Line of Succession (25 page)

Mario knew the others held him in low esteem because he wasn't terribly smart and his Maoism was more doctrinaire than practical. None of them really liked him, Sturka especially, but it didn't matter. Mario was useful; it was important to be useful. Not just the money he could provide but other things as well—like the seamanship they demanded of him now. An ignorant sailor would have swamped the boat in cross-seas a dozen times by now, or run aground on coastal shoals.

The thing that mattered was the liberation of the human race and if you contributed anything at all, regardless how small, your existence was justified. One tiny chink in the endless battering that would destroy the walls of Amerika. One effort to fuck the robber barons whose institutional violence perpetuated the power of the few.

He saw a distant beacon off the starboard bow and he timed the intervals between its flashes. “Right on,” he said aloud, pleased with his navigation. He judged the sea and found it safe to drop the retaining loop over the wheelspoke; with the rudder locked he put on his Halloween mask, went down the five-step ladder to the door of the forward cabin and banged with his knuckles.

Sturka pulled the narrow door open, stooping with his thin face close against the ceiling deck. The light was poor, a single low-watt bulb somewhere behind Sturka.

Mario said, “Almería.”

Sturka checked the time. “We're behind.”

“In this weather you don't keep tight schedules.”

“We wanted to make Málaga before dawn.”

“You'll never make that. It's a hundred miles.”

Sturka registered no emotion. “Well stop wasting time. Take us in.”

Behind Sturka he had a glimpse of Alvin—the neo-Alvin, fuzz-wigged, belly and cheeks rounded by stuffing, makeup that made him non-Alvin, jaws riding up and down with the chewing gum he had never used before. Fairlie wasn't supposed to be able to identify any of them. Sturka said it was security—suppose Fairlie got loose?—but it was possible Sturka actually meant to turn him loose and Mario hated the thought.

Sturka was shrouded in a burnous, his face almost invisible; Fairlie behind him sat pale on the pitching bunk gripping its edge. He looked scared and that gave Mario a savage joy.

Hot behind the silly mask Mario went up to the wheelhouse and stripped it off; unlocked the wheel and turned a few points to port. The slight correction increased the roll underfoot and he gripped the red rich walnut spokes of the three-foot wheel.

The red buoy passed astarboard and Sturka came up into the wheelhouse stripping off his Arab headgear and robe; in Levi's and T-shirt Sturka sat down in the canvas chair abaft the locker trunk. “Recite for me Mario.”

He was obedient. “Sure. I bury the raft, and walk in, and call the Mezetti office in Gibraltar and tell them to send a car to Almería for me. I take the recorder and the radio into Gibraltar with me. Tomorrow I spend the day making sure things are set up—the Citation and the pilot, refueling stops at Tunis and Bengasi. Friday morning I set up the radio and the recorder with the timer. Then I go over to——”

“What time do you set it for?”

“Eight o'clock Friday night. Right?”

“Go on.”

“Friday morning I set the timer and then I go to the bank. I cash the cashier's checks.”

“How much do you cash?”

“A hundred thousand dollars.” He had been watching the sea—the lights of Almería moving up ahead, the headland sliding up to port. Now he slid a glance at Sturka. “What do we need that much for?”

“Grease.”

“What?”

“To persuade some people to keep quiet about us.”

“Who?”

“Some people in Lyon and Hamburg. And where we're going, in Lahti.” Sturka pronounced it with the hard gutteral Finnish “h.”

Mario indicated his understanding. The Cessna Citation was a seven-place executive jet with a range of twelve hundred miles; they would have to set down twice for refueling and someone had to provide the landing areas and the fuel at Lyon and Hamburg.

The harbor lights moved off the starboard quarter and Mario kept them there, aiming for the dark beach west of Almería. Depth markings on the chart showed it to be an easy beach; the surf would not be strenuous behind the headland and he would be able to drive the raft right up on the sand. He would have to walk a couple of miles but that didn't bother him.

“Continue your recitation.”

“We take off at eleven Friday morning. When we're in the air and out of the traffic pattern I switch the radio off the way Alvin told me and I put my gun on the pilot. I tell him to land at the place you've picked here.” He gestured through the salt-crusted windows; the field was fourteen miles inland from Almería, a pocket in the foothills. “If the pilot gives me trouble I shoot him in the leg and tell him to land us fast so we can give him medical attention before he bleeds to death. If he still tries to turn around and get back to Gibraltar or land in Almería I shoot him in the other leg. Then I tell him I'll kill him and take my chances landing it myself.”

“Do you think you can?”

“If I have to, I guess. Alvin's coached me a lot.”

After the landing they would kill the pilot and bury him. Get everyone aboard and head out into the Med, flying up the channel between Ibiza and Majorca; across the coastline east of Marseille and hedgehopping to avoid the coastal radars. But that leg and the rest would be Alvin's responsibility; all Mario had to do was get the plane from Gibraltar to Almería.

He kept the throttle up, triangulating with his eyes to judge the shore; he would see the combers in time and he had to keep the screw turning in the strong following sea. “I can do it. Don't worry about me.”

“I'm not,” Sturka said. “But you have the telephone number in Almería. Did you forget that?”

“No. I phone you every two hours. I let it ring exactly four times and hang up.” Sturka would be within earshot of that telephone and would be waiting for its ring at even-numbered hours. If it did not ring he would have to assume Mario had been discovered. There was no reason to suspect they would discover him. As far as Mezetti Industries was concerned Mario was traveling on the continent on company business. While the rest of them—Sturka, Alvin, Peggy, Cesar—had journeyed clandestinely to Lisbon aboard a tramp freighter Mario had spent four days at home in New York and then had flown quite openly to Marseille aboard a scheduled Air France flight out of Kennedy Airport. It had been a test and Mario had been willing to undergo it: his passport had not been questioned at the airport, no one had detained him, and therefore he was not a suspect.

It had been a necessary risk because Mario was the one who had to continue operating in the open and they had to be sure the pigs weren't onto him. Maybe he wasn't bright but he understood these things and realized why he had to take the chance. He was glad he had taken it; it had made him more sure of himself, and it had succeeded, and it was necessary to the cause that it succeed.

He began to see the dim phosphor crests of breaking whitecaps on the sea ahead. A mile, perhaps; then it would be time to throttle down. “I don't like putting all that money in greedy hands. We ought to find a better use for it.”

“It will further the cause—what more do you need?”

“Why not treat them the same as we treated the greedy pig with the helicopter?” The helicopter hadn't cost them anything.

“Because they're people we may need again.” Sturka got to his feet, swayed with the lurch and lunge of the deck, bowed his head under the low overhead decking and moved forward to stand just off Mario's shoulder, watching Mario con the boat into the surf. The boat was crashing hard on the crests; there was still a half mile but the bottom was a shallow shelf that beat up the waves. Everything shuddered, Mario heard brightwork rattling. His plimsolled feet were sure on the deck planks.

He spun the wheel a half turn to starboard but it was a fraction late and a crest broached the windward scuppers; foam rolled across the deck and sprayed him when it caromed through the overhead hatchway. “You sure you can get across there in this?”

“We'll make it,” Sturka said.

“I'd better not go in any farther. You want to drop the anchor?”

Sturka went up through the door forward. Spray hosed into the cockpit and wind slammed the door shut. Mario watched him move catfooted to the anchor windlass. He waited until Sturka had a good grip on the railing and then he watched for a wide trough. When the boat pitched into one he spun her fast, rudder hard over, wanting to bring her into the wind before the next crest hit; but she was a little slow and the crest caught her awkwardly and rolled her hard over. There was a great deal of rolling foam and he peered through it anxiously. The lather cascaded away and Sturka was still there, rooted, drenched but relaxed. Mario held the bow straight into the wind and throttled back only a little, needing steerageway; Sturka was pitching the anchor over, letting the chain run through the ratchet.

A big one lifted her ten or twelve feet and she slid down the backside of it nose first. The bow dug into the following comber and Sturka again was buried in black marbled water but when the bow wallowed out of it he was still there with water rolling off him like oil. The chain slacked a little at trough-bottom and Sturka set the ratchet and began to make his way aft, hand over hand along the railing. Mario idled the screw down and waited with his hand on the throttle to see if the anchor had taken hold. The chain drew up taut and he had a feeling, nothing more than an intuitive sensation, of a brief distant scraping before the arrowpoint of the anchor took a grip and the boat hung, cork-bobbing like a buoy, from its straining chain, stern toward shore.

Sturka swung himself into the wheelhouse acrobatically, his clothes pasted to his bony skin. Alvin was coming up from the forward cabin and Mario gave him the wheel and followed Sturka aft to inflate the rubber raft.

He slid the folded raft out from under Peggy's bunk. Peggy gave him a bloodshot look and rolled over; Mario said, “Won't be long now,” in an effort to be encouraging but she only grunted. Cesar on the opposite bunk was in bleary agony and the cabin reeked of vomit; Mario was glad to hurry topside, dragging the raft, Sturka pushing it up from below. Sturka came out into the little fishing deck to help him hold the raft down while they inflated it from its canister of compressed air. It was tricky work with the deck pitching eight feet in the air and slamming down; he was soaked through within seconds.

Sturka put his mouth close to Mario's ear to make himself heard over the roar of the sea. “If they catch you.”

“They're not going to.”

“If they do.”

“I don't say a word.”

“They'll pry you apart in time. You'll have to talk—everyone does.”

“I hold out.” Shouted gasps in the roiling night. “As long as I can. Then I give them the thing we made up.”

“Recite.”

“Now? Here?”

“Recite Mario.”

“You're in Tangier waiting for me to pick you up in the plane.”

“Go on.” Sturka's voice very thin against the roar.

“Jesus. I promise you I haven't forgotten anything.”

After a moment Sturka pulled the raft toward the stern rail by its gunwale rope. “All right Mario.”

They got it overboard and Sturka held it against the transom while Mario climbed over the rail and braced himself in the raft. The bottom was already awash; he would be in water up to his navel in instants but the raft would hold. The oars were plastic, bolted into their locks; he fixed his grip on them and shouted and Sturka cast him off. He pulled hard; the boat loomed momentarily and then a wave took him; for a bit he was under water with the taste of salt. When it cascaded off him the boat had disappeared and he was alone in the raft—lost, for a bit, until the next breaker picked him up and he had time for a quick glance over his left shoulder to locate the lights of Almería. They gave him bearings and he began to row toward the black silent beach.

THURSDAY,

JANUARY 13

8:00
A.M.
Continental European Time
Lime paced the garage floor with apathetic weariness. He had slept on the plane but that had been more than twenty-four hours ago and things had moved maddeningly slowly in the day and night since.

The place was cluttered with scientists and their equipment; they were analyzing everything—grease spots on the floor, a wad of chewing gum stuck to the underside of the tool bench, the 500 KC marine transmitter and the Wollensak tape recorder that was plugged into it.

Triangulation by Sixth Fleet and Spanish shore stations had located the point of origin of the Fairlie broadcast—somewhere in the town of Palamos. But Sixth Fleet's radio plot had been faulty by some decimal fraction and the location was an area, not a pinpoint; it had taken nine hours of house-to-house searching to find the transmitter in this place.