Arthur Clarke - Cradle

Nick stood up. “Well, I’ve run out of superlatives By the way, are there more of you, brothers, sisters, anything? I guess I’d like to warn the rest of the world.”

“Only me now,” Troy replied. a faraway look fleetingly crossing his face. “I had a brother, Jamie, six years older than me. We were very close. He died in an automobile accident when I was fourteen.”

There was an awkward silence. “I’m sorry,” Nick said, again touched by Troy’s openness. Troy shrugged his shoulders and struggled with the sudden memory.

Nick changed the subject. They talked about the boat and then about Homer and his crew for several minutes. Suddenly Nick looked at his watch. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “It’s after four o’clock. Weren’t we supposed to meet Carol Dawson at four?”

Troy jumped out of his chair. “We sure were. Some partners we turned out to be,” he was grinning again, “spending the entire afternoon drinking beer and playing games.” The two men shared a small hug, threw the empty beer cans in the trash, and went out the door toward Nick’s car.

Carol was clearly irritated as she sat in the communications room at the Marriott. She was drumming her fingers on the desk while she listened to the telephone ring. There was a click and then Nick’s voice said, “I am not at home at the present time. But if—” She flipped the switch off hastily and completed the sentence, her sardonic mimicry releasing some of her frustration, “But if you’ll leave your name, your number, and the time that you called, I’ll get back to you as soon as I return. S-h-i-t. Shit. I knew I should have called before I left Miami.”

She dialed another number. Bernice answered and put her right through (on video) to Dr. Dale Michaels. Carol did not bother with a greeting. “Can you believe that I can’t even find the stupid bastard? He’s not on his boat, he’s not at home. Nobody knows where he is. I could have stayed in Miami and taken a nap.”

Carol had not told Dr. Dale much about Nick and Troy. And what she had said about Nick had not been flattering.

“Well, what did you expect?” Dale responded. “You wanted to go out with amateurs as a cover. Why would you think that he would be easy to find before your appointment? That kind usually stays in bed with his dame of the day until he has some reason to greet the world.” Dale chuckled to himself.

Carol found herself strangely annoyed by Dale’s disdainful comment about Nick’s love life. She started to say something but decided against it. “Say, Dale,” she said instead, “is this phone line absolutely secure? I have a couple of sensitive items to discuss with you.”

He smiled. “Nothing to worry about. I have sensors that flash if there is the slightest unexplained break anywhere in the line. Even on your end.”

“Good,” Carol replied. She pulled out her notebook and scanned a handwritten list.” As far as Arnie Webber knows,” she said, looking up at the video camera, “there are no legal prohibitions against salvaging any U. S. government property, provided it is returned to its rightful owner very soon after its retrieval. So I wouldn’t technically be committing a crime if I pull the missile up.” She checked the first item off her list.

“But, Dale, I thought about something else on the flight down here from Miami. This thing is, after all, some kind of guided missile. What if it blows up? Am I crazy to worry about such a thing? Or is it somehow incapacitated or what-ever by sitting down there in the sand and salt water for several days?”

Dale laughed. “Sometimes, Carol, you’re divine. I am fairly confident that the new missile is designed to operate either in the air or in water. And I don’t think that the sand would be able to foul up its critical parts in a short period of time. However, the fact that it hasn’t exploded yet suggests to me that it probably wasn’t armed in the first place, except possibly for a small destruct device that may or may not have already failed. You are taking a calculated risk in retrieving that missile. I still strongly suggest that you make your dive, obtain the photographs, and then go public with the story. Dredging the missile up for display purposes seems to me to be more of a stunt than journalism. Besides, it’s dangerous.”

Carol was curt. “As I said in the car, you are entitled to your opinion. The Navy could make a case that I faked the pictures somehow. But they cannot argue with a missile that has physical presence and can clearly be seen by a nationwide television audience. I want maximum impact for the story.”

She checked another item off the list in her notebook. “Oh, yes, I forgot to mention this morning that I met another boat captain down here, a bit of a creep actually, an older fat man named Homer. He seemed to recognize me almost immediately. Wealthy, big yacht and all that. Strange crew—”

“Was his last name Ashford? Homer Ashford?” Dale interrupted her.

Carol nodded. “So you know him?” she asked.

“Certainly,” Dale replied. “He was the leader of the expedition that found the Santa Rosa treasure in 1986. You’ve met him too, although it’s obvious you’ve forgotten. He and his wife were guests at the MOI awards banquet early in 1993.” Dale stopped to think. “That’s right. I remember now, you were real late coming to the party because of that threat made against you by Juan Salvador. But I’m surprised you forgot them, the wife especially. She was a great big fat woman and she thought you were the cat’s pajamas.”

Slowly but surely it all clicked in Carol’s memory. She recalled a bizarre evening right after she first started going with Dale. She had run a piece in the Herald on cocaine trafficking and had suggested that the Cuban city councilman, Juan Salvador, was deliberately inhibiting the police investigations. At noon that day, a usually reliable source had called her editor at the paper and told him that Senor Salvador had just purchased a contract on Carol’s life. The Herald had assigned her a bodyguard and recommended that she alter her normal schedule so that her whereabouts would always be uncertain.

The evening of the MOI banquet Carol was in a fog. The bodyguard had been with her for only three hours and already she felt confined and restricted. But Carol had been genuinely frightened by the threat. At the banquet she had scrutinized every face, looking for an assassin, waiting for someone to make a move. As she sat in the hotel communications room fourteen months later, she did vaguely remember meeting Homer (he had been dressed in a tux) and some jolly fat woman who had followed her around for twenty minutes or so. Damnit, Carol thought. It’s my memory again. I should have recognized him immediately. How stupid of me.

“Okay,” Carol said to Dale, “I remember them now. But why were they at the MOI awards banquet?”

“We were honoring our leading benefactors that night,” Dale replied. “Homer and Ellen have been big supporters of our underwater sentry effort. In fact, he has field tested many of our prototypes at his facility there in Key West. Real solid test data too. Best compilation of sentry/intruder responses that anybody has catalogued. Why? it was Ashford who showed us how the MQ-6 could be fooled—”

“Okay, Okay,” Carol said, realizing that her tolerance threshold was still extremely low. “Thanks for the information. It’s now a quarter till four. I’m going to go down to the marina to meet Nick Williams and make arrangements for tomorrow. If anything new comes up, I’ll call you at home tonight.”

“Ciao,” said Dale Michaels. trying without success to sound sophisticated, “and please be careful.”

Carol hung up the phone with a sigh. She wondered if she should spend a minute or two figuring out where she and Dale were going. Or not going. As the case may be. She thought about all the things she needed to do. She closed her notebook and rose from her chair. Not right now, she thought I don’t have time now to think about Dale. But as soon as I have a break in this crazy life of mine.