“Pass the word to execute the parade plans as detailed by Admiral Kolkash,” Grell said to his chief of staff. “Three sections will participate.”
This would leave his ships with only a quarter of their battle complement, but, as his political adviser noted, the danger was behind them.
Nine miles behind him, had he only known.
7 JULY 1998: 11:15 A.M.
Gwillam Forte found Hobe Caulkins on the navigation bridge, trying to pry open the locked chart-table drawer with a crowbar. To ascend the near-vertical ladder to the bridge with his left arm in cast and sling would have been impossible for the average man, but Forte remembered that Caulkins was a superb athlete, a reminder to keep his distance. He remained on the port wing outside the pilothouse, the Very pistol dangling at his side.
“Breaking and entering, Hobe? There seems to be no end to your talents.”
Caulkins turned slowly, on his face a boyish grin.
“They seem to include getting taken in by you, Mr. Forte. Or maybe I should put that in the past tense.” The grin dissolved. “What’s the story on the nuclear reactors you’ve got aboard this old bucket? I want to know, and I don’t have time to waste.”
Obviously not. The Soviet Seventeenth High Seas Fleet would just have dropped anchor in Buffalo Bayou Basin nine miles to the southwest. The parade parties would be swarming over the sides into motor launches. In about a quarter of an hour the fireworks would begin, and Caulkins seemed to sense it. There was little he could do about it, so long as Forte kept him away from the flag bridge, the level above them on the foremast. On the flag bridge was the test console used to calibrate the electron-beam weapons, and through it ran the control circuitry. If Caulkins pried the lid off the console and wrecked the equipment- a lively possibility since the anonymous unit with its push-button combination lock would probably strike Caulkins as anachronistic-the Elbows would be inoperative. And without the Elbows, the Texas was just what Caulkins called it, a toothless old bucket.
“They’re not nuclear reactors-they’re nuclear devices, Hobe. They’re going up any minute, and unless you get some yardage between this ship and yourself, you’re going up with them-you and the Soviet Seventeenth High Seas Fleet.”
“You’re lying.”
“Stick around and find out.” Forte was mentally calculating. In fifteen minutes the balloon would go up. During that interval, Forte had to get clear himself, or meet an unpleasant fate. But if he could keep the newspaperman entertained a while longer, the operation would go off as planned.
Hobe Caulkins apparently wasn’t going to wait. He pulled a .38-caliber hammerless pistol from his pocket. For all his athletic prowess, he wasn’t a quick-draw artist, and Forte could have slammed the pilothouse door and made a getaway, had that been his purpose. Thinking of the vulnerability of the Elbows control unit, he stood his ground, hoping to buy a little more time.
“Talk, Forte. Talk fast. What’s going on here?”
“All right, Hobe. There’s a regiment of U.S. Marines hiding in the spud locker, with a-”
Caulkins fired. He had aimed at Forte’s right kneecap, but the pain of the bullet wound in his own shoulder, his exasperation, and above all the fact that he was not a very good shot anyway conspired to send the bullet into what would have been his right calf-if Forte had had a right calf. Instead it shattered the steel-and-plastic carapace protecting the electronic circuitry, springs, rods, and other gear that constituted his prosthesis.
He stumbled, and in muscular reaction discharged the Very pistol. The flare struck the binnacle in a shower of sparks, caromed off the overhead and the bulkhead behind Caulkins, and hit him a glancing blow on the backside before shooting past Forte out into space.
Caulkins’s trousers were ablaze. He dropped the pistol and tried to beat out the flames with his one good hand.
Forte hobbled toward the ladder down to the main deck, hesitated, and dragged himself up the ladder to the flag bridge. There was still time for Caulkins to beat out the fire, climb to the flag bridge, and wreck the Elbows control panel. Caulkins had probably inspected each separate level in turn as he ascended the mast from the main deck. The flag bridge would be next.
Forte needed a weapon to replace the Very pistol, its sole cartridge expended. He tore open a gear locker. Nothing there but wads of oil waste, two unopened gallons of red lead, an oil can, some brushes stiff with dried paint, a broom with a shattered handle, a pair of overalls. He slammed the locker shut.
He ripped open the drawer of the flag bridge chart table. Empty.
From below, he heard the scraping of feet on the steel deck and the hollow ring of the ladder tread as Caulkins put his foot on the bottom rung. One thing was sure-Caulkins couldn’t climb with one hand and hold the pistol at the same time. Maybe that shattered broom handle would be enough. He could use it like a spear as Caulkins’s head came flush with the uppermost rung, to send him plunging to the deck below.
Forte limped back to the locker and grabbed the broomstick. His eye fell upon the oil can. With a malicious grin, he dropped the broomstick and picked up the oil can. It was full, and provided with a handy spout for those hard-to-reach places.
Forte dragged himself onto the starboard wing, cursing his maimed leg. Caulkins was halfway up the ladder, breathing hard. He was pantless, and the pistol was tucked into the arm sling, but he didn’t look any less dangerous. Forte looked down and caught Caulkins’s eye.
With deliberation, he raised the oil can and squirted a thin stream of oil down the ladder rail Caulkins wasn’t clinging to. As Caulkins watched it, fascinated, the color drained from his face.
“You son-of-a-bitch!” he rasped.
“Ain’t it the truth?” Gwillam Forte shifted his operations to the rail that Caulkins now gripped like death.
The oil streamed down. Caulkins strove mightily to retain his hold as the oil soaked his hand, but gradually he weakened, and he finally dropped to the deck eight feet below with a thud and a bellow of pain from the jolt to his injured shoulder.
“Write about that in your next column,” Forte said. He tossed the oil can contemptuously down at Caulkins, barely missing his head.
Caulkins looked up, his eyes alive with triumph. He had him! The stupid old fool had thrown away his only defense. Caulkins would simply climb the ladder on the port side, and hammer the truth out of him before chucking him over the side.
He ran quickly to the other ladder, and had reached the top rung, one laborious step at a time, when he heard the thump! of Forte’s feet on the navigation bridge below. The old man had foxed him again, sliding down the greased handrails, intent on a getaway. But it wouldn’t do him any good. He was old and crippled. Caulkins was young and in splendid condition, despite a shattered left shoulder and third-degree burns to his backside. He lowered himself, a rung at a time, listening to the retreating feet, confident he would catch the old man before he could escape from the ship.
Forte had calculated as closely as he dared. He wanted to get clear of the ship and lure Caulkins after him before the big explosion. As he limped down the main deck toward the gangway, he heard Caulkins running aft on the opposite side of the ship. A few more steps and he would be clear, down the gangway onto the pier. Within seconds, Caulkins would follow, thirsting for blood.
As he hobbled toward the gangway, he glanced at his watch. There were still six minutes to go.
Too much. If he made it ashore now, Hobe Caulkins would be right behind him. Caulkins would have ample time to kill him, regain the ship and the flag bridge, and disable the Elbows console. He must, somehow, throw Caulkins off the scent.
If Caulkins started down the gangway and didn’t see Forte on the pier, he would assume the old man had hidden himself among the bushes, or behind one of the refuse barrels, or in the men’s room of the deserted snack bar.
Forte reversed his course. Forward of the gangway brow was the galley, its door open. He remembered the galley from the old days, when he was dispatched to fetch big pots of coffee for the watch. Careful not to drag his wounded foot, he scuttled through the doorway just as Hobe Caulkins shot across the ship from the port side and halted, looking down the gangway to the deserted pier.
Caulkins cocked his ear, listening for some sign of Forte’s presence. Somewhere came the screech of metal-familiar, yet for the moment unidentifiable. It sounded as if it came from the ship-forward. He padded softly up the main deck. He stopped at the galley, went in, opened the lockers. He remembered now-it sounded like a locker opening. But all were empty. He shot another glance around the galley and ran out. He looked around him. There was no other place aboard Forte could have hidden so quickly. He must have managed to get ashore and hidden.