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  Cole relayed it all to Delaney, but had a hard time over the screaming engines of the smallboat to clearly hear anything back from the cutter. With continued vectors from the aircraft overhead, the coxswain made a slow turn to the left and came within 25 yards of the Go-Fast’s stern before paralleling its course due south.

  As they drove into a light rain, Cole took a moment to look around and admire his crew. The coxswain showed a steel resolve on his face as he expertly worked the throttle and wheel to keep a tight formation with the Go-Fast. All around him, Cole’s team readied for the attack as the smallboat surged up and over swells. On the port side of the smallboat, Cole’s leading petty officer with the shotgun repositioned himself to hold his sights on the Go-Fast, now no more than ten yards ahead in the dark.

  Jake grabbed Cole’s shoulder and yelled, “I’ve lost comms with the Herc.”

  Cole thought for a second, then looked forward at the Go-Fast and remembered Potts’ words. Cole then looked back at his boatswain’s mate who grinned at Cole through the rain, silently encouraging him to continue the chase.

  “Fuck it,” said Cole and he motioned with his left hand to continue the chase. It was pitch black now, and all Cole could see ahead was the white wake of the Go-Fast as it ran south for Colombia. He flipped his goggles down and still could only make out the green blurred wake of the Go-Fast. Cole tried again with no success to get comms with Delaney. It wasn’t until after they emerged out of the rain squall several minutes later that Cole heard Delaney calling for him.

  “Bravo, Conn, Bravo, Conn, acknowledge.”

  Cole yelled back into the radio, “Conn, Bravo, Go ahead.”

  Cole heard the concern in the voice on the other end when it said, “Bravo, Conn, RTB, I say again, RTB.”

  Just as Cole acknowledged the call, Jake yelled to him, “I got comms again. We’re ten miles from Colombia. The C-130 says we’re inside their TTWs. We gotta turn around!”

  Cole looked ahead once more at the Go-Fast’s wake through his NVGs and realized he’d lost this one. Moreover, he’d busted a sovereign nation’s territorial seas. He tapped the coxswain on the shoulder and motioned to turn around. The coxswain shook his head to say no, but Cole signaled him again to turn around. With disappointment and frustration on the faces of his entire crew, Cole flipped his goggles up and sat back for the long ride back to Delaney.

  He wasn’t back onboard more than five minutes before Cole found himself once again being dressed down by Potts.

  “Damn it, Cole. Do you even realize what a mess you’ve created?”

  Cole, knowing better, still argued, “Sir, you told me not to let them get away.”

  Potts grew even more upset and yelled, “There are rules, Cole, and you don’t seem to ever take that into account. I’m telling you right now, this isn’t the end of this one for you. Now get the fuck out of my face.”

  g

  And so, weeks after that night, Cole stood on the bridge wing and thought back to that chase. His watch nearly over, Cole compared that chase to that previous afternoon and reflected quietly on the blurred lines between right and wrong. He knew it was wrong to keep the chase up, but a drug bust had been a mere 30 yards from him, and the entire crew of Delaney was hungry for it. Had he been successful, he thought, perhaps Potts would have had a different reaction. But luck was rarely on Cole’s side these days.

  He thought too of the old man now sleeping on the couch in the wardroom down below. Had I been wrong to push the issue with Commander Walters and OPS about the sailboat? In all likelihood, Potts and Walters didn’t like him anymore because of it, but the sailor who was alive because of Cole would probably argue the opposite. There were no easy answers to any of Cole’s questions.

  After a few minutes, Cole’s mind steadied once he heard Wheeler moving about on the bridge. Cole’s roommate and a classmate from the academy, Wheeler was a golden child. He was tall, an accomplished athlete, and well-liked by the crew for his ability to filter the crap from above and spare the crew from Walters’ wrath. In short, Wheeler had the system licked and the sky was the limit for him.

  Wheeler did everything Potts asked of him and never questioned why, putting him on the fast track to success and standing in stark contrast to Cole. This morning he had come up to relieve Cole for the transit into Key West. Cole watched from the bridge wing as Wheeler made his round of the bridge, quickly devoured an apple, then tossed it in the trash as he stopped at the radar console. Cole watched with irritation as Wheeler chewed the rest of the apple and stared at the radar for a minute or two. Cole knew damn well the radar picture was clear and no traffic stood between Delaney and the sea buoy, now just a few miles to the north. From the bridge wing, Cole looked north ahead of the cutter and there was nothing but water. Reluctantly, he walked into the bridge to see what nonsense Wheeler had come up with.

  “What’s this guy here doing?” Wheeler asked without looking up at Cole.

  “Come on man, that’s not a contact.” Cole gritted his teeth already knowing where this conversation would end.

  “It looks like something.” Wheeler’s eyes remained focused on the black screen as the radar scanned around and around and a faint green blip popped up every third or fourth sweep.

  “Wheeler, why are you such a bitch?” Cole said. He was having a bit a fun now.

  Wheeler ignored the provocation and calmly replied, “Did you run a plot on this guy?”

  Fuck, Cole thought, knowing that Wheeler would not relieve him of the deck until he plotted out a maneuvering solution for the phantom blip. Perhaps Wheeler actually convinced himself it was a contact, or perhaps Wheeler was screwing with Cole—either way, Cole had to plot it out. He took a blank maneuvering board from the chart table and started laying out the solution on paper. It was difficult to do since the suspect blip disappeared for half a minute at a time before reappearing, but Cole dutifully went through the steps before showing Wheeler that whatever it was, it wasn’t moving anywhere and posed no threat to Delaney.

  Wheeler looked at the plot and gave Cole a terse, “Very well, I offer my relief.”

  He saluted Cole with a smirk giving away the fact that the radar blip was just a quick joke at Cole’s expense.

  Cole saluted back smiling, “You’re such a prick sometimes.” He walked back out on the bridge wing, still smiling a bit at Wheeler’s little prank. They were polar opposites, but as roommates they got along well enough to screw with each other incessantly. Wheeler didn’t dare show it in front of others, but he liked Cole, too.

  Not yet eight in the morning, Key West was at last in sight. Soon, the party catamarans would anchor just off the reef and tourists would splash over the side with their cheap pastel-colored snorkels and fins. Cuddy cabins and center-console power boats, crewed by half-drunk and sunburned weekend fishermen, would dot the shallow waters between the reef and the shore. The cruise ships’ engines were still lit off and faint trails of their exhaust were carried north with the sea breeze. Cole looked at Key West and knew the little town of misfits and modern-day pirates was coming alive. He’d spent many nights drunk like any good sailor cavorting up and down Duval Street. He knew the good restaurants tucked into quiet corners where the cruise ship crowd dared not go. He knew the bars that served good spiced rum and had more than a few favorite weathered bar stools overlooking the harbor. Cole daydreamed often about settling down in the little town known as the Conch Republic.

  Meanwhile, back on the bridge, more and more members of the crew were taking their positions. They marched up and silently settled in for the slow transit. To Cole, it resembled a clown show. The bridge was barely big enough for six, but each time Delaney pulled into port, more than 25 crew members were crammed onto it. There was a navigator, a back-up navigator, Lora overseeing both the navigators, and a seaman to record the minutiae in a little green notebook. They huddled around the chart table and bumped against each other as they went about their assigned tasks. Ther
e were two more seamen on each bridge wing as bearing recorders who shouted bearings to landmarks for the navigator inside who compared their references to the GPS position plotted on paper. There were also two lookouts who most often defeated their own purpose by standing next to each other and focusing their efforts on watching the show inside the bridge rather than scanning for potential conflicts ahead.

  There was a helmsman and a throttleman who physically manipulated the rudder and throttles respectively. Then there were half-a-dozen petty officers on sound-powered phones who did little but stand by in case of some unspecified catastrophic failure. For the hours-long transit, they would lean against whatever bulkhead kept them out the way and focus all their energies on keeping their eyes open. Sometimes they would laugh, seemingly to themselves, but really because someone had made a crude joke over the phones that only they could hear. There was a chief boatswains’ mate and a senior boatswains’ mate who supervised the deck crew that would ultimately throw the mooring lines over to the pier at the end of a mooring evolution. For the most part, they stood out of the way and passed the time making idle chatter.

  Then there were the officers. Lora was the navigator for this evolution and stood by the chart table. In theory she was in charge of the plot, but in reality she stood silent as the enlisted folks around her did their job and paid little attention to her presence. Lieutenant Grouse, the operations officer, was pacing from station to station, making sure everyone was on the same page. Everyone called him “OPS” and he was much older than his peers, having spent his life at sea with the Coast Guard. He reminded Cole more of a grandfather type than a sailor and Cole stayed away from him most of the time since OPS didn’t care much for Cole either. He wasn’t a bad guy, but he kept a low profile, biding his time until he could be reassigned off of Delaney to another cutter.

  Wheeler barked out commands over the loud and chaotic scene developing on the bridge. He was smart enough to recognize the ridiculousness of it, but played along in the interest of not ending up like Cole. Potts stood in a corner, looping his binoculars around his neck and quietly took in the bridge scene before Walters came up. The rest of the deck officers all grabbed radios or binoculars and did their best to look important.

  Cole was tasked with the radar. Still standing on the bridge wing, Cole saw Potts giving him the death stare and picked up on the angry man’s cues ordering him to man the radar. Cole exhaled rather loudly, walked into the chaos of the bridge, and stood over the radar console. Potts passed by him and whispered as he went, “Keep your shit together Cole and come see me after we’ve tied up.”

  “Captain on the bridge!” came out from a chorus of watchstanders as Walters’ short frame emerged from below decks. Her curly short red hair was tucked up under her ball cap and her pock-marked face wore its normal expression of anger. She said not a single word to anyone as she made her way to the captain’s chair. It sat against the aft bulkhead, facing forward, elevated above the bridge. She climbed up and sat down, convinced in her own mind that she was the master of this ship. OPS approached her and reported that all stations were manned and ready. She nodded and he backed away without turning his back to her.

  Wheeler was next. He saluted her and reported the ship’s position just south of the sea buoy. Again she nodded and instructed him to enter the shipping channel. Wheeler saluted a second time, replying, “Aye, aye, Captain.” He walked back over to the front of the bridge wing and stood next to Potts as Delaney crept closer to Key West.

  “Who was eating an apple?” Walters asked, her face turning a few shades ruddier. From her perch, she was looking over and down into the trash where Wheeler had tossed it.

  The entire bridge went silent. Twenty-something sets of eyes looked around for someone to step forward and take the fall. Cole looked at Wheeler and Wheeler looked back at him with an expression of dread.

  “That was me, Captain.”

  Everyone stared at Cole. From the console, he turned to face Walters and readied himself for an ass-chewing.

  “Figures.” She muttered the words without looking at Cole and shifted her gaze to look ahead of the cutter.

  Slowly, the crew went back to their tasks and as they did, Cole caught Wheeler staring at him. When they made eye contact, Wheeler nodded subtly in appreciation. Cole nodded back and Delaney continued at a snail’s pace.

  The deep, dark blue of open water gave way to shades of green as Delaney neared the Key West reef line. Coral heads appeared as dark spots below and only the channel, with Delaney in the middle, remained a dark blue. When she passed the reef line, the westerly swells subsided and Delaney steadied herself in the calmer waters. Protected by the reef, there was nothing more than a light chop now and the rising sun reflected off thousands of dwarfed crests. Inside the reef, small boats bobbed and motored their way aimlessly about. The palm trees of Key West were close enough now that Cole could see the southerly breeze colliding with and dying against the swaying fronds. Delaney inched past the green and red channel markers and veered west around the southernmost point, then north again past the cruise ship terminals.

  Cole was busy watching the tourists mill about Mallory Square, less than 100 yards to the east, when OPS barked at him, “Radar, what is this sailboat doing in front of us?”

  One of the dozen tourist party boats was idle in the channel, floating between Delaney and the Key West Coast Guard base. The radar would do little to determine the sailboat’s course, and Cole knew that OPS yelled at him simply to buy some time and appease Walters. Just as it did every day, the catamaran would set a sail to give paying tourists the false sense of sailing, then motor its way south to the reef. On the radar, it was far too close to interpret, but Cole pretended to plot it.

  Wheeler, with a fake irritation in his voice, ordered, “Helmsman, All Stop!”

  “All Stop. Aye, Sir,” came from the helmsman, followed quickly with, “Sir, my engines are all stop.”

  OPS again asked Cole what the sailboat was doing as the tension on the bridge peaked. The radar plot was pointless at a range of less than 50 yards, but Cole replied back “Sir, they appear to be tracking due south.” It was a total guess, based entirely on the fact that the catamaran did the same damn thing every day. Wheeler, OPS, and Potts all acted the part and exhaled loudly.

  Walters squirmed in her seat and her head peered back and forth like a frustrated turtle. “Damn blow-boaters,” was all she could manage in her growing frustration. The Coast Guard base was less than 200 yards away and the delay was not more than a minute, but her anger was real. Cole guessed that she was the only one on the bridge who was actually upset, but the crew did their best to act the part.

  As the catamaran started to make some headway to the south, Wheeler barked a new set of commands and Delaney slowly aligned herself with the pier. Wheeler knew how to drive the ship, as he had a true sailor’s sense about him. He’d back down on one engine, then forward on the other. He’d reverse both engines, then twist the ship again, each time inching closer and closer to the pier. Potts normally took over at this point, but Wheeler had earned his trust. Cole was off the radar by now and enjoyed watching Wheeler conn the ship into place. With a line over, Wheeler sent out a flurry of new commands, reversed the rudder hard, went ahead for a moment on both engines, then called out to put over the rest of the lines. Wheeler kept his composure throughout the process, and in Cole’s mind would make a great captain one day.

  Two dozen boatswain’s mates were now hard at work pulling the 2,000 tons of ship the last few feet to the pier. They worked well together. They could yell obscenities at each other and a moment later be laughing as if nothing had ever come between them. The chief boatswain’s mate and leading petty officer kept quiet for the most part, occasionally barking an order when they saw fit, but for the most part they let their subordinates do their jobs. Cole enjoyed this part of the Coast Guard. The camaraderie of the enlisted men and women was something he’d rarely felt in the w
ardroom. But just then, he caught Walters fidgeting in her chair with a look of disgust on her face and Cole shook off any romantic notions of the sea services. The southerly breeze pushed Delaney gently against the pier, and Cole left the bridge before OPS announced to secure from the sea detail.

  g

  Cole made his way down a passageway and into his stateroom. Wheeler would take his time on the bridge ensuring that every last detail was accounted for before coming down to their stateroom, so Cole was left alone with his thoughts. He took off his boots, blue pants and shirt, and gave himself a fresh coating of deodorant. After changing into his flip flops, faded cotton shorts, and a wrinkled button-down linen shirt, Cole felt much better than he had all morning. He went over to the sink and washed his hands under the cold water, rubbing them both over his face and through his disheveled hair. Taking his washcloth and soaking it as well, he wiped his face and scrubbed hard, as if to wash away the past few months.

  He had not forgotten Potts’ order to see him before he headed out for liberty, so Cole walked back down the passageway again to Potts’ stateroom, where he was already back at his desk, firing off emails. Cole knocked and Potts called him in. Cole took a seat by the door and waited. Potts ignored him for a minute as he proofed the email, hit send, then spun around in his chair and stared at Cole.

  “Cole, I told you that your little stunt off Colombia was going to cost you.”

  Cole nodded and felt the butterflies forming in his stomach. Perhaps this time he’d be restricted to the ship. With Key West’s bars only a few hundred yards away, Cole dreaded the thought of being stuck on Delaney for the next few days.

  “Headquarters, on my request and recommendation, has decided to separate you from the service.”