"Is she here?"
"No, Senor. Gone home."
"It doesn't say when the call came in."
"Undoubtedly when you were out, Senor."
"Yes, undoubtedly." Vasily offered his warmest smile. "Would you place the call for me please? "
"Ahorita, Senor. Right away."
Vasily slid a hundred-peso note across the counter and it vanished instantly. "Please try to make it even sooner than that."
In his room he sat in a chair, arms folded, and waited. He was calm. The cooling breeze from the air conditioner swept across his cheeks. He waited for an hour, then called the desk. The clerk was apologetic.
"I am trying," he explained, "but there is only the one line that goes from the island. Please be patient."
"Of course," said Vasily, but there were chips now in the surface of his calm. He went back to the chair, tried to sit, but found that impossible. From a pocket in his suitcase he took out a portable chessboard and a book of problems. He laid out an ending, white to mate in four, and pondered over it. Lost in the dynamics of the problem, he was still aware of the passing of time. He fought against looking at his watch, and when he finally did, saw that it was almost two in the morning. He reached for the telephone. The clerk was still apologetic, but with a note of defensiveness in his voice.
"Senor, please to understand," he said. "This is not Mexico City here. This is Cozumel, and the telephone service is not very . . . elegante, you understand?"
Vasily understood very well that the telephone office was most likely staffed by one sleepy Indian girl who should have been tending bar at a cantina, but he said only, "Yes, I understand. But please try again. It is important."
"De acuerdo."
Vasily hung up the telephone but stood with his hand still on it, his eyes still staring down at it, his mind finally forcing to the surface the fears he had tried to bury.
It's trouble, and it has to be big trouble. She wouldn't call for anything trivial. And until I know what it is I can't make a move.
He tried to go back to the chessboard, but the problem, which at first had been intriguing, now only irritated him. He swept it away and laid out another ending, but he could not concentrate on the moves. He forced himself to lie on the bed with his eyes closed, breathing slowly. That actually worked—he dozed off for a while—but he was up again in fifteen minutes and pacing the floor. He debated calling Eddie and alerting him, but that would have gone against all the rules of security they had established. Tapping nervous fingers on the table, his calm now completely cracked, he knew that there was nothing he could do but wait.
He waited that way through the night, the tension growing hourly. Every thirty minutes he called the desk, and each time he was told that his telephone call was in progress. Despite his nervousness he kept his voice cool and polite when he spoke to the clerk, knowing that one flare of anger might be enough to cancel the call entirely. He watched the first gray cracks of dawn, and then the rim of the sun coming up over the sea. He watched it rise, helpless, willing it to stop, begging it for time; but the dawn was established and the sun well up over the water when the desk clerk finally called with the triumphant announcement.
"Senor, we have succeeded. After great effort I am now able to proclaim that your conferencia is about to begin. One moment please for the city of Washington."
A moment later Chalice's voice came on the line. She wasted no time with politeness. "My God, what took you so long? I've been waiting all night."
"I've been calling all night. Quickly, what is it?"
"They know you're in Cozumel. Both of you."
Vasily took a deep breath. "They know I'm here?"
"That's right—both sides do. Ours and yours. They've figured out your next move, and they've got their own little surprise planned. This is an open line. How freely may I talk?"
"As freely as you wish. If you don't tell me, I'm dead anyway."
"They're working together in a combined operation, six of ours and six of yours, with the Cuban in command. Yours is a lure, theirs is a counterlure. That's all I know. He wouldn't tell me any details."
"The usual source? He's there in Williamsburg?"
"Of course."
"I was hoping he would be here."
"No, he's up here safe and sound. Darling, don't you think this calls for a change in your vacation plans? Why not try the mountains instead of the ocean?"
"My thoughts exactly. I must jump now. Many thanks, my love."
He hung up to the sound of her chuckle, but there was no joy in his voice as he called the desk and asked to be put through to Eddie's hotel. The sun was high, his watch read after seven o'clock, and there was no time now to worry about security.
Chalice left the hotel room, ordered her Thunderbird brought up from the underground garage, and paid her bill. It was full morning in Washington as she slid behind the wheel and worked her way through the streets of the capital. The drive back to Williamsburg took three hours. In no hurry, she kept well within the speed limit, switched off the air conditioner, and let the cool morning breezes flow through the windows. The noonday sun was high over the Virginia landscape as she pulled into her driveway. Her husband was waiting for her in the living room. His gray and weary face reflected a sleepless night and an anxious morning.
"Where have you been?" he asked.
"Washington," she answered truthfully. "I felt like dinner and a show by myself. Do you want to know where I ate? Do you want to know what show?"
"No." He shook his head slowly. He did not believe her, but honor and anger had left him by now. "I wish you wouldn't do things like this, Catherine. I worry."
"Still?"
"Yes, still."
"That's sweet, Freddy." She came to him and let him put his arms around her. She kissed him firmly. "I think it's time for bed. For both of us."
He returned the kiss and looked down at her. She moved against him. Against all his wishes, he felt his desire rising.
"Well?" she asked. "Bed?"
He nodded dumbly and let her lead him toward the stairs.
Vasily listened, drumming his fingers lightly against his cigarette case. The telephone buzzed and stopped, buzzed and stopped, with that peculiar, inexplicable monotony that somehow tells the caller after the second ring that it will not be picked up, that no one is there.
The polite but tired Mexican voice said,''Senor, no contesta."
"Are you certain you're ringing the right room? Two oh four? Dos—cero--cuatro?"
"Si, Senor, pero no contesta. Senor Morrison ha salido."
"How long ago did he leave?"
"Quien sabe? Ten, maybe fifteen minutes."
For the second time in moments Vasily hung up the phone and stood staring at it. Eddie on his way to dive, perhaps already on the boat, and no way to warn him that the odds had changed. From even money, two on two, they had gone to six-to-one underdogs. He resisted the impulse to pull the telephone out by the wires and hurl it across the room, forcing himself to examine his options coldly. His mind rolled over them, but he could find only two.
There are no true options, he told himself, but only two unpalatable choices. Either I stay, or I go. If I stay and cover him, I am going against suicidal odds. Every instinct tells me to get out of here quickly. Borgneff s First Law of Survival. It's too late to try the ferry, but there are plenty of fishermen who would take me to the mainland for a price.
The trouble is ... I like Eddie. After nearly fifty years of the business called living, he stands as my only friend.
The thought took him by surprise, yet he realized that it touched an area of truth. Eddie was his friend, and to abandon him would not be easy, but it would be in conformity with his lifelong principles. To attempt to save him, given the new odds, would be difficult, almost impossible, and probably fatal. Yet, as he voiced the choices silently, he knew that he was going to try.
I owe him that much, and I owe myself the opportunity to make the
beau geste. Besides, Chalice would never forgive me if I didn't.
Smiling to himself, secretly pleased by his lapse into romanticism, he grabbed his two prepacked suitcases and raced down the stairs to the lobby. In minutes he had paid his bill to the yawning clerk and was into the Safari, driving along the broken, pitted road that led to the yacht basin. He kept his speed down, glancing often into the rearview mirror and scanning the sea as well as the road ahead. The sun was already hot, baking down. The breeze dried his sweat. Just before the yacht-club basin, a few hundred yards ahead on the road, he saw two Mexican workmen in the left-hand lane. One of them was tarring the road surface with a roller; the other held a tattered red flag in his hand.
Mexican workmen at seven-thirty in the morning?
Vasily took his foot off the accelerator and lightly touched the brake, shifting down into second gear.
The Mexicans looked up casually, and the man with the red flag waved it, beckoning him ahead. Both men wore sombreros, the white guayabera Mayan shirts, baggy white trousers, and sandals. But under their sombreros, even at that distance, Vasily could see that their faces were pale. Too pale.
He swung the Safari into a tight turn, braked, jammed to a stop, and backed up. Give them a chance, he thought . . . could be wrong. If they're workmen, they'll shrug and go back to their tarring. If not . . .
The man with the red flag suddenly dropped it to the ground, and from the brush two BMW motorcycles catapulted out onto the road, bouncing hard, engines backfiring and spitting. Vasily wrenched the wheel to the left, slammed the gearshift into second, and brought the Safari screeching around on the road, gunning it, right foot down to the floorboard. In less than ten seconds he was in third gear and up to fifty miles an hour, streaking toward the hotel. The wrong direction, he realized. And with nowhere to go. A few yards beyond the Mayan Plaza, the road ended. There was nothing but jungle to the right, the sea to the left. On those BMW's, they would overhaul him even before he reached the Cabanas del Caribe.
Gripping the wheel tightly with his left hand, with the other he reached behind and pulled one of his suitcases into the front seat. In the rearview mirror he saw the BMW's looming larger, the goggled heads of the riders tucked down behind the plastic shields. He spun the wheel hard and hit the brake. The Safari bounded off the road, and into the brush to the lip of the jungle. Then he was out of the car, hauling the suitcase with him, stumbling, running, a fresh pain shooting through one ankle. He kept the suitcase close to his body as the undergrowth tried to wrench it from his grasp. No shots so far. The jungle closed in around him. Suddenly it was darker, the turf underfoot soft and muddy. A monkey screeched, and a bright-green macaw fluttered over his head. He breathed in the foulness of the place as he ran, stumbled, and batted back the creepers and the vines.
Sorry, Eddie, he thought. I wanted to help, I truly did. But you're on your own now. And so am I.
Eddie, on his own, stood in the bows of theSa«fa Ysabel and scanned the smooth seas around him. The boat was alone on the sea with no sign of other craft, but he knew one would come, and soon. Two hundred yards across the water, the beach and the low-lying jungle also showed no sign of life, but he knew that Vasily was in there, waiting. Behind him, he heard Isidoro cut the engine and come running forward to drop the hook. The Mexican paid out cable until the anchor hit bottom. The Santa Ysabel coasted forward, then pulled up short, swinging with the current.
"Bueno," Isidoro said. "You dive now?"
"First a beer. You want a cerveza?”
"Beer is bad before dive," said the Mexican, but he licked his lips.
"One is okay. And you're not diving."
Eddie snapped open a can and handed another, unopened, to Isidoro, who smiled his thanks. The Mexican snapped open the can, tilted it to his lips, and swallowed.
"Hits the spot, doesn't it?" said Eddie. "You sold-out son of a bitch."
Isidoro didn't answer. His eyes rolled, and the can slipped from his fingers. He sat down heavily on the deck. His eyes closed, and his head tipped over to one side. Eddie checked the eyes to make sure he was out, then pulled him into the cockpit, propped him against the slats in a sitting position, and adjusted the sombrero on his head. Loaded with chloral hydrate and dead to the world for hours to come, Isidoro looked like every caricature ever made of a Mexican taking siesta in the noonday sun.
There was still no other boat in sight. Eddie unzipped the dive bag and laid out his equipment. He made a final check, tested his tanks, and then, after he had struggled into the Calypso and strapped on the weight belt and knife, he activated the Wetphone.
"This is the bait, calling the fisherman. How's it going, tovarich ?''
He waited patiently for Vasily's reply, then spoke again. "Hey, come on in, don't be shy. Or didn't you pay your phone bill?"
No reply came from the jungle. Eddie peered toward the brush, shielding his eyes from the glitter of sun bouncing off the water. He was within range, and the equipment was functioning.
"Santa Ysabel calling. Confirm reception. Confirm reception, damn it."
Once again he checked the battery pack and the potting compound around the electronics. The batteries were fresh and the unit dry.
"Santa Ysabel calling. Say something, Vasily. Anything."
The waters lapped against the hull of the boat, and the mast creaked in the breeze. There was no other sound. He was alone on the sea. Nothing stirred on the shore.
Eddie sighed unhappily. This is terrific. What does the bait do when the fisherman is out to lunch?
He glanced over his shoulder, then slowly turned. A single fishing boat had appeared on the northern horizon. He could see the creamy white wave sliding by its bows as it bore down on him across the bright-blue water.
16
Sweating, gasping, his heart pounding fiercely, Vasily crouched behind the shelter of a stunted coconut palm. The jungle pressed in from all sides; twenty feet away lay only green darkness. He listened for footsteps, heard none, but knew that he had only minutes in which to prepare. He spun the combination lock on the suitcase and unloaded the hardware. He quickly assembled the Dragunov rifle and clamped on the magazine. From another compartment he took three pieces of white plastic and screwed them together so that they became a modified Schick hair dryer. From the third compartment he gingerly lifted out a box of Lipton's tea bags.
It took only minutes to distribute the tea bags in a wide circle around the coconut tree, but they were minutes of pounding fear. Back at the tree, he took deep breaths to calm himself, listened carefully, but again heard nothing more than the rustling of fronds overhead and the distant call of monkeys. Crouched on one knee, the rifle cradled in his arm, the hair dryer resting on the turf beside him, he settled back to wait.
A low, flat boom sounded from the emerald-green jungle; then another. The two echoes flew out over the silver-blue shimmer of water. Every muscle in Eddie's body tightened. Half blinded by the glare, his eyes strained toward the beach. He saw nothing.
"Vasily!" He shrieked into the Wetphone. "What's going on?"
He heard the same buzz of static as before. No voice, no response. He struggled into the harness, tightening the straps with unsteady fingers, feeling the weight of the tank tug at his back and shoulder muscles. The Santa Ysabel rode over thirty feet of water on the high shelf just outside the reef. Hefting the second tank, Eddie pitched it overboard, watching it tumble and then slide downward through pale-green water toward the bottom, a school of blowfish veering hastily from the lazy path of its descent. The water was so clear that he could see the white patch of brain coral where it finally quivered to rest. By then he had yanked on his fins, clamped the mask down over his face. He shot a quick look at the fishing boat now closing to within a hundred yards of him. There were three men on deck, all divers in wet suits, the hooked tips of their spear guns glinting in the sun.
Three?
For the first time he was truly fearful. He had expected Rome
o, and possibly Parker to back him up. But three? Three divers who could go like sharks; three sharks against one clumsy dolphin. If there were three on board, how many more were there ashore? He began to understand why the Wetphone was silent.
He had just fixed the Nikonos camera to its harness, and was reaching for his spear gun, when he saw it happen from the corner of his eye. The figure of a man broke out of the jungle and onto the beach. Vasily? No. There was something strange in the way that the man sprinted awkwardly on the sand, kicking up gouts of it in flight. Then he suddenly twisted, stumbled, and a rifle spun from his grasp. He lay writhing on the white sand.
Understanding nothing, Eddie looked over his shoulder. The oncoming boat was within fifty yards, bearing down, bows slapping blue water, the wake frothing. The three divers bent within the shelter of the windward gunwale, using the coach roof as a shield. A machine pistol stuttered; chips of wood sprayed from the mast. Eddie jammed the regulator into his mouth, sucked sweet air, clamped a hand to his mask, and launched himself over the side.
The water closed over his head, and in seconds he was in that other world, cool and lovely and green, silent except for the sharp, labored sound of his own breathing. His bubbles blooped and bleeped reassuringly upward toward the surface. He flipped over, waggled his fins, and shot downward too rapidly, feeling the pressure pound into his ears. He cleared them at ten feet, did it again at twenty, then finally tilted his head back to purge the mask of water. The fog cleared and he could see. A grouper with bulging eyes watched him warily, and three or four black-and- white-banded butterflyfish hurried prudently away.
At thirty feet he saw his spare tank resting on the brain coral, and beyond it a slanting bed of staghorn where the reef tumbled down and out in a series of tunnels and caves. He kicked himself downward, aware of the clear and brilliant water, cursing the brightness and the sun that was now his enemy. His choices were limited. If he sheltered in a cave he would be hidden, but immobilized. If he stayed in the open he would be mobile, but visible. He did not consider the choices; he simply acted. Panic drove him toward the tunnel, and he plunged for it as fish floated by, serene, undisturbed.
THE DEATH FREAK -- An Eddie Mancuso Thriller (Eddie Mancuso And Vasily Borgneff Book 1) Page 20