Seawitch

by Alistair MacLean

  ‘So what happens?’

  ‘I think we’d better consult an astrologer on that one. All I know is that Cronkite has gone stark raving mad.’

  Cronkite, aboard the Georgia, would have thought the same of them. He had a job to do and he was doing it to the best of his ability. Had he known of the possible withdrawal of the warships that had sailed from Cuba and Venezuela he would not have been overduly concerned. He had had some vague idea that they might have been useful to him as a cover and a smokescreen. Cronkite’s vendetta against Lord Worth was a highly personal and extremely vindictive one, and he wanted no one other than himself to administer the coup de grâce. Retribution exacted through the medium of other hands would not do at all.

  Meantime, he was well content. He was convinced that the Seawitch was in his hands. Come the dawn it would be doubly in his hands. He knew of their defences and radar. The Starlight, under Easton, was waiting until full darkness before it moved in for the initial attack, and as rain had been falling steadily for some time now and the lowering sky blotted out the quarter-moon, it promised to be as nearly dark as it ever becomes at sea–it never becomes wholly so as it does on land.

  A message was brought to him from the radio office. Cronkite glanced at it briefly, picked up the phone to the helipad and reached the pilot in his shelter. ‘Ready to go, Wilson?’

  ‘Whenever you say, Mr Cronkite.’

  ‘Then now,’ Cronkite made a rheostat switch, and a dull glow of light outlined the helipad, little enough to be sure but enough to let Wilson make a clean take-off. The helicopter made a half-circle, switched on its landing lights and made a smooth landing on the calm waters less than a hundred yards from the stationary Georgia.

  Cronkite called the radar room. ‘You have him on the screen?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He’s making an instrument approach on our radar.’

  ‘Let me know when he’s about three miles out.’

  Less than a minute later the operator gave him the word. Cronkite turned the rheostat to full, and the helipad became brilliantly illuminated.

  A minute later a helicopter, landing lights on, appeared from the north through the driving rain. Just over another minute later it touched down as delicately as a moth, an understandable precaution by the pilot in view of the cargo he was carrying. The fuelling hoses were connected immediately. The door opened and three men descended–the alleged Colonel Farquharson, Lieutenant-Colonel Dewings and Major Breckley who had been responsible for the Netley Rowan Armoury break-in. They helped unload two large, double-handed and obviously very heavy suitcases. Cronkite, with suitable admonitions as to delicacy in handling, showed crew members where to stow the cases in shelter.

  Within ten minutes the helicopter was on its way back to the mainland. Five minutes after that the Georgia’s own helicopter had returned and all the helipad lights were switched off.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was due only to the most cruel ill-luck and the extremely jittery state of Durand’s nerves that John Roomer and Melinda Worth found themselves the first patients in Dr Greenshaw’s sick-bay.

  Durand was in a highly apprehensive state of mind, a mood that transferred itself all too easily to his four subordinates. Although he held control of the Seawitch he was acutely aware that his hold was a tenuous one: he had not bargained on finding Palermo and his cut-throats on board, and even though he held the master keys to both the Occidental and Oriental quarters in his pocket–the drilling crew was in the former quarters, Palermo and his men in the latter–he was well aware that there were far too many windows in both quarters and he didn’t have the men to cover every possible exit. He had broadcast a message over the external loud-hailer that anyone found on the platform would be shot on sight, and had two men on constant patrol round the Oriental quarters–he had no fear of the unarmed drilling rig crew–and another two constantly patrolling the platform. He had no fear of Lord Worth, his seismologists and the girls–as sources of danger he held them in contempt. Besides, they were unarmed. Even so, the two men patrolling the platform had been instructed to do so in such a fashion as to make sure that at least one had an eye on the doors to the suite of Lord Worth, the laboratory and the sickbay, all three of which had inter-communicating doors.

  Tragically, no one inside those three places had heard the warning broadcast–and this, ironically, because Lord Worth was not above indulging in what he regarded as the bare minimum of basic creature comforts. Oil rigs can be uncommonly noisy places and those quarters he had heavily insulated.

  Mitchell had been in his tiny cubicle off the laboratory at the time, reading the plan of the layout of the Seawitch over and over again until he was certain that he could have found his way around the Seawitch blindfold. This had taken him about twenty minutes. It was in the fifth minute of his studying that the shots had been fired but again, because of the soundproofing, the firing had not reached him. He had just put the plans away in a drawer when his door opened and Marina entered. She was white-faced and shaking and her face was streaked with tears. As soon as she reached him he put his arms round her and she grabbed him as if he were the last straw in the middle of the Pacific.

  ‘Why weren’t you there?’ she sobbed. ‘Why weren’t you there? You could have stopped them. You could have saved them!’

  Mitchell took no time out to dwell upon the injustices of life. He said gently: ‘Stopped what? Saved whom?’

  ‘Melinda and John. They’ve been terribly hurt.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Shot.’

  ‘Shot? I heard nothing.’

  ‘Of course you heard nothing. This area is all soundproofed. That’s why Melinda and John didn’t hear the broadcast warning.’

  ‘Broadcast warning? Tell it to me slowly.’

  So she told him as slowly and coherently as she could. There had been such a warning but it had gone unheard in Lord Worth’s suite. The rain had stopped, at least temporarily, and when Mitchell had retired to study the plans Melinda and Roomer had elected to go for a stroll. They had been wandering around the foot of the drilling rig, where most of the lights had been turned off since Durand had ordered the abandonment of drilling, and it was there that they had been gunned down without warning.

  ‘“Terribly hurt”, you said. How badly hurt?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Dr Greenshaw is operating in the sickbay. I’m not a coward, you know that, but there was so much blood that I didn’t want to look.’

  Arrived in the sickbay, Mitchell could hardly blame her. Melinda and Roomer lay in adjacent cots and both were saturated with blood. Melinda already had her left shoulder heavily bandaged. Roomer had bandages swathed round his neck and Dr Greenshaw was working on his chest.

  Lord Worth, his face a mask of bitter fury, was sitting in a chair. Durand, his face a mask of nothingness, was standing by the doorway. Mitchell looked speculatively at both, then spoke to Dr Greenshaw. ‘What have you been able to determine so far, Doctor?’

  ‘Would you listen to him?’ Roomer’s voice was a hoarse whisper and his face creased with near-agony. ‘Never think of asking us how we feel.’

  ‘In a moment. Well, Doctor?’

  ‘Lady Melinda’s left shoulder-blade is in a pretty bad way. I’ve extracted the bullet, but she needs immediate surgery. I’m a surgeon, but I’m not an orthopaedic surgeon, and that’s what she must have. Roomer hasn’t been quite so lucky. He got hit twice. The one through the neck missed his carotid artery by a whisker, but the bullet passed straight through and there’s no worry there. The chest wound is serious. Not fatal but very serious. The bullet struck the left lung, no doubt about that, but the internal bleeding isn’t that much, so I think it’s a nick, no more. The trouble is, I think the bullet is lodged against the spine.’

  ‘He can wiggle his toes?’

  Roomer moaned. ‘My God, what sympathy.’

  ‘He can. But the bullet should be removed as soon as possible. I could do it but I have no X-ray equipment here. I’ll
give them blood transfusions in a moment.’

  ‘Shouldn’t they be flown to hospital as soon as possible?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Mitchell looked at Durand. ‘Well?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But it wasn’t their fault. They didn’t hear the warning.’

  ‘Their bad luck. There’s no way I’ll fly them ashore. Think I want a battalion of US Marines out here in a few hours?’

  ‘If they die it’ll be your fault.’

  ‘Everybody’s got to die sometime.’ Durand left, slamming the door behind him.

  ‘Dear, dear.’ Roomer tried to shake his head then winced at the pain in his neck. ‘He shouldn’t have said that.’

  Mitchell turned to Lord Worth. ‘You can be of great help, sir. Your suite is in direct contact with the radio room, of course. Can you actually hear what is being said in the radio room?’

  ‘No bother. Two switches and I can hear both sides of any conversation, either on the telephone, earphones or wall-receivers.’

  ‘Please go and do so and don’t stop listening for a second.’ He looked at the two patients on the cots. ‘We’ll have them airborne for hospital within the half-hour.’

  ‘How can that be possible?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Mitchell sounded vague. ‘I dare say we’ll think of something.’

  Lord Worth left. Mitchell pulled out a slender pencil flashlight and started to flick it on and off in apparent aimlessness. His complexion had gone pale and the hands that held the pencil light trembled slightly. Marina looked at him first uncomprehendingly, then in dismay, finally in something approaching contempt. Incredulously, she said: ‘You’re frightened.’

  ‘Your gun?’ Mitchell said to Roomer.

  ‘When they went off for help I managed to drag myself a bit nearer the edge. I unclipped the belt and threw the lot over the side.’

  ‘Good lad. So we’re still in the clear.’ He seemed to become aware of the tremor in his hands, put away his flashlight and thrust his hands into his pockets. He said to Melinda: ‘Who shot you?’

  ‘A pair of very unpleasant characters called Kowenski and Rindler. We’ve had trouble with them before.’

  ‘Kowenski and Rindler,’ Mitchell repeated. He left the sickbay.

  Marina said, half in sadness, half in bitterness: ‘My idol with the feet of clay.’

  Roomer said huskily: ‘Put out the light and then put out the light.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I didn’t say it. Chap called Othello. That’s the trouble with you millionaire’s daughters. Illiterate. First Mitchell puts out the lights. He’s got cat’s eyes. He can see in almost total darkness where an ordinary man is blind. Did you know that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Puts him at a tremendous advantage. And then he extinguishes another kind of light.’

  ‘I know what you mean and I don’t believe you. I saw him shaking.’

  ‘You poor, silly, stupid, foolish ninny. You don’t deserve him.’

  She stared at him in disbelief. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘You heard me.’ Roomer sounded tired and the doctor was looking at him in disapproval. He went on in a sombre voice: ‘Kowenski and Rindler are dead men. They have minutes to live. He loves your sister almost as much as he does you, and I’ve been his closest friend and partner since we were kids. Mitchell looks after his own.’ He smiled faintly. ‘I’m afraid he takes care of things in a rather final way.’

  ‘But he was shaking–only cowards shake.’ Her voice was now lacking in conviction.

  ‘He’s afraid of nothing that lives. As for the shaking–he’s a throw-back to the old Scandinavian berserker. He’s just trying to contain his fury. He usually smiles. As for being a coward, quite a number of people have thought that of him–probably their last thought on earth.’ He smiled. ‘You’re shaking now.’

  She said nothing.

  Roomer said: ‘There’s a cupboard in the vestibule. Bring what you find there.’

  She looked at him uncertainly, left, and returned in a few minutes carrying a pair of shoes. She held them at arm’s length and from the look of horror on her face might have been holding a cobra.

  Roomer said: ‘Mitchell’s?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Better return them. He’ll be requiring them quite soon.’

  When she came back Melinda said: ‘Do you really think you could marry a man who kills people?’

  Marina shivered and said nothing. Roomer said sardonically: ‘Better than marrying a coward, I should think.’

  In the generator room Mitchell found what he wanted right away–a breaker marked ‘Deck Lights’. He pulled down the lever and stepped out on to the now darkened platform. He waited a half-minute until his eyes adjusted themselves to the darkness, then moved in the direction of the derrick crane where he could hear two men cursing in far from muted voices. He approached on soundless stockinged feet until he was less than two yards away. Still soundlessly, he laid his pencil flash on top of the barrel of the Smith & Wesson and slid forward the flash switch.

  The two men swung round in remarkably swift unison, hands reaching for their guns.

  Mitchell said: ‘You know what this is, don’t you?’

  They knew. The deep-bluish sheen of a silenced .38 is not readily mistakable for a pop-gun. Their hands stopped reaching for their guns. It was, to say the least, rather unnerving to see an illuminated silenced gun and nothing but blackness beyond it.

  ‘Clasp your hands behind your necks, turn round and start walking.’

  They walked until they could walk no more for the good reason that they had reached the end of the platform. Beyond that lay nothing but the 200-foot drop to the Gulf of Mexico.

  Mitchell said: ‘Keep your hands even more tightly clasped and turn round.’

  They did so. ‘You are Kowenski and Rindler?’

  There was no reply.

  ‘You are the two who gunned down Lady Melinda and Mr Roomer?’

  Again there was no reply. Vocal chords can become paralysed when the mind is possessed of the irrevocable certainty that one is but one step, one second removed from eternity. Mitchell squeezed the trigger twice and was walking away before the dead men had hit the waters of the Gulf. He had taken only four steps when a flashlight struck him in the face.

  ‘Well, well, if it isn’t clever-clever Mitchell, the scaredy scientist.’ Mitchell couldn’t see the man–and undoubtedly the gun behind the flash–but he had no difficulty in recognizing the voice of Heffer, the one with the sharp nose and rodentlike teeth. ‘And carrying a silenced gun. Whatever have we been up to, Mr Mitchell?’

  Heffer had made the classic blunder of all incompetent would-be assassins. He should have shot Mitchell on sight and then asked the question: Mitchell flicked on his pencil torch and spun it upwards, where it spun around like a demented firefly. Heffer would have been less than human not to have had the automatic and instinctive reaction of glancing upward while either his conscious or subconscious mind speculated as to what the hell Mitchell was up to: Whichever it was, the speculation was of very brief duration indeed because Heffer was dead before the flash fell back on to the platform.

  Mitchell picked up the flash, still surprisingly working, dragged Heffer by the heels to join his friends at the bottom of the Gulf, returned to the sickbay vestibule, donned his shoes and entered the sickbay itself. Dr Greenshaw had both his patients on blood transfusion.

  Roomer looked at his watch. ‘Six minutes. What took you so long?’

  A plainly unnerved Marina looked at Roomer, half in disbelief, half in stupefaction.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry.’ Mitchell actually managed to sound apologetic. ‘I had the misfortune to run into Heffer on the way back.’

  ‘You mean he had the misfortune to run into you. And where are our friends?’

  ‘I’m not rightly sure.’

  ‘I understand.’ Roomer sounded sympathetic. ‘It’s difficult to estimate the
depth of the water hereabouts.’

  ‘I could find out. It hardly seems to matter. Dr Greenshaw, you have stretchers? Complete with straps and so forth?’ Greenshaw nodded. ‘Please prepare them. Let them stay where they are meantime. Blood transfusions can be carried on in flight?’

  ‘That’s no problem. I assume you want me to accompany them?’

  ‘If you would be so kind. I know it’s asking an awful lot but, after you’ve handed them over to the competent medical authorities, I’d like you to return.’

  ‘It will be a pleasure. I am now in my seventieth year and thought there was nothing fresh left in life for me to experience. I was wrong.’

  Marina stared at them in disbelief. All three men seemed calm and relaxed. Melinda appeared to have dropped off into a coma but she was merely, in fact, under heavy sedation. Marina said with conviction: ‘You’re all mad.’

  Mitchell said: ‘That’s what the inmate of a lunatic asylum says of the outside world, and he may well be right. However, that’s hardly the point at issue. You, Marina, will be accompanying the others on the trip back to Florida. There you will be perfectly safe–your father will ensure that the most massive security guard ever mounted will be there. No president in history will ever have been so well protected.’

  ‘How splendid. I love being made a fuss of, being the centre of attraction. However, mastermind, there’s just one small flaw in your reasoning. I’m not going. I’m staying with my father.’

  ‘That’s exactly the point I’m going to discuss with him now.’

  ‘You mean you’re going out to kill someone else?’

  Mitchell held out his hands, fingers splayed. They could have been carved from marble.

  ‘Later,’ Roomer said. ‘He appears to have some other things on his mind at the moment.’

  Mitchell left. Marina turned furiously on Roomer. ‘You’re just as bad as he is.’

  ‘I’m a sick man. You mustn’t upset me.’

  ‘You and his berserker moods. He’s just a killer.’