Before the Dead Walked, page 18
The Rangers slumped back against the bulkhead, catching their breath, as CWO Collins steered the trawler out to deeper waters. They didn’t have much of a lead, but perhaps it was enough. Russian ships, now aware that something strange was happening turned in pursuit.
Not only that, but on the distant horizon, quite a Pacific gale was brewing, as an Arctic cold front had just slammed into a high pressure system. Towering billowing clouds tumbled and spilled across the sky and in the waning light; the expanse was ripped apart by bolts of angry lightning. It was a spectacular light show.
Colonel Hatch was standing on the aft port quarter, binoculars pressed hard against his eyes. Ensign Alvarez stood by his side.
“Are they giving chase?” she asked.
“Yes, indeed they are,” he replied. “The only advantage we have is we’re faster, as long as the CWO knows what he’s doing.”
He looked at her.
She couldn’t help it, but giggled.
“What?” he demanded.
“You look like a raccoon, sir,” Lupita replied apologetically.
The colonel smiled. “I imagine I do.”
Up on her tippy toes, she gave him a kiss on the nose. “You’re a pretty cute raccoon, at that. I’m going to see if I can help the chief.”
Colonel Hatch smiled, but soon he was alone. Curiosity got the better of him and the veteran officer wandered off to explore the trawler.
Hatch heard footsteps behind him.
Spinning around, he prepared to defend himself.
Much to his surprise, however, it was Lupita again.
She stood in the shadows.
“Do you have something to report, Ensign?” he said, trying to sound like an officer.
“Are you okay, sir?” she asked, genuine compassion in her voice.
“Not exactly,” was his honest response.
She didn’t come any closer.
“Do I make you uncomfortable?” he asked.
Lupita nodded. “I don’t trust anyone, especially men.”
Hatch looked wounded, but recovered quickly. “So a long line of assholes got there ahead of me and ruined everything?”
“It’s something like that,” Alvarez said slowly. “It’s nothing personal, Colonel Hatch, but I don’t trust anybody. It’s how I’ve stayed alive up to now.”
“I’d like to change your mind,” he said.
She shook her head. “Good luck with that, sir.”
He didn’t say anything in rebuttal. Hatch simply smiled.
Perhaps that was her Achilles Heel.
The colonel straightened, walked up to stand close to her, and then leaned over, so his lips were by her left ear. “There is nothing in the universe that can come between us, Lupita. Not a goddamn thing.”
Then he strolled away, climbing the metal steps up to the bridge.
Ensign Alvarez shivered. She remained right where she was. Lupita couldn’t move. Closing her eyes and counting to ten didn’t seem to help. There was something about that man that made her even more uneasy. For only a moment, the ensign wished she was back at her tent in Afghanistan. She always used her nervous energy studying languages.
Cold winds buffeted her and the moment passed. Lupita tried to make out the shoreline, in hopes they were making progress. Bracing her body, a wave slammed against the trawler, dousing her. Sputtering, the cold water woke her up. It certainly was a strange situation to elicit laughter, but the ensign felt alive.
From the dark shadows of the forecastle, Lupita was being watched. The soldier licked his lips and smiled. Then, before she might notice, he slipped away through the cascading waves and disappeared through one of the bulkhead doors.
Chapter 17
I Can See Alaska from the Front Deck
Now it was merely a matter of crossing the Bering Strait over to Alaska. No small feat, under the circumstances. There was the little matter of the Russian navy. Vladivostok was a major naval port so Russian ships were just about everywhere.
Colonel Hatch was relieved they had shed their immediate followers back at the harbor. However, if captured, they would be shot as terrorists or spies. That made everything a lot simpler.
Ensign Alvarez brewed fresh coffee and hot chocolate, and then served everybody with steaming mugs. The servings were received with gratitude, consumed with relish, and savored with an air of foreboding.
These Rangers had seen and experienced a lot over the years. Their survival seemed to rely on so many factors outside their control. The stories they could tell would hover on unbelievable, or fantastic, seemingly the creation of some slightly deranged fiction author.
This desperate band of pirates had successfully seized a large fishing trawler named Novoural. By her size, she was an ocean-going, deep-sea fishing trawler and could easily handle the horrible north Pacific weather. Novoural better be able to, because in less than an hour, they were going to collide with one nasty ocean storm.
The shortest distance between mainland Russia and mainland Alaska was approximately 55 nautical miles. However, from Vladivostok, the American coastline was 2,430 miles away. This fact seemed daunting at first.
“I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, but we’re still a long ways from the good ole USA,” Specialist Powers pointed out.
“We’re a lot closer than a week ago,” Sergeant Stillwell felt it necessary to remain positive.
“That’s right,” CWO Collins added. “How many of you seriously thought we’d even get this far.”
“All right, let’s cut the chatter,” Darby interrupted. “Collins, are you sure you can operate this beast?”
The Chief Warrant Officer nodded emphatically. “Can do, Top.”
“Good, then stay on the bridge and keep focused,” the First Sergeant said. “Let us know if you need any assistance.”
The CWO pushed his way through the bulkhead door and took position behind the wheel. Specialist Thomas went down to man the engines, so everything seemed in order.
For several hours, all was smooth sailing. The waves were active and the winds howled, as the barometer dropped. There was no doubt they were headed for inclement weather. Ensign Alvarez checked the radar, verifying the storm front that lay ahead.
“It’s going to be a doozy,” she stated.
Chief Collins suddenly stepped out from behind the wheel and steering controls, joining the others in the anteroom. “I don’t want to sound like some cliché from those old war movies, but we need to jettison anything not useful. I can nurse a few more knots out of this baby if we were lighter.”
Darby stepped in front of his men. “Let me decide what’s useful and what isn’t, please. You boys rest for now.”
Sergeant Ramirez groaned a little and sat down on the floor. He unlaced his right combat boot and pulled it off. After lowering his sock, he looked at the most god-awful swollen wound on his ankle.
Ensign Alvarez noticed it immediately. “Que te ha pasado?”
He shrugged.
The other Rangers laughed.
“Tell her, Sarge,” Specialist Thomas goaded.
“No es nada realmente,” he replied.
“He was stung by some nasty cow bees in Afghanistan,” Specialist Powers answered instead.
Ensign Alvarez looked at his ankle. “Is that true, were you stung?”
“Si, senorita,” Sergeant Ramirez replied politely. “It swelled up real bad for a day or two and then went away. I put some chewin’ tobacco on it and it healed right up.”
“Tell her the interesting part, Specialist,” Darby suggested in no uncertain terms. “That’s an order.”
“Yes, Top, I will,” Ramirez said sheepishly. “We ran into a spot of trouble while crossing Kazakhstan. There were a bunch of zombies and I got bit by one.”
Lupita violently backed away.
Colonel Hatch had his hand on his sidearm.
Sergeant Darby and his men instinctively produced weapons as well, but they were pointed at the navy ensign and the army colonel.
“Settle down everybody,” Ramirez pleaded, standing up. “That was weeks ago, Miss Alvarez. Nothing happened to me. I didn’t get infected. I think it was because of the bee sting.”
He sat back down.
Lupita went closer to examine the wound. It was true that the bee stings had swelled, but there was a strange hue to the sergeant’s skin. It was as if the venom was working hard to counteract the zombie virus.
How was that possible?
Well, if they knew of her existence, they would ask Doctor Norse, over in Canada. However, since they didn’t, all this circumstantial evidence went unappreciated.
As if perfectly timed, the two specialists returned from reconnoitering the trawler.
“I’m afraid we’ve stolen more than just some ocean-going fishing boat, sir,” Specialist Thomas uncomfortably reported to the group.
“What do you mean, son?” Colonel Hatch asked.
“This is one of those spy ships, sir,” Powers blurted.
Collins, the warrant office, held open one of the inner hatchway doors.
This class of Russian trawler was commonly codenamed an AGI in NATO parlance, meaning Auxiliary General Intelligence. Historically, such ships were considered the vilest of Russian naval craft ever devised.
Crammed with interception and detection equipment, these were the tools of covert war, spying on your enemy, without ever knowing why. The Russian trawler was the single most ubiquitous presence during the Cold War, shadowing NATO exercises or loitering off naval bases.
This one was special too, because not only was she Polish-flagged, but this trawler was pulling a device long coveted by the British and Americans, a two-mile string of hydrophones known as towed-array sonar. It was the latest thing in Russian technology, now embraced and coveted by all of the Western military forces around the globe.
Still, wasn’t that past history?
“It’s a spy trawler, sir,” Sergeant Stillwell stated the obvious.
Hatch sighed with exasperation. “I can see that, Ranger.”
Ensign Alvarez pushed her way past. With her hands on her hips, she surveyed all the high-tech listening equipment. “Well now, isn’t this interesting. I figure we’ve got about twenty minutes to disappear, or we’re going to have the entire Russian navy and air force on top of us.”
First Sergeant Darby wasn’t known for standing around doing nothing. “Collins, make this piece of Russian shit go as fast as it can. Turn off anything electronic that will give us away or has some kind of identifying signature. Let’s see if we can find some Alaskan coastline, on the double.”
He didn’t have to say anything twice. His men scrambled to be useful.
Ensign Alvarez interjected. “We’ll need to keep sonar and radar operational for your man Collins, but perhaps I can assist in confusing them for some additional time?”
Darby smiled. “Have at it, ma’am.”
She sat down at the communications station, slipped on the headphones and started sending out open distress calls in Russian, then German, then French, and then Italian.
Looking up at Colonel Hatch, she smiled. “I bet they’ve been getting lots of calls for help that didn’t make any sense lately. I’m just adding to the problem. I’ll keep changing frequencies, so the listening station in Vladivostok will think a hundred different ships are in trouble and sinking.”
He gently rested his hand on her shoulder and gave it an affectionate squeeze.
Lupita reached up and patted his hand, then blew him a kiss, before she went back to sending out conflicting messages. Her knowledge of different SOS procedures from diverse countries was remarkable. Yes, there were standard steps for requesting assistance, but by adding a heightened level of desperation; Alvarez made her pleas for assistance even more authentic.
Everyone on board felt the surge of the powerful engines underneath their feet, as the trawler changed course and headed straight for the wilderness coastline of Alaska.
“All the early warning systems near Anchorage could pose a problem, Sergeant Darby,” Colonel Hatch pointed out.
The veteran Ranger shrugged. “Somehow I think we will be the least of their worries, sir. Considering the current situation around the world, I doubt Russian planes will stop their search because of American territorial waters. If they have any inkling of what’s happening to their citizens, they’ll just blow us out of the water and be done with it.”
Hatch couldn’t think of any argument to the contrary, so he just stayed out of the way, which Darby also thought was rare for an officer. There was something disturbingly familiar about the old war horse, but the sergeant didn’t have the luxury of figuring out why at the time.
Without running lights, plowing ahead in the dark, the trawler Novoural headed north by northeast. The foul weather might be their greatest ally, so Ensign Alvarez plotted a course for the active seas. A storm front might hide them for some precious time.
Time passed. It was dark, in the early hours of the morning. The sea was freezing cold, as the trawler ploughed ahead through the ever increasing turbulence. The seawater sprung against the windshield of the bridge. The wipers couldn’t keep up with the lashing spray, so Collins had to make an educated guess where they were.
The roaring sound of the increasing wind was like an oncoming train, the voice of something powerful and enormous. Waves, whipped up by a three-day blow, boomed against sheer black headlands. White spray obliterated the last rocky strongholds of the Russian shoreline, the moon retreating into its steel-wool winter cloak of storm clouds. The sea was suddenly dark and surly, like a barroom drunk about to throw a punch, with a violent majesty that delivered a bracing dose of perspective on their little, human world. With the onset of this foul weather, the North Pacific was a place of 25-foot waves, 80-mile-an-hour winds and sea water that numbed the bones at 42 degrees. Drilling downpours strafed the decks, as another band of slate storm clouds brewed on the horizon, and a fast-moving scrim of low clouds streaked to the sea.
At the moment, black clouds cast everything around the Russian spy trawler into pitch-darkness and howling squalls threatened to drive the ship right up against any unseen obstacle. The yellow-grey waves beat continuously against the hull as though bellowing with rage, from time to time spraying spume over the makeshift crew and Collins on the bridge. Further out, a bleak half-light shown, in which it was impossible to tell earth from sky, for even the half-moon, now at its height, was more often than not hidden behind swirling dark clouds. It was icy cold and the crew stomped their feet and hid their gloved hands under their armpits.
The wind did not come gustily, but with a steady, roaring pour. The waves had no regularity either, no rhythmic succession, but were shipped into the air, torn into spray, blown inward in perfectly horizontal lines, hurled against the face of the bridge and sent pouring over the ship like steam. Soon the grim Alaskan coastal waters would be terrible in their rage.
Up on the bridge, CWO Collins struggled to maintain some control over the wheel. The trawler, while built for covert operations, was also a bit unwieldly. The engines were powerful, but the ship still handled sluggishly, as if burdened by some unknown weight or obstruction.
“The seas around here are incredibly active,” Collins shouted over the constant roaring wind.
Huge waves crashed against the forecastle, the water slashing against the bridge windows. There was no way the windshield wipers could keep up, even turned on high. With each trough, the trawler plunged downward, and then sliced through the turbulence, staggering at the crest, before repeating the rollercoaster motion, over and over again.
Specialist Thomas gasped, before he hurled his stomach dry in a nearby puke bucket. It was filled with sand, but the stench was unbearable and poor Timothy convulsed with the dry heaves.
Likewise, Colonel Hatch, who had survived a Huey helicopter crash in Kuwait, a Black Hawk helicopter crash in Iraq, and several vehicle collisions throughout his military career, was as green as peat moss before it becomes Scotch. His solution was unique, as the old soldier flung open the bulkhead door and stuck his head into the ocean spray. Sure, the impact almost knocked him flat, but the seawater swept away his vomit, tears, and curse words all in one fell swoop.
Lupita Alvarez snatched hold of one arm and dragged him back inside, while slamming shut the sturdy barrier. She glared at him sprawled on the deck.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Lupita yelled.
He looked like a drowned rat.
Holding up his hands, Robert Hatch wanted only to prevent a verbal assault. “Ensign, give me a break, please?”
Lupita looked up and could see all the Rangers staring at her. She was angry, that’s true, but her reaction was out-of-place, especially with a senior officer. Were her feelings more than just professional concern?
Embarrassed, Lupita matched away, where she could find some solitude.
The North Pacific storm continued for several more hours, bashing the trawler with violent waves, slashing cold rain, and monstrous howling winds. Collins struggled to keep the ship on course, even at full power. His fingers ached from holding onto the wheel and he had been steering the ship for more than 10 hours without sleep.
Ensign Alvarez entered the bridge, carrying a steaming mug of hot chocolate. The chief smiled as she lifted the rim to his lips.
“Oh wow, that tastes good,” Collins said after making a smacking sound.
Lupita giggled and offered more.
The CWO kept his eye on the active seas, but he also thoroughly enjoyed the cocoa. Alvarez was a patient server and never wavered in balancing the mug in time with the rising swells. Not a drop was spilled.
When it was gone, Collins nodded his gratitude and said, “Thank you, Ensign. I really needed that.”
“It was my pleasure, Chief,” she said, squeezing his elbow. Then she looked at him quizzically.
He chuckled. “I can guess that you’d like to ask why a chief warrant officer is hanging out with a bunch of Rangers.”
She nodded.
He shrugged, before violently spinning the wheel, hoping to avoid the monumental wave coming right at them. Lupita grabbed hold of the railing and braced herself for the impact. Water poured over the decks and raced on by. The trawler stood on end, staggered by the power of the ocean, before the course corrections stabilized the ship.
