by Gar Wilson
"He waits for nobody," Katz said. "Not me. Not any of you. One of us has to get word back to Stony Man. If you're late, get your own lifeboat."
The others said nothing until Katz looked at the clock.
Before he could read it, Calvin James interpreted for him.
"We have two minutes, Katz, if we want to be on time."
"We do."
Katz stood up, and then they were all standing, exchanging a long look of trust and confidence that they would each do their best.
"Okay, we meet outside the theater. Everybody takes a different route as far as possible."
A final nervousness before going into action made McCarter launch a last unhelpful comment. "We're walking into a trap," he said, "and we know it."
Katz shifted the pistol in his belt. "You know David, if you knew there was a tiger lurking at a water hole, threatening everybody, you'd head straight there and kill the SOB."
McCarter grunted, and was the first to start out.
Two minutes later they converged in the stairwell outside the ship's auditorium. Through the lustrous wooden doors they heard a heated debate on quantum jumps in voice-operated computers.
McCarter stood at the top of the stairs, making certain they would not be trapped even before they reached the engine room, and he continued to bring up the rear as the team moved cautiously through the crew's quarters. There, luxury ended. The air-conditioning failed.
The open doors afforded views of men sitting idly on the edges of their bunks. On upper bunks men stared at the ceiling.
Crew members crowded the corridor. A few stood around smoking. Others carried paint and brushes as they moved out on some job or other. A number of them were equipped with mops and brooms. The sound of a harmonica drifted from one of the dreary rooms. A man trotted by with a ladder, while another hurried somewhere with a tool key.
A quarter of the way toward the bow, they encountered the first detail that Encizo had left out. There was a steel door that led off the main corridor. The Cuban swung it open.
"Hey…" Katz caught Rafael's arm"…you didn't say anything about this."
Encizo appeared hurt. He apologized and said, "It's nothing. It's okay."
But it was not okay to Katz. The corridor was short, a dead end, and poorly lit.
"David," Katz said.
Calling his name was enough. McCarter knew what to do. He stayed in the main hallway while the others proceeded.
Inside the branch hall, Katz kept his left hand close to his gun.
A swarthy man was just opening the only door off the hall as Phoenix Force approached.
The man grinned.
For a moment Katz thought the man was acting as doorman for the Phoenix bunch, then relaxed somewhat as two other crewmen rolled a heavy welding rig with two big cylinders from inside the engine room.
They were obviously headed somewhere aboard the ship for a repair job.
James and Encizo had already entered the engine room, Calvin taking the stairs and Rafael walking out across the catwalks.
Manning gave an all-clear signal.
A moment later McCarter and Katz were both inside and found the noise level painful. The engines worked at a pace that sounded like panic. The shafts to the propellers were enclosed, but the screws fought the sea like giant marlin at the end of a hook. There were other unidentifiable sounds: clicks, tappings, hissing. Had the room been dark, it would have been frightening.
But it was well lit, showing off banks of gauges and endless strands of cabling and a network of hoses and pipes. All cream white, the room was meticulously clean.
In the enormous room, Katz watched while his men searched for hiding places, of which there were many. The doors to the forward storage compartment had to be guarded, and the tool room needed thorough checking, besides.
There was a roaring air conditioner working somewhere in the enormous two-deck high room, but the humidity hung like fog. Perspiration coursed down Katz's back. It ran from his forehead into his eyes. He had to take his hand from his weapon in order to clear his sight.
They had been searching for more than five minutes before any of them became restless enough to look toward Katz.
He was scowling.
He had expected Vulcan or his men to be waiting.
"Manning. McCarter," he shouted. "Open that door."
With the engines pounding and peripherals wheezing, there was no hearing inside the giant engine room unless men stood close to one another, cupped their hands and shouted directly into the ear.
Katz changed to sign language. The two men understood. One took good cover while the other went to open the door.
Nothing happened.
The handle and unlocking devices worked, but the door didn't budge.
"James, Encizo." Katz motioned them to the other door. The results were the same.
He sensed a trick. In a second either or both of the doors would open, and Cheyenne killers could come streaming in.
McCarter and Encizo knew the countermove. They sought cover, aimed weapons at the door, and held stun grenades in preparation.
Nothing happened.
Katz moved partway down the stairs, half of his attention fixed on the door through which they had entered.
Manning and James took up the search again.
Finally, James stopped and went down on his knees. He holstered his gun and probed under one of the big fuel tanks. When he withdrew his hands, they were smeared with blood.
Katz immediately sensed they had been outfoxed. He didn't know how yet, but he felt the warning signals in his body. His hard stomach tightened. His eyes darted over to the entrance. He became all too aware that there was no engine room crewman in sight. While good maintenance could keep the enormous diesels working around the clock for weeks at a time, they would never be left untended for a minute.
Calvin was drawing a bloody body from beneath the tanks.
It was dressed in the dark brown khaki that many men wore on such jobs. Then James brought out a second body.
When the handsome black man looked up for orders, Katz motioned him toward the small office near the front. He pretended he was holding a telephone receiver to his ear.
James came out carrying the phone and dragging the cut line.
Katz was not surprised. It had dawned on him that the lone crewman who had held the door for them earlier had not entered with them but had hurried back up the stairs.
He tried the handle. It moved reassuringly in his hand.
The relief lasted only until he tried to open the hatch. It refused to budge. He rapped on it with his pistol. No answer. He put his ear close to the door and jerked away immediately. The door's surface had felt quite hot.
James came running up the steps.
"There's a third and maybe a fourth body under there," he said. "What's wrong here?"
"They've welded the door shut."
"Huh?"
"You heard me."
The black Yank gaped. He had been hit, shot at, tripped, cut, pummeled, kicked, but never before had he fallen victim to a welder's torch.
Katz leaned over the railing and signaled to Encizo and McCarter. They understood and worked harder to attempt to force open the doors they had been guarding. There was no response. Both men were still trying to figure out what they were doing wrong when Katz waved them off.
"No use." He tried to form the words clearly enough for his lips to be read.
Coming down the ladder, he motioned all of them to join him in the small office. Only Manning dallied. He took his time poking into nooks and crannies, and when he did come in he was carrying a shoebox.
"We're locked in," Katz started to explain immediately. "Those two with the acetylene torch must have done it the moment we stepped inside."
"The same thing over at our doors," McCarter said. "Only they did the job from the inside. You can see the weld. We'd need something powerful to break it."
"And the phone line to the bridge is
cut," James said. "I gather we're cut off completely."
"Maybe there's another torch," McCarter told Katz.
"We'll look," he said, "but I doubt they're that stupid."
"We can hammer on the doors until someone hears us," Encizo suggested. Then he had a better idea. "We could stop the engines. That would get attention from the bridge quickly."
"We may be giving away our cover," Katz suggested.
"We're locked in here with three corpses," Manning said. "I think we'd be useless to Phoenix Force if we're caught with them."
"We're up against some clever people," Katz said. "They'll be abandoning ship soon."
"Everybody will be," Manning said. "Except for us, at least."
The four others turned to stare at him.
"What are you talking about?" McCarter asked.
"This."
He opened the shoe box. It held a solid block of brownish material taped to a pair of batteries, a watch and the cap from a shotgun shell.
"For God's sake!" Katz exclaimed. "Defuse that thing."
"Can't do it."
"But you're the expert on defusing plastique."
"With tools, with time. Knowing how to defuse a bomb takes training. Knowing you can't do it in time makes you an expert. A living expert. And I can't stop this baby from blowing. Besides…"
"Yes, hurry, tell us," Katz prompted.
"There's at least one other bomb planted down here."
The other four waited.
"It's tucked far down the propeller shaft. I can see it, but I haven't a prayer of bringing it back up in time."
"Are you sure they managed to get it down there?" Encizo griped.
"Yes, and they had more than five minutes to get it into place."
Katz spoke for the group. "You saying that thing in your hand is going to blow in five minutes?"
"Four minutes, thirty-two seconds to be precise. Four, thirty-one now. Thirty seconds, et cetera, et cetera."
"Heave it," James shouted.
"Get behind something," Katz said coolly.
"I can heave it, of course, and we can hide behind the engines and come out of this with nothing worse than a broken eardrum or two."
"Then heave it."
McCarter and James were backing out from the office, and Katz and Encizo followed.
So did Manning. Unlike the others, he was curious about the device, turning it over and over in his hand as the seconds continued to click off this watch.
"The problem, gentlemen, is this. As I said, there is another device down the propeller shaft, and I suspect there may be more in here and perhaps down in the bilges. In any case, one of those others is going to blow a hole in the hull of this ship. Below the water line. In other words, the ship is going to sink, and we're going to be among the first to drown."
20
"Blast our way out," Katz told Manning. "Blow the door off."
"I hope I can," Gary said. "This timer on the outside looks like a high school kid put it together. I wouldn't be surprised to find a real detonator that works another way. But there's no time to find out. The rest of you take cover,"
Katz motioned, and the team scampered for cover as Manning carried the bomb up the stairs. He fixed it against the door and rushed downstairs to join Katz in the office.
"You know," he said, thinking aloud, "Vulcan left that device where we'd find it so we could blast a way out after they welded us in."
"That doesn't make much sense," Katz stated.
"Unless," Gary continued, "that bomb won't go off until the water has filled the room."
Katz stared at Manning, his mind swimming with plots and counterplots that might have gone through Arnold Vulcan's mind. "You're saying they wanted us dead, but they wanted it to look like we sank the ship." Katz worked that around in his head.
"Precisely. They wanted the engine room crew dead. They wanted the doors welded shut so no one could get at the bombs in time to defuse them."
Katz carried the thought further. "Then we dropped into the center of their plans. It was set to look as though we welded the doors shut…"
"So nobody could interfere while we were working. And finally, they provided us with a bomb to blow off one door so it would appear that we had an escape route planned."
"We're quite a serendipity for them," Katz thought aloud. "They sink the ship. We take the blame. That bastard Arnold Vulcan must be a real genius."
"Clever enough to build an entire town," Gary said.
Katz raised a hand. "But… wait… why do they want to sink the ship?"
"That I can't explain."
The engine room was suddenly transformed. There was a gargantuan roar that they heard despite the hands they had tightly clapped over their ears. A giant hole opened in the steel at the stern. Anything not fastened down hurled through a dark cloud of smoke streaked with lightning like spears of flame.
Three seconds later the ocean burst in as a funnel of water with a three-foot diameter smashed against the engines. Then it darted right through the tool room.
Electric lines sputtered. All but the overhead lights flicked out. Cabinets of gear tipped over and floated. The water became a whirlpool carrying debris and tossing the Phoenix Force men about.
When they could, they found a relatively quiet place behind the engines, which were rattling the loose propeller shafts apart.
McCarter growled at Manning. "I thought you were going to blow off the goddamned door."
"I thought I was. But the detonator on the outside is fake." He sounded as calm and pedantic as an aging professor of early European literature. "I suspect the bomb will go off a short time after it is immersed in water. Too late for us, unfortunately."
"Then go up there and throw a bucket of water on it," McCarter demanded.
"Thanks, but no."
They were treading water now and the ceiling seemed to be closing down upon them. James started to the ladder, ready to prolong his life to the last possible moment, but Manning shouted at him. "Stay away from there. You'll get in my way."
The engines sputtered and roared, then quit as Gary reached the stairway. At the top he faced his friends.
With the engines down, he could be heard.
"When I dive, you guys get under the water. Go as deep as you can and stay down as long as you can."
"What are you going to do?" Katz asked.
Manning cheerfully held up a stun grenade.
"Oh, shit," McCarter said. "That'll never dent that door."
"It will if it sets off the plastique."
Gary, using the wires from the phony detonator and shaping a place in the plastique, fit the grenade into the indentation. He took a floating cabinet and laid it against the door. Then he pulled the pin and held it up proudly before diving over the rail.
No one saw the explosion. They were underwater, holding their breath as long as they could. They came up, stroking toward the partially opened door. They tore at it until their hands bled. The twisted metal gave way slowly while the water began to lap at their ankles. Then there was room for Katz and Encizo to pass through. With an outside grip they managed to enlarge the hole enough for the other three.
A moment later they were free of the door. The ship's whistle sounded a terrifying cry.
The intercom came on. "All hands to your lifeboat stations. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is no drill. Prepare to close and latch all fireproof doors."
The corridor where the Phoenix Force team emerged was empty. Most of the crew stateroom doors stood open, revealing floors covered with clothes and other personal items. From above came the anguished cries of abject terror.
A list tilted the ship to starboard, and the bow was sinking faster than the stern. Vulcan had obviously placed bombs forward, too.
The inclined deck made running difficult. Katz, though, did not hesitate. As he moved awkwardly he stripped off his shirt and drew the Titan Tiger.38 Special he had bought in Istanbul.
He flung open the door t
hat closed off the stairs and threw out his shirt.
A gun blasted. The shirt changed course.
Katz thrust out his Titan Tiger and fired. The slug tore into a surprised man, a soldier who served Vulcan, no doubt. He sat at the bottom of the companionway to the third deck. His hands covered his chest to staunch the flow of blood. Because the man's gun lay nearby, Katz shot him again to be certain.
Then he tried the auditorium door.
It had metamorphosed since he had passed on the way to the engine room. It was no longer polished carved wood. The gray steel fire door had been swung into place and welded closed.
Katz could barely hear the voices on the other side as the computer geniuses gave way to panic. They tried to attract attention by rapping on the door and shouting.
"Attention all passengers," the intercom blared. "Move directly to your lifeboat stations. We are abandoning ship. I repeat, we are abandoning ship immediately."
Katz suddenly understood. He knew the entire plot. From the beginning Vulcan had been intent on murdering five hundred of the western world's top computer experts. Their deaths would set back the U.S. and its allies for decades, and the KGB would never be suspected. His defeat in his Cheyenne was trivial compared to the coup he was in the process of pulling.
Vulcan's evil brilliance was mind-boggling. When Phoenix Force had gotten in the way, Vulcan had set them up to take the blame. They would probably be touted after the tragic event as fanatic terrorists.
The intercom blared again. "This is your captain speaking. Abandon ship." The voice lacked professional control. No doubt Vulcan had taken the bridge and was creating chaos. Fear and a few gunmen would turn aside any heroic attempts to save the men and women in the auditorium. Vulcan's plan was working.
"Oh, God," Katz groaned as the water reached his knees. The water was probably as deep on the other side.
Before he could think, the other four teammates crowded in beside him. The three biggest men were bleeding from injuries they had received when they squeezed themselves through the ragged sides of the engine room door. They all wanted out. They could see the stairs leading to survival.