The Power (17 page)

'Are you all right?' she asked as the boat backed off from
the shore.

'We could be in great danger,' Tweed warned Cardon
and Newman who sat close to him.

'It's being on the water,' Paula soothed him. 'But it's
only a short crossing. A couple of minutes.'

'At least five or more,' Cardon told her.

He unfastened the capacious canvas bag looped over his
shoulder. As they proceeded down the narrow channel
between sandbank and cliffs he slipped a hand inside and

kept it there. Paula wondered what he was holding. A gun?

The two crew were squeezed inside the wheel-house and
the skipper stared straight ahead, gripping the wheel. They
reached the end of the sandbank and shortly afterwards the
skipper swung his wheel. Paula realized there was open
water now between them and the beach near Rock. Where do we land? she wondered.

'Quite a view,' Newman commented a minute later.

They had moved out towards Rock into the middle of
the estuary. To the north they could see the open Atlantic,
beyond two capes. In the exact centre of the oceanic
expanse out at sea a huge brutal rock reared up shaped like
a volcano. In places the sea glittered dazzling!y where the
sun reflected off it. A sharp cold breeze rippled the blue
surface.

'Soon be there,'Paula reassured Tweed.

'I hope so,' said Newman, his tone serious.

He leaned back to see past the wheel-house. Coming in from the ocean a large powerboat had suddenly appeared.
It was rocketing towards them, its prow high above the
water, curving in a wide arc towards them, leaving behind a
great white wake stretching out towards the Atlantic.
Newman stiffened, slid his hand inside his windcheater,
then withdrew his hand empty. He'd never hit a target
moving at that speed. They all heard the skipper's words, a
mix of anger and anxiety, as he spoke to his mate.

'Bloody maniac. Never seen that boat before . . .'

Paula stiffened, then felt Tweed's hand on her wrist, squeezing it. She looked at him. He sat perfectly still, all
signs of tension gone. She thought she detected an expres
sion of satisfaction, but that was impossible. Tweed
glanced across at Butler opposite him as the huge pro
jectile thundered down closer on them.

Butler nodded to Garden. She glanced at Philip. He was nodding back to Butler, the briefest of motions. Newman
was staring inside the wheel-house at the skipper. His
hands gripped the wheel tightly. He swung it a little to the
left - to port - which appeared to be the wrong manoeuvre. It seemed he had panicked, was making a futile attempt to
head back for the shore they had left from - taking them
straight into the path of the advancing powerboat, which
Paula now saw was huge.

Tweed took out Newman's binoculars, which he had put
in his own pocket. Cardon, who had been switching his
gaze swiftly from the wheel-house to the powerboat,
reached across, took the glasses from Tweed's hands. Like
Newman, he had summed up the skipper as a man who did
not easily lose his nerve.

Cardon focused the field-glasses on the powerboat,
which had changed course, was now slantwise to them.
Through the lenses he saw the sole occupant, a figure at the
wheel. A bizarre figure wearing a skin-
diver's helmet and
goggles. No chance of ever identifying who was guiding the
powerboat. Cardon shoved the glasses back in Tweed's lap
with his left hand. Both of his hands dived inside the canvas
satchel as Paula watched him.

The roar of the powerboat was deafening as it swept
even closer. Paula clenched her fingers tight inside her
gloves. They were going to be smashed to matchwood,
capsized into water which would be icy in February.
Nield
calmly inserted a cigarette between his lips without lighting
it.

'The skipper knows what he's doing,' Tweed told Paula, his mouth close to her ear.

'You could have fooled me,' she snapped back.

In the brief time before a shattering collision took place
the skipper suddenly swung his wheel hard over to starboard - away from the powerboat's course. It was tricky
timing. The huge prow of the monster seemed to Paula to
loom over them like something out of the film
Jaws.
One of
her hands was now clamped round the plank beneath her, waiting for the frightful impact.

There were inches between the two vessels as the power
boat skimmed past them on the port side. And as it did so
Cardon lobbed the grenade he had withdrawn the pin
from. It landed in the well behind the hooded figure.
Cardon immediately began counting silently, mouthing
the numbers clearly as he stared at Paula.

'One
...
'

Two
...
'

'Three...
'

'Four
...'

On 'Four' something made Paula swivel round to the
stern of the ferry which was now rocking madly under the
impact of the wash from the powerboat. Tweed was
already staring with the others in the same direction.

The explosion was thunderous. One second the powerboat was swinging round in a half-circle, ready to come
back towards its target. The next second, as the detonation
rang out, it split in two - the prow shooting skywards.
Paula stared as a gigantic column of water like the geyser in
Yellowstone Park soared up, taking with it dark objects
which were debris from the shattered wreck.

The water boiled briefly where the powerboat had died,
then it became calm with the surface ruffled only by
ripples. Tweed was confident neither of the crew had seen
Cardon lob the grenade, so intent had they been on
steering the ferry clear of disaster at the last moment. The
skipper handed over the wheel to his mate and his first
words as he came out of the wheel-house confirmed
Tweed's assumption.

'Sorry for that, folks. We've 'ad similar fools in the past.
Think it's fun to scare the 'ell out of my passengers. But I
don't know what that was. And then 'is petrol blew. That's
'appened before, too. Young idiots buys these expensive
fast boats - must be fast for 'em - and then 'asn't the money
to keep up any maintenance. I'm givin' you all your money
back...'

'You most certainly are doing nothing of the sort,'
Tweed said forcefully. 'Only one pound each for the return
trip to Rock - and you saved our lives by your expert
seamanship.'

'Anything that keeps you 'appy.' The skipper frowned. 'Never seen quite so big an explosion when petrol tank
goes. Still, was a big boat. Now, we're landin' in a
moment...'

11

They landed from the ferry by the same method
-
walking
down the plank while the mate stood alongside, ready to
give anyone who needed it a hand. Paula had no hesitation
in reaching out for her hand to be grasped - her legs felt like jelly after their recent experience.

'See that stick with the flag stuck in beach?' called out
the skipper. 'When you want to come back wait wherever
it's been moved to. Tide will start to come in in the next
hour. ..'

Tweed had walked down the plank, again ignoring the
hand offered. His feet immediately sank
into the sand
which had recently been covered with water. Ploughing his
way up to a ramp leading off the beach was like
walking on
a giant sponge. Paula and Newman caught him up as the
other three men followed at a distance, spreading out,
their eyes everywhere.

'You look smug,' Paula accused Tweed.

'Sorry. Just satisfied that my instinct was right.'

'What instinct?' Newman demanded.

That the enemy had now tracked us to Padstow.'

'Anything to back that up?' Newman continued. 'You're
always so keen on data to back up a theory.'

'Last night I couldn't sleep. As you know, my bedroom window gives a panoramic view of the estuary and this
shore. You remember, Bob, you lent me your bin
oculars.'

'You saw something, then?'

'Oh, yes, I saw something.' Tweed chuckled, outwardly unaffected that they had just escaped sudden death. 'I saw
something. Switching off the lights, I pulled back the
curtains. Soon I saw a lamp flashing on and off over here.
Red, then green, then red. Morse code - but the message was in cipher, if you understand me. A stream of meaningless letters, so I couldn't read what they were sending. But I could guess.'

'And you guessed what?' Paula pressed.

'That the sender in Rock was informing someone in
Padstow that we have arrived at the Metropole. That was the first stage of targeting us.'

'And the second stage?'

'That was the lamp flashing which I noticed from the
cove while we waited for the ferry. It was probably signal
ling to that powerboat cruising out at sea just beyond the
estuary - that we'd be aboard the ferry.'

'Sounds thin,' Newman objected. 'It presupposes some
one was watching the ferry for hours. We might never have
come here.'

'So maybe they were watching the inner harbour through binoculars from Rock. These people leave
nothing to chance. After we left perhaps a certain pennant
was hoisted up the mast of that cabin cruiser,
Mayflower III.
Remember who suggested we take that ferry?'

'Gaunt!' Newman grated out the name. 'He waits until
he's persuaded us to cross to Rock and then hoists the
signal which tells whoever is waiting over here, wherever
that might be.'

'Oh, last night through your binoculars I pinpointed the
source where the lamp was flashing from.'

The shore of Rock was deserted and there was an
atmosphere of being cut off from the world which Paula found disturbing. Tweed led the way off the soggy beach
up a ramp which started out as concrete and then became wooden ribbed. He turned left, away from the few buildings which were Rock. They entered a desolate quarry
which was apparently used as a car park during the season.
Not a single vehicle was parked in the grim amphitheatre
enclosed by granite walls.

'Don't point or look at it obviously,' Tweed warned. 'I saw the lamp flashing last night from that strange house
perched on its own above us. From the first-floor window
on the right.'

Paula glanced round as though taking in the view.
Strange was hardly the word for the house. Weird, she said
to herself. Isolated well up the steep slope it had a Vic
torian appearance but gave the impression half of it had
been sliced off and taken away at some distant time.