Claire’s Heartache
By Seaview Siren with Agent Catfish
.
I
boarded the Seaview for our mission
and was, as usual, carrying heaps of folders and files. As Admiral
Nelson’s PA, I always had plenty of work.
“Miss Young,” Sparks called out, “you’re
wanted in the admiral’s cabin right away.”
My stomach sank with misgiving. What had I
done wrong now?
I knocked on the cabin door, my heart
pounding. Chief Sharkey opened the door for me, visibly upset.
“Miss Young,” Mr. Morton began to say, but
had to stop. His eyes were moist and the admiral took my arm.
“I’m sorry, my dear,” he barely managed, his
voice breaking, “there’s been an accident…Los Angeles…Lee…”he gulped and shook
his head, tears falling.
It was then I knew. I think I screamed, I
almost fainted. But the men held on to me and led me to one of the chairs.
“Captain Crane’s Cobra was found at the
bottom of a cliff,” Chief Sharkey said. “It and….and the skipper…were all
messed up and…burnt.”
“Oh God!” I sobbed.
“The Highway Patrol gave us this,” Nelson
said, reluctantly handing me Lee’s ring
as if it were a sacred relic. He was saying something else, but I
couldn’t really hear him. I wanted to die. I think I had died. I didn’t even
notice Morton and Sharkey supporting me, leading me out of the cabin and
forward to the Observation Nose. A tumbler of brandy was put into my hands as
soon as I was seated, but they were lifeless and it smashed to the deck.
Morton had one of the crewmen clean the mess
up, but he didn’t care about the damn drink. He was as inconsolable as I was.
Only he managed to keep back the tears. I was the one who sobbed. Broken. Torn
to pieces. I would never be held in Lee’s arms again, Lee Crane, dead, it just
couldn't be.
“Should we sedate her?” Chief Sharkey
whispered, his eyes as red and bloodshot as most of the arriving crew were.
Riley was openly crying as he sat down at his station. Kowalski was in his own
inner turmoil. Why hadn’t Angie simply told the men to go home? Then I
remembered. Seaview was needed on another damn mission. A top secret mission
that even Nelson couldn’t get out of, as much as his own heart was breaking.
The admiral walked down the spiral ladder,
followed by Doc, and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Chip? Get us underway. We need to deliver
the top secret device to Dr. Douglas Donner at the sea lab as soon as
possible.”
“Aye sir.”
“Will?” Nelson asked, nodding to him.
Apparently he’d already arranged for Doc to take me aft. To my cabin or to Sick
Bay, I didn’t know. I didn’t care. At least I’d be able to cry, scream, kick,
and melt into nothingness in privacy.
As Doc led me aft, I sensed and saw the
crew’s empathy and tears. But they, no one, not even Nelson, could feel how I
felt. Shattered. Broken. Dead.
Doc put me on one of the Sick Bay bunks
before giving me a shot of something. But first he took the ring in my hand and
put it on my finger.
“He’ll always be with you, Claire,” he said,
choking back his own tears and dimmed the lights.
I felt weird. I’d never been sedated before.
A floating feeling, dream like, but it was not of puffy marshmallow clouds or
pretty beaches like the ones Lee and I used to enjoy together. In this dream
Lee lay unconscious, bound, his head bleeding. Bundled into a mud splattered
lorry, he was driven through the night, then loaded onto a rusty ship, and
lowered via a diving bell down into the sea.
Then suddenly the dream changed and my Lee
was kissing me in the institute parking lot, in his apartment, and on a private
beach where we’d dreamed of making love. Then I was yanked back to the sea lab
where Lee was regaining consciousness.
“Donner?” he asked, lightheaded.
“Donner? Not unless you talk to ghosts,” the
man laughed. “Come now, Captain. Don’t you recognize me? But then, I suppose my
team did manhandle you more than I told them to. I, Sir, am Maurice Murphy…I
see you have no idea who I am. Well, that’s not important. What is, is that
I’ve gotten rid of Donner. Yes. The government I’ve been assisting killed him,
put him in your imported car and ran it off a cliff. The explosion killed him
instantly. Of course, your associates, and let’s not forget your girlfriend,
think it’s you, thanks to your bone structure and of course, your famous ring.”
“What…what do you want?” Lee asked him, his
head hurt, he couldn't think straight.
“I work for the People’s Republic. What do
you think we want?” the man laughed. “You, for your secrets. And Nelson, who’s
on his way here with the device, for his, along with it. Once we have obtained
what we want, we’ll blow up the flying sub, and the sea lab with no one the
wiser.”
“I won’t tell you anything,” Lee said
rubbing his head, his face anxious, Murphy laughed,
“Not willingly, but whoever said you’d be
willing?” he chortled and pulled out a syringe.
I think I moaned. But instead of witnessing
Lee being injected, I was moaning in response to his lovemaking, his soft
fingers caressing my naked body, His mouth
taking mine over and over as he gave his all to me, filling me, making
me groan, making me cry out and gasp, as
he moved against me. He kissed my neck, my chest and bent his head to kiss my
breasts, his eyes gazed into mine with a look of pure desire. I gasped, and
clung to him as my body gave way to a climax. He kissed my mouth again and held
me to him as he joined me, he kissed my mouth again, tangled his fingers in my
soft hair, told me over and over that he loved me.
“Claire, I love you” his voice became an
echo in my mind “Claire, I love you. Claire, I love you”
Then I saw his little car career over the
cliff and burst into flames, seeing the dead man inside burn. I saw the ring on
his hand, and writhed to wakefulness, crying out, sick to my stomach, “Wrong
hand! Right hand!”
“Claire, wake up,” Doc ordered, at my sided.
“Just a nightmare.”
I threw up.
“Frank?” Doc called the corpsman over to
clean things up.
“No,” I shouted. “Not a nightmare…Lee…Lee’s
alive…not dead…plot…the device…they…no, Admiral! Admiral!” I screamed as Doc
was about to inject me with another sedative. “For God’s sake! Before Lee
really is dead! Get the Admiral!”
“Very well,” Doc said, shaking his head, and
paged Nelson. “But you’re still getting the sedative after.”
In about two minutes the admiral had
arrived, frowning at the sight of me, still in the bunk, being held down by the
corpsman.
“At last! Admiral! Lee’s not dead! He was
taken prisoner!”
“Will?” Nelson asked Doc.
“The sedative can cause hallucinations. It
was just a dream,”
“I wasn’t dreaming!” I screamed. I knew I
wasn’t. At least…hell, I didn’t for sure, but I couldn’t risk Lee’s life! “Let
me go! If you won’t save Lee, I will!”
Nelson bowed his head, then sadly told Doc
to go get a straight-jacket.
“You have to believe me!” I screamed. “You
have to! Don’t you love Lee anymore?”
“Claire,” he said, coming nearer as the
corpsman held me down. “I love Lee more than you can imagine. But you were only
dreaming.”
I snapped and managed to wriggle free of
Frank’s hands, jumping to the deck. Both men were fast behind me, but I
remembered where Doc kept his gun. A safety precaution he’d said for when ‘the
boy’s as he called them, were possessed by monster vegetation, aliens and the
like. Preposterous tales, but they gave him an excuse to fondle the antique
Colt ’45. I reached up to the shelf where it lay next to his beloved ‘Boots and
Saddles’ first edition.
I aimed it at the men.
“And just what do you plan to do?” Nelson
gasped
I
fired the gun at the deck.
“Claire, you put that gun down, and that’s
an order,”
“Not until you stop Murphy from killing Lee!
He took over Donner’s sea lab! The body in the car is Donners not Lee's! Murphy
only wants the device and Lee’s brain. Yours too! Then he’ll kill you
both,
don't you understand!” I gasped.
“That’s absurd on the face of it. I just
spoke to Donner this morning. He’s quite alive and well. I know Murphy as well.
He hasn’t an evil bone in his body.”
“No, you’re wrong” I said, shaking my head.
It was hurting. I knew my dream was a true dream. I knew it! “I don’t know how
Murphy changed his voice!”
As the three men approached I fired again,
making them get out of my way.
“Sorry, Admiral. But I’m right,” I shouted
and ran from Sick Bay.
“Attention all hands,” Nelson’s voice came
over the airwaves, “Claire Young is suffering from a drug induced delusion.
She’s armed and dangerous. She may try to destroy the device. Protect it with
your lives, even…even if you have to shoot to kill. Morton, acknowledge.”
“Aye sir,” Chip said reluctantly.
Then I remembered that there was one man
aboard who would listen to me, in spite of any orders. I was about to check my
watch until I realized that it had been removed when I was put into the Sick
Bay gown. Well, maybe Ski was still on watch. But that meant the Control Room.
And Morton. Well, the order was only to shoot me if I had the device. Damn, I
didn’t even know where Nelson was keeping it. But the Control Room had a radio.
If I could contact the sea lab, I could prove that Murphy was there. If he
answered.
The deck was cold on my bare feet as I
sneaked down the spiral ladder and tried to get Ski’s attention. But Morton
caught it first.
“Claire, please,” he said as he grabbed me.
“It was a true dream! I’ve had them before!”
“Sparks? Get Angie.”
In seconds she was on the Control Room’s
videophone, looking at me, aghast.
“What the devil’s going on?” she asked,
“Claire, are you all right?”
“No. They won’t believe me. Lee’s alive
and….”
“Angie,” Morton said. “Does Claire have any
kind of ESP?”
“Well, I know she had some as a child.”
“Anything since then?”
“Not to my knowledge…Claire?”
“Not until now. For God’s sake, call the
lab! See if I’m right.”
“Sparks?” he called out, “Contact the sea
lab.”
But there was no response.
“Use the cam,” Nelson said, entering the
fray. “I’m only doing this to humour you, Claire. To prove that you really need
to get back to Sick Bay. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“No answer to our signal,” Sparks said.
“No signal? That’s impossible. Try again.”
“Oh, God,” I moaned. “Lee, Lee, Lee…”
“How far are we from the sea lab?” Nelson
asked.
“About a half hour,” Morton said.
“Flank speed, plus whatever extra you can
get out of her. Claire, with me,” Nelson added, taking me to the Observation
Nose. “All right, are you ‘seeing’
anything now?”
“No…but he was hurt, bound, bleeding and….”
“Highway Patrol calling for you, Admiral,”
Sparks called out and turned on the Observation Nose monitor.
“The DNA results confirm the body in the car
wasn’t Captain Crane.”
“Whose?”
“Dr. Donner. Was murdered instantly. Bullet
to the brain. Small blessing that he didn’t have to suffer the explosion.”
“Lee,” I groaned, my head in a fog, “Lee’s
calling me…he’s hurting…Oh, Lee, darling, we’re coming, we’re coming….”
“Prepare the flying sub for immediate
launch,” Nelson ordered. “Chip, I need an armed team.”
“I want to go with you,” I said.
“I’m sorry, Claire. It’s too dangerous. You
go get dressed.”
“I can tell you still don’t believe me.”
“Right now it’s all we have to go on.”
“Wait,” I said as I studied my hands. “I
remember now. The body. Lee’s ring. It was on the wrong hand of the body.”
“O’Brien, you have the conn,” Morton said.
“Maintain flank speed. I’m going with you Admiral.”
“And I’ve changed my mind about Claire not
going with us,” Nelson said, “she may have seen parts of the sea lab that will
save us time and trouble. Well, go get dressed!” he ordered.
The flight wasn’t very long, and we docked
atop the sea lab’s hatch.
“I’ll go first,” Nelson said, turning the
safety off his gun and opening the round hatch, climbing down the sea lab’s
ladder.
It reminded me of ants, the way we followed
one another, with me in the rear. As the lower hatch opened, we looked in upon
three men armed with machine guns.
“Welcome to my lair, Admiral Nelson,” Murphy
said, squeezing between them as they took our weapons. “Lock them up! But leave her.”
“Wha…what do you want with me?” I asked.
“Why, my dear, it appears as though your
boyfriend’s been calling for you. Wouldn’t want to disappoint him before I
dispose of him. I won’t kill you though. You have potential. A man’s weakness,
you know.”
“You bastard!” Nelson yelled from the
doorway the men were being dragged to. Kowalski
tried
a defensive move but got a good hiding for his efforts.
I was dragged off and taken to a lab, where
Lee was bound to a gurney with heavy leather straps.
He had electrodes attached to his bloodied
forehead and bare chest. He was
breathing heavily, blood running out of his nose, and from the deep cuts on his
chest and back, pooling beneath him.
“Claire?” he gasped, trying to reach out,
but unable to.
“Lee? Lee?” I cried, held fast by my
captors.
“Continue the treatment,” Murphy ordered.
I lurched toward Murphy causing him to bump
into the man with the syringe and getting it stuck
into his back. He gasped, swayed, and fell
to the ground.
Then the other man tried to press a button
to restart the brain washing but I kicked out at him
With some moves Lee had taught me. He fell
backwards, crashing against a panel,
unconscious.
“Lee, can you hear me?” I gasped and I tried
to bathe his cuts with bits of my blouse. But he could only gasp.
I needed help and had to get the others out.
I ran toward a wall with buttons and keys on it. Grabbing all of the keys, I
ran out of the lab to the door where they’d been taken and tried all the keys
to unlock the door. Finally the last one worked.
“We heard Lee’s screams,” Nelson said
urgently.
“Murphy and one of his men are out cold.
Lee's laid out in there, electrodes attached to
him.
He’s bleeding, incoherent! “I gasped. “We haven't got much time. What if those
other three men find us?” I gasped. “What are you doing?” I demanded as the men
were removing things from the soles of their shoes.
“We can’t save Lee yet,” Morton said, “but
we can escape with him. Gas cylinders, rebreathers, and paralysing blow darts.
Here,” he added, handing me his rebreather. “Don’t worry, I’ll be okay with a
handkerchief. The gas isn’t lethal and only lasts a few minutes. But it will
give us some time.”
“As soon as they come for us” Nelson said,
“you run up to the flying sub and contact Seaview to prepare the brig for some
guests and to rig a torpedo for firing. We’ll take care of the bad guys and
rescue Lee.”
True to his word, when the three guards
raced in, they were assaulted by the smoke bombs and paralytic darts. I didn’t
want to flee past Lee during the melee’.
I wanted to see Lee. To know that he hadn’t been murdered outright by
the guard’s machine guns before they succumbed to unconsciousness. I needed to
know Lee was all right. That if he was alive that he hadn’t been robbed of his mind. But even I
knew a military like operation doesn’t need a fly in the ointment. There was no
time to waste.
I was shaking by the time O’Brien confirmed
via my call that Seaview was almost here
and the torpedo was ready.
Then there was silence below.
O’Brien was right about Seaview being close
by. By the time the team, with only one gunshot wound among them (the admiral
was winged), the sub was hovering.
In minutes, the flying sub had docked, and
Doc rushed down the ladder to Lee’s side, where Ski was already checking Lee’s
vitals. I just sat on the floor by Lee’s side, shivering with fear.
Before
the flying sub’s aft hatch was opened for the stretcher, we were
informed that the bell had docked with the sea lab’s access hatch and the
handcuffed prisoners were being dragged to the brig, regaining consciousness.
“Well,” Nelson asked in Sick Bay, as his arm
was treated and the bullet removed.
“You’ll live,” Doc said.
“That’s not what I was asking.”
“Lee will recover from both the drug and the
electroshock. In fact, having gone through both previously thanks to his
friends in the People’s Republic, he has a little bit of trauma immunity. Oh,
he’ll hurt. He may even have tremors, and nightmares, but he’ll recover.”
“But his memory,” I asked.
“Cl…Cla…Claire?” Lee’s voice murmured from
his bunk.
“Sweetheart, oh sweetheart,” I said from my
position kneeling next to him. “You’re awake. Can you say my name again?” I was
so scared that Doc had got it wrong. That Lee had brain damage.
“I’m fine.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Well, that depends.”
“Depends? Oh, Lee, is it hard to remember?”
“I remember fine,” he said as he took my
hand. “The only thing is, do I call you Claire, or…Mrs. Crane?”
“Oh sweetie, I’m not your mother.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“But…oh…oh! You…you’re asking me to marry
you?”
“Um hm…”he said with a nod and took my hand.
“Seems you already have the engagement ring.”
“One
that wants to fall off…”
“We’ll get a better one…so…is that a yes?”
“You know it is,” I said, and we kissed. Oh
how we kissed, until Chip, just arriving, cleared his throat.
“Claire honey you need to rest up!” he told
me,
“Our guests are requesting asylum.
Apparently they fear the People’s Republic’s justice system more than the
United States.”
“I think we’d better let the president
handle this one,” Nelson said. “Blow the sea lab out of the water and take us home.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Congratulations, Lee, Claire,” Nelson said
and smiled at us, just like a proud father would his children. I suppose we
were, in a manner of speaking.
Lee
needed time to heal from his physical wounds. As for any mental problems, I’d
help with those, no doubt about that.