The Bootlegger by Clive Cussler (novels in english TXT) 📗

CC

$55 CASE

“Rum Row,” said Isaac Bell.

•   •   •

THEY SPED PAST island schooners and rusty steamers battened down for the storm.

“Look at that,” said Asa. “There’s some lunatic driving a taxi.”

“The price of booze goes up in bad weather,” Tobin explained. “They’ll get rich if they don’t drown.”

A fresh squall hit, riding a cold wind, and they were suddenly alone again on a seemingly empty sea. The squalls passed, and they could see for two or three miles that they were still alone except for a single big ship on a course similar to theirs, angling toward New York. They overtook it quickly.

“That’s her,” said Pauline.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. I saw her in Bremerhaven.”

41

THE TANKER Sandra T. Congdon had a tall funnel in back, a sturdy white wheelhouse forward of center, and a straight bow.

“What’s that on the bow?”

“A three-inch gun,” said Pauline. “Left over from the war.”

Bell studied it in the binoculars. “Not that left over. They’ve got a heap of ammunition all ready to shoot. Pity the Harbor Squad that runs into them. Ed, keep us behind their house.”

Tobin altered course, as they caught up with the tanker, so that its wheelhouse blocked the deck gun’s line of fire.

“What are those guys on top doing?” asked Asa.

Bell focused his glasses on a wood-and-canvas flying bridge constructed on top of the wheelhouse.

“Unlimbering a Lewis gun,” he said. “Get your heads down.”

Machine-gun bullets screeched overhead and frothed the water. Tobin cut in the reserve engine and hit his throttles. A minute later, they were a half mile behind the tanker, beyond effective range of its machine gun.

Isaac Bell broke into an icy smile.

“Look who’s here . . . I’ll take the helm, Ed.”

Black Bird slid out from behind the tanker and sped at them, hurling spray.

Bell fired orders. “Pauline, down! Asa, foredeck gun! Tobin, stern!”

The two boats raced at each other at a combined velocity of one hundred miles an hour. Ed Tobin fired a long burst from the forward Lewis gun. Black Bird shot back. But a black boat proved a much better target than one painted as gray as rain.

Geysers of bullet-pocked water splashed around Marion.

Lead banged into Black Bird’s armor and crazed her windshield. Her gunner was blown from his weapon and pinwheeled backwards into the sea.

Another leaped to his place.

Less than fifty yards separated the speeding boats, and the new gunner could not have missed even if the Van Dorn boat had been invisible. Bell felt the slugs rattling off the armor plate. The man fired again. Bullets cut the air inches above his head. The boats hurtled past each other, missing by inches.

Asa Somers triggered the stern Lewis, raking Black Bird’s cockpit. All three men in it fell to the sole. Only one regained his feet: Marat Zolner.

Bell saw him twirl his helm and ram his throttles in a single swift motion. But nothing happened. The black boat did not answer her helm. Nor did she speed away, but fell back in the seas, barely drifting ahead.

“Good shooting, Asa!”

The young apprentice had blasted Zolner’s controls to pieces.

Zolner jumped from the cockpit to the Lewis gun, ripped off the ammunition drum, and banged a full one into place. He tracked the Van Dorn boat, which was circling for the kill, and fired a burst.

Isaac Bell saw what appeared to be tracer bullets, trailing blue smoke. But when Zolner got the range, which he did on his third burst, raking Marion just ahead of the engines, smoke curled from the bullet holes. Marat Zolner was firing World War balloon-busting incendiary ammunition. Each phosphorus bullet laced the Van Dorn hull with flame, and the boat was suddenly on fire.

Pauline Grandzau dived for the nearest extinguisher, ripped it from its clamp, pumped up pressure, and sprayed pyrene on the flames. She sprayed until the brass container was empty and scrambled across the deck for another.

“Help her, Asa!” Bell shouted. “Ed, put out the fire! I’ll get Zolner.”

Bell stood up so he could see over the bullet-scarred windshield.

He steered into a tight turn that careened the boat half on her side. When he was facing Black Bird, he shoved his throttles wide open. Blue smoke streaked. Zolner had reloaded with incendiaries.

Bell zigzagged, rapid turns hard left, hard right. He cut the distance from two hundred yards to one hundred, to fifty. Marat Zolner stopped firing, his face a startled mask of disbelief at the sight of the burning cruiser flying at him.

“Ramming!” Bell warned his people. “Hold tight!”

Bell aimed for the softest target just ahead of the engines. The Van Dorn boat struck Black Bird dead center and cut the Comintern boat in half. Bell saw Zolner thrown from the Lewis gun into the water. Then he was past, drawing back his throttles.

He saw Marat Zolner swimming hard toward the tanker.

“Ed! Asa! Pick him up, right side.”

Marion swooped alongside Zolner.

Tobin leaned over to grab him.

“Look out, Ed!”

Bell saw Zolner turn over onto his back to deliver a vicious thrust with a short dagger. The blade plunged into Tobin’s forearm. Blood fountained. The detective swung his fist and pitched forward and started to slide over the gunnel. Asa Somers grabbed him, hauled him back into the boat, and wrapped his belt around Tobin’s arm.

A Lewis gun opened up with a rapid Boom! Boom! Boom! Ricochets shrieked, splinters flew. The Sandra T. Congdon was raking them with machine-gun fire from the flying bridge.

Bell poured on the gas and peeled away. Zolner kept swimming toward the tanker. Bell ventured closer, but the gunner laid down deadly fire from the vantage of his high mount. Another rain squall tore between them. Bell drove into it, using it as cover to get closer. But when the rain lifted, the machine gun started churning bullets, even as a lifeboat approached Zolner. Any hope Bell had that the man was injured was dashed when the Comintern agent scrambled aboard like a monkey.

The rain fell hard. The tanker disappeared. Thick mist gathered.

“We’ll never