I said, “You promised Peterson that Eleanor would be set free if he did what you said. And you promised me that we wouldn’t be killed.”
She laughed. “Well, she will be turned loose eventually, as far as I’m concerned. I have every intention of setting her free; I want her free. And I have no intention of killing you; I hope you live a long, long time. Maybe I just didn’t word my promises quite as precisely as I should have, Mr. Helm.” Suddenly the odd brown eyes focused intently on my face. “But you know you can’t believe a word a crazy girl tells you. What was it you called me, the Mad Ship-Sinker of the Atlantic?”
Chapter 31
It was almost a relief to be once more locked up in our little triangular prison cell—well, it didn’t quite come to a point up forward, terminating instead in a small bulkhead beyond which, presumably, was stowage space in the bow for the anchor rope or chain. And the door didn’t really lock, but Giulio and his Browning, waiting outside, made a pretty good substitute for bars and bolts.
Eleanor seated herself on the port berth and looked up and started to speak, but found herself suddenly, ridiculously, overbalanced and thrown backward across the bunk, legs waving helplessly, as Jamboree's bow came crashing down. She’d forgotten how much more violent the motion was here up forward. I reached down and retrieved her, bringing her back up to a sitting position and steadying her as she rubbed the back of her head, which had borne the brunt of the impact.
“Okay?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t go that far. I’m very scared, I need a bath very badly, I wouldn’t mind some clean clothes and I still get a little queasy now and then. I wouldn’t say I was exactly okay. But there don’t seem to be any soft spots in my skull, if that’s what you’re asking.”
I grinned. “Good girl,” I said, and leaned down to kiss her lightly on top of the head.
It was just a casual friendly gesture, or it was meant to be; but it turned out to be a serious miscalculation. Suddenly she was looking up at me gravely, questioningly; and I found myself very much aware of the expressive shape of her mouth and thinking that, if kissing was to be done, I could have picked a better target. And if anything was less relevant at the moment than the sweet curve of a lady’s lips, I’d have to scratch hard to find it, imprisoned as I was in a plunging pie-shaped cell with an armed killer beyond the door and a substantial charge of high explosive under the floor, whatever the hell you called it on a boat. Sole. But I knew suddenly that I wasn’t going to spend another night holding this girl in a chaste brotherly embrace, no matter how lonely she might be or what her psychological difficulties might be. You can ask only so much of the iron self-control for which we grim undercover operatives are noted.
I turned away and got the pillow off my bunk and wedged it, along with hers, behind her to prevent her from repeating her undignified trip to. leeward. Then I seated myself facing her with my feet against her bunk to keep me from being pitched into her lap.
“Report, Brand,” I said. “Give me the topside picture. Weapons first. Incidentally, there are some knives in the galley, including a couple of good big ones; and that .38 is supposed to find a home in the second drawer down if Miss Lorca keeps her word. I wouldn’t bet either way; but you might keep it in mind.”
Eleanor nodded. “There’s a shotgun in the cockpit,” she said. “Held in place near the wheel by some shock cord. Rather short barrel. Like a police riot gun.”
I glanced at the hatch overhead. “That means that even if we can get that thing open—and it doesn’t seem to be locked in any way, just dogged down normally against the spray—we’ll get our heads blown off the minute we stick them out of there. What kind of a shotgun? Single-barrel or double?”
“I think it’s what’s known as a pump-action gun. One barrel with a magazine tube underneath and a sliding wooden handle.”
“Probably five or six shells, then, if it isn’t plugged to three for legal hunting, and that’s not likely. They’d have removed the magazine plug when they sawed off the barrel. Go on.”
“The man called Henry wears a sheath knife, but it seems to have a funny blunt point; I wouldn’t think it would make much of a weapon, not for stabbing, anyway.”
“A sailor’s rigging knife. What about Henry?”
“Big. Tough, I’d say, but not really mean, if you know what I mean.”
“A fighter perhaps, but not really a killer?”
“Something like that. The other man, Adam, carries a real weapon, kind of a dagger with a very fancy sheath and grip. Six-inch blade?”
“Ugh,” I said. “Sounds like a custom fighting knife; let’s hope it didn’t come with a book of instructions. What about Adam?”
“Not quite as tall as Henry, but I’d say the same weight. Broad and muscular. Black; and I’m afraid he’s working at it. I didn’t like the way he looked at me; and not because I’m a woman. A lot of hate there, Matt.”
“Well, they’ve got cause, I suppose; but it doesn’t make it any easier. Any other weapons?”
She shook her head. “That’s all I saw, except Giulio’s gun, of course.”
I said, “You’re not thinking, girl reporter. It’s a sailing ship, it ought to have some belaying pins and marline spikes and stuff lying around, oughtn’t it?”
She laughed. “I’m afraid you’re behind the times. This isn’t an old-fashioned square-rigger. No belaying pins. But there were some hefty handles for cranking the winches, steel, about a foot long. Maybe even fifteen inches, I couldn’t tell. Two in plastic sheaths in the cockpit and two on the mast. A long boathook, at least nine feet, lashed to the deck, port side. A big aluminum pole secured to starboard—spinnaker pole? But it’s five or six inches thick and over twenty feet long, so it would make a pretty awkward weapon—even for Hercules. A big anchor on the forward deck, marked forty-five pounds. A life raft, marked six-man, in a plastic case fastened to the cabin just behind the mast, with some kind of a rescue beacon mounted in a clip beside it.” She frowned, visualizing the deck as she had seen it. “Oh, I almost forgot, there’s no tender on deck—if that’s what you call a real dinghy of wood or fiberglass— but we’re towing a good-sized rubber boat behind us now. Giulio called it a Zodiac. It’s two fat rubber tubes joined together at the bow and coming to separate points aft, with a wooden transom between them for the outboard motor. Wooden floor. No seats except for a kind of box to hold the gas tank.”
“Was there a motor?”
“Not mounted on the Zodiac, but there was one stored on a bracket on the stem rail. Marked twenty-five horsepower.”
I said, “Very good report, Brand. He really gave you the guided tour. Now I’ll let you lay it all out for us. I think we’ve got all the necessary information. Pretend there’s a ship approaching. The attack is ordered. Write us the script.”
She thought for a moment. “Well, first of all, the Lorca girl is going to check the approaching target with that sighting compass of hers. Giulio called it a hand-bearing compass, because you hold it in your hand to get the bearings. She’s going to want to make sure it’s really on a collision course or close to it. And then—” She frowned, working it out in her head. “Then Serena’s got to get rid of her crew, doesn’t she? She won’t need them for the final run-in, and they haven’t got the motive she has for taking the risk. That must be what the Zodiac is for. The two men—I suppose up to now she only had the two on board —unload into that. She gets on the radio and alerts the sportfisherman that’s trailing along just over the horizon somewhere. She sails on alone, leaving the Zodiac behind. She says she won’t turn on the sailboat’s motor because that’s cheating; but I’m sure she’ll fiddle with the sails and rudder enough to bring about a collision if it’s at all possible. Unless the ship really changes course to avoid her. I think she’s sincere about that. If they show that their lookouts are on the job, and that they’re willing to take appropriate action to steer clear, she won’t make it difficult for them.” Eleanor grimaced. “Of course, s
he seems to think the ocean’s just crawling with baddies, but she must be exaggerating. The freighter I sailed on when I was starting on-this story was handled quite competently as far as I could judge, and there’s no reason to think it was an exception.”
I said, “We got to keep in mind that the girl’s kind of paranoid on. the subject. It does seem unlikely that the average commercial vessel is handled as negligently or illegally as she seems to think.”
Eleanor said, “Of course, she’s got reason to be prejudiced. We’ve got to remember that her first boat was sunk and her girlfriend was killed. It must have been a very traumatic experience.”
I shook my head. “That’s not the point, Elly. The point is that her current demonstration, as she calls it, probably isn’t going to work on the first ship that comes along, or even the second. They’ll avoid her in time. Chances are, she’ll have to make runs at several vessels before she finds the slob ship she wants, that’ll come straight in for the kill all lawless and careless. So we’ve got to be prepared for a number of different possibilities.”
Eleanor said, “Actually there are three possibilities, aren’t there? First: Serena dumps her crew and sails toward Collision Point X, but the target dutifully dodges in plenty of time and nothing happens. In this case, I suppose, she just gives the abort signal to Ser-Jan and sails back to pick up the Zodiac and crew. Second possibility: she sails for Point X as before, but has time to pull on her rubber suit and set the autopilot and drop overboard. She can’t stay with the sailboat too long, or she’ll be too close to the explosion when it happens. But either the ship manages to turn aside at the last moment, or she’s misjudged her trajectories; again nothing happens. In that case, presumably, the Zodiac comes buzzing along to pick her out of the water. They chase after the big boat—I suppose that outboard is fast enough to run down a sailboat—and scramble back aboard. Abort repeat abort.”
I said, “She’s taking a chance there. Finding a swimmer in the middle of the ocean isn’t easy. But, of course, she does have a second line of defense. If the Zodiac misses her or the outboard conks out so they can’t catch the sailboat, there’s still the sportfisherman coming along to pick up the pieces. Even so they must use some kind of electronic locating devices, with a directional receiver on board Ser-Jan."
Eleanor nodded. “Possibility three,” she went on. “Everything goes like clockwork and the sailboat and the ship meet at X. BOOM! Ser-Jan comes roaring up, gathers up the crew, and maybe even retrieves the Zodiac for future use. It then picks up Miss Lorca paddling around in her wet suit like in the description she gave Peterson, and she heads back to the U.S. to buy another secondhand sailboat.”
I said, “Well, one thing is clear. She wasn’t kidding when she said she preferred to work at night; she was probably just bluffing earlier, trying to give us a little scare, when she let us think she might go into action in the middle of the day. Obviously, even if there’s a ship around so negligent that it’ll run down a sailboat in broad daylight, she can only pull off her routine safely in the dark. Otherwise, sooner or later, a survivor is bound to report seeing a big, private powerboat that ran away and left people to drown; and there’ll be a big stink and a careful investigation. But at night a boat, even a sizeable boat, is pretty invisible without lights.”
“Another thing,” Eleanor said, “there isn’t going to be another secondhand sailboat this time. Giulio made it pretty clear, talking to me, that this is her last run. Daddy’s turning off the money hose.”
I nodded grimly. “She knows that. She’s just hoping Giulio will let her complete this final attack, demonstration, however you want to refer to it, before he makes his move. The only question in my mind is, why he hasn’t moved already? There can be only one answer to that. He doesn’t trust Henry and Adam all the way.”
Eleanor frowned. “I don’t understand. If it’s a question of getting rid of us, against her wishes—and I suppose he’s working for the father and not the daughter—you can’t hope that those two men will help us, regardless of what she says. After all, they are Lorca’s men.”
I said, “I wasn’t thinking of us.”
Her eyes were wide and dark. “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, that’s pretty horrible.”
“Horrible or not, she’s expecting it,” I said. “Giulio’s here to clean up. Everything. No loose ends. She knows it and she’s got some kind of an answer, some kind of a defense—she just hinted at it. I can’t see how it can be anything but the two men with whom she’s been sailing, even if they were originally planted on her by her pop.” After a moment, Eleanor not speaking, I said, “Boat people can be funny. I’ve dealt with them before. Those three, Serena and her crew, have covered a lot of sea miles together, and shared a lot of dangers. And a gutsy girl like that, obviously a hell of a sailor in spite of her quirks, is going to command loyalty in some strange and unexpected places.”
Eleanor licked her lips. “Maybe I’m being naive, but I can’t really believe that her own father would—”
I said, “Hell, I can believe anything of Lorca, and you should, too. The girl has already had one bad boating accident; why shouldn’t she have another that she doesn’t survive? Cold-bloodedly speaking, now that she’s served his purpose, Lorca’s much better off without her. He’ll look a lot better to the voters as the grieving parent of a lost girl sailor—it’ll get him sympathy that’s money in the bank —than as the papa of a practicing pervert, as some people like to call it, or of a notorious lady pirate, or terrorist or whatever’s the right name for what she’s doing out here. Dead, she’s a help. Alive, she’s nothing but a menace to Lorca’s ambitions, particularly now that she’s frustrated enough to want real publicity for her weirdo seagoing crusade. Do you think Lorca’s got the slightest intention of letting her get it? If he thought she was that screwy, he’d never have dealt with her in the first place. Publicity for her seagoing activities, involving him, would not only ruin him politically, it would get his syndicate sponsors very, very angry with him. And they’re not nice people to have mad at you, even if you’re as powerful as Mister Lorca.” I shook my head. “He took a big risk to get his revenge with her help. Now that that’s all taken care of, or will be as soon as Giulio eliminates me, he’s making sure there’ll be no awkward kickbacks. Afterward, he can put his poor drowned daughter’s picture on his desk for a nice sentimental touch that’ll impress his visitors, and lean back and enjoy being the respectable and popular and powerful Senator George Winfield Lorca, all accounts closed.”
Eleanor said, “I’m being silly.” Her voice was suddenly hard. “Why should I be shocked at anything people do to each other after all the time I’ve spent in this writing racket? But what does this mean to us, Matt?”
“It means that Giulio’s going to have to play his hand very carefully here,” I said. “He knows he’s outnumbered on this boat. Oh, as far as we’re concerned, he can do anything he likes, and probably nobody’ll interfere. Serena may want to, but she knows that Henry and Adam aren’t going to stick their necks out for us, even if she asks them. But the minute Giulio reveals his hostile intentions toward her, he’ll have her crew to deal with. Therefore, I suspect that as long as we’re docile and don’t cause Giulio any trouble, he’ll just save us alive until he can make one big clean sweep of everything; and for that he’ll need reinforcements. But he can’t call up his pals on Ser-Jan without a good excuse or Serena’ll guess what he’s up to and maybe do something drastic before the sportfisherman arrives. Maybe Giulio can handle Henry and Adam alone, not to mention Serena and you and me, but why do it the hard way?” I grimaced. “So I think we’ll all continue to be good friends, smiling and happy, until Serena makes her first run tonight and the other boat is summoned in the normal course of business. Arturo’s probably been told that’s the signal and he’s to come right in, ignoring any cancellations or aborts. So that’s got to be our signal, too, and we’d better think about what we’re going to do.” I studied he
r for a little, remembering something. I said, “You don’t happen to have that little two-bladed stockman’s knife on you, by any chance?”
There was a lengthy silence. At last Eleanor murmured, “Ooooh, that’s scary! Clairvoyance, Mr. Helm?” When I didn’t speak, she went on, “By some chance I do. How did you guess?”
I said, “You’re a smart girl. Even though you were mad at me, you must have known you were doing a stupid thing when you left our protection to run off to the Bahamas like that. I couldn’t see you entrusting your safety entirely to that helpless dope, Peterson. You must have given some thought to how you might defend yourself if you had to. And you told me last night you were sticking to those ridiculous spike-heeled sandals through thick and thin just on the off-chance you’d get a chance to use them in a manner for which they were not intended. Well, if your mind was running along those channels, I couldn’t see you leaving that knife in your purse, the first thing that would be taken away from you if somebody grabbed you.” I looked her over critically. There was something in her pocket, I saw, but it didn’t have the right shape for a knife. “Where?” I asked.
She grinned abruptly; her nice, wide monkey grin. “I’m glad it doesn’t show. It’s down inside my panty hose. Very intimate and, I might add, a bit uncomfortable. But Serena didn’t spot it when she patted me up and down after we were caught.”
“Accessible?”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” She laughed. “You either go in from the top of my pants and grope way down the front of me in a most embarrassing way, or you unzip me and perform a quick Caesarean section on my best tights. Well, hell, they’ve got a couple of runs in them already.” She shook her head. “No, it’s not readily accessible, but it was the best I could do.”
The Revengers Page 30