Seize the Storm

by Michael Cadnum

  The tubes were forest green, almost black, and what were evidently legs to a tripod were the same dull muted hue, with fittings of nickel gray. He recognized the more obvious joints and began to fit the device together, like putting together a large, ungainly kit for a devilish child, or a team of demonic children, intent on malice. The metal was cold, and slimy with a fine, transparent oil. His hands were slippery at once, but the lubrication aided his quickness.

  “What we have here,” said Martin, “is a machine gun.”

  “NOT JUST ANY MACHINE GUN,” said Leonard with an air of pride. “That, Martin, is a U.S. Army Browning M1917.”

  “You never mentioned it,” said Claudette.

  “Well, it was a little awkward,” said Leonard. “Martin, there is an instruction booklet in the side pocket, in English and French.”

  “Awkward in what way, Leonard?” asked Claudette.

  “Dad actually borrowed it from Paramount Studios,” Leonard said, “to clean and rebore it at home, and fudged the inventory.”

  “He stole it.” Claudette sounded matter-of-fact, not surprised at her father-in-law’s larceny.

  “Like I said,” said Leonard, “it’s awkward. My feeling had always been that any time Paramount wants it back, they can have it. I didn’t want the thing—you know how I feel about guns, but Dad insisted.”

  Axel was looking on hopefully from the helm.

  “This is a movie prop,” Martin said.

  He had felt a conditional enthusiasm, carried along by Leonard’s optimism, but now he was having genuine doubts. Maybe, he told himself, the thing would not actually work. “Does it shoot live rounds?”

  “Live rounds, absolutely,” said Leonard. “Martin, do you see that metal box?” he added. “Like a lunch box for a giant. Go ahead, open that up.”

  Martin opened the container and held up a heavy, glinting belting of linked bullets in their casings. He had not anticipated how pretty the ammunition would be, copper shells in an articulated belt.

  “Thirty-ought-six,” said Leonard. “Fifty rounds, and plenty more in the other box.”

  “It’s an antique,” protested Martin. He meant: Surely this can’t be happening.

  We aren’t going to use this piece of trench warfare on people.

  “My stepdad sells guns just like these,” said Axel excitedly. “The guns jam a lot, but they’re fun.”

  “Then you,” said Leonard, with the patient joy of a teacher, “will be able to help Martin.”

  Axel laughed, a virile guffaw.

  “You understand, all of you,” Leonard said, “that once we fire on this approaching vessel, they have every right in the world to fire back in self-defense, and kill us if they have to.”

  “We don’t know,” said Martin, “that they actually mean to do harm.”

  “We’ll make it,” said Axel, with a smile, “so they won’t be able to.”

  “I don’t know how any of this works,” said Martin, fingering what he took to be a swivel pin.

  “It’ll work,” said Leonard with an air of cheerful grimness. “Do you think I kept this thing under wraps because I thought it couldn’t kill anyone?”

  The instructions were a fairly modern photocopy of an earlier printing. “Position du trépied sur une surface plane,” Martin read aloud. “This is awfully complicated.”

  Claudette took the helm and Axel fell to his knees beside Martin, wincing with pain. Now that Axel was completely involved, Martin wanted nothing to do with the Browning.

  “We don’t,” said Claudette, straightening the sleeves of her blouse, “have all the time in the world.”

  Witch Grass created a delicate bow wave, approaching at a reduced speed. The big man remained at the helm. The two younger men were more visible now, and the smaller one held an automatic pistol, a stylish piece of geometry he kept steady in both hands.

  The pilot let one of the younger men take the helm, and he stepped to the port side, lifting an automatic weapon of his own, a blunt, angular object he checked, fussing with it, glancing calculatingly from the firearm and back toward Athena’s Secret.

  Axel was working fast, his tongue between his teeth, his brow knitted. Martin helped, reluctant, but providing teamwork, the tripod up and ready, the gun almost in place, heavier than it looked.

  “Hold the tripod steady, Martin,” said Axel.

  The distant, percussive racket from Witch Grass sounded happy, celebratory, nothing to be afraid of.

  Claudette’s voice was cool when she said, “Warning shots.”

  WHEN THE BROWNING was fully prepped, the belt of ammunition loosely fitted into the slot on the left side of the gun, Axel picked the entire assembly up, like an unwieldy camera on a tripod, and aimed it out over the stern.

  Axel did not bother to raise the sight, a metal rectangle that lay flat on the barrel, or to make any further adjustment. He knelt behind the gun.

  On the approaching vessel the big man lowered his weapon and was pointing, like a tour guide showing off a photo opportunity, look, how amusing—they have a machine gun.

  But apparently the Browning was not visible, or its nature was not apparent, because there were no further warning shots and no attempt on the part of the approaching crew to take defensive cover. Instead the big man was lifting a bullhorn to his lips, and the click as the amplified sound was switched on was louder than the recent gunfire.

  “Help me with this trigger, Martin,” said Axel, out of breath with effort.

  “No, I won’t,” said Martin.

  “We’ll just loose off some warning shots of our own,” said Axel.

  The two of them could not work the trigger, the lever emphatically stuck in place, like a device that had been designed to be immovable, welded fast.

  Axel studied the mechanism and gave the side of the Browning a whack with the heel of his hand.

  Electronic feedback sang across the sea foam, and there was another pair of amplified clicks as a switch was snapped off and then on again.

  “Ahoy, Athena’s Secret,” sang out a voice.

  The accent was that of a country-western singer introducing his next song. The voice was agreeable, and the words would have struck Martin as the kind of nautical quaintness that Leonard admired, except that the voice added, “Stand to, or we’ll open fire.”

  Open fire. The formal quality of the phrase gave Martin hope. It did not have the rank bluntness of or we’ll kill you, and so there was room for investigation. Why open fire, anyway? Why not simply or we’ll shoot?

  Another series of happy-sounding gunshots peppered the air and even when a series of humming trajectories made pretty, suggestive passes overhead, Martin did not immediately associate the noise with personal danger.

  But Claudette was lying flat on the deck, and Leonard eased his body down, grimacing.

  “Martin, the ammo belt,” said Axel, “is not stuck in right.”

  Martin worked at it, and his untrained fingers must have made a mistake. The entire belt of ammunition fell out, futilely, sulkily coiling on the deck.

  Martin tried again, and he wondered, in his mood of fearful mental clarity, what was French for push the belt in hard.

  This time there was a satisfying click and the entire tripod shifted slightly, the heavy belt of copper and lead giving the Browning a somewhat lopsided center of gravity.

  When it fired at last the M1917 did not sound loud so much as insistent, a maniacal hammering, metallic and not as earsplitting under the open sky as Martin expected. The noise was like a woodpecker attacking a mailbox. There was little smoke, if any, although a pungent mineral odor was instantly in the air.

  The syncopated, rattling pum, pum, pum of the gun did not sound like the product of an antique, but it did remind Martin of the stubborn ugliness of war documentaries, whiskery GIs with stuttering weapons.

  Across the water, well off the approaching vessel’s starboard bow, a stitching of bullets followed a seam up and over a swell.

  Spent sh
ells danced prettily on the deck. Axel paused, and the silence was abrupt.

  “Good work,” Leonard appeared to say, and maybe the Browning had been louder than it seemed. Martin could not make out Leonard’s voice.

  * * *

  The era of the Browning’s success seemed to Martin like it would not end.

  Spent shells glittered, and in the late day sun Martin was certain that he could see the stream of bullets, whiplashing the water to one side and then the other of the approaching vessel. The pilot house was empty, everyone aboard Witch Grass hiding. Cowering, Martin surmised. He did not blame them.

  But in reality the period of great defensive victory lasted less than half a minute. The belt jammed with still almost one-third of its ammunition unspent, and when Axel pried open the top plate and tried to free the mechanism, the brisk sound of gunfire answered theirs, but this time wood splintered and brass sang out, a discordant and shattering shower of pieces everywhere.

  The stern rail beneath the Browning blew apart, fragments flying, and Axel cried out.

  “ELWOOD, WHAT SORT OF GUN is that?” asked Jeremy.

  The three of them crouched in the pilot house, the Astroturf-lined deck sticky with detergent. The machine gun sounded methodical, like an automated hammer, mad carpenters building a house out there across the water, and Elwood had recognized the clatter from the first shot.

  “Something considerable,” said Elwood.

  He knew that the experience was entertaining, in a way—the rich fighting back like this. Elwood didn’t blame them at all. It was exactly what he would do. He admired their intelligence and resourcefulness.

  “I thought you said a yacht would be armed with shotguns,” said Jeremy. “Maybe handguns.”

  “Have you ever seen me surprised before?” asked Elwood.

  Jeremy thought for a moment. “When the frigate bird hit us.”

  “Well, this is another surprise.”

  He told Shako to return fire. Elwood reasoned that dignity—maybe even honor—required no less. Besides, he thought, these were not innocent men and women of ease. They had tried to steal a good deal of money that did not belong to them.

  Shako hooked up the shoulder support and got a good aim, steadying the weapon on the frame of the pilot house.

  Elwood stood up to watch.

  The sound of Shako’s Ingram was like a heavy fabric torn, a steel rip that took Elwood’s breath away even though he had heard the gun many times before. The armament across the water, whatever it was, had been methodical and measured in comparison.

  And the Ingram did real harm—splinters flew, and the gunner started and fell down. The human damage did not trouble Elwood at all—but the harm to the vessel was sacrilege.

  Shako crouched down again, fitting a new clip into the gun.

  “Good work,” said Elwood.

  But his voice was husky with feeling. Bullet holes in a graceful yacht like that appalled him. No amount of expertise could undo such damage, certainly not until they made it to dry dock and a skilled craftsman.

  “Thanks, Elwood,” said Shako.

  It was the thanks and the smile that shook Elwood, made him see what was before him: a fifteen-year-old getting another clip into the Ingram, ready to use it again. Maybe Shako had just killed people with that slash of gunfire.

  Thanks, Elwood.

  Shako was smiling that tight little smile again, ready to leap up and shoot, but Elwood told him to stay where he was.

  The yacht was silent now, Witch Grass churning ahead, and Elwood did not need the binoculars when he leaned out over the port side. He could see the damage, white gouges in the pretty railing along the stern. All those hours gunning driftwood on the beach near Kekaha had paid off, Shako practicing his weapons skills, but Elwood was not pleased to see the destruction.

  “Why are we doing this?” Jeremy asked.

  Elwood gave him a shake of his head that meant: shut up.

  But the boss’s son had a point.

  Elwood’s dream of capturing the yacht, disposing of its crew, had not included the actual smashup of the boatwright’s handiwork. Elwood would have enjoyed pushing a button and atomizing the rich people on board. They did not matter. But the yacht was a thing out of a dream, a seacraft shaped the way the soul might be shaped, if a human being could see the soul’s proportions.

  “Dad will be glad to see the money,” Jeremy was saying. “He didn’t say make sure to tow a yacht all the way home.”

  “We won’t tow it,” said Elwood. “We’ve got the plane to worry about. We’ll radio for a crew and Mr. Tygart will send one out. He’ll love this yacht.”

  “You’re probably right,” Jeremy conceded.

  These young men were so quick to agree, thought Elwood. Even when they disagreed with you, they were eager to avoid conflict, wanting your approval.

  No further volley stitched the water, and the yacht was silent, crew members moving back and forth. Elwood felt the joyful anticipation of all this ending, aware that killing the crew would mean more gunfire, more damage.

  And did he really want to see Shako willingly and methodically, excitedly, killing people? Elwood had never been bothered by such feelings before, not as long as he didn’t have to dispatch the victims personally. But now he felt troubled.

  Thanks, Elwood.

  Shako was looking at him from the deck, his back against the corner of the pilot house. He was ready, his posture said. What Elwood wanted he would get.

  “I’ll board the yacht myself,” Elwood said. “With the two of you armed and standing by.”

  “We might not kill them?” asked Shako.

  Or was it a question? Elwood caught an odd tone in Shako’s voice, as though the fact that Elwood might change his mind on matters of life or death had special, personal meaning.

  “Why,” asked Elwood, “does it all have to end in death?”

  Shako had never been asked such a question before. He looked at Jeremy, who was used to making conversation. But the interrogative had been directed at Shako, and he felt trapped by the query. Elwood must be testing him, trying out a trick question.

  Shako did not know the answer to what had to be a verbal trap. And so he asked, after a long, deliberative moment, “Why?”

  Elwood had his smile ready, a man who had been waiting.

  He said, “Because that is the only way to get what we want.”

  A SHARD OF WOOD had hit Axel’s forehead and stuck there, a wound that looked fatal.

  “I’m OK,” he said.

  “Can you see anything?” asked Martin.

  “Of course,” said Axel.

  Claudette knelt beside him with a towel from the lazarette. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” she said. “Just a very ugly splinter, and it didn’t actually enter your skull.”

  Claudette marveled at her own calm. She pulled out the yellow fragment of wood and said, “Axel, tell me—how many fingers am I holding up?”

  She was holding up no fingers at all, and yet Axel made an effort, squinting, counting.

  Martin whacked the machine gun with his fist, but the weapon would not fire.

  The powerboat continued to motor forward, less than fifty meters away now, and closing the gap until the two craft had to stand apart to avoid a gentle collision, the powerboat rising and falling on the gentle seas.

  “So what is your strategy now, Mr. Burgess?” Axel was inquiring, sounding almost polite, the towel pressed against his forehead. He could actually see now, after a fashion.

  Leonard remained seated. “What’s yours, Axel? I am entirely open to suggestion.”

  No one spoke.

  Martin observed, not for the first time, how much more power Axel possessed when he was silent.

  “We’ll come to terms,” said Claudette, ever the businesswoman, and one who held a twelve-gauge shotgun.

  “Of course,” said Leonard, but Martin believed that his uncle looked worn down and defeated, his bleak smile an admission that they were a
s good as captured.

  Martin hurried down into the cabin.

  Laser was awake, sitting up and aware that some change was taking place.

  “They’re going to board us,” said Martin.

  Susannah was already armed with a cleaver from the galley, a gleaming steel hatchet.

  * * *

  Witch Grass eased close, and the two boats touched, the yacht rocking, the hulls grinding lightly together. Keeping a relative position with the yacht appeared to be a challenge for the strangers.

  The power cruiser’s continuing forward movement caused her to glide ahead of the yacht, and now the big man had to return to the helm and one of the young men had to approach the stern, with the same hook that had captured the money.

  Witch Grass reversed. This maneuver was not easy—as the powerboat moved backward, she collided with the aircraft attached to her stern.

  This entanglement was mild, with no damage to the aircraft, and it had even been anticipated—the young man used the boat hook with some skill. But there was a sequence of adjustments required, the powerboat angling forward and back, edging ever closer to the yacht. Martin had the impression that whatever the abilities of these armed strangers, they did not possess complete competence over the sea.

  The powerboat was still having trouble, one of the airplane pontoons now rising up onto the stern. Witch Grass’s starboard engine rumbled, churning the water.

  “HELP ME STAND UP, MARTIN,” insisted Leonard.

  Leonard leaned heavily against Martin, and then, as they reached the helm, he took hold of the wheel spokes, keeping his body erect with an effort.

  Claudette was like someone squinting through smoke, although she was not smoking now, watchful but with no other outward anxiety. Axel was on his feet looking angry and injured, his head cocked to one side, the fist tattoo dark on his muscled arm.

  The three strangers looked at them from the helm of the powerboat, a point well above the deck of the yacht. The young man with the submachine gun wore aviator glasses and had an unfriendly, set look to his mouth.