The flight deck was an extension of the overhead of the Texas. The Frenchman ran down it toward the pilothouse, the feet of his men thudding on its oaken surface. Arriving at the entrance to the second deck of the pilothouse, he paused. Now someone was shouting from the open port of the wheelhouse above him. Cyrano ignored him and plunged through the doorway. The others followed him up the steep ladder. Before the last man had gotten through, a shot sounded. Cyrano looked back down. “Anybody hit?” he shouted.
The man behind him, Cogswell, said, “He missed me!”
Alarms were ringing above, and from a distance came the whooping of a siren. Within seconds, other sirens joined it.
The second deck was a brightly illuminated corridor lined by cabins in which the chief officers and their women would be quartered. Hopefully, John Lackland would be in the cabin on the left, just below the ladder leading up to the bridge or wheelhouse. Clemens had planned to use that cabin, since it was the largest, and it was not probable that John would take a smaller one. There were four doors on each side of the passageway. One of these opened as de Bergerac plunged in. A man stuck his head out. De Bergerac aimed the pistol at him, and the man slammed the door shut.
Quickly, working as planned, each of the six pulled a device from his belt. These had been delivered from the machinist’s shop only an hour before, and two men carried an extra. They were short bars of duraluminum with long, heavy steel nails in each end. Fitted over the side of the door and the bulkhead, they were driven by heavy hammers into the oak. A determined person in the cabin could batter them out in time, but by then, if all went as planned, John and his abductors would be gone.
There were shouts and screams coming from inside the cabin. One man tried to push a door open while Cogswell was hammering. He dropped the hammer and fired through the narrow opening, not attempting to shoot the man. The door closed, and he quickly finished his work.
By now, John would have been informed via intercom that the boat was under attack. But the noise in the corridor would have been enough to inform him that the invaders were there. He did not need the explosion of the pistol to tell him that.
Three men should also have rounded the pilothouse and be going up its fore ladder. However… ah, yes, here came one of the wheelhouse watch. He stuck a pale face around the corner of the entrance at the top of the ladder leading to the corridor. Now he was stepping out from it, a heavy .69-caliber pistol in two hands. He wore no armor.
“Peste!”
Though Cyrano hated to harm the man, whom he had never seen before, he aimed and fired.
“Quelle merde!”
Cyrano had missed, the plastic bullet shattering against the bulkhead beside the man. Some fragments must have struck him, for he screamed and staggered back, dropping his pistol and clutching his face.
Cyrano was not an excellent shot. This was just as well, he told himself. If the bullet removed the man without greatly harming him, instead of killing him, its effect was even more desirable. Shots and yells came from the wheelhouse. That would mean that the three had gone up the aft ladder and were now keeping the watch busy.
He strode to the door of the cabin in which John must be. There was no use asking its occupant to come out with hands up. Whatever the ex monarch of England and half of France was, he was not a coward.
Of course, it was possible that he was not aboard tonight. He might be on shore, roistering and wenching.
Cyrano smiled as, reaching out from the side of the bulkhead, he tried the knob. The door was locked. So, the captain of the Rex was at home, though not receiving.
A man’s voice cried out in Esperanto. ”What is happening?”
Cyrano grinned. It was King John’s baritone.
“Captain, we’re being attacked!” Cyrano shouted.