That misty future was today.
That vague operation was now in motion.
Those men now had faces, and guns, and they were willing to die for America.
By 1 A.M. tomorrow morning — or perhaps a trifle later, depending on weather conditions, but sometime early tomorrow morning — those men would change the course of history. What would all the fat pigs on their flying bridges say to that? Would they say “But I don’t understand. I have been sitting up here puffing on my dead cigar with my drunken crony friends and ordering people to do my bidding. I don’t understand what happened. I have been sitting here rich and fat and complacent and on the inside of everything, the inside of delicate blond women who say shan’t, the inside of expensive silent motorcars, the inside of stock market tips and plush restaurants, the inside of everything. What the hell happened?”
What happened is that you were not on the inside of Jason Trench’s head; that is what happened. You did not appreciate Jason Trench, nor what he did on his floating piece of mayhem in the Pacific. No, you chose to remember instead the incident with the Japanese whore in the Tokyo alley, yes, that was important, wasn’t it? Oh yes, that was very important. Well, you forgot that Jason Trench could change things. You forgot there was a man like Jason Trench who could and would die for his country if it meant restoring the country’s respect and protecting freedom and equality.
Yes.
Tomorrow morning your flying bridges won’t be worth a flying damn.
He threw open the door of the repair shop.
“Costigan!” he shouted. “Get out here!”
They walked in silence to the end of the pier, side by side.
Jason carried no gun, and there was no gun trained on Luke’s back as they approached the blue yacht. Luke’s instructions were simple. He was to get rid of this party of drunks immediately, without giving them any reason to believe anything was wrong here in Ocho Puertos. Jason was fairly certain that Luke would carry out his instructions without causing any trouble. His confidence was based on the knowledge that Samantha Watts was being held at gunpoint in the shop, and Clyde had orders to shoot her at once if anything funny happened on the pier.
“Well!” the voice boomed down from the command bridge. “Do I have the distinct honor of addressing Mr. Costigan at last?”
“How do you do, sir?” Luke said.
“I am Horace Carmody.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your man there refuses to sell us any whiskey.”
“We don’t have any to sell,” Luke said.
“You do not sell whiskey?”
“No, sir.”
“It’s uncivilized not to sell whiskey,” Carmody said to his friends. “The goddamn fellow is uncivilized.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t have a liquor license.”
“Yes, you should be sorry. If I did not have a liquor license, I would be sorry as hell.”
There was a long silence on the pier. Carmody was apparently gathering his thoughts and catching his breath for a new onslaught. Luke had just noticed what Carmody was wearing.
He did not know whether the fat man’s shirt carried all the flags and pennants in the international code, but it certainly seemed to be patterned with a great many of them. He could make out at least six different flags: Tango, Echo, Oscar, Uniform, Yankee, Foxtrot, wait, there were several more, Victor and November. He suddenly wondered if Carmody knew the code signals, and then wondered how he could possibly convey to a drunken sea captain the information that this town was being held by a band of armed men.
The silence lengthened ominously. He had been anxious to get rid of Carmody not three minutes ago, but now he was afraid that Carmody would leave before he could transmit a message to him. His eyes flicked again over the brightly colored flags printed on Carmody’s shirt. His mind raced through the code signals from H.O. 103, linking each flag with each remembered signal. Tango was DO NOT PASS AHEAD OF ME, Echo was I AM DIRECTING MY COURSE TO STARBOARD, Oscar was MAN OVERBOARD, Uniform was
Uniform might do.
Uniform just might do it.
YOU ARE STANDING INTO DANGER.
But would the flag mean anything to Carmody and his inebriated crew? And even if Carmody did understand it, might he not, in his drunken state, simply shout, “What do you mean, I’m standing into danger?”
“Well, how about it?” Carmody said.
Wait a minute. Was Jason Trench familiar with flags and pennants?
“He’s talking to you, Mr. Costigan,” Jason said beside him.
“How about what, sir?” Luke said.
“Do I get my whiskey, or not?”
“We don’t have any.”
“So I guess there’s nothing to do but shove off, Mr. Carmody,” Jason said.
“You see,” Luke said slowly, “there are uniform requirements for obtaining a liquor license in this state, and—”
“I’m not interested in the requirements for a liquor license,” Carmody said.
“Well, they’re uniform,” Luke said.
“What?”
“Uniform,” Luke said again. “Uniform, Mr. Carmody.”
“The goddamn man’s a broken record,” Carmody said. “Stand by to cast off, lads.”
It happened too fast. The two drunks who were Carmody’s line handlers had the lines off and were back on the yacht an instant before it began moving away from the pier. “Welcome to Costigan’s Marina,” Carmody said sourly, and one of the drunks added something obscene that caused all the others to burst into laughter. The long blue boat nosed out gently, and came around, and then put on a burst of speed to leave the dock front area in a roar of powerful engines and a spuming wash of spray, while Luke watched helplessly.
“Nice try,” Jason said, and hit him.
The blow was unexpected. It came with the full force of Jason’s arm and shoulder behind it, and it caught Luke on the bridge of the nose and sent him staggering back against one of the pilings. He put up his hands instantly, but Jason was upon him again, seizing the front of his shirt and pulling him away from the piling and then punching him furiously in the mouth, once, twice, again, and saying all the time, “You think you’re playing with kids, you lousy cripple? You think you’re playing with kids here?” Luke’s nose was bleeding. Over and over again, his fury a monumental thing from which there was no escape, Jason’s fists struck in harsh and angry, terrible succession. Luke tried to block each subsequent battering blow, the fists striking his open palms and his wrists — heavy hammerblows — his throat, his face again. He managed to double his left fist and threw it at Jason’s chest, but Jason shrugged off the blow and bore in again savagely, his rage unfettered, his fists covered with Luke’s blood now. He stopped suddenly.
He stopped with his right fist drawn back, his arm trembling, his breath hissing raggedly from between his parted lips. He stopped and looked out over the water. Luke turned and followed his gaze.
A light was blinking on the cutter.
Luke licked his lips and tasted the salt of his own blood, and began reading the message that came in short steady winks from the Coast Guard ship. He felt a sudden despair. He felt as though Jason Trench had tilted the world and everyone was sliding toward the edge of reality where they would fall off into nightmare oblivion. Out on the water the light blinked out its short and frightening message.