“Well, please forgive me . . . if I don’t accept them.”
“Of course, of course.” Smith nodded. “But tell me . . . going back to our previous subject . . . is there something you’d like to share with me?”
Riley knew he wouldn’t survive a second dance with Abdullah’s family. He had to buy time. “Operation Apokalypse”—he took a deep breath—“we believe is a Nazi plan to attack Portsmouth with . . . a new weapon. A kind of superbomb . . . capable of leveling the city completely.” Riley was looking directly in his eyes, but they didn’t change at all. No alarm, no surprise.
“Yeah . . . Is that all?”
Riley knew the stereotype of British poise, but this was ridiculous. “Did you get what I said? The Germans are planning to attack Portsmouth, killing hundreds or thousands of your countrymen.”
“I understood you perfectly well, Captain Riley,” he answered. “But I’m still waiting for you to tell me something we don’t know.”
Riley’s scheme collapsed like a house of cards. “You . . . you know?”
“Of course we know.” He smirked. “We have the best intelligence service in the world. We know all about Operation Apokalypse.”
Things were making less and less sense. None, actually. “But . . . then . . .” Riley shook his head. “What the hell am I doing here?” He looked at his bonds, then at Smith again. “Why did you kidnap and torture me . . . if you know all that already?”
“Don’t you get it?” Smith said, standing. “It’s not about what we know. It’s about what you know. That’s what I want to find out.”
“What I know? But . . . what does that matter?”
Smith tutted. “Maybe a little, maybe a lot,” he said. “But either way, I need you to tell me more.”
“I’ve told you absolutely everything.”
“I see . . . I feel you’re still unaware of the situation, Captain Riley.”
“Oh yes,” he said painfully. “I’m fully aware of the situation.”
Smith put his hands behind his waist and started to pace around the room. “What you don’t understand is that it’s a highly important issue for my government, and we’ll use whatever means necessary to make sure it doesn’t come out.”
“Including torture.”
“Any method,” Smith repeated. “Although some innocent people have to suffer the consequences.”
“I already told you that my crew doesn’t know anything more about the damn operation. I’ve told you what I know. What can I do to make you believe me?”
“Nothing, actually.”
“Then what do you want from me?”
“Assurance.”
“What?”
“That any possible leak is sealed,” he said coldly as if he were just talking about a broken pipe. “You might know something you’re not even aware of, and we can’t take that risk. Not with you . . . or anyone else.”
“Well, you’re in for a surprise if you think it’s going to be as easy to capture my people as it was me. They’re seasoned sailors, well armed, well trained, and definitely on alert. If you or any of your hit men try to board the Pingarrón, they’ll blow your heads off.”
Smith stopped and looked right at him. “Please, Captain, don’t joke around. And I’m not talking about the crew members of your ship.”
Riley looked at Smith, trying to figure out what he was getting at.
“I believe you have an intimate friend here in Tangier, am I mistaken?”
“Are you talking about . . . ?”
“I believe her name is Carmen Debagh, no?” Smith said. “A very beautiful woman, they say . . . and very well informed of things in this city. Of course, being her lover, you don’t keep secrets, right?”
Riley was shocked. “But she . . . I . . . You can’t be serious.”
“I’m afraid I am,” he said. “I told you we can’t take the risk with anyone.”
“Fuck!” Riley screamed, struggling in the chair. “I haven’t spoken with her in a week! She knows nothing, you bastard!”
Smith looked at him indifferently and smiled. “Maybe yes, maybe no . . . Either way my helpers,” he said, tilting his head toward the door, “are going to find out.”
The idea of Carmen in their custody made him gag, and his mouth filled with the bitter taste of bile. “I swear if you lay a finger on her, I’ll kill you myself.”
Smith crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “I believe, Captain Riley, that you’re in no situation to make threats.”
Just then the clatter of hurried boot steps sounded outside the window. “Who knows?” Riley said with half a smile. “Maybe I—”
Before he finished, there were loud knocks on the door in the adjoining room and shouts to open it in the name of the Legion. Smith froze, listening closely without understanding what was happening. It wasn’t until he heard the sound of keys in the door in the other room that he turned and walked out the door, slammed it shut, and shouted, “Stop, don’t open it!”
But it was too late.
As soon as one of the henchmen gave in to the demand, more than a dozen legionnaires busted into the house. There was a crescendo of insults in Arabic, Spanish, and English that soon turned into the crash of furniture and bones and more than a few cries in the language of Muhammad.
After a few seconds of chaos, the wild heat of the fight turned to almost absolute silence surprisingly quickly. It was broken only by the exchange of a few words among the recent arrivals and ended with the crash of the door to Riley’s room.
A legionnaire appeared in the doorway with his hands on his hips, big sideburns, and sergeant’s stripes. He had a fierce smile with three missing teeth. “Holy fucking shit,” he said, kissing the Virgin Mary pendant around his neck. “I must’ve been very good in my past life for God to love me so much.”
32
Jack was absorbed in the lights of Tangier visible through a porthole. His hands behind his back, he bit his lower lip as he struggled to make sense of it all.
“I still think it was probably March,” César said.
Jack turned around, facing the four crew members and passengers sitting around the table as they watched him with nervous expectation.
After more than two hours of waiting, Jack, Julie, and César had returned to the ship disappointed. They hoped Riley had a good reason for standing them up, but once back at the ship, they learned he and Marco were both gone and suspected something bad had happened on the way to the appointment at the El Minzah.
“I don’t think so . . .” he said. “Julie’s sure that a half hour after the agreed-upon time with March, he left the hotel with his bodyguards looking very annoyed.”
“I think I heard him say to one of his men, ‘The damn captain will regret this,’” Julie said.
“See?” Jack said. “That wouldn’t make sense if he was responsible for his disappearance. Despite what happened before, I really don’t think so.”
“But if it wasn’t March, then who could it be? He’s the only one who knew about the meeting and what the damn junk was worth,” César said, looking at the two big leather bags resting on the table. One contained the SS documents and dossier, and the other the coveted Enigma machine.
“No idea. But you can be thankful your wife had the idea to change bags so that we took the merchandise.”
“I thought someone could be following us, and they’d think the captain was carrying the machine,” Julie said.
“And so it went,” César said.
“Thanks to that trick,” Jack said, sitting down, “we have something to bargain with. If whoever attacked Riley had gotten the machine, you could be sure he’d already be dead.”
“And how do you know he isn’t?” Elsa said, overwhelmed.
Jack looked down for a second. “It’s reasonable to think he’s still alive. They’d get nothing by killing him.”
Elsa could see it was more a wish than an educated guess. “And if he is, what can we do?”
J
ack put his elbows on the table, intertwining his fingers. “Sit and wait,” he said.
“Sit and wait? Wait for what?”
“For them to make a move.”
“Who?”
“I’d love to know, Elsa—whoever!”
“Is that all you can think of?” she asked. “Alex could be injured in some alley bleeding to death while we’re sitting here waiting for someone to make a move?”
“Calm down, Elsa,” Julie said. “You’re not the only one worried about the captain . . . or Marovic, who’s also part of the crew, however poorly he gets along with most of us.”
“I just don’t get why we’re staying here!” she said, getting more and more upset. “We should be searching the streets for him. We should be out there!”
“Damn it!” Jack said, hitting the table. “Don’t you get it? Maybe that’s just what they want us to do! Our only chance of getting Alex and Marco back is staying calm and staying safe. They don’t want the captain, but this,” he added, motioning toward the bags. “So our priority is to protect the machine, because their lives depend on it . . . and maybe ours. Clear?”
Elsa started to reply, but a nudge from Kirchner made her stop.
“Everything you’ve said is very reasonable, Mr. Alcántara, but isn’t there something we’re missing?” Kirchner said.
“Enlighten me, Dr. Kirchner.”
“I mean, if we accept the premise that whoever took Captain Riley and Marovic wants the Enigma, then they would have already figured out the machine is here with us on the boat . . . So what’s stopping them from attacking the boat and taking it by force? I don’t see anyone keeping a lookout.”
“That’s a good point,” Jack admitted, “but there’s no need to worry. We have an effective alarm system on the access way and mooring lines. If anyone tries to board us, alarms will go off on the whole ship.”
Just then, the din of sirens rang out.
After a brief moment of disbelief, they all rushed out to the deck with their hearts in their throats, expecting to see special forces storming the ship.
They wouldn’t have imagined a squad of legionnaires, drunk as skunks, swaying on the gangplank and singing loudly.
The Legion loves wine!
The Legion loves rum!
The Legion loves women!
And women love the Legion!
Worse was finding the same sergeant who they’d fought a week earlier.
“Fuck. Just what we needed,” Jack said, taking his 9 mm Beretta from the holster under his sweater. “Doctor, take Elsa to her cabin and stay there!” he screamed over the alarm. “César and Julie, get your guns!”
“Merda,” César said, squinting. “That’s not the same guy that . . . ?”
“Of course it is!” Jack said furiously. “So hurry the fuck up! And turn off the damn alarm before I go crazy!”
Julie and César started off immediately, but the passengers stayed to see what was happening.
“Stop there!” Jack yelled at the legionnaires, raising his pistol. “You don’t have permission to board this ship!”
The soldiers kept advancing.
“If you try to board us, I’ll open fire!” Jack said, pointing his gun at them.
They seemed too drunk to realize they were being spoken to and kept singing and laughing. Not even Paracuellos seemed to realize he was being aimed at from less than ten yards away. Knowing it could be a trick, Jack kept them in his sight.
Realizing that threats were useless, and they wouldn’t stop, he pulled back the hammer, ready to shoot whoever set foot on deck. According to the rules of the sea, the trespass would be considered an act of piracy, and as the officer in command he had full rights to use force to defend the ship.
Without hope of being heeded, he issued a final warning, gripping the gun tightly. “I swear to God I’ll kill the first person who steps on my ship!”
Then the soldier who seemed the drunkest, leaning on two of his friends’ shoulders, stumbled onto the deck over the bulwark. When Jack was already putting pressure on the trigger, the legionnaire looked up.
His face was swollen and bruised, his mouth barely open when he asked, “Explain something to me, Jack. Since when is this your ship?”
33
Lying on the bunk in his cabin, still in the pants of the legionnaire uniform he’d swapped for his own clothes and naked from the waist up, Riley was left to the care of Elsa and Julie. Despite his complaints, the two women, working as volunteer nurses, took control. Amid outraged and astonished comments about the countless bumps and lacerations on their patient, they busily disinfected his wounds, iced his bruises, and applied liniment in industrial quantities.
After neatly dressing his wounded fingertip, Elsa took his left hand and studied the two fingers twisted upward unnaturally. She felt them with extreme care. “Fortunately, they’re not broken,” she said, “but we have to set them immediately.”
Riley looked at her with his eye that wasn’t covered in an ice pack, admiring the girl’s confidence and aplomb as she acted like this were pure routine for her. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Who’s the doctor here?”
“You’re a vet,” Riley said, “for animals.”
“So what? Animals, people . . . they’re all the same. A dislocated bone is a dislocated bone, and there’s only one way to treat it.”
“Yeah. But you’re a vet.”
“Why don’t you shut up?” She turned toward the door. “Helmut, come here!”
Kirchner appeared immediately, holding strips of a sheet for bandages and a bottle of amber liquor.
“No,” Riley said. “Not the aged rum . . .”
“There’s no more alcohol,” Elsa said, “and there’s a lot of disinfecting left to do. Helmut,” she said, “I need you and Julie to hold him down while I reset his fingers.”
Riley frowned.
“Don’t worry,” she said, gripping his pinky, “it won’t hurt a bit.” When she was sure they had him immobilized, she pulled hard on the battered finger. It made a repulsive crack, and Riley let out a cry of pain that echoed throughout the ship. “God! You’re a fucking liar!”
Elsa, far from being repentant or offended, smiled mischievously as she got ready to do the same with the ring finger. “Come on, don’t exaggerate. You’re the whiniest patient I’ve ever had.”
“That’s ’cause I’m the only human that—”
Before he could finish, she had yanked the other, which made the loud snap of bone against bone as the joint went back into place. This time Riley clenched his jaw, trying not to scream, but still had to let out a hiss, and a tear peeked out of the corner of his eye.
“It’s okay, we’re done with that now,” Elsa said, looking at the result. “Now we’ll put them in a splint, and you can move them normally in a few days. As for these ribs,” she said, running her hand along his bandaged torso, “the good news is they don’t seem broken, though they could be cracked. Unfortunately, I can’t do anything to treat them. They’ll heal themselves in time. All I can recommend now is not to strain yourself, cough, or laugh, and breathe as little as possible.”
“Got it . . . breathe as little as possible.”
“Exactly. The other injuries and bruises don’t seem particularly serious, and they’ll heal with time. But I do recommend avoiding the mirror for a few days.”
Riley looked at her for a second. “You’re . . . enjoying all this, huh?”
Before she could answer, Jack burst in, followed by César, who had the Thompson submachine gun under his arm. “How’s it going?”
“How do you think?” Riley said, showing him his bandages.
“We could hear you screaming from up there,” Jack said, more annoyed than concerned. “We thought they were killing you.”
“I thought so too,” Riley said. “Speaking of which, how’d it go with our friends?”
Jack rubbed his neck and glanced at César. “We didn’t shoot each other, whic
h is something. But I was not happy to pay them a hundred dollars each and three hundred to Paracuellos. That’s like his annual salary.”
“Believe me,” Riley said, shaking his head, “when I saw them come in the door, I would’ve given them ten times as much. They saved my life.”
“Yeah, great . . . but I still don’t understand why you decided to use them. Why the hell didn’t you tell the kid to come here and get us?”
Riley almost laughed at Jack’s disappointment. “It seemed more reasonable.”
“More reasonable? Are you okay? Asking someone who hates you to save your life is reasonable?”
“I didn’t ask him to come save me,” Riley said, taking a deep breath. “The kid told him he’d seen our fight in the tearoom, and if he gave him a tip he’d show him where I was.”
“You mean until then they were going to beat you up?” Julie said.
“More like hang me, so when they came and found the Brit with his gang of Arab hit men, it was like a match on gasoline.”
Helmut asked, “When they found you defenseless like that, tied to a chair, instead of . . . you know, settling accounts, they decided to save you and take you here?”
“Actually, that was the easy part,” Riley said, rubbing his healthy fingers together in the international sign for cash. “Money talks, and I appealed to his sense of honor by saying it wouldn’t be right to fight me in that state, and I swore we could resolve our differences once I recuperated. Besides,” he added, “what better escort than a dozen legionnaires?”
“But I still don’t get why you didn’t send the kid here,” Jack said.
Riley lifted his head with difficulty. “Understand that I was tied to a chair in a basement without knowing what happened to you all. You could’ve been captured like me. Hell, I didn’t even know where Marovic went, and he was with me.”
“That’s the other thing I was going to ask,” Jack said. “When did you last see him? Do you think they’ve killed him, or that they’re torturing him too?”
Captain Riley (The Captain Riley Adventures Book 1) Page 21