The captain laughed. He appeared to be drunk. His soldiers — the three on the yacht’s deck and six more waiting on the gunboat — seemed tense.
“And how about the souls of women?” the captain asked, looking past the Commodore at one of the “nuns” on the bridge. “Do you have a means for saving them too?”
The Commodore knew the patrol boat captain wanted more than money this time.
“How many of the good sisters do you have on your boats, holy man?”
The Commodore didn’t have a chance to answer.
“Search the boats!” the gunboat captain said, walking right up to the Commodore. “Search them all!”
Well, we’re lucky, the Commodore thought. At least he has only one boat this time.
The Commodore fired the .357 Magnum right through his smock. The bullet tore a hole so wide in the gunboat captain’s chest, the Commodore actually saw a speck of daylight coming from the exit hole in the man’s back. The captain looked at the Commodore in a horrified, quizzical way, before falling forward and hitting the deck with huge thud.
In an instant, Australian Special Forces troopers on the Commodore’s yacht as well as the other two boats were up and firing at the gunboat soldiers. They were all cut down in a matter of seconds, the Aussies being careful not to let stray bullets hit the hold of the Commodore’s boat.
When the smoke cleared, a strange silence settled over the scene. One of the Maltese UDT men appeared on the deck and spoke to the Commodore. “Close one, sir,” he said.
The Commodore kicked aside the dead captain’s body, spitting on it for emphasis. “Bastards,” he said, then he laughed. “Would he have gotten a surprise if he’d searched our boats!”
The UDT man nodded and returned to his work below the deck, cleaning seaweed and debris from the 100 retrieved Soviet mines.
The sailors on the bridge of the battleship snapped to attention as soon as they saw the black-cloaked figure and his entourage of guards heading down the walkway toward them.
Two red-uniformed Storm Troopers roughly opened the bridge’s door and burst inside, eyeing the sailors with contempt. “If they treat their allies like this,” one sailor, a Brazilian mercenary, thought, “how do they treat their enemies?”
A second later, Lucifer strolled in, dressed entirely in the heavy black garments, his thin face oozing pain from the burned-in scars. He too viewed the sailors disdain. He immediately sought out the watch commander, an Austrian lieutenant.
“What is our position?” Lucifer demanded.
The lieutenant squared his shoulders and began: “We are at thirty degrees latitude and—”
“No! You fool!” Lucifer raged. “Where are we in relation to the Canal? How long until we enter it?”
“That’s very hard to say, sir,” the man stammered. “We are about forty miles south of the southern entrance of the Canal. But as to when we’ll enter it depends on the currents we’ll encounter.”
Lucifer’s eyes became very thin. “And what about the ships in front of us? Are there not dozens of ships that have already encountered these currents?”
“Yes, sir … ” the lieutenant replied. “I guess so, sir … ”
Lucifer’s scarred face became a deeper shade of red. “Then why don’t you know when we will enter the Canal? Is it not the most important part of our mission? Is it not what we’ve been training for? Planning for?”
“Yes, sir … ”
Lucifer turned to one of his Storm Troopers. “Shoot him,” he said calmly.
The other sailors all forgot they were at attention and looked at Lucifer, not quite believing what he had said. Dutifully, the guard pulled his pistol, walked up to the terrified lieutenant, put it beside his head, and pulled the trigger. Half the man’s skull flew across the room, followed by a spray of blood. The man fell to the floor. Without a moment’s hesitation, two troopers picked up the still-twitching body, walked out the door, and nonchalantly threw it overboard.
“Now,” Lucifer said, walking by the other trembling sailors. “This is my flagship. It is the flagship of the greatest fleet ever assembled. How can we light the world on fire if the flagship of this fleet is under the command of a man who cannot answer a simple question?”
A deadly silence fell upon the bridge.
“You are all well-paid,” Lucifer began again. “Well-paid and cared for by me. To fight for me. To die for me. You have the honor of being part of the greatest military force the world has known since the Big Battles.”
Lucifer’s face was getting redder by the moment. He was shouting now, in his irritating whiny voice.
“There are almost one million men in this army!” he screamed. “And when I ask any one of them a question, they’d better know the answer.”
No one on the bridge dared breathe. Even Lucifer’s bodyguards were tense, afraid he might ask one of them a fateful question.
“Now,” Lucifer said in a voice barely above whisper. “Who is next in command?”
A young North Vietnamese ensign stepped forward. “I am, sir!”
Lucifer looked him over. “All right,” he said. “When will we enter the Canal?”
The ensign hesitated one second, then cried out: “In approximately two hours, sir. Shortly after sunset, sir!”
Lucifer looked at him, then at the other sailors, and smiled.
“Now,” he said. “That’s better … ”
Then he turned and walked out, unknowingly dragging his long cloak through the pool of blood left on the bridge’s floor.
Chapter 37
“Well, that’s the best news I’ve heard in ages!” Sir Neil said, clapping his hands and trying to sit up in his bed. Clara, ever at his side, helped him.
“Yaz said they’ll get the reactor to go hot any minute now,” Hunter said, continuing to explain the turn of events to Sir Neil. “Then we’ll start seeing real electricity. Those generators we’ve been using are about to burst at the seams. Now we’ll be able to power up all the radios, the on-board weapons. Everything.”
“Aye, but when can we get underway, Hunter?” the Englishman asked.
“Yaz has a team of propulsion guys on it right now,” Hunter replied. “That’s the first priority, of course. We’ll know more as the night goes on.”
“How about the Commodore?”
Hunter smiled and shook his head. “He’s a trip,” he said. “He fulfilled his mission just as he planned. Docked up to one of the frigates about an hour ago. He’s got more than a hundred Russian mines in his hold. Just like he said he would.”
“Good Lord, the man is intrepid! Isn’t he?” Sir Neil was clearly delighted. However, he quickly turned serious. “Those bloody Modern Knights. Where the hell are they!? We come back from the dead and they’re probably still lollygagging around.”
“Heath told the Italian communications guys to turn one of their antennas west for a few minutes each hour,” Hunter said. “I know the Knights would never send us an open radio message, but our gear on board might be powerful enough to pick up their ship-to-ship communications. At least we’ll get a fix on where they are.”
“Good plan,” Sir Neil said, calming down a bit. Just as he spoke, the lights in his cabin suddenly tripled in intensity. It was as good an indication as any that Yaz’s guys had the reactor up and working.
“Lights!” Sir Neil cried out. “Real lights! No more dim bulbs!”
Hunter nodded. For the first time he felt like he was sailing on a real ship.
The next day passed slowly but quietly.
Hunter had six aircraft in the air at all times, providing the carrier fleet with an air cap as well as serving as an early warning system for any approaching Soviet subs.
Hunter could only describe the mood on board the carrier itself as one of “serious jubilation.” Serious in that the air crews and the support people, plus the allied mercenaries, went about the duty of preparing for war. But there was jubilation too, every time some previously useless device or machine clicked back on thanks to the revived currents of electricity running through the ship. Hunter was thankful the carrier’s catapults were finally working as they should. Launching the half-dozen aircraft earlier in the day had taken one-tenth the time of previous launches.