Ben tested his gas mask, sucking in the smell of rubber, the mask pinching tight against his face. He studied the swirls of smoke from the explosion. Flowing into the tunnel, good, they'd expected that, vents for engine exhaust from the smuggler's boat. Made life a little easier. He wouldn't have to go in as far.
He reached under his dinghy seat and pulled out an M79 grenade launcher, checked a third time to make sure he'd lined up the loads in the correct order, and then popped a CS tear gas round down the black tunnel in front of him. One of the joys of serious money — a man could buy some serious toys. If he knew the right people, and wasn't particularly worried about laws.
Morgan Doctrine — if you have to use force, use overwhelming force. No half measures.
Ben broke the launcher open, reloaded, followed up with a second CS round. Then he twisted the throttle and moved into the darkness after them.
Dan vetoed the heavy stuff. So did Gary. It would draw too much attention. Now we're going to have to do it the hard way, take more risk. Someone could get hurt. And we'll still get FBI and ATF crawling up our asses. But our tower's clean. Our tunnels are clean.
I think.
His dinghy purred into inky smoke, and he turned the lights back on. Smile, you're on Candid Camera.
He had to assume he was on some surveillance screen somewhere. He pulled up beside the ruined gate and studied it in the light of his battery lamps. Neat job, metal slats sheared off like they'd been cut with a torch. He probed the water, verifying depth. Reached overhead with the same pole. Plenty of clearance for the Maria, she wasn't any larger than that cigarette boat the Pratts had used. Then he switched off the lights. No point in being an obvious target.
Clearance, if they wanted it. Yeah. Like hell we'd bring her into this trap. Just want them to think we would.
He moved forward a few yards and stopped again in the darkness at the end of the tunnel, just short of the inner basin, mapping the cavern in his mind, going by Dan's and Gary's memories. Straight ahead where the landing should be, he fired an illumination round from the launcher, and he squeezed his eyes shut against the harsh actinic blaze of magnesium fire. Razzle-dazzle, smoke and noise and distraction. Keep them watching here. Dan's act had been mostly the same thing, distraction, even if he'd had a blast doing it.
A boat floated at the dock, a black cruiser silhouette against the flare, looked like a Bayliner from the profile. More fun. He loaded a high-explosive round, sighted the HE against the metal door at the top of the ramp, and fired. The blast squeezed him, compressed in the cavern, he felt it in his damned eyeballs, and he praised his earplugs. He did like being able to hear early morning birdsong. And people sneaking around behind him.
The inner door had vanished. Low-budget project, not designed for blast resistance. Ben made a mental note or two about the Morgan defenses. Time for a few upgrades.
Three Willie Pete rounds, lots of fire and smoke, smoke in particular. First one straight through that mangled door frame and into the tunnel beyond. The cruiser caught the second and burst into flame, orange oily flame and black smoke against the dense white blaze of phosphorous and magnesium. Final WP round at the doorway, dinghy heaved on a swell, missed to the right and high, no problem. Most of the smoke still headed up the tunnels.
Ben felt the glorious rush of revenge, all those weeks of skulking, all those weeks of wondering. Blowing things up was fun. He loaded up a frag round, two more of those left plus one HE, and waited for "targets of opportunity," a dark shape floating at the mouth of a dark tunnel.
Alice thought the place would be damn near empty. Her bats reported quiet tunnels, and she thought that damned brujo wouldn't be snatching people from the streets if he still had a captive supply of sacrifices here. She thought he needed to drink a kill every week or so just to hold off the Grim Reaper. Ben shuddered.
She thought, she thought, she thought. Morgans were getting too damned dependent on that damned witch. Have to warn Gary about that, remind him he couldn't trust anyone but his own flesh and blood.
But Caroline was his sister. That made things more complicated.
Water splashed to each side of him, something punched his body armor, and he jerked the launcher up and fired to the left, muzzle flashes out of the corner of his eye. Old rusty rotting catwalk overhead, he'd been careless, thought it was abandoned, unsafe, the fragmentation grenade burst orange and bits of wood and rusty iron flew from the catwalk and then the whole rickety length collapsed section by section like a string of dominos splashing into the basin while the blast still echoed from the stone walls. Black man-shape splashed with it and floated face down, jerking and quieting and then bobbing in the swells. Ben loaded another frag round.
His left hand fumbled, snapping the breech shut. Fingers numb, hand numb. His whole arm wasn't working right. Warmth seeped down his left side and a dull ache woke up under his armpit.
Shit. Armhole in the vest. Lucky shot.
Ben gasped as the pain woke into a fire as intense as the white-hot blazes he'd launched. Shit shit shit shit shit.
He twisted the dinghy around in the tunnel, right hand still working, right arm still working, blackness ahead might just be the shadows cast by the fire behind him. Full throttle, dinky electric trolling motor couldn't push the boat faster than a walk, they'd thought quiet was more important than speed. And the motor didn't weigh much, with the dinghy already low in the water from all his loud-noise-making toys.
Black, gray, green, water under his bow, shadows shrinking, light at the end of the tunnel, better not be that damned "near-death" ring of light.
Shit shit shit shit shit.
Find the Maria. Get back on board. Need both arms to get over the transom, have to have help. Gary not on board, gone, doing his thing, the real attack, this and Dan were just diversions. Girl. Damned girl, guarding Maria, SMG from his armory, he'd tried to kill the bitch, she knew it.
Payback is a bitch. Shit shit shit shit shit.
*~*~*
God, I've missed the sea. Salt air, deck moving underfoot, cry of gulls. I have to get back here more often, spend time with the boat and Jane and nothing else.
Gary scanned the rocky face with binoculars and the naked eye, riding the swells with unconscious ease, listening to the thumps and booms of Ben's diversion play out in the tunnel. So far, everything had gone according to plan. Which was suspicious. What was that line Ben quoted? "No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy."
Aunt Alice had scouted this place out, last spring before Gary had gone in with Caroline to rescue Dad and the girls, and again in the last few weeks when the bodies started showing up. She'd had suspicions. She had some freaky way of talking to bats, strange bats that had lived in the attic of the Haskell House for generations and centuries and had become almost as weird as the House. Bats could find the smallest hole, map caves in the dark with their sonar. And they were smart.
But translating those maps into human terms, to locate holes in a cliff face . . . And Dad had scouted too, but a seal's eyes weren't much help in finding rock-climbing routes up cliffs.
A wisp of smoke flowed from solid granite, followed by another. Black smoke, from the shaped charges that busted the sea gate, then thin white tear gas, then thick white phosphorus pentoxide. Or whatever — his memory of high school chemistry was fading. Four sources, five, he traced them back to blank stone faces and chose the largest, thickest flow. Ben had poured enough smoke into the tunnels that the vent system couldn't handle it all. Now it was leaking out wherever it could.
If this place was anything like the Morgan caves, it had more than one back door. Fox den. Prairie-dog town.
He set the binoculars back into their bracket and turned to Jane. "Stage three. Guard the boat." He glanced at the matte black H&K she had slung under one arm, a 9mm SMG that she caressed like a friendly kitten. After the crap guns she'd carried, that must seem like a diamond engagement ring, two carats at least, laser sight and silencer and all. Welcome to the family.
"You've fired that on our range back home. Anyone you don't know shows up, shoot. Straight sights, or just put the laser dot on your target." He paused and stared into her eyes. "Please don't shoot Ben. I know he's a cast-iron bastard, but he is my father."
She nodded, lips tight and jaw clenched, message heard but non-committal. Best he could expect.
He tugged his wetsuit crotch to smooth a pinch, settled the air tank on his back, held his mask, and tipped over the side. The water burned cold at his wrists and ankles and face, and then warmed from his body heat inside the suit. He'd swim faster, smoother, quieter, in his seal body, but after that he'd need to climb, and need the air tank inside the tunnels. And also Jane would learn something he didn't think she was ready to accept.
The float bag bobbed along behind him, rope around one wrist, tied, wouldn't want to lose his toys. Damn, he hoped Aunt Alice was right and he wasn't swimming into a hornet's nest. But if the black hats were sailing short-handed, Dad and Ben should have pulled off all the watchers. All the guns.
If. Should. Not nice words, put them on the banned list along with all the “fucks and shits and damns.”
And then he reached the cliff face under the thick white smoke plume, bobbing up and down in the slow swells and treading water to look for a landing and handholds. If this place was truly a brother to the Morgan tunnels . . .
There, just where Dad had scouted them out in selkie form. A line of small stepped ledges, that you'd never notice if you weren't looking for them, landings at different tides. Gary looked up, swiping water from his mask to clear his view. Small scoops and dings in the rock face, laid out along a crack and a basalt intrusion that provided natural holds for hand or foot. A climbing route, hard to find but easy enough for anyone who knew it was there.
And a rust-crusted iron ringbolt set under the rockweed at water level to tie off your boat's painter. All the comforts of home.
Gary climbed ashore, tight against the rock to hide from any hostile eyes overhead, opened his rubber float, stripped off his flippers, and slung two satchels from his shoulders. Backpack would be better for climbing, but the air tank killed that idea. And he'd need the tank. A gas mask wouldn't do — with those fires below, there might not be enough oxygen left in the smoke. SCUBA and a Scott Air Pack did pretty much the same job. The diving mask would keep gas out of his eyes and nose.
Up the cliff, hands and feet finding holds like a ladder, you could climb this in the dark, you could climb it with one arm tied behind your back. Or wounded. No wonder Pratts and Morgans had worked together for so many generations. Their twisty little brains thought alike.
A blade of granite stood out free from the cliff where you'd never spot it from the water, and he slipped behind it, finding the hole he expected, white smoke still venting but thinning, greasy black oil or gasoline smoke mixing in, Ben must have found a boat at the landing. More fun. Gary pulled another Beretta from the right-hand pack, flipped the laser sight "on," and poked it around the corner first and fired twice before following with his head. No target. He shrugged one satchel off his shoulder and tucked it into the recess behind the covering stone for later use.
Into the darkness, red laser dot searching, flashlight held well clear of his body and searching, no targets. Crouching low into a stone corridor thick with smoke overhead, ceiling lights murky and dim, he switched the flashlight off and tried to fit the layout to the bat map. Tear gas burned his cheeks and the skin of his throat outside the mask; he shouldn't have shaved this morning. Right hand turn, second door on the left it should be, he heard the deep rumble of an engine, felt it through the stone under his feet, diesel.
Generator. That was the other reason for Dad's attack on the guest-house — cut the power feed, force the tunnels onto backup. Made it easier for Gary to find his target.
Find his second target. First was the door the bats didn't like. They didn't think people-thoughts, but they'd lived in the attic of the Haskell House for long enough to know the feel of magic. The last week, since Dad lost that flint, they hadn't wanted to go near one particular door in here. It hurt their bones. Gary slid along the stone wall, counting doors on the right-hand wall.
Three. He pulled a lump of almost-clay out of his satchel and smeared it around the lock, plugged a mechanical timer and detonator into it, flipped a lever, and slid back to the tunnel he'd come in. Counted under his breath. Pressed hands to ears. The blast squeezed him, mild, not much stronger than his gunshots.
It isn't the amount of force, it's how you apply it.
The door swung open at his touch, lock and latch vanished. Small room, really just a closet, almost empty. His flashlight picked up the gleam of aluminum in the gloom inside. He verified the marks on the case, hefted it, felt the same kind of nastiness from it he'd sensed when casing the museum up at the university. Something the makers should damn well have "killed" before they buried it.
Why in hell did Ben mess with this thing? Forget it. Blow the generator, get the fuck out of here.
Gray metal door, not even locked, air louvers high and low, another clue. Gary flipped it open and fired into darkness. Nobody home. Only a big diesel generator set now leaking antifreeze from a couple of holes in the radiator, with a big oil tank. Just as they'd hoped, it held a thousand gallons, maybe two. Lots of lovely fuel, it would burn for days, putting off enough smoke and fire that the cops couldn't miss it.
Gary set his satchel under the tank, checked his watch, waited a measured minute and then another just for luck. Ben had wired a sensitive inertial switch into the detonator circuits and a man would really like it to be settled into its new home before arming it. Then Gary gritted his teeth and cut a wire loop, the click of the latching relay was masked by the diesel growl, and he wondered if the charge had really armed.
But he wasn't about to check. Anyone who touched that satchel now would end up as a thin red film plastered all over the walls and ceiling.
Back out into the corridor, he fired two shots in each direction and reloaded before he stepped out, but nobody was there. So far, Aunt Alice was a hell of a prophetess. Back to the exit, grab that nasty aluminum case, back into darkness, out into light, arm the second satchel where it would blast that concealing blade of rock away and mark the cliff face with bright yellow paint. You could see it from five miles off if the fog ever cleared, a bull's-eye "Check here!" for the cops and the Coast Guard. Both satchels had twenty minute timers. They wouldn't destroy the tunnels, nowhere near as drastic as what Ben wanted, but they damn sure could make them public and unusable.
Down the cliff, stone providing buckets for his feet, no trouble, into the water, swim fins on, untie the rubber float, stuff the case and that damned flint inside, back to the Maria. Piece of cake. Ben's dinghy was already bobbing at the stern.
Red smears on the transom. Blood. No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.
Or maybe Jane had decided enough was enough. She had an itchy trigger finger, just ask that door of hers, and wasn't the most stable girl he'd ever met.
"Never sleep with a girl who has more problems than you do." Ben's voice, along with warnings against drawing to an inside straight and restaurants that advertised "home cooking."
Gary forced muscle into his kicks, sped the last few yards, heaved himself up the net he'd draped on the port side and over the gunwale, splashing seawater, panting for breath. Jane spun away from where she'd been kneeling on the deck, grabbing the H&K and swinging its muzzle around until she saw who it was that had burst dripping into her world. Then she set the gun down again.
"He's hurt."
Ben lay, half-sitting against the port gunwale, body armor and shirt tossed in a puddle of blood and seawater. Jane had already taped a pressure bandage against a wound high on his left side, another lower on his back. Probably entry and exit wounds, no bullet left inside. His skin looked gray, lips blue, jaw clenched, eyes pinched shut. Not good. Other scars stood out on his chest and arms, livid purple or stark shiny white, where he'd been shot and cut before.
Gary ripped off his diving fins, his mask, his air tank, and dumped them by the transom. He'd had Red Cross first aid, but it was nothing like an EMT course or anything, he could splint a broken arm and call 9-1-1, do CPR but Ben was still breathing, panting, no blood bubbling from his mouth or anything, what the hell do you do for a bullet wound? When you can't call the ambulance?
Jane had grabbed the first aid kit again, started poking through it, God only knew what she expected to find there. She stopped and looked up at Gary.
"Get us the fuck out of here!"
Gary hauled the net in, hell of a mess if that got tangled in the prop, hauled his float bag in, checked the line to the dinghy and retied the God-awful tangle of a knot that Jane had made of it.
Into the deckhouse, he switched on the fuel and electronics, checked that the engine was out of gear, and cranked it. It fired right off. Dad always kept his gear first-rate. Gary came out of the deckhouse to hoist anchor, and Ben was heaving himself upright on the gunwale, grunting, panting, tearing off his boots, yanking at his belt and zipper and the waistband of his trousers. Jane had jumped away from him and grabbed the H&K again and stood tense against the far side, finger twitching at the trigger guard and back braced on the deckhouse wall. Crazy man, pushing her right to the edge.
What the hell?
Ben's skin turned gray. Not the corpse-gray of shock or death, but mottled gray with fuzzy edges. Furry edges. His face narrowed and forced out into a muzzle, eyes shifting, ears shrinking, and his pants ripped as his torso lengthened into space his legs had occupied just seconds earlier. He screamed, his voice turning into a seal's bray, and toppled backward over the side, throwing green water into the air. Rags floated in the swells, the remains of his pants and socks and underwear.
Jane stared at the bloody gunwale and the splashes where Ben thrashed in the water, now in seal form, bandages washing loose, blood still oozing from his wounds. "Oh my God . . ."
She just stood there against the deckhouse corner, pale as a ghost, whispering something that could have been a prayer if you didn't know her, braced against the swells and shock, chewing on her thumbnail and shivering. He didn't blame her. He'd never seen the Change before, never held a mirror up to himself. Dad swam by himself, sought privacy. It was a private thing. God, what it must look like to a stranger, to someone who didn't know such things could happen.
Ben had Changed. He'd never Changed before. He'd failed his test, never won a tear from the Dragon. Never pushed himself to the edge of dying before.
Dying. The Change helped heal some injuries, the body knew what form it should have, but Gary didn't know what happened with wounds, had the bullet hit his lung, cut an artery or vein . . .
He touched her shoulder, pried the SMG from her hands. She didn't move, just stood staring at the dark water with wide, blank eyes. He shook her, brought life back to her face, got eye contact.
"Can you run a boat?"
Eyebrows up, off-the-wall question, "Fuck no! I don't even have a driver's license."
Gary stared at the shadow diving beneath cold green water, biting his lip, tasting salt water or blood. Christ. What the hell do I do now?
Ben needed help. Wounded, his blood in the water, sharks, orcas, he'd be lost, wouldn't know the islands, the landings, the currents, the tastes of safety and danger. Gary remembered the confusion of his first Change, the fire in his bones and muscles, the symphony of smells and sounds assaulting his brain, the strangeness of his body shape that somehow seemed more right than arms and legs. The ancient warning, "Once you change, remember to change back." He reached for the wet-suit's zippers and then froze.
Jane needed him, too. And he was supposed to pick up Dad, rendezvous at a point of land and then head out to sea to muddy his trail.
But Dad could take care of himself. If Gary didn't pick him up, he'd find his own way home. Like a cat. Ben was hurt, Ben was lost, Ben had just Changed for the first time. Ben was his father.
Ben was a cast-iron bastard. Gary knew that Jane needed him. She couldn't run the boat. And those charges were ticking, chunks of rock would be flying damned soon, damned close to here.