Haven, p.35
Haven, page 35
“How would he know Elizabeth?" Kessler asked Tarrant.
“Listen...shoot that one. The one by that cart.”
Kessler shoved him forward. "Answer my question.”
“How do I know? Who the hell is Elizabeth? Shoot the Arab before he can set off that bomb.”
This now struck Kessler as a reasonable suggestion but he wanted to be close for a one-shot kill because each bullet he had might be needed. A more immediate concern was Elizabeth. Elizabeth had not seen him. She was about to jump down and he wanted her out of this. All that stopped her was the girl who was trying to follow and Elizabeth was trying to push her away.
“You!" Kessler shouted. "Both of you. Get back." He avoided speaking her name.
She followed the sound; most other heads didn't, but Elizabeth knew his voice in an instant. He repeated, "Yes, you. I'm talking to you. Get away before that thing explodes.”
Puzzlement, concern appeared on her face. She gestured toward his waist. She mouthed "How bad?" A toss of his head said it's nothing. She mouthed, "Bullshit," and drew a gun from her apron. She gestured to Tarrant and shrugged a "Who's that?”
You choose the worst times for conversation, Elizabeth. He tightened his grip on Tarrant's collar and raised his pistol in the air. He fired twice to get everyone's attention and told them the thing on the cart is a bomb. This started them moving but only a few.
Elizabeth shielded the girl with her body but otherwise stayed where she was. Most of the others backed away a few feet but the rest only blinked in total confusion. Several were peering through video cameras recording the rantings of the man with one eye. This man had barely reacted to the gunshots. He gave no sign that he recognized Tarrant. Instead he raved on; he was quoting the Koran. He said, "Garments of fire have been prepared for you all. Scalding water shall be poured on your heads...water hotter than molten brass...water so hot that it will melt your skin and even that which is in your bellies. You shall be lashed with rods of iron forever. Your only food will be the fruit of the Zaqqum tree...you think pig shit tastes bad? Just you wait.”
For this, Kessler grumbled, he had wasted two bullets.
He dropped his sights across the one-eyed man's forehead. But no sooner had he started to squeeze the trigger when Bandari rose up from behind his railing and now he was holding a shotgun. He was raising it to aim it up at the crowd. Kessler knew that his target could only be Elizabeth. He shouted "Bandari" and fired. He missed. The bullet only blew off some chromium trim. Bandari, however, yelped and ducked down. Kessler couldn't see him but now Elizabeth could. She was looking down from the sea wall. He saw her pistol as its sights tried to find him. It was wandering as if she could not get a shot.
“He's got cover," she called. "Go and get him, your side.”
At her words came a blast from Bandari's shotgun and a part of boat's aft railing exploded. Elizabeth held her stance so it wasn't at her. That blast, and the next, got the crowd finally running. The next was the same. He was shooting his boat. It was Tarrant who understood why.
“He's shooting at that line, at the cleat that's holding it. If he frees it he's gone with that boat.”
“Then move.”
Tarrant went with him willingly. On the boat would be safer. As he ran in a crouch he called up to Elizabeth. Tarrant knew her or he didn't but she did have a pistol. "Will you shoot him?" he pleaded. He was pointing toward the Arab. "He's trying to blow us all up.”
Kessler shouted to her, "No! Get away. Just go home.”
She seemed to realize what he was trying to do. Her eyes said, "Forget it. It's too late for that." Even so, she hesitated. Another time she would not have. But this time her Aisha was clinging to her side and this time there were too many targets to cover. She was holding her pistol in both her hands still trying for Bandari should he raise his head while trying to watch the two young Arabs who were down and any more baggy jackets that might suddenly appear. Add to these, behind her, two black faces were coming.
Kessler gave Tarrant a shove toward the boarding steps. He swung his Walther on the man with one eye. A roar from the engines spoiled his aim as he fired. The stern line broke free. It lashed the air like a whip. Kessler fired through a great cloud of smoke from the exhaust. But he did see the Arab double over, clutch his groin, and sink to his knees well away from the cart. The bullet hit too low for a killing shot but Kessler had no time for another. The boat was moving. Tarrant scrambled aboard, still using his briefcase as a shield. But Tarrant didn't need it because, Kessler saw, that Bandari had managed to climb to his bridge. He caught only a glimpse of Bandari's head and a furious wheeling of his shoulders as he steered. The boarding ladder was being dragged from the dock. Kessler summoned what remained of his strength and leaped for the ladder himself.
Bandari's fear had advanced to hysteria. He tried to tell himself that it could not be possible that Tarrant had suddenly appeared on that dock. Bad enough his niece, bad enough that Algerian, bad enough some man in short pants with a gun and everyone shooting at everyone else. That man wasn't Tarrant. Just some man in a suit. Some tall, skinny man with a briefcase. But he did know that man, the one in short pants. That was the one he'd seen back by those trailers stabbing another with some great wide knife.
It could not have been Tarrant.
Tarrant couldn't be here. Next he'll be seeing Libyan Colonels.
But if it was, now he'll die. Every one of them will die. And he, Bandari, will be safe on his boat as soon as he hits open water. They will die and all the warheads, at least those in Suez, will be his to sell to the Libyan colonels. Half price, he'll give them. Even colonels like a bargain. They can't be so mad if he gives them half price.
Bandari slammed his throttles forward. Too far. The engines coughed and bucked. They both almost stopped. He eased the throttles back while trying to steer. Now the wheel got away from him, only for an instant. His port side raked the hull of another large yacht. In correcting from that he bounced off the slip and struck a small speedboat that was idling in his path while its owner tried to watch the excitement on shore. The owner fell into the water on one side, the speedboat was pushed to the other. The speedboat kept going, its engine still running, until it crashed sideways into a piling.
Bandari ignored them. He cut his wheel left and then right toward the channel. As he did so he glanced back toward his slip. He could not see the man who he thought looked like Tarrant or the man with short pants who was shooting. The thought seized his stomach that they might have jumped on board. But no. They could not have. For there on his quarterdeck was Ozal's other soldier still holding his prayer book and bleeding from the mouth. The soldier looked almost too sick to move but would surely have reacted if those men had tried to board.
Above the sea wall he saw those two blacks who were dressed in blue Van Der Meer jackets. They were waving at people, telling them to run. That woman with Aisha was throwing Aisha down while looking back over her shoulder at something. Bandari grazed another piling while trying to see. She was looking, he realized, down at Ozal who was staggering drunkenly back toward the cart while pressing both hands to his gut. Those shots that were fired. One must have hit Ozal. Ozal reached the cart. There were flames coming from it. Bandari wondered, why doesn't it explode?
This question had barely formed in his mind when the cart erupted but not like a bomb. It was more like a rocket, like a holiday flare. The cans shot up no higher than the roofs of the buildings ringing the harbor. They fell back to earth. People easily duck
ed them. The cart did a dance; it hopped up and down. Bandari heard the load hiss from many boat lengths away. Ozal, for a moment, was swallowed by the smoke. But now, there he was, he was stumbling back out of it. His hair and his clothing were on fire.
A woman, the black one, seemed ready to shoot him but the man, the other black, seems to say let him burn. Ozal is screaming, not in pain, more like rage. Bandari watched in horror as he bounced off the sea wall then turned and lurched down the now vacant slip. Bandari could see that his blindness was total. His soldier who stayed tried to help him but couldn't. Ozal was reeling. His legs were all that worked. But his legs betrayed him and led him off the slip. One took a step but found nothing. Ozal tumbled headlong off the dock. Another billow of steam rose up from the surface as the water extinguished his flames. Ozal waved feebly as if in slow motion. He rolled over once and was still. It was finished. He was floating face down in the harbor. Above him the cart was a single huge ember. The plastic was melting onto the dock and the wheels were splaying outward as their axle burned through.
Bandari cursed God for his terrible luck. He cursed the braggart, Ozal, for his dud. He thought of Avram who had once said to him, "God enjoys a good joke. Remember that, Gamal. He enjoys playing jokes on little people who mock him.”
Well, the joke, this time, is on Ozal, not on him. On him is only bad luck. The woman, the girl, and their protectors are still alive. He almost wished he'd let Ozal use that warhead but at least he was right on that score. Ozal would have muddled it. They would all now be dying. Instead, at worst, he has a terrible headache and he's sick to his stomach from all that has happened.
The channel was clear. No police yet, no Coast Guard. What he needed to do was get into open water so that he can dispose of the canisters on board. The American authorities won't be able to arrest him because he has diplomatic status. They would make a big stink about those warheads, however, and Cairo might revoke his protection. Better to be rid of them as soon as he's clear. After that the authorities can ask all they want. Until he gets home they will have to protect him. He'll be safe from Tarrant and that woman as well. He will say that Ozal made him come here by force. Ozal, the terrorist, the maker of bombs. He will say that he sabotaged the bomb Ozal built and that's why so many lives have been spared.
For that they will say that Bandari is a hero. For that they should give him a medal.
Elizabeth had thrown herself upon Aisha. Roy Willis grabbed Jasmine but Jasmine fought him off as she tried to get Aisha's fleeing uncle in her sights. The heat from the flaring bomb seared her eyes.
Elizabeth was up as soon as she realized that the force of the bomb had been spent. She saw the Alhambra, by then in the channel. She could see neither Martin nor the man with the briefcase but she knew they had scrambled on board. She would follow, she decided, in one of these boats. She would take it at gunpoint if she had to.
Roy Willis, nearby, had had much the same thought. But Willis had his eye on the unmanned speedboat that was pounding a piling from the waves of Bandari's wake. He picked up Jasmine, threw her over her shoulder and shouted for Aisha and Elizabeth to follow. Jasmine asked him what's happening. He told her what he saw. She insisted, "I'll be fine. You get him.”
Elizabeth had spotted the speedboat as well. She hesitated, only for a moment, deciding whether to whack Aisha's knee so that Aisha would be unable to follow. But she couldn't. She hissed, "You stay here. Don't you move.”
“No way. I'm staying with you.”
Elizabeth didn't argue. They would get to the boat. Once there she could throw the girl over the side. It would teach her to do as she's told.
THIRTY FIVE
Kessler stood, his back pressed to a bulkhead as he tried to assess both his strength and his chances. Bandari, on the bridge up the stairs to his left, had given no sign that he knew they had boarded him. He could not see them from there, nor could he hear them above the roar of his diesels. Or at least Kessler hoped so. He was less than eager to climb those narrow stairs when a shotgun is waiting at the top.
He had forced Tarrant to sit on the deck, his back against the same bulkhead. Toward the stern, also sitting, was Bandari's other crewman. He should finish them, he knew, and not have them behind him. But that would make noise and besides he had questions. Also these two were being strangely calm.
The crewman had barely reacted to their boarding. He sat looking back at the Harbour Town waterfront, his expression serene although he looked deathly pale. He sat against the railing with his knees drawn up, his arms hugging his belly. Blood was drying on his mouth. His jaw hung crookedly. The man had been beaten, maybe shot, and seemed unarmed. Kessler could see little of whatever he was looking at. Black smoke still rose and spread from the cart, obscuring almost all movement on shore.
“Those people," he asked Tarrant, "are they all dead or dying?" His mind was on Elizabeth in particular.
“I don't know. It depends. I don't know what was in it.”
Tarrant's manner was subdued. He'd seemed genuinely aghast when the bomb flared up and the cloud of black smoke began to roll inland.
“You. What was in it?" Kessler spoke to the crewman. The crewman offered a weak smile in response. Kessler raised his Walther, he aimed at this man's knee. "I will ask one more time. What was in it?”
The man smiled again, more broadly this time. Slowly, deliberately, he unfolded his arms and picked up an object he'd been holding in his lap. It was silver, scraped and dented, shaped like a small football. He rolled it toward Kessler. As it rolled, it wobbled. It veered toward Tarrant's feet. Tarrant sagged when he saw what it was.
“Well? What is it?" Kessler asked him.
“It's a nuclear warhead," Tarrant answered with a sigh. "An enhanced radiation device.”
Tarrant reached out a tentative finger. With it he traced where the thing had been scored. Kessler blinked, not knowing what surprised him the most; what the thing was or how Tarrant was acting. He seemed not so much frightened as tired.
“So? Meaning what? Was one like it in that bomb?”
Tarrant raised his eyes to those of the crewman. The crewman dropped his own. He muttered something in Arabic. He glanced up toward Bandari's bridge and he spat.
Tarrant seemed to understand. He picked up the warhead. He examined it with an odd look of wonder.
“It's not killing them. It's killed us," he told Kessler.
Ozal's soldier smiled again when he saw the man's face, the man with the blood dripping out from his jacket. Ozal's soldier could see that he did not yet believe it. He will know soon enough that it is so.
The soldier knew Tarrant by the sound of his voice. This was the man who offered Stingers to Ozal. This was also the man who Bandari had feared and who he cheated by stealing two warheads. This Tarrant was now asking him questions.
He ignored them at first. But Tarrant was polite. There was no harm in answering because the answers won't help them. These two and Bandari would soon be in hell. All he asked in return was that Bandari should suffer. These two must avenge the betrayal of Ozal by Bandari, that cowardly pig. Tarrant promised that it would be done.
Are there weapons on board? Yes, but only on the bridge. What of these warheads, are the rest still in Suez? Yes, as far as he knows, except for this one and the one still below. That one is untouched. It is still in its original container. Why this place? It was practice. Next would come half of Cairo because that is where they tortured Ozal. After that, to Suez to get more of these things. After that, Tel Aviv and after that you should see. You should look for yourself at the maps Ozal made. After that would have come America's turn.
Poor Ozal.
He did not die as gloriously or as painlessly as he'd hoped but at least there was the water to cool him in the end. Ozal did his best. It was not his fault. His hands were not up to such delicate work especially in devising the timer. And the nitro was too cold; it did not have time to heat up. Bandari had kept sneaking more and more ice on it because he was afraid for his boat. All that blew was the primer, all that burned was the chemicals. In the end it was like striking a very big match.
God won't hold a grudge.
Ozal did not make the wide slaughter that he promised, not here and not in West Cairo as he'd hoped. But God, even now, is telling Ozal that he's not going to hold that against him. Ozal has killed plenty in his years of making bombs. A thousand young men keep his picture on their walls. They sing songs about him at weddings. God, he feels sure, will be satisfied.
“You're sure about this?" Kessler stared hard at Tarrant.
“I would save a bullet for yourself if I were you.”
The boat, at that moment, lurched from under his feet as Bandari gave his engines full throttle. Kessler slid down the bulkhead and crashed to the deck. The trowel in his belt cut into his thigh and a gush of fresh blood oozed out from his wound. He recovered quickly before Tarrant could jump him but Tarrant, he saw, had no such intention. He sat there, still holding that thing in his hand, one elbow resting on his briefcase. He hefted it.
“You'd think the damned thing would be warm," he told Kessler.
Kessler still did not believe it. But maybe it was true. If so, what he found even harder to believe was that a man like Tarrant would accept that he's dying so easily.
“You're so ready to die?”
“No, I'm not. Not quite yet.”
Tarrant gestured toward the crewman who was trying to vomit. There was nothing left inside him to come up. "And you saw the other one back on the dock. In an hour or two we'll be like that ourselves. Well...not you. I imagine you'll bleed to death first.”
Kessler feared that Tarrant was right about that. But Pratt lasted quite a while with worse wounds than this. Hard to count on it, though. You can never tell with bullets. He decided that he might as well do what he came for. Finish Tarrant, do it quietly, then climb up those steps and put one big hole in Bandari.
After that...he's not sure...perhaps he'll take a long boat ride.
Give Elizabeth time to get away from this island.
The borrowed speedboat cleared the harbor channel just as the Alhambra picked up speed toward open water. Roy Willis had the wheel. Elizabeth sat with him. Willis had flipped on the VHF radio to hear any traffic from other boats in the area. There was much, mostly asking what had happened at Harbour Town. Elizabeth was counting the cartridges in her
