The Abduction of Smith and Smith

by Rashad Harrison

“As I said, I am sorry for this situation, but any navy man worth his salt would have known that you were near Tikopia. You should have gone there. You’re some miles off course, but I’m sure you can make it. You all seem the resilient type. Our rations are allocated precisely for the demands of our trip. We have none to spare. Seek out the island I’ve told you about. You should have gone there. Despite your situation, I cannot reward stupidity.”

  “Captain Barrett, I implore you. Have you no heart?” Quincy’s teeth showed like fangs.

  Barrett’s eyes held Quincy’s. “Are we through with this masquerade?”

  “Aye, Captain. We are. Forgive us for deceiving you, but the sea, she’s humbled us, made us desperate. We wanted to be polite. We didn’t want to come on your ship slashing throats and spilling blood. We wanted you to feel comfortable. Forgive us, Captain Barrett, we are sensitive souls. But our agenda has not changed. We will still be needing everything you got.”

  “I sympathize with your dilemma, I truly do, but had you come aboard as yourselves, we would have embraced you. We are all rogues here. With the exception of one or two, none of us has aristocratic ­pretentions.”

  “Well, that is good to hear, Captain. You rarely meet such an accommodating man at the helm.”

  “You misunderstand me, sir. That was then; this is now. Now I am offended. Once I have been offended it is very difficult to get back into my good graces. We lost a bag of grain to a rat that broke through the sack. The rat is not inside—he ate his fill and ran off—but his shit remains throughout. You and your men are welcome to it.”

  Quincy sighed. “I’ll have that cigar now.”

  “By all means.”

  He lit his cigar with the lamp flame. Matthews stood and reached for the tea that he’d offered.

  “Shall I put on a kettle for your tea as well?” Barrett asked.

  Matthews held the sack. “It is not tea. It is gunpowder. I’ll blow up the lot of you if you don’t give us what we ask.”

  “Men, I understand your desperate situation, but you’ll take this ship down, all of us, if you ignite that. You won’t be just killing us, you’ll be killing yourselves too. We all will die.”

  Quincy said nothing. His clawlike hand reached into his jacket; out came his pistol. He pointed it at Barrett. “Sir, I have asked you nicely. I shan’t ask again. Now I am telling you. All of your rations are ours. In fact this ship is ours.”

  Barrett laughed.

  Quincy aimed his pistol at one of Barrett’s men and shot him. Quincy’s skeleton crew drew their arms as well. “Now here’s the situation. This ship is ours. You can have the naval vessel or you can have the sea. Take your pick.”

  Barrett held up his hands. “I understand. Just don’t hurt my men,” he said while inching closer.

  “Don’t come any closer, Barrett.” Quincy stood up. As he did so, Barrett rushed over to him and stepped on the bottom of his dragging coat. Quincy fired his pistol, but it only grazed Barrett’s shoulder. Barrett grabbed Quincy by the throat, squeezed, then took the gun from him.

  Quincy’s men tried to fire their weapons, but Barrett’s men were already upon them. Barrett lifted the pistol and pulled the trigger under Quincy’s jaw—which removed it entirely. Matthews threw down his gun and surrendered. “They weren’t loaded! They weren’t loaded!” he said, but it was a ruse. He put the sack of gunpowder in the kerosene lamp and threw it at Archer. Archer leapt out of the way before the lamp exploded on the wall behind him.

  The blast sent everyone reeling. The quarterdeck was now aflame.

  Jupiter rushed Quincy’s man, pinned him, then twisted his neck until he heard it snap. Quincy was dead, but the flames raged on. The fighting took so long it spread to the entire ship. There was no saving her. Jupiter saw Archer on the floor, still dazed. He grabbed him by the arms and dragged him through the fire.

  “Head to the skiff and retreat to the British vessel,” Barrett told Jupiter.

  They grabbed what they could. Some men were caught in the flames. It did not take long for the Intono to light up the night sky and dark waters like a Roman candle. Jupiter, Barrett, and Archer all retreated to the skiff. There were bodies in the water. The blast had made a few of them islands of fire. They passed one, and a charred hand reached from the water and grabbed the boat. A scorched head surfaced. “Barrett . . .” it said. “Barrett . . .” Barrett leaned over the edge and held the scorched head under the water until it let go of the boat. Jupiter and Archer looked on in shock. “No sense in letting him suffer,” said Barrett.

  39

  Somewhere in the Atlantic

  “Ladies and gentlemen, gather ’round,” Sebastian called out to the other passengers. “You will now witness the amazing illusions of Sebastian the Magnificent and Jacob the Great.”

  The crowd that had gathered clapped lazily.

  Sebastian thought that it would be a good idea to increase the morale after the storm’s threat. Possibly, if pleased with his abilities, they would provide some word-of-mouth once they reached shore. “You will now witness the astonishing illusion, ‘Boy on the Mast.’ ” Sebastian waved his hands with flair and covered Jacob with a blanket. The audience could see him twitching underneath it.

  Sonya ran her fingers across her neck. After some moments, Sebastian snatched back the tarp, and there was nothing there. Sonya gasped. “Jacob? Jacob? My son!” She spun around the deck, then stopped on Sebastian. Who was this man? She knew nothing about him. Had she been foolish enough to let him use her boy in his dark experiments? The other passengers picked up on her fear. “Jacob,” they called out. “Don’t worry—we’ll find him.”

  “Everyone, there is no need to worry,” said Sebastian. “Jacob is still with us.”

  “What have you done with my son?”

  “He is with us, but above us. Behold.”

  From the top mast, Jacob waved. “Here I am.”

  The other passengers gasped—then clapped.

  “Get him down from there.” She grabbed Sebastian’s collar. “Now.”

  “He’s fine, be assured.” Sebastian grabbed her wrists, looked into her eyes. “He’s fine. I promise you. I’d never do anything to hurt him, or to you.”

  Jacob shimmied down the rope with the agility of an acrobat. “Did you like the trick, Mamma?”

  Sebastian let go of her wrists. She grabbed Jacob. “Yes, you are truly great.”

  40

  San Francisco

  The day was cold and clear, and the Cressida Pacific loomed proudly over the harbor, ready to embark on her maiden voyage. Dalmore could taste the salt in the air. Through flash and smoke, a photographer from the newspaper immortalized her image. Upon the dais, Dalmore posed with the mayor and governor. The crowd applauded when he was introduced.

  “When we aim to describe a man or define him, we often do so by the use of one word—he was not this, he was that. This is unfair to the man being described. I am many things, not just one thing. For instance, I am a fighter and a dreamer, but most important, I am a builder. I speak not just of ships and railroads. As this world continues to expand at breakneck speed, it is important that we remain connected to one another. I am a builder of connections. I contract the vast spaces of time and distance. I close the gaps that separate us.

  “And how does all of this start? Ships are built. Track is laid. Empires rise. Wealth is created, men are enslaved, and it seems to us to come out of nowhere, like the product of some dark alchemy. However, it is no sorcerer’s trick, it is a spell we cast on ourselves (and then we cast on others). All of this happens because some man somewhere was told No! and he refused to listen. He was denied something, and with every fiber of his being he refused to listen, and he sought it out, and he obtained what he sought. But there were others watching—there are always others watching—and they took that as a lesson on how to achieve their own desires and t
heir own aims. That is how it continues. As long as there are people who want something that they can’t immediately possess, the size of the want grows, the scope widens, swells, and becomes exaggerated. It becomes a grotesque caricature of the original desire, a monstrosity enlarged and swollen. But then their monster becomes normal. A little boy who dreams of crossing oceans, making tiny boats out of paper, his circumstances, his environment tell him No!. Then years pass, and before anyone has realized it that paper boat has become a behemoth with vast sails, or a dragon spewing coal smoke and steam, and requires a hundred men working in its belly to feed its fire—to fuel it. That is how it happens. It never ends. It never will.

  “Despite all of that, I knew I had amazing gifts to offer this world, but I needed a country big and brash enough to handle someone like me. It is strange how I am more British in America than I was as an orphan on the streets of London. . . . I was such a sad, desperate boy then—but dedicated to survival. . . . The things I did for food and shelter . . . picked pockets, robbed a grave or two, I even let those perverted aristocrats fondle me for a few shillings—but I was never buggered, mind you. . . . I stowed away on a ship and was adopted by the captain and owner of the line. . . . He was a horrible man . . . beat me mercilessly. . . . I laughed when he died. . . . I took his name only to prove that I could do more with it than he ever did. . . . I don’t even remember my old name. . . . Did I have one? My mother was a whore . . . but here I am . . . I grabbed this country by the hair, spread her legs, and gave her a proper fucking . . .”

  A crash—

  Cymbals? There’s a band?

  A scream—

  Cheers? Laughter? Where is the crowd?

  The maid stood over a tray of broken china, her hand trembling over her mouth.

  “Mr. Dalmore?” she managed to whimper.

  He saw her and himself—naked and shriveled. There was no crowd, no harbor, just home. He collapsed clutching a sketchbook of lewd drawings, but it was the half-finished ship, bare and vulnerable, that was last on his mind.

  41

  They watched from the boat. Edged by darkness, a mountain of fire on the water, the burning Intono lit up the sky like a night-sun. Barrett stared into the blaze, never blinking. A roaring ocean, gasping flames, the screams of drowning men—invisible in the black water. Barrett’s lips trembled and mouthed words, but no sound came forth. He looked at Jupiter and Archer with a wicked smile. “Men, it is now . . . us. I sense apprehension; this is understandable, but know this—we are moving forward. The past is no more. You see, everything that you have learned of me . . . my actions had their purpose. That’s all in the past. The past,” Barrett pointed at the fire, “is on that ship. Soon it will be on the bottom of the ocean, forgotten.”

  Jupiter and Archer said nothing.

  “I am upset, men. I am truly upset. And not for the reason that you may think. Yes, I loved the Intono; I sailed her to every corner of the earth. I became a man on that ship. But it’s her cargo that concerns me. I have kept you in the dark long enough. I can admit now, with humility, that I need the two of you. I need your help. There were guns on my ship, meant to supply the Chinese armory, and now they are on the bottom of the ocean. My assignment was to circumvent the embargo that the English had placed on the Chinese after the Opium Wars. They don’t sell them modern-day weapons, mind you.”

  Jupiter and Archer backed away from Barrett as if he were a wild animal and they unsure of his next move.

  “I see,” said Barrett, “you men need more reason to trust. I understand, and I am willing to earn it. But know that I too need to feel as though I can trust you. For I am inviting you to participate in something bold and grand. While I know that the two of you are quite capable, I need to be certain of your dedication.”

  “Dedication to what?” asked Jupiter.

  “Ahh, the most important question, dedication to what? To fairness, to shaking the yoke from one’s own neck, and to presenting others with the opportunity to do the same.”

  “I don’t follow,” said Archer.

  “Nor should you,” said Barrett. “Lead. I am asking you to lead. You two—others just like you—shoot at each other while around the world cotton prices soar. The same with tobacco. Britain steps in to fill the void, and new kings are made throughout North Africa and the Indies. All because of cotton grown on plantations like the one on which you were bound. All the while, men like you and Archer die on the battlefield. The war ends and it’s back to business as usual. Cotton prices soar and a revolution breaks out. It’s all connected. There are no coincidences, only convergences. We are puppets. When our strings are pulled by the same master occasionally they cross. They told you it was your war, but it’s their war. All wars are their wars. They pin your race to your back, and they create myths to dull and distract you. Don’t believe them. I’ve been in those smoke-filled rooms where these things are planned. It is a bloody business. You lose your appetite when you see their fangs up close.

  “Haven’t you ever wondered why it’s always these poor, sad, and honest men who die in wars? And when the world shakes from the violence, in its aftermath it is always the same people who remain in power—who seem to become even more powerful.”

  “Like the rich,” said Archer.

  “The rich?” Barrett smiled. “I wish it were so simple. No, I am speaking of a very select few—wealth is part of it, but these men are more powerful, more cunning than a bunch of misers pinching every penny. These men are far more powerful than that. I have seen them in their smoke-filled rooms, turning ideas, thoughts, and whims into power and money with the flick of an ash. They turn one thing into another, they can turn blood into gold—they are alchemists of a different sort. I’ve seen it done. They have hired me to do their dirty work. There was a time when I thought myself privileged to be considered useful to them. But I was just one of their minions. Then I realized my own power. If they were alchemists, then what was I? A master of the waves who knows every corner of this earth like a carriage driver knows his way around London. I can slip through any blockade like a shadow. So if they are alchemists, sorcerers, then what are we? If powerful men need men like us, then isn’t it we who are truly powerful? Shouldn’t we remind those who think themselves weak just how powerful they truly are?”

  “And how do we do that?” asked Jupiter.

  “Haven’t you been listening?” said Barrett. “Guns, my dear boy. Guns.”

  • • •

  The smell was the first thing that they noticed. There were decomposed bodies . . . that looked as if something had feasted upon them.

  “These must have been the British officers,” Barrett said. “The first thing we must do is rid this ship of the dead.”

  They tossed the dead overboard. Looking at each other, Archer and Jupiter both had the same thought—though they did not express it—of tossing their fellow soldiers into shallow graves after a battle. This was no war, and even though these men were from another country, it was no less horrible.

  After scouring the ship, they found little food, but they did find a good set of maps. By candlelight, Barrett surveyed them, tracing his finger along the latitudinal, then longitudinal lines. He tapped his finger on a spot with no visible land, just ocean. “This is where we head.”

  “Help! Help!” they heard someone cry. It came from the ship’s belly. Jupiter grabbed the candle and they went down to investigate. It was dark. It was fetid. “Come out,” Barrett demanded.

  “I can’t,” the shadows pleaded. “I’ve been bound.”

  The candle failed to sufficiently cut the darkness, but a bound figure became visible. “Thank God,” it said. “The things they’ve done to me. . . . Please tell me they are all dead.”

  “Aye, they are,” said Barrett.

  “Who said that?”

  Barrett held the candle closer to his face. “I did.”

  T
here was silence, then a breathy rattle, then laughter. “Why, it is such sweet news to hear that they are dead, but even sweeter to hear it from your lips—Captain Barrett.”

  42

  Somewhere in the Atlantic

  Sonya and Sebastian were alone on deck.

  “You seem to have recovered from the thrills of the day,” said ­Sebastian.

  “I have.”

  “I apologize for giving you a fright.”

  Sonya nodded. “He’s taken quite a liking to it. I’ve never seen him this way.”

  “It’s the adventure. Boys need it—men do too. I guess it brings out the man in a boy, the boy in the man.”

  Sonya smiled.

  “That amuses you?”

  “I once heard someone say something similar.”

  He moved closer. “And what does adventure bring out in a woman?”

  Her lips parted. Her tongue tasted salty air.

  “You seem to be a woman who would know,” said Sebastian.

  “I have endured a lot, because I had to. I would not call them adventures. Survival. Necessities. Burdens.”

  “And never an ounce of enjoyment in all that time?”

  “I’m married, Sebastian.”

  “I know, Mrs. Smith. But if your husband isn’t there—God forbid it—or if something has happened to him . . . That land is known for giving the fever to even the acclimated—if something like that was to happen I’d be there for you and Jacob. I’d make sure that you didn’t mourn long. Mrs. Smith, I would see to it that that day would be your last day of sadness.”

  “Don’t. Don’t call me that or say those things.” She closed her eyes. The ocean howled like wind through a canyon. She thought of those days on the plantation. Jupiter leaving. Her mother sold off and later dying. Colonel Smith’s descent into madness, terrorizing the slaves that remained. She opened her eyes. Sebastian was smiling. “My last day of sadness,” she whispered. “How could anyone be foolish enough to promise such a thing?”