White Water td-106

by Warren Murphy

  "Thanks," said Remo. "And try Ex-Lax for your problem."

  The Mountie shot Remo a withering look from under his big yellow Stetson hat, and together Remo and Chiun went off to rent a car.

  The rental clerk was more polite-by about three degrees centigrade.

  "You must return the vehicle to this office and to no other office. If you cannot return the vehicle to this office, your deposit is forfeit. And in addition you may incur criminal penalties."

  "Hey, I'm only renting a car," Remo protested.

  "I am familiar with American television. You people are childish, irresponsible and frighteningly violent."

  "Where do I check my Uzi?" Remo asked conversationally.

  The clerk blanched, and Remo said, "Only kidding."

  "Violence is never funny," the clerk admonished.

  "You haven't seen me inflict Whirling Disease on a mammal," Remo said.

  The St. John's waterfront smelled of fish, age and boredom. Waterfront shacks were bright red mixed with dull gray. Fishermen puttered around their docked boats. Nets were slowly drying in the cold sunlight. And no one looked happy.

  Remo pulled up beside a friendly-looking seaman and asked, "Where's the Coast Guard station?"

  "Eh?"

  "I said where's the Coast Guard station?"

  "Talk slawly," the man said in a strident accent. "Cannat understand you."

  "Huh?" asked Remo.

  "I cannat understand you, Yank."

  "Same here," said Remo. "Coast Guard station. Where?"

  The man pointed vaguely. "Yander."

  "Where?"

  The man leaned in, and Remo received the full force of his fermented breath. It smelled familiar, but Remo put that out of his mind. He had places to go.

  "Yander. As the craw flies."

  "Are you trying to say `Yonder. As the crow flies'?"

  "I did say it," the fisherman returned.

  "Thanks. By the way, is that a burr or a brogue you're speaking?"

  "What?"

  "It is a brogue," said Chiun.

  "If you say so," said Remo.

  "If it were a burr, this would be Nova Scotia. It is not."

  "What's the difference?"

  "It is the difference between New Ireland and New Scotland."

  "Oh."

  "Did that one's accent fall upon your ears like the one you consigned to his watery death?"

  "Hard to say when everyone all sounds like they have a knot in their tongue," said Remo.

  AT THE ST. JOHN'S Coast Guard station, they were denied entrance.

  "No admittance," the guard said, jabbing his finger at a sign.

  "It says, Entree lnterdite," Remo argued.

  The guard then pointed to the opposite sign, which did say No Admittance.

  "We're here about the Coast Guard Cutter you people are detaining."

  "There is no Coast Guard cutter here. Other than Canadian cutters, of course."

  "Of course," said Remo politely.

  "Of course," agreed Chiun equally politely.

  "Sorry. Our mistake," added Remo with a disarming smile. And they turned to walk away.

  Abruptly they spun, taking out the guards with open-handed chops that brought both men to their knees. Remo chopped again, and their faces smacked the cold, hard ground.

  They entered otherwise unchallenged.

  "Now all we gotta do is find Sandy Heckman," undertoned Remo.

  "Listen for cursing," suggested Chiun.

  "Good idea," said Remo.

  They walked through the grounds until they came upon a Coast Guardsman walking along all by his lonesome. Security seemed lax at best.

  "Excuse us," said Remo.

  "You are excused," the man said, walking on by. Remo reached back and arrested him by the neck. He squeezed. The man froze in place. Then Remo turned him around with a casual spin.

  "I asked a polite question. What's wrong with a polite answer?"

  "Nothing."

  "Where's your brig?"

  The man pointed with the only appendage that seemed to function. His left ear. "The white building. But it is off-limits at the moment."

  "Not to us."

  "To everyone."

  "If I point you in the general direction, will you take us there?" asked Remo.

  "No."

  "Good," said Remo, who pointed the man in the general direction of the brig anyway.

  To the Coast Guardsman's surprise, he began walking. Remo urged him along with ungentle squeezes and pinches of his spinal column.

  "Why am I walking toward the brig when I don't want to?" the man asked nervously.

  "Because I am playing hell with your motor nerves," Remo responded.

  "I confess this is a strange, rather puppety sensation."

  "It can get stranger if you don't cooperate," Remo warned.

  "I am trying not to cooperate. Why won't my body cooperate with me?"

  "Because I own your neck and your spine and your snotty attitude."

  As they approached the brig, Remo could hear loud and colorful cursing.

  "If you miserable sons of sea cooks don't grow working brains and cut us loose, I'll personally convert you all to assorted chum and fish bait!"

  "Sounds like Sandy is giving the Canadians salty heck."

  "She is well named, then."

  As they approached the door, the guardsman pointed out the obvious. "We will all be shot."

  "You're taking point, so you'll be shot first. I'd think fast if I were you."

  There were two guards framing the entrance with M-16s at the ready. They snapped their weapons down, and the familiar "Who goes there?" rang out. Only to Remo's ears it sounded more like "Wha gaz hair?"

  Remo gave his captive a squeeze.

  "Petty Officer Duncan," he yelped.

  "State your business," a guard demanded at gunpoint.

  "I am a prisoner of a cruel Yank bent upon unspecified mischief."

  "Thanks," said Remo, who lifted the guardsman off his booted feet and ran him forward like a shield.

  The guardsman somehow got turned sideways en route, and both ends of his flying body caught the two guards in their exposed midriffs. All three made a midair mess, falling to the ground in a tangle of arm and leg and rifle.

  Remo stepped over them and into the brig after flinging their M-16s onto the roof.

  "Sandy! Sing out!" he yelled.

  "What the hell are you?" Sandy Heckman called back from somewhere inside.

  Remo veered for the unmistakable roar.

  Various guardsmen attempted to intercept him. They were intercepted first. Remo intercepted them with fists and smacking palms and kicking feet, and after he had intercepted them, they stayed intercepted. A few lapsed into snoring.

  Sandy Heckman was clutching the iron bars of a holding cell, looking very, very angry when Remo located her.

  "What are you two landlubbers doing here?"

  "Rescuing you," Remo said.

  "Shouldn't the diplomats be doing this?"

  "They're too busy being diplomatic." Remo made his index finger stiff and inserted it into the lock.

  "Now what are you doing?" Sandy wanted to know.

  "Picking the lock."

  "With your naked finger?"

  Remo shrugged. "Why not? It fits."

  A second later the lock made a grating sound, and the cell door swung open.

  Shaking off her disbelief, Sandy stepped out. "Still no soap on that date, if that's what's motivating you," she warned.

  "Deal," said Remo pleasantly.

  "Do you even want a date with me?" Sandy demanded.

  "Not really."

  "Then why do you keep asking?"

  "I don't. You're the one who brought it up."

  Sandy eyed Remo skeptically. Finally she threw up her hands and exclaimed, "The Canadians have gone crazy. They commandeered my boat on the high seas."

  "We're commandeering it back," said Remo. He got the rest of the crew
out of their cells, and they formed a tight, whispering knot behind Remo and Chiun.

  Outside there was no sound of alarm or commotion.

  "This is too easy," Remo muttered.

  "This is Canada, where a street-corner mugging is national news and for a winter thrill they tune in to hear the temperature in Florida."

  "If you say so," said Remo, leading them toward the water.

  There were guards stationed around the Cayuga. They looked relaxed, or as relaxed as armed guards can look on post.

  "So what do we do about them?" Sandy hissed.

  "We will give them something to transcend," said Chiun.

  "Like what?"

  But Chiun had gone. So had Remo. Sandy and her crew exchanged worried glances and waited in the shelter of a marine storage shed. The air smelled of wet nylon lines and copper hull paint.

  On either side of the Cayuga sat the Canadian cutters Robert W. Service and the Gordon Lightfoot. They rode the mooring lines quietly in the gently tossing tide, their red hulls and white superstructures the exact mirror image of the Cayuga's hull panoply.

  Without warning, they began to sink. First there was a low bubbling from each boat. Then abruptly they hit bottom as if they had become tired and given up all thought of buoyancy.

  This dual phenomena brought the guards running, looking both ways. An alarm was raised. The crews of the two scuttled cutters began howling in dismay.

  While the Cayuga was momentarily unguarded, Remo and Chiun returned and led the crew back to the ship. Lines were cast off. No one noticed. They were too busy with their histrionics.

  At the bow Remo and Chiun each set one foot against a concrete retainer wall and pushed off. The Cayuga surged away from its dock in complete silence. This wasn't noticed, either.

  In the pilothouse Lieutenant Sandy Heckman ordered the engines started. They rumbled to life, and kicking up dirty white sea foam, the Cayuga came about smartly and made for open water.

  There was no immediate pursuit.

  "I still say this is too easy," said Remo, looking back from the stern.

  "Try to think of Canadians as Brits without the balls, and it'll go down easier," advised Sandy. "They just aren't used to violence."

  "So how come they seized your boat?"

  "Screw with their fish and they'll cut your throat with the edge of a Canadian dollar bill."

  After a while a Royal Canadian Mounted Police de Havilland Otter flew overhead. From a loudspeaker, a cold voice shouted down a warning.

  "Can you make out what he's saying?" Sandy asked Remo.

  "Sounds like `Deaf boast fins fun.'"

  "I don't think he's saying that."

  "Maybe," Remo said with a grin. "But it sounds like it to me."

  "Me, too," she said. "And if they can't communicate their intentions, we don't have to obey them."

  The RCMP Otter circled and buzzed them angrily but attempted no interception.

  Under cover of darkness they headed out and steered a course south.

  "If we can reach U.S. waters, we should be okay," Sandy said.

  But somewhere off Nova Scotia, they saw lights on the water. Many lights.

  "Oh-oh. Looks like the fleet is moving to intercept us," Sandy said tensely.

  "Whose fleet?" asked Remo.

  "Whose else would it be?" returned Sandy.

  But Remo's supersharp eyes were picking out details. "I see a flag, and it isn't theirs or ours."

  "Whose would it be?" asked Sandy.

  "I'm not good with flags," Remo said to Chiun. "Help me out, Little Father."

  Chiun shaded his eyes with a palm. "I see the flag of Rome."

  Sandy Heckman frowned. "Rome?"

  "He means Italy. You do mean Italy?"

  "And the flag of Portugal," added Chiun.

  "What kind of fleet is that?" Remo asked.

  "A fishing fleet. And I think it's ours," said Sandy.

  "If they've come to rescue you, they're a day late and a line short."

  "We'd better head them off before this thing gets any bigger and badder than it is."

  "Canada is threatening us all over the place. How could it get any bigger?" Remo asked.

  Lieutenant Sandy Heckman made no answer to that.

  The Cayuga fell in on a straight intercept heading.

  As it approached the oncoming fleet, the enormity of the vessels beating their way became apparent.

  Sandy Heckman knew sailcraft. She saw Maine draggers, Chesapeake Bay skipjacks, assorted trawlers, shrimpers and scallop boats. It was a veritable armada of fishing craft, and all were pointed northward, maintaining an equal distance from one another like a pod of surface-feeding baleen whales.

  "Helmsman, steer a careful course," Sandy warned tightly.

  "Aye, sir."

  The radioman was signaling their identity and intentions. He quickly received an answer.

  "This is Captain Sirio Testaverde of the Sicilian Vengeance," a gravelly voice growled. "Get the hell out of our fucking way."

  "Sicilian Vengeance, you are in Canadian waters. U.S. vessels are definitely not welcome at this time."

  "We do not care. We come to avenge my Tomasso and take what is rightfully ours."

  "What is rightfully yours?"

  "The fish. The cod. Even the turbot, nasty as it is."

  Sandy and Remo swapped glances, then Remo picked up her microphone to ask another question when suddenly they were riding into the teeth of the fleet.

  Boats broke left and right to let the Cayuga pass.

  Sandy rushed to the starboard rail and called out, "Are you people crazy? Don't you know tensions are running high? Canadian Coast Guard cutters are in hot pursuit of this vessel with the intention of recapturing it."

  "Remember the Jeannie I!" a man shouted.

  "Avenge Tomasso Testaverde!"

  "Retake Louisbourg!"

  "What's Louisbourg?" asked Remo.

  Sandy bit her lower lip. "Damned if I know."

  Then the fleet passed them, rank upon rank of boats, making a path for them that closed up like a wound once it had passed the Cayuga by.

  Finally they were out of the thickest part of the fleet.

  Looking back at the scores of sterns with their colorful names and home ports from as far south as Virginia, Remo made a helpful comment. "Well, you could chase them."

  "Fat lot of good that will do me. First I get captured. Then I run smack into this. It's back to the Alaska halibut patrol for me for sure."

  "Before you pack, fetch me a cell phone. I'm going to check in."

  "Maybe you can warn someone."

  "First I gotta find out where Louisbourg is."

  "Probably in Quebec."

  "That's what I'm afraid of," muttered Remo, leaning on the one button, which set in motion automated relays that would connect him directly with Folcroft.

  Chapter 26

  Dr. Harold W. Smith knew it could get worse. He just didn't know how much worse.

  In the Pacific a Canadian submarine had breached in the middle of a U.S. salmon fleet. It was an unprovoked attack. Six boats had gone down. All crew had been pulled aboard alive and were in Canadian custody.

  Smith had been about to reach for the red telephone when he heard a familiar ringing.

  He experienced a momentary hesitation. It was the blue contact phone, not the dedicated line to the White House.

  Smith lifted the blue handset and said, "Yes."

  "Smitty, we're on the Cayuga."

  "Good. The rescue came off successfully?"

  "We're in Canadian waters and had to sink a couple of Canadian cutters."

  "It was unavoidable. Good work."

  "There's just one problem."

  "What is that?"

  "We just passed the biggest concentration of boats since they assembled the Spanish Armada."

  Smith's voice tightened like a violin string. "I am listening," he said.

  "They're ours."

  "Navy or Coast Gu
ard?"

  "Neither. Commercial fishing. And they're heading north with blood in their eyes."

  "What is their intent?"

  "To take what's theirs and sack Louisbourg, from what they're saying."

  "Louisbourg?"

  "Yeah. Ever heard of it?"

  "Hold, please." Smith punched in the name and up came a short description, with maps.

  Smith expanded the search, and what he read dried the saliva in his slack mouth.

  "Remo, Louisbourg was the site of a preRevolutionary engagement between the Colonies and what was then New France. It was a fortress on Cape Breton Island in pre-Confederation Canada."

  "So?"

  "It was in part a battle over cod. Because no colonial navy existed, New England fishermen were convinced by the British politicians of that time to sail north and take the fortress from French hands. They battled the defending French fishermen."

  "Looks like history is about to repeat itself."

  "Remo, this is serious."

  "You're telling me? Those fishermen are out to kick Canadian butt, and nobody's going to be able to stop them."

  "Agreed. But there has also been an incident in the Pacific. A Canadian sub breached in the middle of a U.S. salmon fishing fleet. It is unclear if either strayed into the other's fisheries, but there are boats under the water and the Canadians took several prisoners."

  "You thinking what I'm thinking?" Remo asked.

  "If you are thinking that Quebec is unlikely to be operating in the Pacific, you are correct."

  "Then it isn't the French Canadians."

  "Not exclusively."

  "There's another thing, Smitty. I think the brogue or burr I heard is Newfoundland talk."

  "Can you be certain?"

  "No. But I got a good whiff of some half-potted fisherman's breath, and it smelled just as bad as the other guy."

  "Breath?"

  "Liquor."

  "Screech," said Smith.

  "Say again?"

  "Screech. It is a kind of rotgut moonshine popular in that area. This ties the crew of the Proud to be Frogs to Newfoundland or Nova Scotia."

  "So where is this going?"

  "Unless I am wrong, it is going to Ottawa." Smith shook off his grim tone, and his voice sounded more energetic. "Remo, stand by. I must inform the President of these developments."

  "He's going to be one unhappy camper," Remo warned.

  THE PRESIDENT of the United States wasn't a happy camper at all. "Is this war?" he gulped.