Baltic Gambit

by E. E. Knight

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sorry, Horst. Horst. I’m not in the mood for that right now. You know? Wrong time of the month,” she lied, but it would be a lie that wouldn’t hurt his ego.

  He shrugged. “I am not bothered by such matters.”

  “Well, I am. Red rain check, okay?”

  “As you like.”

  They came to the Kiel Canal, a shipping lane that allowed the great former naval base access to the North Atlantic rather than the Baltic. It looked like a very well-maintained river, wide enough for large ships, with even banks and working locks and dams that allowed the flow to be controlled.

  The wind blew relentlessly in this part of Germany and there were windmills for power generation everywhere. Only about a third of them seemed to be working, which struck her as strange for the efficiency-driven Germans. Some even had anti-Kurian graffiti written on them, but you could make out the letters only by getting off the roads and really close to the windmills, or by using binoculars, of course.

  There were excellent paths and roads bordering the canal. And a heavy police presence, but they just applauded or cheered the Funkrad, or made obscene gestures, depending on the affiliation of the particular officer. Some of the barges on the water recognized them as well and honked their horns in appreciation.

  Valentine joined her in cycling with the Germans, tucking his hair up into the little helmets they wore, in brief training runs, riding in the middle of the pack of Germans where they wouldn’t be noticed and others could speak for them just in case. As they ran along the canal, it felt more and more like the pleasure jaunt they’d been promised, especially as the weather grew less foggy and more summery.

  They dined on good hard bread, ham, and bacon. The people in this part of Germany ate very little flesh that wasn’t pork. Even chickens didn’t seem to thrive on this rain-and windswept coast.

  They said good-bye to the team on the salty shore of the Baltic.

  It was a foggy morning, and the bike team built two bonfires and had a good old-fashioned Germanic cookout. They purchased a year-old pig from one of the market towns and spit-roasted it with honey, produced huge green bottles of beer, and relaxed on the beach. Some of the braver souls swam in the chilly water. During breaks in the fog, they could just see barrier islands that sheltered the coastal shipping channel, but there seemed to be precious little shipping to be protected.

  A small boat with two men in it rowed toward their fire. The oarsman and steersman hung on their oars for a moment, then pulled hard for the beach.

  Sime and the coach of the Funkrad had a conversation with the steersman.

  “Our boat is just beyond the sandbar,” Sime said. “The dinghy will take us out to it.”

  The oarsman barked something. For a moment the mists parted and she caught a glimpse of a mast in the fog and something darker near the water.

  “Two trips, it will take,” said the coach of the Funkrad. “It’s a tiny dinghy.”

  Duvalier went in the first run with Valentine and Sime. She noticed that both the sailors had identical white pants and sockless shoes. From the waist up they were differentiated, however, one in a sweater, the other in a canvas shirt and insulating vest.

  “Seems like an odd choice, to get on another ship after being on land,” Duvalier said. “Would have been a good deal easier to just take a ship the whole way.”

  “The Baltic Straits might be patrolled,” Valentine said. “I think you can see land-to-land at some of the points. Or island-to-land, anyway. Easy to choke off traffic and do inspections.”

  They had to get out of their rowboat at the sandbar and tote it, oars, and luggage over the grassy sand and back into the water. Duvalier tripped in the surf and got wet, but otherwise it was an interesting exercise.

  They soon reached the ship. It didn’t draw much water, so it was able to anchor close to the sandbar.

  It appeared that a sleek sailing ship would convey them on the next leg of the voyage to the mystery conference. Duvalier didn’t know much about sails; until this trip her boating experience had been confined to river craft and barges, and those were all motorized. This ship had two masts and a sharp bowsprit holding the forestay. A few portholes lined the side, light glimmering in some. A little tent of glass ran down its center; she presumed there was some kind of cabin beneath.

  Duvalier didn’t like the look of it at first. All the other boats were built for sailors and their work at sea. This boat, though longer and far sleeker than the Out for Lunch, had a bathtub-toy shine to it.

  A man with reddish-blond hair, wearing blue jeans, boat shoes, and a thick fleece with a Windbreaker shell, gave them a friendly wave. He handed her up on board. His hands were like Sime’s, as sleek and polished as his boat.

  “My name is Von Krebs,” the man said, tapping his chest with an unlit pipe. “Lorherr Von Krebs. I am the owner of the Windkraft.” He had more of an English accent than German when speaking their tongue, at least to Duvalier’s inexperienced ear. “The Baltic League tells me you are from the middle of the former United States, yes?”

  “Yes,” Valentine said.

  He had a good smile, and Duvalier felt somewhat better. Smiles usually told the truth about a person. “I am pleased, very pleased. One rarely meets Americans in these bad times.” He shook hands all around.

  Duvalier admired his shave. He didn’t have so much as a shadow or a nick. Even Sime looked a bit ragged around the edges when compared to Von Krebs’s standard. He must be very professional with a razor.

  “Welcome aboard,” Von Krebs continued. “Would anyone like some tea? I have milk, lemon, or sugar, all fresh, not from bottles or cans. We are great tea drinkers here in the Baltic. Even more so than our friends across the Channel.”

  Valentine and Sime nodded, and a sailor appeared with a tray of steaming mugs. Duvalier noted there was a small brown bottle of rum with a picture of a thatch-roofed hut on a beach, if anyone wanted to strengthen the tea into a more warming libation.

  “I anticipate a journey of a few days, depending on wind and weather. I hope you will find the trip comfortable. I am afraid you are all to sleep dormitory-style forward, but I imagine I can make private room for the lady.”

  “No need,” Duvalier said.

  “Our destination?” Sime asked.

  Von Krebs pointed north, out into the sea. “I just found that out this morning. They keep secrets even from me, sixteen years with the Refugee Network. We are bound for the Finnish coast on the Gulf of Bothnia—a town called Kokkola. Trade port with rail service, lively year-round. It is a delightful little place, at least at this time of year. I believe you will enjoy yourselves.”

  The second dinghy load arrived. Ahn-Kha heaved himself and his gear on board thanks to his apelike arms. The crew openly gaped at him, and Duvalier would have sworn that the deck rolled over a little as he stood at the ship’s side. Perhaps they’d have to lash him to the center, like cargo.

  They met the crew, who all had white pants, save for the captain, a tall, hawk-faced woman who wore clam-digger jeans that showed off her legs.

  Valentine did a little halt step as he moved up to shake her hand, and it set Duvalier’s antenna twitching.

  The blond captain in the clam-diggers dropped Valentine’s hand. “Wait, you are Indian Man from Lake Michigan Wisconsin You Ess Ayy! We have met before—I know certain!”

  “Pleased you remember.” Valentine smiled. “Yes, you were with the White Banner Fleet when I was a courier. I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “Stepanek. Captain now,” she said. “You have changed. Scars, I see. When we met before you had still the complexion of a boy fresh off the mother’s teat.”

  “Yes,” Valentine said. “We’re both a little weather-beaten. Still hunting for art?”

  “It is one of the reasons I sail the Windkraft. When Herr Von Krebs does not need her, she is mine to sail at will. As long as I am careful. I am very careful.”

  “
One of the best sailors on the Baltic,” Von Krebs replied in agreement. “I am glad you are acquainted with my captain. It is all the confirmation I need that you are who you represent yourselves to be. I was not expecting such an intriguing party. Though I should not be surprised, being Americans. You never can tell with Americans. And our large hairy ally who carries the bags.”

  “He’s the representative of the Kentucky Alliance.” Valentine flared. “You’ve probably heard of him. He was involved in the Coal Country revolt. I believe the international newscasts from the Baltic League mentioned him more than once.”

  Leave it to Valentine, Duvalier thought. I’ve heard of a girl in every port, but one in every ocean? That’s a little hard to swallow.

  “We must have drinks tonight to celebrate this reunion. I did not think you American soldiers lasted like this. I am very pleased.”

  “Good God, Valentine!” Duvalier sputtered. “How far do we have to travel to run into a woman you haven’t been with?”

  “Is she yours?” Stepanek asked. “You misunderstand our brief acquaintance, my girlfriend.”

  “She’s not ‘mine’ in that sense, Captain,” Valentine said. “She’s my partner—comrade. We’ve worked together many times.” He gave her the what the hell are you doing? look, which further infuriated her.

  Emotions she couldn’t quite control needed an outlet. “You’d think a few thousand miles and we’d be in uncharted territory for the legendary cocksmanship of David Valentine, but you’d be wrong, wouldn’t you? Where do we have to go to meet someone you haven’t penetrated? Beyond the Great Wall of China? Pitcairn Island?”

  She regretted the words almost instantly. It was one thing to joke with Valentine in private, another to lose her temper in front of the delegation and a group of Baltic sailors. “Redhead crazy woman,” they were probably muttering under their breath. Even those who couldn’t speak a word of English must have known something about Stepanek and Valentine aggravated her.

  “Calm down, Ali. We met once, on Lake Michigan. No joke, she was on a ship that had to take Southern Command dispatches to other freeholds.”

  “I was there to try to track down some art from the museum in Chicago,” Stepanek put in. “We were not lovers; there was no time.”

  Really, neither of them owed her an explanation for anything. She’d made Val angry and the rest of the party from both freeholds was staring. Except for Ahn-Kha, of course, who’d suddenly taken an interest in how the dinghy was being stored on a sturdy davit at the stern.

  “I’m sorry. Cooped up too long.”

  The food on the Windkraft was some of the best she’d ever eaten, though the cook favored dishes that could be prepared in a big stockpot or roasting pan. The first night out they had a sort of very tender beef stew served over an exotic rice. The flavorful meat and potato and vegetables needed only the slightest touch of the edge of a fork to part. Von Krebs apologized for not having fresh bread to go with it; they “made do” with wonderful buttery crackers and pieces of biscuit with garlic butter. And wines, beers, and spirits. While Sime spoke about the wine with Von Krebs and recommended a selection, Valentine stuck with the milk they’d been offered with the tea, Ahn-Kha had apple cider, and she sampled the “Baltic tea.” While she had drunk tea and coffee often enough in the past, usually it was just to get the warm heat-calories inside her. The bracing tea Von Krebs had acquired was a real pleasure to enjoy, especially in the manner he recommended, with a little German honey and lemon (“All the way from Greece,” Von Krebs boasted).

  “Do you always live this well here?” Sime asked their host.

  “I keep myself well stocked with luxury items. It greases the machinery of the ports, both Kurian and of the free Baltic League. Would anyone care for a cigar? They are Spanish, but I’m told they are very good.”

  She spent the first night out of Kiel, a glorious evening in the mid-Baltic, chatting with Postle. The after-dinner habit that had begun with the cycling team continued in compact folding deck chairs made out of canvas and wood, and they put their feet up on the taffrail and watched the wake of the ship fade into the calm summer water.

  He talked a little about his boyhood in Missouri. He’d grown up near Grog country, in the midst of the raiding and counterraiding of each other’s homes and livestock. He lost his father on a “hut burn” and two uncles defending their own barns against Grog warriors out to make names for themselves. Like Valentine, he’d sought solace in books. He loved westerns, with their simple heroes who tried to stay out of conflicts until pushed one too many times just a little too far. Unlike Valentine, he’d been raised among throngs of family, mostly women, with several widows like his mother.

  He extracted a silver cigar case from his “duty vest,” which held a little bit of this and that a bodyguard might need. It had some simple filigree around the edges.

  “Belonged to the Earp brothers. Wyatt Earp—ever heard of him?”

  “Most folks brought up in Kansas have,” she said.

  “This belonged to him and came down through his family, according to the guy I bought it from.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “It came with a certificate, but about all the certificate proves for certain is that I paid three hundred dollars for it. Still, it’s old, it’s nice-looking, and it makes a good story.”

  “You must like cigars. Do you keep a few expensive ones for special occasions? I don’t remember seeing you smoke a cigar.”

  “Nah.” He opened it up and extracted a little sheaf of pictures and a news clipping kept in a waterproof plastic bag. There was a little bag like a sugar packet that said DO NOT EAT.

  “Poison in case of capture?” she asked.

  “Ach, no. That’s just a little sand to suck up moisture, just in case.”

  They spent a few minutes perusing his family photos. She made appropriately appreciative noises at the grainy, bent images. He wasn’t much better as a child than as an adult, but ugly on the outside meant just as little as handsome.

  He cautiously questioned her about her childhood. She mostly talked about her mom’s struggles. He probed a little on her service as a Cat. “If it’s okay for you to talk about it. I’m curious.”

  “What rumors have you heard?” she asked.

  “That you can see in the dark. Disappear at will. You can be silent when you wish. Reflexes that make you a blur.”

  “The disappear one is false. Stage magician tricks aren’t our style,” she said. “I can be inconspicuous. You’ve seen me in action—was I a blur?”

  “Hard for someone as beautiful as you to be inconspicuous,” he said. “In the fight last month, I’ve no memory of seeing you at all while it was going on—I don’t mean that as an accusation. I was focused on my gun sights. Watching you would have been a distraction.”

  He’d been avoiding flirting with her since they landed in Halifax until this instance. But this was the nicest kind of flirting.

  She let it lie.

  He rose, wobbled for a moment as his legs got used to the deck again. “Want a hot drink from the galley?”

  “Not just now,” she said. She had a lot to sort out about him. Parts of him she admired, but there was another half of him she didn’t quite trust. He was reasonably safe on a trip with plenty to eat and drink, so his penis was moving up the to-do list. Overly attentive men were usually this way right until they were sexually satisfied, but then they lost interest until the juices built up again.

  “You and David have a past; am I right?” he asked.

  “We’ve been partners on three big jobs and two campaigns. That doesn’t count the Rising in Ozarks a few years back, either. We’re like any couple of partners who’ve served in a high-stress, high-risk job.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It’s kind of like a marriage with no sex.”

  “Kind of like a marriage, in other words.” He chuckled at his own joke. She always found that annoying.

  “Wouldn’t k
now. I haven’t been married,” she said. “Doubt I ever will be. I think I’ll have that drink after all.”

  They went down to the galley for more punch. Ahn-Kha was asleep, stretched out on the forward cabin floor like a bearskin rug. Valentine was reading one of the English books in the little ship’s library, and Sime was shaving his head in a basin, checking his reflection in a mirror.

  “It’s getting cool up on deck,” she said, grabbing her scarf.

  Valentine looked up from his book—she couldn’t see the title, but it was thick—and the others ignored her.

  Back on deck, they tried to get the talk going again, but the camaraderie was gone and everything was awkward. They settled for watching the wake. Duvalier spoke a little of the seasickness, now vanished in the calmer summer Baltic.

  Valentine’s Polish gal at the wheel had been replaced by another crew member. The Polish sailing master, or whatever her title was, had a blanket around her shoulders and dozed in a hammock chair as she waited to be called by a nudge of the helmsman’s foot. The fishing boats had autopilots that could maintain course for a while; perhaps with sailcraft the wind had to be taken into account in ways a machine couldn’t handle.

  Von Krebs came up on deck. He avoided them, lighted a cigar and politely smoked it downwind from them. He leaned against the rail, watching them with hands in his pockets except for the moments when he flicked cigar ash overboard.

  The steady stare made her nervous. He looked like he was sizing them up to determine worth in trade. Would he hand them over to seagoing bounty hunters? No, if he was a resource with the Baltic League, he must possess a trustworthy enough background.

  She didn’t care for being stared at. She watched the ship’s wake, so different from the churned water left by a propeller-driven vessel. The mild Baltic night and small waves meant that the Windkraft left a long, hairpinlike wake under her sails.

  Something blacker than the night water appeared in the far wake briefly, disrupting the wave pattern. All she could make of it was that it was dark and shiny. Water ran off its back in little sheets and rivers in all directions. It disappeared at the same one-two-three pace that it appeared, leaving a flat circle of water.