Marsh shook his head in dismay. “You’re an evil bastard, Khan. I don’t know what it is you are up to, but that’s why Greg died, wasn’t it? Because he knew about the bombs and was trying to stop you.”
Khan shook his head. “Walsh was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And it was the providence of Allah that you were spared, so that you could complete the work against the great Satan, America.”
With that he signalled that the demonstration was over and walked out of the sea gallery leaving Marsh standing there with Malik.
*
Sweeting Maclean spent the day moving from one place to another, trying to make himself look busy and give the police something to watch. He made a couple of phone calls from a public telephone box in the early part of the afternoon, and continually checked to make sure the police were still following him.
He called into a Pizza Hut and spent some time there, later moving on to a beach bar where he had a drink with some of his other acquaintances. He spent a couple of hours on the beach before returning home where he took a shower and watched some TV.
As evening drew near, he made another phone call. Maclean’s plan depended a great deal on the answers he received. But being the kind of man he was, the answers were favourable, and he came out of the phone booth feeling quite confident. And because the sky was darkening nicely, he felt pretty good about the whole thing.
He drove down to the quayside and parked his car in a parking lot while keeping an eye on the car tailing him. He got out of the car and walked along the quayside a little, past the shops and bars and the bobbing boats and cruisers that lined the boardwalks, and found the bar he was looking for. He went inside.
One of the policemen following Maclean got out of his car and went into the bar. He saw Maclean ordering a drink at the bar and making small talk with a girl. They walked over to an empty table and sat down. It wasn’t long before Maclean was nibbling at the ear of the girl. Soon some others joined them and more drinks were ordered. It seemed so normal that the policeman went back to his car and the other officer to wait.
Maclean finished his drink, slipped a few dollars to the girl and went to the back of the bar, through the kitchen and out through the back door. He walked quickly and as quietly as he could along the boardwalk until he could see the boat he wanted among the line of boats tied up there.
He stepped on to the boat, slipped the ropes fore and aft, and then pushed the boat away from the boardwalk. He dropped into the cockpit and found the ignition key which had been taped beneath the driver’s seat. The diesel engine coughed and rumbled into a low throated raw and he piloted the boat out of the marina and into the open sea.
In the waiting, unmarked police car, one of the watching men saw the boat and realised what had happened. He climbed out of the car and went into the bar. A minute later he was back.
“That was Maclean,” he said to his companion. “The bastard’s conned us.”
Sweeting Maclean was laughing as he opened the throttles once he was out into open water. The wind was up and the boat began to rise and fall in the swell. He turned the boat on to a northerly heading, reckoning that he would reach the swash land beneath the safe-house before dawn.
One of the phone calls he had made confirmed his suspicions that the police were on to him. In the same way that the police had informers, so to did Sweeting Maclean. But he also got word off the street that the police might know where the safe-house was. Maclean’s only advantage lay in the fact that the house was up on the northern shore and he could get to it by sailing inland through the mangrove swamps. He knew that the police could not tail him, but if they did learn of the whereabouts of the safe-house, it would be a close run thing.
He looked up at the clear, bright moon, checked that the fuel tank was full and set the boat on autopilot. Then he dived into the cabin for the food he knew had been left for him.
As he ate, Maclean studied the charts. He had asked for a full tank because his intended journey was going to be lengthy. Picking up the girl was only going to be part of it. He finished a can of Budweiser beer and went back up on deck clutching more sandwiches. He had a jacket on which had also been left for him.
He disengaged the autopilot and took control. Apart from the strengthening wind, Maclean knew his course would be fairly straightforward; but once he had closed in on the swamps, it would take a certain science, and a bit of luck, to locate the creek that would lead him up to the safe-house.
He felt pretty good. He had the girl and he began forming a little plan that might make him a few dollars. Perhaps even plenty of dollars. He would take the girl for himself too, he decided. Yes, he felt pretty good, he mused, and there was nothing to prevent him from coming out of this a good deal richer. And once he had used the girl, he would dispose of her.
*
Inspector Bain’s eyes snapped open when the phone rang. He had been watching the news on television and fallen asleep. The shrill ringing of the phone slashed into his brain like the savage assault of a wild animal and he sat upright immediately, his heart thumping in his chest. The television sound had been muted, and he knew that his wife had been into the room to do that while he had been asleep in the chair.
He reached for the phone. “Bain here.”
“Sir,” the voice said. “We’ve lost Maclean.” Bain was instantly awake and sat bolt upright. “The voice went on. “He duped the boys tailing him and took off in a boat. He’s heading north and we think we know where he’s going.”
“Where?”
“He has a place up in the north swash land. We’re going now, sir. Do you want us to pick you up?”
Bain frowned. “How long have we known that he has a place up in the swash land?” he asked.
“I know what you’re thinking, sir, but we only learned about it fifteen minutes ago. We had to lean on the owner of the bar; threatened him with closure. He put us on to one of Maclean’s associates. We had something on him,” he said unnecessarily.
“I’ll be out front,” Bain told him and put the phone down.
*
Maclean throttled the engine back until the boat had lost most of its forward motion. The wind rocked the boat and the sea splashed against the sides, sending the occasional wavelet into the boards. He studied the shoreline, picking out salient features in the moonlight. He had been cruising at a near walking pace for thirty minutes, searching for the creek he wanted.
Suddenly he saw it and edged the throttle forward, guiding the boat gently towards the open mouth of the creek. It was about fifty feet wide where it spilled out into the open sea. He kept the boat in mid channel, using the moonlight to guide him.
The creek split into two and he took the left fork. The gnarled mangrove roots closed in on him, bumping against the hull. He followed this narrow inlet for about a mile. From time to time he would close the throttle right down and listen very carefully for any unusual sounds, allowing the boat to drift under its own inertia.
He looked up at the moon and then at the low skyline. There were no hills to mark and no man made features, just an endless miasma of pine and mangrove. But Maclean knew exactly where he was.
A light flickered in the corner of his eye. At first he thought it was a light from a cabin; there were several dotted around the swash land area he was in, but it was very early in the morning and he hadn’t expected any sign of life.
The light appeared again; a flicker behind the trees. It came from a road in the distance, Maclean was sure of that. It had to be a car. Then he saw another light and frowned; there was more than one car, which probably meant trouble. He moved the throttle forward, pushing the boat faster through the narrowing creek. He figured he had about another half mile to go before the creek split into several meandering streams.
It had to be the police, he decided. And if it was, they would have to stay on that road for a further ten miles or so before it swung north east. Then they would be on little more than a track, which meant slow progress. Tw
enty minutes perhaps. No more.
The hull of the boat bumped into submerged roots, throwing Maclean forward. He fell into the cockpit and struggled to get back up. Then he reversed the boat away from the obstruction and inched forward again.
He encountered more obstacles, which he would normally have avoided, but the situation was fraught and it was not the best time to try and negotiate these narrow creeks. And because he believed the police might be in those cars up on the headland, he could not use the boat’s powerful searchlight for fear of drawing attention to himself.
When he finally reached the landing stage, no bigger than a table, he knew he had taken much longer than he wished. The creek was too narrow to turn the boat round so he had no choice but to tie her up facing inland.
He jumped ashore and carefully negotiated the rough-hewn path through the mangroves to the safe-house. It was in total darkness. He waited on the edge of the clearing and listened. Faintly, but without any doubts in his mind, he could hear the cars in the distance. He knew they were coming this way.
He sprinted across to the house; a ramshackle affair, weathered and needing paint. The stiff breeze was rattling some of the timbers on the roof and threatening to rip them off. When he reached the house he went in through the back door, but did not switch on any lights. He dragged the kitchen table across the floor until it was beneath a ceiling hatch. He clambered on to the table, reached up and pushed the small door up out of the way, then put his hand in the opening and began feeling around.
His hand touched the cold metal of an Uzi machine gun. Beside it were two magazines taped together in such a way that either could snapped into the gun. He jumped down from the table, checked the magazines. Both were full; a total of sixty four rounds. He opened a cupboard door in the kitchen, still without light and pulled out a box of cartridges, stuffing them into his jacket pocket. Then he grabbed a flashlight and went out of the house at a run.
Helen was asleep inside the shack. Her sleep was a sleep of total exhaustion. She hadn’t eaten for twenty four hours and had been in fear of her life and her sanity. All her attempts at escape had simply reduced her to a hysterical wreck. Several cages had been knocked over. One had burst open and the rats inside had scattered, leaving Helen living on the edge of her nerves.
The first she knew of Maclean’s presence was when the door burst open and he stood framed in the moonlight. The light from his torch stabbed through the darkness.
Helen didn’t scream because she knew instinctively it was Maclean. She shrank away from him in terror, shielding her eyes against the glare of the flashlight. He kicked the door shut and flicked the torch beam around the shack until he saw a length of chord hanging from a hook from on a wall. He pulled it down and stood over Helen.
“What are you going to do?” she cried in alarm.
“We’re going away, missy: you and me.” He passed the chord around her waist and knotted it tight. Then he tied a loop round his own waist and dragged her to her feet. He paused at the open door, taking care not to leave the torch switched on and looked out. Then he turned to Helen and pulled her through the door. As they stepped out into the yard, a loud, hollow voice boomed out.
“Maclean, this is the police. Give yourself up!”
Maclean pulled Helen in front of him, lifted the Uzi machine gun and fired a scything arc at the shadows. Helen screamed in mortal fear. Maclean grabbed her hair and started to run. The voice boomed after him.
“Maclean, leave the girl. Maclean!”
Maclean raked the shadows again, peppering the darkness with bright flashes from the breech. Someone cried out and Maclean laughed. Helen was still screaming as he dragged her down towards the boat.
Each time Helen fell, he just lifted her bodily to her feet. He wasted no time, clutching her like a sack and urging her to keep up with him. They reached the boat and he pushed her on board. He slipped the painter, started the diesel and whipped the gear stick into reverse.
Not afraid now to use the powerful spotlight now, Maclean turned it on and swivelled the beam along the creek. He could hear the police crashing through the trees in their desperation to get to him, but he was in his element now: in control.
He changed the magazine on the Uzi and hammered the mangroves until the last round of ammunition was gone. Then he swung the boat round and opened up the throttle and headed out towards the open sea.
“Missy,” he cried elatedly. “Now we’re going away where they’ll never find us.”
Chapter 12
Marsh sat comfortably inside the cockpit bubble on board the Challenger and worked his way through a comprehensive check list that would ensure that all systems on board were satisfactory and he could proceed. It was barely dawn and the sea was almost like a mill pond. The Challenger was a little south-west of the Santaren Channel. There was little or no breeze to stir the air and the sun had lifted its head above the horizon to wash everything in a beautiful, golden glow. The earlier weather reports of a potential hurricane developing South East of the Caribbean out in the Atlantic Ocean had given them food for thought, and the rising wind of the previous day had only seemed to confirm what the meteorologists were saying. But now, for a while at least, they could enjoy a peaceful calm.
Marsh reckoned fortune was smiling on them, but if the burgeoning wind force developed, continued to grow and tracked North West, they would soon begin to feel the peripheral winds. Any dives that Khan had planned would have to be postponed, and the ship would have to sail into relatively calmer and safer waters. Not a bad thing, thought Marsh as he completed his checks.
The internal speaker behind Marsh’s head crackled into life, and a metallic voice broke the stillness.
“We are lifting now, Challenger. Acknowledge through the sonar phone at one hundred feet. Batista will detach the umbilical.”
Marsh said nothing but gave a hand signal to the men up on the deck of the Taliba. He felt Challenger judder slightly. Then it lifted suddenly as the deck winch hoisted it up and over the side of the ship. Marsh looked anxiously through the polymer walls of the cockpit, but transfer to the ocean was steady, and once the submersible was settled in the water, one of the divers removed the four lifting hooks.
There were four divers on station altogether: Batista and Zienkovitch, who were actually in the decompression chamber behind him, and two other divers who would be going down in the Galeazzi Tower. They would be breathing air with aqualungs and would remain with the tower at a depth of one hundred feet. Batista and Zienkovitch were breathing a mixture of helium and oxygen.
Once Marsh had received the all clear from the Taliba, he began flooding the ballast tanks. He watched the readout on the instrument panel for each tank as their internal pressures began to rise so that he could monitor the ingress of sea water and maintain an accurate stability and sink rate. This would allow the Challenger to settle slowly into the water without pitching and rolling excessively.
At one hundred feet he closed the air valves and the submersible settled. He waited for the instruments to stabilise then pulled the sonar phone from its cradle and put it to his ear.
“Challenger at one hundred feet. Please acknowledge.”
“Taliba. Acknowledged Challenger. Please call out the depth during descent.”
“Challenger acknowledged.” Marsh opened the air valves to flood the tanks and the Challenger began her silent descent to the bottom.
*
Francesini was in a deep sleep when an alarm bell began sounding off in the distance. The dream dissolved and he was suddenly aware of where he was as the telephone rang again beside his bed. His wife, sleeping beside him, stirred and rolled over muttering something unintelligible. She reached out and patted his back with the palm of her hand. Francesini sat up and pulled the covers back. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and glanced at the clock. It was 3.15 in the morning. He picked up the phone and turned on the small, bedside light.
“Francesini here,” he mumbled. “I hope th
is is important.”
“Good morning, sir,” the voice on the other end of the line began. “I’m sorry to call you this early in the morning. This is Sergeant Donaldson of the Bahamian police department. We’ve had a development here in the Walsh kidnapping that Inspector Bain thinks you should know about.”
“Go on,” Francesini told him. He was wider awake now but not wanting to hear what was likely to come next. It couldn’t possibly be good news at this time of the morning, he thought.
“We located the place where Sweeting Maclean was holding the woman, Helen Walsh. It was up on the northern swash land. We raided it just a couple of hours ago, but I’m afraid he gave us the slip; took the girl with him a well.”
Francesini closed his eyes and uttered a silent curse. The word ‘incompetents’ slipped into his mind apart from others. “Go on,” he said again.
“Well sir, Inspector Bain has been shot. He’s in hospital sir. I’m afraid we lost another officer. Terrible thing sir.”
Francesini wondered if the Bahamian police had ever been involved in gun battles, but he thought it wise to revise his earlier thoughts.
“How bad is the inspector?” he asked, genuinely concerned.
“He’s ok; he’ll live sir. He took a bullet in the arm. I’m afraid we didn’t stand a chance really against Maclean; he seemed to have plenty of firepower. I’m sure the Inspector will explain, sir.”
“Do you know where Maclean is now?” he asked hopefully.
“No sir; he slipped out through the mangrove swamps. He had a boat and headed out into the open sea. There was no way we could follow, seeing as we’d come by road.”
Francesini ran his fingers through his hair and looked at his wife who was already fast asleep. He was going to have to wake her and tell her he would be away for a while. Not that it made a great deal of difference telling her; she was always complaining that he should get a proper job, but she loved him and knew that he loved her and his job. He’d leave a note; she would understand. She always did.
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