Show of Force

by Gar Wilson

  "Katz," McCarter said, breathing heavily from exertion. "What are you doing here? Let's get out of this bathtub. I don't have a rubber ducky. Come on."

  "Can't." Katz motioned toward the auditorium. "They're welded in."

  "Oh, no," McCarter said. "The poor bastards are all going to drown."

  "Not if I can help it."

  "What the hell can we do?" Manning asked. "Neither percussion nor fragment grenades would dent that steel."

  "Go find another welding setup, McCarter."

  "What?"

  "You heard me. Talk to the crew. Anybody who might know how to open this door."

  "That's crazy. What chance have I got to find…"

  "Not much, but we have got to try," Katz remarked as he looked McCarter in the eye.

  The Englishman subsided. "Okay, I'll look for something, but don't keep these other guys down here to drown for a hopeless cause."

  Katz slapped him on the shoulder and warned him as he left, "Keep your gun handy. I just killed one of Vulcan's men."

  "So I can see." McCarter stepped over the body and was gone.

  "Stand back," Katz told the others.

  They moved around the corner, and Katz fired three times at the weld. Although he had ducked aside, the bullets bounced harmlessly off the metal, and he nearly killed himself with a ricocheting bullet.

  The water reached his thighs, and the cries from inside grew louder.

  "It's no good," Encizo said. "I'll stay down here and drown with you if you want, Katz, but we have to have a torch. And McCarter hasn't a chance of finding one without knowing where to look."

  "You know who's in there? You know what this means?"

  "Yeah," James said. "It means Russia could get a reliable defense against nuclear weapons before we do. Eventually they could incinerate any country without fear of retaliation."

  Katz shouted again. "Their deaths mean the space program is dead. It means thousands, maybe millions will die because the free world no longer has the brains to design new medical technology."

  "Okay," Manning said. "I'll search the goddamned ship until I have to swim from one place to another. But we are not going to find an acetylene setup in time."

  "I'll go with you," James agreed.

  The two had reached the companionway leading up when Katz smiled. When he had understood Vulcan's plan, it was as though he had gained a way of knowing how the man's mind worked, as if he could read it.

  He could figure out exactly where the evil genius would hide the evidence.

  "I know where the welding gear is."

  Both men looked at him doubtfully. "Where?" Manning asked.

  "In my suite or one of yours."

  "Huh?"

  "You heard me. My suite. And Encizo, look up some diving gear."

  "Like what?"

  "Air tanks, breathing apparatus. We may be working underwater before this is over."

  Alone, Yakov Katzenelenbogen sat down on the step halfway up.

  He was tired and had to get his second wind while he had a chance. He felt sure Manning and James would be back in time to free the computer scientists. The water rose more slowly since it had more space to engulf.

  Above him he could hear the panic lessening. Most people were outside, he guessed, in the lifeboats, on the deck, or leaping over the side with or without life jackets. There was no immediate necessity to abandon ship, but he felt positive that Vulcan had brought as many people as he had in order to instigate the panic needed for cover.

  Reaching for a cigarette, he found his packet soaked, and it fell apart in his hands.

  Maybe Vulcan's soldier had a pack. Katz checked the body of the man he had shot. He found a dry pack of Viceroy's and a book of matches.

  He sat down again and held the barrel of his gun under his left arm and lit up.

  He started to turn when he heard footsteps, but he saw the gun too late to duck for cover.

  Arnold Vulcan and Ann Cardwell were on the steps behind him. Katz did not look at them once he knew their position. And he could see them in a four-inch square of a brass wall decoration ahead of him.

  "So you escaped," Vulcan said. "I am sorry your freedom will be so short-lived."

  "Wait," Katz pleaded. "Let a man finish his last cigarette, at least." He exhaled and held the cigarette with his lips. He had also made an almost imperceptible move across his body with his artificial hand without the movement being noticed.

  "How much will you bet that you've overlooked one little thing, Reverend Vulcan?" he shot the question at the KGB man.

  "No stalling. Take your last puff."

  "What did he overlook?" Ann Cardwell asked.

  Katz let the cigarette drop from his lips.

  "The gun muzzle barely poking out of my armpit," Katz said dryly as he pulled the trigger.

  The powder flame burned his skin.

  The gun recoiled, and he barely managed to keep his grip.

  The slug drilled into Vulcan's stomach. He fired reflexively, the bullet burying itself into the acoustic tile in the ceiling. He dropped the weapon, needing both hands to catch the blood and innards pouring from his middle. His only expression was surprise.

  He rolled down the steps and bumped against his killer.

  Katz stepped aside and had already covered the Cardwell woman. She called out to him, "No. Don't shoot."

  She dropped a gun she had taken from her purse.

  "I want to defect!" she cried.

  "Kick both guns down here and sit down," Katz ordered her.

  "But the water is rising."

  "Sit. You get out of this alive only if we save every one of the computer people."

  Then all of the team except Encizo were back, Manning and James bringing the big torch, masks, and the large double cylinders.

  McCarter was back, too, carrying a household-size welder kit. "Well," he grumbled. "It's all I could find."

  Manning, standing in water up to his middle, released acetylene from one cylinder, then let the oxygen flow out to make the mixture he needed. With a flint he turned the combined flow into a spear of flame.

  He waded into the water and started cutting as high as he could reach. The water kept rising. When he had a slot cut across the top, he was standing on his tiptoes.

  He started on one of the two vertical cuts he needed.

  McCarter insisted on using his small torch to cut fractions of an inch per minute from the left-hand side of the door.

  Knowing his torch flame would continue cutting underwater, Manning held his breath and ducked beneath the surface. He could cut an inch or less before he had to pop up again. Calvin James moved in beside him and they tried taking turns, but they were losing the battle.

  In desperation James surfaced and spoke to Katz who was now in the water, too, while watching Ann Caldwell who showed no interest in escaping.

  "Face it," Calvin said. "We might manage to make a smaller hole than we want. We'd save everybody but a few fatties. And we'd save ourselves, too.*

  From inside came the anguished cries of the trapped people.

  "Oh, hell," James said as he went back underwater. He could not bring himself to quit, but when he came up again he yelled. "Where's that scuba gear?"

  "Somebody call my name?" Encizo cried out, running up and carrying two Aqua-lung kits. "Courtesy of the sport shop, guys."

  "Toss them," Katz yelled. "Seconds count."

  A moment later James and Manning donned the equipment and ducked below the surface. They didn't surface again until Katz could hear the bending of metal and the screams of hope. The entire team were in for the final push.

  They broke through together.

  Moments later a motley contingent of computer experts — conservative business types, others who looked like part of the rock music scene — took turns to climb through the hole in the steel door and run up the companionway.

  They distributed thanks to everybody they saw, including Ann Caldwell.

  They were st
ill exiting the auditorium when Katz called his men together. "Time to get off this thing," he said, "before we end up getting asked a million questions."

  The other team members followed, with Ann Cardwell tagging after them.

  Katz tried not to look at the disaster panic had caused. Inevitably there were casualties. Some lived, immobilized by broken bones. A few heroes remained behind.

  Katz quickly gave quiet but firm directions to some people who could organize what still remained of the evacuation, then made that hard decision. He could stay to the last minute, heroically save someone, and get his picture on TV.

  But now he could rely on others to do that because publicity could be as lethal as bullets to Phoenix Force.

  Ironically, although there were people floating about in their life jackets, many lifeboats remained on their racks.

  "We'll take that one," Katz said. He pointed to a partially covered craft with an inboard engine. Climbing aboard, he checked it out. There were provisions for days, maybe weeks, and it was supplied with navigational equipment.

  They would find an island and land during the day. They had the skill and experience to blend with the other tourists and make their way back to the States with Hal Brognola's help.

  With the hull in the water, the teammates slid down the rope.

  In the confusion all around them, Calvin James had to get Katz's attention. Ann Cardwell was still on the slanting deck.

  "You're not leaving me. I told you I'd defect. I can name a hundred agents. Please."

  He unlatched the last cable and motioned for James to start the motor.

  "This boat's filled," he yelled to her. "Sorry, lady."

  Only Calvin James was surprised.

  "You're not leaving her?" he said. "She wants to defect. You can't let her die."

  "She'll survive. She'll find a hero," Katz said. "Her kind always does. And she'll defect. What else can she do?"

  "But…"

  "Take a course of one, eight, zero," David McCarter said. "Go north or south in these waters, and you'll hit land soon enough."

  For minutes the men rode silently until they were well clear of the people and debris in the water.

  They saw two freighters already heading toward the Odyssey.

  "We ought to stay out of sight for a while," Encizo said. "Some remote island. After all, I think we really earned a cushy vacation, haven't we?"