A Song Called Youth (75 page)

“We’re making a mistake taking him along,” Torrence had said.

“You’re crazy from jealousy,” Levassier had snorted, saying what everyone thought.

And now Karakos was sitting over there with his face in the darkness.

Willow caught Torrence staring at Karakos. “Chasin’ ghosts again, ’ard-Eyes?”

Torrence ignored him. He didn’t answer to the monicker.

“I think I’m getting another fucking bladder infection,” Carmen said, pressing her knees together. “No fucking place to pee in here.”

“Pee in Willow’s ears, there’s room where his brains oughta be,” Torrence told her.

Nobody laughed.

The ship’s engines coughed, sputtered, fell silent. The ship was coasting along in a current, angling to intercept the
Hermes’ Grandson.

Fuck it,
Torrence thought.

He slapped a clip into his assault rifle.

A Trojan horse, the
Daniella
drifted, wallowing slowly, in a current that would carry it west, toward the
Hermes’ Grandson.
The Second Alliance ship, coming from their base in the Spanish Mediterranean port of Málaga, was steaming steadily east. At 0110, an hour and ten minutes after midnight, the radar of the
Hermes’ Grandson
took note of the approaching bulk of the
Daniella.
Radar watch informed the duty officer, who radioed the
Daniella
and asked for its ID number. The
Daniella
gave an ID number, which checked out with a registered oil tanker. According to the computer’s registration search the tanker was American-made but now owned by a Spanish company that imported oil from the Persian Gulf.

The
Daniella
’s first mate explained by radio that the ship had been on its way to the Persian Gulf when it experienced engine trouble arising from a short in the ship’s electrical system. The short not only froze the engine but also the electrical controls for the ship’s gigantic anchor. It could neither move aside nor drop anchor. And it was squarely in the way of the
Hermes’ Grandson.
However, it expected to get its electrical system working again in short order.

The duty officer on the
Hermes’ Grandson
was under orders not to alter course except in emergency, since there were believed to be mines in the waters off-course. The captain would not consider this an emergency. So the
Hermes’ Grandson
would have to pass close to the
Daniella.

The ship churned yet closer to the
Daniella.
And now, turned sideways relative to the SA ship, it was directly in the way. It wouldn’t be necessary to change course drastically to avoid the
Daniella.
They’d be a bit close together for a while. That was all. The SA duty officer swung starboard twenty degrees. The two ships slipped past each other in the dark. The
Daniella
was a squat black bulk against the starlight-tinged cobalt of the sea.

The duty officer of the
Hermes’ Grandson,
who was young and overconfident, almost forgot about the
Daniella.

Torrence chewed his lip as they rode another swell. He wondered if the SA ship would slip out of reach after all. The ship was in no hurry—but the little engines on the rafts were even slower.

They’d pushed off from the
Daniella
while the two ships were still parallel, the guerrillas’ faces and weapons blacked, swallowed in the inky night.

Now they saw the great light-edged bulk of the enemy’s ship ahead, looming like a cliff . . . blinked saltwater spray out of their eyes, heard the grind of the target ship’s engines, and felt its wash slapping the rafts as they plowed toward it with painful slowness.

Torrence could just make out Steinfeld in another raft, saw him looking over his shoulder at the
Daniella.
The sharpshooters, with their infrared sights, should be in place by now . . . and the minicopter should be taking off.

Aboard the
Hermes’ Grandson,
the duty officer was reaching for a cup of coffee when the call came. The deck sentry, his voice crackly in the intercom speaker, was yelling something about men in rafts.

What? the duty officer asked, Did he want men in rafts, or was there someone adrift out there, in a raft?

“No, dammit, sir, there are men in rafts with . . . ” The sentry broke off in the middle.

“What? What did you say?” the duty officer demanded. No reply.

But he got another call, from radar, about a small helicopter. “Well, where is it?”

“Directly overhead, sir.”

The duty officer punched the alarm button.

The sharpshooters had taken out three sentries, and the copter’s crew had landed on the deck, fixed four ladders to the rail, lowered them—the upper sections of the ladders adhered to the hull magnetically, but the loose bottom rungs were whipping along behind the thrust of the ship, jumping at the waterline in the trough of the wake.

Danco, at the raft’s little motor, opened the throttle, urging the raft within six feet of the ladder. It was dimly visible through darkness and spray. Torrence, rifle strapped to his back, said it for the second time that night: “Fuck it.” And jumped for the polymesh ladder.

He fell short, cold seawater closed around him, and he wished he hadn’t been too damn
cool
to wear a life jacket. He had a monstrously lucid image of himself lost at sea, treading water and spectacularly alone in the cold vastness with only minutes more to live before exposure and exhaustion dragged him under.

But his fingers closed over the synthetic smoothness of the rope ladder’s lower rung as it dragged in the wake, and he pulled hard, feeling as if he could feel the whole dark breadth of the sea sucking at his legs as he struggled up onto the ladder, nearly wrenching his arms from their sockets.

Then he was somehow several rungs up, clinging, gasping. He heard Steinfeld yell. He got his footing on the ladder, turned, caught the rope Willow threw him. Tied the rope to the ladder. The other end was tied to a raft. He swung over to the next ladder, caught another rope, tied another raft on . . . gunshots and sirens from above.

Bullets whipped up the waves and pocked the rafts in places, emptying raft compartments but not yet sinking the little crafts. Answering gunfire rattled from the
Daniella
as the guerrillas scrambled up the ladders. Torrence saw Karakos going up one of the ladders, all eager-beaver, damn him. He forced himself not to think about Karakos.
Just keep the paranoia out of your head, you’ve got a job to do.

And he and Danco and some of the others were almost up the railing.

There was a good chance he’d get to the top—and somebody’d blow his brains out the instant he stuck his head above the railing.

He moved past the scuppers, saw the gray-painted gunwale up ahead, getting closer. Wished he could climb and get at his rifle too. Maybe the seawater hadn’t damaged his .45.

He paused just long enough to tug the pistol from his jacket and clench it in his teeth. He continued upward, expecting that any second someone above would pick him off the rope with an SMG burst. His wet clothes were raspy and heavy and cold.

He reached the rail, put one hand on it, took the gun from his mouth with the other hand, and dragged himself up.

Below the sharp electric lighting of the superstructure was an expanse of gray deck, and four sprawled bodies, and a man pulling himself along in a welter of blood. The minicopter was there, too, with bullet holes in its windshield; one of its crew was slumped, nodding his head monotonously from pain.

Torrence climbed over; hit the deck the same moment as Willow, who was coming off one of the other ladders; and ducked when he saw a muzzle flash from the corner of the cane-shaped top of a ventilation shaft. He dodged left, toward the bow, wet clothing making him move sluggishly, firing wildly with the pistol toward the muzzle flash just to keep the guy down.

Unslinging his assault rifle, Torrence reached the corner of the steel superstructure, out of the vent gunman’s line of fire. He tucked the pistol in his coat, checked his rifle, and stepped out, around the corner.

Twenty-five feet away, a man in an SA regular’s uniform, but without his shoes, stepped out of a steel hatchway, spotted Torrence coming at the same moment.

Willow was circling the guy at the vent, Danco making him duck back with rifle fire. Willow came up behind the SA regular and shot away the back of his head . . . as other guerrillas poured over the gunwale, hit the deck, ran for position. Lila shouting orders at her team; somewhere else Steinfeld yelling commands. Gunshots cracked and ricochets whined from metal.

The Second Alliance guy without his shoes looked scared as he fiddled with the submachine gun in his hand, trying to get the clip into it properly—and then he saw Torrence, and the scared look became terror. The guy’s crotch went dark as he wet it. Torrence hesitated, imagining himself in this guy’s place, the clip going in wrong, an enemy coming with a gun and no way to defend yourself and knowing at this range that your enemy couldn’t miss.

Don’t stop to think, idiot! And he made himself level the assault rifle at the guy—

“Wait!” the guy squeaked.

—and squeeze the trigger, the burst catching the soldier square over his heart, slamming him back against the bulkhead; he slid down the steel wall, leaving a long, vertical smear of blood like a gravemarker above him.

Torrence turned away and went on; felt a revolting combination of elation and horror as he shot two more men.

They’d lost the advantage of real surprise, but they still had the edge, had the initiative, and they had Steinfeld’s leadership.

Torrence paused at a gangway leading up the superstructure to the bridge and drew his headset from its watertight pouch, put it on. He heard Steinfeld’s voice, strident in the little earphones: “Teams two and three, regroup at the main deck aft gangway. Teams one and four, secure the forecastle and fantail.”

An explosion and a ringing ran through the deck as one of the other teams tossed a seismic grenade through a hatch. Most of the enemy were still below, and Steinfeld was trying to contain them till the ship’s controls and its captain were taken.

Torrence waited in the shadow under a large metal fixture he couldn’t identify, across from the hatch. His team started showing up; Carmen and Farks and Kelheim and Willow, a little bent over as they ran, Farks looking white from fear, his chest heaving.
Asshole kid’s going to hyperventilate.
And then Torrence caught a motion out of the corner of his eye from somewhere above; looked up and saw a big guy in an armored SA uniform, complete with helmet, leveling an M-30 at Kelheim and the other guerrillas. Torrence yelled, “Up there!” and squeezed out his last six rounds at the SA bull. They knocked the bull back but failed to penetrate his armor—and at the same moment the bull opened up with his M-30, directing it sloppily as he staggered.

Willow ran up, fired at the bull on the upper deck—making him keep back—

Farks screamed and Kelheim cursed. Torrence looked, saw Farks lying on his side, bending double and straightening and bending, opening and closing like a mealworm on a hot rock, gut-shot. Mewling. Kelheim was on his knees clutching at his own inner thigh and looking panicky. Torrence was surprised to see Kelheim react so strongly to a thigh wound till he realized the German was afraid for his genitals.

Torrence took a clip from his belt pouch, slapped it into his rifle—and it went in crooked. It was stuck partway, he realized, as he glanced up to see a grim-faced middle-aged guard come at him, raising an automatic rifle.

He saw in his mind’s eye, again, the guy who’d got his clip stuck, the look of fear in the man’s eyes, the whimper of
Wait!

He had just time enough to think,
At least I’m not going to pee my pants
—

When Carmen ran up and shot the guy through the head with her side arm, two neat rounds, no hesitation. As Torrence cleared his clip, pushed it in.

Thinking,
But I almost did pee my pants . . . 

Willow was firing at the guard above them again as Carmen hissed, “Keep him pinned, I got the only piercer.” She ran around the corner of the superstructure, fired at someone Torrence couldn’t see, on her way to the gangway. She had to get closer to the bull for the armor-piercing round to work—and Torrence wondered if she’d gotten shot.

Then the bull fired down at him, missing with that burst; Torrence could see the armor’s helmet, a glinting arc in the light from the bulkhead. A round scored paint from the cowl Torrence crouched under, making him jump a little. He returned fire, saw sparks jump as his short burst sang off the bulkhead—and then Carmen was there, padding up from the left, raising one of the little guns that fired armor-penetrating explosive bullets. The bull saw her, turned to aim his weapon. She fired; he fired. He missed; she didn’t. His armor ballooned and he screamed, fell back.

Young Farks was lying still now, and Torrence couldn’t keep himself from thinking the inevitable:
What a waste.

Kelheim sprayed sealant on his thigh and then stood up, turned to shout a question at someone, trying to adjust his headset—and Kelheim’s head exploded between his hands. One moment he was standing there shouting, his confidence back, once more part of the fight—the next his skull had flown apart under the impact of a round from an assault rifle fired from the lower corner of the superstructure. An SA regular, a stocky Hispanic carrying an M-18, was there, looking around.

Torrence stepped out to get a clear shot at him. Avenge Kelheim. The Hispanic SA—holding his rifle braced under his arm—was leveling the gun at Torrence.

One of those moments. The worst sort. When you can see the man you want to kill and the man you want to kill can see you, and you aren’t under cover, and you aren’t far from each other, and the outcome, your life or death, was contingent on a lot of factors, some of them out of your control. Not just a question of who shot better and faster. Could have just as much to do with who happened to have light shining in his eyes; who happened to be lined up best for a shot.