Higgins flirted the empty cup, sending the grounds overboard into the blackness of the sea. The drops flashed green as they caught the glow of the running lights on the way down. Running lights. Peacetime. He remembered ramming his destroyer darkened through the Strait of Malacca at thirty knots, hundred-yard interval between him and the next ship ahead and astern. He smiled and went inside. The bridge was relatively bright and he blinked, dazzled for a moment after the starlit night.
"I'm going below, Mr. Larsson."
"Aye, sir."
The President-class ships were wartime construction, not designed for comfort. He preferred to use the outside ladders when weather permitted; they weren't as cramped as those inside, easier to negotiate with one arm. He hummed to himself as he reached the main deck and walked aft, stepping carefully because it was very dark and he was still a bit dazzled.
Midway back he stopped. The outline of a man stood before him. "Evening," he said.
"Good evening," said the other. Higgins had moved outboard to pass, when his mind stopped him. That had been a Southern accent.
"Who's that?" he said, hesitating in the darkness. The sea whispered unseen along the hull beneath him. His eyes were adapting again. Now he could see the other wore some sort of uniform — not a sailor — it was a gray uniform, and beyond him, above the stern, loomed an enormous shadow —
It all came together then and his remaining hand went for the worn Colt he'd carried through long years of war. But there was nothing there. He'd left it in his safe. It was peacetime, after all.
The outline moved too and the last thing Jerry Higgins saw was the bright silent flash of the stars on
A sword…
Quidley waited, crouched, his heart pounding in his ears. But the man didn't make a sound. Just moved once as he lay, then was still. He stepped over him and prowled forward.
There, to his right, a reddish gleam. He stepped through the door and found himself in a deserted corridor. A ladder led downward. He went down it step by step, saber at the ready, but found no one. The crew must be asleep. His watch said, 0241. There was another ladder at the bottom of this one and he went down it, too, till it ended and he could descend no farther.
This should be the hold deck. Now he should go aft. He found himself confused, though, as to which way that was; the double turn of the ladder had thrown him off.
The sounds of a scuffle, muffled thuds, drew him. By the time he got there it was over. The Yankee — a cook, judging by the stained apron — was lying on the deck. He nodded to the marines. "You the party headed for the hold?"
"Yes, sir."
"Where is it?"
"Should be back in this direction, sir."
No one else interrupted them on the way. The three marines followed him, knives in their hands.
"This should be it," he whispered.
It was a watertight door, dogged and padlocked, with a heavy chain. One of the marines took out a flat package and molded it around the lock and looked at him.
"Let's give it a couple more minutes. Let the other parties get to their objectives."
He watched the seconds tick by on his watch. The second hand, normally so swift, crept listlessly round the dial. The marines paid out wire and retreated around a corner of the passageway. After three minutes had passed he could stand it no longer and walked back to join them. They looked inquiringly at him with eyes startlingly wide in their blackened faces and he nodded.
The explosion rang in the confined space, and he ducked as pieces of the lock and chain ricocheted off steel. Pungent smoke eddied in the air. He ducked around the corner to inspect the door. It was bent inward and he fumbled with the dogging handles and swung it open and motioned the marines through.
Inside it was dark. He groped for a light switch and snapped it on.
It was the hold, all right. A huge bare compartment, high-ceilinged, with scuffed and splintered wooden walls. There was wood underfoot, too, bolted down with bronze. Of course; to prevent sparks. It was the ammunition hold. He sheathed his sword and grabbed one of the marines' arms. The man jumped. "Guard the door," he said. "They'll be down to investigate the explosion."
Next he examined the room's contents, stalking along between high piles of wooden and metal cases, all clamped to the hold's floor with carefully rigged nylon straps. Most of it was conventional ammunition, smaller stuff, four- and six-inch for Monroe's antiairship batteries. There were some replacement rocket motors for the thirty-inch coastal battery shells. But none of the shells themselves.
Then he saw it, clamped down solidly by itself in a corner: a heavy wooden crate ten feet long and four feet on a side. The numbers and letters stenciled on its side meant nothing to him, but it was the only thing in the hold big enough to hold a full-sized shell. He put his hand on the box gently, feeling the roughness of the unfinished wood. This had to be it. He didn't even want to consider the possibility that what he sought might not be aboard. What would we do, what would Norris do then? Apologize? Give the ship back? No, they'd have to sink it, just as planned.
"Need some help with that, sir?"
"Yes. A crowbar, or a hammer—"
"This do, sir?"
The tool was like a short pick, but made of some metal lighter than iron. Sparkless, no doubt. Good planning. He began disassembling the crate, starting at a corner. Boards shrieked and came apart reluctantly. He paused, sweating, after several minutes' work, and looked back toward the door. "Anyone coming?"
"Nothing, Major."
Perhaps the other squads had already taken the bridge and the engine room. Maybe it was all over, without fighting. He remembered the man he'd sabered in the dark. "Hear anything?" he said again.
"Dead quiet, sir… wait." The marine at the door raised his knife as running steps came from the corridor.
"It's the captain."
The young marine officer, Mitchell, slid into the hold. Blood trickled from his scalp, darkening the collar of his shirt, but he looked alert. And anxious. He saw Quidley, saluted quickly. "See you made it, sir. Is that it?"
"How are things going elsewhere?" He turned back to the crate and levered another board loose
"I think we've got them under control, sir. We have the bridge secured. The engines are under our orders. There's some skirmishing going on up forward, where the crew sleeps, but they haven't the weapons to hold us long. They weren't prepared for boarding. They weren't expecting us at all."
Quidley nodded. Something green was starting to show through the hole he was excavating in the crate.
"It's 2:55, sir. Hour and a half till the offload. Can I help?"
"Yes, take a turn. This crate is damned hard to get open."
"Seems to be a catch up here," said Mitchell, examining the box. He raised the tool and struck two carefully aimed blows. The crate creaked. He walked to the other end and struck it again. The top popped up and he motioned to one of the marines and they lifted it off. Quidley frowned. Why hadn't he seen that? He bent to look inside.
The shell was dull green and immense, filling the crate. It looked like a small whale, drab and curving and bluntly pointed at one end and tapered at the other. Two thick bourrelets of yellow metal ringed it three-quarters of the way back from the nose.
Quidley was interested in other things. Three other things. One and two were the two stout padeyes that bulged up from the top of the shell (before firing, he recalled from his artillery days, they'd be unscrewed and replaced with blind plugs). They'd need those to lift the shell out of the hold and into the boat. Three was the fuzing cavity. It would be either in the nose or the base. His searching hand told him the nose was smooth. He found it at the other end, at the shell's base. A threaded hole, leading deep into the thing. It was empty. There was nothing else in the crate. He looked up to see Mitchell watching him.