Blood Of The Falcon

Four

Captain Farmingdale was well aware of his unsavory reputation among seafaring men. That «Jonah» label, hanging around his neck like an albatross, was bosh and nonsense, and damned unfair, too. Every mariner had his share of mishaps during the course of a life spent at sea. Why single out poor old Farmingdale for abuse?

Yes, he'd admit to his share of mishaps and more, but none were really his fault. Any captain might have run one of Her Majesty's naval gunboats around on a sandbar in the Yangtze River, precipitating an international crisis. The incident of the oil tanker that broke up on the rocks off Brittany — befouling the French coast with a mile-wide spill — he blamed on shoddy navigational equipment and criminally inefficient subordinates.

More recently, he commanded a ship ferrying pilgrims across the Red Sea to Mecca. Shunning age-old tradition, when the boat foundered during a squall, he and the crew saved themselves in the only lifeboats while the passengers went down with the ship. Whose fault was that? The ship's owner, for not supplying enough lifeboats? God's, for sending the storm?

The disaster made him persona non grata in those waters, but it had the happy effect of bringing him to the attention of his current employers. Every cloud has a silver lining, and that one enabled him to line his pockets not with silver, but with gold.

The gold had already been deposited in his numbered bank account in Zurich. Payment in advance was his personal insurance policy to prevent his associates from killing him to save the cost of his fee.

His pocket now held a small.32 pistol. Not that he contemplated treachery. But it was folly to go weaponless among armed men.

He went down into the ship's cavernous hold to inspect the arming of the explosives.

The air belowdecks was thick, oppressive, visible as a smoggy haze. Infrequent overhead spotlights cast long columns of light in the vast, dim space.

The explosives came in fifty-gallon canisters boxed four to a crate. The crates were stacked in big cubes, wrapped in chains and binders to prevent their shifting position even a slight degree. Stamped on the crates was the deceptive label, OLIVE OIL.

The armaments came from an old munitions cache left over from one of the frequent outbreaks of Greek-Turkish civil war on the island of Cyprus. The load was bought on the cheap, but it was no bargain.

After baking for a while in the humid hold, the plastique began to sweat. Dewlike beads of condensation, the concentrated liquid essence of C-4, sparkled on the canisters. Each highly volatile bead could generate a mini-blast capable of blowing off a man's hand. Just one could produce a chain reaction exploding the entire load.

The beads were mopped up — carefully. But they kept reappearing.

It seemed superfluous to have Hasim and Ali, the demolitions men, rig detonators to key trigger points in the stacked crates, but unstable explosives are quirky. Nobody wanted to take the chance that the blast might fail to come off on schedule.

The Lebanese youths laughed and joked as they worked. Farmingdale frowned. "Those lads take it rather lightly, don't they?"

"To show fear is unmanly. They are not afraid," Mokhtar said.

"There's nothing unmanly about caution. Not with this load. It's a tinderbox. I don't mind telling you, I wouldn't have taken the job if I'd known the condition of the cargo. Not unless I was paid a damned sight more."

"My principal had been told of their inferior quality. Heads will roll… but that need not concern us."

"I still feel that I deserve a bonus for this extremely hazardous run…"

"Come now, Captain. You were handsomely paid, enough to cover any risk. Besides, my principal holds his contracts to be ironclad."

"By the way, old boy, just who is this mysterious principal of yours? I'm in this just as deep as you. It's only right that I should know who hired me."

"If you knew my principal's identity, old boy, you would soon be very dead," Mokhtar said. And he smiled.

Unnerving smile, that, thought Farmingdale. Was it a trick of the imagination, or were his teeth actually filed into points?

Farmingdale cleared his throat. "Yes. Right. Well, we'll speak no more about it, then. It doesn't matter to me who — good lord!"

Hasim needed a detonator. Ali tossed him one. Hasim caught it, then went back to work.

The detonators were tricky and volatile too. Had Hasim fumbled the catch and dropped it, it all could have ended right there.

Farmingdale paled. "That bloody fool could have blown us all up!"

"Yes, that was quite careless." Mokhtar spoke sharply to the two Shiites. The captain's spotty Arabic wasn't enough to translate the actual words, but their meaning was quite clear. Silly grins melted off the faces of Ali and Hasim. Straight-faced, serious, all clowning put aside, they went back to work.

"I think I'll run along back to the bridge," the captain said, and did.

Chastened, Ali and Hasim finished their task with swift efficiency. Presently, they and Mokhtar emerged from the hold. After its gloomy menace, the bright sunlight was as exhilarating as a stay of execution.

"One moment, please," Mokhtar said.

Ali stared longingly at the getaway boat bobbing astern. "Time grows short, brother. Should we not be gone?"

"Your recklessness endangered our mission."

Hasim's high spirits staged a comeback. "Allah did not will that we die below. Is that not so? Else we would not be here, speaking of it."

"True." Mokhtar reached as if to loosen his collar. "Allah wills that you die here, by my hand."

Mokhtar drew the dagger sheathed in the back of his jacket, between his shoulder blades. Slashing down and across, he cut Hasim's throat with such force that the Lebanese was nearly decapitated.

Gurgling his disbelief, Hasim flopped to the deck.

"No!" Horrified, Ali backed off, spun, and ran.

A deft snap of the wrist shook the blood off the blade. Mokhtar's toss sent it whirling through the air. It thudded home in Ali's broad back.

Ali jerked, staggered forward a few more paces, reaching for the knife. Before he took hold of it, death took hold of him.

As chance would have it, Captain Farmingdale rounded a corner and came on the scene just in time for Ali to fall facedown at his feet. "What… what the devil goes on here?"

Mokhtar wrenched his blade free from the corpse, wiping it clean on Ali's shirt before sheathing it. "Hasim and Ali chose to stay on board."

"Hmmm? Oh, right. Can't say I blame you, old boy. Those laddies took it too lightly for my liking."

Mokhtar and the captain went up to wheelhouse, moving quickly. With the explosives now armed, the sooner they quit the ship, the better.

Standing beside Gorgias at the wheel was Ensign Binayah Kerfud, formerly of the Libyan navy. The sad-eyed, gangly young man volunteered for the mission to strike a blow at the Zionist allies of the Great Satan, the United States.

"Any bother?" Farmingdale asked.

"No," Gorgias replied.

"Our cover story is working like a bloody charm. The Israelis still believe that we're en route to Jaffa with a load of olive oil! Damned clever chap, your boss — clever, and thorough, too!"

"I know it," Mokhtar said. "Soon, the world will know it."

The Melina's final destination was the golden strip of beach belonging to Tel Aviv's luxury hotels, a beach now crowded with hundreds if not thousands of tourists and locals. Kerfud would pilot the shallow-draft ship into the shallows, running it aground.

What would happen next was a matter of conjecture in some particulars, though the grisly outcome was never in doubt. The cargo might explode from the impact of hitting the bottom, or it might not.

If it exploded, well and good. If not, Kerfud would activate his hand-held radio transmitter, keying a frequency that would trigger first the detonators, then the tons of explosives.

The Melina was the world's biggest seagoing antipersonnel bomb. The blast would fragment her into a storm of white-hot steel whose every scrap and shard would be a lethal missile. Spectators crowding the shore would be mowed down like weeds under a scythe.

"You are ready?" Mokhtar asked.

"I am ready," Kerfud said.

Mokhtar embraced him. "We shall meet again in Paradise."

"I will not fail!"

Captain Farmingdale threw the Libyan a snappy salute. "Carry on!"

Gorgias shook Kerfud's hand, muttering, "Good luck… er, that is, uh, I mean… well, you know what I mean."

"Come on, let's get the bloody hell out of here!" Farmingdale said.

Captain, first mate, and Mokhtar exited the wheel-house. Mokhtar allowed himself one last glance. All was as it should be. Kerfud had assumed a heroic stance, aware of his central role and determined to make a good show. His gaze searched beyond this horizon, to the world to come.

Mokhtar was a great believer in backup systems. The captain had assured him it would be a simple matter to set the controls on automatic to steer the ship to shore, but Mokhtar mistrusted machinery. He was happier with Kerfud piloting the final run.

He mistrusted people no less than machinery. That was why he carried a second transmitter, a twin of the one in Kerfud's possession. If the Libyan's nerve failed, if he deviated from his suicide run, Mokhtar would detonate the bomb by remote control.

And Kerfud knew it. Doomed in any case, he had every incentive to die a glorious hero and martyr.

Mokhtar left him there, standing at the wheel.

No sense in dawdling now. Mokhtar exhibited some haste in going along the starboard gallery. To himself he said, "Thus begins Operation Ifrit!"

Gorgias and the captain stood at the rail, Farmingdale scanning the southern horizon through a pair of binoculars.

Odd… actually, the operation should already have begun with the spectacular destruction of the Shamash complex. But Mokhtar heard no distant echo of explosions. Hand shading his eyes from the glare, he searched south. No smoky inferno delighted his eyes.

What he did see was the Superbo speeding back toward him.

"I say! That's damned peculiar!" Farmingdale's puzzlement gave way to outrage as the binoculars were torn from his grasp. "Here, now, there's no cause for rudeness!"

Mokhtar stared through the eyepieces.

The powerboat was speeding along, skimming over the waves, carving a white wake across the waters as it followed an irresistible trajectory straight toward the ship.

Nick Carter had company on his showdown run. Elias was along for the ride.

Certifiably dead, the Basque was bound upright in the seat beside Carter, strapped in position by a pair of web belts, a rifle wedged in his arms.

It was simple, desperate strategy — a decoy to draw enemy fire. The shipboard defenders didn't know Elias wasn't in on it with Carter, didn't even know he was dead. He looked alive enough, from a distance. The decoy corpse doubled the targets while halving Carter's chances of catching a bullet.

The rocket launchers were the most sophisticated available. Carter had one primed, its covers off, sighting and trigger mechanisms in place. But the weapon required the use of both hands for proper operation.

Carter solved that problem. He hunched down low, offering the least possible target. He was wedged in his seat, legs folded, bare feet pressing the wheel. The armed launcher's rest was fitted snugly to his shoulder, its flared muzzle clearing the boat's venturi windshield. He opened up the Superbo and came on full speed ahead.

The sweep of the northern horizon receded; the ship loomed before him. He could make out figures darting along the ways, frantically gesturing figures.

They knew he was coming for them.

The Melina grew and grew, its black hull curving up. It blotted out more and more seascape, filling his field of vision.

They were shooting at him. Bullets whipped overhead, buzzing like angry bumblebees. A whole hive of them. One shattered the windshield. Carter's sunglasses shielded his eyes from the debris.

The bow shuddered from the impact of a line of slugs tearing into it. Elias jerked this way and that as bullets ripped him, shredding head and shoulders.

Still the Superbo came on. Carter was too close to miss his target. If he came much closer, it would be impossible for him to pull out in time.

Captain Farmingdale wrung his hands, groaning, "What a bloody cock-up!"

Mokhtar's men lined the rail, working their assault rifles like fire hoses, pumping out streams of slugs. Their aim was no good, the vast majority of shots whizzing harmlessly over the target or raking the water around it.

"He's going to ram us!" Farmingdale cried.

Gorgias turned on the captain. "You damned Jonah!"

"Are you mad? What are you doing?! No, don't…"

Snarling, the first mate tried to strangle the skipper.

Mokhtar screamed for somebody to give him a rifle, but his men were too excited to pay him any heed. Finally, he tore one out of the hands of a startled shooter.

Born and bred a desert raider — and what a long way he had come from that desert in the service of his master — Mokhtar had owned a rifle from his earliest youth. The weapon was his instrument; he could play it like a virtuoso. He was a crack marksman who could hit anything he could see.

His palms slapped stock and barrel as he snatched up the rifle from his man. With the fluidity of effortless skill, he drew a bead on Carter's head.

And that was the last thing Mokhtar ever did, because the Killmaster fired first.

WHOOSH!

The launcher lurched with the backblast, a finned rocket streaking from the muzzle.

Carter didn't wait for the results. Dropping the launcher, he grabbed the wheel with both hands, spinning it hard to starboard, powering into a near 90-degree turn.

The rocket hit the Melina squarely amidships, about eight feet above the waterline. It hit like Thor's hammer.

Steel bulkheads imploded under the impact of the armor-piercing shell, which exploded inside the ship. That blast, mighty as it was, was only the spark that touched off the powder keg.

Split seconds later, an infinitely greater blast was unleashed as the Melina's explosive cargo ignited.

Canister after canister of C-4 instantly volatilized into heat, gas, and pressure waves. The series of explosions came so quickly that it seemed one ever-increasing roar.

No ship could contain that incandescent fury. Cataracts of flame poured out of hatchways and ventilator shafts. The deck and upper works were pulverized in the searing fireball. Fields of flame segmented the hull, slicing it apart at the seams. The remains of the Melina formed a small black shape at the base of an enormous pillar of fire.

The tremendous expanding pressure wave flung the Superbo high in the air. Before Carter could think to jump clear, he was clear, flying one way while the boat went in a different direction.

A giant invisible hand slam-dunked Carter into the sea, stuffing him down, down, down.

The water changed color as he dropped into the depths, going from yellow-green, to dark green, to greenish black. Currents sported with him, buffeting, flinging him this way and that.

The water vibrated with muted booming as the explosions kept coming.

Carter was dazed, confused. Which way was up?

Silver bubbles streamed past him, rising. They issued from his nose and mouth. He breathed water. He was drowning!

He followed the bubbles, using powerful kicks and strokes. The chill uniform blackness surrounding him seemed to have no end. After a timeless interval it lightened, going through the color gradient in reverse, from black to green to yellow-green.

His head finally broke the surface. He coughed, choking. Brackish water spewed from mouth and nostrils, painful, burning.

Day had become night. A pall of black smoke blotted the sky, dimmed the sun. Red firelight underlit the clouds, bloodied the waters. Debris rained down from above.

What remained of the Melina's hull split in two. Fireworks spurted from the fast-sinking twin hulks. Oil leaked from the wreck like black blood, spreading over the troubled waters.

As the halves went down, a whirlpool formed. Suction tugged at Carter, gently at first, then greedily, demanding.

He struck out, swimming away from the widening vortex, taking care not to swallow any oil.

Isolated patches of oil burned, quickly linking up in a fiery blanket. Heat tingled on Carter's flesh. The water grew warmer, much warmer.

The flaming ring was hard on his heels, just short of overtaking him. He swam submerged.

When he came up to breathe, flames and choking smoke surrounded him. He sucked a gasping breath, went under, and swam until he thought his lungs would burst. Better that, he thought, than to have them seared by oil fire.

When he finally surfaced, he was beyond the flames and the swirling vortex. Treading water, he watched the Melina's remains sink out of sight. Hissing steam clouds rose to join the smoke.

Anxiety struck him. He grabbed his right arm, relieved to find Hugo's comforting steel securely nestled in place. The blade was an old friend and he would have hated to lose it.

It was funny how things worked out, Carter mused. The Melina met her fate not far from the bustling port of Jaffa. Jaffa — the ancient city was known as Joppa in biblical times — was where the original Jonah had set sail on the ill-fated voyage that landed him in the belly of the whale.

Captain Farmingdale might have appreciated the irony. Then again, he might not.

Carter did.

The shore seemed a long way off. Carter swam toward it. He hadn't gone very far when an Israeli patrol boat fished him out of the sea.