Assault on the Empress (11 page)

“Man!”

“You have a very limited vocabulary. You should read more. When you've made your decision, if it is to cooperate with the DEA and tell them everything, I want the entire thing with Officer Hayes explained first. Before that pre-trial hearing tomorrow.”

Hughes stood up, staring down at Balthaszar Roman. “Do you wish to be given a nearly new pair of coveralls or do you wish to die?” Hughes looked over toward Tyrone Cash. The gang leader was stirring on the floor. “Next time Tyrone wakes up, if you haven't made up your mind, I let him go. If you have, I'll hold him for the drug enforcement people. So what'll it be, Balthaszar? DEA or D.E.A.D.?”

“Gimme the coveralls. Shit!”

Lewis Babcock started to laugh.

Seamus O 'Fallon had felt better throughout the day and had finally gotten some sleep, the headache just a low throb that he could easily enough control.

They sat around a small table in the master's cabin, the rough seas calmed enough that it was possible to keep a cup of coffee nearly full on the long table and not have to hold onto it to keep it from spilling. Young Martin looked green still, but what better color for an Irishman. O 'Fallon smiled to himself. And it could have been sea sickness.

They were listening to the BBC overseas broadcast.

The death toll from the bombing of the RUC barracks was only a disappointing one hundred and two confirmed. But, there were still five unaccounted-for bodies and several of the injured were listed as critical.

When the broadcast was over, O'Fallon said, “Martin. There's a good lad and turn off the radio, will ya now.”

“Yes, Seamus.”

Martin turned off the radio, one of those things made to look like the old-time cathedral radios but thoroughly modern and very expensive.

“Well, lads,” O 'Fallon began to the dozen men seated at the table. “We coulda done better with the bombing if we hadn't had to do it so hastily. But, on the bright side, the bloody Brits'll barely have time to catch their wind before we do the next job. they will.”

“Seamus?”

It was Patrick Kehoe speaking, a burly young fellow who was as fine a man with a knife as anyone O'Fallon had ever seen. “What is it, Paddy?”

“What is it We're after doing out here? You can be tellin ' us now, sure.”

“Ahh, that I can, boyo. We're engaged in a great endeavor, we are. When I talked about this one, I said chances were none of us would come back alive outa it, didn't 1 now.”

“For fact you did, Seamus,” Paddy Kehoe responded enthusiastically.

“Well, the truth of it is now that I think none of us will ever touch the dry land again unless they overpower us and carry our bodies home. And the likelihood of that happenin ' is real remote, it is.”

“What are we up to, Seamus?” Young Martin asked.

“It began when a fine fella, a son of the old sod if ever there was one, told me, ‘Seamus. Could you and the lads be after usin' my fancy boat? ' And I says, ‘Well, might be a nice thing for an outing with the ladies and the little ones, for sure.' And then I got to thinkin', I did. And I asked this fine fella—a Yank he was and a regular giver to The Aid and a helper many's the time when we needed somethin' real special like a LAWs rocket or somethin'. So, I says to him, ‘Would ya be after offerin' us a crew to boot?' And himself, he says, ‘Sure.' Well, lads, the opportunity was too much for the O'Fallon to resist, it was. And me mind started cookin' up on somethin' nobody done to the bloody Brits for a long time. And, would any of ya be after guessin' what it might be I thought up?”

There was dead silence except for the subtle throb of the engines and the creaking of the vessel around them.

“Well, then I suppose it's me that'll be tellin' ya, now. I says to myself, ‘O'Fallon. How could we hurt the bloody Brits real bad and at the same time get ourselves publicity all over the world for the cause? How could a handful of stout-hearted lads such as ourselves do somethin' that might really force the Brits out? And then it came to me—like somethin' in a flash, it did. I was walkin' along and me mind was driftin' to thoughts of Mary McKeown and takin' a roll in the covers and then the inspiration comes on me. We hijack us a British ship. One of them humongous floatin' hotels they suck up to the rich boys with. ‘So fine,' I says, ‘O'Fallon.' But it had to be a special boat, it did. Any you lads remember how that one tooth of mine was hurtin' the devil outa me?”

“I remember, Seamus!” Sean Dougherty announced. “You was worse tempered than usual, you were, Seamus!” Everybody laughed and so did O'Fallon.

“That's the truth of it, Jack. But I was there polishin' my arse listenin' to all the drillin' noises and all and tryin' to get it outa me mind, I was. And I picked up some silly woman's catalog or magazine. I started lookin' through. And there, right in front of me eyes, was what I wanted all along. Me tooth even stopped hurtin', lads. And that's the Lord's own truth, it is. But I seen the tooth puller anyhow.”

“What was her name, Seamus?” Paddy asked.

“The
Empress Britannia
, lads.” The cigarette in the comer of his mouth was nearly out and he lit another with the butt.

So far, there had been no sign of the black seaman Alvin Leeds or whatever his real name was. And it was at once too late and yet too early to go prowling about the vessel in search of him. A first-class cabin had been all there was available and, he confessed to himself, a first-class lifestyle was something he could easily get used to again. When he'd lived in England, he'd been there under the guise of a technical writer, a freelancer with a generous expense account. The generous expense account had provided for good clothes, nice weekends in the country, the whole capitalist milieu. The woman who had been assigned to pose as his wife—she'd died six months after returning to the Soviet Union—had been fun to be with, enjoyed the radically altered lifestyle as much as he.

He sipped at a vodka martini and listened to the pretty girl singer. Ephraim Vols had developed a strong liking for American music when he'd done his service in Great Britain, and this young woman not only sang the best of it with aplomb, but the pianist who was doubling as her accompanist had a wonderful touch at the keys.

He brushed a speck of lint from his new tuxedo.

She was doing a medley of Judy Garland songs, but with her own style and flair.

He lit a cigarette. The process was simple, really. He had until they were a day or so out of New York to set the thing up. He would get hold of Leeds and somehow get the truth serum into him and obtain the location of the ampule from the man. Vols doubted that in this case killing could be avoided. The logical thing was to somehow get Leeds's body over the side just before they hit New York so the missing crewman wouldn't be noticed until after the passengers had gotten off and through customs. Getting the ampule through customs might prove interesting in itself, but he'd cross that bridge when he came to it. And besides, Anna would be there to work out an escape route—he hoped not to Cuba because he couldn't stand people like Castro—and she'd probably attack the customs problem for him. And, there was always the possibility that Alvin Leeds wasn't the American agent, but he'd wagered that Leeds was and his gut-level reactions were rarely wrong.

Vols tried putting the thing out of his head, his eyes scanning the crowd of listeners. There were plenty of unattached women, it appeared. His eyes kept going back to the pretty young woman who was singing, this Jennifer Hall. He wondered, a little more than casually, if she and the pianist—a good-looking fellow in a rough and tumble sort of way-were an item.

There was only one way to find out; and, the more he blended in with the ordinary life of the vessel, the more unnoticed he would be.

She finished with “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” if that was its proper name, and the audience burst into applause. Vols stood and applauded loudly, others standing to applaud as well. The pianist stood and applauded for her too. And Ephraim Vols smiled. The girl actually seemed to be blushing.

Where, these days, did one find a girl who did that?

A waiter was trying to pass and Vols pulled a bill from his pocket. “Please ask the young lady if she'd be good enough to join me for a drink, would you?”

“Certainly, sir.”

Vols sat down and remembered his cigarette. The pianist had taken a break as well and Vols watched as the pretty girl was stopped by the waiter. The waiter gestured toward Vols's table. The girl and the pianist exchanged a hurried remark and then both of them started toward his table. Perhaps they were an item at that.

Vols stood as they neared. “I must congratulate you, Miss Hall. You have such a beautiful voice. Of course my invitation for a drink is extended to your accompanist as well. Mr. Cross, is it?”

“Hi,” Cross said, extending his hand. There was strength in the hand, Vols thought absently. From playing the piano with such vigor, perhaps.

“Please. Join me. Both of you. I'm traveling alone and there's a certain melancholy the first night at sea.”

He watched the girl as she looked at the man. The man's eyes seemed to shrug. “If Miss Hall's willing, I'd be happy to,” the pianist answered.

“Bravo! Please. Sit down. Order whatever you'd like.”

Vols hailed a waiter and the girl ordered a gin and tonic, the man a Michelob, an American beer. The man lit a cigarette. Vols lit a fresh one. “Have you two been working together long? That's a stupid question. You work together so well, the answer is obvious.”

The girl laughed. The man exhaled smoke. “We just met this morning. Abe's the replacement for the pianist who usually worked on the
Empress
, and when the pianist left, the singer left. I was returning home and I was asked to sing my way across.”

“Well, dash! That's amazing. You must have a natural musical affinity.”

“Maybe we do,” she answered.

“You, Mr. Cross. I can imagine how it must be to capture all the nuances of a song in the way Miss Hall works. You must be a true musical genius.”

“My mother, then my aunt, they made me study piano. So I guess I've been at it long enough to get the hang of it. Thanks.” “I should be thanking you-both of you-for such wonderful music. I know where I'll be spending all my evenings while aboard!”

The drinks arrived. Abe Cross. There was something in the name that reminded Vols of something, something he'd read or been told about. It wasn't something official, work related, or he would have remembered it easily. His memory worked that way. “Mr. Cross. I know this is beastly rude, but your name. I know I've heard it somewhere before.”

“Could be. Small world sometimes.”

“Cross—something struck me strange about it—I've got it. My word.”

“The airline hijacking, right?”

The girl looked at Cross, startlement in her eyes.

Vols waded in. He didn't know why. “He's not a hijacker, my dear. He was a victim. The only survivor, if I recall.”

“You recall okay,” Cross said, taking a sip of his beer. “But that's water under the bridge.”

“What happened?” Jennifer Hall asked.

Cross looked uncomfortable. Again, Vols waded in. “It was a terrorist thing, if I remember correctly. Nasty business. And painful to talk about too, I'd think. Forgive me for mentioning it. I had no desire to bring up unpleasant memories. My job requires a lot of memory work and it sometimes filters over into my private life. ”

He'd given Cross a ball to run with. Cross took it. “What do you do? I mean, you know what we do.” Cross smiled.

“Yes. I suppose that's only fair, isn't it? I'm a journalist of sorts.” He was using the old cover with the new identity because there hadn't been time to construct a new cover. “I'm terrible! I forgot to introduce myself. I'd say I really did need this holiday.” He laughed, the girl singer and the pianist laughing too, the tension easing a little because of his faux pas. “I'm Andrew Comstock. And I am a journalist. Technical writer, really. If you'll keep it under your hat—the attention would keep me from getting my work done—I'm engaged in a piece on ocean technology and this is a bit of a working holiday. I'm catching a flavor for the assignment and getting some information on how ocean-going liners are run these days. Before I print anything, of course, I'll ask the line's permission.”

“Sounds cool,” Cross observed.

“Are you going all the way to Japan, Mr. Comstock?” Jennifer Hall asked over her glass.

“No, don't I wish, though,” Vols answered. “As a matter of fact, I booked passage to San Francisco only. I couldn't pass up the Panama Canal and all that.” He extinguished his cigarette. “I have a capital idea. And I know you'll tell me if I'm overstepping my bounds here, but I find myself famished. Would you both care to join me for a bite to eat. This was your last show.”

“I am hungry. ”Jennifer Hall smiled, looking up at Abe Cross.

“There's a method to my madness, I'll confess. I love the company of a pretty girl and, if memory serves again, Mr. Cross, you were some sort of officer in the United States Navy, weren't you?”

“Some sort,” Cross said, sipping at his beer again.

“Mind if I pump you a few moments for some technical jargon and what-have-you? Make my job terribly easier. Really it would.”

Cross hesitated a moment. “All right. I could use a sandwich or something.”

“Outstanding, as you Americans say.”

“Yeah. We say that all the time.”

“I'll signal the waiter.”

Vols had remembered something else during the course of the conversation, the reason he'd remembered the hijacking incident in the first place. The solitary man to have gotten away was later revealed to have been a SEAL, the American equivalent of his own country's naval Spetznas.

Was the replacement of the ship's pianist just a coincidence? Or was this Cross fellow here for a purpose? “Ahh. We'd like three menus, please—but just to read.” The girl laughed, but the pianist—Cross—didn't laugh at all.