Patriot

CHAPTER 46

Brock was by Stokely’s side in an instant, his weapon up, peering into the gloom.

“What the hell?” Brock said, waving his free hand to clear away the swirling wisps of bluish fog.

“What is it?” Stoke said, looking around.

“It’s like a damn pool hall in here,” Fat announced.

“Pool hall?” Brock said, incredulous. “Did he say it’s a pool hall?”

“Damn straight,” Fat said. “Pool tables, or something similar, stretching out as far as you can see in the dark. Only there’s something on top of them.”

“Like what? If you say billiard balls, I’m shooting you first,” Brock said. “This is not a pool hall.”

“Like a… I don’t even know what.”

“Turn your damn light on, maybe?” Stoke asked, he and Brock moving toward Saunders.

Fat flicked his LED assault light on, and all three men looked down in amazement.

“It’s like a tiny city,” Fat said, bending down to peer at the table, wolf whistling his amazement. “See what I mean?

It was a large model of a city, Stoke saw now. Incredibly detailed and realistic.

He flicked a switch he’d seen on the side of the heavy table. The whole damn town suddenly lit up. Streetlights, window lights in hotels, apartments, skyscrapers. Lights on the bridges and ships in the port, even on the interstate cloverleafs. Even traffic lights sequencing through red, yellow, and green. Any kid would go nuts over this. But what the hell was it doing on a Soviet spy ship leaving Havana and headed home?

Perfectly detailed, Stoke saw, bending down to look more closely at the thing, perfect in every way, right down to the cracks in the sidewalk. Right down to the doorknobs. And then he noticed something else.

The mist had diminished. Maybe the now opened aft hold door behind them had sucked out a lot of the cold foggy air. But, whatever the reason, Stoke could now see similar tables stretching away to the bulkhead at the aft end of the room. Cities large and small, but all with something in common he couldn’t put his finger on. Not yet, anyway.

And there was yet another steel door back there.

“Fat, do a recon on the rest of these tables. Light ’em up. See what you see. Use your GoPro camera and record everything. Look for patterns. My bet is they are all American cities, but I may be wrong. See that large door aft? Mr. Brock and I are going back there and see what’s behind it. C’mon, Harry.”

They made their way through the maze of cities and stopped before twin doors of very solid-looking steel.

“Locked,” Harry said.

“How do you know? You haven’t tried it yet.”

“You want to bet money, Harry? I recognize a locked door when I see one.”

“I bet you do. With your background and all.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Stoke said.

“Nothing. I was talking to your boy Sharkey about you a while back. At the Versailles Restaurant in Little Havana.”

“What about?”

“Your checkered past, that’s all.”

Stoke looked at him.

“Is that right? You must have found that very interesting, you with your checkered present. What did he tell you?”

“Oh, I dunno. Just that he saw one of your files one day in the office. It said you had a criminal record.”

“He said that? Sharkey? My one and only employee?”

“Uh-huh. He did indeed.”

Stoke looked at Brock and smiled.

“Of course I had a criminal record, you idiot. I was a criminal!”

“Well, there you go.”

“Tell me. What kind of a criminal worth a shit doesn’t have a record of his greatest hits to show for it?”

“Don’t get defensive, Stoke.”

“I’m not defensive. I’m laughing at you. Open the door, Harry. Now.”

Harry grabbed one of the two handles and pulled.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s locked.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Stoke said. He laughed and stepped forward toward the door, brushing Brock aside with the back of his hand, a hand about the size of a Smithfield ham.

“Nothing a little Semtex can’t fix,” Stoke said, packing the puttylike explosive into the seam between the doors. “You might want to step your skinny white law-abiding ass back a few feet.”

He stuck a fuse in the explosives, lit it, and moved away.

The Semtex blew, loud as hell in the closed space, and when the smoke cleared, the right-hand door was hanging from one hinge, revealing what looked like a large storeroom beyond.

“Can you imagine what kind of a criminal I could have been if I’d had Semtex, Harry? Back in the day?”

But Harry was already through the opened door.

“What the hell?” Harry said. He was staring at the stacks of cardboard liquor boxes lined against the wall. Some boxes had been opened, some were scattered empty around the storeroom.

Each box was filled with bottles, Stoke saw, reaching down to pull one out.

It was vodka. And not Russian vodka, which would have made at least a scintilla of sense. No, hell no, it was German vodka, according to the label. A Russian boat delivering German vodka to a spy listening post? No. No sense at damn all.

“Looks like vodka,” Harry said, holding a bottle aloft and shaking it.

“Because it is vodka,” Stoke said, taking the bottle away from him. “Now why in hell would these Russkies be carrying German booze back home from Cuba?”

“Maybe they delivered most of it to the Cubans, and stowed some of it for the trip home.”

“Delivering vodka to Cuba, Harry? Really? That doesn’t make any sense. Cubans don’t even drink vodka. They drink Cuba libres, right, they drink sugar cane rum. And, besides that, it’s not even Russian vodka. Look at this label. It says ‘Made in Germany.’ German vodka? Who ever heard of that?”

“Feuerwasser,” Brock said, reading the name on the bottle. “What’s that mean in German? You did a tour there.”

“I dunno,” Stoke said. “But I’m sure as hell going to ask Gator. Grab a couple more bottles and let’s get out of here.”

“Roger that.”

“And don’t say ‘Roger that.’ How many times do I have to tell you?”

“It’s navy. Why not?”

“It’s a cliché now, Harry. Tom Clancy ruined that phrase for everybody.”

“So what do they say instead of ‘Roger that,’ then?”

Stoke started to say something but stormed out of the storeroom, muttering something unprintable under his breath. Harry, Harry, Harry.

He was anxious to get off this barge and back to the mother ship. Any of this crap he’d found in the bottom of the ship make any sense? Not to him anyway.