George Freedman

Order by phone from the Concord Booskhop: 978-369-2405

FOREWORD
TERRORISM STRIKES IN MANY WAYS. Who knows what threat may be posed by the contents of a hiker’s innocent knapsack or the luggage in a car’s trunk? Who knows what horrible weapon may be smuggled across a border by an ordinary truck or into a seaport in the hold of a ship?

The LST (“Landing Ship Tank”) 325, a veteran of the Normandy invasion in 1944 is one of the last two or three of its kind still afloat in the world--the only survivors from more than a thousand. On January 10, 2001, it completed an extraordinary voyage from Greece’s island of Crete to Mobile, Alabama. Wildly enthusiastic crowds greeted the crew, all former LST sailors, then in their seventies and eighties.

The LST 325 stayed at its dock for months while it was prepared for display at an annual five-day convention of LST veterans. They had chosen Mobile for their reunion to coincide with the opening of the ship to the public. All of the veterans yearned for a chance to walk one final time on the deck of an LST.

The convention began on September 18, 2001, by coincidence, one week after 9/11, when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. As a result, some who had signed up to attend cancelled--but most came. Still, the attendees were uneasy. No one knew where Al Queda would strike next during the week following 9/11. A smaller city than New York was considered likely, a city perhaps like Mobile.

DAY 1, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2001
“I think I just spotted Weisberg,” Naomi said.

Harry groaned. “I suppose that’s a good thing. Can’t have a reunion without the little bastard. Where is he?”

“Up at the registration desk, but now I don’t see him.”

Harry stood, the better to view the desk across the crowded lobby of the Adams Mark Hotel. No mistaking its sign, “US National LST Association Registration,” and the nice middle-aged lady gathering registration forms from each attendee.

“That’s Weisberg for you,” Harry said, returning to his seat. “Now you see him, now you don’t. But we’ll see him soon enough at lunch, along with everybody else.”

“I can’t wait,” Naomi said with a twisted smile. “Why do we always call him Weisberg? Doesn’t he have a first name?”

“All those years on the ship...even after everything we went through together...we never knew his first name. It just seemed right that he shouldn’t have one. For some people, more than one name detracts from their character.”

“You mean like Moses...or Madonna.”

“More like Dracula.”

“Or Ivan the Terrible.”

“I think that’s two names...”

“Oh, look, Harry,” Naomi interrupted. “Isn’t that Edgar just coming in?”

“That’s Edgar, all right. Hey, Edgar...over here...”

A short, rotund man in a food-flecked, rumpled brown suit and wrinkled white shirt, his necktie askew and his head crowned with a cloud of grizzled gray, had just stepped onto the second floor lobby floor from the up-coming escalator. He held a small suitcase in one hand. It was indeed Edgar Loewy. No one else in the world looked like that.

He made his way toward Harry and Naomi with his characteristic belly-first waddle. He smiled at Naomi and his former shipmate.

“Great to see you again, Edgar,” Harry said, “even if it’s only once or twice a year. And I must say you haven’t changed a bit.”

“Why should I change? A person doesn’t change in a year.”

“At our age we do, at least physically,” Harry countered, aware that he was now only five foot nine, while at his last year’s physical he had been an inch taller.

“Edgar,” Naomi broke in. “aren’t you forgetting something?”

He looked puzzled.

“We haven’t seen each other since the last reunion. Come over here and give me a kiss.”

“Not only a kiss,” Edgar said. “What about a big hug, too?”

“That’s better,” Naomi said with the irresistible smile she reserved for her favorites.

“Come to think of it,” Edgar smiled back, “I had what might be considered a life-changing experience about five months ago, which should have altered my appearance, and not for the better.”

“Oh, really?” Naomi’s face expressed sincere concern. “What was that?”

Thank goodness for Naomi, Harry thought. It always takes at least two people to keep up with Edgar’s mental excursions. And who better than Naomi to be the other one?

“Nothing much really,” Edgar said in a casual tone. “I was dashing to my gate at the Shreveport airport after visiting my sister Betty...you remember Betty...when I fell to the floor, and then three men in green shirts accosted me with long knives and slit me open from my neck to my stomach.”

Naomi gasped. “Oh, Edgar, you poor dear. How horrible. Did the police come?”

“I don’t know. When I regained consciousness I was in a hospital bed in the intensive care unit with all kinds of tubes and wires plugged into me. In fact it was by no means clear that I would live...but as you can see I did, and I do...and, as you commented, at least for this time around...unchanged in superficial appearance.”

A protracted silence followed as Harry and Naomi looked at each other, open mouthed. Harry decided Edgar would provide more explanation, he waited.

“You see,” Edgar said, “it was really quite providential that I was already cut open like that. The doctors took advantage of the situation to give me a quadruple bypass. I can show you the scar, Naomi, if you like.”

Harry sighed. Same old Edgar. The passage of the years--getting on to sixty since they first met--haven’t changed his extravagant way of telling a story.

“By the way, there’s something even more bloody and awful than my mere bypass that’s about to take place.” Edgar scratched the top of his head with stiff vertical fingers in what old movie buffs still remember as Stan Laurel’s manner. “The fact is our wonderful LST 325 is carrying a large secret cargo of terrorist supplies. Not guns or explosives...but chemical poisons and biological weapons, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a miniature nuclear bomb on board, too.”

Edgar’s words stunned Harry. He reached for Naomi’s hand. Their eyes grew wide with astonishment.

“I just learned about it. Some passengers on my flight this morning were planning to carry out an attack and I overheard them.” Edgar spoke with unnatural calm. “And, in view of the terrible destruction of the World Trade Center and the crash into the Pentagon only a few days ago, I think we...all of us...had better turn to and rescue the nation, don’t you agree? Harry?...Naomi?...Don’t you agree?”