A Death in Geneva

by A. Denis Clift

  Head was certain they were making a mistake, and he continued to argue. “The hell with the bloody tanker. Starring, this bloody ship; they’re our targets. We should take them now. Rig the mines; blow them before dawn. We’ll be out of the States together, before the pigs know we’re still alive!”

  She held firm. She would take care of Starring. The second tanker was essential to the peoples’ victory. Head would be in command. The death of the ship was his responsibility. “The criminals will never recover. Make it work, Paul; in three days, Copenhagen.” Their hands parted; her cabin door closed.

  The mining of the first tanker . . . hours, days, weeks ago? . . . only hours . . . impossible. She was awake, tense . . . 3:30 A.M. . . . force yourself to sleep, but not yet.

  The thought that Head would take her place in the second attack tore against her instincts of combat. The mission would be out of her hands. They had just spent two hours in preparation, reliving the first attack. She saw the great red hull, again, rushing toward her. The draft? He knows she will be deeper. He must be deeper, run at least twelve feet. They would talk after he had slept. She damned herself for her carelessness.

  When they attack, I will be with the U.S. president. Her head snapped involuntarily at the thought. She would be stalking Starring, in Washington, in the White House. It was staggering. She would kill them both! Could she? There would be secret police, their agents. She grappled with the new unknowns, crossed her cabin to recheck the door lock, picked up the Beretta pistol, removed the thirteen-round magazine from its plastic wrapping, placed the pieces on the bunk.

  The Skorpion machine pistol was big beside the Beretta, a foot long with the butt folded double over the barrel, more than two feet with the silencer fitted and the butt extended. She would need two twenty-round magazines for the Skorpion—fifty-three rounds in all. She could not take more. She rolled the pistol and its clip first in a plastic sheet, then in the tight roll of a blouse. She set the insulated bundle aside, checked her two passports, the currencies, her cover documents, and placed them in the bottom of the expedition’s nylon shoulder bag. She would wear the expedition’s coveralls and windbreaker in the morning—that would please Starring. She packed the leather gloves, the hood, more clothing, then the rolled blouse. The four pieces of the Skorpion were next; she tied the rolled shirt with a belt, placed it in the bag. Her eyes were burning in the artificial light. She stuffed cosmetics in the pockets of her raincoat, folded it, and stuffed it over the rest and zipped the bag. Everything else in the cabin, she would leave as always, nothing unusual to arouse the curiosity of the stewards.

  She lay on her side, her eyes closed in the darkness, and listened to the cabin air vent and the faint clanking of night maintenance far off in one of the hulls. She forced her body to breathe slowly, steadily, slowly—to lie still. She forced her mind to a different time and she slept.

  “Eleven-thirty; we have a few more minutes.” Starring, in his suite with Tooms, was flipping through the morning news file prepared for him by the ship’s communications officer. “Had a telegram from Adrian earlier this morning, Oats—good coverage of the Partner on the networks last night, and in today’s press. A grand sight, wasn’t she?”

  “A knockout!” Tooms leaned forward, balancing his coffee, to reach for the clipping held out to him by Starring.

  “A nice piece on Tina’s opening this afternoon, apparently a first, this Fourth of July matinee. She’s unhappy with me for not being there. I’ll make it up to her; she’s unhappy when I’m there. Give her a call this morning, Oats. She’d like a good word, some reassurance.”

  Starring was on his feet, shot the French cuffs off his white shirt, slipped into the dark-blue pin-striped suit jacket held out for him by the steward, adjusted the silk tie, giving it a critical look in the mirror—blue, fine red dots, went well with the suit. “Give her a ring, Oats.”

  “As soon as you are airborne, Tommie. She’ll be okay. Joanie’s happy with her.”

  “Another piece there you ought to read, an attempted hijack of spent fuel rods from a Colombian reactor. What good are spent rods?”

  Tooms picked up the reading folder, searched for the page, skimmed the article, let his glasses drop to their familiar perch on his chest. “Plutonium, by-product of the reactor’s fission. You start off with U-238 in the fuel rods, fission, power from the reactor; in the process, the U-238 transforms into plutonium 239; that’s what you need to build a bomb.”

  “Not that easy is it?”

  “Hell, no!” The reading folder skid as it hit the table. “Those banditos are lucky they were caught, stuff’s tricky to handle. They would probably have glowed for a day or two after they started playing with it, then gone to a higher calling in the sky.”

  “It’s getting a hell of a lot worse, isn’t, Oats?” Starring cast an approving eye at the clear sky, only the faintest haze, as they walked aft to the flight deck. “The proliferation of sabotage, terrorism, destruction.” Their feet clanked up the metal ladder.

  “Do a message to Adrian, in my name. My guts tell me we’ve been leading a charmed life—these stories are appearing every day. Have our best people pull together a complete statement of our security procedures. Bring in a good contractor. I want the report to take a hard look at the threat, the new weapons and tactics, the growing pattern, if there is one, around the world. I want a candid, emphasize that, candid appraisal of deficiencies and a hard list of recommendations. . . . Ah ha, the ladies are already aboard. I’ll give your regards to the White House, Oats.”

  Starring slipped out of the jacket, climbed into the co-pilot’s seat of the bubble-topped helicopter. Renfro and the secretary were squeezed together in the rear of the small craft. He greeted them, passed his jacket back to Sullivan, took the headphones from the instrument panel, and leaned out to Tooms again. “Make sure we have good coverage of Mayan today, important part of the historical record!” Tooms nodded vigorously. Starring slapped him on the shoulder. The flight deck crew closed the bubble door, made sure the chief scientist was clear, extended his arm in a vertical, circling “start engine” motion.

  “You’re a darling, Oats. You’re always a darling. Everything is fine. How are you and that funny boat of yours?”

  Tooms had returned to the owner’s deck to place the call. He sat with his feet propped on the railing, the first ale of the day cooling his left hand, soothing the damage of the night before. “You left too soon, Tina. I’m in charge today, another parade, a dive with two of my Maltese dolphins this afternoon, a hot shower, an hour of whiskey sours, and an evening of fireworks a la Towerpoint Octagon.”

  “The Ritz.”

  “The Ritz.”

  You can dance with Sullivan and little Miss Whatshername, Tommie’s pet fish, can’t you? Muriel probably has a secret—she tangoes! Give her a double, Oats darling, after your shower.”

  “After, to be sure.”

  “Bring out the best in her. There, that was small and mean enough. I’m girding for my matinee.”

  “No dancing aboard ship tonight, m’lady. They’ve both flown the coop, off to Washington.”

  Her voice hardened. “I thought this was to be Tommie’s famous retreat, solitude, an ancestral enrichment? They’re not going to be with him?”

  “Poor choice of words on my part, Tina, apologies. He’ll be solituding tonight. Sullivan and Renfro will be manning the hotel suite. He’s taking Leslie—”

  “Yes, dear Leslie?”

  “Tommie will be taking her along this afternoon as a live exhibit for the president.”

  “Lucky, lucky, lucky.”

  “You must be about ready to head up to the theater?”

  “Yes, darling, one of Tommie’s lovely blue mobiles is out front waiting, and tyrant Joanie is stomping around downstairs yelling for me. I’m off as soon as I tear myself away from you.”

  “Tina, I’ve never seen the boss so charged up, excited about his rendezvous with the Leader of the Free World. He l
oves you—”

  “Yes, of course he does—”

  “—told me he was going to make up everything to you”—Tooms took a long pull from his bottle—“probably buy you Martinique or the Bahamas.”

  “Not Bermuda? Good.”

  “He knows your tastes. Don’t let me keep you, Tina; break a leg. Got to get going myself—got the tanker photo pageant, messages to write, young Paul Head and Filippo—”

  “Those wonderful eyes . . .” She was silent for a moment. “Have I ever told you Oats, I find all three of them slightly unsettling. Make them behave. I love you for calling.”

  Unsettling . . . they’ll behave. Tooms mulled the words, gently rocking the receiver in its cradle. Behind his bubbly façade, the entire Divequest escapade had become seriously troubling to him. The dolphis were into some sort of double game that he still could not fathom. He was in the homestretch now and knew he had to stick with them. But he would have them out of Towerpoint forever, paid off and back on their Mediterranean rock, at the first chance.

  What the hell was it that had started him churning just a couple of days before? “Timer,” that was it, timer. Head and Tonasi had been taking a smoke, backs to him, leaning against a rail when he had come across them and heard that goddamned word, and had seen them clam up as soon as they had spotted him. What the hell were they talking about timers for. Those two little bastards; he was going to hawk their every step.

  Tooms checked the Mayan’s schedule with the watch, then proceeded to the communicator’s shack, mentally outlining the contents of Starring’s security directive to Adrian enroute. The boss was right, an important message; it would have to be transmitted in code. That was good, force him to keep it brief. He checked the designators and heading with the communications officer, took half-a-dozen message forms, and dragged a chair over to the spare typewriter. He made a hash of the first form, balled it up, and continued to type.

  “I can’t read the bloody pressure, Italian. Check my tanks.”

  “Three thousand pounds.”

  “Both?”

  “Both. You’re set, Zulu.”

  “We’re going to bugger this if we’re not out of here now!”

  They dropped through the habitat’s trunk into the bay. Head set himself in the forward cockpit. The glowing faces on the work chariot’s instrument panel came alive. Tonasi cast them off, swung into his seat, and stabbed at the “forward” signal. They rose with the first testing thrust of propulsion, then pushed ahead with full turns of power. The bubbling exhaust of his breath trailed aft. The chariot drove at maximum speed toward the center of the bay.

  When they surfaced, they were on the edge of the main channel, with less than an hour until the attack. The sky had taken on a yellowish cast, the haze of early summer heat. The surface was flat; nothing was near them. Sails off either shore hung near-motionless in the water. In the distance, a triangle of holiday flags pinpointed the Octagon.

  Tonasi was out of his seat, talking to Head as he had to Leslie the day before. “Keep us low, Paulo. You’re good; you’re good now. Just our heads, no sea today, easy to spot us. You ready?”

  “Do it in my sleep. After this one, we’ll put the next on the bloody catamaran—port or starboard hull?”

  “Inboard, starboard, split her in two.”

  “They’ll blow tonight!”

  “Ten o’clock—all three of the bastards. This fucking tanker will be the bomb—arhhrumph!”

  “What are your settings?”

  “Eight hours—arhhrumph!—need an asbestos suit within five miles.”

  “We’ll be bloody further than five miles; on our way, Italian.”

  “On our way. We should pay out the anchor, to the south, just enough turns to keep the line taut. I’ll watch for you.”

  They slipped beneath the surface. Tonasi counted the markers emerging from the reel—“Ten!”—they were still under way. He hit “surface.” The submersible slowed, rose. He worked the last of the line free from the reel, brought the tail forward—all clear. It held. He had rigged it himself. He released the empty reel, followed its plunge to the bottom. His left arm was bad, his gash reacting to the renewed immersion. They broke the surface. The pain was terrible. He reached for his knife to slice off the new sleeve, bake the arm in the warm air. The knife stayed in its sheath. Both hands went to the mine instead, ran along the curve of the shroud. They waited.

  First the compass, then the throb through the water, a ship, a big ship—the swinging dial, the vibration of energy; where was it? Mask-high in the water, Head craned his neck to spot the approaching hull. He was going nuts; there was nothing! He cursed into his mouthpiece, kicked at the chariot’s controls—bring it up some more. He spat out the regulator, shouted over his shoulder, “Where is the bastard? Where, bloody hell?”

  Tonasi had spotted it. They were too high on the surface. “We’re okay, Zulu. Down, down, down again. We’re okay.”

  The thin vertical line had appeared from the north, no more than a stake in the center of the channel. His eyes had found the white of the bow wave next, then the curve of the hull. “Submarine, Paulo, running on the surface.” As the distance closed, the angle opened, revealing the sleek black sail of the conning tower, the top of the tear-drop hull, a streamlined shape broken only by the raised missile housing, then white wake and trailing behind, as if detached, the black trapezoidal blade of the rudder.

  The sound racing through the water was different from that of any merchant hull, power tightly packaged, finely machined to a deadly precision. The heads and shoulders of the men atop the sail were silhouetted against the afternoon sky. The black beast of war slid quickly to the south, her ensign snapping in the sixteen-knot breeze generated by the forward thrust of nuclear propulsion.

  They followed her, braced as the wake slammed into them, carrying the full size and strength of the seven-thousand-ton ballistic missile submarine. Head brought the chariot back on course. The horizon was clear. The “submerge” light had them diving to fifteen feet, swinging slowly to port at two knots, little more than pivoting against the pull of the sea anchor. The compass measured the maneuver in its quarter turn from 180 to 90 degrees.

  They surfaced. It was time. Adrenaline was pumping through Tonasi, the excitement of the kill. “Good work, Zulu, good as yesterday.” His hands worked the mine’s mechanisms—cocked and running, all but one restraining strap gone.

  Head had not heard Tonasi’s words. A fat, black bug was on the southern horizon—not the sub, fat, wide as the channel—“Bloody bitch is here!”

  Tonasi’s eyes were to the north. He squinted hard at the still indistinguishable shape—and the shock ran through him. He and Head were back to back. “Two ships!” Head’s shout, the single word “Dive,” and they were angling beneath the glassy green of the surface.

  The pilot aboard the Towerpoint Mayan had already established the course and speed of the approaching hull, a Greek cruise ship under charter out of Baltimore on one of the off-season holiday excursions to Florida, St. Thomas, and return. He rubbed the fine stubble on his chin, took his decision.

  His instruction from Towerpoint had been to slow to three knots. This would have him pass the cruise ship port-to-port when abeam of the flagship Octagon. Under these circumstances, the Greek would obscure the view. He could not slow the ladened Mayan beneath three knots and wait for the Greek to pass. He would not risk a thousand feet of loaded LNG tanker near dead in the water with no maneuvering room.

  He crossed the bridge, conferred briefly with the Mayan’s master, who immediately nodded his concurrence, and stepped into the wheelhouse to radio the Octagon. The Mayan would give the Greek another forty feet of channel and maintain twelve knots, beating the cruise ship to the point of ceremonial salute abeam the flagship, providing a clear field for Towerpoint’s photographers.

  White waves curled from the bows, hissed back along the deep-blue hull before rolling free on either side, fanning outward in a spreading v
ee. The bridge watch sung out the ranges and bearings. Two minutes, then four minutes passed. The pilot’s lips flexed in approval. His calculations had been correct. The Greek was still a quarter-mile up-bay when he crossed to the port wing of the bridge beneath the rolling thunder of the Mayan’s salute.

  Head fought back against the panicking jolt, hauled with all his strength on the forward planes control as the tanker seized the snare line at twelve knots and dragged the chariot forward, sideways, down into darker water. As his body wrestled with the machine, his eyes, blurring with the violence of the encounter, caught the instruments. The line tore free from the bow claw. The pull on the chariot was now from the forward deck padeye, slewing the slender craft sideways out of control, rolling the cockpit toward the hull. Head battled furiously against the almost useless controls, his mind raging at the tanker’s counterattack.

  In the aft compartment, Tonasi had locked his body against the inside walls of the chariot’s hull, straining to right the craft, to escape from the unbelievable force which held them. In the struggle, he bit through the rubber in his mouth; the regulator was gone, trailing from his back tanks in the gray-green hell. The speed, the first hard, diving roll had snapped the mine from his hands, and it had vanished in an instant, now a part of the bay. A minute later, he was dead, smashed against the Mayan’s hull, skull and neck destroyed, body plucked from the chariot and sucked aft into the cut of the bronze propeller. Head blindly cut at the tow.

  The great bass horn had brought the passengers of the cruise ship to the port rails, and when the sounds had silenced and the two ships passed, they pointed with pleasure at the enormous blue-and-white hull of the Towerpoint Mayan, so patriotic and handsome in her holiday bunting, forging past them on her voyage up the bay.