John Higgins bustled across to them, beaming, an empty briar wedged jauntily in his mouth. “Evening, Captain. Chief. Would you like a drink, sirs?”
Richard at least was tempted — Martyr rarely drank — and he hesitated for a second. It seemed too long, all of a sudden, since anyone had called him “sir” like that. He grinned enormously, feeling all the weariness drop away and an old excitement stir inside him. Then he clapped the second mate on the shoulder. “No, thanks, John. I’ve kept you all from your meal long enough. Ben, Chief. Let’s go through.”
The meal started quietly because both senior officers were silent; but as course succeeded course, each more excellent than the last, conversation became a hum and then a contented buzz.
An hour or so later they trooped back to the bar, picked up a few more drinks, then proceeded to the lounge. The food had sharpened Richard’s mind — the food and a simple joy in existence he had almost forgotten how to feel. He had spent the meal studying his men. He felt able to invest another half hour in this crucial exercise before retiring at last. He took his beer and followed.
In the lounge there was a TV, but it could only pick up Arabic stations. There was also a video. “Where are the tapes for this?” demanded Martyr unexpectedly. He, too, had been watching the captain and officers during the meal and he now looked less hostile — perhaps even a little confused. Certainly this was the first time he had ever come into the lounge with the others. Truth to tell, it was also the first time Tsirtos had dared come in here as well. The young radio officer was as willing to oblige as an excited child.
“There are some tapes in the library, I think,” he offered at once.
“Try and get a good movie, son,” demanded Martyr. Tsirtos vanished to obey.
Martyr seemed to have reached a decision. He crossed to Richard’s table and sat, uninvited. Richard swung round until his back was to the screen, facing Martyr. The chief put his great scarred hands on the table and leaned forward above them. “Richard Mariner,” he drawled. “Do I know that name?”
Richard knew when he was being tested. He had no idea of the stories that had circulated, anticipating his arrival, and would have been surprised to hear half of them. He thought instead of the collision; the explosion…He sat quiet, watching his adversary. The cheerful hum of conversation continued unabated. That was good, he thought; he didn’t want this clash of wills too public, or the authority of one of the combatants must inevitably suffer, no matter what the outcome.
“Captain Richard Mariner…” The American drew it out, apparently using the sound as a goad on his recalcitrant memory.
Suddenly, with breathtaking vividness, Richard saw three hundred feet of pipe-forested deck rolling back toward him as he stood, unbelieving, in his bridge. Three hundred feet of steel plate, rolling like a carpet. Like the top of a sardine can with an invisible key turning.
His whole body jumped and flinched. Martyr’s eyes focused on him sharply at once, but Tsirtos unwittingly saved the situation by bustling back importantly, holding a handful of black video cassettes. Martyr swung toward him, a glimmer of interest lighting his bronze hatchet face. “Anything good? Any westerns?” he asked almost wistfully.
“I don’t know what they are, sir. No labels.”
All the officers turned back into their little groups. Martyr turned back toward Mariner, the temporary distraction over. The test began again. “Mariner. Now I’m sure I know that name…”
Richard ran out of patience. He opened his mouth to tell the chief to play up or get out of the game, but caught his breath in shock. At the very moment he looked up, Martyr’s face changed.
The eyes blazed. The thin lips drew back from marble-white teeth. Nostrils flared. Ugly veins wormed their way across his broad forehead.
At the same time, all conversation stopped, stunned into silence. Discordant music blared. Richard swung round, knowing a crisis when he found one.
Tsirtos was kneeling down, checking the video machine as it ran. Above him, on the screen, a young girl was hanging from the branch of a tree. Her legs were lashed to pegs, wide spaced in the ground. She was utterly naked. As they watched, in stunned silence, a hooded man appeared and began to beat her with a stick. She looked sixteen years old, if that.
“Tsirtos!” snapped Mariner, but his voice was lost in Martyr’s roar. The table rose in the captain’s face as the chief launched himself forward. Richard toppled to one side, rolled over, and came up just as Martyr hauled Tsirtos to his feet. Holding the boy’s shirt left-handed at his throat, Martyr launched a murderous right hook low to his belly. Another.
Captain and first officer leapt forward as one, each catching an arm. Martyr dropped Tsirtos and pulled free, swinging round. He drew back his fist, eyes completely mad. “Ben!” called Richard, at whom the blow was aimed. Ben caught Martyr’s wrist and turned the blow. Richard stepped back, kicking away the table and chair.
“Right! That’s all. Look after Tsirtos.”
His whole stance changed. The English stiffness went out of his back and shoulders. His heels left the floor and his knees bent slightly. His chin tucked down toward his chest. “Come on, then,” he said quietly. His voice and face had changed too. When he raised his fists, they were surprisingly big.
Martyr, far beyond control, threw another huge haymaker at the icy Englishman. Mariner rocked back slightly and let the blow pass within an inch of his nose. Then he leaned in over the chief’s guard, hooking a vicious right to the angle of his jaw. Martyr staggered forward and Mariner danced behind him delivering a crisp combination of right-left-right jabs to his kidneys. Martyr answered with a right hook to Mariner’s ribs concealed by his turning body and delivered like a landslide. The Englishman hissed and staggered back a step or two before starting to dance again, using the movement to swing a left of his own back over Martyr’s guard to the side of his head.
Any of these blows would have destroyed lesser men, but the captain and the chief were hardly slowed. Martyr, his turn stopped by the simple physics of Mariner’s counterblow, put his head down and charged. After two steps, he gathered the Englishman to his shoulder, but Mariner twisted before the American’s grip could tighten and, taking that great cannonball head under his arm, he ran forward, using the chief’s own weight and the force of his charge, guiding the blind man into the door.
He had closed the heavy teak door behind him as he had entered, last of the officers, a few minutes ago. Now he opened it again with the top of Martyr’s head and his own shoulder. Not so much “opened” as “demolished.” And the massive force of the movement, centered on the top of Martyr’s skull, knocked him unconscious at once.
Richard let go as they exploded through the door and spun away, catching at the handrail along the wall, saving himself from falling, turning back at once to see Martyr landing facedown like a dead man. And in motion once more, stepping back over his adversary through the splintered door. There was a cheer quelled instantly by the look in his eyes.
Tsirtos was on his knees, puking weakly and swearing viciously in Greek. Suddenly the radio officer looked less boyish. His brown eyes were hard. His face vicious. Making Richard remember inconsequentially, that it was the Greeks, not the Sicilians, who invented the vendetta.
The video picture had changed. Its subject matter had not. “Switch that off!” snapped Richard Mariner.
There was a click. The screen went mercifully dark.