"Perhaps we should simply swim under the water and out through the halls." The British representative cracked his knuckles and practiced keeping a stiff upper lip. "I was on the swim team back at Oxford—"
Like a walrus diving off an iceberg, the Russian plunged into the water and began to stroke with surprising grace and power. He spat foul water out of his mouth. "Tastes like a sewer."
"Those, signore, are our canals," the Italian answered indignantly. He felt as if he was being insulted from all sides.
But the gathered men understood that they were safe now, and it would be only a matter of time before they were rescued. "I say, perhaps we should finish our discussions and come to an agreement?" the Englishman suggested. "That way, in the end, we'll be able to call this little gathering an unqualified success."
Inside the Nautilus rocket room, Ishmael and the crew cleaned up the aftermath of the destruction. The air smelled of smoke from burned circuits and control panels. Puddles of water lay on the deck where they had splashed. A few small trickles had made their way through stressed hull plates, like trails of teardrops, but the loyal first mate and his men had already fixed the most vital problems.
Ishmael sighed and continued his inspection, marking necessary repairs on a clipboard. The Nautilus could still move, but she was a far cry from being "as good as new." The falling bridge had caused the most damage, much of it merely cosmetic on the beautiful exterior of the Sword of the Ocean.
The two crewmen assisting him were covered with soot and grease. One man climbed back out of the rocket launcher. "All secure, Ishmael."
The first mate nodded and blew out a long sigh. "Let me handle the rest from here, men. Go report to Captain Nemo and then check the engine room. I want to be away from here as soon as our comrades return."
The two men departed, closing the bulkhead door and leaving Ishmael to sigh over all the work that remained to be done. "She hasn't been battered so badly since our bout with that giant squid."
An outside hatch opened, and Dorian Gray entered from the night. He looked uncharacteristically battered and bedraggled.
"Mister Gray!" The first mate stared in shock at his condition. "What happened to you?"
Though he showed no sign of physical injury, Gray's clothes were riddled with bullet holes and deep slashes from his battles against the Fantom's henchmen. Self-satisfied and struggling to retain his shreds of dignity, he slipped his sticky cane-sword back into its case. "Mere misadventure. It was somewhat amusing, actually." Gray brushed dust and blood from his jacket. He looked raround, seeing Ishmael alone in the mess of the rocket room. "Have the others returned?"
"You're the first, sir, but hopefully not the last." Ishmael turned back to work. He picked up a wrench and began to remove a cover plate from one of the consoles.
"All this because of a damned traitor. That invisible bastard has a lot to answer for."
"Skinner? No," Gray said, smiling gently. "Not Skinner."
The first mate glanced up, confused by his comment. Dorian Gray had drawn a pistol from his tattered jacket. "Me," he said, and fired.
Ishmael fell, clutching the mortal wound on his chest.
THIRTY
The Ruins of Venice
Over the next hour, the League members returned from the streets one at a time, picking their way through the rubble, finding a safe path along ruined towpaths and raised walkways. The Nautilus rested among flotsam, her ceramic shell woefully scarred and cracked in many places.
The buildings tilted drunkenly; large walls had fractured or slumped. The ruins of the fallen bridge filled part of the narrow canal ahead of the submarine vessel. She would have to reverse and back out of the channel.
Nemo's medics helped the wounded crewmen, assisted by Mina Harker and Henry Jekyll, both of whom had some surgical experience. The turbaned captain directed operations while several crew members in wet suits cleared debris from around the shell of the vessel.
Quatermain finally staggered back, clutching a blood-soaked rag against the stiletto wound in his shoulder. Mina saw him and shouted, but the old adventurer called directly to Nemo in a hoarse voice, "Mobilize your men, Captain. The hunt's still on."
"You've found the Fantom?" Minas lip twitched, as if she could hardly restrain herself from baring her fangs.
"Worse. The Fantom… is M himself."Quatermain slumped down on a pile of rubble and took a hip flask of whiskey from his grimy jacket. He unscrewed the cap with his teeth, then tilted the flask to pour the alcohol on his shoulder injury, wincing as he did so.
"M? What… what are you saying?" Jekyll said. The mousy doctor handed him a long strip of cloth, and the hunter expertly field-dressed his own wound.
Nemo and Mina both moved closer. Quatermain explained. "M — the very man who recruited us to fight the Fantom. We'll get our answers later." He looked all around. "Where are the others?"
"Dorian is missing in action," Mina said, "and that invisible bastard must have fled when he realized we knew about him."
"No one has seen Mr. Skinner since we arrived in Venice. He and M were probably working together." Nemo stroked his long beard. "Actually, no one has ever seen him, for that matter. Who knows who the man could have been, originally?"
"And what about… Tom Sawyer?" Quatermain asked, trying not to show any special interest.
The young agent called from out of sight in a happy, American-accented drawl. "Aww, he'll live to fight another day." He stepped out of the shadows between damaged buildings, bloodied but triumphant. "And I sure do intend to."
Quatermain nodded his approval, while gritting his teeth against the throbbing pain. "We will see that you get the chance. As soon as possible."
Mina went to Sawyer, but the American hesitated as she paid altogether too much attention to the fresh blood of his wounds. She chuckled at his discomfiture. "Don't worry. I've had my fill of throats for tonight."
"Cap'n… Cap—" Ishmael lurched to one of the hatches, clutching the frame with a bloody hand and standing there weakly. Crimson soaked his chest, and he drew on the last of his life's strength just to remain upright.
Quatermain and Mina ran toward the first mate, but Nemo arrived first, taking Ishmael's shoulders just as his knees turned to water. "It was Gray…"
Ishmael collapsed, and Nemo took his old friend in his arms. Blood stained the captains impeccable blue uniform, but he didn't care. "Rest now, Ishmael." He glared up at the cringing English doctor on the dock. "Jekyll — tend to him! Now!"
Jekyll scurried forward, but the first mate refused to let himself be doctored. He had kept himself alive through the urgent need to explain the treachery to his captain. "Not… Skinner. Gray." He clutched at Nemo's uniform blouse, and the captain took his hand, squeezing it, as his eyebrows drew together and his dark eyes kindled with angry flames.
"Gray's… tricked us all, Cap'n." His mission complete, Ishmael died from the terrible gunshot wound.
"Another fallen friend, another lost soul." Nemo's voice sounded hollow and deeply forlorn. "After all the amazing exploits we shared, under the polar icecaps, through the Suez Canal, finding Atlantis, and undersea volcanoes… we have just shared our last."
Ignoring the pain in his wounded shoulder, Quatermain held Jekyll back, allowing Nemo a moment to grieve. "I understand, Captain."
Mina stared disbelieving at the dead first mate. "But Dorian…? How could—"
Suddenly, from within the submarine vessel, they heard the thrumming sound of machinery grinding away, small engines shuddering to life. Angered, Nemo stood and looked around at his crewmen, but none of his workers were operating any of the Nautiluss systems.
"What is it?" Sawyer said. "All that noise?" The aquatic vessel shuddered.
"That is the sound of treachery!" Nemo rushed up the gangplank with the others at his heels. The crewmen shouted, calling themselves to arms. Together, the League members dashed across the Nautiluss hold, following the captain.
When they reached the fa
r side of the vessel, Nemo leaned out of an observation hatch.
From the aft, a massive section of the vessel's hull separated from the rest of the submarine. A hemispherical craft detached itself from the main vessel, lifted up, and floated free after uncoupling from the Nautilus.
Nemo's face held a storm of fury and vengeance, but he could do nothing about the situation. The small craft was unreachable from where they stood. Quatermain pressed closer to him.
"But… what is that thing?" Sawyer asked. "You've sure got a lot tricks up your sleeve, Captain."
"It is my exploration pod," Nemo said. "I call it a nautiloid."
Then, its propellers churning, the smaller craft spun around in the canal, and they could see the suave man sitting at its controls. He locked eyes with the League members who were staring back at him, and raised a hand to them in scornful dismissal.
"Dorian," Mina said. "Why—?"
But Gray didn't seem interested in her at all. He looked back at them coldly as the nautiloid retreated down the narrow channel. Nemo shouted for all his crewmen, but the Nautilus was not in any condition to depart.
As the nautiloid continued to withdraw down the canal, two men dashed down the narrow streets to intercept it. Quatermain saw them, recognized them, and could barely contain his own anger. M, still wearing his Fantom clothes, and his lieutenant Dante jumped from a crumbling bridge over the widening waterway and dropped onto the smaller vessel. Dorian Gray opened an upper hatch, and the other two villains climbed into the safety of the vessel.
Quatermain clenched his fists. "Nemo, can you track that? Like you tracked the car?"
"Track it?" Nemo was furious. Ishmael's bloodstains still shone brightly on his uniformed chest. "More than that, Mr. Quatermain. I intend to catch it!"
THIRTY ONE
The Nautilus
The Nautilus's engines thundered to life, and the propellers churned sediment from the canals. At the urgent steam whistle that signaled imminent departure, Nemo's crewmen jumped back aboard, ready to go. They ran across the decks, scrambled down metal rungs into the hold, sealed the hatches overhead.
With every moment, the Fantom drew farther away.
Captain Nemo went to the control room, which seemed ominously empty without his first mate, and stood directing the operations. "Enough. We must be off." His voice was cold and flat, diamond hard, with deliberate determination.
Clattering and straining under heavy gear-turnings, the cable moorings retracted automatically, tearing the tow-path stanchions from their mounts in a shower of old brick and rusted anchor-spikes. Creating a foaming wake, the undersea ship backed away through the narrow canal, working itself around debris from the collapsed bridge.
"Check all systems," Nemo said into his voice tube. "Verify our repairs. I need this ship running and ready to submerge as soon as we are away from Venice."
The uniformed men worked together in a grim blur, calling readings to each other, running through test results, patching a last few leaks. They checked vital systems and rerouted to secondary equipment where necessary to keep the Nautilus alive and increase its speed. The ship cruised like a plump crocodile though reeds as it navigated out of the maze of narrow canals.
Daylight began to tinge the sky, illuminating the shaken Carnival revelers who were still abroad in the streets. Some of them watched the armored hulk churn along, dragging the torn stanchions like trolling fishhooks behind them. The engines increased their output, and the vessel stirred up a thunderous foaming wake, as if a dragon had just passed by. The few bleary-eyed witnesses assumed the strange ship was merely a part of the Carnival, one more amazing spectacle.
Behind them, the world leaders finally stepped outside, free of their death trap. Breathing the open air, they looked as bedraggled as the battered city buildings. But they were smiling.
As the morning brightened, the people of Venice— many of them nursing a variety of injuries, as well as hangovers — began to pick up the pieces.
Finally submerged and heading back out into the Adriatic Sea, the Nautilus powered into deep water. Its engines and propellers drove it forward at maximum speed.
But the stolen nautiloid had a substantial head start.
Nemo called the remaining members of the League into his stateroom. While they watched, he slid back a large panel to reveal a contour map of the ocean floor; he had drawn it personally, based on data he and Ishmael had collected over the years and their many thousands of leagues journeying under the sea. Two spidery mechanical pointers drifted across the contour lines, a large N signifying the Nautilus, and a lowercase n.
Nemo gestured to the smaller pointer, upon which the larger one was slowly gaining. "That's the nautiloid. We'll be upon it soon."
Tom Sawyer was eager for the hunt, but he noted Mina Harker's sadness. She seemed paler than usual, quiet and withdrawn. "Are you all right, Ma'am?"
"I'm a little shaken. Just… Dorian. I can't believe what he did."
"Not all fellows wear two faces, you know," Sawyer said, clearly meaning himself. "Some are perfectly honest and upstanding people."
Mina looked into the young man's blue eyes, then turned away. Private gloom hung around her like a pale burial shroud.
Then, while they were all intent on the undersea map, a high-pitched whistle resonated through the stateroom chamber. Nemo looked up, puzzled. The sound seemed to be coming from far-off, but somewhere inside the vessel.
"Nemo?" Quatermain said. "What is it?"
"It is nothing of mine. I know all the sounds on my ship."
A crewman named Patel raced down the outer corridors, urgency written on his face. Patel dodged other uniformed men, pushing past them to get to the captains stateroom. The noise followed him, growing louder at first, then higher in pitch and harder to hear.
Nemo opened his cabin door just in time for the crewman to rush up. He carried a flat leather case, which he held out in front of him, as if afraid it might explode at any moment. Thankfully, though, the high-pitched sound had grown so thin and weak it could no longer be heard.
Patel came to a breathless halt and spluttered his report. "Captain! The noise came from this." Nemo took the leather case from him, and the crewman seemed glad to be rid of it.
Inside the stateroom, he gingerly opened the case to reveal a wax disc. He picked it up and studied it in the light. "It is a recorded disc. Someone has left us a message."
"But, don't recordings come on cylinders?" Sawyer asked.
"It is a gramophone disc, of the type invented by Emile Berliner," Nemo said. "I adopted the technology in my vessel some time ago. The Fantom — M—knows that." He placed the disc on a player that rested on the small bureau in his cabin and started the machine.
As he listened, Sawyer tried to imagine the gloating man who had recorded the words specifically for them to hear…
THIRTY TWO
M's Private Headquarters
In a dark parlor, M sat in a padded leather chair, his long, thin fingers laced together. All around him, the furnishings were deep crimson and burgundy, from the thick curtains on the wall to the Persian rug on the floor. He had dispensed with all pretense of his Fantom mask or false scars. His heavy brows drew together, furrowing his high forehead.
He sat near a gramophone recorder, which was operated by a lady recordist. She seemed pale and listless, without heart or hope. M paid no attention at all to her until she had finished adjusting the smooth, blank wax disk and placing the needle in its position.
"Ready, Professor?" she said, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Recording."
M began to speak and, with a faint scratching sound, the recorder needle began scraping a thin spiral of wax from the gramophone disc.
"Gentlemen. If you're hearing this, then every step leading up to it has gone as planned, even if you do not realize it. Yet."
Smiling coolly, Dorian Gray stepped from the shadows in the den to amble around his leather chair. "And I have been true to the goals set me, a
s well." He spoke in a dry voice, making sure the gramophone picked up his words, his irony. "Yes, it's me — Dorian. You know by now that I'm no loyal son of the empire."
He casually lifted an apple from a bowl of fruit on the mahogany table, set it back down with disinterest, then walked over to stand behind the high-backed leather chair where M sat.
"In fact, my loyalty to Mr. M comes in no small part from his possession of something I hold dear to my heart." From behind, Dorian looked down at the cadaverous leader. His eyes flashed, as if he could barely suppress an impulse to strangle the man. "Something I'll do anything to regain."
M leaned forward like a vulture, as if the audience listening to his recording could actually see him. "Everything so far has been misdirection." He smiled over at Sanderson Reed, who also stood in the room for the recording. "My bumbling bureaucrat assistant, Sanderson Reed, who so easily recruited Mr. Quatermain. The assassins in Kenya. Your whole mission, and the excuse I gave you. Venice. Even the assembly of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen."
He chuckled with a sound like witches' brooms rattling together. "There is no League! There never was. A few old paintings, an unused meeting room in the basement of the museum, and a dashing good story. It was just a ruse to get me closer to my real goals."
"You see, I want you. Each of you, even tired old Quatermain. I have no doubt he'll capture the bestial Mr. Hyde in Paris, where the others have so far failed. That doddering Monsieur Dupin has been blundering about for months in Paris, ascribing the murders in the Rue Morgue to a wild monkey!"
Realizing he had strayed from the point, M sat straighter in his chair; the leather upholstery creaked. Gray picked up the apple from the bowl after all and bit into it with a loud crunch. Sanderson Reed looked at him, offended by the suave man's attitude.
M, seeing that the gramophone disc was nearly full, the needle approaching the center of its recording surface, continued. "So, my avid listeners, the important question is — why? Why all this cloak and dagger, masks and mystery? And why did I select the group of you, in particular, instead of, say, Sexton Blake, or Robur the conqueror, or Frankenstein's monster?"
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Page 14
