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"I was there as part of an identification team. I'd been called in before to identify parts of aircraft, or the aircraft itself." "Well, if for instance, a jet - say an F-104 Starfighter - went into the ocean or crashed in a forest up north and someone like a fisherman brought up some pieces of an aircraft in his net, or a trapper brought some pieces out of the woods years later, then they would bring me in to identify them. "T even identified the nuts and bolts that went with certain aircraft. I had to identify a piece of wing off a Lockheed U-2 spy plane that the navy dredged up off Newfoundland, back in the days when nobody had heard of them." "Really?" Chris regarded him for a moment. "You used to mention a lot of things that happened to you in the air force when we worked together at the paper, but you never talked about this stuff." "For one thing, my specialty is identifying aircraft. Why would they get me all the way out there to identify submarine parts? That made me suspicious. Also, we were kept below decks all of the time. And then there were the navy divers. They were constantly being reminded by the offices to keep their mouths shut about what they were doing below. They weren't even supposed to talk among themselves, but they did, especially at suppertime. The officers, some of whom were American, were really paranoid." "Don't forget, Chris, we were anchored right over the listening and transmission network for the biggest military submarine tracking system in the Atlantic Ocean. It was called MAD for 'magnetic anomaly detection,' which at that time was under American control. These devices, as well as God knows how many hydrophones, were planted all over the bottom of the ocean to detect Soviet subs. It was a highly sensitive and secret area. The Americans were bound to be there. They owned most of the stuff. They supplied Canada with high-tech equipment so they could find out if the Russians were heading their way via Canada." in the air force. What were you doing on a naval vessel?" "Good question. I wondered that myself at the time." "What function did you serve? Why were you there?" "What do you mean, aircraft parts?" Chris asked. Jim shrugged. "There's a lot I just didn't want to talk about, or couldn't." "So what did they tell you they were looking for when you got to Shelburne?" "I was told we were camped over a Russian sub that had made it in past the twelve-mile limit." "Could it have been true? What made you think otherwise?" This was a new revelation for Chris. "American officers! What the hell were they doing there?" "So what did these divers say to make you believe you were sitting over something other than a sub?"