The Intriguers mh-14

by Donald Hamilton

  The sun had cleared the horizon now; and out on the water the college boy with the yachting cap had managed to push Leonard's boat free. He jumped back behind the wheel and started the craft moving slowly towards the dock, as a man made his way out along the catwalk holding a bulky object that turned out to be an electronic megaphone or bullhorn-loud-hailer, I believe our British friends call it. By now, another boat was coming into view far down the channel beyond the dock, the way Jarrel and 1 had come. It had been a carefully planned trap; the only trouble was, there hadn't been anybody to catch in it. The man with the bullhorn confirmed this loudly.

  "Cabin secure, sir!" he bellowed across the water. "Nobody home!"

  Leonard produced a howler of his own, and his voice reached me quite clearly: "Repeat."

  "Cabin empty. No sign of occupation. Repeat, no sign of occupation. Empty. Unoccupied. Orders?"

  On board the boat, the college-boy yachtsman produced a pistol and aimed it at Martha. The man on the dock lifted his megaphone once more.

  "Orders, sir?" he repeated.

  "Hold everything. I'm coming in," Leonard shouted.

  I watched him come. I won't pretend that my pulse and respiration remained absolutely normal as my target moved slowly into range. The college boy put the boat alongside the rickety pier, and spoke to the bullhorn artist, who put down his instrument, unslung a machine pistol, and aimed it down at Martha. The college boy put his revolver away, pulled down his yachting cap more firmly, and climbed up to secure the dock lines. Leonard, still in the boat, gestured towards the girl, and the two men on the dock reached down and dragged her up between them. Only then did Leonard move to disembark.

  I guess I'd known it was coming, as Mac must have known it was coming when he gave me a gun capable of shooting through a bull moose lengthwise. The heavy, souped-up rifle was as good as a written order. It said clearly: You will carry out your mission disregarding anything, or anybody, that may stand in your way.

  Well, it wasn't the first time I'd had this decision to make, and had made it: and this time it wasn't even very hard. I mean, the girl really meant very little to me. I find it very easy to control my passion for cocky, treacherous young ladies who make it clear that they consider me a lecherous idiot, ready to park my brains behind the door at the sight of any willing female body.

  It was like watching a bad movie the second or third time, with the same old beautiful-female-hostage scene coming up. They always try it, figuring, I guess, that what works on the screen ought to work in real life. I eased the rifle forward cautiously so I'd be ready to take a clear shot if Leonard gave me the chance, but he was careful not to. He was bright enough to know that he'd been decoyed here for some purpose, and he wasn't about to expose himself until he learned what it was. That's what he'd saved the girl for, instead of having her shot at once when he learned that her information had led him to an empty cabin.

  Sitting in the boat, he'd given me no target, and he offered none as he came ashore, carefully sheltering himself behind the boat's windshield pillars and a dock piling. Then he had the girl in front of him. The whole procession was moving shorewards along the catwalk. I drew a long breath. With a rifle I'd sighted in myself, and with a steady rest, I'd have tried to slip one past the girl's head into the head of the man; but this gun could be six or eight inches off at this range, and I couldn't call my shots that well from my rickety perch, anyway.

  I had no choice. I rose up deliberately and placed the black crosshairs carefully on Martha Borden's body, a little to one side, figuring the angle that would center the bullet in the body behind her. They came on, still unsuspecting. I placed my finger on the trigger, and my mind gave the order to the appropriate muscles, and nothing happened. I take no credit for humanitarianism. In my mind, the girl was dead. So sorry. If you don't betray people, sweetheart, you don't get shot. if you do, you do. Goodbye, Martha Borden…

  But she was still coming, and so was the man behind her, and my sentimental fingertip simply wouldn't move the necessary fraction of an inch. Then there was a sudden flurry of movement down there. The girl threw herself back against Leonard, knocking him off balance, and jumped. She landed in six inches of mud, almost fell but caught herself, and started floundering diagonally towards shore. Leonard, recovering, spoke sharply to the ex-bullhorn-artist, who raised his current instrument, the machine pistol. It was a setup shot. With an automatic weapon like that, he couldn't possibly miss the girl struggling shore-wards only twenty yards away-but Leonard was standing unprotected at last, wide open, as fine a target as any marksman could wish for.

  My finger finally decided to obey the urgent orders from my brain. The big rifle roared, and recoiled violently against my shoulder. The man with the squirt gun, as I like to call them, dropped his weapon unfired into the low-tide mud below the dock and followed it limply, dead before he hit.

  xxviii.

  As an exhibition of unprofessional idiocy, it would be hard to beat. It was exactly the kind of mushy behavior that makes me cringe and snap off the TV set when I see it on the screen: a supposedly trained and dedicated man with a job to do upon which the fate of millions supposedly depends, turning aside from his clear duty to perform heroic rescues of totally irrelevant young ladies.

  By the time I'd recovered from the outsized kick of the rifle, worked the bolt, and swung the crosshairs to where I'd last seen Herbert Leonard, he was not, of course, there any longer. The man was catching on. His behavior this morning, unlike that of some people, had been thoroughly professional. The fact that somebody might have thought him afraid, hiding behind a woman, hadn't bothered him in the least. Now, at the sound of the shot, he'd jettisoned his dignity without an instant's hesitation, throwing himself into the muck on the far side of the dock and flopping out of sight behind one of the pilings.

  The youth with the pipe and the yachting cap had taken refuge in the bottom of the boat. I had a great big rifle and nothing to shoot at; then a man rose out of the brush with another squirt gun-Leonard seemed to pass them around like visiting cards-and took aim at the girl as she gained the swampy shore. I dropped him neatly: another good shot wasted on a totally unimportant mark.

  The flimsy blind was kind of disintegrating from the jolting of the Magnum rifle, getting shakier by the minute. It was time to go, anyway, before the college commandos got zeroed in on my position. I wedged the gun into the fork of a tree limb, dropped to the ground, and reached back up for it-climbing around in trees with loaded guns isn't considered proper firearms etiquette. I'd barely got it loose when at least three automatic weapons started drilling holes in the blind and the deserted osprey's nest above it, showering me with twigs and leaves and splinters.

  I moved off a little ways, and crouched to listen, taking the opportunity to replace the two cartridges I'd fired. Listening wasn't much good. Every man on the island was now, it seemed, busily hosing down my recent hiding place with full-automatic fire. It sounded like 9mm stuff. The.45's used in the old Thompson choppers had had a heavier and more authoritative way of hammering at the ears. Nevertheless, the noise was impressive, and didn't give me much chance to listen for rustling leaves or stealthy footsteps.

  I moved cautiously towards the landing place, stalling, hoping the girl would hold a reasonably straight line through the thick cover: she'd been aimed in roughly the right direction when she came ashore. I caught a flash of blue among the trees, and there she was. I stepped out into a small opening. She saw me, veered towards me, and stumbled up to me, muddy and breathless.

  "Matt, I-"

  "Down to the shore and straight out into the water," I said, pointing. "Take the first streetcar that comes along. You'll recognize the conductor."

  "Matt-"

  "Sweetie, you're a sneaky, slimy little bitch-Judas, and we'll discuss it later, if we live that long. Get going!"

  It took them a while to reach me, as I followed her deliberately, covering our back trail. They'd heard two shots fired and seen two men fa
ll. It was making them cautious. They were probably brave enough to charge headlong into haphazard machine-gun fire; but this kind of selective, precision marksmanship-one bullet per body-has a way of slowing down a lot of would-be heroes. I was counting on that.

  One more should make the point perfectly clear, I figured, giving us time to get away. I couldn't afford to miss, however. That would spoil the psychological effect. I passed up a fleeting target on the left, therefore, and waited until a gent in the center gave me a sure shot, in a little sunlit space he'd undoubtedly have detoured if he hadn't felt obliged to show his fellow-agents and his chief what a truly courageous fellow he was. He gave a very satisfactory scream as he went down. That should hold them for a little. I turned and ran.

  Down at the water, when I got there, everything was developing well. The boat, with Jarrel at the helm, was racing in on schedule, making a fine dramatic picture and producing a spectacular wake. The girl was wading out towards it. I sloshed after her, gaining by virtue of my longer legs. Jarrel held his speed until I thought he'd run us down, but when he chopped the throttle, the boat dropped off plane and squished to a stop right beside us. Jarrel checked the last of its forward motion with a touch of reverse, and jumped to the side to help Martha aboard. I was reaching for the gunwale when the black man, glancing shorewards, said quietly, "Better give that feller some discouragement, cap'n."

  I pivoted, lifting the rifle, and fired as the crosshairs,found a man on the shore, taking aim with a chopper. He went down, but at the same instant another submachine-gun opened up to the right among the mangroves. I slammed in a fresh 'cartridge and swung that way. The scope showed a face among the leaves, and a stuttering weapon. The nasty little jacketed pistol bullets seemed to be whistling and cracking and glancing off the water all around us; then my big rifle went off again, with its usual end-of-the-world bellow and kick. The face disappeared and the squirt gun fell silent. I turned, reached over the rail to lay the gun carefully in the cockpit-you don't toss around weapons that you may need again shortly-and kind of hauled and rolled myself aboard.

  "Take her away!" I panted, but the boat didn't move.

  There was no time to investigate. I just snatched up the rifle and threw it to my shoulder as I rose, aiming blindly at the shore. I had them well-trained by now. Three of them, all about to open up on the drifting boat, dropped flat, each one thinking the muzzle of the big Magnum was looking right down his throat.

  "Matt," the girl wailed, "Matt, it's Jarrel-"

  "Get us out of here!" I snapped without looking aside.

  "But his face… he's bleeding…

  "Jesus Christ!" I exploded. "We'll all be bleeding in about three seconds if you don't hit that goddamn throttle, now!"

  I heard her scramble behind the wheel. I had the cross-hairs on a man who was beginning to show himself at the bow of the beached rowboat used by the attacking force, when the big motor opened up and our boat shot forward, throwing me off balance. I managed to get my finger off the trigger and set the safety, even while I was being shoved inexorably towards the stern by the thrust of all those horsepower. Something stopped my slide: a man's body.

  "Zigzag!" I yelled over the screaming motor, as I crouched beside Jarrel White. There was a lot of gunfire astern. "Hard right rudder. Now left. Keep it up, but for God's sake don't run us aground. Here come the boys in the black hats, galloping in wild pursuit." The yellow runabout had just come into view around the island, throwing a wake like a junior-grade destroyer. "How fast is that bucket?" I asked.

  Martha threw a glance over her shoulder. "It's fast," she shouted. "It's good for thirty-five, I think, maybe even forty."

  "We can beat that, I hope," I said. "Hold it straight now; we're out of range. Open her up all the way, but watch it. You've got more power than you think. Let me get this tub trimmed right now…

  With the weight of two men concentrated to port, the little boat was racing along awkwardly with a strong list in that direction. I dragged Jarrel into the center of the cockpit forward of the steering console and everything leveled off nicely. I looked astern. The yellow boat wasn't gaining, but it wasn't falling back much, either.

  "Have you got her wide open?" I yelled at Martha, who nodded. "Then that's a faster boat back there than you thought, damn it. We should be doing well over forty-five, unless I looked down at Jarrel White. He was quite dead, and had been from the instant the bullet had struck him just below the right eye. His dead eyes, open, looked up at me calmly. I take my sports out and / bring them back, he'd said-and he'd have done it, too, if he'd lived. A good man. He would understand that I meant no disrespect by what I was about to do. I picked him up and dropped him over the side.

  I was thrown off-balance once more as the boat slowed abruptly. The girl was staring at me, making some loud, outraged sounds. It was hard to believe she was Mac's daughter. Maybe her mother had slipped out one evening to daily with the executive director of the local SPCA- but of course there were those eyebrows. Well, a dog-breeder had once told me there were weak strains in all bloodlines that should be culled as they crop out. I'd had a good opportunity to cull this one, but I'd passed it up for sentimental reasons that were looking less and less valid.

  The yellow boat was coming up fast. The pipe-sucking youth was at the wheel, his yachting cap shoved back from his forehead. Leonard had the other forward seat. There was mud in his disheveled white hair. He was holding something in front of his face. I didn't have time to determine what it was or what it signified. There were two men aft with the usual portable automatic firepower. They were getting ready to bring it into action as the range closed.

  I grabbed Martha's bare arm, yanked the girl out from behind the controls, and slung her forward. I hit the throttle lever a reckless swipe, and grabbed the wheel one-handed, barely in time to keep from being left behind as the boat took off again like a dragster burning rubber at the start of the quarter-mile strip. 1 spent a moment or two pulling myself into place behind the console, fighting the impressive forces of acceleration; then 1 risked a glance over my shoulder.

  Leonard's rear-seat passengers had lowered their weapons; the range wasn't closing any more. As I watched, briefly, I saw the yellow boat begin to fall back. Jarrel's weight had made the difference. According to a boat book I'd read, boning up on my borrowed vessel, the speed of a planing hull depends mostly on just two factors: the horsepower and the load. A hundred-and-fifty-odd pounds lighter, my little craft was now a knot or two faster, enough to give us the necessary edge.

  I looked ahead. We were rushing down a fairly wide, mangrove-lined channel, two waterborne projectiles churning up the calm brown surface, but ahead the fairway broke into three passages. I had no idea which one to take. Then a large white cottage came racing into sight around a slow bend in the middle passage, far ahead. At least that was what it looked like-a white summer cottage perched on top of a blunt blue scow-but it was coming towards us doing at least thirty miles per hour. I realized that what Leonard had been holding had been a microphone. He'd got in touch with his communications ship, the houseboat the admiral had told me about. It was moving in to cut us off, following radio instructions, showing a nice turn of speed for such a clumsy-looking craft. The questions were: which of us would reach the crossroads first; and if I beat them to it, which way should I turn when I got there?

  The girl was huddled in the cockpit forward. I didn't even bother to ask her. With her crazy reactions, she'd be just as likely to give me the wrong answer as the right one. As I stared ahead, searching for a clue, I saw something glistening white, a dead fish perhaps, drifting slowly out of the left-hand passage towards us. I remembered Jarrel's words: Remember the tide, cap'n. Man can always find his way out if he remembers the tide.

  The tide, that had been ebbing last night, would be flooding now, moving in from the sea. All I had to do was run against it when in doubt, and with a little luck I'd be in open water eventually. I could see that I was going to beat the houseboat
to the turn by a good margin, and the yellow runabout was by now a couple of hundred yards astern. I had it made. Pretty soon I'd have lead enough, and time enough, to start firing off white flares, bringing the Boston Whaler in to meet me with a crew of armed men.

  There was only one catch. The admiral had also had a few words to say, to wit: Of course, it's expected that you'll have your job done before you signal for help.

  Still wide open, my little boat approached the watery intersection. There was a man on the roof, upper deck, or whatever you want to call it, of the onrushing houseboat. He had something shiny and metallic in his hand, a pistol perhaps, but he wasn't even trying to use it yet; we had room to spare. 1 saw the white object-it was a dead fish – to port, and if that wasn't indication enough, there were some pink birds wading in the right hand channel which could not, therefore, be much over a foot deep. With prop down, my vessel drew over twice that at rest; over ten inches even while planing. I drew a long breath and turned the wheel sharply to the right.

  "No! Hard a port! You're turning the wrong way! Port your helm, Matt!"

  That was the girl, aroused, standing forward. The pink birds rose in panic as the boat roared at them. Their legs were even shorter than I'd estimated. There was a crash astern as the big motor, striking, was pivoted violently upwards; then the hull hit hard.

  xxix.

  I awoke tied hand and foot, but I was alive enough to wake up, which was the important thing. Breathing hurt my chest, but it beat not breathing. 1 remembered being hurled against the steering wheel as the boat came to an abrupt, grinding halt; and seeing the girl kind of sailing over the bow. Hunched over the console, gagging, with 'the wind knocked out of me, I'd been aware of men wading' alongside and of Leonards's voice calling: "No, no, don't shoot him. Not yet. There are some questions I want to ask him first…