White Spider by Cameron Curtis

Author:Cameron Curtis [Curtis, Cameron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-13T16:00:00+00:00

I return to my cabin. Shower, towel off, change my clothes. Collapse into an easy chair and stare at the bulkhead.

Knauss runs a pirate crew. Rules it with an iron fist. With every minute that passes, I grow more uneasy. I shrug on my jacket and go back outside. Something is going on, and I don’t like not knowing what it is.

15

FRIDAY, 2300 HOURS – THE SPIDER - BRIDGE

Timelines are crucial. I don’t have a timeline of Aron’s last day.

What did Angers say? I don’t know who saw him last. The three of us were speaking here on the bridge.

Captain Angers was speaking with Thorval and Aron on the bridge. I should have asked what time. I don’t know if that conversation happened before or after Thorval and Aron supervised the recovery of the Kestrels.

I walk to the elevator and punch the button for the bridge.

As soon as the storm passes, Lenin will move on the Spider. There is no way Captain Cruik will allow Russians to board us. The Russians, however, have an ace in the hole. Operatives aboard the Spider. The Russians don’t have to blow us out of the water if their operatives can tilt the battle in their favor.

I have to find their operatives and stop them.

The elevator door sucks open. I step into the passageway that leads to the bridge and walk toward the companionway at the far end. I hear the radio operator’s voice coming from the radio room.

“Affirmative, Tiger One-five. Spider out.”

I climb the companionway two steps at a time. My eyes sweep the bridge, looking for Angers. The captain is sitting in his leather chair, contemplating the storm. The wind howls around the bridge. I look through the back windows. The masthead light at the top of the derrick is barely visible through the driving snow.

The two lookouts stand at the wings of the bridge, staring into the night. I’m sure they can’t see a thing. They remain awake, alert, and they do their job under the eye of their captain. Years at sea have taught him the human eye is not subject to power failures, electronic jamming, or faults. The eye can, however, be blinded by darkness, rain and blowing snow. Far more reliable in this environment are the men standing at the radar and sonar scopes.

I look down at one of the radar scopes. There is one strong contact five miles south. Another contact lies north-by-east. The latter contact is intermittent. One moment it is there. The next, it disappears until the restless sweep of the radar signal picks it up again.

“We’re not alone.” I step to Angers’s side.

“No,” the captain says. “The signal to the south is the USS Pressley Bannon. They are standing off until dawn.”

“And the other?” I watch Angers carefully.

“We don’t know, but we are keeping it under observation. If it gets too close, we’ll hail it.”

I walk up and down the bridge. Feel Angers’s eyes following me.

The compartment is climate-controlled. The control tower windows are shatterproof.

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