"Shee-it," said Willie reverently. "Never seen one of them so close up."
And Vyry, who had alone of all of them kept her eyes fixed on the other boat, said, "Look."
The red lights had gone out.
"Let's go," snapped Leo. Finnick was already moving, spinning the wheel hard, slamming both throttles ahead. The boat lifted and began to pound as it gained speed, roaring in a tight circle back toward where the lights had been. "Go on in close," the Railroad man shouted. "Get ready."
Barrels thudded on the gunwales as the men aligned themselves and slapped in magazines and charged the weapons. "Don't shoot till I give the word," Leo reminded them.
"Jus' a few shots, give them somethin' to worry about besides Johnny—"
"No. You might hit him."
"For God's sake, don't shoot," said Vyry, watching the dark hull materialize from the mist as they drew closer.
The red lights came on. Then off, then on again. "Damn, I think he might have…" breathed Finnick.
"If he has…" said Leo, and let the sentence trail off, as Finnick had. A hundred yards separated them from the other boat. The men aimed their weapons. Finnick leaned forward over the throttles, eased them back. Fifty yards. Thirty yards. Then twenty.
"Johnny!" Finnick shouted.
"Come on."
It was his voice. Vyry let herself breathe out, and a golden wave of joy washed over her. She could see him, a shadow moving about that other deck. A splash, and something bobbed to the surface and drifted away. She couldn't see what it was.
The two boats came together with a jarring, grinding thud. Finnick held them together with his engines as they scrambled over and up the slightly higher gunwale of the patrol boat. She followed them. The deck of the other boat was slippery, running with something sticky and dark in the red light… a burst of gunfire made her flinch and crouch. A moment later Finnick, the last one off, jumped up to the deck. "Where's Johnny?"
"Here, Bo."
The two men embraced. Finnick laid down his gun. "I blew the bottom out of her, she'll go down quick… damn, man. How'd you get them all?"
Turner bent to pick up another body. The arms dangled; a lanky, pale-faced boy. He held it for a moment, then pitched it overboard. "Just one at a time, Bo. Here." He held out a darksmeared hand. "Here's your blade back."
There was a moment of awed silence. But Vyry put her hands to her face. The men were white; white military, part of the machine that had oppressed and twisted her life, men perhaps who'd used her for their lust. Yet lying there, dead, they seemed not white, not military, but only men.
As if to wash the deck clean, it began to rain, fat drops pattering around them. "Good," said Leo, looking upward. "Rain'll help cover us. Johnny, Finnick — can you run this boat?"
"Long's she's got a motor, we can run it," said Bo.
"Try to get it started, then." Leo checked his watch. "We're a little early… hour yet till the rendezvous. Willie, I want you to keep watching in that direction." He pointed east. "You see a light, a ship — call me." He looked around the boat, then walked to where Turner was standing, looking into the sea. "Johnny."
He grunted.
"The Railroad will be grateful for this. That was a heroic act."
Turner stared at him.
"I mean it. In your shape — you'd better lie down, get some rest, you know?"
"No," said Turner.
Vyry lost Leo's reply as she walked toward the bow. She had to get away and think. The blood. The bodies. She was happy Johnny was unhurt and at the same time she was horrified at what he'd done. Killing had been abstract to her before. Now it was real, real as the smell in her nostrils, the bobbing shapeless bundles the current whirled away into the night.
But they're white, she told herself.
The feeling didn't go away. Had he had to kill them all? Couldn't he have — oh, tied them up, or knocked them out? Her mind said that was insane, he was alone and they were many and one groan would have doomed him. Her mind told her they were white, they were the enemy, they deserved to die. But she looked down at the dark blood swirling and dissolving in the rainwater, and knew that it was wrong.
The engines fired, rumbled, then began to run. They were louder, obviously more powerful than those in the little tuna boat. She looked around for it. It was already gone. The engines fell back to an idle and she saw Finnick and Leo watching her through the low windshield. "Who's that up forward?" Finnick called.
"Me. Vyry."
"Come on back here."
She walked back to them. Leo looked at her. "You'd better go below," he said. "Fewer black faces up here when that ship shows up, the better. Maybe you can find a place to lie down."
She studied his face in the reddish light. A youthful face, pale but with the colored blood still there in lips and nose if you looked close. A face that meant well. But the face, too, of a man who could sacrifice others — the white sailors, Turner, perhaps all of them — for his cause. She cleared her throat. "I'll go when you say. But I'd like to stay up here for a while longer. Please? In the fresh air."
He nodded. She walked to the stern and let herself sink onto a coil of rope and raised her face to the rain.
"Now what, man?" said Finnick.
"We wait," said Leo. "Hour — hour and a half if they're late — and the ship should show." He pointed to where Willie, the Tredegar cradled lovingly in his chubby arms, stared into the rainswept night. "Soon's he sees it, everybody below but you and me. You find a hat, pull it down low. We'll go alongside. They'll probably set the shell down in those things over there—"
"Chocks?"
"Chocks, yeah. Then we get out of here."
"Sounds simple."
"Simple's good. Less to go wrong."
"Man, didn't Johnny do the job, though."
"Yes, he did," said Leo, but he sounded worried. "Bo, tell me — I only met him once. Does he seem different to you? As if he doesn't really care what happens to him?"
Finnick stood by the wheel for a moment, then drew his knife nervously and sank it deep into the wood. "You're right, man. He's — Johnny always been a bad nigger, you know, don't get to be foreman on the docks unless you can take down any man works for you. He done it to me more'n once. But he done it because he had to, not because he wanted to. But now — you're right, he's actin' crazy." He twisted the knife in the wood, leaving an ugly, splintered gouge, and grinned at Leo. "Or maybe — for the first time, he got it all straight."
They stared at each other. "What?" said Leo.
Finnick's knife gleamed in the red light. "That shell, man. How many you mean to kill with that?"
"I don't know. I hope we get what we want without—"
"What Turner done ain't nothin' next to you. I want to use this blade on a white man myself." He stared at Leo, eyes slitted. "Shit, man, they ain't a nigger in this Southland that grew up like a human bein'. That's what whitey done to us. You're right, Leo. We don't waste no more pity on them than they ever done on us. I say kill 'em all. Revolt."
"We can't revolt," said Leo. "There's been plenty of people wanted to, but the Road's always stopped it. We can't. We're outnumbered, and they've got the Army, the police — all the guns. It'd be a massacre. Just what the Kuklos League is waiting for."
Finnick pointed out, into the darkness. "Well, we're going to somethin' a lot more powerful than guns." He leaned forward, laid his hand on Leo's shoulder. "And Mister Railroad Man — you better be ready to use it."
FOURTEEN
"God damn this rain," said Quidley, looking down at the President McClellan's wide cargo deck.