“Just off the Keys,” he said. “We ran under the highway bridge a few minutes ago.”
“What do you think of the lady’s information?”
“She could be telling the truth. It’s a likely hideout,” Brent said. “It was one of the possibilities we considered quite seriously, as a matter of fact. It was deserted after Castro’s takeover, when rich bourgeois sportsmen were no longer welcome down there. Maybe the owner’s politics had been unsatisfactory, also. We have no recent reports, but at one time the harbor was considered good and the airstrip adequate, at least for small planes. There was a lodge, and there were some docks, the works. It was one of the places we wanted very much to have checked out, on speculation; but orders came through not to rock the boat in any way.”
I turned to the slim figure standing silent by the bar. “What do you think, Mrs. Phipps?” I asked. “Come over here and take a look, please. Is this the place you were held prisoner?”
She moved forward, a little hesitantly. “I’m afraid I’m not much good with charts,” she said. She frowned at the oversized sheet of paper on the table. After a while, she nodded slowly. “I think so,” she said. “It was hard to tell anything from the Ametta of course; we were locked in the cabin all the time we were under way, and once the boat was anchored all you could see was the cove, just about, but later I caught a glimpse from the plane window right after takeoff. There were those two skinny islands, just like that, and the one from which we’d come had just that little hook at the west end, making the bay where the boats were lying. I could barely make them out in the weak light.”
“Thanks,” I said; and I looked at Brent. “Well, what do you say? I’ll gamble on it if you will.”
He sighed. “Well, it’s the only game in town, as far as I can see. I’ll stick my neck out and make the recommendations, if you feel sure enough to go in ahead and remove the noncombatants.”
“It’s a deal,” I said. “Okay, what do I do to get there?”
Brent sat down and did some art work on the chart. “Here’s our present position,” he said. “Here’s your course. You’ve got good instruments and a quiet night. No moon to amount to anything. You may even get a little high cloud after midnight, so much the better. The weather is expected to hold for the next three or four days; no major fronts in sight. Maybe a few cruising squalls here and there, particularly in the Gulf Stream, but there are always those. Otherwise just light southerly winds, not over twenty knots, probably less. Haseltine seems to know basic piloting; and of course the Robinson woman is a good navigator, if you can trust her. Between the two of them you should make it all right.”
“I’m not really worried about making it,” I said. “As the fellow said going over Niagara Falls with his water-wings, getting back will be the real problem.”
Harriet and her husky Texas escort came back inside. “She should tow okay now,” Harriet said. “I’ll check her again after we get under way.”
“Sure.”
Brent said, “Well, I guess it’s time for me to get out and walk. So long, people.”
I followed him out into the cockpit, and glanced toward the distant string of lights that marked the bridge of the Overseas Highway—one of the many bridges, I had no idea which one.
“It’s a long way. Sure we can’t drop you closer?” I said.
“I’ll be fine. I’ve got the tide with me,” he said. He was taking off his clothes, revealing a rubber suit under them. He reached behind the flying-bridge ladder and brought out a pair of black swim-fins. “Anything else, Eric?”
“Yes. Manderfield.”
“He’s on a string. We know all about him. When the right time comes, we’ll reel him in.”
“Sure,” I said. “Among the things you know, is there the fact that he’s apparently got a junior-grade amphibious force, fully armed, ready to go at a moment’s notice?”
I thought Brent looked slightly disconcerted, although it was hard to tell in the unlighted cockpit. “No, I don’t think that’s part of our information. In that case, maybe we should consider blowing the whistle on Mr. M.”
“It might be a good idea,” I said. “I don’t like the guy. He smiles funny.”
“I will so report. I’m sure it will make all the difference,” Brent said. “And I’ll recommend the target, giving you as much time as possible before sunrise. Let’s say the bird flies at four.”
“Flies, or lands?” I said. “Fast as those things go, they’re not instantaneous.”
Brent shrugged. “If you like, we’ll say it lands at four, on the dot. That means you’ve not only got to be out of there by four with everybody you’re planning to rescue, remember, but you’ve all got to be clear of the blast area. If there’s any doubt of your making it by then, don’t go in. There’s no cop-out signal tonight.” He made a wry face. “It’s not nice, but it’s got to be that way. Signals can be intercepted and decoded. This is a desperate, shoestring private venture on foreign soil by some desperate private citizens, one quite wealthy, with no governmental backing or elaborate communications system. It’s the Bay-of-Pigs syndrome. They want no loose official ends on this one. So there will be no abort. No matter what happens, no matter what you find or don’t find, the place goes up at four. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said. “Have a nice swim.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’m the least of your worries.”
A moment later he was gone, with his unique talents. I didn’t envy him the trip ashore, but then, I’m not much of a swimmer. Some people do it for fun, I’m told. I went back into the cabin, and stepped just inside the door, or whatever you’re supposed to call it on a boat.
“Watch where you point that thing,” I said.
Haseltine grinned, and lowered the muzzle of the ugly weapon he held: an honest-to-God old tommy gun, but with the clip, not the drum. Amanda was looking rather shocked and scared, the way many women get—and many men, too—in the presence of firearms. Harriet just looked pleasantly excited at the prospect of action.
“Christmas presents,” Haseltine said. “There’s one for you, too. And lots and lots of pretty loaded clips to go with it.”
Well, it made sense. The old Thompson, while basically as American as chewing gum, has become an international classic these days, just the kind of weapon a few reckless characters, one rich, might be able to pick up illegally for a crazy rescue venture. It committed the U.S. government to nothing.
“Can you hit anything with it?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I know what makes it go bang,” he said. “If I don’t hit the guy, I’ll guarantee to make him very nervous.”
That meant he was probably pretty good with a chopper. A duffer wouldn’t have been so modest. I was learning more about millionaires every day, it seemed.
I said, “Well, are you two nautical experts going to run this love-tub, or do I have to? Your course is marked on the chart there. Speed twenty knots. No lights. Let’s get the Cuba Express on the tracks, shall we?”
It took a little while before Harriet got the outboard to tow right at the designated speed; after that, it was just a long, dull run, with the big motors thundering and vibrating steadily as they drove us through the night. I didn’t spend much time on the bridge, after settling the basic navigational strategy with Harriet. They knew what they were doing up there and I didn’t. After a while, I just said to hell with it, and invaded the gorgeous love-nest forward, and went to sleep on the big soft bed—you wouldn’t want to insult it by calling it a berth, even if it was on a boat. The next thing I knew, Amanda was bending over me.
“Hattie says to tell you we’re getting close,” she said. “How can you sleep?”
“It’s easy,” I said. “I’m too nervous to do anything else. What’s the time?”
“A little after two. I made some coffee.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking the cup she offered me. “You know, you’d make some man a fine wife, Mrs. Phipps.”
�
�Amanda,” she said. “Get him back for me, Matt.”
“Sure,” I said. “He’s as good as home right now, Amanda. Let me just go upstairs—excuse me, topside—and supervise the final details.”
Outside the cabin, a cool twenty-knot breeze was blowing. That’s a reasonable amount of wind even when it’s you that’s moving and not the air. I climbed the handsome ladder with its neat rubber treads, a little hampered by the chopper and clips I was carrying. The businesslike weapon seemed especially crude on such a refined boat. On the bridge, there was a dull red glow from the instruments. Harriet glanced at me briefly by way of greeting. Haseltine, at the wheel, gave me a little nod to let me know he knew I was there. He went on with what he’d been saying.
“…a goddamned, two-masted, rule-beater, ugly as sin,” he said. “Of course they had to slap a big handicap on her. What else could they do? Just because some big intellectual brain finds a king-sized hole in the rating rules…”
“Every high-priced yacht designer in every yachting country in the world is looking for holes in the rules,” Harriet retorted. “That’s what they get paid for, isn’t it, to build you a racing sailboat that goes just as fast as the next guy’s and rates a little better? That’s what wins yacht races, handicap ratings, not speed alone. When they came up with this latest lousy handicap rule that instantly made a lot of fine old racing yachts obsolete, they swore up and down it would be good for so and so many years; they promised you could build to it without losing your shirt. So what happens? The minute somebody comes through with a real breakthrough and spends thousands of dollars backing his theory, they lower the boom on him! It’s a private club, that’s what it is, and if you happen to be a poor damned genius from Princeton you’re out.”
“He isn’t from Princeton, goddamn it, he’s from—”
I said, “I’m sure this is fascinating, but where the hell are we now, and how’s the fuel holding out?”
Harriet pointed off the starboard bow. “Cuba’s over there; and the fuel is fine, thanks. Even with a ton and a half of outboard in tow, we’ve barely made a dent in it. Whoever built this Cleopatra’s barge must have had some real long-range loving in mind.”
“Any signs of naval activity?”
“Not any. Nothing on the radar. It’s a deserted ocean, darling. We’ve got it all to ourselves.”
“How good is that radar for picking up small stuff: patrol craft and MTB’s, for instance?”
She shrugged. “Not too good. Wood and Fiberglas don’t really register too well except at close range; not like metal. But it works both ways. We’re wood and Fiberglas too. If our radar can’t see them, theirs can’t see us.”
“It’s a lovely thought,” I said. “But let’s bring that outboard alongside as we slow down a bit. If they do get an image, I want it to be one image, not two.”
She turned to look at me directly. “I know,” she said after a moment. “You’re being clever.”
“Brilliant,” I said. “I hope.”
She said, “We might as well do it now. Hold everything, Bill. Dead slow. I’ll be right back.”
I went with her, and we got the smaller boat lashed alongside to port, with plenty of fenders to prevent damage. Then we were back on the bridge.
“Try a thousand rpm; let’s see how she rides,” Harriet said, looking down at the tow. “That’s fine. Course one eight oh, Bill. Due south. I hope that damned fathometer is working right. We should be picking up the outer bank… There it goes. Bottom at seventy fathoms, shoaling.”
“Course one eight oh,” Haseltine said.
“Steady as you go. Forty fathoms, shoaling. There’s the shore, Matt; that low dark line ahead, you can just make it out. The little notch just off the bow is the pass between the islands. To port, Cayo Negro. To starboard, Cayo Perro. Right a little, Bill, we’re a hair too far east. Hold one nine five until… Dead slow! Hit that switch for me, Matt, so I can read it in feet. Twenty-five feet, twenty, fifteen, fifteen… Left to one six five, Bill. Steady. Ten feet. Ten. Eight. Ten. I think we’ve got the channel. We’d have been aground by now if we didn’t; it’s shallow as hell on both sides. Just ease her on through now, holding a bit to port, we seem to have some current…”
There was a lengthy period of total silence, except for the muted rumble of the loafing diesels. The shoreline ahead grew higher and blacker.
“Seven feet,” Harriet said softly. “They’ve let the channel fill in. I’ll bet somebody played hell getting that sixty-foot ketch through here. She probably draws all of… Easy, Bill. There’s a stake, leave it to port. There used to be a spoil bank just outside… Okay, I’ve got it on the radar. Hold your course. There it is, you can just make it out off to port. Take it close. Good boy. Now let her coast until our Admiral, here, makes up his mind where the attack should be mounted. Gentlemen, I give you the Club de Pesca de Cayo Negro.”
25
Except for the murmur of the idling engines, everything was very quiet. I could make out a fringe of palms against the sky, but I could distinguish no detail below it. Haseltine had risen behind the wheel. The submachine gun in his hands gleamed faintly in the red instrument glow as he covered the starboard sector without instructions. I kept watch to port as the Red Baron carried her momentum into the dark lagoon. I reflected that, while we’d never be bosom buddies, probably, the big guy was useful to have around. There was a rustle of movement behind me. I looked around to see Amanda Phipps clinging to the bridge ladder, a white shape in the darkness.
I whispered, “It’s safer in the cabin.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “You want to head straight in, nothing to the left. There’s a broken-down pier to port, and a lot of old pilings in the water that you don’t want to hit. Farther along the same shore, there’s another dock, kind of decrepit, but they were using it. The Ametta and the other boat should be dead ahead. My God, it’s like a black cave, isn’t it?”
Harriet said, “I’ve got something on the radar. Two somethings. Dead ahead. But they don’t look quite right for boats.”
I said, “To hell with it. You said no resistance. Here goes.”
I reached for the spotlight, and switched it on, pointed forward. For a moment, there was nothing in the beam but glassy calm water. Then the finger of light touched the masts of a boat. There was something wrong with them. Not only was there a lot of disheveled-looking camouflage netting draped over them—a detail Amanda hadn’t mentioned—but a sailboat’s masts don’t normally lie over at better than forty-five degrees on a windless night. I followed the masts downwards to the point where they emerged from the water; the boat’s hull was invisible below the surface.
“Oh, no!” Amanda breathed. “Buster loved that boat!”
I wasn’t concerned with anybody’s yachts at the moment. “That’s the Ametta Too? You recognize the rig?”
“Yes, of course. They must have scuttled her. The other one should be somewhere beyond her.”
I raised the beam, and found it. Sir James Marcus’ vessel, with no fin keel, had settled almost straight, with the upper part of its camouflaged superstructure showing.
“Cover me, Bill,” I said. “Somebody may get jittery when I swing this thing toward shore. But remember, there are supposed to be friendlies around.”
There seemed to be nobody around, however. I swept the light over some muddy banks, a shaky-looking dock, and the decayed pier of which Amanda had warned us, off which rotting pilings stuck out of the water like bad teeth. A second, higher sweep got me a lot of palm trees and a big, weathered building with broken windows.
“The Lodge,” Amanda whispered. “Leo and the rest stayed there. But where—”
I interrupted her. “Take her in to that dock, Hattie. Starboard side to, heading out.”
“Aye, aye, Admiral. I’d play hell trying to dock the other way, with that outboard alongside, wouldn’t I?”
“If there’s anything I hate, it’s a smart-ass sailor,” I said. “Okay, Chief Hase
ltine, look sharp. On a night like this I have to be stuck with a lousy Texas Kiowa, not even a good, fighting New Mexico Apache.”
Haseltine said, “Look who’s talking. Hell, your Viking ancestors couldn’t hang on more than one winter in that Vinland they discovered. The local Indian tribes booted them back onto their ships and ran them to hell out of there—”
“If you comics can bear to interrupt your routine for a moment, somebody’d better help me get some lines ashore,” Harriet said as we touched the dock lightly.
“I’ll give you a hand,” I said. Amanda dropped back down the ladder to let us through. Down in the cockpit, I stopped Harriet as she was about to climb forward along the deckhouse. “Hattie. Come over here a moment. This boat’s not going anywhere.”
In the aft end of the cockpit, she faced me questioningly. “What is it, Matt?”
“It occurs to me,” I said softly, “that you might have some notion of ducking ashore and hiding out, leaving us to our fates. Don’t do it.”
She hesitated. “If I did have some such wild idea, why not?”
“Because you need us to get you out of here. If you’ve got some arrangements made, if you think you’re going to hide in the bushes until daylight, perhaps, and wait for somebody to come for you, forget it.”
She was watching me closely. “Keep talking, darling,” she murmured. “Why shouldn’t I wait until daylight?”
“Because this island isn’t going to be here that long,” I said.
There was a lengthy silence. “I don’t believe you,” she said at last.
“It’s in the computers now, doll,” I said. “Cayo Negro, Black Key. Latitude this, longitude that. Time on target, oh four hundred. Countdown will start in umpteen minutes. Of course, this is strictly top secret, and I never told you anything of the sort. It will never have happened even after it’s happened, if you know what I mean. What will really have happened, officially, is that those dumb, primitive, patriot types stored a big cache of their revolutionary ammunition here, and it happened to go up, kind of accidentally.”
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