“Set that up to cover the doors. Get it unjammed, fool.” Fatima ordered. “We will guard you from here.”
But even as she spoke, the head of the man she was addressing exploded. She whirled, searching for her enemy. The second man, beside her, staggered back crazily fast, as though this were a speeded-up film, throwing his rifle away. But Fatima could see him now, a tall Palestinian at the far end of the corridor, familiar from the captive crew. Kerem, they called him. Kerem was standing even as she was standing, looking down an assault rifle at her. She fired first and he fell.
Then she was swinging round incredibly quickly, knowing what had to happen next. The first man out through the lecture hall doors was tall, gray-haired, distinguished looking. She shot him in the chest. The second man out was another Palestinian.
But this time he shot her.
Salah crossed swiftly to the terrorist woman who had shot Martyr all but through the heart and knelt briefly at her side as he moved her gun away. She lay still as death, huge dark eyes staring upward. They were running with tears and for a moment the tall Palestinian thought they were tears of shock or pain. But then he saw how wet her cheeks were and realized she must have been weeping all along. Then, for some time, he found his mind returning to her, wondering what in the world could have caused her to cry like that.
Ben was beating madly on the rim of the radar, howling with joy. There, in the bright green bowl, weaving their way through the slow tankers, coming to his aid at more than thirty knots, were the four gunboats his naval friend had promised him.
“Ben!” The voice called quietly from nearby. And from far away, down memory lane, Ben stopped what he was doing, as though carved in rock. Uncle Dick was just outside the door. Uncle Richard bloody Mariner was here.
Immediately at Ben’s right hand sat Ali, also looking into the radar bowl. Ready, one on either side of the door, were two more guards. Four in here. Now how many did his godfather have?
“Hello, Uncle Richard. What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to take you home, Ben.”
“But I don’t want to go home, Uncle Richard. I want to stay here with my friends.” He put on the lunatic singsong voice, thinking like a fox.
“But I’m afraid we can’t have that, Ben. They’re waiting for you at home.”
Ben began to turn, slowly, looking out through the door at his back. “But who’ll be waiting, Uncle Richard? My mummy’s been dead so long…”
At the far end of the corridor, he could see his enemy standing looking in. Mariner’s hands were by his sides, but he seemed to be holding a pistol. Ben squinted. It was a short corridor, but dark. The light was coming from behind Richard, where another corridor went across. Why, it was a Heckler and Koch MP-5. Now where did you get one of those? wondered Ben. Well, it doesn’t matter now.
He raised his empty hands in a helpless, little-boy shrug. “My mummy’s been dead for so long,” he said. “And my father went down with your ship kill the bastard!”
The two men behind the door spun out, guns ready. They understood the English word kill. Ali leaped up, grabbing for a gun as well, and all hell was let loose.
Richard dived forward as the two men jumped into the door. Twelve Toes leaned round the corner above him and sprayed them with automatic fire. They didn’t stand a chance. As they fell, Richard was looking beyond them at the twisting shapes farther in. A slight figure sprang forward. Richard squeezed off three. The figure stopped where he was, as though his mind had changed. Then Twelve Toes lobbed a thunderflash into the room and dashed past Richard’s prone form. Richard picked himself up the instant after the explosion and leaped forward as though coming up out of sprinting blocks. They went in through the door shoulder to shoulder, firing as they went. Ben was thrown back against the radar and the gun he was holding flew away. Richard stood following his slow slide to the floor, every inch, with the MP-5. “Check him,” he said to Twelve Toes, and the gun didn’t move until he had.
“I thought you’d give me a bit of a chance.” Ben’s voice was little more than a whisper.
“You’re out of your mind.”
“I know.”
Ben died with a smile on what was left of his face.
Richard frowned. He didn’t like that smile at all. Alternatives whirled in his head. Was the place booby trapped? Rigged to explode and kill them all? What was Ben doing when they arrived here? Start with that.
Looking in the radar. Richard looked into the radar. Four fast-moving blips were coming out of Queshm, cutting through the shipping lanes. He looked at his watch. They’d be here in fifteen minutes. “Twelve Toes,” he snapped urgently, “we’ve still got work to do.”
“How many do you think, Richard?” asked Sir William Heritage, softly.
“Four boats. Maybe twenty-five heavily armed men in each.”
“We don’t stand a hope against a hundred. Look what it’s cost us to fight thirteen!”
“You’re right, Bill.”
The others were clearing up below. Sir William Heritage, Bob Stark, Salah Malik, and Richard Mariner were in the blood-and-cordite-reeking mess of the command post. Through the north-facing windows, they could see the bright outline of Prometheus jammed against the side of Fate, but beyond that, there was only darkness.
Salah was looking down into the blood-smeared radar bowl morosely. “Five minutes, tops,” he said.
And Bob Stark muttered, looking down at Ben, “I’d like to wipe the smile off this bastard’s face!”
“It must always have been a part of his plan,” said Sir William. “Take over the platform. Close the Gulf. Hand it over to his friends in Iran.”
“They could always close the Gulf if they wanted to,” Salah reminded him. “Or close Kharg. The Iranian government has that right without going to these lengths.”
“But this isn’t the government,” said Richard. “This is just some people from the navy in the middle of a power struggle. And getting pretty desperate, too.”
“They’re here,” said Salah.
And even as he spoke, the blustering roar started. Massive searchlights lit up every nut and bolt around. A huge, disembodied voice boomed, “Stay calm. Everybody stay calm, please. This is Admiral Walter Stark of the United States Navy. Our forces have been invited into the Gulf to help with this emergency. Our frigate Hazard will be here to oversee any danger arising from this collision in a matter of moments. I would like to thank the Iranian gunboats for their prompt offer of assistance but assure them we have everything under control…”
“Now, what is that,” said Sir William. “What in Heaven’s name is that?”
Richard crossed to the window and looked out. “That’s a couple of Kaman Seasprites,” he answered. “It looks like Robin is back.”
Nobody else knew where he had gone, but Salah and Richard did. They followed the bloodstains down the corridor to where it opened onto nothingness above the quiet sea. He was lying there, face down, with one arm hanging over the edge, as though he had tried to go down and join them but had run out of strength just here.
Richard turned him over. His face was like wax.
“Christ, Richard. It hurts.”
“I know.”
Neither of them was talking about the chest wound.
The American took a long breath. Richard could feel it bubble through the thin walls of his chest. “She was a good kid, you know? Best daughter a father could ever wish for.”