His father looked surprised. “He said you saw shells being fired from a vessel.”
Bad news traveled fast and became exaggerated as it went. Drake had called Blade. Blade had contacted the military. The military pipeline apparently included retired admirals, like Anderson, and now his father. Drake knew one thing for sure. When he made his official report, he would have to word what he had actually seen very carefully and sign a document to that effect, if possible. Wars had been started because of inaccurate intelligence.
Something else puzzled Drake. “Why did you come here?”
“Isn’t the welfare of my son a good enough reason?”
No. It had never been before. Perhaps if he had followed in his father’s footsteps and attended Annapolis instead of enlisting in the army as a private, he would have won his father’s approval. As things stood, he was a failure in the old man’s eyes.
They were still standing in the middle of the lobby with Drake facing the entrance. He saw Slick open the door, stick his head in the doorway, and give a nod to indicate that he wanted to speak to Drake. So Slick was going to debrief him. He didn’t want Slick’s presence here to be generally known, not even by a retired admiral.
“I have to go to a meeting. Are you going to be around for a while, sir? You can have dinner with Melody and me.”
“Melody?” Admiral Drake smiled for the first time. “That’s right; Andy said she was your running partner. Always did like that girl. She’s got spunk. Unfortunately, I can’t make it. Andy and some of the other board members of Giganticorp are coming here. I’m having dinner with them. Maybe we can get together tomorrow. I’m staying overnight.”
Everybody was converging in Malibu. Events were getting curiouser and curiouser. Drake shook hands with his father and headed out of the motel. He saw a black Porsche sitting in the far corner of the parking lot and walked toward it.
Drake was sitting on a bed in the room belonging to Melody and Grace who were sitting on the other bed. He had told them both what he had seen or thought he had seen.
Grace looked scared. “Do you think we’re being attacked by the
USSR?”
Melody patted her hand. “That’s not likely. If they attacked us, they wouldn’t just destroy a few houses.”
“But it says on TV-”
“You can’t believe everything you see on the telly. Unless…”
“Unless they want to get our attention,” Drake said. “Show us how vulnerable we are.”
“Why would they do that?” Grace asked.
“Negotiating ploy. We’ve been making noises about atrocities happening at the Berlin Wall. People trying to escape from East Germany getting shot. Maybe they just want to direct our attention elsewhere. Anyway, we’ve got destroyers sweeping the area looking for submarines. The marines have set up a machine gun on Malibu Beach and put out barbed wire.”
“Will we go to war with them?”
Melody was the one who answered, saying that she hoped there would be no war. Before dark they had seen a couple of the gray naval vessels off the beach. It brought back memories of Korea to Drake.
He decided it was a good time to change the subject. “We had the two notes you delivered to me checked for fingerprints. There is one unidentified set of prints on the first note, but it doesn’t belong to anybody at Giganticorp. The only prints on the second envelope are those of the desk clerk at that motel. The note doesn’t have any prints on it at all.”
“I’m glad my prints weren’t on them.” Grace didn’t ask how they had gotten the prints checked. She looked conspiratorial. “I have some information for you.”
She pulled a folded sheet of paper out of the pocket of her shorts and handed it to Drake.
“During the confusion today I was able to open Fred’s attache case and look inside. Fortunately, he’s a neatnik, with all his folders labeled. I looked in one called ‘Personnel.’ It had three sheets in it, each one giving information about a man. I just had time to copy their names and telephone numbers and addresses.”
Drake looked at the handwritten names and numbers to make sure they were legible. He would pass these on to Blade and Slick.
“Good work. Just be careful. We don’t want you to get caught.”
Grace beamed. “I was careful. By the way, Drake, I understand that your father’s here. I’ve never met a real admiral. I’ve seen some at Giganticorp, but only from a distance.”
“Maybe you’ll get a chance tomorrow. He’ll like you. He’s got an eye for pretty ladies. Right now he’s out with his buddies telling war stories.” Drake realized he shouldn’t compliment Grace apart from Melody. He said to her, “I forgot to tell you that my father mentioned that he wanted to see you. He said you had spunk.”
“Better that than he said I stunk.”
CHAPTER 16
Today’s run is all on roads, so be extra careful to watch the traffic. It goes from Leo Carrillo Beach to Oxnard Beach Park in Oxnard. Start at Leo Carrillo Beach on Route 1 and run to Point Mugu. You will pass the Point Mugu missile display at Wood Road. Head north on Navalair Road and west on Hueneme Road. Along this stretch you will see many vegetable farms and fruit trees. Turn north on Ventura Road through the city of Port Hueneme and past the Seabee Museum. Head west on Channel Islands Boulevard and north on Harbor Boulevard to Oxnard Beach Park.
The memorial service for Harrison had taken place as promised by Casey, but not all of the runners had attended. Some had used the day off to visit their families. Drake didn’t blame them. He had barely known Harrison, himself, and although he attended the service, his main feeling was the “it could have happened to me” syndrome, which he had encountered in Korea when his buddies got shot. He didn’t feel the guilt of “why was I spared?” perhaps because it all seemed so unreal.
Today they were racing again. The disadvantage of running on roads was that the runners had to be constantly alert and often had to run single file. This resulted in them being even more spread out than usual. When Drake and Melody were able to run beside each other, they tried to make sense of what had happened.
Drake’s main questions concerned the response to the shelling. He took advantage of a wide area to pull up alongside Melody. “If you believe the commentators on TV, we’re already at war with the USSR. And yet, I haven’t heard that anybody saw anything more than I did, which was almost nothing.”
“Grace turned the telly on first thing this morning to watch the news. The report said no trace of any boat has been found. Supposedly there are ships patrolling the whole west coast, both Coast Guard and Navy.”
“Or at least a couple of destroyers. Since we’re fighting in Vietnam, we’re spread a little thin.”
“There was also talk that the military might occupy part of the coast. They’ve already sent a force of marines to Malibu, as you know. That’s in addition to the specialists combing the ruins of the houses for evidence as to what happened.”
“The locals must love all the attention. They’re always fighting to keep people off their beaches, and now they’ve got soldiers to contend with. They’d better lock up their daughters.”
“The reporter said the residents asked for the troops. They’re panicked and afraid that more shelling is going
