THE MAGIC LABYRINTH by Philip Jose Farmer

“There’s nothing like turning the tables on old John. Using his own trap to trap him.”

“If we have time,” Byron said. “What if the Rex comes barreling out of the strait before our weapons are situated?”

“That could happen, but it ain’t likely,” Sam said, frowning. “Once John reenters the pass, he can only go straight ahead. There isn’t room to turn around, even if he spins on one wheel. For all he knows, we might be waiting for him, just outside the exit, out of radar sight, and out of sonar detection, too. We could blast his ass off as he comes around.”

“Maybe he could back up,” Joe said.

“With two cannon and fifty rockets aiming at the pilothouse and four torpedoes at the hull?”

Sam snorted.

“Anyway, I’d like to see you trying to run that boat in reverse in that current with only thirty feet to spare on each side. Detweiller couldn’t do it. Even I couldn’t do it!”

They waited. Sam watched the long line of marines, each man loaded with a silvery cylinder or a piece of equipment. .Presently, de Marbot reported by walkie-talkie.

“I’ve found the path.”

“I see you waving your arm,” Sam said. “It should take you about an hour to get to the cave. It’s not so high up but the path must be a long one.”

“We’ll go as fast as possible,” the Frenchman said. “But we can’t go too fast if the trail is narrow.”

“I trust your judgment.”

“Petroski’s speaking again,” the operator said. Sam could hear the pilot before he got to the radio.

“We’ve dropped to the surface,” Petroski said. “I decided to come in at the height of the control room. They’ll pick us up on the radar as soon as we get around the last bend. But I’m counting on shaking them up, spoiling their aim. Six rockets for the pilothouse, six for the chopper, whether it’s in the air or the flight deck.”

Petroski sounded happy. He was a wild Pole who had flown for the RAF against Hitler. After the war, he had refused to live in communist Poland and so had emigrated to Canada and earned his living first as a bush pilot and later as a police copter pilot.

“Hot damn!” Petroski bellowed. “The boat’s just outside the entrance! Its nose is pointed straight at me. Only a quarter-mile to go! Wish me luck!”

The roar of motor and vanes was heavy, but his excited voice rode above that.

“Fire six!” Two seconds. Then, “Dead on! Missed the control room but blew the smokestacks all to hell! Can’t see through the smoke! Pulling up now! Flak all over the place! Can’t see through the smoke! Oh, oh! There’s the chopper, on the flight deck! I’ll…”

The radio operator looked up at Sam.

“Sorry, Captain. It’s dead.”

Sam ground the end of his cigar to shreds on the set and cast it on the deck.

“A rocket must’ve got him.”

“Probably.”

The operator’s eyes were moist. Petroski had been his good friend for ten years.

“We don’t know if he got John’s chopper or not,” Sam said.

He wiped his eyes with his knuckles. “Shit, I feel like ramming right on it, making him pay…”

Byron raised his eyebrows again at this unprofessional attitude.

“Yeah, I know,” Sam said. “We’d fall into his trap. Forget it. And I know what else you’re thinking. It would have been better to have retained our observation facilities, to put it in cold military language. Now John can keep an eye on us with his chopper, if Petroski didn’t destroy it.”

“We took a chance, and perhaps it paid off,” Byron said. “Perhaps both the copter and the control room were hit. Petroski wouldn’t have had enough time to make an accurate assessment.”

Sam strode back and forth some more, puffing so hard the airconditioning couldn’t keep up with the clouds. Finally, he stopped, thrust his cigar out as if he was spearing an idea. Which, in a sense, he was.

“John isn’t going to come back unless he knows where we are. So, he’ll either scout with his chopper or a launch. In either case, we’ll not fire on it. Byron, tell de Marbot to hold his fire if either leaves the strait. And to lie low.