R.W. III - The Dark Design

  Now the contrary wind seized the aerostat and in so doing slightly spun it. From then on, unless they encountered an opposing wind, they would have the view of a rider on a lazy merry-go-round.

  Nur took over the pilot's post. Pogaas got the next, and Rider had the third watch. When Farrington became the pilot, he lost his nervousness. He was in control, and that made all the difference. Frigate was reminded of how Farrington had described in a book his fierce exultation when, at the age of seventeen, he'd been allowed to steer a sealing schooner in rough weather. After watching him for a few minutes at the wheel, the captain had gone below. Farrington was the only one above decks, the safety of the ship and its crew in his hands. It had been an ecstatic experience never surpassed in a life filled with perilous adventures.

  However, as soon as Frigate relieved him, he lost his smile, and he looked as uneasy as before.

  The sun continued to rise and with it the Jules Verne. The envelope was near its pressure height now, which meant that the joy ride was over. Since its neck was sealed, instead of being open as in most manned aerostats, it would keep rising until overexpanded. At this point the bag would rupture, and down would come everybody posthaste with a postmortem afterward. But provisions had been made for this.

  Frigate checked the altimeter and then rotated a metal drum set in the overhead. This was attached by a rope to a wooden valve in the neck of the bag. It opened, releasing some gas. The balloon sank. It would shortly begin rising again, though, which meant more gas would have to be valved off. This called for operation of the torch at intervals, and also for shutting off the torch and feeding hydrogen into the balloon.

  It required cool and accurate judgment to know just how much gas to valve and how much to replace. Too much valved off meant a too fast fall. Too much new gas meant that the craft could ascend beyond the pressure height. A safety valve on top of the bag would automatically release gas to prevent bursting of the bag – if the valve hadn't frozen – but the balloon would then become, possibly, too heavy.

  In addition, the pilot had to watch out for unexpectedly warm layers of air. These could lift the Jules Verne too swiftly and carry it above the pressure height. A sudden cooling off could precipitate the craft downward.

  The pilot could in the latter situation order ballast thrown out, but this might result in a yoyo motion. And if he lost all his ballast, he was in trouble. The only way to lose altitude quickly was to release more gas. Which meant that the burner might not be able to expand the hydrogen quickly enough.

  Nobody Knows the Troubles I've Seen would be his swansong. However, the day passed without any nerve-wracking emergencies. The sun sank, and the Jules Verne, its hydrogen cooling, did likewise. The pilot had to run the burner just enough to raise it now and then and keep the vessel above the tropopause. Those off-duty snuggled under heavy cloths and slept according to their natures. Being the only one awake at night was eerie. The illumination was feeble. The starlight poured into the ports, but this, with some small lights above the gauges and dials, was not enough for comfort. The alloy hull amplified every noise: the impact of a hand on the deck as somebody turned over and flung out an arm; Pogaas muttering Swazi; Frisco grinding his teeth; Rider softly whinnying horselike; the fan whirring.

  When Frigate ignited the torch, the sudden explosion and succeeding roar startled everybody from sleep. Then it was his turn to burrow under the cloths, to sleep, to be roused momentarily by the torch or a nightmare of falling.

  Dawn came. The crewmen got up at different times, used the chemical toilet, drank hot instant coffee or tea, and ate food saved from the grails, supplemented by acorn bread and dried fish. The wastes from the toilet were not jettisoned. Opening a hatch at this altitude meant a possibly fatal drop in air pressure, and any weight loss increased the lift.

  The Frisco Kid, whose eye was best at estimating ground speed, though they were clipping along at 50 knots.

  Before noon, the vessel was gripped by a wind that took them backward for several hours before it curved the craft around northeast again. After three hours they were going southward again.

  "If this keeps up we'll whirl around here forever," Frigate said gloomily. "I don't understand this."

  Late that afternoon they were back on the proper course. Frigate said that they should descend to the surface winds and try their luck there. They were far enough north to be where the winds generally flowed toward the northeast.

  By letting the burner stay off, the gas slowly cooled. The Jules Verne sank at a minuscule rate at first, then began dropping swiftly. Nur turned the burner on for a few minutes to check its descent. At 13 kilometers altitude, the wind lessened. It picked up again and in an opposite direction, the wrong one for them. It also gave the craft a counterspin. Nur allowed it to sink until it was about 2000 meters above the mountaintops. Now they moved at an angle across the valleys, which were running straight north and south in this area.

  "We're going northeast again!" Frigate said happily.

  At high noon of the third day they were sailing along at an estimated 25 kmph or more than 15 mph. Only the Jules Verne could have gotten this far. Any other type of balloon would not have been able to ascend to the stratosphere or descend to the surface winds without losing too much gas to go on.

  They opened the ports to let the thin but fresh air in. The up-and downdrafts caused them some discomfort, chiefly from the change in air pressure. They had to keep swallowing and yawning to ease their eardrums. As dusk approached, the drafts became less violent.

  The next day, in the middle of the afternoon, they were surprised by a thunderstorm. Farrington was pilot when the black clouds beneath suddenly welled upward. At one moment, the storm seemed to be safely below them. But tendrils reached upward like the tentacles of an octopus. The next moment, the body of the octopus seemed to shoot toward them, and they were enveloped in darkness laced with lightning. At the same time, they whirled like fleas on a spinning top.

  "We're dropping like a brick," Frisco said calmly. He ordered that some ballast be dropped", but the craft kept on falling. Lightning cracking nearby flooded the car with a light in which their faces looked green. Thunder bellowed in the echo chamber of the hull, and their ears hurt. Rain shot into the open ports and covered the deck, adding to the weight.

  "Close the ports! Tom and Nur, throw out a Number Three ballast bag!"

  They leaped to obey him. Their bodies felt light, as if the car was dropping so quickly it would leave them floating.

  Another nearby bolt cast light and fear. All saw a black rock below, the flat top of a mountain rushing at them.

  "Two Number One bags!"

  Nur, looking out a port, said loudly but calmly, "The bags're not falling much faster than we are."

  "Two more Number Ones!"

  Another fiery streak wrenched the air nearby.

  "We ain't going to make it!" Frisco cried. "Two more Number Ones! Stand by to get rid of all ballast!"

  The edge of the hull struck the edge of the mountaintop. The car bounced, throwing the entire crew to the deck. As the momentarily loosened net ropes tautened again, the crew, which had half-gotten to a standing position, were hurled down again. Fortunately, the savage strain had not snapped the ropes.

  Ignoring their injuries, they got up and stared through the deck port. Darkness except for a small interior lights. Another bolt. They were too near the side of the mountain, and the downdraft was still gripping the balloon. The pointed tops of giant irontrees were coming at them like hurled javelins.

  It was too late to turn the burner on. Its effect would be negligible in the little time left before impact. Besides, the collision with the mountain top might have loosened the junctions of the pipes. If that were so, one spark would turn the interior of the hull into a furnace.

  "All the ballast!" Frisco shouted.

  Suddenly they were out of the clouds, but the blackness was now a dark grey. They could see well enough to discern the treetops spinning j
ust below them.

  Frisco left his post to help the others throw the bags and the water containers out. Before anything could be cast overboard, before Nur could punch a button to release the ironshot ballast, the car crashed into the upper branches of an irontree. Again, they were knocked down. Helpless, they heard crashing noises. But the branches bent, then straightened out, hurling the car upward and into the envelope.

  The car fell back, was caught once more by the almost unbreakable branches. Its occupants were rattled around as if they were dice shaken in a cup.

  Frigate was battered, bruised, and stunned. Even so, he had wits enough left to envision the punishment the plastic pipes were taking. They were being violently bent between car and bag.

  If . . . oh, God, make it not so! . . . if the pipes were torn loose from the bag . . . if the points of the branches gutted the bag . . . the car would fall to the ground . . . unless it was held among the branches or the net was tangled among them.

  No. Now the car was rising.

  But would the balloon go straight up? Outward toward The River? Or would it be hurled against the side of the mountain and the envelope ruptured against outcroppings?

  Chapter 66

  * * *

  While the rainstorm was at its height, the airship came over the mountain from the north. Lightning, the only illumination, tore the skies. The radar swept over the Valley, over the treetops, across the spires of rock, across the River, and zeroed in on the great boat. The passive radar detector indicated that the boat's own radars were not operating. After all, the boat was at anchor, and why use the radar when no enemy was expected?

  The huge hatches in the belly of the ship opened. The helicopter, sitting on a platform, began rotating its vanes. Inside were thirty-one men, Boynton at the controls, de Bergerac by his side. Arms and boxes of plastic explosive were stacked in the rear.

  As soon as the motors were warmed up, Boynton gave the high sign. Szentes, the C.P.O. in charge, listened to the phone on the bulkhead, getting the last-minute report on the wind. Then he whipped a little flag up and down. Go!

  The copter lifted within the huge bay, moved sidewise off the platform, hovered over the opening, the bay lights glancing off its windshield and the tips of the whirling vanes. Then it dropped as a stone, and de Bergerac, looking up through the windshield, saw the colossal ship merge into the black clouds and disappear.

  Cyrano knew that the two-man glider would be launched from it within a minute. Bob Winkelmeyer would be piloting it; James McParlan would be his passenger. Winkelmeyer was a West Point graduate, a flier who had been shot down by a Zero during a scouting flight over an island north of Australia. McParlan had been rather famous in the 1870's. A Pinkerton detective, he had infiltrated into the Mollie Maguires, a secret terrorist organization of Irish coalminers in Pennsylvania. Under the name of James McKenna, he had penetrated deep into the gang, narrowly escaping detection and death a number of times. As a result, the Maguires were arrested, nineteen of them were hung, and the mine owners continued to exploit their employees.

  Winkelmeyer and McParlan would land in The River and there sink their glider. Later, if they got a chance, they would enlist aboard the Rex. There would be vacancies, since it was doubtful that the raiding party could pull off a coup without killing some of the crew of the Rex.

  As Sam Clemens had said to the two, "Rotten John doesn't have a monopoly on double agents. Suck up to him, boys, get him in your confidence. That is, if the raid fails, do it. Maybe you won't have to. But I know that slippery character. He's the greased pole the monkey couldn't climb.

  "So, if he gets out of it, you'll join his crew. And then, when Armageddon comes, you'll blow up his boat. It'll be as if Gabriel had planted two angels in the guise of devils in Hell."

  The helicopter plunged into the clouds. Lightning cracked open the world, slicing like a flaming sword between earth and heaven. Thunder roared. Rain pelted the windscreens, dimming vision. The craft's radar, however, saw the boat, and, within two minutes, the lights of their target shone weakly.

  Boynton took the chopper at a forty-five degree slant toward the boat, then dropped it until it was close to The River. At full speed, while lightning tore the fabric of the night, it sped a meter above the surface. Now the lights from the wheelhouse and along the decks grew bigger and brighter.

  Abruptly, the copter lifted, shot over the edge of the flight deck, stopped, poised, and sank. Its wheels struck the surface, and it bounced a little. But it settled down, the vanes chirruped as they slowed, and its hatches burst open.

  By the time de Bergerac was on the deck, the motors had been turned off. Boynton was helping men out on his side; Cyrano was ordering a man in the craft to hand out the boxes of bombs.

  Cyrano glanced at the top deck of the pilothouse. So far, no one was looking out of its stern window, no alarms had been raised. Their luck was even better than they had expected. Incredibly, there were no sentinels. Or, if there were, they had noticed nothing untoward. Perhaps they felt very safe in this area. A large part of the crew might even be on shore leave. And the sentinels might be goofing off, sleeping, drinking, or making love.

  De Bergerac took out the Mark IV pistol and patted the hilt of his epee. "Follow me!" Five men raced after him. Two other groups took off on their appointed duty. Boynton stayed in the copter, ready to start the motor at the necessary time.

  The flight deck was an extension of the overhead of the Texas. The Frenchman ran down it toward the pilothouse, the feet of his men thudding on its oaken surface. Arriving at the entrance to the second deck of the pilothouse, he paused. Now someone was shouting from the open port of the wheelhouse above him. Cyrano ignored him and plunged through the doorway. The others followed him up the steep ladder. Before the last man had gotten through, a shot sounded. Cyrano looked back down. "Anybody hit?" he shouted.

  The man behind him, Cogswell, said, "He missed me!"

  Alarms were ringing above, and from a distance came the whooping of a siren. Within seconds, other sirens joined it.

  The second deck was a brightly illuminated corridor lined by cabins in which the chief officers and their women would be quartered. Hopefully, John Lackland would be in the cabin on the left, just below the ladder leading up to the bridge or wheelhouse. Clemens had planned to use that cabin, since it was the largest, and it was not probable that John would take a smaller one. There were four doors on each side of the passageway. One of these opened as de Bergerac plunged in. A man stuck his head out. De Bergerac aimed the pistol at him, and the man slammed the door shut.

  Quickly, working as planned, each of the six pulled a device from his belt. These had been delivered from the machinist's shop only an hour before, and two men carried an extra. They were short bars of duraluminum with long, heavy steel nails in each end. Fitted over the side of the door and the bulkhead, they were driven by heavy hammers into the oak. A determined person in the cabin could batter them out in time, but by then, if all went as planned, John and his abductors would be gone.

  There were shouts and screams coming from inside the cabin. One man tried to push a door open while Cogswell was hammering. He dropped the hammer and fired through the narrow opening, not attempting to shoot the man. The door closed, and he quickly finished his work.

  By now, John would have been informed via intercom that the boat was under attack. But the noise in the corridor would have been enough to inform him that the invaders were there. He did not need the explosion of the pistol to tell him that.

  Three men should also have rounded the pilothouse and be going up its fore ladder. However . . . ah, yes, here came one of the wheelhouse watch. He stuck a pale face around the corner of the entrance at the top of the ladder leading to the corridor. Now he was stepping out from it, a heavy .69-caliber pistol in two hands. He wore no armor.

  "Peste!"

  Though Cyrano hated to harm the man, whom he had never seen before, he aimed and fired.

  "Quelle merde!" br />
  Cyrano had missed, the plastic bullet shattering against the bulkhead beside the man. Some fragments must have struck him, for he screamed and staggered back, dropping his pistol and clutching his face.

  Cyrano was not an excellent shot. This was just as well, he told himself. If the bullet removed the man without greatly harming him, instead of killing him, its effect was even more desirable. Shots and yells came from the wheelhouse. That would mean that the three had gone up the aft ladder and were now keeping the watch busy.

  He strode to the door of the cabin in which John must be. There was no use asking its occupant to come out with hands up. Whatever the ex monarch of England and half of France was, he was not a coward.

  Of course, it was possible that he was not aboard tonight. He might be on shore, roistering and wenching.

  Cyrano smiled as, reaching out from the side of the bulkhead, he tried the knob. The door was locked. So, the captain of the Rex was at home, though not receiving.

  A man's voice cried out in Esperanto. ''What is happening?"

  Cyrano grinned. It was King John's baritone.

  "Captain, we're being attacked!" Cyrano shouted.

  He waited. Perhaps John would fall for this trick, thinking it was the voice of one of his men, and open the door.

  An explosion sounded, followed by a bullet which would have hit him if he had been standing in front of the door. It was not one of your plastic missiles which would shatter against the oak. It was of the precious lead and made a respectably sized hole.

  He gestured at one of his men, and the fellow removed a package of plastic explosive from a small box. Cyrano stood to one side while his colleague, Sheehan, crouching low, pressed the explosive around the lock and over the hinges.

  Crafty John sent another bullet crashing through the wood. This was low, catching Sheehan in the skull just above his eyes. He fell back and lay staring, mouth open.