P Deutermann - The Moonpool

“Or she’s really big and not far off,” Tony said. “Oh, fuck!”

He was right and I was wrong. She was really, really big and she was right here. We could hear the crashing of the bow wave and feel the engine vibrations thumping through the water. It had to be one of those giant container ships, which looked big enough alongside the pier. When you get face-to-face with one in the water and can count rivets, big doesn’t begin to describe it. With our own radar at short range, we’d missed it.

Then we were lifting out of the water as the pressure swell from the bulbous bow thrust us aside like two fleas and deposited us and our bow fragment right alongside the towering black steel wall of her port side, which hissed past us in the darkness. I thought about yelling for help, but it would have been like hollering up at an iceberg, with about as much effect. I wanted to swim away from those massive steel plates, vividly mindful of some very big propellers that were coming our way, but neither of us could really move. Our tiny wreck bounced along the side of the ship, spinning gently each time we bumped up against the sliding hull, and it was all we could do to hang on. Twice we were hit in the face by hot water coming from overboard discharges.

Finally the slope of the moving steel mountain changed to an overhang as her stern came up on us. We both instinctively looked up into the white light of her stern light, above which we saw a lone face looking down into the wake. And directly at us.

We saw the man’s head snap up and his slanted eyes go wide when he spotted us, but then we disappeared out of the stern light as the monster spat us out into her broad, smooth wake. The wash from her propellers coiled the water like a field of hissing snakes. Then we heard a wonderful sound: the deep, booming groan of her ship’s whistle. Three blasts, which Tony said meant she was backing down. With any luck at all, we were now unfucked, and just in time, too. The remains of the wake were dissipating, and we could see glinting, finny figures darting through the disturbed water, hunting for delicacies stirred up by the giant ship’s passage. Out on the margins of all the activity were a couple of really big fins, moving slowly, biding their time. Through chattering teeth, I prayed they were porpoises.

Forty-five freezing minutes later, we were huddled in the ship’s motorboat under two soggy blankets each, as the coxswain maneuvered under the boat falls dangling down from the darkness above. I’ve been cold before, but never like this. My bones felt like rubber, and I wanted desperately to sleep. None of the boat crew spoke a word of English, but they were expert seamen, and they’d been directed back to our position in the dark by someone who knew what he was doing, too.

Once on board we stumbled across acres and acres of steel deck to the massive superstructure amidships. They indicated we needed to climb the interior stairways, but I simply couldn’t do it, and Tony slid down to the deck and hung his head on his chest. When they saw the blood leaking down his wrist, there was more excited radio chatter. Apparently the damned ship was so big they used radios to communicate inside as well as outside. A few minutes later, a medical team arrived and we were carried on stretchers to the ship’s sick bay. They stripped off our wet clothes and rolled us up into yet more blankets, which produced about twenty minutes’ worth of chattering teeth. A cup of hot tea, loaded with sugar, helped a lot, while the medical attendant worked on Tony’s forearm. Then a ruddy-faced, bearded Englishman stuck his head into the sick bay and welcomed us aboard his ship.

“Right, then,” he said approvingly. “We’ve got one of your Coast Guard helicopters en route. Drink up, we’ll get you some dry coveralls, and then we’ll see how well the pilot does with our landing spot.” He looked slyly over at the medical guy doing his thing with Tony’s arm, whipped out a flask, and dropped a wee dram of something wonderful into my tea.

“Thank you,” I croaked. “For everything.”

“You’re most welcome. Made for an excellent drill before we got out to sea. You were lucky in more than one respect: This was the after-lookout’s very first watch, so he was actually doing his job. Normally, the chances of your being seen down there were those famous twins.”

I knew those twins: Slim and None. “I’d like to express my appreciation to him, then, if I may.”

He whipped out a business card. “Send me a check. His name is Hassam Selim. I’ll see that he gets it.”

I thanked him again, and then we were rounded up for the approaching helicopter ride.

Once at the Wilmington Coast Guard station, we had to endure an interview about what had happened and fill out a dozen or so forms. On the ride over from the ship, I’d thought about how much to reveal. I decided to mostly tell the truth, under the theory that, if questioned again, it would be easier to remember. The young Coast Guard lieutenant listened to my story about going out to sea to meet the Keeper and getting run over instead. He frowned when I was finished, and then asked if we would mind hanging around for a few minutes.

I put a landline call in to Pardee at the beach house and told him what had happened. He said he’d drive up right away. I asked him to notify the marina and to tell them there’d be a Coast Guard incident report to follow. He confirmed that we had purchased full replacement insurance on the boat, so the marina ought not to be too excited. He asked if we should call Quartermain, but I told him to hold off. Then the lieutenant came back into the conference room, accompanied this time by an older officer wearing the stripes of a lieutenant commander. He introduced himself as the station’s operations officer. He had one question: Did we think this was an accident or an intentional crash? I looked at Tony and then told the ops boss that it had to have been intentional. We’d exchanged radio calls, he’d told us to maintain our position, indicating he knew where we were, and we’d watched him come straight toward us on the radar. He’d arrived at the intercept point going full bore, plus, he had to have known he’d hit something, and yet he’d kept on going.

The lieutenant commander nodded and then said that he’d have to report this up his chain of command and that there would be law enforcement people, not to mention the marine insurance company, who would probably have further questions. I told him we were working for the Helios power plant and living temporarily in Southport. We’d be available to talk to anyone who needed more information-but for now, we had a ride coming, we were both beat to shit, and could we please just go home?

Ari Quartermain hung his gleaming black head in his hands and groaned out loud. It was nearly eleven the next morning, and all three of us were sitting in his office, which was not a happy place just then. Neither of us had physically laid eyes on the man driving that boat.

“So that still might be Trask in the lead-lined cookie jar,” he said. “And now someone wants you dead?”

“Sums it up pretty well,” I said. “How’s your week going?”

He glared at me from between splayed fingers. That good.

“The Bureau know all this?”

“They were our next stop,” I said. “I think I ought to tell Creeps before the Coast Guard does. He likes to know shit before anyone else. My cell’s shot. Can I use a phone?”

He pointed to an extension phone on his conference table. I put it on speaker, got out Caswell’s card, and called the RA’s office. I asked for Special Agent Caswell. Not available. I told them we might have located Carl Trask of the Helios power plant. Hold, please. A minute of hissing from the speakerphone. Transferring.