Crisis Four Hardback - 2000

FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 1998

Three gallons a day, that's your lot," the bosun barked. "But two gallons have to go to the cook, so there's one gallon--I'll tell ye again, just one gallon--left over for drinking, washing and anything else ye need it for. Anyone caught taking more will be flogged. So will gamblers, cheats and malingerers. We don't like malingerers in Her Majesty's navy!"

We were lined up on either side of the deck, listening to the bosun gobbing off about our water ration. I was trying not to catch Josh's eye; I knew I'd burst into a fit of laughter that Kelly wouldn't find amusing.

There were about twenty of us "new crew," mostly kids, all dressed in the standard-issue sixteenth-century sailors' kit: a hessian jerkin and shirt, with trousers that stopped about a foot short of the trainers we'd been
instructed to bring with us. We were aboard the Golden Hind, a full-sized reconstruction of the ship in which Sir Francis Drake had circumnavigated the globe between 1577 and 1580. This version, too, had sailed around the world, and film companies had used it as a location so often it had had more makeovers than Joan Collins. And now it was in permanent dock serving, as Kelly called it in her very American way, as an "edutainment" attraction. She was standing to my right, very excited about her birthday treat, even if it was a few days late. She was now nine, going on twenty-four.

"See, I told you this would be good!" I beamed.

She didn't reply, but kept her eyes fixed on the bosun. He was dressed the same as us, but was allowed to wear a hat--on account of all the extra responsibility, I supposed.

"Ye slimey lot have been hand-picked for a voyage with Sir Francis Drake, aboard this, the finest ship in the fleet, the Golden Hind!" His eyes fixed on those of each child as he passed them on the other line. He reminded me of my very first drill sergeant when I was a boy soldier.

I looked over at Josh and his gang, who were on the receiving end of his tirade. Joshua G. D'Souza was thirty-eightish, five feet six inches, and, thanks to being into weights, about two hundred pounds of muscle.
Even his head looked like a bicep; he was 99 percent bald, and a razor blade and moisturizer had taken care of the other 1 percent. His round, gold-rimmed glasses made him look somehow more menacing than
intellectual.

Josh was half black, half Puerto Rican, though he'd been born in Dakota. I couldn't really work that one out, but nor could I be bothered to ask. Joining up as a teenager, he'd done a few years in the 82nd Airborne and then Special Forces. In his late twenties he'd joined the U.S. Treasury Department as a member of their Secret Service, in time working on the vice-presidential protection team in Washington. He lived near Kelly's dad's place, and he and Kev had met, not through work, but because their kids had gone to the same school.

Josh had his three standing next to him, working hard at understanding the bosun's accent. They were on their last leg of a whistlestop tour of Europe during their Easter vacation. Kelly and I had collected them
off the Paris Eurostar just the day before; they were going to spend a few days seeing the sights with us before heading back to D.C., and Kelly was really hyper. I was pleased about that; it was the first time she'd
seen them since "what happened"--as we called it--over a year ago. All things considered, she was doing pretty well at the moment and getting on with her life.

The bosun had turned back and was moving up our line. "Ye will be learning gun drills, ye will be learning how to set sail and repel boarders. But best of all, ye'll be hunting for treasure and singing sailors' shanties!" The crew was encouraged to respond with their best sailor-type cries.

All of a sudden, competition for the loudest noise came from the siren of a tourist boat passing on the river, and the bark of its horn, as the first sailing of the day "did" London Bridge.

I glanced down at Kelly. She was quivering with excitement. I was enjoying myself, too, but I felt just a bit weird standing there in fancy dress in full public view, aboard a ship docked on the south side of London Bridge. At this time of the morning, there were still office workers walking along the narrow cobblestoned road that paralleled the Thames, dodging the delivery vans and taxis on their way to work. The trains that had got them this far were slowly trundling along the elevated tracks about 200 meters away, making their way toward the river.

The pub next to the ship, the Olde Thameside Inn, was one of those places that supposedly dates from Shakespeare's day but which, in fact, was built maybe ten years earlier on one of the converted wharves that line the river. The office crowd, plastic cups and cigarettes in hand, were making the most of the morning sun on the terrace overlooking the water, having picked up their late breakfast from the coffee shop.

"MCNAB IS THE BEST SUSPENSE THRILLER WRITER TO PUT PEN TO PAPER SINCE ALISTAIR MACLEAN."
--STEPHEN COONTS
   Author of Flight of the Intruder