The Apocalypse Troll

The patrol boat thundered closer, and he saw more uniformed figures moving about her decks. Any minute now-

"Attention!" The amplified voice roared across the water on schedule, and he gri

He waved cheerfully and kept right on coming. The Scimitar altered course in a flurry of foam, and now both gun mounts were tracking him. Beyond her, the moored vessel was sharply defined in the strengthening light, and a low, whalelike shape nuzzled alongside her. So, one of the brood was home.

The patrol boat crossed his course and circled him, cutting across his stern as Amanda pitched over the turbulence of its wake, and he saw glasses trained on the lettering on his transom.

"Attention, Amanda!" the amplified voice snapped. "This is a naval area closed to private use! You are in restricted waters!"

The patrol boat came still closer, and he picked up his own loudhailer, moving slowly and carefully. He was reasonably certain no one was likely to get carried away, but he hadn't lived this long by taking things for granted when someone aimed a loaded weapon at him. He raised the loudhailer to his mouth and pointed it at the patrol boat.

"I know I am!" he shouted back. "I require assistance! My radios are out or I would have asked for it already!"

There was no immediate response, but the patrol boat slowed. He put his own prop into neutral and coasted slowly as the big, aluminum-hulled boat edged closer, powerful diesels burbling throatily with their three thousand leashed horses. He wondered what the boat's skipper made of him. There were any number of places he could have stopped with a normal problem; the fact that he hadn't must be giving someone furiously to think.

"State the nature of your difficulty, please." The amplified voice was more polite and closer to a conversational level as the Scimitar closed to within twenty yards. The gun muzzles had been deflected, but not by much; they could be back on target in an instant, he noted approvingly.

"Sorry," he said, gri

There was another, longer silence, and he chuckled, imagining the back and forth flight of radioed questions. It wasn't all that hard to discover the squadron commander's name, but it wasn't all that easy, either. And it was unusual, to say the least, for pleasure craft to declare emergencies and then refuse to disclose the details to anyone short of the squadron CO.

"Amanda," the voice was back, "stand by to be boarded."

"Mind the hull," he said calmly, and stood easily beside the wheel as the Scimitar slid alongside.

She was twenty feet longer than Amanda and burly with power, a Percheron beside a quarter horse, but her coxswain handled her with delicate precision. Two seamen were at the side, clinging to a superstructure handrail with one hand each while they lowered fenders over the side. They were armed, and the L85 Enfield assault rifles slung over their shoulders bobbed with their movements.

Amanda shuddered gently and the fenders squeaked as the Scimitar blipped her throttles expertly and edged right alongside on reversed power. Two more armed seamen appeared, one on her foredeck and one aft. They sprang down lightly with mooring lines, but not until the pair tending the fenders had unslung their artillery. Most seamen of Aston's experience tended to look a bit self-conscious about small arms. They seemed to regard anything more puny than a ca

The line-handlers cleated their lines and unlimbered their own rifles. Aston stood calmly and patiently in plain sight, waiting until an officer in spotless whites appeared at the side, even with Amanda's cockpit. He wore a Browning automatic on a webbed belt, but the holster flap was snapped. Well, Aston mused, all the firepower he'd ever need was already prominently on display. He was a brisk, efficient-looking sort, fit and chunky, with the single-stripe shoulder boards of a lieutenant.

"May I come aboard, Sir?" he asked in a very English accent and with as much punctilious courtesy as if no guns were in evidence, and Aston gri

"By all means, Lieutenant," he said gravely, and the youngster swung himself down to Amanda's deck.

"Lieutenant Mackley," he introduced himself briskly, "Royal Navy. And you are?"

"In the same profession, Lieutenant," Aston said dryly, and drew a small leather folder from his hip pocket. He extended it, and the lieutenant flipped it open.

His eyes widened slightly, then darted back up to Aston's face. Aston was glad he'd shaved this morning.

"Sir," the lieutenant said, right hand rising sharply to the brim of his cap. Aston nodded his bare head in reply, and the lieutenant brought his hand down. His response had been automatic, but Aston could see his puzzlement and felt his own eyes crinkle in amusement. Mackley seemed at a loss for just a moment, but he recovered quickly.

"With respect, Captain Aston, this is a restricted mooring. I am instructed to discover the nature of your emergency and report to base."

"I know where I am, Mister Mackley, but I'm afraid I can't tell you why I'm here. No disrespect, son, but I have to talk to the American CO."

"But, Sir-"

"Lieutenant," Aston interrupted pleasantly, "please believe that I wouldn't make waves for you if I could help it. As it happens, I can't help it, and that's all there is to it." The lieutenant seemed briefly at a loss again, and Aston smiled. "If I may make a suggestion, Mister Mackley?"

"Of course, Sir."

"What I'd recommend is that you leave a couple of your men on Amanda, then lead me in. I'll follow in your wake and be a good boy while you guide me to a secure mooring, then wait right here on board until we can get this situation straightened out."

"Very well, Sir," Mackley said after a very short pause. Clearly the lieutenant knew when to compromise, but Aston knew there was no way he would pull his armed party off Amanda, apparent rank or no, until he knew with absolute certainty that Aston was who he claimed to be. Aston was inclined to approve of young Mister Mackley. Indeed, he declined to mention the only thing he might have faulted. In Mackley's place, he would have insisted on a peek below before he escorted Amanda in-not that Aston had any intention of permitting that.

The lieutenant turned to his men, passing instructions, then turned back to Aston.

"Chief Haggerty will assist with your helm, Sir," he said with exquisite politeness while two of the seamen transformed the bow mooring into a tow line, and Aston gri

"That's very kind of the Chief," he observed, nodding to the boatswain's mate Mackley had indicated. The petty officer nodded back and took Amanda's wheel, and Aston slowly packed and lit his pipe, standing comfortably in a corner of the cockpit, as the patrol boat's engines throbbed back to life. Lieutenant Mackley clearly intended to take no chances with letting this particular fish off a nice, secure line until he had Aston parked precisely where he wanted him ... and safely isolated from shore.

The Scimitar towed Amanda sedately towards the big ship, then alongside the platform of a semipermanent accommodation ladder that scaled the submarine tender's looming side-the side away from the moored nuclear attack submarine, Aston noted as the perso

"If you please, Sir?" The boatswain's mate spoke for the first time, in a pronounced Clydeside accent, and indicated the platform and the ladderlike steps reaching up to the tender's deck.