eminently suitable in more ways than one. Abraham will explain. I flew down to make certain there would be no misunderstandings. The mission is his and you will take your instructions from him. Any questions?”
“No, sir.”
That wasn’t true, of course. I had plenty of questions. I’d been on quite a few cooperative ventures where I’d had to defer to high-ranking stuffed shirts from other agencies, but this was the first time in a good many years that I’d been ordered to work under one of our own people; and as I’ve said, regardless of age, Doug Barnett was technically junior to me in our table of organization. Not that we pay much attention to technicalities. I realized that Mac was watching me closely. Perversely, I found myself a little annoyed that he’d felt the need to fly clear down here to give me the word, as if he didn’t trust me to take his orders unless they were delivered personally. However, it was also, I decided, his way of apologizing for putting me into an unfamiliar and uncomfortable situation, and maybe for the hoax that had been pulled on me. And maybe there were other reasons. I could think of one: When you have a kennel of good fighting dogs you’re careful to keep them from tearing each other apart.
I said, “Correction. I would like to ask one question, sir. The audio-visual effects out there in the Florida Straits. How were they rigged?”
Mac said, “Is that relevant?… Very well.” He looked at Doug. “Tell him.”
Doug made his report without expression: “After I’d picked up the Coast Guard one-hundred-ten-footer, or it had picked me up, and it was cruising along nicely in
Seawind
’s wake, I bore off a bit so the mainsail was between us and they couldn’t really see what I was up to in the cockpit. I pulled on mask and tank and flippers and dropped overboard, after starting the bang clock. I went deep; that ship came right over me. Even though I’d used a five-minute delay, which should have let the boat get well clear at the speed it was moving, I got quite a jolt when the charge fired. I surfaced cautiously and saw that
Seawind
…” Doug cleared his throat. “That
Seawind
was gone and the
Cape March
had stopped to search through the floating debris over there about half a mile away. Pretty soon they gave it up and got underway again and disappeared over the horizon. So I just inflated my vest and drifted with the nice warm Gulf Stream for a couple of hours until I heard the helicopter; then I used a dye marker to cue it in. The helo crew was in on it, of course, and the top brass and radioman on the
Cape March
, and Admiral Sanderson and the skipper of your boat; but we tried to keep the information circle as small as possible. Satisfactory?”
Mac glanced at his watch again. “Is that what you wanted, Eric?”
“Yes, sir.” I went on to explain: “I wanted to know that this mysterious operation, whatever the hell it may be, is important enough that Doug really sacrificed his precious boat to it instead of faking the explosion in some way. Well, if it’s that important, I guess I can sacrifice my precious pride or whatever it is I’m sacrificing. But I certainly wasted a lot of fancy speeches out there on the water. I even had the seagulls and pelicans weeping pitifully for my poor, brave buddy Barnett.”
Mac smiled thinly. “Well, I’ll leave you two to work it out. Good luck.” He turned at the door. “Incidentally, Eric, the
Lusitania
was torpedoed. It was the
Titanic
that hit the iceberg.”
The door closed behind him. We heard the smooth, nostalgic sound of the big V8 sedan starting up outside and moving away; a sound almost as obsolete, these economical four-cylinder days, as the clip-clop of a horse-drawn carriage.
“Well, now you know,” Doug said.
He whistled a few bars of the old
Titanic
song: “It was sad, it was sad, it was sad when that great ship went down.” Then his face changed and I knew he was remembering a not-so-great
“No, sir.”
That wasn’t true, of course. I had plenty of questions. I’d been on quite a few cooperative ventures where I’d had to defer to high-ranking stuffed shirts from other agencies, but this was the first time in a good many years that I’d been ordered to work under one of our own people; and as I’ve said, regardless of age, Doug Barnett was technically junior to me in our table of organization. Not that we pay much attention to technicalities. I realized that Mac was watching me closely. Perversely, I found myself a little annoyed that he’d felt the need to fly clear down here to give me the word, as if he didn’t trust me to take his orders unless they were delivered personally. However, it was also, I decided, his way of apologizing for putting me into an unfamiliar and uncomfortable situation, and maybe for the hoax that had been pulled on me. And maybe there were other reasons. I could think of one: When you have a kennel of good fighting dogs you’re careful to keep them from tearing each other apart.
I said, “Correction. I would like to ask one question, sir. The audio-visual effects out there in the Florida Straits. How were they rigged?”
Mac said, “Is that relevant?… Very well.” He looked at Doug. “Tell him.”
Doug made his report without expression: “After I’d picked up the Coast Guard one-hundred-ten-footer, or it had picked me up, and it was cruising along nicely in
Seawind
’s wake, I bore off a bit so the mainsail was between us and they couldn’t really see what I was up to in the cockpit. I pulled on mask and tank and flippers and dropped overboard, after starting the bang clock. I went deep; that ship came right over me. Even though I’d used a five-minute delay, which should have let the boat get well clear at the speed it was moving, I got quite a jolt when the charge fired. I surfaced cautiously and saw that
Seawind
…” Doug cleared his throat. “That
Seawind
was gone and the
Cape March
had stopped to search through the floating debris over there about half a mile away. Pretty soon they gave it up and got underway again and disappeared over the horizon. So I just inflated my vest and drifted with the nice warm Gulf Stream for a couple of hours until I heard the helicopter; then I used a dye marker to cue it in. The helo crew was in on it, of course, and the top brass and radioman on the
Cape March
, and Admiral Sanderson and the skipper of your boat; but we tried to keep the information circle as small as possible. Satisfactory?”
Mac glanced at his watch again. “Is that what you wanted, Eric?”
“Yes, sir.” I went on to explain: “I wanted to know that this mysterious operation, whatever the hell it may be, is important enough that Doug really sacrificed his precious boat to it instead of faking the explosion in some way. Well, if it’s that important, I guess I can sacrifice my precious pride or whatever it is I’m sacrificing. But I certainly wasted a lot of fancy speeches out there on the water. I even had the seagulls and pelicans weeping pitifully for my poor, brave buddy Barnett.”
Mac smiled thinly. “Well, I’ll leave you two to work it out. Good luck.” He turned at the door. “Incidentally, Eric, the
Lusitania
was torpedoed. It was the
Titanic
that hit the iceberg.”
The door closed behind him. We heard the smooth, nostalgic sound of the big V8 sedan starting up outside and moving away; a sound almost as obsolete, these economical four-cylinder days, as the clip-clop of a horse-drawn carriage.
“Well, now you know,” Doug said.
He whistled a few bars of the old
Titanic
song: “It was sad, it was sad, it was sad when that great ship went down.” Then his face changed and I knew he was remembering a not-so-great
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