Dagger Magic

Chapter Thirty-Two

OUTSIDE the cave, the roar of the explosion rocked the cove from end to end. With a heavy rumble of shifting rock, an entire seaward section of the southwest cliff blew itself apart, raining down rubble like an artillery barrage.

Eamonn had drawn the Lady Gregory apart from the Rose of Tralee, standing in closer toward where the shore party were just preparing to ascend the cliff-face. Aoife and Peregrine were with him in the pilothouse. As an eight-foot shock wave smacked into the cruiser's starboard quarter, the big boat slued sixty degrees around, heeling over dangerously and then righting herself as she plunged into the trough at the wave's back.

Eamonn braced himself against the wheel, and Aoife managed to snag the nearest railing, but Peregrine lost his footing and tumbled through the pilothouse doorway, trying simultaneously to grab onto something and protect his head and glasses as he bounced down the ladder-stairs. Something slammed him hard in the ribs on the way down, and the world momentarily went red.

He came around gasping, his breath knocked out of him, with someone pulling at his clothes to hoist him upright. The boat was still rocking crazily, and his glasses were askew. Momentarily panicked, he grabbed his benefactor's sleeve and hung on.

"Easy, it's Aoife," said a familiar voice as he forced his eyes open to look at her. "I was afraid you might have broken your neck. Did you hit your head?"

Still gasping, he shook his head and righted his glasses.

His left side was aching as if he'd been bounced off the front of a bus. He took a deep breath, winced at the pain of it, and made an effort to drag himself upright.

"No, my ribs," he managed to whisper, grimacing as he slid a hand inside his waxed jacket to brace himself. "I think I maybe cracked a few. I'll be all right, though. What the hell happened? Are Adam and the others all right?"

"I don't know yet," Aoife said, pulling out her walkie-talkie. "I haven't tried to raise - "

She broke off short, suddenly alert and listening, rearing up on her knees to peer over the railing toward the shore. Somewhere above the ringing in his ears, Peregrine became aware of a deep, throbbing rumble, like the growl of a waking sea monster. He heaved himself up beside her as the moonlight picked up a leviathan surge of movement, black and silver, from out of the jagged archway left gaping in the cliff-face.

"Aoife, look!" came Eamonn's urgent cry, from up in the pilothouse.

But the two of them were already staring in disbelief as a lean and deadly shape began easing stern-first into the moonlight, contoured like a torpedo, until every feature was fully visible, from the white churn of foam about her tail-rudders to the dark hulk of the conning tower to the bristling bastions of her gun-turrets.

"Dear God, it's coming out," Aoife whispered, as Peregrine gave an incoherent exclamation of mingled awe and dismay. "Adam, where are you?" she demanded into the grid of the little radio. "Adam, are you seeing this? It's the bloody sub! Raeburn and his cronies must have gotten to it - and somehow they've got it moving!"

Adam was lying on his back, where the concussion from the explosion had thrown him. Aoife's voice reached him through a haze of static and numb shock. Cautiously, in case of broken bones, he eased himself up on his elbows, looking for the others as Aoife's voice came again, sharp with anxiety.

"Adam? Magnus? Can any of you hear me? What's happening over there?"

Sitting up at last, Adam spotted McLeod a few yards away, making a determined effort to pull himself together. Magnus was on his hands and knees, but looking none too stable.

"Everybody all right?" Adam asked, painfully delving into his outside pockets for the radio he knew must be there somewhere.

"Just shaken up," came McLeod's reply.

"Aye," Magnus agreed, somewhat shakily. "Just give me a second to catch my breath. What was that, a bomb?"

"I don't know yet." Adam finally found the little radio and pulled it out of his pocket, clumsily thumbing the transmitter button.

"Aoife, this is Adam. We're more or less intact. What's that you say about the sub?''

Her voice came patchily back to him. "It's backing out of the cave under its own power. Don't ask me how, but this Raeburn of yours seems to have found a way to reactivate it. If you've got any suggestions on how you planned to stop him, now would be a good time to clue me in."

Adam's gaze darted seaward and his jaw dropped in disbelief. A solid black shape like a humpbacked whale was backing slowly away from the base of the cliffs, accompanied by the low growl of laboring diesels.

"There's nothing I can do from here," he told Aoife, getting to his feet. "You'll have to pick us up. Have Eamonn bring the Lady G in as close as he can. We'll put the dinghy back in the water and come to meet you."

McLeod was already on his feet, and lumbered over to offer Magnus a hand up.

"What about our mystery man?" he asked, jutting his chin in the direction of the Rose's dinghy. "We can't very well leave him here, in the state he's in."

"I'll bring him along in his own boat," Magnus said, already heading for the second vessel. "Let's move!"

On board the Lady Gregory, Peregrine was dividing his anxious attention between the submarine, which seemed to be coasting to a stop several hundred yards out, and the seeming snail's-pace of the approaching dinghies. As Eamonn tried to ease in closer for the pickup and Aoife tossed a line to Adam in the first boat, the seaplane they had spotted earlier buzzed them and continued on out to sea, descending toward a stretch of open water half a mile beyond the sub.

As it touched down in a spume of spray and running lights and coasted to a standstill, and the sub's bow began to swing away from them, the intent became immediately obvious. Quite clearly, such a rendezvous had been the plan all along - and that they must prevent.

"She's turning, Adam!" Aoife shouted, as he and Mc-Leod clambered aboard the Lady G and Magnus brought the second dinghy alongside. "She's going to rendezvous with that plane that just landed!"

"At least the business-end is turning away from us," Peregrine gasped, snubbing the second dinghy's line amidships as McLeod helped Magnus drag his unconscious passenger up into the Lady G.

"What makes you think she doesn't have aft torpedo tubes?" Magnus muttered, climbing aboard. "And if she can move, she can maybe fire them! Noel, let's get this guy below. Eamonn, hit it! - before her stern crosses us."

On the bridge of the U-636, Francis Raeburn was waiting for precisely that to happen.

"Flood both stern torpedo tubes," he called down the hatch. "Prepare for surface firing and lock on target as she comes into range."

The periscope was extended beside him, turned in the direction of the Lady G, and he could hear the sepulchral hiss of commands being given below, bearings and ranges being set. Slowly the stern of the sub continued swinging toward the approaching cruiser, turning the sub on her bow. But as the Lady G continued to close, still clear of the angle of the sub's stern tubes, Nagpo turned with almost contemptuous deliberation and pointed his Phurba at their pursuer, rolling the hilt between his palms.

The Lady Gregory's engines spluttered and died, coughing diesel fumes. There came the whirr and grind of turbines laboring as her skipper made a vain attempt to rev her up again, but she lost headway and stuttered to a halt, beginning to drift with the tide.

"Now finish them, if you wish, Gyatso," Nagpo said coldly. "But let that not delay you in your primary task."

Coupled with the effortless demonstration of power just displayed, this arrogance left Raeburn speechless. But before he could even contemplate a rejoinder, the sub's stern at last swung into line with the Lady G, and he felt the boat shudder under his feet.

He turned just in time to see the first torpedo streak away toward the cruiser lying dead in the water, its wake silvery in the moonlight. And as the deck shuddered a second time, the rolag captain came up from below, to pull himself painfully to the rail to watch the torpedoes' course.

On the Lady Gregory, as Magnus and Eamonn labored below-decks to restart the engines and Aoife manned the pilothouse, Adam and his own Huntsmen watched in mingled horror and dismay as the bright wakes of twin torpedoes streaked toward them in the moonlight. The first one went wide, buzzing past the Lady G in a wide arc to detonate against rocks father inshore; the second was off by only inches, and grazed their bow to skitter along the metal hull and off the stern, its detonator failed after fifty years. Seconds later, they saw it run up on the beach and plough into a sandbank.

Nearly limp with relief, Peregrine brought his binoculars to bear again on the submarine, now moving unmistakably toward the distant seaplane, trailing her heavy wake behind her like a train of tattered lace. Muttering, McLeod went aft to see whether either of the outboards in the dinghies would run. Aoife reported from the pilothouse that everything electrical seemed to be dead. Peregrine gasped as he finally got a good look at the three strangely assorted figures grouped together up on the conning tower, clearly visible in the moonlight. Fortunately, they no longer seemed to be concerned with the Lady G.

"Adam!" Peregrine muttered huskily. "Look at this!"

He thrust the binoculars at his mentor, but Adam already had another pair trained on the three, increasingly aware of the evil that accompanied them.

"The one is Raeburn," he acknowledged, as the moon's gleam caught the sheen of pale, fine hair and a supercilious profile, familiar both from Peregrine's sketch and from photographs in McLeod's personal case files.

And Raeburn was travelling in odd company, indeed. To his right stood a short, shaven-headed Oriental in fluttering orange robes - perhaps the man of Peregrine's sketches. An unearthly shimmer in the air about the man's clasped hands drew Adam's attention to the Phurba he was holding before him, pointed toward the submarine's bow. It was not unexpected.

But it was the third man who caused Adam's blood to run cold, standing at Raeburn's back. The once-white submariner's cap marked him as the captain - which was not possible. But as Adam noted details of the uniform - fifty years out-of-date - and the pale fire glowing in the hollow eyes, he realized it was possible, indeed. He found himself bristling as the significance registered, and he slowly lowered his glasses.

"What is it?" Peregrine whispered. "What have you seen?''

"I very much fear," said Adam, "that U-636 is being crewed by dead men. And that tells me what kind of power we're going to have to deal with before this night is over - if we can even get to them for a confrontation. Technology fails in the face of sorcery. Noel!" His voice suddenly had more of an edge to it than Peregrine could ever remember hearing before.

"Aye?" came a response from one of the dinghies.

"Noel, we've got to get something moving here! They mustn't be allowed to escape!"

Up on the bridge of U-636, Raeburn watched with satisfaction as the waiting seaplane grew gradually larger in the moonlight ahead, now less than one hundred yards away. He had never really expected the torpedoes to rid him of Sinclair - he was surprised that even one had detonated - but he regretted that the rolag captain had not had at least the small comfort of a final kill. As something like compassion stirred within him for his unlikely ally - well-leavened with self-interest - a change of plan began to take shape in his mind.

He hazarded a sidelong glance at Nagpo, gazing impassively ahead as the submarine crept closer. He wondered whether it was Nagpo or Kurkar or the pair of them keeping the sub afloat, the crew animated; but it wouldn't really matter, once the treasure was safely transferred aboard. By the Widgeon's cabin lights, Raeburn could see the reassuring face of Barclay at the controls, staring in his direction, a microphone held to his mouth; and with him a tested lieutenant, much welcome on this present venture. Klaus Richter would well understand what was at stake here.

Hiding a secret smile, Raeburn retrieved his radio and lifted it to his mouth. Far astern, the cruiser was still drifting helplessly.

"Have Richter break out the inflatable," Raeburn instructed. "Stand ready to fetch the cargo across as soon as we heave to, and be prepared to repel boarders, if necessary."

Barclay acknowledged the order with a cheery, "Roger that," and signed off. Raeburn held back a moment longer, watching the distance dwindle to perhaps fifty yards, then turned back to the open hatch.

"Both engines, stop."

With only little delay, the engines subsided to a faint idle and the sub coasted to a standstill. Peering out across the moonlight, Raeburn spotted the snub-nosed outline of a rubber dinghy plumping into shape just outside the aircraft's cargo door. As the neat, compact form of Richter swung down into the boat and took to the oars, Nagpo stirred, his wizened ivory face evincing satisfaction.

"I am glad to see that your people know how to take their orders," he observed in his precisely accented voice. "Take the captain below, and have the crew begin bringing up the cargo."

Aboard the Lady Gregory, Peregrine had his binoculars trained on the now-stationary submarine. Magnus had come up out of the engine compartment in disgust, and he and McLeod were considering whether oars might be sufficient to get one of the dinghies to the sub in time to do any good.

"They're bringing wooden boxes up on deck!" Peregrine said indignantly. "They're stencilled with something. God, I've never felt so helpless!"

Adam interrupted his agitated pacing to commandeer Peregrine's binoculars and have a look for himself. A rubber dinghy from the seaplane had drawn alongside the sub on the side opposite from them, and two undead crewmen were in the process of handing its occupant a cubical wooden crate, which he stowed in the stern. There was no way of telling what might be inside.

"I see what could be German eagles and swastikas on the crate," Adam said, as McLeod came to listen, "but I couldn't tell you what's in it. We can only hope that it isn't the scrolls, that they're still to come."

"The mere fact that Raeburn wants something is reason enough why he shouldn't be allowed to have it," McLeod growled. "Damn it, Adam, isn't there anything we can do to get this tub moving again?''

In the control room of U-636, the third of the crates of diamonds had gone aloft and crewmen were lifting the chest of manuscripts into the hatchway that led into the conning tower. Raeburn was standing forward of the periscope with the submarine's commander. After a casual glance at Kurkar, still sitting entranced at the rear of the control room, he drew the captain closer to one of the duty stations.

"Listen to me," he murmured in German. "I can only imagine the kind of agony you and your men are enduring. I must warn you that there is no guarantee that my associates will release you from that agony when your task here is done.

On the contrary, the only way for you to liberate yourself and your men is with this."

With his body blocking his movement, Raeburn drew the Walther from inside his jacket. Thumbing off the safety catch, he pressed its grip into the captain's cold hand.

"The man who summoned you back from the peace of death - and who betrayed you unto death half a century ago - is aft, working his unholy sorcery to keep you bound here," he told the rolag. "His power over you will cease, once and for all, when he himself is likewise dead. Do you understand?''

The captain's head executed a stiff nod of comprehension, and his gun hand fell to his side, shielded behind his thigh as he turned away and started back toward the ladder where his men were preparing to hoist the last crate of diamonds aloft.

Beyond them, Kurkar sat cross-legged on the floor where his predecessor had sat, blind to his surroundings, still rolling his Phurba between his palms, in the throes of deep trance. He stirred as the captain's arm lifted, pointing directly at his forehead at point-blank range, eyes opening wide in mingled fury and alarm, but in that same instant, the captain squeezed the trigger.

The Walther went off with a bang that reverberated throughout the ship. Kurkar gave a convulsive jerk, now possessed of a bloody third eye, then crumpled forward, the Phurba tumbling from his hands and skittering across the metal floor. As it parted company with its master, the reanimated crew of U-636 collapsed in their places and Raeburn's pistol fell from the hand of a German naval officer half a century dead.

The sub's idling engines fell silent, but the lights merely dimmed and then stabilized, powered by the battery reserves. Pale eyes glinting, Raeburn made a dive to recover the Phurba, thought better of it, then scooped up the Walther instead. As he did so, he heard the swift slap of sandalled feet descending the ladder from the top of the conning tower.