The Damagers

by Donald Hamilton

  Caselius shrugged. “So what is your wish?”

  Dorothy looked around the cabin. “Neither of them is small enough to pass through one of those little portholes; they can only escape by the door. Make certain of their ropes and knots, and nail the door shut. When we scuttle the vessel off shore they will have time to repent their sins and commend their souls to whatever strange deities they worship, if any, as the boat carries them to the bottom.” She turned to the nearest porthole, the only one open at the moment, and closed it, dogging it down firmly. “Now the water will not come in too fast. There will be a bubble of air trapped in here for them to breathe for a while, as they watch the sea slowly rise to drown them… You disapprove?”

  Caselius shrugged again. “I do not favor these elaborate homicidal procedures…” He raised his hands quickly. “You do not have to remind me, dear lady. I have taken your money. As you have already pointed out, you are the hirer and I am merely the hireling. It shall be done as you desire.”

  “Make certain the man has nothing with which to cut himself free. He is said to wear a special kind of belt…”

  “I have already removed his belt, with its ingenious buckle. I will check the bonds of both prisoners… You are certain that the pilot you have summoned really knows how to negotiate the nearby inlet even in the dark, knows the tides, and is aware that this boat has a six-foot keel, much deeper than his motorboat? It would be awkward if morning found us hard aground on a shoal within sight of land.”

  She said stiffly, “Paul Rashid is one of the best pilots on this coast. You will steer this boat, following him closely.”

  “As you wish.”

  “I will stay with you, but Paul also wants to put a lookout with us, stationed in the prow, to make certain that, operating in the dark without lights, you don’t lose him or, for that matter, run him down.”

  As an old salt—well, a new salt—I have a negative reaction to people who refer to the pointy end of a boat by the flossy, archaic term, prow, instead of the currently accepted term, bow. I’ve never heard a real sailor speak of a prow. Well, that’s the kind of superficial stuff that goes through your mind in a crisis, keeping your surface thoughts busy while the real self-preservation plans are forming at the deeper levels of your consciousness.

  “I will be glad to have a lookout forward,” Caselius said.

  “But we are wasting time. Tell Captain Rashid to get ready, and give Barstow his instructions…”

  Dorothy hesitated. “I think we have had enough of Mr. Billy Barstow. He is really a disgusting person, and not reliable: a man who can betray once, can betray twice. Paul has men to spare, he can provide a crew for the sportfisherman. Barstow has served his purpose. Give me the silenced pistol, please. I believe it still holds a few bullets, enough.”

  I also react negatively to people who talk about bullets when they mean cartridges. Those hunks of lead are not self-propelled, dammit. But then, Mrs. Dorothy Fancher wasn’t likely ever to become one of my favorite people.

  Caselius passed her the .22 Woodsman. He said, “I recommend a brain shot with such a small caliber, even though our professional executioner, here, chose another target.”

  “You men are not the only ones acquainted with firearms, my dear,” the woman said. “There will be no trouble. That human goat is too busy with the girl; he will die in a state of goatish bliss…”

  I found myself wondering if Barstow was being killed because he’d made a pass at Dorothy—or because he hadn’t, insulting the lady by preferring a younger girl. Then she was gone. Caselius checked our bonds carefully, and tested the cabin door, which opened inward. He ran his hand over the smooth surface.

  “It is a handsome teak,” he said. “I regret to have to damage it; however, since the boat is to be sunk I suppose it makes no difference. Good-bye again, Mr. Helm. I would have preferred to do it my way, but I work for money these decadent days, and must obey those who pay me.”

  The door closed behind him. Moments later, the starter kicked the diesel into life; it settled down to idling speed. There were sounds of activity and shouted commands that I couldn’t decipher but probably involved the casting off of the line securing us to the larger boat alongside. I thought I heard the rumbling exhaust noise of more powerful motors, presumably the kind that would drive a standard twin-screw power cruiser abut thirty-five feet long. That sound faded as the other boat pulled away; then it was wiped out altogether by the noise of our own motor being brought up to cruising RPM.

  “Well?” Mrs. Bell said.

  I said, “Take it easy. That’s a pro we’re dealing with. He hasn’t spiked the door shut yet; he’s going to check us again before he does. Just pull up a blanket and make yourself comfortable.”

  Actually, the blanket and top sheet had been removed from the bunk; Caselius hadn’t bothered to take away the bottom sheet, however, perhaps because it was a custom job fitted to the oddly shaped mattress that conformed to the awkward angles of the boat’s stern, and couldn’t be yanked off so easily. The diesel slowed markedly. It was still in gear, however; I could hear the inch-and-a-half shaft rotating directly under us, still turning the big three-bladed propeller, but quite slowly.

  “What’s happening?” Teresa asked. When I didn’t answer at once, listening, she answered her own question. “We must be feeling our way through the inlet. Those channels shift with every storm, and the Coast Guard has to move the buoys accordingly.”

  I said, “I’m glad somebody else is doing the navigating; I hate that shallow stuff. How’s the foot?”

  “Don’t ask stupid questions. If you’ve ever had it done to you, you know how it is.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. My foot is just fine, Mr. Helm, it merely hurts like hell. Don’t give it another thought.”

  I said, “You’re quite a girl, Terry.”

  “I am definitely not a girl and haven’t been one for quite a few years. And I don’t like to be called Terry. Apart from that, the compliment is appreciated… Now what are they doing out there?”

  The motor had sped up again, in fact the high resulting noise level indicated that Caselius had shoved the throttle clear up to the stop, not good for the machinery if he kept it there too long, but as he’d pointed out, if the boat was to be sunk anyway why worry about the woodwork, or the rings and rods and valves and bearings? Lorelei III, driven hard, was meeting a certain amount of wave opposition and smashing through it bravely. I felt a surge of affection for the sturdy old craft, and hoped I could bring her out of this safely, although it seemed unlikely at the moment. The racket made it necessary for me to shout in Teresa’s ear.

  “I’d say we’re clear of the shoals and heading out to sea.”

  “And you still don’t think we should do anything? Just remember, I’m not very good at swimming without water wings a hundred fathoms down.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  It grew dark in the cabin with its curtained portholes. Our headlong progress continued; I sensed that the boat was taking a certain amount of spray, and even an occasional sheet of solid water, over the bow. It would not be pleasant for anybody riding the bowsprit, but presumably, now that the tricky piloting was past and we were out in open water, the lookout provided by Captain Paul Rashid had retired to the shelter of the deckhouse, making three people there. Given time to get free and reach a hidden weapon or two, I could probably have dealt with them; but if I was interrupted before I was ready Caselius would either shoot us or, at least, secure us in a much less favorable position. It was too much of a gamble, I decided; better to wait.

  I said to Teresa, “Now you’d better roll over on your side and I’ll kind of back up to you so you can reach my wrists. Pick at my knots desperately, scratch my wrists, break a couple of fingernails if you can…”

  “Wonderful!” she said. “They fry my foot and now you want to mangle my hands; there won’t be anything left of me if this keeps up… Wr
iggle a bit closer, please.”

  The cabin was dark now. Lorelei III was pitching and jolting as she stormed through the night. Teresa started clawing energetically at my bonds, drawing blood in the process, as instructed. Working blindly behind her, in the dark, with her own hands bound, she wasn’t likely to accomplish much, but we’d be expected to make some effort…

  The cabin door opened. A flashlight beam hit us. Behind the glare, the deckhouse was dark, of course—under way at night you don’t impair your vision with cabin lights. Besides, running without the legally required navigation lights, they wouldn’t want any brightly illuminated ports or windows to betray their presence. The flashlight approached warily. I’d rolled onto my back as if to hide my wrists, and lay there looking innocently up at the bottom of the shelf overhead. I heard Caselius laugh.

  “Show me, please,” he said.

  “Show you what?” I asked.

  Then I sighed and turned to display my scratched wrists and, perhaps, some pulled-out whiskers of rope, if Teresa had managed to achieve that much.

  Caselius inspected the knots with the aid of the flash and said, “Well, the lady might manage to free you, given time. Unfortunately you will not have that much time. Good-bye once more, Mr. Helm.”

  I said, “You say as many good-byes as an opera star.”

  “Give my regards to my father. Tell him I sent you.”

  Then he was gone. The door closed. Presently, over the sound of the motor, I heard a buzzing noise and realized that he was using the cordless drill from my toolbox to make pilot holes in the door for the spikes or screws with which he intended to secure it, since he’d have to angle them into the door frame and they might not take the proper direction without guidance.

  “Matt, for God’s sake, what are we waiting for?” Teresa breathed in my ear.

  The drilling stopped, and the door swung open, and the flashlight beam hit us again. I heard Caselius laugh. The door closed. A hammer began to work out there. I waited a little longer, in case he was being very tricky indeed; but the pounding continued, sealing us into our teak-lined, red-plush-upholstered coffin.

  The hammering stopped. The engine slowed again. There was a jolt as another boat came alongside. Lorelei III reacted minutely to the weight of several people leaving. Then there was nothing but the slow rumble of the engine and the easy motion of the boat driving lazily now, presumably under autopilot, into the moderate seas of what was presumably the open Atlantic Ocean…

  26

  “Matt, I think we’re sinking!”

  I said, “Well, I certainly hope so.”

  “Is that supposed to be funny?”

  I was working as we talked; I’d been hard at it ever since I’d convinced myself that Caselius was finally committed to nailing the door shut and didn’t intend to take another peek at us. The first thing I’d done was change places with Teresa in the big bunk—an intimate but sexless maneuver—to get at the side of the boat. I’d located with my fingers, behind my back, one of the little hideouts I’d constructed while putting Lorelei III back into commission. I was trying to get it open, not as easy a task as it had seemed some weeks ago when I’d tested it without ropes on my wrists.

  I said, “If we weren’t sinking, that would be something to worry about… Damn, my fingers are half-asleep!”

  “Do you enjoy talking nonsense?” Teresa asked.

  I said, “Hell, if we weren’t sinking, it would mean that Caselius didn’t follow that Arab witch’s orders to scuttle the boat but rigged something fancy instead, like one of the late lamented Jerome Blum’s tricky little bombs, atomic or otherwise. But now all we have to worry about, I hope, is an open seacock or two.”

  “All right,” she said, “but let’s not have any race prejudice on this ship, mister.”

  Startled, I asked, “What the hell brought that on?”

  “I’m an Arab witch, too, don’t forget.”

  I said. “Hell, I’ve got nothing against Arabs; just don’t ask me, as a good Swede, to tolerate those awful Norwegians, Finns, and Danes…”

  One of the obvious possibilities for which I’d prepared Lorelei III, since I’d been instructed to use myself as bait, was exactly this one: that I’d be taken prisoner on my own boat and kept in this cabin, probably tied up in this bunk. (I’d also made arrangements in the deckhouse, main saloon, and forward cabin in case I wound up there.) The sides of the aft stateroom were nicely sheathed with inch-and-a-half strips of tongue-and-groove teak, fastened to the outer hull with shiny little stainless-steel screws, each with its shiny little stainless-steel washer. The fastenings were carefully lined up to make a regular pattern against the dark wood. Groping behind me with my bound hands, I’d already found the second strake up from the mattress. I’d located a certain screwhead and washer, and pushed them a certain way to release the invisible catch I’d rigged with help from a real ship’s carpenter sent by Mac.

  Now I was trying to find another of the gimmicked screws farther forward. I got it at last, and released that catch also, enabling me to pull out a two-foot strip of teak that wasn’t as tongue-and-grooved as it looked. Still working by feel behind my back, I deployed the knife blade I’d fastened to the fiberglass hull beneath it. The problem with freeing your bound wrists if you manage to promote a knife, is finding somebody to hold it for you. I hadn’t been certain of having company; I’d therefore hinged the hidden blade in such a way that I could swing it out and lock it firmly into place. I did that now. Once it was done, cutting my hands free was easy, although I managed to acquire another nick on one of my wrists, in addition to Teresa’s scratches.

  Finished, I folded the knife blade back against the hull before proceeding; it was long enough and sharp enough to spear me painfully if a roll of the boat should throw me against it. I found and freed the flat little Russell folding knife I’d taped under the same strip of sheathing. It was actually just a skeleton of a knife: two flat, grip-shaped pieces of steel protecting a razor-sharp three-and-a-half-inch blade, total thickness about a quarter of an inch. I used it to liberate my ankles and deal with Teresa’s bonds. Another hiding place nearby yielded a .38 to fill my empty holster, not that it was needed at the moment, I hoped.

  “I won’t ask how you did all that,” Teresa said, “but now you’d better produce another miracle to get us out of here, fast. I think there’s already water sloshing around at the foot of this bunk.”

  There was. I stepped into it and tested the door, but Caselius had done a solid job, and it was obvious that tugging on the handle would only get me, if I could pull that hard, a broken handle. As far as miracles were concerned, I had tools hidden away that could cut us an escape hole, but they’d been selected more for ease of concealment than for speed of operation, so I unclipped the big fire extinguisher at the foot of the bunk and, a bit reluctantly—no sailor likes to smash up his own boat—took a tentative swing with it. The sturdy teak door bounced it right back at me. Aware of the water around my ankles, that seemed to be rising with frightening rapidity, I swung my impromptu battering ram with all my strength. The door panel splintered. Moments later I’d beaten most of it away, enough to let me squeeze through.

  Up in the deckhouse, the growing sluggishness of the boat’s response to the sea was noticeable. I hurried to the wheel and hit the bilge-pump switch in front of it. The little red indicator light came on to signify that the pump was operating, but to make certain Caselius hadn’t sabotaged it in some ingenious way, I opened the sliding door to port and leaned far out to look at the outlet in the ship’s side, spouting water in a satisfactory manner.

  “What’s the matter? Isn’t it working?”

  I hadn’t been aware of Teresa behind me. Turning, I saw that she’d put her white sock, but not her shoe, back on the blistered foot.

  I said, “It’s doing fine. What kind of shape are you in?”

  “Why keep asking?” she said irritably. “I’m in terrible shape, I’m suffering dreadfully, ain’t it awful? B
ut I’ll be in even worse shape if I drown. Tell me what to do.”

  I hesitated. I didn’t like the idea of sending her to wade through the half-flooded cabin; but as she’d said, drowning was even less attractive.

  I said, “Okay, if you’re up to it, you can grab the flashlight off the shelf over there and go forward and find whatever sea cocks Caselius has opened up there, and close them. Do you know where they are?”

  “Yes, I checked them out like a conscientious crew member when I started sailing with you. One big red valve under the galley sink and several under the passageway forward. But he probably sabotaged the engine room, too.”

  “That’s where I’m heading. Watch where you shine the light; keep it away from the portholes. We don’t want to show any signs of life in case they’ve still got us in sight.

  “Aye, aye, skipper.”

  I got a spare flashlight, and a screwdriver and a pair of pliers—with those two tools, and perhaps a hammer, you can fix 95 percent of what goes wrong on a boat; for the other 5 percent you need a big toolbox full of iron and a mechanical or electrical genius to go with it. I remembered to switch on the saltwater wash-down pump so I wouldn’t have to climb back out of the hole to do it later; but at the moment, of course, it was simply pulling water from outside the boat and spewing it out on deck to run back into the sea. An odd sweetish smell made me glance at the engine’s instrument panel. The temperature gauge was reading in the danger zone. I started to reach for the kill button and pulled my hand back: the pumps were electric and drew quite a bit of juice, so the diesel had to be kept running to keep its alternator charging the batteries.

  When I yanked open the big hatches, after pulling the carpets aside, I was greeted by a stronger stink of ethylene glycol. The motor was fresh-water cooled— actually, it used a fifty-fifty mixture of fresh water and antifreeze—and the heat was transferred to the ocean by a saltwater-cooled heat exchanger. It was clear that Caselius had pried the hose off the exchanger’s seawater intake, letting in the ocean to help fill the boat and at the same time leaving the engine to overheat and, eventually, if Lorelei III stayed afloat that long, self-destruct.