“Yes, sar. That we did.”
“Get the handheld compass, Billy.”
He found the small tackle box, rummaged in it and came up with an ancient brass Boy Scout compass and read off the direction. “Says we go right, sar. We on course.”
“Let me see that.”
Hooker took it from his fingers and laid it on the console beside the Clamdip’s main compass. They both read the same. Both were twenty-five degrees off course. He took the small unit, stepped back away from the wheel and looked at the dial. The twenty-five-degree difference wasn’t there any longer.
This time he moved quickly, but very deliberately. He told Billy to take the wheel, and after scanning the immediate area, he pushed open the doors to the lower cabin, flipped on the overhead lights and went down the steps. He knew what he was looking for and he knew where to look. The old Matthews was a solidly built wooden boat, made before there was a need or desire for fancy accoutrements. Directly against the bulkhead below the wheel was a door that opened to access the instrument panel, and when he pulled it open he found what he was looking for. On the shelf was a steel box about eighteen inches long and six inches high and wide. He lifted it out, took it on deck, wrapped it in an old cork life jacket, then leaned over the rail and floated it away from the boat.
Billy watched him, eyes asking the question.
Mako said, “That, buddy, is a bomb.” He watched as the device bobbed on the placid surface of the sea. “There was no place down there to really hide it, so somebody stuck it right under the instrument panel.”
Once again Billy scrutinized him, waiting for the rest of the explanation. In back of the Clamdip the thing was a small dot.
“I don’t know what that was made of, but either the amount of metal drew that compass off or there were magnets in it.”
Billy wagged his head. “But... a bomb, sar. Are you sure...”
The blast sound was dulled by distance, but the intensity of it was reflected in the brightness of the flash. A few moments later they felt the force of the concussion on their bodies.
“I’m sure, Billy.”
“Mr. Hooker, sar, you are one smart city feller, that’s for sure.”
“Not so smart, Billy. I should have seen it sooner.”
“Ha. But we are alive. You are smart.”
“Okay, I’m smart.”
“How do she get there, sar?”
“Billy, I am not that smart.”
“Somebody, she want us dead, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Since we are not dead like the fish...”
Hooker finished for him. “Yes, Billy, they will try again.”
But Billy didn’t answer him. He was staring over the side of the boat, then walked along the rail toward the stern, finally pointing toward the water. “He is there,” he said. “Mr. Shark with your first name.”
Hooker locked the wheel in place and went back to the transom. He saw what Billy did, the great, sinuous shape of the shark, death-gray in color but pulsating with vicious life. The great fish raised up, its eye coming out of the water. “It’s a mako,” Hooker said.
“Yes, sar,” Billy told him. “He is your brother. He waits for you.”
There was the white flash of teeth as the shark gaped, then his tail made a swirl in the water and it was gone. Hooker looked at Billy, grinned and went back to the wheel.
Chapter Six
The air had a sticky feel to it, and Mako switched on the old overhead fan. The draft cooled the sweat running down his spine and he leaned back against his chair to scratch the itch it caused, and cursed under his breath because a creepy feeling was all over him now, like a vast invisible cloud that seeped into the chinks of his armor, looking for soft places to spit poisonous darts.
He knew this was going to happen. He knew it when he took his walk out of the building that contained his whole life and he knew it when he bought his boat and when he settled into a routine that began to have some semblance of meaning other than killing or being killed.
Now he realized why some of the older guys had smiled knowingly, because it had happened to them too. They had tried to voluntarily exit a lifestyle they had voluntarily taken on and suddenly found out that nothing was voluntary anymore. You only thought it was voluntarily. You had a great aptitude for secrecy and stealth and violence, and some unseen force guided you to the right door, opened it and pushed you in, and there you were, right where you wanted to be. You were in with the killers, the secret brotherhood of legal, deadly killers, working against other secret brotherhoods almost as deadly as you were. Only you were better paid. Your government had heavier funding for this sort of thing. Their science and technology had made unbelievable things happen. All the spilled blood was blotted up and swept out of sight, and those who participated died as though they had never existed.
And although you were under contract, you could never really quit. Your contract never ran out as it was supposed to.
You only got out when you were dead.
So the other guys smiled. They knew.
And he wasn’t dead yet.
They simply had to let him leave, knowing when the time came for him to be useful again, he would come back. The small communications box and the plastic bag of weaponry he had taken as mementos weren’t trinkets to look at after all. They were there to be used.
Mako had concealed them well. He took the communications box out from its hiding place, making certain none of the telltale signs had been disturbed. The pretuned radio was an exquisite piece of miniaturization, powerful enough to reach any place on earth. He took four flashlight batteries out of their packs, shoved them into their clasps, and a tiny but mighty generator began turning noiselessly to power the unit. From a sealed plastic bag he took the receiver and stuck it in his ear.
Then he pushed the S button for send, heard slight little sounds as circuits were meshing together and a voice answered, “Base here.” It had a mechanical sound so it couldn’t leave an identifiable voiceprint.
“Catcher here,” Mako identified himself, then looked at his watch.
When fourteen seconds had passed he said, “Catcher on-line.”
Exactly five seconds had passed and the mechanical voice said, “Speak.”
Mako didn’t know how it worked, but now both ends were scrambled, and if anyone were tapped in they’d get beehive sounds because this technology was something they hadn’t quite figured out yet.
He said, “BT 13 A.”
They knew him now. The voice transmission broke down to CQ, and Morse code in an old cipher rapped out the message LIMITED USAGE BY RETIRED PERSONNEL ACCEPTED UNDER EMERGENCY CONDITIONS. PROCEED.
Base wasn’t taking any chances with him, he thought. He went to a secondary code so that they’d know he was wise to their actions. His forefinger tapped on the small CQ key and sent back, REQUIRE CURRENT INFORMATION ANTHONY PALLATZO, MARCUS GREY. CQ TRANSMISSION ONLY. 1400 HOURS 8 15.
The time for the return transmission wasn’t right, of course. There was always that possibility of the other side updating its technology, so the actual prearranged time would be an hour and a half later concealed inside a third code. He would have to review that one in his memory banks. Years had passed since he used it last.
Mako put the radio back in its box, touched the concealed self-destruct switch so that he wouldn’t have to worry about its being stolen. Any motion without turning off the arming switch would automatically destroy the ultra-high-tech circuitry. He put the box back where he had gotten it, concealed the site and stood up.
That ought to start some mouths working, Hooker thought. They were a curious bunch at Base, and when his request numbers reached a certain level everybody was going to want to know what was going on. Most likely Chana would put in a request of her own and want to know what the hell he was doing on the site, and she’d really be put out when she didn’t get an answer.