October 18th, 2025 Seaview, Indian Ocean, 1885 miles NNE of Diego Garcia
Lee could feel someone hovering above him. Whatever Jamie had given him was at least as good as the stuff the SEAL corpsman had given him. He was feeling no pain of any kind and was drifting in a very pleasant manner, except that he could feel someone too close, a danger too close.
He'd responded to danger too close and saved his life too many times to ignore the warning now. Getting his eyes open and his mind out of the drug-induced paradise was difficult.
When he got his eyes open he wasn't sure he was awake or asleep. There was a man he didn't know standing beside his bed. He glanced down and saw that the man was about to inject something into his IV port. He hoped he wasn't hallucinating when he grabbed the man's wrist and twisted, almost crying out with the pain in his right arm. He sure hoped he wasn't on some sort of funny drug high and attacking Jamie.
He grabbed the man's hand at the thumb and twisted knowing it took very little strength to incapacitate the man's hand and cause him considerable pain with that hold. This was fortunate because "very little strength" was exactly the amount he had. Years of training stood him in good stead and whatever the man was doing he stopped doing it and dropped the hypodermic on the floor as he grabbed Lee's wrist with his free hand.
In a battle of strength, if one contestant is lying in a hospital bed six hours out of major abdominal surgery and the other contestant is a relatively healthy male standing up, the standing up healthy contestant is going to win any sort of prolonged struggle. Prolonged in this case Lee guessed would be anything over three seconds.
The hypodermic was gone, out of sight at any rate, but the man had easily broken his grip and was now also out of sight, no doubt scrambling for his needle. Lee didn't think what little noise he could make would do any good. This man wouldn't be in here if there was anyone in the outer room. There was no way he was getting out of the gurney and making some sort of escape. His assailant would be on top of him long before he could do anything effective. He was damned, though if he would lie here and let someone shoot his IV full of God only knew what. He grabbed the IV line and yanked it as hard as he could, pulling the port out.
In his current weak condition the sides on the bed were an insurmountable obstacle. With the rails up he couldn't even roll out of the bed on top of the man scrambling around on the floor. With the IV port gone from his hand he was able to use his arm to lift the rail on that side of the bed and let it drop down. By this time the man was rising back up from the floor. Lee grabbed the IV pole and pulled it toward the bed as hard as he could banging it against the man's back and stopping his ascent for a moment.
The man knocked the pole away and was coming up fast. So Lee rolled out of the bed on top of him. That was the only thing he could think to do and the last thing he remembered. The pain of hitting the man's back drove him right down into a black well of unconsciousness. His last coherent thought was that at least no one would mistake this for an accident.
October 18th, 2030 Seaview, Indian Ocean, 1880 miles NNE of Diego Garcia
Styles thought it sounded as if they were having some sort of a problem in the inside room. He could hear equipment falling and then it sounded as if a body hit the floor. Styles cautiously opened the connecting door to see if whoever was in there could just give him an antacid tablet so he could go.
At first he thought there were two men rolling about on the floor and wondered if he had stepped into the middle of the military's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy in action. Then he realized one of the men was the Pakistani from the truck. He must have fallen out of the bed he thought, bounced out by the same sudden movement of the boat that had nearly knocked his legs out from under him in the doctor's office. The other man seemed to be struggling with the body.
He was a little surprised that the second man didn't seem to be in corpsman's whites, he looked to be in a regular pair of the crew overalls. Styles was trying to put all of these incongruities together while dealing with a stomach ache and it took him a moment to realize something was seriously wrong.
Unfortunately for Styles he realized the problem with what he was seeing the same time that the man saw him. "What's going on here?" Styles asked.
The man said nothing just threw the body that was laying on top of him to one side and came up from the floor headed straight at Styles, the knife in his hand clearly intended for use on the Senator. Pulling on the door handle with all of his strength Styles attempted to close the door before his assailant could reach it. The other man was younger and faster but Styles had the advantage of having the doorknob in his hand. He got the door closed and was half way across Sickbay when he heard the door opening behind him.
Styles made no effort to look back. He knew who was coming after him, the knife. He was across Sickbay and had the corridor door open when the other man hit him between the shoulder blades knocking him to the floor. He kicked out as well as he could and had the satisfaction of feeling one of his feet connect with something soft. Scrambling across the floor he had just enough breath to yell, "HELP, HELP, SOMEONE HELP."
His assailant apparently decided things had gotten too far out of his control and instead of feeling the knife between his shoulder blades he heard the sound of the other man's feet retreating down the corridor. "HELP," he called out again. This time he was rewarded by the sight of a corpsman coming around the corner at a run followed more slowly by two other men half carrying a third man between them.
"Senator," the corpsman dropped down beside him. "What's wrong, sir? Did you fall?"
"There was a man in there. He attacked the other man, the wounded man. Then he ran down the corridor."
One of the two men aiding the wounded man took off down the corridor at a run while the corpsman left Styles lying in the corridor and took off just as fast into Sickbay. A moment later Styles was picking himself up off the floor and could hear the intercom coming to life. "Doctor Jamieson to Sickbay immediately."
Styles gingerly tried his legs and found that while he had skinned his knee sliding across the floor he was generally unharmed. He started back toward the door to Sickbay only to be bumped to one side by the arrival of the doctor who made no apology as he thrust past him. Styles was in the doorway when the young blond pilot of the Flying Sub arrived and nearly knocked him over squeezing past him and then charging into the back room after the doctor.
Maybe it had to do with not being in the regular chain of command that everyone on this sub was so rude. Styles wondered if there was some way that when the Seaview was needed for regular navy missions, like the one he assumed they were currently on, that a replacement crew could be put aboard. This sub needed a crew that understood the importance of civilian control of the military and military respect for those civilians who ran the government. A moment later Admiral Nelson came through the door and Styles approached him with his concern. The Admiral made no pretext of listening to him but walked right past him and into the back room. Styles decided at that point that the problem with the Seaview started at the top and he wasn't getting an antacid tonight.
October 18th, 2035 Seaview, Indian Ocean, 1860 miles NNE of Diego Garcia.
Chip had the Seaview back on course for Diego Garcia and the Master at Arms investigating the sabotage in short order. O'Brien reported that there appeared to be no structural damage from the fire in Engineering Stores most of the fire had been the spilled oil burning off. Chip had the corridor sealed until they finished their investigation and to help the scrubbers get all the smell out of that section.
He was just about to turn the Conn back over to Reynolds when Frank's call for Jamieson came over the intercom. Chip left Reynolds and took off down the corridor. Any crewmen who saw him knew where he was coming from and going to and carefully moved out of his way when they saw him, his grim face fair warning to anyone too slow to move.
The Senator was loitering in the door to Sickbay but Chip was past him and inside with Lee in time to help Jamie and Frank to pick him up off the floor and put him back on the gurney. "Jamie?"
"I don't know, Chip. Go. Wait."
Chip understood the other man's cryptic instructions but only went as far as the entry and stood beside the open door. Out of Jamie's way but with a clear view of Lee. Jamie had Lee on the table now and was pulling the bandage off his chest. For the first time Chip had a good view of the damage to his friend. He closed his eyes for a moment and then without looking at him again walked out into the outer room. Semple and Riley were standing there waiting with O'Neil who was holding an arm in an emergency cast with his uninjured hand. John was over at one of the bunks leaning over its occupant. Two other obviously injured crewmen sat on chairs against the aft bulkhead waiting their turn.
"Anyone know what happened here?" Chip asked.
"Semple and I were helping O'Neil from the Engineering Stores fire. The Senator was lying in the corridor yelling when we came around the corner he said someone had attacked the Skipper and run off down the corridor. I took off after him but never saw anyone. Sorry, sir."
"Where's the Senator now?" Chip looked around for the man he had nearly knocked over in the doorway and didn't see him anywhere.
"I don't know, sir. He came in and then turned around and left."
"Chip?" The Admiral came in from the back section of Sickbay where he'd been watching Jamie.
"I don't know, sir. Apparently, Senator Styles saw something." Chip didn't have to tell the Admiral that he didn't want to leave Sickbay to question the Senator. But he could hardly order a United States Senator to report to Sickbay.
"Lee is unconscious. Will can't see anything wrong with him that wasn't wrong before, beyond that he pulled a few stitches coming off the table. He's stitching him back together now. We won't be able to speak to him for a while-he had to give him more pain medication."
"Yes, sir. I guess I'd better go speak to the Senator before he goes to bed and I end up waking him," Chip couldn't keep the sound of reluctance from his voice. He walked over to the mic on the wall and picked it up. "MAA report to Sickbay."
He turned back to Nelson a bit defiantly. "I'm not leaving him in here unguarded."
"Do you think those fires could have been set just to get the medical personnel out of Sickbay?" Nelson asked.
"It sure doesn't seem likely, sir. But I don't have any other idea why they would have been set. The only damage was some smoke, two drums of oil and a few winter parkas. The booby traps injured three crewmen but no one seriously. It doesn't make sense. Fire on a sub is so dangerous who would be suicidal enough to risk all our lives for fifty gallons of oil and few parkas? My guess, yeah, some sort of distraction."
Chip looked at the corpsmen working on the injured crewmen, "I can't believe the attack on Lee is unrelated to the fires, just too much of a coincidence."
Nelson rubbed the back of his neck absentmindedly, studying Chip. "A very dangerous distraction."
"I'll go with you to speak to Styles. Let me just tell Jamie where we're going," Nelson was as good as his word and two minutes later the two were knocking on Styles' stateroom door.
The Senator didn't seem too excited to see them having already retired for the night. But he invited them into his cabin and tried to answer their questions.
"I heard a noise in the back room. When I opened the door I saw the two men on the floor. One, the Arab fellow…"
"Senator I think there has been some confusion about that man. He is Commander Lee Crane. He is the Captain of this submarine. When you met him in Pakistan he was in disguise as a native Pakistani," Nelson spoke more slowly than he normally did and Chip could see that if Styles had been anything less than a Senator he would have been on the receiving end of some of the famous Nelson temper. As it was the Admiral's face was considerably redder than the norm.
"Thank you, Admiral I've been quite confused about the man's status on the Seaview. So he's an American spy." Styles looked very pleased with this information.
"No, he's the Captain of the Seaview," Chip marveled that he couldn't hear the Admiral's teeth grinding.
Styles didn't look very enlightened by this information. "Isn't Pakistan an odd place for the Captain of the Seaview?"
"Yes, my thoughts exactly," Nelson said and Chip almost smiled, but years of training kept his face very neutral, he would remember this little chat for Lee though, he would love it.
"Please continue with what you saw, Senator," Nelson encouraged him.
"Well the Captain was on top of the other fellow but didn't seem to be doing anything. The other man just sort of tossed him to one side and came charging toward me. He had a knife, quite a large knife. I slammed the door and ran to get help." Styles paused just for a moment. This part didn't sound quite as heroic as he'd hoped it might. He wondered if there was a better spin he could put on it, another way he could phrase it? "I ran to get assistance for the Captain. The man tackled me in the hall. I was able to get the attention of some men and one of them ran after the man." He would speak to Carstairs about it in the morning, see if he had any suggestion on a better way to word the part about going for help.
"Did you know the man? Could you identify him if you saw him again?" Chip asked.
"I'm sorry I only got a glance at him. When he came after me most of my attention was on the knife. It was a very large knife. He had dark hair, was a big man. I'm sorry that's about all I noticed."
"What was he wearing?" Nelson prodded.
"Ummm…what your crew wears and not khakis so I just assumed he was a crewman."
"Thank you Senator."
"You're welcome, Admiral. I hope your Captain is all right. That man just tossed him aside, no concern about him at all." Styles thought that now that the man was an American it wouldn't hurt to show a bit more concern, try to make up for his previous misconception about the man's status. Captain of the Seaview was quite a prestigious position; man wouldn't get to that without some considerable influence somewhere.
Chip and Nelson said their good byes and headed back down the corridor toward Sickbay, both men lost in their own thoughts. Chip couldn't figure out why anyone would set fires in the boat or attack Lee. He couldn't see how the two were connected unless the Admiral's suggestion was correct. Would someone really be willing to light the boat on fire just to draw the Sickbay crew away from Lee?
"Seems a bit far fetched, Admiral. But I can't think of any other reason for those fires except to get to Lee." Chip said reluctantly.
"I'll speak to Will. We really need to talk to Lee," Nelson was angry and making no effort to keep the anger out of his voice. Attacking either Seaview or Lee was enough to get Nelson angry on a good day, both of them were guaranteed to enrage him. Chip thought he'd better be there when they caught this man. Then, remembering Lee on the gurney with no bandage on his chest he decided that he was probably more of a danger to the man than Nelson.
John was still busy in the outer room of Sickbay when they got back. Two crewmen were in bunks and the third was gone, back to his quarters. "Is Jamie in surgery or can we go through?" Chip thought, not for the first time, that Admirals could ask questions that mere mortals would never consider.
"Let me check, sir." John was back in a moment.
"He's almost finished, sir. He said to wait."
Chip suspected it had been more colorfully worded than that but just nodded and went into Jamie's office to pour them each a cup of coffee.
Twenty minutes later Jamie joined them in his scrubs. Chip couldn't take his eyes off the blood all down the front of his shirt. "Coffee first, Admiral, then the cross examination." Jamie disappeared into his office and came back a moment later with a cup of coffee and joined them in the chairs along the aft bulkhead.
"He's still unconscious. I gave him a little more pain mediation, but not much, it's the trauma that has him out for the count. He was lucky. Tore out a chunk of my sewing but the important stitches stayed in. This trauma added to the exhaustion, lack of food and major surgery and he's going to be out for a while."
"We have to talk to him now, Will. About what just happened and about what happened in Pakistan." Nelson had his hand on Jamieson's forearm.
"I know. I had to give him something. I couldn't stitch him back up without giving him something." Jamieson was tired of balancing Lee's pain against the needs of his duty. He was tired of watching these two men worry about their friend.
"How long until we can talk to him?"
"Not long from the pain medication. But he's unconscious I don't know how long until he comes around. For a man in his condition coming out of that bed was a pretty severe trauma and as I said he's exhausted." Jamieson drank some of his coffee, funny how coffee always seemed to taste so good.
"Probably if Chip goes in he'll come around faster," he hated saying this. He wanted Lee sleeping.
Chip nodded and got to his feet. With Lee was where he wanted to be in any case. He took his chair beside the bed and placed his hand on Lee's again and started telling him about the fires. "…Wasn't much in there beside the Artic gear and some MREs. The Engineering Stores though got me thinking maybe we should pull that oil we're storing in the forward store room near the forward trim tanks back to Engineering Stores and keep all the flammables in one store room…"
"Good idea."
Chip had been so lost in his musings about the fire and what had burned that he hadn't been looking at Lee. He'd never felt Lee's arm move under his hand. Usually, when Lee came around from being unconscious there was movement as the pain came ahead of the medications ability to deal with it. This time the arm that Chip had his hand resting on never moved letting him know Lee was waking. That made him think perhaps Lee hadn't been unconscious, but just asleep. He didn't know if that made him feel better or not. He hoped that Jamie had given Lee enough pain meds to let him sleep and that he wasn't so exhausted he slept through the pain he was obviously now feeling. He guessed he didn't need to think about that and wouldn't.
"Welcome back to the world of the living."
"What have you been doing … to my boat?" Lee's voice was very soft and Chip offered him the glass and straw before he answered him. It didn't take Lee as long this time to coordinate with the straw and the drinking. Chip answered his question as he replaced the glass on the little table.
"Boat's fine, which you'd know if you'd really been paying attention. I come down here to report and you sleep through most of it. Two small fires, we think a diversion to get in here to you. Did you see who attacked you?" Chip put his hand back on Lee's arm as he could see Lee's eyes closing. If Lee could feel him there he wouldn't need to keep his eyes open to keep track of Chip's location. "I'm not going any where."
"No. I saw him…he had a syringe…his face was funny, mask or something."
"Nelson and Johnson are very anxious for that debrief. Can you do it now or want to wait?" Chip knew Lee would be anxious to finish his mission and wanted him to get the whole ONI thing done so they could concentrate on catching whoever had attacked the Seaview and her captain.
"Yeah, I'm good… Can you… sit this bed up a little more though?" Lee smiled at him opening his eyes slightly to see how Chip was taking things. "Hate to get interrogated…by two Admirals lying down."
Chip smiled at him and raised the back of the bed about six inches. "I'll get them. You want Jamie first?"
"No, I'm fine. What are you doing … about the fires?"
It pleased Chip that while Lee might spend too much time working for ONI his first interest was always Seaview. "We have no idea who did it. Clearly sabotage. I've got extra security on Engineering, Torpedo and Missile Rooms but you know the problem, Lee. If someone on a submarine wants to sink her, it's easy to do."
Lee made no comment. There wasn't much to say really. Fantastic as Seaview was she was still basically a tin can under the water.
"The fires were small and did no damage to the boat to speak of. I don't think whoever did it was after the Seaview."
Lee nodded.
"I'll get the Inquisition. Be back in a minute."