Section 37

“Things move quickly in your circles, Captain Swenson.” The General said. “Was Pierson privy to the conversation with your friend, Libby, in DC?”

“No, Sir, he doesn’t have a need to know that level of detail. However, he will do his part and more. Even when he ad libs on the fly, it will be the right move at the right time. Of that I am sure.” He smiled. “My friend in DC is NCIS Special Agent Elizabeth McGuire as you know her, but she is also lead investigator into this conspiracy, attached to the White House as an advisor on foreign and domestic threats, plus is on a first name basis with SecDef and the Joint Chiefs. She coordinates with the Chief of Staff and Justice Department to issue arrest warrants for the perps.”

“The Marines don’t need to know what your crew does?” he smacked his forehead. “I have to let go of my preconceived way of leadership. Of course they need to know. You all operated like a single organism back at the Marine Base. Perfect awareness and perfect synchronization happen with perfect knowledge and trust.”

Traci interrupted. “We still have the old sonar equipment on board. I’ve been talking to Jeep, through Rachael, and Nancy. If you can tweak the software, I might be able to feed the binocular imaging to the Hellfire batteries. Real size and triangulated depth info, instead of speed and direction only.”

“You and Jeep do a quick reinstall and hook it up through the redundant backup circuits.” He paused and nodded to himself. “I can adapt and recalibrate in that stupid game engine I wrote in high school and combine the feeds while we travel. The graphics will be the actual real time echo screen, but the overlaid telemetry and metrics will be dead on.”

April snarked. “I hope the algorithms plug in to the tracking program. They sucked as a video game. The killer whales were too slow.”

“You spent about a million hours proving it.” May gave her an elbow to make the point.

“We’ll start as soon as we tie up.” Traci went back to work. “Anti-torpedo Hellfires. We need to patent this, Phil. Somebody has to pay for the burgers. Might as well be the Defense Department.”

“Let’s see if it passes the field tests first. Marcie can email the details and specs to Evan.”

He guided the boat gently into place so JJ and JD could pull it to the bumpers. “The clock has started girls. The bus leaves in thirty minutes. Mel, could you boys help get the canopy extended out over the passengers? The wind is pretty brutal back there.”

“Already on it. Auggie is bringing some universal solid side screens and another canopy piece, braces clamps, the works. I called him when we were transferring the Marines.”

“Thanks Mel. I thought the little girls were going to either freeze or get blown away. You’ll have to be fast.” Phil hoped the helpfulness had not compromised the mission. Mel did not use a secure cop phone.

Traci, Jeep and Nancy charged into the sonar project. The Motor Maids pitched in with Mel and his guys. Everyone found a place to be useful. The supplies unloaded, Auggie moved his truck out of the way and Maggie rolled up with the canopy parts.

The bridge team tuned, fine-tuned and fussed over the electronics suite. The Cannoneers, with Belle and Sherry packed the new clothing away with even more meds. Polly and Emily stowed the food, cutting one of the mega-burgers into bite-sized snacks for the little cadets. Zina and Olivia Goldbaum helped Andrea get them dressed in appropriate coats between bites. Holly and Kirk made sure there were no surprises. April, Karen and Joanne ran target acquisition and response timing drills.

Few words were spoken. They just moved from one task to the next. Phil worked just as hard as the girls, at one point diving under the ship to reorient the transducers mounted on the ends of the hydrofoils. Afterwards, he hung a blanket, changed body armor, dried and redressed. No biggie. He went back to chatting, praising and helping the crew.

The General and his family watched the swarming activity and were reminded of a precision drill team. They met the thirty-minute deadline.

Ed called Phil aside. “When Nick called earlier and set this in motion, I got the impression the situation had gone sour, or was going to curdle soon. Take this old transponder kit I retired last year. The boat is in Mel’s dry-dock for repairs. It’s registered as a pontoon boat, chartered for parties and corporate fishing trips. The documents are legit and traceable. A little more camouflage can’t hurt going past heavy commercial and pleasure craft areas.”

“If I use it, who am I?”

“‘Outlaw II’ out of Morehead City, Captain Bob Norton, good reputation. He’s on vacation in Canberra, but gave me the boat when he developed a fish allergy.” Ed laughed. “A charter operator who can’t be around fish would be the joke of the century, so only family shares that bit of info.”

“It might be a problem changing ID on the fly and the ‘Outlaw II’ probably didn’t cruise at 100 knots.” Phil pondered the electronics for a second. “But I might be able to use it as a red herring or a false target.”

“Use it however you can. I’m proud to help anyway I can.” Ed teared up. “You bring those girls home safe, you hear? Now, go, before I charge you for another day.”

The marina men departed, Maggie hugged everyone in sight, Ollie and the ship’s chandlers said their good byes, Ed, JJ and JD released the lines and pushed the ‘USS Devil’s Darling’ away from the dock. Phil lit the center engine and motored slowly out to the main channel, having decided to go to the island via the sound.

“OK folks. Let’s make it official. We are going to DC as quickly as is safe and reasonable. That means we run at a speed that allows us to eat these burgers. Whoever has mess duty, open the coolers and get out of the way. This is a self-serve floating café for the next half hour.” He grinned. “We do have a potty on board and you can freshen up at the cabin when we stop long enough to close it for a few days.”

Belle made sure everyone got as much as they could balance and admonished Andrea, “You might want to divide any sandwich larger than Cathy’s head, if you don’t want girls to explode. Do not use Willy as an example of portion size. She has eaten two before and lived to tell the tale. She’s hollow. A human would have exploded.”

“Hey, I’m sitting right here, you food wimp. I have not had a bite since this morning and I’m starved. Ollie made me three.”

Charlie looked at the first triple cheese wide eyed. “You can eat three?”

“Not really. Well, maybe two.” Willy grinned, “But I will save some for later. We ain’t gonna be stopping for more snacks anytime soon.”

Andrea said, “This is the best burger ever. I wish I could eat my weight in these things.”

“SuLing can, but she burns it off immediately and wants more. It’s why she’s so short”

“None of you are giants.” The General laughed. “But it is an outstanding meal.”

Phil listened to the banter from the bridge. He steered with one hand and entered code into a tablet with the other. This is easier than I figured, he thought. Then he knew why. Whoever coded the sonar resolution modules used some of his copyrighted code, he realized. Evan would be busy for a while.

He had the job done by the time they passed Stacy. His half hour was up and he hadn’t seen a burger. Rats! “Somebody, anybody, throw a morsel to the ravenous captain.” He shouted, “I’m wasting away up here.” He lit the other two Evinrudes and the ‘Darling’ leapt forward