A short man with a silvering mustache stepped out and waved them through. “Captain Martinez,” he said, introducing himself and quickly shaking hands. “Glad you were able to get out here. Come with me.”
Then it was down into the tight confines of the corridors. Everything gleamed: polished and clean. Shipshape navy. Hardly a speck of dirt, grease, or anything of the sort.
Anika stepped sideways past a seaman on his hands and knees, polishing a kickplate on a bulkhead door. Salutes were exchanged between the Americans in passing, and the group continued on through the metal warren, footsteps echoing on down ahead of them.
“My superiors view this as a justification of our presence,” Martinez was explaining to Anton. “Critics aren’t happy about diesel-burners chewing up fuel rations for force projection up here in the Circle, they think the fuel’s better kept in reserve. In case we ever do end up in a major conflict, we can’t afford to use it up.”
“That is what UNPG is for,” Anton grumbled.
“Yes, and the Canadian Guard, and Navy.” Martinez grinned back at us. “But brass thinks you guys are undermanned and the Arctic is a real Wild West sort of area: Northern Europe and Russia to Canada and Alaska smuggling, new drug trade routes, loosely monitored offshore drilling operations, ecoterrorists.”
“So your brass thinks, Alaskan coast is not enough, no?” Anton said. “Wild, Wild West gets your attention?”
“Yee-haw,” Martinez agreed.
“And you, what do you think?” Yves asked the captain.
Martinez scratched his beard and slowed down. He looked back at them. “I’m just trying to explain to you why you had such a hard time getting permission to come aboard and talk to the
Then Martinez narrowed his eyes and stabbed his finger to make a point. “But I want to make sure you understand that this is also a PR coup for the people who gave me the orders to go hunt for the vessel. They’re trying to justify keeping ships like mine operational. Normally a ship like this, we coast around, trying to sip fuel as best we can and patrol some area. We usually leave the fast-moving interception and hunting to nuke-powered steamers and the sailships.”
And, Anika wondered, was that also a sign of the Americans overcompensating for the unexpected rise of Canada’s strength throughout the polar region, and as a result of those riches, the world?
There were Americans rioting about the cost of their military. And the American naval fleet would be testing combined maneuvers soon with other G35 navies as a way to possibly make cuts in its fleet. No wonder this captain’s superiors wanted the usefulness of their ships proved. It’d get that much harder for the UNPG to keep order in the North if the Americans started drawing down from the Alaskan bases because of the cost of the Polar Fleet.
Maybe Canada would step up.
Anton nodded. “We just want to talk to the sailors of the
Martinez smiled sadly. “It’d be nice if we could prove the value of keeping these ships around, enough to justify the expense of converting them to nuclear power.”
Anton and Yves nodded sympathetically. They were both former sailors, now deskbound. They understood a captain’s desire to work hard to keep a ship going.
Martinez stopped in front of a locked room with two men on guard outside of it. “I doubt they’ll tell you much more than we found out already. We already passed on everything they said.”
“Yes,” Anton replied as he waited for the door to be opened. “But it’s always best to do your own interrogation, I feel. Look into their eyes and see what is there, yeah?”
The thick metal door swung open.
“Knock yourselves out,” Martinez said.
Six grubby men sat on a long bench, their backs to the gray-painted metal bulkhead. Two of them had their faces in their hands, elbows on their knees.
Anika locked eyes with the man wearing the blue woolen cap.
“That’s the man who fired the rocket at me,” she said.
7
Anika’s attacker had been about to stand, as were some of the other men on the uncomfortable-looking bench.
They were, she realized, quite young. Very early twenties, maybe late teens. Hardly more than boys. One of them had a patchy beard.
This crew wasn’t a group of hardened drug runners, as Anton and Yves had passed along to her. That was what the
The U.S. Navy said they’d most likely weighted and sunk their evidence after ramming her airship in the water, then ran for it, because there was nothing in the
“A bunch of young punks, most likely first timers, who panicked,” Yves said. “That’s what everyone seems to think.”
Now Anika felt like a tightly wound spring that had snapped, pieces scattering everywhere. She’d come here taut and angry. Self-controlled, but sadness and anger torqued tight and deep within her.
These … kids, she thought.
Just scared kids.
Anton and Yves sat down on small metal chairs in front of the five drug dealers and started asking questions.
“You’re … you’re not the lawyers, then?” one of the young men asked. He looked scared.
Yves shook his head and leaned forward. “Terrorists don’t get lawyers on a U.S. Navy ship,” he said softly. “Terrorists don’t get much of anything at all.”
One of the young men leaned forward and threw up.
Anika turned around and left the stink of fear behind her.
Half an hour later Yves joined her, leaning against the rail, looking out at the
“They’re younger than I expected,” she said.
“Young drug dealers. Young murderers.” Yves lit a delicate thin cigarette and drew in a deep breath of smoke. Exhaled. “You know … drug dealers on a street corner, they can be any age. They are still deadly people, yes?”
Anika looked over. “I’ve seen enough fourteen-year-olds with automatic rifles, Yves. I know. I was just surprised.”
Maybe she thought she’d left some of that behind in the desert. Lagos was built up. Like any other city in the world, it was its own little country deep in the canyons of its skyscrapers and municipalities. Not what foreigners thought of when she said Nigeria when they asked where she’d been born.
But up north … Up north it was all still tenuous country in scattered places. Religious tension. Riots. Broken landscapes and desperate people.
Kids with weapons.
She’d been a city girl with Nollywood-inspired dreams of becoming a pilot. To fly out from the depths of city and noise and packed people outside in the heat.
And she’d flown into a part of Africa that she’d only ever seen in news reports or Western-made movies.
“If they were running drugs, then how come my scatter camera went off?” Anika asked, turning and leaning her back against the cold metal rail. “Are drugs radioactive now?”
Yves grinned briefly around the edge of his cigarette. “They are not. But, you know, it is good you
