Butler Did It! (27 page)

The deck continued to cant to the
starboard side until it became impossible to get a footing. Going
for the port railing to keep from sliding down the deck, Larson
spotted Matthew Butler stabilizing the grappling hook on the
railing as Tommy slipped over and began the treacherous descent to
the Dolphin. Rage suddenly blotted out Larson’s desire for personal
safety as he realized that here were the men responsible for the
death of his ship.

Gripping the railing tightly with one
hand Larson pulled a gun from his shoulder holster and took aim.
Butler looked up just in time to see the muzzle flash. The bullet
spanged off a stanchion near his head and Butler knew that only the
combination of a rough sea and a listing ship had prevented Larson
from killing him. Butler reached for his Beretta but just as he
pulled it from his holster, the Ambigu rolled back to port,
throwing Butler to his knees against the bridge hatchway. The
Beretta slid along the decking, slithered under the railing and
disappeared into the night. The lurch that had knocked Butler down
had done the same to Larson, who was struggling to get back to his
feet. Butler realized that if he didn't stop Larson, the man's next
bullet would kill him.

A particularly heavy wave struck the
Ambigu broadside at that moment. The deck suddenly became a wall,
with the railing now nearly above Butler's head. Using the railing
uprights like a gymnast working the horizontal bars, Butler swung
himself toward Larson and drove both feet hard into the big man’s
chest just as Larson was getting a bead on Butler. The gun flew
from Larson's hand, ricocheted off a bulkhead and fell
overboard.

Tommy, completely unaware of the danger
above him, was struggling as he tried to climb down the side of the
ship to the Dolphin. His plan for using the Zip-Zip to lower
himself quickly became impossible. As the ship rolled to starboard,
he could almost walk down the side of the ship, but as she rolled
back to port, he would find himself swinging like a pendulum just
above the angry waves. Of course, on the roll back to starboard, if
he could not get his feet beneath him, he would slam hard into the
side of the hull. Barnacles tore at his arms and back, ripping
through his clothing, and leaving long, bleeding
scrapes.

Now I know what a yoyo in a blender
feels like
. He grimaced as he slammed into the hull for the
third time.

Before Larson could recover from the
two-footed blow, Matthew scrambled to get over the railing, hoping
to follow Tommy down to safety. He was standing, straddling the
mostly horizontal railing when Larson’s huge hand closed on his
right ankle. With his other hand, Larson drew a flensing knife from
his belt. Red fire belching from the holds of the Ambigu winked on
the surface of the ten inch curved blade turning it into a
glittering, evil eye. Matthew wrenched his ankle away from Larson’s
hold and balanced on the railing, preparing for the
attack.

You’re an arrogant Bastard, aren’t
you
, thought Butler, taking in Larsen’s confident stance, and
the way he held his knife, loosely, like a delicate
bird.

Chan’s voice echoed in Matthew’s mind;
Remember, relax, or your opponent will defeat you.
Perhaps
it was the hours of training, or the absolute necessity of the
situation, but he felt the tension flow away from him as he assumed
his defensive stance. The little smile that came to Butler’s face
seemed to both disconcert and enrage Larson as the big man pulled
himself up to balance on the railing opposite Butler.

The knife glowed dully, weaving between
Larson and Butler as the ship continued to heave and sway. Butler
never took his eyes off Larson’s torso and he was ready when the
lunging attack came. He dodged the blow, grabbing Larson’s wrist
with his left hand and turned so that the knife passed between
them. Immediately, Butler drove his body into the back of Larson’s
extended elbow. Something between a shriek and a bellow burst from
the man’s lips as his elbow broke. The knife clattered away down
the canting deck.

That ought to stop him
, thought
Matthew, using the moment to leap to the port side hull, the one
place on the ship where, for the moment, he could keep his footing.
Abruptly, the rope on which Tommy dangled, struggling to reach the
tethered Dolphin, scythed Matthew’s feet out from under him.
Falling, he grabbed desperately for the railing. Larson rebounded,
brutally landing a crushing blow to Matthew’s ribcage.

“Take that, you bastard,” Larson
growled, and swung another sledgehammer blow toward Matthew’s
head.

The returning roll of the ship
prevented Larsen from landing the second blow and forced both men
to cling to the railing to avoid being washed overboard.

Gasping at the pain in his ribs,
Matthew marveled that the man was still attacking, even after
having his elbow broken. He breathed out, letting his mind clear,
and faced his opponent, waiting for the next attack. The ship
rolled again, bringing the side up under their feet. Immediately
taking advantage of the situation, Larson grabbed Butler in a bear
hug, crushing the breath out of him as he gasped at the agony in
his ribs. Matthew struck with stiffened fingers, twice quickly
under the rib cage, causing Larson to scream in pain. Larson backed
away, panting. Again, back in a stalemate situation, both men
balanced uneasily on the side of the rolling ship, each looking for
an advantage.

Just when Tommy had made up his mind to
give up the yoyo forever and take his chances in the waves, a
ponderous roll to starboard lay the Ambigu over on its side,
crushing the wreck of the rebel trawler. Tommy now found himself
standing upright on the hull of the Ambigu not thirty feet from the
Dolphin. Holding the rope, he began running sideways along the
hull, trying to get back to where the submersible lay tethered on
the side of the dying Ambigu. Butler saw the taut rope swinging
back toward Larson. Feinting toward the man a moment before the
rope made contact; he leapt away as the rope caught Larson on the
ankles, knocking his feet out from under him. Matthew took the
opportunity to run a few steps toward the Dolphin, but Larson
rolled and was up before Matthew could get away, coming at him with
a double-fisted blow to the head. Letting his training carry him,
Matthew softened his stance, deflected the punch, and let the
momentum carry Larson past him. If Matthew had resisted, it would
have been a killing blow, but his technique took all of the power
out of it and left Larson with nothing to hit. The two began to
tumble down the side of the ship as it began to roll back upward,
becoming once again a wall instead of a floor.

With a yell of frustration, Tommy went
swinging back away from the Dolphin. Matthew caught the rope as it
passed. Larson wrapped his good arm around Butler’s legs and cursed
as the swing of the rope dragged him across razor sharp barnacles.
Matthew twisted his legs, using one to wipe Larson’s grip off the
other.

An eerie, echoing scream of metal
accompanied the ship’s final roll as she came over, completely on
her side, exposing a gaping dark hole in the hull near the keel,
hellishly lit by sporadic explosions and pockets of fire in the
ship’s depths.

Tommy regained his feet and looked up
the line to see what was making it behave so strangely. He saw
Matthew Butler heave himself free of the grip of the much larger
Larson and begin scrambling away. Roaring, Larson raised himself up
and grabbed Butler by the back of his neck. Butler let his legs go
out from under him and twisted in Larson’s grip, grabbing the
fingers of the hand that held him and bending them painfully
backward. Looking Larson in the eye, he slowly increased the
pressure.

“Quit now,” he said,
quietly.

An incoherent below of rage was
Larson’s answer; pushing against Butler’s grip, he broke his own
fingers as he tried to attack once again. With a convulsive reflex
of pain, the big man pulled away. Taking advantage, Butler
instantly brought up his other hand in a blow to the chest, using
the momentum of Larson’s withdrawal to send the man flying
backward, away from Butler and down the side of the ship. Tommy
watched in amazement as the man stumbled and slid past him, falling
inevitably into the glowing gap in Ambigu’s hull. Larson’s mouth
was a dark hole in his white face as he fell screaming into the
inferno below.

Matthew slid down the rope to where
Tommy waited for him, half standing and half hanging on the rolling
side of the ship. 

“We’d better get out of here fast,”
said Matthew, “this ship is in free-fall to Hell.”

Fighting an increasing wind and the
movement of the ship, they reached the Dolphin, now resting on the
upturned side of the ship. They lowered the little craft as far as
the ropes would allow. This left them swinging and banging against
the side of the Ambigu about twenty feet above the
water.

“We can’t close the hatch until we
release the ropes and as soon as we release the ropes we’re going
to be falling,” Tommy warned.

“It’ll be okay as long as we stay with
the Dolphin, you know she won’t sink, even filled with water and
with two men standing in the cockpit,” said Matthew.

Each of them put one hand on the canopy
to pull it shut as quickly as possible, and with the other hand,
they released the ropes, abandoning the magnetic devices now left
behind high on the side of the Ambigu.

The pair fell into their seats and
slammed the canopy shut as the little craft rolled and tumbled past
the gaping hole into which they had just seen Larson
fall.

They splashed into the water and Tommy
immediately hit the power to carry them into the waves and away
from the Ambigu. The tiny craft’s engines whined, fighting against
the suction created by the sinking ship. The Dolphin shot into the
air as it came free of the drag of the doomed freighter. Tommy dove
under the brutal eight-foot waves and into the peaceful
depths.

“Fifty feet should be deep enough,”
Tommy said after a couple of minutes at maximum battery speed. He
turned the Dolphin so they could see the sinking hulk as it fell
into the depths. They could hear the vast ship groan as the deep
finally claimed her, explosions still flashing in her
interior.

“Well, we didn’t mess around, did we?”
Tommy breathed.

Butler knew Tommy was having regrets
about all the lives lost. “Yeah, but how many lives did we save by
sending those guns to the bottom?”

“Well that takes care of that, huh? No
more guns, no more Black Patch.”

“Not really,” Matthew sighed, “those
were just the loose ends of this deal. There’s one more little
mystery I’d like to solve, and it means going after the real
villain, the one who put the gun deal together,” said Butler. “Take
her up to the surface and put her on a heading for the north end of
Mahe; we’ll report the wreck so that anyone nearby can pick up
survivors. Then I’d like to get Captain Z and Trask in on a plan to
go after Levasseur. And,” he said, sniffing at his shirt, “we could
use the fresh air.”

<<>>

No one on the Pelican was sleeping
tonight as they waited for the report on Tommy and Butler’s
mission. Leaning on the bridge railing with a cup of coffee, Kobi
resolved to confront Butler at the first opportunity and demand to
be involved in what he considered his own operation.

Kobi was frustrated and angry, more
with himself than with others. While the people on the Pelican were
friendly and supportive, he felt that they just didn’t understand
what the theft of the artifacts meant to Kenya, or to him. He felt
left out of everything, when it was his job to recover the
artifacts and bring these thieves and murderers to justice.
Somehow, over the short time it took to recover from his injuries,
Butler’s bunch had taken control of his problem. As a result, he
was stuck on the Pelican while operations happened without
him.

“You look like a man lost in the
ozone,” a familiar voice announced. “The rumor mill said you were
down in the dumps.”

Kobi turned to see Richard the Great
approaching. The Pelican’s communication tech was wearing a dark
blue t-shirt with ‘BLUE VELVEETA’ printed in bold yellow
letters.

“I’m realizing how useless I’ve become,
while others do my job. I feel as if I’ve been left behind.” Kobi
bitterly summarized.

“Well, perhaps I can help. On the
Pelican, I’m the best source for information.” Richard leaned his
elbows on the railing and started speaking in an informer’s
whisper. “Just moments ago, Matthew radioed in the details on the
sinking of the ship with the guns on it. By the way, he also
mentioned that Levasseur has your missing artifacts.”

“That’s great!” Kobi yelled, suddenly
elated. “Where are they?”

“Matthew thinks that Levasseur took
them to his compound on Mahi.” Smiling Richard threw in an offhand
remark. “Oh, and you might also be interested to know that Trask
and his security red shirts are forming a raiding party down on the
cargo deck right now. Butler plans to raid Levasseur’s compound
just as quick as he can work out the logistics.”

Kobi snapped upright with a start. He
dropped his coffee cup and suddenly rushed off toward the bow.
“Thanks for the information, Richard,” he yelled behind
him.