Firespill (16 page)

There was another pause, and it was then that Jordan thought he might have a real chance of stopping them. He spoke quickly, trying to keep the tightness out of his voice. “Okay, okay. Now look, you guys—you trust me? Well, do you?”

There were a few halfhearted mumbles. Jordan looked straight at Sheen. “Well?”

The oiler’s grip on the wrench relaxed slightly. “So what if we do?”

Jordan lifted his hands in a gesture of compromise. “Look, I’ll make a deal with you. If we don’t pick up that fishing boat in two hours”—he glanced at his watch—“by twenty-thirty, and the Old Man wants to go on, I’ll let Lambrecker out myself and we’ll force the issue. We’ll have to. Our batteries’ll be halfway dead by then, so I’ll be with you.” He paused to let the proposition sink in. “Is it a deal?”

A few sailors nodded their heads slightly, but they still looked uncomfortable. The rest of them watched Sheen. He said nothing for a few seconds; then, pointing with the wrench at the petty officer, he answered for them all. “All right. Twenty-thirty—not a second longer, Jordan, or we’ll waste you too. No shit!”

Jordan nodded his okay, and as the group broke up, he casually picked out several sailors for miscellaneous unimportant duties—checking stores which he had already checked himself, for example. Keep them separated as much as possible—a difficult job at any time aboard a sub, but even more difficult when they felt they had common cause for defiance.

As Jordan made his way out of the engine room, he was trying to imagine what it must be like to be trapped by a burning sea. Probably, he thought, it was like suffocating from lack of oxygen in a disabled sub. He resolved that if he were surrounded by fire, before the flames reached him, or came so close as to threaten him with the slow agony of suffocation, he would kill himself. But then, with an almost macabre practical bent, he wondered how you could do it on a small boat. There would be no quick way. Well, you could jump into the flames or try drowning yourself, but both seemed too horrible to submit to willingly. Of course, if there were anyone with you, they could do it. With a fish knife or something.

Jordan pursed his lips. When his time came, he hoped he would be permitted to die in bed with his wife. If he ever got to see her again.

Twelve

In the White House the Presidential Press Conference had just ended. General Oster had watched his friend fielding questions from a battery of reporters. Though the Press Secretary had released news of the spill earlier, all the details of the Vice-President’s situation had not been revealed, despite the fact that the press knew that she had made an early morning getaway from the Secret Service and that she and her companion were now trapped by the firespill. The conference was unusually restricted. Neither TV nor radio had been allowed in and the President had asked the news corps, on grounds of humanitarian concern, not to go into details of the rescue when filing their reports.

“What do you mean by ‘humanitarian concern’?” one newsman had asked sarcastically.

“I mean,” said the President, “that the next of kin of some of the naval personnel involved in the rescue operation have not yet been notified, and insofar as the rescue attempt does pose a certain degree of exposure to unforeseen circumstances, I feel that the next of kin should be notified before any further details are released.”

Several reporters’ hands shot up. Many of the faces looking at him wore openly suspicious expressions. The President continued in an even tone. “The same procedure, as you well know, is followed by local police all over the country in cases where media exposure may precede official notification.”

“Are you telling us, Mr. President,” called the L.A.
Times
reporter, “that members of our Coast Guard or whatever are in danger of their lives?”

“No. I never said that, Mr. Rawlins.”

“But you said—” began Rawlins.

“What I
said,”
cut in Sutherland, “was that there is a certain degree of exposure to unforeseen circumstances.”

Sutherland was sweating. He reached for a Kleenex and motioned towards another upraised hand. This time the young reporter who had asked Clara Sutherland about the Vice-President and her husband was on his feet. Sutherland instantly realized his mistake, but he couldn’t withdraw his invitation of the question. Henricks glared icily at the young newsman as he asked, “Mr. President, you seem reluctant to talk about Vice-President Horton.”

Sutherland was ready. “That’s because we have very little information at the moment. You will be advised as we know more.”

The reporter smiled superciliously. “Of course.” Sutherland turned to face the other reporters. A young woman who had been waving her hand frantically for several minutes stood up. “Mr. President,” she began rather shakily, then coughed and proceeded in a steadier tone. “Would it be fair to say, Mr. President, that the reason for this closed conference is to cover up the fact that in order to save the Vice-President you are exposing the rescuers to extreme danger—far more extreme than you would otherwise consider?”

The room fell quiet. Sutherland felt the perspiration stinging his eyes, but refrained from wiping his face. “It cert—it certainly would
not
be fair,” he answered, trying to control his temper. “I would have ordered—requested—the aid of the men involved for any U.S. citizen—black, white—any U.S. citizen. I—for any U.S. citizen at all.”

The woman smiled up from her scratch pad while some case-hardened reporters looked down at their shoes. “Oh, I wasn’t suggesting that a president’s, uh, special relationship with a vice-president would cause him to treat her, or him, any differently, but that in view of the worldwide outcry against the spill you might want her by your side.” She hurried on as several heads turned to stare reproachfully at her. “Bearing in mind the historically high risk of assassination which you, as Chief Executive, face.”

Sutherland spoke very slowly. “I’m sure you’re overreacting to the world situation. I’m confident that despite these … local conditions, this administration—together with Congress—will continue to improve international relations with the United States.” And with that he left the podium.

As the correspondents rose, the President and Henricks had already disappeared behind the red velvet drapes. “Who is that bitch?” snapped Sutherland.

“I don’t know, sir,” replied Henricks.

“Damn bitch.”

“Yes, sir.”

As Oster followed them into Special Operations, Sutherland asked Henricks, “How do you think the conference went?”

Henricks deliberated.

“The first part,” Sutherland said pointedly, as if reading the other’s mind.

“I really think it went all right, Mr. President, but I must confess I don’t think they’ll keep quiet on the rescue attempt too long. They’ll give us a few hours at the most to notify next of kin, and then if we try to pull the ‘humanitarian concern’ bit again, they’ll know we’re stalling. And if that woman—if she or anyone else stumbles onto the fact we’re using a vintage Canadian sub, they’re sure to give us hell about not having one of our own in the area, as if we were expected to know exactly when and where this was going to happen.”

Sutherland nodded thoughtfully. “That’s all right,” he said slowly. “By that time the rescue will be over. There’ll be nothing left to speculate about.”

“Yes,” said Henricks, smiling with a confidence he didn’t feel. As he walked away, leaving the President and the general alone, he muttered to himself that if the rescue failed, there wouldn’t be any sub.

Encouraged by Henricks’s smile, the President for a moment felt positively optimistic. He turned to Oster. “Well, Arnold, how did the press conference go—the last part?”

“Lousy.”

Sutherland’s voice was surprised and indignant. “Oh, come on!”

The general deftly plucked a piece of rank tobacco from his teeth. “That skirt had you against the ropes, Walter.”

Sutherland flushed. “You think she was right? That saving Elaine is screwing up my deeper responsibility?”

At the far side of the room, Henricks’s head popped up protectively as he heard the President’s voice rise. Oster lit another cigar. “I’m saying simply that she made you lose your cool. I’m just thinking that we’re going to get more questions and that it’s disastrous to let these people—”

“Excuse me, General,” interrupted Henricks, “I wonder if you could help us over at the map.”

Oster recognized Henricks’s interruption for what it was—an attempt to let the President have some time to himself. For his part, Oster believed that time to himself was precisely what the President did not need, given the tug-of-war between his private and official loyalties. Nevertheless, the general followed Henricks across the room.

Sutherland massaged his eyes slowly, sat back, and toyed with a small, gold spoon stamped with the Venetian crest. It had been given to him and Clara on their tour of Italy two years earlier. He used it to stir the oily black coffee. That goddamn woman with her questions about the rescue and her snide innuendos about Elaine. Perhaps Arnold was right; maybe he had handled the press conference badly. Perhaps unconsciously he had called it simply in the hope that his willingness to meet with the press would be interpreted as a sign that he had nothing to hide and that he had exercised no special privilege in trying to have Elaine rescued. But he had asked the Canadians to help, to risk eighty-four lives—the happiness of eighty-four families—to rescue his Vice-President, his ex-lover. His not-so-ex-lover. The change in nationalities involved was hardly a change in risk. Would he have done the same for anyone else? Would he have done it just for the fisherman? He doubted it. More and more he doubted it. And would he even have done it for Clara? He was ashamed that the question should even occur to him. Where Elaine was concerned, it had never even suggested itself. He told himself that in this matter neither his political head nor his common sense had directed him—only his love of one woman, and that, he believed, might be unforgivable to his friends and his enemies. Most of all, it would be unforgivable to himself.

After several minutes he became aware of someone sitting next to him. It was Clara. Normally he didn’t like her interrupting him in his work, especially in the Special Operations Room, but tonight he didn’t mind. He always found her presence comforting when he was worried.

“Won’t you come and rest?” she asked. “You’ll be up late tonight.”

“No,” he said. “I can’t sleep—not now.”

“But you look so worn out.”

“I can’t sleep, Clara.”

“All right,” she said. “You will call? If you need something?”

“Yes,” he answered, feeling angry with himself for snapping at her. “Yes, I will.” Watching her leave, he marveled at her quiet dignity. How often it shamed his petulance! He must force himself to give his full attention to the spill, to submerge himself in the myriad details of the problem at hand, denying himself time to question his motivations, to agonize himself into a guilt-laden impotency.

He looked up as the clocks in unison clicked off another minute. In Washington it was 9:17 P.M.

Thirteen

For Elaine, three thousand miles away, it was just before sunset, and the firespill around the fishing boat was receding. A squall, while doing nothing to extinguish the main body of flames, had dispersed some of the advancing rivulets of burning oil.

Elated by the first spray of moisture sweeping over her, Elaine turned to Harry Reindorp, whose cough had been worsening by the minute. “You must have connections.”

The old man managed a wan smile. He said something, but it was lost in the screaming gust of wind that announced the arrival of the squall proper. Then the black arch of cloud was gone as quickly as it had come, sucked dry by the spill, with nothing more to show for its run than a few disturbed swells that momentarily chopped the surface of the sea. The fire, like some giant momentarily disturbed by a fly, renewed its inexorable advance. Elaine felt drained of energy, her sudden optimism quickly dashed as the full hopelessness of their position came home to her again.

Feeling the depression closing in on her and shortening her already shallow breathing, Elaine tried once again to think of everything at once, to fuse her brain temporarily, to dull it against what seemed to her to be the inevitable end. But the trick did not work; instead, visions of fire filled her brain and overwhelmed any attempt at countermeasures.

She wanted desperately not to cry, not to blubber like a lost child. “You remember the time—” she began, but she didn’t finish the sentence. A burning, sulphurous smell swept her breath away. “You remember,” she continued gamely after the fumes had passed, “when we went fishing?”

Harry saw that she was on the verge of tears. “Yes,” he said gently. “The last time in Prince William Sound?”

“Yes … yes. Father caught the big salmon.”

Reindorp nodded. “I remember it. He never shut up about it for days.”

The smoke, pushed aside by the squall, was now returning. There was a long silence as Elaine watched the fire creeping forward. She swung her head around to face her companion. “You used to fish in New Zealand, Harry?”

“Yes.”

“Was it as good as our trips?”

“Company wasn’t as good, but it was as beautiful,” he said, trying not to cough. “Never saw more beautiful sunsets. You could smell the land, too. A sweet smell it was.”

Elaine was staring at the fire. There was another long silence before she spoke. “They have thermal areas, don’t they?” Before he could answer, she went on. “You ever seen anything like this over there? Not the fire,” she added quickly, “I mean the smoke.”

Reindorp’s eyes were running constantly, and he could barely see through the stinging film of tears.

“Saw something like it in Rotorua,” he said, “and White Island.”

“Which was more interesting?”

Elaine’s face was beet red. Harry reckoned that the temperature must be near a hundred and five Fahrenheit. “White Island was the most interesting,” he answered dully.

“Why?” She swung back from the fire as she spoke and fixed her eyes on the growing darkness of the small fo’c’sle so that she could not see the whole circle of fire. Surprised that she had even heard him, Harry tried to remember why the place had stuck in his memory. “Well, it was an old volcanic island. It was kind of mysterious.”