Pirate: A Thriller

by Ted Bell

  Ambrose hadn’t even dared look at the clock when he’d switched out the light and climbed into bed. He didn’t want to know. He supposed he’d had two or three hours of sleep. In that time, he’d had a remarkable dream. The lovely Diana Mars had the starring role.

  She was in some kind of danger. His cousin Bulling was slinking about, stalking her. No, no, it was that butler, Oakshott. He shook his head. Couldn’t remember anything more. He hoped Sutherland was keeping a watchful eye on her in his absence. He worried about her. No, he missed her.

  Now, feeling as if he were moving underwater, he padded across the room to one of the corner windows. His slippers made slapping noises on his heels. A watery grey light was leaking through a crack in the draperies. Pulling the heavy chintz aside, he looked out at the city below. The skies were indeed grey, though the storms of the previous evening had abated, leaving only a soft rain to swirl against the window.

  His mission was satisfactorily concluded. He’d call Kelly and Hawke and give them the details. Then he’d book himself on the evening BA flight to Heathrow. That left him with a free day in New York to spend any way he wished. Perhaps he’d stroll over to the Met. There was an exhibit of the drawings of Peter Paul Rubens he was keen on seeing and that would be a lovely way to spend—

  The telephone jangled. He crossed the room and picked it up.

  “Hullo?”

  “Is that you, Ambrose?”

  “Diana?”

  “Yes.”

  “You sound like you’re just next door.”

  “I am, almost. I’m at the Colony Club on Park Avenue.”

  “You’re in New York?”

  “Arrived late last night.”

  “Good heavens. You’re here. Are you quite all right?”

  “Of course I’m all right. It’s just that—”

  “Just that what, Diana?”

  “Detective Sutherland thought it a good idea for me to go on holiday. To get away from England for a time.”

  “Why? Did something happen?”

  “Well, it was nothing really. Someone got into the house. The night before last. About three in the morning. I heard a noise and called the number you and the detectives gave me.”

  “Yes? Go on, go on.”

  “Well, there are police on the property, as you know. They came at a run. But someone was right at my bedroom door. It was locked obviously, but the—the knob was turning and—”

  “Good lord.”

  “Yes. One hopes. At any rate, I got my trusty shooting iron from under the bed and went to the door. I gave fair warning. I said, ‘I’ve been waiting all my life to do this,’ and opened fire. It was quite marvelous.”

  “Did you hit anything?”

  “Well, the door, certainly.”

  “I mean—did you shoot anyone?”

  “No, unfortunately. He, or she, was gone by the time the coppers got there. No blood on the carpet, so I suppose I missed. I was disappointed, frankly. The nerve of someone to—”

  “Thank God you’re safe.”

  “Safe as houses, I suppose. What are you doing today?”

  “Me? Well, I’ve a few phone calls to make. My trip’s been a great success. I can’t wait to tell you about it. And then—well, I was thinking of popping over to the Met. Been ages since I’ve had a good look round. There’s a good Rubens show on if you’d like to join me?”

  “Oh. I can’t, I’m afraid.”

  “Ah, well. Perhaps another—”

  “Ambrose, the reason I called is this. I’ve been invited out to the Hamptons for a few days. My dear friends the Barkers. Jock and Susan. They’re from Cleveland. He was America’s ambassador to Canada during the Reagan years. I told Su-Su I was coming to New York and—”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I was wondering if you might not like to come along?”

  “Come along.”

  “Yes. They’ve a lovely old place on Gin Lane. Right on the ocean. I’m sure they’d be delighted if you came. Men of your brilliant attractions are rather at a premium at house parties in Southampton. I promise you shan’t have to play croquet or swim or do anything that might bring on physical prostration.”

  “I don’t object to physical exertion. I play golf. I just don’t swim well.”

  “Well. They’ve got oodles of room.”

  “Oodles.”

  “Please say yes. Jock has sent his car for me. I could have the driver stop at the Carlyle and pick you up.”

  “What time?”

  “Oh. Shall we say eleven?”

  “It sounds wonderful.”

  “See you then. What fun!”

  “Oh, Diana, before you go—thank you very much indeed for the lovely flowers. I’m looking at them now.”

  “Well, I thought they’d be cheery.”

  “They certainly are. Well. Good-bye.”

  “Bye.”

  Ambrose hung up and sat down for a moment on the edge of the bed, a rather large smile on his face. The whisky clouds had lifted, the gin mists had cleared, and the old brain was ticking over quite nicely, thank you. Life was good again. He kicked off his slippers, scrunched his toes into the soft carpet, and clicked his bare heels together. Time to get moving if he was going to be packed and checked out by eleven. What to wear?

  He stood and saw the small blue envelope on the floor, peeking out from beneath the dust ruffle. It was Diana’s card. He’d intended to read her note at the bar at “21” and then again just before dropping off to sleep. It must have slipped unread from his hand. Now, he bent down, picked it up, and read her words:

  My dearest Ambrose,

  I never, till now, had a friend who could give me repose; all have disturbed me, and, whether for pleasure or pain, it was still disturbance.

  But peace overflows from your heart into mine.

  Diana

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Berlin

  THE SMELL OF SMOKE. SOMEONE WAS IN THE HALL WITH him. Stoke froze, stopped breathing. Where? Somebody smoking cigarettes. Maybe ten, fifteen yards ahead. Stoke had the big leather satchel full of purloined documents in one hand and the Schmeisser machine pistol in the other. He raised the gun and listened. Just around the bend in the hallway, two men, guards most probably. He could hear them talking now, smell the smoke drifting back from their cigarettes. They must have just entered the hallway from one of the other elevator banks he’d passed on his way to Schatzi’s office.

  Clearly no hidden alarms had been sounded. The two Germans were laughing at something one of them had said. At least they were headed in the right direction, namely, away from him. He put the satchel down carefully and walked rapidly toward them on the balls of his feet, making no sound at all. There were two of them, all right, miniature versions of the Arnolds, wearing black uniforms identical to the one Stokely wore. Machine guns slung on their backs.

  “Halt!” Stoke barked loudly when he was just ten feet behind them. “Nicht rauchen!”

  The two guards stopped dead in their tracks.

  “Nicht rauchen?” one of them said with a grin in his voice, apparently finding it funny. He started to turn around.

  “Yeah, you heard me,” Stoke said in English, jamming the muzzle of the Schmeisser between the guy’s shoulder blades. “No smoking. New rule.”

  While they were thinking about that, he slung the machine pistol on his back, reached out with both hands, and slammed the two guards together, head-first. There was a sickening thud and the two men dropped to the floor, arms and legs akimbo, out cold.

  “See what I’m saying?” Stoke said to the two unconscious guards at his feet. “Smoking is very bad for your ass.”

  He took their weapons, H&K MP 5 machine guns, and added them to the collection slung on his back. Then he went back and got the satchel. On the way, he saw the elevator he and Jet had used to come up from the Unterwelt. Clearly, Tempelhof was coming to life. It was time to get while the getting was good.

  He took the elevator to
the bottom level and passed quickly through the dismal rooms of the bunker. A minute or two later he was back in the tunnel. Left was the underground parking garage. Right had to be the trams. He turned right. The tunnel went from dark and dingy to bright and white up ahead. The tram station. He crept forward and took a peek.

  There was a three-car train in the station. The cars were open, round and shiny white, and seemed to hover about a foot above the tracks. The station itself was all white tile, shiny and new. Two guards, helmeted and wearing full body armor, stood on the platform talking. Behind them, two sets of escalator stairs rose through the ceiling. Just like the A train, only much cleaner and without all that old-fashioned gravity shit to worry about.

  “Morning, boys, how’s it hanging?” Stoke said, striding right up to the platform, the Schmeisser flat down at his side.

  “Was ist das?” the nearest one said, swinging around with his H&K coming up. When he saw Stoke’s SDI uniform, he hesitated a beat too long, just like Stoke figured he would.

  “Das ist the new guy,” Stoke said, and squeezed the trigger.

  He blew the guy off his feet with an accurate burst from the Schmeisser. The other guard must have said something very negative about Stoke into his headset because all of a sudden all the lights were flashing and alarms were sounding, including an electronic oogah horn that sounded like something from a U-boat during a crash dive.

  Yeah, and here comes the cavalry to the rescue. They’d reversed the up escalator so all stairs were coming down. Guards on both sides, plus a bunch sliding down the wide stainless-steel middle part on their butts, firing in his general direction like kindergarten kids gone crazy. What saved him was, he was up against the platform edge now, only his bobbing head and shoulders visible from above. And he was moving. He was ducking and sprinting toward the train, pausing and firing a quick burst every few feet.

  He’d strapped the satchel to his back. He had the Alpenkorps machine pistol in his right hand and an H&K in his left. He fired a second Schmeisser burst at the guard who’d sounded the alarm, putting him on the ground in a puddle of bright blood. With his left hand, he got off a long staccato riff, spraying the guys just coming off the escalator. It seemed to diminish their sense of urgency. Then he heard a new and disturbing noise above all the shooting and the shouting and alarms: the piercing sound of howling, growling Dobermans. Crazy animals, unlike Schatzi’s storm troopers, who didn’t flinch in the face of a little unfriendly machine-gun fire.

  Shit.

  Rounds were ripping up the tile around his head. Sharp chunks of ceramic stung his face. The dogs were bounding down the escalators behind the guards, even knocking some to the floor in their mad dash to chew Stokely into tiny pieces. He ducked completely below the platform edge and hauled ass for the lead car of the little Buck Rogers train. He hoped Buck had left the keys in the ignition.

  Christ. Okay, that really hurt.

  One dog had raced ahead of his brethren and was nipping at Stoke’s heels. Got a piece of him, too. He stopped, pivoted, and swung the butt of the H&K at the salivating dog. He got lucky. A glancing blow to the head distracted the animal just long enough for him to haul himself up and into the lead car.

  “You bite my ass again, I’m going to use the other end of this gun, verstehen Sie, Fido?”

  He knew just enough German to know which was the “Go” button, a green one on the dash. He pushed it. There was an odd noise and a humming vibration as if a disc just beneath his feet was spooling up and spinning incredibly fast. Dogs were on either side of the car now, lunging and trying to get at him. He kicked out in both directions and sent two dogs flying back into the howling packs.

  He felt a slug of hot lead whistle past his ear.

  Distracted by the frenzied hounds, he’d let the storm troopers get too close. Rounds were sizzling over and around him. Ten or fifteen guys in black had leaped off the platform and were headed down the track toward him, filling the tunnel with lead. Funny thing was, bullets didn’t seem to have much of an effect on the shiny white train cars. They just ricocheted off! What the hell was this thing made of?

  The closest bad guy was maybe fifteen yards from the rear car. Stoke took him out with the Schmeisser and heard the most dreaded sound in close combat, the dry fire. Empty. He raised both of the H&Ks, firing at his pursuers, putting one boot up on the bench seat and leaning back against the instrument panel to brace himself. He must have hit reverse, because suddenly he was moving backward in the direction of his onrushing attackers!

  Damn! He twisted around and looked to see what he’d hit. A simple lever. He’d pushed it down farther. This might work! The train accelerated supernaturally fast. But there was no sensation of speed in the cab. No g-forces slamming him backward. Weird. He watched the SDI uniforms panic and scatter wildly. He hit a couple and that was enough. Those who didn’t take off back in the direction of the station flattened themselves against the walls or dove for either side of the track.

  Now he pulled the lever up a bit and the A train seamlessly reversed directions. He pushed the lever forward and the train accelerated into the tunnel, whizzing by the men still flattened to the walls. He firewalled the throttle and the thing just flew. Hyperdrive, like that scene in Star Wars. Oddly enough, he still felt no jolt of speed.

  Only explanation he could think of: If the machine created its own gravity field, then the normal rules of gravity didn’t apply. Whoa.

  Goddamn Germans were onto something here, he thought, gliding on air, leaving all the howling hounds and shell-shocked storm troopers in his dust. Swoosh. Man who had the brains and the money to put these things under New York City could be looking at some seriously positive cash flow.

  He proceeded out in a great gentle loop, a white blur of station platforms to his right every few seconds, until he felt the tunnel begin to bend toward the left. Calculating speed and distance, and what he recalled of the above-ground geography, he figured he was getting to the far end of the field. That hangar where they’d stowed the helo had to be coming up. He slowed the train by backing down the lever a few notches. It instantly reached a speed where he could read the platform signs flashing by. Udet, Voss, Richtofen…Lowenhardt…and, here it comes…Steinhoffer. Oh, yeah. He slowed to a crawl and stopped.

  Home again, home again.

  The platforms out here were much smaller. Maybe ten feet long, max. Only one car could access the platform at a time. But well-lit, and the white tile was brand-new. No escalator, just a simple iron stairway leading up to a closed door. Stoke took his bulging satchel and stepped off. He’d felt something familiar on his cheek, up his nose. A stale wind. Sweeping up from the dark tunnel ahead. Definitely funky. The kind of air forced ahead of a moving train.

  He took one last look at his ride, the air-cushioned electra-glide Buck Rogers Special. Some damn train all right. Man. He took the stairs going up three at a time. A trainload of VDI troopers was on its way.

  “What up, Arnold?” he asked the duct-taped prisoner inside Steinhoffer’s tool room. He located a small saw blade and went to work on Arnold’s feet first.

  “Mmmpf.”

  “Yeah, well, it took a little longer than I thought it would. Had us a big ass-kicking conference down in the Underworld subway station. I won, you’ll be glad to know. How much fuel left in the helo?”

  “Mmmpf!”

  “That much, huh? Is that enough to get to Zurich, you think? Or not?”

  “Mmmpf-mmmpf!”

  “Chill your ass out, Arnold, be cool. What’s your problem? You got control issues? I’m dancing as fast as I can here. Damn, you neo-Nazis are some seriously bossy individuals.”

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Gulf of Oman

  AN HOUR BEFORE DAYBREAK, TWO DAYS AFTER HAWKE AND Brock had gone for their swim. The decks were varnished with rain. There were patches of fog appearing and disappearing on the gently rolling surface of the pearl-grey sea. The old supply vessel, Obaidallah, was anchored in fifty feet of
water just off a small village on the coast of Oman. To the northwest lay the old port city of Ghalat. To the east, slouching like a slumbering cat on the horizon, lay Masara Island. The good ship Obaidallah, loaded to the gunwales for this run, would make her weekly supply trip to Masara tonight.

  Stoke had arrived from Berlin two days earlier. He’d met up with Fitz McCoy and Charlie Rainwater at Muscat airport, along with their team of mercenaries just flown in from Martinique. The supplies that had been loaded for this particular run were all of the non-potable, nonedible variety. The stores now stacked in the hold were the exploding kind: satchel charges, limpet mines, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and nine-millimeter ammunition. The transfer of supplies from one boat to another was taking place in the dark and in secret.

  At midnight, the trawler Cacique slipped up along Obaidallah’s port side and offloaded the weapons, ammunition, and other sundry equipment Brock and Ahmed had been accumulating in Muscat during the past week. The most prized item: Bruce, a minisubmarine developed by the U.S. Navy for the SEALs.

  It resembled nothing so much as a huge squared-off torpedo with a wide shark’s smile painted on its nose. Now, the thirty-foot-long vessel remained on deck, covered with a heavy canvas tarp and lashed to the stern. This latest battery-powered vehicle was equipped with propulsion, navigation, communication, and auxiliary life support systems.

  It was capable of delivering a squad of fully equipped combat swimmers and their cargo in fully flooded compartments to a mission site, loitering, and then retiring from the area while remaining completely submerged.

  The Obaidallah, their new home at sea, had a brand-new captain and crew. The old team had been paid a month’s wages and sent home grinning like cats to their families. Ali al-Houri, captain of Cacique, had temporarily relieved the Obaidallah’s regular captain, a darkly handsome young man named Abu. He had agreed to stay on. He would serve as first mate for this run since he was well known to the French out on the island.