“I still don’t believe you. You’re bluffing.”
I shrugged. “Suit yourself, Hattie. Just remember, if you miss this ferry out of here, you’ll be in for a long ride straight up. Now let’s get those damn docklines over—”
“Matt.”
“Yes?”
“I wish I didn’t hate you so much,” she said. “You’re really kind of an entertaining person, full of bright ideas.”
“This wasn’t my idea, and I can’t stop it,” I said. “So don’t dream about pushing a gun in my back and making me send the abort signal. There isn’t any.”
“Better throw a line around that piling while you can reach it,” she said. “I’ll get the bow.”
My job done, I watched her khaki-clad figure working confidently on the insecure, streamlined forward deck that would be a hell of a place to handle an anchor in a gale, but maybe you didn’t anchor boats like this in gales. With the ship secure, I looked up at Haseltine with his squirt gun, still standing watch on the bridge.
“Anything?”
“Not a movement.”
“Well, I guess I’d better go ashore and have a look around,” I said. “The boat’s all yours. If things go wrong, cut that outboard loose and make a run for it—”
There was a quick movement in the cockpit. Amanda Phipps was on the dock before I could grab her. I jumped ashore after her, but stopped with the Thompson ready; you can’t shoot and run at the same time. At least I can’t. I was aware of Haseltine on the flying bridge above me, his gun at his shoulder. We covered the white figure running toward the shore.
“Buster!” she called. “Buster, it’s me, Amanda. Where are you? It’s all right, dear. It’s all right. They’re friends.”
I snapped, “Easy!” as Haseltine stiffened above me.
I’d seen it, too: a man’s shape detaching itself from the shadow of the lodge building and running forward. The two shapes merged.
“Wouldn’t you think grown people would have more decency than to neck in public?” I asked at last of nobody in particular.
“The trouble with you is, you’re jealous,” Harriet said, joining me. The trouble with me was that she was perfectly right.
Amanda was calling to us. “It’s all right. Everything is all right. They were just hiding because they didn’t know who we were.” People seemed to be springing out of the bushes and palm trees everywhere. “Matt,” Amanda called.
“I’m coming.”
Haseltine said, “I’ll keep an eye on the boat. You go ahead.”
“Sure. Come on, Hattie. Looks like I’ll have to settle for your company.”
What I really meant, and she knew it, was that I didn’t want her near the boats. We went up there, and were introduced to Mr. Wellington (Buster) Phipps, in dark silk pajamas, in spite of which he looked like the reasonably bright and competent gent I’d been led to expect.
“My daughter Loretta,” he said. I gathered from his voice that, unlike his wife, he did not think his offspring was kind of a pill.
I could see that the girl was somewhat taller than her mother, and of course younger, and perhaps slimmer. The long blonde hair was worn far enough forward to shadow her face mysteriously, but her soft greeting and brief handshake were reassuringly straightforward. Perhaps I’d done the girl an injustice, passing judgment on the strength of a single snapshot. She had on a short, ruffly, blue nightgown-and-negligee outfit that would probably have been intriguingly transparent under normal illumination. Here, without light enough to penetrate the thin layers of nylon, she seemed to be quite properly and modestly attired—well, as properly and modestly as any young lady wandering around outdoors in her nightie and bedroom slippers.
Under other circumstances, all these people standing around under the palms dressed for bed might have seemed funny; at the moment, my sense of humor wasn’t functioning very well. We got Harriet introduced; and all the time I couldn’t help thinking of a big clock with a sweep second hand counting off time in a well-instrumented control room somewhere. I glanced at my watch. It read two forty-three.
Phipps was talking: “I understand Bill Haseltine’s with you.”
There was the same funny constraint in his voice, when the Texan was the subject, as there had been in his wife’s.
“He’s watching the boat,” I said. “Look, I’m very eager to meet all these lovely people, but not right now. Brief me, fast. What’s the situation? Where’s the raiding party your wife told me about? Where’s Leo Gonzales and his patriot crew?”
There was a brief hesitation; then Phipps said, “The raiders are gone, all of them. Hours ago. Leo and the others… well, they’re right over there at the end of the airstrip. Oh, don’t worry. They won’t cause us any trouble. Have you got a flashlight?”
It was quite an exhibit. We could hear the flies before we could see what they were working on. I was aware of Harriet, not the most delicate lady in the world, gripping my arm hard and making a funny, choked little sound as the flashlight beam hit the row of bodies on the ground. There was blood in great quantities. I stepped forward and ran the light over them. They were all there, all the ones I’d heard about but had never seen, from Leo with his maimed hand to the pretty black girl in her splotched and stained stewardess’s uniform. They were all there; and they were all dead.
“They were lined up, and made to kneel, and shot while we watched,” Phipps said. “A man just walked down the row with a pistol and shot each one in the back of the head. They called him Mr. Manderfield. Then more pictures were taken—”
“Pictures?” I said.
“Yes,” said Phipps, “there was quite a photography session; two or three cameras with those strobe-type flashguns, whatever you call them. Each shooting was photographed from a couple of different angles. It looked like multiple lightning from where we were; we couldn’t figure it out at first. Then there were all kinds of pictures taken of the bodies where they fell; and then they were all turned face-up as you see them now, and a man walked down the line and got closeup shots of each one; and finally there were some group pictures with Manderfield and his henchmen posing behind the bodies. What does it mean, Helm?”
I didn’t know what it meant. All I could do was report it when I got back and hope the information would reach somebody who could interpret it. If I got back. At the present rate of progress, I’d never make it…
“Damn!” It was Haseltine’s voice. “I wanted those bastards. I wanted to fry them over a slow fire! Who beat me to them?”
There was a funny little silence, as we turned to look at him. I opened my mouth to point out that he’d left his post of duty; but Harriet, the most likely source of trouble at the moment, was still beside me, and it was no time for discipline, anyway. The big man stood there grimly staring down at the dead bodies. He took a step forward and nudged one with his toe.
“Okay, Leo,” he said. “That’s the only way you could have got away from me. So okay.” He drew a long breath, took a fresh grip on the submachine gun he still carried, and swung to face Wellington Phipps. “Hi, Buster,” he said, a little defiantly.
Phipps said, “Hi, Bill.”
They stood facing each other, as if neither of them knew exactly how to handle the situation, whatever it was. Obviously, they were men who’d known each other well, perhaps liked each other; and obviously there was something between them now, something big and terrible that had to be talked about, and neither knew how to approach it. Phipps cleared his throat, and Haseltine started to speak, and they were both silent once more, each waiting for the other. The impasse was broken by a fierce little rustle of movement. A fury in blue nylon hit Bill Haseltine squarely; a blonde fury with long fingernails reaching for his eyes.
“You… you callous Texas roughneck!” cried Loretta Phipps. “You incredible cheapskate! You…”
She went into some descriptive terminology that wasn’t very nice; and all the time she was all over him, drawing blood. I grabbed Harriet and pulled her a
way, ready to throw her to the ground and flop down beside her. I mean, that kind of spectacular tantrum may look great on TV, but in real life you just don’t climb the frame of a gent holding a loaded submachine gun, not with a bunch of innocent people standing around who may get their heads blown off if the safety happens to get bumped the wrong way and the guy happens to brush against the trigger accidentally while you’re working him over with your nails.
“Loretta, for God’s sake let me… Damn it, Lorrie, give me a chance to get rid of…”
Haseltine was doing his best to cover up, while acutely conscious every second, as a good marksman must be, of the deadly firearm in his hands. He wasn’t resisting, he was simply trying to keep the action away from the chopper. As he turned from the attack, hunched over the gun, his elbow grazed the girl, knocking her off balance. She went down in a flurry of blue ruffles and white legs.
“You… you hit me!” she gasped, picking herself up. “You cheap, dismal brute… Oh!”
Then she whirled and ran blindly off into the darkness. Haseltine straightened up, looking after her. He checked the weapon he held, and looked at me as I came up. His face was bleeding in several places, but he seemed unaware of it.
“I’d better go find her,” he said.
“I wouldn’t know why,” I said.
“You don’t understand,” he said; and that was the truth. “Here, take this. Careful, it’s still loaded.”
I took the Thompson and watched him disappear down the landing strip, at the end of which was a black something that seemed to be the burned-out hulk of an airplane, presumably the one belonging to the French baron I hadn’t met socially yet. Manderfield had made a nice clean sweep.
I looked at Phipps and Amanda. “Any explanation will be gratefully received,” I said. “No? Okay, let’s get everybody aboard the cruiser. There’s not one whole hell of a lot of time…”
26
There wasn’t much time; but at three-twenty, Haseltine and the girl were still missing. We had the Red Baron’s engines turning over, ready to go. The open outboard lay along the dock just astern. For something to do, I stepped down and started both motors to make certain they’d run, and shut them off again. It wasn’t time for that, yet; and the plugs might foul, idling too long. Diesels don’t have plugs and can idle forever.
I pulled myself back up to the ancient dock where Harriet waited. Everyone else was on board the cabin job. I still hadn’t been introduced to the aristocrats, not to mention the mere commoners, but it didn’t weigh on me greatly.
“How much longer should we wait?” Harriet asked.
“Not any,” I said. “You take the first section out of here now. Run east behind Cayo Perro, slow and quiet, no lights. You don’t want to get to the end of the island much before four. Don’t go too far. Stay hidden from seaward until you get the sign to go.”
“And the sign is?”
“A lot of shooting over this way, followed by a spectacular explosion. Keep your fingers crossed. Let’s hope the whiz-bang boys get the right island. Don’t go on the preliminary popping. Wait for the big bang. There should be enough light with it to kill the night vision of anybody out there. That’s when you go. Just turn those big diesels loose and streak for home.”
“I know about the explosion,” she said. “You told me. You really did mean it, didn’t you?”
“Somebody’s getting very tough in Washington, at the wrong time as usual,” I said. “All the times they’ve let themselves be intimidated by some silly jerk with a gun; and now they get brave and ruthless and blow up a lot of dead bodies. And a lady named Robinson if she’s dumb enough to hang around.”
She said, “Assuming you’re telling the truth about that, what about the shooting? Who’s going to be shooting at what?”
“Sweetheart,” I said, “you’re just as cute as Little Red Riding Hood, but this is no time for your ducky little games. You know, because you arranged it, that the whole damned Cuban Navy is out there by now, just waiting for us to stick our noses out so they can blast them off. That’s why you were going to run off and hide, and watch the lovely fireworks from the shore, clapping your little brown hands in sheer delight.”
There was a little silence. “So you know,” Harriet murmured at last.
I said wearily, “She’ll never give me credit for one little brain cell. I don’t know what I’m going to do to convince the girl I’m really a very bright fellow. She’s been trying to have me killed since the first time we met; and I’m supposed to think she’s given up the idea just because we made a little lovely music together? Maybe it isn’t the Cubans. Maybe it’s some other guys. But somebody’s out there. You and your friend Manderfield couldn’t possibly pass up an opportunity like this.”
Harriet said defensively, “Well, it’s what you asked me to do, isn’t it? Help them set a trap for you?”
“That’s right. And I’m grateful as hell. Now get up on that dreamboat’s bridge and get those people out of here. It takes somebody who knows the boat, and our friend Haseltine’s off chasing blondes. You know the waters better, anyway. I’ll wait here as long as I can. At three-fifty I’ll go, with or without passengers. The action should draw away any cats watching the other rathole west of Cayo Perro, where you’ll be. After all, as far as they know out there, only one boat went in. If they see one coming out, over here, they’ll all move this way to intercept. You’ll have a clear run for it, off to the west.”
She hesitated. “You’re really serious, Matt? A goddamned sacrifice play like that?”
“Sacrifice, hell,” I said. “I’ve never seen a Cuban marksman yet who could hit a fifty-knot target on a dark night.” The fact that I’d actually seen very few Cuban marksmen was hardly worth mentioning, heroic as I was being. I went on confidently: “That little bomb of yours will take us right through them like a magic carpet; a bulletproof magic carpet.”
“Who do you think you’re kidding, darling? They’ll have everything out there short of sixteen-inch naval guns.”
I grinned. “So it is the Cuban allies. I wonder if they know they’re doing Mr. Manderfield’s Moscow-assigned chores for him. Well if they did, they probably wouldn’t care. They’ve got a thing about Yankees trespassing on their shores. Considering recent history, maybe you can’t blame them.” I looked at Harriet for a moment in the darkness. “Get the hell out of here, Hattie,” I said. “You hate my guts. You brought me here to see me die. That’s why you weren’t too unhappy when I made you come along; you’d even hoped for that, a little, and made arrangements in case it should work out that way. Although it involved a certain risk, being present at the kill was worth that much to you. Well, hop along and watch the show from the far end of Dog Key. I’ll make it fancy enough to suit me.”
She was looking at me steadily. I saw her shake her head. “No, you’re not that brave,” she said. “You’ve still got something up your sleeve.”
I said, “We’re wasting time. Dammit, Hattie, the whole world is crawling with people plugging to live forever. Well, it’s always seemed like a hell of a futile endeavor to me. On the record, nobody’s managed it yet. Methuselah racked up nine hundred years, they say, but I’ll bet the last eight hundred really weren’t much fun. Nobody else has even come close, that I know of. Personally, I’m off the longevity kick. I figure, if I get to operate the way I like for a reasonable length of time, I won’t squawk if I don’t even quite get to finish out the first century.”
“And the way you like to operate is to go out of here at fifty knots right into the muzzles of those guns?”
I drew a long breath. “I was talking to a guy in Nassau just the other day,” I said patiently. “As a matter of fact, it was Pendleton, the man who was later killed in my cabin, remember? We were discussing an agent I’d left behind to die, in the line of duty, some years back. Well, maybe now it’s my turn to get left behind in the line of duty. Let’s try it and see. Now get those people out of here—”
She said har
shly: “Okay, you big, brave, phony martyr. You win! Make your turn at the stake, damn you!”
“What?”
“The stake,” she said. “You remember, just before we came to the old overgrown spoil bank left when they dredged the harbor, and turned in here. There was a stake in the water, a marker, put up by the local fishermen. That’s where you cut out of the channel, right to course oh five five. Have you got that?”
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “I go out of here. I head out the channel. I come to the stake; and I turn right and run deliberately onto the shoals on course oh five five. Crunch. What happens then besides a lot of Cuban target practice?”
“Don’t be any more stupid than you have to be!” Harriet snapped. “Do you know anything about running a fast-planing boat in shallow water?”
“Brent said put her on top and keep her there.”
“That Brent had a little sense and a little seamanship, unlike some people I know! You’ve got about a hundred yards to get her going, once you hit the channel. When she’s up and planing, back off just a little so you don’t skid too wide on the turn. You haven’t got much room in there. The moment you’re around the stake and on course, give her everything. Ram those levers right up to the stops and forget them. Don’t dodge, don’t zigzag, don’t slow down, don’t look up from that compass, no matter what they throw at you. Oh five five and nothing either way. Keep her wide open. The depthfinder will go haywire. The steering will feel funny. Once in a while, maybe she’ll touch, and the tachs will jump around like crazy. Pay no attention. What’s it to you if you cream one of my props or blow one of my motors? Just keep her blasting. Do you understand?”
“It’s becoming clear, gradually,” I said.
The Intimidators Page 21