Never Look Back

by Ridley Pearson

  “You tell me….”

  Borikowski had to move closer to understand the man’s words. Stuhlberg asked, “Nosebleeds?” Borikowski nodded. “Uncontrolled bruising?” Another nod. Stuhlberg smiled, self-amused. “You see? I knew you would not succeed.”

  “Oh, but I have, Doctor,” Borikowski said arrogantly. “We are almost home, Doctor. Our home!”

  “You can’t be serious? You could infect them all.”

  Borikowski looked over to Lydia; whose face was pained. She could not face the idea of her own death. She was bordering on silent hysteria.

  Borikowski said confidently, “There is a cure, is there not, Doctor? I know there is a cure….”

  Before Stuhlberg answered, they heard someone, or something, fall down the stairs.

  Borikowski opened the door a crack, and saw the back of one of the dark rain slickers as a man headed down a steep ladder to the engine room.

  ***

  Andy changed plans. He wanted to take Borikowski one-on-one. But if he failed… then something would have to sink the ship. Something already put into motion.

  He surprised the engine room mechanic and overpowered him, clubbing him with the other mate’s gun, which Andy had retrieved from the netting. The man collapsed and fell to the oily floor.

  Andy inspected the twin diesels—twins, he thought—and quickly located the governor: a small set-screw on an oily box that was mounted on the far end of the engines. Using his belt buckle, he turned the screw clockwise as far as it would go. The rpm’s increased and the engines screamed. At this new rev they would blow apart in a matter of minutes.

  Deafening now.

  He climbed back up the steep ladder.

  Voices straight ahead.

  He checked his watch.

  He stood by the door, listened, and then his patience ran out. He swung open the heavy door. Borikowski stood less than ten feet away. Andy lifted the gun. The Bulgarian reacted immediately, pulling Lydia in front of himself as a shield. She struggled to be free of him, the gun now aimed at her equally bruised face. “Let me go!” she protested.

  “You cannot shoot, Clayton,” Borikowski said, recognizing Andy immediately.

  Andy shot her in the shoulder.

  Borikowski was horrified. Lydia screamed and tried harder to break free. The Bulgarian shouted, “No! If you kill her, you release the bacteria.” He cocked his head to the briefcase. “Then we’re all—”

  Andy fired again. The shot broke the thick glass porthole behind Borikowski. Sea water slopped in.

  Neither man moved. King against king, pawn against pawn.

  A stalemate.

  Borikowski’s nose began to bleed and run into Lydia’s hair.

  Stuhlberg spoke to Andy. “Listen to me. Please.” His voice was stronger. “I am Dr. Eric Stuhlberg. We must sink this ship. The three of us are contaminated and quite possibly contagious.”

  Andy had never liked the word “contaminated.” He looked over at Stuhlberg, who looked more dead than alive, and then back to Borikowski, who said, “No. He is lying. He is lying!”

  “No!” Stuhlberg commanded. “I’m not lying. We must sink this ship!”

  Borikowski made no attempt to stop his nosebleed. He looked instead like a monster, and his eyes were wild. He knew his own chances of survival were slim, but that if he was shot or made to bleed externally, he had no chance at all. He would bleed to death.

  Andy, more to himself than to the others, said, “You killed Duncan Clayton.” He raised the gun again.

  Desperately, Borikowski pleaded, “No. Not true. He is alive!! I swear to you. He is alive. I have spoken with him in Leningrad. I swear to you….”

  His conversation with Testler flew through Andy’s head: “…a hospital used for debriefing in Leningrad…” He wanted to squeeze the trigger. Oh, how he wanted to squeeze the trigger.

  “…it is the truth….”

  “No!” Andy thundered, intentionally firing a shot that missed Borikowski’s head by inches.

  “Let me go!” Lydia begged Borikowski, who refused to.

  “He called you ‘Sport,’ did he not?” Borikowski stated.

  Andy fired the gun again, but this time Borikowski did not even flinch. He knew the man was not going to shoot him. He had already passed up his chance.

  Andy was devastated. No one but Duncan knew that childhood nickname. He had not heard it in years and years.

  “He defected, Captain Clayton. He says America is full of lies.”

  Andy felt his hands begin to tremble. He felt the knot in his throat. This was the truth. He knew. “I’m bringing you in,” he told Borikowski. “You’re under arrest.”

  Then, the first explosion rocked the ship….

  The ship heaved to port.

  Andy dropped the gun.

  Lydia fell and bumped her head, and lay motionless on the floor.

  Both Andy and Borikowski fell and slid toward each other. Andy pulled the knife from his pocket and attempted to plunge it into Borikowski’s arm, but missed.

  Borikowski yelled to add confusion, taking hold of Andy’s hair and butting Andy’s broken nose against the metal floor.

  The ship rocked again and the fallen gun slid against Andy’s hand.

  Eric Stuhlberg’s attention had fallen to the briefcase. He had fought his way weakly across the room toward it.

  His bacteria. All he cared about. Sink the bacteria.

  He took hold of the handle and fled from the room, clawing his way topside as the ship lurched port to starboard. He was drained of any strength or energy, but was determined that this, his last effort in life, would be to take this bacteria away forever.

  It’s mine. And it’s cursed.

  He climbed the stairs into the wheelhouse.

  Andy felt the cold metal and took hold of the handle of the gun and fired; but his world was turning dark and cloudy, and all he could feel was a sledgehammer pounding against his broken nose. He fired five wild shots and the gun was empty.

  Lydia Czufin took one of the slugs in her chest, very close to her heart. Her blood spotted Andy’s left hand.

  Andy rose slowly—fogged, knowing nothing of hitting Lydia—but saw Borikowski heading up the stairway, chasing Stuhlberg.

  Oh, you pitch-holed son of a whore! You dung-licking lizard, you nearly stabbed me, Borikowski thought as he headed up the ladder and into the wheelhouse. He saw the captain lying on the floor, saw the wheel tied off. Flames leaped at the window. She was on fire!

  Andy invaded the wheelhouse, yelling and moving to confuse his adversary. He fell to the floor, dodging anything meant to intercept his entry, but he caught Borikowski in a moment of delirium and confusion: there were no weapons aimed at him, no surprises planned. Andy’s face was smeared with blood from his nose. He struggled to his feet just as the stunned Borikowski knocked him back down. Stuhlberg, who was wrestling with the heavy steel door, accidentally dropped the aluminum briefcase, which flew to the steel flooring and slid away as the ship tossed again. Andy lunged across the floor toward the bacteria, as did Borikowski. They attacked each other. Borikowski’s large rain slicker allowed Andy no purchase, so he resorted to pounding the man with what little strength he had left.

  The ship rocked again, and the case slid further toward the wheelhouse’s outer door, which, at the same instant, was opened by the frantic Stuhlberg. The briefcase hit the doctor in the shin, ricocheted off and up over the raised nautical sill, and slid smoothly out and down the metal stairway. Shocked, Stuhlberg turned to try and grab it, but the ship listed again, throwing him forward and down the staircase after the bacteria. He took the fall poorly, crying out as he fell.

  The second explosion spread the flames quickly.

  Borikowski leveraged an elbow and managed to briefly knock the wind from Andy, but in doing so, he hit his own head violently against the deck. As he headed for the doorway, blood began to trickle from his mouth.

  That is it, he thought, I am going to die now. />
  Andy hooked a foot and sent the man tumbling out the door. He pulled to his knees and sprang toward the black slicker. Borikowski avoided him and slid down the stairway in a painful but controlled fall.

  Andy saw Borikowski reaching for Stuhlberg, who clutched the case. He ran—fell—down the staircase, and managed to land against Borikowski’s back, propelling the man out of the way. The ship shifted further to port. Sinking quickly.

  The briefcase began to emit a high-pitched beeping. Only Borikowski knew what this meant: Lydia was dead.

  Stuhlberg fell onto the briefcase like a fullback after a fumble.

  Borikowski slid across the deck. Lyditchka… my sweet Lyditchka…

  Stuhlberg stood, and with both men watching him, hugged the briefcase firmly and jumped overboard. He disappeared beneath the eight-foot waves.

  Underwater, he began beating on the case.

  Nothing happened.

  He sank deeper and deeper, his fingers forcing the latches….

  The beeping stopped.

  Then it exploded, sending a thirty-foot plume of water into the air, along with Eric Stuhlberg’s left arm.

  Borikowski had pulled himself onto his knees and had crawled over to Andy, who turned and fended off an attempted blow to his head.

  A steady stream of blood poured from Borikowski’s mouth now. All strength was lost. He reached out, as a blind man might, fanning the air helplessly. He began coughing, unable to breathe. His pale face turned a sudden brilliant red and he collapsed to one side, clutching his throat.

  A tremendous wave raked the stern.

  Leonid Borikowski washed overboard.

  Tuesday, December 2

  6:45 P.M.

  Washington, D.C.

  Terry Stone answered the door wearing a cardigan sweater and suede slippers, his glasses perched on the tip of his nose. He looked like a living, breathing, Norman Rockwell painting. “Ah, come in, Chris.”

  Daniels entered uncomfortably, a ream of paper in his grasp. Stone led him into the study and the two men sat facing each other. “Well?” Stone asked.

  “It doesn’t seem the same without you there, sir. Here are some of the papers you asked for.”

  “It’s only been a few days, Chris. Don’t make it sound like a year.”

  Daniels looked at the Old Man and felt like crying. To him it felt like years.

  “What about Andy?”

  “Coast Guard confirms the ship went down,” Daniels replied, avoiding the question. “They picked up an oil slick and some flotsam due west of Vancouver Island.”

  “Then they can’t be certain.”

  “No. But as I explained over the phone, the reconnaissance flight…”

  “Yes, yes, yes… but that could have been anything.”

  Anything? Daniels wanted to say. Not just anything burns in the Pacific Ocean. “We have the first reports from the Canadian hospitals in.”

  “And?”

  “Two cases so far. Service personnel: a dishwasher and a chambermaid. Severe hemorrhaging… what we expected.”

  “Prognosis?”

  “They’re being treated by large dosages of salt and full blood transfusions. The chambermaid went critical, and she’s been transferred to Quebec and is now stable. I think we’re going to be all right. I doubt we’ll lose them. The press knows nothing of it.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Stone scratched a stain from his pant leg. He had spilled gravy there and had not noticed until now. Daniels’s eyes roamed the carpet and studied the fleur-de-lis pattern. Stone asked, “And what about Andy? Any word?”

  “None so far,” Daniels said quietly, looking Stone in the eye.

  “But I read that the phones were back in order.”

  “Yes, sir.” Daniels looked away, back to the carpet.

  “Oh… I see.” He paused and then asked, “What’s your opinion, Chris?”

  “I don’t buy Central’s report that the ship was sabotaged after the transfer was made. The Navy claims the sub never surfaced.”

  “Typical of Central, eh? Whatever solves the problem the easiest.”

  Daniels noticed all the citations on the wall for the first time.

  “What then?” Stone asked.

  “In my opinion, sir, we must consider the possibility that Captain Clayton made it aboard that ship somehow and that he was responsible for the sabotage.”

  Stone looked up from his stain. “But that would mean… No. That’s ridiculous, Chris.” He hesitated. “Have they searched…?”

  “The weather’s been prohibitive, sir. It was only by chance that they spotted the wreckage of the ship.”

  Stone said sternly, “We don’t know that that was the wreckage of the ship, eh? No. We don’t know that for certain. And Andy could have jumped ship after all. Yes. He could have jumped ship… why, any number of things could explain this. Any number of things.”

  “Yes, sir,” Daniels replied. “But for the moment he’s listed as missing.” Daniels watched as Terry Stone’s face tightened.

  Stone scratched at a stain that was no longer there. “Any number of things,” he said, “any number of things…”

  Epilogue

  Falling into the ocean—the salt water—saved his life, though he never knew it. Lydia’s blood, which had contaminated his left hand, had been washed away by the sea, the bacteria neutralized. Borikowski and Stuhlberg had passed through the contagious stage several days before.

  He had no memory of climbing into the jettisoned life raft, nor of breaking the transmitter so no one could locate him, nor of wrapping himself up in a blanket; but that was how he found himself: floating in a raft off the deserted coast of northern Oregon. He had been adrift for two and a half days; his clothes were dry, his leg mending. The canopied life raft was designed to assist evaporation and hold in the heat.

  If he had not been so badly beaten, so pained in every joint, so coated with blood, he might have believed it all to be a bad dream. But it wasn’t. It was real. Borikowski lay at the bottom of the sea, somewhere behind him. And so did the ship. And Duncan? Andy pushed the thought from his mind and decided to deal with it later.

  Now, he thought, it’s time to get into shore, and if this damn wind wasn’t offshore, I’d be there by now.

  Mari knew it had been wrong to try this.

  ***

  He had passed out again, but this time, three hours later, found himself washed ashore, still promising—to whomever it was that such things were promised—never again to go against what he knew to be right. Never look for justice where none can be had.

  He closed the door of the summer house he had broken into, his sanctuary for a week of recovery. He consumed their canned goods and burnt all the wood. But he left them fifty dollars—keeping just under two hundred for himself—and felt good about the trade. He burned his wallet and all identity of Andy Clayton beyond recognition.

  He did not exist.

  He walked carefully for three miles, limping, eyes alert for police or any more of the overhead helicopters he had heard recently, walked until he hit a small coastal highway heading south.

  I don’t know if you’ll have me, Mari. But here I come.

  Life is too good to pass by, and so are you, Mari. I think I’ve finally learned, if I’m not too late. What was it you quoted me? “The serenity to accept those things I cannot change, the courage to change those things I can, the wisdom to know the difference?” Ah, wisdom.

  And life. And you.

 

 

 
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