The Canadian Coast Guard cutter captain was exceedingly polite when he came on the air. "This is Captain Fothergill of the Stan Rogers. Bugger off, please."
"That sinks it," Sandy roared. "Open fire!"
Seamen were spread out along the rails bearing M-16 rifles. They lined up on the cutter and let loose. The Canadians returned fire.
The rattle and crack of automatic weapons grew more strident. Bullet holes began dotting the Cayuga's complicated superstructure. The vicious ripsqueak of bullets chewing trim and combing became a near-constant sound.
Standing calmly in the heaving bow, Remo and Chiun watched.
Bullets whizzed around them. From time to time they bobbed their heads or ducked or simply stepped aside as casually as kids dodging spitballs. To them the flying lead was not much more than that.
"You two heroes lend a hand," Sandy howled at them over the din.
Remo shook his head. "We don't do guns."
"And we do not belong to your Navy," added Chiun.
"You're U.S. citizens. We're defending American lives."
"Insults will get you nowhere," Chiun retorted.
As the bullets flew, Chiun called out encouragement. "Smite the godless Canadians in the name of your emperor!"
"Maybe we should pitch in," said Remo, stepping back and twisting out of the way of a short burst of 9 mm bullets.
Chiun made a disapproving face. "The godless ones are losing."
"How can you tell?"
"They are outnumbered," Chiun sniffed.
"But the Canadians have bigger weapons."
"And they are fighting men who eat fish in prodigious quantities. They are outbrained."
"Good point. But maybe we should get in the water and sink a few cutters for Old Glory."
"You may if you wish."
"I don't wish."
"Then do not."
Remo frowned. "Could be I have a better idea."
Finding Sandy exhorting her crew between bursts, Remo said, "Get us close to one of those cutters. We can board them."
"We'd get our white sterns shot off." She had a Glock in hand and laid its sights on a Canadian seaman who was swinging his rifle around for a clean shot. Taking her tongue between her teeth, she squeezed the trigger.
The seaman with the rifle threw it up into the air and grabbed at his side. The rifle made two complete turns, and the heavy butt slammed him on the head. He fell over and into the water, where he sank from sight.
"Nice shooting," said Remo conversationally.
"For practice I pop the heads off gulls and Mother Carey's chickens," Sandy said, reloading.
"Why don't you just fire to sink?"
"No fun in that."
"Guess not," said Remo, who decided that he'd probably have to go into the water after all.
That was when the first Coast Guard Falcon jet came barreling down out of the gunpowder gray sky.
"They armed?" Remo asked Sandy.
Sandy looked up from winging a Canadian chief petty officer and said, "No. But the Canucks don't know that."
The jets screeched down low and made a single pass. The Canadian cutters took instant notice. A fusillade of fire was aimed at the fast-moving planes. It was pure reflex. By the time the bullets left their barrels, the jets had screamed by and were a distant, fading thunder.
As things turned out, it was enough of a distraction to turn the tide.
Their attention on the cold, gray skies, fearful of a second pass, the Canadians were sitting ducks to the rifles of the ragtag fishing armada.
"Slay the fishmongers!" Chiun exhorted, shaking a raging fist in the air.
U.S. seamen scrambled up their masts and fired down from crow's nests. That gave them the high ground, and Canadian seamen began succumbing to the withering fire. Others leaped up from belowdecks to take up their fallen weapons, but they, too, were easily picked off.
"We're winning! We're winning!" Sandy crowed.
"You mean they're winning," Remo corrected.
"Us. Them. We're all Americans, aren't we?"
In the end the Canadian cutter captains were forced to raise the white flag.
Seeing this, Chiun cried, "Now. Finish off the murderous fishmongers!"
"That's the white flag of surrender," Remo corrected.
Chiun shook his grim head slowly, "No. That is the pale flag of death. For he who surrenders deserves death."
Sandy was on the horn saying, "Attention! All vessels within the sound of my voice. This is the USCG Cayuga. I am instructing the Canadian Coast Guard vessels to lay down their arms and prepare to be boarded. All you others, hold your fire and stand back. This is a Coast Guard operation."
A gravelly voice called back. "This is Captain Sirio Testaverde of the Sicilian Vengeance. I say who does what. And I say these damn Canucks are my prisoners."
"Then you are all Coast Guard prisoners," Sandy countered.
Silence filled the air.
"I tell you what. You may have these spineless ones. We will sail north to avenge Tomasso."
"Who's Tomasso?" Remo wanted to know.
Sandy shrugged. "I forbid you to further penetrate Canadian territorial waters," Sandy yelled loudly enough that the Master of Sinanju covered his delicate ears with his hands.
"Forbid your mother. We are going."
And with that the fishing fleet dispersed in all directions. They moved away from the center of battle, leaving the Canadian cutters sitting exposed. One cutter tried to slip away with the fleet, but a shot fired across its bows from three directions cooled the ardor for flight.
Sandy scanned the surrounding seas. "Damn! Where are our reinforcements?"
At that moment the Falcons made another noisy, impotent pass.
"Don't look now, but I think that's them," Remo said glumly.
THE CAYUGA CIRCLED the three Canadian cutters for nearly an hour until the U.S. cutters Presque Isle and Miskatonic put in an appearance.
With the opposing forces at parity, the Canadian vessels were boarded, and the prisoners were clapped in irons. Technically there weren't enough irons to go around, so they improvised with spring lines and other types of cord.
The Master of Sinanju used his fingernails to inflict a temporary spinal paralysis upon the remaining unfettered Canadian seamen.
When the operation was over, the Cayuga had the pleasure of leading the flotilla of cutters, both captors and captured.
Sandy Heckman stood on the bow, the wind in her hair, her hand on her holstered side arm.
"This," she said, "is why I first set out to sea."
"To shoot up other boats?" asked Remo.
"No, to get my blood racing."
In a while they put in at the Coast Guard station at Machias. The commander was there to greet them. He shook Lieutenant Heckman's hand as she came off the gangplank. "Great work, Lieutenant!"
"We helped," Remo said laconically.
The commander bestowed upon Remo and Chiun a very fishy eye. "Who are these two?"
"They claim to be out of Naval Intelligence," Sandy said quickly.
"We rescued her from the vicious Canadians," Remo said dryly.
"You two?"
"Before that," Sandy added, "they said they were with the National Marine Fisheries Service, looking into the fishing crisis."
The commander walked up to Remo and assumed a skeptical demeanor.
"What would be the Navy's interest be in the fishing crisis?"
"That's classified."
"They say that a lot," Sandy remarked dryly. She had her hands on her wide hips and a look in her eye that said that she thought she had the upper hand.
"Out with it," the commander demanded.
"Do not pry further under pain of extreme death," Chiun said thinly.
The commander half suppressed a grin. "Extreme death. What's that?"
The Master of Sinanju floated up to the Coast Guard commander. The commander loomed over the aged Korean. Chiun looked up into his face. The commander looked down.