The Revengers (37 page)

There was a period of silence as we contemplated the girl’s paranoid vision of an ocean full of enormous enemies and of herself as a shining Joan of Arc doing battle with these great, evil dragons of the sea. Serena Lorca gave that nervous tug to her bodice once more.

“I can see you don’t really believe me,” she said to Eleanor. “But you have the facts on paper, signed by me. I want you to tell the American people, all the people, the truth about these arrogant incompetents shoving their great steel homicide weapons blindly across the oceans without the slightest concern for the small sailing craft that have just as much right to be out there as they have. But I’m not asking you to take my word for it, I’m going to show you. You’ll get a chance to see what it’s really like. It’s the story you’ve been after, isn’t it? Write it!” Abruptly, she turned to Giulio. “Give me that other gun, please.”

“Miss Lorca—”

“It’s all right; I know how to use it. I’ll watch Helm. You take Miss Brand topside and let her see everything she needs to; she ought to know a little about how a sailboat works to write her story. Henry can answer any technical questions she wants to ask.”

Reluctantly, Giulio reached down and produced a revolver that looked familiar—Warren Peterson’s weapon, or one just like it. Serena checked the loads and snapped the cylinder back into place; when she turned the muzzle toward me, the gray lead noses of the bullets visible in the chambers on either side of the frame informed me it was still loaded.

Eleanor obeyed the jerky command of Giulio’s firearm, and slid out from under the table. She made her way through the galley and up the companionway out of sight, followed by her escort. I remained facing Serena Lorca.

She watched me in her intent, disconcerting way. “I think you have some questions you didn’t want to ask in front of him,” she said.

‘Two,’’ I said. “First, if what you really want is publicity for your seagoing operation, why did you have Jurgen Hinkampf murdered before he could spill the beans? Seems to me that’s exactly what you’re after, the confession of one of the ships’ officers involved.”

She frowned. “Hinkampf? Oh, the young mate on that last tanker. . . . I wasn’t in Nassau when it happened, but they told me he died of his burns. Murdered?”

Her attitude was convincing. I said, “He was smothered to death in his hospital bed before he could break down and tell Eleanor exactly what he’d seen the night his ship went down. Do I gather that somebody’s covering up for you that you don’t know about, giving you protection that you don’t want?”

She laughed shortly. “The protection is hardly for me, Mr. Helm. I didn’t know about Hinkampf, but I had a pretty good idea. My father never made a straight deal in his life. He’s making certain that now that I’ve given him the revenge he wants—well, most of it, and the rest will be taken care of as soon as Giulio takes care of you, if you let him—I don’t also give him the publicity he doesn’t want. For the sake of what I could do for him, he was willing to risk financing a few anonymous forays; maybe I gave him the idea that I’d do my best to keep them anonymous.” Her smile was crooked. “But now that he has no further use for me and realizes what I’m
really
after, he’s about to terminate our agreement, as the saying goes, unilaterally. Giulio’s here to see to that, too. To see to me right along with you. Only I don’t think he knows I’m aware of it.” She stared at me intently. “I know the way to beat him, one way. I hope you have a way, too, so you can help Miss Brand get clear with her story. Later, this gun will be in the second drawer of the galley dresser, right under the flatware. I can’t give it to you now because you’d try to use it prematurely, before I finish what I have to do. But if things go wrong for me, you’ll find it there.” She frowned at me. “You had another question.”

I said, “You promised Peterson that Eleanor would be set free if he did what you said. And you promised me that we wouldn’t be killed.”

She laughed. “Well, she will be turned loose eventually, as far as I’m concerned. I have every intention of setting her free; I want her free. And I have no intention of killing you; I hope you live a long, long time. Maybe I just didn’t word my promises quite as precisely as I should have, Mr. Helm.” Suddenly the odd brown eyes focused intently on my face. “But you know you can’t believe a word a crazy girl tells you. What was it you called me, the Mad Ship-Sinker of the Atlantic?”

It was almost a relief to be once more locked up in our little triangular prison cell—well, it didn’t quite come to a point up forward, terminating instead in a small bulkhead beyond which, presumably, was stowage space in the bow for the anchor rope or chain. And the door didn’t really lock, but Giulio and his Browning, waiting outside, made a pretty good substitute for bars and bolts.

Eleanor seated herself on the port berth and looked up and started to speak, but found herself suddenly, ridiculously, overbalanced and thrown backward across the bunk, legs waving helplessly, as
Jamboree's
bow came crashing down. She’d forgotten how much more violent the motion was here up forward. I reached down and retrieved her, bringing her back up to a sitting position and steadying her as she rubbed the back of her head, which had borne the brunt of the impact.

“Okay?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I wouldn’t go
that
far. I’m very scared, I need a bath very badly, I wouldn’t mind some clean clothes and I still get a little queasy now and then. I wouldn’t say I was exactly okay. But there don’t seem to be any soft spots in my skull, if that’s what you’re asking.”

I grinned. “Good girl,” I said, and leaned down to kiss her lightly on top of the head.

It was just a casual friendly gesture, or it was meant to be; but it turned out to be a serious miscalculation. Suddenly she was looking up at me gravely, questioningly; and I found myself very much aware of the expressive shape of her mouth and thinking that, if kissing was to be done, I could have picked a better target. And if anything was less relevant at the moment than the sweet curve of a lady’s lips, I’d have to scratch hard to find it, imprisoned as I was in a plunging pie-shaped cell with an armed killer beyond the door and a substantial charge of high explosive under the floor, whatever the hell you called it on a boat. Sole. But I knew suddenly that I wasn’t going to spend another night holding this girl in a chaste brotherly embrace, no matter how lonely she might be or what her psychological difficulties might be. You can ask only so much of the iron self-control for which we grim undercover operatives are noted.

I turned away and got the pillow off my bunk and wedged it, along with hers, behind her to prevent her from repeating her undignified trip to. leeward. Then I seated myself facing her with my feet against her bunk to keep me from being pitched into her lap.

“Report, Brand,” I said. “Give me the topside picture. Weapons first. Incidentally, there are some knives in the galley, including a couple of good big ones; and that .38 is supposed to find a home in the second drawer down if Miss Lorca keeps her word. I wouldn’t bet either way; but you might keep it in mind.”

Eleanor nodded. “There’s a shotgun in the cockpit,” she said. “Held in place near the wheel by some shock cord. Rather short barrel. Like a police riot gun.”

I glanced at the hatch overhead. “That means that even if we can get that thing open—and it doesn’t seem to be locked in any way, just dogged down normally against the spray—we’ll get our heads blown off the minute we stick them out of there. What kind of a shotgun? Single-barrel or double?”

“I think it’s what’s known as a pump-action gun. One barrel with a magazine tube underneath and a sliding wooden handle.”

“Probably five or six shells, then, if it isn’t plugged to three for legal hunting, and that’s not likely. They’d have removed the magazine plug when they sawed off the barrel. Go on.”

“The man called Henry wears a sheath knife, but it seems to have a funny blunt point; I wouldn’t think it would make much of a weapon, not for stabbing, anyway.”

“A sailor’s rigging knife. What about Henry?”

“Big. Tough, I’d say, but not really mean, if you know what I mean.”

“A fighter perhaps, but not really a killer?”

“Something like that. The other man, Adam, carries a real weapon, kind of a dagger with a very fancy sheath and grip. Six-inch blade?”

“Ugh,” I said. “Sounds like a custom fighting knife; let’s hope it didn’t come with a book of instructions. What about Adam?”

“Not quite as tall as Henry, but I’d say the same weight. Broad and muscular. Black; and I’m afraid he’s working at it. I didn’t like the way he looked at me; and not because I’m a woman. A lot of hate there, Matt.”

“Well, they’ve got cause, I suppose; but it doesn’t make it any easier. Any other weapons?”

She shook her head. “That’s all I saw, except Giulio’s gun, of course.”

I said, “You’re not thinking, girl reporter. It’s a sailing ship, it ought to have some belaying pins and marline spikes and stuff lying around, oughtn’t it?”

She laughed. “I’m afraid you’re behind the times. This isn’t an old-fashioned square-rigger. No belaying pins. But there were some hefty handles for cranking the winches, steel, about a foot long. Maybe even fifteen inches, I couldn’t tell. Two in plastic sheaths in the cockpit and two on the mast. A long boathook, at least nine feet, lashed to the deck, port side. A big aluminum pole secured to starboard—spinnaker pole? But it’s five or six inches thick and over twenty feet long, so it would make a pretty awkward weapon—even for Hercules. A big anchor on the forward deck, marked forty-five pounds. A life raft, marked six-man, in a plastic case fastened to the cabin just behind the mast, with some kind of a rescue beacon mounted in a clip beside it.” She frowned, visualizing the deck as she had seen it. “Oh, I almost forgot, there’s no tender on deck—if that’s what you call a real dinghy of wood or fiberglass— but we’re towing a good-sized rubber boat behind us now. Giulio called it a Zodiac. It’s two fat rubber tubes joined together at the bow and coming to separate points aft, with a wooden transom between them for the outboard motor. Wooden floor. No seats except for a kind of box to hold the gas tank.”

“Was there a motor?”

“Not mounted on the Zodiac, but there was one stored on a bracket on the stem rail. Marked twenty-five horsepower.”

I said, “Very good report, Brand. He really gave you the guided tour. Now I’ll let you lay it all out for us. I think we’ve got all the necessary information. Pretend there’s a ship approaching. The attack is ordered. Write us the script.”

She thought for a moment. “Well, first of all, the Lorca girl is going to check the approaching target with that sighting compass of hers. Giulio called it a hand-bearing compass, because you hold it in your hand to get the bearings. She’s going to want to make sure it’s really on a collision course or close to it. And then—” She frowned, working it out in her head. “Then Serena’s got to get rid of her crew, doesn’t she? She won’t need them for the final run-in, and they haven’t got the motive she has for taking the risk. That must be what the Zodiac is for. The two men—I suppose up to now she only had the two on board —unload into that. She gets on the radio and alerts the sportfisherman that’s trailing along just over the horizon somewhere. She sails on alone, leaving the Zodiac behind. She says she won’t turn on the sailboat’s motor because that’s cheating; but I’m sure she’ll fiddle with the sails and rudder enough to bring about a collision if it’s at all possible. Unless the ship really changes course to avoid her. I think she’s sincere about that. If they show that their lookouts are on the job, and that they’re willing to take appropriate action to steer clear, she won’t make it difficult for them.” Eleanor grimaced. “Of course, she seems to think the ocean’s just crawling with baddies, but she must be exaggerating. The freighter I sailed on when I was starting on-this story was handled quite competently as far as I could judge, and there’s no reason to think it was an exception.”

I said, “We got to keep in mind that the girl’s kind of paranoid on. the subject. It does seem unlikely that the average commercial vessel is handled as negligently or illegally as she seems to think.”

Eleanor said, “Of course, she’s got reason to be prejudiced. We’ve got to remember that her first boat was sunk and her girlfriend was killed. It must have been a very traumatic experience.”

I shook my head. “That’s not the point, Elly. The point is that her current demonstration, as she calls it, probably isn’t going to work on the first ship that comes along, or even the second. They’ll avoid her in time. Chances are, she’ll have to make runs at several vessels before she finds the slob ship she wants, that’ll come straight in for the kill all lawless and careless. So we’ve got to be prepared for a number of different possibilities.”

Eleanor said, “Actually there are three possibilities, aren’t there? First: Serena dumps her crew and sails toward Collision Point X, but the target dutifully dodges in plenty of time and nothing happens. In this case, I suppose, she just gives the abort signal to
Ser-Jan
and sails back to pick up the Zodiac and crew. Second possibility: she sails for Point X as before, but has time to pull on her rubber suit and set the autopilot and drop overboard. She can’t stay with the sailboat too long, or she’ll be too close to the explosion when it happens. But either the ship manages to turn aside at the last moment, or she’s misjudged her trajectories; again nothing happens. In that case, presumably, the Zodiac comes buzzing along to pick her out of the water. They chase after the big boat—I suppose that outboard is fast enough to run down a sailboat—and scramble back aboard.
Abort repeat abort.
”

I said, “She’s taking a chance there. Finding a swimmer in the middle of the ocean isn’t easy. But, of course, she does have a second line of defense. If the Zodiac misses her or the outboard conks out so they can’t catch the sailboat, there’s still the sportfisherman coming along to pick up the pieces. Even so they must use some kind of electronic locating devices, with a directional receiver on board
Ser-Jan
."