Fire And Ice (42 page)

Stone reached for the radio. "Ronnie said they were `cruising.' " Before he could switch the VHF to emergency channel 16, they heard her whisper on channel 5, "Mummy, Daddy. Mummy. Daddy!"

"It's her. Yes! Dear, we're here. Where are you?"

She must have been holding her GPS in her other hand. "Thirty-five degrees twenty minutes north. One hundred thirty-nine degrees forty minutes east." Stone traced the position along the course he had dead reckoned from the 0-shima fix. " She's right behind us." "Thank God," said Sarah.

"How fast you going, sweetheart?" Stone radioed. "Twelve point five knots. Mummy, Mr. Jack changed the ship. We look like an ocean liner now—"

"Kid, what the hell—"

"I'm just playing, Mr. Jack I—"

"Ronnie! Ronnie! Mr. Jack. Mr.—" Stone switched off the radio. "Jesus, I almost gave her away if he was listening." He looked back again.

The liner that looked like the QE-2 was overtaking them rapidly, plowing a thick white bow wave. Sarah said, "Is that—?"

Stone remembered the gutted superstructure of the cruise ship in the breakers' yard. " That's what Ronnie means—he's camouflaged the gas carrier. That's the Dallas Belle!" Sarah switched to channel 16 to broadcast a Mayday to the Harbor Patrol. Stone stopped her. "He'll hear that. Let me get Ronnie first."

"What?"

"Put me aboard."

"What?"

Stone ran below, stuffed the Bushmaster into his foul-weather jacket, and came up, pulling on his gloves. "Same way you got off. I'll go up the mast to the top spreader. You tuck the boat under her bow. Windward. Port side. I'll climb onto the anchor and through the hawsehole."

"That's impossible."

He started the engine. "Wind will get crazy beside the ship. Bear away as soon as I get on the anchor."

He studied the ship's bow with the binoculars. "Not much flair. I think we'll fit."

"If you lose your footing—"

"I'll wear a life vest." He pulled it out of the cockpit locker and buckled in.

"You'll fall on the boat."

"We have no choice."

Sarah started to protest, then saw there was no other way. "Of course."

"She's doing twelve-and-a-half knots. That's nearly twice us. You'll have about ten seconds to slot me in. Can you do this?"

"I think I can."

He turned to the mast.

"Michael."

Her face looked sculpted of onyx. Only her lips were soft. "God bless." Stone gripped the halyards on the windward side.

mast while under way.

Sarah changed course to cut across the front of the ship and sheeted the sails in hard to make the boat heel. Even with the help of that angle, his arms and legs were shaking by the time he had reached the first spreader. There was no time to catch his breath; the ship was looming large. He wondered if they could see his sails yet in the haze. If they could, they might guess what he was doing and have people waiting for him at the hawsehole. The gun felt heavy and awkward in his jacket.

He gripped the halyards and kept climbing. Veronica straightened up suddenly, thrown by a wave. He slipped, hung, swinging wildly, then crashed into the mast as the boat heeled again. He got his hand over the second spreader and hauled himself onto it. The ship was almost on top of them. He could hear its bow wave, a massive ten-foot comber. It looked like it would shove the Swan away.

Sarah was watching over her shoulder, standing tall and

cool, one hand on the helm, the other shielding her eyes

against the glare as she tried to judge the rise of the bow.

The anchor was higher than Stone had hoped. As the

ship closed the last few yards, he realized he was going to have to jump up to reach it. But he saw nothing to hold on the enormous slab of steel. A gust of wind glanced off the ship and the sails shivered, staggering the Swan.

Sarah gripped the helm with both hands, fighting the currents that the ship sent swirling around the rudder and the wind that slammed the sails. The bow wave tumbled after Veronica like an avalanche.

Sarah raised a hand to warn him and turned away from the ship, timing it so the wave burst under Veronica's stern. The mast swung wildly in a dizzy arc to left and right, then pitched forward, threatening to launch him into the air.

The ship blotted out the sky. Sarah signaled again and eased closer to the towering hull. A gust whipped the mast away, then slammed it back. The sails rattled like pistol shots. Stone saw the black steel anchor spring at his face. The spreader tip banged into it, and he felt the composite buckle under his feet. He let go of the mast and went with the momentum, up and onto a smooth bulk of steel which he embraced with widespread arms and legs.

He could feel the ship vibrating, shaking him loose. There was nothing to hold. He began to slide off. Out of control, he looked down to see where he would fall. Veronica was angling away.

He glimpsed the water racing beside the ship's hull and saw a two-hundred-foot-long strip of metal which appeared to be welded along the water line. Explosives, he guessed, shaped charges to crack her hull. Near the bow was painted the symbol for a thruster to warn the tugs. A nice touch, he thought with a strange sense of detachment—it meant the "cruise ship" didn't need a tug, even at the pier. Then he was sliding faster, slipping off the anchor's rounded fluke.

Life vest or not, the ship would suck him under when he hit the water. Then his foot brushed something, caught—and he realized he had snagged a rusty ridge that rimmed the edge of the fluke. He felt with his other foot and with both feet planted precariously, straightened his knees and pushed.

When at last he was sprawled across the top of the

anchor, he inched his way toward the hull. The anchor shank, a thick oblong of forged steel, lay snug against the bottom of the hawsehole, leaving a foot-high gap on top. Through this, Stone tried to climb. He had to take the life vest off to squeeze through. The wind sucked it out of his hands. Again, he got his head and shoulder through into pitch blackness, but his windbreaker hung up. He backed out and opened it. The Bushmaster fell away. Stone watched it disappear forty feet below in a silent splash. He pushed past his despair and drove through the hole and slid down a thick chain. He landed in the windlass room, which housed the machinery to raise the anchor. Below would be the chain locker. He felt in the dark, found a dog latch, and cautiously turned it and pushed. A door swung open into an enclosed deck, lit by daylight streaming in through a grating. He found another door and peered across the foredeck at the towering superstructure, which gleamed icily in the sunlit haze.

Bizarre. Even at a distance of less than a hundred feet, Mr. Jack's camouflage job looked so real that he ducked down, afraid he'd be spotted by the bridge crew. Because it was real, or at least the skin was. They had even put glass in the bridge windows and rigged lights inside, so portholes glowed.

He crossed the foredeck in a swift, low crouch and pressed against the front of the superstructure. He needn't have bothered, he realized. There was no one around. He edged along the side, peered in a gaping slit where two sections of the cruise ship superstructure had been cut apart and fitted loosely together, and stepped into the empty cavern.

Daylight streamed in a thousand ports. The gas ship's piping and valves and fire monitors looked like ghostly artifacts in an industrial museum.

A tangle of twisted wreckage marked the valve he had set on fire in Shanghai. He hurried past it and headed for the real house, hundreds of feet aft in the gloom. Wind whistled and loose metal vibrated in songs of many pitches.

He came at last to the deckhouse of the Dallas Belle,

found a hatch, and opened it carefully. Inside, it was warmer. The deck was filthy. In the distance the engine murmured. He shut the hatch, peered up, and found an open central stairwell.

Ronnie and Sarah had been held on the B deck, right under the bridge. He debated taking the elevator and chose the stairs. He cursed himself for losing the gun. He took a fire axe from the bulkhead and started up the steps, silent in his rubber boots, poised at every turn to strike out at a startled face. He climbed five decks and saw no one. The door to the owner's suite was locked, as was the captain's. Gripping the axe, he climbed silently to the bridge deck. Down a corridor was a curtain that would lead to the bridge. He checked the rooms along the corridor—computer, chart, communications—all empty.

He moved the curtain with the axe. The old man was sitting in a big leather captain's chair in front of the helm, watching a thirty-inch monitor. The phony superstructure blocked the windows; Mr. Jack looked like he was driving a space ship. Ronnie was standing close beside him to his left. To the right, like a large telephone booth, was a glassed-in toilet. Inside, a man was curled up on the floor. Ronnie turned, and her face exploded in a supernova smile.

"Daddy!"

The old man swiveled his chair.

He was holding a pistol in his gloved hand, aimed at Ronnie's face, and had handcuffed his left wrist to her right.

"Drop the axe, Doc."

"'THE AXE!"

Stone let it slide from his hand.

"Sit on that stool." His voice was like a weapon.

Stone had expected the frail lunatic in a bathrobe he'd seen in Shanghai. Instead he faced a remarkably fit old man who appeared strong as rigging wire and shackles. Clean-shaven, dressed in crisp World War II khaki, Jack Powell looked like a bantam-weight boxer who had never lost a fight.

"Here's the deal, Doc. You get on the radio. You call the missus. You tell her the rules haven't changed. She keeps her trap shut. No radio, no harbor patrol, no interference."

"And you give me Ronnie."

"Four o'clock. Tokyo Tower."

"I want her now."

"Can't have her now."

"If I refuse?"

"Little girl gets shot. Dead. And then you. Look, Doc, I like your wife a lot. I don't want to make her a widow. But I will."

He tossed Stone a hand-held set to channel 5. "Darling?"

"You made it."

"Not quite. He's still running things. Don't radio anyone. Just follow in and I'll see what I can do." "But what about—"

Stone switched to Transmit. "Stand by. I'll call you back when I can." He turned off the radio. "Okay, Mr. Jack?"

"Aces, Doc."

Stone looked around at Ronnie and wondered where the key to the handcuffs was.

"Mr. Jack."

"Can it, Doc."

He was concentrating on the monitor. Stone edged closer. "No, just stay there. Sit on the stool." Stone stopped.

Ronnie gave him a frightened smile. The ship leaned into a turn. Five degrees, by the compass that hung from the ceiling over the helm. Slowly, ponderously, she straightened up on the new course.

Mr. Jack looked up from the monitor. "Wha'd you do to my man Moss?"

"Blew a hole in his stern."

"You did?" said Ronnie.

"With what?" asked Mr. Jack.

"Bushmaster."

"Where the hell'd you get that?"

Stone didn't answer.

"Did you kill him?"

"Last I saw him he was alive and bailing. Any luck, he got picked up by a ship."

"He was like a son to me."

"Your 'son' came damn close to killing us."

"Yeah, well . . . "

"Mr. Jack?" said Stone.

The old man shifted in his chair and tugged Ronnie closer to the gun. "What?" Sarah had warned him how mercurial Mr. Jack was, emotions doubling back and reversing like riptides. Stone couldn't read his mood, couldn't tell whether it was safer to confront him or humor him.

"What?" the old man repeated, color rising in his stony face.

"I get the feeling you're making a last-minute change in plans."

"What plans?" asked the old man.

Stone glanced at Ronnie. She had hunched up her shoulders and was staring at the monitor, like any child in the presence of adults in conflict. They might be arguing about money owed or where to spend Christmas.

He said, "Your plan for Tokyo."

"And what plan is that?"

"Come on, sir. Give me a little credit."

"Plan's the same. My role has changed—damn shame. I already told my bean counters to sell Jap stocks short." "You're making money out of this?"

"Pretty hard not to, if you know ahead of time that the Jap economy is going to be blown off the map. . . . My Chinese pals are going to make out like bandits. . . . You and Mrs. Doc, you've really taken a lot of the fun out of it."

Stone exploded, "My wife saved your life."

"Bet she wouldn't if she had to do it over again," Mr. Jack replied mildly.

"Who shot you?" Stone asked, probing for some wedge

into the man's psyche, and knowing he wasn't good at it. "A hero," answered Mr. Jack. " One of the ship's officers figured out the plan and tried to save the world." "What happened to him?" asked Ronnie.

Mr. Jack looked surprised she was still handcuffed to him. "I had him transferred to another ship."

"I don't believe that."

"You know something, kid? Only regret I have is you've had to do too much growing up around me." "Will you let us go?"

"Not yet."

"When?"

Mr. Jack shook his head. Ronnie looked at Stone. He gave her a nod and a smile as he might on one of the rare occasions they went to a restaurant and she felt overwhelmed by linen and china. Ronnie winked back.

"You okay, dear?" he called softly.

"Fine, Daddy."

Mr. Jack observed the byplay. Stone thought he looked suddenly weary, and wondered if the old man had doubts.

The VHF radio broke the silence. "Asian Princess. Asian Princess."

"Come on, kid. Tokyo calling." Mr. Jack stepped out of the chair and walked Ronnie across the bridge to the glass-enclosed toilet. Eyes on Stone, he rapped the door with the gun. "Wake up, Pilot-san."

The form curled around the toilet raised its head and peered around groggily. Mr. Jack opened the door and handed in the radio. "Tokyo Wan Traffic Advisory Service Center. You're up, pal."

"Asian Princess. Asian Princess," the radio repeated. The pilot answered in Japanese and spoke at length. Mr. Jack said to Stone, "We've got our own Uraga Channel pilot."