The Magic Labyrinth (22 page)

Barker turned his plane while still climbing. Within about thirty seconds, Okabe would come screaming down and around and behind him.

To hell with Okabe. He was going to attack Voss anyway.

Barker’s plane dived in a long curve.

The wings shook with the speed of the descent. He glanced at his speedometer. Two hundred and sixty miles per hour. At ten miles per hour more, the wings would be under an intolerable strain.

He glanced back. Okabe was following him now but not that closely. Probably his wings had about the same tolerance as his own plane. Barker flattened out a little, decreasing the rate of descent. This would allow Okabe to narrow the gap between him and Barker. But Barker wanted to come up on Voss at a speed which would give him time for a long burst.

Now Voss, seeing Barker diving, the only target himself, turned his machine toward the swooping nemesis. For a few seconds, they were on the same line, and the muzzles of Voss’ guns spat flame. He was taking a long chance, the odds high against success, since the range was four hundred yards. But there was little else he could do.

If the plane had been miraculously hit, Barker himself was untouched. Now he banked away, altering slightly the curve. He throttled back, looking backwards at the same time. Okabe was getting closer, but he was still too far away to use his weapon.

Barker’s machine, the wind howling over the edge of the windscreen, came around and behind Voss. The German did not look back, but he would see Barker in his rearview mirror.

Evidently, he had, since he half-rolled and dropped back and away. Barker performed the same maneuver, and then he saw that Guynemer was going to be in Voss’ line of fire as Voss leveled out. For a second or two, Guynemer’s plane would be broadside to Voss’ guns. Twice, the Frenchman had been in the line of fire of Voss, both times by accident.

Barker still did not know whether or not his buddy had been hit. He and Voss zoomed past Guynemer; the back of Voss’ head was in Barker’s sight, the range only fifty yards, and he was closing the gap.

A glance in the mirror. Okabe was behind him by about fifty yards. And he was coming up fast. So fast that he would have only some seconds to fire unless he throttled back. Which he would do, of course, unless he was very sure of his marksmanship.

Barker pressed the trigger. Holes danced down the length of the fuselage from the tail, passed over the pilot, whose head exploded in a gout of blood, and danced along the motor.

The spectators on the shore now saw a strange sight. There were three airplanes in a line, and then, suddenly, four. Guynemer had come up behind Okabe. He was not above, the best position, and he did not have the speed which Okabe had gained in his dive. But as Voss’ skull disintegrated, as Barker’s spine was severed and the top of his head removed, Guynemer fired three rounds. One struck Okabe in the small of his back from below, angling up, ricocheting off the backbone, moving out toward the front of the body, and rupturing the solar plexus.

After that, Guynemer’s vision failed, and he dropped forward, shoving the stick down though not knowing it, while blood poured from his arm and his side. Two of Voss’ bullets had found their mark.

The checkerboard plane spun in, just missing the top of a rock spire on the bank, crashing through level after level of the bamboo bridges, and smashed into a hut. Flame gouted from it, burning alcohol splashed over neighboring huts and the wind took the flames to other buildings.

The first of many fires that was to become a holocaust had started.

The plane marked with the dog’s head smashed into a spire and fell burning along its length, breaking through levels of bridges and huts, scattering pieces of hot metal and flaming fuel for many yards around.

The machine marked with the red ball whirled like a corkscrew into the beach, struck scores of screaming spectators as they dashed for safety, plowed through scores more, and ended up against the great dance hall. The fire danced, too, leaping and whirling along the front and quickly enmeshing the entire structure in unquenchable scarlet and orange.

Old Charlie
descended in a shallow steep dive, turning over just before impact. It struck the edge of the bank of The River, dug a trench through the grass-covered earth while it flamed, smashed five people fleeing for their lives, and stopped at the base of an irontree trunk.

Göring, pale and shaking, thought that nobody had proved anything except that courage and great skill were not guarantees of survival, that Dame Fortune plays an invisible hand, and that war is fatal to soldiers and civilians, belligerents and neutrals alike.

King John had jumped the gun.

Just before the four aviators formed their bucket brigade of death, he spoke into the microphone on the pilothouse control panel.

“Taishi!”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Attack! And may God ride with you.”

Fifteen minutes before, the huge hatch at the stern had opened. A large two-seater plane with folded wings had slipped down a runway into the water. Floating on its pontoons, it had waited while its wings were extended and locked. Then Sakanoue Taishi, sitting in the pilot’s seat forward of the wings, had started the two motors. While Taishi watched the aerial battle from the open cockpit, he warmed up the motors. Behind the wings, in the gunner’s station, stood Gabriel O’Herlihy.

Both were veterans, the Japanese of World War II, the Irish-Australian of the Korean police action. Taishi had flown torpedo bombers for the Imperial Navy and had met his end in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. O’Herlihy had been a machine-gunner for the infantry. Despite his lack of aerial experience, he had been chosen for this post because of his superb marksmanship. It was said he could play a machine gun like Harpo Marx played the harp.

Suddenly, though not unexpectedly, the captain had told Taishi to get into action as arranged. Taishi spoke through the intercom headphones, and O’Herlihy sat down. The Japanese revved the motors and they headed upRiver into the wind. It was a long takeoff, since they were carrying ten rockets, each with a hundred-pound warhead, under the wings and a torpedo under the fuselage. This was electrically driven and carried seven hundred pounds of cordite in its head.

At last, the big craft left the surface. Taishi waited until they were fifty feet up and pressed the pontoon release button. The gear and the two large pontoons fell off, and the machine picked up speed.

O’Herlihy, looking back and upwards, saw the four fighter planes fall and crash, but he did not tell Taishi. The pilot was too busy turning the machine toward the left bank, keeping it at a low altitude. He flew it between two rock spires just above the topmost wooden bridges. The plan was to skim across the top of the trees and, where possible, fly between the hills. Once they got close to the mountains, they would turn downwind. Still keeping close to the treetops, they would fly along the mountains. Then they would wheel right and shoot across the hills and come down just above the bamboo complexes. And they would strike at the
Not For Hire
which would be broadside to them.

Taishi knew that Clemens’ radar had picked them up the moment they left The River. But he hoped to elude it until he appeared suddenly from behind the hills.

The noncom had been trying to get Sam Clemens’ attention for a minute. The captain, however, seemed not to hear him. He was standing up by the chair now, a burning cigar in his mouth, his eyes filmed with tears. He was murmuring, over and over, “Georges! Bill!”

Joe Miller stood near him. The titanthrop was clad in battle armor, a steel helmet with a heavy wire basket over the face, a sausage-shaped extension to guard his nose, a chain-mail shirt, fish-skin leather gloves, plastic loin protection, and aluminum thigh and shin guards. In his mammoth right hand was the shaft of a double-bladed steel ax head weighing one hundred pounds.

Joe’s eyes were moist also.

“They vath nithe guyth,” he rumbled.

“Captain!” the noncom said. “Radar says a big plane has taken off from the
Rex
!”

Sam said, “What?”

“A two-motored plane, pontoon type, has taken off. Radar reports that it’s heading for the north.”

Sam came to full attention then. “North? Why the hell…? Oh! It’s going to swing around and try to catch us broadside!”

He yelled at the others to get below. In a minute he had scrambled down the ladder onto the bridge. He shouted at the executive officer, John Byron.

“Did you order the
Goose
to take off?”

Byron said, “Yes, sir. The moment radar spotted their torpedo plane leaving!
They
broke the agreement!”

“Good man,” Sam said. He looked out the port window. The
Goose,
a big twin-motored torpedo plane, was past the boat, heading into the window. Even as he caught sight of it, it lifted, water falling from the white pontoons. A minute later, the two pontoons fell, struck The River, glanced upwards and ahead, then fell, were caught by the current, and drifted away.

“Battle stations!” Clemens said.

Byron punched a button. Sirens began howling, but the crowd on the decks had already started toward its posts.

“Full speed ahead!”

Detweiller, sitting in the pilot’s chair, pushed his two control sticks as far as they would go. The giant electrical motors began turning; the huge paddle wheels attached to them dug into the water. The boat almost seemed to leap forward.

“That’s a smart trick old John’s pulled,” Clemens said. “Radio the
Goose
and tell them to come in on the
Rex
’s broadside.”

Byron hastened to obey. Sam turned to de Marbot. The little fellow wore a coal-scuttle helmet of duraluminum, a chain-mail shirt and kilt, and leather jackboots. A leather belt held a holster in which a Mark IV pistol was couched and a scabbard in which a cutlass was sheathed.

“Tell your men to bring up the SW,” he said. “On the double!”

The Frenchman punched a button which would put him on the intercom to the storage room.

“Is the enemy plane still on the radar?” he said to the operator.

“Not at the moment,” Schindler replied. “It’s behind the hills, too close to the mountains.”

“It’ll come hellbent for election right over the tops of the trees,” Clemens said. “We won’t have much time.”

De Marbot gave a groan. Clemens looked at his pale face and said, “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” de Marbot said. “I heard something that sounded like an explosion! The line’s dead! Nobody answers!”

Sam could feel himself turning gray. “Oh, my God! An explosion! Get down there, find out what’s going on!”

Byron was by another intercom on the bulkhead. He said, “Station 25 reports an explosion in Station 26.”

The Frenchman stepped into the elevator and was gone.

“Sir, there’s the enemy plane!” the radar operator said. “On the port bank, just above the structures, coming in between those two rock spires.”

Sam ran to the window and looked out. The sun flashed on the silver-and-blue-streaked nose of an aircraft.

“Coming like a bat out of hell!”

He gripped the ledge, forced himself to be calm, and turned. But Byron had sent word down. It wasn’t needed, since the attacker was visible.

“Hold your fire until the attacker is five hundred yards distant,” Byron said. “Then fire the rockets. Cannons and small arms, wait until it’s within two hundred and fifty yards.”

“I shouldn’t have waited,” Sam muttered. “I should have brought the laser out as soon as those boys took off. It could slice that plane in half before it launched the torpedo.”

One more regret in a lifetime of regrets.

And just what in blue blazes happened down there?

“Here it cometh!” Joe Miller said.

The torpedo plane had dipped down past the bridges running along the edge of the hills. Now it was skimming the grass of the plains. Whoever the pilot was, he was handling his big heavy machine as if it were a one-seater fighter.

Events happened fast after that. The plane was going at least 150 miles per hour. Once it reached The River, it would have a mile to go to its target. But it would release the torpedo within six hundred feet. Closer, if the pilot was daring. The nearer the release, the less chance for the
Not For Hire
to evade the missile.

It would have been better if the boat were to turn prow-on and so present a smaller target. But to do this would cut the defense fire to a minimum.

Sam waited. The moment that the silvery weapon of destruction was loosed from its carrier, he would give the order to Detweiller to swing the boat around. The plane would be a lesser menace then. In any event, if it survived the hail of fire, it would be getting the hell out.

“Five hundred yards,” Byron said, reading the radarscope over its operator’s shoulder. He spoke into the intercom linked with the batteries. “Fire the rockets!”

Twenty silvery cone-tipped cylinders, spouting flame from their tails, sprang like cats at a feline convention after a lone mouse.

The pilot had the reflexes of a cat, too. Twelve rockets, smaller than those hurled at him, sprang from below his wings. The two flights met in three battings of an eye and went up in flame surrounded by smoke. Immediately after, the plane bored through the clouds. Now it was so close to The River that it seemed the waves would snap its bottom.

“Fire the second battery of rockets!” Byron yelled. “Fire cannons and small arms!”

Another flight of missiles arced out. The steam machine guns hosed a stream of .80-caliber plastic bullets. The 88-millimeter cannon on the port side bellowed, spouting flame and gray clouds. The marines, stationed between the heavy platforms, fired their rifles.

The long sharkish-looking torpedo dropped from the airplane at an altitude of a hundred feet, hit the water, skipped, sank. Now all that could be seen of it was its wake, boiling white.

“Hard aport!” Sam said.

Detweiller yanked back on the port stick. The monster wheels on the left side slowed, stopped, began churning water in the opposite direction. Slowly, the boat swung around.

Taishi, feeling the plane suddenly relieved of the weight of the torpedo, pulled back on the stick. Up rose the nose as the twin motors, on full power, lifted her to pass over the boat. Taishi leaned over the side of the cockpit, the wind hitting him full in the face. He could not see the torpedo, even though the water was clear, because he had passed it.

Ahead, the sun shone briefly on rockets, trailing smoke. Another launching! Heat-seekers, too.

If things had gone otherwise, Taishi would have skimmed the edge of the boat’s flight deck, passed beyond it, swung around, and come back to strafe. O’Herlihy was standing up now, bracing himself with one hand against the edge of his cockpit, waiting until the plane assumed a level to swing his guns around. But O’Herlihy would never get a chance to use his twin .50-calibers.

The plane, Taishi, and O’Herlihy disappeared in a great cloud, pieces flying out of it almost immediately, metal, flesh, bone, and blood.

One of the motors fell in an arc, smashing into the flight deck near a cannon. It rolled across and dropped over the edge and fell onto the hurricane deck, crushing two men.

A crewman called for a fire-fighting squad.

Sam Clemens, looking out of the port window, saw the explosion, saw a dark object out of the corner of his eye, felt the vibrations of the impact.

“What in hell was that?”

But he kept his eyes on the torpedo’s wake, sinister as a shark’s approach and even more swift.

If only the boat could spin around faster, spin around on a dime and give five cents’ change.

This was a strange geometry, a deadly one. The torpedo was describing a straight line, the shortest distance between two points—in this case, anyway. The boat was describing a circle in order to avoid being at the end of the line drawn.

Sam gripped the ledge, bit through his cigar so savagely that its outer part fell off, but, not totally severed, swung down. Its glowing end burned his chin, causing him to yell with pain. But that was a few seconds later. While the torpedo scraped against the hull, he felt nothing except extreme anxiety.

Then it had gone on, headed toward the shore, and he clapped his hand to his neck, burned his hand, and dashed the cigar away.

“Straighten her out,” he told Detweiller. “Resume former course, full speed ahead.”

Byron, looking out of the starboard window, said, “The torpedo’s half-submerged against the bank, Captain. Its motor is still pushing it, but it’s stuck in the mud, tilting up.”

“Let them worry about it,” Sam said, referring to the people on the bank. “Oh! Oh!”

He stopped. For several minutes, he’d forgotten about the explosion near the SW room.

“Byron! Has Marbot reported yet?”

“No, sir.”

The bulkhead intercom tootled. Byron answered it with Clemens close behind him.

“De Marbot here. Is the captain occupied?”

“I’m listening, Marc!” Sam said. “What’s happened?”

“The laser has been blown up! It’s totally destroyed! The entire guard, including Fermor, was killed, and so were four crewmen who came upon the scene. The guards were blown up; the crewmen were gunned down! Captain, there’s a saboteur or saboteurs aboard!”

Sam groaned. For a moment, he thought he was going to faint. He steadied himself with a hand against the bulkhead.

Byron said, “Are you all right, sir?”

Byron looked as pale as Sam felt. But he showed no evidence of hysteria. Sam straightened up, took a deep breath, and said, “I’m okay. Son of a blazing bitch! I should have had twenty men guarding that! I should have brought it up sooner! Now our ace in the hole is gone! And John didn’t have a chance with it! Never overlook the human factor, Byron!”

Byron said, “No, sir. I suggest…”

“That we send search parties looking for the bastard? Or bastards? They’ll be back at their posts by now. Maybe. Maybe they’re planning on wrecking the generators. Send some men down to the engine room to stand guard.

“And start checking the stations. See if anybody left his post for any reason whatever. There may be some innocents there, but we can’t take any chances. Anybody who left his post, throw him into the brig! I don’t care if it’s an officer and he seems to have a good excuse. We can’t fight John and worry about being stabbed in the back at the same time!”

“Aye, aye, sir!” Byron said, and he began calling the stations by number.

“Enemy vessel is five miles away, Captain,” the chief radar operator called. “Traveling at fifty-five miles per hour.”

The
Rex
had a top speed of forty-five miles per hour in still water and no headwinds. Aided by the current and the wind, it was going at a speed equal to the
Not For Hire
’s.