The Black Death

Chapter 15

And yet it made sense. The submarine was a catalyst that melded a lot of the plot. Later I saw that. At the moment we were in new trouble.

The engine quit as Hank was hovering and bringing her down. We did the last fifty feet in an express elevator. The ‘copter was a total wreck, and Hank and I rolled out of her, cursing a blue streak and nursing a whole new assortment of cuts and bruises. None of which I felt. I was running and shouting orders and wondering how much time we had and how long we could bluff.

Because I hadn’t meant to force Duppy’s hand this much! He had gone whole hog and called in his comrades.

I grabbed Lyda’s hand and pulled her along with me. Hank came limping after, cursing and complaining. We pounded out on the dock just as a hatch on the sub opened and an officer stuck his head up.

I waved and yelled. Let him think it was a reception committee. The natives were being liberated and were mad with the joy of it. He waved back and I saw him fumbling with a binocular case.

I yelled at Lyda. “The trapdoor — where is the damned thing?” I couldn’t make it out.

She found it and raised it and I pushed her down in front of me. “Get the lines off her, Lyda. Hank, go up front and get one of those recoilless rifles. Get as many rounds as you can carry. Hurry! I’ll take the engines and the con.”

Hank glared at me. “You mean we’re gonna — you gone out of your screwing mind?”

I lashed a kick at him. “We are. Get moving! We can get in the first couple of shots because they don’t know the score. Hubba it, sonny! We get hung up here and Papa Doc has got a rope waiting for you, remember?”

He took off. Lyda was throwing away the mooring lines. I made a long jump for the cockpit and started the engines and slammed her in reverse. As we came foaming out from under the dock I cast a glance at the sub. Four men on her deck now and they were all watching us with glasses. My throat got a little drier. She had a deck gun and machine guns. A couple of sailors came out of the hatch carrying submachine guns slung across their chests.

Hank came pounding back carrying the recoilless and some ammo.

“In the deckhouse,” I yelled. “Fire out the port when I swing around. Try to hull her! Under the water line, keep her from submerging.”

Hank as pale. He threw a frightened glance at the sub. “Hell, man! They’re on to us.”

An officer was pointing and yelling and men were racing for the deck guns. I put the juice to Sea Witch, full throttle, and she roared and lifted her bow. Lyda lost her footing and nearly went overboard. I beckoned her down into the cockpit with me. She had not, as yet, spoken a single word. Now she smiled and reached for my hand and squeezed it, still not speaking. That was all right, then. We were friends again.

I put Sea Witch in a long curve to cross the T of the sub’s bow. Standard naval tactics. Admiral Carter! I shouted at Hank. “Start firing, goddamn it. Use armor piercing!”

The Ivans were slow on the machine guns, but the deck gun barked at us. Flame spouted. The fly bridge went to hell. Lyda squealed With excitement and ran for the deckhouse.

Hank let go with the recoilless rifle and the .57 mm ruined a machine gun and spattered two men over the sub’s deck.

“Lower!” I screamed. “Lower, damn it! Hull her.”

I saw the patrol boat rushing up from the east, a bone in her teeth, the black and red of Haiti flaunted on her forepeak. My heart sank. Then I had a thought and yelled at Lyda. She was firing a machine gun at the sub.

“Lyda — get that Haitian flag and break it out! Hurry it up.”

A shell from the sub’s deck gun damned near took off my head. It burst far to port, but the air concussion twisted my head and deafened me for a minute. Hank got a round into the sub below the water line. There was a spurt of flame and smoke and the sub heeled a little.

“On target,” I screamed. “That’s it — give her more of those.”

I crossed the T and took Sea Witch on out to sea. Hank got in two more below her water line. Lyda came running back and ran up the black and red ensign. J prayed and waved at the patrol boat, now surging past us toward the sub, and I told Hank and the girl to wave and grin and clap hands and dance with joy.

We put on a pretty good act. Loyal Haitians welcoming succor. The patrol boat bought it and kept going, closing fast on the sub and opening fire with her bow chaser and machine guns. One of Papa Doc’s fighters came out of the clouds and nosed down in a long whining dive at the sub. It was beautiful. His cannon and machine guns swept the deck of the sub, and that was that. Her hatch was down, but she made no effort to submerge, and I figured that Hank had loused up her innards with the .57 mms. What was left of her crew and Papa Doc would soon be having a little talk. I knew what was on that sub and I felt a little sympathy for the Russians. Not too much. When you fish in forbidden waters you have to expect to get bitten.

I had full throttle on Sea Witch, trying to get her up to thirty knots, because I had a nasty premonition that we weren’t out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot.

Hank and Lyda came back to the cockpit. Hank was carrying a bottle of whisky. I knew he was a drunk, but I didn’t say anything. The guy had earned his booze.

Lyda poured the stuff into three glasses and we all had a drink. I pointed astern and said: “I was going to propose a toast, but I think it would be a little premature. Look and see if you see what I see?”

The patrol boat was still hull down on the horizon, but without question she was dogging us. Someone in command was curious.

Hank Willard took a hefty drink, then another. He grinned at Lyda and me. “What the screwing hell! We did our best. If they catch us and hang us at least I won’t feel the rope.” He lifted the bottle. “So here is to us and screw Papa Doc. The Russians, too.”

Lyda put her hand on my arm and smiled. “I–I’m sorry, Nick. I didn’t trust you. I believed Duppy’s lies and I nearly did a crazy thing back there.” She kissed my cheek. “I am sorry. I want you to know that — if we don’t make it after all. I was wrong. You were right in everything.”

I laughed at the two of them. Hank was fondling the bottle like a baby and Lyda regarded me, speculatively, with long brown eyes in which the yellow specks swirled.

“You guys are a little premature, too,” I said. “We’re not taken yet! Ever heard of the three-mile limit?”

Hank, using the bottle as a spy glass, sighted back. “I don’t think, Admiral, that they ever heard of it.”

The patrol boat was gaining on us. There was nothing we could do. I had Sea Witch on full throttle and I had her on a NW by N bearing and that was it. The rest was up to fate or whatever you want to call it. One thing — it was going to be a long stern chase for that patrol boat. Sea Witch was very nearly matching speeds with her, and the patrol boat was barely inching up on us. But it was early, and I knew I couldn’t count on darkness bailing us out. To break the tension I decided to get them talking.

I told them what had happened after I left them. From time to time I glanced astern. The patrol boat was still creeping up. She was going to ignore the coastal limit. I had been afraid of that. Papa Doc’s boys would not worry about a little piracy, Lyda clasped her slim tan fingers and frowned. “What a fool I was! I trusted Duppy — the man you say was Diaz Ortega. All the time he was KGB.”

“He was good,” I consoled. “I lucked into the identification because I do my homework with the files. And he fooled P.P. and Papa Doc, too, remember. They never saw him, or even knew he existed, but he fooled them just the same. He planted a phony Dr. Romera Valdez on them. The man was a mulatto, probably a Cuban, and he must have been a ringer for Valdez to begin with. They made it a little more convincing by using plastic surgery. I saw the scars after I killed him.”

Hank took a drink and said, “This is all too screwing complicated for me. I’m just a simple fly boy who wants to get back to Hong Kong before Mai Ling gives away my grog shop.” His reddened eyes skittered at me. “I ever tell you I had a little business? I ever tell you, huh?”

I knew that Hank was not going to be any sweat, he was a drunk and an innocent,»but he didn’t have to know what I had to tell Lyda. I put the boat on gyro and told him to sit there and watch the patrol boat. Call me when she got within range.

He grinned and pointed to the recoilless rifle and a little pile of .57 mm shells. “I’ll knock the crap out of them.”

I took Lyda into the deckhouse. She watched me as I made drinks and lit cigarettes. Finally she said: “Romera is dead, isn’t he? He has been dead for a long time.”

“Yes. More than five years, if I’m putting it together right. You want to hear it all?”

She leaned toward me, her fragile nostrils pinching out smoke. “I do. I must. I–I think I fell out of love with him a long time ago, but I want to know.”

“Here it is. It goes back to the Cuban missile crisis. The Russians didn’t pull out all the missiles.” Hawk’s précis had told me that.

“Some were hidden in caves. Near Managua, not more than fourteen miles from Havana. We knew it — from the over-flights by spy planes — but we didn’t push it. Let sleeping dogs lie, you know. But we watched.

“Someone, I would say Duppy, got an idea how to use those missiles. In Haiti. Start a phony revolution, then take over. By that time the missiles would have been moved into Haiti and he would be holding an ace. But he needed a front, a good one, a figurehead. The man had to be a Haitian. Someone who was well known and trusted.”

The girl nodded. “Of course. Romera Valdez.”

“Sure. Duppy had his men in Haiti and he knew that Papa Doc was really going to kidnap Valdez. Maybe Papa Doc wanted missiles — the real Valdez was a physicist — or maybe he just wanted to get rid of Valdez. Anyway he planned to snatch him, and Duppy found out about it. So Duppy snatched Valdez first, killed him, and set up a phony in his place. Papa Doc kidnapped Duppy’s man! Thinking he had the real Valdez.”

Her eyes teared, and she gulped at her drink. “Then the man I saw that day, the one who ran from me into the subway, wasn’t really Romera at all. It was—”

“Yes, kid. It was the phony. You must have scared hell out of him. They must have known about you — they wouldn’t overlook that — but they thought the phony Valdez could play it cold and drop you. It didn’t work out that way. You were lovesick and you called and you threatened and you made a hell of a nuisance out of yourself. And you were damned lucky!”

She got it. She rubbed her mouth and her fingers trembled. “You mean that night, when he promised to come see me, he was going to—”

“He was going to kill you. You were causing too much trouble. Remember what he said that night?”

She licked her lips with a small scarlet tongue. “I remember. He said, ‘Be sure you’re alone.’ ”

“Yes. I said you were lucky. He was on his way to kill you that night. But Papa Doc’s goons grabbed him on the way, thinking he was the real Valdez.”

Lyda covered her eyes with her hands. “And Romera? The man I knew and was in love with?”

I did it as gently as I could. “He was dead by then, Lyda. Dead and buried where he would never be found. I wasn’t going to give her any details, even had I known them. But I could guess — a concrete jacket in the river, a grave in the pine barrens on Long Island, a fire in the Jersey flats, a man in a junk car being squeezed into a four by four hunk of metal and shipped abroad. Better let it lie.

She wiped her eyes and went to the bar to freshen her drink. “They waited a long time, Duppy and his people.”

I nodded. “Yes. They’re very patient. And they had to wait for the Cuban thing to cool down. There was a lot of planning involved. They had to be sure the trick would work, that Papa Doc and P.P. Trevelyn would accept the phony Valdez as the real thing.”

I grinned at her. “They must have had some bad times. The phony Valdez wasn’t a physicist — probably an actor— and they had to cram him and nurse him along. No wonder Papa Doc’s missiles didn’t work. But the real missiles, the black ones I saw in that cave, they would have worked. They were just starting to bring them in, by submarine and freighter, at night, and they would be bringing in skilled people, too.

“All Duppy needed then was his revolution. He wanted you to do that for him, and while you and Papa Doc were at each other’s throats he would move in and take over. Those people never give up — they couldn’t do it in Cuba, so why not Haiti!”

All of a sudden she smiled. “Maybe it isn’t so bad, Nick. I still have Sea Witch and the guns and the money.”

I frowned at her. “And Papa Doc is still running Haiti. As far as you are concerned he is going to keep on running it. Remember what I told you — no monkey business. One wrong move, sweetheart, and you end up in the slammer.”

Lyda Bonaventure laughed and smiled and crossed her long legs and I could see the fireworks sparking in her brain. She would lie low for a time, that I knew, but sooner or later she would make another try at it. I sighed. Let someone else worry about that. Maybe Hawk could find me a nice assignment in Lower Slobbovia.

The first shell came in, arching over Sea Witch and bursting far in front of us. We ran out on deck.

The patrol boat was gaining steadily. She fired again and this time the burst was closer.

Hank Willard was staggering around the deck trying to get the recoilless rifle loaded. He waved a round of .57mm and shouted defiance at the patrol boat.

“Come on, you bastards. Come on and fight!” He lurched and was almost overboard and I grabbed him. He dropped the shell into the water. I hauled him back.

“Don’t give up the ship,” he carolled. “We ain’t started to fight yet. Full steam ahead and screw the screwing torpedoes.”

I took the ammo and rifle away from him and led him back to the cockpit. “Calm down, Commander. Let’s not agitate them too much. They’ve got the range and the weight on us — they can sit out there and rip us to pieces.”

I had done everything I could, and I had lost. But maybe it wasn’t so bad. When Papa Doc heard my story he might even let us go. Give us a medal or something. Dream on, Carter.

I looked at the Haitian flag and then at Lyda. “Better get ready to strike that thing. We’ve shot our wad.”

“Nick — look!”

A lovely sight. Excalibur was racing over the horizon. I blessed the Coast Guard. She was on station as promised. Maybe she was exceeding her orders a bit, but we were on the high seas and I didn’t think the patrol boat was going to make a big thing of it.

I was so right. The patrol boat was already veering off, her wake making a foamy circle as she turned back. Hank clung to the cockpit and thumbed his nose.

Excalibur cut in behind us and her lamp blinked rapidly. You will proceed to States under our escort.

I sure would!

I signaled understanding and compliance. I ducked into the cockpit and set a new course and snapped her back on gyro. Hank lolled in the chair, bottle in hand, regarding me sleepily and singing to himself.

“You gonna get my ass straightened out with the State Department when we get home?”

I grinned and nodded and patted his shoulder. Of a sudden I felt very, very good.

“I will do my best,” I assured him. “You are not exactly the salt of the earth, Hank, but you are still okay. I will do all in my power to get your ass straight with State. You just try to keep it that way in future.”

He waved at me and took a drink. I went through the deckhouse to the stateroom. The door was locked. I knocked.

“Who is it?”

What the hell? “Nick,” I said. “You’re expecting maybe Papa Doc?”

She giggled through the door. “I just wanted to be sure it was you. I like Hank all right, but not like that.”

“Like what?”

She opened the door. She had draped all the portlights and she wore a robe and under the robe were the white stockings and the white garter belt.

“Close the door,” she said softly. “Lock it. We don’t want him barging in.”

We sure didn’t.

Just before we got really involved I heard Hank break into song again. “Ohhhhhh, on the road to Mandalay where my little Mai Ling stay…”

I hoped he didn’t fall overboard. I was in no mood to stop what I was doing.