Infernal rj-9

by F. Paul Wilson

  Jack awoke in the dark not knowing where he was or why the room was rocking or where the hell that awful noise reverberating through his skull was coming from.

  He hit his head as he sat up.

  "What the—?"

  And then he realized where he was.

  Tom's boat.

  Okay. That explained everything but the noise… a booming moan… like a foghorn…

  Or another ship!

  Jack lurched to his feet, trying to remember where the steps up to the deck were… left or right? He guessed left, found them, and started up.

  What was he worried about? He and Tom had split the nighttime steering chores into two six-hour shifts. Jack had taken the first. Talk about boring—the boat drove itself, leaving him nothing to do but make sure none of the equipment failed. He'd caught himself dozing off a couple of times.

  Finally his six hours—seeming like twelve or more—were up. He'd yanked Tom out of his bunk and sent him topside.

  Tom would be up there now. Even if he'd dozed off at some point, that horn would have awakened him.

  Jack reached the deck. At last—light. Not much. The cockpit's instruments and running lights didn't cast much of a glow, but enough to see what was what.

  The first thing Jack noticed was the unmanned helm. He did a slow turn, checking the deck chairs, expecting to find Tom slumped in one, but they were empty.

  Jack was the only one here.

  His gut tightened. Where was Tom? Had he fallen over—

  Another booming honk—louder than ever—shook the boat. Jack turned toward the bow./p>

  "Oh, shit!"

  Ahead and to his left—port, north, whatever—a looming supertanker, a mile long if it was a foot, lit up like some bioluminescent behemoth, plowed through the black water on a collision course. Obviously the Sahbon had shown up on the tanker's radar or whatever it was ships used to detect each other, and it was sending out a warning that Jack read loud and clear:

  Yo, pip-squeak! No way I can stop or turn, so it's up to you.

  The tanker's prow plowed along less than a hundred yards ahead at eleven o'clock, with the Sahbon aimed like an arrow across its path.

  Jack had a flash vision of the collision, the Sahbon reduced to kindling while the tanker barely noticed the impact—a fly glancing off an elephant's thigh.

  Panic hurled Jack to the cockpit, where he grabbed the wheel and—

  Which way to turn? Left? Right?

  He chose left. Or port. Whatever. If he couldn't completely avoid contact with the tanker, at least he might escape with a glancing blow. He spun the wheel as fast and as far as it would go. Holding on as the deck tilted under him, he found the throttle and hauled back on it, reducing the power but not fully cutting it—no power would mean no control.

  The Sahbon was slow to respond, but it came around. It would miss the prow, but a long, long span of reinforced steel remained to be dealt with.

  Just then the Sahbon hit the tanker's bow wave square on, lifting the front half of the hull clear of the water as it came over the top. The boat angled downward, plowing deep into the water behind the wave and killing most of its momentum.

  Jack yanked the throttle back to idle and looked at the knobby expanse of riveted steel sliding by.

  Close… too goddamn close.

  Above he saw half a dozen figures backlit by the wash from the tanker's superstructure lights, standing along the rail, looking at him. One of them gave him the single-digit salute.

  Jack waved. We deserve that, he thought.

  No, wait… not we…

  A noise behind him. He turned to see a bleary-eyed Tom emerging from below.

  "I just got tossed out of my bunk. What the fuck's going on, Jack? What are you doing up here?"

  Jack wanted to kill him—flatten his nose, knock out a few teeth, and toss him overboard—but he limited himself to grabbing Tom by the scruff of the neck and yanking him around to face the tanker.

  "Avoiding a collision with that!"

  He felt Tom stiffen in his grasp, then go slack.

  "Jesus, God!" He looked at Jack, his face a mask of shock. "What… how…?"

  "How?" Jack shook him by the neck. "You sack out on your shift—worse than sack out, you left the helm unattended—and you have the goddamn nerve to ask me how?"

  "Hey, fuck you, Jack!" Tom said, regaining some of his bluster. "You don't know shit about any of this. I'm the one who's made this trip before. I'm the one—"

  "You're the one who was supposed to be up here, watching the store. That was our deal."

  "Screw the deal. I've made this trip on my own lots of times. I always sack out while she's running at night. You know what the chances are of seeing another boat let alone crossing paths with one? Astronomical!"

  "Well, so far in my experience we're one for one. One hundred percent. But I don't care how many trips you slept through the night before. On this trip we agreed—"

  "Would you forget about that? You're like an old—"

  Jack punched him. Once. In the gut. Then he headed below. He turned at the top of the stairway. Tom was bent almost double, one hand clutching the gunwale, the other pressed against his stomach.

  "Here's a new deal: You set so much as one foot downstairs before sunup and you're shark food."

  He slammed the door behind him.

  The Isle of Devils

  March 28, 1598

  The sun was rising behind him and the Isle of Devils lay directly ahead, but Brother Francisco took no pride in his navigational expertise. Instead he looked down at the crew, scattered like jackstraws across the Sombra's main deck, and wept.

  Fifty-seven seamen, most dead, and the few figures still writhing below were sick unto death. Fifty-seven souls on their way or soon to be on their way to their Creator.

  All his doing.

  But not his idea.

  Francisco gazed heavenward. Was this truly God's will? He knew the Lord spoke to the world through the Holy Father, but so many deaths… what was so terrible about the relic below that warranted so many deaths to hide it from the world?

  He looked back at the deck. Eusebio moved among the littered forms, adjusting the rigging on the foremast. The Sombra was using only two sails to keep her under way—the small rectangular canvas set low on the foremast, and the lateen sail on the aftcastle. With a crew of but two, they dared not raise more canvas.

  Francisco wiped away his tears and motioned to Eusebio to take the helm. He gave up the wheel and headed below to the midship cargo hold to check the relic.

  He found it where he and Eusebio had left it, wrapped in anchor chain and fixed to the forward bulkhead. He didn't know why he needed to see it again. Perhaps simple curiosity. He was glad that the chest was locked, otherwise he feared the urge to peek inside and see what was worth so many lives might have been more than he could have resisted.

  The links of heavy chain were still wrapped around the little chest and secured with padlocks. This hadn't been in the original plan, but a squall on their third day out from Tenerife had worried him about the possibility of the ship going down before he'd guided it to its destination. So he and Eusebio had weighted it to assure that if the Sombra did go down, the relic would go down with it. And stay down, never to wash up on any shores.

  Assured that it was secured, he climbed back to the main deck and reclaimed the helm.

  His instructions were to bring the ship through the reefs to the shore of the Isle of Devils, carry the relic inland, and there bury it deep in the earth.

  Despite the use of only two sails, the Sombra was making good time in the cool, strong wind from the northeast. Francisco wished it weren't quite so strong. It had raised a chop that would make it more difficult to navigate the Isle of Devils' notorious reefs. The lateen gave them more maneuverability than a square sail, and passages existed, he was sure of that. Finding them under any conditions could be difficult. But with all these whitecaps…

  He tapped Eusebio on
the shoulder.

  "Is the longboat ready?"

  The older man nodded and pointed. "Food, water, sail, and all our belongings—ready and waiting."

  "Excellent. Why don't you—"

  Francisco pitched forward against the wheel and Eusebio was hurled against a railing as the ship bottomed against a reef. But it didn't stop. Propelled by the stiff wind it shuddered forward amid a deafening cacophony of grinding coral and splintering, smashing wood.

  "She's breaking up!" Eusebio cried.

  Francisco pointed to the cargo hatch in the deck below.

  "The relic! We have to free it!"

  The deck shook beneath their feet as they staggered toward the hatch. The Sombra shook as if in an attack of ague but continued to plow ahead, though more slowly now.

  Eusebio knelt and peered into the hold, then looked up at Francisco.

  "It's half full already!"

  Panic squeezed Francisco's throat. "To the boat!"

  With the deck tilting under them—listing to port as the bow sank and the stern rose—they undid the longboat's securing lashes and climbed in. Moments later they floated off the sinking deck. Eusebio rowed them away from the roiling water as the Sombra rolled onto its side and sank beneath the waves.

  Francisco had been shocked at how fast it was going down, but then he saw the gaping rent where the keel had been.

  Soon all that remained were a few loose timbers and the floating bodies of the crew. He made the sign of the cross and recited the Litany for the Dying—for them and for himself.

  Then he thanked God for inspiring him to weight the chest. It wouldn't be buried on the Isle of Devils as planned, but even so, it would never again be seen by the eyes of man.

  The water within the reef was calmer than beyond. He unpacked his astrolabe and made as accurate a measurement as possible on the rocking craft.

  That done, the next task was to sail to the Isle, find a landmark, and measure the distance and degrees from there to this spot.

  After that, he and Eusebio would anchor off the reef and search the horizon for the two lateens of the Vatican caravel that had been following a day behind the Sombra.

  TUESDAY

  1

  Land ho.

  Bermuda's brightly colored, beckoning shores lay ahead. Beyond the pastel splotches of houses with glaringly bright roofs, Jack couldn't make out much in the way of detail. Everything he'd read said it was a beautiful, cultured, civilized place.

  Great.

  But Jack wouldn't have cared if it was a barren lump of rock, or the relocation of Sodom and Gomorra. It was land. He'd started to believe he might never see land again.

  After the supertanker incident, the remainder of the trip had proved unremarkable.

  Jack had climbed from belowdecks the following morning to find Tom sipping a beer and acting as if nothing had happened—no near collision, no punch. No apology for dereliction of duty, no mention of the punch. Everything copacetic.

  So Jack adopted the same attitude: The night before hadn't happened.

  Not a bad approach, considering how they were looking at another day or so cooped up together on the Sahbon.

  The truce allowed them to talk civilly. They got along. They stuck to neutral subjects like sports and movies; they watched videotapes—Dazed and Confused twice at Tom's insistence—and studiously avoided the landmine of worldview.

  Jack didn't get Tom. He was unquestionably bright, clever—perhaps a little too clever—and could be charming when it suited him. He'd make a good acquaintance or card-playing buddy as long as you first made sure the deck wasn't marked. But a friend? Jack wondered if Tom had any friends.

  True friends… people who knew all about him, people he could call on when in need, and who could in turn depend on him to come running when they needed him.

  Look at who's wondering about friends.

  Jack could think of only three people in the world he could call friend: Gia, Abe, and Julio.

  Three was enough. More than enough. A friend was a commitment. Friends took time and nurturing. And you had to give them your trust. That was the big stumbling block for Jack: You had to let a friend know you. Jack realized he had limitations in that department. He didn't want to be known. The fewer people who knew how he made his living, the better.

  Gia, Abe, and Julio. They knew. They were enough.

  But Tom? Who did Tom count as a friend? Who called Tom friend? Jack couldn't imagine it.

  And that was sad to say about your only living kin.

  "Okay." Tom clapped his hands. "Time to get out the fishing rods."

  "Fishing? No way. My feet need dry land under them again ASAP."

  "You kidding?" Tom laughed. "Fishing? I can't stand fishing. Rather watch paint dry. The rods are our camouflage. We're going to sneak in in plain sight, and then we're going to hide in plain sight."

  "Just as long as we don't end up like the Sombra."

  "Not to worry. We've got all sorts of advantages they didn't: like charts and channel markers and depth finders."

  Jack tried to squeeze some assurance from that, but came up dry.

  "All of which you know how to use, right?"

  "Of course. I'm not exactly what you'd call an old salt, but I do know a few things. The channel markers are the easiest. Just remember the three R's: red-right-return."

  "Meaning?"

  "Always keep the red channel markers on your starboard side when returning to port."

  Jack nodded. Sounded straightforward enough. He didn't see how Tom could screw that up. Even he could handle that.

  Jack scanned the water. The sky was a clear blue dome, the midday sun glinted on the gentle waves. The breeze ruffled his hair. He guesstimated the air temp in the mid-sixties.

  And straight ahead, taking up a good chunk of horizon, lay the islands of Bermuda. Islands. Jack had been studying the maps and a tourist guide. He'd always thought of Bermuda as a single island but had learned it was a group—five major and a horde of small ones.

  More accurately, Bermuda was the remnant of the rim of a giant, ancient, long-dead, undersea volcano ringed with coral reefs. It ate up a fair number of degrees of their horizon now. Not a desert island—anything but. Its surface undulated with green, pastel-studded hills.

  Directly around them lay dark blue water; but not far ahead it changed to a pattern of turquoise interlaced with thick, dark threads: sand and coral.

  The maps placed the western reefs about six miles from shore. The Sahbon looked to be about that distance right now.

  "Where are the reefs?"

  Tom jutted his chin forward. "Dead ahead. Just under the surface… waiting. Five miles deep out here, three feet or so in there where you see those little breakers—that's the only giveaway. Helps you understand why there's three hundred fifty wrecks around here. I mean, imagine coming through these waters at night, or during a storm." He shook his head. "No thanks."

  Jack stared at the water. If Tom hadn't pointed it out, he wouldn't have had a hint that a reef lurked below the surface.

  "Thar she blows."

  Jack swiveled, searching the water. "What?"

  Tom pointed to the left. "Our first channel marker."

  Jack spotted a red triangle fixed to the top of a flimsy pole. He searched and found another a few hundred yards beyond it.

  Red-right-return… all right.

  "Let's get those fishing rods in their holders. We need to look like locals."

  2

  On the way in Tom hooked up with two other sport fishers. They all exchanged friendly waves and three boats cruised into Bermuda's Great Sound as if they all belonged there.

  The five major islands are arranged in a rough, irregular, fishhook shape with the convexity of the hook facing west, its barb pointing north. The Great Sound occupies the space inside the hook.

  Jack had followed their progress through the reefs on the tide chart. Once they reached the sound he refolded the map and stowed it. No reefs here. Th
is was the deep caldera of the ancient volcano.

  A little ways into the sound Tom veered west toward the bulkheaded shoreline. He pointed to a squat box of a building on their right.

  "There's the island prison."

  "Swell," Jack said. "Let's hope this is as close as we ever get to it."

  He noticed Tom's attention was fixed more on the houses lining the shore than on the water. Pastels, especially turquoise and coral pink, seemed to be the local favorites—but only their walls. The roofs were a uniformly dazzling white.

  Tom must have noticed his interest.

  "The white roofs are traditional but not just decorative. See those slanted ridges? Rainwater runs along them and down into a cistern below each house. Not much rainfall here, so every drop is precious. This island is called Somerset Parish, by the way. Bermuda is divided up into parishes. Don't ask me to explain. I don't know."

  Jack watched Tom's attention drift back to the shoreline.

  "What're you looking for?"

  "An empty dock."

  "Lots of them along here."

  "Maybe I should have said, An empty dock belonging to an empty house flanked by a couple of other empty houses."

  "Sounds like a tall order."

  "In season, yeah. But this is off-season. People who have second homes here are elsewhere, and even native Bermudians tend to leave the islands for shopping sprees in the U.S. All we—" He pointed to an orange-sherbet house. "There. That looks like a possibility."

  Tom cut the engine to near idle and drifted toward the dock jutting from the bulkhead in front of the brightly colored two-story house. A sign on the dock proclaimed THE BERESFORD's. Jack shook his head. The world seemed full of superfluous apostrophes. He didn't know why they irritated him. Lots more serious problems around.

  Focusing on the house he noticed the corrugated steel storm shutters rolled down over all the windows. Definitely looked like someone was away for a while.

  A twenty-foot speedboat, partially sealed in some bright blue material and suspended from a pair of davits, took up half the yard.

  Jack said, "It's got a boat…"

  "Yes, but notice that the outboard engine has been removed, and the open area is sealed in shrink-wrap tarp. Definitely winterized. I can't see these folks coming back till spring."