Dagger Magic

Chapter Thirty-Four

FRANCIS Raeburn came to his senses with a feeling of having been drugged. He was still aboard the submarine, but he had no idea how long he had been unconscious. The sub seemed to be listing slightly to starboard, and the lights in the control room were starting to flicker, an indication that the sub's power was fast fading. Of Nagpo, there was no sign.

He gathered himself to his feet, wondering what had become of his captor, and nearly fell over the fourth and final crate of diamonds. The discovery jogged his sluggish memory back to full acuity. Groping into the front of his jacket, he was relieved to find that he still carried the comlink. Thumbing the call button, he called softly, "Barclay? Are you there?"

There was an immediate return crackle as the pilot came back to him. "Right here, Mr. Raeburn. You okay?"

"Yes," Raeburn snapped. "What's going on?"

"There's been a helluva storm up here, sir. That Tibetan shaman and a party of Huntsmen have been mixing it up in a big way. You better get up here fast. I can't see any sign of the dagger priest, but the Hunting Party's got their boat running again. I expect they're getting ready to board you."

"I'm on my way topside," Raeburn said, bending to test the weight of the last crate. "Send Richter over to pick me up, and make sure he's armed."

He retrieved the Walther before he started back up, and jammed a fresh clip into the butt.

Aboard the Lady Gregory, Adam was still laboring to catch his breath when suddenly Magnus started up and pointed back across the water toward the submarine.

"Who the devil is that?" he exclaimed.

The rest of the party followed the line of his finger as a tall, lean figure emerged stiffly through the conning tower hatch, glanced their way, then hefted up another of the cubical crates and pushed it toward the ladder on the opposite side of the conning tower. Beside Adam, McLeod snatched up one of the pairs of binoculars for a closer look, then uttered a growl of outraged discovery.

"I'll be damned! It's Raeburn! Eamonn, take us in closer."

As the Lady G's engines revved in response, and Magnus shifted his Ingram to cover the sub, McLeod retrieved the loud-hailer from the deck. Adam drew Peregrine closer into cover, and Aoife withdrew to make her stealthy way up to the pilothouse with Eamonn.

"Francis Raeburn! This is Detective Chief Inspector Noel McLeod. Stop right where you are. You can consider yourself under arrest!"

The blond head turned toward them, and a maliciously well-modulated voice floated back across the water.

"Inspector McLeod, is it? So you're here as well as your chief. Nonetheless, I must thank all of you for disposing of our mutual adversary. I had no more use for him than you did. But you must forgive me if my gratitude stops short of compelling me to hand myself over to you. As it happens, I have more pressing business to attend to."

Starting down the ladder, Raeburn pulled the remaining crate toward him and disappeared behind the conning tower. Bristling, McLeod turned to Adam.

"Now what?"

Adam sighed grimly. "It appears we're going to have to do this the hard way."

Aoife glanced down from her vantage point in the pilothouse.

"Raeburn's not alone," she informed them. "You can't see it, because he's hidden behind the conning tower, but that man from the seaplane is on his way back to the sub, and he's got some kind of submachine gun. If we don't hurry, this could get really nasty."

At a sign from Adam, Eamonn nudged the Lady G throttles and began slowly easing closer toward the submarine's starboard side, deliberately keeping the conning tower between them and the gunman in the approaching raft. The distance between the two craft dwindled until they were separated by a gap of no more than twenty yards. Taking the loud-hailer from McLeod, Adam called out across the water, "We're coining aboard, Mr. Raeburn. For your own good, I would advise you to abandon whatever resistance you may be contemplating and surrender yourself without any further violence."

Raeburn had gained the deck level behind the conning tower, and poked his head out from the left to fire three rounds in their direction before ducking back into cover. Magnus and McLeod returned fire, and all aboard the Lady G took cover, well-protected by her metal hull and bulkheads.

"I'm not falling for that claptrap," Raeburn shouted. "I see no personal advantage in my making things easy for you."

Peering cautiously from behind a locker, Adam saw Raeburn stack another crate atop one of the two waiting beside a larger chest with metal fittings, just forward of the conning tower. It was the chest that abruptly drew his gaze like a magnet, and he was left with no doubt in his mind that it contained the Black Termas that Tseten had so greatly feared and abominated. Here, at last, was the reason for their presence here tonight; and whatever else might transpire, Raeburn must not be allowed to escape with the chest in his possession - or with any of the other crates, if they could help it.

Beyond the submarine, the inflatable raft from the seaplane was slowly drawing closer, Raeburn casting an anxious glance in its direction as he crouched in the shelter of the stacked crates and the conning tower, pistol still in his hand.

Beside Adam, McLeod was growing restive. Dispensing with the loud-hailer, he made a trumpet of his two hands.

"Raeburn, this is your last warning," he shouted. "Don't be stupid and add to the charges you'll be facing when we pick you up."

The response from Raeburn was a derisive laugh. "And what charges are those? Defending myself? And I think that conventional authorities would be hard-pressed to prove even that."

"I think a jury might decide otherwise, given the fact that you've been involved in quite a lot of gun-play tonight," Adam pointed out. "I don't know who shot whom, down below, but the fact that you're still alive suggests that you have at least a few questions to answer."

Raeburn drew himself up, his fine fair hair feathered by the wind as he surveyed his accuser with scorn.

"Dr. Sinclair, I believe. We've not met formally, but of course I know who you are. You've given me a great deal of trouble over the past few years, as I trust I've given you.

"Right now, however, that's neither here nor there. I don't intend to stick around while you satisfy your curiosity at my expense. Should you care to board my vessel after I've left, please feel free to investigate the shooting to which you've just referred. I believe you'll find that it was carried out by a dead man - a very dead man - not something I should care to attempt explaining to the press, especially in view of the fact that Inspector McLeod is presently out of his jurisdiction, bearing a firearm in another country."

Aoife edged closer to Adam.

"He's grasping at straws, playing for time," she murmured.

"That's all right," Adam replied. "So are we."

With a glance, he measured the remaining distance between their own vessel and the deck of the submarine, which seemed to be riding lower in the water than it had been.

"If we can keep him distracted, we'll soon be close enough to board," he murmured. "Noel, try to keep him talking."

"With pleasure," McLeod grunted. Raising his voice, he called, "Go ahead and try and leave the sub, if you think you can get away with it. But you're not taking those boxes with you."

Raeburn cast a glance over his shoulder at the approaching raft, then back at his challengers.

"Nonsense," he retorted. "These boxes are my property, by right of salvage. Interfere with them, and I'll have you up on charges of piracy."

McLeod raised his pistol, calmly taking a bead on Raeburn, who ducked behind the conning tower.

"We can split legal hairs later," he told Raeburn. "In the meantime, you'd best keep back from those boxes."

The raft was still several meters distant, still mostly shielded behind the conning tower. The man leaning into the paddle was blond like Raeburn, and hard-eyed, with an Uzi slung around the neck of his leather flying jacket. After darting a glance at him, Raeburn cast an appraising look at the cruiser easing ever nearer the sub, then ducked down to pick up one of the crates of diamonds, brandishing it before him.

"Do you know what's in here?" he cried. "Diamonds." Without further preamble, he pitched the crate into the water on their side, where it immediately sank from sight. "But if I can't have them, then neither can you."

As Peregrine started up with an exclamation of surprise and indignation, Raeburn picked up a second crate.

"The only way to stop me from doing this is to shoot me," he stated, "and you won't do that, because your kind can't kill in cold blood."

The second crate splashed down and sank with a gurgle.

"How inconvenient for you, that you believe in justice and fair trials," Raeburn observed, and bent down for the third crate.

As he did so, McLeod levelled the Browning and squeezed the trigger.

The crate seemed to leap in Raeburn's hands, partially exploding in a fountain of wood splinters. His balance momentarily disrupted, the crate slipped from his hands and smashed against the deck before sliding into the water, Raeburn flailing after it. Diving instinctively, as both McLeod and Magnus began firing, he surfaced some distance out from the sub, where the man in the inflatable raft was returning cover-fire. A second dive brought him up gasping behind the raft, where he clambered aboard and took over firing as his associate began paddling furiously back toward the seaplane.

It was just enough to keep their pursuers pinned down. The two policemen kept firing after the raft when they dared, but the pitch of the cruiser's deck played havoc with their aim.

Adam's attention, meanwhile, was reserved for the brass-bound chest still riding on the submarine's deck, which was settling ever lower in the water. Peeling off his waxed jacket, he directed Eamonn to bring the Lady Gregory as close as he could, for the sub clearly was sinking. Peregrine shucked out of his jacket as well, jamming his spectacles into a pocket before tossing it to Aoife, he and Adam swinging over the cruiser's port-side rail and dropping to the sub's deck as the Lady G came alongside the conning tower.

They landed ankle-deep in water, for the entire deck was now awash, waves breaking over the bow and rolling aft with every swell. The chest shifted ominously, and a spatter of Uzi fire from the direction of the raft warned them that Raeburn was still a danger.

"Keep as low as you can!" Adam shouted, as a chance burst churned the water between the two of them, and Peregrine recoiled.

Following his own counsel, Adam made a dash for the chest, and got a hand on it as a passing wave smacked it broadside. Even then, he feared for a moment that he was going to lose it.

Then Peregrine came to his aid, seizing hold of the other handle. Still ducking Raeburn's bullets - though his aim was becoming more erratic, the farther he got from the sub - they managed between them to manhandle the chest toward the dwindling island that was the conning tower. By the time they reached it, the water was past their knees.

Eamonn was fighting to hold the Lady Gregory in position, still hiding behind the conning tower as a shield and using it to keep the Lady G from grounding on the sub's sinking deck. Leaving Magnus to keep up the fire-fight from far forward, McLeod joined Aoife at the railing. Adam and Peregrine hoisted the chest aloft as their companions leaned out, ready to receive it. Even as the weight of it left their arms, the submarine's deck sank out from under them and left them swimming. The water was icy cold.

"Hang on a sec and we'll throw you a line," Aoife shouted down to them, as she and McLeod hefted the chest off the rail and onto the deck.

As they trod water, hampered by heavy shoes and clothing, Peregrine hazarded a look over his shoulder, where the conning tower was slipping deeper, a wash of phosphorescent green bubbles streaming upward from her rapidly vanishing hull.

"This thing isn't going to suck us under, is it?" he gasped, with a wild glance at Adam.

"I hope not."

"What about sharks? Are there sharks in these waters?"

Before Adam could answer, the depths below them were suddenly suffused with a blooming burst of opal-green radiance. A split instant later, the shock of the explosion hit the surface. The booming roar tossed them skyward on a geyser of sheeting foam. Neither Adam nor Peregrine remembered coming down again.

The blast hurled a wall of water toward the shore, catching the Lady Gregory and spinning her around, dangerously canted over. Looking down from the pilothouse, Eamonn could see nothing of the deck but a shelf of racing foam as the water crashed over her port rail and swept across her decks.

Magnus alone managed to hang on to the forward railing. Farther amidships, the chest containing the Black Tennas skidded the length of the deck and lodged itself against the stern rail. Aoife and McLeod were swept off their feet and carried after it, and only just managed to keep from being washed overboard. For a foundering moment they seemed certain to capsize; but then, with a shudder, the Lady Gregory righted herself, shedding water in sheets as she settled back on her keel.

McLeod had lost track of the number of times tonight that his ears had been set to ringing, and almost missed the distant drone of aircraft engines picking up speed as he got to his feet. Turning numbly toward the sound, powerless to stop it, he swore audibly to see the seaplane lumbering away from them, gathering speed and lifting off, making for the open sky. But a shout of alarm from Aoife forestalled his dwelling on Raeburn's escape.

"There's Adam!" she shouted. "Where's Peregrine? Does anybody see him?"

Looking down in the water where she was agitatedly pointing, McLeod spotted a second puppet-like shape floating face-down in the waves a short distance away. Neither was moving.

"Eamonn, get a spotlight on them!" he called up sharply to the pilothouse, already struggling out of his jacket and kicking off his shoes.