F. Paul Wilson - Infernal

"Simply checking the cargo to make sure none of it has shifted."

"Such is not the navigator's concern."

"You are correct, sir. But since navigation is dependent on the helm, and since shifting affects the helm, and since my services are hardly needed while at anchor, I thought I might take a look. I must say, I am puzzled."

"Why is that?"

"There is so little cargo."

Torres smiled. "I said as much to Captain Gutierrez, and he told me the holds will be bursting at the seams on the trip home."

Francisco could imagine only one reason for that: Someone was paying mightily for the relic.

How could that little chest hold something of such value?

Torres sniffed. "But be that as it may, the captain is too sick to continue and has relinquished command to me."

"Then he is alive?"

Torres nodded. "Just barely. He almost died, but now he appears to be recovering. But it will be at least a week before he is on his feet. He wished me to complete the voyage."

Francisco breathed a sigh of relief. Gutierrez, at least, would be spared.

"I will aid you in any way that I can, Captain. In fact, I know a route that will help us make up much of the time we have lost here in port."

Torres's eyebrows rose. "Oh?"

"Yes. Instead of waiting until Cape Verde to begin our westward tack, we head west from here."

"But we're too far north. That will land us in the English colonies."

"Yes, if we hold too long to a westward course. But two hundred leagues before we reach land we will find a swift, southward flowing current that we can ride all the way to the Caribbean Sea."

Torres frowned. "I have never heard of such a current."

"I have—from sailors who had to sail that route to escape the English. But more than the current, the winds have a southerly flow there. We will be riding the current and running before the wind. We will have an excellent chance of making up the days we have lost here. We might even arrive in Cartagena on schedule."

"No." Torres shook his head. "I cannot risk it. Better to be late than not reach port at all."

"But—"

He raised a hand. "Enough. I have spoken. I will hear no more of this."

Francisco swallowed his anger and forced a smile. "You are the captain of this vessel. I will do as you command."

"Excellent, Mendes."

"And now, in celebration, may I pour you a little of the captain's sherry?"

Torres glanced around. "I'm not sure I should—"

"You are the captain, are you not?"

Before Torres could protest again, Francisco had the captain's Murano glass decanter in hand and was filling a goblet for Torres. He put a few drops for himself into a second goblet, then handed the first to the captain.

"To the success of our voyage."

As Torres quaffed, Francisco tilted his glass but did not drink.

"Why so little for you? You do not care for spirits?"

"Oh, I care for them very much. A little too much, perhaps."

Torres laughed. "All the more for the rest of us!"

Francisco smiled. "Indeed you are right. Here, let me pour you a little more."

Francisco nodded as he watched Torres drain his second glass.

Soon… very soon they would begin their westward tack. And their destination would not be the Caribbean, but a place known to the seafaring world as the Isle of Devils.

Once there he prayed he had the courage to perform the duty he had been charged with.

MONDAY

Jack awoke in the dark not knowing where he was or why the room was rocking or where the hell that awful noise reverberating through his skull was coming from.

He hit his head as he sat up.

"What the—?"

And then he realized where he was.

Tom's boat.

Okay. That explained everything but the noise… a booming moan… like a foghorn…

Or another ship!

Jack lurched to his feet, trying to remember where the steps up to the deck were… left or right? He guessed left, found them, and started up.

What was he worried about? He and Tom had split the nighttime steering chores into two six-hour shifts. Jack had taken the first. Talk about boring—the boat drove itself, leaving him nothing to do but make sure none of the equipment failed. He'd caught himself dozing off a couple of times.

Finally his six hours—seeming like twelve or more—were up. He'd yanked Tom out of his bunk and sent him topside.

Tom would be up there now. Even if he'd dozed off at some point, that horn would have awakened him.

Jack reached the deck. At last—light. Not much. The cockpit's instruments and running lights didn't cast much of a glow, but enough to see what was what.

The first thing Jack noticed was the unmanned helm. He did a slow turn, checking the deck chairs, expecting to find Tom slumped in one, but they were empty.

Jack was the only one here.

His gut tightened. Where was Tom? Had he fallen over—

Another booming honk—louder than ever—shook the boat. Jack turned toward the bow./p>

"Oh, shit!"

Ahead and to his left—port, north, whatever—a looming supertanker, a mile long if it was a foot, lit up like some bioluminescent behemoth, plowed through the black water on a collision course. Obviously the Sahbon had shown up on the tanker's radar or whatever it was ships used to detect each other, and it was sending out a warning that Jack read loud and clear:

Yo, pip-squeak! No way I can stop or turn, so it's up to you.

The tanker's prow plowed along less than a hundred yards ahead at eleven o'clock, with the Sahbon aimed like an arrow across its path.

Jack had a flash vision of the collision, the Sahbon reduced to kindling while the tanker barely noticed the impact—a fly glancing off an elephant's thigh.

Panic hurled Jack to the cockpit, where he grabbed the wheel and—

Which way to turn? Left? Right?

He chose left. Or port. Whatever. If he couldn't completely avoid contact with the tanker, at least he might escape with a glancing blow. He spun the wheel as fast and as far as it would go. Holding on as the deck tilted under him, he found the throttle and hauled back on it, reducing the power but not fully cutting it—no power would mean no control.

The Sahbon was slow to respond, but it came around. It would miss the prow, but a long, long span of reinforced steel remained to be dealt with.

Just then the Sahbon hit the tanker's bow wave square on, lifting the front half of the hull clear of the water as it came over the top. The boat angled downward, plowing deep into the water behind the wave and killing most of its momentum.

Jack yanked the throttle back to idle and looked at the knobby expanse of riveted steel sliding by.

Close… too goddamn close.

Above he saw half a dozen figures backlit by the wash from the tanker's superstructure lights, standing along the rail, looking at him. One of them gave him the single-digit salute.

Jack waved. We deserve that, he thought.

No, wait… not we…

A noise behind him. He turned to see a bleary-eyed Tom emerging from below.

"I just got tossed out of my bunk. What the fuck's going on, Jack? What are you doing up here?"

Jack wanted to kill him—flatten his nose, knock out a few teeth, and toss him overboard—but he limited himself to grabbing Tom by the scruff of the neck and yanking him around to face the tanker.

"Avoiding a collision with that!"

He felt Tom stiffen in his grasp, then go slack.

"Jesus, God!" He looked at Jack, his face a mask of shock. "What… how…?"

" How ?" Jack shook him by the neck. "You sack out on your shift—worse than sack out, you left the helm unattended—and you have the goddamn nerve to ask me how?"