The frogmen (2 page)

It was obvious to Amos that the chief was setting him up. He glanced over at John for moral support, but John only grinned and said, "When she blows up be sure and go by yourself, Amos. Don't take anybody with you."

"Well, then, stand back," Amos said. Trying to re-

member exactly what the chief had done when he removed the horn, Amos started taking the screws out. He recalled how neatly the chief had lined them up on the table, and he did the same.

He had three screws out and lined up and had the last one almost out, only a few threads still holding it, when a no-volt alternating current slammed up from the screw head, along the screwdriver shaft, and into his hand, curling his fingers into a fist. The current snapped his wrist stiff, slammed up his arm, and jolted down to his feet, nailing him to the floor, where he stood, rigid and helpless, until he managed to yank the screwdriver loose.

"Ka-boom. One dead ensign," the chief said.

Amos' classmates began to grin, and some laughed nervously.

"All right, smart Ensign, what'd you do wrong?"

"Nothing/' Amos said. "Was it wired up when you did it?"

"It was," the chief said, unplugging an extension cord leading to the mine. He unscrewed the last few threads of the fourth screw and put it down on the table with the rest. "If you'll look in where that screw was, you'll see a little plunger coming out of the side of the hole. See it?"

Amos looked into the hole and saw something about the size of a big needle protruding from the wall of the tapped hole.

"That plunger is connected to the firing mechanism exactly the way the horn itself is, only it can't close the circuit as long as the body of the screw is in the

hole. Your mistake, Wainwright, was in unscrewing it far enough to let the plunger operate/'

"Very clever," Amos said, "but how was I supposed to know that there was a plunger in there?"

"There's a way," the chief said. "But this thing killed three of my best friends before we figured it out."

He looked up at them. "We weren't smart. You see, in this metal plate there are four holes, but the side of this fourth hole has been cut away so all you have to do is loosen the screw and you can slide the plate out from under it, without letting the plunger move. You shouldVe noticed that, Wainwright.

"That's lesson number one," the chief said, "and I hope you got the message. We're up against some very smart people.

"The second thing I hope you learned is that when you start to disarm something, you look at it. And I mean look. Because everything you see has a reason. Like that cutaway screw hole. The only way you can spot that is to put your face right down on the mine. If we had done that and stopped right then and studied it until we figured out the reason for it, there would be three men alive today instead of dead.

"From now on," the chief said, "I'm going to give you things to disarm. There's going to be a trick in every one of them. Not simple tricks like that screw. Real tricks. If you figure 'em out, okay. If you don't, a hundred and ten volts are going to knock you right

on your can. You make a mistake and you're really going to know it."

The chief smiled sweetly at them. "From now on, you are I are enemies. I'm going to zap you every time I can and every way I can. I'm going to get you people so psyched out you'll be scared to pick up a bottle of beer. So fall in and pair off."

No one seemed to want to work with Amos. The chief petty officers paired off together, as did the two Master Divers, and the rest of them all seemed to know each other. At last there were only two men left, a motor machinist's mate, second, named Carl Reeder, whom no one liked, and the radioman, John Nash.

Amos saw Nash glance at Reeder and then look over at him. He was surprised that Nash seemed shy, looking at him and then away. "You mind working with me, Mr. Wainwright?" Nash asked.

"Fine," Amos said.

"Okay," the chief bawled. "Reeder, you work by yourself."

"That suits me right down to the ground," Reeder said. "I don't want anybody else fouling up my work."

Day after day in Death Row the two-man teams stood at the heavy tables trying to disarm the exploders the Hangman rigged up for them. There was no way to tell when that no-volt current was going to zap you, and you waited all day long for the crushing, jerking jolt of it when you made a mistake.

There was seldom an hour when, from one or the other of the workbenches, a howl of pain and outrage and defeat didn't rise. The rest of the students would watch the victim tear himself loose from the current and stand there shaking, but no one ever laughed again as they had laughed at Amos.

As the terrible days went on, the students began to recognize and then reluctantly admire the enemy's skill. From the simple plunger in the wall of the screw hole they went on to more intricate ways the enemy had devised to keep their exploders from being disarmed. The enemy built tricks within tricks; when you were feeling good because you had figured one of them out, you got zapped by a secret within a secret.

The timed mechanisms were the real horrors. As you worked on the device, you could hear the clock inside, ticking away the seconds you had left to make it stop. Because if you couldn't make the clock stop and it stopped because your time had run out, then it zapped you. And even then you never knew how long after that last tick the enemy had set the thing for. It might be only seconds before it zapped you, or it might be minutes. You never knew.

It soon became apparent to everybody in the class that the chief was giving Amos and John a rough time. For them he reserved the most intricate exploders, and as Amos and John, out of sheer desperation, got to be expert at taking them apart without getting zapped, the chief began to pull some pretty raw stuff.

Once, after Amos and John had figured out a particularly tricky clock mechanism, got it apart and stopped and completely disarmed so that it couldn't possibly explode, it zapped them when they laid it down on the table.

Death Row 25

As the weeks went by, John Nash began to work out what he called his Grand Plan.

Amos didn't want any part of it, didn't want to be noticed any more than the chief was noticing him already.

It was a simple plan. Rig up a device that would zap the chief.

"I can do it!" John announced one day. "I've figured out a way to rig an exploder so it'll zap him. No wires. No connections. Just one thing pressing on another thing, the ankle bone connected to the neck bone."

"And our head bone disconnected from our body bone," Amos had argued.

"We'll make a little game of it, Amos. Bet him a couple of beers; keep it all friendly and nice."

"Zap him?"

"Zap him. Nail him down to the floor and shake him like a leaf."

"I'd love to see that," Amos said, "but from a long distance off. Way off and land of anonymous."

"Then you'll do it?"

Amos wanted to. He was fed up with the chiefs harassment. But getting through Death Row, getting out was more important. "No, John. The way he'd report it to the brass could get us into real trouble."

John was disappointed. "Well, I can't do it by myself. I really thought you'd go for it, Amos."

"One of these days I'll tell you why I can't take a risk like that."

Only a few nights later, though, Amos changed his

mind. He shared a room in Bachelor Officers' Quarters with a lieutenant (junior grade) named Beach, whom Amos did not like. Beach was a by-the-book, paperwork man whose only ambition was to keep from being sent to sea, where somebody might shoot at him. Since Beach was the Personnel Officer for the command, he had been successful in outwitting all attempts to get him sent to sea.

That night when Amos came in, Beach looked up and said, "Say, Wainwright, did you know that you've got gaps in your service record?"

Amos felt as though everything were turning cold. He could hear the quiver in his voice as he tried to sound casual. "What sort of gaps?"

"You worked in the Navy Department before coming here, but there's no fitness report on you by your commanding officer there."

"That poor old commander had a hard time remembering his name. Don't worry about it; I can get it straightened out."

"See that you do," Beach said and got up to comb his hair, which he did every few minutes.

Amos watched Beach out of the corner of his eye as he told him a joke he had heard that day.

Beach was not amused. "And that's not all," he said.

"All of what?" Amos asked, feeling the shakes coming, as though the Hangman had just zapped him.

Beach looked at him from the mirror. "You haven't got any orders assigning you to this school, Wain-

wright. The way I see it, you have no right to be here."

Here it is, Amos thought. Disaster. He tried to laugh. "That Navy Department is one more fouled-up operation."

He realized instantly that it was the wrong thing to say. "Oh, yeah?" Beach said. "It's never fouled me up. People can't just wander around in the Navy, going any place they choose, you know."

"You're right. I'll get it squared away tomorrow."

"7 will get it squared away," Beach said. "I'm preparing a report on this matter for the Commanding Officer."

Anger began to ride over Amos' fear. "Come on, buddy," he said as politely as he could, "I know how important it is to keep all these papers straight. But it's only one missing piece. It won't take long to get it, so why bother everybody?"

"Because it happens to be my duty," Beach said. "You have no orders to be here."

Amos started to say something, then stopped, knowing that there was nothing he could say. He went straight to John Nash's barracks and got him out of a card game.

"Changed my mind," Amos told him. "Are you sure this gizmo of yours can zap the chief?"

John grinned at him. "This thing will zap anybody."

"Show me."

As they approached the high, barnlike building, both of them saw light through the windows. They

ducked behind a 5-inch-gun mount and watched. "Nobody's supposed to be in there at night," John said.

"Hingman maybe," Amos said, moving toward the building.

There were some bushes near one of the windows, and Amos crept in under them and raised his head slowly to look in. He ducked down again and waved to John.

"It's only the football player," he said as they moved along the building to the door. Without knocking, Amos opened it and went in.

Death Row looked even spookier at night. A huge black man, wearing only dungaree trousers, was giving the place a sweep down with a push broom.

He was a steward's mate, second, named Lafayette Maxwell, who had been a professional football player, a linebacker for Chicago. Now he played on the naval station team with a lot of other ex-pros.

"Hey, Max," John called softly. "Okay to come in?"

Max turned and leaned on the broom handle. In the dim light he looked dangerous just standing still. "If you can't read the signs that say keep out, I guess it's okay to come in."

"Can't read a word of English," John said, closing the door. "You know Amos Wainwright?"

"I've seen him around. How you, Mr. Wainwright?"

"That depends," Amos said, shaking hands with him.

"What you up to, John?" Max asked.

"We're going to zap the chief."

Max leaned back on the broom and grinned. "Hing-man? Well, then, is there anything I can do to help?"

"He still giving you a hard time?"

"He just resents me because I play ball all afternoon. He thinks that's a lot of fun, getting your brains jarred loose. It isn't exactly what I joined the Navy for. . . ."

Max leaned down and looked hard at Amos. "Mr. Wainwright, I see you all the time around BOQ with that Personnel Officer, Lieutenant Beach. How about putting in a word for me? Tell him I'll take any kind of sea duty. Any kind. A rowboat."

"I'm sorry, Max," Amos said. "I'm the last guy in the world who could help you. Beach is my roommate in BOQ, but he's trying to get me court-martialed right now."

"Sorry to hear that," Max said. "What'd you do?"

"Got tangled up in the paperwork."

John backed away a little. "Haven't you got enough trouble? Why add to it by zapping the chief?"

"Right now I'm one step ahead of Beach and his court-martial," Amos told them. "The only way I can stay ahead is to get sea duty. If I can make the chief mad enough, he'll ship me out."

John went over to his locker, and as he worked the combination on the knob, said, "I don't know what he'll do to you, but I guarantee this will make him mad."

He took what looked to Amos like a standard mine exploder down off the shelf and held it out to Amos.

Amos carried it over to their workbench. "It's got to work, John. And he's smart."

"Not smart enough," John said, picking up the loose ends of two wires. "Here's the leads that go to the battery and detonator. Before he gets to the other end of these wires, he's going to get zapped."

Max stood at the bench, watching. "I want to be around when that happens. I'll even cut practice to be here."

"Tomorrow morning," Amos said, as he watched John taking the exploder apart.

"Here's the plunger in the bolthole," John said.

Amos felt his disappointment like a weight. "John, he'll spot that before he even starts."

"The beauty of this device is that he'll spot everything," John said. "He'll get more and more confident as he goes along, and that's what's going to nail his feet to the floor, and wave him like a flag. Because when he gets this thing completely apart, that's when it's going to bite him."

Amos was doubtful. "I don't want any dirty tricks like he pulls on us, John. If it isn't legitimate, I guess we'd better call it off."

"This is legitimate," John said. "I got a jeweler's saw and sliced the base plate in half. Then I hollowed out a place for the acid, coated the bare wires with wax, laid them in there, and glued that plate together again. I painted it so there's not even a hair-

line crack showing. When those wires pull out of the wax and hit that acid it's take-off time in Dixie."