Fire And Ice (32 page)

"Close your eyes, Mr. Jack."

"Thought you said he had a mistress."

"Not at first." She sat on the edge of the bed and patted his hand. "I want you to sleep. And I want you to promise you'll stop all this drinking."

"Life's short, Doc."

"You're making it shorter." She arranged the sheet over the blanket and under his chin. He was watching her closely, even as sleep fogged his eyes. While tucking the blankets, she slid his loose pajama sleeve toward his elbow.

"I'll wake you around noon," she said, "try and get you on a better sleep schedule. I'll send your friends packing and request that they stay away for a night or two. Would that be all right, Mr. Jack?" She could see the vein pulsing in the crook of his elbow.

"I'm on schedule," he murmured. "No sweat." With one hand lying on his forearm, she reached with the other for the needle; snagging the rubber guard on the edge of her pocket, she drew the needle from her coat.

"Christ, I'm tired," Mr. Jack whispered. "Night, Doc." He closed his eyes. Sarah sat poised with the needle in one hand, his arm in the other. She could almost feel the wakefulness ooze from his body. "Mr. Jack?"

His chest rose with a sigh, the rough planes of his face grew smooth, and he was deep, deep in sleep. Sarah hesitated. She looked at Ronnie, watching from the bathroom door. Ronnie made a jabbing gesture. "Do it, Mum!" she mouthed. If she jabbed him and missed, he'd be up and screaming for Moss. This was better. Also, it gave her a second shot for Moss.

Sarah hesitated a moment longer, then rose lightly from the bed, the needle at her side. She pointed at the closet where their bags were ready. Ronnie slipped soundlessly across the carpet, put on her backpack, and handed Sarah hers. Sarah took the radio, took one last look at Mr. Jack.

She opened the door a crack and looked into the lounge.

The Chinese generals were exactly where she had seen them last, both old men dead drunk and fast asleep. Mother and daughter tiptoed around them toward the door to the aft balcony deck. The fog was so thick now she could see nothing of the river. Even the pillars and roof of the ship shed were invisible. The Dallas Belle's owner's suite might have crowned a mountain in a cloud.

But when she opened the outside door, there soared from the wet, smoky-smelling cloud a cacophony of machinery and ship whistles. One old general groaned and turned over. The other half rose on one knee, blinking in confusion, a hand driven by decades of instinct reaching for a sidearm. Sarah pushed Ronnie through the door, followed, closed it, and looked back through the window.

When the Chinese's hand found only rich broadcloth

where weapons used to hang, he too sank back down on his couch. Sarah released her breath. "Ah Lee hid a rope in a garbage bag. Look for it." Together they searched the narrow balcony, but there was no rope. "Maybe Moss got him," Ronnie whispered.

Sarah's heart sank. "Never mind. He probably left it on the main deck." If not, she had brought towels they could use to slide down the ship's mooring line.

"Do you think he hurt Ah Lee?"

"No. Shall I go first?"

Ronnie looked at the ladder, which disappeared down the side of the house into the fog. " I better go first." "Now hold on tight."

"Mum!"

"Both hands. Here, give me your pack."

"It's not heavy."

With that, Ronnie swung over the railing and started down the ladder. Sarah gave her a deck's head start and, swallowing hard with fear, turned her back to the invisible abyss and climbed clumsily, haltingly, over the railing, found purchase for both feet, and started down, her arms and legs stiff with tension.

Descending past two rows of portholes, two decks, she found her knees shaking almost uncontrollably and her strength failing. It felt like fear was dissolving her muscles, and that the cold fog had penetrated every aching injury Moss had given her. Two more decks, and she could barely close her hands around the metal rungs of the ladder. Ronnie tapped her foot. "Stop."

"What?"

"There's people on the deck," Ronnie whispered. Sarah looked down. She couldn't see anything but fog. "Wait. I think they're leaving."

Now she heard them talking. Chinese. The workmen who'd been swarming over the ship. Someone spoke sharply and shuffled off, dragging something that clanked. A cold, wet wind brushed her cheek. The fog parted for an instant, but before she could see more than a vague outline of the bulwark that rimmed the main deck, the fog rushed in again, thick and gray and stinking of coal smoke.

Whistles echoed; the fog made them sound close, as if ships were passing directly under the stern.

Ronnie tapped her foot again. "Okay."

She climbed down, counting rungs and portholes. One more deck. One more to go. Here, in the lee of the bulwark, the fog was thinner. She saw Ronnie land lightly and step away from the ladder. Around her were dark shapes—machines, material, she couldn't tell. As she hurried down the final rungs, she searched the shadows for Ah Lee's rope. Her foot touched the deck. She stepped down, her legs shaking so hard she had to hold the ladder to recover.

Ronnie was darting among the clutter, searching. Sarah joined her, wondering whether her arms had the strength to descend a rope, fifty feet to the Swan's deck. Ronnie started toward another shadow, then stopped abruptly as it moved.

"You looking for this?"

Moss loomed out of the fog, swinging the garbage bag with the rope coiled inside. He had blood on his white T-shirt and as he swung the bag at Sarah's face, he looked less angry than pleased that again he had license to hurt her. The blow knocked her backward, and she would have fallen if she hadn't crashed into the bulwark. Her backpack protected her from the steel. The blow of the coiled rope inside the plastic was more shocking than painful.

Sarah plunged her hand into her pocket and closed her hand around the hypo. Ronnie rushed between them. Sarah tried to push her away.

Moss raised his arm to hit her again. But before he could, his head snapped around sharply at a new sound that penetrated the machinery noise, barking sampans, and the ships' whistles. Sarah heard it too, the most beautiful sound imaginable—a familiar burp, and then the weary growl of an old, old Perkins diesel grumbling to life on Veronica. Moss saw the joy light Ronnie's face. "Daddy's home," he smirked. Sarah stepped inside his swing and slammed the needle into his massive bicep.

"BITCH! You CUT ME!'

Moss jerked back, mistaking the needle for a knife, and swung hard at her face. Sarah drove the last of the drug into his hand. He yelled when he saw the hypodermic needle dangling from his palm and flung it away.

"What—"

Sarah pulled another from her pocket.

Moss's eyes widened. "What was—wha'd you—?" He staggered back, raising the garbage bag like a shield. Sarah lunged. He whipped the bag around and knocked the needle from her hand.

Ronnie flew at him. Imitating a kung fu movie jump kick, she drove both feet into Moss's knee. The big man swatted her away like a mosquito. She tumbled across the deck, squealing with pain. Sarah slid her rigging knife from its side pocket in her pack and dove at Moss.

Startled by the ferocity of her attack, he backed away but quickly recovered, gauging her moves with a savage smile. The drug seemed to have no effect. "Kiss your pretty face good-bye, Doc."

He came at her, shifting the plastic bag from hand to hand.

Sarah drew the knife near her side and knew at that moment with dreadful certainty that she would kill him and spend the rest of eternity in futile penance. She remembered for the ten thousandth time her father slaughtering the men who had attacked her mother. She saw his

ceremonial sword flash in the sun and knew at last that in the heat of battle her father had fought with cold precision.

She saw precisely the next few seconds: Moss would feint with the coiled rope in the garbage bag; she would dodge; he would lunge; she would be ready, turning the blade with a surgeon's hand to slide it between his ribs.

An explosion shook the deck.

Brilliant light flashed from the shed roof. Shadows leaped like black lightning. From the distant foredeck came a roar like a collapsed dam, shouts and screams, and then the ship'

s fire bells and, a second later, the shocking blast of its whistle. Moss bolted to the bulwark and stared forward past the house to the front of the ship. The fog inside the shed had melted and firelight glowed on his face. His frantic gaze shot upward, up to the top of the house where Mr. Jack slept. He dropped the bag containing the rope and threw himself onto the ladder, climbing in great double-rung leaps, his huge voice thundering, "Mr. Jack, Mr. Jack!"

Stone hauled the last mooring line aboard Veronica, ran back to the cockpit, and engaged the diesel. The stricken Dallas Belle was ringing fire bells and booming a whistle almost as thunderous as the explosion. A pillar of flame rocketed from her foredeck to the roof of the breaker's shed.

The fog beckoned. The Swan moved eagerly from the pier.

In seconds, every crewman on the ship would be racing to the fire, every PLA patrol on the Huangpu River converging on the breaker's yard while Veronica ran for the East China Sea.

Stone steered close behind the ship, careful not to strike her mast top against the overhanging stern. He gazed upward, searching for Sarah.

Under cover of the fire retardant canvas spread over the gas carrier's foredeck, he had aimed the hard blue cutting flame of an acetylene torch on a gas valve and lashed it in place. When the flame had cut a pinhole through the steel, it had ignited the gas that spewed forth under tremendous pressure. The pressure would blow the fire out and away from the powerfully constructed, heavily insulated tanks. But to extinguish the blaze and cap the gas, the crew was in for a busy morning.

"Michael!" Sarah's cry cut through the cacophony of bells, whistles, and shouts. She was lowering a line from the vessel's port stern mooring chock.

Ronnie slipped through the opening, wrapping a towel around the rope to protect her hands. "Daddy!" Fifty feet above the water, her grinning face shone down on him. She started sliding down the rope, one hand around it gripping the towel, waving with the other.

"Both hands, for crissakes!" Stone jinked the Swan against the river current as he edged the bow between the side-by-side hulls of the cruise ship and the Dallas Belle. Playing the throttle against the rudder, he eased the foredeck under the rope. Ronnie dropped lightly to the teak.

But instead of running back to him, she stared up at the ship. "Mummy!" Stone was less than forty feet from Ronnie and would have given anything to take her in his arms, but if he let go of the helm and throttle the current would sweep Veronica away from the rope.

"Take a wrap around the bow pulpit!" he yelled. "Mummy!" And now he saw what Ronnie saw. Sarah plunged through the chock, her legs scissoring frantically for the rope. He thought she was stuck in the chock hole, but a second later saw she was struggling to get loose from a black man who had her by the arm. Trapped in the cockpit forty feet below her, Stone was helpless.

"Ronnie! Come take the wheel."

But Ronnie started climbing up the rope to help her mother. "No!" Stone cried. "Don't!" He locked the wheel and started forward.

Sarah broke free. For an instant she had both hands on the rope, but even in that instant the man who had held her started pulling the rope up through the chock. Stone hit the throttle.

"Jump for the mast!"

Veronica surged forward. The masthead banged against the ship's hull. Sarah, wild-eyed, let go of the rope and leaped, falling, both arms stretched wide, grasping for the mast. She missed. Plummeting, she landed on the top spreader, miraculously on her feet, and, flailing her arms, caught hold of a shroud with one hand and the mast with the other.

Stone rammed the boat into reverse. The propeller bit, and the boat backed away on boiling water. Stone looked over his shoulder, looking for room to pivot away from the towering hulls. Out of the fog came a PLA patrol boat.

"Daddy!" Ronnie screamed.

He saw a rush from the sky. The black man swept across the bow of Veronica as if on wings. He was swinging one armed from the rope in a broad arc like a pendulum. He brushed the forestay and scooped Ronnie off the bow pulpit like a falcon taking a sparrow.

hundred feet into the river and Sarah still on the mast before Stone could stop the boat. He saw Ronnie indistinctly through the fog, kicking and clawing. The black man held her. with one arm, shook her brutally, and pumped his legs to increase his swing. Stone gunned Veronica forward.

Moss swung toward the pier, let go the rope, and landed on the edge, teetering. He caught his balance and ran for the Dallas Belle's gangway, Ronnie still in his arms. Stone swung toward the pier.

Sarah screamed, "Look out!"

A fireboat split the fog on a course that would cut Veronica in half. He slewed to port. The fireboat cleaved the spot the Swan had vacated and bellowed and frothed to a halt in the narrow slot between the two ships.

A second boat loomed from starboard—a shaggy-nosed tug with a fire monitor on the bridge roof, spraying river water in a wild arc. Veronica tossed on the colliding wakes. A siren whooped and another PLA patrol boat roared out of the fog. Armed lookouts on its bow and flying bridge waved the Swan angrily out of its way. Stone swerved downriver. He saw Moss running up the gangway, Ronnie slung over his shoulder like a sack of laundry. Through the roar of the boat engines and the blast of the ship's whistle and the cacophony of sirens, he heard her scream, "Daddy!" Stone steered again for the pier.

Sarah slithered down the mast, gripping halyards, slipping and sliding, to land hard on the coach roof. She scrambled back to the cockpit. Blood streamed from her arm, shockingly red on her white coat. Her face was contorted in pain.

"No," she cried. "Get away."

"Ronnie."

He had never seen her eyes so hard. "We can't help her. He owns the army. Turn away!" Stone hesitated. The pier was feet ahead. Sarah seized the wheel and fought to turn it. " We can only help her if we get away. No one can save her if we go back." Stone refused to let the wheel slide through his hands. But as a fourth and fifth boat converged on the ship, he had to slam the diesel into reverse to keep from being rammed.