Jubal and his blacks joined me in dropping flat to the deck.
“No!” Martel roared.
Astiza fired.
The swivel gun banged, and there was a sizzle as a cone of lead balls swept the deck like a wicked broom. French ruffians cried and toppled as bullets tore flesh. Balls pinged off the mortar on the foredeck, whining away or whapping into wood. Martel staggered from an impact, and I tripped him and leaped atop, hurling his sword overboard and holding his own knife to his throat. Jubal’s men were doing the same to the others. In an instant, the situation was reversed.
The sailors at the rigging had frozen, including the one I’d warned. Astiza had stepped from the stern to Captain Brienne at the wheel to hold a pistol to his body. “Stay your course, or you’ll have no backbone.”
Martel was gasping with pain. One ball had torn his belly, another his arm. “No woman would do that,” he complained. I could feel the stickiness of his blood.
“My woman would, to a man who stole her child.”
“Damn you.” He coughed wetly. “I watched everyone but her.”
“You’ve damned yourself.”
“Listen to the wind, Gage.” His voice was a bubbling wheeze. “It’s rising toward a hurricane. If we don’t make port now, we never will. Jibe for Fort-de-France, and I’ll parley with the governor and split fairly with you, I promise. If we don’t make port, we’re doomed.”
“Split what? You just lost your share of the treasure, including your foolish flying machines. That’s what comes of breaking an agreement.”
“Those models are the property of the French government!”
“I think they’re the property of the Haitian government, now. Or perhaps I’ll take them to London. You can explain your mistakes in a letter to Bonaparte.”
“Bonaparte will hunt you to the ends of the earth if you flee with this treasure. He’s expecting ancient secrets to help him conquer Britain. This isn’t about money: it’s about power. You’ve understood nothing from the beginning.”
“If Napoleon were here, he’d have less mercy on you than I will. The first consul is my patron. He’d be appalled that renegade French policemen have tortured, kidnapped, and betrayed.”
Martel groaned. “Fool.”
“You’re the fool, for assaulting my family.”
“Gage, do you think I have license to accost you in Paris, dally with Rochambeau, and be set up like a prince in Martinique?”
“You’ve a talent for roguery, I give you that.”
“It’s all been at the orders of Bonaparte. The theft of the emerald, the kidnapping of your son, the hunt for the legend. Napoleon’s not your patron. He’s your foe. He didn’t keep you in Paris for Louisiana, which was near bargained already. He flattered you to follow this treasure, manipulating you with the theft of your family. You’ve been his plaything from the beginning.”
“What?”
“Nitot told Josephine about the emerald, who told Napoleon, who told Fouche, who told me. You’ve been our puppet since Saint-Cloud. I’m merely an employee. It wasn’t I who stole your son and wife. It was Bonaparte, who knew you’d never volunteer to look for Aztec technology on your own. But he knew you might be tricked into it with the right incentive, such as a kidnapping, and that you have a knack for learning clues that elude ordinary men. Whether you explored for Dessalines, the British, or France hardly mattered. You’d come after your family, and when you did, Napoleon would get his due.”
“You’re lying.”
“The Corsican wants those flying machines and is perfectly willing to sacrifice a family to get them. He’ll sacrifice a million families for a chance at England. Your only hope, Gage, is to return to Fort-de-France and throw yourself on French mercy. Napoleon will forgive but never forget.”
“Napoleon forgive? For betraying my family?”
“That’s what the great do, to remain great. And the lesser accept their calculations for a moment’s favor. That’s all we can hope for. I’m amazed how naive you remain after all the treacheries you’ve endured.”
It’s true. I am by instinct good-natured and want to believe the best of people, except when I have to shoot or stab them. It’s a fault, I suppose. So now my mind reeled like the heave of the ship. Martel had been working for the same first consul who’d supposedly deputized me to work on the sale of Louisiana? And that master considered me entirely disposable? Of course Napoleon felt himself impregnable, in his own grand palaces.
“I don’t believe you.” But my tone betrayed me.
“You think an unemployed policeman can order a bomb ketch? Lambeau converted this ship on Napoleon’s orders, not mine.”
“Why didn’t Bonaparte hire me directly?”
“Because you kept insisting you’d quit.”
I felt dazed. A wash of seawater ran from side to side of the deck, mixed with blood from dead and wounded men. Now I had a choice of surrender to Martel’s government or a ride in a hurricane with a wounded crew at one another’s throats. “I only wanted to retire,” I said hollowly.
“You can only retire when the powerful say you can retire.”
“And you, Martel, wounded, wet, five thousand miles from home?”
“I’m a policeman. A soldier. I accept my fate.”
I glanced about, considering. Astiza still stood behind the helm and our captain as the ship surged on, surfing down growling swells. Brienne looked frightened at our course, but clung fatalistically to the wheel. Martel’s look was mocking, pitying, disdainful, proud, pained, as if he were the moral superior. So I had to jolt him into place. “Perhaps what you say is true. We’ll let Dessalines finish your interrogation to make sure.”
Finally he paled. “Monsieur, that is monstrous…”
“He has his own ideas of justice for slavery-loving Frenchmen.” I dragged the bleeding bastard to the hatch leading to the hold. “You’ve a gift for conversation. I’m sure you can persuade him.”
“You’re a traitor to your race if you give me up to Dessalines!”
“Don’t talk to me about treachery.”
“I warn you, Gage, I’ll never go! I’ll kill myself first!”
“You’re too much the villain to dare.” I dragged him down the ladder, bumping, and found that chains had been prepared for our own capture. So I snapped them in place around him and the other scoundrels and took the ring of keys. I almost let Martel bleed to death, but at the last moment wrapped rags around his wounds so we could save him for later torture.
I can be ruthless, too.
In a sail locker I found Harry, rolled into a ball and terrified by the gyrations of the ship. I crawled in and hugged him. “Harry, it’s Papa! Are you all right?”
He was crying. “Where’s Mama?”
“Guiding our ship.” I reached out to touch him, and he shrank. His fear was wounding. “I’ll take you to her. You’ll stay in the captain’s cabin.” I bundled him in my arms. “It’s almost over, son.”
“I want to go home.”
“The cabin is like a home.”
I carried him up to Astiza. “I’ll guard Brienne!” I shouted against the wind. “You keep Harry in the captain’s quarters!” I handed her one of Martel’s flying models. “He’s betrayed us from the beginning, but this is what he came for.”
She looked. “This is what the Aztecs saw, not what they made,” she guessed. “They’re too crude. The Indians were copying something extraordinary.”
“Agreed, but I’ll show one to Fulton anyway. Keep Harry warm.”
She retreated to the compartment in the stern.
I turned to Captain Brienne, who looked more frightened of the sea than my pistol. “Can we hold this course?”
“It’s too late to jibe; the masts would break. So we run downwind. But feel for yourself.”
I was shocked at the pull of the wheel and feared the rudder would snap. The ship was trembling as we surfed down the seas. We needed to take down more sail; trying to manage the clumsy bomb ketch was like holding a halter on a drunken cow.
“It would be better now without the mortar, monsieur,” the captain said.
I looked at the gun. The ketch rolled as if an anvil was tied round its neck. “Agreed.”