The Shipkiller

by Justin Scott

  The block and tackle was hopelessly tangled and there was no way to lift the Dragon out of the cabin. Hardin lashed the boom to several deck cleats, then secured the antitank weapon with rope to keep it from banging them while they bailed the waist-deep water.

  They bailed through the night, struggling to stand upright as the hull wallowed drunkenly in the storm-driven seas and their exhausted bodies cried for sleep. They rested briefly at every hundred buckets. Midway through their fourth hundred, Ajaratu scooped an unbroken honey jar into her pail. Greedily they poured the thick sweetness into their mouths.

  Ajaratu suffered the most because she couldn’t relieve the strain by switching arms. Several times Hardin tried the bilge pump, but the debris in the bilge clogged it. They worked past dawn until, despite the fact that breaking seas had often poured under the patch, the water was too shallow to scoop with buckets. What remained was a black and noisome soup of seawater, engine oil and battery acid, floating food, clothing, books, charts, blankets, and tools.

  Hardin cleared the bilge-pump intake again and Ajaratu crouched beside it and strained the water with her fingers while he pumped until his arms and back were burning and his heart felt it would explode. He straightened up and leaned against the Dragon, which hung in the sling like a dead shark.

  Ajaratu sagged against the engine box, her head drooping to her chest. Hardin picked her out of the slime and sat her at the chart table. He cupped her chin to get her attention. “Find the storm jib and all the line you can get and come up.”

  She stared vacantly.

  “Fast.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” she mumbled.

  “You better. We’re not out of it yet.”

  He pushed her toward the fore cabin and went on deck. The wind had subsided slightly, but the seas were running as high as before. He found the emergency tiller in a cockpit locker next to the life raft, used its attached wrench to open the rudder-shaft cover in the cockpit sole, and fastened the tiller. To his relief it moved, which meant that the rudder had survived the violent tumbling.

  Ajaratu passed up several coils of line. Hardin told her to pile mattresses under the Dragon, and when she had he cut the tackle, letting it drop to the padding and freeing the boom, which he fitted with lines and a halyard. Then, with her help, he raised the aluminum pole and lashed it to the mast stump by wrapping it round and round with nylon line. He guyed it fore and aft and to either side, then hoisted the storm jib to the top of the jury rig and, numb with exhaustion, took the tiller as the sail filled and the Swan stopped rolling.

  Ajaratu gingerly turned the sodden pages of the Sailing Directions for Southwest Coast of Africa. It was five days since they had pitch-poled, and they were drifting into Table Bay, Capetown’s broad open harbor which spread beneath the improbably level and aptly named Table Mountain.

  “‘During the winter,’” she read, “‘when northwesterly winds occur, a current sets into Table Bay from the northwestward.’” She closed the book, marking the place with her thumb.

  “We’ll need it,” said Hardin, eyeing the short sails—a jib and a miniature main on a jury-rigged boom made from the spinnaker pole. They barely pushed the Swan to steerage in the light, cool breeze.

  His sextants were smashed, as were the radio and loran. With no idea where the storm had blown them, he had navigated roughly by the sun, wanting nothing more than to sail east until they reached land. Table Mountain, rosy purple beneath a stunning lavender-blue sky, an unmistakably giant mass shouldered by the conical Lion’s Head on one side and the rugged Devil’s Peak on the other, had been the first land they had seen.

  Now, as northwesterly rollers, final legacy of the storm, began carrying them toward the mouth of the Bay, he was thankful that among the few things they had rescued along with the invaluable Sailing Directions was his passport. He would need a lot of help from the American Consulate—despite what trouble they had for him regarding the Dragon—to get Ajaratu safely out of South Africa.

  The storm had purged him of his hate for LEVIATHAN, and he was left with a single, vivid image of the great ship bludgeoning the seas like an iron club, the same seas which had nearly killed him. He was grateful to be alive, and he was humbled. But the sea had shown him that in humility there was strength, strength that had come from tasting fear, from having flinched, from knowing with utter certainty a power greater than his own. As a sailor he had always accepted the might of the sea. In LEVIATHAN, he had seen its master.

  The revelation left Hardin less peaceful than empty. It would be a long time before he wanted anything again. He would start simply. He would get Ajaratu safely out of South Africa. He would repair the boat. He would sail away. Where, he didn’t know and didn’t care.

  The Swan drifted deeper into the bay, borne more on the current than by the wind. The white buildings of Capetown, gleaming in the sunlight on the distant shore, looked like breakers crashing at the foot of Table Mountain. Five miles across the bay, stone breakwaters formed a harbor, which was better protected than the outer anchorage. Hardin scanned it with his binoculars, searching for a small private cove or marina where they might repair without having to contend with the authorities.

  Merchant shipping docks occupied the south, large basins behind the breakwaters. Ajaratu read aloud from the Sailing Directions. There was mention of a yacht basin behind the Duncan Dock. Hardin could see the cranes and pneumatic grain loaders of Duncan Dock, but a high, dark jetty blocked the yacht basin from view. They agreed that it would be too close to the center of Capetown. The glasses swept the coast northward beyond the basins. He saw some industrial plants, a fishing harbor, and the suburbs of Capetown. He decided to sail farther into Table Bay, as long as the current carried them, then come about and sail up the coast until he found a small yard.

  He had been unable to start the engine, even though a check showed it hadn’t shifted very much when the boat had pitchpoled. It was worth another try. He gave Ajaratu the tiller and went below and worked the hand crank. It coughed hopefully after a few minutes. He pulled harder, and it rumbled to life. Elated, he went back on deck, took the tiller, and engaged forward gear.

  The propeller shaft thumped loudly. He choked the engine with a disappointed groan. “Shaft’s bent. Son of a bitch.” He closed his eyes and let the sun bake his face. It was low in the north, a winter sun, but it felt good. He had been so cold and wet so long that he wondered if he would ever be warm again.

  When he looked again, the Swan had halved the distance to the harbor jetties. The buildings were distinct now, as was the broad, shallow slope where the city rested between the water and the sheer base of Table Mountain. He saw warehouses on the jetties which formed the narrow-mouthed Victoria Basin and the vast Duncan Dock to the north of it.

  He stared at the dark mass in front of Duncan Dock. He had thought it was a jetty, but a tall white structure towered over one end, leaning at a steep angle no building ever stood.

  “My God,” breathed Ajaratu. She handed him the glasses.

  Hardin twirled the focus wheel. The soft edges crystallized.

  LEVIATHAN.

  Its bow was smashed.

  The front of the ship was deep in the water. The stern was high. The propellers were exposed, their colossal blades gleaming like drawn swords. The ship was surrounded by tugboats and lighters, and white streams of water spewed down its black hull like mountain waterfalls.

  Hardin steered closer, bearing ahead of the bows, which he inspected with the glasses. They were crumpled from the waterline to the decks, and he marveled that its crew had made it to safety. Workmen were erecting scaffolding around the bows. The rumble of big pump engines drifted across the water and red sparks cascaded from dozens of points as welders and torchmen cut away the smashed plates.

  Hardin put the Swan about and began beating up the coast. He had seen a launch heading toward him from Duncan Dock.

  “Reception committee,” he said to Ajaratu.

  Her eyes f
lashed, but they both knew they were in for a tough time with the South African police.

  “Go below,” said Hardin. “If they’re just being helpful, I’ll tell them we don’t need any.”

  Her mouth set tightly as she went into the cabin. Hardin looked straight ahead, as if sailing a thirty-eight-foot sloop with a twenty-foot mast were an everyday occurrence. The launch pulled alongside and slowed, its engine burbling softly.

  “Hardin!”

  Festooned with cameras, film cannisters, lenses, and light meters, Miles stepped nimbly aboard and greeted Hardin with a probing smile. His men, stocky blond youths, made fast to the Swan fore and aft, then stood watchfully by their lines. The launch speeded up several knots, bearing the Swan with it. Miles nodded with satisfaction.

  “I had a feeling that you’d end up here, if you made it. My people said it would be likely with the Benguela Current slowed by the storm.” He smiled again. “Of course, they also said you wouldn’t make it.”

  “I made it,” said Hardin.

  Donner glanced the length of the battered sailboat. “Just.”

  He looked at Hardin. Deep lines scored his face. His eyes were rod, his bearded cheeks sunken. He had lost weight and his arms, corded with long, stringy muscles, were too thin. The hand that gripped the tiller where the elaborate helm and binnacle used to be had the dry, fleshless look of a claw. He seemed in shock, oddly indifferent. Staring straight ahead, he spoke.

  “I want you to get Ajaratu out of the country.”

  “Already arranged,” said Donner. “Is she below?”

  “Yes.”

  Donner climbed down the companionway. The once-beautiful salon was a shambles. Ajaratu leaned against the dining table, her arm in a sling, glaring defiantly at the hatchway. She looked surprised when she saw him, recognizing him but not remembering why.

  “Good afternoon, Dr. Akanke. My name is Miles. I will take you home.”

  She stared.

  He extended a finely manicured hand. “We must hurry. They may have seen you coming into the Bay.”

  She brushed past him, went up the companionway, and spoke to Hardin. Donner took a quick look around the cabins, assessing the damage, then returned to the cockpit, where Hardin was explaining that Donner would do as he said.

  “What about you?” she asked.

  “I’ll take care of him,” said Miles. “We must hurry, Doctor.”

  He took her arm and guided her onto the launch. His men were getting nervous. At any moment the security-conscious South African Railways and Harbors Administration might send a patrol boat across the bay to investigate this rendezvous between a private launch and a dismasted yacht.

  Like the King’s Jews of early Europe, Israelis often acted as unofficial messengers in modern Africa between bickering states, black and white. The system had grown out of Israeli agricultural and technical aid, engineering projects and trade, and military training programs. The Mossad had taken its opportunities, along with the technicians and merchants, and, all things considered, it had a decent organization in South Africa. But the worst way to strain secret contacts and friendships was to run afoul of zealous functionaries who had the power to arrest before strings could be pulled.

  One of Donner’s men draped a long, hooded raincoat over Ajaratu’s shoulders. Donner was struck by her regal bearing and his hands strayed toward his camera, knowing a picture. The weary lines the ordeal had carved on her face heightened her beauty and gave it character beyond her years.

  She looked at Hardin and their eyes locked. He stood and leaned over the cockpit coaming and took her hand. “Thank you, Ajaratu. I wouldn’t have made it without you.”

  She nodded silently and glanced astern at the black bulk of LEVIATHAN, listing steeply.

  It was a stiff good-bye, Donner thought, like defeated generals exchanging farewells over broken swords.

  Hardin sat back down at the tiller, the woman’s eyes still on him. “Will I see you?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  “Please,” said Donner. “We have to go.”

  “Peter?” She smiled thinly. “May I hold your watch?”

  Hardin removed his battered Rolex without a word, leaned over the coaming, and slipped the expansion band around her wrist. He kissed her hand. She combed her fingers through his hair for a moment, then stepped into the launch’s cabin and sat down and stared at the deck.

  Donner snapped his fingers. His helmsman handed the wheel to another and stepped onto the Swan. “Leslie will help you to a mooring up the coast,” said the Israeli. “I’ll come back for you.”

  Hardin looked at LEVIATHAN. “Are they repairing it, Miles?”

  “Yes.”

  “Get me a mast.”

  BOOK THREE

  19

  “Where are you going?” Miles asked.

  A week had passed, and Hardin had recovered enough strength to supervise the refitting of the Swan. They were alone in the Afrikaner boatyard owner’s office.

  “North.”

  Miles smiled wryly and refilled their teacups from a pot on a popping wood stove.

  “East or west?”

  Hardin regarded him with faint amusement; he was keeping his plan to himself, but the Israeli never stopped trying. “Can you spring for lift on a freighter to Durban?”

  “East.”

  “That’s where they keep Durban.”

  “I assume you’ve had your fill of Cape rollers?”

  “Yes,” said Hardin. “And that’s a very tough thousand miles around the Cape in winter. You’d save me two or three weeks.”

  “What’s your rush? LEVIATHAN’s laid up for a month.”

  Hardin shrugged. Six or seven weeks was more like it, he had learned in the pubs where the shipfitters drank. It was reassuring to know things Miles didn’t. “Can you arrange it?” he asked.

  “Of course, but I’d rest easier if you’d give me even a general idea of your intentions.”

  “It won’t work that way.”

  Miles frowned petulantly and Hardin, who didn’t want to anger him, put his cup down on the scratched wooden desk and looked the Israeli in the eye.

  “Let me explain something, Miles.” He pointed out the multipaned window to where the Swan rested on a cradle. “When I get out there on that boat again, I’m stuck. I can go anywhere in the world that the wind will take me. I can even go a lot of places that the wind doesn’t want to take me. But only at eight knots. A hundred sixty, a hundred seventy miles in a good day, working hard. That’s about twelve minutes in a plane. Do you get what I’m saying?”

  “Obviously, at any given moment you are trapped within a small perimeter, but I fail to see why you can’t—”

  “Like a fish in a barrel,” said Hardin. “All I can do is hide the barrel. Therefore, I’m telling nobody where I’m going. Two nights out of Durban and I’m my own man.”

  “But you need me.”

  “I want the exact hour LEVIATHAN leaves Capetown. And that’s all.”

  “As well as a ride on a freighter . . . repairs . . . provisions . . .”

  “Helpful, not necessary.”

  “What would you use for money? You’re wanted for questioning by the United States Army. You can’t very well use your American Express card.”

  “I’m a doctor,” Hardin said. “I can walk into the lowest dive in this town and get a thousand bucks for sewing up a safecracker who got shot by a guy who wasn’t supposed to be home.”

  “This is going to cost more than a thousand dollars,” Miles groused.

  “I’ll give you a letter of payment to my lawyer in New York.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “And don’t treat any criminals. This is a police state in case you hadn’t noticed. In fact, the sooner I get you out of here the better off we’ll all be.”

  “Put me on a ship,” said Hardin. “I’m grateful for your he
lp and I’m not telling you where I’m going.”

  “I’m not sure I can allow this,” said Miles. “I may have to review my options.”

  “You go review your options,” said Hardin, wearily climbing to his feet. “I gotta work on my boat.”

  The Swan was lifted from Table Bay by a deck crane and lashed to a solid cradle amidships, and the freighter immediately got underway. Donner had arranged to return on the pilot boat, so he stood beside Hardin and watched with him as they slid out of Duncan Dock and slowly by LEVIATHAN. Listing, as it still did, it resembled a sheer-sided rock promontory more than a ship.

  Hardin’s lips curled sardonically and his eyes stayed on the stricken ship until they were beyond the breakwater. Then, as the pilot boat came alongside, he thanked Donner formally and promised to keep in touch on the new radio. Donner had the disquieting feeling that he was laughing at him.

  “Good luck, Doctor,” he said, taking his hand.

  Hardin held on for a moment and Donner felt something solid in his palm.

  “You keep forgetting I’m an electrical engineer,” Hardin said with one of his rare and easy smiles. He opened his hand.

  Donner found a small piece of metal in his palm, the electronic tracking device he had fastened to the top of the mast so he would know where Hardin sailed.

  “Don’t apologize,” said Hardin. “I wouldn’t believe you.”

  The freighter belonged to the Polish Ocean Lines. Hardin slept as much as he could and forced himself to eat large meals. He was a long way from recovered and still tired easily. Few of the crew spoke English, which made it easy to keep to himself.