Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (50 page)

‘
Swim,
fish, get in there and swim!
’

‘
Mind if we try it my way?
’
Nick asked, and
Tom relinquished command without a struggle.

Nicholas picked the four strongest and best coordinated of the young
men, and gave them a quick demonstration and lecture on how to handle
the heavy handlines with the Japanese feather lures, showing them how to
throw the bait, and the recovery with an underhand flick that recoiled
the line between the feet. Then he gave each a station along the
st
arboard rail, with the second
member of each team ready with a
tagging pole and Hank Petersen on the roof of the wheel-house to record
the fish taken and the numbers of the tags.

They found another shoal within the hour and Nicholas circled up on it,
closing steadily at good trolling speed, helping the feeding tuna bunch
the shoal of frenzied anchovy on the surface, until he could lock Tricky
Dicky's wheel hard down starboard and leave her to describe her own
sedate circles around the shoal. Then he hurried out on to the deck.

The trapped and surrounded fish thrashed the surface until it boiled
like a porridge of molten, flashing silver; through it drove the fast
dark torpedoes of the hungry tuna.

Within minutes Nick had his four fishermen working to the steady rhythm
of throwing the lures into the frothing water, almost instantly striking
back on the line as a tuna snatched the feathers, and then swinging hand
over head, recovering and coiling line fast with minimum effort,
swinging the fish out and up with both hands and then catching its
streamlined body under the left armpit like a quarter back picking up a
long pass, clamping it there firmly, although the cold firm silver
bullet shape juddered and quivered and the tail beat in a blur of
movement. Then he taught them to slip the hook from the jaw, careful
not to damage the vulnerable gills, holding the fish firmly but gently
while the assistant pressed the barbed dart into the thick muscle at the
back of the dorsal fill. When the fish was dropped back over the side,
there were so few after-affects that it almost immediately began feeding
again on the packed masses of tiny anchovies.

Each plastic tag was numbered and imprinted with a request in five
languages to mail it back to University of Miami with details of date
and place of capture, providing a valuable trace of the movements of the
shoals in their annual circumnavigation of the globe. From their
spawning grounds somewhere in the Caribbean they worked the Gulf Stream
north and cast across the Atlantic, then south down and around the Cape
of Good Hope with an occasional foray down the length of the
Mediterranean Sea although now the dangerous pollution of that
landlocked water was changing their habits, From Good Hope east again
south of Australia to take a gigantic swing up and around the Pacific,
running the gauntlet of the Japanese long-liners and the California
tunny men before ducking down under the terrible icy seas of the Horn
and back to their spawning grounds in the Caribbean.

They sat up on the wheelhouse as the Dicky ran home in the sunset,
drinking beer and talking. Nicholas studied them casually and saw that
they possessed so many of the qualities he valued in his fellow humans;
they were intelligent and motivated, they were dedicated and free of
that particular avarice that mars so many others.

Tom Parker crumpled the empty beer can in a huge fist as easily as if it
had been a paper packet, fished two more from the pack beside him and
tossed one across to Nick.
The gesture seemed to have some special significance and Nicholas
saluted him with the can before he drank.

Samantha was snuggled down in luxurious weariness against his shoulder,
and the sunset was a magnificence of purple and hot molten crimson.
Nicholas thought idly how pleasant it would be to spend the rest of his
life doing things like this with people like these.

Tom Parker's office had shelves to the ceiling, and they were sagging
with hundreds of bottled specimens and rows of scientific papers and
publications.

He sat well back in his swivel chair with ankles crossed neatly in the
centre of the cluttered desk.

‘
I ran a check on you, Nicholas. Damned nerve, wasn't it? You have my
apology.
’

‘
Was it an interesting exercise?
’
Nicholas asked mildly.

‘
It wasn't difficult. You have left a trail behind you like a
–‘
Tom
sought for a comparison,
‘
like a grizzly bear through a honey farm.
Son of a gun, Nicholas, that's a hell of a track record you've got
yourself.
’

‘
I've kept busy
,’
Nicholas admitted.

‘
Beer?
’
Tom crossed to the refrigerator in the corner that was labelled
Zoological Specimens. DO NOT OPEN.

‘
It's too early for me.
’

'Never too
early,
’
said Tom and pulled the tag on a dewy can of Millers and then
picked up Nicholas
’
statement.
‘
Yes, you have kept busy. Strange, isn't it, that around some men things
just happen.
’

Nicholas did not reply, and Tom went on,
‘
We need a man
around here who can do. It's all right thinking it out, then you need
the catalyst to transform thought and intention into action.
’
Tom sucked
at the can and then licked the froth off his m
o
ustache.
‘
I know what you
have done, I've heard you speak, I've seen you move, and those things
count. But most important of all, I know you care.
I've been watching you carefully, Nick, and you really care, down deep
in your guts, the way we do.
’

‘
It sounds as though you're offering me a
job, Tom.
’

‘
I'm not going to horse around, Nick, I am offering you a job.
’
He waved a huge paw, like a bunch of broiled pork sausages.
‘
Hell, I know you're a busy man, but I'd like to romance you into an
associate professorship. We'd want a little of your time when it came
to hassling and negotiating up in Washington, we'd call for you when we
needed real muscle to put our case, when we need the right contacts,
somebody with a big reputation to open doors, when we need a man who
knows the practical side of the oceans and the men that use them and
abuse them.

‘
We need a man who is a hard-headed businessman, who knows the economics
of sea trade, who has built and run tankers, who knows that human need
is of paramount importance, but who can balance the human need for
protein and fossil fuels against the greater danger of turning the
oceans into watery deserts.
’
Tom lubricated his throat with beer,
watching shrewdly for some reaction from Nicholas, and when he received
no encouragement, he went on more persuasively.
‘
We are specialists,
perhaps we have the specialist's narrow view; God knows, they think of
us as sentimentali
sts, the lunatic fringe of doom
sayers, long-haired
intellectual hippies. What we need is a man with real clout in the
establishment, - shit, Nicholas, if you walked into a Congressional
committee they'd really jerk out of their geriatric trance and switch on
their hearing-aids.’
Nicholas was silent still and Tom was becoming
desperate. What can we offer in return? I know you aren't short of
cash, and it would be a lousy twelve thousand a year, but an associate
professorship is a nice title. We start out holding hands with that.
Then we might start going steady, a full professorship - chair of
applied oceanology, or some juicy title like that which we'd think up. I
don't know what else we can offer you, Nick, except perhaps the warm
good feeling in your guts when you're doing a tough job that has to be
done.
’
He stopped again, running out of words, and he wagged his big
shaggy head sadly.

‘
You aren't interested, are you?
’
he asked.

Nick stirred himself.
‘
When do I start?
’
he asked, and as Tom's face
split into a great beaming grin, Nick held out his hand.
‘
I think I'll
take that beer now.
’

The water was cool enough to be invigorating. Nick and Samantha swam so
far out that the land was almost lost in the lowering gloom of dusk, and
then they turned and swam back side by side. The beach was deserted; in
their mood, the lights of the nearest condominiums were no more
intrusive than the stars, the faint sound of music and laughter no more
intrusive than the cry of gulls.

I
t was the right time to tell her, and he did it in detail beginning
with the offer by the Sheikhs to buy out Ocean Salvage and Towage.

‘Will you sell,’
she asked quietly.
‘
You won't will you
?’

‘
For seven
million dollars clear?
he asked.
‘
Do you know how much money that is
?’

‘
I can't count that far
,’
she admitted.
‘
But what would you do if you
sold? I cannot imagine you playing bowls or golf for the rest of your
life.
’

‘
Part of the deal is that I run Ocean Salvage for them for two
years, and then I've been offered a part-time assignment which will fill
any spare time I've got left over.
’

‘
What is it?
’

'Associate Professor at
Miami University.
’
She stopped dead and dragged him around to face her.

‘
You're having me on!
’
she accused.

‘
That's a start only
,’
he admitted. ‘I
n two years or so, when I've
finished with Ocean Salvage, there may be a full chair of applied
oceanology.
’

‘
It's not true!
’
she said, and took him by the arms, shaking
him with surprising strength.

‘
Tom, wants me to ram-rod the applied aspects of the environmental
research. I'll trouble-shoot with legislators and the maritime
conference, a sort of hired gun for the Green-Peacers
.’

‘
Oh Nicholas,
Nicholas
!’

‘
Sweet Christ!
’
he accused.
‘
You're crying again.
’

‘
I can't help
it.
’
She was in his arms still wet and cold and gritty with beach sand.
She clung to him, quivering with joy.
‘
Do you know what this means,
Nicholas?

You don't, do you? You just don't realize what this means.
’

‘
Tell me
,’
he
invited.
‘
What does it mean?
’

‘
What it means is that, in future, we can
do everything together, not just munch food and go boom in bed - but
everything, work and play and, and live together like a man and woman
should!
’
She sounded stunned and frightened by the magnitude of the
vision.