“Gawldang navy!” John yelled toward the sail as it sped past.
And then much to his surprise, a voice yelled back, “Sorry! Emergency mission — can’t stop!”
The two fishermen grabbed their coolers and pulled their capsized boat over to the bank. They crawled up on dry land and lay there for about ten minutes, breathing heavy and considering what had just happened to them.
Surveying the damage, John finally ventured, “So what do you make of that? That emergency mission stuff?”
“Sounds like B.S. to me.”
“Well, I don’t know… why would they say it was an emergency mission, if it wasn’t true?”
“Because they’re tryin’ to protect their asses,” Billy reasoned. “They just ran us over… illegal-like, and now they’re hopin’ we won’t raise a fuss.”
“Hmm, that’s possible.”
“Where’s the cooler with the phones? I’m calling in a complaint. If my bass boat’s been damaged, I want to make sure the U.S. Navy pays for it.”
On the bridge of the Louisiana, they watched carefully as the bow wave lifted the fishing boat with the strange underwater glow and pushed it out of harm’s way.
“Perfect,” Captain Adams said. “If we had been going slower, the bow wave would have been less powerful, and those poor guys would have been sucked right along the side of the submarine and into the screw back aft. As it is, they just got a little wet and a little shook up. They can handle that — they’ll have a story to tell their grandchildren!”
Seaman Hayes peered into the darkness with his nightvision goggles. I see ‘em crawling onto the bank, Captain. It looks like they’re okay!”
“Good. I’d hate to hurt a couple of good ol’ boys out on a fishing trip — even though they’re probably illegally fishing at night with a light! I just hope this little incident keeps them occupied for a while. They’re bound to report this, and we’re only halfway down the channel. We’ve got a good forty-five minutes or more before we pass Amelia Island and head out into the Atlantic. We want to be well clear of land when they discover back at the base that we’re gone. I guarantee you, it’s going to be like a hornet’s nest back there, and they’re going to send everything and everyone they’ve got to try to stop us!”
Chapter 19
The call came in to the Subron 16 headquarters at 2245 hours. Petty Officer Jones initially took the call and then called for the OOD after the caller demanded to talk to “whoever’s in charge over there.”
“Subron 16 Officer of the Day, Lieutenant Ware speaking.”
“This here’s Billy Kastle. I just got run over by one of your gawldang submarines in the Kings Bay Channel!”
“I’m sorry, sir, that’s not possible. We don’t do any arrivals or departures at night. All of our ship’s movements are during daylight hours.”
“Oh yeah, tell that to my friggin’ capsized boat bass.”
“Uh… do you mean bass boat?”
“Yeah, that’s what I mean…. what you just said.”
“Sir, have you been drinking tonight? I’ll have you know, it can be a federal crime to call in here and tie up official communication lines for no reason. If you capsized your fishing boat, you should call your dealer or a marina to come help you, not the U.S. Navy. If you call here again, we’ll report you to the district attorney. I hope I have made myself understood. Have a good evening.”
Lieutenant Ware hung up the phone. He stood thoughtfully looking at the phone in its cradle for about ten seconds, then turned to Petty Officer Jones and said, “Get the marine duty officer on the line. I want marine patrols to do a thorough recon of the lower base and report the locations and conditions of all submarines.”
Machinist Mate First Class Gordon Brown and his wife, Carolyn, left the Louisiana ship’s party at the Kings Bay Chief Petty Officers’ Club around 2250 hours. Sailors always like a good party, but when you only have three more days before an extended deployment, family time takes precedence. Married members of the crew were headed home with their wives to check on the kids in bed, send the babysitters home, and enjoy their own private time before the coming separation. As they drove out of the parking lot, Petty Officer Brown remembered that he had forgotten to retrieve a tape recorder he kept in his locker on the Louisiana.
“Oh, honey, I meant to bring home the tape recorder so you and the kids could record some messages for me to listen to while on patrol. It’s still in my locker on the boat. Let’s run by there. It will only take a minute for me to get it.”
They drove to the checkpoint separating the upper base, with family housing and various administration buildings, and the lower base, where the submarines were docked and maintained.
Pulling up to the checkpoint, a no-nonsense marine approached the driver’s window. “May I see some identification, sir?”
“Uh, sure.” Petty Officer Brown dug his ID out of his wallet and handed it to the marine. The marine checked the ID with his flashlight and then pointed the flashlight into Brown’s face to verify his identity.
“Thank you. And you, ma’am?”
Carolyn reached across the car and handed the marine her dependent’s ID card while Brown explained that she was his wife.
“Sorry. Only military and authorized personnel beyond this point. However, we have a waiting area next to the guard shack. Your wife can wait in there until you return.” Carolyn sighed at this little inconvenience of military life, got out of the car, and went into the waiting room and sat down.”
While Carolyn waited, Petty Officer Brown drove to the almost deserted parking lot next to refit wharf number 2 where the Louisiana was docked. Petty Officer Brown got out of the car and walked toward the two-man guard shack next to the chainlink fence, which ran across the entrance to the wharf. As he approached, he sensed something was wrong. There were always two Marine Corps guards at the shack, one inside and one outside with his weapon at the ready. Tonight, it looked like ten or fifteen combat-ready marines crowded around the tiny shack, getting a briefing from their squad leader.
Must be some sort of exercise, he decided. Gordon came up behind the two closest marines and asked, “Hey guys, what’s going on?”
The two startled marines whirled around, with one of them hitting him high and the other hitting him low. Gordon went down face first with a thud on the hard parking lot surface with 350 pounds of “marine” on top of him!
That’s when the remaining marines leveled their weapons at him, and the squad leader shouted, “Put your hands behind your head! Now!”
Gordon knew better than to argue with armed marines and did as he was told. “Hey, what the hell’s going on here?” he asked. His voice was muffled because his face was securely planted in the asphalt, and a marine’s knee was in his back as he was being handcuffed.
Finally, they pulled him to his feet, and the squad leader asked him, “Who are you, and where are our missing guards?”
“I’m Petty Officer First Class Gordon Brown, and I don’t know anything about your missing guards.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m a crewmember of the Louisiana, and we’re moored here. I was just returning to the boat to get a personal belonging. Captain Adams or anybody else on board can vouch for me.”