The rifleman lined up on Remo, and Remo pulled his prisoner under water with him.
Rifle bullets started striking the surface immediately above them.
They hit true, but veered crazily once they slipped underwater. One angled toward Remo. He released his prisoner and, sweeping out with his bare palm, created a wall of deflecting water. The bullet met the wall. The wall won. The bullet lost the last of its punch. Spent, it sank like a lead sinker, which for all practical purposes, was what it was.
Kicking, Remo reached down for his prisoner, who was sinking, too.
A lucky bullet got the man in one leg. He curled up, grabbing for the wound. Dark blood threaded out as he convulsed. Air vomited from his open mouth through pain-tight teeth.
A second bullet hit him in the chest.
Grabbing him by the hair, Remo pulled him to the surface and got his face in both hands, holding it close to Remo's own.
"Look, your own guys just shot you. Give it up. Who's operating that sub?"
"Ga to hell, bloody Yank!" the man spit in a thick, heavily accented English.
The effort seemed to sap the last of his life force. He jerked, turned blue and his eyes rolled up in his head. His final breath was cold and foul. It smelled of some of hard liquor Remo didn't recognize.
Remo let him sink.
Striking back for the cutter, Remo caught a thrown line and pulled himself aboard.
Dripping wet, he stormed up to the bow. "What's the idea?" he demanded of Sandy Heckman.
"We were defending ourselves," she said tartly.
"I knocked out the gun crew before you got off your first shot."
"I didn't see you."
Remo turned on the Master of Sinanju, "Chiun, why the hell didn't you stop her?"
"Because."
"That's it? Because!"
"Yes. Because." And Chiun showed Remo his disdainful back.
They watched the sub sink. The stern went down, throwing the bow high above the water. It was as if the sub were straining to keep its head out of the water like a living thing.
Then, with agonizing slowness, the forepart of the submarine slipped beneath the waves.
But not before they could read a name on the bow:
Fier D'Etre des Grenouilles
"What's it say?" asked Remo.
"You are not blind," sniffed Chiun. "Merely myopic."
"I can see the words, but I don't recognize the language."
"It is French."
"No wonder I can't read it. French isn't a language. It's mumbling with grammar. What's it say?"
"Fier D'Etre des Grenouilles."
"That much I can make out. What's it mean in English?"
"'Proud to be frogs.'"
"That's the name of the submarine? Proud to be Frogs?"
"That is what the vessel is called."
Remo looked at Sandy Heckman. "What kind of submarine is named Proud to be Frogs?"
Sandy Heckman shrugged and said, "A French one?"
They watched the ocean settle down. Air bubbles, some as big as truck tires, popped the troubled surface. Nothing else. There were no survivors.
"Why didn't anyone get out?" Sandy asked of no one in particular.
"They didn't want to. They wanted to go down with the ship," said Remo.
"That's crazy. We're the U.S. Coast Guard. We would have taken them alive. Everybody knows that."
"Obviously they did not wish to be taken alive," intoned the Master of Sinanju.
That cold thought hung over the water as they watched the last blooping bubbles break the surface. Finally a rainbow slick of oil began to appear, marking the spot where the Fier D'Etre des Grenouilles had gone down.
Chapter 18
Remo got Harold Smith on the first ring.
"Sighted sub. Sank same," he said.
"What information did you extract?" asked Smith.
"We're pretty sure it was French. Either that or someone has a weird sense of humor."
"What do you mean, Remo?"
"When the sub went down, we caught a glimpse of the name. Fier D'Etre des Grenouilles."
Chiun cut in. "That is not how it is pronounced."
"You say it, then."
"Fier D'Etre des Grenouilles. "
Smith's voice was full of doubt. "That cannot be correct."
"What's it mean to you?" asked Remo.
"'Proud to be Frogs.'"
"That's what Chiun says, too."
"No French vessel would possess such a name."
"This one did."
"You have prisoners?"
"Had. He got away. His own people wasted him."
"What did you get out of him?" asked Smith in a sharp voice.
"'Ga to hell, bloody Yank.' Unquote."
"No Frenchman would say 'Yank.' He would say 'anglo.'"
"You know better than me," said Remo. "His accent wasn't particularly French, either. It was more Irish or Scottish."
"Which? Irish or Scottish?" asked Smith eagerly.
"Search me."
"Was it a brogue or a burr?"
Remo's forehead wrinkled up. "I know what a brogue is, but what's a burr?"
"Scotsmen speak in a burr. Irishmen affect a brogue. Was what you heard a brogue?"
"Kinda."
"You must be certain, Remo. This is important. If it was not a brogue, it must have been a burr."
"You'd have to hum a few bars."
Smith made a noise in his throat.
"No, it wasn't like that."
"I was not attempting a burr," Smith test testily. "I was clearing my throat."
"Whatever you were doing, it was kinda in the ballpark, but not exactly right."
"Never mind," said Smith, his voice tart.
"Listen, Smitty," Remo continued, "the sub went down with all hands. They could have saved themselves but they didn't want to."
"Only a very determined crew chooses death over capture."
"We're looking at professionals, all right."
Smith was silent for the better part of a minute. "Return to land," he finally snapped.
"Can't. We're still on search-and-rescue duty."
"I will fix that."
"That's up to you. Want me to hand the phone over to Lieutenant Queeg here?"
"No," Smith said sharply. "I will do this through channels."
Less than fifteen minutes later the radio call came from the Coast Guard air station at Cape Cod.
"We've been ordered to return to port," Sparks reported.
"The way this wind is picking up, I'm surprised you could hear them through all that static," Sandy remarked, casting a weather eye toward the cumulus clouds that scudded across the sky like a flock of dirty scared sheep.
"What static?" asked Sparks.
"I'll show you."
In the radio shack Sandy tried to raise Cape Cod. She was having trouble being heard over the ball of crumpled paper she was holding up to the mike.
"Say again?" she shouted "I'm getting interference."
"If that's static, I'm a penguin," a voice called back.
"I can't hear you."
"Then stop squeezing whatever it is you're squeezing."
"Coast Guard Station Cape Cod. Come in, Cape Cod. You're breaking up. This is CGC Cayuga Come in, Cape Cod."
"Your passengers are urgently required on land, Heckman, and if my ass is in a sling over this, your ass is in an even bigger sling," a radio voice barked.
At the radio shack door, Remo said, "We're in no big rush."
Sandy snapped off the radio set. "Make sure that's your story when we make landfall."
"You're a real grateful sailor."
"I'm a professional on a search-and-rescue mission who's wondering what the hell is going on out here."
"You know as much as we do," said Remo.
Back on deck the wind was biting. As they raced through the turbulent green-gray waters, Sandy took up a bow position and was scanning the threatening horizon with her binoculars.
"There's big trouble on the horizon," Sandy muttered half under her breath.
Remo looked in the direction she had her binoculars trained. Chiun did, too. Neither of them saw anything unusual.