[Rogue Warrior 18] Curse of the Infidel (45 page)

“Hell,” groused Doc, “why start now?”

(II)

Back in Washington, D.C., Junior had followed Habib—or rather, someone he was pretty sure was Habib—down into the bowels of the Metro system.

If you’ve ever been to the nation’s capital and taken the trains there, you know that the stations are large concrete tunnels done in a modern design. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I would never wax eloquent over a bunch of train tracks and aggregate, but the design attempts to remove the claustrophobic sense you can get underground.

The walkways along the side of the tracks in the tunnels are another story. They’re narrow, uneven, and without rails in many places. When a train shoots by, the wind feels like it’s going to sweep you below any second.

Two trains passed before Junior finally spotted a figure walking ahead, hugging the side of the tunnel wall with outstretched hands and moving extremely slowly. Junior guessed that he’d been spooked by the trains that had passed—a rather rational response.

Junior stopped at a railing, waiting for the man to get a little farther ahead. He crouched, hoping the light on the wall ahead wouldn’t show where he was. He needn’t have worried, as the man kept moving forward, albeit at a snail’s pace. Staring down at the tracks, Junior debated whether to continue. He’d been moving south in the direction of the Capitol stop, but he had no idea how far he had gone or how close the next station was. The man might not be Habib after all; he could just be a homeless derelict, looking for a place to flop for the night.

Something scurried down the middle of the tracks, running past him before ducking into the blackness farther on. Junior’s first thought was that it was a small dog. Then he realized it was a rat.

A slight but growing vibration announced that another train was coming. Junior wrapped his arms around the rail, then hung on as the light from the train grew, sweeping the narrow confines of the tunnel ahead, catching a dip and bend to the left. The rush of the train as it passed seemed to take all sound from his ears. He tightened his grip on the rail even though the last car was disappearing around the bend.

Only when the ledge below him stopped trembling did Junior stand up. He looked down the tunnel, but couldn’t see the figure he’d been following. Unsure what else to do, Junior began walking in that direction. The tracks were dark again, but there was enough light from the steel sconces on the wall to illuminate the narrow walkway ahead.

The man was gone.

Junior walked faster, bracing himself for the sight of the man’s body severed on the tracks. But he hadn’t fallen. There was an alcove on the right just ahead of the bend; behind it a set of transformers were nestled behind a fence. A metal door sat across from the fence.

Junior put his ear against the jamb, but could hear nothing through the block walls. He opened the door slowly, crouching behind the metal. A dim ray of light spilled onto the ground. He looked for shadows, saw none, then eased inside to a small landing with a metal stairway leading downward. He closed the door as gently as he could behind him and descended, holding his breath.

Two flights later, he came to an open workshop area. The place looked like a cross between a bomb shelter and an old salvage shop, with railroad parts and assorted machinery. It smelled heavily of oil and metal shavings. Three of the four walls were lined with shelves; the last featured a
Playboy
centerfold that looked older than I was.

Miss October still had it, though.

The room itself wasn’t lit, but a faint light came through an open doorway diagonally across from the one Junior had entered. He slipped across the room, then flattened himself against a shelf next to the door, listening as the people in the room beyond talked.

He heard three voices. They weren’t speaking English, but the voices were so muffled that Junior couldn’t be sure what language it was. They spoke for a few minutes; then suddenly there was silence.

He barely managed to get behind the workbench in the first room before Habib walked through. Junior caught a glimpse of him in the light, then ducked down, waiting until he heard the man’s feet on the steps above. Then he slipped into the room where the men had been talking.

Lit by a pair of yellow lights, the room was filled with dusty soda and snack machines. Two were open. Unlike the others, they were new and clean. A pair of toolboxes were tucked on the side. Junior looked at the machines but couldn’t see anything special about them, aside from the fact that they didn’t seem to belong with the others.

Beyond the other door was a foyer area flanked by a large service elevator and a door leading to a stairwell. As Junior opened the door to the stairs, he heard the elevator descending. He pushed inside, and watched through the narrow glass window as two men walked into the adjacent room. They returned a moment later carrying the two tool cases he’d seen, along with a handcart that had two heavy-looking boxes.

Junior moved back as the elevator doors closed, afraid they would glance in his direction and see him. But nothing looked nefarious—he seemed to have stumbled onto a late-night work crew. There were a dozen reasons Habib might have come to talk to them, and none had anything to do with a terrorist attack or even drugs.

Not wanting to walk along the side of the train tracks again, Junior decided to take the stairs. He expected that there would be a door out within a flight or two, but instead he went up eight sets before he came to a landing. The small window in the door showed that it opened into the basement of a large building; there were lights and a distant, beige wall across the wide expanse.

Junior hesitated, took a deep breath, then pushed the crash bar boldly, striding out as if he knew exactly where he was. He was standing in a large empty hall, part of an underground complex. The hall was large, long, and empty. Its floors were polished concrete, painted a dull but unscuffed gray—not fancy, but far different than those he’d been in downstairs. The tunnel was used by workers to get from one part of the government complex to another.

Junior had no idea where he was, and even less of a notion on how to get out. The elevator across from him gave him no clue. Faced with a choice—left or right?—he went right. One hundred feet, two hundred feet—the hallway was empty. Junior passed two large desks, which looked like they might be used as security checkpoints, but they didn’t appear to have been used in years.

At the far end of the hall a metal gate partially blocked the way. Junior could hear voices and some noises inside, but the area dipped down and he couldn’t see anything beyond the metal gate. Slowing as he got closer to the gate, Junior spotted a hallway to the left just in front of the gate. There were more elevators there, along with doors to a pair of stairwells. Three vending machines stood across from them. With the voice growing louder, Junior ducked down the hall, moving to the far side behind the third machine.

He heard two men come out from behind the gate. They stopped near the intersection with the main hallway. One said something softly in Arabic—or at least what Junior thought was Arabic. He didn’t understand a word.

The men walked on, back in the direction of the stairs Junior had come up from. He waited a few minutes, then went out to the fence. It had been pushed closed but not latched. He started to push it open, but then heard someone coming and retreated back to the hall where he’d hidden earlier.

The man whistled as he walked. He clattered as well—Junior suspected it was a security guard. He thought of coming out from his hiding place and telling the guard—what, though?

The whistling grew louder. The whistler came over and used one of the machines to buy a soda. Then he went to the machine where Junior was hiding and made another selection for a snack. Junior saw his uniform pant leg—and a holster.

A candy bar or something similar plunked down in the machine. The guard started whistling again, walking back into the building. Junior went across to the stairwell, pushed through, and jogged up the steps. The door was glass; there was a guard at a desk a few feet away, watching a baseball game on a small television.

Go,
Junior told himself, and go he did, pushing through and walking quickly to the door.

“Night,” he called over his shoulder to the guard, raising his hand as he went.

If the guard even noticed him, Junior couldn’t say.

Outside, he was surprised to find himself on the side of the Supreme Court Building.

What the hell was going on?

*   *   *

That was the same question Karen Fairchild asked when he showed up at her door an hour later.

“What happened with you and Dick? And with Danny?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

Karen has a certain way about her—a no-nonsense, get-to-the-point stare. And yet her voice isn’t harsh, and her tone somehow seems to suggest that whatever the problem, she’ll help work it out. After a swat to the head, of course.

She didn’t swat Junior. He mumbled something to the effect that he was confused himself.

She took a better look at him. Disheveled wouldn’t quite cover it. “Have you eaten dinner?”

He shook his head.

“Come in, then. I’ll put on some pasta. Go take a shower—I’ll find you some spare clothes. You’ll eat, and then we’ll talk.”

(III)

Out in the Atlantic, Larry and I were making our way to the bridge; Chalker and Doc were en route to the main passenger cabins, aiming to search for the crew and any able-bodied passengers who wanted to help. We had a limited number of arms—just the captured rifles and pistols. We now had four ship’s radios. Using them would tip off the hijackers, and though we worked out a primitive code, we were reluctant to use them. We could hear the hijackers’ chatter on them, but it was of limited value, since they rarely used English and the talk was fairly garbled.

By now it was morning. The storm’s intensity had increased, and besides the wind and waves, the portholes we passed were as dark as if it had been midnight. Every so often we saw a faint blip of lightning through the glass. At points I felt a bit like a cross-country skier working his way through the foothills of the Alps.

We reached the main deck without seeing anyone, and were just about to cut through the dark-paneled Amusement Salon to the main staircase when we heard voices in the corridor. Larry and I ducked into the salon, crouching between the vintage Pac-Man game and Terror Arcade as four hijackers stalked past.

“Four against two,” said Larry, getting up. “Hardly seems fair.”

“Since when did we start fighting fair?”

“Guns or not?”

“Fire hose,” I said. “Guns are backup.”

I ran over to the bulkhead near the passage, where a fire hose hung. I pulled the hose down and grabbed the trigger, intending to knock them down with the spray and take them by hand.

During a drill on the first day we sailed, I watched the crew have some fun pushing each other around with a jet of water that could take paint off a wall. But that was then, and this was now: I’ve seen more powerful streams on Baby Wet Me dolls.

You can make the rest of the metaphor yourself. Fortunately, Larry was right behind. He took down the four goons before they got a chance to make fun of the piddle of my hose.

“So much for saving ammo, and being quiet, huh?” said Larry, checking the bodies.

They had two rifles between them, and each had a spare magazine. It was better than nothing. We pulled the bodies back into the amusement center, hiding them behind a bank of games that included Sgt. Slaughter and Winged Fury. Then we continued down the corridor. We had no sooner reached the grand staircase on Amuse Deck when a trio of hijackers appeared. Clearly alerted by our earlier gunfire, they had their guns up and were ready for us, firing a hail of bullets as we backtracked for cover.

We ducked into the Louis XIV Dining Room. The bow dipped as we entered, and the tables and chairs, which had gathered themselves aft, rushed forward like the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. We ducked as best we could, sliding to the floor near the bandstand as the tangos fired from the passage and bullets began sailing into the room. Chandeliers began breaking, and bits of the mirrored ceiling exploded downward in a hail of glass.

Suddenly the bow of the big liner stopped descending, hesitating at the bottom of the mammoth wave she’d entered. The ship heeled backward, bucking her bow upward and sending the room’s furniture back across the room. We threw ourselves to the side, then began firing at the men at the doorway as they struggled to keep from following the furniture.

As the last one fell, I realized we were being fired on from behind. Two more hijackers had come in from the doorway on the aft side of the room. Taking cover behind a settee, they began peppering us with gunfire from pistols. Larry and I dropped to the deck, then crawled uphill toward the door as the ship shifted again. Apparently this made the tangos think we’d been hit; they stopped firing and began working up the side of the room, looking for us as the ship heeled backward. I grabbed a chair as it slid by, rose, then ran with the tilt of the ship toward the nearest hijacker, less than ten feet away. Off-balance and surprised, he got off a few ill-aimed shots before I threw the chair at him, puncturing his larynx.

Messy business.

Larry took out the other man the old-fashioned way, firing at him as the tango slid back between two tables.

“I forgot how much fun this was,” said Larry, getting to his feet.

We made it to the main staircase without finding any more exchanges of lead, but going through the Arc de Triomphe Bar just about broke Larry’s heart. The tables here were secured to the floor—always a wise idea for a bar, even on land—but the ship’s bucking had sent bottles scattering against each other, with lamentable results. The place reeked of alcohol—a not unpleasant smell to be sure, unless you considered where it rose from.

Looking over the place, we found charges on the bulkhead pillars that sat on either end of the bar proper. If blown, the charges would take down not only the bar but the deck above. Hit enough spots like this, and the ship would implode from the top, falling in on itself.