Electra

Chapter 2

“The C.O. wants to see us?” Maddock asked the SEAL driving the inflatable boat as they motored to the destroyer’s boarding ladder. The boat operator nodded and gave him a serious look.

“Yes, sir. I brought your rucks so you have your clothes to change into aboard the ship.” He nodded to two backpacks on the floor of the boat.

“Thanks.” Maddock grabbed them and handed one to Bones, who addressed the boat driver.

“You know anything about why he wants to see us?”

A shake of the head as the driver eased back on the throttle while he approached the destroyer’s ladder. “No, sir. Whatever it is, it must be important, though. Succeeding in a training exercise, as impressive as that was, wouldn’t normally warrant this. Good luck,” he finished, sidling the boat up to the ship.

Once granted permission to board, Maddock and Bones climbed the ladder and stepped onto the deck of the warship. They were greeted by a sailor who asked them to accompany him. He moved off at a brisk pace and they followed him into an inside area where he stopped and opened a door.

“You can change in here. Just leave the wetsuits.” He glanced at his watch. Maddock and Bones stepped into the room and emerged a minute later in casual uniform; fatigues and navy blue T-shirts. The sailor led them down the hall until they emerged outside again but beneath the shadow of an overhanging deck. From there they entered a tall structure and began climbing tight, winding flights of stairs. One such ended in a small open area with doorways leading to several rooms. Their escort showed them to one of the doors and opened it for them, extending a hand inside.

“Commander Roberts will see you now.”

Maddock and Bones stepped into a small office where a thin, bald man sat behind a desk in full, starched white uniform. He was on a phone saying, “…so send her up…Yes, now!” and hung up as soon as he saw his two SEALS enter.

“Gentlemen, sit down. No time to waste.” Maddock and Bones took seats in the two chairs fronting the desk, a nameplate on it reading, Cmdr Stephen Roberts. The commander smiled at the two SEALs.

“Congratulations on blowing up my ship! You can bet this is the only time you’ll ever hear me say that.”

“Be sure and give the Flipper twins a sardine for me.”

The commander smirked at Bones’ joke and then grew serious. “Listen up. I’ve got a mission for you two. It’s highly classified. It’s deadly serious. It starts today. Are you ready to pay very close attention?”

Maddock and Bones nodded.

“Excellent. Here we go. Downstairs on the helipad is a Sikorsky waiting to take you to San Diego International Airport, where you’ll catch a commercial flight.” He pushed a pair of travel vouchers across the desk. Maddock opened his first and read the destination.

“Honolulu?”

“Hell, yes!” Bones pumped his fist and began to hula dance, his bulk making his chair squeak. Commander Roberts frowned in his direction and he froze. “Sorry.”

“I’m afraid you won’t be there long enough to enjoy Mai Tais on Waikiki Beach.” Roberts pushed another set of envelopes at them and continued while Maddock and Bones picked them up.

“From there you transfer to another commercial flight to Manila. But your destination is not the Philippines, either.” He slid one more set of papers to them.

“Use these last ones at the private air charter counter at Manila International. The pilot will drop you off on a small island in the equatorial South Pacific.”

The questioning gazes the commander was greeted with told him Maddock and Bones were ready for him to continue.

“What do you know about Amelia Earhart?”

Maddock frowned and Bones scratched his temple.

“That much?” the commander said after a few seconds of silence. “You’ll need to read these reports during your flight over.” He passed them each a folder full of documents before continuing. “By the time you reach the island, you should be well-versed in the generally accepted body of knowledge concerning Earhart’s final flight.”

“She went missing somewhere over the Pacific, in the 1930s on a flight to circumnavigate the globe, correct?” Maddock spoke before he picked up his folder.

“That’s right.” The commander appeared slightly surprised but quickly moved on. “To be more specific, however, we believe that she went missing at the island you’ll be visiting.” He held up a hand, forestalling Maddock’s exclamation of surprise. “There’s a chance of it, anyway. Let me explain.”

He unfolded a paper map on his desk and smoothed it over.

“So as you can see here,” he said, pointing to a spot on the map, “there’s a tremendous amount of open water. A private group calling themselves EARHART, appropriately enough — an acronym for Early Aviation Research and Historic Aircraft Recovery Team, although they are unaffiliated with the family — has recently announced that they may have found Amelia Earhart’s airplane off the coast of this island in scuba-accessible depths.” He stabbed the chart with the point of a pencil.

“Private group? So it’s not a military operation?” Bones asked, implying the obvious question. So what are we doing here?

“Yes, private group. It’s not a military operation for them.” Roberts looked up from the chart to give Bones a hard stare. “But it is for you two.”

Maddock focused on the chart while he spoke. “Has the group made a public announcement about finding Earhart’s plane? I haven’t heard anything in the news.”

Bones gave him a mock scowl. “You wouldn’t hear about it unless they bought ad time on that public radio crap you listen to.”

“Excuse me for not spending all my time reading about alien conspiracies,” Maddock snapped.

The commander jumped in. “Actually, no public announcement has been made yet.”

Maddock quickly recovered his composure. “So then how do you know they found it, or think they did?”

Roberts dropped his pencil and crossed his arms, his gaze becoming intense. “Without going beyond a need-to-know level of detail, SEALs, I can tell you that the Navy has a certain interest in Amelia Earhart’s plane that has not been authorized for public disclosure at this time. Some time ago when the EARHART group announced within the commercial diving community that it was seeking divers to assist them with salvage efforts relating to Earhart’s plane, the Navy responded to their request by posing as a commercial diving outfit. You two are going to work for them under that guise.”

Bones held up a hand. “Excuse me, Sir. Wait just a minute, please. Do you mean to say that you’re sending us on an undercover assignment?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you, Bonebrake.”

“Cool!” Bones sprang to his feet. “For some reason, I never get asked to go undercover. People think I stand out. No idea why.” He lifted his chin and rose up a bit on the balls of his toes, emphasizing his height.

The commander did not smile.

Maddock gritted his teeth. Would Bones never stop? As his comrade settled back into his seat, Maddock returned his attention to the commander. “What are our specific objectives for this mission?”

Roberts nodded in his direction, probably grateful for Maddock’s directing the briefing forward in a professional manner.

“What we need you to do is simple: If this group has actually located Earhart’s plane, we need you to confirm that, and then we need you to recover certain assets from it if they can be found.”

The commander paused to allow Maddock and Bones to absorb this.

“There are two major types of assets we’re looking for that may be in or around the site of the plane wreck. “One…” Roberts said forcefully to regain their attention, “we’re looking for any kind of photographic apparatus, especially undeveloped film, associated with Earhart’s plane. Two: we need to recover anything resembling a porcelain or ceramic container, which—pay attention now — may still contain weaponized smallpox.”

The commander leaned back in his chair as if ready to field an inevitable barrage of questions.

“Did you say smallpox?” Maddock clarified.

“I said weaponized smallpox, yes. Don’t ask what she was doing with it, if it’s even there. Your job is simply to find it and bring it back to us. If possible, keep even the EARHART team from knowing about its existence, but either way, get control of it and have it with you when you make the sat-phone call for extraction.”

“Smallpox?” Bones repeated. “I don’t think my people ever wrote a thank-you note to the white folks for that generous gift.”

Maddock shuddered as he recalled images he’d seen of Native Americans suffering from the disease, their entire faces and bodies riddled with horrible-looking, pus-filled sores before they died.

Roberts managed a sympathetic look that lasted about a second. “In all likelihood the smallpox,” he paused for a moment, seeking the right word, “…containers are no longer with the plane. Or if they are, they’re most likely no longer intact after more than six decades of immersion in seawater following the plane crash.”

“Most likely?” Bones made a sour face. “One time, this chick told me she ‘most likely’ didn’t have herpes. Not too comforting.”

The commander cleared his throat. “I agree.”

He was about to continue when there came a knock at the door. He told the person to come in, and a female Navy nurse in her late twenties wheeling a stainless steel medical cart entered the room.

“Set up right over there, please.” The commander pointed to a corner of the room before quickly getting back to Maddock and Bones. He picked up a pair of manila folders. “That’s why I’ve taken the liberty of accessing your medical histories.” He opened one of the folders and leafed through its pages. “You two are…” He halted in mid-sentence. Maddock was following him Bones’ gaze was on the nurse as she began unzipping some sort of kit. Roberts cleared his throat. “Bonebrake? You with us?”

Bones snapped his head back around. “Sorry, Commander.”

“You two are too young to have gotten a smallpox vaccination as children. The U.S. stopped giving the vaccine in the early nineteen seventies after successful eradication efforts. We still stockpile it, though, just in case.” He raised an eyebrow and tipped his head toward the nurse, who gave a welcoming smile as she held up a needle.

“Just in case of a weaponized attack against the U.S.?” Maddock asked.

“That’s right. After all, because so many citizens have never been vaccinated against it, an outbreak would be catastrophic. It’s quite contagious.” Maddock nodded to acknowledge the response and then the commander said, “Please, walk over to Lieutenant Sanchez so that she can administer the vaccine to you. It’s just a precaution.”

Bones reached the nurse’s station almost before Roberts finished his sentence, with Maddock walking up behind him.

“Okay, boys, roll up your sleeves. This won’t hurt a bit.” The nurse watched as Maddock and Bones presented their bare shoulders, and she quickly swabbed a portion of their skin with alcohol pads.

“This, on the other hand,” she said, picking up a strange-looking bifurcated needle, “will most definitely hurt.”

She dipped the two-pronged instrument into a flask and jabbed it into Bones’ shoulder, cutting off his laughter. He looked up at her in surprise.

“You’re a tricky one!”

“You might be able to fool a couple of dolphins, but you’re not getting past me.”

Maddock presented his shoulder. “Heard about that, huh?”

“The whole ship heard about it.” She picked up another of the needles and stuck it into Maddock’s arm. She looked at him and frowned.

“Something wrong?

“No, it’s just weird that you’re a Navy guy and your eyes are the color of the sea. They’re…” She paused, shook her head as if to clear her thoughts, and then resumed a professional air.

“It should turn red in a few hours, then in a day or so develop kind of an open sore. That’s completely normal. Another day or so after that it’ll scab over. If you experience a different progression than that, then notify a doctor when you get back.” She glanced from Maddock to Bones and back to Maddock.

“Good luck, boys!” She began packing up her equipment.

Commander Roberts said, “Thank you, Lieutenant. Dismissed.” He waited until she had wheeled her cart to the door and Bones held it open for her. When they were alone again, Roberts said, “In terms of what to expect on the dives, I’m told you’ll be using traditional scuba air tanks for dives to a depth of two hundred ten feet, where the plane rests on a coral shelf.”

“That’s deep,” Maddock said.

“We’ll be deep undercover,” Bones quipped, eliciting an eye roll from the commander, who continued.

“It is a demanding dive, which you’ll be doing multiple times. Take care. The surface water is warm, but it’s colder at two-hundred feet there than it is in the harbor here,” he said, waving an arm at the water outside his office walls. “But there’s more than that,” he added before his two SEALs could shrug. He knew they’d been through far worse conditions than that, and if anything would need to fake discomfort to match their fictitious backgrounds.

Both of them waited for him to speak. He looked down at his desk for a moment, almost as if uncomfortable. Then he said, “There have been reports of a strange sea creature or creatures in the area.”

Maddock and Bones exchanged questioning glances. At length, Bones asked, “What kind of creatures?”

Roberts shrugged. “We’re not sure. It might even be some kind of publicity stunt on the part of EARHART. Just stay alert down there at all times. That’s all.”

He stood and handed Maddock and Bones the briefing files. Maddock and Bones stood up to go.

“One more thing.” They looked at their commander.

“In the chopper you’ll find a backpack with a few supplies including a satellite phone and two digital cameras in waterproof housings. You will not be taking any firearms on this mission as it would be out of line with your cover story. Is that clear?”

“Yes sir,” they both intoned.

Then, “Our dive gear?” Maddock wanted to know.

“All of it will be provided by the EARHART team. Don’t bring your own, with the exception of minor accessories if you have a preference, and especially don’t let on that you’re used to using military equipment, understood?”

The two SEALs nodded, the nature of their undercover work now setting in.

“I can’t deny I have reservations about sending the two of you on this mission.” The commander’s voice sharpened as he spoke. “You come highly recommended, but you also have the reputation of being a couple of buffoons. Nothing I’ve seen in this meeting has dissuaded me that the latter is true, at least when it comes to one of you.” He turned a flinty gaze upon Bones.

“We won’t let you down,” Bones said, suddenly chastened.

“I hope not. Good luck, gentlemen. I look forward to debriefing you after a successful mission.”

After saluting their superior officer, Maddock and Bones walked to the door.

“Smallpox,” Bones muttered as he looked at his shoulder while they exited the room. “Why’d it have to be smallpox?”

When they stepped out of the office the sailor who had escorted them here was waiting outside the door. “This way, please.”

He smiled at them and waved toward the expansive stern deck, where a helicopter’s rotors began to turn.