The Shark Boats, page 28
“If you can arrange one in ten minutes,” said Visconti. “We could always set up an opportunity for you later, of course.”
He turned back to the corporal.
“Tell your officer I’ll be down myself. Thank you, corporal.”
“No problem, sir.”
“Squadron Ten,” Goldstein reminded the captain.
“Yes. The problem with the Gap right now is that all the administration was on the New Michigan City. We’re working with fragmentary reports. It’s safe to assume that if your friend was wounded seriously at Tiffin’s Point, he’s dead, I’m sorry. If he was on the Squadron Ten boat lost in Bailey Bay, he might have made it.”
“But you don’t know for sure?” Lewis asked.
Oh, God. All I now know is that there’s a fairly strong possibility Jack’s dead. But I don’t know. I still don’t know.
“Come to the docks with me?” Visconti suggested. “The Cumberland came directly from the Gap; they might know something.”
Slightly numb – irrationally, I know, but I can’t do a damn thing about that – Lewis nodded.
*
Lieutenant-Commander Willem, Captain Visconti explained as they walked, was responsible among other things for processing and reporting the few prisoners that the USC had taken.
“We give the Norks our prisoner lists as soon as we can,” Visconti said. “It’s a favor they so far haven’t reciprocated.”
It was about a five-minute walk to the dock where the Cumberland was due to arrive. A short, silent wait later, the destroyer pulled in. It had taken severe battle damage in the Gap, and looked barely seaworthy. Steel plates, hasty field repairs, were all over it, along with blackened scorches. The superstructure looked as though a giant with a scalpel had sliced the upper rear section cleanly off at an angle, and there was a vicious crater on the aft deck where a set of five-inch guns had been.
Oh, God. And that’s a destroyer from the Gap, Lewis thought.
Shaking slightly.
If that’s the kind of damage destroyers got, imagine how bad it must have been for the MTBs.
Two squads of soldiers with Jimmy-guns and tarnished MP gorgets stood with them at the dock, ready to receive the prisoners. You didn’t take chances with Brotherhood Strike.
“So far as I know,” Visconti said, “these are the first Strike prisoners we’ve ever taken. There might be a story in it for you, ma’am.”
“Maybe,” said Lewis. She just wanted the prisoners transferred so she could start asking the Cumberland’s crew about Jack Reiner.
All too slowly, ropes were thrown and a gangplank laid down. Accompanied by weathered-looking – soldiers? Sailors? Their uniforms are too ragged for me to tell, thought Lewis – the prisoners were marched down the plank.
Not all of them wore Brotherhood black uniforms. More of the forty or so prisoners looked like plain Nick sailors. They looked ragged and dispirited, although Lewis thought she caught expressions of subdued relief on a few of their faces. The Brotherhood Strike men carried themselves with harsh dignity.
You took us prisoner, but we’re still better than you could ever be, their bearing seemed to say.
Last was a bearded sailor with officer’s insignia. A limping man was paying close attention to him, jabbing him every so-often in the back with a bayonet attached to his Jimmy-gun. The man was moving reluctantly but obediently, and the limping man seemed to be pricking him more for personal enjoyment than anything else.
Then the limping man’s face came into the light, and Oh my God it’s Jack!
“This one’s a particular son of a bitch,” Reiner told the MPs as he handed the bearded prisoner over. “Devious, smart and a war criminal. I want him kept with the Brotherhood ones, not in the general pool. He’ll only cause trouble there. He’s going to be hung as soon as we can convene a court, anyway.”
“Yessir,” said the MP officer, a captain.
That isn’t Chavez, is it?, Lewis thought. It can’t be.
There was nobody else who fit that description. Nobody who someone like Reiner would want to jab with a bayonet for the fun of it.
Her broad smile grew broader.
Most of the PNA prisoners were ordered into the backs of a pair of waiting trucks. The Brotherhood men and Chavez were marched up the street by two thirds of the MPs.
“There’s a special prison for these dangerous ones, sir. Camp 301 just out of town can take the regulars, but the special ones go into the cells under the courthouse. More secure,” the MP captain explained to Reiner.
A pair of Intelligence officers were greeting the PNA defector, a handsome lieutenant.
“I’m going to get the details,” said Visconti. “And arrange for that defector to get some status.”
“Oh, was Major Reiner the one you were looking for?”
Lewis barely heard him. She was already running into his arms.
*
“Get in there and don’t make any trouble,” the MP sergeant said, and the heavy cell door slammed behind Chavez, Munoz and the Strike men.
They were in a gloomy cell measuring about ten by twelve feet. Bunks with thin mattresses hung on the walls – twelve in all. Concrete floor and ceiling, brick walls. A simple but clean toilet was in one corner of the room, with a bucket of water nearby. The place was lit by a flickering electric light set behind bars in the celing; the door was solid steel.
Some of the Brotherhood men went for the bunks. Munoz and Lieutenant Polina, the squad number two, sauntered over to the center of the room. The captain gestured for Chavez to come over, too. Polina made hand-signs at the men in and around the bunks, who began three or four separate conversations about nothing in particular – the condition of the cell, what they could expect to eat.
You son of a bitch, Reiner. You fucking bastard son of a bitch, thought Chavez.
And you, too, Albertino. I’m going to kill you if it’s the last thing I do.
“We need to plan our escape,” said Munoz in a flat undertone.
“I don’t see how,” said Chavez. Although the Strike officer was right, of course.
Especially in his case. With that bastard Albertino testifying, he’d hang within the week. Assuming the Southerners were telling the truth about their much-touted adherence to the Accords.
Capitalist scum. They won’t.
Albertino, you are going to die.
The worthless traitor had spent most of the trip back – first aboard the Isabella, then on the destroyer the MTB had met – talking with Reiner. Filling him in on everything. Tactical and strategic doctrine. Personalities and communications. Codes. Absolutely everything.
I thought your heart was at least in the right place.
I thought you were a loyal sailor who just needed to work on his discipline issues.
I thought you had potential. I should have shot you personally, you fuck.
“This is no more than a local jail,” Munoz said. “It would be easier to get out of a barbed-wire camp than a locked cell. It could be a lot worse. They could have put us in separate cells. They could have had a permanent guard on us.”
“Why are we standing in the center of the room like this?” asked Chavez.
“There could be a listening device in one of the walls. Probably is,” said Munoz. “I’d have put at least two here, myself. It’s harder to hide them in the ceiling.”
Chavez inspected the rusted grate protecting the light fitting. He couldn’t see anything out of order with it, but he didn’t know what to look for in the first place. Munoz presumably did, and hadn’t seen anything.
“So how do we get out of here?” Polina murmured.
“They’re going to have to feed us sometime,” Chavez said.
“They may or may not shoot him on the spot,” Munoz said. “The trial may or may not last more than one session. They may or may not bring him back here in between sessions, or between the verdict and the execution. Lieutenant-Commander, if they take you out here, assume you will return. Memorize layout, guards, exits, how the guards are armed.”
Albertino, you fucking bastard, thought Chavez. It was hard to focus on anything else.
If I escape, I can kill Albertino. We’re discussing escape.
That made it easier.
“I can do that,” said Chavez.
“Think they’ll take us anywhere?” Polina asked Munoz.
“Probably to the USC, eventually. We don’t have ‘eventually’.”
No, we don’t, thought Chavez. Within a week he was going to be executed. He owed it to the Revolution to live.
He owed it to the Revolution to blow Albertino’s worthless brains through the back of his treacherous skull.
“We have about two and a half weeks,” Munoz went on.
Where did that come from, Chavez wondered. The captain seemed sure of that two and a half weeks.
Well, he was Brotherhood. He knew a lot that Chavez didn’t. Maybe some big offensive was planned that would liberate Angle within that timeframe.
So why isn’t he simply hoping to be kept here and sit tight? My life can’t be that important to these Brotherhood Strike guys.
Not important, and he wasn’t going to ask Munoz for military secrets in a possibly-bugged room.
“If we get out,” Chavez murmured, “I’m going to hunt Albertino down and kill him before we leave. That treacherous son of a bitch might have already told them everything he knows – I don’t care. I should have taken care of him weeks ago.”
“The treacherous son of a bitch,” Munoz agreed, raising his voice to a normal volume. “Yeah, if we escape, we’ve got to take him out. That damn treacherous son of a bitch Albertino.”
Chapter Nineteen
“So we’re going to be in Angle for a week?” Reiner asked.
“Probably not that long,” said Major-General Voerkein. A tanned, black-haired man in his early fifties, with a bushy black moustache and a lot of muscle. He commanded the town garrison and the staff that ran logistics through the place.
Reiner raised an eyebrow.
“Macquarie wants you back. I don’t think he gives a damn if you only have two boats left. You might have to go back to Karna. Sorry.”
Reiner shrugged. “Can’t be any worse than the Gap, sir.”
“You’d be surprised. Anyhow, I’m told you’re not going to make it halfway to Karna on those engines. We’ve got parts for you. Your two boats are going to be refitted, and we’ll try to replace the two that you lost. No promises on that second one, though.”
“I understand, sir. Anything for us to do in the time being?”
Voerkein shrugged. “Testify at that Chavez bastard’s trial. Write a deposition, anyway. Get a few drinks. Take it easy.”
“Gladly, sir,” said Reiner, meaning it.
Lewis’s in town and I have what amounts to leave!
*
“God, you look wonderful in that dress uniform,” Lewis said after dinner. They were walking hand-in-hand down the street. “You don’t look heroic, like you normally do. You look glorious.”
Reiner smiled.
“You look pretty damn beautiful yourself,” he said, and leaned over to kiss her.
It lasted longer than he’d expected, as she turned around and embraced him.
“I thought you were dead. We heard Tiffin’s Point from here,” said Lewis. “And I knew you’d be right in the center of it. I’m sorry about deKuyper. And Kaye. And all the others.”
“It was close. But that bastard Chavez is behind bars, now, and he’s going to hang. I only hope I’m still in town to see it.”
“I’m looking forwards to seeing it myself,” Lewis said. “That man is a monster. And you brought him down. Finally. You’ve avenged D Company.”
“I wish it hadn’t been necessary. But they’re going to try him within a couple of days, and that won’t last long. We have your testimony, mine, and Albertino’s. There’ll be a pro-forma defense because there has to be, but nothing will come of it. The trial will last a day. Because it’s a capital crime, he’ll have the chance to appeal. The same arguments will be trotted out again in front of a different judge. He’ll be confirmed guilty. The next day he’ll walk up a short flight of stairs and get a rope around his neck.”
“I never thought I’d be happy to hear about someone dying,” Lewis said. She embraced him again. “Thank you. And for saving my life then. I don’t think I ever did thank you for that, did I?”
“It was pure self-interest,” Reiner said. “Nothing noble about it.”
Lewis smiled wickedly.
“Or about your intentions tonight, I hope.”
“God no.”
*
Damn, Lewis thought as, embracing, they pushed open the unlocked door to her hotel room. Jack was kissing her madly, all over her face. She pushed him towards the bed, pressing her breasts, her legs, her entire body against his.
“I’ve been thinking about you since you came back after stealing the Isabella,” she said, as they fell down onto the bed.
She began to furiously tear away at the buttons of his dress shirt. Her sleeveless white shirt was already half-open – Reiner had stepped half-back for a few moments during a furious kissing session in the stairwell.
He undid the last of her buttons, pushing the shirt over her arms and letting it drop.
“In this way?” he asked.
She kicked away her heels and ran a toe down the lower part of his leg. The dress trousers were pressed and smooth.
“This way,” she murmured, as he pulled her down onto him.
Kissing her everywhere.
*
The Intelligence man was a yellow-haired major with a sharp goatee, wire-rimmed glasses and a slight nervous tic under his left eye. In civilian life, he’d mentioned to Albertino during a break between sessions, he’d run the investigative desk of a Schuylerville daily.
He was taking notes in furious shorthand now.
“…so the commander walks out with Castro. I don’t know what they discussed in private.”
“OK,” said the major. He glanced at his watch. “It’s ten o’clock. I’ve got some unrelated work to do, and they’ll need to transcribe this session tonight so the analysts can go over it tomorrow morning. How about we call it a night?”
“Sure,” said Albertino. “When do I get to see Schuylerville, anyway?”
“Not in the near future, I’m afraid, Lieutenant. All the debriefing we need done, we’ll do here.”
“For as long as the town holds,” said Albertino dryly. “You’re Intelligence. We don’t need to kid each other about how bad the situation on West Upham really is.”
The major slowly shook his head.
“I’d appreciate it if you kept that behind these closed doors, Lieutenant.”
“I don’t mind that. On one condition.”
“That being?”
“When Angle falls, I don’t want to be here. The Special Brotherhood would torture me to death if they had a clue I’ve defected. We can reasonably assume they know by now. I’d make up some nonsense about how I’d rather die with a gun in my hand, but – frankly, I’m not interested in dying under any circumstances.”
“We’ll make sure you’re out of here before that,” said the major. He got up.
“Do you mind if I take a walk around the town? I’m feeling a bit restless. Maybe get a drink somewhere?”
“Go ahead,” said the major. “You don’t mind Sergeant Vosky’s necessary presence, do you?”
“Not at all,” said Albertino. Getting up himself. “Thank you.”
*
Vosky was in his early twenties, a stocky round-faced man with a messy mop of blond hair and an always-disheveled uniform. There was a holstered pistol at his side – unusual for these rear-area staff types, Albertino had noticed when they first met.
He was very proud of his ability to speak Spanish, although he didn’t speak it too well. He’d seemed a little disappointed when he’d learned Albertino spoke fluent English. Out of kindness, Albertino kept their interactions in Spanish, occasionally making a minor correction.
“Where would you like to go?” he asked as they left the building.
“Let’s just take a walk,” said Albertino. “Maybe there’s a bar somewhere. I assume it would be out of the question to go into one of the officers’ clubs.”
“Probably,” said Vosky.
Albertino had changed out of his PNA uniform; he wore a plain military dress shirt and trousers, without insignia of any kind.
“Unfortunate. I’d like to learn more about how my new country’s services operate,” he said.
“You’ll have plenty of time to do that later, I guess, sir,” said Vosky. They made a left turn.
“Are we going anywhere in particular?” the young sergeant asked.
“Not really. Just some fresh air, if you don’t mind. Hey, I hear Emmanuel Goldstein’s in town?”
“The Enemy of the People?” Vosky laughed.
Albertino gave a nod.
“I’ve always admired him. You think you can introduce me at some point?”
“Uh, you should probably talk with Colonel deVries about that. Hey, maybe he could put you in a film!”
Albertino grinned.
“I’d love that. Really stick it to Ramirez. But it would be an honor just to meet him.”
*
Reiner was sitting at a table in the officers’ club, nursing the same beer he’d had for half an hour and thinking about the night before.
Daydreaming about tonight.
Maybe I should use some connections and get a permanent assignment to Schuylerville so I can be with her.
He dismissed the idea immediately. For any number of reasons. The most prominent one involved faces. Not Sarah’s beautiful one, although – come to think of it – she probably would think less of him if he took himself away from where he was most needed. Other faces. The men of D Company. Sure, Chavez was a dead man in all but name, but Chavez had only been the tool of a system. There were other Chavezes out there and the system itself had to be stomped.
