Free Bermuda Triangle by Susan Cartwright

1.
Mystery
    "I beg your
pardon, Lieutenant?"
    "Captain,"
Lieutenant Dave Terwin repeated, "Man overboard!" The officer of the
deck's expression remained neutral. A veteran, he had the alert-yet-relaxed demeanor
so characteristic of experienced naval men. A sharp, louder than usual voice betrayed
his urgency.
    The captain of
the USS Maryland , Commander Mark Hanlon,
was of medium height, with short brown hair and shrewd gray eyes. He glared at
Terwin and set his mug of coffee down. The distinctive thud was loud amongst
the background conversational noise and purring of equipment cooling
fans. " Is
this your idea of a joke, Lieutenant? Because if it is...."
    The officer stepped
aside. "Skipper, perhaps you'd like to see for yourself."
    All conversation
stopped as Captain Hanlon strode to the LCD interface of the command center.
Instead of a periscope, Virginia -class submarines utilized telescoping
photonics masts. With high resolution cameras, infrared sensors,
range finders and electronic eavesdropping arrays -- the masts brought the outside
world into Maryland via fiber optic cable.
    Hanlon stared. Twelve-hundred
yards away a man was afloat, lolling on the waves like a rag doll. He wore what
looked like a U.S. Navy lifejacket. Captain Hanlon sounded the alert and lifted
the handset. "All hands, prepare to surface. XO to the bridge. Deck crew
prepare for emergency retrieval. Helm," he said in a tight, level voice, "slow
ahead. Heading two-two-zero." He waited for the responsive vessel to move,
calculating position and distance, and in a moment said, "Yes, that's it.
All stop."
    The massive
nuclear submarine moved gracefully, barely creating a ripple in
the coffee of crewmen who, moments before, had been enjoying lunch a deck
below. Maryland's crew numbered one-hundred and thirty-four, with fourteen
officers and a hundred and twenty enlisted men. Of those, one-third were on
duty. The others could be found throughout the vessel: reading from an
extensive library of both e-readers and hard copy (almost every current
newspaper or magazine was brought on board before departure); resting, playing
games, watching movies, or working out in the gym.
    "Get the
medical team on deck, Lieutenant. The XO has the con. I'm going up topside."
    "Aye, aye,
sir."
    Captain Hanlon strode
through the command center, passing men on watch. Maryland had been
submerged for almost two months while executing a standard surveillance and reconnaissance mission. Positioned mid-Atlantic,
they were 460 miles southwest of the Azores Islands. In five days they would
return to base in Connecticut -- just in time to bring in the New Year 2012.
    The deck tilted
to a twenty-five degree angle and began to level off. Hanlon lurched and swayed
without slowing pace. He had anticipated the normal conclusion of an ordinary
patrol.
    Now? He
shook his head. Not going to happen.
    He thought of
his wife, Noelle. Astrology interested her, but he considered it mumbo-jumbo,
pure and simple. Still, submariners could be a superstitious bunch. While he
didn't own a rabbit's foot, he never walked under ladders. He liked to hedge
his bets. Noelle always saw him off with admonitions to be careful. Her horoscopes
were forever predicting, "life changing events." He supposed they had
to be right sometime.
    God I hope not. I
like my life as it is.
    Hanlon stepped
over a bulkhead, moved through a narrow corridor and then upward, nodding at a petty
officer who moved aside to let him pass. As he came up on deck he took a deep
breath of fresh salt air. Solid, slate-gray cloud surrounded them, making little
break in the horizon. An icy wind blew from the northwest and a six-foot swell
was running, the rolling waves streaked with whitecaps.
    T he
boatswain's mates heaved lines overboard, lowering the craft. Five
crewmen climbed down to board her. The zodiac inflatable, a paltry fifteen feet
long by six feet wide, was dwarfed by the massive bulk of the surfaced
submarine. While Maryland rolled