Operation Breakthrough

by Dan J. Marlowe

  Hazel removed from my hand the cigarette I’d taken from the pack on the dresser. Then she slowly unbuttoned the top three buttons on my shirt. “Chen Yi said he wouldn’t be here for an hour,” she murmured.

  I removed my shoulder holster so she could take off my shirt. She unbelted my trousers and lowered them, then peeled down my shorts. I sat down on the bed and took off my shoes while Hazel stripped in swirling flashes of color in which pale, silky white came more and more to predominate. She joined me on the bed.

  A friend told me once that the best piece he ever had in his life was ten minutes after he got out of a jam so bad he should never have walked away alive. He had a theory that the survival of danger or the anticipation of danger turned on a man’s adrenalin. He could have been right. The little scare I’d had at the jail building and/or the thought of acquiring the materials that night that I needed for the jailbreak seemed to have perked mine up. Hazel had no difficulty in turning it to her immediate advantage.

  We rolled together on the bed and fitted ourselves into the intricate but natural groove. I had a bigger head of steam up than I thought, even; I pounded her until I thought my eyeballs would fall out. Beneath me Hazel vocalized in wordless rivulets of sound. Her big arms held me so tightly that we were riveted together chest to chest. We came down the stretch together stride for stride and tripped the photo-finish electric beam in a near dead heat.

  I must have fallen asleep afterward, because the next thing I knew Hazel was shaking me. “Hurricane Ronnie is here,” she said. She was dressed again.

  “How does he look?” I asked as I scrambled into my clothes.

  “Wait till you see him,” she said, and that was all I could get out of her. She patted my arm when I finished dressing. “You’re not in such bad shape for a rather elderly sex maniac,” she said.

  I pinched her where she wouldn’t show it in Sunday school. “You should have had it when it was good,” I told her. We both smiled. She knew she’d had it when it was at its best.

  I picked up my holster automatically, then dropped it on the bed. Then I changed my mind, picked it up again, and slipped into it. This Australian boat captain was a critical piece in the puzzle. If he was going to back off at the sight of a .38 in a shoulder holster, it was a lot better to have him do it right now.

  We went into the Incense Room. Chen Yi was sitting on a divan with the room’s only other occupant, and for a second I thought the two women were putting me on. The man with Chen Yi must have been on the far side of fifty, but it was hard to be sure because a great mop of thick gray hair came to his shoulders and a Moses-type beard concealed most of his face. A long, narrow nose peered forth from the aurora of hairy growth, and above the nose very light blue, mischievous eyes gave the first indication there might be more to the package than appearances indicated.

  Appearance certainly didn’t indicate much. Hurricane Ronnie was attired in a short-sleeved, red-and-white, horizontally striped jersey and white duck trousers cut off raggedly just below the knees. The white ducks were supported precariously by a multicolored scarf that served as a belt. Thin, bare arms and legs were mahogany brown from constant exposure to the tropical sun. They were also corded with lean muscles that hinted at wiry strength. The leather sandals he wore were so nearly the color of his suntanned feet that at first I thought he was barefoot.

  He rose from the divan with hand extended. I felt the rasp of dry callouses against my palm. “Cap’n Ronald Firbank at y’r service, myte,” he said in a scratchy voice with a pronounced Anglo-Australian accent. “Nymed for the bleedin’ novelist, no less, by a soft-in-the-'ead mother. I understand, guv’nor, you’ve a need for quick and quiet transport. I’ve a bloody fine crawft to place at your disposal if we caun reach a satisfact’ry agreement.”

  He was still holding my hand, and his little birdlike eyes were fixed upon my shoulder holster. “I see you don’t wear that for show, myte,” he continued.

  “You haven’t seen the gun,” I countered, “so how do you know it’s not for show?”

  “I’ve no need to see the gun,” he declared, finally dropping my hand. “I can see the sweat stains an’ creases which tell an hinterested observer like meself that you wear the thing like your own bloody pelt.” The facial hair parted amidships to reveal stained yellow teeth in a surprisingly small-boyish smile. “So what’s the caper, guv’nor?”

  There was no sense in holding back. “I’m going to take an inmate out of the back end of the jail here tonight, and you’re going to transfer him on your boat to a nearby island with an airstrip.”

  The blue eyes were unwavering. “A hinterestin’ proposition, guv’nor. A damned hinterestin’ proposition. I don’t mind tellin’ you strictly man to man that I’ve spent a few short periods in that same jyle as a unwillin’ guest of the Hestablishment, an’ it’d give me aright fair amount o’ pleasure to put a fly in their dish o’ marmalade.”

  Behind the Australian Chen Yi and Hazel were nodding their heads in identical fashion. Evidently Hurricane Ronnie had earned the feminine seal of approval. And I had long ago learned to trust Hazel’s intuition more than my own. “What kind of boat do you have available?”

  “Eight ton o’ solid oak, guv’nor. No yacht, y’ unnerstand. She was a two-sticker once, but I lost one in a storm when I was playin’ mailboat after the guv’ment boat refused to try it. She’s a jury-rigged jib an’ mains’l job now but with a reliable auxiliary. She’ll still do twelve knots anywhere in the Islands from West End on Grand Bahama to Matthew Town on Great Inagua.”

  “Where would you suggest taking him?”

  “Eleuthera,” he said confidently. “There’s an airport has commercial flights at its north end, an’ if the gold’s available, I shouldn’t wonder he could charter if necessary.”

  “And the price?” He looked at me. “Your price?”

  “Well, now we’re gettin’ down t’ the meat of’t.” The blue eyes closed while Hurricane Ronnie cogitated. “Considerin’ the circumstances, guv’nor, I’d say five hundred for the ship rental an’ five hundred for the passenger.”

  “Does that include your help behind the jail if I should happen to need it?”

  “That’s the package.” Hurricane Ronnie winked. “Tell you the truth, if I was sure of gettin’ in a tug or two there where the hair was a bit short, I’d be tempted to cut m’ price a little.”

  Hazel handed me her handbag while the stringy little boatman looked at her with approval. I counted out two stacks of money on the low coffee table. “Here’s five hundred for the boat. The other five hundred you collect from Chen Yi after delivering the passenger.”

  “Fair enough, guv’nor. Couldn’t be fairer.” He picked up one stack of bills and stuffed them into a pocket of the ragged white ducks.

  “Now what about a plan? Where will you be moored?”

  “Let’s tyke first things first, guv’nor,” Hurricane Ronnie replied. The feel of the money in his pocket seemed to have put him in an expansive mood. “First dog out o’ the box, there’s but one proper time to jerk your man out. Not before 2:00 A.M. an’ not later than 2:30.”

  “That’s a tight schedule,” I objected.

  He nodded, bushy whiskers bristling. “But a reasonable one, myte. That’s the hour the night shift bobbies tyke their tea. Things ‘re a bit higgledy-piggledy around the jyle durin’ that interval. Oh, the bobbies’ll react, all right, but shall we say not with bags of enthusiasm?”

  “And then?”

  “Whuff-whuff t’ the good ship Matilda.”

  “At the marina?”

  “Not at the marina, guv’nor. For the short tyme we’ll need to be there I’ll tie up at the out end o’ pier nine, right next t’ the wharf where the Commonwealth Fuel an’ Petroleum Warehouse stands. There’s no tankers or freighters due in for three dyes, an’ the only crawft along that section of pier ‘ll be the tug an’ barge that hauls petrol an’ lubricants to the Out Islands. There’ll be plenty o’ room for me to sli
p the Matilda in, an’ it’ll be the last place the jolly old police ‘d think of lookin’ for a fishin’ smack.”

  “How far from the jail to pier nine?”

  “Seven or eight minutes by car. Ten at the most.” Hurricane Ronnie looked at me quizzically. “You do ‘ave a car, myte? You’ve bloody well got to ‘ave one to swing the deal. No hother way we could move fast enough.”

  I looked at the silent Chen Yi. “How did he get here?”

  “He has a truck,” she said. “Not of much worth.”

  I returned my attention to the little boat captain. “So it seems I have transportation.”

  “For a slight hadditional consideration,” he agreed amiably.

  I counted out another thousand dollars and again split it into two piles. A calloused hand picked up one pile and stuffed it away with the first bundle. “Leave the truck here when you go,” I told him. I’d have need of it soon. The truck was a real windfall. “Off the street somewhere. Where can he park it, Chen Yi?”

  “Behind the shop,” she said. She made a circle in the air with one finger to indicate the direction. Hurricane Ronnie nodded.

  “Are we straight now?” I asked him.

  “Righto, myte. I’ll berth the Matilda at one fifteen an’ meet you in the alley behind the jail a half hour lyter. But park the truck a little bit away, right? Then we’ll spring the lad an’ tickety-boo it for the Matilda.” He paused. “Which night are we layin’ it on?”

  It was my turn to pause. I thought of Candy’s warning as transmitted by Chen Yi about the syndicate’s obsession with getting to Erikson. Why delay if I had any success in obtaining what I needed to get him out? “Would tonight be too soon?”

  “Not a bit,” he said promptly.

  “Or tomorrow night,” I amended it. “Can Chen Yi call you to let you know?” Both Chen Yi and Hurricane Ronnie nodded. “Good.” I took a crisp hundred dollar bill from Hazel’s bag and placed it on the coffee table. “You can take that along with you, too, if you can tell me where on the island there’s any explosives stored. On one of the construction jobs, I mean. Dynamite or plastique preferably.”

  “Now that’s tricky stuff, guv’nor,” the bewhiskered boat captain said slowly. He picked up the bill and studied both sides of it longingly. “Sorry, I don’t have a clue.” He had started to replace the bill on the coffee table when his blue eyes blazed and he jerked his hand and the bill back. “ ‘Alf a mo'!” The scratchy voice was triumphant. “I do know. Up at North End a new ‘otel’s goin’ up, an’ they’re blastin’ out a small anchorage for private boats. I saw a blinkin’ charge go off meself day before yesterday.”

  “The hundred’s yours.”

  He tossed me his truck keys. His expression was absentminded; his attention was fixed on the bills still on the coffee table as though wondering how he might increase them. “If you need a partner to ‘elp requisition the explosives, guv’nor, I’m willin’ to ‘ave a go at it wif yer.”

  I almost said yes, then changed my mind. If something went wrong and I had to get away from the hotel construction site in a hurry, I had more confidence that I could make it than that Hurricane Ronnie could. And if he were along, I’d have to look out for him. The Matilda was crucial to Erikson’s escape, and nothing should be allowed to interfere with that. “Just meet me at 1:30. Wear dark clothing and shoes, not sandals. And get some kind of knit pull-over cap to cover all that hair.”

  “Whatever you say, guv’nor.” He gave a wave of his hand that included all three of us, and Chen Yi took him to the door.

  “I like him,” Hazel declared. “I think he’ll do all right.”

  “I hope so,” I said as Chen Yi returned to the Incense Room. “Speaking of clothing, does Candy have any work clothes here?”

  “A closetfull,” Chen Yi said. “He works two or three days as a mason every once in a while so he can show a means of support if he’s questioned about it. I’ll show you.”

  She took us to a bedroom that was the twin of the one Hazel and I were occupying and opened the closet door. I pulled out cement-encrusted work trousers and shirt and made a speedy changeover. The shirt was too large in the shoulders and the pants were too short in the legs, but I managed. There was a pair of concrete-laden heavy boots on the closet floor, and I kicked off my shoes and put on the boots.

  On the closet shelf was a black beret. I took off my wig and handed it to Hazel, then pulled the beret on over my bald pate. Hazel giggled nervously. “Doesn’t he look like an undernourished Yul Brynner?” she appealed to Chen Yi. The Chinese girl smiled sympathetically.

  There were work gloves on the shelf, and I tried on a pair. When they fit, I shoved them into a back pocket. “Does Candy have a tool kit?” I asked Chen Yi.

  “Not unless it’s in the kitchen drawer next to the stove,” she answered.

  I went into the kitchen and opened the drawer. Candy evidently wasn’t too much of a do-it-yourself man. There were four masonry trowels in the small drawer, a large and a small screwdriver, and a ball-peen hammer. I took the two screwdrivers.

  “Is it dark out yet?” I asked Chen Yi.

  “Not quite.”

  We wandered back into the Incense Room. I sat down on a divan after placing a towel on it to protect it from the work clothes. Nobody seemed to have anything to say. Hazel had a look on her face which indicated that things were moving faster than she had anticipated.

  After awhile I got up and pulled one of the window draperies aside. It wasn’t full dark but dark enough. “This shouldn’t take too long,” I said to them. Hazel didn’t say anything, but she followed me to the door, where she caught my hand and squeezed it for a moment. Chen Yi came downstairs with me to let me out the door of the massage parlor which was locked.

  “I know he doesn’t look like much, but Candy says Cap’n Firbank has machismo,” Chen Yi said in her soft voice.

  “Let’s hope he doesn’t need it,” I replied and went out. I walked around to the rear of the building. The truck was a panel job, an elderly Ford. The first time I started the engine it flooded, and I made a mental note to go easy on the choke.

  At the end of the block I saw a car coming directly at me. A horn blew indignantly, and I remembered Nassau had left-hand-drive traffic. I pulled over and concentrated on what I was doing. I saw only a single pair of taillights ahead of me on the road to North End, and no cars came the other way. The car-driving population of the island was now at home near Oakes Field or Lyford Cay.

  I had no trouble finding the hotel construction site. I drove past its steel girder framework, then turned around, and drove past it again. There was no sign of activity. I parked a quarter mile beyond it off the roadway on the wrong side by US standards. I got out of the car, traversed a ditch of soft sand, and struck out across gently rolling, gravelly terrain.

  There was a moon, but it was just a sliver. Some of the stars appeared to give off more light than the moon. It was dark enough for me to stumble over low bushes until my eyes became accustomed to the absence of light. The wind was from the ocean, light and steady. It carried damp sea smells. My footsteps were cushioned in the sandy gravel.

  I topped a small rise and came in sight of the construction area. It was surrounded by poles about twelve feet high between which were strung strands of wire furnishing power to regularly spaced, bare light bulbs. The illumination was obviously designed to discourage trespassers and to assist a night watchman in the completion of his rounds.

  I hunched down next to a low scrub oak and waited. Ten minutes went by before a man rounded the corner of the first floor construction about twenty yards from me. He was stoop shouldered and had on a light blue windbreaker and dark trousers. I looked at my watch, then settled down to await his next circuit.

  I felt cramped in every muscle by the time he appeared again. My watch said that thirty-five minutes had elapsed. I crept forward a little and settled myself behind a fifty-five-gallon steel drum. I needed to know if the watchman’s thirty-five-min
ute circuit was his regular one.

  The night breeze grew chilly while I waited. I was glad for the heavy work clothes. My watch ticked off thirty-two minutes before the watchman showed up again. I had verified his circuit time, and more important, he didn’t seem to have a dog with him on the site. Moreover, from the quick glimpses I’d had of him the watchman didn’t seem to be young or particularly alert.

  I had studied the layout while clocking the watchman. I could see from my position a huge pyramid of sand, a thirty-foot-long stack of cement sacks piled four deep and head high, covered with protective plastic sheeting, and a huge concrete mixing machine. Beyond that lay a great bundle of steel reinforcing rods. A short distance away was a mobile trailer that probably served as the construction engineer’s office. Off to one side, herded to itself by the sand pile, was a bare-board shed which I was sure was my goal.

  I pulled on my gloves and resettled the beret firmly on my head. Then I ran toward the shed, keeping in the shadows of the sand pile, the cement sacks, and the concrete mixer. It was heavy going in the loose, shifting sand but almost noiseless.

  The shed door was padlocked when I reached it. One glance was enough to confirm that the padlock was more of the type to discourage kids than to afford real protection. I could have picked up any of the four-foot sections of reinforcing steel rods on the ground and used it as a crowbar to snap the padlock open, but that would have made too much noise.

  I took the larger screwdriver of Candy’s pair I’d brought along, removed the screws from the hinge of the padlock, and lifted hinge and padlock away from the door. I opened the door carefully to avoid squeaks and stepped into the dark interior. I raised my hand above my head and swept it in a large circle. My hand encountered a light bulb hung from a pair of wires, and I pulled the chain light switch.

  The shed interior jumped into focus. I didn’t know if the jerry-built affair was lightproof or not, so I had to work fast. A slash-board counter supported rows of heavy tools, and underneath it were wooden boxes. The top one was open, displaying greasy-looking sticks of dynamite.