Philip Kerr - The Five Year Plan (1998)

'Now that's what I call vitamin C,' he chuckled and swept the second mound of coke off the jade block with the razor, and into the dead girl's navel. Taking the gold straw, he pressed his face close to her belly and snorted out her navel, licking it clean for good measure. Already he felt invigorated. He said, 'This is good leaf.'

Ever since Dave had found the stash, Al had been wondering if there was a way of getting it out of there and loading the stuff onto the Ercolano at the same time as they transferred all the money. Tony might like a windfall like that. It seemed a hell of a waste just to sink the boat with all that dope on board. If it was anything like the stuff tingling through his nose, deep-sixing the motherlode would be nothing short of a fucking tragedy. Al licked the dead girl's belly again, and feeling the boat begin to slow, he stepped out of the main stateroom and shouted up the stairwell.

'We there?'

'I reckon this is about the spot,' shouted Dave.

Snorting happily, Al scratched his nose and went up to the galley where he had left his weapons on the counter. He took the .45 automatic and unscrewed the laser aiming module. He wouldn't need it. Not at the range he was contemplating. The silencer he had already dumped when firing at what he had assumed was the nosey parker. Noise was good when you were trying to persuade someone to stay the fuck out of your way. Ejecting the magazine, he thumbed a few more rounds inside until it was full again and then smacked it back up the handgrip. One round would be all he would need, but Al was too much of a pro to leave anything to chance. Any opportunity you got to reload, you took it. You could never tell what might happen when you had to grease someone. The unexpected. It was always a factor. Especially when it was a guy you knew well. A guy you quite liked, even. Drugs had helped Al to change his mind about blowing Dave away without a word. That no longer seemed such a good idea. He was going to have to talk to Dave. Apologize. Tell him that it was nothing personal. That it was just Naked Tony's fucking paranoia, and what could he, Al, do about it? Except do what the fuck he was told, or end up in a similarly terminated condition. After all he and Dave had been through together, apologizing seemed to be the least he could do for the guy. That and a quick and painless headshot. Back of the cranium probably -- SS style. Whatever you thought about their lack of personal morality, those Nazis had known how to off people with a pistol. German efficiency. The ultimate killing machine. BMW with bullets.

The Britannia's original owner had been a keen diver, and the boat was fitted with an Apelco fishfinder. As well as giving the screen viewer the best possible picture of where fish were to be found, the Apelco was also equipped with a dualfrequency transducer, which, scanning forward and downward, could give advance warning of shoals, holes in the seabed or even wrecks to be explored. From the pilot's chair on the bridge, Dave kept one eye on the Apelco and one eye on Al through the skylight window of the galley. There could be only one reason for Al reloading his gun. He meant to use it. On him. This was the moment Dave had been half expecting. Now that Dave had served his useful purpose, it was time for Al's double-cross.

Dave throttled right back so that the engines were just ticking over, picked up the Mossberg shotgun from the control console, and positioned himself immediately over the stairwell that led up from the galley to the bridge.

Al came creeping up the stairs, gun at the ready, and called out, 'Can you see the ship yet?'

Dave pumped a cartridge into the barrel by way of reply and took aim. He said, 'Just the back of your head, Al.'

Recognizing the distinctive sound of a shotgun being readied for business, Al became as still as the boat itself.

'Throw the gun out of there, as far as you can. And better make sure it hits the sea, or I'll get upset.'

'What the fuck is this about?' said Al.

'You tell me.'

'You gone nuts?'

'The gun, Al, or I'll part your hair with buckshot. I've killed two people today already. I don't suppose one more'll make much difference to my immortal soul. But it sure as hell will to yours.'

'OK, OK. I don't need it any more anyway.'

'You said it.'

Al threw the gun. It sailed through the air and plopped into the ocean behind the boat with a scarcely audible splash.

'Come upstairs, real slow, hands on your head,' Dave told him, and backed up to the pilot's chair.

Al did what he was told. But at the very next minute, just as he reached the top of the stairs, the boat began to rock violently, as if the sea had been stirred by some sudden typhoon, or maelstrom. Dave collapsed back into the chair and, glancing down at Apelco, saw the outline of something large on the screen. He knew by the speed of its ascent that this was no shoal of fish or some marine leviathan. He recognized the electronic signature of a submarine when he saw one. But by then the sub was already surfacing, less than fifty yards from the Britannia's bows. And Al was scrambling across the deck toward him, knife at the ready, a murderous expression swiped across his big ugly face.

Dave turned toward Al, the shotgun pointed squarely at his barrel-like body. He could have shot him. Could have blown his head clean off. Al knew that, but he was gambling on Dave's lack of guts, as he saw it, for any more killing. He hardly expected that at the last second Dave would take hold of the gun barrel and swing the Mossberg round like a baseball bat against his head. The stock struck Al's skull with a loud thwack, like someone knocking once and loudly on a wooden door, and Al collapsed onto the deck at Dave's feet.

Most men would have been knocked insensible. Al merely lay there groaning for a minute, time enough for Dave to snatch away his knife and throw it over the side, backing further away as Al sat slowly up. He rubbed his head furiously, focusing on the shotgun and then on the conning tower now looming over them.

'Well, there's no need to take this so personally. Get us out of here for Chrissakes,' he complained. 'Whoever they are, they don't mean to ask for directions. We can still make a run for it.'

'Where do you suggest we go?'

'Anywhere but here.'

Dave turned off the engines.

'What are you, nuts?' demanded Al. 'This little misunderstanding you and I just had. It don't mean that we have to go jail for it. Come on, will ya? They can't chase a motor yacht like this.'

Dave shook his head and said, 'You can't outrun a submarine, Al. Quite apart from the two-inch gun on the conning tower, they have these things called torpedoes. We'd be a sitting duck.'

A figure now appeared on the submarine's conning tower and, speaking English in a thick foreign accent, addressed them through a loud-hailer.

'Britannia. Prepare to be boarded. Prepare to be boarded.'

Other figures appeared on the hull and, within a minute, an inflatable carrying several sailors was bobbing its way across the short stretch of water that separated the boat from the sub. Dave threw the shotgun into the sea, just in case Al was tempted to grab it and try something stupid.

It was then that he saw another boat racing toward them. Checking through the binoculars, he saw that it was a some kind of performance yacht. Right away he guessed it must have come from the Duke.

'Kate,' he said wearily. 'That's all I need.'

'Now we've got him,' she crowed.

'It looks like Ross must have got into the radio room after all,' yelled Jellicoe.

Kate said, 'Either that, or the French decided to go after them on their own account.'

Calgary Stanford turned down the volume of the boat's CD, and said, 'I did a movie about a sub once. I was the intuitive sonarman, following a hunch. Course I was just a bit player back then.'