Jack Du Brul
Vulcan's Forge
This novel is thankfully dedicated to those poor souls who suffered through the first drafts.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Because this is my first novel, it is safe to say that I owe thanks to everyone who has ever influenced me, for a little of all of them is within these pages, from family and friends to casual acquaintances who may have imparted some piece of wisdom. A few notables are Elizabeth Ash for her scientific acumen and Dick Flynn for his firsthand account of a heart attack. I wish now I’d taken the time over the years to list all the others.
Actually writing this book was pretty much a one-person affair; however I’ve learned that publishing is very definitely a group activity. For that I must thank Todd Murphy and the other Jack Du Brul for proving it’s not what you know but who you know, and Bob Diforio, my agent, for being that “who.” At Forge I especially want to thank Melissa Ann Singer, my editor. If ever there was someone who knows how to hand-hold, it is she. I also want to thank you, the reader, for giving me a chance.
Author’s Note: For security reasons, the government forbids vehicle traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House. For reasons of continuity, I’ve left it open.
May 23, 1954
The moon was a millimetric sliver hanging in the night sky like an ironic smile. A gentle easterly breeze smeared the acrid feather of smoke that coiled from the single funnel of the ore carrier Grandam Phoenix. The Pacific swells rolled the ponderous ship as easily as a lazy hammock on a summer afternoon as she cruised two hundred miles north of the Hawaiian Islands. The tranquility of the night was about to be shattered.
The Grandam Phoenix was on her maiden voyage, having slipped down the ways in Kobe, Japan, just two months earlier. Her final fitting and sea trials had been rushed so that she could begin paying off the massive debts incurred by the company during her construction. Built with the latest technological advances in safety and speed, she was an example of the new breed of specialized cargo ship. The Second World War had taught that the efficiency of a specialized vessel far outweighed the cost in its design and construction. The owners maintained that their newest ship would prove that these principles worked as well for civilian craft as they did for the military. The 442-foot-long ore carrier was to become the flagship of the line as the shipping business greedily expanded into the booming Pacific markets.
Soon after taking command of the Grandam Phoenix, Captain Ralph Linc learned that the owners had a very different fate in store for their newest ship from the one proposed to her underwriters.
Not long after the development of maritime insurance, unscrupulous owners and crews intentionally began scuttling their vessels in order to collect often substantial claims. The underwriters had no recourse but to pay out unless someone, usually a crew member feeling twinges of guilt, came forward with the truth. For sinking the ore carrier, the crew of the Grandam Phoenix would receive bonuses large enough to ensure their silence. If the swindle worked, and there seemed no reason it wouldn’t, the owners were looking at a settlement not only for the twenty-million-dollar value of the vessel, but also that of her cargo, listed as bauxite ore from Malaysia, but in reality worthless yellow gravel.
Captain Linc held true to his genre, a tough man with a whiskey- and cigarette-tortured voice and far-gazing eyes. Standing squarely as his ship rolled with the seas, he ground out his Lucky Strike. And lit another.
Linc had served in the U.S. Merchant Marine all through World War II. With losses rivaled only by the Marine Corps, the Merchant Marine seemed to be the service for maniacs or suicides. Yet Linc had managed not only to survive but flourish. By 1943 he had his own command, running troops and material to the hellfires of the Pacific theater. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he never once lost a vessel to the enemy.
At war’s end, he, like many others, found that there were too many men and too few ships. During the late forties and early fifties, Linc became just another Yankee prowling the Far East, taking nearly any command offered to him. He ran questionable cargoes for shadowy companies and learned to keep his mouth shut.
When first approached by the Phoenix’s owners, Linc had thought he was being offered the opportunity of a lifetime. No longer would he have to scrounge for a ship, prostituting his integrity to remain at sea. They were giving him a chance once again to be the proud captain, the master of their flagship. It wasn’t until the contracts had been signed that the company told Linc about the predestined fate of his vessel. It took two days and a sizable bonus for his bitterness to give way to acceptance.
Now stationed on the bridge, a cup of cooling coffee in a weathered hand, Linc stared at the dark sea and cursed. He hated the corporate people who could arbitrarily decide to scuttle such a great ship. They didn’t understand the bond between captain and vessel. For the sake of profit, they were about to destroy a beautiful living thing. The idea sickened Linc to the bone. He hated himself for accepting, for allowing himself to be part of such a loathsome act.
“Position,” Ralph Linc barked.
Before the position could be given, a crewman stooped over the radar repeater and said in a remote voice, “Contact, twelve miles dead ahead.”
Linc glanced at the chronometer on the bulkhead to his left. The contact would be the rendezvous vessel that would pick up the crew after the Phoenix was gone. They were right on time and in position. “Good work, men.”
He had been given very specific and somewhat strange orders concerning the location, course, and time that he was to sink his ship. He assumed the North Pacific had been chosen because of her unpredictable weather patterns. The weather here could turn deadly without a moment’s notice, building waves that could swamp a battleship and whipping up winds that literally tore the surface from the ocean. When the time came for the insurance inquiry, the rendezvous vessel would corroborate any story they manufactured.
“You know the drill, gentlemen,” Linc growled, lighting a cigarette from the glowing tip of his last. “Engines All Stop, helm bring us to ninety-seven-point-five degrees magnetic.”
This precise but inexplicable positioning of the vessel complied exactly with Linc’s final orders from the head office. They had given no reason for this action and Linc knew enough not to pry. The engine speed was reduced, the rhythmic throb diminished until it was almost imperceptible. The ship’s wheel blurred as the young seaman cranked it around.
“Helm?”
“We’re coming up on ninety-seven degrees, sir, as ordered.”
“Range?”
“Eleven miles.”
Linc picked up the radio hand mike and dialed in the shipboard channel. “Now hear this: we’ve reached position; all crew not on duty report to the lifeboats. Engineering, emergency shut-down of the boilers and open the seacocks on my mark. Prepare to abandon ship.”
He looked around the bridge slowly, his eyes burning every detail of her into his brain. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he mumbled.
“Ten miles,” the radar man called.
“Open the seacocks, abandon ship.” Linc replaced the mike and pressed a button on the radio. A klaxon began to wail.
The cry of a dying woman, Linc thought.
Linc waited on the bridge while the crew filed out to the boat deck. He had to spend a little time alone with the ship before he left her. He grasped the rung of the oaken wheel. The wood was so new that he felt slivers pricking at his skin. Never would this wheel achieve the smooth patina of use; instead it would become so much rot on the bottom of the ocean.