"What's the mission for this patrol?" she said.
Unseen by her, he made a face. "The usual. Intercepting drug smugglers."
"What happened to that boatload of migrants you picked up on your way in?"
"Repatriated. Immediately. We dropped them at the dock at Port-au-Prince."
"Harsh, after what they went through to get to America."
"At least they lived. They can try again."
She raised her head. "You sound like you're sorry you caught them."
He shrugged and capped the bottle of sunblock. "It's my job. It's what I get paid for. If I don't like it, I can get another."
Her brown eyes were steady on his face. "And if it weren't?"
He stretched out on the towel. "Then, hell yes, let 'em in. They spent their life savings on passage to America, looking for a better life. Nothing our ancestors didn't do, it's why we're here. Those folks on that freighter, they suffered for the chance, bled for it." He thought of the little girl falling overboard when the freighter started to roll. "Some of them died for it. Who the hell am I to bar the door? Who knows what that kind of single-minded drive and determination and willingness to sacrifice would bring to the United States?" He took a swig from his beer. "My father's successor could have been on that boat. We'll never know now."
She put her head back down. "You should run for office."
He swiveled his head to meet her mischievous look. "Hah hah, very funny. Okay, you got me."
She shrugged. "It's the only way to change things."
He pointed a finger at her. "Boats, remember? Why I got into the Coast Guard in the first place? Boats, not Capitol Hill. Suits and ties and three-martini lunches. Always looking for more money to run." He shuddered. "Don't ever say that again. Don't even think it. Never gonna happen. Not until after my first lobotomy, anyway."
"So," she said. "Drugs."
"Drugs," he said. "Immigrant mitigation and search and rescue, too, of course, but mostly we're on the drugs. It's not like we ever catch enough of them to make a difference, but I've got to hand it to us, we're right in there pitching."
"I'm whelmed by your enthusiasm."
Her tone was a nice balance of curiosity and criticism and generated no offense. He capped the bottle and lay down next to her. "It's such a waste of the nation's resources, Kenai. I've got a new support officer and we're running down the budget and Suppo tells me if I don't spend at least a million dollars on fuel every patrol, Munro's not working hard enough. And that's just fuel, and we aren't even paying for that."
"Who is?"
"JIATF. Joint Interagency Task Force. Made up of all the three-letter agencies and then some. They work out of Key West. They're the ones who put the C-130s and the P-2s in the air and find the go fasts-or don't find them-and send us the intel. And we go get 'em. Or sometimes we do. Most times we don't. It's a big ocean."
She was silent for a moment. "I would think it would be, I don't know, kinda soul-destroying to be constantly not finding what you're trained to go look for."
He gave a short, unamused laugh. "You could call it that." He sighed. "It's the job, though."
"It's not what I think of when I think of Coasties," she said. "I think of you going to get my father when he wrecked his Cessna. I think of you saving my high school buddy Ole Johanssen when his crab boat went down off Slime Banks. I think of Katrina. The Coasties were the only government agency who had it together after Katrina."
"True." He was aware that his voice had warmed. He had told her a little about his part in Katrina. "I mean, don't get me wrong, it was truly awful, but I felt like we were really making a difference down there. Felt good."
"And this doesn't?"
He shrugged. "The Coast Guard has always intercepted contraband off the nation's coasts, Kenai. We have since before the nation was barely a twinkle in Washington 's eye. Hell, up in your own state, Roaring Mike Healy's Bear was a revenue cutter."
"Why does this seem different to you, then?"
He took a long swallow of beer, thinking. "It's not my business, I know that. I don't make policy, I don't pass legislation, I'm just the cop on the beat, swinging my billy club. But it's such a waste of resources. If someone wants to stuff powder up their nose or shove a needle in their arm, it's stupid but it's their business."
"So you'd decriminalize drugs?"
He thought back to the patrol, to the only time they'd come close to accomplishing what it was that all the might and resources of the United States of America, the greatest nation ever to exist on planet Earth, had sent him to the Caribbean to do.
They had been making what Cal described to Kenai as a gentle and inoffensive course south-southwest when Ops picked up the binoculars and found what appeared to be a small skiff adrift off their port beam. Ops tried to raise them on the radio and got no response. He called Cal to the bridge. Cal, relieved to be taken away from the massive quantity of email in his in-box, responded promptly and examined the boat through the binoculars. It rocked in the swell, its cockpit deserted.
"Let's lower a boat and go take a look," Cal said, which was perfectly within their authority. The disappearance of the boat's crew, always assuming they weren't sacked out below sleeping off the previous day's consumption of alcohol, always a possibility this close to Miami, had to be investigated. The skiff, unmanned and adrift, was a hazard to navigation.
They'd been about to launch the helo. "Do we continue the launch, Captain?" Terrell said from flight ops.
Cal hesitated, but only for a moment. "Launch the small boat first."
"Aye, Captain."
A boarding team was assembled, BM2 Morelli's legendary dimples clearly visible from the bridge wing two decks up when he straddled the coxswain's seat. "Load, lower, and launch," Cal said into the radio. The boat deck captain shouted, "Boat moving!" The winch on the davit whined, the small boat settled into the water with barely a splash, fore and aft shackles and sea painter were released, Morelli goosed the engines, and they were off.
Cal watched them go, not without envy. He remembered those first halcyon days after he qualified in LE. He had always been first in line for any boarding party. The worst thing about moving up in rank was that you left all the fun jobs behind.
"We never get to play with the big toys anymore," a voice said at his elbow, echoing his thoughts, and he turned to see his XO staring after the small boat with an exaggeratedly mournful gaze. He laughed dutifully, and they both went back inside to monitor the radio traffic. "Anything yet?" he said to Ops.
Terrell shook his head. Next to him, Velasquez, the ET3 who doubled as one of their translators, spoke into the mike in Spanish, hailing the drifting boat. He waited. They all waited. No response.
Cal looked around and noticed that the bridge, already crowded with the flight ops crew, had become even more so in the few moments he'd been out on the wing. BMC Gilmartin was behind the nav table, pretending to instruct BM3 Stamm on the finer points of charting the next way-point. HCO Harris was there, pretending she hadn't signed off on Suppo qualifying as helo control officer the day before. Suppo, a chunky chief warrant officer with merry eyes, pushed his glasses up his nose and raised an eyebrow at Cal, who repressed an answering smile, mostly because Harris was watching. EMO Olson was on the port wing, watching the small boat approach the skiff through binoculars, ET1 Jones behind the nav eval station, so they were more than covered if any of the electronics pooped out.