“Sorry, Captain. I know—positive thinking. Our next meal will be a hamburger, fries, and a shake. I’m getting tired of this low-carb, low-fat diet!”
“Let’s get some sleep. We’re going to need to be thinking clearly tomorrow.”
The next morning, George instructed MacKenzie to remove his name tag and all other insignia from his poopie suit uniform. “We don’t want anyone to be able to identify us or trace us to the Louisiana,” he said. “We’ll tell these guys on the freighter we’re… uh… oceanographers, and our research vessel had a ballast tank failure.”
“Roger that, sir. I guess that’s as good a story as any as to why two guys are all alone in a minisub in the middle of the Pacific!”
With that, George positioned himself next to SF-2 in the cove while MacKenzie climbed the hill to their lookout position. By midmorning, MacKenzie spotted a ship coming into view. He signaled to George and started down the hill. George got into SF-2 and brought its systems online, and by the time MacKenzie arrived, SF-2 was ready to go.
“Lock the hatch and strap yourself in,” said George, as MacKenzie lowered himself into the cockpit.
“Aye-aye, sir. I’m ready to go!”
George advanced the throttle, and SF-2 smoothly glided out of the cove and into the open ocean.
“Just head due west, sir. As soon as we get a little distance from the island I should be able to get a good sonar bearing on the freighter. Then we can adjust the heading to hold the lead angle we calculated yesterday.”
“Roger that. We’re headed two-seven-zero degrees, speed twenty-five knots to conserve battery power.”
Once they picked up the sonar bearing, George drove SF-2 to a position approximately two hundred yards ahead of the freighter. Battery power was extremely low, so he drove the fighter to the surface at minimum speed and held it there.
“Open the hatch and stand up through it and start yelling for help,” he ordered. “Let me know when they see you, and we’ll bail out.”
MacKenzie opened the hatch and stood up, with his head and shoulders extending out of the fighter. He began waving and yelling for help. Suddenly, MacKenzie ducked his head inside and exclaimed, “Captain! It’s not the freighter!”
“What? What is it?” Surely they hadn’t been suckered out of hiding to surrender to a naval patrol boat! Had they?
MacKenzie stood up to look again. “It looks like a deepsea fishing charter boat of some sort. It has a big banner on the side. They’re turning… I think it says… Greenpeace! They’re slowing down and turning toward us. They’ve seen me, Captain. One of the crewmembers is waving, and he has a life ring in his hand.”
“Okay, bail out, Mac! I’m right behind you — I’m getting out this time before the flooding starts!”
The two of them bailed out, and as George jumped from the deck of SF-2, the momentum was just enough to push the open hatch under the surface of the water. The water rushed in, and with a burst of bubbles, the fighter immediately sank from view.
The Greenpeace boat pulled up next to the two men, and three or four of their crew members hauled them safely aboard.
George flopped on the deck, exhausted from the exertion. Turning to the nearest crew member, he said, “Thank God you guys were here! We barely made it to the surface. We’d be goners without you!”
“Who are you guys?” asked the Greenpeace captain. “And what are you doing way out here? What was that vessel you were in?”
“We’re oceanographers. We were trying to document the damage being done to the environment by this submarine wreckage and the armada of navy ships east of the island. Unfortunately, our small research submarine cracked a seal, and we started to take on water. We had to bail out — I couldn’t hold it on the surface any longer!”
“Well, you two are real lucky,” said one of the crew members. “The current around here is real strong to the west. Even if you’re strong swimmers, you never would have made it to that island to the east.”
“Yeah, probably not,” said George. “We’ve been fighting against that current for a couple of days. I just wish we hadn’t lost all the evidence we had gathered about how those navy guys are polluting the sea. We had a couple hundred water samples that would have made them look real bad.”
“Oh yeah?” responded the Greenpeace captain. “I like the sounds of this — maybe we can use your testimony when we get back to Auckland.”
George and MacKenzie exchanged a quick glance before George coolly responded, “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Without the water samples, the testimony would be useless. It’ll just make Greenpeace look like idiots. Besides, my colleague and I are going to be in enough trouble as it is for losing our research sub. I don’t want repercussions from the authorities on top of that! Can we please keep this whole thing confidential?”
George found a very sympathetic audience in the Greenpeace crew members. They fully understood the kinds of pressures the military-industrial complex could put on people trying to save the planet. George and MacKenzie had nothing to worry about — the Greenpeace crew members would never tell anyone about this rescue.
Two days later, the Greenpeace boat arrived in Auckland. Their Greenpeace friends gave George and MacKenzie some fresh clothes and a few dollars to tide them over since they had lost everything when their research sub went down. After a fond farewell and vows to continue the fight to save Earth, George and MacKenzie left the boat and walked down the seaside pier into the bustle of the city.
“Where to now, Captain?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I have a hunch. Let’s head down to the office of the shipping company that runs those freighters. That’s probably where the Nuku came from anyway. We may get some leads there.”
“This is certainly not the best part of town… or the best smelling… I hope.” The smell of dead and rotting fish rose from the bay and pervaded the air.
“No, the area in any seaport around the docks is usually rundown and dangerous. Watch our backs, Mac. I’d hate to have gone through all we have, just to get mugged and stabbed at the Auckland docks.”
“Likewise, Captain.”
“And stop calling me captain. Let’s use… Brad for now.”
“Okay, Brad.”
The office was in an old, dilapidated, three-story red brick building, which appeared to be part offices and part warehouse. Many years of abuse by the South Pacific weather had taken its toll. Next to the door was a small, freshly painted plaque that read, “Able Bros. Shipping, Ltd.”
George pushed open the door and walked in. A number of wooden chairs were scattered around the dimly lit room as if the room was used as a waiting area by crewmembers or passengers while waiting for the next boat to Tonga. The far wall was covered by a blackboard with schedules for each freighter drawn in with chalk. In front of the blackboard, a young man sat behind a desk facing them. He was busy writing in a ledger. Without looking up, he said, “The boat’s already left for today. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
“We weren’t really interested in going anywhere,” said George. “We’re looking for some information.”
The young man looked up from his ledger. “What kind of information?”
“Do you ever lease your boats?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“Not that I know of.”
George was about to give up, figuring he had been wrong and this was not where Dwight had leased the Nuku. As he turned to leave, he suddenly saw a small detail in the room that he had not noticed before. Along the top and the bottom of the blackboard were narrow strips of cork. Their shiny frames indicated they had been recently added. Stretching across the blackboard from top to bottom, and tied to tacks stuck into the cork strips, was a string. The string indicated present time for the chalkboard schedules. George’s heart practically skipped a beat!