Island in the Sea of Time (45 page)

You took what material was to hand, but he wasn’t impressed with either. The Puerto Rican sailor thought with his balls, and McAndrews had more nonsense stuffed into his thick head than one of Lisketter’s flakes, just a different flavor. On the other hand, neither was a coward. McAndrews was even fairly bright, when his brain wasn’t focused on the Glories of Africa; squeamish, though.

They could hear the clang of the hammer from the shed; it was a converted truck garage near Seahaven Engineering, chosen for its concrete floor. Smoke floated up from the new forge chimney, ghostly in the star-sheening night sky. Sheet metal had been laid around the brick of the stack, to lessen the risk of fire. Red light leaked out around the edges of the doors and through. the big propped-open windows.

Good. Only Martins and his bimbo there.
There were six separate hearths inside, and a selection of special-purpose anvils. Walker pushed open the door just enough for a man’s body and slipped through. Even with good ventilation it was hot inside, and Martins’s bare skin shone with sweat. He was standing by the oil bath, and it hissed and bubbled smoke as he plunged the bright metal into it. Over by the forge his girlfriend, Barbara, rested at the pedal-worked bellows, her inevitable cat in her lap. She was a comfortable-looking woman in her late thirties, given to wearing long scarves; she’d run an herb store, before the Event.

“Hey, man.” Martins looked up and smiled, his round-lensed glasses looking absurd on his long-nosed face. “Like, what’s happenin’? It ain’t the time for your regular lessons.”

Walker jerked his head at the other two men. They spread out behind him, covering the entrances.
I really need this turkey
, he told himself. Martins knew his work; he was even a good teacher, and Walker had put himself out to learn the basics over the summer. Knowledge was always valuable, and among other things he now knew how the smith thought.

“Your friends want some lessons too?” Martins said, his voice full of its usual dreamy mildness.

“Actually, John,” Walker said, “what I’d like is for you to come along with me. Right now.”

The mild brown eyes blinked at him. “Okay, but like, I’m sorry, man, I got some work I have to do. Another time, Okay?”

“I’m afraid it’ll have to be now, John,” Walker smiled, coming closer. “Really.”

“Man, I
can’t
go anywhere now. You know how it is, you’re tempering something, it like rilly has to be done in its own time. It’s the flow, man.”

Barbara was looking up, blinking, an edge of suspicion in her eyes. Something snapped in William’s head. He drew the Beretta from its waist holster under his jacket and brought it around.

“
Now
, you dumb fossil hippie bastard!”

His voice had taken on a crack of command that usually brought results. Martins only blinked again, his mouth setting stubbornly under the walrus mustache.

“Guns,” he said. “Oh, I don’t like guns. I’m sorry for you, man. Heavy. You’re carrying some heavy power trip there, like, authoritarian stuff? No way am I going to, like, reinforce that sort of negative trip.” He turned away, lifted the blade out of the oil, and began to wipe it down.

Barbara had given a little scream at the sight of the pistol. Now her eyes flickered to the other two men, the hands resting under their sweatsuit jackets.

“Johnnie,” she said breathlessly, “I don’t think these guys are kidding. Maybe you’d better go with them.”

“Hey, Barbs—you can’t let stuff like this divert your energy, you know? It’s Will’s karma. He has to work it through.”

William Walker smiled bleakly and holstered his pistol. This had not been altogether unanticipated. The
tanto
he drew from under his left armpit was one of Martins’s own, a heavy-backed thing with a blade six inches long, very slightly curved, with a slanting chisel point. The edge was whetted to just short of razor sharpness. He took four lithe steps and grabbed Barbara by the ear, dragging her to her feet with a squeal of pain.

Martins rounded on him, his hammer going up. “Drop her, man! Drop her now!” His sheeplike face was transformed, forgelight gleaming in his eyes and turning them red. The twenty-pound forging hammer went up as if it weighed no more than a thistle.

Walker smiled and reached around Barbara from behind, letting the tip of his knife rest just under her eye. “Let’s put it this way, John. You start cooperating, and I won’t cut this stupid cunt here a new set of orifices. You do
anything
but what I say, and I’ll start taking bits off her; she’s a big girl, and there are lots of bits. You understand this concept, John? Do you grok it?”

The hammer dropped slowly. “Yeah,” he said hollowly. “Careful, man, that’s sharp.”

Barbara was crying with short, sharp inhalations, tears gleaming in the red-and-white light of the bed of coals in the forge.

“Glad we’re communicating at last, John. Here’s what you’re going to do.”

 

William Walker swung onto the
Eagle
’s deck and turned smartly to salute the flag. “Permission to come aboard, Ms. Hendriksson,” he said, turning to the OOD and saluting her in turn.

“Very well, Mr. Walker,” she said, returning the courtesy. Less formally: “What’s up, Will?”

“Working party, Greta,” he said. “A few last things the skipper wanted shifted to the
Yare
before you take her over tomorrow. Thought I’d get them done tonight so you’d have a clear deck in the morning and no distractions.”

“Thanks,” Hendriksson said, impressed with his zeal—it was a holiday, after all. “You’ve been doing a great job working her up.”

“De nada,”
Walker said with an easy smile. He’d cultivated Hendriksson. In a very comradely way; she had a boyfriend ashore now.

He looked around the deck. Not much activity, as you’d expect with the ship at anchor and most of the crew on liberty ashore. The swell was slight, and the ship rode easily under a sky ablaze with stars, a frosted band against the night. Not quite deserted, though. There were still enough people to screw things up completely, if the alarm was given. Speed was the ticket, that and acting as if he had a perfect right to be where he was and doing what he was.

“Sooner done, sooner I can get to sleep,” he said. Hendriksson nodded and returned to her post near the wheel, trotting up the gangway from the waist to the poop deck.

Walker fought not to wheeze relief. Sweat trickled down his flanks; it could have been very awkward if she’d stayed closer. A dozen men followed him up the companionway, moving with professional briskness; he’d drilled them in the movements often enough, although in fact only about half of them were Coast Guard.

“This way,” he barked, waving them forward with his clipboard.

Lights were dimmed below; he led them down to the second deck, and the locked door that held the
Eagle
’s armory. Full now, since the ship was nearly ready to sail; full with the pick of the island’s firearms, what was left after the warehouse fire back in spring. Gray steel door, and a plain gray lock.

“Jimmie,” he whispered. Even in a small town like Nantucket you could find appropriate talents, if you looked. A small man eeled his way forward, knelt by the door, and went to work.

Four endless minutes later it clicked open; all he’d had to do was savagely hiss the restless into silence. The door swung back, and Walker shone his flashlight within.

“All right, get the light.” A larger battery-powered item went on. “That’s the machine gun. Get that and the ammunition first. Rifles next, then the shotguns, then the handguns, then the cleaning oil and parts. Keep it looking normal, no running, but
move.
”

Seconds stretched agonizingly. When two men dropped a box of ammunition they were carrying by the rope-sling handles he had all he could do not to light into them with fists and feet as the deck boomed. Minutes crawled by, and exultation with them
. I’m going to do it, by God!

The last boxes went up the stairwells and out on the deck. He never knew exactly what it was that woke Commander Rapczewicz, only that he heard her voice from above, raised in a sharp tone of command:

“You there! Yes, you. Who are you? What are you doing on the
Eagle
?”

She was the XO. She knew everyone authorized to be on the ship, at least by sight . . . and the approximations of uniform he’d slowly, painfully accumulated for his recruits were only that, makeshifts. He went up the companionway in four bounding steps and burst onto the deck. Willpower slugged him to a halt, made him walk over calmly with a smile on his face, extending the clipboard.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he said. She was hastily dressed—buttons misaligned—and blinking sleep out of her eyes, but narrowly suspicious. “It’s right here—”

That brought him within arm’s reach. The heel of his right hand rocketed up, punching into the angle of her jaw. Sandy Rapczewicz was a solidly built woman, but his hundred and ninety pounds outweighed her mass by forty. She snapped backward with her heels barely touching the ground and lay in a crumpled heap with blood running from her nose and mouth. Luckily that brought her into the shadows by the bulwark. He looked around. Nobody.

“Get that crate down to the boat,” he said, forcing himself out of his crouch. “Now, you fools. Move it.” The flat calm of his voice was a better lash than a shriek. They fumbled it up and started down the companionway, feet clattering.

“Mr. Walker. Is everything all right?”

Walker turned at the hail from the quarterdeck.
Well, there goes any chance of quietly scuttling the
Eagle, he thought savagely.
Fuck, fuck,
fuck
!
Aloud: “Everything’s okay, just dropped a box,” he said.

Hendriksson turned to go. It was at that moment that Sandy Rapczewicz crawled into a pool of light and collapsed again, her blood-slick face ghastly in the yellow light of the lamps. Walker responded instantly, pulling out his Beretta and firing. Bullets thunked into teak decking and spanged off steel with vicious red sparks. The lieutenant threw herself flat. Walker whirled and raced down the gangway, half-throwing the two men and their burden ahead of him into the boat and leaping after. The rowboat swayed wildly and shipped water over one side; it was perilously heavy-laden, even for a calm night.

“Out oars and stroke!” he roared.

They responded, clumsily at first, then bending their backs to it. He turned and knelt, holding the pistol in a two-handed range grip, squeezing off the rest of the magazine at the side of
Eagle
’s quarterdeck, shooting at movement and lights. The boat gathered way, heading for the riding lights of the
Yare
where she stood out from Nantucket Town’s breakwaters. Voices and shouts were rising on the
Eagle
. . . but he’d put the XO in the hospital for a while, at least, and Hendriksson was a by-the-book type. She’d send for orders; besides, there probably wasn’t anything but a handgun or two left aboard the ship. If that.
Damn, I’ve got all the guns in the world!

The boat came alongside the
Yare.
Lines came overside, and men made them fast to guns and crates. More hands hauled them up; Walker went up a line himself, hand over hand. Isketerol stood by the wheel, hands on hips, cloak flapping a little in the night breeze. He was grinning, and Walker felt himself answering the expression.

“We did it!” he said. A bit premature, but they
had
done it.

“Arucuttag of the Sea was with us,” the Tartessian whooped.

Two women huddled behind him; Alice Hong, and what’s-her-name, Rosita. Martins and his girlfriend were securely handcuffed below, and . . .

The last boxes came aboard and went below, secured with padlock and chain.

“A taste of things to come,” he said to the Iberian. “The guns weren’t half as hard to steal as that bastard of a quarterhorse.” As if to punctuate his words an indignant neigh came from the hold, and the drumbeat sound of hooves on wood.

Turning to his crew: “Start engines!”

The diesel coughed to life under his feet. That took longer and made more noise than he liked, but there was no point in trying to sail her off in the face of an onshore breeze, not with this scratch crew. They’d be clumsy at it despite the economical nature of the schooner’s rig, much easier to set than a square-rigger of the same size.
You’ll all be sailors by the time we reach our destination,
he promised himself. A vast wild exhilaration was building in him, and he struggled to keep it under control. Another boat was rocking not far away; smaller than the
Yare,
but more heavily crewed. Walker walked to the port rail and called across, cupping his hands:

“Thanks for the help, and good luck!” he called.
Thanks for all the fish,
he was tempted to say, but he doubted she’d catch the reference. “Also goodbye!”

Panic-stricken cries rose; the other boat’s engines were turning over as well. That had been the plan, to run the engines dry building up a lead. The plan had been to do it together, though. He laughed, a barking sound.

“Where are you going?” Pamela Lisketter cried, springing up to the rail and cluching at a line. “We need you!”

“But I don’t need you,” he chuckled again, and shouted: “And wherever I’m going, it isn’t fucking Mexico, you dumb bitch. Give my regards to the proto-taco-benders and Formative Period bean-eaters!”

He roared laughter again; it had been the hardest work of his life, putting on a convincing imitation of a would-be tofu muncher and humanitarian weepy for this collection of . . .
bathetic geeks and tree-hugging wimps
, he decided. That had a fair, objective sound to it.

Give her credit, though,
he thought, still chuckling. Lisketter didn’t waste any more time—didn’t even stop for several of her crew, who went overside and began swimming back to Nantucket. She simply put the helm about and headed west . . . Isketerol already had the
Yare
moving east; he’d had a thorough grounding in how to use the wheel.