THE MAGIC LABYRINTH

But the Rex wouldn't have been taken through the strait just to ambush the airplane. He...

De Marbot's voice crackled. "Captain!, We just got Santiago! He'd been hiding behind a bulkwall section! He made a dash up a passageway and almost got to the deck railing! Johnston shot him through the head!"

"Give me the details later," Sam said. "Continue the search for other agents. Look..."

"Rockets!" Detweiller screamed.

32

SAM CLEMENS TURNED AROUND. SOMETHING SWIFT AND SILvery from above struck the base of the pilothouse. The explosion was deafening; the deck shook. Another roar from above. The pilothouse vibrated. Smoke shrouded the windows on all sides for several seconds. Then the wind seized it and scattered it.

"What the hell!" Sam said over and over.

"It's from up there," Detweiller said. He released a control stick just long enough to point up and to his right.

"Get her away!" Sam yelled. "Downstream!"

The pilot had already applied full power. A cool one, that Detweiller.

Again, another flash of silver. Dozens of them. More explosions. A battery of rockets on the starboard disappeared in a thunder of fire and smoke. A direct hit from whoever was launching those missiles from wherever.

"Zigzag her!" Sam shouted.

There were three more direct hits. Other missiles plunged into the water on both sides and aft.

"Our radar's gone," Byron said. He ordered the rocket crews to fire back, using visual calculations.

"But where are they?" Sam said.

"Up on the cliff!" Byron and Detweiller said at the same time.

"Thee!" Joe said, pointing out the stern port.

While Byron was asking for reports on the damage and casualties, Sam looked along the titanthrop's massive finger. About five hundred feet up, where there had been an unbroken wall of rock, there was now an opening. An oblong, it was thirty feet long and seven feet high. Tiny faces looked out from behind launchers, and the sun glinted on the silver of missiles and tubes.

"Jumping Jesus H. Christ!"

John's men must have found a cave up on the face of the mountain, and they'd carried rockets and launchers to it. A shield of some sort, probably papier-mache simulating a patch of lichen, had been placed over the opening. While his rocketeers waited inside it, John had fled up the strait.

"Suckered!" Sam said, and he groaned.

A minute passed as the boat churned down-River. Then, making him jump though he knew they were coming, about twelve large missiles sped from the opening, the interior of the cave lit up for a second by flames.

"Hard aport!" Sam yelled.

Only one of the rockets hit. A steam machine gun disappeared in a cloud, pieces of bodies and metal flying out from it. When the smoke cleared, there was a large hole where the platform, gun, and three men and two women had been.

For a moment, Sam was numbed throughout, unable to move or to think anything except: War is not my element. War is no rational man's element. I should have faced reality and given Byron the command. But no, my pride, my pride. John was wily, wily indeed, and he also had the great Dane, Tor-denskjold, as adviser.

Vaguely, he became aware that the boat was heading toward the bank. Byron's voice, as if from a long distance, was saying, "Should I keep her on course, Captain?"

"Tham, Tham," Joe rumbled behind him. "Chethuth Chritht, ve're going to run into the bank!"

Sam forced himself to move, to speak.

"We won't stay on course. Head her down-River and get back in the middle."

There were bodies on the main deck. Youngblood, Czerny, and de Groot. And there was the upper part of the beautiful A

He had seen corpses and blood before, and he wasn't any youngster playing Confederate soldier. There was no Wild West to run away to, leaving the Civil War to those with a taste for it. He couldn't desert now.

From fear he went to anger. The cup of bourbon that Joe— good old Joe!—handed him fueled his wrath. Damn John and his sneaky tricks! He'd send the man to hell, go with him if it was necessary.

He spoke to Byron. "Do you think we could blast those bastards out of that cave?"

The exec took a long look. "I think so. Of course, if their missile supply is exhausted, there's no use wasting ours on them."

"I don't see any in the tubes," Sam said. "But they might be keeping them out of sight, hoping we'll come back to attack. Let's go back and make sure. I don't want those hyenas laughing at us."

Byron raised his eyebrows. Evidently he thought it was foolish to risk more hits. He said, "Yes, sir," and went back to the intercom. Sam told Detweiller what he wanted. And while the Not For Hire turned again, the rocket crews readied for their mission.

Byron gave his report in a flat cool voice. Twenty dead. Thirty-two badly wounded. Eleven of the wounded could be patched up and returned to duty. One steam machine gun, one rocket battery, and one ca

Worst of all, the radar ante

A lookout told Sam that new rockets were being put into the tubes by the men in the cave.

"Byron, start firing when I give the word!" Sam said.

The exec relayed the order to sight in on the opening. The boat was now eight hundred yards from the base of the cliff. Sam told Detweiller to spin it, presenting its starboard side. He should then let the current carry it away until the starboard ca

At Sam's relayed order, the 88-millimeter belched fire, smoke, and thunder, and the other whooshed. One shell struck just above the opening; the other struck just below. No second round was necessary. The rockets in the cave must have been set off by the lower explosion. They went up in a cloud from which spewed fragments that could have been bodies.

When the smoke cleared, only some twisted metal could be seen.

"I think we can take it for granted they're wiped out," Sam said. He felt gratified. The enemy were not human beings. They were things that could kill him and had to be killed before they could do so.

"Take her back to the center about a quarter-mile from the pass," Sam said. "Byron, order the helicopter brought up."

"King John is using his, too," Byron said. He pointed at the opening. Sam saw it, hanging about two thousand feet up, a tiny machine framed in the dark gate of the strait.

"I don't want John to see what we're doing," he said. "Tell Petroski to get rid of it."

Sam called in de Marbot. The instructions took two minutes. De Marbot saluted and went off to carry out the plan.

Petroski, the copter pilot, warmed up the motor, and took off with his two machine-gu

Sam watched it as it climbed slowly, burdened with its deadly load. It took a while to climb up above the altitude of the craft in the mouth of the pass. Sam asked the Frenchman how he was coming. De Marbot, in the stern, replied that both launches were almost filled with rockets. He could leave in a few minutes.