Warren Murphy - Ship Of Death

Remo dropped Smith's foot. It bit the floor with a thud that forced Smith to wince. "What?" Remo said.

"Secret passageways in middle of ship. Heard people planning explosions. They caught me."

"How the hell'd you get in there?" Remo asked, remembering how he had sealed the entrance door.

"Used crowbar to open closed door."

"And they were already inside?"

Smith tried to nod and groaned again. There must be another entrance to the passages, Remo realized.

Smith struggled up to a sitting position. "Remo. Go stop that fire. Thousands die. Thousands die. Thousands."

"Will you be all right?"

"Fine. Go."

Remo dashed past Chiun into the passageway and ran at full speed toward the stairs leading to the upper deck. Chiun was at his side.

"I am proud of you, my son," he said.

"Why?"

"For doing the right thing."

"What right thing?" Remo asked.

"Running away. We will get ourselves upstairs and commandeer a small boat and be far from this evil vessel before anything happens."

"Wrong," said Remo. "We are going to dismantle those bombs."

"Then why are we running away from them? The bombs are hidden below us."

"I'm getting us some help," said Remo.

"Who needs help?"

"Good. I'm glad you said that. Chiun, you go down and start taking apart those bombs. I'll be right there."

"Orders, orders, orders," said Chiun, even as he turned and sped down the stairs toward the belly of the ship.

Remo got to the deck just in time to see Aristotle Thebos step hurriedly onto the elevator, close its door and head down below toward the platform where his power launch waited.

The deck was crowded. The seas were smooth and some of the diplomats and their staff had taken a break from the party and come up to the deck for fresh sea air. They were clustered around the Skouratis helicopter.

Remo looked over the side of the ship. Thebos stepped onto the little dock, next to his launch. There were a half dozen men there, carrying attaché eases, waiting for him. The launch was just tying up.

Where had the men with the attaché cases come from?

Remo had no time to worry about that. He moved through the crowd toward the Skouratis helicopter. The crowds of people had hidden it from view. But close up, Remo could see it had been wrecked. Wires were torn, and the motor had been dismantled. Parts were strewn over the wooden deck. Skouratis and Helena looked up from the deck at the pilot who was inspecting the damage. Skouratis had his arm around Helena's shoulders.

She had disobeyed her father and, unless Remo missed his guess, she planned to disobey him even more and spend the night on Skouratis' yacht.

"Greek," Remo said, moving up alongside them.

Skouratis fixed him with a malevolent squint while asking Helena: "You know this person?"

"Ignore him, dear."

"This ship is going to blow, Greek, and it's your doing," said Remo. "Let's go."

Skouratis tried to signal to his guards in the crowd but his right arm wouldn't move. Remo held the elbow in a pincer between his thumb and middle finger.

"Don't yell, don't signal, just move," Remo said. He shoved Skouratis in front of him as if he were a child's push toy on wheels.

Two guards moved toward them. "Tell them it's all right," Remo said.

"It's all right," Skouratis told the two men who moved aside to let them pass.

"What do you mean this ship is going to blow?" asked Skouratis, as Remo pushed him into a hatchway leading to the steps going below.

"What I mean is, your goons have set their bombs and if it goes, you go."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Skouratis said.

"We'll see."

Below, Remo found the broom-closet door pried open, where Smith had used his crowbar. The rip in the inside steel wall had been enlarged by Chiun and Remo pushed Skouratis through the opening.

In the inside passageway, Skouratis looked around in bewilderment. "What is this?" he said.

"What I don't understand is why you'd want to blow up your own ship?" Remo said.

"Damn you, crazy American. I don't know what you're talking about. What the hell is this place?"

"And you don't know?"

"No, I don't. I never built this. This was oil-storage space. It was never changed over when the ship was remodeled. There should be no corridors here, no rooms."

"There are now," said Remo. "Corridors, rooms, computers, closed-circuit TV. And bombs."

Chiun came down the passageway toward them.

"It is very bad," he said, shaking his head.

"What is?" asked Remo.

"I have found some bombs. I have busted them. There are many more."

"Well, we'll bust them all," said Remo.

"And there is gasoline everywhere. Bottles of gasoline, clothes soaked with it, and radio devices everywhere," said Chiun.

"Thebos," Skouratis spat. "That pimp."

"What's he got to do with it?" asked Remo.

"That's why he's been promoting this ship as mine. He's planning to sink it, and me, too. The Skouratis disaster. That pandering piece of garbage."

He pulled away from Remo who was surprised by the small man's force. Remo took a step toward the ripped wall to head off Skotiratia. But, instead, the Greek stepped farther into the corridor.

"Where are these bombs? This gasoline?" he asked Chiun.

"Down there. Everywhere," said Chiun, gesturing along the corridor with his hand.

Skouratis went down the corridor, running at full speed.

"No pimp in patent-leather pumps will destroy a Skouratis ship," he roared. His voice echoed through the metal-walled passageway as if it were the voice of doom.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Aristotle Thebos stepped hurriedly from the launch onto his yacht Ulysses and took the pair of field glasses that were immediately extended toward his hand.

He leaned over the railing and focused the glasses on Ship of States, moving majestically through the gathering night gloom, dipping, rising, crushing wave and swell under its giant prow.

"How many minutes?" he asked.

One of the six men who clambered onto the yacht from the stern of the launch looked at his wrist-watch.

"Three minutes more," he said.

"And the helicopter will not fly?" asked Thebos. "Are you sure?"

"Not unless they can find a way to fly a helicopter without an engine," the man said.

Thebos laughed and lowered the glasses. He turned to a uniformed officer aboard the yacht.

"Tell Miss Helena to come on deck. It is time she learned that the shipping business is not all polite smiles and whipped-cream cakes."

"Miss Helena, sir?" the man asked.

"Yes."

"Miss Helena has not returned to the yacht. Isn't she with you?" the officer said.

Thebos dropped the field glasses. They bounced on the railing of the yacht, then slipped into the cold Atlantic.

"You mean she's still…"

No one answered. Thebos turned away and watched the United Nations ship. His hands gripped the rail like two vises. Only a few minutes more. No time to return for her. His daughter would die before his eyes.

"Too many of them," Skouratis yelled, ripping wires from a cluster of dynamite sticks. "Too many of them." He straightened up and Iooked around. Throughout all the corridors were explosives and fire bombs, each set with individual timing devices. "We can't get them all."

Remo and Chiun were tearing wires, too.

Chiun said, "Remo, we have obligations to think of. It is time we left here."

"Not yet," Remo said.

"If not now, not ever," Chinn said. "This is none of our affair. We have done the best we could for those Persians who do not have television and who consider assassins to be killers."

"Pipe down and keep tearing wires," Remo said. "We're not doing this for any goddamn Persians."

"For whom, then? No one else has contracted with us for our services."