At nightfall there was the close, triumphant roar of a big reaction turbine and a light stabbed through the fog, flooding the boat with blue-white radiance. A cliff-like black hull loomed alongside as a bull-horn roared at them: "Cut your engines and come about into the wind."
Lee Falcaro read white-painted letters on the black hull: "Hon. James J. Regan, Chicago." She turned to Charles and said wonderingly: "It's an ore boat. From the Mob great lakes fleet."
XVII
"Here?" Charles demanded. "Here?"
"No possible mistake," she said, stunned. "When you're a Falcaro you travel. I've seen 'em in Duluth, I've seen 'em in Quebec, I've seen 'em in Buffalo."
The bull-horn voice roared again, dead in the shroud of fog; "Come into the wind and cut your engines or we'll put a shell into you."
Charles turned the wheel and wound in the moderator rod; the boat pitched like a splinter on the waves. There was a muffled double explosion and two grapnels crunched into the plastic hull, bow and stern. As the boat steadied, sharing the inertia of the ore ship, a dark figure leaped from the blue-white eye of the searchlight to their deck. And another. And another.
"Hello, Jim," Lee Falcaro said almost inaudibly. "Haven't met since Las Vegas, have we?"
The first boarder studied her cooly. He was built for football or any other form of mayhem. He ignored Charles completely. "Lee Falcaro as advised. Do you still think twenty reds means a black is bound to come up? You always were a fool, Lee. And now you're in real trouble."