“Accidents do happen,” Steve said. Jerry probably laughed more than the joke deserved, but he was glad his boss could make cracks like that and didn’t come down on him for messing up. He’d known a lot more examples of the other kind of boss.

Every couple of days, Jerry would put on his Blue Tips and go back to the helipad for a little exercise. A circuit of the landing platform was about a hundred yards, so seventeen or eighteen made a mile. Fifty or sixty circuits made him sweaty and virtuous.

He wasn’t the only guy aboard the Glomar Explorer to put in some work there, but he liked it best when he didn’t have any company as he went around and around. Sometimes he came out onto the helipad after dark, too. He was almost always alone there then. He didn’t understand why. When he turned his back on the ship’s lights, he could see a million stars, so many that he wished he’d brought along binoculars. City lights dimmed natural ones in Los Angeles.

Now, though, he was the sole person back there under watery sunshine. He was, anyhow, till some of the sailors who made the Glomar Explorer go came there with their arms full of wooden crates and metal drums. They dumped them at random on the helipad and turned around, probably to get more.

Before they disappeared again, Jerry called, “Hey, what’s happening?”

One of the Glomar men stopped and turned back to him. “Well, we’re almost where we’re going,” he said, as if that explained everything.

“Yeah.” Jerry nodded. He knew that. A little more than two weeks out of Long Beach, they were indeed close to where the K-129 had gone down—been brought down. But … “What’s that got to do with anything, Tony?”

For a smart guy, you sure are dumb. Tony didn’t say it, but his face said it for him. He did say, “When we get there, waddaya wanna bet we have Russian company? If they fly a chopper off their ship, we sure as hell don’t wanna make it easy for ’em to land on ours. Am I right or am I right?”

“You’re right,” Jerry answered, because Tony was right. A helicopter full of Russian sailors—or would they be marines?—carrying AK-47s was the last thing the Glomar Explorer needed.

“Damn right, I’m right,” Tony agreed with himself. “Cap’n Gresham, he don’t miss a trick. Not one.”

Jerry didn’t say anything more. Tony went off to get more junk to obstruct Russian helicopters. Captain Gresham might have John Birch Society politics, but he did try his best to keep the Glomar Explorer safe. That counted more, at least while he was conning the ship.