Dana Stabenow - Blindfold Game

He stole a sideways glance at Lieutenant Commander Lange, standing with her shoulders squared, her hands clasped lightly in the small of her back, swaying slightly with the roll of the ship. She was taller than he was, he guessed right around five eight, with a lush figure that the baggy fleece uniform did absolutely nothing to hide. It was generally agreed among the enlisted men that Lange was the officer they’d most like to be marooned on a loran station with, but mostly they thought of her as a good officer, smart without being arrogant, friendly without playing favorites, and a good leader without descending into tyranny. She was also, they all knew, targeted for promotion. She’d have her own two-eighty sooner or later. Razo wouldn’t mind serving under her when that happened, so long as her ship was stationed in Kodiak.

Sara, unaware of the Eugene Razo Seal of Approval she’d just been awarded, saw Razo’s hands relax and faced forward again to watch the bow cleave white water against a gray sky. The old man was a good sailor, but he lacked anything approaching a recognizable social skill. Of course, that was why God made executive officers. She grinned to herself and bent a weather eye forward.

There was a ten-knot wind blowing out of the southeast, whipping the surface of the water into a froth of stiff white peaks. She raised binoculars to search the horizon. Still nothing. She consulted the display hanging from the overhead, with the Sojourner Truth in the middle of the screen and a series of dots in the upper-left-hand section of the screen moving in an elongated circular route the eastern edge of which defined the Maritime Boundary Line.

There were a lot of dots. She counted eleven, each of them representing a Russian seafood processor with one- and two-mile-long nets dragging the bottom of the ocean trailing behind, some of which played mother ship to smaller vessels with their own nets out.

One of the dots was way over the line, with another dot coming up fast behind her from the south.

“Where’s our target, Tommy?” the captain said.

“They should be in sight at any moment, Captain,” Tommy Penn replied.

“Good.” The heavy beat of all four Caterpillar generators and both propellers pushed the Sojourner Truth along at fifteen-point-two knots, better than anything any of the rust buckets ahead of them could do. Sara had cause to know. It had become almost a habit to head out on patrol and arrive just in time to see the Russian fish processor Pheodora slide over the line from American waters to Russian.

It happened once and if you were charitable you might think it was a mistake, that the man on watch wasn’t paying attention to his GPS, and okay, you’d let the incursion ride this time. It was not the Coast Guard’s job to interfere with fishers going about the lawful business of making a living.

A second incursion, you could allow for wind and tide and swell and chop to shove the boat off course. Even a third time, you could make allowances for equipment breaking down. But crew carelessness, bad weather, and instrument failure did not explain five incursions. There wasn’t any excuse, really; the Russians had established a 1.5-mile buffer zone on their side of the line in which no vessels were supposed to fish, specifically to limit the incursions that precipitated incidents like this one.

All five times the Pheodora ‘s skipper had been cagey enough to keep the ship within three hundred yards of the line, so that if a Coast Guard C-130 Hercules on patrol or a helo launched from a cutter appeared on the horizon, one kick to the rudder put the vessel’s bow back over. Given the conservative nature of American interdiction on the MBL, that was enough to cause the Coast Guard to back off.

This, however, was the Pheodora ‘s sixth incursion in two patrols in one calendar year, and this time she’d been caught two miles into American territorial waters. Her gear was out, although the pilot of the Coast Guard Here who had first spotted her had informed them that she was pulling it in fast. The Sojourner Truth had launched her helo immediately and the Here had handed off hot pursuit and continued on its patrol.

Captain Lowe was a prudent man nearing retirement, not known as a cowboy, but it was obvious to all of them that he had had just about enough. The last time they’d threatened a boarding. This time, Sara was pretty sure, they would be boarding the Theodora, arresting the crew, confiscating the catch, and taking command of the vessel to bring it into Dutch Harbor and turn it over to the federal authorities. Where, Sara very much hoped, it would be sold at auction to the highest bidder and the resulting monies invested in some worthy government agency, like, say, the U.S. Coast Guard.

“What the-” The captain was training a pair of binoculars on the horizon. “What’s that?”

It was, of all things, a freighter.

The entire bridge crew stared. The chief put what they were all thinking into words. “What is she doing way the hell and gone up here? Especially at this time of year?”

She wouldn’t have been such an odd sight if they’d spotted her four degrees south, where freighters and containerships hid from weather north of the Aleutians year round on the great circle route between Asia and North America, but here, crossing the Doughnut Hole, she was as exotic as a scarlet macaw in Kaktovik. She rode low in the water, indicating a full load. She had cargo containers strapped three high to her foredeck. Everything looked well secured, which made Sara think well of her master. The weather was clear enough to read the name lettered on her bow.

“Ops,” the captain said.

“On it, Captain,” Ops said, busy on the computer. A moment later he said, “Their IRCS checks out, captain. It’s the Star of Bali, a tramp freighter. Panamanian-owned.”

“Give them a call.”

Ops reached for the mike. “U.S. Coast Guard cutter Sojourner Truth to freighter the Star of Bali.”

There was a momentary silence, then response. The voice was male, with an Indian accent that stumbled badly over the cutter’s name. “Cutter Sojourner Truth, freighter the Star of Bali. We read you loud and clear, over.”

“Yeah,” Ops said into the mike, “freighter the Star of Bali, cutter Sojourner Truth, no problems here. Just wondering what you’re doing so far north.”

“Coast guard, Star of Bali, we running from weather, over.”

“Any farther north and you won’t have to worry about the weather, you’ll have to worry about the ice,” Ops said. He keyed the mike. “Yeah, Star of Bali, cutter Sojourner Truth, understood. What was your last port of call, what’s your next port of call, and what cargo are you carrying?”

“Coast guard, Star of Bali, our last port of call was Petropavlovsk, our next port Seward is. Our cargo is steel and drilling equipment.”

Ops looked at the captain, who looked at Sara, who shrugged. “No reason to stop them, sir.”

“No.” The captain nodded at Ops.

u Star of Bali, cutter Sojourner Truth, good copy. Be advised, there is another storm headed out of the southeast, rated hurricane force.“

“Cutter Sojourner Truth, Star of Bali, many thanks for the advisory. Star of Bali out.”

“Safe journey, Star of Bali, Sojourner Truth out.” Ops looked at Sara. “It takes all kinds.”

“That it does,” the captain said. “Back to business, people.”

“Aye, Captain.”

The radio erupted with an excited call from the lookout on watch above at the same time Chief Edelen said in a voice that was not quite a shout, u Pheodora in sight, sir!“