"Of course," Sam added, "he was awfully jealous of his women and he had his stupid Latin machismo. But after one of his women, a twentieth-century jukado expert, beat him up, he reconsidered his ways and treated the ladies as if they were worth their weight in gold."
There were more pressing things to consider than Santiago's ego. For one, how would John know that his agent had succeeded? John was unaware of the laser. He would have originally charged the Venezuelan with blowing up some vital part of the boat. That command had not been carried out, since the generators and electromechanical control centers were too well guarded.
Also, unless there was a spectacular explosion, how would John know that his agent had done his work? Was a system of signals worked out? If so, Santiago had not sent any.
Unless... he had a radio set hidden somewhere on the vessel. And it was on a frequency not used by...
Sam felt a faint vibration in the deck, one not accounted for by the thrusting of paddles into the water.
He walked to the stern port and looked out. Wisps of smoke were issuing from the starboard side, apparently coming from the hurricane deck.
Sam ran to the intercom and bellowed into it. "Stations 15 and 16! What happened?"
A calm female voice answered. "This is P.O. Anita Garibaldi, Station 17! There's been an explosion down here, sir! A bulkwall's been blown up! The wires in it have been severed!"
Detweiller swore. Sam whirled around. "What is it?"
"I've lost control," Detweiller said, but Sam already knew that. The wheels had slowed, and even as he looked out the stern window, he saw that they had stopped. Slowly, the nose of the boat was turning to port, and it was being carried back by the current.
Detweiller reached out and punched a button. A light by it glowed. He grabbed the sticks again. The wheels began rotating, picked up speed. The boat swung back to its original course.
"The backup system is working," Detweiller said.
Sam grinned a little though he did not feel joyous at all. "Santiago wouldn't know about that," he said. "It was John, though, that gave me the idea for installing it! Hoist by his own petard!"
He yelled into the intercom, keeping his finger on the all-stations button. "All right, you incompetent bungling blind microcephalic dingdongs! You could expand your brains a hundredfold, and they'd still rattle around in a gnat's ass!
"Find Santiago!"
"The strait's dead ahead, Captain," Detweiller said.
A shadow passed over, and twin motors roared. The Goose shot in front of them at an altitude of about two hundred feet. It was climbing between the dark walls, its searchlight stabbing ahead of it, dwindling in distance and darkness, then disappearing as it went around a long bend.
"Can we keep in radio contact with the Goose?" Sam said to the radio operator.
"It's possible, sir. The long waves can bounce around that bend to us."
Sam turned away but spun at an exclamation from the operator.
"Jesus! The pilot just said, ‘We're hit! The starboard's motor is on fire! A rocket...!'"
He looked up with a pale strained face. "That's all, Captain."
Sam swore.
"John must've been waiting for it! He knew I'd sent it to find out what he was doing!"
Why hadn't he let Anderson do as he wished, fly over the mountains? Then he would have been out of range of the rockets or at least have had time to take evasive maneuvers. But no, John knew his ex-partner, knew how impatient he'd be. So he had waited, and now he had the torpedo plane out of the combat.
But the Rex wouldn't have been taken through the strait just to ambush the airplane. He...
De Marbot's voice crackled. "Captain!, We just got Santiago! He'd been hiding behind a bulkwall section! He made a dash up a passageway and almost got to the deck railing! Johnston shot him through the head!"
"Give me the details later," Sam said. "Continue the search for other agents. Look..."
"Rockets!" Detweiller screamed.
32
SAM CLEMENS TURNED AROUND. SOMETHING SWIFT AND SILvery from above struck the base of the pilothouse. The explosion was deafening; the deck shook. Another roar from above. The pilothouse vibrated. Smoke shrouded the windows on all sides for several seconds. Then the wind seized it and scattered it.
"What the hell!" Sam said over and over.
"It's from up there," Detweiller said. He released a control stick just long enough to point up and to his right.
"Get her away!" Sam yelled. "Downstream!"
The pilot had already applied full power. A cool one, that Detweiller.
Again, another flash of silver. Dozens of them. More explosions. A battery of rockets on the starboard disappeared in a thunder of fire and smoke. A direct hit from whoever was launching those missiles from wherever.
"Zigzag her!" Sam shouted.
There were three more direct hits. Other missiles plunged into the water on both sides and aft.
"Our radar's gone," Byron said. He ordered the rocket crews to fire back, using visual calculations.
"But where are they?" Sam said.
"Up on the cliff!" Byron and Detweiller said at the same time.
"Thee!" Joe said, pointing out the stern port.
While Byron was asking for reports on the damage and casualties, Sam looked along the titanthrop's massive finger. About five hundred feet up, where there had been an unbroken wall of rock, there was now an opening. An oblong, it was thirty feet long and seven feet high. Tiny faces looked out from behind launchers, and the sun glinted on the silver of missiles and tubes.
"Jumping Jesus H. Christ!"
John's men must have found a cave up on the face of the mountain, and they'd carried rockets and launchers to it. A shield of some sort, probably papier-mache simulating a patch of lichen, had been placed over the opening. While his rocketeers waited inside it, John had fled up the strait.
"Suckered!" Sam said, and he groaned.
A minute passed as the boat churned down-River. Then, making him jump though he knew they were coming, about twelve large missiles sped from the opening, the interior of the cave lit up for a second by flames.
"Hard aport!" Sam yelled.
Only one of the rockets hit. A steam machine gun disappeared in a cloud, pieces of bodies and metal flying out from it. When the smoke cleared, there was a large hole where the platform, gun, and three men and two women had been.
For a moment, Sam was numbed throughout, unable to move or to think anything except: War is not my element. War is no rational man's element. I should have faced reality and given Byron the command. But no, my pride, my pride. John was wily, wily indeed, and he also had the great Dane, Tor-denskjold, as adviser.
Vaguely, he became aware that the boat was heading toward the bank. Byron's voice, as if from a long distance, was saying, "Should I keep her on course, Captain?"
"Tham, Tham," Joe rumbled behind him. "Chethuth Chritht, ve're going to run into the bank!"
Sam forced himself to move, to speak.
"We won't stay on course. Head her down-River and get back in the middle."
There were bodies on the main deck. Youngblood, Czerny, and de Groot. And there was the upper part of the beautiful Anne Mathy, the former Hollywood star. She looked like a China doll which some sick child had mutilated.
He had seen corpses and blood before, and he wasn't any youngster playing Confederate soldier. There was no Wild West to run away to, leaving the Civil War to those with a taste for it. He couldn't desert now.
From fear he went to anger. The cup of bourbon that Joe— good old Joe!—handed him fueled his wrath. Damn John and his sneaky tricks! He'd send the man to hell, go with him if it was necessary.