“Lodging?” Beauchene’s eyebrows had gone up. “For how fucking long?”
“Until,” said Konnig, with a shrug, “we say it is in our interest to send you home. Now…that might be weeks, months, or years. We don’t know the future. Who does?”
“Your big-mouthed Nazi boss seems to.”
“Well, he’s special,” Konnig admitted. “One of a kind.”
“We’re not giving you the Wesshausers,” said Michael.
“Pardon me!” Konnig frowned. “Who’s the captain here? The dead man in the chair or the French garbageman?”
Beauchene laughed. It was an evil sound.
He walked purposefully toward Michael. With the remnant of that twisted laugh on his face, he wrenched the revolver from Michael’s waistband. He cocked it, and then he turned and walked straight toward Manson Konnig, who blinked furiously and took a backward step.
Beauchene was faster. He put the revolver’s barrel against the peak of Konnig’s white cap. One shot blasted the cap from Konnig’s head and made the eardrums sing.
Konnig staggered back and nearly fell before he righted himself. His mouth was open, his eyes furious at this crass indignity. But he was smart enough not to protest against a madman with a revolver in one hand and a Tommy gun in the other.
Beauchene stood over the smoke-stained cap. “I’ve always wanted to put a hole in one of those,” he said, with a huge satisfied smile.
Konnig released the breath he’d been holding. A lock of reddish-blonde hair had fallen over his forehead, which appeared to be sparkling with sudden sweat. His smile was less satisfaction and more stupefaction. “With my compliments,” he managed to say.
“He’s speaking for me, but I can speak for myself,” said the Frenchman. “You can go back to your ship. We’re sailing on, with our passengers.”
“Not sailing very far, I’m afraid.” Konnig was inspecting his scalp with the fingers of his right hand. “We’ll have to stop you, of course. I will tell you that my mission involves two choices. I was told the first choice was to remove the Wesshausers and take them back alive. The second choice, if the first proved difficult, was to make sure no one on this poor, sad vessel ever passes across the North Sea. It’s really up to you, sir.”
“It may really be up to me to put this gun against your head and give your cap a twin.”
“That wouldn’t be wise,” Konnig said. “And why not? Because if I am not back on my motor launch within another ten minutes, Javelin will start to miss me. And when she misses me, she gets very angry. She begins to shoot incendiary shells, which will burn this ship to a crisp and causes such agonies to human flesh. And my death does nothing for you, because I have three very experienced and capable officers all more than willing to take charge. Now…we are going to destroy this ship, if you refuse our demands. Yes. But we will not use the incendiaries and we will gladly accept any crewmen we rescue. If I am dead, however, Javelin will run the survivors over until there is nothing left but a red smear in all this gray sea. So, you pompous little idiot, what is your choice?”
The African suddenly advanced on him. “Here!” he said angrily. “You can’t speak to my captain like—”
Konnig’s right arm straightened. There was a click of metal. In his hand appeared a small derringer, guided along a metal track laced from elbow to wrist. Michael realized it had been overlooked when Konnig was frisked, probably because the concentration was usually on armpits, sides and groin. Michael reached frantically for his pistol, which wasn’t there.
There was a single loud crack! and Enam Kpanga’s head was rocked backward.
His glasses flew off. A small round wound, deadly enough, had appeared at the center of his forehead. Kpanga’s knees buckled and he slithered to the floor and twitched as he died.
Konnig stood over the body. “I’ve always wanted to put a hole in one of those,” he said. With a snap of his wrist the derringer was retracted back along his forearm to the inner elbow.
Beauchene gave a shuddering breath and swung both guns up, pistol and Tommy. Michael was on his feet, advancing to pin Konnig’s arms.
“Gentlemen?” Konnig said. “I am leaving now.”
The absolute, chilling disinterest in his voice caused Beauchene’s fingers to freeze on the triggers and Michael’s shoes to stick to the floor.
“Honestly, what good would it do to even hold me here, much less kill me?” Konnig stepped over the dying or dead African on his path to the door. “I don’t think I’ll wear the blindfold out, if you don’t mind.” He narrowed his eyes at the expression of horror on Beauchene’s face. “Surely…that thing wasn’t worth the price of a funeral pyre, was he? Now, you have my word I won’t use the incendiaries. Those are very nasty. Remember, sir, that we will rescue any crewman we find in the sea. You might spread that little bit of information around, to help matters. Oh…and I do have another cap.” He paused at the door. “Do the two men outside know our agreement?”
When he received no reply from either Beauchene or Michael, Manson Konnig turned away and left the mess hall as nonchalantly as if he had just eaten a four-course meal and was on his way to take a nap.
They went after him.
Up on the deck, the crewmen who had guns were training their weapons on him. He strode to the port gunwale, where the rope ladder was still hanging over the side. The rain had lessened, the sea flat except for broad-backed rollers, visibility still closed-in. Konnig waved to the motor launch, which had kept pace with Sofia. It nosed in at the bottom of the ladder.
The captain of the Javelin started over the gunwale. He looked up as Beauchene approached, the pistol and Tommy gun ready to blow him to pieces. Rain streamed from the Frenchman’s face and hair and his mouth was a grim gray line.
Konnig hesitated. “Sir!” he called to Michael, who was just behind Beauchene. “Restrain your captain, if you will. There is yet time for a peaceful conclusion to this. And your freighter would make such a lovely fire.”
Beauchene didn’t stop. He came across the deck like a juggernaut. He reached Konnig and put the Thompson’s barrel under the man’s chin.
“Surely,” Konnig said, with a half-smile, “you wouldn’t sacrifice your entire crew for a single nigger?”
Michael saw Beauchene’s trigger finger twitch.
But the Thompson remained silent.
Konnig stared into the Frenchman’s eyes for a few seconds, and then—satisfied with what he saw there—he pulled his throat away from the submachine gun and began his climb down the rungs.
The motor launch received him and he stepped under the shelter of its canopy. The boat turned to port and moved off through the shifting curtains of gloom.
Beauchene stood alone, as Sofia rocked him.
He abruptly turned away and walked quickly past Michael, who followed him because he knew where the captain was going.
In the mess hall, Beauchene approached the African’s body. Blood had trickled like a pattern of scarlet lace from the bullet hole. Kpanga’s eyes were open, his forehead misshapen. Beauchene set the revolver and submachine gun on a table and bent down to pick up Kpanga’s glasses. As he stood over the body, he wiped the lenses on his dirty once-white shirt.
Michael picked up the pistol and slid it back into his waistband. He said nothing; words were no good in this room.