America

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Sea Wind got under way from Lisbon before most of the passengers were out of bed. Tommy Carmellini was up and strolling the decks when she passed the harbor light and hit her first North Atlantic swell. He wandered along watching the stewards, waiters, sailors, and cleaning personnel bustle about their duties. Fortunately most of these people were men.

The breeze was brisk and the sea was covered with whitecaps— all in all, he thought, another great day to be alive.

The ship itself was something to see, a medium-sized cruise ship about five years old that glistened in the morning sun. It had a rakish bow and stacks, a huge deck pool, and acres of topside deck to stroll. Carmellini covered most of the public areas by breakfast time, strolling, looking, eyeing locks and closed areas, most of which bore the sign, "Crew Only." As the passengers began trickling into the dining rooms to feast on every breakfast food item known to man, Carmellini picked the lock of the ship's laundry. In minutes he was back in the passageway carrying a bundle. He went to his stateroom to change into his new outfit.

Lizzy was sound asleep in the double bed. Carmellini had slept on the floor last night. Lizzy was a bit miffed that he didn't make a pass at her. He had no doubt that she would have turned him down, but for the sake of her self-respect she wanted him to make a stab at it. The air was positively frigid when she turned off the light beside her bed.

This morning he dressed in the bathroom, examined himself in the mirror as he savored the motion of the ship in the sea. Sea Wind was equipped with stabilizers, of course, but it still had a subtle motion. Carmellini had noticed that the crewmen habitually walked with their feet wider apart, unconsciously bracing themselves against the ship's motion. He made sure the stateroom door locked behind him and went out on deck practicing that walk.

He walked purposefully, as if he were on an errand, and avoided eye contact with the passengers. One of them, an elderly woman, did put her hand on his sleeve and ask for help with a lounge chair. He placed it where she requested, smiled, avoided her eyes, and walked on.

The first problem, he decided, was finding Sarah Houston. Or Zelda Hudson. Whatever she was calling herself this week. He thought she would be easier to find than Willi Schlegel, who was probably buried in the owner's suite, surrounded by layers of personal staff. God forbid that the owner should have to mingle with common fare-paying passengers.

The crew quarters were the obvious first place to look for Zelda. There were no portholes or personal bathrooms on the decks under the passenger decks. Bunk rooms and lockers. Not many people about because most were busy with ship handling, cleaning, or making and serving breakfast.

Carmellini walked through the passageways as if he owned them, checked likely compartments, finally decided Zelda couldn't be there and left.

Ship's offices? A storeroom? The dispensary/hospital?

He found a guard sitting by the door of the ward in the ship's sick bay, which was equipped to save heart attack victims.

He started to walk by the guard, who stopped him with, "You not go there," in a heavy French accent.

Taking a chance, Carmellini asked, "Has she had breakfast yet?"

"Out."

"I'm here for the tray."

The man got up, went in. Tommy got a glimpse of Zelda as the door opened. He took the tray from the guard, nodded, and walked purposefully away.

Zelda could see herself in the mirror. She looked old, she thought.

Well, she felt old.

The bastards would probably kill her. Try as she might, she couldn't see Willi Schlegel handing her a plane ticket home and a check for $190 million. Willi didn't look the type.

They wouldn't shoot her. Another injection, probably. This one fatal. They would put her into a bag or something along with some old tools or pots and pans, then toss her off the fantail with the garbage in the middle of the night while the paying customers slept off the food and drink.

That was how it would be.

The truth was she had miscalculated. Played for all the dough and underestimated Willi Schlegel.

She sat listening to the blowers in the ductwork and the muted sounds of doors, people moving, machinery — the sounds of a ship under way — while she thought about dying, about how it would be.

Zip had warned her. The Zipper.

The guy was actually… Well, the truth of it was that he was the only man who had ever loved her. Plenty of them wanted her body, and plenty more wanted her money, when they realized she had some, yet few wanted a smart woman around very long. Not in this day and age. If only she had been a blonde with big boobs.

What was it her grandmother said? "Why do you want to be smart? Men are scared by women with brains. Practice being dumb." How do you do dumb? "Ask them how things work — men love to talk about things. Ask them to do things for you. Ask them about themselves. Look interested."

Zip had wanted her, though. He knew how smart she was and liked her for it.

She lifted her arms to the limits of the handcuffs that held her to the chair, then shifted her weight. She sat thinking about Zip, about her grandmother, about everything!

And waiting.

Willi Schlegel also found the waiting difficult. When recovering the satellite had first been proposed seven months ago, he had liked the idea. Heydrich could recover it; EuroSpace could examine and improve upon the technology, perhaps even make a bid for the second generation of SuperAegis. Schlegel knew that there would always be another generation of every modern weapons system, the contracts let long before the first generation was fully deployed. That was the defense business — everything was obsolete in a year or two, research and development never stopped. The demand for new technology meant there were always new profits to be made.

Billions of dollars.

And the people doing the dirty work could be stiffed. Working always through third-party cutouts, putting nothing in writing, he made sure no one had blackmail material.

This time there had been complications. When it became plain that publicly recovering the satellite and keeping it would be unacceptable to the French government, another way had to be found. Ergo, America.

He had thought about stealing the technology from the sub too. Then he realized that hot as the satellite was, the submarine was even hotter. Once it was stolen it could never surface again. Ever. Reluctantly, he accepted that reality.

Now the satellite was in the water, the sub was hunting for it, the wheel was spinning…

Zelda Hudson was the weak link, of course. She was dealing with everyone! It was merely a matter of time before the Americans laid heavy hands on her, then she would tell everything she knew to save her pretty skin.

Schlegel was drinking coffee when a man came into the suite. "Well?"

"I have talked to Maurice aboard the fishing boat on the scrambled circuit. The submarine is still looking."

"What does Kerr say?"

"He cannot understand why they haven't found it. He says he did the trajectory calculations himself. The satellite is there. America should have seen it."

Jake and Flap met on the very bow of the ship. Their wives sat in lounge chairs in the sun nearby. The two men faced into the wind, away from the ship, when they talked. Jake had a backpack hanging from a strap over one shoulder.

"Carmellini has found Zelda," Jake reported. "She's in the coronary unit in sick bay."

"Okay."

"Schlegel is in the owner's suite. Tommy didn't get in there but says one of the stewards confirms that. The stewards are carrying in food, and the doors are guarded."

"Have they found the satellite?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Do we have someone watching that loading sponson?"

"Not yet. That minisub can't rendezvous until this ship slows down, probably at one of our anchorages."

"I bow to the nautical expertise of the navy."

"Right. One of the marines is always in the stateroom where we piled the weapons and ammo. We'll be in a heap of hurt if a maid finds those weapons or someone steals them."

"Very well," Flap Le Beau said. He put his hands on the rail and swept his eyes around the horizon.

"Wanta play shuffleboard?"

Flap eyed Jake with amusement. "It's been a lot of years since we were on a ship together."

"Columbia. We were younger then."

Flap nodded once, remembering. "Too many years." He slapped his leg, then sat in a lounge chair beside his wife and closed his eyes.

"It isn't on this seamount," Kolnikov said. Heydrich was standing beside him staring at the Revelation screens. Turchak was at his usual station, the helm. Eck and Boldt were on the sonar.

Cold fury played across Heydrich's features. "You're sure?" "We've covered every inch. True, there were some fissures we couldn't see into, but you've sat there looking at this thing, just as we have. What do you think?"

"I think someone has lied to us. And I think I know who." "That won't do us much good," Kolnikov pointed out. "Unless you know where the satellite might be."

"Let me use the underwater telephone. We'll rendezvous with Sea

Wind. Tonight if possible. Can you do that?"

Kolnikov worked at the plotting board for a moment. "If she holds her planned course and speed, we should be able to rendezvous in six hours, about oh two hundred. Have them drop their speed to two knots at that time." He gave the course and speed he wanted to Turchak, who turned the boat to the new course and advanced the power lever for more turns. Eck handed the underwater telephone to Heydrich.

At dinner the service was superlative, almost too good. Jake Grafton swept his eyes around the room. Several people looked away, almost as if they had been watching him.

For dinner I'll have the roast with a side order of paranoia, please.

He stirred the food around on his plate. The truth was that he was too nervous to eat.

"Are you okay?" Callie asked under her breath.

"Not hungry."

"Are you seasick?"

He gave her a withering look, then thought better of it. "No,

dear."

"I never saw such food," Callie said with wonder in her voice. "I had no idea anyone on Earth ate like this four times a day. After two weeks of this I'll need a new wardrobe to cover my new width." "This is nothing," the woman sitting on the other side of her declared. "We were on a cruise last year — an Italian ship and chef." She kissed her fingertips.

"I'm going to walk around on deck," Jake whispered and scooted back his chair. "Meet you in the room after a while."

The backpack was by his feet; he snagged it and took it along. As he was going toward the door, he recognized a man sitting in the far corner. Jake gaped. Yes, it was Janos Ilin.

Sitting talking to someone whose face Jake couldn't see. He walked toward the dessert table, groaning with two dozen kinds of sweets. Jake snagged a chocolate chip cookie and took another look. He remembered the man all right. Peter Kerr.

Cookie in hand, Jake walked for the door. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Ilin, who never looked at him.

In the control room of USS America, the hull of Sea Wind projected down into the sea on the port side. Vladimir Kolnikov gestured toward it. "There she is. We've matched speeds and courses. She's about a hundred meters or so to port. That sponson is on her starboard side. Do you want someone to come along, help with the minisub?"

"No," said Heydrich, who probably refused help when he was born.

"I'll walk back there with you," Kolnikov said.

On the way aft, he said, "There will be a lot of dynamic pressure pushing you away from the liner's hull. If you have difficulty getting alongside, the ship's officer will probably order the engines stopped."

"Okay."

"Take your time, think through every task. The bottom is a long way down." They were well away from the seamount, in water a mile and a half deep.

"I have no intention of going there," Heydrich snapped.

"Good. I repeat, take your time, think through every task."

Heydrich climbed the ladder into the lock and dropped the hatch with a bang.

Kolnikov rotated a padded, spring-loaded seat down from the bulkhead and sat. He smoked a cigarette as he listened to the sounds of the minisub powering up. When he finally heard the hydraulic locks release he continued to sit, examining his shoes and thinking of Russia in the summer and this and that.

He was remembering scenes from his boyhood a lot lately. That was probably not a good sign. Paris… he should be thinking of Paris. Of that woman who sold hand-painted postcards by the Seine and smiled at him. They never spoke, but she always smiled.

He should have stayed in Paris. He knew that now. Life is like that — you always learn the important lessons too late.

The change in the feel of the ship woke Jake Grafton. He had been dozing, unable to really sleep, but when the ship's speed dropped off he came fully awake. He checked the luminous hands of his watch— almost two o'clock in the morning.

He got out of bed, pulled on slacks and a shirt, sat down to put on socks and shoes.

"What's wrong?" Callie asked from the bed.

"Ship's stopping." He didn't want to say too much because there might be bugs. "I'm going up on deck." He put on the shoulder holster, then a windbreaker.

"Be careful," she said.

He bent and kissed her. Then he grabbed the backpack and stepped through the door onto the promenade deck. He pulled the door shut, making sure it latched.

Here on the deck the wind was from the stern quarter, a good indication that the ship was making little way. He walked to the railing and looked down. Very little disturbed water. It was the absence of vibration that had awakened him. After all his years at sea, when the engines stopped throbbing the eyes popped open.

He unzipped the backpack, reached in, and found the satellite telephone. He turned it on as he walked through a passageway to the starboard side of the ship. He looked down toward the cargo sponson area. The swells reflected lights.

He moved forward a few feet to a courtesy light that was rigged on a railing post and held the phone so that he could see the keyboard. As he did so he felt something prod him in the back. "Out for a stroll around the deck?" He froze.

"Ah, you are a wise man. We are alone on this deck and that is indeed a pistol, mon ami. There is no one to see you die. Raise your hands as high as they will go."

He did so. As his left arm reached full extension he let go of the backpack, which fell toward the dark ocean.

The pistol jabbed him. "Ah, you came very close. I almost squeezed this trigger to send you to your appointment with St. Peter. Hold very still. Not a single little twitch or I will put a bullet through your liver."

A hand moved over him, found the pistol, and removed it from its holster and flipped it over the side. "We will let your gun sleep with your backpack. You don't need either. N'est-cepas? Any more?"

The man took the telephone from his right hand and prodded him. "Walk forward, very slowly. And lower your hands."

Jake did so and glanced over his shoulder. The man held a man-sized automatic in his right hand and looked like he knew how to use it.

"Understand you that I will shoot you down if you do not do exactly what I say?"

"I understand."

"Ties bien," he said. "We go. Monsieur Schlegel awaits you for to have a little chat."

Willi Schlegel was there when the slimy blackness of the minisub broke the dark water and moved slowly toward the sponson. Two sailors with lines leaped for it, then made fast the lines around recessed cleats. Other men arranged bumpers and pulled it alongside. In a moment the hatch opened and Heydrich appeared. When he was standing beside Schlegel, he said, "It wasn't there. She lied. Where is she?"

The passengers were all asleep except for a few insomniacs. The little entourage passed only one old man in the trek to sick bay.

Heydrich zeroed in on Zelda, who was lying awake on the bed, walked over and slapped her. Then he bent down, put his face inches from hers. "It wasn't there." "What wasn't?"

"Don't play dumb. I have come to learn the truth." She reached to scratch him, and he grabbed her wrists. He turned to the man standing at the door. "I want her restrained. Plastic ties holding her hands together, then cuff her to the bed. We will find out how much pain she can stand."

He looked around, saw the external cardiac paddles. Reached for them. "Aah. I have always wondered. If the current will start a heart that has stopped, will it stop a healthy heart? We will do a scientific experiment."

"Is this necessary?" Willi Schlegel asked as the guard tightened a plastic tie on her wrists.

"I think so, yes," Heydrich responded. "She will tell us where she put the SuperAegis satellite or I shall butcher her right here on this table. First we will play with the electricity, then we will do the scalpels. In the morning the medical people can clean up the mess and feed what's left to the sharks."

He turned to Zelda. The guard had her cuffed to the bed rail. "We have made an enormous investment in time and money. What is your decision?"

"You'll kill me anyway."

"Ahh… and they said you were smart. You missed the point, Ms.

Hudson. The issue is not whether you live or die; the question is how much pain you wish to endure. What is your answer?"

She looked from face to face. They were grim, merciless men. Whatever they did out here on this ocean would never be proved. Who was going to tell on them and make it stick?

She retched. She managed to puke over the rail onto the floor.

When the spasm had stopped, she said, "Cape Barbas. Ten miles offshore, on the shelf."

Heydrich's hand shot out. The slap made her whole face go numb, almost knocked her out. "You've been listening to talk about the storm coming off Africa, haven't you? The satellite had better not be under that storm, for your sake. Try again."

Zelda retched again. She was trying to control her stomach when she felt something hot hit her leg. She jerked, then looked. Heydrich had jabbed a scalpel into the meat of her calf. The handle was all that was visible.

Schlegel walked out of the room and the other men followed, leaving her alone with Heydrich.

He smiled at her and reached for the cardiac paddles. "You know about little boys who torture animals? You know that they are sick, that they should be taken to a psychologist? You have heard all about that, yes? I was one of those boys. No one took me to a doctor. I did it because I enjoyed it. I still do."

"Well, well," Willi Schlegel said. He put his hands on his hips and stood looking at the Americans. There were ten of them, all with plastic ties on their wrists, sitting on the floor. Jake, Flap, Callie, all of them.

"We were watching the passenger list very carefully, waiting to see if the Americans sent someone to spy on us. Then boom, ten of you, at the very last minute. Troubling, that. It meant the United States government was suspicious."

He squatted in front of Flap Le Beau. "A four-star general. Commandant of the Marine Corps. Member of the Joint Chiefs. I would have never suspected that they would send such a high-ranking person." Schlegel shook his head. "I am sorry you came, General. Truly sorry."

He straightened and addressed himself to one of his entourage.

"Take them to the cargo sponson. Heydrich will be along after a while. He can take them with him."

"He will have to make two trips," the aide pointed out. "The little submarine will not hold them all."

"Two trips it is. I want all of them to go."

As they walked along the passageway, Flap whispered to Jake, "I think the bastard intends to kill us all."

"Dead men may tell tales, but they don't take the witness stand."

"Did you call the troops?"

"No, they got the telephone before—"

"Quiet!" one of Schlegel's men hissed. He slapped Jake in the face with his pistol. The admiral fell to the deck.

Flap helped him up. "You go in the first boat with Sonny. I'll take care of this crowd."

Jake got his feet under him and followed along.

There were three men with silenced submachine guns. They herded the ten of them onto the sponson. Flap worked himself to the back of the crowd, Jake with him.

They turned and faced the guards. "I've got a knife up my left sleeve," Flap said, his lips barely moving. "Get it and cut the wrist tie."

Jake got it with two fingers, pulled it out, almost dropped it. He managed to cut the plastic tie without looking down or cutting Flap.

"Keep the knife," Flap said. "Put it up your sleeve. I've got another." Of course he did. Flap Le Beau always carried two knives, the sheer up his sleeve and a throwing knife in a sheath hanging down his back.

Jake spoke loud enough for the Americans to hear him. "Men on the first boat, women on the second. Except Callie. You come with me."

They stood there for five minutes facing the three with guns before Schlegel and Heydrich came out on the sponson. Heydrich was half carrying Zelda Hudson, who was bleeding from the neck, legs, and arms.

"It was on an adjacent seamount," Heydrich explained to Schlegel. "I don't think she intended to deal honorably with you. I'll take them all aboard tonight, then meet you tomorrow night at the Azores anchorage."

"Very good," Schlegel said, bobbing his head.

Heydrich dragged Hudson along the sponson and passed her to a sailor, who stuffed her down the hatch. Heydrich went next. Jake waited until they motioned, then followed along. The other men filed out behind him. Schlegel himself told Callie, Corina Le Beau, Rita, Lizzy, and the others to wait for the next boat. No one made an issue of the fact that Flap was at the end of the line.

The space inside the minisub was tight. Without portholes, even ones that were opaque, the feeling with six people aboard was claustrophobic. The smell was a mixture of dampness and light lubricating oil. And fear. Everyone was perspiring freely, even Jake. Sweat ran into his eyes, making them sting, but he tried to ignore it.

When his passengers were arranged and seated, Heydrich said something to the sailors, then closed the hatch. Jake thought about knifing him right then, but a dead Heydrich wouldn't get him into America. If there was some kind of code… and, of course, he didn't know how to run the minisub. Perhaps Sonny Killbuck did, but Jake had never asked. After a while Sonny was going to have to give it a try. Sonny sat silently, looking at this and that, betraying no emotion. He met Jake's gaze for a second or two, then looked away. Toad Tarkingon seemed ready for anything. Tommy Carmellini was trying to look deadpan and succeeding.

Heydrich had a gun, a silenced automatic. He displayed it, pointed it at Zelda Hudson, who was right beside him. And he raised his voice. "If anyone moves, toward me, at me, in any direction whatsoever, I shall shoot this woman in the head. Do you understand? If anything happens, if anyone wants to be a hero, she dies first. Then I will see how many of you I can kill."

Zelda was in obvious pain. She was seated yet bent over at the waist, in an upright fetal position. Semiconscious, oblivious to her surroundings, she chewed on her lower lip with her eyes tightly closed. She moaned softly from time to time, but she didn't open her eyes or try to change positions.

Heydrich flashed the minisub's lights, then turned the helm, which controlled the minisub's motion in pitch and roll, much like an aircraft yoke. The rudder pedal was beneath his feet. He watched the closed-circuit monitors intently, finally engaged the prop. In a few moments the towering side of the liner disappeared from view. Heydrich began flooding the ballast tanks. The valves were audible as they opened, the water gurgled as it poured into the tanks, and the minisub swam slowly down into the dark, black, watery abyss.

With the women on the sponson, Flap Le Beau's options were limited. There were the three men with silenced submachine guns, Schlegel and two sailors, line handlers.

The sailors stayed out of the way, just in case one of the armed men decided to shoot somebody. They looked like they were from the Far East, perhaps Malaysia or Indonesia. They refused to look at the prisoners, Flap noted. If they were ever called as witnesses they would say they knew nothing. A job is a job is a job, if you have a family to feed and no skills to speak of.

Flap didn't blame them. He just hoped they stayed out of the way.

He waited patiently. Years before, when he had been a jarhead in the jungle mud, he learned patience. Let the enemy come to you in his own time.

Two of the gunmen lit cigarettes. They smoked in silence.

Then the break he had been waiting for came. Schlegel wanted to talk.

"Sorry it worked out this way, General. Obviously it would have been better for everyone if you had stayed home."

"You can't get away with this, Schlegel. The United States government knows we're here, knows you're involved. The Americans will apply excruciating pressure to the French government, which will drop you like a hot potato."

"A potato?" Schlegel asked, obviously unfamiliar with that idiom.

"Thermonuclear."

"I think not." Schlegel smiled. The man was enjoying himself hugely. Flap took a step closer. He was holding his wrists together, keeping them in against his body so that no one could see that the plastic tie was missing. It was, in fact, in his pocket.

That was the moment that Callie Grafton picked to faint. She went limp, sagged, hit the deck like a side of beef, and lay sprawled out.

Schlegel glanced at his gunmen, decided they were sufficiently fearsome to discourage heroics, and stepped over to check on Callie.

She kicked him in the balls.

As Schlegel bent over in pain, Rita Moravia delivered a right cross to the jaw that snapped his head sideways. The impact propelled him back and he lost his balance. He teetered on the edge of the sponson, his arms waving wildly. Then he fell in.

One of the three gunmen found that he had the hilt of a knife protruding from his solar plexus. He released his hold on his weapon as he sank to his knees. He tried to draw it out with both hands, but the effort was too much. He toppled slowly forward.

The gunman nearest Flap never saw him coming. He had been watching Schlegel's balancing act, so when he saw Flap coming at him out of the corner of his eye, he was flat-footed, not quite ready. The cigarette in his fingers didn't help. By the time he got his weapon turned and his hand on the trigger, Flap ripped it from his grasp and elbowed him once in the larynx, crushing it.

People holding loaded guns on other people are rarely alert, convinced that people will be paralyzed at the mere sight of a muzzle pointed in their direction. It usually works; few things in life are more horrifying.

The third gunman, also a smoker, paid for his inattention. By the time he got his weapon into action, Flap was shooting at him. His bullets went high. Flap's didn't.

The third gunman took a burst right in the chest. By the time he hit the bulkhead and slid to the deck, he was dead.

Bobbing in the water, Willi Schlegel saw the third gunman go down. And he saw the grim visage of Flap Le Beau turn in his direction and point his weapon. "No," he screamed.

Flap fired a short burst. When the spray cleared, only the top of Schlegel's head was visible, rising and falling with the motion of the black seawater.

The general turned, ensured that the sailors didn't want any part of what he had in his hands, then motioned to the women marines. "Get these guns. Quickly now." They collected the submachine guns, spare magazines, and three pistols. Flap took the time to reload his weapon. He stuck a pistol in his waistband.

As he herded his wife and Callie off the sponson, he said to Lizzy, "You stay here. If the minisub surfaces and that dude sticks his head out of the hatch, shoot him."

"Yes, sir."

The minisub made some noise as it swam down into the blackness, but not much. Jake Grafton thought he heard the hum of the electric motor that turned the prop, or perhaps it was the fan that circulated air inside the sub. The loudest noise, he decided, was the whisper of water moving past the hull, and even that was muted.

Less than a minute after he left the surface ship, Heydrich turned on the minisub's exterior lights. They penetrated the dark water for a short distance and created the illusion that visibility was better than it was. Consequently, when the hull of America appeared, an intensely black presence that the lights refused to illuminate, the appearance surprised the watchers. America had been in the field of view for several seconds before the watchers realized what they were seeing.

Heydrich approached from the port side, made the turn behind the island to match his course and speed to the monstrous black streamlined shape, and used the searchlights to find the attachment point over the airlock.

Down the minisub came, closer and closer, the movement finally almost stopping as the two craft drifted ever so slowly together. They touched with a metallic clang. Heydrich shot the hydraulic locks, then stopped his prop and centered his controls. He threw a few more switches — Jake didn't know what they were but surmised at least one of them would connect the minisub to the mother's electrical system — then turned to his passengers.

With the pistol in his hand, he set Killbuck to opening the hatch in the minisub's belly. When the hatch opened into the airlock, he gestured with the pistol.

Killbuck went first, then the men in the minisub handed Zelda down. In places her clothes were becoming sodden with blood. She groaned when they handled her, still in obvious pain.

She hadn't shown any signs of recognizing Tommy Carmellini. When he lifted her he whispered, "Hang tough, Sarah."

She opened her eyes then. Whether she recognized him he didn't know. But she was conscious.

"What the hell is this?" Vladimir Kolnikov demanded of Heydrich. "Who are these people?"

"Americans. Looking for their submarine. And by God, they've found it!" He nudged Zelda with his foot. "This one, you know her. Zelda put the satellite in the water."

Kolnikov bent down, checked her pulse, looked at one of her bleeding wounds. "What in hell have you done to her?"

"The bitch put the satellite on a seamount twenty miles west of the one we searched. She was going to hold up Schlegel for more money. He thought she might be trying a double cross, so he grabbed her in Newark and flew her here."

Heydrich bent down and hissed at Zelda. "It had better be there.

For your sake."

He turned to two of his divers, who were cradling Uzis. "Into the mess hall with these people. Leave the doors open and watch them. Check the ties on their wrists. If anyone tries anything, kill them all." He looked again at Zelda and smiled. "Except this one. I want her alive, just in case."

He waited until the divers had led the Americans away before he said to Kolnikov, "There are some more of them. Women. I am going back for them."

"What are you going to do with these people?"

"Don't play the fool. We'll leave them in the sub when we abandon it."

"And the satellite?"

"It may be there, or it may not. The bitch begged me to believe her."

He climbed back up the ladder, through the airlock into the waiting minisub.

Flap led the way up the ladders inside the cruise ship. He said to his wife, "You, Rita, and Callie go to the dining area. I want you to sit in the middle of the room, and if anyone approaches you with a weapon or demands that you go with him, scream. Make a hell of a scene." They left him on the main deck.

With the two women marines behind him, he continued up the ladders toward the bridge.

The sign on the door to the bridge proclaimed, "Crew Only." The door was locked. Flap shot out the lock and walked on through.

One of the ship's officers was at the top of the ladder when Flap reached the bridge. He saw the submachine gun hanging from a strap and took a step backward. "The captain. Lead me to him."

The captain was wearing a nice uniform with four gold rings around each sleeve and had a trimmed gray beard. He was about sixty, Flap guessed.

"Good morning, sir," Flap said. "I am General Le Beau, United States Marine Corps."

"Captain Henri Janvier."

"Why is the ship stopped?"

"The owner has ordered it so." The captain gestured at a man wearing a sports coat standing nearby. "Monsieur Crozet, his representative."

"The owner, Willi Schlegel, was in the cargo sponson when a minisubmarine from USS America, a hijacked American warship, rendezvoused with this ship a few minutes ago. I assume that fact is news to you, Captain. I certainly hope so, because a conspiracy to steal a ship is considered piracy by most nations. Some of them still execute people for piracy, I believe."

"America} The stolen American submarine?" Janvier looked stunned.

"Yes. I suggest you get your ship under way, proceed on your schedule, and allow me to use your radio."

"But Monsieur Schlegel…"

"Is now deceased."

"I talked to him just an hour ago," the captain objected. "He seemed in excellent health."

"It was quite sudden," Flap told him, "An unforeseen tragedy. Alas, we are all mortal clay."

The captain didn't know what to think or do. He looked at Crozet, who was holding a pistol pointed at Flap.

"Lay down the weapons," Crozet ordered, his voice firm.

The ship's officers raised their hands. They were worried men and their faces showed it. The women marines looked at the general, waiting for orders.

Flap Le Beau removed the Uzi carrying strap from over his shoulder and, bending down, placed the weapon on the deck. He pulled the pistol from his belt and put it beside the submachine gun. He did all this in slow motion, then nodded at the women, who did likewise.

Crozet motioned for Flap to back up. Holding the pistol in his right hand, he stepped forward, crouched, reached for the guns. When he glanced down, Flap lashed out with his right foot. He caught Crozet under the chin and snapped his head back. The first kick didn't break his neck, but the second one did.

Crozet's body came to rest wedged under a pedestal that held a radar repeater.

In the silence that followed, Flap bent down, snagged the submachine gun.

"I will tell you one more time, Captain. If you wish to avoid prosecution as an accomplice in piracy, get this ship under way now and proceed to your scheduled port of call. 57/ vous plait."

Janvier erupted in a torrent of French. The ship's officers sprang into motion. One of them seized the telegraph and rang up all ahead two-thirds.

In the midst of this activity, Flap retrieved the pistol on the deck and tucked it into his trousers. In seconds he felt the vibration as the ship's screws bit into the sea.

Keeping his eyes on the ship's officers, he bent down and felt Crozet's neck for a pulse. None. Another unexpected, unforeseen tragedy.

Heydrich was making his approach in the minisub to the cargo sponson when Sea Wind began moving. The surge of water being pushed away from the hull was more than the minisub could handle. It bobbed away, the nose slewing away from the ship, quite out of control. When Heydrich had the minisub under control he watched Sea

Wind steam away.

He knew what it meant. Something unexpected had happened. He didn't know what the event might be, but the unexpected was always a possibility. He had decided long ago to continue with his mission. Find and recover the satellite. Everything hinged on that.

He turned the minisub back toward America, which was still lying just under the surface.

Kolnikov and Georgi Turchak also watched Sea Wind get under way. The churning of her screws just a hundred yards or so away looked like a fire on the Revelation displays, brilliant light bubbling and churning in unexpected ways. The usual control room crew was present, as well as several of the divers, who were mesmerized by the huge color displays.

"Uh-oh," Turchak said under his breath, just loud enough for

Kolnikov to hear.

"Eck, what else is in the area?" Kolnikov said over the whispers that had infected the watchers.

"Nothing in the water. Perhaps an aircraft, but there is too much noise just now. When Sea Wind is farther away I will be able to hear better."

The minisub was visible on the display that showed the view in the aft port quarter. It was turning, coming back.

"He's going to kill those people he brought aboard," Turchak whispered. "I don't know why he didn't shoot them when he got them here."

"He doesn't want to spook the crew," Kolnikov answered.

"The bastard has been sitting in the back of the control room for weeks watching everything." Turchak caught Kolnikov's eye. "We both know he wanted to learn how to run the boat. He doesn't need us anymore."

Kolnikov pretended he hadn't heard.

There was a first aid kit marked with a red cross on the mess hall bulkhead, so Jake Grafton got to his feet and reached for it. One of the gunmen in the door said, "No. Sit!"

Jake froze. He looked at the man, who looked wound banjo-string tight. "This woman is bleeding. We'll put bandages on."

The man shook his head vigorously, gestured with the muzzle of his weapon.

"Were you hatched from an egg?" Jake asked and looked at the other man. "Did you have a mother, a sister, a girlfriend? Are you thugs or divers?"

The second man said something to the first in French, then said to Jake in English, "Put on bandages."

Jake removed the first aid kit from its brackets, sat beside Zelda, and opened it. Tommy Carmellini was holding her head in his lap. They were half under the table in the little space, so they were hard to see from the doorways, where the guards stood.

Jake started on the wound that was bleeding the worst. He used tape to close the cut, then slapped a bandage over the wound and taped it in place.

"Who did this?" he whispered.

"Heydrich."

When he got to the wound in her neck — Heydrich had sliced alongside her jugular vein — Jake whispered, "He thinks he knows where the satellite is. Did you tell him?"

Her eyes focused on him. He saw her eyebrows move.

"I'm Grafton. Rear Admiral Grafton."

The tie around his wrists impeded his efforts. The man who had put it on pulled it too tight, so his fingers were swelling. He turned her head so that he could see the neck wound better. There was disinfectant in the kit; he squirted some on the wound, then taped it shut.

"They didn't kill Zip Vance," he said. "He's in the hospital."

It was then, with her head turned so that the guards at the doors could not see her face, that she said, "It isn't where he thinks."

"Where then?"

He could barely hear her answer. "I told him and he didn't believe me. Cape Barbas. Ten miles out."

"Does Peter Kerr know where it is?"

"I don't think so."

"You there!" the first guard said loudly. "Stop talking!"

They heard the metallic clang as the minisub lowered itself onto the hull, then the solid thunks of the hydraulic locks going home. Both guards looked behind them, along the passageways. They hadn't been aboard long enough to become familiar with the sounds.

Jake used that moment to whisper to Carmellini, "Up my sleeve." Tommy reached and in one smooth motion had the knife in his hand, hidden by his arm. He waited, and soon Jake moved his hands out of sight of the guards.

Carmellini sliced the tie that bound the admiral's wrists, then passed him the knife.

Another minute passed, then another. They heard someone coming along the passageway. Sure enough, both guards craned to see who it was. Grafton sliced the tie from Carmellini's wrists and passed him the knife.

Heydrich appeared in the doorway. "Where are the others?" Jake asked.

"I ask the questions," Heydrich said, unwilling to give the prisoners any leverage. He nodded toward Zelda Hudson. "Is she still alive?"

"No thanks to you. I thought we ought to keep her breathing, just in case. Wouldn't want you and your pals to face a murder charge, would we?"

The guards both looked queasy. It was evident that they hadn't known murder was on the agenda when they volunteered.

"Keep them quiet and seated," Heydrich said to his colleagues and climbed the ladder toward the control room.

After a half minute or so, Jake asked conversationally, "What's the sentence in France these days for slicing up a woman? Do they still do the guillotine thing?"

"Not anymore," Toad said. "The French are pretty civilized. They did away with capital punishment, even though they eat slimy stuff." "Quiet!" snarled the first guard. He took a half step into the room, threatened Toad and Jake with the weapon he held.

Carmellini jerked an ankle out from under him. As he did, Toad grabbed for the weapon.

They would all have been dead if the second guard had leveled his Uzi and pulled the trigger, but he didn't. He ran forward toward the crew's berthing.

"The gun," Jake said and grabbed for it. "Use the E-grenades. What's the fuse delay?" "Three minutes."

While Toad was cutting the others loose, Carmellini removed two E-grenades from his socks, pulled the pins, and twisted the caps half a turn, starting the timers. He handed one of the things to Jake and kept one for himself.

With the Uzi at the ready, Jake Grafton started for the ladder to the control room. That's when he heard the thock of the hydraulic locks releasing the minisub.

He looked. The top of the ladder well seemed to be behind the plotting table. Jake eased his head up, crawled half out, and looked down the aisleway in front of the sonar consoles. He saw several pairs of feet.

"What is going on?" There was panic in that voice. "Someone stole the minisub." Heydrich's voice. "See it on the sonar? We'll make a turn and run over the bastards."

Jake felt the floor tilt as Heydrich cranked the rudder and helm over. Without being told, Jake knew it was Heydrich at the controls. He weighed the E-grenade in his hand. A minute so far?

He scrambled on up the ladder, staying low, behind the plotting table. He turned, mouthed a request to Carmellini: "More grenades." Tommy passed up three. All had the pins removed. Jake aimed the Uzi at the port-side sonar consoles, triggered a burst. The reports were deafening, followed by the sounds of glass showering over everything. Grafton threw an E-grenade the length of the room, then another and another.

The admiral could hear someone sobbing — it was Eck — as he pulled another E-grenade from his sock and armed it, then flipped it down the starboard aisle.

He was peering around the starboard side of the plotting table when someone grabbed him around the neck. He could feel a hand on his neck, squeezing like a vise, while another hand and arm forced his head around. From above.

Heydrich had come over the consoles and plotting table. He was on the table now, reaching down, trying to twist Jake's head from his shoulders with his right hand and arm while he choked him with his left.

Somehow Jake dropped the Uzi. Forgot he had it as the pain became unbearable.

As suddenly as it began, the pressure was released. Jake looked up. Toad Tarkington had come up the ladderway and slashed Heydrich across the face. Cut him to the bone. Cut out an eye. Blood sprayed everywhere.

Heydrich rolled off the table screaming. He was on the floor, trying to get his pistol out of its holster in the cramped space, when the first E-grenade went off with a metallic boom and an unpleasant jolt of energy.

The lights went out. The darkness was absolutely total. A pistol flashed. Heydrich fired a shot! He stopped screaming, struggling instead to get air in and out.

More grenades went off. Jake scrambled into the port aisle as Heydrich triggered more shots. A bullet hit something and ricocheted madly, a series of whacks.

The bastard thinks he's blind, Jake thought. He's shooting at everything.

He waited.

And was rewarded with more jolts of energy as the rest of the electromagnetic grenades exploded.

He heard Heydrich running forward, bouncing off things.

Jake stood and triggered an Uzi burst. In the hammering strobe of the muzzle flashes, he saw Heydrich disappear through the forward door to the control room. And missed him.

"Don't shoot. For God's sake, don't shoot!" That was Eck.

Boldt was somewhere forward, sobbing.

Jake slipped up the port aisle. Two men were on the floor — he could hear them. The darkness was total. Not a single form or shape could he discern.

The silence was deafening. Even the screws had stopped. America was a tomb.

"Okay, Sonny. Get up here and save our sorry asses."

He went forward, feeling his way.

"Don't shoot us!"

"If you people have matches," Jake said conversationally, trying to calm them down, "now would be an excellent time to strike one. Your flashlights are probably fried. Any light at all would be a help."

He heard someone fumbling. After about a half minute someone struck a match.

Sonny Killbuck walked forward down the starboard aisle.

"The reactor? Has it shut down?"

"Oh, yes," Sonny said. "The rods are held out by electrical power. In the event of a total electrical failure, springs pull the rods in, SCRAMing the reactor." He spoke to the man on the floor near him, who was Eck. "Give me those matches."

He struck one. The depth gauge showed sixty feet.

"Okay," Sonny said, trying to calm himself down. "Okay. We're dead in the water at sixty feet. What do you want to do, sir?"

"I want you to get this pigboat to the surface so we can get everyone off."

"The nearest hatch is in the next deck up, right above this compartment. I suggest we get everyone up there. When I do an emergency blow, we'll go up pretty quick. Maybe thirty seconds. Call it forty. Open the hatch and get everyone out."

"Okay," Jake said.

He turned to Toad and Carmellini and started to speak when the match burned out. The darkness was so thick it was hard to breathe. If they weren't careful, someone could start shooting. "You heard him. Toad, you and Carmellini get Zelda up to the hatch. There should be life vests by the hatch. After the blow, open it up and go out. Sonny and I will be right behind. And these two here. Then anyone else who wants out can swim for it with us."

"Okay, boss," Toad said. He and Carmellini went down the ladder and brought Zelda up. They kept climbing.

When the three of them had life vests on, Toad shouted.

"You two, go on up." Eck and Boldt scurried up the ladder.

"Anyone else?" Sonny asked.

They might be armed. Jake went to the tunnel and shouted aft, "Abandon ship." How far aft they could hear him, he didn't know.

"Do it, Sonny."

Killbuck struck another match. He was at a panel on the left. He began squeezing handles and lifting levers. Nothing electrical here— these handles pulled cables that opened valves which released compressed air into the ballast tanks, forcing the water out.

In that huge silence he heard the hissing as the valves opened. One by one, on both sides of the boat.

"Let's go," Sonny said as he came rushing toward Jake. "I couldn't get one of the valves open. She's going to be out of trim."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know if she'll get to the surface. Or if she'll float. The shooting in the control room may have damaged something."

Trying to get life jackets on people, the hatch open, all in absolute Stygian darkness, was an exercise in terror. They handled it different ways. Tommy Carmellini was cool and deliberate; Toad kept muttering, "Come on, people"; one of the Germans was sobbing; and Zelda Hudson said nothing, tried to help but was too badly wounded. "I'm sorry," she said under her breath at one point. Grafton heard it, though no one else did.

He knew the submarine was on the surface when it rolled drunk-enly as the first of the swells slammed into the sail.

Killbuck cranked madly on the hatch dogs. After a lifetime the thing opened… and they got their first whiff of salt spray and sea wind. And their first gleam of light. The early light of dawn was turning the sky pink — a gleam enlivened the compartment where they were.

"Out, out, out," Jake Grafton roared, unable to contain himself. He hated the darkness, he was scared, and there were still people trapped aboard.

Carmellini scampered up the ladder, then turned and jerked Zelda Hudson up and out.

A swell broke over the hatch. Cold seawater cascaded in.

Carmellini was no longer topside.

"Up you go, Toad. You and Killbuck. Out!"

Those two and the Germans from the control room were out when the next wave turned the open hatch into a drain pipe. A river of cold seawater poured in while Jake waited.

Another man was climbing the ladder, keening, desperate. He went by Jake without seeing him, ignored the life vests, and was almost washed off the ladder by the next wave.

Jake grabbed his arm. "Is there anyone back aft?"

"Oh, God! Heydrich is back there killing people. He is shooting everyone he can find."

"Out! Up the ladder and into the water. Swim away from the boat."

The man went.

Should he go aft, look for people still alive?

The deck was tilting. Staying in the boat was suicide. Jake Grafton started up the ladder, but he had waited too long. The open hatch went under and became a waterfall.

He was washed to the deck. For several seconds he waited for the deluge to stop, then he realized it wasn't going to.

The water in the compartment was going down the ladder well. Jake let go and was swept that way.

He got a grip on something, then lost it and was washed down the ladder well, fell with tons of water pushing on his shoulders and arms.

The total darkness, the cold water, the list of the boat. Raw terror grabbed him as he tried to think.

Automatically he held on to the ladder, unwilling to give up on the open hatch he knew was waiting above. He could wait in an air pocket, and when the inflow slowed, climb up and out! Yes, that was it! His one chance!

How long he clung to the ladder as water poured onto his head he didn't know. It was only when the realization sank in that the volume of water was increasing that reason prevailed.

He pushed away, tried to think, felt his way aft in the pure wet blackness, grabbing this and that as the cold water swirled about him and the air pressure pushed at his eardrums and the deck tilted.

Oh yes, my God yes! The bow is going down. She's lost buoyancy. She's going under!

The airlock aft, where the minisub docked.

The Russians and Germans hadn't closed the watertight hatches, so the boat was flooding throughout its length. Through some kink of fate, some twist in the cosmic fabric, the bow dropped, so the water ran forward, forcing the bow down even more but not drowning him.

He dimly remembered the compartments, remembered the virtual simulator, remembered the engineering drawings he had studied weeks ago in his office in Crystal City.

He fought his way up the tilting deck. The boat was perhaps twenty degrees nose-down. The weight would be carrying her down, down into the infinite depths. The steadily increasing air pressure reminded him that was so.

Then he saw a light. Dim. A battle lantern. Battery-operated. Not fried by the E-grenades. It was at the bottom of the ladder up to the airlock.

He took it from its bracket, scrambled up the tilted ladder toward the lock.

Blood. In the light he saw a vision of blood, flecked with the gleam of white bone.

Heydrich!

"Aaieee!" Heydrich screamed and swung a damage-control ax.

There wasn't room to swing it properly, and Heydrich was almost blind. He swung at what he saw, which was the gleam of light from the lantern.

The gun, Jake thought. Where?

He had lost it somewhere.

Heydrich drew the ax back and swung again.

Jake ducked down the hatch to avoid the bite of the blade, which struck the combing, then grabbed for the handle before Heydrich could raise it again.

Heydrich was screaming now, keening steadily. His strength was unbelievable. He raised the ax with Jake grimly holding on to the handle… and dragged Grafton up into the compartment. The lantern went onto the deck.

They struggled. Jake felt the ax bite him, but he was beyond caring. This maniac stood between him and life!

Grafton went nuts. He kicked, gouged, bit, hammered at the insane diver, all the while fighting for the ax.

Then he realized he had it in his hands. He reversed it, drew it back at his waist, and swung with all his strength. He buried the blade in Heydrich's stomach. The man doubled over, collapsed on the deck.

Jake grabbed the lantern, climbed into the lock, and closed the hatch.

Instructions! In his condition he found that the printed words on the bulkhead were indecipherable. He stopped, took three deep breaths, tried to calm himself.

"You're going to make it, Jake Grafton," he reassured himself. "This is your chance. God gave you one more."

A hood. He didn't have an escape hood.

Well, he would have to go without it.

There was a tool to open the water valve, which was a safety handle. He used both hands. The water began coming slowly, then faster and faster as he opened the valve. He opened it all the way. As the water flooded in he looked at the hatch above him, examined it with the lantern light.

The water was cold. Cold as death.

He fought the urge to attack the upper hatch.

No. Wait. Not yet. He could hear a voice talking to him. Not yet, Jake Grafton.

The battle lantern stayed lit even though covered by water. The rising water was rapidly compressing the air that Grafton was breathing. There was a hood, a shelter of clear, thick Plexiglas, and he stood so his head was in it as the water poured in, filling the space.

He concentrated on breathing as he watched the rising water. Thank God for the battle lantern!

How deep was the boat?

If it was too deep, he would never make the surface….

The water filled the last of the space. Standing with his head in the hood, he could still breathe. He felt a great calm.

The wheel that rotated the dogs was stiff. Whoever had left in the minisub had really cranked this thing down.

He let the air fill his lungs, then turned the wheel with all the strength that was in him.

The handle rotated and the hatch flew open.

Jake took his last breath, ducked down under the edge of the Plexiglas hood, then climbed and kicked his way up through the open hatch. Into absolute darkness.

Far above he could see light, the dawn lighting the surface of the ocean.

He exhaled steadily. If he didn't, the submariners had told him, his lungs would burst as he rose.

Up, up, up, exhaling as slowly as he could, sure he would run out of air before he reached the surface.

He heard a great roaring in his ears, fought the fear, fought his way up toward that light on the surface of the sea, fought his way up toward life.

Jake Grafton shot out of the water, his head and shoulders rising above the swells. He gasped for air as he fell back with a splash.

Amazingly, he still had the lantern.

The sky in the east was a bluish yellow. In minutes the sun would rise.

He turned, looking, and saw two hydrofoils. Roaring, snorting, exhaust plumes cutting the air.

He waved the battle lantern, pointed it at the nearest one.

And it came toward him. As it approached he saw the flag over the bridge streaming in the breeze, the Stars and Stripes.