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Chapter Seven - Alliteration and Armorpiercing Ammunition

"Certain areas may require the use of hardhats and earplugs..." – NRCan Safety Manual  

Hargrove could only stare at the apparition before him.  Could it be?  Was it possible?

The two men stared each other in the eyes, and Hargrove realized the awful truth.  The man was indeed a higher representative of the exploitative, mass-enslaving Christian church.  His teeth ground together in reflexive rage before his pulsating headache reasserted itself.   The Bishop continued to stare into his eyes, as if awaiting...something, some event, some expected occurrence.  Abruptly Hargrove came to a sudden conclusion, aided by his keen cognitive skills, and realized exactly what that must be.  Never, you spawn of mankind’s fear of death.  The two, separated by meters of distance and light years of philosophical paradigm, continued to hold their stances, the Bishop awaiting, and Hargrove denying. 

A fly abruptly chose that moment to examine Hargrove’s nostril, and he sneezed mightily, expelling an ugly splatter of clotted blood to the deck.

“I’m glad you asked,” the Bishop thundered, his deep bass echoing from the stacks, and frightening a group of seagulls mincing about Tobermorrey’s supine form.  Damn, thought Hargrove.  “I am the famed Bishop of the Alexandrian Catechetical School, and companion to St Anthony and St Anthanasius.  I supported Anthansias against the Arians in Egypt.  Due to this, my support of Anthansias and condemnation of Arianism, I was unjustly banished from Egypt.  Do I make myself clear?”

“No,” retorted the famed detective, receiving (another shock in an evening of surprises) an approving, if grudging nod from McGuinness, who’s wrench had begun to twitch after the fourth ‘A’.  “And I never actually asked,” he added helpfully.  At least I’ll save money on Q-tips this year, he considered, watching Frieda dig hastily in her purse for her ever-present bottle of Codeine.  The man’s voice could overpower the base throb at a decadent teenybopper dance club.

“Ah,” erupted Serapion setting up a reservation deep in Hargrove’s chest.  He had to tear his eyes away from sound’s effect on Frieda.  “Well, suffice to say I have returned in order to sort out this little mess of yours.”

“Get over yourself,” the detective muttered, bending over the body of the first mate.  The knife in his back was rather distinctive: a Fairbairn-Sykes, balanced for throwing.  Or was that a Sykes-Fairborn?  Depended on the nationality, he supposed.  Bloody Americans. Thrown from high above, judging by the angle of penetration.  Hargrove shivered for an instant, studying the stacks and superstructure above, before realizing that it ruled him out as the target and the First Mate as a fortuitous accident.

“Step away from the body, Unbeliever, or resign yourself to be damned to hell for all of Eternity!” 

Hargrove nonchalantly wiped the dandruff from the right shoulder of his pink leisure suit, combed his hair back into place, and turned his head left to stare into the rapidly purpling face of Serapion.  “It’s always damned to hell with you catholic types, isn’t it?” he inquired, rising, and moving from the body.  “I’ve seen enough.”

“Ooooo, Hargrove,” breathed Frieda somewhat asthmatically.  “You brilliant man.”

Enough to know I haven’t a clue.   “McGuinness!  How is Tobermorrey?”

The coveralled one turned from his crouched inspection.  “Bloody dead,” came the succinct answer.

Hargrove cradled the Webley in his hands, ever so carefully.  “Please step away from the body, Engineer,” he continued. Hargrove stared dubiously at the pipe wrench in the massive man’s fist.  “The blood seems rather fresh on that....”

“It’s yourrrs, ye daft crimson fart!”

“Ah.”  The Webley disappeared. 

At that moment an earsplitting shriek ended with a hammering thump, and a relatively small hole appeared in the stack directly above them.

“Warning shot number one, capitalist running dogs!”  came the electronically amplified voice of the submarine captain.

“Running dog?  Was he educated in China?”  mused Serapion at glass cracking volume.   

“He wants Tobermorrey,” shouted Hargrove, crawling out from under Frieda Engles, whom he had dragged to the ground when the shell hit.  With himself on the bottom, to gallantly break her fall, of course.  “But Tobermorrey’s-“

“-Dead as a wog caught badmouthin’ a tartan, and in much the same way,” finished McGuiness, standing up beside the twisted-limbed corpse.  “They will nae be gettin’ him fer noothin’ now.”

“I think we’ve a bit of time left yet,” Frieda threw in, eyeing the hole in the stack.  “Even if they start firing for effect, it’s going to take them an incredibly long time to sink a compartmentalized ship with a 90mm deck gun firing penetrating shells.”

“Too true m’dear;” responded Hargrove, earning him a sultry stare, “Your stint in the mercenary companies of Ugandan Rebels has apparently served you well.  But it’s only a matter of time before they go back to torpedoes.  We need to figure out what was so special about Tobermorrey.”

“His papers?”

Hargrove glanced at Serapion.  Fortunately the Bishop was perched on the railing, hurling imprecations at the uncaring submarine captain.  Just one push...  He shook the fantasy off, and tore the pages out of McGuinness’s hands.

“Just a minute, there, ye commie-.“  For a wonder, the psychotic man shut up at a glare from Frieda.

“My god!” cried Hargrove, ignoring him to study the papers intently.  “It’s a code!”

“They’re blueprints, ye blubbering mass of infected goat puke.”  McGuinness snarled, swinging his wrench in frustration, forcing Frieda to duck and clipping a screaming passenger in the forehead.

“Gentlemen!” the bishop boomed.  Everyone winced.  “Turn those documents over to me immediately!” 

“I think not,” returned Hargrove.  Though weak from hunger, chill, and blood loss, he thrust the documents into Frieda’s hands.  “If you are here to help us solve the mystery, perhaps you could begin by telling us just how you happened to arrive here just in time for that man to fall over with a knife in his back?”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways...” intoned the Bishop in a tooth vibrating bass.

Hargrove consulted his mental Catholic/English dictionary.  Ah.  Synonym number 3 for “I have no idea.”  You’d think he’d have gone with something more original, like # 32, or 147.  Aloud, he replied, “Well when you figure it out, perhaps you might considered enlightening us?  Isn’t that what you do, enlighten? Oh, sorry, that’s Buddha.  I hardly think I need the help of some 4^th century has-been.”  Then, to the others in a whisper, “Quick, while he’s frothing.”

They sidled away, and huddled in a group while the Bishop, blind with apoplexy, ranted madly at the unconscious passenger and Tobermorrey’s corpse.  “We need to get to the Captain’s cabin,” Hargrove whispered with blind adherence to an out of date plan.  “He must know SOMETHING.  Are you with me?”

Frieda, loyal to the last, nodded her assent.  “Aye,” muttered McGuinness, glancing back at the bishop at the railing.  “Now I know where the MacKinnon’s went wrong.  Bloody papists... And yon degenerate knob is nae any better.”  He motioned towards Mister Largent, sprawled in his deck chair and conducting to the orchestra at play in his head.  “But he’s the one with the keys to the cabin.”

“The captain locks himself in his cabin?  At a time like this?”

“Ye’ll understand when ye see it.”  The savage engineer shuddered.

“How the devil will be get the keys from him?”  Hargrove chewed on his fingernail, gnawing at a particularly frustrating flap of cuticle.  “He’s not terribly cooperative.”

“Leave that to me,” smiled Frieda.  With a loose hip walk she covered the distance to the reclining fop, her eyes never leaving his face.  Hargrove fought to keep his from her bony hips.  But when she reached the semiconscious Largent, he carefully put down his opium pipe and held up a languid hand.

“Do not strain yourself, dear woman.  It is evident you wish something of me, and are willing to entertain any notion to gain said item or service.  However, despite your-“ he eyed her carefully, coughed, and continued chivalrously, “-considerable charms, unfortunately my lifestyle has rendered me, shall we say, immune to such blandishments, from male or female.”  His smile was wide, dreamy, and utterly malicious.  Frieda promptly smashed it in with McGuiness’s wrench.

“Sorry about that.”  With a practiced hand she rifled through his clothing, coming up triumphantly with a set of keys.  McGuinness caught the heavy wrench she tossed back, one handed, in his direction.

“When’d she bloody knick it?” he marveled.

“No time for that!” barked the relentless Marxist detective.  “To the captain’s cabin!”

“Where are we headed?” screamed Frieda, as they sprinted up the aluminum stairs, leaving the shattering echoes of ecclesiastical cursing behind. 

“McGuinness, can you guide us?”

“Aye.  But ye won’t like what ye find when ye get there, laddie.  The horror...the horror.”

As they ran Frieda unrolled the blueprints, her bright eyes flickering over the shapes, lines, and numbers.  An instant later she came to a screeching halt.

“This, this is...” she gasped.  Hargrove and McGuinness turned to face her.

“Ooot with it, ye whey faced -!”  A sudden memory of flying bicuspids must have lurched through the man’s mind, for he clamped his mouth shut without the usual volley of oaths.

“Hargrove,” breathed Frieda.  The detective stepped closer, then noted to his disappointment she was staring at the blueprints still.  Oh.  “These are.... plans for a cryogenics chamber!”  She looked up at them with wide eyes.  “The same one in Lenin’s tomb!”

Lenin’s tomb has a cryogenics chamber?  What sinister purpose does it hold?  And how does Frieda know this?  What was Tobermorrey doing with the papers to begin with?  What happened to the ticks?

On to Chapter 8