Night Of Error

by Desmond Bagley

  Campbell shuddered and Clare pulled a little closer to him. Watching Ramirez, I was fascinated by a movement outside the port light behind his head. Nobody else had seemed to see it, too appalled and horror-stricken by the finality in Ramirez's voice. I saw Taffy, crouched at the end of the settee, fumble again with that curious gesture at the back of his neck, but his eyes never left Ramirez.

  Campbell said slowly, 'Ramirez, you're a bloody-minded butcher.'

  Ramirez spread his hands. 'I don't like killing for killings' sake. I'm no Jim Hadley – he was stupid back on Tanakabu and I abhore that, putting pleasure before business. I kill only from necessity. But when I do, whether it's seventeen or seventy lives doesn't make much difference. Lives are cheap, my friend, when there are large stakes. I consider my measures necessary.' He was as cold as a snake.

  I switched my gaze back to the port and caught my breath. There was a face out there. An eye winked.

  Bill Hunter was back on board.

  He was a hidden ace that Ramirez must not become aware of. I cautiously lifted my hand to my mouth, coughed, and then made a slow downward movement, being careful not to jerk. I didn't want to catch anyone's attention. The eye winked again and the face disappeared.

  Campbell was still speaking, desperately searching for arguments to persuade Ramirez not to go ahead with whatever plans he had for us. Again there was that vibrancy in my ears, a curious beat in Campbell's voice as though there were some sort of aural interference, some note so low as to be inaudible. Not far away there was a sound as though an engine were letting off steam. Esmerelda shuddered and the noises on deck increased suddenly.

  Ramirez interrupted Campbell, turned and to my horror strode over to look out of a porthole. I tensed but then he turned back and spoke again, and I realised he'd not seen anything untoward.

  'Whatever is going on out there will serve its purpose,' he said coolly. 'As soon as these idiots of mine have parted the two ships we go our separate ways. You won't have far to go -a mile or so straight down. We will tow you into deep water -or point your nose into that thing out there.' He turned on Geordie. 'We have borrowed an idea from you, Captain. We will set an explosive charge against your hull, and that storm out there will do the rest.'

  Geordie ground his teeth together but said nothing.

  Somebody ran across the deck over our heads and a voice called out. Ramirez cocked his head and glanced upwards. 'It sounds as though they are about ready.'

  I heard a clatter of heavy boots on the companion steps and there was a thump on the door. At a gesture from Ramirez one of the guards opened it and Hadley came in. He looked at us with an oafish grin that didn't reach his pale, cold eyes and bent to whisper to Ramirez, who immediately turned to look out of the porthole again. I thanked God that Bill had kept out of sight. Or had he?

  Ramirez turned back. 'Which would you choose? Deep water or Falcon Island? There seems to be increased activity over there.' He smiled and said to Mark, 'This is lucky, you know. Where else should a survey ship be wrecked but in investigating Falcon Island a little too closely at the wrong time? Keep our friends happy for a little while.'

  He turned on his heel and left the saloon, followed by Hadley.

  Geordie watched them go and then transferred his attention to Mark. 'You're a poor specimen of a man,' he said with contempt. 'What makes you think I'm going to sit back and let you wreck my ship and murder my crew? If I'm going to be killed I might as well take you with me.' He began to rise from his chair. With Ramirez's departure a curious change had come into the atmosphere. It was as if we could all recognise that where Ramirez had real authority and total amorality, Mark had only his ego and his self-seeking veneer of toughness over a very insecure personality.

  As Geordie started to rise Mark snapped out a command in Spanish and the guards' rifles lifted to the ready. 'Be careful,' Mark said. They are trained killers.'

  'So am I,' said Geordie with menace. He continued to rise slowly and Ian started to get up as well.

  Mark spoke again in Spanish and one of the guards casually fired his rifle, apparently without aim. The noise was appalling and we flinched back as splinters flew from the bullet as it struck the cabin sole just by Geordie's foot. He hesitated and I spoke sharply. 'Cut it, Geordie – you haven't a chance. You can't move faster than a bullet.'

  Geordie glared at me under his lowered brows but I made a quick slashing gesture with my hand and, taking a chance, winked at him. His brow smoothed and he sat down again, as did Ian. Both were watchful, and I knew that I had succeeded in alerting them.

  There was a sustained racket from overhead. Geordie said, 'They're making a muck-up of it out there, aren't they?'

  'Mind if I smoke, Clare?'

  I put my hand into a pocket and stopped as a rifle barrel turned and the muzzle pointed unwaveringly at me. 'For God's sake, Mark, can't I even have a cigarette?'

  He looked amused. 'Smoking's bad for you, Mike. Go ahead – but you'd better have nothing but cigarettes in your hand when you pull it out.'

  Slowly I withdrew my hand as he spoke to the guards again. The rifle barrel drooped a little and I opened the packet and put a cigarette in my mouth. And at that moment I saw Bill's face at the port once more. The sound of the rifle had brought him back, as I'd hoped it would.

  The saloon door opened and there was a brief exchange between one of our guards and a man outside, and then it closed again. Clearly Ramirez too had sent to ask about the shooting. I put my hand to my pocket again and said to the man with the rifle, 'Fosforos?' He made no sign and I managed to get the matches out without being threatened.

  I lit the cigarette and said, 'Look, Mark. You know everybody cooped up in this saloon. Some have been your friends -others have been more than friends – a lot more. In God's name, what kind of a man are you?' I found it hard to speak to him without my voice betraying me.

  'What can I do?' he asked petulantly. 'Do you think I want to see you all killed? It's out of my hands – Ramirez is in control here.'

  Clare's voice was cutting. 'He washes his hands – the new Pontius Pilate.'

  'Damn it, Clare, you don't think I want to see you at the bottom of the sea? I can't do anything, I tell you.'

  Campbell said, 'It's no use, Mike. He wouldn't do anything to save us even if he could. His neck's at stake, you know.'

  This was my chance. To speak to Campbell I had to half-turn away from Mark and the guards in a natural fashion. 'He'll join us anyway,' I said. 'Ramirez has got what he wants now. He doesn't need Mark any more – he only needs to take my notes with him – and I'm damn sure he'll want to rub out any witness to all this – including Mark.'

  I was printing on the back of the cigarette packet with the stub of pencil I had taken from my pocket with the matches. The words, as large as I could make them, were 'CABLE HOLD'. I drooped my eyelid at Campbell and he caught on fast. He shook his fist at Mark to divert attention and started acting up a little. 'You damned murderer!' he shouted.

  'Shut up,' said Mark venomously. 'Just shut up, damn you.'

  I held up the cigarette packet towards Campbell and said, 'Take it easy. Have one?'

  'No, no,' he brushed my offer aside, but the job was done, and Bill had had a clear vision of my message over Campbell's shoulder. I hoped to God that he had good eyesight. Clare saw the message too and her eyes widened. She bent her head over the still prostrate Paula to hide her expression. I saw her whisper in the other girl's ear, apparently still soothing her.

  I said to Mark, still playing for time, 'Why the hell should he shut up? We've got nothing to lose by telling you what we think of you. I'm sickened at the thought of you being any kin tome.'

  Mark's jaw tightened and he said nothing. I had to goad him into speaking. I risked a glance at the port, and saw that the face had gone, to be replaced with a hand. The middle finger and thumb were joined in a circle. Bill had got my message.

  Whatever happened now I had to give him time to act on it. Now he k
new where the rest of us were and might be able to do something about it. I wondered if he was alone or if Jim and Rex were still with him. It was a slim chance but it was all we had. I reckoned that the only thing we could do to help was to get at Mark in some way – and in his highly nervous state that might prove deadly dangerous.

  I said, 'What put you on to us? The sea's a big place, Mark. But of course you always knew where that high-cobalt nodule formation was, didn't you?'

  'I only knew approximately. I wasn't the only one doing assays on that damned IGY ship, and I couldn't get at all the information I wanted.' His sullen tone implied that such information should have been his by rights, which was typical of him, but I was on the right track in getting him to talk about his own cleverness. Few genuine egotists can resist such an appeal.

  'Who had the bright idea that found us here, then? We could have been anywhere. We could have been a hundred miles from here. You couldn't know where we were.'

  He laughed. 'Couldn't I? Couldn't we? I know you like a book, Mike. I knew that you'd find that deposit given time to survey properly – so I gave you that time. And I knew that once you'd found it you couldn't resist investigating the source. I knew you'd have to come to Fonua Fo'ou, to Falcon.

  Ramirez couldn't see it, of course. He can be a stupid man at times. But I convinced him that I knew my own brother. We've been hanging round here for two bloody weeks waiting for you to turn up.'

  I said, 'How did you get tangled with Ramirez?' We already knew the answer to that one but it kept him talking.

  'Campbell there couldn't finance me and Suarez-Navarro could. It was as simple as that. Who else should I go to but them? They'd just shown that they weren't too scrupulous by what they'd done to his mines, so they were just what I wanted.'

  'And then they led you into murder. You had to kill Norgaard.'

  'That was an accident,' said Mark irritably. 'All Sven was doing was tying up loose ends. We were waiting for the hue and cry to die down, and then Suarez-Navarro were going to provide us with a proper survey ship to find this stuff.' He thumped the papers and notebook. 'Meantime that damned fool decided that he wanted to publish. You see, he didn't know much about Suarez-Navarro and that's the way I wanted it. We had an argument – he was a pretty excitable chap – at first in words, and then it came to blows. The next thing I knew was that he'd cracked his head open on the coral. But I didn't mean to kill him, Mike. I swear it. All I ever wanted to do was to shut him up.'

  'All you ever want to do is to shut people up,' I said flatly. 'How do you go about shutting up a good scientist, Mark? It seems to me that the only way is to kill him.'

  I was cold inside, chilled by his amoral egocentricity. Everything he had done was justified in his own eyes, and everything that had gone wrong was the fault of other people.

  Mark waved me aside. 'Hadley knew, of course. He was my liaison with Ramirez. They helped me to cover it up, but somehow the police got onto it.'

  'My God, you think I'm naive,' I said. 'Look, Mark, I wouldn't be surprised if Ramirez didn't tip off the police himself. It wouldn't matter to him – he was in the clear. He arranged for your "death" and that was that. But he had you neatly wrapped in a package from then on, and you couldn't do a thing without his say so.'

  'It wasn't like that,' Mark muttered.

  'Wasn't it? Even when the first plan went wrong and Hadley was implicated in your so-called murder Ramirez wasn't worried. That's why he laughed his damn head off when I accused him. He knew that all he ever had to do to clear himself and Hadley was to produce you, and you can be sure he'd do it in such a way that would earn. him the congratulations of the law.'

  'What do you mean by that?'

  'He'd produce you dead – or dying, Mark – just so you couldn't talk. And the police would pat him on the back for capturing Mark Trevelyan, the murderer of Sven Norgaard, and maybe the mastermind behind the killing of Schouten. By God, I was right when I called you stupid. You'd really got in over your head, hadn't you?'

  He was angry and baffled, and I could see that my attack had hit home; doubt was in his every action.

  Campbell said, 'It doesn't make any difference now. Mark, you're for the deep six along with the rest of us. Ramirez will see to that.'

  Geordie laughed without humour. 'Do you think you can trust Ramirez?'

  Mark thought deeply and then shook his head. 'Maybe you're right,' he admitted, and I don't think he had often used those words in his lifetime. 'But it still makes no difference. You want me to help you, but I can't. You'll never beat him -and if you did I'd still be wanted for murder. I'd rather stick to Ramirez and take my chances. He still needs me.'

  I wanted to try and tell him how wrong he was, but something else had finally penetrated to my consciousness. There was a whistling sound in the distance – high pressure steam was escaping somewhere. Mark looked out of the porthole and what he saw over the water made him acutely unhappy. 'Damn them, what are they doing on deck?' he muttered. 'This is no time to be hanging around here.'

  His nervousness increased and he conferred with one of the guards in a low voice. An argument seemed to develop as the guard answered back, but Mark overbore him. With a black glance and a reluctant shrug the guard opened the saloon door and went out.

  I looked at Geordie with hopeful eyes and he nodded grimly. The odds were improving, but anything we tried would have to be done before the guard returned. Geordie's hand crept towards the heavy glass ash tray on the table and then relaxed near it. He couldn't throw it faster than the guard could shoot – but he was ready if a chance came up. We were all sitting tensely.

  There was a reddish reflection in Mark's face as he went again to look out of the porthole. Evidently things were stirring on Falcon. I said, 'What's going on out there, Mark?'

  His voice was strained. 'It looks as though Falcon is going to bust loose.'

  I felt suddenly colder. Mark and I were possibly the only two people on either ship qualified to have any understanding of what that might mean. I said, 'How close are we?'

  'Maybe a quarter of a mile.' He straightened his back and added, 'It's happened a couple of times this week already. It's never amounted to much. A great sight, but that's all.' But he was not convincing.

  We were much too close to Fonua Fo'ou. To Ramirez and Hadley it might seem a good safe distance, especially if they had been watching pre-eruption patterns all week, but Mark and I knew better. We knew what volcanic eruptions could do.

  No wonder Mark was scared. So was I.

  He looked at the remaining guard, hesitated, and then spoke to him. The guard shook his head vigorously, and as Mark started to leave he stepped in front of the door and raised his rifle.

  Campbell said ironically, 'What's the matter, Mark? Doesn't he trust you?'

  The whistling and belching suddenly increased and Esmerelda lurched, her joints squealing a protest. We swung round, still locked with Sirena. There was a sudden blast of an acrid sulphurous smell in the air. Mark's eyes darted from the guard to me and our glances locked as tightly as the ships.

  Mark said sharply, 'He doesn't want to be left here alone with you lot. I must wait for the other guard.' He crossed to the porthole and looked out again and I felt bile rise in my throat.

  Geordie said, 'What the hell's the matter…?'

  He didn't have time to finish. Esmerelda gave another great lurch and went over almost on her beam ends. I slithered helplessly towards the side of the saloon and jarred my head against the table as I fell. There were sounds of bedlam above decks.

  The ship righted herself and we fell back in a jumble of bodies. I heard Campbell groan; it must have been hell for him in his condition. Geordie was up first. He grasped the ashtray and hurled it at the guard, and then leapt the length of the saloon. The guard tried frantically to retrieve his rifle from the deck where it had fallen. He had his fingers on the butt when Geordie kicked him with precision in the jaw and his face disappeared into a bloody ruin.

&
nbsp; Ian had gone for Mark and any trace of his normal Highland gentleness had vanished. His face was a mask of rage. Geordie had grabbed the rifle and turned it on Mark. They converged on him, but Mark managed to evade them both and scrambled towards the saloon door.

  There was a curious flicker in the air and he slumped, his hand clapped to his right hip, and I saw blood welling between his fingers.

  I had raised myself to go after Geordie and a shouted word of protest was already on my lips, but as Mark fell both Ian and Geordie came to an abrupt stop, the momentary blood-lust dying from their faces. All eyes were on the gleaming, bloodied blade on the floor beside Mark.

  'Who threw the knife?' I demanded.

  Taffy came from the far end of the saloon. 'I did.' He saw the look that sparked in my eyes and added hastily, 'I wouldn't have killed him, Mike – even though he deserves it. I know where to put a knife.'

  'Well, you'd better come and get it,' I said.

  He came forward to take it from the deck and carefully wiped it on his trouser leg. Clare was looking at him ashen-faced, but Paula had already pushed forward to Mark's side.

  I said, 'I saw you searched like the rest of us, Taffy. How did you hide the knife?'

  'I had it dangling down the small of my back on a piece of string. It's an old trick but they fell for it.'

  For the moment the crisis was passed. I looked anxiously out to sea. There was a haze of steam in the near distance and beyond it the swell of sullen black clouds still rolled skywards. The sea was choppy, with little eddies swirling here and there, and around the fringe of the steam there was a white roil of froth. The smell was fitful and nasty. Closer in, I saw our motor launch swinging astern with nobody on board her. There was no sign of Bill, nor of anyone else on deck.

  In the saloon Ian was helping Campbell back onto the settee with Clare to lend him a hand. Paula was bandaging Mark and Geordie was searching the prostrate guard.

  Taffy was missing.

  'Geordie, where's Taffy?'