Morning Colors Read online

  Morning Colors

  By Sharon Timm

  Prologue

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Epilogue

  Morning Colors

  By Sharon Timm

  Prologue

  Steel gray clouds drifted down like a curtain around the ancient city. A cold, damp evening was descending on Venice and the granite steps of the canal bridge were still damp from an earlier rain.

  A sharply dressed woman stopped near the top step, leaned on the sculpted rail and looked across the lagoon.

  She was a striking woman, fit and nicely dressed in warm, snug fitting, black pants tucked into gray suede boots. A short, expertly cut wool coat in a cobalt blue, over a cream colored sweater and woven suede belt completed the effortless Italian style. Her hair was short and blonde with almost imperceptible lighter wisps of gray on the sides. Her blue eyes, set off by the cobalt of her coat seemed to gleam.

  Two Carabinieri officers, studied her unabashedly as they approached, and nodded approvingly to each other. She glanced at them, caught them staring and smiled.

  One slowed, bowed slightly and said, "Buona sera, Signora." They hurried on.

  "Buona sera", she replied, turning back toward the lagoon.

  In the distance the shroud of fog and clouds lifted slightly, revealing an American Navy ship lying stately and silent at anchor past the breakwater.

  The woman raised her hand and held it over her eyes. She squinted slightly and the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes hinted at her age. She drew her gaze along the lines of the starboard side of the anchored ship.

  "Cruiser. Ticonderoga Class," she murmured to no one. "Welcome to Venice."

  She descended the bridge and walked slowly along the waterfront, toward the ship in the distance, and back in time. Her mind retraced the years, her thumb danced across her fingertips.

  "Twenty two years," she whispered. "Can it be that long ago?"

  A small boat was approaching, the stars and stripes fluttered behind from the short flagstaff. As it came about to approach the landing she saw the lettering emblazoned across its transom. USS HUE CITY (CG-66). The coxswain eased the boat into position and the bow hook stepped across to secure the bow line to the single stone bollard.

  A Navy Captain stepped ashore and was met by his counterparts from the Italian Navy. They exchanged salutes.

  "Twenty two years," the woman whispered.

  CHAPTER ONE

  A flock of pigeons searched for food on the large granite slabs of the long, stone pier. Sam stared across the calm waters of the Venetian lagoon and listened to the birds' low gurgling sounds as they marched across the solid stone surface jutting out from the ancient buildings like a welcoming doorstep to the city of Venice.

  Cracked and weathered pastel buildings rose up to meet the wrought iron balconies and terracotta rooftops. Churches loomed over smaller structures, boasting bell towers, domes, spires and sculptured arches. The tallest bell tower, in the distance, hinted at another church not visible from where Sam stood. It stretched majestically to the sky and pierced the low lying clouds, wrapping themselves around the skyline, carried by a cold breeze.

  Sam sighed, dropped the worn leather bag to the pier and looked around. There really wasn't a plan. The visit to Venice wasn't planned, the day wasn't planned. Things had just happened.

  Looking left, then right, Sam settled on right, toward the tall tower. She hefted the bag and began to walk. The pigeons parted. Two groups now gurgled in protest and waddled or flapped lazily to opposite sides for Sam to pass.

  Ahead, on a bridge, two lovers embraced. Sam cursed them softly. Venice is about love, she thought. Sam stifled an emotion she thought was panic, threw in a whispered curse for love in general and Venice in particular, and crossed the arched bridge over a narrow canal.

  Descending the wide steps, she dodged another couple climbing the bridge from the other side. She turned toward the low growling of diesel engines approaching from the wide canal. The water was filled with boats. Small gondolas, elegant, polished wooden water taxis, and workboats plied the waves on collision courses, passing each other within inches, or so it seemed from shore. From the chaos of the busy waterway, a larger boat was closing in.

  Sam watched a long, cartoon inspired water-bus careen toward the landing. It looked like something out of child's storybook; a white school bus bolted onto a stretched, black, tugboat hull. Twin panes of glass from the pilot house stared out at her like eyes. White frothy foam piled up, like a moustache, where the bow crashed through the murky waters. A red pinstripe along the waterline, completed the cartoon image.

  Too fast! She thought, it's coming in too fast! Sam froze and watched the impending collision. Look out! She thought the warning but it never made it to her lips, fortunately.

  At the last moment, the pilot threw back the throttles, spun the helm and nudged the water-bus, gently, perfectly into the rubber bumpers of the pier. A cloud of black diesel smoke and acrid fumes belched into the air and a crewman strolled nonchalantly to the bow and draped a mooring line over the single stone bollard. The rope strained and creaked as the craft eased back, pulling the people-packed waterbus snugly, safely, against the platform.

  Sam breathed again.

  The crowd poured out of the boat and engulfed her. Tall and short people, pushed against others, thin and fat. All were bundled against the last, feeble stab of winter that chilled the April day. They rushed around her like faceless busy ants. They acted and moved like a crowd. Only one person was an individual; the man with the eyes.

  It was his eyes that made her notice him. They compelled her to study him, to take the mental snapshot of the man. She would remember those shifty eyes.

  In the instant that she saw him, his shifting and darting eyes locked on a man in front of him. He lunged once but the man was just out of his reach. He pushed and elbowed his way through the crowd. Later, she wouldn't recall if he was part of the crowd of passengers disembarking or if he had merged with the crowd at the landing.

  As the person who held his interest stepped even with Sam, the man behind him lunged with a knife in his outstretched hand.

  Sam gasped, "Look out!" but it was too late and probably not the right language.

  The man looked at Sam, his eyes narrowed in pain as the knife plunged into his side. He stumbled and fell into Sam, and pulled her to the ground with his weight.

  The assailant snatched the shoulder strap of the large leather purse the man was carrying, wrested it from the injured man's grasp and pulled it free.

  Sam rolled the victim off of her. He was conscious but surprised and already beginning to go into shock. Sam checked the injury. He had a stab wound on his right side. The knife had penetrated between his ribs. She began to put pressure against the wound to try to stop the external bleeding. She called out for help but the people who gathered around them did not seem to understand what had happened. She raised a bloody hand and showed the people in the crowd. "Ambulance! Doctor! Help!" she said.

  A woman broke from the crowd and ran for help.

  The injured man coughed. A thin line of pink bubbly blood ran down from his lips. This confirmed what she had feared. The man's lung had been punctured. He doubled over with pain, and each breath seemed to increase his pain. Sa
m struggled to keep pressure on his wound but with each breath his lungs drew air past her hands through his thick wool coat. He was sucking air into his chest through the wound, collapsing his lung and making it difficult to breathe.

  With her free hand she unbuttoned the man's coat. She tore his shirt open, disregarding the buttons. Pulling sharply down at the pocket she ripped the entire right half of his shirt in one clean strip. She shifted her pressure point directly against the wound. The man breathed easier immediately. She deftly folded the torn piece of shirt into a square pad about the size of her palm. Then she quickly searched the pockets of the man's coat.

  "Ma cosa fa?" someone from the crowd asked.

  She didn't understand. She didn't care. She searched until she found what she was looking for, a pack of cigarettes.

  Still applying pressure to the man's wound with one hand, she carefully pulled the cellophane wrapper off the pack with the other. Several people from the crowd dropped to their knees and motioned to her. She knew they wanted to help. She flattened the cellophane against her knee, and motioned to one of the men in the crowd to remove his tie.

  "I need your tie!" she said.

  After a few quizzical looks, Sam heard someone speak in Italian.

  "La cravatta."

  The bystander understood. He removed his tie and handed it to Sam. She placed the cellophane over the sucking wound, covered it with the folded shirt material and cinched the bandage in place with the tie.

  The man's color returned. He instantly breathed more easily. Flecks of bubbly blood still stained his lips when he coughed, but he would be alright until the ambulance arrived.

  A siren in the distance brought the ambulance. Like all vehicles in Venice, it was a boat. As the emergency crew strapped the man onto a stretcher, Sam dusted herself off and searched for something in her bag to wipe the blood off her hands.

  She was shoved roughly back and her bag wrenched from her hands by a man in a blue uniform. He took her arm and dragged her toward an awaiting boat, where a similarly dressed man stood at the controls.

  "Where are you taking me?" she asked.

  Both men stared straight ahead. She protested again as the boat raced away from the pier but they did not appear to understand her. She huddled in the back of the boat, dazed and confused by the turn of events.

  The fast boat skipped across the brown black water. The salt spray from the crashing bow stung her eyes. She felt helpless, perplexed and alone. The boat had a rotating blue light, she noticed. She hoped she was in the hands of the authorities, although she wasn't sure that was a good thing.

  Maybe it's illegal to save a life in this country, she thought.

  The boat banked sharply right, raced under an archway and slowed. The small canal ahead was carved between two tall buildings. It was narrow, and deeply shadowed, almost dark.

  Exhaust fumes mixed with a musty damp smell and the heavy, sweet aroma of blood on her hands. The combination of odors assaulted her nostrils. The smells, the claustrophobic canal and the rocking of the boat combined into a very unsettling feeling.

  Ahead, a single light shone over a dock which led to a wrought iron gate. The gate filled every inch of an ancient brick doorway in a windowless wall. The pastel pink walls were plastered but cracks meandered over the surface and chunks of plaster had peeled off, in places, revealing patches of old brick with crumbling mortar joints. Two strong gothic pillars converged to a pointed lancet arch, holding the hinges of a wrought black iron gate.

  As they approached the dock, the gate swung inward and the stern features of a tall man appeared. He glared out at her. Sam was dragged from the boat and shoved in his direction. He stood motionless, sneering. His eyes swept over her with contempt. He spoke loudly in Italian.

  She began to explain in English that she didn't understand, but he hurled a steady barrage of questions at her. She stood trembling, shaking her head.

  She was led without ceremony to a small room, bare of furnishings except for one wooden chair by a small table. The tall man turned on the light and motioned crisply for her to sit, then turned on his heel and left without saying a word. The door was closed and a key snapped over in the lock.

  Alone, Sam began to pace the room. "Damn, Venice! Damn, Damn, Damn!” She shouted to no one. This isn't happening to me, she thought. "Kick back," they had said. "Relax!" they had said. The Captain had said "Have fun Chief!" Sam remembered.

  CHAPTER TWO

  At six that morning, reveille had sounded on the warship's public address system. Sam exhaled deeply and rubbed her eyes. She knew there had to be more to life. Everything had, long ago, settled into a dull routine. It was one dimensional, flat. Each day began and ended in the same monotonous, repetitive way. This day, Friday, was no exception.

  The days of the week were meaningless at sea. On watch, off watch, sixteen hours a day. Every day was a work day, weekends didn't matter. Only Sundays varied slightly. Sam made it a point to keep track of the days. She took comfort in the sanity of knowing what day it was. She refused to succumb to the hypnotic monotony of endless days and nights without a coastline or landmark.

  Friday, she thought to herself as she grabbed the handles welded in to the overhead and swung carefully out of the third tier bunk or rack as it was called in Navy terms. She checked below, not wanting to land on either of her shipmates who slept in the racks beneath hers. Dressed only in an old flannel shirt and underwear, she trudged down the narrow passageway between lockers and tiers of racks and into the crowded bathroom, called the "head".

  This morning began the same as so many others, crowding in line waiting to use a sink. Chief Petty Officer Samantha Logan brushed her teeth while she waited. Time wasn't wasted. Space wasn't wasted. Efficiency was the key to success on the sleek, ninety-six-hundred ton warship, plowing through the gentle waters of the Adriatic Sea. Taking her turn, she finished brushing, inspected her even white teeth in the mirror and splashed some water on her face.

  "Good morning Sam," a cheerful voice said. A hand rested on her back as someone squeezed past her. She glanced up at the smiling face of her friend Gena, and shook her head.

  "What are you so happy about, you creep?" she growled.

  "Liberty Call! Liberty Call!" her friend chuckled, mocking the Boatswain's Mate of the Watch, whose time honored announcement would mean time off for the crew when the ship pulled in to port.

  Sam shook her head again and twisted her lips into a mock snarl. Another occupant of the tiny bathroom moaned, "Nine more days underway before liberty call, Gena. Go take your shower and wash that goofy smile off your face."

  Sam laughed and stepped aside. The next woman in line took her place at the sink. Sam stood to one side looking over her shoulder, brushing her hair in the tempered glass mirror framed in gleaming stainless steel.

  A dripping wet body emerged from the shower with a towel covering its head. Suddenly the ship turned quickly to port in response to a rudder order. The deck tilted sharply to starboard and everything began to slide.

  A bottle of shampoo leaned and toppled off the stainless steel mirror shelf. Brushes, toothpaste, mouthwash, toothbrushes raced each other along the ledge of the triple sink. One of the sink occupants held on with one hand and tried to catch the objects with the other. Sam steadied herself as the dripping wet woman with the towel on her head, reached out blindly for support and fell against her.

  Physical contact in the Navy was unavoidable. In the cramped conditions of a ship at sea men and women were always squeezing by, brushing against each other, holding each other up in rough weather and crowding into tight spaces to work on equipment. It wasn't weird, it wasn't sexual, it was inevitable.

  As the ship straightened its course, Sam let go of her slippery comrade and asked, "You alright?"

  "Damn!" the wet woman yelled toward the ceiling in the general direction of the pilot house, several decks above. "How about a little warning next time? She nodded to Sam, indicating that she was OK and thanked
her.

  Sam reached for the door just as someone else opened it from the other side. The edge of the door caught her just above the knee. She flattened herself against the locker, held the door and the four or five occupants of the tiny head moved in unison to let the other person in and let Sam out. She often thought moving around on the ship was like the old pocket puzzle game she had played as a child, sliding one square up to move another over.

  She rubbed her knee. Another bruise to add to the others. Everyone had bruises. Walking through the passageways was like an obstacle course. Damage control equipment, electrical controllers, switchboards, fire extinguishers, cables and storage bins littered every foot of every level of the ship. It was designed around its state of the art AEGIS weapons system, unlike a cruise ship, the comfort of the crew was secondary to the mission.

  Sam checked the new bruise and compared it to another ugly blackened spot on her shin. She'd gotten that bruise the day before on the bottom sill of a watertight door, eight inches high and known affectionately as a "knee knocker".

  Standing in front of her locker, Sam shifted all of her insignia from the uniform she had worn the day before to a fresh pair of working khakis. Gold fouled anchors on each collar point indicated she was a Chief. The shiny gold plating had rubbed off in places. They were old anchors, special ones.

  Crossed cutlasses broken by the bow of a ship adorned the silver pin that she centered over her left breast pocket. It indicated that she was a qualified Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist. Known simply as "the pin", it represented nearly a year of hard work, study and on the job training in all of the ship's systems. The pin spoke volumes in Navy circles, about the competence and dedication of all who wore it.

  She balanced on one foot and pulled her steel toed boondockers on her feet. There was no place to sit down near the lockers. She laced her boots up and walked from the private female Chiefs berthing, through the lounge area and into the dining room known as the Chief's Mess. She walked past the serving line, glanced at the food, briefly, and moved on.