Inconclusive Evidence

Bob kept getting in trouble for doing the right thing.

He lit a cigarette and stared at the map. It should’ve been like hundreds of other bathymetric maps he’d produced of the San Francisco Bay over the last six years. A pleasant wash of blue-green haze, with undulating lines indicating the mesmerizing hidden world of the seafloor topography. Shoulda been. But it wasn’t.

The unnatural cylindrical shape jumped off the screen. He knew that shape. Hell, he’d built that shape before. And he knew its purpose well. He slammed the laptop shut and reached for his phone.

The line rang and rang while Bob paced the cramped interior of the Islander 36 sailboat that was his home. His eyes cast about the assorted items that amounted to his total material footprint: two marine VHF radios, a couple of lifejackets, a taser for safety and a collection of Levis 501s and flannel shirts. He’d taped up a sole reminder from happier days in the Navy to the bulkhead wall. The photo, from a newspaper clipping, showed an Admiral pinning a medal on Bob, while his wife stood by his side in pearls, a pretty white dress and evening gloves, looking beautiful and sexy, radiating intelligence and fierceness. Looking alive, in a word. The caption read: Robert Wojcheck receives the Bowen Award for Patented Inventions from Admiral Halsey for groundbreaking work on the Navy’s unmanned undersea vehicle program while his wife, Megan King Wojcheck, looks on. His eyes misted and he wiped a tear away.

“Helloooooo? Anyone home??” The voice broke his reverie.

“YES! I’d like to report an anomalous object on the seafloor, just inside the South Tower of Golden Gate bridge. The lat long coordinates are—”

“I’m sorry, sir. Did you say seafloor?” The operator at the National Response Center asked.

Bob confirmed.

“You a diver, sir?”

“No, I make bathymetric maps.” Bob took a long pull on his cigarette. “I’ve got a USV equipped with a Kongsberg sonar system and—”

“A USV?” The operator’s tone dripped with skepticism. “You operate a USV, as in unmanned sailing vessel?”

Bob stubbed the cig into an overflowing ashtray. “You gonna take the details or not?”

***

“…The report about the crashed underwater drone two days back… reference number #232432 … I’ll hold.”

Bob counted the sailboats racing in the bay. The lead boat rounded a buoy and let its spinnaker fly, casting a triumphant splotch of orange dotted against the horizon. Seconds later another spinnaker popped up, then another.

“It’s pending investigation, sir.”

“That mean the Coast Guard was alerted? Or the Office of Naval Intelligence?”

“We can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”

“I reported it.”

***

“… still pending investigation…”

“It’s been a week. Wake up, people! There is a Chinese PLA or Russian Navy drone, a weapon of war —”

“Chinese? Russian? Sir, we’ve got to slooooooow down. There is a process, an investigati—”

“It crashed in our goddamn back yard and you’re pending investigation?? The information stored on its hard drive is surveillance gold. GOLD… Look, I can’t say why… but that drone likely holds extremely sensitive military intel. If it fell into the wrong hands…”

***

Bob watched the spot like a hawk, commercial traffic came and went and he worked his way through bags of sunflower seeds, spitting the shells off the tip of the E dock and tracking the sun across the sky. A day went by, then another. His stakeout continued. Using binoculars by day and tracking ships’ red and green running lights by night, he verified their destinations via the VesselFinder app, which aggregated legally mandated AIS beacons - showing each vessels origin, destination and current location. Someone, somehow, was slow rolling this investigation.

***

“Uh huh…investigation #232432… Been ten days now…”

“Hmmm, that’s #232432 you said?” A long silence followed from the new operator. “#232432 shows marked closed, inconclusive evidence.”

Bob stared at the phone in disbelief. “No one even bothered to look.”

***

So Bob looked again. Booting up his USV mapper, that he had nicknamed Daisy, he programmed waypoints to the underwater crash site in question and gave her a gentle push out of the slip. “Godspeed, lil’ gal. It’s just you and me now,” Bob lit a cigarette and popped open a Pacifico.

Four hours later, Bob ran a bow and stern line up the dock cleats and a spring line from Daisy’s amidships for good measure. He knelt down on the dock and reached out with his free hand to open the onboard computing housement, where the brains and storage lived. He slid out the playing card sized hard drive, wedged it between his teeth, taking care not to bite on connection points, and pushed himself off Daisy and back up to the dock with his free hand.

Bob stared at the rendered image. The same cylindrical shape stared back. “Inconclusive my ass,” he muttered to himself. Someone was playing games.

***

Special Agent Sara Davis grabbed a handful of Cool Ranch Doritos and washed them down with a long swig of lukewarm coffee. Nothing like a breakfast of champions to compliment a little workplace insubordination. Her Special Agent in Charge - known as SAC to fellow FBI folk - had told her that the Beijing Eel, an old conspiracy about a Chinese mole burrowed deep into the Alameda Coast Guard outfit, was a smelly turd of a cold case that she shouldn’t touch with a twelve foot pole.

The rumors started four years back when a local fisherman reported seeing a 45’ catamaran drop anchor around 3am in the middle of the San Francisco bay - a spot no self-respecting local sailor would anchor unless they were in dire straits. The fisherman, assuming the sailors needed assistance, diverted to render aid. On approach, he saw three men huddled around the rear davits, speaking excitedly in Mandarin, while lowering an unknown object into the water. The sailors explained that their dinghy fell off the rear davits, flooded with water and sank before they could rescue it. Skeptical, the fisherman filed a report with the local police, which got routed to Alameda station, where it sat, uninvestigated. By the time it bubbled up to FBI counter intelligence, the Guard had marked it Inconclusive Evidence. And due to a system bug, their IT logs omitted the name of the lead investigator. The brutal reality: it got flagged, along with eight thousand similar counter-intelligence cases filed annually. Like SAC said, a forgotten turd of a case no one wanted.

But then a new ping came in. Another strange incident reported in the bay, this time by an ex-Naval architect who had left the US Navy under murky, and still classified, circumstances. The Coast Guard sat on the case for days before marking it Inconclusive Evidence. “I’m going to find the Beijing Eel,” she told her boss. “It’s raining outside, take your jacket,” he’d responded, without looking up from a mess of paperwork. “And you’re wasting your time,” he’d added, as she walked out the door. “You’re not going to learn anything from that burnout Wojcheck.” She’d scoffed back at him, rolled her eyes and wanted to ask how he knew, but it didn’t matter. He’d read her mind. “I knew because you listened to me about the jacket, and you never listen to me. And Bob lives at a marina. Ergo, you’re heading to the marina.” She flipped him off: “Have a nice day, Mark.”

***

She scanned the marina for the E dock, taking in a spread of bobbing masts and seagulls gliding about looking for lunch. A marina worker begrudgingly fobbed her through the gate and she trudged down the deck, eyes peeled for a troublemaker named Bob. She found a lanky guy, with faded blue jeans, well worn hiking boots and a tangle of brown hair tucked behind his ears, spitting sunflower seeds. A pair of binoculars and a half-consumed Pacifico sat nearby. “Robert Wojcheck?” She asked, following his gaze seaward toward the southern tower of the Golden Gate bridge.

“About time someone showed up,” his eyes went to her belt buckle, where she’d casually pushed the fringe of her windbreaker back to reveal her badge. “FBI? Where’s the Coasties?”

“Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“One hand on the boat,” Bob nodded toward the silver stanchions jutting up from the deck of the boat. “Gets slippery as all hell in the rain if you aren’t careful.” He disappeared into the cabin and returned with a bowl of sunflower seeds and two sparkling waters.

She popped hers open: “Show me the images that led you to file incident report #232432.”

“Same you’ve already seen, but sure.”

“I like to get it from the horse’s mouth,” she drank her water aggressively.

Fair enough, Bob retreated to his nav station, found the iPad and pulled up the bathymetric images in question. They sat under the Bimini cover, protected from the rain.

“You think they live the good life?” She jerked a thumb toward the seal swimming down the marina fairway.

Bob thought of the sharks. “Define good.”

Her brow furrowed as she studied the iPad, flipping through the available photos. “This is all of it?” Her posture suddenly became defensive, like he’d somehow lured her onto the boat. She swiped a couple of strands of loose hair back behind her ears. “Don’t fuck with me, Robert.” The tone in her voice one-eightied from her musings on a harbor seal’s plight.

“Scout’s honor, ma’am.”

She chewed her lip, thinking. Bob studied the dark circles under her eyes and watched her ball her fist - open, closed, open - the stress emanating from her like little electromagnetic pulses. The breeze picked up and halyards slapped against masts. “Ok, here’s the thing, you never saw these…” She waited for Bob to nod and then flipped her phone around. A PDF viewer showed a grainy photocopy of the report and Bob spotted his number: #232432. A series of bathymetric images and annotations followed.

“Jesus,” Bob braced himself, putting a hand on a winch. The reference number matched, but the images did not. “These —”

“Lemme guess. You’ve never seen those before, right?”

“Someone doctored my report,” Bob’s blood began to boil. He felt Davis’ eyes on him, her calculating whether she could trust him or not, what information she could share with him… ultimately, the reality that his past was always prologue.

She broke the silence: “The ‘ole missing report trick is back again.”

“Say what?”

“Happened four years back. Some Chinese recreational sailors, anchored in the middle of the slot and —”

“In the slot? That’s mostly a shipping channel … madness.”

“At 3am too,” Sara harrumphed. “Local fisherman saw it, got suspicious. Said they were lowering something into the water. Said they spoke Mandarin.”

“And the report just disappeared?” Bob’s eyes drifted toward Alcatraz. “They’re coming after it.”

“It?” Davis’ eyes flitted around the marina. She lowered her voice: “So it’s true? Naval Facility X is a real thing?”

“Shit… you really thought Alcatraz was just an abandoned prison dressed up as tourist trap?”

“Tell me.”

“I can’t,” Bob waved his hands noncommittally and lit a cigarette. “They’ll string me up by the balls... But, we need to recover that AUV, right?”

Davis ignored the question. The boat rocked gently against its fenders, as she pushed her way up and off onto the dock. Little spits of rain dripped from her windbreaker. “My SAC warned me against coming here. Look,” her phone buzzed and she glanced downward. “I appreciate you sharing the images but you’re persona non grata. Shit must have really hit the fan in whatever you were involved with.”

“It’s complicated,” Bob pulled on the cig.

“Ain’t that the truth.”

“Gimme your number,” Bob pulled out his phone. “I’ll let you know if I find anything else.”

Davis handed a card over. “Stay out of trouble, Robert.”

***

Bob kicked a pebble off the dock into the water and watched the ripples reverberate. He fixated on his ship finder app, tracking incoming car carriers and container ships under the yawning span of the Golden Gate and watching recreational sailors frolic in the twenty-knot-plus wind shooting down the slot. Hours passed. The wind died down. At 6pm, he called the incident report line again, but got an automated message that the nation’s terror hotline was closed for dinner. The temperature dropped and and night came. Little red and green running lights appeared on the horizon. Green meant the vessel was moving towards your left; red to your right. Maritime law required all vessels to run them.

He flipped the cigarette in his hand around and traced the burning red dot from his position to where he’d discovered the submerged foreign object. He smiled, thinking about going to retrieve it himself. Then, in the distance, he saw a red light blinker off. Or did he? He snatched the ship tracking app and scanned the AIS listings for the right vessel in that vicinity. It was a dredger. The digital dot bounced across his screen for another minute and then quit. Bob jumped to his feet. He snatched the binoculars, toppling a beer in the commotion. Scanning the horizon, he saw the silhouette of the dredger and its large boom arm and grapple bucket, barely visible in the night sky. Motherfuckers. They’re going for the drone.

He dialed agent Davis. The phone rang for an eternity. Pick the fuck up. He glanced at his inflatable with the 40 horsepower outboard engine. He dialed Davis again. Straight to voicemail. They’re fuckin’ going for the it, in a dredger! I’m going after ‘em. Bolting into his cabin, he scooped up his 50,000 volt taser, a VHF radio and two flares. The throaty burst from the outboard engine and the kick of sea spray of little bay rollers felt good as he gunned it.

Navigating from Berkeley marina would take him fifteen minutes, so he concocted a plan as his hair blew in the night wind. The dredger killed all its running lights and anchored just north of the South tower. One guy would be working the dredger. At least another would be helping guide the payload in. He’d lower speed on approach to minimize noise and then drift the last twenty yards, tie up on the stern. With luck, they’d be distracted operating the dredger. The critical task was incapacitating the dredger. Cut the main circuit breaker? Foul the hydraulic system? It’d have to do…

His phone buzzed, Agent Davis shouted: “There’s a twenty gigabyte hard drive on board that drone!”

“Of course there is goddamnit!”

“I’ve been digging. The Beijing Eel is real… your incident report smoked him out. They lost that drone years back, searching for it ever since. It’s loaded with intel. Acoustic signatures of all our new underwater tech, detailed bathymetric maps of the Facility X… Bob, this is a shit sammich. I’m ten minutes out… Wait. For. Me! Do you copy?!”

“We don’t have ten minutes. Go faster!” Bob said, setting a timer on his watch for her arrival. “They armed?”

“Almost certainly,” Davis replied, weary yet defiant. “Don’t risk your life. What are you planning to do?”

“My part.”

Bob cut his engine, drifted to the stern and cleated the line. The air smelled of diesel exhaust. The tensioned steel arm of dredger groaned loudly. Fuck. He climbed onto stern deck and crept toward the engine room, searching for a breaker or hydraulic controls, or anything he could bork. Up front, a nasally voice barked orders. Sounded like a slippery fucker. Probaly the Beijing Eel. Then, suddenly, the mechanical uproar stopped. Silence. Bob pressed himself against the bulkhead wall, and snuck forward, gripping his taser tightly. But, he was too late. His heart sunk. The grapple bucket swung in the darkness, bits of seaweed dangling off it, with the faded yellow pressure hull of enemy drone stuck in its tines.

The boss man whipped out a miniature satellite uplink and a small laptop, priming to beam up decades of national secrets. Innovations that he’d sacrificed his life to bring to fruition. National security, literally, hung in the balance as the grapple rotated and lowered the deadly payload. Bob grimaced. The grapple bucket clanked onto the steel deck. Sara was too late. No time. He removed a flare from his backpack, ripped the igniter cap, swiped it and chucked it into the dredger cabin, scaring the hell out of the second goon.

Confused but undeterred, the boss man started unscrewing the side panel, going for the onboard hard drive. Bob stepped into plain view of both men. “We’ve got an urgent problem,” Bob tightened his grip on the taser. His Timex read: 34 seconds.

“Larry?” The second goon squinted to see him and reached his gun.

He ripped a second flare and hurled at the goon’s chest, “Name’s Bob, nice to meet.” The boss man, hard drive in hand, lunged for the lap top. In the distance, Bob heard the roar of an overpowered speed boat. He wondered if it was Davis, if the cavalry was coming or if he was royally, and completely, fucked. Outnumbered and underarmed, with only one option left. Would the goon shoot the boss?

Bob charged and launched himself at the boss man, bear hugging him tightly, jamming the taser up under his lifejacket and squeezing the trigger for dear life, sending 50,000 volts of electricity racing through the air gap of clothes and into boss man’s nervous system. The guy contorted and groaned as they crashed onto the deck in a chaotic bundle of limbs. The hard drive spilled onto the deck and Bob scooped it up. A megaphone rang out and a blinding spotlight lit up the deck. FBI! FBI! Step away from the drone!

Agent Davis climbed triumphantly onto the deck, two muscled agents following suit, screaming and showing force.

The boss played stupid: “The hell is going on here?”

Bob eyed him: “Digging up the past, motherfucker.”