Thomas held up another wrench. "It might, at that."

This one, released, went through the grate. They heard a series of clanking noises followed almost immediately by a dreadful screeching.

"Sounds like they lost an impeller blade," Thomas said. "Ah, gee. They better shut it down before they lose a turb-"

The screeching noise stopped and the overall noise level dropped markedly.

There was still one turbine running and one water jet. Thomas held up the two-pound sledge.

Patricia eyed its geometry doubtfully. "I don't know. Can't hurt to try."

As she suspected, foamed enough to float, it stuck in the grid.

Thomas held up the bolt cutters and Patricia said, "No way-too big, but-."

She took the cutters and used them on the chain running between the handcuffs on Fraser's ankles. "Hold still." The steel was extremely tough and wouldn't cut for her, but Thomas was able to do it, bracing one handle against the floor and using his weight.

She snaked up the released heavy chain, the deadweight used to sink Fraser. It was two feet long and weighed over five pounds. "Now that's what I'm talking about," she said. "Poetic justice. Go, sir, rub your chain with crumbs." She foamed it and dropped it out the hatch.The remaining water jet died a spectacular death. The chain broke two of its impellers and it went into asymmetrical convulsions before Sycorax's crew could disengage it.

"Oh, my," Patricia said, listening to the speaker. "Sounds like it tore the casing open. They've got a leak." With both turbines shut down, they could actually hear shouting transmitted through the hull. Sycorax, battered by wind and wave, stopped quickly. "Time for the next step."

She put on her fins and mask and the pony bottle; then, dragging the tank of salvage foam with her, she dropped through the hatch and swam back to the intake grid. She thrust the nozzle within and held it down. It took five minutes to empty the tank and, just before it quit, foam was extruding through the grating, having filled the interior of the water intakes.

Even after they replace the impeller blades, I seriously doubt they're going to get any thrust out of this engine.

The pony bottle was empty by the time she climbed back into the sub. "You got that antenna wired to your radio yet?"

"Aye, aye, ma'am. I do."

"And have you tested it?"

"Not yet. I was a little concerned about you. When we start broadcasting, I'm worried they may start dropping more depth charges."

"Then, let's away from here!"

She pumped negative and released, gliding away from Sycorax and banking hard for her stern, to keep away from her sonar dome, still gliding. Then, low flywheels or no; she powered away from them until they were over a half mile away.

The radio worked, with the sub surfaced and the antenna extended into the acrylic nose section. Thomas told Jazz enough details to start things moving. "Call Admiral Rylant on the secure link. Tell him everything. Get Major Paine's bomb squad working on the devices under the Abattoir."

The seas were lessening and, with great discomfort, Patricia kept the sub on the surface until the INS Witch of Endor, backed up by the U.S. Navy missile frigate Samuel Eliot Morison, arrived three hours later.

19.

Becket: Diapositivas de tiempo ^ For Becket the rest of the day dissolved into a series of crystalline moments framed with timeless stretches of fatigue fog. There had been too little sleep, too much coffee, and too much adrenaline.

SubLorraine being plucked from the sea by a utility crane on the navy missile frigate as if it were the slightest bit of flotsam and deposited gently on her aft deck.

A warm meal in an incredibly spacious wardroom. The taste of spaghetti with Italian sausages.

Commander Wall being transferred to the other INS Fastship on a stretcher, in a body bag. When his surrender was demanded by Captain Heins of the Witch of Endor, he'd gone back to his cabin and used his service automatic.

Watching Major Paine's VTOL V-32 come out of the fog and rain, then land on the fantail of the Sycorax to disgorge Jazz, Ensign Terkel, and the rest of Thomas's CID team, there to start documenting evidence.

The Witch of Endor also left a damage-control team and skeleton operation crew on Sycorax to repair the impellers and clean the salvage foam out of the intake jets, then bring her in. They'd be taking it directly to BBINS when they were done.

Standing with Patricia and Fraser in New Galveston, where the two ships docked at a pier normally used for cruise liners as the handcuffed crew of the Sycorax was brought off the Witch of Endor by NGPD officers.

Rylant had authorized the use of the non-INS officers. "The witch-hunt on this is going to be ugly," he'd said on the phone. "I don't want any more suicides or any escapes. Keep them clear of INS until we know who else is involved."

The faces of the crew-stoic, depressed, closed-changed markedly when they saw Fraser, back from the dead. Eyes widened; jaws dropped. Mowett, the damage controlman who'd pushed Fraser over, recoiled into his escort and nearly went over the gangplank railing.

"What a good idea!" Fraser was hopping up and down, shouting. "You try to swim with handcuffs!" When all of the crew had passed, Thomas sent Fraser off with an NGPD protective-custody team.

Patricia was not amused. "He's far more outraged that they tried to kill him-not that they drowned those children in the Open Lotus."

Thomas nodded. "Give him a little credit. He drew the line late, but he did drawit."

She shook her head. "Tell it to los Encinas."

Becket saw her point, but Fraser had already identified six Nat-Al participants on staff in the Abattoir and had seen others that he would be able to identify from file photos. And hopefully, the fact that he's alive and talking will encourage others to cooperate.

Major Paine's office, examining one of the floating recoilless rifle shells, the detonator removed. "There are too many of them for my boys alone, so we've got INS EOD, my bomb squad, and every recreational diver on the force under there. I hope you don't mind, but except for a percentage, for evidence, we're puncturing the floats and letting them sink. It's the quickest way to deal with them."

"As long as you're keeping track of the number."

"Right."

"Would it have worked?" Thomas said, leaning over and looking at the tip of the shell.

"Too well. Not only would it have compromised the hex flotation, my bomb squad supervisor says it would have sent seacrete flying like shrapnel topside, killing and wounding enormous numbers even before they started drowning. You know how crowded it is over there."

Patricia sighed. "About as crowded as the hold of the Open Lotus."

Thomas drooped. "Yes. About that crowded."

A videophone conversation with a shaken Admiral Pachefski, furious at the attempted destruction of his facility and his charges. "I can't even begin to fathom how people like that think! They have no empathy, no human feeling."

Thomas answered him. "That's why, I suppose, most of them had to be people not from your facility, who've actively avoided seeing the refugees as people. The crew of the Sycorax was insulated from them, thinking of them not as human, but only as other. Others with different skins who wanted to move into their neighborhoods, take their jobs-all that fear-of-change stuff."

Thomas felt numb, emotionally depleted. "Even the six we know about, who did work for you, are from the detention facility and that's a bit different. No children, mostly felons. I imagine they found it easy to keep from identifying with them."

"Yes, well, we got five of those, but we're missing one. Master Chief Gunner Stuben. He was on the sick list, but he wasn't in his quarters. We've forwarded his picture and details to Major Paine-they're watching the airport and the ferries andthe commercial shipping. I imagine, when the news breaks, they'll be putting his face on television. It won't take long."

"When the story breaks? Do you think it will?"

Pachefski sighed. "It has to. This has got to end. Congresswoman Beenan is right." He shook his head and looked off to the right. "I was wrong, you know.

When I suggested you look outside the INS for the perpetrators. I thought maintaining the status quo was the way to take care of this, but I see now it isn't."

And finally, the long, seemingly endless climb up the stairs at Patricia's hex.

Major Paine had kicked both of them out of police central, saying, "Jeez, go get some rest. You guys look like death warmed over."

Thomas climbed slowly. "Did they add a couple more flights of stairs while we were gone?" His stitches were inflamed from either his exertions or their immersion underwater-or both.

"Men are such babies! I suppose you'll complain about the stairs up to my loft as well." She was walking with his good arm across her shoulders and her arm around his waist. The farther up they went, the more of Thomas's weight she was supporting.

"I don't mean to complain," he said mildly. "In truth, I've little to complain about. I'm alive. You're alive. We're together. The other end of the Strand still floats, and half a million people still scurry, sleep, love, eat, and get in each other's way."

"And you've probably infected your cut. We should probably go to the hospital instead."

He shook his head. "No. In the morning, perhaps, if it's not better. Thank god!"

They'd reached the top of the stairs, the courtyard with the play structure and Art of Learning School. "That is by far the most impressive play structure I've ever seen. It must've cost a fortune."

Patricia cleared her throat and said nothing.

Thomas raised his unscarred eyebrow. "Just pretend I repeated the question. I'm too tired to actually do it."

"All right. I'm a criminal. In violation of the Flood Salvage Act, I lifted those pieces from sunken Burger Kings and McDonald's all up and down the Texas coast."

Thomas said, "Hold out your wrist." He slapped the back of her hand lightly, then shook his finger before her face. "Bad Patricia, no bone."

Thomas was glad to see there was a police officer still stationed outsidePatricia's door. He was an older officer, heavy, who didn't exercise enough. His uniform gapped slightly at the shirt buttons. Looks like he'll have to go up to another size soon.

Patricia greeted the policeman, smiling. "All quiet?" she said.

The policeman ducked his head.

Patricia punched the combination on the lock and opened the door. Thomas followed, curious. He'd never been inside this apartment, yet it was going to be their home.

He got one step inside the apartment and tried to turn, sensing movement.

Something hard struck him on the back of his head and he went to all fours on the floor. Through the pain, he heard the door slam and someone lock it. He shook his head and staggered back to his feet.

"Stop right there!"

The voice was the same. Their old friend from the seawall, the man who'd phoned in the bomb threat to keep Patricia from inspecting the Abattoir.

When Thomas could focus, he saw the policeman standing behind Patricia, one arm across her throat, the nine-millimeter police automatic pressed against her temple.

"Chief Stuben, I presume. I should've realized it wasn't your uniform. Is he still alive?" Thomas's head was pounding.

Stuben hesitated. "Probably, but you're asking all the wrong questions, Commander." The man's face was twisted, all civility dropped from sight. He ground the gun into Patricia's head and she winced. "Hold still, or I'll blow your head off!"

"What do you want, Stuben?" Thomas kept his voice quiet. "You weren't on the Sycorax when she sank the Open Lotus and you failed to kill us on the seawall so you can't be charged with murder. Wouldn't it be better not to compound your crimes?"

"Give it a rest, Commander. I'd have gladly operated the cannon on the Sycorax.

I'd have gladly pushed the detonator to set off our charges under the Abattoir. And I put the bomb on the submarine that this,"-he twisted the gun again, bringing a cry of pain from Patricia-"bitch found. None of those were crimes. They were the highest form of patriotism. It's you and your fucking brown-skinned sympathizers who are betraying your country."

"What do you want, Stuben?" Thomas asked again.

"I want a long-range helicopter, INS or NGPD, I don't care, set down on the roof of the school. It will be fully fueled. You and the assemblywoman here will join me in a short trip shoreward, but if I don't get what I want, you two won't live tosee it."

Patricia narrowed her eyes and closed her mouth into a straight line.

Don't do it, Patricia.

She mouthed, I love you.

Oh, no! He looked around, moving just his eyes, looking for anything to use as a weapon. "I'll have to make a call," he said.

"What are you doing?" The voice was young, female, and came from overhead, from the loft.

Thomas looked up to see Marie, the small black girl he'd met in the courtyard, looking over the railing.

Stuben jerked the gun up, twisting Patricia around, and fired. Wood splinters exploded from the edge of the loft, and the small girl screamed and ducked back.

Patricia twisted inside Stuben's grip, bringing up her right elbow, the same maneuver she'd used on Geoffrey the first time Thomas saw her. The elbow caught Stuben in the face, knocking him back, but he still had his gun. Thomas scooped up the heavy brass bust of Shakespeare by the door and threw it, underhanded. It was heavier than he'd expected and well below Thomas's chosen target, Stuben's head, but it smashed into the man's upper shin with painful force, and he bent over, a gasp of pain forced from his lips.

Patricia scooped the bust and lifted it hard, bringing it up into Stuben's elbow, and the gun flew up, from nerveless fingers. Stuben tried to reach for it with his other hand, ignoring Patricia, and she swung the bust into his stomach. Then, when he bent over from this, she brought her knee into his face. She was screaming, "Don't you ever mess with my kids!"

Stuben fell over backward and Thomas hobbled to the gun, where it landed on the couch. Patricia raised the bust and took a step toward Stuben, lying on his back, breathless, his nose bleeding.

Thomas said, "Whoa, girl. You whupped him."

She looked around at Thomas, the wild look on her face still there, but it faded when she saw the gun in his hand. She turned away and yelled up, "Marie? Are you all right?"