“Yes, Lithia,” he said. “Just a moment.” He smiled at Remo. Deep down in his stomach Remo felt the tension of being trapped. “Men,” Admiral Crust said, “I want you to take Mr. Remo Donaldson here back to shore. Make sure he has an interesting voyage,” he said, smiling.
“We will, Admiral. Very interesting,” said the sailor who held the gun at Remo’s neck. “Let’s go, you,” he said to Remo and jabbed him with the gun barrel.
Goddamn fool, Remo thought. He had been set up by Dr. Forrester, set up like a schoolchild, set into a trap, and he had walked in like the Redcoat Marching Band, noisily and stupidly.
Crust again brought the phone to his ear as Remo was herded away. At the door, Remo glanced back over his shoulder. Admiral James Benton Crust sat there on his bed, but his hard, piercing eyes were melting into pails of insipid mush. Admiral Crust was listening. And then he was humming. The same tune.
Remo could kick himself. The admiral had known his name. Lithia Forrester must have warned him that Remo was coming. She was calling to check on the results of her handiwork. Now these three sailors were going to have to pay the price.
As they stepped from the admiral’s cabin, the sailor Remo had knocked out groaned on the floor. But the other three ignored him and marched Remo along the passageway toward the stairs. The one the admiral had called “chief” still held the gun to the back of Remo’s neck as they walked quickly down the stairs to the main deck.
“How’d you get here, Donaldson?” asked the chief. He was not Hollywood’s idea of a Navy frogman. He was a pudgy pail of fat with wild, thinning, black curly hair. Remo thought he would have been more at home behind the counter of a candy store in the Bronx than aboard the ship.
“I swam.”
“Good swimmer, huh?”
“I can splash around a little.”
“How come your clothes aren’t wet?”
“They dried. I’ve been here three hours waiting for my chance.”
Remo did not want them to know about the small boat tied up under the bow. He might have use for it yet. And if he were lucky—if they were all lucky—he might not have to kill them.
They were on the main deck now, amidships, and the thin salt air laid a coat of damp on everything. The three men herded Remo along to a side ladder and funneled him down to the water where a small powerboat waited far below.
They sat Remo in the center of the boat. One of the sailors perched on the bow. The chief sat behind Remo, his rifle still at Remo’s neck. The third sailor got into the stern of the small launch, pressed the electric starter and untied the line lashing the boat to the steps. He opened the throttle and the boat rapidly pulled away from the battleship Alabama, heading out into the inky darkness of Chesapeake Bay, toward the shore some four hundred yards away. The lights of houses and buildings twinkled on the shore in silent invitation.
They had gone only about a hundred yards when the motor was cut and the boat began to drift.
“End of the line for you, Donaldson,” the chief said.
“Well, that’s life,” Remo said. “Don’t suppose you’d change your mind if I offered to enlist? No. I guess you wouldn’t.” And then, in a startled voice, Remo called, “What in the hell is that?”
The man perched on the bow was a sailor, not a policeman. He followed Remo’s eyes and turned to look out over the bow and Remo spun his head, sliding it alongside the barrel of the chief’s gun. He locked an arm around the chief’s blubbery chest and went over the side into the black water, pulling the chief after him. The rifle slid out of the chief’s hands and swayed delicately away under the ink-black water.
Chief Petty Officer Benjamin Josephson was a good frogman, although that fact was disguised by his pudgy, bloated shape. He had all the arrogance of a man sure of his skills and it showed in his movements and gestures. His skill in the water had earned him the respect of his men, along with the worthiest kind of respect—his own self-respect.
But he found himself now being treated very disrespectfully with a powerful arm locked around him. With his feet, Remo tried to kick some distance between himself and the boat. As long as he had the chief with him, the sailors in the boat couldn’t shoot.
Then Josephson wrapped his hands tightly around Remo’s neck. The two of them went under, then surfaced for air. Josephson gulped it down impulsively, like a favorite whiskey, and growled: “Donaldson, you’re dead.”
“Not yet, swabby,” Remo said and then went down again, pulling Josephson deep into the water. Under the cover of the dark water, Remo let Josephson go. Blows were out of the question, so he dug his thumbs into the back of Josephson’s hands, crippling the nerves and slowly Josephson’s grip on Remo’s neck weakened and then released.
Then they were up again for air and then back down under the surface. Josephson drove his head forward, trying to smash Remo’s face, but Remo slid alongside it.
Remo kept his legs moving and they were moving steadily away from the small powerboat. When they surfaced again, Remo could no longer see the boat. And since its motor had not started up again, the two seamen must still be there, still searching the water. Probably, Remo thought, they would be concentrating their search toward the shore. But instead, Remo was kicking and stroking his way back toward the Alabama.
He was far enough out of range now. They came up again and Remo pivoted around behind Chief Josephson and locked a powerful forearm around his neck and treaded water to stay in place.
“You want to live?” he hissed into the sailor’s ear.
“Go screw yourself, Donaldson. You’re a dead man.” Josephson started a shout
Deep in his throat, Remo could feel the rumble and then hear the first sounds: “Hey, men… ” and then it stopped as Remo muscled his forearm and cut Josephson’s air, crushing his adam’s apple back deep into his throat.
“Sorry, fella,” Remo said. “Anchors aweigh.” He continued to apply pressure until he heard the telltale crack of bones breaking. He released his arm and the chief pitched forward, head-first in the water, began to drift away and down, his stringy, curly hair floating about his head like an inverted Portuguese man-of-war, and then slowly sinking below the surface.
Remo took a deep breath and turned, swimming strongly for the ship. It was still silent behind him; the two sailors must still be searching.
Remo reached the small boat he had tied up at the bow and untied it. He climbed in and pushed himself off from the side of the ship and, using a single oar, began to stroke powerfully toward shore.
Then, behind him, he heard a tremendous roar. His boat bobbed in the water, and through the wooden floor, Remo could feel the ocean vibrating under his feet. He turned and looked back. The battleship Alabama had started its engines. Covered now by the roar of the Alabama, Remo started his own boat with a pull on the motor cord and began to head back to shore. Halfway there, he saw the battleship’s power launch, the two sailors still in it, skidding back toward the battleship, their search abandoned.
Remo shook a chill from his shoulders. So Lithia Forrester had set him up. That was one he owed her, he thought.
Behind him, the powerful engines of the Alabama were running strongly now. What was that all about, Remo wondered as he eased himself into the dock. Was the ship going someplace? Was the song that Crust had been humming about to trigger another act of death and destruction?
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE SUN HAD ALREADY RISEN over the Island of Manhattan, illuminating the day’s supply of air pollution, when the battleship Alabama came lumbering in from the Atlantic toward New York Bay.
Outside the control room, the helmsman was trying to explain something to the Officer of the Watch.
“I think there’s something wrong with him, sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, before he chased me out, sir, he was humming all the time.”
“Humming?”
“Yes sir.”
“What is wrong with humming if the admira
l wants to hum?”
“Oh?”
“I don’t know how to say this, sir.”
“Well, just say it, man.”
“The admiral was… well, sir, he was playing with himself.”
“What?”
“Playing with himself, sir. You know what I mean.”
“You’d better go below, sailor, and check into sick bay,” the first officer said. As the sailor walked slowly away, the first officer scratched his head.
Admiral James Benton Crust had indeed been playing with himself. But he had stopped now. He had decided he would rather hum. So he hummed. Sometimes, for a change of pace, he whistled…
And every so often, just so those lazy fakers who didn’t really belong in this man’s navy wouldn’t forget, he called down to the engine room for “More Power. Full Speed Ahead.” Which was odd, since the ship had been at full power since leaving the Chesapeake Bay.
Admiral Crust looked around the room, humming, soaking up the feel and tradition of its highly polished wood. The Navy could be a life for a man, if the man were big enough for the Navy. Admiral Crust—master seaman, master diplomat, master lover—was big enough for anything.
Onward, he steamed. To his left, he saw the Kill Van Kull and beyond that, the smoky air hovering over Bayonne’s oil refineries. To his right was Brooklyn.
Up ahead loomed Manhattan. The Battery. Its beautiful skyline, beautiful not because of its beauty but because of its magnitude. And up ahead, slightly port of the ship, Liberty Island. The Statue of Liberty held her torch high in the air, her copper plates greened with corrosion, her smile benign, as she looked down upon her nation. Behind her back lurked Jersey City, doing all those things that the Statue of Liberty was better off not knowing about.
Admiral Crust picked up the horn again. “More power,” he shouted. “You bilge rats produce some power. This is the Navy, man, not an excursion boat. More power.”
Down below, in the bowels of the ship, the technicians, who monitored the power plants of a ship of the modem Navy, looked at each other in confusion. “He must think we still have people down here shoveling coal,” one said. “Wonder where we are?”
“I don’t know,” a lieutenant senior grade answered. “But at this speed, we’re going to get wherever we’re going in a pretty big damn hurry.”
Alone in the control room, Admiral James Benton Crust slowly turned the wheel to the left. Gradually, the big ship began to come about toward the port side, veering left, pulling out of its own channel and crossing over the southbound channel. He straightened the wheel. The ship was now on course.
Admiral Crust continued to hum as his big ship steamed ahead toward Liberty Island. The feeling of movement in the sheltered bay was so slight it seemed as if the Statue of Liberty itself were floating on top of the water, racing forward towards his ship.
The thousands of yards separating them quickly turned into hundreds of yards. Crust kept humming. Now he began to jump up and down on the floor of the control room, slapping his hands against his thighs.
“More power,” he screamed into the horn. The ship was racing now. The sailboat Lie-By capsized in its trail. Two city councilmen out for a ride in a canoe were overturned. An excursion boat headed for the Statute of Liberty saw the battleship Alabama bearing down on it. Wisely, the skipper goosed his boat and narrowly got out of the path of the great warship, although two passengers fell overboard in the rocking turbulence that followed the Alabama through the water. Overhead, Navy planes that had monitored the cruise of the Alabama ever since it had taken off without orders, and all through the night as it refused to respond to radio messages, excitedly relayed reports to a nearby Naval air station.
Two hundred yards now and closing fast. Then the heavy battleship crossed out of the continually-dredged deepwater channels and its prow began to bite into the mud at the bottom of the bay. But its force and impetus kept it moving forward and the motors continued to scream. Now mud was enveloping the propellers and the ship was no longer cruising, it was sliding, still at full speed, but then it began to slow down as its sharp-edged prow bit more deeply into the mud, but it kept coming and then it crashed into a stone pier, shearing it off from the body of the island like a pat of butter sliced off a warm quarter-pound stick. The ship buckled up against the compacted garbage base of the island—bit its way in, ten, fifteen, then twenty feet, and then stopped, the motors still roaring through the mud, but without effect now.
The ship quivered and pitched over lightly on its side, a sputtering, frustrated behemoth implanted in an island. On the island, park personnel ran about wildly in confusion and shock.
Admiral James Benton Crust left the control room on the dead run, heading for the engine room, far below in the hull of the ship. Seamen were running around in panic, ignoring him.
Some had already jumped overboard onto the island, even though the ship was in no danger of sinking. The whoops of boat sirens could be heard in the air as pleasure boats, then tugs and other commercial vessels in the area began to ply toward the scene to offer help.
Admiral Crust raced through the now tilted corridors, oblivious to the excitement, humming to himself, occasionally waving at seamen he recognized.
He entered the engine room.
“All right. All hands, abandon ship.”
Seamen began to scurry toward the door.
“You will leave in an orderly manner,” the admiral ordered angrily. They slowed their run down to a trot.
The lieutenant senior grade in charge of the engine room saluted: “Admiral, sir. Can I be of assistance?”
“Yes, get out of here.”
“Aye aye, sir. And the admiral?”
Crust was even now shoving the lieutenant through the bulkhead door. “The admiral is going to show you jugheads of the Modern Navy how a real seaman dies with his ship.”
He locked the bulkhead door, spinning the wheel lock, until it was secure. Then, humming to himself, he began to open the sea valves.
Oily black muddy water began to pour into the engine room. Clouds of oily putrid steam arose as the water engulfed the huge diesel motors and they sputtered and stopped. Admiral Crust giggled.
“Give me sail, every time, lads, give me sail. Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum.”
The young lieutenant pounded on the bulkhead door.
“Admiral, let me in.”
Inside, James Benton Crust shouted: “I know what I’m doing. It’s the Navy way.”
The lieutenant kept pounding for several more minutes. But then there was no one left to hear.
Admiral James Benton Crust, Annapolis ’42, was face up, against the metal ceiling of the engine room compartment, the water pressure mashing his face against the steel ceiling plates.
The last thing he did in this world was hum.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
THE PHONE INTRUDED ON REMO. He rolled over and pulled his pillow over his head but still it intruded, an incessant squawking that seemed to get louder with each successive ring.
“Chiun, get the phone,” he grumbled. But Chiun had already left their room at the Human Awareness Laboratories for his morning exercise, which consisted primarily of picking flowers.
So Remo rolled over and snatched the receiver from its cradle.
“Yeah,” he snarled.
“Smith here.”
“You gone bananas? What the hell are you calling me on this open phone for?”
“It might not matter much longer anyway if we don’t get some results. Did you ever hear of an Admiral Crust?”
Remo slid up into a sitting position in bed. “Yeah, I heard of him. Why?”
“This morning he rammed a battleship into the Statue of Liberty. Then he drowned himself in the engine room. He was humming all the way.”
“Poor bastard,” Remo said. “I was with him last night. I wanted to warn him but I was too late. They had already hooked him.”
Remo got to his feet now and was pacing back and forth. Smith
said, “With luck, I’ll know this afternoon about the bidding.”
“Good,” Remo said. “I’ll call you. I’ve got some garbage to put out.”
“Don’t be emotional,” Smith said. “Be careful.”
“I’m always careful,” Remo said, slowly replacing the phone on its stand.
It had been a good trap, he thought, and he had fallen right into it. Sent to kill Admiral Crust; sent into a trap from which he was not supposed to escape. And then Admiral Crust being triggered to run amok. Lithia had not been in her apartment last night when Remo returned. Probably out celebrating the death of Remo Donaldson. No doubt, she believed he was dead… as soon she would be. Remo Williams was finished playing games.
He was still wearing the salt-stiffened clothes of the night before. He changed rapidly into a fresh shirt and slacks, stepped out into the hall.
It was still early and there were no people in sight. Remo rode the elevator up to the tenth floor. Lithia Forrester’s secretary was not yet at her desk and Remo walked past her empty chair, and without knocking, pushed open the large oak door to enter Lithia Forrester’s office.
Her office was bathed brightly in morning sunshine pouring through the overhead dome. But the office was empty. Remo saw a door on the far wall and went through it, into a plush chrome and glass living room. That too was empty.
Remo’s trained ears picked up a sound off to the right. He passed through another closed door and was in a bedroom, done all in black. The rug was thick and black; so were the bedspread and drapes. Not even a slice of yellow sunlight slithered into the room around the heavy, lined drapes; the only illumination came from an antique Chinese figurine lamp on the dresser.
The sound he had heard came from the bathroom off the bedroom, the sound of water from a shower and, merged with it, the sound of a woman singing.
Her voice was melodic and tuneful as she sang the melody: “Super-kali-fragil-istic-expi-ali-docious.” She sang the one line over and over again in a high, good-humored kind of chant.
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