The men in the radio room whirled at the sudden sound of the loudspeaker. There were three men in all, and two of them had left their rifles in the far corner of the room. The third man sat near the transmitter with his rifle across his lap, and he brought it into firing position the moment he saw Bunder and Cates rushing into the room. The captain of the ship was carrying out the plan just the way they had outlined it below — he was rushing these men and trying to put them out of commission without firing a shot. Bunder, following his captain, was attempting to do the same thing. The loudspeaker was shouting a warning. The two unarmed men were moving toward their rifles in the corner. The man sitting in front of the transmitter slipped his finger inside the trigger guard of his rifle, curled it around the trigger, and began shooting. The first volley caught Bunder in the chest, and he shouted “No!” and that was all, and then began staggering forward. The second volley came from the far corner of the room where both of the other men had picked up their rifles. Luke saw Cates drop his .45 and stumble back against Bunder who was bleeding profusely, and then both men dropped to the deck and Luke turned away and ran for the ladder leading up to the bridge.
It occurred to him as he took the steps up — he took them two at a time despite his bad leg — it occurred to him that the men in the radio shack were now behind him with the same guns that had felled Bunder and Cates, and that Jason Trench was above him and ahead of him on the bridge with more men and more guns. It occurred to him that the entire world had disintegrated into groups of men holding guns, some behind you and some ahead of you, and that the only thing you could do was remain unafraid in the face of whatever was happening, cling to the hope that mankind had not completely lost its reason, resist long enough and loud enough until they all put down their weapons.
A shot rang out behind him.
He was on the bridge now and running for the wheelhouse. There was another shot behind him, and he thought at first he’d been hit but he realized he’d only slipped momentarily on the wet bridge deck, and suddenly he felt invincible. Nothing could possibly harm him now, he thought. He knew that what he was doing was right, he knew that his own unselfish motives, his own brave and courageous attempt to stop these maniacs before they destroyed themselves and the world would somehow succeed. He would storm that goddamn wheelhouse and pull Samantha out of their clutches and save the world, because what he was doing was good and right, and what they were doing was evil.
He threw open the wheelhouse hatch.
Jason was still at the microphone. The loudspeaker was still bleating; he hadn’t even heard it after those first arresting ominous words. He heard it again now, “We have the girl, we will kill her, we will kill—” and then the words stopped as Jason turned from the microphone and Luke said, like the hero he felt he was, like the man who was about to save the world, “This is it, Trench.”
Jason fired four times.
Each of his bullets caught Luke in a different part of his body. Samantha, who was being held by Rodiz across the wheelhouse, screamed when the first bullet struck Luke and tore away half his face, and then screamed again as the second bullet exploded into his throat. Luke’s finger tightened around the trigger of his own gun in that moment, more as a reflex spasm than as any consciously directed action — all thought, all feeling, had been blown from his head with Jason’s first shot. His finger jerked fitfully against the trigger as he began falling toward the deck, the single bullet exploding from the muzzle of his gun and slamming into the metal deck and then ricocheting wildly across the wheelhouse, screaming from bulkhead to bulkhead like a wild buzzing hornet, finally smashing into the sloped top of the radar gear and shattering the scope. He was dead before he struck the deck, but Jason fired two more bullets into his back and shoulders.
Samantha broke away from Rodiz and ran screaming to where Luke lay in his own blood. She was lifting his head into her lap when Annabelle fired at her with the.22, killing her instantly.
The world was poised for anarchy.
18
One of the men in the bunker was a corporal in the Cuban Army, and the other was a Russian civilian who had been in Cuba for eight months and who wanted to go home. He was writing a letter to his wife when the corporal called to him from the other room. Reluctantly he put down the clipboard to which his single sheet of stationery was attached, rose, and went to where the corporal sat in semidarkness before the Russian-built radar.
The corporal did not know any Russian, and the Russian knew only a little Spanish, so they would have had difficulty communicating even if they liked each other, which they did not. Moreover, it was almost two-thirty in the morning, and both men were tired, and both were annoyed by the radar which had been flashing electronic echoes from high ocean waves all night long, and which seemed to be performing erratically and irrationally because of the hurricane. The Cuban corporal secretly felt that the Russians did not know how to build radar anyway, even if they were capable of shooting people off into space, and the Russian civilian secretly felt that these indolent Spaniards were incapable of operating anything more complicated than a straight razor. So the feeling in the bunker was hardly one of understanding, even before the Cuban picked up what now appeared to be a target some forty-five miles northwest of Havana.
The corporal pointed to the illuminated dot of light on the scope as the sweep line went past. The Russian nodded and watched it fade. The electronic line made its 360-degree sweep, and the orange dot appeared once again. The men continued to watch the scope in silence. The target appeared each time the sweep line went past, a bright clear echo that seemed to indicate there was a vessel out there on the water, a vessel moving steadily and inexorably toward the Cuban coastline.
The corporal did not know exactly what his role was in relation to all these Russians who were instructing them and buying their cigars and laying their women, and besides he was a cautious man by nature. His job was to watch the radar, and that was all. He did not want to make any decisions about the target which was now about forty-two miles offshore, if this Russian radar could be trusted, and if this wasn’t simply another wave echo, although none of the other wave echoes had kept moving steadily toward Havana. The Russian, on the other hand, was nothing more than a civilian adviser who was standing this foolish middle-of-the-night watch with the corporal only to make certain he had mastered control of the machinery, a feat he was sure the Cubans would never accomplish. He wasn’t quite sure to whom they should report this target, if indeed it was a target at all.
Silently, they kept watching the scope, each secretly hating the other, and each secretly hoping this was nothing more serious than a wave echo.
The second target appeared on the screen suddenly.
If there had been a lack of understanding in the room before that moment, there was total understanding now. If there had been a lack of sympathy before, there was now agreement bordering on wild hysteria. The corporal and the civilian looked at the screen and then turned to face each other. For the first time that night, they were ready to admit that somewhere out on that water — somewhere about forty-one miles away, to be exact — there was not only one vessel heading for Havana, but possibly two — in fact definitely two, because the second target was now sending back an echo as bright and as strong as the first.