He was on the level below the flight deck before he saw them — at the far end of a passageway running athwart the ship. Beyond hurrying sailors and air-crew, he glimpsed the flash of Zuiden’s back with the woman like a sack over his shoulder. He ran after them, past cabins and ready rooms, pushing past the crew.
At the end, the passage split and a ladder rose through a trunk. It was a three-way choice. He took the ladder.
A light trap brought him out into the wind and darkness near the waist of the vessel on the catwalk that ran around the flight deck. He turned away from the sea which foamed 60 feet below the overhang — faced the island across the deck which was level with his chest. It was alive with light-wands and launching planes.
Where the hell were they? Up here? He dodged past reels of hoses, heading forward.
On the deck, a Tomcat — wings spread, flaps set, exhaust gases shimmering — was moving toward the catapult shuttle. As it paused, inching forward, a blast shield rose from the deck behind it.
A yellow-jacketed officer held his wands crossed above his head while red jackets did something to the missiles on the pylons beneath its wings. Last-minute checks. The plane’s control surfaces cycled. Cain moved further along the catwalk, trying to ignore the drama on his right.
He saw a sponson below him, beside a column holding what looked like a signalling lamp or searchlight. The small outcrop looked deserted.
Zuiden knew his stuff, had cut loose during the main event. Hunt might not be unconscious, he realised. Perhaps he’d killed her — come here to drop her overboard. No, he couldn’t be up here. There were green-clad sailors further forward — a launch or recovery crew — and Zuiden wouldn’t have gone near them. The bastard wasn’t on the catwalk and now could be anywhere in the ship.
Another jet was waiting behind the shield while the first one ran up, the power of its engines depressing the nose wheel strut. The roar was visceral.
White flame thundered from the Tomcat’s tailpipes. He covered his ears as the sound became unbearable. The plane’s port and starboard lights came on and the white light on the tail. The crouching catapult officer swung his yellow wand in an arc to the deck, then brought it up to the horizontal like a lunging fencer. A green light winked out near a control bubble further forward. As steam slammed against the catapult pistons the aircraft rocketed down the rail, twin furnaces of flaming orange and, in three seconds, was flung off the deck.
Cain had instinctively ducked, found himself facing tie-down chains hooked from a rail and a red fire extinguisher labelled CARBON DIOXIDE. He rose, padded back through drifting steam, wondering how much hearing he’d lost.
As he passed the jutting sponson, he thought he saw movement. Was someone there?
He craned over to see more, could just make out a shape that looked like a boot.
Then a sailor appeared on the sponson — a burly black man who crouched and pulled at something. A flash of teeth but his voice was drowned by the racket from the deck. He seemed to be dragging on a second man’s legs — a man who lay prone on the grid. As the man was pulled back, he twisted. A man with fair hair, a pale stalk protruding from his pants.
Zuiden — with his dick out.
Cain vaulted over the catwalk rail and dropped to the platform below, landing beside the sailor a second too late. Zuiden, still down, had hooked one leg behind the man’s foot and smashed the other into his knee. As the sailor toppled, yowling as his leg collapsed, Zuiden chopped his throat.
Then Zuiden saw Cain and moved inboard as far as he could, aware that Cain’s breast-cannon wasn’t accurate. He had his pistol out and with his other hand was trying to zip his pants.
Beside him on the grid — the blur of Hunt’s splayed body, her top off and her clothes around her knees. The hatch into the hull was open. Zuiden would have closed it but couldn’t lock it. And the sailor had stumbled on the scene.
Cain registered it all in a blink. He felt welded to the deck, knew there was nothing he could do. If he moved his hand to the pressor switch, Zuiden would shoot and he’d be dead before the explosive slug went wide.
A launching F–14 shook them with a speech-defying roar. Hunt was stirring, coming around.
He looked at the rock-steady gun. He’d feel the jolt before he saw the barrel flame.
An endless second.
Zuiden’s savage grin. He edged toward the hatch — was gone.
15
FALLOUT
Cain went to the salt-sticky rail and looked at the creaming sea far below. It had been close. The sweat on his face was clammy with it. He turned back, stepped over the dead seaman and squatted beside Hunt.
She peered at his face then, felt wind on her flesh, looked down. She saw the sailor’s body, stared up at him again, uncomprehending — her full, perfect breasts transformed by moonlight to marble.
He yelled, ‘Zuiden.’
She felt between her legs, made a poor attempt to cover herself.
He said, ‘Zuiden knocked you out and raped you.’
‘That sailor’s…?’
‘Dead. Zuiden killed him.’
She breathed heavily, eyes blank.
He got her dressed and helped her through the hatch away from the noise. She leaned against the side of the alleyway as if she might collapse.
By the time they were cleared through into EXIT, Hunt was herself again, which Cain didn’t consider an improvement. She said, ‘I’ll handle it from here.’
She left a message in reception for Rhonda then led him along a corridor and keyed a code into the doorpad.
The cabin was larger than his and featured a wider bunk. Its personal compost revealed immediately whose it was. On one wall was a poster in a frame.
The Suffolk Savoyards present
HMS PINAFORE
or
The Lass that Loved a Sailor
Cut-in photographs of cast members included an attractive, dark-haired woman about twenty.
He said, ‘You and Ron are an item?’
‘Objections?’
‘No.’
She sat on the bunk as the door-control clicked and the catch disengaged. Rhonda was in the room, leaning back against the closing door, her good-natured face now grave. She sat beside her lover, petted her, while Hunt told her what she knew.
Cain turned to a railed shelf holding bottles and poured himself a scotch. Above the shelf was a picture of an urchin peeing in a pond. A frog was leaping from the pond in alarm. The caption read: NEVER DRINK WATER.
When he turned back, Hunt was staring at the floor. Rhonda looked at him, livid. ‘Well?’
He told his version, ending, ‘I cocked up.’
‘Wonderful.’
‘And the flag bridge won’t like him killing one of the crew.’
‘Vanqua’s problem.’
‘I should have topped the bugger at lunch. It was a set-up. Like lunch was a set-up.’
She caressed Hunt’s thigh but didn’t respond.
‘Well, wasn’t it?’ he insisted.
‘Not mine.’ She stared at the woman’s perfect leg. Hunt sat immobile.
He swigged his drink, jaundiced by both of them. ‘I’d say Vanqua put him up to it. The insult in the conference. Then lunch. Then this. Because Zuiden’s a deadshit but he’s not mad.’
‘You need a reality check,’ Hunt said.
Cain said, ‘Don’t flatter yourself. The man’s a Grade Three. I chipped him at lunch and he looked guilty. I’d say Vanqua told him to bait you, then poke you.’
‘And to kill a sailor?’
‘No. He swatted a fly.’
Her smooth brow dimpled to a frown. ‘So why would Vanqua put him up to it?’