The Magic Labyrinth (23 page)

“Any indication of the
Goose
?” Sam said.

“Nothing, sir.”

Sam looked at the chronometer. The big plane should still be flying alongside the mountains, hugging the top of the trees, down below the forest whenever possible. But it would not be attacking the
Rex
by itself. Its orders were to wait until the
Rex
was engaged with the motherboat. Then, while John’s crew was occupied with firing upon the enemy, the
Goose
would come roaring out across the trees, swoop down to The River, and make a run for the broadside of the
Rex.
If John had had any sense, he would have held back his own torpedo plane until the full-scale battle started.

But then John had hoped that the people on the
Not For Hire
would be so busy watching the aerial fight that they would be taken by surprise.

“Enemy vessel four miles away, Captain. Dead ahead.”

Sam lit another cigar and asked the medic to put some salve on his chin-burn. Smollett did so, and then Clemens stood by the starboard port, watching the smoke clouds rising from the fires on the left bank about a quarter of a mile ahead. Flames were eating the bamboo, pine, and yew structures. Pieces lifted off the blaze, carried by the wind, and landed on the bridges and houses. People were scurrying around, carrying belongings out of burning houses or climbing down ladders before the fire got to them. Others had formed lines, dipping their grails and fired-clay buckets into The River, passing the containers along to the other end, where the water was thrown onto the fires at the bases. That was a hopeless procedure; there was nothing to do but let the fire go. Apparently half of the sightseers had decided to do that. They thronged to the plains, where there were a few buildings and continued to wait for the meeting of the boats.

“Before we’re done, we’ll have leveled Virolando,” Sam said to no one in particular. “We won’t be very popular here.”

“Enemy is three miles away, sir.”

Sam walked to the intercom, where Byron was still talking to the stations. Joe’s huge bulk came up behind him, and Sam could smell the bourbon emanating from the enormous nose. The titanthrop always liked to take several belts before a fight. It wasn’t that he needed Dutch courage, he explained. It was just for his stomach’s sake. It quieted the “butterflies.”

“Bethideth, Tham, I need lotth of enerchy. You thaid alcohol giveth enerchy. My body burnth it up like a motor burnth fuel. And I got a big body.”

“Yeah, but a whole fifth?”

Byron looked at him. “So far, nobody’s been away from his post.”

“Vhat if they had to take a pithth?” Joe said. “I alvayth have to pithth a lot chutht before a fight. No matter how brave I am, and I am, I get tenthe. It ain’t nervouthneth. Chutht tenthion.”

“And of course all that booze doesn’t have a thing to do with it,” Sam said. “If I had a fifth in me, I wouldn’t be able to get out of the toilet. In fact, I’d be lucky if I could find it.”

“The vhikey clearth my kidneyth. Clear kidneyth; clear head. My head, I mean, not the boat’th head.”

“Both heads have a lot in common,” Sam said. “The toilet’s got pipes full of water, and you have water on the brain.”

“You’re chuth talking nathty becauthe you’re nervouth,” Joe said. He patted Sam on the shoulder with fingers the size of bananas.

“Don’t get familiar with the captain,” Sam said. But he felt better. Joe loved him, and he would always be at his side. Could anything bad happen to him while that monster was guarding him? Yes. The boat could be destroyed, Joe or no Joe.

The
Rex Grandissimus
was visible by now, a white indistinct mass moving toward him. As minutes passed, it became sharper. For a moment, Sam Clemens felt a pain in his breast. The
Rex
had been his first boat, his first love. He had fought to get the metal for it, killed, even slain one of his colleagues for it—where was Erik Bloodaxe now?—helped plan it down to the least bolt, and all that killing and battling and struggle had been negated when King John had stolen it. Now it was his greatest adversary. It was a pity to have to destroy that craft, one of the only two of its kind on the whole planet.

He hated John even more because he was forcing him to sink the beauty. Maybe, though, just maybe the
Rex
could be boarded and taken. Then both boats could sail on up The River to its headwaters.

Sam had always seesawed from deepest pessimism to wildest optimism.

“Two and a half miles now,” the radar operator said.

“Any blips on the
Goose
?”

“No…yes, sir! Got some! It’s three miles to the starboard, just above the hills!”

“Sir, the enemy vessel is turning to starboard,” the radarman said.

Sam looked out of the fore port. Sure enough, the
Rex
was swinging around. And as the
Not For Hire
plowed toward it, the
Rex
presented its stern.

“Vhat in hell’th he doing?”

“He can’t be running away!” Sam said. “Whatever else the sneaky bastard is, he’s not a coward. Besides, his men wouldn’t let him. No, he’s up to something devious.”

“Perhaps,” Detweiller said, “the
Rex
has some mechanical difficulty?”

“If it does, we can catch it,” Sam said. “Radar, check its speed.”

“Enemy vessel is making thirty-five miles per hour, due west, sir.”

“Against the current and wind, that’s top speed,” Sam said. “There’s nothing wrong with it. Nothing I can see, anyway. Why in blue jumping blazes are they running? They haven’t got any place to hide.”

Sam paused, rolling his eyes as if they were looking for an idea. He said, “Sonar! Do you pick up any foreign object? Say, something that could be a mine?”

“No, sir. All clear underwater except for some schools of fish.”

“It’d be just like John to make some mines and scatter them in our path,” Sam said. “I’d do it myself if the situations were reversed.”

“Yeth, but he knowth ve have thonar.”

“I’d try it anyway. Sparks, tell Anderson to hold off until we’re engaged or until further orders.”

The radio operator transmitted the message to the pilot of the
Goose,
Ian Anderson. He was a Scot who had flown a British torpedo-bomber during World War II. His gunner, Theodore Zaimis, was a Greek who had been a tail-gunner in an RAF Handley Page Halifax on its night raids over France and Germany in the same war.

Anderson reported that he understood. Radar followed the
Goose
as it maintained a more or less level course eastwards.

As the sun slowly arced downwards, the
Not For Hire
decreased the gap between it and the
Rex.

“Maybe John doesn’t know how fast this boat can go,” Sam muttered as he paced back and forth. He looked at the crowds on both banks and on the spires and bridges. “Why do they stand around gawking? Don’t they know rockets and shells are likely to be landing among them? That’s the least John could have done, warn them!”

The great red-and-black stone temple came into view, loomed, then dwindled. Now the pursuer was only half a mile behind the pursued. Sam gave Detweiller orders to ease up on the speed.

“I don’t know what he’s up to. But I’m not going to run full speed into any trap.”

“It looks as if he’s heading for the strait,” Detweiller said.

“I might have known that,” Sam said.

The mountains were curving in, their arcs on both sides almost meeting a mile ahead. Here the black, white, and red-streaked walls formed straight-up-and-down precipices out of which The River boiled. The
Rex,
though it must be under full power, was only making twenty miles an hour. Its rate of progress would be even less if it entered the towering and dark passage.

“Do you really suppose John’s going to take her to the other side?” Sam said. He pounded his left palm with his fist. “By thunder, that’s it! He’s going to wait for us on the other side, catch us when we come out!”

“You vouldn’t be that thtupid, vould you?” Joe Miller said.

Sam ignored him. He strode to the radio operator. “Get me Anderson!”

The pilot of the
Goose
spoke with a broad Lowland Scots brogue. “Aye, we’ll go over and see what this skurlie is doing, Captain. But it’ll take some time to climb over the pass.”

“Don’t climb over the mountains; go
through
the pass,” Sam said. “If you see your chance, attack!” Then to Byron, “Heard anything?”

A slight annoyance passed over Byron’s face. “I’ll tell you as soon as I do.”

Sam laughed and said, “Sorry, John. But the idea of somebody planting explosives down there…well, it concerns me. Carry on.”

“Here it is,” Byron said as the warrant officer of Station 26 spoke. Sam swung around to stand by Byron.

“Ensign Santiago left about half an hour ago, sir,” Schindler said. “He put me in charge, said he was suffering from nervous diarrhea and he wanted to clean himself out so he wouldn’t disgrace himself. He said he’d be right back. He didn’t show up until ten minutes later, but I didn’t think much about it, sir, since he said he just couldn’t stop.

“He looked like he’d just had a shower, sir, was dripping wet. He said he’d fouled himself and so had to take a quick shower. Then, just after we heard the general call to report by the numbers, he excused himself again. But he hasn’t been back.”

“Station 27, report!” Byron said. He turned his head to Sam. “He might not be the only one.”

All thirty-five stations reported that no one else had been missing even for a minute.

“Well, he’s either hiding some place or went overboard,” Sam said.

“I doubt he could leave the boat without someone seeing him,” Byron said.

Sam called de Marbot. “Get all your marines,
all
, to search for Santiago. If he resists, shoot him. But I would like to talk to him if possible.”

Sam turned to Byron. “Santiago’s been with us from the beginning. John must have planted him, though how John knew about the laser I don’t know. We didn’t even think of it until after he stole the boat. And how in God’s name did Santiago find out about the laser? Even Queen Victoria’s sex life wasn’t a better secret.”

“He’s had plenty of time to dig around,” Byron said. “He’s a sly one. I never did trust the dago.”

“I liked him,” Sam said. “He was always congenial, very good at his duties, and a hell of a good poker player.”

Santiago was a seventeenth-century Venezuelan sailor who had captained a warship for ten years. Shipwrecked off an unidentified Caribbe an island, he was speared by Indians as he struggled onto a beach. However, this only hastened his death a little. Syphilis had almost finished tearing him apart anyway.

“Of course,” Sam added, “he was awfully jealous of his women and he had his stupid Latin machismo. But after one of his women, a twentieth-century jukado expert, beat him up, he reconsidered his ways and treated the ladies as if they were worth their weight in gold.”

There were more pressing things to consider than Santiago’s ego. For one, how would John know that his agent had succeeded? John was unaware of the laser. He would have originally charged the Venezuelan with blowing up some vital part of the boat. That command had not been carried out, since the generators and electromechanical control centers were too well guarded.

Also, unless there was a spectacular explosion, how would John know that his agent had done his work? Was a system of signals worked out? If so, Santiago had not sent any.

Unless…he had a radio set hidden somewhere on the vessel. And it was on a frequency not used by…

Sam felt a faint vibration in the deck, one not accounted for by the thrusting of paddles into the water.

He walked to the stern port and looked out. Wisps of smoke were issuing from the starboard side, apparently coming from the hurricane deck.

Sam ran to the intercom and bellowed into it. “Stations 15 and 16! What happened?”

A calm female voice answered. “This is P.O. Anita Garibaldi, Station 17! There’s been an explosion down here, sir! A bulk-wall’s been blown up! The wires in it have been severed!”

Detweiller swore. Sam whirled around. “What is it?”

“I’ve lost control,” Detweiller said, but Sam already knew that. The wheels had slowed, and even as he looked out of the stern window, he saw that they had stopped. Slowly, the nose of the boat was turning to port, and it was being carried back by the current.

Detweiller reached out and punched a button. A light by it glowed. He grabbed the sticks again. The wheels began rotating, picked up speed. The boat swung back to its original course.

“The backup system is working,” Detweiller said.

Sam grinned a little though he did not feel joyous at all. “Santiago wouldn’t know about that,” he said. “It was John, though, that gave me the idea for installing it! Hoist by his own petard!”

He yelled into the intercom, keeping his finger on the all-stations button. “All right, you incompetent bungling blind microcephalic ding-dongs! You could expand your brains a hundredfold, and they’d still rattle around in a gnat’s ass!

“Find Santiago!”

“The strait’s dead ahead, Captain,” Detweiller said.

A shadow passed over, and twin motors roared. The
Goose
shot in front of them at an altitude of about two hundred feet. It was climbing between the dark walls, its searchlight stabbing ahead of it, dwindling in distance and darkness, then disappearing as it went around a long bend.

“Can we keep in radio contact with the
Goose
?” Sam said to the radio operator.

“It’s possible, sir. The long waves can bounce around that bend to us.”

Sam turned away but spun at an exclamation from the operator.

“Jesus! The pilot just said, ‘We’re hit! The starboard’s motor is on fire! A rocket…!’”

He looked up with a pale strained face. “That’s all, Captain.”

Sam swore.

“John must’ve been waiting for it! He knew I’d send it to find out what he was doing!”

Why hadn’t he let Anderson do as he wished, fly over the mountains? Then he would have been out of range of the rockets or at least have had time to take evasive maneuvers. But no, John knew his ex-partner, knew how impatient he’d be. So he had waited, and now he had the torpedo plane out of the combat.

But the
Rex
wouldn’t have been taken through the strait just to ambush the airplane. He…

De Marbot’s voice crackled. “Captain! We just got Santiago! He’d been hiding behind a bulkwall section! He made a dash up a passageway and almost got to the deck railing! Johnston shot him through the head!”

“Give me the details later,” Sam said. “Continue the search for other agents. Look…”

“Rockets!” Detweiller screamed.