The hotel caught on the back of the tank had come to rest at the edge of the beach when the tank had run out of gas. The hotelier was painting beachfront access on the sign at that very moment as his guests took in the fine view from their windows. Among the guests were Thompson and Thomson, who were just then turning to each other and saying, “You always wanted to go to the beach.”
These were the conversations going on around them as Tintin and Captain Haddock sat on the beach watching the Karaboudjan steam out into the bay. Captain Haddock was purple with rage. “Nobody steals my ship!”
“They already have,” Tintin said dejectedly.
After a pause to think this over, Captain Haddock said, “Nobody takes my ship twice!”
The Karboudjan’s horn sounded, the blast rolling across the bay as the ship made the wide turn around the harbor’s breakwater toward open ocean.
“We’ll show them, eh, won’t we, Tintin?” Captain Haddock said. He seemed manic with an optimism Tintin couldn’t understand. “All right, then, what’s the plan?”
“There is no plan,” Tintin said.
“Of course there’s a plan,” Haddock said. “You’ve always got to have a plan.”
“Not this time,” Tintin said.
Haddock just looked at him, as if expecting a punch line.
“Sakharine has the scrolls,” Tintin said. “They’ll lead him to the treasure. It could be anywhere in the world. We’ll never see him again. It’s over.”
“I thought you were an optimist!” Captain Haddock yelled.
“Well, you were wrong, weren’t you?” Tintin said. “I’m a realist.”
Captain Haddock braced his fists against his hips. “That’s just another name for a quitter.”
“You can call it what you like. Don’t you get it? We failed.” He sank his chin into his hands and looked out over the water. The Karaboudjan had nearly completed its maneuver around the breakwater. They had lost. Tintin was deep in self-pity. After coming all this way, he would never find the answer to the mystery. The secret of the Unicorn was lost to him forever.
“Failed?” Captain Haddock echoed. “There are plenty of people out there who’ll call you a failure. A fool, a loser, a hopeless souse! But don’t you ever say it of yourself!”
He sat next to Tintin on a chair that had washed out of one of the buildings in town. Tintin could feel Haddock looking at him.
“You send out the wrong signal, that’s what people pick up, understand?” Captain Haddock went on. “You care about something, you fight for it. You hit a wall, you push through it.”
He stood up again, on fire with nervous energy, and walked a short distance away. The Karaboudjan was farther away now, lost to them along with the secrets it carried. “There’s something you need to know about failure, Tintin,” Captain Haddock said. “You can never let it defeat you.”
Something in that avalanche of words got through the fog of gloom surrounding Tintin. He tried to replay what Captain Haddock had said, but kept getting lost. “What did you just say?” he asked.
“You hit a wall, you push through it!” Captain Haddock answered.
“No, you said something about . . . sending out a signal!” Everything snapped into focus, and Tintin stood up, slapping the sand from his trousers and hands. “Of course! I sent a radio message from the Karaboudjan. I know what frequency they use!”
Now it was Haddock’s turn to be confused. “How does that help us?”
“All we have to do is get the information to Interpol,” Tintin said. “They can track the signals and work out which way the Karaboudjan is heading.”
“Interpol,” Captain Haddock said, as if the word were somehow magic.
“Interpol,” Tintin said, pointing down the beach.
Captain Haddock turned to look, and both of them watched as Thompson and Thomson walked out the front door of the now-beachfront hotel and promptly fell next to each other in the sand. “Any port the ship enters, we’ll know at once,” Tintin said.
Haddock looked up and down the beach. He spotted a seaplane, rocking gently at its mooring in shallow water. He clapped his hands. “And we can get there first!”
SAKHARINE INHALED THE fishy salt air of the docks as he strode down the gangway from the stolen Karaboudjan flanked by Tom and Allan. His favorite car, the limousine he kept for special occasions, waited on the cobblestone quayside. Nestor stood by the passenger door, wearing his chauffeur’s uniform. A locomotive belched steam and smoke nearby as the Karaboudjan’s regular cargo was unloaded onto the flatcars behind it. Everything was coming together despite that irritating urchin Tintin and the sot Haddock.
“What are we doing here, boss?” Tom asked as they crossed the train tracks. An enormous crane swung over them to hoist pallets of cargo out of the Karaboudjan’s hold. There were several cranes nearby, on twenty-foot scaffolds bolted into platforms on the ground. “I don’t get it. We’re right back where we started.”
“You’re to speak of this to no one,” Sakharine snapped. “Keep your mouths shut.”
“Don’t worry, long as we get our share,” Allan said.
“Oh, you’ll get your share,” Sakharine said. He pointed back toward the gangplank. “Guard the ship.”
Three scrolls in hand, Sakharine kept walking. Behind him, Tom kept complaining. “But where are you going? Where’s the filthy moolah?”
You’ll get just what you deserve, Sakharine thought. He left Tom and Allan where they stood and approached his car. Nestor opened the door. “Good evening, sir,” he said. “I trust you had a successful trip abroad?”
“Do I pay you to talk to me?” Sakharine said. He got into the car. As Nestor shut the door after him, he heard him say, “You don’t pay me at all.”
Which was true enough, but Sakharine had more important things on his mind than the petty grumblings of his subordinates. He settled into the rich leather seat and focused his mind on the long-awaited conclusion to the quest for the secret of the Unicorn.
Then the car moved, but not forward.
Sakharine sat up. He looked out the window and saw to his astonishment that the car was rising into the air. “What the blazes?” he said. “Nestor!”
He rolled down the window and saw Tom and Allan running from the base of the gangway where he had stationed them, guns drawn. The car rose into the air, swinging gently, and Sakharine realized that one of the ship’s large cranes had picked it up. “Tom, Allan, you blithering idiots, don’t just stand there!” he screamed out the window. “Do something!”
Then, as the car swung around, Sakharine saw the accursed Captain Haddock in the cab of the crane controlling it . . . and singing one of his abominable songs as he worked the levers!
No, Sakharine thought. It does not end like this.
“You take the high road and I’ll take the low road, and I’ll be in Scotland before youuuuu . . .” Captain Haddock belted the song out as he moved the car toward the roof of a building across the railroad tracks from the dock, where Tintin waited with Thompson and Thomson.
Tintin almost had to laugh, listening. Something had changed in the captain since the performance of the Milanese Nightingale and the flood. He was once again the formidable sea dog all his forebears had been. Tintin was proud of him.
“Caught him like a rat in a trap,” Thompson said next to him.
“Congratulations, gentlemen,” Tintin said. “He’s all yours.”
“Yes! We have warrants issued by both Interpol and the FBI,” Thomson said.
“Your friend who got shot on your doorstep,” Thompson began.
“Barnaby!?” Tintin exclaimed.
“One of their agents,” Thompson admitted. “The FBI has been hot on Sakharine’s trail from the start.”
“It still doesn’t make any sense. He has the key to the treasure of the Unicorn, which is sitting somewhere on the ocean floor,” Tintin wondered. “Why would he come back home?”
Neither Thompson nor Thomson had an answer
for this. All three of them watched as Captain Haddock, laughing uproariously at some private joke, set the car down on the roof near them. Thompson stepped forward and opened the back door. “Right,” he said. “Sakharine?”
The back of the car was empty.
All three of them crowded around the door in puzzlement. Then Sakharine shot up in the driver’s seat, a gun in his hand. “That’s Mr. Sakharine to you!” he said sharply, waving the gun to force them back.
They backed away. Tintin’s mind raced. Sakharine couldn’t imagine that he would escape even now, could he? He was stuck in a car on the end of a crane . . .
As he had the thought, the crane arm jerked wildly to the side and Sakharine’s car swung toward them like a million-dollar wrecking ball. Tintin and the two detectives dove out of the way. The car slammed into a wall beyond them and then swung back before returning in another sweeping arc. It was out of control! Tintin heard a gunshot. He scrambled to the edge of the roof and looked down toward the crane cab.
Just as he had suspected, Allan and Captain Haddock were wrestling in the cab, and their actions had caused the crane arm’s crazy swings. There was a bullet hole in one of the cab’s windows. As Tintin watched, Haddock tumbled out of the cab and dangled from a railing at the edge. Allan got the crane under control and brought Sakharine’s car smoothly off the roof.
But Captain Haddock wasn’t done yet! He fought his way back into the cab and threw Allan out the other side. The thug fell into the bed of a passing truck, which screeched to a halt as its driver tried to figure out what had happened.
Sakharine’s car had now swung across the tracks. As it came back, Sakharine flung open the car door and leaped over to another crane. He scrambled inside the cab, and the second crane’s arm began to rise and angle toward Haddock’s crane. It was like a sword fight, Tintin saw, only with ten-ton crane arms. The cranes collided with a deafening crash. Both operators, Sakharine and Captain Haddock, jostled and banged around inside their respective cabs. Sakharine’s crane picked up a pallet of cement bags and threw them at Captain Haddock’s cab. The impact swallowed Captain Haddock’s cab in a cloud of cement dust. Snowy barked in frustration.
Captain Haddock kicked torn bags of cement out of his cab, frantically trying to clear his windshield. Sakharine struck again and Captain Haddock parried. The arm of Sakharine’s crane smashed through Captain Haddock’s windshield. Captain Haddock hauled his crane arm up and to the side, tearing away the roof of Sakharine’s cab.
His hair and beard flying as the cranes creaked and swayed on their scaffolds, Sakharine flung a pallet of the Karaboudjan’s cargo at the struts supporting Captain Haddock’s crane. The boxes flew through the air, crashing and bouncing across the roof of the nearby building as Tintin, Snowy, and the detectives dodged and dived out of the way.
The fight went on between the cranes, which were battering each other to pieces. But now Sakharine’s goons were on the roof, too. Tom was the first to appear, brandishing his gun, but three flying tires landed on him, pinning him to his spot. As more thugs raced to aid him, Snowy tugged a plank free from a crate of canned goods. The cans rolled out across the rooftop, tripping up the thugs and rattling among them as they fell.
The two cranes had now smashed in close to each other, their motors grinding as both Sakharine and Captain Haddock fought for leverage. “Red Rackham!” Captain Haddock growled.
“My ancestor,” acknowledged Sakharine. “Just as Sir Francis was yours.”
Captain Haddock forced his crane another inch forward. “Unfinished business,” he said through gritted teeth.
“I’m glad you know the truth, Haddock,” Sakharine said. “Until you could remember, killing you would not have been nearly this much fun!”
As he spoke, Sakharine pulled his crane backward, swinging its arm at the same time. The arm crashed into Captain Haddock’s crane and knocked it over sideways. It toppled slowly, crashing onto the deck of the Karaboudjan. Cement dust drifted over the deck, reminding Tintin of the smoke from gunpowder and broken lanterns. Captain Haddock scrambled free of the wreckage.
Cool and calm, Sakharine lowered his crane arm to the deck and then walked down it as Captain Haddock caught his breath. “Who gave you permission to board my ship?” Captain Haddock said.
Sakharine grinned wickedly. “I don’t need it,” he said, whipping out his sword cane. “I never needed it.”
Captain Haddock grabbed a broken control lever from the crane cab. Sakharine lunged, and the battle was joined in hand-to-hand combat. They fought as only ancient enemies can fight, but Captain Haddock fought fair, and this was his undoing. Sakharine deflected one of his attacks and kicked his legs out from under him. As Captain Haddock struggled back to his feet, Sakharine flung a fishnet over him, then ripped it away, sending Captain Haddock spinning across the deck and crashing into a crate that had fallen from one of the cranes.
On his hands and knees, Captain Haddock saw a bottle of whiskey roll across the deck in front of him. He looked up. Sakharine was walking away.
Oh, no, you don’t, thought Captain Haddock. Not just yet.
Tintin cheered and Snowy barked from the rooftop as Captain Haddock bombarded Sakharine with bottles. Some of them broke on the deck around him. Others hit Sakharine’s body, making him stagger. Sakharine ducked for cover and fell from the main deck onto a lower platform at the side of the ship—not far from where Tintin had made his daring climb from porthole to porthole when the Karaboudjan was on the high seas.
Captain Haddock came to the railing, one bottle held in his hand, ready to end things once and for all.
But Sakharine rolled over and came to his feet with the scrolls in one hand . . . and a lighter in the other!
“The legend says only a Haddock can discover the secret of the Unicorn,” sneered Sakharine. “But it took a Rackham to get the job done! You’ve lost again, Haddock. Why don’t you have a drink? That’s all you’ve got left. Everything that was yours is now mine. Including this ship!”
Captain Haddock saw red. He leaped over the railing, plummeting toward the platform where Sakharine stood—and at the same time Tintin swung in on one of the crane cables and snatched the scrolls from Sakharine’s hand. “Thundering typhoons!” Captain Haddock roared. He punched Sakharine so hard that the master thief did a backward somersault down into the water.
“Nobody takes my ship!” Captain Haddock yelled after him, throwing the last bottle. It hit Sakharine squarely on top of the head.
Tintin had landed on one of the upper railings along the side of the Karaboudjan’s superstructure. Captain Haddock looked up and they locked eyes. They both nodded.
It took only a few moments for Thompson and Thomson to commandeer a local police boat and pull the battered Sakharine out of the water. “We have you now, you devil!” Thompson said. “You are under arrest.”
“To be precise,” Thomson corrected him, “you are under arrest.”
Sakharine looked from one to the other as if he wasn’t quite certain that he had heard them correctly. Finally, he raised his hands in defeat.
The sun was just coming up. It was a new day.
Tintin and Captain Haddock watched the police boat motor away with the resigned and drenched Sakharine handcuffed on its deck. What a story this was going to be! Tintin thought. And it just kept getting better and better.
He looked out over the harbor at the sun, which had risen high enough for his purposes.
“Captain,” he said. Haddock looked over, squinting against the sunlight. Tintin held up the scrolls, overlapping the edges so the sun shone through all three at once. Captain Haddock shifted so the light wasn’t directly in his eyes, and the two of them looked closely at the scrolls. Tintin heard Snowy’s nails clicking up the gangway. Everyone was present for this final revelation.
“Do you see?” Tintin said. He pointed to a row of numbers and letters along the bottom of all three scrolls.
“Blistering barnacles!” cried Captain Hadd
ock. “They’re coordinates!”
Nodding, Tintin said, “It took all three scrolls to form the numbers.”
Captain Haddock’s finger traced the symbols. “Latitude and longitude . . .” he murmured. “That’s it! That’s the location of the treasure.”
He caught Tintin’s hand, and the two of them danced around the deck laughing like maniacs. “We did it!” they shouted, over and over. Snowy danced around with them, barking with joy.
They wasted no time getting a jeep and heading out of town and into the countryside, with Captain Haddock peering through a sextant as though they were navigating on the high seas. “Almost there, Mr. Tintin,” he said, standing on the passenger seat as the wind blasted through his beard. “A nudge to starboard should do it.”
“Are you sure we’re on course?” Tintin asked. They bounced down a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.
“Aye, trust me, laddie,” Captain Haddock said. “I know these parts like the back of my hand.”
Tintin looked around. He wasn’t sure, but he thought Captain Haddock might have been bluffing, just a little.
“Starboard! Quickly!” Captain Haddock cried, still peering through the sextant.
“Aye, Captain, starboard it is!” Tintin said, turning the jeep sharply to the right. They went off the road immediately and crashed through a line of hedges before bouncing across a meadow and jolting up onto the driveway of Marlinspike Hall!
“Full stop!” yelled Captain Haddock as the jeep’s front tires banged into Marlinspike Hall’s front steps.
Tintin turned off the engine, and they both looked up, not quite believing what they were seeing. “Marlinspike Hall,” Captain Haddock breathed.
“Those coordinates led here. This is where Sir Francis hid it?” Tintin was confused. He ran through everything they had learned. What had he missed? “I thought the treasure went down with the ship.”
The door opened and Nestor appeared. “Master Haddock,” he said. “Master Tintin. I’ve been expecting you.”
The Adventures of Tintin Page 13