dropped down to grin, excited as a boy.
“Gentlemen, we’re in the middle of Tripoli harbor and no alarm has been raised.” He nodded to Pierre. “Good job, helmsman.” And then he clapped his hands, once, with a pop. “Now. What do we want to blow up first?”
“The castle, then the harbor,” I said. “Smith can carry one of your explosive torpedoes, and you can time your submarine assault for dawn. Blow up at least one corsair to create confusion, with a final torpedo in reserve. Cuvier to crank, and you to navigate, Robert.”
“But it is America that is at war with these rascals, and we are Americans, are we not? I’m afraid that, as hopeless as this assault is, Ethan, I must insist that I join you. Smith can crank and Cuvier can steer the submarine. I’ll carry a mine ashore because I’m the one who built it and know how to fuse it.”
“You’re willing to give over command of the
He smiled. “If I let the French play captain for a while, maybe they’ll buy her! You’ll put in a good word for me with Napoleon, won’t you, Cuvier?”
“And why does the Englishman have to crank for the Frenchman?” Smith interrupted.
“You’re stronger, with more endurance than our biologist. You know as well as I do, William, that it is almost impossible to get a Frenchman to do anything he doesn’t want to do, while an Englishman will volunteer for almost anything, particularly if it is arduous and disagreeable. We must all recognize our national traits.”
“And what’s the American trait?”
“To get into quite unnecessary trouble through idealism, pride, and the need to rescue helpless women. Right, Gage?”
“Astiza is anything but helpless.”
“At any rate, you two savants are the best to figure out how to attack enemy shipping in this harbor. Pierre has worked with Ethan before, and I’m a Yankee as well. Our nation has declared war, and now we’re going to execute it, or die trying.” He swallowed, and by God I liked him, eccentric inventor or no. I always admire a judicious man who masters his fear more than an enthusiast with stupid courage.
“I’ll pick you up when you have the woman and the boy, and you can put in a good word with Napoleon yourself,” Cuvier promised. “We leave nobody behind.”
“And can England and France cooperate?” I asked Smith.
“Let this be a new beginning, under the Peace of Amiens,” the Englishman said. “I’m betting that Bonaparte never goes to war with my country again.”
“Perhaps France and England will even be allies,” Cuvier said.
“Don’t speculate too ludicrously. But at least we can man this casket together.”
“To peace!” Pierre said. “Except for this little war here.”
“Dawn is when our work must be done,” I reminded, “lest the mirror be used against us. When the sea lightens, surface slightly, and listen. When chaos begins ashore, try to strike in the harbor. If everything is timed perfectly, we might have the slimmest chance.”
“Nothing goes perfectly in battle. You know that.”
We were all quiet a moment.
“But not for the other side, either,” I finally said. “In gambling, you don’t have to be perfect, just good enough to win the game. Let’s put on our Arab robes.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Yussef’s palace was ugly as a chopping block, and everywhere there were ramparts with the black snouts of artillery poking toward the sea. Up on a fortified platform just north of the castle, facing the harbor, was a shrouded round disk that was a deeper black against the stars. That would be the mirror, I guessed, and very likely a thousand pirates and janissaries were between it and us.
Pierre looked at the looming walls. “We have to climb these? Perhaps you are not a donkey, but a spider.”
“I propose that we drink our way into the dungeons instead, and make our way upward from our old home by the stairs. Do you remember the taverns, Robert?”
“Aye, the ones run by the Christian slaves and prisoners for Muslims forbidden to sell alcohol on their own.”
“I thought Muhammadans weren’t supposed to drink, either,” said Pierre.
“And cardinals aren’t supposed to have mistresses,” Fulton said, “and yet half could give lessons to Casanova. All men are pious, but find a way around their strictures. Have they repealed human nature in Canada?”
“We men of the woods have limited experience, but not that limited. So we’re to become pious drunkards?”
“To get ourselves in the door,” I said.
He looked up. “A cleverer idea than scaling this fortress.”
Like all cities in all cultures, Tripoli had made accommodation between what men were supposed to do and what they want to do. Islam frowned on usury, so the Jews exiled from Spain had become the bankers. Alcohol was forbidden, so Christian slaves could make an extra living by quietly providing it. The practice had spread to the prisons themselves, where entrepreneurs also provided the chance for the devout to obtain a prostitute, pawn booty hidden from taxation, or buy literature more stimulating than the Koran. The Muhammadan town might be more orderly than a Christian city, but sin could be found among the jailers and janissaries as easily as at the Palais Royal. Accordingly we crept along to the courtyard that abutted Yussef’s prison and slipped into one of the grog shops on its periphery. I ordered in Arabic while scouting for our chance to get beyond the dungeon gates.
Two guards in a corner were very quietly becoming inebriated, and once I was sure they’d become sufficiently muddled, I approached to refill their cups and propose a sale of opium. Drugs go with prisons like hand to glove, with the cottage industries of the inmates devoted mostly to paying for the narcotics needed to make hopelessness tolerable. A dishonest jailer can make more money selling to thieves than a thief can ever get stealing, and guarding the miserable bagnios of North Africa was a sinecure as valuable as being bookkeeper in a treasury. These guards didn’t trust me, of course, but they sensed opportunity and were greedy enough to beckon me to a locked door. When passing through I jammed the keyhole with a nail to prevent the latch from closing. And when the jailers bent to inspect my narcotic—flour and ground tea I’d brought from Sterett’s schooner—my companions crept in and clouted the drunken fools with socks we’d filled with sand from the streets.
We hesitated then, silently debating what to do with the two unconscious guards, until I reluctantly drew my naval cutlass from under my robes and thrust it through both their bodies, finishing them. Fulton gave a little groan.
“We are at war, gentlemen, with fanatics who are holding hostage my innocent son and who hope to declare war on all civilization,” I said. “Steel yourselves. It’s going to be a long night.”
“They won’t show us mercy, either,” Pierre said.
“Certainly they haven’t yet.”
“Let’s get on with it, then,” said Fulton, swallowing as he looked at the dead. Apparently practicing war close-up was not the same as designing its machines, and the deadly consequences of his genius were just occurring to him. I wondered if Archimedes had discovered that, too? Had the old Greek ordered the dismantling of his mirror to not just keep it from the Romans, but from mankind itself? Could his own king have killed him in frustration?
“But first we take their pistols,” said Pierre. “With the mood Ethan’s in, I have a feeling we’re going to need them.”
“And their keys,” I added. “Help me drag the bodies out of sight.”
