Without Warning Part 38

Jules thanked him. She didn't bother looking for the small squad of mercenaries. The yacht was too large, and they were mostly arrayed on the lower decks toward the stern, giving them a clear field of fire over the heads of the lobster boats as the yacht came around. Fifi safed her weapon when she could no longer draw a bead on the little wooden tubs.

"You want me to head on down there, Julesy? Be a shame to waste the ammo, if we're not trying to hit them. Seven-point-six-two Eastern Bloc standard doesn't grow on trees, you know."

Julianne shook her head, trailing a regretful look back over the retreating vista of the Juan Fernandez Archipelago.

"No, save your fire. We'll need it soon. And those guys are no real threat."

Behind the tiny, bobbing armada of trawlers the soaring peaks of the main landma.s.s, Robinson Crusoe Island, knifed into a slate-gray sky above the village of San Juan Bautista. The lonely settlement, the only one anywhere in the archipelago, clung to the water's edge at the mouth of a steep valley that funneled bitter winds down into c.u.mberland Bay. The uppermost reaches of the jagged, volcanic mountains were lost inside a ma.s.s of scudding clouds. The gale roaring down on them had teeth and blew stinging salt spray into her face, but in spite of all that, it had been a great port in which to lay up and recover from the mad dash away from Acapulco and down the coast. Even more important, it had been about as far removed from the rest of the world as you could be, without pulling on your thermal knickers for a trip to the Antarctic. That had been the deal clincher after the Middle East went up. None of her pa.s.sengers or crew had objected to the change in course. None of them wanted to be anywhere near a big city that might disappear inside a mushroom cloud.

Robinson Crusoe Island, a solitary fleck of volcanic rock in the vastness of the southern oceans, had seemed a perfect bolt-hole.

Too bad it hadn't worked out a little longer.

As the boat built up to its maximum speed, the muted pop of gunfire from astern was lost in the roar of the wind. Jules and Fifi remained on the flying bridge for the moment, wrapped in oilskin coats, taking in the view as they hastily exited c.u.mberland Bay.

"I can't believe they narked us out," said Fifi, sadly. "After they gave us those lobsters and everything!"

Jules shrugged.

"Lobsters they have an abundance of, Fifi. But diesel, food, medicine- those they're running out of fast. Shah said the boat from Valparaiso hasn't been here for two months. I don't think it's coming again."

"So what, dropping a dime on us to the f.u.c.king syndicates is their idea of self-help?"

Julianne lifted her hands in a gesture of resigned acceptance.

"What are they to do, Fi? We weren't part of the tribe. We're just a big shiny boat full of stuff they need and can't get anymore. These people are doomed, and our time with them was up. Get over it."

As Mr. Lee took them out into the exposed waters again, the yacht began to pitch and roll on the much rougher swell. The bow climbed larger and larger waves, smashing down into the dark trough on the other side with an enormous boom. Jules took one last look off to starboard at the wreath of funereal clouds gathering around the highest summits before motioning to Fifi to follow her inside. Lee was at the helm in the gleaming bridge, joyfully directing the other crew members present, Dietmar the German navigator they'd picked up in Acapulco along with the Rhino, who was chewing the stub of a much-abused cigar. Apart from a bag of clothes, his personal luggage consisted entirely of foul-smelling stogies, which he insisted on smoking at all times, right down to the nub. The smell of the Davidoffs reminded Jules of her father's library, so she indulged the old coast guard chief, over the protests of her pa.s.sengers, who objected to his "secondhand carcinogens."

"How's it looking, Rhino?" asked Jules as she shook off the spray and slid the hatch closed behind her.

"Excellent. Just excellent, if you're in the market for an old-fashioned a.s.s kicking today. Two boats. The lead vessel is making about eleven knots. Pulling away from the other, which is topping out at about eight."

"Any idea how big? How many of these hoodlums we might be dealing with?" she asked without any hope of an answer.

The Rhino puffed on his cigar, firing up the embers right under his nose. He shook his head. He was about fifty years old, and his face was a bright red relief map of broken blood vessels and sunspots.

"Sorry. They're not in visual range. I wouldn't have seen them until they were on us if we'd been anch.o.r.ed any farther inside the bay. The mountains were blocking the return."

She sucked the salt from her lip and thought it over. The Rules had a comfortable cruising speed of fifteen knots, which they could push out to seventeen and a bit for a while now that she had some engineers she could trust, but if they had any trouble in the hugely complicated engineering plant, or if they hit foul weather, their pursuers were likely going to catch up. Plus, of course, she'd burn through their fuel a lot quicker at top speed. Jules rubbed her temples, which were beginning to throb. This was not what she had planned when she'd agreed to soak a bunch of rich tourists for as much as she could get. She wondered what Pete would have done.

"Okay," she said at last. "I don't see this ending well. Fifi, let's get everyone together, shall we? Anyone who can hold a weapon, down in the main lounge. Lee, you just keep as much distance between us and them as you can. I'll be back soon."

She had one last look back toward the islands. A storm front was piling up to the southeast, smudging out the horizon. She was confident in the Rules's ability to handle a big blow and could only hope that whoever was chasing them didn't enjoy such a pimped-out ride. Perhaps they could lose them in bad weather.

It really was an incongruous sight. She'd never really been taken with the fabulously overblown opulence of the main lounge area on the Aussie Rules. It was a bit too clubby and try-hard for her tastes. But she had to admit, she liked the sight of the half-dozen little village urchins who'd come on board with Miguel bouncing and leaping from one deep blue lounge chair to the next. Or rather she liked the look of utter dismay on the faces of some of her wealthier pa.s.sengers.

Fifi followed her in, toting the PKM. It brought a level of decorum to the proceedings, with even the children stopping and pointing. They were experienced enough to know what it meant.

Pirates.

"All right. Listen up, everyone," Jules cried out. With all of the pa.s.sengers and some crew gathered in there, she guesstimated that nearly thirty people were in the room. It held them comfortably. Miguel's villagers, who'd proven themselves less trouble and much more help than her paying guests, were mostly cl.u.s.tered together quietly under the oil paintings of Greg Norman's dogs, with just a few of the younger children still roaming around unleashed. Julianne subtracted them from her plans. They would need to be hidden away somewhere with a minder. Perhaps Granna Ana, who was the oldest of the Mexicans and spent most of her days sh.e.l.ling beans and peeling vegetables in the weak sun up on the pool deck. Jules had no doubt that she'd cut the throat of anyone who tried to harm the little ones, but she was virtually immobile. The rest of them, though, she'd come to appreciate. They worked hard. Ate little. Some of the men were good shots. They were reliable in a fight and would do whatever Miguel ordered them to, without demur. Plus, they'd proven themselves diabolically effective traders whenever the Rules had put into sh.o.r.e for resupply. Jules was still adamant that they would have to leave the boat at some point, but for the moment, she couldn't see her way clear to dropping them anywhere. The mainland, which they had now left behind anyway, was too dangerous, especially near any of the larger cities, and the villagers had proven themselves too useful.

Her small crew, recruited over half a dozen trading stops at smaller, self-sufficient towns and villages on the way down to Crusoe, were all handy with weapons in one form or another, while Shah's men, it went without saying, were utterly formidable. As she totted up the number of potential shooters in the lounge, Shah himself appeared at the main entrance and nodded silently to her. His men had the situation in hand for the moment.

The problem, as always, was the pa.s.sengers, the rich, skiving dilettantes she had taken on board to fund the trip and provide her with a fig leaf of respectability when she arrived in Hawaii, or Sydney, or wherever they were headed. While some of them had proved themselves not completely odious, and one or two, such as Marc Unwin, the oil broker, had even brought some of their arcane skills to bear for the benefit of all, as a group they were a bunch of f.u.c.king oxygen thieves. The trust-fund brats, Phoebe and Jason, had alienated all of the crew by treating them like staff. Indeed, Jason still sported a black eye from one of the engineers. Moorhouse, the merchant banker, had become a virtual recluse as he had come to realize that the old world, and his fortune within it, was never coming back. The others simply made pains of themselves at every opportunity for want of anything better to do.

Well, she had work for them now.

"Okay," she said simply. "Pirates. Looks like we have two shiploads of them bearing down on us from the north."

A murmur surged through the adults, and some of the youngest began to chant, "Pirates pirates," but Granna Ana whacked one of them behind the ears and they all shut up quickly. Even the whackee held in his tears.

"We've had our problems with these guys before we got to Crusoe, and it looks like we've got them again."

"How?" asked the banker. "How'd they find us out here?"

Fifi shrugged. "Somebody on the island probably dropped a dime on us. Five'll get you ten one of the lobster boats chugged out of port and went looking for someone who'd be interested. They couldn't take us themselves ..."

"But they sold us out to someone who could," Jules finished for her.

More audible concern, and a good deal of anxious muttering from the A-list pa.s.sengers, greeted that. Jules held up her hands to forestall any panic.

"They could take us, if they caught us sleeping on the job. But they won't. You have all seen these sort of characters before. We chased them off then, we'll do it again now. I've only called everyone together because this time it looks like there's more of them and they have a bigger, faster ship. It makes sense," she explained. "Things have turned to custard on the mainland. People are killing each other for a handful of beans in the big cities. In a situation like that, you will always get bandits who group together to prey on the weak ... But we are not the weak."

Fifi hoisted her large, ugly-looking Russian machine gun to emphasize Julianne's point. Shah folded his ma.s.sive arms and allowed his solid granite head to dip once in a nod of agreement.

"We will try to outrun these guys," Jules continued. "One of them is already falling behind, and the weather is closing in. That will help. They'll have to fight a storm instead of us. But they have another vessel that could catch ours if we have any problems, and so we need to be ready. Everyone, and I mean everyone," she repeated, eyeing her American pa.s.sengers, "will be armed and ready to repel any boarders."

She expected objections, but the statement simply dropped into a fearful silence.

"I do not expect you to get into machete fights. You'll lose. But we have enough small arms and ammunition to distribute amongst you, and you will defend the boat with them. That means you will have to shoot people. Dead. This is not something you can leave to Sergeant Shah and his men. There will be too many for them to handle on their own. No offense, Shah."

Shah smiled. None taken.

"I need you to divide yourselves into two groups. Those who are familiar with firearms and those who are not. Sergeant Shah and Birendra will give the latter a quick tutorial in how to pull a trigger. That's all we ask of you. The others will go with Fifi down to the gun lockers and arm yourselves appropriately. Do not panic. Whatever may happen will not happen for many hours yet, possibly even a day or two. Familiarize yourself with your weapons and whatever firing station you are a.s.signed. Learn its blind spots and weaknesses. Identify a fallback route. And then get some rest. Watch a movie, hit the gym. Whatever does it for you. If you have to fight, it's best that you're not s.h.a.gged out from running around like headless f.u.c.king chickens for half a day beforehand."

At least some of them laughed. Nervously.

Jules took a few steps toward them.

"It may not come to anything," she said. "We may outrun them. We have enough fuel for six thousand miles of cruising. Enough food stocks now for a month with some rationing. We may lose them in the storm that's brewing up out there. We may not."

She paused, very briefly, taking in the effect she was having. The faces of the older Mexican men were unreadable, their eyes black polished stones in a dark night. The women looked much more defiant, but also fearful for the children. Some of the younger men, boys really, looked excited.

Her A-listers, on the other hand, were quietly freaking out.

"You need to understand this, most of all," she concluded. "Anyone who steps onto this boat with hostile intentions will be cut down. They will be killed. And there will be no mercy shown them. Because we will receive none in return."

Guantanamo Bay naval base, Cuba

"We could let em loose," Stavros deadpanned. "About seventy-five miles north of here."

General Tusk Musso snorted softly. Yep, it would solve a few problems if he could just throw all of his prisoners into the Wave. But then what would the New York Times say?

Nothing. Not now.

G.o.dd.a.m.n, but he needed a rest.

Musso pushed the tips of his fingers under his sungla.s.ses and rubbed at his sore, bloodshot eyes. He could feel bristle growing on his cheeks. The camp had run out of razor blades. He'd have to do something about that. Have to maintain standards.

They had run out of Kiwi boot polish as well, hard as that was to believe. Most combat boots looked as if they had been polished with a Hershey bar, if at all. The general wore a pair of the new, now rare, suede tan Marine Corps boots. At least he didn't have to worry about spit and polish every night.

The afternoon sun was warm, but not uncomfortably so. Nonetheless it glinted off the steel and wire of Camp 4 with a fierceness that made the sungla.s.ses necessary. It was quiet today. The next call to prayer was still an hour away, and the prisoners' initial excitement after the Disappearance had long since evaporated. The Israelis had made sure of that. Most of these humps were now as alone in the world as the Americans who still guarded them.

"I don't know what to do, George," he admitted. "Pearl wants this expedited. And that's the extent of their instructions. Except for Susan Pileggi's Uplift requirements we really don't rate as a priority anymore, and the refugee flow has slowed up anyway. G.o.d knows some of these losers really don't need to be here." He waved a dismissive hand back toward the detainees. "But, on the other hand, n.o.body's going to thank me for releasing a couple of hundred more lunatics onto the job market. So what do we do?"

"Don't know, General. That's why you make the big bucks."

That really was a joke. Neither of them had been paid in three weeks. Even if they had been, what use would they have for a dead, worthless currency?

"Okay, decision time. Let's set up a small review team. We'll do a quick and dirty study of each case. The really bad motherf.u.c.kers, like Khalid, we're going to try according to the laws of war. If convicted, they can be dealt with summarily."

Lieutenant Colonel Stavros looked wary.

"But, General, most of the personnel involved in the commission process were back home. Prosecutors. Defense. Most of their files. They're gone. What do we charge them with? How can we ..."

Musso cut him off with a chopping hand gesture.

"I didn't say it'd be pretty, George. Just fast. Some of these guys need their necks stretched. Some of them don't belong here. Let's shake the box and see who falls out of which hole. I want it sorted in a month."

"A month ... but, General, we've got hundreds of cases ... And where are we going to send them?"

"A lot of them can be repatriated to their homelands, a.s.suming the Israelis didn't turn them into a slag heap. We got a lot of Pakistanis here. Let Musharraf have them. We might even get lucky. India might nuke him as soon as they touch down. Most of the rest are Saudis, Jordanians, Afghanis. Let's send 'em home. What happens then is up to their governments. Frankly I don't think many of them will survive but that's not my problem. A month, Colonel. This is one issue I don't need to think about anymore. There's plenty that I do. Including this waste of s.p.a.ce."

Stavros turned to look over his shoulder where Musso had glowered at two approaching civilians: Dr. Griffiths and his a.s.sistant, Tibor, universally known as Igor. They were stomping up the road in front of Camp 4, sweating profusely.

Griffiths began carping as soon as he was in pistol-shot range.

"Found you at last, General. I must protest again about the lack of cooperation from your staff with my research. Do I have to remind you that I was sent here by your superiors? I am supposed to be studying the phenomenon. Instead I spend most of my time getting jerked around by you or your minions."

"Good afternoon, Doctor. Always lovely to see you. And no, you don't have to remind me," said Musso. "I've heard that particular song so many times now that it has its own neural pathway that lights up every time I see you. If this is about your field trip, my staff aren't thwarting you, Doctor. They're simply following orders. They cannot go into the exclusion zone along the line of the Wave because they have been ordered not to. The Wave is dangerous, Doctor. It eats people. It ate one of yours the first week you were here. Left a little pile of goo in a white coat as I recall. It's not getting any more of mine."

Musso's voice was rising, and he could feel his anger slipping the leash. He pushed past the civilians and stomped over to where his driver and Humvee stood waiting on the small loop road in front of the camp. Brown, dried-out gra.s.s grew to knee height on the waste ground there, and Musso made a note to himself to have that seen to. It was getting to be a fire hazard. He was aware of Stavros crunching up behind him, but his thoughts were elsewhere, sailing out across the blue waters he could just glimpse between the prison camp buildings as he attempted to calm down. Increasingly he found that the fuse on his incendiary temper was burning way too quickly. He had once fancied himself the world's most patient man. Really. He was known for it. That's what made him a good lawyer. But he did have a temper, a foul one, and it had been running wild for weeks. Ever since the first shock had ebbed and he'd had time to really take in the enormity of the loss. Of his loss, personally.

He lay awake in his cot most nights, unable to sleep properly, tortured by the loss of his family. It was wrong, he knew, to feel their deaths so much more keenly than the hundreds of millions of lives snuffed out on that day and since. But that was just how people were. As each day went past, he found it more difficult to deal with their absence, not less. He often caught himself thinking irrationally of calling one of his boys, or his wife. And then he'd remember ... and his mood would implode.

"Well, let the Cubans escort me, General," continued Griffiths, who was entirely oblivious of the needs of anyone but himself. "They don't have to follow your orders, do they? I'm sure some of them would love a chance to travel back into their own country."

Musso spun on him.

"Go ask them yourself, Doctor, but first, tell me what the f.u.c.k you have actually learned while you've been here. Tell me what anyone has learned, here or anywhere else, about that thing."

Griffiths staggered back one step and opened his mouth, but no words came out, because there was nothing to say. The Wave did not exist, at least not according to any instruments or sensor arrays currently available. The only evidence that it still sat squatting over the North American continent was available by looking north. There it soared, miles into the sky. Mute, terrible, and utterly impenetrable.

"n.o.body is stopping you, Doctor. Off you go, if you wish. But do not bother my people about it. I have lost half a dozen of them to that thing. Not to mention the Cubans it's grabbed up. It's random. There is no safe distance within two thousand meters from it. People have been s.n.a.t.c.hed from twenty feet away, and two klicks. You were told all of this, on arrival. Nothing has changed."

Griffiths, a small man afflicted with receding red hair, appeared likely to blow a gasket. But unlike Musso, he still had control of his temper.

"I am sorry for the loss of your men, General ..."

"And women. Two of my marines were women, Corporal Crist and Lieutenant Kwan."

"Okay. I am sorry. But those casualties all predated my arrival. I do not need anyone to follow me into the exclusion zone. Entering is a risk I am willing to take. But I cannot get out there without an escort. There are simply too many bandits now. It is too dangerous."

Musso made a conscious effort not to explode. He tried to climb down from the heights of his rage. Perhaps Griffiths was right. n.o.body had ever been taken beyond two thousand meters. The survey stations in the Pacific Northwest and Canada confirmed that, too. If the scientist had the nuts to take himself inside that safe, established perimeter, on his own, who was he to argue? After all, if the Wave gobbled him up it'd be one less headache for Musso to deal with.

"Okay. You can have an escort to within three thousand meters. After that you're on your own. Even if you get nailed by bandits within clear sight of my people, if you're in the zone, you're on your own. See if you can remember that little rhyme. It'll help with your confusion when we don't come running to drag your a.s.s out of trouble."

"General, your meeting with the French consul, sir, you're going to be late."

"Thanks, George," he grunted. It wasn't even a setup. He really did have a meeting, for which he was truly grateful. "Dr. Griffiths, if you don't mind, I have to sign off the last of the refugee convoys today. Perhaps when they are gone, there will be time for dealing with your issues."

That seemed to surprise and even mollify Griffiths somewhat, and Musso climbed into the Humvee without delay. He didn't offer the civilians a ride anywhere.

"These won't be the last refugees we get, you know, General."

"I know, but it will be the last big convoy the navy escorts anywhere. The word from Pearl is finito. It's been a month. From now on people will have to make their own arrangements. We're losing more of our power-projection capability with each pa.s.sing day."

The midnight hour had long since pa.s.sed, and Musso was back in his office, enjoying the chill of the air-conditioning and the absence of pests. He nursed a precious cup of coffee. At least in this part of the world it was still plentiful, if expensive. Colonel Pileggi sat across from him, just outside the cone of light thrown down by his desk lamp, half hidden in the gloom, an old-fashioned clipboard on her knee as she ticked off her checklist. Behind her the waters of the bay twinkled under a bright moon, and dozens of civilian craft of all sizes lay quietly at anchor, awaiting the departure of the next convoy for the Pacific. A few small light craft still plied a path between them, distributing stores, collecting pa.s.senger lists, and handing out information on convoy protocols. In contrast with the first few crazed days of his time at Gitmo, a skeleton crew was on deck at the headquarters building. The base slumbered out in the darkness.

"So we can expect the escorts here tomorrow?" she asked doubtfully. There had been problems recently transiting the Ca.n.a.l. With the Panama nian government's collapse, Pearl had finally put in a brigade combat team to control the locks, but they were being pressed by an unknown number of criminal syndicates. Not a day went by without one or two casualties among the Americans. On the upside, though, the rules of engagement for the Ca.n.a.l zone were robust. Anybody approaching the American-controlled locks was immediately engaged and destroyed without warning.

Musso nodded.

"It should be cool. Princ.i.p.al escort's French, coming up from Guiana. An F-70-cla.s.s ship on the way now, a frigate, although it's big enough that we'd call it a destroyer. I spoke with their guy out of Cayenne when he flew in late afternoon. It won't have to transit the Ca.n.a.l until the convoy gets there, and it has enough firepower to muscle through any parts where we can't provide cover. And a solid detachment of marine infantry for good measure. Our guys will pick them up on the other side. Then the French will split off with the smaller group for New Caledonia."

Pileggi raised one eyebrow but remained silent.

Musso shrugged. "I know. I know. Surprised me, too. I thought the French were too busy tearing each other apart to bother with helping anyone else, but Sarkozy's faction has been looking real hard at their Pacific territories. You want my opinion, there's going to be a lot of Frenchies opting out of food riots and ethnic cleansing for gra.s.s skirts and Gilligan's Island any day now."