The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (15 page)

The expressions around the room remained grave. The German ambassador said,
"All of our countries are counting on us to resolve our differences, to address
accusations, and to make mutual resolutions regarding this arms race."

"We have evidence that the hostilities attributed to France in recent months
have in fact been the work of a… savage provocateur," said the French leader.
"Our people have had enough war and bloodshed for one century, due to our own
social strife, as well as foreign aggression." He glanced pointedly at the
German representative, who snorted.

"Your complaint is with Chancellor Bismarck. He left power a decade ago. The
German Empire seeks to strengthen itself internally, not annex worthless French
territory;"

"Worthless.—!"

"Gentlemen!" The Russian pounded a beefy hand on the table. "This is going
nowhere. We must establish peace terms and resolutions. All of our countries are
tinderboxes."

"Well said, well said," the British diplomat interjected. "Let us not offer
any excuse to light a political match. Now then, since we all have the same
fundamental objective, shall we begin? The rest of the world does not know we
are here. Therefore, it should be a simple matter to address our issues and
formulate simple, binding resolutions."

"Provided we are not interrupted," the Frenchman said.

"This meeting has been established with the utmost security," the German
pointed out. "What could possibly interrupt us?"

On the bridge of the
Nautilus
, Ishmael said in drawling Hindi, "Helm
three feet to port. Steady. Two feet. Decrease prop a half knot." The members of
the League crowded in the control room, ready to begin their work.

As his crew guided the armored vessel, Captain Nemo peered into his
periscope. Through the eyepiece, he could see the far-off revelers, the
celebratory torches, the feasts and flowers in the streets of Venice. "The
Carnival is quite the affair."

"I love a party," said Gray. "Perhaps we should all join them. After all,
Nemos already wearing his own costume."

"I tend to avoid large gatherings and all that noise," the captain said.

As the canal narrowed, the stone walls closed together like a slow and deadly
trap. The
Nautilus
eased cautiously forward like a big mechanical shark
in the shadows of this dingy section of the drowning city. Ishmael's expert
guidance kept the alloy armor plates from being scratched against the slimy
walls, only inches away.

"We can go no farther, Captain," Ishmael said, before the undersea vessel
could get stuck.

"All ahead stop!" Nemo said.

"Reverse engines!" Ishmael shouted.

The big brass propellers reversed, sloshing a backwash as they dampened the
vessels headlong inertia. The high prow snagged a clothesline, stretching it
almost to snapping before the majestic boat came to a final stop beneath a high,
vine-covered bridge that arched overhead.

On the metal deck in front of the conning tower, Nemos crewmen jumped onto
the canal towpath, tossing ropes. On either side of the narrow, mossy walkway,
the men affixed the cable moorings, lashing them tight. One man glanced up at
the curved bridge as four boisterous Carnival participants raced from one
building to another, laughing with the drunken chase, and disappeared into the
opposite villa. None of them glanced down at the water or the huge ship floating
below.

Like metal tongues, three gangplanks extended from the ship's side hull and
settled on the towpath. Captain Nemo and Allan Quatermain led the way as a large
group
of Nautilus
crewmen marched out of the ship, including men suited
up as divers. Their footsteps made muffled bangs on the gangplank, then crunched
on the brick and gravel walkway. The rest of the League followed them out into
the streets of Venice.

They exchanged orders like rapid-fire gunshots. "Break into squads and begin
to sweep the city," Nemo said.

"One flare per five-man team," Ishmael said.

"Look for any hint of the Fantom," Quatermain said. "Signal at the first sign
of suspicious activity."

"But this is a vast city of masks and mystery
—"
Mina
said.

"Then you will be very much in your element," Quatermain said, and signaled
her to hurry along.

"What about Skinner?" Tom Sawyer asked in a whisper, looking behind him. No
one had been able to find the invisible man since Quatermain had chased him out
of his cabin. Now that the
Nautilus
had arrived in Venice and their
mission was to begin, Skinner had abandoned them. He could be anywhere.

The American, and most of the others, were convinced he had intended to cause
trouble all along. "I bet he's working for the Fantom."

"Just be alert for his treachery, young man," said Dorian Gray with a
distasteful curl of his lip. "We all will. He's still hereabouts, somewhere,
probably spying on us all. No telling what sort of mischief he still has in
mind."

Suddenly, blazing light and thunderous explosions filled the sky. The sounds
were like cannons, echoing off the water and ricocheting between the rows of
buildings that lined the canals. Flowerpots and windows rattled. A another flash
of light and accompanying bangs shot across the night sky.

Nemo's crewmen looked around and grabbed for their weapons. Most of the
League members were horrified, but Tom Sawyer chuckled. "Shucks, it's just
fireworks, the finale of the Carnival." Under the bright flashes and colored
smoke, they could hear the revelers cheering.

"I feared the worst!" Mina said. "I thought we were too late, that the Fantom
had already—"

"Don't worry, Ma'am. We still have a chance," Sawyer said.

The next explosion, however, was definitely not part of the Carnival.

With a ripping crash, an incredible eruption rocked the ground. Quatermam
reeled, and Sawyer reached out to steady him. Mina Harker maintained her balance
with feral grace, but Jekyll fell to his knees, clutching the solid ground. All
around them, the ancient buildings shook. Windows shattered.

Two of Nemo's crewmen stumbled off the towpath and fell into the water.

Belches of escaping air and silt churned up from the canals. Jagged cracks
ran up the building walls and along the length of the narrow towpath, widening
as they watched. Flowerpots tumbled from high sills and bridges, splashing into
the water.

Jekyll covered his head. Inside him, even the vestige of Edward Hyde was
intimidated.

Another explosion.

Exhausted and inebriated revelers fled screaming in all directions, stumbling
into each other, falling to the paving stones, calling for help as they were
buried under rubble. At Canzelli Tower, the center of the main detonation, smoke
billowed up from cracked walkways. Water spouted from the old foundations like
arterial blood.

The Fantoms' carefully positioned blast had dealt a death blow to the ancient
landmark. Weaving like a dizzy ox, the tower collapsed and sank, taking down
neighboring structures. People wailed and tried to escape as the streets
convulsed, broke apart, and opened up to the hungry influx of water.

The shock wave spread through the surrounding piazza. Adjacent buildings
slumped like failed souffle's, streets collapsed, and a tidal wave rose up to
engulf the piazza, like the sinking of legendary Atlantis.

The world leaders in the secret conference room looked at each other in
confusion and dismay. Guards drew their handguns and stood alert.

One guard raced to a window, flung open the shutters, and thrust his head and
shoulders outside to look up. "It is terrible! The end of the world!" Before he
could move, a heavy block of stone fell away from an upper floor, striking him a
crushing blow; without so much as an outcry, he fell dead.

"Assassins!" bellowed the Russian. The tile floor split and rattled as the
detonations continued. "Anarchists!"

The French ambassador ducked under the heavy table as the stuccoed ceiling
overhead began to crack and flake. "We have been discovered. Betrayed! Someone
is trying to kill us all."

"English treachery," snarled the German. "This meeting was no more than a
ploy to bring us together so we could all be murdered in a single stroke!"

"Bloody German paranoia." The British representative was the only one who
hadn't jumped out of his chair. "And I believe every man here will agree that
it's a well-known Prussian technique to level a whole city just to kill a few
gentlemen."

"I agree," the ambassador from France cried from under the heavy table.
"After what the Prussians did to poor Paris and Emperor Napoleon III!"

A louder, resounding rumble made the tiled floor shudder. An ornate silver
candelabra rattled, then fell over with a crash, scattering its lit candles in
all directions. One of the guards, seeing a minor emergency within his means to
handle, hurried forward to stamp out the small flames.

"My Venetia!" The Italian wailed and scrambled over to the guards who stood
in the trembling doorways. Shouting a flow of incomprehensible words, he
commanded them to hold up the walls and arches with their bare hands. The guards
attempted to obey. A large terracotta planter fell from a shelf and
shattered.

The lead ambassadors of both Spain and Portugal, usually rivals, joined the
Frenchman under the table. Luckily, they had each rescued a bottle of wine that
was intended as a celebratory toast after the successful conclusion of their
deliberations. Agreeing on this, at least, the ambassadors decided to drink it
now.

All around them, the destruction of Venice continued.

"The Fantom didn't wait for us," Tom Sawyer said. "Darn his itchy trigger
finger."

Before the League members had even lost sight of the
Nautilus
in the
tight confines of the canal, the buildings around them rumbled and shook.
Crashing sounds and further explosions built upon each other, one at a time,
like an urban avalanche.

Shrill Carnival celebrants raced across the trembling walkway, screaming.
Ancient bricks flaked away and fell pattering into the water or, with louder
clangs, on the submarine's hull.

Mina gazed up at the cracking arched bridge overhead. "We're too late. What
can we do now?" She didn't sound panicked; she was simply getting down to
business to solve the problem.

Everyone looked at Quatermain.

The old adventurer dashed to a corner where the canal widened and he could
look toward the middle of the densely packed city. Staring forward, he saw the
wave of destruction spreading spontaneously from the epicenter of the piazza. In
crumbling slow motion, tall, ornate buildings tottered and sank, block by block.
One structure toppled into another, and another, as the chain reaction proceeded
inexorably toward a prominent avenue of buildings.

Behind them, a ratcheting sound came from the
Nautilus
, gears and
chains clattering, metal segments extending and clicking into place. Nemo's
marvelous vessel was full of surprises: A separate crows nest elevated, raising
on hydraulics to lift a grizzled Ishmael above the connecting bridge and the
tiled rooftops of the nearby villas so that he could see what was happening.

"I wish I knew where Mr. Skinner disappeared to," Sawyer grumbled, thinking
of all the help they could get.

The first mate's face reflected his certainty of impending doom even before
he shouted down to them. "The buildings are falling like dominos, Cap'n! Bang,
bang, bang! The Calle del Luna is next!"

Keeping his balance on the crumbling towpath, Quatermain spun, eyes wide with
an idea. "Nemo! What sort of weapons does that ship of yours carry? You must
remove a domino!"

The dark captains brow furrowed as his mind raced through calculations and
possibilities. He instantly reached the same conclusion. "Yes! Get ahead of the
collapse and destroy the next building." He looked at the structures,
calculating trajectories. His thin, dark lips narrowed in a grim smile. "My
Nautilus
can do it. I could launch a rocket."

"We'll interrupt the chain of destruction," Sawyer said. "That's it!" With
that, the young American agent bolted back down the towpath, sprinted up the
gangplank, and ducked into the ship's hold.

Quatermain looked after him, wondering if Sawyer had an actual plan, or if he
was just moving frenetically in order to be
doing
something.

Though rubble and broken glass continued to rain down all around him, Dorian
Gray looked unimpressed. "Ridiculous!" He frowned at a smear of brick dust on
his fine jacket; a piece of rubble fell into the canal nearby and splashed water
on his shoe.

Jekyll panicked. "What're you talking about, Nemo? Quatermain, are you mad?
Grays right. It's too late to concoct a Plan B!"  The shuddering buildings,
the continued echoes of ever-increasing destruction, closed in on him. He looked
like a cornered rabbit, trying to find a place to dash for shelter. But there
was no bolt hole in sight. "We should get back aboard the
Nautilus
and
escape. Its our only chance."

"And leave all these people?" Mina asked with a hint of scorn in her voice.
"Rather an ineffective first mission for us, if we allow all of Venice to be
destroyed."

"And allow a world-scale war to be triggered," Nemo said. "I refuse to simply
surrender and flee." He glared at Jekyll, who cringed, more afraid of the dark
captain than of the explosions and collapsing buildings.

The conversation had proceeded rapid-fire, in only a few seconds, but now
amid all the destruction, Dorian Gray actually rolled his eyes. "Oh yes, M would
be soooo disappointed in us. But what can we hope to achieve? This is more than
any of us could imagine."

"Then it's time for swift action," Quatermain said. "Not more conversation.
I'm not a bloody politician."