7

by Van R. Mayhall Jr.

  They all looked at Cloe, who said, “Let’s go.”

  “Anybody know anything about boats?” asked Mr. Leneau. “I need the dock lines tended so we can get out of here.”

  “Where’s our marine?” asked J.E.

  “She ducked into the restaurant to use the restroom,” said Cloe.

  “Restroom?” questioned the Israeli. “We were supposed to stay together.”

  Just then Dr. Richard appeared. “Here I am! What do you need?”

  “Can you handle the dock lines?” asked Leneau.

  “Are they controlled on the boat or the dock?” asked Jeanne, stepping up.

  “On the boat, of course,” said Mr. Leneau, smiling.

  With that, the diminutive marine grabbed a handhold on the side of the cabin and swung around to the narrow gunnel, “Fore or aft first, sir?” she asked.

  “Fore,” cried the older man. “With what little wind we have off the lake, the bow will swing out.”

  “Roger that, sir,” said Jeanne, running up the narrow walkway and crossing the foredeck. She quickly untied the bowline and secured it. Then she ran back and did the same with the stern line.

  The sleek cruiser drifted off the dock, and Mr. Leneau gunned both engines. With two solid clunks of the gears, the boat made immediate forward progress, and the trip, to wherever, began. The vessel fast-idled up the short channel and turned to the starboard to dog leg into the lake. To their right, the lights from the lakeshore shone weakly through a growing haze.

  Cloe stood next to Mr. Leneau on the pilot deck. At the outer marker to the West End harbor, he expertly swung the vessel almost due north and slowly pushed the throttles toward the stops.

  “Well, looks like we’re headed to the North Shore. You know, that’s my neck of the woods,” said Cloe over the rising roar of the engines. “Madisonville is my home.”

  Mr. Leneau looked at her and said, “What makes you think we’re headed for the Tchefuncte?”

  He’s right, she thought. Eight or ten rivers and bayous fed into the lake where a cabin or camp could be located with Zack and his cohorts. She had just assumed …

  The sleek old cruiser was on high plane and skimming the surface of the almost flat lake. With no moon, low clouds, and the gathering fog, it was as dark as a well digger’s elbow at midnight. They could have been on God’s own blessed scow, cleaving the River Styx on a holy mission.

  “How do you know where you’re going?” yelled Cloe in Mr. Leneau’s ear.

  “I have programmed our GPS, and the radar tells me what’s out there,” he replied.

  Cloe observed the reddish glow of the bank of marine night-vision tinted instruments and thought of her father’s stealth-lighted flashlight he had used all those decades ago during the assault on El Guettar. She took a deep breath and watched the radar sweep a 360-degree circle, painting hard objects. The main contact on the screen was a glowing line, maybe a mile away, stretching from south to north to the port side of the vessel.

  “What’s that?” asked Cloe.

  “That’s the causeway that you probably took to travel from Madisonville to New Orleans,” he replied.

  They were on the east side of the causeway, so they were probably not going to the Tchefuncte River but maybe Bayou Castine near Mandeville or even somewhere in Slidell on the east end of the Lake.

  Before she could ask, she heard Leneau say, “Uh-oh.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He pointed, his face grim. “See that dot on the radar?”

  She looked at the green screen, and sure enough, she could see a white dot just on the inside of the last ring on the radar. It was on the bottom of the screen, so she took that to mean it was behind them.

  “Yes. What is it?” she asked.

  “Well, there aren’t too many boats out tonight, but there’s one, and it’s coming on fast,” replied Leneau.

  “How can you tell that?” asked Cloe.

  “He’s watching the time it takes for the bogey to advance from one ring to another. The rings are a known distance apart, in this case two miles,” said Jeanne, who had joined them.

  “Right. He’s transiting the rings about twice as fast as we are. We’re at thirty knots, so our friend must be flying at something north of sixty knots,” said Leneau.

  “Wow!” said Jeanne. “That’s got to be a go-fast.”

  “A what?” asked Cloe.

  “A go-fast, as yachtsmen on the lake call them. A damn nuisance, I call them,” yelled Leneau over the engines, which he now pushed to the full throttle stops. “They’re capable of doing sixty to eighty miles an hour, and they sound like a freight train coming. With a flat lake, they’ll be on us in a little while—if we’re their target. We can’t outrun them.”

  ***

  The pilot of the sleek Fountain speedboat studied the instruments, turned to the Burnt Man, and shouted over the scream of the engines, “They can’t have gotten too far ahead of us. Our spy said they turned due north at the outer marker. We’ll catch them shortly at this speed.”

  “Good,” was all the Burnt Man replied as he scanned the lake ahead. The Fountain roared on; he took pleasure in its power and speed and the knowledge that every second drew him closer to his quarry, the honorable Dr. Cloe Lejeune.

  He turned and looked at his men, who were armed to the teeth.

  “Make ready!” he shouted.

  ***

  “I make their ETA in about fifteen minutes,” said Jeanne, watching the green dot on the radar grow in size and proximity. “Do you have any weapons?”

  “Yes!” Leneau replied loudly over the roar of the cruiser’s engine. “All I have are out on the forward bunk below.”

  Jeanne turned to the companionway and called for J.E. and Jacob, then dropped below decks. The other young soldiers followed her.

  The cruiser was now making thirty-two knots, according to the GPS.

  “That’s all the old girl has in her,” said Leneau. “We’re going to be overrun.”

  Cloe looked at the oncoming image on the radar and studied the area around their boat. She wondered how their adversary could possibly have known where they would be. The air was crystallizing with water droplets as she watched. This might be the beginning of one of those lake fogs like she had seen in her childhood.

  “Maybe,” she said, thinking she was starting to sound like the monsignor. “But the good Lord does provide.”

  Just then, J.E., Jeanne, and Jacob emerged from the cabin, carrying the meager arsenal that Leneau had aboard.

  “Well, we have a twelve-gauge pistol grip shotgun with a Ziploc bag of shells, a twenty-two long rifle and a forty-five automatic handgun, each with extra shells or clips,” said J.E. “Jacob and I each have our sidearms. We’re in good shape for close quarters or varmints.”

  “We got what we got,” cried Leneau. “I suggest you figure out their best use because the speedboat is almost on us. It’s out there to the starboard off the stern quarter. She’s as black as this night and running without any lights.”

  Cloe turned to the stern and stared off to the starboard. She could see nothing, but she began to hear something. The cruiser’s inboards were churning in a deep bass, but she heard a louder, higher, banshee-like cry as well. As the go-fast approached, the sound grew louder and higher in pitch. The beast was upon them.

  CHAPTER

  63

  “Sir, the old cabin cruiser is off our bow on the port side. She’s running with her lights still on,” declared the pilot.

  “Take us in parallel so we can bring our weapons to bear,” cried the Burnt Man. “We’ll blast that old boat from under them.”

  “Roger, sir!” responded the pilot, squeezing the throttles further toward the stops.

  The Fountain engines shrieked, and the boat leaped ahead and moved to the port toward t
he now visible, lighted cruiser.

  “Now, men, let her have it!” sounded the Burnt Man, his lipless smile broadening.

  ***

  Cloe saw isolated muzzle flashes from the speedboat, but nothing seemed to happen. Then, several more guns lit up from the go-fast, and rounds began to whiz overhead, splashing in the water around them. A few smashed into the old wooden cruiser.

  “Down!” cried Leneau.

  The three soldiers took cover behind the starboard gunnel and made to return fire.

  “Hold!” J. E. hollered. “The only thing we have that might reach them is the twenty-two, and it will do little or no damage. Better we let them think we’re unarmed. If they think that, they may close in and be within range of our weapons.”

  This was a dangerous game because the men on the speedboat were very well armed. If she was not mistaken, Cloe had heard AKs and AR-15s. They could not let the speedboat come abreast of them with those weapons. They were in serious trouble. She looked around for some strategy.

  “Slow down and let them run by. Then head for the causeway,” she cried in Leneau’s direction.

  Leneau immediately throttled back, and the heavy wooden cruiser stopped as if he had put on the brakes. The speedboat flew by in excess of seventy miles an hour, streaming a two-story rooster tail behind it. It screamed off into the distance but began to slow and turn.

  ***

  “Blast it!” cried the Burnt Man as the Fountain flew by the old boat. “Turn this thing around and go after them!”

  His men were still firing at the profile of the cabin cruiser, now a good distance behind them.

  “Save your ammo!” he shouted, but it did little good.

  The Fountain began a long, looping clockwise turn back toward the cruiser. The Burnt Man nodded at the pilot’s skill. He was executing a man-overboard-type turn, and if he was accurate, this would put them just abeam of the cruiser at the circle’s completion.

  “Now, we will have them!” the Burnt Man cried, smashing his left fist into the palm of his right hand.

  ***

  Leneau had now throttled up again and was headed dead west toward the causeway. He had turned off the running lights, and the cruiser was dark. As the boat leaped in the direction of the concrete twin spans over the lake, the fog thickened. As they progressed and it enveloped them, Cloe became concerned they might actually hit the causeway.

  She looked behind them. The chase boat was invisible in the gloom, but she could hear its engines as it came about. She looked ahead and saw nothing but a dense fog bank.

  Leneau backed down on the throttles and eased farther into the heavy mist.

  “I need a lookout!” he called to Jeanne. “Here, take this. You may need it.”

  Jeanne grabbed the headset and portable communication unit, swung up on the handhold, and ran forward. About halfway to the bow, she passed out of sight in the fog.

  As the cabin cruiser slipped deeper into the fog bank, its own engines at idle could barely be heard. The speedboat’s roar increased as it came nearer. It sounded like a beast cheated of its kill.

  “Quiet, everyone!” whispered Cloe. The men aboard the speedboat were firing wildly now. Most of the slugs hit harmlessly in the water around them.

  Then Cloe heard Leneau cry out.

  He was slowly collapsing to the deck, holding his left upper arm. Cloe could see blood—a good deal of it. She jumped and threw her arm under Leneau’s good arm and helped him slowly to the deck.

  She turned to J.E. and Jacob. “J.E., we need a medic and a boat driver.”

  “I’m certified as a military medic,” said Jacob, stepping in. “Is there a medical kit?”

  Leneau growled, “In the head.”

  As Jacob went below for the kit, Jeanne came in from the bow. “What’s going on? We’re all over the place!”

  “Leneau’s been shot,” said Cloe. “Can you pilot this boat?”

  “Yes, that’s one of my certifications. When I joined the marines, I got trained only in support roles. Driving a boat is one of them,” she said. “Of course, that’s all changed.”

  “Well, you’re the captain now,” said Cloe. “Get us out of here!”

  Jeanne stood behind the wheel on the small pilot deck and studied the instruments.

  “Okay,” she said. “Where to?”

  “I think we have an advantage,” Leneau whispered. “Many of the go-fast boats don’t have radar because they don’t have a mast to mount the hardware and don’t want the weight. Our pursuers will be blind in this fog.”

  “Okay, what do we do?” asked Cloe.

  “The causeway is just ahead. We should hide between the spans and cut our engines. We’ll make no noise and be invisible in the fog,” gasped Leneau before he passed out.

  The classic cruiser traversed the thick mist and crossed under the eastern elevated highway that headed north. Jeanne cut the engines, and the silence was overwhelming.

  “Everyone … we have to be completely quiet,” Jeanne said in a low voice.

  ***

  “Sir, they have entered the fog just ahead of us,” said the pilot. “I have to slow down or we may hit the causeway pilings.”

  “I don’t care about the pilings!” screamed the Burnt Man. “You stay after them and don’t lose them.”

  His men had fired everything they had just before their quarry entered the fog bank, but he couldn’t tell if they had hit anything.

  “Shut down the engines and listen for them!” ordered the Burnt Man.

  In the minutes that followed, the only thing they could hear was the sound of what little auto traffic remained on the causeway, and that was moving very slowly in the fog.

  “Okay, start the engines and perform a grid search,” said the Burnt Man to the pilot. “They can’t hide forever.”

  “But, sir, we have no radar, and I can’t see past the middeck,” protested the pilot.

  “Do it!” the Burnt Man commanded.

  ***

  Cloe assisted in cleaning up Leneau’s wound while Jacob administered a local pain killer and patched him up. Soon the bleeding had been stanched and the wound dressed and bandaged. J.E. and Jacob carried Leneau into the saloon and laid him on the settee. They covered him with blankets, and Jacob stayed with him.

  Back on deck, they could once again hear the angry sound of the speedboat. It was diffused in the pea-soup fog, so it was difficult to tell exactly which direction it came from. The sound reminded Cloe of that of an angry bumblebee.

  Then … the crunching sound of fiberglass on concrete, followed by screaming and cursing reached them.

  A muffled voice said, “Let’s go! We just scraped the piling. The boat’s okay. I know where they are headed.” Soon, the go-fast moved off to the north.

  “Wait a minute! I know that voice,” said Cloe to herself. “But from where?”

  “Okay, I think we can move out,” said Jeanne a moment later, interrupting Cloe’s thoughts. She cranked the engines and slowly headed north.

  CHAPTER

  64

  As the cruiser headed northward, the satellite phone in J.E.’s holster began to vibrate. J.E. reached for it, listened intently, and then walked toward her.

  “Mom, it’s Albert. It’s for you,” he said, offering the phone.

  “Hello,” said Cloe into the receiver. “Albert? What is it?”

  “Cloe, there is news,” came the response.

  Cloe gripped the receiver. Whatever it was, she did not expect it to be good.

  “Cloe, the cardinals are convening in Iceland,” said the monsignor. “Father Curator and I have been called to Reykjavik for the convocation.”

  “Is this about the pope?”

  “Yes, the remaining cardinals believe the pope is dead, and they are convening to elect a new pope,” responded
the monsignor. “After the attacks on the religious, there are only about a third of the cardinals left.”

  “It’s very courageous of them to do so,” said Cloe. “They could make themselves convenient targets.”

  “Yes, but the Church must go on,” sighed the monsignor.

  “Why Iceland?” asked Cloe.

  “With the Vatican destroyed, this decision is about security,” responded the monsignor. “Reykjavik can be secured in ways few other venues could be. Whatever remains of the Swiss Guard will be there and, of course, Father Anton as well.”

  “When will you go?” asked Cloe.

  “Immediately,” said the monsignor. “We have been tasked to get there as soon as possible.”

  “Will there be time? Events seem to be accelerating,” she observed.

  “Yes, the worldwide news is not good,” said the monsignor. “The plagues have killed nearly a third of the population in countries where they have struck. The destruction, violence, and now famine have killed millions more.”

  “It’s as if the pale horse of Revelation has been loosed upon the earth,” Cloe said.

  “His rider is Death, and Hades follows close behind with power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine, and plague—or words to that effect,” said the monsignor. “What the pope said about the rise of evil and the apocalypse cannot be disputed.”

  “So it seems, but I was taught that God never gives us a challenge that He does not also give us the ability to meet.”

  “I believe that as well,” said the monsignor. “This means that good is also rising to meet the evil, and we have the tools to defeat it. We just have to figure out how.”

  “Have you and Father Curator and the monks made any progress on the translation?” she asked. “We need answers.”

  “We have a sentence or maybe two, depending on how you look at it. The words from the scientists at Uruk have helped. In time, we will be able to translate the entire text.”

  “But what do you have now? We have no time,” said Cloe, a little more forcefully than she intended.