Smith got on the phone with Coast Guard Station Cape Cod just in time to hear a follow-up report straight from the commander there.
"My people say it's releasing some kind of fish chasing torpedo. This is definitely a hostile act," the base commander said.
"I am ordering the Hareng Saur be boarded, detained and searched," said Smith.
"Will do, sir," said the commander, who thought he was talking to Coast Guard area headquarters in Boston.
Smith hung up and returned to his system. A torpedo that herded fish. If such a device existed, perhaps he could discover it on the World Wide Web.
WHEN LIEUTENANT HECKMAN received her orders she said, "What the hell? We can't board a boat that size. They've got us outcrewed. Probably ten to one."
"Maybe we can fake them out," suggested her helmsman.
"How's that?"
"Call in a Coast Guard air strike."
"CG doesn't have air-strike capability."
"Maybe they don't know that."
"Good thinking." Taking up the mike, Sandy began chanting, "Attention, Hareng Saur. This is the CGC Cayuga. You are in violation of the Magnunson Act and are ordered to have to and submit to boarding or be sunk."
There was no answer from the Hareng Saur.
Then the factory ship launched a torpedo.
"What are the chances that a fish-chasing torpedo has a warhead?" Sandy wondered aloud, her eyes on the incoming wake.
"The last one blew up on command," her helmsman reminded.
"That was only a self-destruct charge."
"TNT is TNT!"
"Evasive!" Sandy ordered, then grabbed something solid.
The Cayuga went into extreme evasive maneuvers, and the torpedo ran after it like a hungry dog.
"It's gaining!" the helmsman roared.
"Then turn about and ride into its teeth," Sandy flung back.
"Are you crazy? Sir!"
"Do it!"
As the Cayuga heeled into the teeth of the torpedo, Sandy Heckman manned the sixteen-inch gun mounted on the foredeck and zeroed in on its bubbling nose.
Shells began heaving. The first one sent up a chopping uprush of water. That gave her the range. Her second shot struck just ahead, and the torpedo flashed through the turbulent water unscathed.
"Third time's the charm," muttered Sandy, who fired with careful precision, one eye shut, her pink tongue nipped between her neat white teeth.
The torpedo blew up with a force and a roar that settled the question once and for all. It was an antiship torpedo.
No more torpedoes came out of the Hareng Saur.
Twenty minutes later the skies were full of screaming white Falcon jets.
"Last chance, Hareng Saur!" Sandy warned. "Surrender or sink and swim for it. Last I heard, the water temperature was a relaxing thirty-one degrees."
The white flag was run up, and the rails became packed with sailors with lifted hands and blue faces.
"I'll bet my sea legs those are fleurs-de-lis on their damn faces," Sandy murmured as the Cayuga came alongside the towering gray factory ship.
Chapter 40
Remo came to a door. It was like a frozen sheet of turquoise water. The clicking was coming from the other side. He looked back. No sign of Chiun. But he couldn't wait. The soft pad of sandals came. Chiun was not far behind. Fine. He could catch up.
Remo moved to the door. He saw it was split down the center.
Touching it, he had expected the two panels to part for him like an electric door. There were no handles or buttons. It had to be electrically operated.
But the doors remained firmly shut.
Remo pressed both hands to the panels. He tried to peer in. There was something or someone on the other side. He could hear the unbroken keying.
Using his fingertips, he dug into the seam between the two door halves. He found purchase, and exerted opposing pressure.
The doors came apart like stiff curtains. Remo jammed them into their wall grooves and stepped in before whoever was on the other side could react.
The room was square with brick walls. There was a table. On the table sat two computer monitors side by side. Nearby were other monitors, their screens glowing.
Seated before them, her back to him, was a young woman whose visible hair was a cloud of golden filaments.
Remo froze.
Whoever she was, she seemed oblivious to him. He could see her arms spread out on either side of the oversize chair back. One went to a keyboard attached to the right-hand monitor. The other expertly worked the keyboard of the left-hand monitor.
Two monitors were being worked simultaneously.
Remo could read them both.
The left hand was typing in French.
The right typed something completely different in Cyrillic Russian. Two hands, one mind, simultaneously typing in two languages. Remo felt the hair on his suddenly chilly forearms lift.
Then he noticed the great mound of clay that sat on the desk, looming over the seated figure like a spider weaving a web. It looked like a statue of Kali, but the arms were many and malformed. Some tiny as a baby's arms, others adult sized. Some fingerless. Others fisted in defiance. It gazed down with a heavy face that was twisted and evil.
And with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, Remo asked, "Freya, is that you?"
Both pairs of fingers froze in midword. Leaving off their work, they withdrew, and siowly the sunnyhaired figure in the chair rotated to face him.
Remo's eyes stayed on the crown of hair, then the profile as it came around. As the full features revealed themselves, Remo was caught on the deep brown eyes he had not seen in what seemed like decades.
He swallowed. "Freya?"
She smiled. Her smile was as sunny as her hair. "Hello, Daddy. You found me."
Dropping to one knee, Remo said, "Freya?"
And two hands met his. Their fingers entwined. Remo felt their warmth. Then they constricted like talons of slim, hard bone, and another pair of hands came up from her lap to snap a yellow silk scarf over his head and around his neck.
"You killed my mother!" she shrieked. And the silk scarf jerked left with irresistible force ....
Chapter 41
Harold Smith received the report that the Hareng Saur had been boarded without incident as he was reading through a web site of a Russian company that was offering a device called the Acoustic Fish Concentrator on the international market.
After searching the World Wide Web for everything from "Fish" to "Fisheries" without success, in frustration he had typed in "Torpedo," and it just popped up as if by magic.
Based on old Soviet antisubmarine-warfare technology, and operating by sonic waves, the AFC was alleged to drive fish of some thirty-seven varieties into or from any waters the operator desired. Radio controlled, it was equipped with remote TV cameras to allow for remote control and operations.
In that simple discovery Harold Smith understood perhaps ninety percent of the activities of the Hareng Saur and the Fier D'Etre des Grenouilles. The Canadians were herding food fish from international waters and into their own. From the Santo Fado to the Ingo Pungo, the sinkings of ships were designed to conceal their operation and discourage competition for those same fish. And the blame was to be laid squarely on Quebec.
The whys and hows were clear. Now all that remained was the settling of the whos behind it.
Chapter 42
The Master of Sinanju felt his rib cage pressing against his beating heart and willed his heart to be still.
It was difficult, for it raced. Even with his confidence in his pupil, Remo, it raced.
The sides of the stone niche were like a vise that constrained lungs and heart both from performing their proper functions.
But Remo had shown the Master of Sinanju the way, and as Reigning Master, Chiun could not be defeated by so crude a barrier. Especially when Remo was burdened with the gross rib cage of a Westerner.
But it was not a question of holding the brea
th or constricting the ribs. His kimono silks were delicate. To rip them was to lose the precious garment. It would be unseemly. So the Master of Sinanju insinuated himself delicately, knowing that once he achieved the other side, there would be no stopping him.
Down the dank corridor came a cry. It was high and shrill. The words, twisted and echoing, were difficult to make out.
The voice was not Remo's voice. A female. A harridan voice, ugly and biting.
Nearly all the way through, Chiun lifted up on his sandaled toes. This straightened his spine, and the elastic cartilage contracted.
Thus straight, he skinned the last few inches inward, preserving his silks and his dignity.
On the other side Chiun drew in a recharging breath. One would be all that was needed, then on fleet feet, he moved down the stone passage, taking the turn when he came to it.
Under his feet he sensed strange charges and disturbances. He paid them no mind. The floor here was solid stone.
After the last turn, his hazel eyes fell upon a brick-walled room illuminated by twin computer terminals of amber.
Remo stood there, his back straight. He was facing a seated person.
With an sharp intake of breath, the Master of Sinanju saw the weaving delicate hands with their banana yellow nails.
And he saw the scarf of yellow silk that was pressed tight to the back of Remo's head.
"No!" he cried, leaping ahead.
His long nails slipped up, under the silk, and with a snap and a snarl it parted.
Remo staggered back. Chiun took fistfuls of his T-shirt and spun him out of the way. Strangely Remo didn't resist. He seemed without will.
"You will not have my son!" Chiun said, taking a careful step forward.
And a voice at once mature and not returned, "You are too late. I own him now."
And though the lines of her white face were twisted and constricted into an unpleasant rictus, the Master of Sinanju saw that the face before him-her four arms waving, two holding the torn ends of the limp yellow scarf-was a face he knew well.
She was older. But there was no mistaking those brown eyes.
Freya, daughter of Remo and Jilda of Lakluun.
And behind her a great monster of clay in the shape of Kali the Devourer.
Every iota of energy called for a death blow. But to kill the demon Kali was to extinguish the life of Remo's only daughter.
His gleaming nails retreating into the sleeves of his kimono, the Master of Sinanju made his face severe. "Congratulations, unclean one. You have selected a host I dare not kill."
"Begone, old man," said the voice that was Freya, but held an echo of age-old evil.
Chiun's eyes went to Remo, standing off to one side, dark eyes stunned, face wavering between conflicting emotions. He was seeing and not seeing at the same time.
Chiun addressed the avatar of Kali. "I cannot kill you, it is true. But that does not mean I cannot subdue you, or cast you out of the innocent host you control."
Freya stood up. Her four arms extended outward, like the hands of a mad clock. She was a young woman, Chiun saw. No longer a child but not quite a woman yet.
"Go while you still stand upright, " she hissed.
Retreating a step, he intoned, "I go. But I take with me my son."
"Go, but leave my father, who I knew would come, but not so soon."
"I will not leave without Remo," Chiun insisted.
"You should ask my father if this pleases him or displeases him, " Freya-Kali suggested, her eyes and lips as venomous as her words.
Chiun turned.
Remo still stood off in the shadows, his eyes mere glints in the hollows of his skull. His face was a thing that couldn't be read.
"My son. Speak to me...."
The words issued, wrapped in quiet pain. "Chiun. It's Freya."
"No. Not Freya who speaks to you. But the spirit of Kali."
"Bull!" Remo spit, snapping to anger. "I don't believe it. Not to Freya. Nobody does that to my daughter."
"Believe. For it is true."
Remo took two halting steps forward. He raised pleading, helpless hands while his eyes turned to avoid the four-armed thing that dominated the room.
"Chiun, I don't understand any of this. Help me."
"There is nothing I can do," the Master of Sinanju said sadly. "I cannot slay this thing with two souls, one innocent, one wicked. For to slay the wicked would bring death to the innocent. She is of your blood and still but a child. Therefore she is inviolate. We must retreat to a place of safety."
Remo made fists of stubbornness. "I'm not going anywhere. Not without my daughter."
And the voice of Freya-Kali intoned coldly. "You will remain, flesh of my borrowed flesh. The other must go. "
Chiun regarded Remo without emotion. "Remo, you must make an exceedingly difficult choice. To come with me means safety. To remain is peril beyond anything you can imagine."
Remo's dark eyes flicked to the stunted, four-armed creature draped in yellow silks. "She won't hurt me. She's my daughter," he said.
"She is a thing with four arms and terrible lusts. In her mind you are the lover of her past. She seeks to mate with you. To dance the Tandava."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Remo said hotly.
"The Tandava is the dance that will end the universe and all who dwell in it. You. Me. And your hostage daughter."
"Crap. Look, stop trying to confuse me. I have to stay. I have to work this out."
"Remo..." Chiun began.
"You have your answer," Kali hissed through painted yellow lips. "Now take your life to a safe place and forget all you have seen and heard. For while you dare not lay a hand on my innocent flesh, I can slay you with a glare."
Chiun hesitated. Turning to Remo, he bowed once, very carefully. "I leave."
Remo hesitated. "Maybe that's the way to go," he said uncertainly. "Maybe we can work this out."
Chiun's voice skittered close to fear. "Do not succumb to her charms, my son. Above all do not succumb to her charms."
"For Christ's sake, Chiun. She's my daughter."
"She is your enemy. And she has you in a thrall even I cannot break." And with those sad words, the Master of Sinanju walked backward out of the room, not turning his back on his foe, nor taking his eyes from her hypnotically waving arms.
Once in the corridor, he moved swiftly. Racing to the niche, he prepared himself as before and slipped back into the main chamber. It was easier this time. His silks did not snag.
No sooner had his sandals touched the black flooring than as if touched by magic, they cleared.
And below him the Master of Sinanju saw the reason for the constant purl and mutter of the waters below.
Eyes looked back up at him with dull, hungry expectation.
And as if touched by an invisible hammer, the suddenly transparent floor shattered like glass, and the Master of Sinanju was precipitated into the bitterest waters he ever knew ....
Chapter 43
Sandy Heckman was talking to the captain of the Hareng Saur with the assistance of her pocket French dictionary.
"Either you speak the worst, most mangled French imaginable or you aren't French-Canadian," she accused.
"Up yars" the captain said at last.
"A Newfie! You're a Newfie!"
"I have nathing to say," the captain said "What has begun cannat be stapped naw."
"In that case consider yourself a prisoner of war."
"I cansider myself a hastage to environmental pharisees," the captain spat.
"Consider yourself that, too," said Sandy, who led the search of the ship.
On the upper decks they found what appeared to be a bustling factory ship busily converting freshcaught fish into fillets and blocks designed to be frozen and made into fish sticks. Sandy remembered that the creation of the frozenfish-stick market in the early fifties had begun the pillage of the North Atlantic of cod and, haddock-a market Canadian companies had soon dominated.
The door was marked Torpedo Room in English and French. Inside they found two types of torpedoes, explosive and the bullet-headed fish chasers. There were compressed-air tubes to blow them out and recover them again.
The torpedo crew looked at them with blank amazement, then surrendered sullenly at the point of M-16s.
The captain was dragged into the torpedo room and a choice of spilling his guts or being sent through the slime line where fish were gutted en masse on a conveyor belt.
He elected to spill the guts he could most afford to spill. "We call them Truffle Hounds, for the way they send the fish where we want them to go," he said, pointing to three torpedoes sitting in cradles.
"Is this a Quebec operation?" Sandy demanded.
"Da I sound like a damn frag to ya?"
"Not exactly," Sandy admitted. "Who gives you your orders?"
"The cammadare."
"You mean 'commodore'?"
"That is what I have said, cammadare," he said stiffly.
"Canadian navy?"
"Na. Fisheries Minister Gilbert Houghton, who is the bright lad who gathered up all us poor, out-of-work fisherman and gave us back our birthright, which is to fish. That is all we were doing, fishing."
"What about the sunken fishing boats and their lost crews?"
The captain looked as guilty as a lobsterman caught holding someone else's trap. "We were just fallawing arders in this little scrum."
"Scrum? Is that a fish?"
"Na, a scrum is what you call a set-to. We been scrumming with Yank fishermen since before Confederation."
"Well, you can tell it to a UN high commission, or whoever is going to hang your sorry behinds from a rusty yardarm."
"I request palitical asylum!"
"For what?"
"Are ya daft, woman? So I can get back to fishing as soon as passible. For I don't much care if I fish for pharisees or federals. Just so lang as I can fish. It's all I know."
"You fisherman won't be satisfied until you've landed the last pilchard in Paradise."
"Not even then," the captain of the Hareng Saur said solemnly.
Chapter 44
The crystalline shattering sounds penetrated to the room where Remo stood looking with dull, questioning eyes at his daughter.
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