He was passing the after stack when something on the deck caught his eye. It rested just alongside the companionway and ladder leading below. He thought at first it was a cartridge someone had dropped, its brass case catching starlight and glowing feebly in the shadow of the bulkhead. He stooped to pick it up.
He held it on the palm of his hand and stared at it, puzzled.
It took him several moments to realize he was looking down at a woman’s lipstick.
They opened the door to the armory locker quickly and silently, each of the men taking a .45 and an Ml, strapping on the handguns, putting clips into the rifles and then moving swiftly into the forward stateroom on the starboard side, the exec’s cabin, and closing the door behind them. Bunder was still frightened; he had the feeling he was going to be killed; he had the feeling they were all going to be killed. He didn’t like the way the captain and this man Costigan looked at each other with hard eyes; he didn’t like the way they talked in whispers. He was a hospital corpsman; he wasn’t expected to carry a rifle and strap on a handgun. He was afraid he would get killed. They were planning their next move. He tried to listen to them, but his heart was pounding and all he could think of was that he would be killed tonight. His girl’s name was Effie. He wondered what she would say when they told her he’d been killed on a routine patrol originating out of Key West.
“Where’s the radio room?” Costigan was saying.
“Just aft of where we are now,” the captain said, “but up on the main deck.”
“Is there a lock on the door?”
“Yes.”
“Can it be locked from the inside?”
“Yes. But there should be a duplicate key right here in this cabin,” the captain said. “The executive officer has a dupe of every key aboard, except for the magazine and the armory.”
“We might need it,” Costigan said. “They may have locked themselves in there. They plan to radio back and say they’re answering an SOS about fifty miles northwest of Havana. Is that possible?”
“Yes, it’s possible,” the captain said.
“I mean, that you’d go in that close to the island?”
“Yes, that’s not too close.”
“Then Miami would believe it.”
“Yes. I would, if I were the officer on duty.” The captain paused. “Mr. Costigan,” he said, “I want to regain control of my ship.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Costigan said.
“Why not?”
“Trench has too many men aboard.”
“We’re armed now. We can—”
“I don’t want to try it.”
“This is not your ship, Mr. Costigan.”
“That’s true, Captain. But it’s not yours, either. It’s Jason Trench’s. And if we try to take it back and fail, the United States’ll be at war tomorrow morning.”
“I don’t think we’ll fail, Mr. Costigan.”
“If there’s even a chance of failure—”
“I want the ship back.”
“Captain,” Luke said, “it’s too late for this kind of crap.”
“What?”
“You shouldn’t have lost the ship in the first place. We shouldn’t have let them take the town, either. But we did, and you did, and there’s nothing to be done about it now. Except stop them.”
“That’s why I want to—”
“Captain, the only way to stop these men for sure is to go into that radio room and call Miami and tell them exactly what’s going on. That’s the only way. Miami’ll contact the Navy, and the destroyers’ll take care of the rest.”
“They won’t believe us. They’ll think someone is playing a practical joke.”
“They’ll believe us,” Costigan said. “But if they don’t, you can give them a frequency to call back on. They can check it that way.”
The captain hesitated for a long time. It seemed to Bunder that however they worked this, they were going to get killed. If they stormed the bridge or whatever it was the captain wanted to do to get control of the ship, they’d be shot down in their tracks. If they tried to get into the radio shack, wouldn’t the men in there be armed?
“Captain,” Costigan said, “I’m going ahead with this whether you’re with me or not. It’ll make it easier if you send the message. I’m not familiar with your gear, and the Miami Coast Guard doesn’t know me from a hole in the wall. But if I have to do it alone, I will. Now, where does your exec keep those duplicate keys?”
“There,” the captain said, and indicated the key locker on the bulkhead. He hesitated a moment. He sighed. “What’s your plan?” he asked. “What do we do when we get to the radio shack?”
“We’ll have to—”
Quite unexpectedly, even to himself, Bunder said aloud, “We’re all going to get killed tonight.”
It was very quiet up on the bridge. Coop didn’t know exactly what he’d expected up here, but it seemed altogether too quiet. Maybe the darkness had something to do with it. The only real light burning was the one near the wheel, and it shone up on Alex’s face and made him look kind of eerie. The other light came from the Sperry Mark 3 radar gear against the port bulkhead. Jason and Annabelle were standing near the gear, looking down at the scope in its slanted top, their faces bathed in its bluish-white electronic glow. Neither of the two was talking. As Coop approached them, he saw that they were holding hands. He grinned.
“Hey, I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” he said.
“We’re watching television,” Jason said, and laughed.
“Anything good on?” Coop asked.
“Nothing. I thought maybe we’d catch Ed Sullivan. This is Sunday night, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Couldn’t you get him?”
“Nothing but a lot of junk on it,” Jason said, and turned away from the gear.
“Hey, I found something belongs to you, Annabelle.”
“Oh?” Annabelle said, and looked up.
Coop reached into his pocket and pulled out the lipstick. He handed it to Annabelle.
“Oh, thanks,” she said.
“What is it?” Jason asked.
“My lipstick,” Annabelle said.
“I found it near that ladder back aft.”
“Thanks,” Annabelle said. She paused a moment and then said, “Back aft?”
“Yeah. Behind the stack there. You know, there’s that—”
Annabelle had risen and was walking toward the binnacle. She held the lipstick on the palm of her hand, the hand extended toward the binnacle light. She was shaking her head when she turned back toward the two men.
“It’s not mine,” she said.
I love him, Samantha thought. He’ll be back any minute. He said he would come back as soon as they’d got the message off. He said to stay here and wait. I love him.
Fear crackled into her skull with every strange sound that clanged or clicked in the wardroom where she huddled in a corner of the transom seat. The curtain over the bulkhead opening was closed; he had told her to leave it closed. The wardroom was black. She had never liked the darkness. It was always a comfort to have the cats around the house, first Fang and Fong and then the others; she had not fed them this morning. The ocean rushed past on the other side of the transom seat, beyond the thick skin of the ship. She could hear its angry haste, and the sound frightened her because she knew that if Luke did not get that message off as he had promised to do, the ship would be blown apart before dawn, the rushing water outside would flood into compartments and passageways, they would drown.
I’m afraid, she thought.
Now don’t, she thought. Don’t.