Without warning

by John Birmingham

  Lundquist cried out and flew backwards. Gouts of dark red blood looped gracefully into the overcast sky. The ground shook and heaved violently as mortar bombs began dropping on their position. None of them had any overhead protection.

  ‘They’re coming!’ screamed Carlyon. ‘Get ready!’ He emptied a whole magazine to give himself and his men some cover.

  The Venezuelans had gathered themselves at last and were charging at them en masse, running into their own mortar barrage with bayonets drawn. Pileggi was almost certain she heard a bugle faintly beneath the din.

  Pileggi changed magazines, rapidly, mechanically. Firing again as quickly as possible. Four of the attackers fell in front of their pit. Two more leapt forward and sailed over the edge, throwing themselves onto Jimbo Jamieson, who swung wildly at the closest intruder with a lump of wood. It connected with a hollow clunk that Pileggi heard quite clearly, despite all the noise. She swung her M-1 like a club too, driving the heavy wooden stock into the face of the second attacker. The man’s nose collapsed with sickening ease as blood erupted from his torn flesh.

  Carlyon fell on her, driving her down. She felt his dead weight, the terrible slackness of his limbs, and knew he was gone. Pileggi tried to lift him clear, to get back to her firing position, but he was so heavy. It was worse, much worse, than having a drunken lover fall asleep on top of you. It was crushing, painful.

  And then he was gone. The weight suddenly flying away, and she was looking up into the muzzle of a gun, wondering what it was, and realising just before it flashed white.

  * * * *

  ‘Pearl is up, sir,’ a Marine private said, holding up a phone. ‘A lot of static.’

  Musso thanked the private and took the phone. ‘General Musso.’

  ‘Franks. This line secure?’

  ‘I sorely doubt it,’ Tusk replied. ‘It’s probably trailing across one of the sat news channels as we speak, sir.’

  He looked around the underground command bunker. Some of the screens were running live feeds from Venezuelan TV. The static on the phone connection grew in intensity. Musso shook the phone, even though he knew it didn’t do any good. It made him feel better.

  ‘Say again, sir?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, TVes is running us live, Musso,’ Franks told him. ‘Bastards. What is your status?’

  The brigadier general rubbed his forehead and thought for a moment. If they were live on TVes, this conversation was going out to the world, a situation he might be able to use to his advantage. He couched his next words very carefully, trying to remember the lessons he was taught at charm school when he received his first star.

  ‘Enemy forces are aggressively targeting civilian refugees at my position, sir,’ Musso began. ‘I’ve got multiple civilian vessels burning in the bay or sinking. We lost a C-5 Galaxy as it tried to take off. My air liaison officer tells me that over four hundred US civilians were on board. We’re probably looking at upwards of a thousand civilian casualties minimum, perhaps more. My own casualties are climbing as well.’

  ‘Any attempt to offer a ceasefire?’ General Franks asked. ‘To mitigate civilian casualties.’

  Musso blinked. Every fibre in his soul screamed at him to fight it out, resist to the last, make the enemy pay, but the civilians were his priority. They were his boss, his reason for being in the first place.

  ‘By us or by them, sir?’

  ‘Either.’

  ‘Negative, sir. I’ve not even had a chance to think about it,’ Tusk admitted.

  ‘The civilians need to be your top priority, General Musso,’ said Franks. ‘I’m ordering you to attempt to contact the enemy commander to seek terms for a ceasefire. We will try to do the same at our end. In the meantime, until you receive such a ceasefire, resist with maximum effort. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Musso replied. What other choice did he have if the Venezuelans weren’t willing to accept terms? Even though he’d moved underground, he could still hear a savage battle chewing up the base above him.

  ‘Also know this…’ Franks paused for a moment. ‘If you go under, we will exact retribution from the Venezuelans at a time and place of our own choosing. We will make this night very expensive for them. Do you understand, General Musso?’

  Okay, I’m not the only one playing to the media then … ‘I do, sir,’ he replied.

  ‘Carry on, Tusk. Franks out.’

  Musso hung up the phone and found Lieutenant McCurry in front of him.

  ‘We’ve lost the airfield, General,’ she said.

  That meant Susie Pileggi was probably dead, Musso realised. He nodded and hurried over to a display that carried security-cam vision of the airstrip area. He could see that the tracer fire across the bay had flickered out now. The burning hulks of civilian and military aircraft littered the runway. On a separate display, the Venezuelans’ armoured column was stalled out, harassed by ambushes set up by Gunnery Sergeant Price’s security teams.

  Tusk Musso felt like he was falling into a deep well, an abyss of despair that seemed to know no end. From the depths of this descent, he heard himself speak the words. They sounded faint and weak to his ears.

  ‘We need to find a white sheet.’

  * * * *

  44

  MV AUSSIE RULES, SOUTH PACIFIC OCEAN

  Mr Lee heaved on the wheel and took the Aussie Rules up the face of the giant wave at about forty degrees. Jules held on, wedging herself into a corner of the bridge, unaware she was clenching her teeth, willing the 228-feet super-yacht over the moving ridge of black, storm-tossed sea water. A force-eleven storm raged outside, reducing visibility to near zero as it hurled sheets of rain and ocean spume at the thick glass windows of the wheelhouse. Lightning strobed, followed almost immediately by the crash of thunder as Lee took them over the crest and down the other side, dropping so precipitously that Julianne had to hold on to the grab bars even more tightly to avoid having her head smashed into the ceiling.

  ‘Nice work, Mr Lee,’ she called out over the uproar.

  The old Chinese helmsman did not reply, remaining steadfastly focused on trying to feel the heaving ocean beneath their keel.

  ‘Radar, how we doing? Have we lost those cheeky fuckers yet?’ Jules asked.

  The Rhino, who had strapped himself into his chair, gave her a ready thumbs-up and raised his voice over the shrieking of the storm, speaking around the newly lit cigar that was fugging up the air in the bridge. ‘Hard to tell, skipper, but I’d bet two inches of horn that they’re losing contact. Slow but sure. Last time I had a good fix, it looked like they were having real fucking problems with the storm. We had about eighteen nautical miles on them.’

  ‘But they weren’t breaking off pursuit?’

  ‘Afraid not, no, ma’am. Oh, and Boss Jules, is this a good time to ask about the location of the humidor? It’s just I couldn’t find it in the library, like you said, and -’

  Julianne silenced him with a warning look.

  ‘Alrighty then,’ he said, conceding the point. ‘We’ll sort that out later.’

  The ship suddenly tilted precipitously, as a rogue wave took them abeam and tried to roll the vessel over. Lee cursed in Mandarin and spun the wheel again, calling for more power.

  Jules would never have admitted it, but her heart felt as though it might burst out of her rib cage. She took a deep, difficult breath and announced as calmly as she could, ‘I’m going to go check on everybody down below. Shout out if there’s any change at all, for better or worse. Good work, everyone. We’ll outrun these blaggers yet.’

  Lee didn’t reply or even turn his head, so fiercely was he concentrating. He stood on the balls of his bare feet, knees flexing to meet the rise and fall of the deck, eyes seemingly unfocused, simply lost somewhere out in the dark and violence of the storm. The Rhino, by way of contrast, looked quietly pleased with himself. The bridge crew, Dietmar the navigator and Lars the Norwegian backpacker turned first mate of the Aussie Rules, both grinned like stupid dogs
given a pat on the head. They were among the younger members of her pick-up crew, and even though they’d been shot at half-a-dozen times so far, the two Northern Europeans still seemed to think it was all just insane fun, a great story they couldn’t wait to tell all the Helgas and Anyas at their next travellers’ hostel. Nobody but Mr Lee and herself seemed to be too bothered by any of it. Jules wondered how they’d be feeling if things turned bloody and personal in a few days, should the Peruvians get close enough to board. The Rules enjoyed a speed advantage of a few knots and had put some good distance between them, but they were hanging on doggedly.

  She clawed her way out of the corner she’d been jammed into and tried to roll out of the bridge and through to the companion-way in synch with the movements of the yacht. With seas running at ten metres and whipped up into a frenzy by sixty-knot winds, her progress was slow and extremely hazardous. She found the conventional stairwells and wide corridors of the Aussie Rules to be more difficult in extreme weather than the cramped conditions she’d grown used to on Pete’s little yacht. It was so much bigger here that the chances of being thrown clear across an open area by a particularly bad wave were significantly higher. As she proceeded towards the media centre, she climbed up a steep, pitching rise, levitated into the air, and crashed back onto a plunging deck as Lee took them through another boiling ravine on the surface of the southern oceans.

  Having finally reached her destination after a trek that took three minutes instead of the usual one, Jules launched herself through the door and into the plush confines of the media room with a real sense of deliverance. She found Shah, Fifi and Pieraro there, all of them wedged deeply into the soft blue armchairs, talking amongst themselves, if somewhat volubly over the sound of the storm. The big screen was lit up with a feed from the Rhino’s radar, showing a highly degraded image on which a lone vessel occasionally popped out – the giant trawler Viarsa 1, according to the Rhino, a toothfish poacher turned pirate raider.

  ‘How’s it goin’, Julesy?’ asked Fifi.

  ‘Spiffing. They’re holding on. I was really hoping we’d lose them in the storm, but Rhino says not. They’re used to these conditions and worse. We’re not.’

  ‘No,’ Fifi agreed.

  They really weren’t. On the Diamantina, they’d always run from big storms, harboured up or anchored on the leeside of an island wherever they could, and ridden them out. Only once or twice during their time together had Pete been caught out in open seas when a big blow started up, and that had been nothing like this.

  ‘Miguel, how’re your people hanging on?’ she asked. ‘They wouldn’t see a lot of ocean storms back in the village, I’d imagine.’

  The vaquero, whose face was a study in granite stoicism, shook his head almost imperceptibly. ‘Very sick, Miss Julianne. The children are frightened. They are all frightened, but only the children admit so.’

  Jules saw the Viarsa 1 appear as an indistinct, faraway blip on the big screen. It must have climbed a crest at the same time as the Rules and been painted by the radar. She wondered if there was somebody on the other vessel hunched over a screen, hanging on for a fleeting glimpse of them through the fury of the storm. There had to be. Otherwise Lee would’ve lost them already.

  She turned back to address the Mexican again. ‘As soon as the weather calms down enough to get them out of their bunks, Miguel, I want you and Sergeant Shah to start training everyone again, especially the Yanks. Just the basics, as we discussed. Aiming, firing, reloading, clearing jams. Over and over and over, with every minute we have. These bastards may never get within a bee’s willy of us, but if they do, I want to kick them so hard that their goolies pop out of their eye sockets.’

  ‘The passengers will be fine, Miss Julianne,’ Shah assured her. ‘They did very well in their lessons before the storm. They understand what is required, and what will happen to them if the pirates get control. They will fight. All of them. Even the children, if you let them.’

  She looked across at Miguel. Deep hollows under his eyes gave him a ghoulish appearance in the dim light of the room. The ship plunged and rolled again, forcing him to grab the arms of his deep padded chair with white knuckles that stood out starkly against the blue fabric.

  ‘I have discussed this with Mariela, my wife, and the old ones,’ he said. ‘We have agreed that only the very youngest will go with Ana and one of the crew in the big launch if the worst happens. The other children will carry ammunition, and if they can hold a weapon, they may fire it too.’

  It was hard to be certain in the half-light, but Jules thought he may have been on the verge of tears.

  ‘My daughters, they will fight,’ Pieraro went on. ‘They must. Better for them to die quickly than to live out their years as a slave to some stinking Peruvian cabron.’

  ‘Miguel, I promised you safe passage for you and your family,’ said Jules, as softly as she could and still be heard. The girls do not have to fight. If the Viarsa 1 gets close enough, we can put them in the sport fisher with Lars or Dietmar and Grandma Ana. They would outrun any pursuit.’

  Pieraro smiled sadly. ‘And then what, Miss Julianne? How far are we from safe land? They would not survive a storm like this, and they would be heading into the bad weather. I told you I would hold you responsible for their safety, but I do not hold you responsible for this. You are not pursuing us. You did not bring the storm out of the skies.’

  Shah clapped his hands together, a thunderous sound. ‘Enough of this talk!’ he declared. ‘This will defeat us as surely as any man. How many of these monkeys have we seen off in these last weeks? They are desperate, foolish fishermen playing at pirates. Let me tell you what will happen if they should come alongside us: we will cut them down and take their stores for our own.’

  ‘Hooah!’ cried Fifi, grinning hugely. ‘That’s the spirit, mountain man!’

  Julianne braced her back against one arm of her chair and her feet against the other as the Rules began another tumbling ride down a foaming summit. She glanced at the screen to see if they’d lost radar contact with the Viarsa 1, but it wasn’t on screen to begin with. It must have been hidden in some shifting valley of water at that moment. The seas were large enough to tower over both vessels at times, hiding them from each other.

  ‘Okay,’ sighed Jules. ‘Shah’s right, Miguel. Now, if you’ll all excuse me, I’d best get on with my King Henry routine.’

  ‘I am sorry, Miss Julianne?’ quizzed the Mexican, confused.

  ‘A little Shakespeare, darling. Benefits of what classical education I received before Daddy pissed away his ill-gotten gains and all the family silver. “For forth he goes and visits all his host; Upon his royal face there is no note, how dread an army hath enrounded him.’”

  Pieraro was an intelligent man, but she could see she’d lost him.

  ‘Don’t bother none about her, Miguel,’ said Fifi with good humour. ‘She gets all thinky and stuff sometimes. Your girls, they’ll be fine. I will personally take apart any motherfucker who tries to interfere with them.’

  ‘You are kind, for one so fierce, Miss Fifi. But in the last extremes, I shall attend to my own family.’

  ‘Enough!’ barked Shah, clapping his hands together again with a thunderous report.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jules, ‘enough.’ She pushed herself up out of the chair with the momentum of the ship. ‘Try to get some sleep.’

  Her rounds of the ship took nearly an hour – a slow, difficult progression through all decks, moving hand over hand along companionways that violently plunged and rolled and shifted as the storm tossed the super-yacht about. Most of the passengers were in their beds, many of them strapped in against the violence of the night. Down in the engine room her grease monkeys – a Sri Lankan and two Dutch merchant mariners she’d picked up in Costa Rica – were tending to the Rules’s gleaming white plant with the universally pissed-off look of all engineering crew. The Sri Lankan, Pankesh, had one hand bandaged, the legacy of a fall against a steam conduit in the diffi
cult conditions. She checked his burn, which seemed quite ghastly, but he insisted on remaining at his station.

  The main lounge looked very bare now, with most of the fittings stowed away. There she found one half of the trust-fund brats, Phoebe, sitting with one of the village children. They’d wedged themselves into one of the heavily padded loungers. Before Jules could ask them what the fuck they were doing out of their cabins, Phoebe spoke up.

  ‘Maya was scared,’ she said. ‘She got lost looking for the little girls’ room – didn’t you, sweetheart? – and wandered into my cabin. I said I’d sit with her a while.’

  Julianne wondered if Maya was the only one who’d been scared, but she let it go. The last thing she needed now was hysterics over a lost child. ‘Thank you, Phoebe. Good show,’ she replied. ‘But make sure you get her back to her bunk soon. I need everyone rested.’