She stared at their reflections in the windows. The new superstructure blocked the gloomy view ahead. All she could see of the sea was out the side windows.
Mr. Jack glided up behind her. "Hold on," he warned, pointing at the monitor. "Crash turn."
It was a ninety-degree turn. A siren shrilled a warning, and the gas carrier slammed to starboard. Ronnie grabbed the rail that rimmed the windshield. Mr. Jack did too, but he used his injured arm and cried out in pain. She tried to save him, but her own grip was broken from the rail and they tumbled to the deck.
Slowly, hesitantly, the ship straightened up.
"Are you okay, Mr. Jack?"
"Yeah, yeah." He was white. Ronnie sprang up and offered a hand, as the captain charged onto the bridge. "What the hell—"
"Just demonstrating the system," Mr. Jack said.
"You're going to demonstrate us into a capsize," the captain yelled. "We're carrying enough weight topside to turn turtle."
For once, Mr. Jack apologized. He was almost meek. "Sorry. Just wanted to show the kid what she could do. Don't worry, Cap. Won't happen again."
Ronnie stared at the floor while the captain grumbled. Finally, he left.
"Jeez," whispered Mr. Jack with a conspiratorial wink. "We almost got in a lot of trouble."
"You almost got in a lot of trouble. I didn't do anything."
"Captain thinks you did it and I was just covering for you." He grinned, sly but not snakelike, and Ronnie, caught up in the game, said, "No way! Mr. Jack."
Mr. Jack patted the monitor. "So what do you think?"
"Great," said Ronnie. But in her mind she vaulted a half mile ahead of the ship, saw it pawing an angry white course through the waves—the mask, turning where it wanted to.
She shivered.
"You look like you seen a ghost," said Mr. Jack.
She could almost see the eyes behind the mask. Almost. "Is Moss coming back?"
"Don't look that way," Mr. Jack replied lightly. But his face had turned to stone, and she shivered again. She was scared. She had never been alone before. But she was alone now. Moss had made her feel so little when he hit her—blew her off like a mosquito. Mr.
Jack wasn't as big as Moss, but he was still a lot bigger than she. And for such a bag of bones, he was mighty strong.
"Can I radio Mummy?"
"'Fraid not, kid."
"Mr. Jack?"
"What?"
"Where's Ah Lee?"
"Jumped ship in Shanghai."
"He didn't tell me he wasn't coming."
"When a sailor jumps ship, he doesn't advertise it or he'd get caught."
"Where is everybody?"
"What do you mean?"
"When I went for a walk—"
"Any more walks, young lady, we're going to war." "Yeah, but I didn't see anybody."
"The crew's busy doing what I pay 'em to do. Or they're sleeping."
"I didn't see anybody—except that Japanese guy, and he was drunk. Who is he? I never saw him before we left Shanghai."
Mr. Jack did one of his dumb "Jap" imitations, bowing over his folded hands. "
Honorable pilot-sm."
"Who?"
"Captain Yakamoto is a Tokyo Harbor and Uraga Channel pilot."
"But he's drunk!"
"Got a little problem with the sauce," Mr. Jack admitted cheerfully. "Don't worry, OMBO will-cover for him."
Ronnie shrugged, pretending she didn't care, and offered to take Mr. Jack down to the infirmary to change his bandage.
She knew the ship was deserted.
In her search for a place to hide when the ship got close enough to radio Mummy and Daddy, she had wandered further than the main deck. She had gone into the shell of the superstructure, which was like being inside a gigantic igloo, it was so cold. And she had ridden the elevator down to the bottom of the ship, where huge steel beams and pillars were coated with thick paint. The engine room was the loudest place she had ever heard in her life, hotter than Palau at noon. She had visited the crew lounge, which was plastered with Marlboro posters. But the only people she had seen were the drunken Japanese pilot and the captain arid Mr. Jack.
The galley was empty; since Shanghai they had been eating frozen stuff cooked in the microwave. The engine room was empty. Even the engine computer room in the air-conditioned house in the middle of the roaring heat was empty. The ship was just sailing along all by itself.
Mr. Jack was so bony it was like bandaging a skeleton. He winced as she removed the old dressing.
"Does it hurt?"
"Just a little sore," he said, but she could tell he was lying.
"Mr. Jack?"
"What?"
"Can I radio Mummy?"
"I told you, no! Hey, cheer up. Tomorrow's Christmas Eve."
She turned away so he wouldn't See her press her fist to her lips to stop their trembling.
Moss's fist had been big as a coconut. Hers was like a lemon. She closed her eyes and tried to form a picture of her knuckles balled tight and shooting like an X ray through Mr. Jack's shirt and bandage and skin and right through the muscle Mummy had sewn.
But her stupid fingers kept dissolving like Jell-O.
Midmorning, Christmas Eve Day found Stone and Sarah deep within the Sagami Sea.
Still no word from Ronnie, though they were only ten miles from Uraga-Suido, the channel to Tokyo Bay.
The chart showed land ahead and on each side, and the volcanic island 0-shima far astern, but a thin December fog shrouded the vast gulf, which resounded with horns and whistles.
The VHF was alive with ship talk. They stayed tuned to channel five.
Stone had raised their radar reflector and was trying to skirt the inbound separation lanes.
He had a fair idea where they were—he had eyeballed the triple thirty-second flasher on 0-shima. Ahead lay water nearly a mile deep. But they both stayed in the cockpit to watch for ships, which were everywhere, rumbling and hooting in the fog.
He brought the Sailing Directions up and reviewed the Tokyo approaches until the print swam before his tired eyes.
Suddenly he snapped awake, his brain churning. The fog had thinned, revealing distant hills that appeared to float in front of a range of steep mountains. A couple of miles astern, he noticed a massive passenger liner knife through the haze. Black hull, white superstructure. Looked like the old QE-2 on a winter around-theworld cruise.
"We're missing something," he told Sarah. "There's no way he can sneak a gas ship into the harbor. It's impossible. There's something in the Sailing Directions." He thumbed through the blue-jacketed book. "Here! 'Regulations: Tankers must enter port at dead slow speed preceded by a patrol boat, with one tug on each side of the vessel and followed by a patrol boat.'
"That's after picking up the Uraga-Suido Channel pilot and then the Tokyo Harbor pilot.
So it isn't exactly a situation where he could just deliver a gas ship primed to explode at four o'clock Christmas Eve. . . . Now here, look at the harbor chart. Here's some gas wharves by these power plants across from Takeshiba Pier. But they wouldn't take a ship that size. They probably restrict them to ten-thousand-ton coasters damned well
should. Ship the size of the Dallas Belle a mile from the center of the city would be insane. . . . He could make a run at Yokohama. Look at this. Whip out of the fairway here and fifteen minutes later, 'Hello Yokohama'—boom!"
"No—that's not his way."
"What do you mean?"
"If Mr. Jack intends to destroy Tokyo, he will not settle for Yokohama.-
"It's only fifteen miles from Tokyo and it's a very important city."
"He told me that after they had dropped their bombs, his plane spotted a fuel depot and if they had bombed that instead, the explosion would have burned the entire city."
"Well, then, he's got a problem. Tokyo's to hell and gone up the bay and there's a gauntlet of pilots and observatories and patrol boats and a naval base. Forget it, Mr. Jack. You're not even allowed in
without specific permission from the port director, and to get that you've got to
make all kinds of applications, and you know damned well you're going to be boarded out here" —he pointed at a quarantine area before Tokyo Light—"for a major safety inspection. Even before us and Lydia, he couldn't get the ship into the harbor. They've got thirty miles from the first pilot to stop him."
Sarah shook her head. "Michael. Put yourself in his shoes. How would you get that ship into Tokyo Harbor?" "Hire an escort from the Third Fleet."
"Pretend Katherine's life hangs in the balance."
"I'll just think about Ronnie," he said with a bleak look.
"I'm sorry," she said. "That was terrible of me. I didn't mean that. I was just trying—"
"Forget it. He's making us all crazy. You're right, though. He may be crazy, but he's not a fool. So how would I get the gas ship into Tokyo? . . . Make it look like something else?
Cover the gas piping, make it look like a bulk carrier— Jesus, in the breaker's yard they were draping canvas over the main deck."
He recalled how he'd assumed the canvas was fire retardant for the acetylene torches dismantling the cruise ship. Then he remembered the cranes—the heavy lift cranes surrounding the slip.
"He had a brochure for a cruise liner to dock at Takeshiba Pier," Sarah said. "He said he owned it."
Stone reached for the radio. "Ronnie said they werècruising.' "
Before he could switch the VHF to emergency channel 16, they heard her whisper on channel 5, "Mummy, Daddy. Mummy. Daddy!"
"It's her. Yes! Dear, we're here. Where are you?"
She must have been holding her GPS in her other hand. "Thirty-five degrees twenty minutes north. One hundred thirty-nine degrees forty minutes east."
Stone traced the position along the course he had dead reckoned from the 0-shima fix. "
She's right behind us." "Thank God," said Sarah.
"How fast you going, sweetheart?" Stone radioed. "Twelve point five knots. Mummy, Mr. Jack changed the ship. We look like an ocean liner now—"
"Kid, what the hell—"
"I'm just playing, Mr. Jack I—"
"Ronnie! Ronnie! Mr. Jack. Mr.—" Stone switched off the radio. "Jesus, I almost gave her away if he was listening." He looked back again.
The liner that looked like the QE-2 was overtaking them rapidly, plowing a thick white bow wave. Sarah said, "Is that—?"
Stone remembered the gutted superstructure of the cruise ship in the breakers' yard. "
That's what Ronnie means—he's camouflaged the gas carrier. That's the Dallas Belle!"
Sarah switched to channel 16 to broadcast a Mayday to the Harbor Patrol.
Stone stopped her. "He'll hear that. Let me get Ronnie first."
"What?"
"Put me aboard."
"What?"
Stone ran below, stuffed the Bushmaster into his foul-weather jacket, and came up, pulling on his gloves. "Same way you got off. I'll go up the mast to the top spreader. You tuck the boat under her bow. Windward. Port side. I'll climb onto the anchor and through the hawsehole."
"That's impossible."
He started the engine. "Wind will get crazy beside the ship. Bear away as soon as I get on the anchor."
He studied the ship's bow with the binoculars. "Not much flair. I think we'll fit."
"If you lose your footing—"
"I'll wear a life vest." He pulled it out of the cockpit locker and buckled in.
"You'll fall on the boat."
"We have no choice."
Sarah started to protest, then saw there was no other way. "Of course."
"She's doing twelve-and-a-half knots. That's nearly twice us. You'll have about ten seconds to slot me in. Can you do this?"
"I think I can."
He turned to the mast.
"Michael."
Her face looked sculpted of onyx. Only her lips were soft. "God bless."
Stone gripped the halyards on the windward side.
IT HAD BEEN TOO MANY YEARS SINCE HE HAD CLIMBED THE
mast while under way.
Sarah changed course to cut across the front of the ship and sheeted the sails in hard to make the boat heel. Even with the help of that angle, his arms and legs were shaking by the time he had reached the first spreader. There was no time to catch his breath; the ship was looming large. He wondered if they could see his sails yet in the haze. If they could, they might guess what he was doing and have people waiting for him at the hawsehole.
The gun felt heavy and awkward in his jacket.
He gripped the halyards and kept climbing. Veronica straightened up suddenly, thrown by a wave. He slipped, hung, swinging wildly, then crashed into the mast as the boat heeled again. He got his hand over the second spreader and hauled himself onto it.
The ship was almost on top of them. He could hear its bow wave, a massive ten-foot comber. It looked like it would shove the Swan away.
Sarah was watching over her shoulder, standing tall and
cool, one hand on the helm, the other shielding her eyes
against the glare as she tried to judge the rise of the bow.
The anchor was higher than Stone had hoped. As the
ship closed the last few yards, he realized he was going to have to jump up to reach it.
But he saw nothing to hold on the enormous slab of steel. A gust of wind glanced off the ship and the sails shivered, staggering the Swan.
Sarah gripped the helm with both hands, fighting the currents that the ship sent swirling around the rudder and the wind that slammed the sails. The bow wave tumbled after Veronica like an avalanche.
Sarah raised a hand to warn him and turned away from the ship, timing it so the wave burst under Veronica's stern. The mast swung wildly in a dizzy arc to left and right, then pitched forward, threatening to launch him into the air.
The ship blotted out the sky. Sarah signaled again and eased closer to the towering hull.
A gust whipped the mast away, then slammed it back. The sails rattled like pistol shots.
Stone saw the black steel anchor spring at his face. The spreader tip banged into it, and he felt the composite buckle under his feet. He let go of the mast and went with the momentum, up and onto a smooth bulk of steel which he embraced with widespread arms and legs.
He could feel the ship vibrating, shaking him loose. There was nothing to hold. He began to slide off. Out of control, he looked down to see where he would fall. Veronica was angling away.
He glimpsed the water racing beside the ship's hull and saw a two-hundred-foot-long strip of metal which appeared to be welded along the water line. Explosives, he guessed, shaped charges to crack her hull. Near the bow was painted the symbol for a thruster to warn the tugs. A nice touch, he thought with a strange sense of detachment—it meant the "cruise ship" didn't need a tug, even at the pier. Then he was sliding faster, slipping off the anchor's rounded fluke.
Life vest or not, the ship would suck him under when he hit the water. Then his foot brushed something, caught—and he realized he had snagged a rusty ridge that rimmed the edge of the fluke. He felt with his other foot and with both feet planted precariously, straightened his knees and pushed.
When at last he was sprawled across the top of the
anchor, he inched his way toward the hull. The anchor shank, a thick oblong of forged steel, lay snug against the bottom of the hawsehole, leaving a foot-high gap on top.
Through this, Stone tried to climb. He had to take the life vest off to squeeze through.
The wind sucked it out of his hands. Again, he got his head and shoulder through into pitch blackness, but his windbreaker hung up. He backed out and opened it. The Bushmaster fell away. Stone watched it disappear forty feet below in a silent splash. He pushed past his despair and drove through the hole and slid down a thick chain.
He landed in the windlass room, which housed the machinery to raise the anchor. Below would be the chain locker. He felt in the dark, found a do
g latch, and cautiously turned it and pushed. A door swung open into an enclosed deck, lit by daylight streaming in through a grating. He found another door and peered across the foredeck at the towering superstructure, which gleamed icily in the sunlit haze.
Bizarre. Even at a distance of less than a hundred feet, Mr. Jack's camouflage job looked so real that he ducked down, afraid he'd be spotted by the bridge crew. Because it was real, or at least the skin was. They had even put glass in the bridge windows and rigged lights inside, so portholes glowed.
He crossed the foredeck in a swift, low crouch and pressed against the front of the superstructure. He needn't have bothered, he realized. There was no one around. He edged along the side, peered in a gaping slit where two sections of the cruise ship superstructure had been cut apart and fitted loosely together, and stepped into the empty cavern.
Daylight streamed in a thousand ports. The gas ship's piping and valves and fire monitors looked like ghostly artifacts in an industrial museum.
A tangle of twisted wreckage marked the valve he had set on fire in Shanghai. He hurried past it and headed for the real house, hundreds of feet aft in the gloom. Wind whistled and loose metal vibrated in songs of many pitches.
He came at last to the deckhouse of the Dallas Belle,
found a hatch, and opened it carefully. Inside, it was warmer. The deck was filthy. In the distance the engine murmured. He shut the hatch, peered up, and found an open central stairwell.
Ronnie and Sarah had been held on the B deck, right under the bridge. He debated taking the elevator and chose the stairs. He cursed himself for losing the gun. He took a fire axe from the bulkhead and started up the steps, silent in his rubber boots, poised at every turn to strike out at a startled face. He climbed five decks and saw no one.
The door to the owner's suite was locked, as was the captain's.
Gripping the axe, he climbed silently to the bridge deck. Down a corridor was a curtain that would lead to the bridge. He checked the rooms along the corridor—computer, chart, communications—all empty.
He moved the curtain with the axe. The old man was sitting in a big leather captain's chair in front of the helm, watching a thirty-inch monitor. The phony superstructure blocked the windows; Mr. Jack looked like he was driving a space ship.
Fire And Ice Page 33