With the dawn, the thunder slowly subsided and the crazy, chaotic streaks of brilliant lightning stopped ripping holes in the sullen skies. Still we were left with the residuals — churning seas and the steady hammer of unspent rain.
I was still in the process of waking up when I decided that my effort at self-destruction and protestation against the woes of life had been to no avail. All the hurt, all the Scotch, all the recriminations hadn't changed a thing. I scraped myself together and trundled down into the relative dryness of the galley. Hannah was up, wrapped in a blanket and hunkered over a mug of steaming coffee. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen. She didn't bother to look up when I slid into the booth across from her. When she spoke, the words sputtered out in a lifeless monotone.
"There's still one down there, you know."
I really hadn't thought about it, and now that I had, it didn't make any difference. "He's got all he's gonna get," I said flatly.
Hannah looked up slowly. Her face was drawn and pale, her lips, thin, colorless and drawn tight against her teeth. "Elliott," she whispered, "it was awful. I saw every bit of it."
"It won't help to talk about it," I said compassionately.
"I know, but I'm afraid I'll see that the rest of my life, every time I close my eyes." She started to sob again. "It… it just came out of nowhere, out of the shadows." Her voice trailed off, and she closed her eyes. It was a futile attempt to shut out a nightmare that would stay with her for years to come.
I got up stiffly, still in a Scotch-induced haze, refilled our cups and listened to the sound of the rain. I put my hand on her shoulder. It was a hopeless feeling for us both.
"So, Skipper," she tried, her voice still too wobbly to pull it off, "what's our next move?"
"We're done," I sighed, staring into the muddy, tasteless contents of half a cup.
She was giving it her best shot. "But what are we going to do about that other container?"
"That's where it stays, as far as I'm concerned. The shark, the Cluster, and Zercher — they all win and Bearing loses."
"That's today," Hannah said sagely. "You'll feel differently after you've had a couple of days to think about it."
I sagged back against one of the lockers. "It's over. Half our gear is gone, not to mention the Achilles. We threw everything we could get our hands on in that damn…"
"It saved my life," Hannah said, cringing. "He… the shark took the bait… he went after it instead of me."
"Besides, we can tell Bearing we can account for five of the six."
Hannah stared down in her cup, her hands shaking. Here she was, telling me that I would feel differently, and the fight had gone out of her. "I still have to go to Deechapal, you know."
The thought of prolonging the whole Prometheus madness angered me. If the food and drug boys wanted the island supply shut off, why the hell didn't they just come in and tear the damn place apart? A crew of five novices could look around that damn stench hole for days and not come up with a thing. The government guys knew what they were looking for, so why the hell didn't they do it?
Maybe Hannah was trying to come up with the answers to all that — maybe she wasn't. Maybe it suddenly seemed as pointless to her as it did to me. Either way, we fell into a prolonged morose silence. How long that mood would have prevailed is anybody's guess. Nevertheless it was Sargent who brought us out of it.
"Elliott, mon," he shouted down.
The sound of the big man's voice jolted me back to an uneven reality.
"You better come topside, mon."
Hannah looked up as I slid out of the booth and lumbered up to the deck. Sargent didn't need to say anything. He pointed to the object in the distance and handed me the binoculars. Despite the rain and the grayness, I could see it.
"How long has it been out there?"
Sargent's eyes narrowed as he peered into the mist. "Since dawn."
"Recognize it?"
Sargent nodded. He was tense; there was a twitch in his square-cut jaw. "Yeah, mon, I recognize it. It's one of Zercher's boats."
If I hadn't been walking around in a fog, wallowing in my own self pity, I might have anticipated it. After all was said and done, we were leaving one hell of a trail of problems. Packer and Poqulay were more than statistics on the other side of the ledger, and if Zercher really was in control of the locals, it could be the police, or Zercher, or both. By now, despite our amateur status, Zercher had to feel like we were getting just a little close to things near and dear to him. It was all because of things out of his control — derelict ships, unexplained disasters, and greedy old men looking for the key to everlasting life.
"When I first spotted him, mon, he was way off to the south." Sargent's massive, hamlike black hands gestured out every word. "I think he hadn't found us yet. In the last hour it looks like he's started to move in."
I was still trying to size up the situation when I felt Hannah move in beside me. She looked small and vulnerable, standing there wrapped in the slicker and damp woolen blanket.
I pointed out the intruder. "Sarge thinks it's one of Zercher's."
The lady squinted into the misty grayness. "You think he's after us — or could it be another patrol boat?"
"I'll give you odds on the former," I grunted. To me it was obvious. I went below, ferreted out the Mauser, tucked it in my belt and pulled the oversized poncho around me to hide it. At the same time I instructed Hannah and Sargent to do likewise. Hannah showed me the decidedly masculine looking .38 she had concealed under the blanket. Sargent, as it turned out, was the proud and probably illegal owner of an archaic looking Italian piece of uncertain caliber. It was jammed into his jacked pocket. It wasn't much but it was fire power, and if it came down to it, they were going to receive just as much as they gave. I was still below, loading up and trying to formulate some kind of battle plan when Sargent shouted down again.
"She's about two hundred yards off our bow, mon."
I scampered back on deck, stole a quick glance at the secured cylinders and their monitor and headed for the bow. That's when I heard my name bullhorned across the distance. My hand already had a death grip on the Mauser.
"Elliott," the voice boomed, "we're coming aboard."
"Like hell," I shouted back.
"Don't do anything stupid," the voice warned. "We've got enough on board to blow you and your crew out of the water with one squeeze of the trigger."
It finally sank in. It was Marshal Schuster.
"Keep your distance, Marshal," I bluffed.
There are actions, reactions and temptations. Men are frequently confronted with all three, but seldom all at once. If I waited until the little bastard was in the dinghy making his way to the
Sloe Gin,
hauled out the Mauser and leveled the little creep — that would be action. But there was the distinct possibility that the three goons standing on the deck of Zercher's boat would open fire in retaliation — that would be reaction. So I lived with the temptation and consoled myself with the thought that if I used my mind instead of the Mauser, there just might be a chance of getting Hannah, Maggie, Huntington, Sargent and yours truly out of this whole mess without getting our heads blown off.
Sargent's hand had inched into the pocket of his jacket. "Say when, mon," he whispered.
Schuster had already slipped down into the small dinghy. One of his trained apes was coming with him, and they were both armed with automatic rifles.
"Are we going for it?" Hannah questioned.
I was still staring at the automatics. "Can't risk it. They'll slice us to pieces."
Marshal Schuster lumbered over the side rail and stood looking at me. The rain was tracing patterns down his fleshy white face. "My, my, Elliott, I think it's absolutely appalling the way I have to keep repeating things over and over for you."