Hood of Death (18 page)

He whipped out Hugo, reached up the line as high as ht could and waited, watching. The instant the stern of the schooner came in sight he slashed the line with the stiletto's razor edge.

He hit the water and got one solid kick against the moving boat as he swam
down and out,
sweeping great strokes with his powerful arms, scissoring his legs as he never had before. He called on his magnificent body with straining intensity.
Down and out,
away from the meat grinder propellers coming toward you — sucking at you — reaching for you.

He cursed his stupidity for wearing clothes even if they had protected him from some of the pounding waves. He fought the weight of his arms and Stuart's devices that were thunder of the engines and the roaring-liquid mumble-rumble of the propellers rammed against his eardrums as if to break them. The water suddenly seemed like glue — holding him, fighting him. He felt an up-pull and an in-pull as the boat's screws reached out for great gulping draughts of water and slavered to take him with the liquid, like an ant sucked down into the grinders of a garbage disposal unit He fought, stabbing at the water with short choppy strokes, using every skill — feathering his hands on the forward lunges, wasting no energy on tail strokes. His loins ached with the power and speed of his kicking.

The pressure changed. The rumble growled past him unseen in the dark depths. Instead of groping for him the underwater currents suddenly tossed him aside, repelling him end over end. The screws were by him!

He straightened, stroked and kicked upward. Even his trained, mighty lungs were exhausted from the strain. He surfaced gently. Breathed gratefully. The schooner was masked by the cruiser, and he was certain that everyone on both ships must be looking at each other, not at a blob of darkness on the surface that moved slowly toward the bow of the schooner, keeping out of range of the lights.

The larger vessel had reversed her engines to stop. He decided that was part of the rumble he had heard. Now the cruiser reversed, made gentle contact. He heard calls in Chinese. Lines were secured. People clambered from the smaller craft to the larger. Evidently they were going to lay to for awhile. Good! They could have left him helplessly behind, perfectly able to swim home but feeling completely stupid.

Nick swam in a wide loop until he was bow-on to the big schooner, then slipped underwater and swam toward her, listening for the rumble of her big engines. He would be in trouble if she suddenly started forward, but he counted on greetings, talk, perhaps even a period of laying-to by both craft for talks or ... what? He had to discover that
what.

The schooner had no canvas up. She had been running on her auxiliaries. His quick glances had noted only four or five men on her, which would be enough to handle her in a pinch, but she might have a small army aboard.

He peeked down her port side. The cruiser had been secured. Under the dim deck lights of the schooner a man who looked like a Lascar sailor lounged on the low metal-and-chain rail, gazing at the smaller vessel.

Nick swam silently around the starboard bow, searching for a stray anchor line. Nothing. He went back a few yards and eyed the bowsprit rigging and chains. They were high above him. He could no more reach them then a cockroach swimming in a bathtub could reach the showerhead. He swam along the starboard side, passed her widest beam point and found nothing but smooth, well-cared-for hull. He went farther aft — and got his biggest break of the evening, he decided. A yard above his head, neatly secured against the schooner by bridle lines, was hooked an aluminum ladder. The type used for many purposes — docking, entering small boats, swimming, fishing. Evidently the ship had been at a dock or anchorage down the bay and they had not felt it necessary to secure her for sea. That indicated that a rendezvous between the cruiser and the schooner might be a frequent occurrence.

He dove, came up like an aqua-show porpoise leaping for a fish, caught the ladder and climbed up, lying against the ships side to let at least some of the water drain from his sodden clothes.

Everyone seemed to have gone below except the sailor on the other side. Nick climbed aboard. He slurped like a wet sail and shed water from both feet. Regretfully he took off his coat and pants, transferred his wallet and a few items to the pockets in his special shorts, and dropped the garments into the sea, after buttoning them into a dark ball.

Standing like a modern Tarzan, in shirt and shorts and socks, festooned with a shoulder holster and a slim knife strapped to his forearm, he felt more exposed — but somehow free. He crept aft along the deck, toward the cockpit Near a port, secured open but with a screen and drape blocking his view, he heard voices. English, Chinese and German! He could catch only a few words of the multilingual conversation- He slit the screen and tipped aside a drape very cautiously with Hugo's needlepoint tip.

In the big main cabin or saloon, around a table covered with glasses and bottles and cups, sat Akito, Hans Geist, a huddled form with gray hair and a bandaged face and the thin Chinese. Nick studied the Chinese. It was his first really good look at him. There had been a glimpse in Maryland, when Geist had called him Chick, and in Pennsylvania. The man had alert eyes, sat confidently like a man who thought he could handle what came up.

Nick listened to odd chatter until Geist said, "... the girls are cowardly babies. There cannot be a connection between the Englishman Williams and the stupid notes. I say we continue with our plan."

"I saw Williams," Akito said reflectively. "He reminded me of someone else. But who?"

The man with the bandaged face spoke with a guttural accent. "What do you say, Soong? You are the buyer. With most to gain or lose because you need the oil."

The thin Chinese smiled briefly. "Do not believe we are desperate for oil. The world markets are glutted with it In three months we will pay less than the dollar-seventy a barrel in the Persian Gulf. Which by the way gives the imperialists a profit of a dollar-fifty. Just one of them pumps three million barrels a day. You can forecast the surplus."

"We know the world picture," the bandaged man said gently. "The question is do you still want the oil shipments now."

"Yes."

"Then the cooperation of only one man is needed. We will get it."

"I hope so," Chick Soong replied. "Your plan for obtaining cooperation by the use of fear, force and fornication hasn't worked too well so far."

"I have been around much longer than you, my friend. I have seen what makes men move... or not move."

"I admit your experience is immense." Nick got the impression that Soong had large reservations; like a good back he'd do his part in the play, but he had connections in the office so look out. "When will you put the pressure on?"

"Tomorrow," said Geist.

"Very well. We should know quickly whether it is effective or not. Shall we meet day after tomorrow at Shenandoah?"

"A good idea. More tea?" Geist poured, looking like a weightlifter trapped at a girl's party. He was drinking whiskey himself.

Nick thought.
You can learn more at windows today than with all the bugs and taps in the world.
Nobody discloses anything on a phone any more.

The talk became boring. He let the drape close and crept along past two portholes which opened onto the same room. He came to another which was the master stateroom, open and covered with a screen and chintz curtain. Girls* voices came through it. He slit the screen and cut a tiny opening in the curtain. My, he mused, how naughty.

Seated fully clothed and looking quite prim were Ruth Moto, Suzi Quong and Anne We Ling. On the bed, stark naked, were Pong-Pong Lily, Sonya Ranyez and the man called Sammy.

Nick noted that Sammy looked fit, no belly. The girls were luscious. He inspected the deck both ways for a moment so that he could devote a few seconds to scientific observation. Wow, that Sonya! You could just click a camera from any position and you'd have a
Playboy
foldout.

What she was doing you couldn't put in
Playboy.
You couldn't use it anywhere except in steel-core pornography. Sonya was devoting her attention to Sammy, who lay with his knees drawn up and a delighted expression on his face while Pong-Pong supervised. Every time Pong-Pong said something to Sonya in a low tone that Nick could not catch, it had a reaction seconds later on Sammy. He would smile, jump, twitch, moan or gurgle with pleasure.

School is in session, Nick decided. His mouth felt a little dry. He swallowed. Wooh! Who thought that one up? He told himself he shouldn't be so surprised. A true expert always had to learn
somewhere.
And Pong-Pong was a great teacher — she was making an expert out of Sonya.

"Oooh!" Sammy arched his back and emitted a gasp of pure enjoyment.

Pong-Pong smiled at him like a tutor proud of her pupil. Sonya didn't look up and couldn't speak. She was an apt student.

A chatter of Chinese on deck toward the stern alerted Nick. He withdrew his eye from the curtain with regret. You can always learn. Two sailors were on his side of the ship, probing the water with a long boathook. Nick retreated into the spacious cockpit. Damn! They hoisted up a limp black bundle. His discarded clothes! The weight of the water hadn't sunk them after all. One sailor took the bundle and disappeared down a hatch.

He thought fast. They may search. The sailor on deck was probing at the water with the hook, hoping for another find. Nick crossed over and went up the ratlines of the mainmast. The schooner was gaff-rigged. Once above the main truck he had considerable concealment. He curled himself around the topmast like a lizard around a tree trunk and watched.

He got action. Hans Geist and Chick Soong came and went on deck accompanied by five sailors. They went in and out of hatches. They explored the cockpit and checked the lazarette lock and gathered at the bow and beat their way to the stern like bush hunters beating for game. They got lights and searched the water all around the schooner, then around the cruiser, and then they searched the smaller craft. Once or twice one of them glanced up, but like many searchers, they failed to believe their quarry might be
up.

Their comments arose to him loud and clear in the still night. "Those clothes were just junk ... Command One says no ... what about those special pockets?... He swam away or had a boat... anyway he ain't here now."

A short while later Ruth, Suzi, Sonya, Anne, Akito, Sammy and Chick Soong got into the cruiser and roared away. Soon the schooner's engines revved up and she made a turn and started down the bay. One man was on watch at the wheel and another on the bow. Nick studied the tillerman. When his head was over the binnacle Nick came down the ratline like a monkey in a hurry. When the man looked up Nick said, "Hi," conversationally and chopped him down before surprise registered.

He was tempted to drop him overboard to save time and cut the odds, but even a Killmaster rating wouldn't justify that. With Hugo he cut two pieces of line, secured his prisoner and gagged him with his own shirt.

The bowman may have seen or sensed something wrong. Nick met him in the waist of the ship and in three minutes he was trussed up like his mate. Nick thought of Pong-Pong. Everything goes so well when you're completely trained.

Things didn't go well in the engine room. He went down the iron ladder, held Wilhelmina on an astonished Chinese standing at the control panel, and then another one came out of the tiny stores room behind him and grabbed him around the neck.

Nick flipped him like a rodeo bronc bouncing a lightweight rider, but the man had a steely grip and held onto his gun arm. Nick got a chop down that hit skull instead of neck and the other engineman came across the deckplates gripping a big iron tool.

Wilhelmina roared. The slug bounced murderously around the steel plates. The man swung the tool and Nick's lightning reflexes put under the blow the man who clung to him. It hit his shoulder and he screamed and let go.

Nick parried the next blow and slammed Wilhelmina against the weapon bearer's ear. An instant later he had the other one on the floor where he lay moaning.

"Hey!" A shout came down the ladder in the tones of Hans Geist.

Nick swung Wilhelmina up and blasted a warning at the dark opening. He jumped to the back of the compartment, out of range, and studied the situation. Seven or eight men up there. He stepped back to the panel and cut the engines off. The silence was a momentary surprise.

He looked at the ladder. I can't go up and they can't come down, but they can get me out with gas or even burning rags. They'll think of something. He hurried through the| stores room and found a watertight door and threw off the dogs. It let forward. The schooner had been built for a small crew and with inside passages for heavy weather. If he moved fast, before they organized...

He crept forward, saw the room where he had seen the girls and Sammy. It was empty. Just as he entered the main saloon Geist disappeared up the main hatch, pushing before him the form of the bandaged man. Judas? Bormann?

Nick started to follow, then leaped back as a pistol snout appeared and spat slugs down the beautiful hardwood stairway. They tore up a lot of fine woodwork and varnish. Nick ran back to the watertight door. No one followed. He went into the engine room and called, "Hello, up there."

A Tommy gun chattered and the engine room became a shooting gallery as steel-jacketed slugs ricocheted around in it like shot shaken in a metal vase. Lying on the forward side of the barrier, protected by its high Up at deck level, he heard several bullets
chung
into the near wall. One went over him with the familiar deadly whir-r-r-r-r.

Someone shouted. The pistol forward and the spray gun at the engine room hatch stopped firing. Silence. Water slap-slapped against the hull. Feet pounded on decks. The vessel creaked and echoed with the dozens of sounds every ship generates when rolling in a light sea. He heard more shouts, the thud of wood and tackle. He surmised they were putting a boat overside, either the powered launch that was slung over the stern or the dory atop the deckhouse. He found a hacksaw, severed engine wires.