Forever and a Death

by Donald E. Westlake

  Third tunnel. The gold was to the left. Tian moved the levers to turn the treads and drew back the blade. The bulldozer swiveled on its treads, huge in this space. The right corner of the blade gouged out a chunk of the far wall as he made the turn.

  As he started down the tunnel, nearly filling it from side to side, his head just beneath the water pipes, submarine and workmen trailing behind, the tunnel’s lights abruptly flicked out. So everything was on schedule.

  * * *

  Bennett sat at Richard Curtis’s desk in Richard Curtis’s trailer and felt like a captain on the bridge of a giant ship. Seated here, he could keep in touch with Jackie in the tunnels and with Mr. Curtis himself, on his ship in the harbor. When the time came, he would be the one to detonate the explosives in the seawall, flooding the tunnels. When the diver came back after releasing the submarine into the harbor, it was Bennett who would arm the final set of explosives in the tunnel, to remove all evidence of what they’d done, and it was then Bennett who would lead Jackie Tian’s work crew through the construction site, the false building seemingly under construction there, and out the concealed exit into Partition Street, away from the main gate and all the police.

  He could hear the occasional gunfire, and didn’t much like it. That was Jackie Tian’s way to do things, loud and violent and tough. Bennett was an engineer, a construction man. He wished there’d been some other way to keep the police out while the bank vault was being breached. He wished he’d dealt properly with those people in Singapore, because then there would be no police outside to deal with now.

  Well, but here they were, and there was no other way to deal with them. The Jackie Tians and their willing workers were useful at times. Half an hour, no more, was all they needed, and then the gold would be gone, and so would Bennett and Tian and the diver and all the workmen. All who survived.

  * * *

  The diver was a Malay named Sharom, who had come late to the project. He did not know his predecessor, but he understood the man had been arrested on some sort of smuggling charge not related to this job here.

  Sharom had known Jackie Tian for years, not well, but trusted him to be competent and professional, and he knew Tian felt the same way about him. His specialty was industrial sabotage. If you wanted a competitor’s offshore oil-drilling operation to run into expensive difficulties; if you wanted your aging freighter to sink in such a way the insurance company could never prove it had been scuppered; if your operation needed an illegal dead-of-night explosion in a coral reef or other protected waters, Sharom was your man.

  Tonight’s operation was a simple one, for which he was being well paid, the first half of his fee already in his account in Jakarta. He trailed the bulldozer and the sub and the workcrew through the tunnels, dressed in his wetsuit. Scuba tank on his back, goggles pushed down around his throat, headlamp gleaming. He carried his flippers, and wore thin-soled rubber thongs he’d store inside the wetsuit when the time came.

  On his utility belt he carried a small radio, which would switch on the submarine’s engine once the tunnels were full of water, and which he could use to direct the sub down the straight run of the tunnel to what would then be a gaping hole in the seawall. He would swim just beside or above the sub, shepherding it along the way. Once the sub was clear of the seawall, the radio would also alert the other operator, who would take over control.

  Sharom understood the other operator was also the employer in this operation, but didn’t know himself who the man was, had never met him, didn’t need to. Jackie Tian was all he needed to know.

  Ahead, in the darkness criss-crossed by headlamp beams, the bulldozer crashed into the vault wall.

  * * *

  Tony Fairchild couldn’t believe what had happened. Inspector Ha was dead. Tony had liked Inspector Ha, had found him congenial and knowledgeable. He could certainly not be faulted for having put himself in harm’s way, because who could have expected this level of violence? Four police dead, including Inspector Ha and the driver of an armored personnel carrier and two other officers. And undoubtedly there were some dead or wounded among the people inside.

  Both sides had now pulled back from the fence, the people on the inside having driven a large bulldozer smack up against the gate on their side, so it couldn’t be forced. Anyone attempting to get to the fence with wire-cutters could expect to be shot down before they could accomplish a thing; thus, one of the police dead.

  Tony and George and Kim sat in the van that had brought them here, parked now a safe distance from the site entrance. In one way or another, they’d all expressed their shock at the death of Inspector Ha and their frustration at the stalemate, and now there was nothing to do but wait.

  George was having the worst problem with that. Twice now, Tony had had to restrain him from leaving the van, saying, “You aren’t going to do any good out there, George, leave it to the professionals.”

  “We don’t have the time!”

  “I’m well aware of that. But they’re bringing up reinforcements, we’ll soon be through the gate.”

  “If not,” George said, “we’re all going to die. Right here.”

  * * *

  The workmen formed a kind of bucket brigade, moving the heavy gold ingots from their pallets in the vault out through the breached wall and into the submarine. A little farther down the tunnel, some security people had emerged from a door and been shot down by Tian’s people, who now guarded the staircase there, to see to it they were not disturbed.

  Steadily, the submarine filled with gold. Sharom sat on the rear bar of the trailer to remove his thongs and put on the flippers.

  * * *

  The walkie-talkie on the desk in front of Bennett crackled twice, then spoke in Jackie Tian’s voice. “Coming out.”

  Bennett’s hand strayed to the button that would detonate the seawall explosives, but then all at once he was in Belize again, visualizing another man in another tunnel, the sudden onrush of water. He closed his eyes, and his hand moved back from that button to pick up the walkie-talkie. “Let me know when it’s safe to set off the charge.”

  “Naturally.”

  * * *

  Sharom was alone. His headlamp was the only light, shining on the abandoned bulldozer, the submarine on its trailer, the new ragged hole in the wall to the vault. He could hear the radio talk, knew when they meant to blow the seawall, and stepped into the vault to be out of the direct line of it.

  Fortunately, he’d thought to put in ear plugs. The sound of the blast, in this long tubular enclosed space, was like a physical punch, booming down the tunnel, an invisible landslide. Sharom closed eyes and mouth, covered nostrils, and waited. When the vibrations eased, he looked out, leaning through the hole in the wall, aiming his headlamp down the tunnel.

  Here it came. The water had side-channels to fill, long tunnels to inundate, so it came on strongly but not in an overpowering rush.

  As water rose around him, Sharom removed the ropes holding the sub to the trailer. Now the water was above the sub’s propellers, so Sharom started its engine and felt the sudden surge in the water as the propellers spun. Slowly he moved the submarine forward, swimming along behind it.

  The water filled the tunnel, and the side tunnels, and six other water tunnels. Power failed in several of the buildings. The submarine arrowed out into the harbor, a slender black metal fish. Sharom released control, and turned back.

  11

  It was when the man hit Luther on the back of the head with a fist-size stone, when he felt the pain and a runnel of blood trickling down his neck, that he finally snapped out of the stupor he’d been in ever since Bennett had dropped on top of him in the water tunnel. He turned to look at the man who’d hit him, a short compact pugnacious Chinese, who gestured angrily at the pile of rubble in front of them, making it clear Luther was working too slowly. The man tossed the bloodied stone into the tram and glared at Luther, hands on hips. Luther lifted the shovel, turned, and hit him in the face with it.

>   That time he used the flat of the shovel, but in the melee that followed he used the edge; it made a very adequate lance, producing quite satisfactory gashes in arms and foreheads.

  They were working in one of the temporary side tunnels, and Luther retreated as he fought, out of the tunnel, then saw the construction elevator off to his left, one man there, waiting for it, the elevator descending. Luther ran for the elevator, clutching the shovel, and swung it at the man as the elevator stopped at the bottom.

  Yank open the accordion gate, jump in, find the buttons, push Up, jam the gate shut with the shovel handle. Workmen tried to get at him through the gate, but had to drop away as the elevator jolted upward. The last he saw was the supervisor who’d hit him, shouting urgently into a walkie-talkie.

  He didn’t ride all the way to the surface, but got off at a sub-basement, then sent the elevator on up toward the top of the shaft without him. This was a storage area, with only one worklight, that one near the elevator shaft cage. Stacks of lumber, rolls of wire and plastic, barrels of nails, were all jumbled any which way. Luther moved into the darkness away from the elevator, certain he could find hiding places in here until he could figure out his escape.

  It took him a little while to realize there was no pursuit. He was hiding here, in the middle of a collection of barrels, and no one was chasing him.

  Why not? Rising from his hiding place, he roamed the darkness in here, moving slowly, not wanting to fall through some invisible hole in the floor, and eventually came across a ladder leading upward. In the next quarter hour, he managed to zigzag his way to the surface, where the lights were, and the structures, and men moving around.

  And now he saw why they felt they needn’t waste time and manpower searching for one runaway. The construction site was completely enclosed by high fences, some wooden, some chain link, razor wire running in a coil along the top. If he tried to climb that to escape, forget the razor wire, he’d be spotted before he was halfway to the top and shot dead.

  Giving up the thought of escape, at least for the moment, he moved back into the shadows, hunkered down, and waited to see what would develop.

  This was not long before the actual shooting began, and when it did it startled him, because he’d been thinking about shooting, and at first he couldn’t tell who was shooting, or why, or at whom. Then he saw the bulldozer race up the road slope from the bottom of the excavation, saw it placed to block the gate, and realized what must be going on.

  What could he do? He was seated now on a stack of pipes meant for scaffolding, just inside the blue plastic sheathing of the building under construction. Ahead of him was the muddy floor of the excavation, spotted with construction vehicles, but now empty of workmen or anybody else. Fifteen or twenty feet from where he sat the steep slope of the dirt access road angled up to where the bulldozer blocked the entrance. To both sides, the excavation fell away steeply just inside the fence.

  The police would only be able to come in through that gate, and the bulldozer would probably have to be blown out of the way with dynamite. How much time did the authorities have, to come to that conclusion and then to act on it?

  Not enough, Luther thought, not enough time at all.

  He had never driven a bulldozer, but he had driven similar machines in the Alps, when he worked for the ski lodge. He remembered that they didn’t operate at all like an automobile, didn’t even have a steering wheel, but separate levers to manage the right and left treads.

  Wait. Think this through, don’t be hasty. What was it about acceleration? There are floor pedals; which is the accelerator?

  Neither. That’s another lever, on the left or the right. Which? One on one side controls speed, the other on the other side controls the blade. What do the pedals do? Brake.

  Well, that’s all I can remember, he thought. When I get there, it will come to me right away or somebody will shoot me while I’m thinking about it. So I hope it comes to me right away.

  The nearest vehicle to where he now sat was a small flatbed truck with two stacks of Sheetrock on it, covered by clear plastic tarps. Would the key be in the ignition? Almost certainly yes; several people would drive each of these vehicles, none of which would be leaving the site. So all he had to do was get up on his feet and walk over there.

  Still he hesitated, people had been shooting, though the shooting had stopped now. But they had been shooting, and if they saw someone in motion they might start to shoot again.

  Should he run, or walk? If he ran they would know he was their enemy and they might start shooting at him at once. If he walked, they might at first think he was one of them. On the other hand, he was taller than any of them, and much more blond, so if he walked they would have more time to study him and realize he could not be one of their crew.

  There isn’t time to waste here, you know. And yet he continued to sit on the stack of pipes, leaning forward slightly, looking out from his concealment at that flatbed truck. Am I a coward? he asked himself. He didn’t think he was a coward. He’d braved the mountains, he’d braved the ocean, he’d braved his father’s scorn. And yet, there was something about people shooting at you, something different about that.

  For God’s sake, let’s do it, he told himself. There’s no one else to do it, so let’s do it. Stop thinking about it and just stand up and do it.

  He stood up. He walked out of his protected shadow and across the open dirt to the flatbed truck. He saw no one, heard no one cry out, heard no shooting.

  There were no doors on the truck, and the bench seat was covered by a tattered rattan throw. A key ring dangled from the ignition.

  Luther slid behind the wheel and somebody shouted.

  He bent low, turning the key, and the engine coughed into life, very loud, so he couldn’t hear if the shout was repeated. He shifted into low, and drove abruptly up the access road.

  The bulldozer loomed ahead. He jerked the truck to a stop without bothering to shut off the engine, jumped out onto the dirt, and the truck rolled slowly backward, down the slope. He ran up beside the bulldozer, climbed the tread, grabbed the vertical metal post holding up the canopy, and swung himself into the seat.

  Something pinged off the muffler, that thick vertical black pipe in front of him, rising from the engine. They are shooting at me!

  Where was the starter switch? Oh, God, that was the part he hadn’t thought out ahead of time.

  It’s outside! It’s on the canopy support post I grabbed coming up!

  He leaned down low to the right, feeling for the starter switch, hearing another ping somewhere, then being aware of shooting out in front of him, and thinking, don’t shoot at me, I’m on your side!

  Starter switch. Yes; the big engine roared into life.

  Blade control, which was the blade control? Here on the right. The instructions for everything in this cab were very clearly laid out, in Chinese.

  The blade was down on the ground, almost touching the chain-link gate. Luther moved the blade control, and the blade tried to press lower, nearly lifting the bulldozer.

  He moved it the other way, and the blade lifted, scraping the gate.

  He would never figure out reverse. Could he just make it move forward? Transmission and engine-speed controls here on the left.

  Yes! The machine strained forward, treads slipping on the loose dirt, the gate bending but not breaking.

  More pings all around him. He had to get out of here. Hunkered low, feeling bullets punch into the seat behind him, he pushed the right-hand steering lever forward, the left-hand steering lever back. The bulldozer swiveled leftward, and as it did the blade yanked the right side of the gate out of its hinges, metal snapping and flying everywhere.

  Reverse, reverse, right lever back, left lever forward, swivel the other way, feel a beebite on the left side of the head, just above the ear, no time to think about it.

  Sprong! The gate gave way, and Luther brought both levers straight, and the bulldozer shot out onto the road, pushing the wrecked g
ate ahead of it. He was too excited and confused, and couldn’t figure out how to stop the thing until it ran into a police bus on the other side of the road.

  Fortunately, the bus was empty.

  12

  The diver’s voice spoke from one of the walkie-talkies: “Job done. Coming back.”

  “Yes,” Bennett said in response. He put that walkie-talkie down and grabbed the other one to say into it, “Jackie? Where are you?”

  “Coming out,” Tian’s voice said. “We can only do ten in the elevator at a time.”

  “There’s more shooting up here, Jackie,” Bennett said, and he knew his nervousness could be heard in his voice, and he envied the tough calm that Tian still showed.

  “Hold them off,” Tian said, “we’re coming out as fast as we can. The diver isn’t back yet, either.”

  “He’s on his way,” Bennett said, and the phone rang, which must be Curtis.

  Yes. What was in Curtis’s voice was triumph: “We’ve done it, Colin!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you set the last timers?”

  “Not yet, sir. Jackie’s crew and the diver are still coming out.”

  “Well, set them, man. They still have thirty minutes.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do it now, Colin.”

  “Yes, sir, I will.”

  “And, Colin?”

  “Sir?”

  “Leave the phone off the hook. I’ll be listening to what happens there, and you’ll be able to talk to me any time you have to.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “And start those timers.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  * * *

  When Jackie Tian rode the elevator from the level above the flooding up to the surface, traveling with the last of his work-crew, he found the rest of his men milling around inside the area swathed in the blue plastic tarps.