Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers

by Wilbur Smith

  The only witnesses would be the faithful retainers of the Grande Dame of the islands.

  "Now we MUSt. go back. Unfortunately my guests are very important, and I cannot ignore them longer but tomorrow will come. Too slowly for me, Peter but it will come." She turned in the circle of his arms and kissed him with a sudden startling ferocity, so his lips were crushed against his teeth, and then she broke from him and whispered close to his ear.

  "Whatever way it goes, Peter, we have had something of value, you and I. Perhaps the most precious thing I have had in my life. They can never take that away from me." And then she was out of his arms with that uncanny speed and grace of movement and gliding back along the path towards the lights. He followed her slowly, confused and uncertain as to what she had meant by those last words, concluding finally that the purpose had been exactly that to confuse and unbalance him, and at that moment he sensed rather than heard movement behind him, and instantly whirled and ducked.

  The man was ten paces behind him, had come like a leopard, silently from the cover of a fall of lianas and flowering creepers beside the path; only some Minimal instinct had warned Peter and his body flowed into the fighting stance, balanced, strung like a nocked arrow, at once ready both to attack and meet attack.

  "Good evening, General Stride." Peter only just managed to arrest himself, and he straightened slowly but with each hand still extended stiffly at his side like the blade of a meat cleaver, and as lethal.

  "Carl! he said. So the grey wolves had been close, within feet of them, guarding their mistress even in that intimate moment.

  "I hope I did not alarm you," said the bodyguard and though Peter could not see the man's expression, there was a faint mockery in his voice, If there was confirmation needed, complete and final, this was it. Only Caliph would have need of a guard on a romantic assignment. Peter knew then beyond any doubt that either he or Magda Altmann would be dead by sunset the following evening before going into the bungalow he made a stealthy -prowling circuit of the bushes and shrubs that surrounded it. He found nothing suspicious but in the interior the bed had been prepared and his shaving gear cleaned and neatly rearranged. His soiled clothing had been taken for cleaning and the other clothing had been pressed and rearranged more neatly than his own unpacking. He could not therefore be certain that his other possessions had not been searched, but it was safe to presume they had.

  Caliph would not neglect such an elementary precaution. " The locks on doors and windows were inadequate, had probably not been used in years, for there had been no serpents in this paradise, not until recently. So he placed chairs and other obstacles in such a way that an intruder should stumble over them in the dark, and then he rumpled the bed and arranged the pillows to look like a sleeping figure, but took a single blanket to the long couch in the private lounge. He did not really expect an attempt before the other guests left the island, but if it came he would confuse Caliph's scenario as much as possible.

  He slept fitfully, jerking awake when a falling palm frond rattled across the roof, or the moon threw picture shadows on the wall across the room. just before dawn he fell into a deeper sleep and his dreams were distorted and nonsensical, only the sharp clear image of Melissa-Jane's terror-stricken face and her silent screams of horror remained with him when he woke. The memory roused in him the cold lust for vengeance which had abated a little in the weeks since her rescue and he felt reaffirmed, possessed of a steely purpose once more, determined to resist the softening, fatal allure of Caliph.

  He rose in the slippery pearl light of not yet dawn, and went down to the beach. He swam out a mile beyond the reef, and had a long pull back against a rogue current, but he came ashore feeling good and hard and alert as he had not been in weeks.

  All right, he thought grimly. Let it come. I'm as ready as I'll ever be.

  There was a farewell breakfast for the departing guests, on the sugary sands of the beach that had been swept smooth by the night tide pink Laurent Perrier champagne and hothouse strawberries flown in from Auckland, New Zealand.

  Magda Altmann wore brief green pants that showed off her long shapely legs to perfection, and a matching "boob tube" across her small neat breasts but her belly and shoulders and back were bare. It was the body of a finely trained athlete, but drawn by a great artist.

  She seemed unnaturally elated to Peter, her gaiety was slightly forced and the low purring laughter just a little too ready and with a saw-edge to it. It was almost as though she had made some hard decision, and was steeling herself to carry it through. Peter thought of them as true opponents who had trained carefully for the coming configuration like prize fighters at the weigh-in.

  After the breakfast they rode up in a cavalcade of electric carts to the airfield. The senator, revved-up with pink champagne and sweating lightly in the rising heat, gave Magda an over-affectionate farewell, but she skilfully avoided his hands and shunted him expertly into the Tri Islander after the other passengers.

  Pierre, Magda's pilot, stood on the brakes at the end of the runway while he ran all three engines up to full power.

  Then he let her go, and the moment she had speed he rotated her into a nose-high obstacle-clearance attitude.

  The Ungainly machine itimped into the sky and went over the palms at the end of the short strip with five hundred feet to spare and Magda turned to Peter ecstatically.

  "I hardly slept last night, "she admitted, as she kissed him.

  "Neither did I," Peter told her and then he added silently" for the same reasons, I'm sure."

  "I've planned a special day for us," she went on. "And I don't want to waste another minute of it." The head boatman had Magda's big forty-five-foot Chriscraft Fisherman singled up at the end of the jetty. It was a beautiful boat, with long low attacking lines that made it seem to be flying even when on its mooring lines, and loving care had very obviously been lavished upon it. The paintwork was unmarked and the stainless steel fittings were polished to a mirror finish. The boatman beamed happily when Magda commended him with a smile and a word.

  "Tanks are full, Baronne. The scuba bottles are charged and the light rods are rigged. The water-skis are in the main racks, and the chef came down himself to check the icebox." However, his wide white smile faded when he learned that Magda was taking the boat out alone.

  "Don't you trust me? "she laughed.

  "Oh, of course, Baronne-" But he could not hide his chagrin at having to give over his charge even to such a distinguished captain.

  He handled the lines himself, casting her off, and calling anxious last-minute advice to Magda as the gap between jetty and vessel opened.

  "Ne t'kquiet pas!" she laughed at him, but he made a dejected figure standing on the end of the jetty as Magda slowly opened up both diesels and the Chris-craft came up on the plane and seemed almost to break free of the surface.

  Her wake was scored deep and clean and straight through the gin-clear water of the lagoon, a tribute to the design of her hull, and then it curved out gracefully behind them as Magda made the turn between the channel markers and lined her up for the passage through the reef, and out into the open Pacific.

  "Where are we going?"

  "There is an old Japanese aircraft carrier lying in a hundred feet of water beyond the reef. Yankee aircraft sank her back in "forty-four It is a beautiful site for scuba diving. We will go there first-" How? Peter wondered. Perhaps one of the scuba bottles had been partially filled with carbon monoxide gas. It was simply done, with a hose from the exhaust of the diesel generator:

  simply pass the exhaust gases through a charcoal filter to remove the taste and smell of unconsumed hydra carbons and the remaining carbon monoxide gas would be undetectable. Fill the bottle to 30 atmospheres of pressure then top it up with clean air to its operating pressure of 10 atmospheres. It would be swift, but not too swift to alarm the victim, a gentle long sleep. When the victim lost his mouthpiece, the bottles would purge themselves of any trace of the gas. That would be a good way to
do it.

  "After that we can go ashore on The des Oiseaux. Since Aaron stopped the islanders stealing the eggs to eat, we've got one of the biggest nesting colonies of terns and noddies and frigate birds in the Southern Pacific-" Perhaps a spear gun That would be direct and effective.

  At short range, say two feet, even below the surface, the spear arrow would go right through a human torso in between the shoulder blades and out through the breast bone.

  And afterwards we can water-ski-" With an unsuspecting skier in the water, awaiting the pick-up, what could be more effective than opening up both those tremendously powerful diesels to the gates and running the victim down? If the hull did not crush him, the twin screws turning at 500 revolutions per minute would cut him up as neatly as a loaf of pre-sliced bread.

  Peter found himself intrigued with the guessing-game.

  He found himself regretting the fact that he would never know what she intended, and he looked back from where they stood side by side on the tall flying bridge of the Chriscraft. The main island was lowering itself into the water already they were out of sight of anybody who did not have a pair of powerful binoculars.

  Beside him Magda pulled the retaining ribbon out of her hair, and shook loose a black rippling banner that streamed in the wind behind her.

  "Let's do this for ever," she shouted above the wind and the boom of the engines.

  "Sold to the lady with the sexy backside," Peter shouted back, and he had to remind himself that she was one of the most carefully trained killers he would ever meet. He must not allow himself to be lulled by the laughter and the beauty and he must not allow her to make the first stroke, His chances of surviving that were remote.

  He glanced back again at the land. Any minute now, he thought, and moved as though to glance over the side, getting slightly into her rear, but still in the periphery of her vision; she shifted slightly towards him still smiling.

  "At this state of the tide there are always amberjack in the channel. I promised the chef I would bring him a couple of them kicking fresh, she explained. "Won't you go down and get two of the light rods ready, cheri? The feather lures are in the forward starboard seat locker."

  "Okay,"he nodded.

  "I'll throttle back to trolling speed when I make the turn into the channel put the lines in then."

  OK."

  "And then on an impulse. "But kiss me first." She held up her face to him, and he wondered why he had said that. It was not to take farewell of her. He was sure of that. It was to lull her just that fraction, and yet as their lips met he felt the deep ache of regret that he had controlled for so long and as her mouth spread slowly and moistly open under his, he felt as though his heart might break then. For a moment he felt that he might die himself before he could do it; dark waves of despair poured over him.

  He slid his hand over her shoulder to the nape of her neck and her body flattened against his; he caressed her lightly, feeling for the place, and then settling thumb and forefinger a second, another second passed, and then she pulled him back softly.

  "Hey, now!" she whispered huskily. "You stop that before I pile up on the reef." He had not been able to do it with his bare hands. He just could not do it like that but he had to do it quickly, very quickly. Every minute delayed now led him deeper and deeper into deadly danger.

  "Go!" she ordered, and struck him a playful blow on the chest.

  "We've got time for that later all the time in the world. Let's savour it, every moment of it." He had not been able to do it, and he turned away. It was only as he went down the steel ladder into the cockpit of the Chris-craft that it suddenly occurred to him that during the lingering seconds of that kiss the fingers of her right hand had cupped lovingly under his chin. She could have crushed his larynx, paralysing him with a thumb driven up into the soft vulnerable arch of his throat at the first offensive pressure of his thumb and forefinger.

  As his feet hit the deck of the cockpit another thought came to him. Her other hand had lain against his body, stroking him softly under the ribs. That hand could have struck upwards and inwards to tear through his diaphragm his instincts must have warned him. She had been poised for the stroke, more so than he was; she had been inside the circle of his arms, inside his de fences waiting for him and he shivered briefly in the hot morning sun at the realization of how close he had been to death.

  The realization turned instantly to something else, that slid down his spine cold as water down a melting icicle. It was fear, not the crippling fear of the craven, but fear that edged him and hirdened him. Next time he would not hesitate he could not hesitate.

  He was instinctively carrying out her instructions as his mind raced to catch up with the problem. He lifted the lid of the seat locker. In the custom-fitted interior were arranged trays of fishing gear, swivels of brass and stainless steel in fifty different sizes; sinkers shaped for every type of water and bottom; lures of plastic and feathers, of enamel and bright metal; hooks for gigantic bill fish or for fry and in a separate compartment in the side tray a bait knife.

  The knife was a fifty-dollar Ninja with a lexan composition handle, cheque red and moulded for grip. The blade was seven inches of hollow ground steel, three inches broad at the hilt and tapering to a stiletto point. It was a brutal weapon, you could probably chop through an oak log with it, as the makers advertised. Certainly it would enter human flesh and go through bone as though it were Cheddar cheese.

  It balanced beautifully in Peter's fist as he made one testing slash and return cut with it. The blade hissed in the air, and when he tested the edge too hurriedly it stung like a razor and left a thin line of bright blood across the ball of his thumb.

  He kicked off his canvas sneakers, so the rubber soles did not squeak on the deck. He was dressed now in only a thin cotton singlet and boxer type swimming trunks, stripped down for action.

  He went up the first three rungs of the ladder on bare silent feet, and lifted his eyes above the level of the flying bridge.

  Magda Altmann stood at the controls of the Chris-craft, conning the big vessel into the mouth of the channel, staring ahead in complete concentration.

  Her hair still flew in the wind, snaking and tangling into thick shimmering tresses. Her naked back was turned to him, the deeply defined depression running down her spine and the crest of smooth hard muscle rising on each side of it.

  One leg of her pants had tucked up slightly exposing a half-moon of round white buttock, and her legs were long and sup pleas a dancer's as she balanced on the balls of her narrow feet, raising herself to see ahead over the bows.

  Peter had been gone from the bridge for less than ten seconds, and she was completely unaware, completely unsuspecting.

  Peter did not make the same mistake again; he went up the ladder in a single swift bound, and the bellow of the diesels covered any sound he might have made.

  With the knife you never take the chance of the point turning against bone, if you have a choice of target.

  Peter picked the small of the back, at the level of the kidneys where there was no bone to protect the body cavity.

  It is essential to put the blade in with all possible power; this decreases the chance of bone-deflection and it peaks the paralysing effect of impact-shock.

  Peter put the full weight of his rush behind the thrust.

  The paralysis is total if the blade is twisted a half-turn at the same instant that the blade socks in hilt-deep.

  The muscles in Peter's right forearm were bunched in anticipation of the moment in which he would twist the blade viciously in her flesh, quadrupling the size and the trauma of the wound.

  The polished stainless steel fascia of the Chris-craft's control panel reflected a distorted image, like those funny mirrors of the fairground. Only at the moment that Peter had committed himself completely, at the moment when he had thrown all his weight into the killing stroke, did he realize with a sickening flash that she was watching him in the polished steel control panel; she had been w
atching him from the moment he reappeared at the head of the ladder.

  The curved Surface of the steel distorted] her face, so that it appeared to consist only of two enormous eyes; it distracted him in that thousandth part of a second before the point of the blade entered flesh. He did not see her move.

  Blinding, numbing agony shot down his right flank and arm, from a point in the hollow where his collar bone joined the upper arm, while at the same instant something hit him on the inside of his forearm just below the elbow.

  The knife stroke was flung outwards, passing an inch from her hip, and the point of the blade crashed into the control panel in front of her, scaring the metal with a deep bright scratch, but Peter's numbed fingers could not keep hold on the hilt. The weapon spun from his grip, ringing like a crystal wine glass as it struck the steel handrail and rebounded over the side of the bridge into the cockpit behind him.

  He realized that she had struck backwards at him, not turning to face him but using only the reflection in the control panel to judge her blow with precision into the pressure point of his shoulder.

  Now pain had crippled him and the natural reaction was to clutch at the source of it. Instead with some reflexive instinct of survival he flung up his left hand to protect the side of his neck and the next blow, also thrown backwards, felt as though it had come from a full-blooded swing of a baseball bat. He hardly saw it, it came so fast and hard there was just the flicker of movement across his vision, like the blur of a hummingbird's wing, and then the appalling force of it crushing into the muscle of his forearm.

  Had it taken him in the neck where it was aimed, it would have killed him instantly; instead it paralysed his other arm, and she was turning into him now effortlessly matching his bull strength with a combination of speed and control.