After his stint in the U.S. Navy, Stan Olsson has made a comfortable life as an American literature teacher in Minneapolis. But that all changes when he gets a mysterious phone call and ends up meeting a man who will change the course of his life. The Coast Guard and the DEA cannot control drug trafficking in the Caribbean, and an organization of zealous vigilantes has something stealthier to put into play. That something is a ghost ship", a vessel that has been surreptitiously acquired and armed with the specific intent to intercept vessels smuggling drugs in the Caribbean. Olsson has the chance to command it. Against his better judgment, he accepts. Olsson is told that he's not working for the CIA or the military, but for a small, undercover group that will take direct and forceful action against the drug trade. But how will Olsson and his crew respond when violent events force them to confront their innermost selves? As the clandestine operation travels through the labyrinths of the federal bureaucracy and the whirlpools of power in Washington, the interwoven network of complicity, both active and unwitting, raises a chilling question: Are men molded by duty, or do they mold duty to their own will"

A Tide in the Affairs of Men

By Brian Alm

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Brian Alm
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-5452-4

Contents

1. THE LIGHT BEFORE DAWN............................................12. A CALL AT THE OFFICE.............................................63. DEAD SERIOUS.....................................................164. A LOW-PROFILE SHIP...............................................265. REUNION WITH GRACE...............................................376. WHIRLPOOLS.......................................................437. ALCHEMIES OF THE MODERN AGE......................................648. CONVERSATIONS....................................................749. "WE ARE READY, GENTLEMEN"........................................8810. THE SHIP........................................................9911. A PRIZE CREW....................................................10712. POWER AND MARBLE................................................11513. DR. DANZIG......................................................12214. PASSING THE WORD................................................13015. FIRST BLOOD.....................................................13916. MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS.....................................14717. THE HUMANITIES..................................................15818. LUNCHEON CONVERSATIONS..........................................16819. PAULA WELLES....................................................17720. "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS ...?!"...................................18521. BLESSED ARE THE HESITANT........................................19522. A MATTER OF COURSE..............................................20423. "JUST THINK ABOUT IT"...........................................21724. MESSAGES FROM OLSSON............................................22925. PROS AND CONS...................................................23726. THE SINKING.....................................................25227. OH, WHAT A TANGLED WEB..........................................26628. VISCERAL FEARS..................................................27629. LIABILITIES AND ARRANGEMENTS....................................30130. ON SUCH A FULL SEA..............................................31031. THE MIRROR OF THE SOUL..........................................31932. WORDS SPOKEN AND SILENT.........................................33733. A CAT'S CRADLE..................................................35134. THE PICK OF THE LITTER..........................................371APPENDIX OFFICES, ORGANIZATIONS AND CHARACTERS.....................375

Chapter One

THE LIGHT BEFORE DAWN

Stan Olsson was only distantly aware of the men on watch, muttering from time to time in low voices — disembodied, indistinguishable murmurs, like the low whispers overheard in a funeral parlor. Now and then, an intelligible phrase ... "Right standard rudder" ... "Right standard rudder, aye" ... "Steady up on new course zero-seven-five" ... "Zero-seven-five, aye, aye, sir" ... Olsson drifted back out of the stream, the words once again lapsing to gray impressions of sound enveloped in darkness.

It was that time of the morning when the predawn light is still an expectation, more imagined than real. Before long, full light would burst through — the tropical day would leap from the wings, straight for center stage. But first this silent fanfare, poised at the moment between night and day. And it had its own beauty — a beauty known only to those who go to sea, Olsson thought dreamily. Softly glowing pinpoints of red light on the control console in front of him were the only competition for the darkness spread out beyond the expanse of glass.

It was May, and still cool at this hour. The breeze off the Atlantic was light, but Olsson expected it would be enough to whiten the wave tops when it pinched down through the Dominica Passage to the north. The eastern face of the island behind them would begin to show light before they could see it on the horizon, Olsson knew, so he kept looking east, out toward the black sea, to preserve this quiet, dark time as long as possible.

A voice broke his trance and he swiveled left on his stool.

"Excuse me, Captain. I was wondering if you would like some coffee."

"Oh, uh, yes, thank you, Sherwood."

"You're welcome, sir," said the quartermaster, handing him a china mug. "Anything in it, sir?"

"Black's fine, thanks."

Sherwood returned to the chart table, switched on a red light and picked up a pair of dividers as he bent over a chart covering the eastern Caribbean from the Guadeloupe Passage to the northern tip of Martinique. "Mr. Stahl, sir, we should come to new course one-one-zero in ... ten minutes."

"Thank you, quartermaster," replied the officer of the deck.

Again the bridge was silent but for the hum of a fan motor, an occasional cough, the clink of a coffee cup on the stainless-steel chart table. Whitman, thought Olsson. Whitman should have been a sailor. Whitman could have captured this. Not the loud, brash Whitman, the Whitman of the "barbaric yawp," but the Whitman who "wander'd off by myself, in the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, look'd up in perfect silence at the stars." That Whitman, thought Olsson, that Whitman could have been a sailor.

They had left the cove at St. Peter Island at midnight for a couple of days of sea trials, testing the engines at various speeds, testing the ship's systems, testing the crew. The machinery and systems had been located in various warehouses and cobbled together to create this unique ship, and it all needed a good shakedown. The ship had been out a few times with a partial crew, just enough to man it, so the civilian technical reps could check out the systems and make sure everything was functioning perfectly before signing off. The crew had been assembled likewise: hand-picked, each billet filled with meticulous care. Now the agenda was to get this crew up to speed on this ship, and waste no time doing it.

"Mr. Stahl, sir ..."

Lieutenant (junior grade) Rolf Stahl, the officer of the deck, turned to the quartermaster. "Yes, what is it, Sherwood?"

"Time to change course, sir."

"One-one-zero, was it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Make it so, O'Keefe. Right standard rudder," Stahl said to the helmsman, O'Keefe, a seaman striking for bo'sun's mate third-class and determined to hold the straightest course that had yet been steered by the hand of man.

"Aye, aye, sir, my rudder is right standard ... steadying up on new course one-one-zero, sir."

"True or magnetic, helmsman?" Stahl asked.

"Why, true, sir," said O'Keefe, a little surprised at the question.

"Very well. Steady as you go."

"Steady as I go, aye, aye, sir."

"Sherwood," said Stahl, scanning the horizon with the 20x50s he had slung around his neck, "I make a white light, about a point off the port bow. Bearing and range."

"Bearing zero-nine-six degrees, range ..." Sherwood paused as he peered through the rubber hood over the radar scope, "twelve thousand yards, sir."

"True or relative bearing, Sherwood?"

"True, sir," said Sherwood, glancing somewhat nervously in Olsson's direction and then back at Stahl, who had turned around to wait for the answer.

"Thank you. Keep me posted on his track."

"Aye, sir," said Sherwood.

What's with this guy Stahl? thought Olsson, stirring from his reverie. What quartermaster would report the relative bearing in normal steaming? And what watch officer, knowing his own heading was 110 degrees, would not recognize that a bearing reported as 096 and ahead of them was a true bearing? He guessed Stahl was playing some kind of mind game with the watch, or maybe Stahl was trying to impress him, the new CO who had just come aboard the afternoon before — but he said nothing and scanned the horizon with his own binoculars for the glimmer of light Stahl had spotted.

"Sherwood, if the contact closes to eight thousand yards, please advise and plot a CPA," ordered Stahl.

"Aye, aye, sir."

Olsson put down his coffee cup and looked over at Stahl, who was intent on the lights six nautical miles off.

"Mr. Stahl, do you suspect a problem with that contact?"

"No, Captain," said Stahl. "Can't be too careful."

"Carry on," replied Olsson.

"Sir," acknowledged Stahl.

Olsson slid off the high captain's chair, picked up the binoculars and went out through the starboard door to the open bridge. Let Stahl take a breath without being watched for a few minutes, Olsson thought, if that's what it was. Besides, out here he could enjoy the night breeze. The purity of salt air always invigorated him. In transits across the Pacific or the Indian Ocean, often he would go out to the very tip of the fo'c'sle and stand in the spray, licking the salt off his lips. Even as an ensign, his gold-braid chinstrap, the brass anchors and the eagle were so green from salt that, back in San Diego, men from other ships assumed he had spent much more time at sea than he had.

In his first ship, Olsson had spent countless hours crawling through the maze of machinery and piping with a flashlight and a clipboard, tracing systems and making drawings labeled with pressures, temperatures and capacities. He would then take his drawings to his stateroom and stare at them until a light went on in his mind — say, the sudden dawning of a relationship between the discharge pressure of the main feed pump and the normal operating pressure of the steam drum. Then he would check the Bureau of Naval Ships Technical Manual to see if he was right. He was determined to protect himself from error, embarrassment and insult by making himself immune to failure. One by one, he had cracked the mysteries, and the demons left him — ignorance, inexperience, the fear of proving inadequate.

So he wore the tarnished hat until some shore-bound senior officer stateside would tell him he looked like hell and order him to get a decent cover. And he would do that, but only when he figured he would run into the same officer again before his ship went back to sea.

Before he was married, he hated the time in port. Later on, he simply disliked it. His wife, however, soon grew impatient with his sea duty, and berated him all the more for his attitude toward it, which he could not hide. This, coupled with her near-violent stand on peace and the "atrocity" of getting involved in other countries' affairs, as she put it, led to a trial separation which, of course, was just a soft-failure mode of saying they were already washed up, and led rapidly to the official papers, which caught up with Olsson in Japan. Later, he heard that she had died — of an overdose, alone, in Minneapolis.

"Captain?" Stahl had come out onto the open bridge.

"Yes, Mr. Stahl?"

"The contact's closest point of approach turned out to be nine thousand yards, sir. He turned — apparently headed for the Dominica Passage."

"Well, good, Mr. Stahl. Thank you for your diligence."

"Yes, sir, thank you, Captain." Stahl paused and then added, "I don't want you to think I'm, well, that I'm a horse's ass for demanding a precise accounting from the men, sir."

"Let's just treat them as men, Mr. Stahl, and they'll be as happy to have us around as we are to have them."

"Yes, sir."

"First light, Mr. Stahl," said Olsson, after a pause, looking up at the faint glow starting to creep into the eastern sky, then back astern to the jagged peaks of Dominica — barely visible in the mist, but already brightening in the first light of morning.

"Yes, sir. Beautiful."

"My word exactly, Mr. Stahl. Morning is my time."

He'd read that the ancient Egyptians had a word for this moment, this glimmer of light before dawn — akhet, "the place of becoming effective." What could be more appropriate? he mused to himself, and filled his lungs with the fresh, salt breeze.

Stahl disappeared back inside the bridge and Olsson faced east to watch the first edge of sun creep over the horizon. The place to meet the dawn, he thought, is the open bridge of a ship at sea. Then an afterthought ... let's hope it loses none of its wonder over the weeks or months ahead.

The sudden image of Goodwin intruded on his thoughts. Was it possible? Could he actually be here, now, more than three thousand miles from Minneapolis? He glanced at his watch. Could it really have been only thirty-six hours ago?

Chapter Two

A CALL AT THE OFFICE

Olsson was peering at his computer screen and biting on the eraser of a pencil he had been meaning to sharpen for ten minutes. The phone broke his concentration, and on the third ring, irritated at the interruption, he picked it up. "Olsson."

"Mr. Olsson? Stanford Olsson?" The voice was flat, almost metallic. Computer-like, yet he detected a tinge of humanity in it. Boston, maybe. Not Minneapolis, in any case.

"Yes, speaking." Olsson semiconsciously tried not to offer any more animation than the voice coming through the wire.

"Mr. Olsson, I wonder if I could stop by and take a few moments of your time ..."

"Insurance? Investments? ..."

"No, no, I can assure you, nothing like that."

"What, then?" His tone was slightly testy, Olsson realized, but what the hell? No time for games. He had work to do. Balanced against the computer was a pile of student papers, each one reaching for some obscure discovery or other in the bowels of American Transcendental poetry, and he was painfully aware of how few papers he had made it through thus far on this afternoon when he had vowed to himself to have the ordeal over with. Instead he had decided to put in a little time on a paper he was preparing on Whitman, so now he was sandwiched between obligation and inclination, and it was not a situation that ever gave him much comfort.

At home he sometimes entertained himself by surprising the jerk doing dinnertime cold calls with a preemptive strike, beating him to the punch ... "Okay, tell me," he would say, cutting the caller off in midstream, "is it carpets, home repairs, replacement windows, roofing, basement waterproofing or driveway sealing?" This was his ploy if the caller had said, "Do you own your home ... or do you rent?" If the caller simply oozed, "How are you this evening?" then Olsson would respond: "Let me guess, a marketing survey with a nifty free gift or some grand investment opportunity that's come my way."

But this time he simply said, "What, then?" He was curious. No telemarketer could last long with a tone and manner no more insistent or compelling than this metallic monotone.

"I can't really tell you much over the phone. It would be best if we could talk over a cup of coffee. Or a drink, if you prefer. I can assure you ..."

That "I can assure you" phrase again. Olsson felt slightly uneasy. It sounded a lot like the used-car salesman's "Trust me." Still, he could not overcome his growing curiosity. The mystery monotone Someone on the other end. Who? What was it all about? Why all the secrecy? Why was this metallic Whoever calling him? He felt he should be annoyed, but curiosity nudged him closer to the brink.

"... I can assure you, you will at the very least find what I have to say interesting, and it has nothing to do with investments."

"Look, I get calls all the time from people I don't know who always turn out to be selling snake oil, and I'm sure you get those calls, too. I grant that you sound different, enough to make me mildly curious, but phone pollution has reached critical mass in this country, and you're going to have to do better than `assure' me, as you say, if you expect me to continue this conversation. Now, what's it about?"

There was the slightest pause, in which Olsson had the sense the caller was momentarily amused.

"You raise a valid point, of course. But I say again, I regret that I cannot be more expressive on the phone but you may be sure that what I have to say will be of interest."

"`Say again'?" Olsson smiled slightly, sniffing a subtle clue that had been carelessly surrendered. "Navy man, huh? What, Naval Intelligence?" He heard a little more wicked cynicism in his tone than he had really intended, but what the hell, this guy was playing some sort of cloak-and-dagger act and it all seemed just a little ridiculous. If he wanted to be taken seriously, it was time to ante up.

"Navy, yes. ONI, no. Let's at least get together and tell some sea stories."

"How did you happen to call me, in particular? We didn't serve on a ship somewhere together, did we?"

"No, but I did meet your old roommate ... David Grace."

"No kidding! Well, now, there's a name to reckon with."

"So, can we get together? Have a little chat?"

"Are you nearby?"

"Half an hour, forty minutes, I'd guess."

The Boston "r" was a little more obvious, but it lacked the urban edge. Marblehead, maybe. Dialects were one of the little intrigues that Olsson always ran through his mind, to try to get a picture of people before they consciously disclosed anything voluntarily. An advantage, of sorts. As his mental dossier developed, Olsson took some glee in seeing how close he had come to pre-assessing the person accurately. It also occurred to him that the caller must know where he was.

"Do you know Minneapolis?"

"I can manage. I've navigated strange waters before."

"Navigator, huh?"

"Long time back, of course. Hours are bad, and no real margin for error. But when you get a command, you're glad to have been one once."

"You have a command?"

"Retired. Look, let's get together for a face-to-face. You name the time and place."

"Tell you what," Olsson said, skrunching the phone against his neck as he twisted his wrist around to see his watch. "If you really want to talk to me in person, meet me at the Cocked Hat. Nicollet Mall, near Orchestra Hall. Sort of a quaint, colonial-themed place, restaurant upstairs but go downstairs, down the spiral staircase, into the bar. You'll like it — it's sort of a replica of the wardroom in the Constitution. Old Ironsides. You'll think you're in Quincy Market."

"Crowded?"

"Not this early, especially on a weeknight."

"Do they have booths?"

"Yes." Odd question, thought Olsson.

"Good. An hour, say. Give you time to finish up what you're doing."

"How will I recognize you?"

"I'll find you. By the way, name's Captain J. W. Goodwin."

"Captain, no disrespect, but old Navy or not, I do hope you're shooting a straight ball. I'm up to my eyebrows here, and ..."

"You be the judge."

Olsson held the phone in his hand for a moment, oblivious to the faint burr in the wake of the Mystery Monotone from Marblehead. Now, at least Monotone had a name. Captain J. W. Goodwin. The name struck no bells, but Olsson knew more than he had known a few minutes earlier. Navy, and a four-striper at that. Not from the Office of Naval Intelligence, but close enough to it, whatever his game was, to give him the creeps, especially with that metallic, robotic voice. Yet he had seemed to grow a little more human as he went on, somewhat reluctantly revealing more than he had apparently intended.

Or did he? Would Goodwin have liked it best if he had agreed right off the bat to meet? Or wouldn't he? What game had they been playing? Was it a game? And if so, for what purpose? Olsson realized that he really didn't know anything for certain — far from it. He couldn't even be sure that his impressions were his own and not manipulated to seem like his own.

But he did know the man's name, and Captain Goodwin was obviously not a local, so he had come into town for — for what? For this? Just to meet with him? Could that be? Yet if not, why was he so insistent? It was not as if Olsson had had any choice in the matter. Almost from the beginning he had the feeling, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he was being given an order that he would not be able to ignore.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from A Tide in the Affairs of Menby Brian Alm Copyright © 2012 by Brian Alm. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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