Chief Sullivan, Pat Cavendish, and Karlosky were waiting for Bill in Fighting McDonagh’s Bar. Sullivan was wearing a trench coat; Cavendish in his usual rolled-up shirtsleeves and slacks, no matter the temperature; Karlosky in a brown leather jacket that might’ve come from the Soviet air force.
Bill carried a tommy gun Sullivan had issued him the night before—but he wished he didn’t have to carry it. He’d gone on bombing missions, but he’d never dropped the bombs himself. Still, it was beginning to look as if guns were going to be as much a part of life in Rapture as Jet Postal and bathyspheres.
It was early morning and the bar was closed. The wooden planks of the floor creaked under his tread as he came up to the group of armed men waiting near the window. Those planks always reminded Bill reassuringly of old pubs back home. A killer whale, big as a Cadillac, cruised by the window, slick black and white, in no hurry, a large eye rolling to peer curiously in at them.
“They ready down there?” Bill asked. He was wearing a deputy constable’s badge. He was even more uncomfortable with that than with the gun. Elaine had been right weepy when she’d heard he’d been deputized. It was only temporary, till they recruited more constables. Quite a number of them had been killed by splicers. It was risky—and it meant he was subject to the orders of Pat Cavendish, the new head constable, a right bastard if ever he’d met one.
Sullivan nodded. “They should be right outside the door of the wharf, keeping their goddamn mouths shut, I hope.”
“Where’s this hideout hiding out at?” Bill asked.
“Witness says it’s in a cavern under the fisheries. We think they bring the stuff into Rapture with a sub; then they take it in an unregistered bathysphere through a tunnel to their hideout. Right now the sub’s accessible to us in bay 2—word is, they haven’t moved the contraband out of the sub to the cave yet.”
“We going to be able to find the contraband on the sub?” Cavendish asked. “Probably hidden good.”
Sullivan scratched his unshaven chin. “We worked out that the stuff’s probably being smuggled in one of the fuel tanks. They’re refilling their fuel way more often than they need to. Meaning they aren’t carrying as much fuel as they should. Something’s taking up that fuel space.”
A voice was crackling from Sullivan’s handheld radio. “Ready to go, Chief!”
“Okay, Grogan, we’re coming down,” Sullivan said, speaking into the radio. “Soon as we’re there—we hit ’em!” He stuck the radio in a coat pocket, hefted his shotgun, and said, “Let’s go!”
Sullivan led the way; they followed him down a series of stairs, through hatches and doors, past the wharfs—and into a passage that led to the sub bay.
Six constables, heavily armed, were waiting at the rusting door to the sub bay. Sullivan trotted toward them, signaling “go ahead” with his gun hand.
Constable Grogan raised a pistol in acknowledgment. He was a stocky, freckle-faced man with sandy hair and a bushy, rust-colored mustache. A badge glinted on the lapel of his suit. He threw the latch, opened the metal door with a shove of his shoulder, and he and the others rushed in. Sullivan, Cavendish, Karlosky, and Bill were close on their heels. Cavendish was grinning like a wolf; Karlosky, smiling grimly, pistol in hand; Sullivan, pale and grave. Bill started to move past Cavendish.
“Hang back, McDonagh,” Cavendish said. “Leave this to the real officers. We’ll call you to the front line if we need to.”
Bill had a mind to hand Cavendish his badge and tell him where to shove it, but he silently dropped back to the rear. He wasn’t eager to pull the trigger on anyone.
They ran across a bank of carved-out rock into a great, echoing metal room with its own ocean-water lake. The room smelled of diesel and ocean brine. A converted 312-foot Balao-class submarine, without the deck guns, rocked in a flat calm. Lit by electric lights on steel rafters, the hangarlike room was just big enough to contain the submarine and enough water for it to submerge in. To the left, through the translucent water, Bill saw underwater steel doors that led into the air lock and the open sea. Purportedly there was another, smaller side channel, along the way, for the bathysphere to take to Smuggler’s Hideout. A big yellow fishing net was folded up on the afterdeck of the floating submarine. A pontoon gangway ran from the stony verge just inside the door out to the rust-streaked vessel. On the side of the conning tower was stenciled:
RAPTURE 5
The constables were already running along the gangway. Bill was at the rear, looking nervously around. There was no sign of life, not much noise—maybe a slight purr of an idling motor from the sub. Then Bill caught a flicker of movement up in the rafters, beyond the glare of the lights. He leaned back, craning his neck to look, shading his eyes with a hand. He just made out a face up there, someone on a catwalk near the ceiling. Bill had seen the man with Fontaine before. Reggie, his name was, and he seemed to be speaking into a handheld radio.
“Sullivan, Cavendish—wait!” Bill shouted, stopping on the gangway. “There’s something wrong—someone’s up there.”
Sullivan hesitated just before the sub, looking around as if he suspected something himself. Cavendish and Karlosky stopped to look back at him in puzzlement.
Grogan was already on the submarine’s top deck with two other men. Others were scrambling onto the metal grating, rushing toward the hatch.
“Get that hatch open!” Grogan yelled.
“In the rafters, up there, Sullivan!” Bill shouted. But there was a groaning, a churning at the submarine’s aft. Vapor bubbled up, reeking of diesel; the water moiled and seethed …
The submarine began to descend. It eased forward as it sank, heading toward the underwater doors opening in the submerged wall. The unattached gangway rocked in the waves of the submarine’s descent. Water surged up over the vessel’s bow, rushing over the shouting men on the deck. The submarine picked up speed, suddenly spurting forward and down, as the conning tower dipped under the surface. The men on the deck were swept into the water, then sucked downward in the vessel’s wake, their screams quickly drowned out. The submarine angled sharply down, completely submerged now, sailing swiftly through the opened steel doors into the shadowy undersea tunnel. Several men struggled in the sub’s wake, deep underwater, silhouettes seen dimly in the water. They were like children’s toys going down a drain, drawn by the suction of the closing doors.
Bill squinted up at the ceiling again, raising his tommy gun for a shot at Reggie, but he was gone.
They fished the survivors from the water. Grogan hadn’t made it. He had drowned, in that tunnel somewhere.
Standing together on the stone verge just inside the door to the now strangely empty room—the sodden Sullivan, Bill, Karlosky, and Cavendish stared at the water, now calm, the gangway rocking gently on its pontoons.
“They had ’er ready to go,” Bill observed. “Just threw a switch, and she’s off. The bastards went out of their way to take the bloody sub down fast. They wanted to drown as many of us as they could.”
“We’re lucky more didn’t go down with it,” Sullivan said. “Goddammit … Grogan was a good man.”
“I reckon I saw Fontaine’s man Reggie, up in the rafters,” Bill said. “Didn’t have a chance to tell you. It was him. Whoever it was, they were using a radio.”
Sullivan looked up. “Yeah? Giving the signal to submerge…”
“That’s what I figure. They were waiting for us. Hard to keep this raid a secret—hard to keep anything a secret long in Rapture, Chief. We’re too crowded and becoming too bloody incestuous.”
“Of course, you know what the bastards will say,” Sullivan growled. “Fontaine will say that the sub was about to depart to do a job—and we just picked a bad time to go aboard. They’ll claim they had no idea we were there. But there’s one thing. I’ve still got a witness. Herve Manuela. He can point us to more evidence.”
Bill nodded. He looked toward the closed, submerged steel doors. And wondered where Grogan’s body was floating now …
Andrew Ryan’s Office
1956
“Andrew?”
Annoyed, Ryan looked up from his paperwork to see Diane in the doorway of his office. She had a you’ll-never-guess-what expression on her face. “Well?”
“Frank Fontaine is here to see you!”
Ryan sat back in his chair. He picked up a pencil and flipped it through his fingers thoughtfully. “Is he now? He has no appointment.”
“So should I tell him to go away?”
“No. Is Karlosky out there?”
“He’s the one who stopped Fontaine coming in. They’re kind of having a big-boy pissing contest of some kind—I mean, Karlosky and that man Reggie. He’s here with Fontaine.”
“Tell Karlosky to come in—and then bring Fontaine and his man in. This is overdue. It may prove interesting…”
“Very well. Can I—”
“No. You’ll wait outside.”
She pouted but went out to the entry room. Ryan wished he hadn’t given Elaine the day off. He was seriously tired of Diane’s airs, her possessiveness. He felt less and less like spending time with Diane; he needed one of his little intervals with Jasmine Jolene. A womanly woman, that Jasmine. A childbearer, with beauty and talent.
Karlosky came in, taking a pistol from a shoulder holster. He held it down by his side and stood to Ryan’s left, watching the door as Reggie came in. Reggie didn’t show a gun—but Ryan knew he had one.
Reggie glanced at Karlosky. “Tell him to put that heat away, Mr. Ryan.”
Ryan shrugged. “Holster the gun, if you please.”
Karlosky glared at Reggie before he holstered the pistol. Reggie looked like that wasn’t going to be good enough—but Frank Fontaine himself walked in then, long overcoat unbuttoned, hands in his pants pockets. He looked like a guy out for a walk on Broadway. His three-piece, light-blue suit was exquisitely tailored and pressed. Immaculate spats adorned his shoes, and a watch fob gleamed at his vest.
Fontaine looked relaxed, pleased with himself. The arrogant rascal, Ryan thought—almost admiringly.
“Normally,” Ryan said, “I require an appointment. But I’ve been wanting to talk to you in person. We lost a good man trying to inspect your sub.”
Fontaine grinned. “You wanted to inspect the subs, Mr. Ryan, well, you should have made an appointment.” Fontaine spread his hands in mock regret. “If you don’t tell us in advance … you might end up with your constables floating about facedown again.”
Ryan leaned forward, letting the anger show on his face. “You knew damn well we were coming!”
“You did another inspection the very next day, and one after that. You found nothing. I’m not smuggling anything, Ryan. That’s why I’ve come here. To set the record straight.”
“I don’t expect you to admit it, Fontaine. I understand that you and the truth are not on speaking terms. You were authorized to bring fish and fish only into Rapture. Unauthorized contact with the outside world is dangerous! We will put a stop to it— within the laws of Rapture…”
Fontaine looked at Ryan almost pityingly. “You guys are imagining things. The only outside world I’m in touch with are a lot of fish. You can’t call ’em close-mouthed, but they’re not telling tales about Rapture to anyone. I’m the one with a bone to pick, Ryan. I’ve heard rumors you’re planning to ban plasmids. They’re Rapture’s most sought-after product. The people won’t tolerate being deprived…”
“Deprived of their addictions?”
Fontaine shrugged. “Power is addictive. What do you know about that, Ryan?”
Ryan felt his hands clenching, blood rushing to his face. Then he forced himself to relax and lean back. He shook his head and chuckled. Fontaine was smart. He’d hit a nerve. “We’re not going to ban all plasmids. But there are some I won’t tolerate…”
“Such as?”
“Such as Teleport.”
“Too hard to keep people in Rapture? They can’t teleport that far!”
“Maybe just to a passing ship … and if Rapture is invaded—you’ll lose all your assets. You know they’ll find some excuse to seize everything.”
“Now there you’ve got a point, Ryan.” Fontaine lowered his voice and looked at Ryan earnestly. “I’m not risking Rapture—just know that much. I’m not letting anyone know we’re here. I’m making a living. So I don’t have to lean on plasmids too much…”
He said it like he was making an offer. Ryan figured Fontaine was indirectly telling him: I’m smuggling but I’m not putting us at risk—stop worrying about my smuggling, and I’ll go easy on marketing forbidden plasmids …
That was a deal Ryan wasn’t making. Ryan wondered if this was the moment to deal with Fontaine another way entirely—maybe it wasn’t in line with Rapture philosophy to simply have Karlosky shoot him dead. But it’d save a damn lot
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