Operation Manhunt

by Christopher Nicole

  Jonathan climbed the steps, cast a hasty glance through the ports. The Sidewinder was under full canvas, reaching north at a considerable speed before the brisk southeasterly wind. There were lights on the western horizon, which he guessed might be on the island of Martinique. He figured they were about fifteen miles off.

  “Phyllis,” Malthus said. “I want you to meet Mr. Jonathan Anders. You’ve met Aristotle, I understand, Mr. Anders?”

  The Peke bared its teeth and growled deep in its throat, but it was almost lost to view in the enormous arms encircling it. Phyllis Malthus was at least six feet tall, and not less than three wide. Her cheeks ballooned, her several chins shuddered as she smiled. Her eyes, almost lost to sight behind the rolls of flesh, twinkled. “Welcome on board, Mr. Anders. But you shouldn’t have kicked Aristotle. Oh, dear me, no.”

  “It was him or me, Mrs. Malthus. But I do apologize.”

  “Then all is forgiven. Now let me see, you’ve met Geraldine?”

  She was a remarkably pretty girl, seen in the light. Her hair was black and short, her eyes were huge and startled, her mouth was wide. As Linda Boarding had said, she was very small, but there was nothing the matter with her figure. Since their encounter of that morning she had changed into a dress and brushed her hair, but her cheeks remained pale and there were shadows under her eyes. She started to return his smile, then looked away.

  “And this is Geraldine’s father, Dr. Brian O’Connor. He’s a very distinguished neurologist.”

  Brian O’Connor held out his hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Anders. Geraldine has told us why you came on board in such an unconventional manner, and I feel I ought to thank you, for the thought, at any rate. I’m sure you understand now that you made a mistake. That man Crater needs his head examined.” The psychiatrist was tall and thin, with absolutely white hair, and his face was clouded with lines. He looked tired.

  “I’m not with you, Doctor,” Jonathan said.

  “He’s had a bump on the head, of course,” Malthus said. “And this is Captain Strohm.”

  “I won’t say welcome on board, Mr. Anders,” the captain said. “I don’t care much for uninvited passengers.” He was a Negro, tall and dark skinned, with a big, bland face and bottomless black eyes. His physique suggested that he would be quite capable of meeting Jonas on equal terms.

  “I understand you’ve already met Mr. Harman, our engineer,” Malthus said. “And Mr. Byrne, the mate, is on watch. But you’ll see him at dinner.”

  “We play bridge every evening for a couple of hours, Mr. Anders,” Phyllis Malthus said. “You do play bridge?”

  “Not very brilliantly, I’m afraid.”

  She laughed, a tremendous emanation of humor which set her shoulders heaving. “Oh, we’re none of us champions. But I am going to call you Jonathan, and you must call me Phyllis.”

  “There you are, Mr. Anders,” Malthus said. “If the wife likes you, you’re welcome to stay on board for as long as you wish.”

  “And just how long is that likely to be?” Jonathan asked.

  Malthus smiled. “You have a sense of humor, Mr. Anders. I like that. You going to play in the first rubber, Doc? I think you should. Gerry?”

  “I’d rather sit this one out, if you don’t mind, Mr. Malthus,” Geraldine said.

  “Oh, sure. You can cut in later. How long, Mr. Anders?” Malthus sat down, lit a cigarette, watched Strohm unfolding the baize-topped table. “Well, now, that depends. Because you want to hear a funny story, Gerry? I have news for you. Jonathan here isn’t any great friend of that Crater character. That was just his idea of a joke. He’s a representative of the British Government, and he’s just as interested in Benny as we are. I hate to spoil your romantic notions, but there it is.”

  “Oh!” Geraldine flushed. “If I’d known.…”

  “You couldn’t possibly have been more cooperative,” Jonathan said.

  “It really is tiresome of you, Jonathan, not to be an ordinary human being with a romantic streak,” Phyllis Malthus said. “My ace, your king. Now we are going to win, Jonathan. I always like to win. Don’t you just adore these cards? They’re Russian, you know. Bought at GUM. Aren’t the face cards so much prettier than ours? And I just love the way they make their D’s. Like an A whose crossbar has slipped.”

  “Fascinating,” Jonathan said. “But Tom and I did travel from Barbados together, you know, Mr. Malthus, and he’s in St. Vincent now. He has instructions, if I wasn’t back in our hotel by a couple of hours ago, to visit a certain Superintendent Gowrie of the St. Vincent police.”

  “That was very thoughtful of you, Mr. Anders. But what is Crater going to tell the police? That you are working for M.I.5? I doubt that, somehow. Because you wouldn’t have told him.”

  “All he has to tell them is that I’ve been kidnaped. It’s a serious offense.”

  “Oh, it won’t be kidnaping when we get to, well, wherever we’re going, Mr. Anders. It’ll seem to most people like the most reasonable thing in the world. We could claim that now. Tell us about the hurricane that’s on its way, Skipper.”

  Strohm had been looking through the port. “Well, it’s there, Mr. Malthus, about a hundred miles east of Barbados and deepening. Seems to be moving north, which means Barbados itself should be all right, although the last weather report we picked up says they’re having a pretty wild night over there. This breeze is the outside fringe, I’d say. Now, if she’s moving north, she should miss St. Vincent as well, but no one in his right mind is going to remain at anchor in an open anchorage like that with a hurricane anywhere near.”

  “So you see, Mr. Anders, we just had to get out of there in a hurry,” Malthus said. “We were advised to do so by all the local experts. And you, being on board, decided to come along for the ride.”

  “If that’s the case,” Jonathan said, “and you really want to miss the weather, you’d better look for shelter. It never pays to race hurricanes.”

  “Oh, I do agree. Are the islands still in sight, Captain?”

  “Just lost them, Mr. Malthus.”

  “But they are still there, Mr. Anders. And the storm is moving parallel to them. We only came this way to confuse whoever might have been watching us leave St. Vincent. I’m a cautious man, you see. In an hour or so we’ll take the Dominica Passage back into the Caribbean, well away from the bad weather. I could drop you off in Roseau, perhaps. That’s the port of Dominica, you know. Providing we reach some sort of an agreement by morning.”

  “And drop us as well,” O’Connor said. “This whole affair may be a matter of life and death to the State Department, but I’m afraid Gerry and I have had just about as much as we can take. I’ll swear any sort of oath of secrecy you care to name, but I insist that you put us ashore. And if you’ll take my advice, you’ll forget about continuing this voyage. That man Benny is a totally incurable case. Nothing I can do, nothing you can do, is going to alter that fact.”

  Jonathan gazed at Malthus with his mouth open. “Are you trying to tell me that you’re pretending to be working for the C.I.A.?”

  He grinned. “That knocks you over, doesn’t it? Well, it wasn’t supposed to come out, but I had to read the doc and Miss O’Connor a little lecture when we were in Bridgetown. It seems she was letting her imagination run away with her.”

  “And you believed him?” Jonathan asked O’Connor.

  “Well, why shouldn’t I? He showed us all the necessary credentials.” The doctor glanced at his daughter. “You saw them, Gerry.”

  “Now I understand why you acted so strangely this morning,” Jonathan said. “I thought it was because they were threatening your dad.”

  “I’d like to know just what you were playing at this morning, young woman,” Malthus said. “You sat in the bilges with this chap, while Harman and the boys were tearing the ship apart, never saying a word.”

  “I was afraid Jonas and Pete would beat him up.” Geraldine flushed. “He had come out to help me, because Tom Crater thought
I was in trouble. That’s what he was pretending, anyway. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “Seems to me this kid of yours is a trifle mixed up, Doc,” Malthus said.

  “And has he told you who Benny really is?” Jonathan asked.

  “Of course,” Brian O’Connor said. “You didn’t give that away, did you, Gerry?”

  “She didn’t have to, Dr. O’Connor,” Jonathan said. “But you figure this out. Would the State Department, having got hold of General Pobrenski, have to go to these lengths and this amount of secrecy to get his memory back, when they’ve got whole teams of psychiatrists and specially equipped hospitals right there in the States? Malthus has to be working for himself. He got Pobrenski out of Europe intending to sell him to the highest bidder. Only the general had that fall and lost his memory. So he’s stuck with a pup, unless he can bring Benny’s brain back.”

  Malthus chuckled. “You’re a smart boy, Mr. Anders. But your imagination is as overheated as Miss Geraldine’s here. So I’m all kinds of a crook. If I was, would I be entertaining you to a bridge game?”

  “Is that what you’re doing?” his wife asked. “I thought it was a red Indian powwow. It’s your deal, Mr. Anders. And Gerry, be a dear and give Benny a shout. General or not, he’s still our steward, and I’m thirsty.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Malthus.” Geraldine got up, gave Jonathan a puzzled look, went to the galley door and opened it. As she did so, a bell jangled throughout the ship, and Strohm leaped to his feet.

  “Fire!”

  Part Two

  The Hunted

  CHAPTER 5

  “It’s down there,” Geraldine cried. “You can hear it.”

  Strohm pushed past her, ducked into the galley. By now the smell of scorching wood was pervading the entire saloon, and with it came the first of the smoke, seeping through the hatchway from the lazaretto.

  “Benny!” Malthus snapped, knocking over the bridge table as he ran for the galley.

  “Of all the things to happen.” Phyllis Malthus threw down her cards in disgust. “Just as we were getting started. You go up to the wheelhouse, Aristotle, darling.” She gasped for breath as she leaned forward to place the dog on the floor, where it immediately bared its teeth at Jonathan. But Jonathan was already on his way aft behind Malthus, only to go stumbling across the saloon as the Sidewinder came round into the wind and hove to, rolling violently in the booming seas.

  He regained his balance, rescued Geraldine from the foot of the companionway. “You’d better go and sit down,” he said. “This could get worse.”

  Feet pounded above their heads and a hard-faced Negro, presumably the mate, Byrne, accompanied by one of the deck hands, came down the ladder from the wheelhouse, each carrying a fire extinguisher.

  “The stern gauges showed boiling,” he explained. “So I set off the alarm. I’ve sent Harman through the engine room, with Pete.”

  “Good man. Give me that thing.” Strohm was tying his handkerchief over his nose and mouth. Now he lifted the hatch. Instantly the galley filled with smoke.

  Strohm coughed, eased himself, feet first, into the aperture, braced his arm on the ladder, directed the stream of foam downward.

  Malthus knelt above him. “Any sign of Benny?”

  “No. Give me the other one.” Strohm exchanged extinguishers, dropped out of sight as he went down the remainder of the ladder. They heard the clatter of the extinguisher being dropped, then his fingers appeared through the smoke, scrabbling for the hatch. “Help me. Quickly!”

  Jonathan pushed Malthus aside, was joined by Byrne. Between them they seized the captain’s wrists, dragged him upward. Strohm got his elbows through the hatchway, hung there for a moment, gasping for breath, while the increasing smoke eddied about him.

  “The floor’s burning,” he said. “Something has been poured on it, cooking oil, maybe. Byrne! You’ll have to get the hose down here.”

  “Aye-aye, Skipper. You!” Byrne snapped at the sailor. “Go down the forehatch and tell Mr. Harman we want full pressure on the pumps. Move!”

  “And tell him to flood the after-compartment,” Strohm shouted. “The heat could set off the fuel tanks.”

  “Yeah,” Byrne said, and followed the man on deck.

  Strohm closed the hatch, pushed the bolts home. “We’ll let it starve a while.” But still the smoke got through, and their eyes watered even in the saloon.

  “What about Benny?” Dr. O’Connor demanded. “Was he down there, Captain?”

  “I didn’t see him, Doctor. And if he’s down there now, then he’s dead. I don’t want to alarm you ladies, but this is a serious fire which could take some putting out. I think the best thing you can do is retire to your staterooms and stay there. And just in case, you’d better find your life belts and keep them handy.”

  “You mean the ship’s in danger?” Phyllis Malthus cried. “Oh, my poor darling Aristotle. Aristotle! Where are you, pet? Come to Mama.”

  “No danger, Mrs. Malthus. Not yet, anyway. But we must be careful. And in here’s going to be pretty messy.” He urged them through the forward door. “You too, Dr. O’Connor. Now, Mr. Malthus, if it’s all right with you, I’ll send a mayday call. We’re going to need all the assistance we can get.”

  “No wireless.” Malthus wiped his brow. “We don’t want to become involved with any authority.”

  Strohm, already unlocking the transmitter, checked in surprise. “Just a precautionary measure, Mr. Malthus. We can cancel if we get that blaze damped down.”

  “No wireless, and that’s an order,” Malthus insisted.

  Jonathan, waiting at the foot of the ladder, realized the captain’s momentary indecision was his best weapon, and ran to the set. He seized the speaker, shouted, “Mayday! Mayday! Schooner Sidewinder on fire, fifteen miles northeast of Martinique. Mayday! Mayday!”

  “Stop him,” Malthus shouted.

  Strohm closed his arms around Jonathan’s waist.

  “Don’t be a fool, man,” Jonathan gasped. “There’s a time for secrecy and a time for common sense. That’s a big blaze.”

  “Then we’ll just have to put it out.” Malthus reached into the back of the set, removed two of the valves. “That’ll put temptation out of your way. Where the devil is that hose?”

  “Right here, Mr. Malthus.” Byrne came down the ladder, the nozzle under his arm. Two of the crew followed, unwinding as they came. “I’ve told Harman to start the pumps,” Byrne said. “But he says it’s pretty hot down there. They’ve closed the bulkhead door to the shafts.”

  “It’ll be even hotter if he doesn’t get a move on,” Strohm said. “You can give us a hand here, Mr. Anders. And please, we can do without any funny business.”

  Jonathan took hold of his section of the hose. He could hear Aristotle yapping from forward, but the barking was almost obscured by the roaring from beneath the galley deck.

  “Here’s the water, Captain Strohm,” shouted the sailor at the deck end of the hose.

  “Stand by, and let it go the moment the hatch is opened.” Strohm went into the galley, drew a long breath, released the bolt and jerked the hatch open. The smoke poured out of the aperture as if it were a living thing, enveloped Strohm, rushed through the galley and into the saloon, seeped up the ladder into the wheelhouse, had them coughing and gasping. And the square hole in the deck was tinged with red.

  The hose swelled, and also took on life. Two living things, Jonathan thought, fighting for mastery, for an existence which made the puny human beings trying to control them both about as irrelevant as five ants about to be crushed beneath a stamping foot.

  Strohm reappeared, panting. “Down!” he shouted. “We have to get the stream onto the lazaretto deck.”

  “What’s it like, Skipper?” Byrne asked.

  Strohm’s face was grim. “It’s not good. And it’s spreading the other way, too. She could open a seam.”

  The hose became flaccid, drooping in their hands. The smoke, temporarily checked by the hissin
g water, surged at them again.

  “For Pete’s sake,” Strohm snapped. “Byrne, get below and ask Harman what he’s doing.”

  “I’m here,” the engineer said from the top of the ladder. “Someone’s sabotaged the pumps, Skipper, mixed sugar with the fuel, and she’s clogging. I’ll need half an hour to clear the line.”

  “We don’t have half an hour.” Strohm chewed his lip. Jonathan could imagine the thoughts racing through his mind. Whatever his background, whatever crimes or mistakes had led him down the path to becoming Malthus’ accomplice, he was a sailor, and a sailor’s first allegiance is always to his ship.

  “Byrne, batten that hatch. It mustn’t get any more air. Harman, see what you can do with your fuel line. Every second is vital. Mr. Malthus? Oh, there you are. Would you mind putting back those valves? I don’t think we have any choice, now.”

  Malthus came out of the cabin corridor. “There’ll be no sending for assistance. You people are all alike. Your first reaction to a crisis is panic. This is our problem, Captain Strohm, and we are going to cope with it.”

  Strohm glanced at Jonathan, then stepped forward. “It’s out of your hands now, Mr. Malthus. This ship, my ship, is in danger, and I’m entitled to ask for assistance.”

  “You’re entitled to ask for nothing.” Malthus took the valves from his pocket, dropped them on the deck, stepped on them. “I’ve just destroyed the spares, as well.”

  Strohm gazed at the shattered pieces of glass. “I’m going to have you jailed, when we get ashore,” he said. “Don’t you understand, there won’t be any other ships at sea tonight, unless we send for them. We’ll be knocking about out here in the launch, with a hurricane breathing down our necks. You, Anders! Go and get the passengers on deck. With their life belts. And be smart about it. Byrne! Break out the lifeboat, check the engine and the provisions.”

  “Aye-aye, sir,” Byrne said.

  “What the devil do you think you’re doing, Strohm?” Malthus demanded.

  “Mr. Malthus, in my opinion this ship has about fifteen minutes to float, if we’re lucky. So I’m going to abandon.”