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...