America (53 page)

*   *   *

The change in the feel of the ship woke Jake Grafton. He had been dozing, unable to really sleep, but when the ship's speed dropped off he came fully awake. He checked the luminous hands of his watch—almost two o'clock in the morning.

He got out of bed, pulled on slacks and a shirt, sat down to put on socks and shoes.

“What's wrong?” Callie asked from the bed.

“Ship's stopping.” He didn't want to say too much because there might be bugs. “I'm going up on deck.” He put on the shoulder holster, then a windbreaker.

“Be careful,” she said.

He bent and kissed her. Then he grabbed the backpack and stepped through the door onto the promenade deck. He pulled the door shut, making sure it latched.

*   *   *

Here on the deck the wind was from the stern quarter, a good indication that the ship was making little way. He walked to the railing and looked down. Very little disturbed water. It was the absence of vibration that had awakened him. After all his years at sea, when the engines stopped throbbing the eyes popped open.

He unzipped the backpack, reached in, and found the satellite telephone. He turned it on as he walked through a passageway to the starboard side of the ship. He looked down toward the cargo sponson area. The swells reflected lights.

He moved forward a few feet to a courtesy light that was rigged on a railing post and held the phone so that he could see the keyboard. As he did so he felt something prod him in the back. “Out for a stroll around the deck?”

He froze.

“Ah, you are a wise man. We are alone on this deck and that is indeed a pistol,
mon ami.
There is no one to see you die. Raise your hands as high as they will go.”

He did so. As his left arm reached full extension he let go of the backpack, which fell toward the dark ocean.

The pistol jabbed him. “Ah, you came very close. I almost squeezed this trigger to send you to your appointment with St. Peter. Hold very still. Not a single little twitch or I will put a bullet through your liver.”

A hand moved over him, found the pistol, and removed it from its holster and flipped it over the side. “We will let your gun sleep with your backpack. You don't need either.
N'est-ce pas?
Any more?”

The man took the telephone from his right hand and prodded him. “Walk forward, very slowly. And lower your hands.”

Jake did so and glanced over his shoulder. The man held a man-sized automatic in his right hand and looked like he knew how to use it.

“Understand you that I will shoot you down if you do not do exactly what I say?”

“I understand.”

“Très bien,”
he said. “We go. Monsieur Schlegel awaits you for to have a little chat.”

*   *   *

Willi Schlegel was there when the slimy blackness of the minisub broke the dark water and moved slowly toward the sponson. Two sailors with lines leaped for it, then made fast the lines around recessed cleats. Other men arranged bumpers and pulled it alongside.

In a moment the hatch opened and Heydrich appeared. When he was standing beside Schlegel, he said, “It wasn't there. She lied. Where is she?”

The passengers were all asleep except for a few insomniacs. The little entourage passed only one old man in the trek to sick bay.

Heydrich zeroed in on Zelda, who was lying awake on the bed, walked over and slapped her. Then he bent down, put his face inches from hers. “It wasn't there.”

“What wasn't?”

“Don't play dumb. I have come to learn the truth.”

She reached to scratch him, and he grabbed her wrists. He turned to the man standing at the door. “I want her restrained. Plastic ties holding her hands together, then cuff her to the bed. We will find out how much pain she can stand.”

He looked around, saw the external cardiac paddles. Reached for them. “Aah. I have always wondered. If the current will start a heart that has stopped, will it stop a healthy heart? We will do a scientific experiment.”

“Is this necessary?” Willi Schlegel asked as the guard tightened a plastic tie on her wrists.

“I think so, yes,” Heydrich responded. “She will tell us where she put the SuperAegis satellite or I shall butcher her right here on this table. First we will play with the electricity, then we will do the scalpels. In the morning the medical people can clean up the mess and feed what's left to the sharks.”

He turned to Zelda. The guard had her cuffed to the bed rail. “We have made an enormous investment in time and money. What is your decision?”

“You'll kill me anyway.”

“Ahh … and they said you were smart. You missed the point, Ms. Hudson. The issue is not whether you live or die; the question is how much pain you wish to endure. What is your answer?”

She looked from face to face. They were grim, merciless men. Whatever they did out here on this ocean would never be proved. Who was going to tell on them and make it stick?

She retched. She managed to puke over the rail onto the floor.

When the spasm had stopped, she said, “Cape Barbas. Ten miles offshore, on the shelf.”

Heydrich's hand shot out. The slap made her whole face go numb, almost knocked her out. “You've been listening to talk about the storm coming off Africa, haven't you? The satellite had better not be under that storm, for your sake. Try again.”

Zelda retched again. She was trying to control her stomach when she felt something hot hit her leg. She jerked, then looked. Heydrich had jabbed a scalpel into the meat of her calf. The handle was all that was visible.

Schlegel walked out of the room and the other men followed, leaving her alone with Heydrich.

He smiled at her and reached for the cardiac paddles. “You know about little boys who torture animals? You know that they are sick, that they should be taken to a psychologist? You have heard all about that, yes? I was one of those boys. No one took me to a doctor. I did it because I enjoyed it. I still do.”

*   *   *

“Well, well,” Willi Schlegel said. He put his hands on his hips and stood looking at the Americans. There were ten of them, all with plastic ties on their wrists, sitting on the floor. Jake, Flap, Callie, all of them.

“We were watching the passenger list very carefully, waiting to see if the Americans sent someone to spy on us. Then boom, ten of you, at the very last minute. Troubling, that. It meant the United States government was suspicious.”

He squatted in front of Flap Le Beau. “A four-star general. Commandant of the Marine Corps. Member of the Joint Chiefs. I would have never suspected that they would send such a high-ranking person.” Schlegel shook his head. “I am sorry you came, General. Truly sorry.”

He straightened and addressed himself to one of his entourage. “Take them to the cargo sponson. Heydrich will be along after a while. He can take them with him.”

“He will have to make two trips,” the aide pointed out. “The little submarine will not hold them all.”

“Two trips it is. I want all of them to go.”

As they walked along the passageway, Flap whispered to Jake, “I think the bastard intends to kill us all.”

“Dead men may tell tales, but they don't take the witness stand.”

“Did you call the troops?”

“No, they got the telephone before—”

“Quiet!” one of Schlegel's men hissed. He slapped Jake in the face with his pistol. The admiral fell to the deck.

Flap helped him up. “You go in the first boat with Sonny. I'll take care of this crowd.”

Jake got his feet under him and followed along.

There were three men with silenced submachine guns. They herded the ten of them onto the sponson. Flap worked himself to the back of the crowd, Jake with him.

They turned and faced the guards. “I've got a knife up my left sleeve,” Flap said, his lips barely moving. “Get it and cut the wrist tie.”

Jake got it with two fingers, pulled it out, almost dropped it. He managed to cut the plastic tie without looking down or cutting Flap.

“Keep the knife,” Flap said. “Put it up your sleeve. I've got another.” Of course he did. Flap Le Beau always carried two knives, the slicer up his sleeve and a throwing knife in a sheath hanging down his back.

Jake spoke loud enough for the Americans to hear him. “Men on the first boat, women on the second. Except Callie. You come with me.”

They stood there for five minutes facing the three with guns before Schlegel and Heydrich came out on the sponson. Heydrich was half carrying Zelda Hudson, who was bleeding from the neck, legs, and arms.

“It was on an adjacent seamount,” Heydrich explained to Schlegel. “I don't think she intended to deal honorably with you. I'll take them all aboard tonight, then meet you tomorrow night at the Azores anchorage.”

“Very good,” Schlegel said, bobbing his head.

Heydrich dragged Hudson along the sponson and passed her to a sailor, who stuffed her down the hatch. Heydrich went next. Jake waited until they motioned, then followed along. The other men filed out behind him. Schlegel himself told Callie, Corina Le Beau, Rita, Lizzy, and the others to wait for the next boat. No one made an issue of the fact that Flap was at the end of the line.

The space inside the minisub was tight. Without portholes, even ones that were opaque, the feeling with six people aboard was claustrophobic. The smell was a mixture of dampness and light lubricating oil. And fear. Everyone was perspiring freely, even Jake. Sweat ran into his eyes, making them sting, but he tried to ignore it.

When his passengers were arranged and seated, Heydrich said something to the sailors, then closed the hatch. Jake thought about knifing him right then, but a dead Heydrich wouldn't get him into
America.
If there was some kind of code … and, of course, he didn't know how to run the minisub. Perhaps Sonny Killbuck did, but Jake had never asked. After a while Sonny was going to have to give it a try.

Sonny sat silently, looking at this and that, betraying no emotion. He met Jake's gaze for a second or two, then looked away. Toad Tarkingon seemed ready for anything. Tommy Carmellini was trying to look deadpan and succeeding.

Heydrich had a gun, a silenced automatic. He displayed it, pointed it at Zelda Hudson, who was right beside him. And he raised his voice. “If anyone moves, toward me, at me, in any direction whatsoever, I shall shoot this woman in the head. Do you understand? If
anything
happens, if anyone wants to be a hero, she dies first. Then I will see how many of you I can kill.”

Zelda was in obvious pain. She was seated yet bent over at the waist, in an upright fetal position. Semiconscious, oblivious to her surroundings, she chewed on her lower lip with her eyes tightly closed. She moaned softly from time to time, but she didn't open her eyes or try to change positions.

Heydrich flashed the minisub's lights, then turned the helm, which controlled the minisub's motion in pitch and roll, much like an aircraft yoke. The rudder pedal was beneath his feet. He watched the closed-circuit monitors intently, finally engaged the prop. In a few moments the towering side of the liner disappeared from view. Heydrich began flooding the ballast tanks. The valves were audible as they opened, the water gurgled as it poured into the tanks, and the minisub swam slowly down into the dark, black, watery abyss.

*   *   *

With the women on the sponson, Flap Le Beau's options were limited. There were the three men with silenced submachine guns, Schlegel and two sailors, line handlers.

The sailors stayed out of the way, just in case one of the armed men decided to shoot somebody. They looked like they were from the Far East, perhaps Malaysia or Indonesia. They refused to look at the prisoners, Flap noted. If they were ever called as witnesses they would say they knew nothing. A job is a job is a job, if you have a family to feed and no skills to speak of.

Flap didn't blame them. He just hoped they stayed out of the way.

He waited patiently. Years before, when he had been a jarhead in the jungle mud, he learned patience. Let the enemy come to you in his own time.

Two of the gunmen lit cigarettes. They smoked in silence.

Then the break he had been waiting for came. Schlegel wanted to talk.

“Sorry it worked out this way, General. Obviously it would have been better for everyone if you had stayed home.”

“You can't get away with this, Schlegel. The United States government knows we're here, knows you're involved. The Americans will apply excruciating pressure to the French government, which will drop you like a hot potato.”

“A potato?” Schlegel asked, obviously unfamiliar with that idiom.

“Thermonuclear.”

“I think not.” Schlegel smiled. The man was enjoying himself hugely. Flap took a step closer. He was holding his wrists together, keeping them in against his body so that no one could see that the plastic tie was missing. It was, in fact, in his pocket.

That was the moment that Callie Grafton picked to faint. She went limp, sagged, hit the deck like a side of beef, and lay sprawled out.

Schlegel glanced at his gunmen, decided they were sufficiently fearsome to discourage heroics, and stepped over to check on Callie.

She kicked him in the balls.

As Schlegel bent over in pain, Rita Moravia delivered a right cross to the jaw that snapped his head sideways. The impact propelled him back and he lost his balance. He teetered on the edge of the sponson, his arms waving wildly. Then he fell in.

One of the three gunmen found that he had the hilt of a knife protruding from his solar plexus. He released his hold on his weapon as he sank to his knees. He tried to draw it out with both hands, but the effort was too much. He toppled slowly forward.

The gunman nearest Flap never saw him coming. He had been watching Schlegel's balancing act, so when he saw Flap coming at him out of the corner of his eye, he was flat-footed, not quite ready. The cigarette in his fingers didn't help. By the time he got his weapon turned and his hand on the trigger, Flap ripped it from his grasp and elbowed him once in the larynx, crushing it.