Political Pressure td-135 Read online

  The frigid water was cresting at twenty-five feet that morning on the Drake Passage. The sky was the same color as the sea, like dirty bathwater.

  Lee Clark never felt more helpless.

  "You have to call in on the emergency radio if you have a communications breakdown. That's in the rules."

  "Yes. That's right," Clark said.

  "We'll do it together," Remo said. He accompanied Clark belowdecks, into a cramped helm behind a narrow window.

  "Not much room to stretch your legs," Remo commented.

  "After eight, nine weeks at sea you get used to it," Clark said.

  "Eight weeks? That explains the smell."

  Clark raised an eyebrow. "What smell?"

  Remo pointed at the emergency radio, in a tiny, water-resistant plastic case mounted near the ceiling. Clark opened it and turned it on. The unit fed off the sailboat's generator power, so the batteries were always fully charged. It didn't take long to get a reply to his hail. Remo had already warned Clark of unspecified consequences if he strayed from the script.

  "What's your situation, Lee? We got mighty worried when we saw your data feed go down."

  "I'm fine, base. Just a generator problem. One of my cable clamps busted and it just fell right off. I'll have another put on soon enough. Meanwhile, I'll leave the emergency unit on to receive."

  "Good to hear it."

  Clark signed off and looked expectantly at Remo.

  "I told you I am not the killer."

  "Where's your boat?"

  "I jumped in."

  "You parachuted onto a sailboat going eighteen knots

  in twenty-five-foot seas? Without me noticing? You expect me to believe that?"

  "You ask too many questions."

  "And in that getup?" Clark gestured at Remo's attire.

  Well, Remo had to admit he wasn't dressed for the climate by most standards, but he had found that, under most circumstances, his uniform did just fine. The Italian, hand-sewn leather shoes were comfortable, pliant and tough enough to stand up to days of abuse before going into the trash. Usually the Chinos and T-shirt were warm enough and gave him freedom of movement. There were times when Remo needed freedom of movement.

  "I was wearing a windbreaker when I jumped," he admitted. "It got soaked so I scrapped it."

  "Uh-huh. So what now?" Clark demanded.

  "Nothing. Go about your business. The next move is the killer's."

  "Aren't you cold?" Clark shouted across the windswept deck. He was retying one of his ropes. The GPS on his watch told him he was still on course, but the wicked wind had him using his smallest sails and he was hard-pressed to keep his sailboat, the lovely Traverser, from heading into the rocky mess of Chilean islands that made up the southernmost point on the Americas.

  The wicked wind drove the drizzle under your clothing no matter how tightly you tied your sleeves and collar. The wind and the water could suck the life out of you in no time if you weren't careful. Clark's captor— or protector, he wasn't yet sure which—was not being careful. He had refused the spare coat Clark offered him and come outside in just his blue T-shirt. The T-shirt was wet again.

  Clark and Remo were inside for less than a half hour, but Remo's shirt and pants were bone dry by then. Clark couldn't help but notice. Now, how had that happened?

  At least this Remo was a skilled seaman. He strolled around the heaving deck without apparently noticing the abrupt rises and the sudden plummets. Even Clark didn't get used to oceans like this, and he made dang sure he wore his safety cable when he was on deck. All it would take was one slip. If he lost his footing during one of those big risers and got dumped in the icy waters of the Drake Passage, he was as good as dead. The Traverser would be out of his reach in seconds and there would no hope of rescue.

  Remo didn't seem too worried about the danger. Lee Clark almost hoped the man would get dumped in the water.

  Hell, killer or not, Clark knew he would go back and rescue the guy. It was just the kind of man Lee Clark was.

  Remo was cocking his head again, concentrating.

  "Are you trying to hear something, is that what you're doing?" Clark asked.

  "Killer's boat," Remo explained.

  Clark shook his head. "Son, there could be a Fourth of July parade marching alongside us and we wouldn't hear it in all this weather."

  Remo just cocked his head.

  "You don't expect somebody to come from one of the other racers to get us, do you?" Clark probed.

  "Don't know."

  "There's more than fifty boats in this race, right, Remo? Most of 'em are the Class IIs and they're way back. But everybody is way back now. There isn't anybody close enough to ride up from behind and catch this boat, even with a quick dinghy."

  "Not necessarily."

  "I tell you they'd have to have a quick dinghy. We're going twenty-two miles per hour land speed. How they going to catch up to us without a quick dinghy?"

  "If you don't stop saying 'quick dinghy' I might have to kill you after all," Remo growled.

  "Remo, are you steamin'?" Clark asked incredulously when they were inside again.

  Remo didn't answer, but Clark didn't need an answer. He could see the steam rising off Remo's T-shirt.

  "You some sort of a cyborg? You know, you got heating elements under your skin, like them little wires that get all orange in the toaster?"

  "Yes," Remo said. "That's it exactly. Mum's the word."

  Clark's eyes grew wide. "You a secret agent from the government? How much did you cost? More than six million dollars. Steve Austin cost six million dollars."

  "That was the 1970s. Human amplification technology is way more expensive these days," Remo explained. He had recently picked up the term "human amplification" from an airplane magazine article and was pretty pleased to have the chance of actually using it in a sentence. It made him sound downright credible.

  "You really are with the government, eh?" Clark mused. "So why you keeping me prisoner like this?"

  "I told you, Lee, I need bait. You're it. I couldn't have you doing anything out of the ordinary that might warn off the killers."

  Having come to terms with the fact that Remo, last name not clearly enunciated, was not the killer, Clark now had to accept that another party, which was the killer, was likely to be joining them.

  "How soon until them murdering sons of bitches make their move?" Clark asked.

  "Soon, I hope, before I pass out from the smell," Remo said.

  "What smell?"

  The sea calmed as they moved north, and after a night that seemed like days the wind dropped, too, the waves settling to a more reasonable five feet. That was when Remo became even more alert and went up on deck. The sky was less dreary than the day before, but the sun was still no more than a bright spot in the gloomy cloud cover. The precipitation was gone and the air was scrubbed clean, giving them a view to the horizon.

  Clark had bundled up and tromped out after Remo, only to find the expensive bionic CIA operative standing there doing the listening thing again. Clark examined the ear too closely.

  "You're violating my personal space, Lee."

  "It's a superear like Jamie Sommers, eh? You know, Steve Austin's girlfriend?"

  "If I told you I would have to kill you," Remo replied and moved a few paces away from the man who had lived for nearly two months on a sailboat that had no shower.

  Remo's sense of hearing was well beyond the range of most humans, but there were no electronics stuck in there. Remo Williams had the highly tuned hearing of one trained in the arts of Sinanju.

  There was more to Sinanju than hearing, and in fact all Remo's senses were magnified to an uncanny degree. His sense of balance came not from years at sea but from Sinanju, as well. He controlled his body to a degree far beyond that of everyday men and women. Staying warm in inclement weather and the ability to dry his clothes— these came simply from manipulating his body heat.

  But even that was just the beginning of what S
inanju was, and Remo was the Reigning Master of Sinanju. The only other living Master, the Master Emeritus, was back home in Connecticut watching Spanish language soap operas.

  Soaps or no soaps, Remo would have preferred the Connecticut duplex to this fume-filled toy boat. When would the killers come?

  And how would they come? Not by air. The spy satellites would spot them for sure. After the first mysterious murder many electronic eyes had started monitoring the Around the World All by Yourself sailboat race. Still, another sailor had been murdered, out in the middle of nowhere, and the electronic eyes never saw a thing. Not on radar, not on thermal, not on visual.

  A boat? The spy sats knew how to look for the wake of any boat that was fast enough to catch up to a racing sailboat.

  So if it wasn't above the water or on the water, it could only be below the water. Remo had spent hours listening for the sound of a surfacing submarine, or any anomalous noise resonating through the Traverser's hull. There was nothing.

  "What if the killers don't come, Agent Remo?" Clark asked. "The government gonna send out a boat to pick you up?"

  "I think that would not be appreciated by my superiors in the agency," Remo commented. "I'll walk home if I have to."

  "'Cause I got to tell you," Clark added, "it don't look like they're coming."

  Remo nodded. Then he heard the sound. "Well, look, Lee, here they are now."

  Clark spun like a top and looked northeast, where the horizon hid the Chilean shore. He saw nothing at first, then a pinprick resolved against the waves. "Coming fast!" he muttered. "What the hell is it?"

  "Not a submarine," Remo said.

  "I know, but what?"

  "A water wing or a wind-effect craft or whatever they're called."

  "A ground-effect craft, you mean?" Clark said. "Well, that explains it."

  Yeah, Remo thought. That explained it. He had taken a ride on such a craft before. This was a smaller version of the heavy-lift craft he once rode across the Atlantic. This vehicle had a wingspan no bigger than that of a twin-engine aircraft, with broad, canopied wings that took it only a few feet off the surface of the water. The propellers out front powered it and air pressure built up between the wings and the water's surface to keep her airborne at all but the slowest speeds. Without the drag of the water, the craft could go as fast as a speedboat. This one looked souped up to go much faster.

  In under a minute the winged craft had closed in on the bobbing Traverser, and it banked to reduce speed quickly, then landed hard on the water's surface, her speed propelling her directly at the sailboat as if to impale her on its sharp nose.

  By then Remo had sent Lee Clark belowdecks. Remo was now in a plastic yellow rain jacket. He felt stupid wearing it with his hand-sewn leather shoes, but he wouldn't wear it long anyway.

  The ground-effect craft was black and shiny, polished to help it slip through the air, and there was a sheen of water covering wings. Remo had noticed that the thin steel rods that jutted like fingers from the wings and the nose were configured to penetrate the ocean's surface, even when the craft was airborne, and channel water over the top surface of the wings in a constant trickle. Remo understood that. It was controlling its temperature to hide it from the thermal-imaging satellites looking for hot spots. No wake and a skin color the same as the ocean made it visually undetectable. A perfect way to sneak up on a speeding sailboat. And the thing was fast.

  "You guys are in a big hurry, eh?" Remo called down to the men in tight-fitting outfits that jumped out of the side door of the craft just after tossing out their preinflated life raft. The inflatable's electric motor came to life with a high-pitched whine. Only a few yards separated the strange craft from the sailboat, but the raft closed the distance in a flash.

  "That's a pretty cool motor you boys got on that little blow-up there, eh? Where's the fire, eh?"

  The strangers never even slowed, just grabbed onto the Traverser's deck rails and yanked themselves over, landing on the deck in the same instant.

  "Pretty neat moves," Remo said. "You guys ought to be in a water show. You know, a year don't go by that the wife and I don't get out to Wisconsin Dells for the Tommy Bartlett Show. Now, you guy's ain't that good, eh, but—"

  "Shut up!" barked one of the men. Their thermal suits included hoods that exposed only their faces.

  Remo found he could only tell them apart by nose size. Even their automatic rifles were identical.

  "Hey, there, now, Big Nose, we don't allow no guns on board, eh."

  "I said shut up! Put your damn hands in the air!"

  "Don't appreciate the unfriendly tone of voice," Remo replied.

  "He's lost it," said the second man, waving his blackened rifle at Remo Williams. "He was out here too long and he snapped."

  "Well, my wife always says I'm crazy," Remo said happily. "She says I'm as loopy as a loon. 'Remo,' she says, 'you're as loopy as a loon!'"

  "Remo? I thought your name was Lee," the first gunner said. "Lee Clark."

  "Don't tell me we got the wrong boat."

  "Right boat, Bigger Nose," Remo said, all the friendliness gone from his voice. "Wrong sailor."

  "Shit, they made us!" Big Nose exclaimed.

  "Let's kill him and go!" Bigger Nose added.

  They agreed on this course of action without further discussion and began firing their weapons.

  Their quick, controlled bursts of automatic gunfire should have been sufficient to wipe out a large crew, but for some reason this one sailor went untouched. He was moving, shifting, almost dancing this way and that, even as he was coming at them with slippery speed. Surely he wasn't dodging the bullets?

  He got to them before their magazines were used up, snatched the rifles out of their hands with a brisk movement and twisted the barrels together like wire.

  They were both trained soldiers, and they both instinctively went for backup weapons sheathed, strapped and holstered about their bodies, but then they froze, paralyzed by pain.

  Remo held each of them by the wrist and pushed a thumb into their flesh, in just the right spot.

  "Who talks and who dies, eh?" Remo asked.

  "He'll kill us!" one of them croaked, his eyeballs craning to the side. He was referring to the ground-effect craft.

  Remo could hear the rapid movement of the pilot inside. Going for a gun, Remo assumed. These guys took their security seriously if they were willing to waste their own men.

  "Let's go," Remo said, jerking the attackers across the deck, where the pilot couldn't target them.

  Remo took only two steps before he felt something strange, a tiny surge of an electrical current that passed through each attacker's body. Then he sensed the activation of a minute electromechanical switch somewhere on the torso of each man.

  Remo moved fast, spinning himself in place and dragging both the attackers with him, then he released them. One of them flew down from the rail, directly into the sea and exploded just as he hit, blasting the Traverser and Remo Williams with a wall of water.

  But the second attacker was airborne over the deck of the sailboat when the explosives strapped to his body detonated. Remo had put all his skill and strength into launching his attackers, and there wasn't time to dodge the blast, but he had expelled the air from his lungs and allowed his body to ride out the crushing cushions of air that slammed him from two sides.

  It was over in an instant, and Remo inhaled deeply as the sailboat bobbed wildly. The Traverser's deck was cratered where the second attacker had blown up, and the deck was littered with gore and body parts.

  The ground-effect craft revved her engines and gathered speed, her hull rising high in the water. Once she was released from the friction of the sea, her speed would increase rapidly.

  Remo glanced around and found the twisted rifles, pushed to the aft end of the deck by the explosion. He lifted the awkward, heavy contortion of metal and tested its weight in his hand. The escaping craft skimmed a high wave and lifted free, humming props accelerating her t
o raceboat speeds.

  Remo flung the twisted metal and watched it wobble through the air as he heard Lee Clark emerge. Clark took in the bizarre, morbid scene and followed the long flight of the twisted metal.

  The conjoined rifles seemed to hover high above the accelerating ground-effect craft, then floated down, down, inserting themselves into the right prop just about the time the craft reached sixty-five miles per hour. The prop disintegrated, the right side lurched and the wing penetrated the water while the left side kept going forward. The result was a spectacular cartwheel of fiberglass and metal parts and spraying water. The frameless body and wings were designed to withstand extreme forces, but this was way beyond their design limits. The craft separated into two large wing pieces, the passenger compartment and many smaller parts.

  "Aw, crap," Remo said, and jumped over the rail into the inflatable landing raft that the attackers had used. The little motor had died once the attackers left it, but it buzzed angrily to life when Remo pushed the button.

  Remo had faster ways of reaching to the crash, but not of getting there and bringing back a seriously wounded pilot. He arrived just as the steel cage of the cockpit, floating in a jagged bowl of broken fiberglass, leaned into the Pacific Ocean, filled with water and submerged. Remo leaped from the inflatable and hit the water in a dive so sharp he barely rippled the surface or the floating debris.

  He caught up to the pilot cage about twenty-five feet down, reached inside and dragged out the pilot.

  The pilot stared at Remo Williams all the way back to the surface, and all the way back to the sailboat. The pilot wasn't going to be answering any questions, but at least he was a corpse that might be identified.

  Back on the Traverser, around-the-world sailor Lee Clark was using his mop to swab the gory deck. He liked to run a tight ship.

  3

  "I wish you would have stopped him," said the man with the gray complexion. He was sitting behind a huge desk with an onyx top. Behind him, out the large picture window, was his seldom-admired view of Long Island Sound.

  "Why?" Remo asked.