Not With a Whimper

by Peter A W Kelt

  “We can’t do that.” Félix scratched his jaw with the muzzle of the Python. I hoped the safety was on. He had a sharp little frown on his face. “They will tell the police who we are. They would like to know about my organisation.”

  That was true. “Do what you like but no killing.”

  “I do not understand.” Juan looked angry. “Why do we do all this to let them go free?”

  “You can explain, Félix.” I tucked the Luger away. ‘I’ll get the van round. Tie them up with something. We’d better get moving in case one of the neighbours has a phone.”

  I used the front door and stopped. Lights were on in several houses and there were some people in a group across the street. They stiffened anxiously as I approached. “There has been an accident,” I said. “A gas cylinder has exploded.”

  They muttered and clucked in sympathy, looking relieved. They didn’t have an incident to deal with. I explained that a man had been badly cut by flying glass and we were going to take him to the hospital in the van. They all agreed how dangerous gas cylinders could be and a man in a red dressing gown and blue carpet slippers said he was glad after all he had not called the police because he would have seemed so foolish. He stopped talking when a willowy merchant with a neat moustache slipped his arm through his. They began to drift back to their houses and I crossed back, down the side of the house to the garage.

  It had an up-and-over door in good condition and it slid up easily. The van was a dusty green half tonne Barreiros four-litre. Reverse played its usual game of hide and seek. I began to sweat as I trundled the gear lever erratically from slot to slot. My shoulder muscles ached. Finally it clunked home as though that were the only possible place it could go and I rode the van out, over-revving and slipping the clutch to make sure it didn’t stall. I put the left-hand lock on too soon and scraped the garden wall as I turned onto the road.

  First was easy to find and I parked it with the rear doors level with the garden gate. I got out and opened the doors. I was about a yard from the kerb. I never could park. The night air chilled the sweat on my back.

  The Germans were lined up. They had their hands tied behind their backs with window cord.

  I told them that I had calmed the neighbours down and that we were taking one of them to hospital.

  Juan scowled. He had a different idea. “We should be taking them to the mortuary.”

  “Who is driving?”

  Mac said he was so I gave him the keys and told him it was a cow to drive.

  “No sweat, boss. There ain’t a set of wheels I can’t drive.”

  “Get away fast. They may still be watching. They may still phone the police. And don’t forget to send Pablo down,” I added.

  “You really need to go?” Félix pointed the Colt at the door and they began to file out.

  “We can’t take the chance. He might be mad enough to try it on his own. We don’t know what he’s capable of.”

  I sat down at the table and got out the map of the bay along with the note of the co-ordinates. Pablo couldn’t read latitude or longitude but show him the spot on the map and he could find his way there drunk or sober, in fog or gale. So Félix said.

  Pablo came in and he looked like a man who wished he wasn’t sober. His eyes worried and fretted at the room as though he expected one of the chairs to get up and bite him. “Everything is alright?” He shivered and folded his arms across his chest.

  “Excellent,” I said confidently.

  He scratched the bridge of his nose with a dirty fingernail then bit his thumb.

  I had an idea. “You need a drink.” I showed him the map. “You look at this. I shall see if I can find something.”

  Pablo swallowed and nodded. His adam’s apple jerked like a trout snapping at a fly.

  I found a bottle of Fundador in the kitchen and I treated myself to one before taking it through to Pablo which was just as well. He went to work on it as though he had just walked across Death Valley. Finally he had had enough. It had done him good.

  “It is easy enough.” He had a nice little flush on his cheeks and he corked the bottle cheerfully. “We shall have no problems.” His confidence didn’t last long. “But what is going to happen when we get there?” He held the bottle across his chest in a claw of a hand.

  “That, Pablo, is what we shall find out.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The boat didn’t make Pablo any happier. It was a Pirelli inflatable with a Mercury 50 hp outboard.

  “It’ll get us there.”

  “Madre de dios, will it get us back?”

  We settled into it and Pablo poked the sides and frowned. The Mercury fired first time, a nice steady purr, well tuned. I took it through its sea trials, a couple of gentle figures of eight and then flat out on a straight run. I cut the engine. “Alright?”

  He lit a cigarette behind cupped hands. “Whoever heard of a boat made of rubber?”

  “They sailed up the Amazon in one.”

  “A river,” he sneered. He looked through 180 degrees. “That way.” He pointed slightly starboard.

  We took off again. Twice Pablo corrected our course and then finally held up his hand and I eased off the throttle. He stood up, feet apart and looked round.

  “This is the place.” He hadn’t once looked at the map since we had been in the Pirelli.

  There was nothing to do now but wait and hope that Pablo was as good a navigator as Félix had said. We waited. I looked at my watch. It was half an hour to wait. I told him that. He cocked his head either side, testing the air, then said, “We shall not drift.”

  We waited in silence, just the tiny lapping of water against the rubber.

  “Sh!” Pablo held up his hand. He pointed his jaw at his shoulder, eyes stilled, listening intently. I listened but could hear nothing. He turned to look over his shoulder and pointed. I looked but could see nothing.

  I raised my eyebrows at Pablo who said, “It is here.”

  I looked again.

  Then I saw it, suddenly visible, the sail and diving planes completely above water, the deck just breaking the surface. It came towards us, not only getting bigger as it came but rising upwards out of the water which broke away as white foam from its sides. Black, smooth, silent. Pablo whimpered.

  I touched the engine into life and took the Pirelli up close. Pablo was muttering another clutch of saints’ names.

  There were steel grips and steps almost flush to the side. I cut the engine, caught the grip with my right hand and swung myself out of the Pirelli. The metal was cold and wet. My foot slipped. The toe depth was no more than an inch. It was a, long, cold climb. As I reached the top a voice said, “Was ist los?” I knew the voice. It had to be. It stood out like billboard now. Someone had to have told them I was at the crossroads. And the invitation to Don Carlos’s. Hoggart. “See the commander, that will do it.” The commander who had lived next door to Lynd, Francis Lynd who had recognised Katz visiting him.

  I stepped onto the deck and Gil Byrd backed away, his face blurred and white, the eyes just dark holes. I was soaked down the front.

  “Why are you here?” A harsh, low whisper.

  “To make sure you don’t try it on your own. It only takes one –”

  “What happened? Where are they?” He seemed to be melting into his uniform.

  “In the bodega. It makes a fair prison.”

  We faced each other. He took off his cap, brushed his hair back, then settled the cap back on, sucked in his cheeks and blew out through round lips. Then he moved his shoulders back and generally tried to put back into shape the figure of a naval officer.

  He patted his jacket here and there, fingered his tie, then said, “It takes more than one to activate the button, if that’s what you were going to say. You could have saved yourself the trouble.” A nerve twitched above his lip, pulling it back so that it made a crooked smile, showing the teeth in the corner of his mouth. Then his face smoothed over and he said, “God once destroyed the wor
ld to start again.” He said it quite calmly.

  “You think you’re God?”

  “Of course not, Christian.” He raked me with a glare. “I was merely drawing an analogy. Though I do think this world has reached such a state of chaos and immorality that it has to be brought to a sense of what is decent and right.”

  I didn’t answer that. You can never answer that. “Get your second-in-command up here.”

  He stuck his hands in his jacket pockets and teetered on his heels. He shook his head. “We shall continue on our sixty-day mission as ordered. He smiled ruefully. It didn’t seem to bother him more than a broken shoelace now. “Just as ordered. It is disappointing but I promise that it will be a purely routine mission.”

  “Get your second-in-command up here.” I put a lot of authority in my voice and it didn’t impress him.

  “I am about to give the order to submerge. I advise you to get back in your boat and get the hell out of here. He turned towards the open hatch.

  I used a little more authority. The click of the safety catch on the Luger stopped him. He held himself, one hand on the hatch, then turned languidly. “You’re not going anywhere in command of this submarine.”

  He looked coolly at me. He looked coolly at the Luger. He didn’t move. Neither did I. The deck pulsed steadily under our feet. Little sounds came out of the open hatch. Feet and indistinct voices and tiny metallic sounds. A puff of wind flattened my shirtfront and it was cold. I didn’t shiver, just held the Luger and held it more steadily than I have ever held anything in my life. The cool distant expression on his face didn’t change. He leant over the hatch and called smoothly, “Get Lieutenant Commander Rawlinson up here on the double,” then leant back against the steel wall, arms folded and legs crossed. “That means we shall have to put you in irons, Christian.”

  “Uh-huh, we’ll see,” I grunted.

  There were footsteps on the ladder and a head came through the hatch. It had crew cut grey hair and close-cropped sideburns, a nose that looked as if it had stopped a few straight lefts in its time, and thick grey eyebrows. The eyebrows lay in a straight ridge over the eyes that went moon-shaped in surprise and his jaw dropped.

  “It’s alright, Jesse, come on up.”

  Rawlinson heaved himself onto the deck and he took some heaving, about sixteen stone and most of it waist high. “What’s happening?” he wheezed.

  “What does it look like?”

  Rawlinson edged sideways so that I was halfway between them. He had small feet and hands attached to thin wrists and looked as if he might be a smart mover despite his weight.

  “Tell him not to do anything stupid, Gil.” I used his first name deliberately and it made Rawlinson look thoughtful which was what I wanted. “I want this submarine to head back to base. How many missions have you been on?”

  He looked at Byrd who said, “I don’t think it’s classified in the circumstances, Jesse.”

  “Nine.”

  “And how many times have you surfaced so soon after leaving base?”

  “This is the first.” He frowned at Byrd, an inch-deep V between his eyebrows. Byrd unravelled his arms and punched his weight off the conning tower wall. He wasn’t quite so relaxed. Rawlinson saw it.

  “What reason did Gil give for surfacing?”

  “The commander gave no reason.” He transferred the frown to me and it was the frown of a man who was doing some thinking and wasn’t sure what he was thinking about.

  “Would you care to give a reason, Gil?” I said sweetly.

  “I’m not arguing with you,” he bleated. He mashed a cheekbone with his fingertips. A nerve hammered in the eyelid.

  “You were nearly part of history.” I was watching Byrd but I was talking to Rawlinson. “With his help they were going to hijack the Seagull. Gil had a rendezvous with seven Nazis. They were going to launch a rocket attack on Russia.”

  “I told you he was crazy,” Byrd screeched. His hands tried to chew the hatch.

  “You’re nuts,” Rawlinson said but he said it quietly and didn’t look one hundred per cent convinced.

  I used my left hand to wedge out the plans from the bodega and fed them to Rawlinson. “Look them over, Commander. They’re in German but you can recognise the lines of latitude and longitude and so on – La Gaviota is the Spanish for seagull. Target names and bearings, it’s all there.” Rawlinson riffled the papers and his breathing was quiet. Only his hands moved. “I’m keeping Gil here. I want you to radio base and get hold of the admiral. Have another officer with you to witness it. Tell him the full story.”

  Byrd shrugged himself into a properly commanding posture and snapped, “That’s alright, Jesse, we’ll return to base.” He held out his hand for the papers. The nerve still hammered. The cheek was red from where he had been at work on it.

  Rawlinson folded the papers and tapped his chin with them. “I think I’d better radio base, Commander.” He unbuttoned his breast pocket and looked at me.

  “That’s alright. You keep them. Byrd stays with me.”

  The papers disappeared into his pocket and he buttoned it with care, patted it and started squeezing himself back down the hatch.

  “I’ll remember this, Jesse. It’ll be on your sheet. The admiral won’t forget.” The words bounced off Rawlinson’s head and they floated emptily into nothing. Then Byrd was quiet. He walked the steps from hatch to wall several times, took off his cap, worked his fingers through his hair, screwed the knot of his tie tight against his throat, jerked his jaw and made chewing motions. He got himself under control then. Tidied himself up. Commander Byrd, officer and gentleman. He faced me. If he had had a sword he would have handed it to me hilt first. He held his hands hip-high in front of him, palms up. “There will be others,” he said calmly.

  Footsteps bounced off the conning tower steps, two sets, one behind the other and the hatch fed out two young officers. They stood smartly to the side. They looked with curiosity at me but they watched Byrd. Rawlinson screwed himself out of the hatch, tugged his uniform into the best shape he could over his frame and faced Byrd. “Commander,” he said formally, “acting on the orders of Admiral Silverdale Hawthorne at zero two-thirty hours, Saturday 25th March, I am to relieve you of your command.”

  Byrd might have nodded. The two young officers stood respectfully then followed him down.

  Rawlinson rubbed his jowl along his collar edge and looked worried. He shivered. “The admiral says you are to come along, too.”

  That figured. I shook my head. “I’ve some unfinished business.”

  “Orders.”

  I told him what to do with the orders. He flushed and shook his cheeks at me.

  “You can’t just –” He stopped. “This is crazy.”

  “Ask Byrd who is crazy.”

  “Unfinished business?”

  “Gunter Katz.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “The ringmaster.”

  “Mm? Oh. Right.” He thought about it. “Uh-huh.” He thought about it some more. We looked at each other. “You’ll be in touch?”

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  “Right. Good luck then.” He gave me a firm naval man-to-man handshake and watched me climb down the ladder and into the Pirelli.

  Pablo had it tight against the side of the Seagull and I was breathing heavily when I slipped into it. I didn’t know why.

  “You have talked to the captain?” It was a mumble. I nodded. My heart thumped. “It is all over?”

  “Yes,” I said. “For you. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  There was only one thing I wanted now and that was sleep. I kept one foot going in front of the other and six months later I was climbing the stairs to the flat. Climbing? I climbed the stairs like a month-old foal, legs shaking and heart throbbing.

  Carol slept in a chair, jaw on her shoulder, mouth open, hair hiding the rest of her face and snoring gently.

  I tiptoed past her and into the bedroom and lay down on
the bed. It had a hard, thin mattress and creaking springs but it was a bed. It had a pillow, thin too and lumpy but it was a pillow. I shuffled my head into a comfortable position and the bed creaked again.

  The dawn light washed across the room. There was a tinted postcard of a saint on the wall opposite me with dead lilies on a shelf. The plaster under the shelf was cracked wide enough to expose the brickwork.

  Somebody’s feet hurt. The soles were hot and rubbed and two of the toes cracked with pain but that was all a long way away from me.

  Carol drifted in barefoot but I didn’t hear her until she was standing over me. Eyes wide and round. Face pale. Hair shaggy. Silent.

  She folded herself onto the bed and turned towards me. I put my arm round her and she laid her head on me. She felt warm and soft and she spoke into my chest. “I was so worried about you.”

  “It took longer than I thought.” A lot longer. A space trip longer. Time to tear down pyramids and build a city.

  “Did father fix everything for you?”

  Did father fix everything for me? Dear old father. Commander Gil Byrd, neo-Nazi and US navy. I said the only thing I could. “He did his best.”

  She lifted her head and looked at me. “Mm?”

  “It’s alright,” I said. “It’s all over now.” The feet were still hurting. I could do without those feet. They didn’t belong to me. If I were any sort of man I would sit up and take my shoes off, then the feet might go away. I didn’t move. Iron man Christian.

  “It’s all over –” she repeated, “– but, not us.”

  Us? “Us?”

  “I think I love you.” She looked up at me and then quickly tucked her head back onto my chest. “I do.”

  Then I slept. I slept soundlessly, dreamlessly and when I woke I was alone. I looked at my watch. It had stopped. I got up. I was stiff but otherwise in reasonable working order. They were my feet after all but the toes didn’t hurt more than a slight toothache. That I could live with.

  I stretched my shoulders and swung my arms over my head, clasped my fingers and stretched as hard as I could. I was doing it for the third time when Carol came in.