by McLay, Craig
“What happened?” I asked.
“Well, as you can plainly see, I am still here,” Tristan smiled. “If there’s one thing all of my adventures have taught me, Mister Simms, it’s that plans are nice but terribly fragile things. A plan is like a bottle, and when it breaks – and it will break, believe me – you had best adapt to drinking your water out of something else.”
This didn’t mean much coming from a man who looked like a pasty academic who had never faced down anything more threatening than an unabridged Oxford dictionary. “Thanks for the advice.”
Tristan unbuttoned his shirt – a formal-looking thing that had at one time been the height of starched fashion but was now quite faded and wrinkled – to reveal a long scar running from the base of his neck to his left shoulder blade. “Their leader ordered that the men with digging tools be put to death first. I was quite a young man, then. Younger than either of you two gentlemen are now. It was my first expedition. I was there as an assistant. The archaeologist owed my father a favour and my father was happy to get me out of the house and the country for a few months. I had been given the task of scrabbling through the dirt with the paid labourers – for which, of course, I was not being paid. It became something of a joke among some of the members of the group. Ah, there’s little Lord Smythe down on his hands and knees in the mud with the proles! I didn’t mind. I got to see all of their discoveries before they did. Hold them in my hands. Clean the dirt from them. I also got to learn a little more about how they actually worked.
“We were using a new type of explosive, you see. Some of the site was hidden below a thick layer of rock and this was the easiest and cheapest way to gain access to some of the more remote chambers. It was like gelatin, but in the extreme heat, had dissolved into an almost liquid state. It was also extremely unstable. One of the containers had broken open the previous day and leaked a large volume of the stuff all over the ground next to where we had stored some of our supplies. Precisely on the spot where the leader and his chief riders were now waiting to watch us executed.
“Anyway, I was one of the first ones pulled out. I was marched over in front of the leader and told to bend. In so doing, I was able to see that the leaked explosive appeared to have crystallized in the night. The soil was filled with what looked like thousands of twinkling gems. But, because of all the dust stirred up by their horses, the riders had failed to see it. As my would-be executioner raised his sword over my neck, I reached into my pocket and took hold of my lighter. We were forbidden to smoke on the site, obviously, but I had stolen the lighter from my father’s study before I left home. It was all I had to remind myself of my family and I wasn’t about to be parted with it. In this case, however, I deemed it necessary.”
“You blew them up?” I said, amazed.
“Enough to scare the rest back into the hills.” Tristan pointed at his scar. “My executioner took exception with me incinerating his leader and tried to finish the job.”
“What happened to him?”
Tristan buttoned his shirt back up again. “He did not succeed.”
Okay, I thought. Maybe I was wrong about this guy. “Wow! You’re a tough motherfucker! A regular Indiana Jones!”
Tristan allowed himself a small smile. “I am a survivor, Mister Simms. I have outlasted or outwitted more difficult circumstances and evil than most. What I need to know from you is if you also wish to survive. If not, we will leave you here and be on our way.”
Being left in a strange underground complex in the middle of nowhere didn’t seem like a recipe for survival to me. “Fuck it. I’m in. Can I ask, though, if you have any weapons other than that polar bear spear gun thing you pointed at me way back?”
“Don’t worry,” Max said. “We’re covered.”
-27-
The most important things to keep in mind when stealing a boat:
any vessel larger than a house will move about as fast as one, making your getaway a ponderous affair;
if you crash into anything (e.g., rocks, other boats, docks, stationary objects of any kind) while making off with your newly stolen vessel, your getaway may be of a more downwardly vertical than horizontal one, requiring you to flail and plead for your life for assistance from the very people you just robbed;
people don’t tend to leave boats running and unattended while they run into a convenience store to buy cigarettes, so easy opportunities to steal them are not as frequently presented as they are for say, pickup trucks, golf carts or bicycles;
if you don’t know how to start, steer or navigate one (particularly at night), your attempt will most likely be met by a great deal of stumbling, cursing, and the pushing of random buttons that appear to be important but in fact don’t actually do anything;
no matter what anyone might claim, unless they have done it before, stealing one is not “a cakewalk”;
any member of your group who has spent most of the last 20 years in a cave will be of very little help, although that may not stop them from proffering a series of escalatingly inane pieces of advice in an English accent, which becomes more infuriating with every passing word;
not everyone knows which way is port and which is starboard, even if you happen to believe this is the most commonly distributed piece of information in the world and that one can no longer simply say “left” or “right” as soon as one steps off the dock;
if you do end up in the water, it can be quite shockingly cold, even in the summer, and pointing this fact out should not automatically label one a “pansy-ass little girl’s blouse”;
in the event you do have to abandon ship, do not assume that every member of your party can swim, even if they have spent the better part of the last decade working for the world’s foremost paramilitary organization;
there are many good reasons why seawater has not become the world’s most popular beverage; and
unlike a flu or a virus, the effects of sea sickness can manifest themselves with alarming speed.
If I were to sum it up, I would say that if you’re thinking about stealing a boat, I’d strongly advise against it.
It was 24 hours after our little tête-à-tête in the cave. We had reached the port in Halifax using a stealth ultralight originally designed for two people. Max had made some modifications to strip some of the armour and weaponry off it so that I could ride in a sort of modified jump seat in the back next to the engine. Considering the thing looked like a cross between an oversized coat hanger and a go-kart, I had been reluctant to climb aboard.
“Get on, you rose-planting little old lady,” Max grunted. “This thing is designed to carry a battery of Inferno air-to-surface missiles. I’m sure it’ll carry your dainty derriere.”
“Air-to-surface missiles are designed to be fired directly from the aircraft at the ground,” I pointed out. “How do I know you won’t accidentally hit the wrong button and do the same thing to me?”
“What do you mean accidentally?” he said. “Keep moaning and I’ll do it on purpose.”
“We’re not flying this thing all the way to Greenland, are we?” I asked. The north Atlantic was something that only existed for me in the abstract, but I was convinced that plunging into it at 200 feet per second would change that impression in short order.
“Certainly not,” Tristan said. “Air traffic is quite closely monitored, even one as small as this. It will be much easier for us to sneak in by ship.”
And so, 24 hours and three narrowly avoided electrical towers later, we were hiding in a supply shed staring out over dark water at The Salty Swinger, a 40-foot cabin cruiser sitting anchored all by itself at the end of a private marina. I didn’t know a lot about boats, but I did know that it didn’t look anywhere near as nice or well-kept as some of the shinier new boats anchored at the far-more-crowded marina we had scoped out a couple of hours before.
“It looks like kind of a shitbucket,” I said, noting the peeling paint, dented railing and broken wheelhouse window. “For all we know, it might be
sinking right now. We’ve only been watching it for twenty minutes. I bet the thing’s at the bottom of the harbour by tomorrow morning.”
Max gave me a sour look. “Nah. It’s perfect.”
“Why don’t we steal one of the newer ones we saw earlier?” I suggested. If we were going to sail it to Greenland, I didn’t see any reason why we couldn’t do it in something more comfortable. Perhaps even something with a fully-stocked kitchen and bar.
“Too much security on those boats,” Max said. “We grab one of them and we’ll have ’em down on our heads before we can even pull up the anchor. The only thing that stands between us and that one is a locked gate.”
“I feel like I should be wearing a life jacket just looking at it,” I said. “Don’t you remember the USS Indianapolis speech from Jaws?”
“I believe it extremely unlikely that the Japanese navy would put two torpedoes in our side here in Halifax harbour,” Tristan said. “Although there are sharks, there are very few man-eaters hereabouts.”
Max and I looked at him in disbelief.
Tristan shrugged. “Just because one lives in a cave doesn’t mean one has been living in a cave, if you catch my meaning.”
“It would appear so,” I said.
“I do not recommend the sequels, though. Particularly part four. Dreadful. Michael Caine is a fine actor, but that was an extremely poor choice.”
“I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to discuss the relative merits of aquatic monster movies and cinematic ups and downs of your fellow peers of the realm after we steal the boat,” Max interjected. “Until then, let’s focus on the matter at hand.”
“I still think we should steal one of the nicer ones,” I grumbled. “You used to work for the GDI. You can handle a couple of fat security guards.”
“Relax, Francine,” Max said. “This’ll be a cakewalk.”
We waited ten more minutes to make sure the boat was empty and then jogged down the dock. Max spent two minutes trying to pick the lock on the gate before grumbling that he didn’t have the right tools and ordering us to climb over top.
“I thought you knew how to do all that covert shit!” I said, watching as he scrambled up the bars.
“I normally use blasting gelatin,” Max said. “That would draw too much attention, anyway. C’mon. This is easy.”
It was easy for Max and Tristan, who zoomed up and over the gate like squirrels over a fallen branch. I, on the other hand, got halfway up and then got my leg jammed between the gate and the oversized hinge. For a moment, I thought I was permanently stuck, but then Tristan climbed back up and pulled me loose.
“Thanks,” I said once I was back on the dock.
“Not at all, my boy,” he said. “Nearly did the same thing myself.” He hadn’t, of course, but it was nice of him to say.
The three of us clomped down the wooden dock about as subtly as migrating elephants. The wood groaned and bent so much under our weight that each step catapulted my foot up into the air. It was like running on rubber. The other dock, the newer one I had been pushing for, was made of concrete. As far as I knew, no one had ever died putting their foot through a concrete dock. Unless I actually put my foot through the dock and fell into the water, however, I decided that I would keep this observation to myself.
We reached the end of the dock and jumped over the rail onto the boat. Up close, it was even more decrepit-looking than from on land. The deck furniture was faded and torn. The paint on the floor was chipped and peeling and the wood itself full of chips and splinters. The deck was covered with used napkins and toothpicks. In one corner I could see what looked like a half dozen cheap plastic martini glasses that had rolled to the side in the swell. I could also see what looked like a pair of men’s boxer shorts, a neon red bra that looked like it belonged to a woman whose arrival would probably cause all males in proximity to go silent in disbelief, and a single red high-heeled shoe.
“Are you sure this thing is deserted?” I said, pointing to the cocktail party detritus.
Max waved dismissively. “That stuff’s probably been sitting there for weeks.”
I wasn’t sure, but I thought I could sense vague noises coming from the cabin below deck. The lights were out and I couldn’t see anybody down there, though. Maybe it was just the sound of the boat bouncing against the dock or some buoy or something.
“But –”
“Quiet,” Max said. “Let’s get this thing untied.”
I made my way to the back corner in search of the anchor line. The boat was pitching and rolling more than I had expected and I had to hold on to the sides to keep from falling over. “Where’s the anchor?”
“No anchor,” Max said. “It’s just tied up to the dock.” He pointed to a couple of thick ropes wound around some mushroom-shaped cleats on the dock. “You two get us loose and I’ll get the engine started.”
Max disappeared while Tristan and I attempted to untie the ropes. After some brief discussion, we realized that we had to climb back off the boat to remove the ropes from the cleats. No sooner had I removed the back one than the ship rotated away and started bobbing more violently. The wind seemed stronger out here than it had been back on land. Now the only thing holding the ship in place was the rope attached to the bow. If I unhooked that, my chances of jumping onto the boat before it was out of range were not good.
“Climb aboard!” Tristan shouted, waving. “I believe we can detach it from here!”
I nodded and jumped onto the bow. I lost my grip on the rail and was only kept out of the drink when Tristan grabbed my arm in a surprisingly firm grip.
“Thanks again,” I said. It was slightly humbling to have been saved twice in almost as many minutes by a man who was more than a century older than me.
“Not at all,” he said. “The seas are rather rougher than we had anticipated.”
We spent a couple of minutes trying to negotiate the knots before Tristan pulled a large knife out of a sheath next to his ankle and cut through it instead. Immediately, the boat whipped back and began pitching out into the harbour.
“That’s quite a knife,” I said as I watched him slide it back into place. “Where’d you get it?”
“It is, rather,” he said. “I procured it from the fellow I told you about earlier. It was attached to one of his larger remaining pieces. As it appeared he no longer had any use for it, I took it for myself.”
The two of us made our way to the control room, where Max was busy pushing various buttons to get the engine started. The windows appeared to be tinted and all the lights were out, both of which were making the task more difficult than it might have otherwise been, even for a person who knew where the starter was.
“Hurry up!” I said. “We need to get the engine started before we plough into a tanker or something.” Without a fixed point of reference, it was extremely difficult to tell how fast we were actually moving or in which direction, but until we started moving under our own steam, I was pretty sure we would shortly end up in a place that we would rather not be.
“Quiet!” Max barked. “I’m trying to figure this system out.”
I looked at the control panel. If any of the buttons were labelled, it was too dark to see what they were. Still, it wasn’t exactly the space shuttle. There were two banks of dials and two corresponding rows of buttons underneath. I couldn’t see anything that looked like a key slot or the kind of ignition switch you would find in a car. Did you need a key for a boat? It seemed logical, otherwise just anybody could walk in and steal one the way we were trying to do.
Max had unscrewed the side of one of the control panels to reveal a spider’s nest of wires. “What are you trying to do?” I asked. “Hot wire the boat?”
“Shhh!” Max said, feeding the wires through his fingers. “You’re fucking with my concentration.”
“Concentration?” I said. “We’re floating free in a gale and about to crash into some enormous goddamn breakwater or something and you bitch at me about screwing with y
our concentration? Didn’t they teach you this shit in the GDI?”
“Shut up!” Max said. “I never took amphibious assault training! Well, I did. But I didn’t finish.”
“Why?”
“I can’t swim.”
“What?”
“Gentlemen!” Tristan said. “Let us focus on the matter at hand. Perhaps I can be of some assistance here.”
“What do you mean you can’t swim?”
“I think that’s self-explanatory.”
“Perhaps if we were to attempt to locate the battery cable and re-route it through the ignition system, we might meet with some measure of success,” Tristan offered.
“I don’t believe this!”
“Believe it, Francine. Now can the complaints and look for a manual. There’s gotta be one in one of these cupboards somewhere.”
“Perhaps our search might be aided by some form of artificial illumination,” Tristan suggested. “Did anyone have the foresight to include a flashlight with our equipment? I regret to say that I myself did not.”
“Is this your idea of military precision? Break into the first floating piece of shit we find and then look for the owner’s manual?”
“Yes, and as soon as I find it, I’m going to shove it so far up your ass that you’ll be able to read it for me without opening your eyes.”
“Gentlemen, please! I really do believe that our best course of action at this time is to set aside any differences of opinion as to how we came to be in our current circumstances and pursue the most economical course of action to extricate ourselves from said circumstances.”
I was about to advise Tristan that, while what he was saying made sense and I agreed with him in principle, I still felt duty-bound to express my opinion on the matter to the man who had put us in this situation (although I wasn’t going to use those precise words), when I was interrupted by several thumps and a clang that sounded like it came from behind and below.
“What the hell was that?” I asked.