Silence. A boat this size in this condition made no sense. There had been no heavy weather in these waters for a month. No running lights, no signs of movement cutting through the faintly phosphorescent mist. And it was dead in the water. In what looked like the only fresh paint on the vessel, black letters spelling G H O S T were spread across the fantail. No home port, another oddity for a boat of this type. It looked like a set-up. People could be below decks playing possum. But why? Merrill pressed the transmit button on his handheld radio. His cutter was a quarter of a mile away. “We’ve got to board,” he whispered.

“It’s a dirty job, but that’s why we make the big bucks,” answered Scott Waller, his second-in-command.

“Keep your ears on,” Merrill said. “If you don’t like what you hear, come get us on the double.”

“’S no lie.”

Merrill pocketed the radio. He flipped on the bullhorn and hailed the ketch, running through the whole, government-issue “This-is-the-United-States-Coast-Guard,” rap. No answer. Merrill ran through it again, his voice echoing over the still water.

No Answer.

With an uneasy shudder, he turned up the engine power again. “Lock and load,” he whispered to his sailors over the engine’s smooth thrumming. Was there something else he was supposed to say? “And keep your heads down,” he added.

As he unholstered his .45 and released the safety, he realized that he was the only one who was standing up. He was supposed to be – - he was the officer and gentleman, by Act of Congress. Big bucks? Merrill’s wife, an intensive care nurse, made twice as much money as he did.

COAST GUARD NETS BILLION DOLLAR DRUG HAUL!

Key Largo, FL (Combined Wire Services) – In a daring midnight raid in stormy seas forty-five miles southeast of here a small band of brave young Coast Guardsmen stormed a mysterious “ghost” yacht to seize more than one billion dollars in gold, cash and South American contraband. Coast Guard sources said today that the raid, in which Lieutenant Commander Samuel R. Merrill, Jr., of Kalispell, Montana, performed ancient sailing maneuvers to bring the yacht under control, constituted the largest seizure of drugs and money to date in America’s long struggle with South American cartels…

SENATE COMMITTEE HEARS DRUGBUSTER MERRILL

Washington, D.C. (AP) – In a surprising finish to a pointed, sometimes heated exchange on the efficacy of America’s war on drugs that followed handsome, amiable Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Samuel R. Merrill, Jr.’s account to the Senate Oversight Subcommittee of how he brought the Ghost yacht into harbor, Senator Ivar Ward (D., Arkansas) threw his arm around the shoulders of the young officer, and pronounced him, “America’s best, the real right stuff…”

MERRILLS LUNCH AT WHITE HOUSE