We should be able to fake a call from the support vessels saying that she needs to surface. We'll need a good reason, like a VIP from the main office or something along that line. We'll work on it." He glanced at the chronometer. "We have twenty minutes until the scheduled contact. Shouldn't you be setting up your equipment? Sparks can help you with it," he said to Hickock.

"Thanks, I think I can struggle along." He hefted the bag he was carrying. "All I need is a flat space and a hookup to your antenna."

Nelson waved him toward the nose and the table there. Hickock took out his laptop and opened it on the table. He booted it up and looked around. Sparks, who had been listening, appeared at his elbow and took the end of the cord he had hooked to his laptop. He plugged it into a port in the bulkhead to the side of the windows. After a short conference with Hickock, he returned to the radio shack and hooked the laptop into the powerful main antenna that would pick up any signal even at depth. He also set up a feed into a repeater in case they needed a recording of the signal. From the program he had seen the old man bringing up on the small computer he knew the signal would be encoded but it never hurt to be cautious.

Hickock rapidly set up the system to receive the signal and then it was a matter of waiting. O'Brien took up his position at the chart table, but Morton knew that his attention was mainly on the group at the table in the nose. They were three hours away from the point nearest the mining site. Would it be soon enough? As much as they were all waiting for it, the alarm from the laptop made them all jump. Hickock instantly input the code that would accept the signal. There was a beep, and a message flashed on the screen.

"Have pictures of 'secret' compartment in the bow. Not there previously. Only captain and XO have key. Accessed clandestinely and took photos. Best guess, some sort of weapon. It is hooked to the reactor. Can't identify. Suggest you try Nelson. Hit the mother lode on the files, sending all." He read out loud. There was an indicator under the message that showed a file downloading. Almost as soon as that was done another download started. Hickock started to open the first file when Nelson shook his head.

"Forget the file. We have to let him know that he's been exposed. We'll deal with it later."

"But if it's a weapon..." Hickock started only to be cut off.

"We'll have time to look at it after we warn Lee. We still have at least several hours before we are on site at the edge of the territorial waters. Right now Lee is the important thing." As he finished speaking the download indicator cleared off the screen, and a new message appeared in the box.

"Did you get the files? I think these might be what we were looking for." It spelled out. Nelson, who had moved to where he could read the screen himself shook his head.

"Warn him now before he signs off," Nelson said, and Hickock nodded and began typing rapidly. He hit the send button, and they could see his reply under the first message.

"Damn it, Lee, forget about the files. You have to get off that boat right now!" he had typed. There was a pause, and Nelson could imagine Crane's surprise at the message.

"What's going on?" came back the reply.

Hickock started typing again. "Pritchard knows you are on board. We believe he has known since this afternoon, California time. You need to get off that boat." There was another pause.

"Can't exactly free dive to the surface. We're sitting at just over 1000 feet. Plus, I have dinner ready to go in the oven." Finally came the reply. Morton had to smile at his friend's attempt to lighten the mood. At a thousand feet there was no way for Crane to leave the boat now. He could not carry enough oxygen to wait for the FS1 to get to him underwater. They could not take the chance of flying in as the small craft would be more likely to be picked up on radar. Hickock was typing again.

"Can you think of a way to get the boat to surface, maybe a manufactured emergency or a small fire?" As submariners both Nelson and Morton winced at the thought of setting an intentional fire inside a submarine at depth, but these were desperate times.

"Negative. Built-in fire system would extinguish and scrub at depth. The captain is comfortable here. He hasn't done more than keep trim for the last three days. I think maybe... wait one." The answer came, and then stopped for several seconds before the last two words came up. It seemed that the pause went on forever. "Take that back, the boat is moving. Engines are coming on line and we have started to rise. Will go see what's going on." Nelson read the message and swore.

"We're too late. Pritchard has called them and let them know they have a spy on board. Tell him we're coming on the FS1. We can be there in 90 minutes or less."

"Lee, we're coming for you. The FS1 will be there in a little over an hour and a half. If you can, get off the boat and into the water." Hickock typed. As he hit send, O'Brien called out from the sonar station.

"Mr. Morton! We have multiple warship contact on long-range sonar. We were scanning the area where the mining was taking place and found one support ship on site, sounds like he's loading. Then we had two more contacts coming in fast. Sound signatures read as two destroyers," he reported when Morton looked his way. Nelson pounded on the table.

"Warn Lee. He can't be there if the People's Republic board that boat. The safest way for Pritchard to take out Lee is to let the People's Republic do it for him. All he had to do is tell them where they can find Lee and order the boat to surface and allow boarders. Anyone think that's not just what he did?" Nelson stared grimly from face to face, reading their agreement. "Didn't think so. They'll arrest Lee and torture him for information for Pritchard in payment and for themselves in revenge. If Captain Crane is lucky they'll shoot him for espionage quickly." He spun back to the control room. "Sharkey, get the FS1 ready to launch, now! We'll go in under the radar and hope we can get closer before we have to dive." There was little hope in his voice; after all, how could one man play hide and seek with two destroyers in the open sea for any length of time? Hickock typed furiously and hit the send key. There was another pause, during which Morton was sure he was not the only one holding his breath. Finally an answer returned.

"Understood. Will take steps. Have egress planned. Taking the low road. Thanks for everything. Out." The laptop beeped to notify them that the signal was lost, and they stood there for a moment looking at what could be the last communications they would ever have with Lee Crane.

"Taking the low road? What the hell does that mean?" Hickock finally asked. "Is it some kind of bubblehead jargon?" Morton shook his head, seeing that Nelson was not going to answer.

"No, sir, it's doesn't mean anything to me in particular. He's trying to tell us something as fast as possible, but what it is I don't know."

"Well that's helpful. Now what, Harry?"

Nelson started as if he had been somewhere else in his mind. He looked at Hickock. "Now we go get my captain. That's what," he said simply.

"There're two destroyers there, Harry. I don't think that even your little toy can sneak past them. If they know that Crane is involved, they'll know that you can't be too far behind. They'll be watching for you and your gadgets. You're not popular there, Harry."

"Don't you think I am aware of that? I don't have any choice. If Lee is on that boat when they board, he'll not be coming back. He said he had an egress that means he's planned for something like this. I need to give him as many options as possible. Now, are you coming along or staying here?"

"Try to stop me," the other admiral said, closing the laptop. He followed Nelson back to the hatch to the flying sub. Morton moved with them, but Nelson turned to him and shook his head.

"Not this trip, Mr. Morton. I need you here in command of the boat. There's no telling how far those destroyers may go if they catch sight of us. We may come out of there with company on our six," he said in a no nonsense voice that Morton had learned to recognize. He shoved down his disappointment, hiding it behind his XO mask. It wasn't where he wanted to be, but it was an important part of the plan. The People's Republic would have no problem chasing the FS1 into international waters, he knew, and the Seaview would be standing by ready to engage them if they did. And should there be some small navigation error, and they happened to be inside territorial waters, oh, well, these things happen.

"Aye, sir," he replied and he saw in Nelson's eyes that the older man understood everything that had gone through his head. He watched as Nelson and Hickock descended into the FS1 and he turned to O'Brien. "Mr. O'Brien, I have the Con. Why don't you go and see if you can coax a little more speed out of the engines? I want to be on site ASAP." O'Brien nodded and disappeared out the aft hatch at a run. "Mr. Thomas," Morton said to the lieutenant that had been acting as O'Brien's Exec, "Battle stations if you please. I want everyone on their toes and ready." He saw the change of atmosphere as the klaxon sounded through the boat. His attention was on the small yellow craft he could see moving away through the windows in the nose. As it disappeared, he reached up and loosened his tie, and headed to the small coffee pot that the galley provided in the nose. It had been a long night already and it was going to get longer. He would need the caffeine.

Chapter 11

Cosigian moved swiftly through the corridors of the Tantalus though making an effort to appear casual. He could feel the boat moving up and forward. At the present rate of ascent, it would only take them about twenty minutes to surface and come around to where they could be boarded by launches from the People's Republic ships. They would start looking for him immediately, and while he was sure that he could evade them for a while, there were only so many places to hide on a submarine. And in the end, all they had to do was move everyone else off the boat and flood it with gas. Then they could search at their leisure knowing he could not evade them. Or worse, they could threaten the crew if he did not reveal himself. He was well familiar with the tactics of the Republican Guard, and had no doubt that they would kill innocent people to gain a prize such as he was. There would be international outcries he was sure, but the boat was in People's Republic waters and they would have permission of the boat's owner to board. Cosigian was not prepared to risk the lives of these men. It was time to use the plans he had been working on.

He had learned during his time with ONI that the most important part of a mission after the main objective was getting out. He had learned to formulate his exit with almost as much deliberation as his entrance, and he had applied that principle here as well. In his cabin, after logging off the communications program, he had made a connection to the boat computer system. A few code words, and a program began running that could not be stopped without rebooting the entire computer system. Once he had done that, he disconnected the laptop and turned it off. Then he had grabbed the small partially packed bag that he had placed under his bunk. He dropped his laptop computer into it and the few personal items he had with him. Everything else he left there in the cabin, not wanting it to look like he had taken anything. With bag in hand, he continued on his way through the boat. He could feel their rate of ascent slowing and knew they were nearing the surface. He didn't have too much more time, but there was something he needed to do. He stopped into the galley and had his two assistants put the dinner into the ovens for baking. He told them he would be busy so they needed to keep an eye on the food and take it out on time. If he were lucky, no one would notice that the head cook was missing if the food got served on time. Leaving the galley, he went to the crew's quarters and looked in. He quickly spotted Peterson and called him into the corridor. The dark skinned crewman looked at him curiously.

"What's up, Cookie? Besides the boat I mean. Why are we surfacing? Thought we were supposed to be just sitting down there for the next couple of weeks."

Cosigian made sure that they were alone in the corridor and looked seriously at Peterson. He put a hand on the broad shoulder. "We're going to be boarded by the People's Republic Navy, Pritchard's with them. They have some idea that there is some sort of spy on board, and they are going to search the boat and question the crew. They'll be boarding as soon as we surface and move into position near their ships."

"A spy? We're mining the bottom of the ocean. What kind of stuff can a spy get here? It seems kind of hokey to me, Cookie, like they're making some kind of excuses to get on board. And why's the big man with them? I thought he had him a fancy office in New York and just sat there and made money."

"I don't know all the details right now, only what I heard in the control room." It seemed a likely way for him to know what was going on. "You need to tell the men what's going on. Warn them that they need to cooperate, keep calm, and answer whatever questions they ask. If they ask something about the boat tell them to ask the captain, if they ask something about you personally, answer them. They'll understand you not talking about the boat, they'll expect that, but they won't react well if you clam up about yourself. No one needs to get hurt here. If everyone stays calm and cooperates it'll be fine."

"Why don't you just talk to the boys, Cookie? Sounds like you know how this is done, how to get us through. Why don't..." Peterson stopped, and Cosigian could see the understanding dawning on his face. He had known that the man was quick. He reminded him so much of Kowalski. "You the spy they're looking for, Cookie?" the engineer's mate said in a low voice as he looked around the corridor. Cosigian didn't acknowledge the question. He just shrugged and glanced at his watch. They had almost stopped their upward momentum now, and he could tell they were almost on the surface by the movement of the boat. He looked back at Peterson.

"You take care of yourself and the rest of the guys. Do like I said and you should all be fine. If you are given the opportunity to leave, do it. There will be other jobs. If you do leave, there's a man named O'Bannion runs a boat yard in Morro Bay. You go to him and tell him Lee sent you. He'll help you find a new job. Maybe something you'll like better than this, with more chances for advancement. Tell any of the men who want to leave they can do the same. It's been good working with you." He put out his hand. It was probably not the best idea to do this, but he could not leave the men hanging in the wind, and he could not count on the officers, especially Williams, to give them any coaching on how to handle what was to come. The Guard was not interested in anyone but him, but they might just take out their frustration on anyone who made the mistake of not cooperating. He felt he could count on Peterson to keep his secret and to take care of the other men. The mate shook his hand and reached out to pat his shoulder.

"Good Luck, Cookie. Been a pleasure serving with you. Maybe sometime you can tell me what this is all about," he said. Cosigian gave him a smile and went down the corridor, headed aft. Joel Peterson watched as the slim figure of the cook disappeared around a turn and then shook his head. He had known there was something about the Cookie that was different. The man was good at slinging hash, but he really seemed to know pretty much everything about the submarine, and was always willing to work with you so that you would understand too if you asked him a question. He had never met a cook quite like him in all the years he spent in the Navy.

He had been happy enough to get this job so soon after getting out of the Navy. He had skills that could have got him a job in almost any garage, but he had not wanted to break his knuckles on cars all day. This job had offered him the chance to build up a good nest egg, and maybe do some looking for the thing he really wanted to do. The pay was good, it came with full benefits, and there was the promise of paid leave between cruises. He had envisioned the whole thing as being somewhat like the Navy but with less discipline, and for the most part it had been. It was strange being on a boat this size with as few men as there were; and having the computer systems taking care of some of his old duties was a mixed blessing but he was getting used to it. He would have stayed for at least the first couple of cruises, though he had to admit he didn't think much of the officers on the boat. They seemed like they were pretty much a crop of second bests and Navy rejects, and the XO! Williams was really a piece of work. He shook his head, knowing that he must look silly standing here in the corridor staring at the bulkhead. He went back into the crew's quarters and sat back down next to Jenkins. He looked around at the other men who were there. He got everyone's attention by rapping on the table with a fist. Once they were all looking at him, he began to tell them what was going on.

A deck below and aft of the crew's quarters, Lee Cosigian cautiously opened the hatch to what was known on the boat as the mechanics' compartment. Actually it was the storage compartment for the mining machines. As he had heard discussed in the control room, all of the machines had been recalled to the sub and were now stored in their davits. The techs, of course, had not known about the incoming destroyers, but they had been working so efficiently that the last of the ore ships was filling and they would have to await the return of one of the other ships. They were supposed to be taking the opportunity to do some maintenance but they had obviously decided to wait until later as there was no one in the compartment.

He dropped the duffel near the hatch, and moved over to a control panel near the rear of the compartment. He began entering the sequences that he had memorized from the manual. It didn't take him long to do what needed to be done, and he knew he was just in time as he felt the boat surface. He knew that the sea was a little rough by the way the boat was moving. All the better. It would add a bit of confusion to the mix. He entered the last of the commands and went to get his duffel. It didn't take him long to open the hatch once he reached it. He sighed as he looked at the small space. It was going to be a tight fit, and not very comfortable. But getting shot as a spy wouldn't be all that comfortable either. He stuffed his duffel in and then himself, pulling the hatch closed behind him. He verified that the package he had placed there before the mining had begun was still in place. It was. He started a few key systems, those that had to be engaged to maintain the environment, but otherwise left things at standby. He looked at his watch. Another five minutes, and it should all begin. He tried to wedge himself into a more secure position. At least with so little room to move in he would not have to worry about being thrown around a lot. He closed his eyes and tried to compose himself for what was to come and to go over the next step in his plan. Taking the low road, he had told Hickock. He hoped someone understood what he meant; otherwise it was going to be a long trip home.

Chapter 12

Jason Pritchard III stood on the bridge of the People's Republic destroyer and watched as the Tantalus came to the surface a hundred yards off the port side of the ship. The deck of the destroyer heaved in an uncomfortable fashion. The gray sky showed promise of rain and the wind was coming out of the north, making the sea choppy. Pritchard would have rather just flown out to one of the support ships in his helicopter, but the only ship with a helipad was in port unloading. Of course his current hosts had not really wanted him to go out to the mining site by himself. Once they had learned about the spy on board, and who that spy was, they had been quite interested in being there. It seemed that Nelson and his captain had made some powerful enemies there. While he would have preferred to deal with Crane on his own, he was fully prepared to turn him over to the People's Republic's tender mercies, once he told them where the information he had stolen from the computers was, of course.

The extent of the captain's data mining had been a nasty surprise. It seemed that he had been in several highly secret files, the contents of which would guarantee an indictment, if not a congressional inquiry. That some of the information was out had become quickly obvious. He had begun some precautionary steps for removing his personal fortune from US banks immediately upon discovering the data theft, but had run into a roadblock when it came to company funds. A Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry was being made into certain business practices involving stock in their undeclared subsidiaries. All corporate funds had been frozen. Since no federal agents had appeared on his doorstep, warrant in hand, he had to assume that there was still time to act. If it were to all come out, he would not be able to return to the States. He had to cut off the source and make sure that there were no other leaks. Crane had been working on his own up till now he thought, isolated on the boat as he was; it was time to step in before Nelson tried to save his man.

Pritchard paced back and forth, ignoring the looks from the crew. The captain of the boat also cast him a nasty glance, but his connections with the man's superiors kept anything from being said. He was in an increasingly bad mood not helped by the fact he had been on a plane or boat for the last 12 hours. It came in handy to have your own jet standing by at all times. He hadn't bothered to say anything to anyone. They'd know where he was when he wanted them to know. He turned as he sensed someone coming up behind him. It was Ortiz, looking as cool and calm as he always did, and seemingly perfectly at ease on the heaving deck. They had met in Hong Kong, and had decided to come together. He had seen the feral light appear in the younger man's eyes at the mention of Crane, and had enjoyed the thought of watching the two men come face to face. Ortiz was watching the submarine making its way toward them, his eyes considering. They both expected Crane would try to hide or make a desperate attempt to take to the water once he learned why the boat had surfaced, but they were ready for every eventuality.

The Tantalus came to a stop about 50 yards away. Pritchard scowled. He expected he would have to get in one of those little boats like the one that had brought him out to the destroyer. A launch, he thought it was called. He wasn't much of a sailor, and didn't intend to become one anytime soon. The captain rose to his feet from where he was seated and with a resentful glance at Pritchard, and an almost frightened one at Ortiz which seemed to amuse the Latin man, indicated they should follow him. They went and, as Pritchard had posited, climbed into the launch, waiting as it was swung out and over the rail, then lowered into the choppy seas. At least they were protected from most of the wind by the bulk of the destroyer as they moved toward the submarine that seemed to be wallowing in the waves. It took several tries before the boatmen could bring them up to the submarine, much to the deepening displeasure of the captain. He spoke with barely contained anger with the officer in charge of the boat before he disembarked. He was definitely in a bad mood about this assignment, and was taking it out on the only ones he could, his crew.

Ian Porter, the captain of the Tantalus, stepped forward, and Pritchard once again felt the surge of bitterness at the thought that this was the best they could find for the Tantalus. Nelson got a young, decorated, much sought after officer like Crane and Pritchard got... Porter. They had approached captain after captain, only to be turned down. Some were openly contemptuous of the idea, while others were simply not interested. Then there had been the ones that were warned off. Oh, nothing had been said to that effect, but Pritchard knew men, and he knew the men that would have taken the job for the money, but were too scared of something or someone to do so. Nelson's fine hand, no doubt. In the end, with deadlines approaching, he had settled for Porter, thinking that the man could always be replaced later when a more appropriate candidate could be found. So far the man had been just as pompous and useless as they had thought he would be. He had inundated the main office with almost hourly status reports singing his own praises and offering little actual information. Summers' reports about the man had been scathing, though he had some good things to say about the first officer, Wallant or Williams, or some such name. His face revealing nothing of his thoughts about the man, Pritchard offered his hand to Porter, and then introduced Ortiz and the captain of the destroyer. It wasn't any too soon before they were headed down below to talk.

Porter led them directly to a small meeting room that had been built in aft of the control room. The executive officer, a tall, portly, balding man in his mid thirties, joined them. The room offered a small table and six chairs. Pritchard took the chair at the head of the table, seeing Porter grumble slightly under his breath as he was forced to sit at the foot of the table. Pompous ass needs to be shown who is boss. He thought. Once they were settled he looked around. Ortiz looked mildly interested; the destroyer captain, Pritchard didn't even try to pronounce his name, looked bored; Wallant or Williams, whichever it was, looked curious, and Porter just looked vacuous. He cleared his throat.

"It has come to our attention at the main office that there has been some industrial espionage going on. Our computer security has been breached on numerous occasions and sensitive files have been accessed. Our investigations have led us to believe that the person responsible has been using the computers aboard the Tantalus to access the mainframe and hack into what he wanted." He saw no reason to let anyone know that corporate security hadn't had a clue about the breech. As far as they were concerned there had been no incursion into the computers. Only on closer examination had it come to light that high-level passwords had been used to gain access to places where more passwords had been available. From there more hacking had evidently been child's play. Heads had almost literally rolled in the department, and they were still trying to find and plug all the holes the intrepid captain had opened in their system.

"You mean there's a spy aboard my boat?" Porter asked with consternation. He sprang to his feet. "Williams, we need to gather the men. I want..."

"Sit down, Captain," Pritchard said before the man could go any further. Porter sank reluctantly into his seat. "We know exactly who the spy is, but not what name he is going by here. The man is a trained intelligence operative and knows submarines. He could be anyone on board from an engineer to a technician." He looked around again, seeing he had everyone's full attention for now. "Since you've surfaced and there's a destroyer standing by, I'm sure that by now he's got to know the jig is up. He'll be trying to run or trying to hide..." He broke off as the door opened and Summers looked in. It still irritated Pritchard that the scientist had been no help in locating Crane among the crew. It wasn't like the man was easy to forget. He jerked his head toward one of the empty chairs and Summers came in and sat down. Pritchard continued, "Dr. Summers here has met our spy before, but seems to have trouble remembering what he looked like. I assure you that Mr. Ortiz and I have no such mental block. I propose that you, Captain," he stabbed the man with a cold look, "have your crew lined up and we run them through the deck hatch one at a time, checking off each man as he goes through. I want everyone off this boat and onto the support ship. The captain here seems to feel that you should be able to tie the boat up alongside her even in this choppy sea. Is that feasible to you?"

The captain considered, casting a bitter glance at the destroyer captain. "I'm not really enthused with the idea of staying on the surface in this weather, sir," he finally said. "Or tying up to a People's Republic ship, as friendly as they may be. But if that's what you want, we can make it happen. Mr. Williams here will maneuver us into position in a matter of minutes and we can get started. Meanwhile we'll have the men not required for the procedure begin lining up. Do you really feel your man would be so foolish as to be caught that way?"

Pritchard shook his head. "No. The man is daring and experienced. I just don't want us getting careless and allowing him to get off the boat before we can catch him. Once you get tied up, I want a guard on the hatches to make sure no one goes out without our permission," he said. He leaned back in the chair. "Once we get all your men off and cleared then we'll begin the real search. If we know who our spy has been masquerading as, it'll be easier, but if necessary we'll search every inch of this boat until we find him."

Porter raised an eyebrow. "It'll take time if it is just us," he said, thinking of all the places a man could hide. "He could even slip around a search with just a handful of us looking."

"There won't be just a handful," Pritchard said. He nodded toward the destroyer captain. "The captain here has troops standing by ready to come aboard as soon as the crew is off." He saw both Porter and Williams start with surprise and exchange glances. He could see that they didn't like the idea at all. He watched, as Porter seemed to argue with himself and finally decided to speak.

"With all due respect, sir, the idea of allowing foreign troops," he glanced at the destroyer captain, "albeit friendly ones, to board my boat that's..."

"Well, it's not YOUR boat, is it, Captain? You just run it. It's MY boat, and this is how it is going to be. It seems our spy doesn't confine himself to industrial espionage. The People's Republic government wants a piece of him as well. Once we have satisfied ourselves that there is no further need for concern for our own security, he will be turned over to the good captain who will return him to the People's Republic for trial." He saw the surprise and alarm in the two men's eyes. This time it was Williams who spoke, though he glanced at Porter as he did so.

"With all due respect, sir, I know you sign my paycheck, but I'm not sure that turning over a United States citizen to a foreign government is..." he started. Pritchard overrode him.

"You're right. I do sign your check, a very generous check I might add, one that will be reflecting a nice bonus from this cruise, if I am not mistaken. Don't let false concern for this criminal blind you, gentlemen. That's what he is, and he will be punished, either here or in the States. The People's Republic have first claim and that's the way it is going to be. Now, do I hear any other objections, or should we get this underway?" The two officers exchanged looks, but said nothing. Pritchard braced his hands on the table and pushed himself up. "Good. Let's get this done." Ortiz and the People's Republic captain rose and followed him toward the door.

Suddenly the whole boat shuddered, and a klaxon began going off. The two submarine officers were up and out of their chairs instantly, charging out the door. The other four men went after them, getting to the control room seconds later. The two officers were hanging over another man who was hurriedly typing into a board. All of them were watching a series of dials and tell tales that were above the keyboard. As the other four men came into the room, a junior officer was sent aft at a run. Finally the man stopped typing and shook his head.

"Nothing I can do from here, sir. It has been overridden at the main board. There's no way for me to stop it. The last of the machines is going now so even if I could override, it would be too late to stop any of them." Porter cursed and ordered the klaxon silenced. Porter paced agitatedly back and forth a few steps and snapped out a series of orders to Williams who nodded and started men to work. Porter turned to face the men who were waiting against a bulkhead at the rear of the control room.

"Well, I guess that confirms your spy is aboard, and that he knows you are here," he said disgustedly. "At least he had the good sense to make sure the room was pressurized before he opened the hatches. Otherwise we'd be having this conversation on the bottom."

"What the hell is going on?" Pritchard demanded. He had little working knowledge of the boat and hadn't a clue as to what had just happened. The destroyer captain was looking slightly amused, which didn't help.

Porter's face turned red as he caught the other captain's amusement but he focused on Pritchard. "Someone, and I assume it was your spy, rigged the machinery hatch to open and for the mining machines to deploy on their own. As I said, it's good that the man knew what he was doing or we'd be heading for the bottom like they are. I've sent one of my officers down to manually override whatever the man did and give us back control. We'll have to retrieve the machines from the bottom, and there'll be no telling how much damage has been done until we get there. I assumed you would want to go ahead and get the spy before we make another move so we're maneuvering into place by the support ship now. Once we clear the techs we can have them take a look at what they can do from here. Maybe they'll land wheels down," he suggested optimistically. Pritchard scowled at him, and left the control room with a growl, going back to the conference room.

The other three men followed him into the room. They regained their seats and looked at him. He pounded his fist on the table. "I want Crane's ass! I don't care if we have to take this sub apart bolt by bolt. I want him now. How far is this going to set back the mining?" He addressed this last to Summers. The mineralogist looked very unhappy as he shrugged.

"The machines are built to take a lot of punishment, but there's no way to know what kind of damage might have resulted from dropping out like that. It'll depend on where they land and how long it takes us to retrieve them and get them working again. I'm not sure where we are over the mining area right now. If they dropped into the main pit then it'll be easier than if they were on the margin or even towards the little trench that edges the area on the north. I think we can count on at least several days unless we're incredibly lucky," he said.

Ortiz gave a humorless laugh. "We have not been lucky since that man escaped the lab in Costa Nuestra. Why should that change now?"

"I don't believe in luck. You make your own, and Crane has made his very, very bad. Once we find him and determine where the rest of the information is, we'll turn him over to the captain here and get on with the mining. What if we bring in some salvage vessels? Captain, surely your Navy has some such vessels that might be available on short notice. I can contact your superiors and see what they have..." The four men started discussing possibilities.

An hour and fifteen minutes later Pritchard threw his empty coffee mug at the bulkhead, not even caring that the coffee dregs dripped down the paneling and stained the carpet. Ortiz smiled at him gently with a raised eyebrow.

"You expected it to be easy? As if he would walk up to us and ask to be caught?" he asked. Pritchard scowled at him and flung the clipboard that Porter had laid in front of him after the coffee mug.

"A cook? The man sneaks aboard my boat as a cook? The arrogant bastard! I hope the Republican Guard hangs him up by his..." Pritchard was interrupted by Porter coming back into the room. The captain cast a covert glance at the mess against the bulkhead and came to stand at the foot of the table. His face was expressionless.

"Everyone is on the support ship except for us here and Williams. The troops are coming over now. How do you want to handle the uh... compartment in the bow?" Porter asked with a quick glance at Ortiz. Pritchard waved it off.

"He knows what's there so don't worry about him. There is no way I want the troops in that room. You and Williams take care of it and herd them through the rest of the boat. Speaking of our little surprise, you're sure Crane didn't get in there too, right? One would like to think SOMEONE was able to keep a security level of some sort going on somewhere in this organization," Pritchard said. He saw the effect of the name on the captain's face, but the man asked no questions. Porter shook his head.

"Only Williams and I have keys to the locks and we carry them on our persons at all times. It takes both keys to open the locks and they are not pickable by any means. Short of burning through the door with an acetylene torch there's no way he got in there. Hell, Williams has only been in there once, and doesn't even know what it's for exactly. That room is secure, you can take my word for it," Porter assured him. Pritchard was not deeply moved by the man's assurances, but there was little he could do at this juncture.

"Fine. Let's get this over with. I want to get back to Hong Kong in time for cocktails. I can still salvage some of this trip and make a few contacts." The men left the room and found a group of Republican Guards in the corridor with Williams. Porter sent them aft to work forward and he sent Williams to check the compartment in the bow, giving him the key from around his neck. Porter then returned to the control room to direct the next batch of troops to the next area to be searched. Ortiz and Pritchard went to the compartment where Crane had been staying, looking around at the small room. They found the Chief Engineer's things and some clothing that looked like it could have belonged to someone of Crane's size. There were no papers, books, or anything else that indicated that any of the information was there or had been. They then moved to the galley and looked over the area thoroughly, paying special attention to the small desk and computer that seemed to house only recipes and meal schedules. After that they returned to the control room and watched as Porter marked off section after section as the search was completed. Williams came and went, working the different areas where they didn't want unskilled personnel searching, such as the reactor room. It took a surprisingly short amount of time before Porter was marking off the last compartment. Nothing had been found. Pritchard pounded on the chart table.

"He's got to be here somewhere! There was no way for him to get off the boat. You must have missed something." Williams and Porter shook their heads.

"The search was very thorough, sir," Williams said. "They must have some experience searching for people on boats or ships. They checked ventilation shafts, access panels, laundry machines, lockers, everything. Anywhere a man could be they looked."

"Well, then, where the hell is your cook? Did he just go up in a puff of smoke? I don't think so. He has to be here."

"Not necessarily," Ortiz pointed out casually from the seat he had taken at one of the stations. When all eyes turned to him, he smiled. "We know of at least one time that a hatch was opened that he could have used to escape. No one would have seen, and we would have been concerned with other things so no one might have noticed."

"When?" Pritchard asked.

"When the machines were turned loose. I am told that Crane is an expert diver. Could he have not swum out from beneath the submarine while everyone was watching the machinery fall? Can you even see a diver on whatever machine it is that watches under the water?" Ortiz pointed out. Porter and Williams exchanged glances, again reacting to the name and then both started nodding.

"It's possible," Porter finally said. "I know we were focused on it, and I'm sure the destroyer crews were also. But it's not like he could just slip away. There's nowhere for him to go. He certainly isn't getting onto the destroyers. Of course I guess he could get on the support ship and figure it will be easier to hide there."

Pritchard scowled again. This was taking too long. He knew that Nelson knew Crane was on the Tantalus, and just what the Tantalus was doing and where. Their informant had told them who Crane had been contacting, but had not been able to tell them just how much information had been passed on. While Pritchard was counting on his various contacts in Washington to make sure that there would be no repercussions regarding where they were mining, he had few illusions about the amount of trouble that Nelson could make for him. He also had come to know Nelson better in the last year as the battle between them had escalated. Nelson would not leave Crane out here on his own, not once he knew where he was. Somewhere out there, Nelson would be lurking, looking for a way to get to Crane. The question now was just how far would Nelson go?

The man had an unreasonable dedication to the letter of the law, at least as far as Pritchard was concerned. He would do everything he could to stay in the boundaries of international law. That meant that the Seaview was probably lurking just outside the People's Republic waters, watching and waiting. No doubt with all the gadgets that Nelson had he could keep pretty close track of what was going on, but all that technology would do him little good being over 15 miles away. He had that fancy little flying thing, Pritchard knew, but even if he trespassed in the sovereign waters, how close could he get without one or the other of the destroyers picking him up? Pritchard felt a small smile growing at that thought. Wouldn't that be a pretty picture back in Washington? 'Golden Boy' Nelson, darling of the administration, sticking his foot in the middle of an international incident, hell, causing an international incident. And it wasn't like he could offer a good explanation either. He couldn't exactly say he was going in to get his captain who was undercover on a rival submarine, engaged in industrial espionage. Even if he hadn't known where Crane was until recently, the fact he hadn't done anything about it spoke volumes. Pritchard crooked a finger at Williams who was hovering nearby.

"Get on the horn with the destroyer over there. Make sure that they know there's likely to be some other submarines in the area, maybe small flying ones. We don't want our friend hitching a ride out of here." Williams nodded his understanding and went toward the communications area. Pritchard stalked over to Porter. "I'm going aboard the support ship. I want it searched from one end to the other. Herd all these fellows up there after me and make sure that they know what's going on. I'll send your crew back over, and you get them working on those machines. I want to know where we stand."

"It'll be easier if we just dive..." Porter began, but Pritchard was shaking his head.

"I want you up here. If Nelson is out there, he might make some kind of run on us, and I want to be able to get aboard as soon as possible. Do what you can from here. Can't you take some kind of pictures or something?" he asked.

"The machines with the cameras went overboard too. Maybe we can tune into one of them and get some idea of what's down there. We'll do what we can," Porter agreed. Pritchard and Ortiz went aboard the supply ship, followed by most of the troops. Pritchard noted that Ortiz ordered two of the men to remain on the submarine to guard against anyone reentering the hatches. They swiftly organized a new search of the supply ship. The troops quickly rounded up the crew of the ship, along with the Tantalus crew, and they began checking everyone again as the rest of the troops began searching. They had eliminated all of the men and were awaiting word on the search when they heard klaxons going off on first one then the other destroyer. One of the officers in charge of the troops informed them that it was a battle stations call.

Pritchard and Ortiz went to the communications room, and a call was placed to the lead destroyer at Pritchard's insistence, asking what was going on.

They could see the second destroyer moving off rapidly, and the lead destroyer moved to mirror her movements in the opposite direction. They could see people moving on the decks of both ships, and soon something shot out in a short arc and hit the water with a large splash. There was a short delay then the water erupted in an explosion. Pritchard felt his heartbeat pick up. They were depth charging something. Was it Crane trying to swim for it? Could it be Nelson? Was it the Seaview or just the flying sub? What the hell was going on? He glared impatiently at the radioman that was frantically scribbling on a pad. Finally he quit and handed the paper to Pritchard.

The lead destroyer captain said that they had located an unidentified submarine approximately the size of Nelson's flying submarine, with which they were well familiar, lurking nearby. They had warned the intruder to surface and prepare to be boarded, but had gotten no response, except for the intruder making a break toward international waters. The two destroyers were pursing. The captain also stated that he was sure that no diver had approached the small submarine. Pritchard passed the paper to Ortiz, and went outside to watch as the next round of depth charges went over the railing of the destroyer. He gripped the rail so tight the knuckles of his hands were white. This time Nelson would not get away. This time it would end, and he, Pritchard, would be there to see it.

Chapter 13

Nelson stared out the windows of the Flying Sub as he guided the small craft along the bottom of the ocean, steering around the small mounts and fissures that made up the topography of this area. Hickock sat stoically in the other chair, seemingly unperturbed by the darkness outside the craft and not feeling the need for small talk. Not that they had much to talk about, outside of Lee they really had few things in common. Of course they were both now violating another country's sovereign waters on behalf of that one common thread in their lives. Perhaps that warranted an attempt on Nelson's part to be civil.

"This isn't going to look really good to the administration you know," he said, with a quick glance at the other man. Hickock shrugged and gave a snort.

"Nothing I've ever done has been popular with ANY administration, even the ones that put me in charge of ONI. Everyone wanted results but didn't want any consequences to deal with. I believe MY reputation will remain unchanged. You on the other hand I don't figure. You're dependent on Washington's good graces for paying a good portion of your payroll. You'd have to scrape pretty hard to make it only on private funds. This is liable to get you thrown off the public rolls, you know."

Nelson shook his head. "There are some things more important than the Institute or where the next dollar is coming from. You know how I feel about Lee. I am not leaving him out there alone. I'll worry about explaining all this later." He guided the small sub to a halt and studied the scopes. They were near enough to register the two destroyers as well as the supply ship in minute detail. The Tantalus was mostly obscured by its proximity to the support ship. Now that they were this close, he turned on one of the cameras and focused it on the submarine. They could see it rather well from where they were, but he wanted to move in a bit closer in case Lee found a way to get off the boat. He wanted to be able to move in quickly and make a quick get away. Hopefully before the destroyers knew they were there. He was getting ready to move them slowly forward when Hickock yelled out in surprise and pointed at the screen.

"Hey! What the hell is going on? Is that normal?"

Nelson shut down the engines and looked at the screen, astonished by what he saw. The Tantalus had opened her lower bay doors and what Nelson assumed were mining machines seemed to be, for lack of a better term, falling out of the open doors. They were coming out one after another and sinking down out of sight into the depths, tumbling and colliding. Nelson could not think of any reason such a thing would have happened under normal circumstances. He tried to think of some significance to this strange act, and could only consider that Lee had needed a way off the boat, and that this way maybe they would be too focused on the machines to see him coming out the doors as well. He looked closely at his sonar screens and changed the magnification on the camera, but he could see no diver coming out the doors. Soon, what seemed to be the last of the machines fell from the bay and it slowly closed with still no sign of Lee, however. What else could the purpose of the falling machines have been? As he and Hickock speculated, watching the screens, he saw that the Tantalus was moving. It soon became obvious that she was maneuvering in next to the support ship. She was directly alongside, and Nelson suspected she was tying up there. His supposition was confirmed as her engines were shut down. A launch moved in from the destroyer, and then another. Whatever was going on, it involved the People's Republic as well. That was not a good sign.

"Where the hell is Crane?" Hickock said, voicing the question that was in Nelson's mind as well. "Do you think they could have caught him?"

Nelson shook his head. "They haven't had time to search the boat yet, and I know that Lee would not have just turned himself over to them. He's got to be aware of the consequences if Pritchard turns him over to the Republican Guard." Nelson sat studying the screen, unsure of what to do next. Lee had to be aboard the boat still, but how long would he have? They would be searching now, no doubt moving the crew off to do so. He suspected that was the reason the boat had been brought alongside the ship. They waited a while longer, each silent with their own thoughts. Finally Nelson leaned forward and scanned the camera down the length of the boat as they could see it from their position. There was nothing obvious. He decided to move around the area, avoiding the two destroyers and see if there was a better angle on it from another area.

He guided the flying sub around and maneuvered slowly between two pinnacles of rock. He was not prepared for the surge of current that caught them as they rounded a small hillock and the rear fin of the FS1 caught an overhang of rock. Nelson clenched his teeth as he saw the effects on the hydrophone and knew that the same would be seen on the destroyers. There was nowhere for him to hide, and he slammed the controls over suddenly, pushing the acceleration all the way to the wall. As he did so they heard the aggressive pings as both the destroyers went to active sonar; the radio sprang to life with demands that they surface and prepare to be boarded. Nelson knew that they were showing up big as life on the sonar of the two vessels. He pushed the power levels into the red. He watched the scopes as the destroyers began moving. He recognized that the two ships were moving in a pincer movement, hoping to catch him in between them as they moved back together. He had to make it past their meeting point before they could cut him off. He saw the impact of the first depth charge on the surface of the water.

"Hang on. Depth Charge," he ground out, maneuvering a small seamount between them and the explosive. Even so the small vessel rocked as the bomb detonated. He continued forward, calling on every trick he could think of to get the last bit of power from the engines. It was going to be very, very close. He dodged another set of depth charges that almost made the FS1 flip end over end as the percussion hit them from the rear. He studied the chart. They were five miles from international waters. Taking to the air would be useless; the destroyers would be armed with sea to air missiles. They had to continue underwater. He was staying ahead of them for now, but the destroyers were moving at full speed now, and were keeping pace, working on cutting off his run. It was getting closer. He tried not to think about Lee, left behind on the Tantalus. What would happen to him now? What had he meant when he said he was taking the 'low road'? He had to wonder if Lee had been counting on him at all. Had it all been vanity, wanting to affirm his own importance in Lee's life, assuming he had to be there for Lee to escape? Now that he considered it, as he pushed the FS1 well past the red line, he realized that he HAD assumed.

Lee was an experienced operative. He would not have counted on anyone else to get him out of a situation. He had learned years ago that the only one to count on was oneself. That meant that whatever the younger man was up to, he, Nelson, would have to simply wait and see what he could do to help. It wasn't the pivotal role that his – yes, he would admit it, even if only to himself – ego demanded of him; but he could do it, for Lee. It was a humbling moment and a release as well. He could do what he had to do to get them back to the Seaview and allow Lee the freedom to do whatever it was that he had planned. Harry recognized that this was probably a lesson he had needed to learn about being parent to an adult child. This was perhaps one of the last lessons that Harry Nelson had needed to learn about being a parent, especially to a 'child' as capable as Lee Crane. He had to learn to let go and let the child be the man he knew him to be. He had seen Jules do it with his brood, knew that Hickock had reached that point with his sons, and thought perhaps it was a step he had needed to take.

Feeling freer with his discovery, Nelson began moving the FS1 swiftly through the trenches that lined the area; he knew the destroyers would be unable to read him there and he gained a much-needed lead on the ships. Two more depth charges hit the water to their rear, and Nelson swung the sub hard over, moving away. Damn, they were getting better at lobbing the explosives in. He was trying to think of the next thing he could pull when he felt rather than saw the first destroyer that had gone after them take a hit. A quick look at the sonar screen showed him the second torpedo heading in to hit the already crippled ship. He didn't have to guess where the torpedoes had come from as he watched the great gray shape of the Seaview cut across his bow. They were moving at full speed, and as he watched they were turning to bring the aft tubes to bear on the second destroyer. The first salvo went wide, but the destroyer had come about and was moving away from her sister ship, looking for maneuvering room no doubt. The Seaview did not follow, as the captain of the other ship had no doubt expected her to. As soon as the destroyer had turned she swung around and joined the FS1 on a course for international waters.

Nelson had recognized the low explosive power of the two torpedoes fired at the first destroyer. Damage would have been minimal; he suspected that precision targeting had caused the most damage to the ship's steering and weapons systems. As distractions went it was effective. He glanced at his global positioning unit. As he had suspected, they were still inside the sovereign waters. Evidently there had been a 'navigation error' aboard the Seaview. He was going to have to take that up with Mr. Morton. He saw that the destroyer was coming back around to take up the chase, but he could tell that they had gained too much ground. Before the ship could come up on them again, they would be in international waters and any hostile acts there would not be so easily explained. Also, he was sure the captain of the destroyer would not be willing to take on the Seaview alone. He decided that the captain of the ship must have come to the same conclusion as he broke off pursuit and returned to the damaged ship. Nelson activated the radio.

"Thanks for the last minute save, Seaview. I see that you seem to be having some problems with your navigation computer. Do you need us to help you with a heading?" he asked with no sarcasm in his voice. It didn't take long for them to hear the overly professional reply from the larger vessel.

"No thanks, FS1. We have it under control. Someone spilled their coffee into the keyboard and evidently as they were wiping up the mess some incorrect coordinates got entered into the computer. We have of course corrected this problem and we believe we will not be experiencing any further difficulties. Are you prepared to dock?" Morton's voice came heartily from the speakers.

"Yes. We'll dock now, and then I want to move the boat to the edge of the territorial waters. We still have some waiting to do."

"I see," came the more subdued reply. "No luck then?"

"Let's just say that when we left, the Tantalus seemed to be having a few 'errors' of their own. We'll need to be standing by, but it is evident that we can't be right there. We'll have to trust that he can get to us, one way or another."

"Aye, sir. We are ready for docking."

Nelson docked the small craft and shut down the systems. He was beginning to unbuckle his harness when he noticed that Hickock was looking at him.

"What?" he asked.

"You're finally seeing that you have to trust him to do this on his own, aren't you, Harry? That you can't rush off to the rescue this time and make it all better so that you won't feel so bad about him going off on this mission without telling you about it," Hickock observed, smiling as Nelson scowled at him. "It's a hard lesson, Harry. Some parents never learn it. It's not like he doesn't need you at all, you know. In fact, I think he counts on you more than you know. The two of you make a good team, when you are both operating at full capacity and on the same wavelength. Don't let your feelings for him get in the way of it."

Fighting his first instinct to ignore what the man said Nelson nodded. It was good advice. He had to get back on the same wavelength with Lee. The younger man had given him the clue, now all Nelson had to do was figure out what it meant so he could do his part the way Lee expected him to. He had allowed Pritchard a victory in that he had allowed the incident with the anger drug to cause him to act out of character in his eagerness to prove to Lee that it had not been anything personal. He rose to his feet and led the way out of the FS1. Morton was waiting expectantly at the hatch. Nelson shook his head.

"He didn't make a break for it, though it appears he did make a rather large distraction," he said to the blond XO.

Morton nodded. "We saw a whole lot of something headed for the bottom. The readings were really strange. It was like the Tantalus was giving birth or something," he said. Nelson told him what had happened, and described how the boat had moved to tie up next to the support ship, and what he supposed it to mean. He also revealed how the destroyers had come to locate him, and what his plans were now.

Morton listened to everything, nodding his understanding. "So you want to just wait here and see what Lee is up to. You think he'll find us instead of the other way around?" Morton could see the logic in that. Lee had planned this well, he had known where they would be, and that there would be difficulties in having Seaview or the flying sub stay in the area for any length of time. The nearest they could be was fifteen nautical miles away, however; he could not think of any way that Crane could bridge the distance. He was however ready to believe that his friend would find a way.

Nelson went and sat in the nose, Hickock following silently. As he settled down, the admiral began setting up his laptop that he had carried with him, hooking it once again into the antenna. Nelson had Morton bring the charts for the area to the table and they began looking over the possibilities. Nelson wanted to have a plan in case it became necessary to move back into the territorial waters. He glanced at the hovering Morton.

"Are we listening in on their communications?" he asked. Morton nodded and looked toward the radio shack. They could see Sparks working over something at his console.

"I think Sparks is working on breaking the code now. He said something about it being the newest version, and that he had to run it through one of the translation programs." As he spoke, Sparks rose and came forward with some papers in his hand. He gave them to Morton who looked through them. "Looks like regular traffic. They reported what happened to their command and haven't got any additional orders beyond not following into International waters. They radioed back to the support ship and let them know that the destroyer we hit was out of commission and that the operational one would be staying with it until another ship arrived. They seem to expect it in the next two hours. They make a reference to men left there to aid in the search and want to know what's going on but no answer has come back yet. Sparks will let us know when something comes in," he reported. Nelson sighed and nodded. He kept going over in his head what Lee had said before he signed off. What had he meant? And what was going on back at the mining site? This waiting was not what he wanted to do.

An hour later they watched on the sonar as the second destroyer returned to the mining site and the damaged one began making slow headway toward the mainland and a third ship that was just on the edge of their range. They had intercepted a message from the support ship back on site that there had been no success in the first round of searches and that they were getting ready to make another sweep of both vessels. Wherever Lee was, he had done a good job of hiding. It was some comfort to those waiting to know that Crane was still free, but the tension was beginning to build. It was only a matter of time. There were only so many places he could be. The captain of the destroyer had made the suggestion that they should take both the Tantalus and the support ship back to port and complete the searches there. Nelson was seriously considering other alternatives, none of them palatable, when his attention was taken by a call from Kowalski, who was stationed at the sonar, for Morton. He saw Morton go and the two men consulted. Morton frowned and with a nod to Kowalski came back forward. His face told the story before he spoke.

"The Tantalus is moving away from the support ship. Both of Pritchard's vessels and the destroyer are headed back toward the mainland." Nelson pounded his fist on the table, and Hickock swore.

"Damn it. Once they get there, any chance he had of getting off that sardine can go out the window. They can flood the boat with gas or just tear it apart bolt by bolt. Wherever he's at, they'll find him eventually," Hickock observed. He knew there was nothing they could do. For all his talk to Nelson about letting Crane do what he did best, he felt like there should be something they could do other than just watch the boat disappear into the sunset, along with Lee Crane.

Kowalski called again from the sonar station and a grim Morton went to see what he wanted. Nelson, his mind whirling with plans watched idly. Kowalski was explaining something, showing Morton something on the scope. Morton shook his head and went to talk to Riley on the hydrophone. The blond surfer shook his head, and fiddled with his board. Morton picked up the spare pair of earphones and the two men listened for several moments, Nelson could see the puzzled look on both faces. He rose to his feet and went to stand near Morton.

"What's going on?" Nelson asked. What could puzzle experienced operators so badly? Morton took off the headphones and looked at him.

"There's something down here with us, sir. Could Pritchard have something we don't know about, another submersible like the Niobe maybe?" he asked referring to the small DSV that they knew Pritchard had supplied for Summers at his last job. Nelson shook his head.

"There was nothing else in the area when we were there and the support ship doesn't have any type of launching facilities. What are you hearing?" Nelson said. Morton handed him the earphones.

"It sounds really weird but I'd swear it sounds like a tank moving or a big piece of construction equipment on tracks. It's seems to be coming from somewhere between us and them but we can't pinpoint it. Maybe a piece of automated machinery that's still running..." He stopped as Nelson jerked off the headphones. There was a spark of excitement in the light blue eyes that met his.

"Bring us around and take us toward that sound. Sharkey, get down to the missile room. Get the submersible retrieval unit deployed and ready to go. We're not going to get but one chance at this." He almost ran back to the nose and grabbed the chart, scattering pens and pencils as he jerked it off the table and took it back to the chart table. Morton met him there.

"Sir, that destroyer is going to be watching us like a hawk. As soon as we move into their waters they're going to come about. They can be back over us in ten minutes. They don't have any orders against depth charging us in their own waters," he reminded Nelson, who was leaning over the chart. He seemed to be plotting a course from the mining site toward their current position. It wasn't a straight course but jogged back and forth zig zagging along with the topography of the bottom. Morton looked at it and blinked. "Sir, what...?" Nelson looked up at him with a smile, the first one Morton had seen in months it seemed.

"The 'low road,' Mr. Morton. He said he'd be taking the low road home, and that's exactly what he's doing." He extended the course all the way to the nearest point of international waters, which was exactly where the Seaview waited. "And you're right, they will be back on us as soon as we cross over. That's why we have to be ready to snatch it up and run for the boundary-line. If we do this right, we'll be on our way back out before that destroyer can get her first depth charge in the water." His eyes met Morton's and he saw the understanding grow in the XO's eyes. A smile matching his own split the normally expressionless face. The younger man spun around and started issuing orders to take them into the territorial waters they had been skirting. Nelson leaned back over the chart table and studied the distances between where they were, where they needed to be, and where they would need to go to evade the destroyer. He felt a touch on his arm, and looked up into Hickock's dark eyes.

"Okay, Harry, I admit I'm not a sea officer and navigation was never my strong point, but what the hell are you two talking about. I've seen better courses than that plotted by a drunken midshipman. Why are we going back in?"

Nelson smiled at him, and stood at his full height. He was feeling rather good all of a sudden, and even Hickock's presence on his boat didn't grate as it had. "We're going in to pick up Lee, and that "drunken" course is perfect. It is the straightest line possible between the mining site and where we just were," he said. He saw Hickock study the chart for a moment with a frown and then, slowly, understanding seemed to dawn and a smile started to grow on the man's thin face.

"One of the mining machines? He's DRIVING out of there in one of the mining machines he dumped out of the Tantalus?" he asked incredulously. Out of the corner of his eyes, Nelson saw the men at the various stations exchanging smiles and nods, overhearing what the admirals were discussing. The whole feeling of the boat seemed to change. There was an energy that had been missing. Nelson nodded.

"It was a brilliant idea. It wasn't just a diversion as we all assumed. He must have been inside one of the larger machines. From what I remember from those files that you had on the Tantalus, several of the machines could be driven remotely or directly. Sampling machines they were, TRACKED sampling machines. He took a big chance. If it had landed wrong he would have been stuck there until they retrieved it. He must have rigged some sort of drag to minimize the chances of it landing sideways or upside down." He stopped and considered the various ways that it could have been done. Then, discarding the idea as frivolous curiosity, he continued, "He's been making his way out since the dump. The destroyer was focusing on us. The support ship probably has a minimal sonar system and no hydrophone, and the Tantalus' crew was removed for the search. No one was watching what was going on down below. As it was, short of a hydrophone reading, it was hard to see him on sonar unless you were looking for him. He must have set off a small slide or something that got Kowalski's attention. The machine should be able to travel relatively quickly on flat, silty areas and should even do pretty good on the broken areas. He just had to avoid the trenches and mounts. In another few hours he could have been here knocking on the hull." If we were still here,he added to himself, glad beyond words he had finally stopped trying to rescue Crane himself and let the man do what he had planned.

Hickock was grinning and shaking his head. "Leave it to Crane," he said laughingly. He scanned the chart. "Bet those depth charges rattled his cage a bit. Probably damn lucky we took that destroyer out a ways before they got the first one off," he observed. Nelson followed his eyes, seeing his own path back from the mining area, and how it must have passed right over Crane in the mining machine. He felt his own face pale as he thought about what damage he could have unknowingly inflicted on Crane had the destroyer lobbed its explosives over the small machine. Even at a distance the explosions must have been loud and unnerving. Hickock must have seen the effect of his words and he reached out and grabbed Nelson's arm. "Forget it, Harry. Don't borrow trouble. You didn't know he was there, and you had them well off before the first depth charge went. He might have been rattled, but he's still coming so he made it just fine," he said. Nelson met the darker eyes, saw understanding there, and nodded. He looked around as Morton came back to the chart table.

"We'll be directly over him in three minutes, Admiral. The destroyer has turned and is heading for us at flank speed. Given his speed he should be here in about five minutes. You can bet he'll be ready to drop his first depth charge at 5:01. He went active sonar almost as soon as we crossed, and I'd be willing to bet he's tuned in on the hydrophone. He'll be hearing the same thing we did. It is going to be very close." Nelson nodded. He gestured to Hickock.

"Come along, Hickock. We'll go down to the missile room and see what we can do to make sure we get the machine on the first pass. As you heard we aren't going to get another chance, the destroyer will see to that." The two admirals moved quickly through the boat, coming into the missile room as Sharkey was barking at four ratings who were swinging the submersible retriever into place. The locking davits were snapped into place, and Sharkey opened the hatch that had been modified earlier that year for launching and retrieving submersibles as well as the diving bell. The magnetic retriever slid out the hatch. The heavy electromagnet at the end of the retriever could lift even the heaviest of submersibles into the missile room, so there should be no problem with the mining machine. The only question was the size and shape of the machine. Submersibles tended to be long and svelte; the mining machine would have no such disposition Nelson was sure. In fact he assumed it would be more flat and broad. There was the possibility that the only thing they would be able to do with the machine would be to scoop it up and use electromagnetism to hold it to the hull of the Seaview like some large protuberance. Having such a bump on the hull would no doubt severely affect the handling of the boat. With the pursuing destroyer it would not be the best time to have such a handicap, but Nelson was determined that they would retrieve the machine one way or another. Morton's voice came over the intercom.

"One hundred yards and closing. He's stopped moving and seems to be waiting for us. We'll maneuver to within thirty feet and then it's up to you. The destroyer is just over a mile off and seems to be accelerating. Sparks says they have called for air support."

Nelson nodded at Sharkey who was at the controls. "Turn on the monitor, let's see what we have," he ordered, and Sharkey hit several switches. They had a view of the sea floor, and then all of a sudden, there was the machine, sitting in an open area with the thick silt swirling around it. Nelson felt a thrill of excitement. It looked like while it might be close the machine should fit all the way inside. The boat came to a halt over the machine. "Grab it on the front panel, Francis. That way you should be able to drag it in just like a submersible. It's going to be close on the width but if you get it amidships you should be able to maneuver it in quickly." He watched as Sharkey guided the retriever down and with an audible 'thunk' dropped the electromagnet on the hull of the machine.

Sharkey powered up the magnet, and began withdrawing the retrieval arm. The mechanism groaned as it took the weight of the machine, but it lifted off the sea floor. In moments, the nose of the machine was coming through the opening. Nelson grimaced as the scraping of metal echoed through the missile room. Sharkey cast him a hangdog look. Suddenly everyone started as once again Morton came on the intercom.

"Battle stations, Battle stations. Prepare for depth charges. Missile room, get that thing on board."

Nelson eyed the expanse of the machine that was in the room. He snatched at the nearest mike. "Get us out of here, Mr. Morton. It's over halfway in, there's no need to wait any longer." Almost as he finished speaking he felt the great engines start turning and the boat seemed to heel over to port as they turned. There was another screech as the machine was hauled over the edges of the hatch. The last of the machine was dragged into the missile room, and Sharkey closed the hatch beneath it. As the hatch closed, he lowered the machine onto the deck. The ratings instantly moved in with tie downs, securing the machine into place. Nelson was vaguely aware of the torpedo crew loading the tubes in the background, but his main focus was on the machine. He made his way around it, looking for the hatch. He finally spotted it on the rear of the machine, and looked for the release. It seemed to be a coded electronic locking device, and he growled in frustration. He pounded on the hull.

"Lee. Lee can you hear me? Can you get out yourself?" he yelled. As he did so he saw the torpedo crew opening the tubes they had just loaded, and he realized Chip had fired two torpedoes. So far they had not felt any major effects of the depth charges, so they must be keeping ahead of the destroyer. He was trying to figure out where they could cut through the hull of the mining machine when there was creaking followed by a release of pressurized air. The hatch moved out and then started to slowly slide to the side. As it did Nelson noticed that Jamieson had appeared at his side. The doctor was carrying a kit, and looking around the admiral saw two corpsmen with a stretcher standing nearby. "I guess you heard, Jamie?" he inquired.

"That our roving captain was back?" the doctor said with a smile. "Yes, and I'm ready for him." He patted his kit. Nelson smiled and turned his attention back to the slowly opening door. Finally it opened enough for them to see into the machine. There seemed to be a narrow passage leading toward the front. It was very cramped, and only a slim person could have gotten in to begin with. Nelson was pondering how they were going to get Crane out if he was injured and unable to move when a bearded face appeared at the end of the passage. For a moment Nelson felt a horrible let down, a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. They had rescued the wrong man! Lee was still back on the Tantalus, and this man had simply been left below by mistake. Then the beard had parted into a large smile, and he could see the amber colored eyes reflecting the grin. A strong hand was proffered in his direction.

"I may need a hand getting out. They didn't make accommodations for anyone over five feet tall in here. My legs feel like a couple of pretzels," Crane said. His voice seemed rougher than Nelson remembered, but it had been almost two months since he had heard it, so he wasn't sure. Nelson reached out and grabbed the hand, giving it a quick squeeze before he started to pull. He noted that the hair and beard were soaked with sweat, and the skin around the eyes was flushed red. As he pulled back, Jamieson stepped up to help pull the long slim form out of the hatch. Crane leaned back against the machine as if his legs would not support him, grinning at Nelson and Jamieson.

"Lee! It's good to see you!" Nelson said, one hand remaining on the slim shoulder. He could see that the tee shirt that Crane was wearing was soaked through with sweat. Obviously the machine did not have a very efficient environmental system. "Are you hurt?" he asked, concerned about the weakness Crane was trying to hide. The dark head shook.

"I'm fine," Crane said with a mock scowl at Jamieson who snorted. "My legs are cramped a little and it was hot as hell in there. I could use a drink of water." He pushed away from the machine and took a few awkward steps as if to show everything was working. As he stepped away from the machine, he could see the activity near the torpedo tubes. He turned back to Nelson. "What's going on? Are we under attack? I have to get to the control room." He started for the hatchway, but Nelson stepped in between him and the door.

"I think Mr. Morton has everything well in hand. YOU are going to the sickbay for a checkup, per regulations," Nelson said. He saw the flare of protest in the golden eyes, and prepared himself for the argument. Then something else crossed those familiar eyes, something he didn't recognize. Crane nodded and with a glance at the torpedo crew, and a quick smile at Hickock who had remained quietly against a bulkhead, headed out the hatchway. Jamieson raised an inquiring eyebrow at Nelson who shrugged.

"I'll give you my report as soon as possible," the doctor said, and headed out after Crane, not too sure that the captain wouldn't simply bypass sickbay and go to the control room anyway. He was concerned about the flushed skin and the obvious signs of dehydration and had noticed that the jeans and tee shirt were doing a poor job of hiding the weight lost since he had last seen the young man. Even more so, he was not too happy about the way the captain had been turned from his determination to go to the control room. He had seen Lee Crane try to drag himself there when he was one step from death, and to have him so easily distracted from his goal was disturbing. He heard the corpsmen coming along behind him, speaking in low voices, and he indicated they should remain outside when they got to the sickbay. He went in and found Crane seated on the examination table. He was staring at the bulkhead, a distracted look in his eyes. He blinked several times when Jaime came and stood beside him, and gave the doctor a smile.

"The bad penny, huh, Jamie. Did you miss me?" he said lightly. Jamieson however was not fooled by the light tone. There was something in the younger man's eyes that belied the jocular turn. The doctor went across the room without answering and poured a glass of water that he handed to the captain. Crane gave him a smile of gratitude and emptied it quickly. "Thanks, Jamie. That really hits the spot. I could only take so much with me when I left. I only had about a quart of water since I wasn't expecting to need more. I think I sweated that out in the first hour."

Jamieson nodded and indicated the tee shirt. "Take that off, would you? I'll get started on the exam and we can get you out of here. I'm sure you're anxious to get back to work." He watched that distracted look reappear in his captain's eyes only to be hidden as he pulled off the tee shirt. Both men looked at the speaker as Morton's voice came over the intercom standing down from battle stations and announcing that they were back in international waters. Crane heaved a sigh of relief, and Jamieson continued the exam. As he had suspected, the usually slim form was thinner than he remembered. "No food on the Tantalus?" he inquired as he listened to Crane's lungs. He heard the huff of laughter, and stood back to look the other man in the eye.

"Didn't have much of an appetite, Jamie. Had other things on my mind. I'll go see Cookie when we're done here. Maybe I can talk him into some of those brownies of his. I think you always said you could gain a pound just by eating one of them," Crane teased.

Jamieson snorted. "As far as our metabolisms are concerned, we aren't even in the same species." Crane grinned at him. Jamieson pointed to a bruise forming along the left side of Crane's chest. It was just beginning to show color, and Jamieson knew it had to have been inflicted in the last few hours. "And this was caused by?" he inquired, prodding the area gently to ascertain if there was any damage to the ribs. Crane grunted softy as he probed, but he could find no breaks or even signs of cracks.

"Got that when I dumped out of the Tantalus. There wasn't much room in there, but I managed to bounce off just about everything inside. That's what happened to the environmental system. Shorted it out with my foot on the way down. Must have been around 120 by the time I cracked the hatch. It was like being in the tropics, without the humidity," Crane said. Jamieson looked into his eyes with a penlight, and noticed the faint dark circles that were hidden by the dark complexion for the most part unless you looked closely.

"Not sleeping well either?" he asked casually as he looked into Crane's ears and gently ran his hands through the dark curly hair feeling for any bumps that Crane would not feel necessary to mention. He was amused by the profusion of hair and the beard. The fake gray that was threaded throughout gave the captain a distinguished look. The younger man sat through it all stoically, and shook his head at the question.

"Too much on my mind," he said again, dismissively. As if prompted by Jamieson's question, he yawned and stretched. "Is that everything, Jamie? I'd probably be a hundred percent better if I could just get a shower and..." He ran a hand over his chin, "maybe get some of this off. I forgot how itchy it is to have a beard. Do you know which of the guest quarters Admiral Hickock is using? I don't want to walk in on him," he asked. Jamieson must not have kept the puzzlement off his face because Crane smiled at him gently. "Last I heard I was no longer captain of this boat." He slid off the table, and pulled the soggy tee shirt back on with a grimace. He raised his eyes to Jamie's and this time there was no humor in them. "I can't take things for granted, Jamie. I won't. It has to be because he wants me here. Not out of guilt or gratitude. I have to be sure it's what he wants," he said, knowing the doctor would understand.

Jamieson took off his stethoscope and leaned back against the exam table, arms crossed. He sighed. "I think you both need to sit down and have a long talk. I don't feel that I would be breaking patient confidentiality by telling you that he's completely free of the drug. He's been stressed and he hasn't been sleeping well either, but otherwise he's healthy. I am happy to say the same about you. There seem to be forces moving against you, against us, that require you and the admiral to be on the top of your game. I don't know the full story, I don't need to, you know where my loyalties lie, but I know that the two of you are stronger when you act together. It's time to stop dancing around it and get it into the open. Get rid of the doubts and get rid of the past." Having said his part the doctor nodded toward the door. "The admiral is in guest quarters B. I'll give you half an hour to clean up and maybe get some food then give the admiral my report. Drink as much as you can to rehydrate yourself. Sleep would be a good idea too." Crane nodded in understanding and started out the door. He paused as Jamieson called his name. "Lee." He looked back. "It's good to have you back. I missed you. My corpsmen say I'm getting grumpy because I don't have enough to do." Crane smiled at him again.

"I missed you too, Jamie," he said softly, before he disappeared down the corridor. Jamieson stood for a few moments looking at the empty doorway. Then he scooped up his clipboard and went into his office to make some notes. He had thirty minutes before he had to report to Nelson.

Forty-five minutes later Lee Crane was stepping out of the head of guest quarters A. He was dressed only in his jeans. He had showered, and had spent almost 15 minutes cutting and then shaving his beard. It felt good to have the hair gone, but strange. He had used the color nullifier and the gray was gone out of his hair, but there was nothing he could do about the length until they returned to Santa Barbara. He was vigorously toweling his curls as he came out of the head, and didn't notice the man sitting at the desk until he had gone to the bunk and sat down. He shot back to his feet as he saw Nelson sitting there with a slight smile.

"Sir, I didn't know you were there," he said, his face coloring in embarrassment. Nelson waved a dismissive hand.

"Sit down, Lee. We need to talk."

Crane nodded and went to sit in one of the chairs across the desk from Nelson. He was surprised when Nelson rose and came to sit in the other chair that was next to the one he was sitting in. He had expected Nelson to remain behind the desk, maintaining the distance that had always seemed to be there in their relationship, that final difference between them. He turned to face the older man. Nelson looked at him for a moment then reached out as if to touch his face. Crane could not stop the instinctive flinch. He saw the sorrow in Nelson's eyes, but still the hand came forward and touched his now smooth face. He kept his eyes on Nelson's, hoping that the other man would understand that he wasn't afraid. The hand patted his cheek and then withdrew.

"It's good to see you, Lee. I was afraid we wouldn't be able to help you. I was beginning to think I had misread the situation and should have taken more aggressive steps to get you off the Tantalus. Then we heard the machine. 'Taking the low road' indeed."

Crane, unsure of what to say, smiled. "I couldn't be sure that they weren't intercepting the communications. Even with the coding there was always a distant possibility they could read what I was sending. I knew you would be there for me, one way or the other."

"And yet you are in the guest quarters and not your cabin. How am I to take that?" Nelson said, looking down at the deck. He recalled how he had felt when Jamieson had presented his report. He had been in his own cabin, writing up his report for when they returned to Santa Barbara. Explanations had to be made, and he was prepared to make them. Jamieson had handed him the report, and he had read it over with relief, seeing that there were no injuries to speak of, and some food and sleep would solve the other problems. He had closed the report and looked up to find Jamieson studying him.

"What is it, Jamie, is there something you didn't put in the report?" He felt a moment of trepidation before the doctor shook his head.

"No, I wouldn't leave out anything medical. The only problem with Commander Crane is the same one that you have. As I told him, Admiral, you two need to talk, really talk. Once you're done you both need some sleep and some good food. That is my medical recommendation." He got to his feet and started for the door. Then he stopped and looked back at Nelson who had risen to his feet, intending to go to Crane's cabin. "You won't be happy to hear this, but you might as well hear it from me. You'll find Commander Crane in guest quarters A. He didn't feel it would be appropriate for him to use the captain's quarters until you had talked." With that he had left the cabin, leaving Nelson to stand there staring at the door. Lee was in the guest cabin, like some stranger. Was this a sign of things to come? He had been forced to sit down at his desk again, his mind whirling with questions.

Finally he had risen to his feet and had gone to the guest quarters. Standing outside cabin A he had paused before knocking, almost reluctant to do so. He had waited almost three months for this, and now he was having trouble taking the last steps necessary to do it. He found his courage and knocked. When there was no answer he knocked again, still nothing. He was beginning to wonder if Crane had stepped out, or had perhaps changed his mind and had gone back to his cabin. He tried the knob and it turned in his hand. He pushed the door open and poked his head in the cabin. He could hear water running in the head, and knew that Crane was there. He stepped into the cabin and closed the door. He could see a duffel bag on the bunk, some of the contents spread around it. A laptop computer, a paperback book, and some socks. What looked like the clothes Lee had been wearing were piled neatly on the deck near the foot of the bunk. Nelson moved to sit in the chair behind the desk, intending to wait until Crane was finished.

He had sat there almost five minutes before the water had been turned off, and the door to the head opened. He watched as Crane's lean figure emerged from the small room, in the process of toweling his shaggy hair. He was dressed only in a pair of jeans and Nelson could see the bruising on his left side that Jamieson had noted in his report. It looked painful, but the doctor had said there was no sign of any cracked or broken ribs. It was something of a nice change to have the young man return from a mission of sorts with minimal damage. Crane obviously didn't notice him sitting there as he went straight toward the bunk and sat down. He removed the towel, and almost immediately caught sight of Nelson. He leapt to his feet almost like a midshipman being visited by an upperclassman. That same nervousness stayed with him as he had come to sit at the desk.

Nelson had suddenly come to realize that they were in the regular positions that they always seemed to take with each other, superior officer behind the desk and subordinate across from him. That was not the tone that he wanted to set for this meeting. He rose to his feet and went to sit in the other chair next to Crane. He saw the surprise in Crane's eyes. He found himself suddenly wanting to touch the younger man, almost an affirmation that he WAS here, safe and sound. He had reached out, and had felt what seemed like a knife plunge into his heart when Crane had flinched away. He had seen the realization of what he had done cross the younger man's face and the regret. He continued the motion and held his hand against the newly shaved skin, finally patting the cheek and pulling back his hand. Then he asked the question that was foremost in his mind. He waited impatiently for the answer.

Crane stared at him for several seconds almost as if he didn't know what he was talking about then he blinked. "When we last...talked you indicated that I was no longer in charge of this vessel. Due to circumstances I have been unable to speak with you since then. It seemed...presumptuous of me to just act as if that hadn't happened."

"Presumptuous?" Nelson repeated. "Before I was drugged, had I ever given you any indication that I regretted in any way the choice I had made when I made you captain of the Seaview, when I made you my heir, to all intents and purposes, my son?"

"No, sir, you hadn't," Crane said, his eyes not meeting Nelson's.

"Then, knowing that I was being affected by an unknown drug, and that my reactions were not those of a rational man, how could you think that anything that I said during that time was in any way my true feelings?" Nelson probed.

Crane was now staring at the deck, elbows on his knees, and shoulders hunched. His long thick hair shadowed his face, and Nelson could not see his expression. He silently contemplated the deck for several moments before he began to speak. "When you told me that you considered me your son I cannot tell you how much that meant to me, but you have to understand something, something about me. My first father evidently didn't care enough about me to keep me and my second gave up on me when I stopped being exactly what HE wanted me to be. I don't seem to do well with fathers... I think that when you were so angry it made me start thinking that maybe it hadn't been something wrong with THEM, but maybe that there was something wrong with ME." The dark head shook, but he didn't look up. "You were angry at everyone, but you seemed to be angrier at me. I started to wonder if maybe the... novelty of having a son had worn off and you had realized that you hadn't got much of a deal. That you were disappointed, and the drug just allowed you to express it."

Nelson found himself stunned at the revelation. He had never considered that Lee Crane could possibly see himself as anything less than a son any man would be, should be, proud of. It was a factor he had not considered. But if Lee had thought him disappointed then why...? "If you thought that, then why did you go after Pritchard? Why risk your life for me by taking on MY enemy?" He tried to see Crane's face, but the younger man kept looking at the deck.

"You might have changed your mind, but I didn't change mine," he said almost defensively. "If I was wrong and you still... wanted me, then it was simply a tactical strike on an enemy that was out to destroy my family. I was the best choice for the job given the circumstances, and I had a plan. If I wasn't wrong... Then call it a 'parting gift' if you have to call it anything," he said. Nelson pounded a fist on the arm of his chair and Crane's eyes leapt up to meet his, startled. Nelson leaned forward, his eyes locked on Crane's.

"In all the years that you have known me, have you ever known me to keep my opinions to myself or hide my feelings regarding important issues? I have been accused of many things, Lee, but reticence is not one of them. If I had 'changed my mind' about you, I would have told you to your face calmly and privately. The increased anger you felt was focused on you was BECAUSE I consider you my son. The portion of the brain that the drug affected has many different purposes, and one of them is the ability to recognize others. The more familiar the person, the more stimulated that part of the brain becomes, and hence the enhanced effect of the drug. Because of what you mean to me, you became the focus of more of the anger." He moved forward in his chair until they were almost knee-to-knee.

"I didn't make the choice lightly, Lee, and I'm not like your birth father, or the family who adopted you. My experience with family was different than yours was. Family means through the good and the bad. You may not always like each other, but you were still family. You were prepared to act on my behalf even when you thought that I might not want you anymore. I would appreciate it if you could now give me the benefit of the doubt about my feelings for you."

"I just didn't want you to feel any sense of obligation..." Crane started.

"Obligation is what is family is all about, Lee. Of course I feel obligated, just as you obviously did. But that makes it nonetheless real. I will not say that what I feel for you is never going to change. That would be foolish. A relationship grows; changes. If it doesn't then it ends. But I will tell you that you are my son in every way but blood, my heir by choice, and most importantly, my friend. I will never reject you or regret the feelings that I have for you. If I regret anything, it is that by giving me your loyalty you have acquired enemies that are not your own. Having said that I would now like to apologize for the occurrences during our last cruise. I might not have been able to stop it, but I do regret it, and I have to insist that you allow me to apologize. Do it for me, if not for yourself."

Crane looked ready to argue for a moment, but then nodded. "Apology accepted. Now maybe you'll accept mine."

Nelson frowned. "What for?" he asked.

"I kept things from you, at the Institute, about the spies. I don't regret the actions I took, but I can see how you might resent my presumption of acting on your behalf and not telling you about it."

"I won't say it didn't make me angry, but I understand why you did it. In the future, I would ask that you please share these kinds of things with me. I might not want full details of everything that you do, but I would appreciate being kept up to speed on what's going on. It's not that I don't trust you; it's just that I don't want to become one of those figureheads that doesn't know what is going on under his own nose."

"Understood," Crane said. He sat silently for a moment, and Nelson could see he was thinking about something. "I'm not sorry about what I did on the Tantalus though. I won't apologize for that."

"Understood," Nelson echoed. He sat back in his chair and sighed. "I think we need to talk more, Lee." He waved away the protest he could see on Crane's face. "Not the regular type of talking that we do, about Institute business or the boat. I mean about us, our relationship, our lives. You had doubts about my feelings for you, as unfounded as they may have been. I blame that on my own inability to express my feelings toward you in any but the most oblique and distant way. I know you don't expect, or even particularly want, public recognition of our relationship. Neither do I really; it's no one's business but ours and those we choose to share it with. What I am proposing is simply that WE talk about it. Would that be agreeable to you?"

"You aren't any more to blame for it than I am. I should have just asked, and not jumped to conclusions. I don't have any experience with 'sharing my feelings', but I'm willing to try," Crane responded. The two men nodded to each other, both feeling better for the agreement they had made even though both viewed the prospect with some degree of trepidation. Nelson finally sighed and reached up to rub his neck muscles that seemed to have finally relaxed.

"There have been some developments at the Institute that I need to tell you about. I have decided to take the fight to Pritchard and stop letting him take the initiative. More than one person has pointed out to me that we are stronger when we act together, and they were right. I truly believe that if we act together, of one mind, then there is no way Pritchard can win. But I want one thing understood, Lee. I am fighting Pritchard not because he has attacked me, or even because he attacked you to get to me, but because of what he stands for. He's evil, in deed and thought, and has surrounded himself with like people. He cannot be allowed to continue to ruin lives the way he has been. I don't care if it takes every cent I have personally, but I will bring him down. I would like to think that I would have your help in doing so. I know the money has never meant anything to you, and the Institute should stay untouched, so are you ready to help me spend your inheritance fighting a battle we may not win?"

Lee Crane looked deeply into the blue eyes, and saw there everything he could have ever wanted to know about how Nelson felt about him. He felt the weight of the doubts he had been living with lift from his shoulders. He unconsciously sat up straighter in the chair, his eyes never leaving Nelson's. He put out a hand and was pleased when Nelson's met it strongly. "What you have has never been what I valued about you. What you are is everything I have ever wanted to be, and as dramatic as it sounds, I would follow you through the gates of hell and fully expect to come out the other side. I imagine that Admiral Hickock has been sharing what I've managed to find in the computers, and that you've found the best way to use it. Why don't you tell me what you've been doing?"

Nelson had to blink several times to clear his eyes from sudden moisture. He squeezed the strong hand that held his, and started telling the man that had come to mean so much to him his plans to bring down Jason Pritchard III.

Chapter 14

Pritchard slammed the report down on his desk in the penthouse office of the PritCorp building in Hong Kong. He had returned there with Ortiz once it became obvious that Crane was not to be found on the Tantalus or the support ship. The report from the destroyer had given them a good idea where the spy had gone to, but the report he had just read confirmed that one of the mining machines had been missing when the Tantalus returned to the mining site. Pritchard had pretty much resigned himself to having to remain outside United States territory once he realized Crane had eluded them. He had already heard that three managers of PritCorp divisions in the United States had been indicted by the grand juries of the states in which they operated and that federal marshals had appeared at the Corporate offices with warrants for any members of the board that were there. To top it off, he had found out that one of his personal secretaries had quit with no notice. He was still trying to find out if the papers and files he had ordered destroyed had been taken care of. He was going to have someone's ass if they should fall into the government's hands. Just another problem.

He had opened the large house that the corporation had there in Hong Kong and had taken up residence. He had let his wife, Bonnie, know that he was going to be out of town for a while, and that she should refer all inquiries about his whereabouts to the lawyers. She had asked few questions, mainly concerned with not being late for her tanning session, but then Pritchard had not really married her for her devotion. She was arm candy. He knew it, she knew it, and she devoted herself to making sure that she was as pretty as possible so as not to loose the position. Pritchard had made no pretense of being faithful to her, as she made no pretense to him, but it was a mutually agreeable situation so nothing was ever said. For all that she was just a decoration in his life, he knew that under the artificially enhanced red hair was a keen mind that could see all the angles, and which was in no way as ignorant as his daughter Lucinda wished to believe. The two women were not even socially polite to each other and that was the main reason that he had not invited her to join him here where she could once again take up her main duty as hostess at his many parties and dinners. He didn't need to spend time refereeing those two when he had other things on his mind.

He looked over at Ortiz who had brought him the report and then had sat in one of the chairs in front of his desk while he read. The dark eyes were calm, as always, but he sensed the anger in the other man. Ortiz was turning into a strong right hand, though a little impulsive when it came to acting without permission. But he liked initiative, and when it was aimed at Nelson, he really didn't mind. His determination to ruin Nelson had reached a new level. He not only wanted the man ruined financially, but also in every other way, and then he wanted him dead. That it take place after a suitable period of time for Nelson to realize what he had lost would be nice, but if it had to be quickly, so be it. Before he would have settled on just the loss of Nelson's personal fortune and the dismemberment of his Institute, but now...It didn't matter that it had been Crane that had cracked his security and taken the files. He was well aware of Crane's doglike devotion to Nelson. He wouldn't act unless it was for Nelson's benefit. Well, he too would feel the wrath of Jason Pritchard III!

Crane could have had it all. He had been prepared to offer him control of the Tantalus, and a salary well in excess of anything that Nelson could give him, but he had turned him down with contempt, at least as far as Pritchard was concerned, and had returned to Nelson's side. Now to find out that even after the reportedly ugly incident on the Seaview the man still was working for Nelson was the final straw. His reports about Nelson's feeling for Crane must be true; the man actually saw Crane as a son, and evidently Crane was prepared to take anything in order to stay in Nelson's good graces. He wasn't sure which one was more pathetic; the old man looking for an heir to 'carry on his work' or the younger one taking advantage of an old fool. It was the only explanation that Pritchard could find for why Crane would have continued to act in Nelson's interest after the humiliation. He was after Nelson's money and power, wanting, waiting, to step in after Nelson was gone. Having a daughter with the same ambitions himself, he had few illusions about filial devotion. Crane was going to be disappointed though, having chosen the wrong horse to back. He should have grabbed the brass ring that Pritchard had offered, because Nelson was going down, and Crane was going to go with him.

"I want the scientists to step up the schedule on the Houseman project. I want it done next week. How is the construction coming at the new development?" he asked Ortiz. The man shrugged.

"I made sure that the construction crew was aware of the deadline and the consequences of falling behind. The final buildings are going up now, and the interiors are next. We should be able to occupy the buildings in the next two months at the latest."

"Are we still secure? I know there was nothing about it in the files, so Crane should have nothing on it. I expect complete secrecy on this, not the circus that we had going at Corporate New York," Pritchard said.

"And you will have it. None of the construction crew is aware of where they are working; they were flown in and are housed on site. Everyone who was involved in the design was never told where the buildings were being constructed, only the conditions under which they would exist. Any speculation they might have regarding the position is merely that, speculation. Those who do know the position are being monitored, and have been warned about the consequences of speaking out of turn. My men will not fail me, there will be no leaks." Pritchard nodded.

"And the Houseman project?" he asked.

"I will speak with Houseman. I see no reason that they cannot finish within the week. They are simply working out the last of the bugs. I would think that an actual deployment would be the best way for those bugs to be worked out." Ortiz smiled and got to his feet, "I will speak with him personally, and suggest it." He left the room. Pritchard had no doubt that the project would be finished on time. Ortiz was proving himself quite efficient in motivating personnel. He spun his chair around and looked out the window at the expansive view out over the Hong Kong harbor. Things hadn't gone as planned, and Nelson had certainly proven himself to be more resourceful than he had given him credit for. It seemed the scientist had some teeth, even if they happened to be in Crane's head. He rocked gently in the leather chair, not really seeing the boats moving in and out of the docks. He was seeing instead the future. A future when Nelson would be gone, but not before he saw everything he held dear destroyed. A future that would see him, Jason Pritchard III, back where he wanted to be, with the power that he deserved to have.

He would show them that you didn't mess with a Pritchard, and that if you did, you would live to regret it. He would show ALL of them.

The End...for now.