Marlen: Book 1

Chapter 75

The voice from the grave called again. "I'm coming on board. Rexinus! Acton! Ms. Murray! I've brought a few friends to see how you're getting on."

"Out," John Bannon whispered. "Grab your plates and get through into the sleeping quarters." He was talking to Lester Ferris and Tyreen Mackenzie. "Keep him out of the for'ard part of the ship, and don't commit yourselves to anything." He opened the door, and Tyreen was right behind him.

Lester Ferris stayed where he was.

"Lester," Bannon whispered again. "Quickly, man."

"Thought I'd stay on and see if I can talk any sense into the man." His eyes were hard, and Bannon knew there was no way he could even begin to argue with the American.

"Permission to come aboard, damn you, Texinus." Max Tann was at the top of the companionway. As he began to descend, Tyreen closed the door behind her and slipped the lock.

They leaned against the door, hardly daring to breathe, listening intently to the conversation from the main cabin.

"Ah, so there you are, Dr. Rex. I've been calling for what seems like hours, but no harm done. Brought some friends to see you."

"Sir Max, what a... But how...? I mean..."

"As someone else once said, reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Maurice Perkins you know, I think. But you certainly haven't met my heavenly twins, Carla and Anna. There, say hello to the nice Dr. Rexinus, and Fritz Acton, and we mustn't forget the lovely Ms. Murray." Then he raised his voice: "Connie, stay up there and don't let anyone else come aboard."

There was the faint sound of Conrad Starks' voice, then the shuffle of movement as Tann and his three companions began settling themselves.

"Sir Max, it's..." Rexinus began.

"I shall do the talking for the time being, Doctor. First, you seem to be having a nice little party. Are you not going to introduce me to your guest? A glass of wine wouldn't come amiss either."

"Certainly. I'm sorry. Mr. Lester Ferris, from Texas. Sir Max Tann."

"From London, I guess." Ferris raised his voice slightly, trying, Bannon thought, to push up the levels of everyone's speech.

"You guess correctly, Mr. Ferris, though I'm not simply confined to London. I regard myself as an international citizen. I've heard that name before, somewhere. No, Lester Ferris. I've seen it in print."

"I doubt it, Sir Max. I'm just an old Texas cowboy."

"And I doubt that, Mr. Ferris."

"Well, I owned the cows, and there were quite a lot of them."

"Really? Well, I fear that you've accepted an invitation to come aboard Mare Nostrum at a very inconvenient time."

"O, gee, well, I can make myself scarce. I'll leave now. Y'all get on with your party." There was a shifting sound as Ferris got to his feet.

"No!" Tann barked. "You have a limp, and prosthetic arm. A leg and an arm."

"Sounds like you're a kinda Sherlock Holmes, Sir Max."

"Hardly. Now I think I recall where I read about you. You're a friend of a friend of mine. A Mr. John Bannon. You were also once a member of the American Intelligence Service. Oh, Mr. Ferris, I fear you've fallen among thieves, and I think you'd better stick around."

"Whatever you fancy, Sir Max. But I guess you've been reading the wrong books. I don't recall anyone by the name of Bannon. Knew a fella from Houston called Banner, and another one who hailed from Dallas, name of Band. Big Jim Band, but no Bannons."

Tann laughed unpleasantly and told Carla to watch Ferris. "This is a live one, Carla. We're going to have to take him into custody and keep him safe until SeaFire's over."

"Sir Max, if I could...?" from Rexinus.

"Dr. Rex, please shut your mouth. I've spent a fortune on you and your friends. You said it would take a year. You've had your year and now it's payback time. The demonstration we promised ourselves will happen tomorrow night, and it's going to be quite something."

"But, Sir Max, I have to tell you..."

"You don't have to tell me anything, Rex. It's time for me to tell you. I'm here to give you a briefing. Operation SeaFire. Has a nice ring to it, eh?"

Rexinus seemed to have given up, but Fritz Acton's voice came piping with "I don't think you quite understand, sir. What Rex is trying to say is that the AAOPS isn't quite..."

"Please, no excuses and no explanations. We run a public demonstration of the AAOPS tomorrow night. If you have final touches to perfect, then you'll just have to work at them in the next twenty-four hours." Pause. "Actually a shade less than twenty-four hours."

Through the door, Tann's voice sounded even silkier than it had when John Bannon last heard him --- silkier and, somewhere mixed in with the silk, a rough undertow as though the smoothness was slowly being ripped apart. Sir Max Tann had reached some terrible pinnacle from which he could only fall. It was the voice of a person utterly unbalanced. A man who believed himself invincible, safe from anything, even death.

Vesta Murray also tried. "Sir Max, there is a problem. We..."

"There is no problem as far as I'm concerned, Ms. Murray. It's taken a long time to set this up. We go ahead tomorrow night. Now, if you'll all cease talking and be quiet, I'll give you the briefing."

Barking mad, Bannon thought. Just as he had predicted, Tann probably already knew what they were trying to tell him, but was going ahead whatever the outcome. Turning his head, he saw that Tyreen Mackenzie was thinking along the same lines.

He was speaking again. "A supertanker is coming into this harbor at precisely eight o'clock tomorrow night. It is a huge affair and will be fully loaded. Thousands upon thousands of gallons of oil and gasoline. The name of that enormous ship is Golden Bough, and she's a regular visitor to these shores, so her timing is like clockwork. What Golden Bough contains will make this rich harbor golden, all right. Golden with fire and flames."

Gasps of surprise came from his audience.

Tann did not even pause. "Your job, Dr. Rexinus, will be to dash in and let the world see that an oil spill of this magnitude can be contained. It will be your triumph. More importantly, it will be my triumph. The demonstration has to be big. It has to be impressive, for if it is not contained then this entire coastline will be covered by an oil slick which will make any other disaster of this kind look insignificant. Every other major oil spill the world has seen will be as small as scum on bathwater."

There came the noise of what would normally be a slow handclap, only this sounded like a hand being slapped onto leather. Ferris was pushing his luck.

"What the devil does that mean, Mr. Ferris?"

"Simply applauding. I'm all in favor of spectacles, and if Golden Bough is as big as I think she is, you'll do more than light up the harbor here and run oil around the coastline. It could drift a long way. We're talking about almost total pollution of the Mediterranean."

"Ah, but you're not taking Dr. Rexinus into account, Mr. Ferris. He and his companions are wonder workers. With the flick of a switch they can pour trouble on oiled waters. I've put several million into a brilliant idea, so tomorrow night we see if I've wasted my money or not."

"How're you going to set Golden Bough ablaze? You got some special kind of kindling to do that?"

Tann gave a small bark of a laugh. "Yes. Yes, good. Kindling. Yes, I do have special kindling in the form of a somewhat ancient Russian submarine. She's old, rusty, noisy, I think a little leaky also, but I've put money into her as well."

"A submarine?" Rexinus' voice quavered.

"And torpedoes --- two of them. Should have been three, but one was wasted. At least we know it works. I had a slight problem with the captain. He's a Scottish gentleman and I fear he bends his elbow a shade too much. On a trial run earlier this year he actually targeted one of my own cruise liners. He tells me that he didn't know the torpedo tubes were loaded, or whatever the expression is. My ship escaped with a little damage and no loss of life. In other circumstances I might have fired the man --- preferably from one of his own torpedo tubes --- but I think we can trust him to do the job thoroughly this time, can't we, Maurice?"

Perkins grunted, and Tann repeated, "Maurice?"

"Yes, Max, we can trust him now. I don't relish the job, but I'll be with him to make certain he doesn't go astray."

Tann sighed. "It's a terrible thing when a man has to put his own watchdogs onto people he pays to do specialist jobs --- pays handsomely, as well. I really wonder what the world's coming to."

"You're going to watch the display from here, then?" Ferris was feeding him questions that might help Bannon and Tyreen.

"Not quite from here, Mr. Ferris. I prefer a grandstand view. I shall watch it all from Herculaneum. Somewhat appropriate, don't you think? Destroyed by the fire of Vesuvius, now I will watch the destruction of fire. If you behave yourself, I might even let you come with me. No. No, on second thought I don't think that's a good idea. I'll leave you to the interesting charms of one of my other girls. You think Beth would like to play with this one, Anna?"

Anna gave a sound that lay somewhere between a cough and a laugh. "Beth would love to play with him. Probably remove his false arm and leg first. She's the sort that likes to pull the wings off flies." There was something disgustingly sinister in the way she said it, and Bannon reached for his weapon, turning as though to put his shoulder to the door, but Tyreen caught his arm and shook her head silently.

He knew she was right. It was his old trouble, guilt from the past about Ferris. Now he had put his friend in danger again. He looked down at Tyreen, gave a sad little smile, nodded, and relaxed.

There was rustling from the main cabin. "This chart," Tann said. "Heed me, Dr. Rexinus, you're going to have to follow my instructions to the letter. You will leave this berth at seven o'clock tomorrow night. On the dot of seven, so that you will reach here." He was obviously showing Rexinus a point on the chart, and aloud he gave a latitude and longitude. "This will bring you to within one nautical mile of the initial explosion. As soon as the fire begins to spread, you will take Mare Nostrum straight toward the outer edges of the flames and begin to operate the AAOPS. If I recall our previous conversations correctly, you will be able to move quite close to the center of both the fire and oil spill. Did you not explain that to me when we finalized our agreement?"

"Yes, that's what I said." Rexinus sounded resigned. "I think we'll take her out for a run tomorrow morning, just to go through the drill."

Good, Bannon thought, he's going to make a dash for it.

"Why not do that, Rex? I didn't tell you that there'll be an extra hand on board. Well, he's one man, but he carries a great deal of weight. He's up on the deck at the moment. My man Connie Starks. Martial arts expert, crack shot, carries all kinds of lethal things with him."

"We can always do with another pair of hands." Rexinus' voice betrayed his disappointment, and Bannon mouthed a Damn. With Starks left on board, there was little chance of the three gullible scientists overpowering him. Come to that, if Starks stayed on the craft now, there might be difficulties in getting ashore themselves. He looked back along the passageway. There were cabin doors to left and right, and, at the far end, the passage seemed to connect with another, running across the breadth of the laboratory ship. A third door was visible. Three night cabins. If the craft had been properly designed, there had to be a way up to the main deck somewhere for'ard.

Ferris had started to speak again. "Sir Max, what if something goes wrong with your fireworks display? What if Dr. Rexinus and his friends fail to contain the oil and gasoline?"

"I hate to even contemplate that, but I suppose one must face the possibility. First, Mare Nostrum will probably be consumed in the flames, and, second, I shall have to start all over again. But I have faith in these good people, Mr. Ferris. They'll not fail me. Now, back to the operation." More rustling. "This is where my submarine will be at eight o'clock. She will turn bow on to Golden Bough. The two tin fish, as I think they used to call them, will be fired. Heaven knows, I don't think even my captain can possibly miss. The target is so large and he'll be quite close. After he's fired the torpedoes, he turns tail and runs for it. I have no doubts that part of it will go like clockwork. Maurice here will want to get out as quickly as he can. Won't you, Maurice?"

"Too damned right," murmured Perkins.

"Any further questions?" Tann had become all businesslike. "I haven't got all night. No, Mr. Ferris, please, no questions from you. Carla, take Mr. Ferris topside and put him in the car. It's time we were getting back if we're to have any sleep tonight." More movement, then, "Tell Connie to come down here, will you? I want to make sure that the gallant crew of Mare Nostrum understands that his orders are my orders, and they have to see what will happen should they disobey him."

More sounds of movement, then Starks' voice from the main cabin. "You wanted me, chief?"

"I would like you to impress upon these good people how important it is to stick to the timetable and jump when you tell them to jump." He paused, then addressed the others. "Connie is an amazing man. You should know that he can go without sleep for days at a time. In fact, he has promised me that he will not sleep until SeaFire is safely over. You understand?"

Bannon nodded to Tyreen, indicating that they should move back along the passage. She nodded and followed him, drawing her Walther from the thigh holster under her skirt.

The door in the cross passage was flanked by two narrow companionways leading up to the deck. Bannon took the one on the starboard side, Tyreen behind him, covering the rear. At the top, he peered out, then whispered, "We're right by the wheelhouse. With luck we can slip off after Tann leaves."

He could see Tann's car --- a low, sleek silver Jaguar --- pulled up near the gangway, and Carla with Ferris. She held a pistol and stood well back while he leaned against the car. For a second time, the thought of rescuing his friend flashed in and out of Bannon's mind. No. There was no point in trying foolhardy heroics that could well put them out of action and ruin any further chance he had of stopping the madness of what Sir Max Tann called SeaFire.

They waited for what seemed to be a very long time, but finally Tann came up on deck with Anna and Perkins in tow. Bannon smiled when he saw Sir Max, for he had entered into what he saw as the spirit of the affair, dressed in white ducks and a blazer, a yachting cap set jauntily on his head.

He stopped by the car, staying behind Carla's right shoulder and talking to Ferris for the best part of a minute, then Perkins moved forward and opened the rear passenger door, roughly helping the American into the car.

It was Tann himself who took the wheel, and seconds later the Jaguar pulled away from the gangway.

He waited until the sound of the engine was far away, then motioned to Tyreen, moving silently and slowly along the deck. From below voices were raised. He even heard Rexinus almost shouting at Starks, "But it won't work. We'll all be sailing out to certain death."

Starks' reply chilled Bannon's spine. "You heard the Chief's orders. You do as I say. I do as I'm told. Sir Max knows exactly what he's doing, always has and always will."

Bannon thought of all he had read about Hitler in the Berlin bunker during his final days, issuing orders to military forces that had long ago ceased to exist. Fighting with ghosts, and then joining those armies with the assistance of poison and a bullet.

Seconds later they were on the quayside and walking quickly back in the direction of their hotel.

"No, Tyreen, can't you see the folly of you coming with me?"

"If you're going to be back here by dawn, it makes no difference. I can cover you, and it'll be safer. We've always worked together --- well, ever since..."

"Tyreen, what if I'm not back by the morning?"

"Then I'll be right there with you. I don't think I want it any other way. I'm to hang around here, I'll go crazy."

He sighed in irritation. They had been arguing for the best part of twenty minutes in their room at the hotel. "Tyreen, listen. If I don't get back by early morning, it'll mean one of three things. Once, I'm dead meat..."

"John, don't. Don't talk like that." She emphasized her words by stubbing out her cigarette.

"Face it, Tyreen, we've got ourselves in a damned dangerous situation. Now, one, I shall be dead; two, I shall have done it, spiked the sub and gone in to rescue Lester --- he can't be anywhere else but in Tann's compound, and I didn't like the sound of the girl, Beth. We've only been near her once --- at Hall's Manor --- and she doesn't seem exactly the kind of playmate you'd take along on a picnic. So, if they aren't putting the crew on board the sub until they said, I'll probably have time to get rid of the damned boat and get Lester out."

After she had finished doing to the cigarette what she --- and Bannon --- wanted to do to Max Tann, she drew another from her gunmetal case, placed it between her lips, and lit it. "What's the third possibility?"

"That they've caught me in the sub. There's one more that I've just thought about. It is quite possible that I'll not even get into the submarine."

"And what happens then?"

"I probably come hightailing it back here, and we do something else. As it is, there's plenty for you to get on with. Just think about it."

John Bannon was dressed in black jeans, rollneck, and sneakers. Tyreen Mackenzie had similar clothes laid out over a chair. The two aluminum suitcases lay open on the bed, with the wetsuits --- without any concrete plans, they had bought two of them earlier that day --- lying between them.

"There is no other way, Tyreen," he continued. "In fact, you'll have to do several things. A call to the harbormaster and the local police, to begin with."

"You said that was last-resort stuff. You were adamant about it."

He knew she was right. Someone calling or going to the authorities here in Naples would probably be shipped off to the nearest mental hospital. Tales about a prowling submarine bent on torpedoing a supertanker would almost certainly be regarded as the ravings of a lunatic. "Then call London, or even Langley. They'll see things are dealt with." He relocked the two cases and stowed them in the fitted wardrobe.

"Why can't we just do that now, and quietly bow out? Leave it to the authorities?"

"You know why we can't do that. It's a question of time."

"Balls, John, it's a question of pride. You have a personal vendetta with Tann and you want to finish it by yourself."

Deep down he knew she was perfectly correct, but he was concerned about the time factor. He knew exactly how things might go if they called London. The Committee could sit around for most of the day deciding if it was wise to give the whole story to the Italian government. Anyway, his own motivation had taken over. There was no turning back from the way he had planned.

"John, we got the all-clear to do this because the Italians wanted to get Tann --- Apocalypse, as they called him. Nobody'll hold up any signals we send. Not now that we've eliminated Tann's man, Charles, and are operating here with the okay of the Italians."

He sighed. "I'm not even convinced that we do have the okay from them."

"What do you mean, John? You're getting paranoid about this."

"Give me a little time. If I'm not back by noon, make all the telephone calls you want. At least let me have a shot at the submarine. Perhaps you're right. Perhaps we should report to everyone and pray for the marines to arrive to put an end to this madness. But will you just give me a little time to set them up?"

She was very unhappy, but from the years they had worked together, Tyreen Mackenzie knew that John Bannon could be more than stubborn. But then, so could she. "Okay, but if time's such a factor, let me go after the submarine while you go after Lester."

He gave her a bleak smile, signaling agreement to the compromise. Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was just after nine now. "Then we'd better get going."

"Damn right. I'm not going to be responsible for any cock-up that leaves this harbor in flames and half the Mediterranean polluted for all time." She grabbed her clothes and started putting them on, while he pushed the five oblong boxes --- the boxes he had called his "little jewels" --- toward her.

Minutes later, they retrieved the car from the hotel's parking place. With Tyreen behind the wheel, they headed out of Naples, heading south on the A3 toward Salerno and the turnoff to Amalfi.

She drove fast, but with great concentration. Her conscience was already pricking her, because of course she knew John Bannon's old friend Lester Ferris had been right. They should have called in. Passed the whole business over to their superiors and got out, knowing that Tann and his mad, obsessive plan would come to nothing with the deployment of the right forces.

Yet a part of her wanted to see it through. Was it a question of glory, as she had accused John Bannon? A reluctance to give up the life of danger for a desk and the boredom of shuffling papers?

Then she switched her mind away from these questions. If nobody was guarding the submarine she could set the little jewels. For a couple of seconds she wondered what intuition had made John ask the Armourer for these particular items. Each contained two pounds of plastique explosive, a recently developed substance with half again the effect of Semtex. Two pounds of this stuff would do a lot of damage, especially if placed in the right spots. The heat generated, for one thing, had the power of a thermal lance and it could blow through steel as though it was butter.

Pushed into the two-pound blocks of plastique was a fuse with the latest in electronic timing devices. Small, with tiny powerful batteries, the fuse could be set like the mechanism on a miniature alarm clock. The dial on each was no bigger than an American 25-cent piece, and could be activated, using a tiny screwdriver, over a twenty-four-hour period. Now, she had plans for these deadly devices, and once they were set, the military would not have to waste time trying to find the submarine. All she could do was hope and pray that the sub had been left unguarded that night.

As she made the turn at Salerno, it flashed through her mind that perhaps she should again suggest stopping and making a call from some public telephone booth, but stubbornly dismissed the idea. They would continue with their plan: she would try to set the explosives and get away; he would rescue his friend Lester Ferris; and then they would call to put things in motion.

Turning and taking the road along the coast, she eventually found the narrow trail that led to the clump of trees from which they had observed the Tann villa.

Parking under the trees, she shut off the engine. Embracing, they kissed briefly before parting, each to go on their respective half of the mission.

Before leaving the car, she pulled on the wetsuit and snapped the belt into place, checking the equipment in the pouches and clips. She then walked up into the trees and looked down on the Tann compound. There was no sign of life below, save for one lighted window. The submarine crew were either sleeping until dawn or already down in the cave, readying the boat for sea.

Finally, she turned to set off back down the track and narrow road up which she had come. She paused on reaching the main road, her eyes fully adjusted to the night blackness. There was no sign of life, and no noise coming up from the rock face across the road but for the sound of the sea. She ran, crouching low, toward the warning notice and began to descend the steps, her ears hearing only the hush and crush of the surf. No voices, and still no human sounds as he reached the bottom of the steps.

As on the previous day, she inched along the rocks toward the netting that covered the entrance to the cave. Silence, and no lights from within the makeshift submarine pen. She lifted the edge of the netting and stepped inside, standing perfectly still, all her senses attuned like radar to pick up any hint of another human being.

Nothing.

Smiling to herself, she unclipped the flashlight and switched it on, allowing the beam to play along the whalelike metal structure as she moved forward. Her first suspicion was that this was no Victor-class Russian sub, as she had been led to believe. Its size and shape suggested something much, much older. Possibly even a World War II German U-boat. As she got closer and was able to reveal more of the submarine in the light from the flashlight, the more certain she became of what this really was: a Type VII C U-boat.

She crossed the small makeshift gangway and climbed to the top of the sail, realizing that when this boat first entered the water it was not called the sail but the conning tower --- the Kommandoturm. The hatch was up, and she played the beam of her light down into the bowels of the boat. Silence. Nothing there but the narrow space of the tube that dropped straight down into the control room. The interior smelled of a mixture of oil, polish, and human bodies. The crew of this boat had been working down here until quite recently. They would be back, at the latest, for a dawn departure, but she did not allow this to worry her. If she was to do the job properly, she had to take her time and make certain of the layout of the boat.

She stayed for some time in the control room, looking at the periscope, the steering and diving controls, and the dials that went with them. Part of the mystery was now explained. All the controls and instruments were labeled with neat stick-on metal tags stating their use in English, though these same essentials had been originally marked up in German. The German had been either partly scraped off or covered with notices in Russian, even inside the dials relating to pressure and depth. The glass fronts had been removed so that Russian labels could be stuck on the clocklike instruments before the glass was replaced.

It was a former German U-boat, probably captured by the Russians and converted for their own use until they began building their giant nuclear-powered, missile-carrying fleet.

Tyreen moved aft, along the narrow catwalks and corridors, wondering what it must have been like to serve in these extraordinarily cramped conditions for weeks and months at a time. She's spent time aboard submarines, but never an extended cruise.

As she moved through the boat, she spotted several improvements that presumably had been made by the Russians, including modern escape equipment --- a state-of-the-art escape trunk, with a hatch hidden from the compartment below. She pulled herself up into the boxlike hatch and saw that a number of the latest Steinke hoods were lined up in a container that ran around three sides of the trunk, with its wheels to open and close the trunk.

Easing herself down onto the companionway, she traversed right to the stern of the boat, then back, moving forward through the control room again, and so for'ard toward the bows. She brushed the small curtained-off sections that served as crew and officer mess decks, and on toward the torpedo tubes in the bow, noting as she went that the Russians --- or its present owner --- had provided an escape trunk almost identical to the one aft.

There were red tags wired to the wheels of the torpedo tubes with the words Tube Full scrawled on them. Behind, to both port and starboard, were the racks that would normally hold other torpedoes. They were empty, and she remembered Tann aboard Mare Nostrum saying they had only two torpedoes with which to do the job, having spent one on Aegean Princess. She would have to make sure that these did not get spent on Golden Bough, or on any other target.

Tyreen began to take out the deadly little jewels of plastique from the pouches on her belt. She placed them in a neat row and removed the small screwdriver with which she would arm the fuses. Holding her flashlight under her chin, she picked up each device in turn and worked with the screwdriver until all five fuses were set for nineteen-fifty --- ten minutes to eight on the following evening. She left the final arming, the moving of a small button in the center of each dial, until last, then moved to the port torpedo tube, spinning the wheel that allowed the breech door to swing back.

Years ago she had spent some time being spirited onto the shore of another country in an old British submarine, and recalled the hours spent waiting. Some of that time had been passed with an old submariner who had shown her the comparatively simple mechanisms used on those World War II boats. In memory, the German U-boat was not all that much different. A lever on one side of the tube lifted a curved metal stretcher on which the torpedo could be slid into, or out of, the tube. The mechanism here was very similar, and had been well oiled and maintained. The long and deadly fish came sliding back on the stretcher until the tube was empty. She didn't even need to use her Arion strength to manhandle the deadly fish.

Carefully, she took the first of the plastique devices and unwrapped the actual explosive, which she molded, like a big lump of plasticine, as far forward as she could on the top side of the torpedo. The second bomb she stuck firmly around the center of the weapon, then she reversed the steps with the levers and stretcher, feeling an enormous pleasure as the torpedo went back into its tube and she turned the wheel, which would make the whole thing watertight.

Then she went through the whole business again on the starboard side. In all, the process took her the best part of two hours, and there was one plastique bomb left. She had kept this for another vulnerable spot, and began to make her way aft again, knowing that at ten minutes to eight on the following evening the plastique would explode, probably also igniting the two torpedoes. This alone, almost certainly, would blow off the entire bow section of the boat.

She reached the far end of the sub and searched for the main pipe, which carried diesel fuel to the engines when the boat was on the surface. While submerged the craft ran wholly on the huge batteries, which had to be recharged by running on or near the surface under the diesel. But submerged or not, there was always fuel in the pipeline, and she molded the last bomb around the pipe so that it was completely hidden from view --- high up and out of sight among the other pipes and cables that traversed almost the entire length of the boat. When the time came, the bow would be blown away and, with any luck, a secondary explosion would ignite the diesel fuel and rip through the rest of the old craft, sending it to his final --- and overdue, in her mind --- resting place.

Tyreen sighed with some relief as she finished the job, and making certain she had left no traces of her visit, she began to move forward. After being cooped up in here so long, a cigarette would taste good. She had gone halfway toward the control room when she stopped, stock-still, listening. There was a clanking sound from above and then the unmistakable noise of men climbing the ladder up the outside of the conning tower. She heard the first one come down inside the control room and a broad Scottish accent shouting, "Wall, there'll be nay turnin' back now, lads, so let's be having you down here."

She was trapped inside the old U-boat.

The villa was dark and silent. He watched and listened for five minutes while absolutely nothing happened, then went over the wall. Dropping down on the other side, he listened again for another minute before moving further, skirting the swimming pool and crouching at the base of the building.

There were four sets of double windows, each pair with a door between them on the ground floor. No lights showed in any of them, nor was there any sound besides his breathing.

Moving up the stairs, he reached the top to see a similar cloistered area with four more doors and pairs of windows, but this time, just as he reached the first door, a figure stepped out from one of the doorways ahead, yelling, "You broke my jaw, you bastard." It was Heidi, though he had to interpret the words, as they were squashed and came from the back of her throat. For a split second he was back in the offices of the nightmarish firm of Rollen, Rollen, u. Saal, where he had last seen her sprawled on the floor.

Then her arms came up and he caught the glint of the weapon in her hand. He dodged to the right, in through the door, as the pistol rapped out twice and he heard the bullets whip past him.

He rolled out through the doorway, fired two shots, and rolled back. There was a sound like a sack of potatoes being dropped on the stone under the cloister. At least one of his bullets had found Heidi.

Before he could go back out, something struck the back of his head.

John Bannon's vision filled with stars, and then with nothing at all.

For a second Tyreen Mackenzie seemed to be frozen to the deck below her feet. She was so close to the control room that she could smell the men coming down through the tower. Then she moved, softly backing up until she stood just under the aft escape trunk. As the voices became louder, she swung herself up into the hatch close to the trunk, pressing her body into the small space that would hide her form the men moving about below.

Something crackled from the just beneath her and the Scottish voice came clear through the PA system. "D'ye hear there! D'ye hear there! All hands close up for leaving harbor. All watertight doors closed." The captain, she knew from the mode of address, must be a former member of the Royal Navy. Her blood boiled with anger at the thought of an officer of her own service --- and a Scot at that --- being in charge of Tann's submarine, bent on causing death, destruction, and a possible ecological disaster the like of which the world had never yet seen. Tyreen was truly between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

She was crammed into a fetal position within the hatch and moved an arm to get a glimpse of her wristwatch. It was almost two-thirty in the morning. Had she really been that long in setting the plastique explosives? Well, she certainly had not hurried. Now the thought of being confined to this tiny space for at the least seventeen hours was distinctly unappealing. Why were they leaving at this time, in the dead of night? She brushed the question aside, for the answer was obvious.

The submarine would have to work its way quietly around the peninsula and skirt the isle of Capri, then maneuver itself into position in order to catch Golden Bough as she came into Naples and cripple the supertanker just within the harbor basin. They dared not allow the submarine to be seen from the mainland cruising quietly along the coast, which meant that as soon as the sun began to rise it would be necessary to dive and continue on the journey submerged.

What about radar detection? It was unlikely that the signature of this relatively small boat would show as anything more than a small blip, which could be read as a fishing boat.

Someone hurried past, below her, feet thumping on the deck, and for a second her hand moved toward the pistol on her belt in case the crew member was there to check the tube of the escape trunk above her to make certain the locking wheel was tight and closed up.

The footsteps passed directly below her, bent on some job aft. She relaxed again as she felt a quivering in the metal around and below her. The diesel engines were running, and she caught a faint whiff of air being drawn into the hull. Then: "D'ye hear there! D'ye hear there! Engines slow ahead. Cast off for'ard. Cast off aft."

Then she heard another voice, in slow and careful German, "This is good. Very exciting."

She flinched, as the voice seemed to come from very close to her and she heard the thud of feet above her, presumably the two crew members up on the rounded exterior, releasing the boat from its restraining lines.

Seconds later there was movement. A wallowing motion as the submarine edged slowly forward out into the sea, and the distinct tremor that passed through the metal hull, so that the entire boat seemed alive.

Again the voice of the captain. "D'ye hear there! D'ye hear there! All hands at dive stations. Close up main hatch."

She thought she could hear the scramble of the two men who had been topside as they came down into the control room, and the squeal of the wheel lock that would seal everyone within the metal coffin, for it would be the final casket for the entire crew when the clock ticked around to seven-fifty that night.

Above her was her own means of escape, the trunk. She had no worries on that score, for only a few years ago she had been through the usual refresher courses that C had made her take regularly. Those courses brushed up her seamanship, allowed her to put a few more hours in her pilot's log, and examine the most modern weapons and procedures --- including escaping from a submerged submarine. As long as the submarine stayed within about four hundred feet of the surface she would have no problem getting out. If she went deep, there would be severe difficulties.

To operate the escape trunk she would first have to put on the Steinke hood, which goes over the head and is attached firmly around the upper part of the body. The top section is similar to the breathing apparatus worn by firemen to guard against smoke inhalation, while the lower part acts as a life jacket. This combination allows a crew member to leave the submarine by climbing up onto the trunk, securing the watertight hatch below and then flooding the entire cylinder apart from a small air space. The escapee then charges the breathing apparatus from an air port set beside the space. After the upper part of the hood is charged, the hatch above opens and the crewmember is drawn up into the water, climbing rapidly to the surface. Flooding the tank and making a successful escape takes only a minute. Any longer and there is a risk of being attacked by "the bends" --- small bubbles of nitrogen gas can form in the blood, causing excruciating pain and the inability to operate properly as you shoot up to the surface.

The real danger comes only if this method is used at a depth lower than four hundred feet, as the pressure at those depths can be deadly. Her Arion constitution might allow her to survive an escape from a greater depth, but she had felt no pressing desire to test it.

She tried to think the escape through. Would it be feasible to operate the trunk at around ten in the morning? At first she considered this as a definite possibility, even thought he crew of the submarine would be immediately alerted to the fact that someone had used the escape trunk. Yet, after more thought, she concluded that this was not the best option.

They were bound to be several nautical miles from shore, and she might have great difficulty swimming that kind of distance, particularly as the captain --- and Tann's lieutenant, Maurice Perkins --- could well order an experienced diver to the surface to hunt her down in the sea.

No, there was only one course of action that she could take: sit tight, endure the discomfort of the cramped hatch, and make her escape at around seven forty-five, as the U-boat was preparing to maneuver itself into position for the torpedo attack on Golden Bough. It would be a long haul with plenty of risk, which she factored into the situation.

It was still quite possible that her presence would be detected by a crewmember. If that happened, she would at least have some warning. There would be time to disable the man, kill him if necessary, then climb into the trunk and make her egress no matter where they happened to be.

Leaving things to the last moment was equally dangerous. Once John Bannon had alerted London and Rome, there was no knowing what action would be taken. She realized, with some horror, that after nine in the morning there was the distinct possibility that helicopters would be quickly prowling around the coastline, dipping their sonars into the water, pinpointing the submarine, which they would promptly blow to pieces with depth charges.

The more she thought about her situation, the more Tyreen came to the conclusion that she was in a no-win situation. She even considered the possibility of climbing down from her hiding place, roaming the boat, and killing off the crew one at a time, though this would seem just about impossible. Marlen had actually done almost exactly that during the war, but Marlen was an Arion Prime. There must be at least twenty men in the submarine, and some would certainly be armed. Her chances of taking out the entire crew were minimal, to say the least. Unlike Marlen, bullets did not bounce off Tyreen's body. Sit tight and wait, she decided. Act only if anything dramatic occurred.

The captain's voice came crackling through the PA again. "D'ye hear there! D'ye hear there! We are making maximum speed on the surface, and will remain in this status until dawn, unless another ship appears. As soon as the sky changes we shall dive. We are now approaching Positano and will be well into good diving water in around fifteen minutes. Once we go down we shall, as planned, run silent and deep until we approach Naples Harbor tonight."

So that ruled out any chance of making an escape while they were en route to Naples. She rested her head against the metal side of her hiding place, tried to stretch and ease her already aching muscles, and closed her eyes.

The throb of the engine and the wallowing motion of the submarine began to have a hypnotic effect. Slowly, fighting the craving for a cigarette, Tyreen slid down into the depths of sleep.

She was wakened by the captain's voice seeming to shout, "Dive! Dive! Dive!" The angle of her small metal prison tipped alarmingly, and she could feel the pressure change in her ears as they began the descent. Looking at her watch, she saw that it was almost five-thirty. She had bad cramps in both legs and her back and arms ached as though she was recovering from long and sustained physical exercise. She sighed quietly. At least another fourteen hours of this. She genuinely wondered if she would be able to stand it. More than ever she wanted a cigarette, knowing that to light one up now would give her away and sign her death warrant.

The motion of the boat changed to a dipping and rolling forward movement as they swam far below the sea's surface. Even from where she lay, the regular ping-ping of the sonar was clearly audible. For a few minutes Tyreen again thought about emulating Marlen and taking on the entire crew. Once more she dismissed it as being impracticable for a "mere" Beta. Instead, she turned her thoughts back to the entire operation so far.

As so often in these circumstances, John Bannon had requested items from the Armourer that they really did need. It was almost like second sight, she considered, knowing that the truth really lay in his long experience. What had told him to ask for the plastique explosives? The fact that he knew, long before leaving, that Tann was planning something concerning the sea. Also, he had nearly always asked for some form of plastique while on a difficult operation. Once more, it was experience. Then she reflected about the other main item that she was certain was being held for them by elite forces who had probably been watching their every move.

Would we really need the Powerchutes? she wondered, for that was what Bannon had asked for, and Colonel Buckley had gone to great pains to get out to them. The Powerchute, which had been designed for recreational use, was being adapted and worked on by people like the SAS. In essence it consisted of a triangular structure made from a very light alloy. There was a padded seat for the pilot --- no license was required to fly this machine --- and a small lawn-mower engine that drove a propeller, encased in a wide wire mesh drum like those put around household fans as protection. The entire framework was attached to an almost oblong, airfoil parachute. The pilot opened the throttle, and the propeller caused the machine to move forward, inflating the parachute and driving it into the air.

Once airborne, the craft was controlled in much the same way as a hang glider: movements of the body, with increases and decreases in power, caused the parachute to climb, turn, and descend.

The SAS had been experimenting with this popular flying machine for a couple of years. Tyreen had even flown one on a couple of occasions. The Special Air Service, who are the world's most experienced trained HALO (High Altitude, Low Opening) parachutists, had made changes in the Powerchute so that it could carry one or two people over longer distances and at greater speeds. Their favorite practice use was to travel over difficult terrain, climb to a height of around ten thousand feet, cut the engine, and glide down silently, maneuvering themselves onto a specific target.

Bannon's request for the Powerchutes, Tyreen felt, had been made on the basis of the terrain around Naples, and Colonel Buckley had told them that the crafts would be set down and waiting for them below Herculaneum, where grass sweeps up from the sea and rocks below.

Intuition must have made him ask for the Powercutes. Before setting out, neither of them had any means of knowing that Tann would, at the moment his operation was going down, be up on the top level of the ruins.

Now they had put the pieces together and Tyreen knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that elite troops must be nearby, probably under joint British and American command. She began to think of what action she could take to get herself to the churning water that foamed dangerously against the rocks below Herculaneum. It was as good a way as any to pass the time, for she was also sure in her mind that by nine o'clock Bannon would have rescued Ferris and contacted the authorities. In that case there was no way they would even get as far as the harbor. Her preparation had to be the speed with which she could escape through the trunk before the sub was shattered by depth charges.

The world was dark, pitch black. Absolutely no light.

Nothing to see. Nothing to hear. Nothing to...

Something exploded against his cheek, snapping his head around. John Bannon struggled to force his eyes open just as that something exploded against his other cheek, snapping his head back to where it had been originally.

Was this the face of death? he wondered, trying to bring the dark face into focus. He'd lived most of his life on the edge, knowing that death could be just around the next corner. But he'd never quite expected death to look like this, so dark, so feminine...

"This is for Heidi!" Beth's hand exploded against his cheek yet again.

And again, this time for Phillip Dahl. And again, for some name Bannon didn't recognize. And again, until he sinking down into the darkness again until he passed back into oblivion.

Tyreen Mackenzie dozed for a while, never far from the surface of consciousness, and woke with a start to the sound of voices. Shifting in the confined space, she leaned out, surprised to discover that with only a slight dropping of her head below the level of the hatch she could hear anything said in the control room.

"If we keep this up, we're going to be in guy good time." The voice of the Scottish captain.

"Better to be early than having to dash in at the last minute." Maurice Perkins sounded pompous.

"Aye, well, I can probably move out to sea a little. Maybe even put the pair of torps into Golden Bough before she reaches the harbor."

"You'll do no such thing," Perkins snapped. "You're going to play this one by the book, Jack. Understand me. By the book, page, paragraph, and line. That damned ship has to be hit inside the harbor. In fact, just as it passes in."

"I was only pullin' yer leg, mon."

"Well, kindly leave my leg alone, Jack. This is a bloody dangerous business."

"Dinna worry, mon. We'll put the fish into the tanker and be away from the area in minutes flat."

"Well, be certain you're in the right place at the right time. I want to be able to see Mare Nostrum close up on our port side before you get the torpedoes away, and you do that on the dot of eight."

"I said, dinna worry, Maurice. I'm enjoying this. Takes me back to my young days when I was chasing Nazis in the Atlantic."

Tyreen withdrew her head, flexed her shoulders, again stretched her limbs as far as possible, then leaned back. The Scottish captain was obviously a man who did not take people like Maurice Perkins seriously. Tann must be paying the old sailor a great deal of money, though knowing him as well as she did, she wondered if the plan had actually included the captain and crew ever getting off the submarine. The thought crossed her mind that she should have made a more thorough search. It was always possible that Tann had already sabotaged the boat so that she would be lost on the way back to the cave. That would be his way, and maybe he also wanted to get rid of other weak links like Maurice Perkins. That would fit.

She dozed again, waking at just after eight. Less than twelve hours to go and the fatigue was creeping into every sinew of her body. The craving for a cigarette was stronger than ever. She slid quietly back into another doze and quickly fell down the long dark tunnel of sleep. She dreamed of diving for pearls, feeling the water wash her as she swam to the bottom of a clear sea and picked oysters from between rocks, scooping them up from the sand.

On the long beach John Bannon waited for her, and there was a smile of pleasure on his face as he took the oysters from her, cutting them open to show her the pearls in the center of the flesh.

Then the dream went and she half woke, feeling too tired to even try to move, allowing herself to sleep on.

"This is for Heidi!"

Again the explosion against his cheek.

John Bannon tried to defend himself, but discovered he couldn't move his arms.

"This is for Phillip!" Beth again went through the list of names, punctuating each one with a blow.

His arms were bound. At least he hoped so, bound and not broken. But in either case, there was nothing he could do to stop the punishment.

Once again he found refuge in unconsciousness.

When Tyreen Mackenzie woke again it was with another start, and the sensation that she had been unconscious for a very long time. She could hardly move for the cramp and ache in her limbs, but she did manage to glance at her watch. It was impossible, for the hands on the stainless steel Rolex showed a quarter past three.

The submarine was still making way, rolling and pitching at speed under the surface. There was the mutter of talk coming from the control room, the hum of the engines, ping-ping of the sonar, and nothing to break the smooth rhythm of their progress. For the first time she had a waking nightmare about John Bannon. He was going to alert people at nine that morning, over six hours ago. If he had done so, this boat should now be either lying silent and deep, or trying to escape from sonar-dipping helicopters.

She felt a cold chill of horror envelop her body, while there seemed to be hammer blows crashing down on the inside of her skull. If anything had happened to John, it was her fault and hers alone. If she had listened to him, they would have been together now, bringing things to a conclusion without either of them being in any immediate physical danger.

Her mind was numb, and she realized that her hands were shaking. Three o'clock in the afternoon. She looked again to make certain that she had not dreamed the time on her watch. No, it was correct, and something deep in her subconscious told her that something had gone horribly wrong.

The minutes became hours; hours became days. There was no question of sleep for Tyreen now. Every nerve and sinew had become alert, nervously jumpy with anxiety. With the certainty that there was something wrong came a new sense of hatred toward Max Tann. In her long career, she had rarely allowed any true emotion to exist between herself and any target she had followed or dealt with. Now there was true anger, a fury that seemed to rend her apart. If she had the fortune to come out of this alive and face Tann, it would be face-to-face.

At around six o'clock, her worst fears were confirmed. They had stopped engines and were simply running silent, hove to under the sea. She had heard the captain say that it would take them only half an hour to get into position. "No sense in pushing our way in too early," he had told Perkins.

Now the captain and Perkins had walked back toward the stern, pacing along the deck as though taking a little exercise. They traversed the deck twice and finally stopped almost underneath the hatch where Tyreen was curled, not moving a muscle.

"So what happens when Sir Max proves his point with this AAOPS thing?" the captain asked.

"God knows." Perkins' voice was flat, with no hint of how he really felt. I suspect that I shall quietly disappear. I've saved enough money to keep myself comfortable for the rest of my natural, in Rio or some other place. I just don't want to be around if he gets his party really organized in Germany. The way things are in Europe, the mood of the people, leaves the way open for him. If that happens, true hell's going to return, and this time the madman could win."

"Ye'd leave the Man, then?"

"I suggest, Jack, that you grab your money and get the hell out as quickly as you can. I'm pretty sure that this AAOPS thing is unworkable. There's going to be disaster up there when you slam the fish into that tanker, and I've no doubt that the authorities will do their best to hunt him down. The man's mad, Jack. Mad as a hatter, but he's bloody clever. I wouldn't count on him getting caught, and if he is..."

"You think he'll let himself be caught?"

"You mean he'd rather be a suicide? Oh, no. Max will always think he's in the right, just as he has no true conception of right or wrong. Men like me --- and you, for that matter --- know where we stand. We know the things we've done and we can differentiate between good and evil. Not so with Max. He has to be in the right. If he murdered his mother and was caught standing over her with the ax in his hand, he would have some argument, however spurious, to show that he was really doing the right thing. He's also a bad enemy to have. If you'd seen the things I've seen, Jack, you'd know."

After a few seconds' pause, the captain asked, "Wasn't there some talk of people actually after him, here in Italy?"

"Indeed, yes. One of them's still out there somewhere. British and American intelligence people. We've got the American and the Brit man at the house. They're there with Beth. You've met Beth, haven't you?"

"Aye, and I'd rather not spend too much time with her. In fact, it wouldn't worry me if I never laid eyes on her again."

"She's not killed the American and the Brit?"

"Not yet, but give her time; with Max not around to control her, Beth could get homicidal. Strange woman. I've seen her kind and tender, but when she's on the drugs and Max suggests things to her, it's a different matter. Mind you, those two girls, Carla and Anna, they can be deadly. They'll fight like trained soldiers."

"I thought as much. They like teasing the men as well."

"Either of them would sleep with a goat if they thought it'd give them pleasure."

Tyreen, stretching and trying to get her circulation going, had listened to the exchange with the kind of horror most people had when they faced a cobra, or even something less deadly, like a scorpion.

At least she knew Bannon was alive, or had been when Perkins last saw him. For the umpteenth time during that long day, her hand moved toward her pistol. Part of her senses told her to go now, try to take out the crew, and to blazes with anyone else: just get to John and make sure he was out of danger. The more sensible part of her emotions held her back. After all, it wouldn't be so long now.

Her watch ticked on, and she began to glance at it automatically about once a minute. Finally, at around seven in the evening, they began to move again.

Half an hour later she heard the captain call, "Up periscope." The mechanism whined and shortly after: "Five degrees to port." At seven-thirty exactly the captain gave the final order: "Stop engines. We're there and Golden Bough is coming in. I can see her heading straight toward the headland. She's on time, and I reckon we'll have her bang in the sights at twenty hundred. On the button."

Another wait, and her watch showed seven thirty-five. Fifteen minutes before her plastique would blow the boat to hell. Time to start getting ready. She slowly rose, her legs, arms, and back protesting after the hunched position they had been forced into all day.

From the control room she heard, "Mare Nostrum's up on our port side ready to go in. Fifty yards to port and holding steady. Stand by."

She took down one of the Steinke hoods, then reached up, pulling herself toward the trunk. As she moved, the hood slipped from her fingers and went clattering onto the deck.

She froze, then quietly began stretching back for another hood. As she moved, her right ankle was caught in what seemed like a steel trap. There was an immense tug, and she fell down hard onto the metal deck. Rolling over and blinking her eyes clear, she looked up to see a huge man looming over her. Even as she realized from Bannon's description that this was the German retard Karl Saal, two hamlike hands grabbed her by the shoulders, lifted her high into the air, and dropped her on the deck again. She drew up her knees into a fetal position, then shot her legs forward with all her Arion strength, her heels catching him just below the knees.

The giant German gave out a gruff cry, half anguish and half pain, as he staggered back against a stanchion. Big he might be, weighing more than twice what she did, he was a Terran; his huge size and strength were no match for the agility and strength of an Arion. He hit the metal hard, his arms waving about like branches in a whirlwind.

Not taking the time to draw her knife, Tyreen threw herself onto Saal, one arm closing about a treelike neck. Even as he tried to get his own arms around her, she gave the head a powerful wrench, holding back none of her Arion strength.

Saal managed one strangled cry before he went limp and fell back with blood trickling from his mouth.

The clatter and cry would certainly bring someone from the control room, so Tyreen leaped upward toward the hatch, grabbed another Steinke hood, then scrambled into the trunk. She heard shouts and the clank of feet on the deck just before dropping the circular bottom hatch into place and rotating the wheel to lock it, making the trunk not only completely watertight but also impenetrable.

Aligning the belt to ensure her automatic and the knife were both well strapped on, Tyreen turned the two palm-sized wheel taps, glancing at her watch to see that she now had very little time left. Water began to flood the compartment, much more quickly than she recalled from her last practice in one of these escapes. She put on the Steinke hood, securing it and screwing the valve on to the air port, making sure that her head remained in the bubble at the top of the hatch.

By now the water was up to her shoulders and rising rapidly. She saw the pinpoint of light come on to show that her air reservoir was full, twisted so that she was free of the air port. As she did so, she caught a glimpse of her watch. It was seven forty-six.

The water came rushing up over her head and the upper hatch popped open, catapulting her upward.

Though she rocketed to the surface in a matter of seconds, the journey seemed to take endless minutes, and when she burst through into the night above, she was completely disoriented. Just darkness, then the lights from shore. Tearing at the headpiece, she pulled it off, sucking in great gulps of air and kicking with her arms and legs to get moving again. She looked around a full 360 degrees and saw Mare Nostrum, with only her riding lights on, less than thirty feet away.

She began to swim, circling so that she would come in astern of Mare Nostrum, and was also aware of the sound of other engines nearby. There, coming through the channel, was Golden Bough.

She reached the stern of Mare Nostrum just as she felt the shock wave. For a second she did not associate it with what she had done, taking it as some freak undertow. The sea seemed to lift around her, swirling like a whirlpool, catching her with dozens of hands bent on pulling her down. Then the explosion came from under the sea, a great whooming sound followed by a plume of white water that was the precursor of an even larger, long bubble. It was as though three or four depth charges had exploded just under the surface.

She reached out, grabbing at a rope dangling from Mare Nostrum's stern, and hung on, the sea still grappling with her as if it was a human thing, a primeval being turning her around and then throwing her upward. Mare Nostrum was pitching and rolling with the boiling sea, and she finally got both hands on the rope, dragging herself up and over the stern.

There were shouts and noises coming from for'ard around the wheelhouse, and she had no guilt about what she was about to do. Unholstering the pistol, she slipped off the safety and yelled at the top of her lungs. "Connie? Connie Starks?"

"What the hell...?" Conrad Starks lumbered from the wheelhouse, peering back toward her, clinging on to keep his balance on the still-pitching deck.

She fired four shots, two and then another two, grouped nicely around the chest area. Starks did not cry out or even look surprised, but went in the blink of an eye from alive to dead. His body, lifted by the bullets as they slammed home, seemed to rise slowly and levitate parallel to the deck as though hanging there before it was flung against the guardrail over which it pitched.

Vesta Murray was screaming, and Tyreen could see Acton on the deck where Connie had stood, holding out his hands in supplication.

"It's me." Tyreen ran forward, the deck still moving under her feet. Over the bows she could see the sea bubbling white, with pieces of debris beginning to be thrown up. As she ran, she wondered how she could see all this in the darkness of the night, then saw that the huge tanker, even half a mile away, had two searchlights playing on the water.

"Ms. Mackenzie!" Fritz Acton's mouth hung open as he saw the slim figure trying to run toward him.

"Yes! Now, start those bloody engines for me. I've a previous appointment to keep!"

"What happened?" from Rexinus within the wheelhouse.

"Never mind what happened. I just saved you from death by fire. Get those throttles wide open and head out of the harbor. Fast as you can."

"Was that the submarine?" Rexinus had gone from panic to sudden cool, pushing the throttle forward so that Tyreen had to grab at the wheelhouse doorway. The bows lifted, turned to circle the huge looming supertanker as Rexinus swung the wheel to take them out of the harbor.

"I want you to take her around to Herculaneum." She didn't know precisely where Tann would be, but she had to get there. "I've got to make some kind of landing there, as near to the shore as you can."

"Aye aye." Rexinus shouted back. Then repeated, "The submarine? What happened to the submarine?"

"I think the crew must have been eating too much pasta and pepperoni." Tyreen did not even smile. She was bracing herself against the wheelhouse and sliding a new magazine into the butt of the Walther PPK Special.

They were approaching the shore now, where the lowest part of the old ruins reach down toward the rocks. "How near do you want to get?" Rexinus shouted.

"As near as you can manage. I've got to make it to the ruins."

"Don't think I'll quite be able to get you right in."

"I'll get over the rocks myself. Just bring her in as close as you can."

Fritz Acton and Vesta Murray were speechless, soaking wet and white with fear. Then the bullets came, smashing into the woodwork on the deck as an automatic weapon opened up from somewhere within the ruins.

"Far enough!" Tyreen yelled. "Get down. I'm going over the side." She saw the surf and the rocks coming up to meet her, climbed over the guardrail, and, as the boat dipped on the turn, dropped into the white foam.

It was luck rather than skill that got her over the jagged rocks. As she went into the water the tide was pulling back, gathering itself for another journey inland to slap into the shore. She was able to put her arms around one of the larger, slippery boulders and ride out the crashing waves until the sea drew back again, allowing her to move in over the old seaworn stones. Halfway and she found another point between two rocks, where she hung on as the sea vented its force on her. The tide sucked back again, and on the third attempt, she made it over the final barrier and onto the rough grass shore.

As she lay on all fours, winded and gasping for breath, a figure rose from the ground in front of her and snapped, "Who goes?"

She stayed exactly where she was, but absolutely still. "Mackenzie," she said. "Lieutenant Commander Tyreen Mackenzie, Royal Navy."

"Thank heaven it's you, boss. Dobbs. Jim Dobbs. Captain 22nd SAS. We've been waiting half the night for you." If he was surprised to see a woman, he gave no sign of it, simply offering her a hand and helping her up. "The other lads are just up here. The bad boys've got automatic weapons in the ruins, but I think we can deal with them without too much bother. You up to a little action, boss?"

"Yes, Jim. Just let me get my breath back. You brought the Powerchute?"

"Six of them, chief. Four for us and two for you and Mr. Bannon. Got some other surprises as well. Decent chaps, those Delta Force lads. Letting us have first crack. Old Tann and his people --- there's three of them altogether --- were up there around the base of those ruins, but I think they've moved up to the top now. Delta Force said they'd keep an eye on the other two sides. If we don't finish them, they will. Very decent." He spoke in a whisper, and Tyreen was breathing more normally now as they reached the towering rock wall, from which another figure seemed to detach itself.

"That you, boss?"

"Yes, and I've found Commander Mackenzie for us, so we're all set."

"Good, they were shooting at that boat."

"I know," Tyreen grunted. "I was aboard."

"The explosion?" Dobbs asked. "That you as well? Submarine bought it?"

"Yes."

"Too much curry again?"

"I've already done that joke." She stopped as the remaining three SAS men crowded around. "Actually a little too much plastique. I sort of overindulged."

"Easy mistake to make, ma'am. Done it once or twice myself." Dobbs motioned for silence. "Let's show you what we've got," he said brightly.

They moved in close to the wall. There, hardly visible, were the six Powerchutes, the actual parachutes made of matte-black material. "You have flown one of these, boss?"

"Yes. At the same place you learned, Jim."

"Only wanted to make certain, because we've added a couple of little refinements." He shone a flashlight, which gave out diffused light, onto the framework. "Landing light, for starters. Usual halogen job, mounted up front under the forward strut." He lifted the tubing to show a wide, light aircraft landing light. "Operated from this little panel on the right, just behind the throttle; there's a compass up there as well, and a panel on the left for goodies. Flash-bangs here, three of the,. Abreast of the flash-bangs we have smoke --- you're familiar, yes?"

"Very familiar." She reached down and touched the little smoke bombs.

Dobbs hardly paused. "Then in the forward section we have flares." He lifted out one of the seven-inch-long silver cylinders. "Nice flares, because they double as incendiary rounds, if you follow. Just point and pull the little ring. Like opening a can of beer."

"I'm glad to say I've never opened a can of beer, but I follow very well, old boy. How many of those do we carry?"

"Only four, I fear. Particularly if you need somewhere to mount the old Heckler and Koch."

"I'll sit that one out, if you don't mind. Stick to the pistol. Done me quite well over the years, though they aren't making this model any more."

"A man's favorite weapon is the one he'll do the most damage with."

"A woman's, too."

Dobbs nodded in acknowledgement and indicated one of his fellows. "Ginger here's got a twelve-gauge shotgun. Wonderful with it. Bring down a budgerigar at twenty paces and a man at twenty yards, on the wing --- I mean Ginger would be on the wing."

Tyreen gave the man a respectful nod. "Remind me not to get in front of him."

"Now, communications. Headset with a throat mike. The whole thing's self-contained: radio on the right side of the headphones. Just talk and listen. Okay?"

They went quickly through a series of signals and the general order of battle. "Best if we start at the top and work down, I think?" Dobbs queried.

"There's a damned great wide smooth ramp that goes from the top. You've been around the place, I presume?"

"Lord, yes. We went round on the same day you did --- with Mr. Bannon and the fellow with the game leg."

"Really? You should have introduced yourselves."

"Didn't like to intrude, boss. Bad form, you know. Incidentally, what's happened to Mr. Bannon and the American gentleman with the limp?"

"I was going to tell you about them after we deal with friend Tann, but since you ask..." She proceeded to give a quick rundown of the situation regarding Banon and Ferris, ending with, "How far can your modified Powerchutes go?"

"How far away is the Tann house?"

"Thirty-five miles as the crow flies."

"No problem. Let's get this over first. Swoop down on them like the Ride of the Valkyrie."

Together they examined the map under the flashlight and worked out a course that would take them on a straight line for Tann's villa.

"Let's go, then." Tyreen clapped Dobbs on the shoulder. "Let's get the bastards, eh?"

They started engines and took off, each with a small light blinking in order to line up, with Tyreen leading and the men fanning out behind her. First they circled away from land, then turned, gaining height, then beginning their descent toward the ruins, sweeping in, watching for movement, which Dobbs spotted first, on the wide ramp that led down from the top. Someone to Tyreen's right fired off a burst from an automatic weapon, which brought some wild shooting from the three people they could see scurrying for cover.

Their shots went wide, and Tyreen considered that they must have thought the attack was coming via a horde of bees. The snarl of five little engines had to be a psychological advantage.

As she pulled up, she glimpsed two of the figures running out into the middle of the open area, their hands held high and waving handkerchiefs. She recognized Anna and Carla. Anna and Carla coming to the end of the road.

She turned sharply to get a closer look and saw Dobbs on her right, following her down. As she began the run across the opening, fire suddenly erupted from one of the arches. One of the girls spun around, clutching at the air, while the other was lifted off her feet and flung to one side, like an old toy that Tann had finished with.

"That's how you repay loyalty, is it, Max?" Tyreen yelled, knowing that Tann would not hear a single word she was shouting. She piled on the power, making a very steep climbing turn that would eventually bring her back over the area where the two girls lay. As she straightened out, she saw one of the SAS Powerchutes approaching the girls from the opposite direction when a long rachet of automatic fire came hurtling out from the archway in which she thought Tann was hiding. She saw the soldier fall back from the framework and the engine disintegrated under the hail of fire. The whole machine just fell apart to crash burning.

"Right, you bastard," Tyreen muttered. "This is for the SAS." Her hand felt for one of the small flares. She took the Powerchute down as far as she dared and aimed directly into the archway.

The flare exploded in a bright white flash, and she could see Tann, struggling with a weapon, hugging the side of a wall. Then he broke cover and began to run helter-skelter back up the ramp. Tyreen would have put money on Max Tann having left another weapon up on top of the ruins.

Glancing to left and right, she saw the other three Powerchutes were close on her heels, so she spoke clearly, "Lights, Valkyries. Lights!" All four landing lights came on at once as they dropped behind the running man who had just reached the top of the ramp and was beginning to stumble toward a large platform.

As she closed up behind Tann, Tyreen saw that two of her companions had put on speed and were overtaking her. They hovered in front of Tann, who had gotten to his feet and was moving to left and right, trying to dodge the snarling Powerchutes. Then he wheeled right around and Tyreen realized what was going on.

The other three SAS men had begun to circle Tann, but they had left Tyreen inside the circle, turning and lighting the way, enclosing Tann, who was like a trapped animal. She put her machine into a tighter turn, holding it and leaning far to her left to keep turning. As she did so, she reached down for another flare. There was no particular feeling of guilt or elation. This man had killed thousands by ferrying and smuggling weapons, placing them in the hands of unprincipled people. His future plans were untenable, so he deserved to die the worst possible of deaths.

She waited, letting her quarry dodge this way and that, trying to escape the relentless lights on the other Powerchutes. Only when she was ready, calm, and cool, did Tyreen take aim and pull the ring.

The flare arced from her hand, catching Tann in the chest, spraying out a blossom of phosphorus as it did so. She wheeled around again, taking aim with another flare. By now Tann was rolling on the hard ground trying to put out the flames, which would not go out. The second flare caught him just below the neck, spreading its chemical down the already burned front of his clothes. As she pulled away, Tyreen thought she could hear the screaming, which sounded like a plea for someone to put him out of misery. He seemed to be blundering around --- a walking , moving ball of fire heading for the edge of the platform with its sheer drop below.

One of the SAS men finished it. The shotgun blast tore away the back of Max Tann's head. For a moment he seemed to keep moving in a red mist that was eaten by the flame. Then he fell across the railing and, headless, disappeared over the edge.

As they turned and took up formation on Dobbs, heading out across the bay, setting course for the house near Amalfi, she heard the sound of singing in her ears.

Tyreen Mackenzie's companions had their heads back and were giving a somewhat tuneless rendering of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyrie.

They flew at around fifteen hundred feet, straining their eyes to make sure they could see one another. It was not the easiest of flights, as gentle trade winds seemed far from gentle from their position in the open on what was a very basic cockpit.

About halfway across, the moon came up and gave them more visibility. Tyreen Mackenzie would have found the flight exhilarating if it had not been for her concern for John Bannon. She had done all she had sworn to do. Tann was dead, along with some of his closest henchmen. There would be no return to Tannenwerder; no chants of "Heil Tann!" from a hypnotized mob bent on setting the clock back to the days of insanity.

She accepted this as part of her vocation. Danger had lurked beside her for as long as she could remember, and she wondered how she could possibly carry on if anything had happened to Bannon.

"The hill's coming up," she told the other three through the throat mike the moment she saw the area where she had stood among the trees with Bannon and Ferris only a short time before.

Dobbs had already seen the treeline, and he responded, "Roger. Cut engines."

Suddenly they were floating, silent but for the air and breeze around them as they crested the rise and saw Tann's villa lit up below them.

Maneuvering the parachutes, they formed a line astern: Dobbs in front, with Tyreen and the others close behind. The shots came just as the last man was putting down to the left of the swimming pool, well inside the rectangle of the villa.

It was an automatic weapon being used from the far right-hand corner. One sudden and noisy burst that went wide, some of the bullets slapping into the swimming pool, only feet away from the last man who had landed.

A rip of fire from Dobbs silenced the shooter, who died without even shouting. Tyreen followed the SAS officer to the right-hand cloister, while the other two troopers took the left side. She had worked in pairs with the SAS before, during training exercises, so knew what was expected.

There were four sets of double windows, each pair with a door between them on the ground floor. As they moved along the cloister they hurled stun grenades through the windows. On the far side, the grenades brought out only two men, who died as they came into view at the end of the cloister.

Nobody was flushed out from Dobbs and Tyreen's side. "Let's do a pincer on the next floor up," Dobbs said, as though they were on a simple Sunday-afternoon stroll. He turned back and went jogged to the stairwell, while Tyreen went ahead, taking the stairs in front of him two at a time. She reached the top to see a similar cloistered area with four more door and pairs of windows, but this time, just as she reached the first door, a figure stepped out from one of the doorways ahead, automatic weapon raised, ready to shoot.

Tyreen dodged to the right, into the same doorway where John Bannon had gone earlier, as the weapon spat out a burst and she heard the bullets whip past her. Two more shots followed from farther away. There was a scream and the sound of a body hitting the ground. Dobbs had taken out the gunman.

For less than a minute, there was the sound of a brisk firefight from the opposite side of the villa. Tyreen was about to move out from the doorway when an arm slid, like a snake, around her throat. She felt a hand on the back of her head and the pressure on her windpipe. Whoever had her was using a well-tried method ---- the right forearm across the throat, the hand grasping the left biceps while the left hand held the back of the victim's head. It usually only took seconds to either strangle or render a victim unconscious. There was only one possible response, and she knew this must be taken very quickly, before the gray-out as the blood supply to the brain was slowed by the pressure.

She gave a violent kick with her feet, leaning and putting all her weight into falling backward, at the same time attempting to stamp on her assailant's shins and feet.

The two of them went toppling over. She felt the softness of the body under her, the gasp and oath, then the crack as Beth's head hit hard against the stone floor. The arms immediately relaxed and Tyreen rolled away, back onto her feet, reaching for her pistol where it had fallen to the floor.

"So you want your friend back, huh?" Beth gasped. "You want..."

Tyreen did not even have to pull the trigger. The heavy fall had cracked the black girl's skull. Her eyes turned up as though in horror, and a stream of blood flooded from her nose and ears as she flopped, like some terrible beached animal, her body unnaturally spread out on the floor.

Then Tyreen heard Dobbs calling to her.

Two doors along, Dobbs had found Lester Ferris attempting to crawl across a room to get at his prosthetic arm and leg. He looked dog tired and frantic, but he almost managed a smile as Tyreen entered, then pointed to the far corner of the room, where John Bannon lay, covered with a sheet, his face bleeding.

She crossed the room and dropped to her knees at his side. "It's me, John," she whispered softly. "Me. You'll be okay now." She took his hand, then noticed that his arms were tied down.

He tried to smile through the pain as she freed his arms, then with great effort: "Will you still love me tomorrow, Tyreen?"

"Tomorrow and for all time," she said, giving his hand a squeeze.

She remained by his side until the authorities arrived. She remained with him in the ambulance.

Finally, at the hospital, a doctor had to have two orderlies remove her from Bannon's room to another and give her a sedative to make sure that she got her own rest.

Venice.

The Queen of the Adriatic. The four golden horses and the pigeons in St. Mark's Square. The gondolas gliding like painted swans down the lightly ruffled waters of the lagoon. The Lido, with suntanned bathers splashing in the waves.

All the tourist claptrap came into his mind as the plane landed at Marco Polo Airport. It was a domestic flight from Milan; most of the passengers were foreigners ending their Italian tour with a visit to the most beautiful city in Europe. Some would say, in the world.

He had never been here before. He was born in the Dolomites and his hair was fair and his eyes blue. He didn't look like an Italian. He had been given money and false papers. He had booked himself into a modest pensione some ten minutes' walk from the Grand Canal. He lined up with his fellow passengers for the water-bus that would take them out into the lagoon and land them by the Rialto Bridge. It was a warm May afternoon, and the first thing he noticed was the smell. A musty smell with refuse as its base, hinting at the rottenness beneath the surface of the blue-green water. For him, it symbolized the modern world. The excited people craning forward, pointing out the sights as they came into view, filled him with contempt. He saw no beauty in the splendid buildings, no romance in the extraordinary phenomenon of a city built on water. He would welcome the day when it crumbled and fell into the encroaching sea.

He heaved his suitcase up and disembarked. He had a map of the city; he walked through the dawdling crowds, a hurrying figure intent on finding refuge. The pensione was down a dark, cobbled side street, where the overhanging houses closed out the light and the twentieth century. He went to his room and unpacked. His equipment was concealed in the handle of his suitcase. His instructions were to leave the pensione but not the city after it was done. He was to go to a house on the Street of Assassins. Nobody would think of looking for him there.

John Bannon's condition was worse than at first suspected. The doctors insisted on keeping him under observation for a few more days before allowing him to return to London.

That left Tyreen Mackenzie at a loose end. She refused to return to London without him, yet there was little she could do for him in Naples. Finally, her brother Daniel came --- without knowing or caring exactly why she was in Naples in the first place --- and all but physically spirited her away for a few days' rest. He hadn't admitted it, but she was certain it had been at the instigation of their mother. Thus the Mackenzie siblings found themselves in Venice.

Daniel had insisted upon staying at the Gritti Palace. Tyreen would have preferred somewhere less ostentatious, less formidably expensive. But he had a childish love of luxury. He enjoyed being pampered, wallowing, as she unkindly put it, in red plush. As he had gotten the lion's share of their uncle's legacy, she allowed him to pamper her --- this time. And, she admitted to herself, she was enjoying it.

Tyreen looked at her watch. Dinner wasn't for another hour. She went into the bathroom, showered, and put on one of the long, uncrushable shifts that were a godsend to travelers. Her bedroom opened out onto a balcony not wide enough to stand on; she perched on the windowsill and leaned out. The panorama fascinated her. The faint smell of tainted water rose from the canal, the swish of waves following the water-buses and the motor cruisers lapped against the walls below; to the left the exquisite Church of Santa Maria Della Salute gleamed whitely against the darkening sky.

Naples seemed a million miles away; the London flat might have been on the moon. She could almost forget about the excitement and the problems of work, and John Bannon in his hospital room --- almost. That was the real purpose of a holiday. To escape from reality, to refresh the mind and the body for a return to the real world.

She loved her work. She loved the challenge of it and the sense of personal achievement. She had succeeded and confidence glowed inside her. And she was confident in her feminine nature. It had taken a man of her own race to fully awaken that in her. After his funeral she had taken off the wedding ring. She knew she would never put another in its place.

She didn't hear Daniel approach. He moved very quietly for a man of his size; he was his mother's son, after all. He put a hand on her shoulder and was pleased to feel her start.

He loved his little victories. They made him feel good. He enjoyed putting one over on his elder, full-blooded sister, proving that in spite of everything, she wasn't always on an equal footing. It also told him just how off her game she was.

"You'll catch cold, sitting in that draft."

"Don't be silly, it's beautifully warm. Why don't you grab a shower before dinner?"

"Why don't you stop being bossy?" He squeezed her shoulder with all of his half-Arion strength.

Tyreen hadn't seen her younger brother in over a year; he looked older. Still more youthful than a Terran of his years, he now looked as if he could be her elder brother.

She put her hand on his and gave it a squeeze, reminding him that while he was stronger than a normal Terran man, she was stronger still. "So, where are we going for dinner this evening?" She moved off the sill.

He reached over with his free hand and pulled the long window shut. "If you get a cold, Mama would never forgive me. So you mustn't be selfish."

She released his hand. "Yes, Dan-Dan," she said contritely, using their childhood name. No one else ever called him that.

"There's a marvelous restaurant off the Piazza San Marco. Why don't we go there?" He took his hand from her shoulder.

"Why not? We can have a drink in the bar first."

He had been given the codename "Italy." They were all known by the country of their birth. He had been well briefed on how to melt into the background. The great mistake was to arouse curiosity. In a city that delighted in gossip and lived the best part of its life in cafés, the recluse would cause comment. He must talk to his fellow guests and to the padrone in the pensione. He must tell them about his interest in architecture, paint the false picture of home and family that had been created for him, and he would be absorbed and forgotten. He was not gregarious by nature. Talking to strangers was an ordeal. But the time was short enough, and he spent the mornings walking the route, and going up and down by bus and gondola past the hotel on the Grand Canal. Finally he went into the hotel itself. The famous Gritti Palace, once owned by a Venetian nobleman, had been adapted to provide every luxury for those who could afford it.

He felt conspicuous going into the bar that overlooked the canal, but his clothes were expensive and there were numbers of young men like him drinking Camparis or Scotch. He didn't expect to see the target. Familiarize yourself with the background, get to know how people move in and out, when the vaporettos pull in for the evening runs, for the morning expeditions to the Cipriani out in the lagoon. Stand on the landing stage, sink yourself in the atmosphere so that nothing can take you by surprise. You won't need any of the things you'll observe and memorize if the plan goes well. But you may if it doesn't.

When the target came through the door and into the bar, he glanced up briefly, then finished his Scotch and left the hotel. If the planned method failed, then the bar at the Gritti could provide an alternative. He had seen the man accompanying the target. A bodyguard, naturally. He would keep the alternative as a very probable reserve.

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