Angel's Ransom (5 page)

Blake hesitated only briefly in the face of the pointed gun, then followed Marian into the pilot-house. His perplexity
was increased, rather than otherwise, by the expression of
shocked incredulity on her face at the sight of the pistol. Her
surprise could not have been assumed. She stared, wide-eyed, speechless.

Holtz stood in the doorway, keeping his distance. Blake said, ‘What is this? What are you after?’

‘You’ll learn. Be quiet.’

Holtz, without moving his eyes or shifting the unwavering muzzle of the Walther from its steady aim at Blake
’s
middle,
seemed to be listening intently for something. He stood half
inside, half outside the pilot-house, one foot over the storm-sill of the doorway, his head cocked back, his mouth clamped
in a grimace of tense attention. Blake could hear nothing
except the steady putter of the auxiliaries he had started, see
nothing from where he stood except the expanse of the
harbor
, the cruiser
’s
foredeck, a part of the foredeck of the
sail-boat moored alongside, and the
Angel
’s
twin anchor
chains plunging rigidly out and down from her bow. He
knew that the yacht
’s
stern lines had been cast off when the
anchor chains suddenly drooped, losing their strain, and the
bow of the sailboat alongside drifted slowly backward from
his line of sight.

He said again, more demandingly, ‘What is this?’

‘Be quiet!’ The gun muzzle lifted to emphasize the order.

Marian
’s
paralysis of will broke at the slight movement. She sounded inane even to herself when she said, ‘I -
I
don’t
understand.’

‘Of course you don’t understand!’ Holtz did not shift his eyes. His complete concentration of attention on Blake while
he spoke to her emphasized the contempt in his words. ‘You
were never intended to understand, only to serve a purpose.
You have done it admirably.’

‘But - but what are we doing here?’

‘I am here to kidnap Freddy Farr and persuade him that he has more money than he needs. You are here because you
were necessary to my plans, and you are not ingenuous
enough to be safely left behind to talk. Now be quiet!’

He had still not looked at her.

His intense concentration of attention on Blake at the same time as he listened for
whatever
sound or signal he was
expecting
f
rom outside the pilot-house kept him from the
realization that Marian was about to scream until she took a
shuddering deep breath. He moved with amazing speed
then, reaching to shut the door that would muffle both
scream and shot as he swung the pistol toward her. Death,
ugly and unmistakable, was in his eyes. But his move to close
the door before he pulled the trigger had given Blake the
chance, risking a bullet, to clap his hand over Marian
’s
mouth and pinion her arms, locking her body against his
own with her head pulled back against his shoulder, muzzled
and helpless before the threat of the pistol that Holtz held
leveled at her breast, his face still twisted with the barely
checked impulse to kill.

‘Look at it!’ Blake said harshly. ‘Take a good look! If he squeezes his finger, you’re done! Do what he says!’

He held her that way for a moment, feeling the moisture of her lips against his palm, making her face the leveled
pistol, letting the truth that was in Holtz
’s
face penetrate
before he released her. He could feel sweat prickling his skin
at the narrowness of the escape.

Holtz said thinly, ‘If your employer is as sensible as you are, Captain, we will all avoid a great deal of difficulty.’ He
reached behind him to open the door, his eyes again intent on
Blake. To Marian, he said, ‘You are even more stupid than
I believed you to be. Do not challenge me carelessly again.’
The tension that gripped the lit
tle
gunman did not make
the big Walther waver in his hand, nor interfere with his
alert attentiveness for the sound he was waiting for. It came
at last when they heard the grind and grumble of the diesels
starting up in the engine-room. First one motor, then the
other, turned over, caught, fired and settled down to its
steady mutter.

Blake felt the familiar pulse of power in the cruiser
’s
hull with an unfamiliar sinking of the heart. That moment, when
the motors were started and the
Angel
took on life of its own,
was the moment its captain assumed command and the
responsibilities of command. Ashore, Freddy Farr and his
guests were no concern of Blake
’s
. Afloat, they were in his
charge, the guarantee of their safety his duty. The
Angel
’s
passengers were his to defend against a man who had
already shown his willingness to kill at the smallest evidence
of opposition.

Holtz shifted his position in the doorway to bring the wheel more directly under the threat of his weapon.

‘Take the controls, Captain,’ he said. ‘We are about to put to sea, according to schedule.’

‘I can’t put to sea without a crew,’ Blake said. ‘It
’s
out of the question. Shooting me won’t weigh anchor.’

‘You have a crew.’ Holtz nodded at the foredeck, still without moving his watchful eyes.

Blake thought,
So Cesar was right after all
.
Jules, the big Provenç
al of the
permis
, was at the bow winch
maneuvering
the
Angel
away from the jetty on her anchor chains. It was
skillfully
done, better than the
Angel
’
s
own deck-hands could
have managed it, with the port anchor weighed first and the
cruiser brought about on her starboard mooring until she
lay with both anchors weighed and her bow pointed toward
the
harbor
entrance. Jules dogged the chains efficiently,
shut off the winch, and came swinging up the pilot-house
ladder to the bridge wing.

‘All secure,’ he said to Holtz. ‘We’d better get under way. Those boobs need only about five minutes more to find out
they’ve been taken in.’

‘Where
’s
Roche?’

‘
S
tanding by for trouble below. They’re all sleeping like babies, so far.’

Jules squeezed by Holtz in the doorway. Without coming into the line of fire he pulled the plug of the radiophone
handset and stuffed handset, connecting wire and plug into
his pocket.

‘I’ll clean up the rest here when we’re out of the
harbor
,’ he said tensely. ‘Let
’s
go. I’m nervous.’

‘We are all nervous.’ Holt gestured with the Walther. ‘But careful. Take the wheel, Captain.’

Blake was given little time to make a decision whether to comply or not to comply. As he hesitated, Jules emphasized
Holtz
’s
order with a shove. The big sailor was a powerful
man, and the unexpected push slammed Blake against the
wheel with enough force to hurt. Without animosity, Jules
said, ‘Look sharp when you’re given an order, Captain, and
you won’t get hurt. Now let
’s
see how you work those
controls. No tricks. I know a few myself.’

Blake accepted the inescapable. He put both motors at slow ahead and swung the cruiser
’s
bow toward the spire of
Sainte-
Devot
é
, at the farthest reach of the
harbor
. The
Angel
moved out into open water.

The passage between the twin jetties that formed the
harbor
breakwater was a good hundred
meter
s wide, but
the tumbled conc
rete blocks that formed the jetties’ founda
tions made navigation within
10
or 15
meter
s of the end of
either jetty hazardous for any craft larger than a rowboat. It
was purely automatic with Blake to take the
Angel
well wide
before coming about for the approach to the sea. He was not
consciously thinking of submarine menaces to navigation.

The trap in which he found himself was a tight one. Jules carried a pistol pushed into the waistband of his dungarees,
but even without it, and Holtz
’s
weapon to back him up, he
would be formidable to handle. He stood now at Blake
’s
shoulder, watching the operation of the controls with close
interest. Holtz had come into the pilot-house to stand guard
somewhere back of Jules, out of Blake
’s
line of sight, and
Marian had retreated into a corner from which she watched
him with an intent, steady air of expectation that was as
pressing as a demand.

He thought bitterly,
Don’t look to me for heroics, girl. I didn’t get us into this
, but he could not bring himself to focus
his anger against her. The surge of slow rage inside him was
for Holtz; sneering, arrogant, contemptuous little Holtz,
with his well-planned trap and the big gun that made him
master. Blake
’s
bitterness and frustration came to a boil
when he brought the cruiser
’s
bow around to put it at the
passage between the jetties, and saw in that moment the
Angel
’s
way of escape.

He opened both motors up to cruising speed, not hurrying, not thinking beyond the immediate movements of his hands, knowing that his nerve would fail if he thought
ahead. They were running fair at the
harbor
mouth, well
clear of its hidden teeth, heading for the open sea that
sparkled beyond
the breakwater. Marian still watched him
from her corner, as intently expectant as before, waiting for
the effort he supposed she had known he would have to
make even before he knew it himself. He cried silently at
her,
It
’s
all
I c
an do!
and spun the wheel to starboard, putting
the yacht squarely at the end of the south jetty and the man-made reef that would rip her bottom out.

Jules
’s
reactions were swift, for a big man. But he clubbed at Blake
’s
head with one fist while he fought to back the
wheel with his other hand, instead of putting his full strength
and weight on the wheel
, and Blake accepted the punish
ment to hold to the spokes, grimly keeping his head down
to take Jules
’s
blows, painful but ineffectual, on his skull,
willing the
Angel
to its destruction while he waited for the
crash of Holtz
’s
pistol and the tearing shock of a bullet,
knowing even in his fear of death the triumphant thought,
You’re beaten, little man! You’re beaten!
until a shattering blow
over the kidneys loosened his muscles and sent him sagging
to his knees, clawing ineffectually at the wheel that spun
away from him. Another calculated, agonizing blow, and a
third, sprawled him on the deck, only dimly conscious of
Holtz standing over him with the Walther clubbed to strike
again but hearing with acute clarity Marian
’s
voice say,
with loathing, ‘You revolting little beast!’ and the sharp
crack of another blow that was not aimed at him. Then the
Angel
was heeling, sharply, more sharply still as the drum of
the motors changed. There was a moment of taut uncertainty, then Jules
’s
deep, relieved growl, ‘We made it.
We’re clear.’

The
Angel
’s
motion changed as she accepted the rolling movement of the open sea. The first rocking plunge of her
bow took Blake down with it, into oblivion.