Nikko Schoenauer led them to the bridge. He poured them coffee while Jake talked. Carmellini went straight to the pier-side corner of the bridge and stood looking at China Rose through binoculars.
“Sonny Wong is rather a nefarious character, but this is the first time I’ve heard he indulged in kidnapping.”
“I heard him ask for the ransom, so there is no doubt he’s in it.”
“I believe you, Mr. Grafton.”
“It’s Admiral Grafton,” Carmellini said without turning around. “I’m just the civilian help.”
Jake reached into his bag for the silenced submachine gun. “We’re going over to get my wife back, if she’s there. If it goes well, we’ll return and ride the chopper off the pier. If it doesn’t, friend Wong may pay you a visit.”
“Hmm,” Schoenauer said, looking at the submachine gun.
“If you have any weapons aboard, you might want to dig them out.”
“Well, we do keep some old AKs, just in case we run into pirates. Pay off customs with a few bucks and they let us by. They know me, of course.”
“Say, would you have any Vaseline and shoe polish around? Black shoe polish.”
“I buy Vaseline by the quart. Shoe polish is another thing entirely—these days everyone wears tennis shoes—but I’ll check.”
While Schoenauer was gone the lights went out on Barbary Coast, China Rose, and the pier. In fact, the lights went off all along the waterfront.
Jake and Tommy got out their night-vision goggles and studied the Rose. “They had an electric eye rigged at the top of the gangway. Probably have a pressure pad too, so an alarm rings somewhere when you step on it. They’re off until someone starts a generator.”
“How many guys do you think?”
“I saw two before the lights went out. One was on the bridge. One walked along the main deck.”
“I’d bet my pension there’re more than two.”
“Probably closer to twenty.”
“Can we get aboard without using the gangway?”
“How about that stern mooring rope? It’s in shadow. That’ll be about it from the pier.”
“Okay.”
“I got this creepy feeling,” Carmellini said, “that those sons of bitches know we’re coming.”
“Maybe. Just shoot first and it won’t matter.”
Schoenauer returned with two women. Jake couldn’t tell much about them in the dark, but they were definitely Americans. He also had Vaseline and shoe polish. Jake smeared Vaseline over his face, neck, and hands, then applied the black shoe polish.
“Jake Grafton,” one woman said as he smeared away. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Virgil told me about you. He said you were his very best friend on this earth.”
Jake didn’t know quite how to respond to that. “I’m sure he was just being polite.”
“Oh, he didn’t mean that he was your best friend, but that you were his, if that makes sense. He said you saved his life once.”
“Long ago,” Jake muttered, more than a little embarrassed.
“He said that Jake Grafton was the one man on this earth he would trust always to do the right thing, regardless of the stakes or the consequences.”
Cole said all that? The crazy bastard!
“Hurry up,” Jake urged Carmellini, who was also smearing himself with shoe polish. “They’ll start an engine or generator to get power while we’re standing here socializing.”
As they were leaving, Carmellini asked Schoenauer, “You got an address or something where I can write to you?”
“Got a Web site,” Schoenauer replied and told him the name.
“When I get some time off …”
They paused under a sheltered overhang on the main deck and used the night-vision goggles to check out China Rose. The small ship was dark, without a single light. Not even a battle lantern on the bridge. And no one was visible.
Due to the widespread power outage, only a glow of light from the sky enlivened the darkness.
“What if your wife isn’t aboard?” Carmellini asked.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Jake said, trying not to panic. The CIA officer had hit squarely on the problem.
If she wasn’t there, they would probably kill her unless he got to her quickly. And how would he ever find her in this city?
“So what do you want to do?” Carmellini asked.
“What I’d like to do is march straight across the pier and up the gangway and shoot anyone we meet, just go right on through them.”
“Well, hell, why not?”
“Because we don’t know where they are holding Callie or Wu, and Sonny Wong just might have someone guarding them with orders to kill them at the first sign of a commotion.”
“Double ditto for Wu,” Carmellini remarked. “Okay, what’s your second option?”
“Walk down the gangway, turn right, go aft to their stern line, and up it. I’ll climb it while you watch, then I’ll watch while you climb. How’s that?”
“I’ll go first up the rope,” Carmellini said. “I don’t know what they told you about me, but sneaking around is my thing. I’m a burglar by trade.”
“How in the world did you get in the CIA?”
“It was the CIA or prison. I’ll tell you all about it sometime over a beer.”
“Let’s go,” Jake said, and led the way down the gangway.
They walked along the pier, in no apparent haste, their weapons in bags over their shoulders. This was the most difficult part so far, Jake thought, as he willed his feet not to run.
When they reached the stern line bollard, Jake squatted behind it and donned the night-vision goggles. He saw no one on the Rose. Two people were visible on the bridge of the ship moored nose-to-stern of the Rose, but they didn’t seem to be looking this way.
“Go,” he whispered to Tommy Carmellini. The CIA officer already had the straps of his weapons bag over his shoulders, so he immediately crouched under the line, which was Manila hemp about three inches in diameter, and launched himself up it hand over hand. He kept his heels hooked over it behind him. In seconds he reached the rat guard, a platelike metal dish that surrounded the line and was supposed to constitute an insurmountable obstacle for rats trying to go up the line from the pier. Hanging on the line with one hand, Carmellini used the other to explore the catch that held the guard on the line, then release it. He dropped the guard in the water and continued up the line to the rail, grabbed it with both hands, swung a heel up, and clambered over.
Jake was taking his goggles off when the China Rose’s lights came on. The pier was still dark, as were the other ships. Someone had started an emergency generator, probably in the Rose’s engine room.
With the goggles back in the bag and the bag looped over his shoulders, Jake Grafton took a deep breath, then grabbed the line and swung out. As he suspected, the physical effort required was very high. Heart thudding, breathing like a racehorse, he was stymied by the rail and probably wouldn’t have gotten over it if Carmellini hadn’t grabbed him with hands like steel bands and literally lifted him over the rail onto the deck of the Rose. It was then Jake realized that Carmellini’s buff physique was indeed rock-solid muscle; the thought had just not occurred to him before.
“You take the port side, work your way forward to the bridge,” Jake whispered as they huddled out of sight under the rail. “I’ll find a way down. Meet me below.”
Carmellini’s head bobbed.
Jake removed the submachine gun from his bag, made sure it was cocked and ready, then took the safety off. He pulled another magazine from the bag and held it against the forearm of the gun with his left hand. Carmellini already had his weapon in his hands. Now he went forward along the port side of the ship.
The little ship seemed deathly quiet. Almost too much so. Jake listened intently and heard the faint sounds of television. At least it sounded like television—a male voice, racing along in the up-and-down lilt of Chinese, allowing no breaks for con
versation. He slipped up to the salon entrance and put his ear against the bulkhead.
A slight vibration—perhaps the generator?
He went forward along the starboard rail, walking as quietly as he could.
The first hatch he came to was a ladder down. He could hear television coming up the ladderway.
He looked down as much as he could without sticking his head down the hole. There didn’t seem to be a passageway, so the ladder probably dropped right into a lounge of some kind. And that was where the people were.
Well, he could drop a grenade down the hole—he still had a couple the marines had given him—then go charging down after it went off, but everyone aboard would hear the explosion.
There had to be another way.
He walked on forward, looking for another ladder.
A lit cigarette arced out of the open bridge window toward the pier below. Tommy Carmellini saw it go and knew instantly what it was. The butt hit the concrete pier in a shower of tiny sparks.
He couldn’t see the man who had tossed it. No, wait! He was walking in front of the open door at the top of the ladder. Now he was gone, back toward the helm in the center of the bridge.
Carmellini moved forward, almost a dark shadow.
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, silently.
You had to admit, this was living! Others could have the eight-hour days and houses in the suburbs; Carmellini liked living on the edge. He was certainly in his element now, although if he weren’t very careful he could end up a corpse. That didn’t worry him much. In fact, it added to die danger, so it added to the thrill.
He was thinking about the thrill when he got to the bridge ladder. He examined it for alarms, then experimentally put his weight on the lower step. Now the next.
The door at the top of the ladder was open, which Carmellini decided was a lucky break.
Or a trap.
He had had that feeling earlier, that they knew someone was coming. Was that just nerves?
Whatever, there was the open door, the dark bridge, and the man waiting up there.
He thought about sticking his head around the corner, then rejected that. If the man was expecting him, he would be in no position to shoot. He thought about jumping through the door, hoping he was faster on the draw. That option didn’t seem so great, either. If the man was waiting for him he was dead meat.
Ah, I’ve watched too many movies, read too many thrillers. These guys are smugglers, thugs.
He decided to go in the third way, the tried-and-true Tommy Carmellini special way. He would sneak in, glacially slow, his weapon at the ready. And shoot the smuggler dude when he got a shot.
Up the last step, ever so carefully, weight balanced, weapon in left hand, so the barrel went around the edge at the same instant the eye passed it …
There he was, by the navigator’s table on the far side, bent over something …
Slow as melting ice, Tommy Carmellini stepped onto the bridge, the gun leveled, his finger on the trigger. Carefully, purposefully, he scanned his eyes to ensure there was no one else on the bridge.
Just the one man.
Shoot him now or move closer?
Less chance to break a window with the bullets if I get closer.
Step … step …
Close enough. Sorry, pal!
He pulled the trigger. The gun coughed a short burst. Three shots in the lower back, to ensure he didn’t punch one through the bridge window, breaking glass.
The man half turned and fell. Carmellini stepped forward to shoot him again in the head to finish it.
Something smashed him across the arms, ripping the gun from his grasp. His arms were numb! He couldn’t feel his hands.
Another blow, this time across the back. The bag containing the night-vision goggles and spare ammo helped cushion the blow, but still he fell forward, sprawling on the deck. There was a room off the bridge, the captain’s cabin. This guy must have been there!
“That twit!” a man’s voice said conversationally. “I told him you’d be along sooner or later, and the fool wouldn’t listen.” The lights snapped on.
That voice …
“I heard about you, Carmellini. Harold Barnes told me.”
Carson Eisenberg.
Another mighty blow across the shoulders. A pipe or a baseball bat. Eisenberg smashed Tommy across the ribs, over the head, almost broke his arm when he raised it to protect himself.
Carson Eisenberg was going to kill him. He was going to beat him to death with the pipe.
“You … cost … me … my … life … fucker!” Eisenberg accented every word with a blow.
Tommy Carmellini fell to the floor, reached for the gun, but his hands were too numb to hold it.
Whack! “Bastard!”
Desperate, Carmellini lashed out with a foot. And caught Eisenberg on a knee.
The ex-CIA officer lost his balance, and the pipe made a metallic ring as it struck something.
The knife! Carmellini realized he had it on his belt! Could he hold it with his numb hands?
He forced his right hand to curl around the handle. He got it out of the scabbard. And lost it.
Eisenberg was trying to scramble up from the deck. Carmellini kicked him again, this time with more force behind it. And again. Now Carmellini levered himself erect and aimed a kick at the man’s chin.
He caught Eisenberg with his head coming forward and bobbing down as he prepared to shift his weight aft, over his legs. Eisenberg’s head snapped back from the force of the kick. He went over backward and lay still.
Sobbing, Carmellini sank to his knees. His hands … he kneaded one with the other, felt along the forearms where the pipe had struck him. It was a miracle bones weren’t broken. His shoulders, ribs, on fire … Eisenberg had given him a hell of a beating.
Can’t stay here … . Gotta get the gun, get the knife, move on. To stay here is to die. Can’t stay, can’t stay, can’t stay… .
He got the gun in both hands, checked it over as well as he could, then picked up the knife.
His forearms felt like they were broken, but they weren’t.
Carson Eisenberg lay absolutely still, the back of his head touching his spine, his eyes open wide.
Carmellini wiped his eyes on his sleeve, smearing shoe polish, Vaseline, and blood, and staggered to the bridge door.
There was a light switch on the bulkhead, and he snapped it off. He waited until his eyes adjusted to the gloom before he stuck his head around the bulkhead and looked at the deck below.
Empty.
Where was Grafton?
The blood flowing from Kerry Kent’s smashed nose gradually slowed to a drip. Her shirt and jeans were covered with it. She was thinking of all the things she would like to do to Jake Grafton when the door opened and one of the Chinese York controllers stuck his head in. He looked the situation over, then stepped into the room and pulled the door shut behind him.
She tried to talk, but all she got past the tape were grunts.
The man squatted in front of her and ripped the tape from her mouth. She almost screamed.
“Wow,” the man said, staring at her nose and the blood.
“Cut me loose, goddamn it. Hurry.”
As the controller slashed with a penknife at the tape that held her to the chair, she demanded, “Where in hell have you been? Why did you leave me sitting here bleeding?”
“Cole just stepped out to the porta-potty. He’s been in front of the monitors continuously.”
“Do you have a gun?”
“In my pocket.”
“Hurry. Before he decides to ask more questions.”
The controller jerked the tape away in great wads. Everywhere it touched her skin it tore the tiny hairs out. She bit her lip until it bled.
“What did you tell them?” the controller asked.
“Nothing. I told them nothing. They knew a lot without a word from me.”
When the last of the tape came clear, she stood. Ther
e was not a rag in the room, nothing made of cloth. She pulled off her shirt and used it to wipe the worst of the blood from her face, then threw it on the floor.
“Give me the gun.” She held out a bloodstained hand.
The controller passed it over. It was a 9-millimeter automatic, a fairly small one.
Kent checked the chamber to ensure it had a cartridge in it, then let the slide close. She pointed it up and thumbed off the safety.
“We’re leaving,” she said and jerked open the door.
Cole had just reentered the trailer and was standing ten feet away in front of the master York console when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the office door fly open and Kerry Kent come boiling out. When he saw she had a pistol he dove behind the only desk in the place, so Kent’s shot at him missed.
She knew that everyone in the place was armed. A shootout in here could end only one way, and Kerry Kent had no intention of dying for anybody’s cause except her own. She ran. As she charged past the York control equipment she snapped off a shot into the main monitor and saw glass shatter, then she was flying out the door as fast as her legs would take her, the controller right behind.
One of the guards with an assault rifle tried to block her exit. She shot him in the chest and ran into the crowd before anyone else could get off a shot.
The main ladder to the belowdeck spaces in China Rose was in a thwartship passageway abeam the gangway. It was more of a staircase than a ladder. Jake Grafton eased himself down to the deck and looked as far as he could along the passageway. There were lights on down there and he could hear that television coming up the stairwell. It seemed to him probable that this passageway ran aft to the lounge where the television was located. Stateroom doors opened off both sides.
On the other side of the thwartship passageway was a closed hatch with a porthole in it. That probably was a ladder that led belowdeck to the crew’s quarters and engine room spaces.
Okay.
He stood, grasped the long handle that rotated the dogs of the forward hatch, and put pressure on it.
The dogs rotated and the hatch came loose, ready to open.
As carefully and quietly as he could, he opened it, took it to its full one hundred and eighty degrees of travel, and hooked it over the latch that held it open. Yes, there was a regular ladder down.
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