Hamilton, Donald - Matt Helm 14 (23 page)

           
I lay quite still. I didn't think
she'd slip back to check on me, but there was no sense in taking chances. After
several minutes, there was a sputtering sound from the direction of the dock: a
good-sized outboard motor starting up, and moving off along the Waterway....

           
I'd been listening to the argument
for over an hour, and the admiral was getting nowhere.

           
They'd come with their minds made up
and it looked as if they were going to leave the same way. I just wish they'd
get on with it.

           
"It's all very well for you to
talk like a brave Boy Scout, Hank." The voice had a hint of a Southern
accent and belonged to a distinguished gent whose name I'd recognized when it
was mentioned, who'd emerged as spokesman for the opposition. "The lady
doesn't seem to have anything on you. Well, she has something on me. You don't
stay in politics thirty years without cutting a few corners. Somehow she knows
them all. It's different with you. Politically speaking, you're new and clean,
if you'll pardon the description."

           
"You're wrong there,
Senator." Priest's voice was crisp. "How do you think I learned what
was going on? I have exactly the same problem as everyone else."

           
"Such as?"

           
"I haven't asked you to dump
your garbage in public, have I, Senator? But very well, if it will make a
difference. . . . It involves this damned real estate development next door.
All I knew when I sold to them was that I needed campaign money and had some
land, and the company needed land and had some money. I'd just retired from the
Navy, I was busy running for office, and I didn't take time to investigate as
closely as I might have. Now it turns out that a few political palms were
greased here and there; there's even a possibility that my name was used
without my permission. If they fire that at me, come election time, I'll have a
choice between looking stupid, which I was, or crooked, which I wasn't. So
we're all in the same boat; she's got something on all of us. But if we refuse
to yield to extortion. . . ."

           
The senator said dryly, "Then
there'll just be a lot of new faces in Washington next year."

           
"But one of them won't be a
harpy named Love, damn it! Not if we all stick together and work to see that
she doesn't succeed in blackmailing her way into the highest office in the
nation."

           
"I still say you talk like a
Boy Scout, Hank. Maybe you think that's worth your political career. I don't
think it's worth mine."

           
Another voice broke in: "How
the devil does she do it, anyway? She's dug up dirt so old I'd even forgotten
it myself. She must have an intelligence system that puts the CIA to shame, not
that that's so hard to do. ..

           
It took him another half-hour to get
rid of them. I glanced at my watch, but stayed on the porch sofa where I was.
At last, the door to the kitchen opened and the admiral emerged with a glass in
each hand.

           
"I figured you could use a
drink about now, son," he said, passing one over.

           
"Thank you, sir."

           
"You heard?"

           
"Yes, sir."

           
"She must have an intelligence
system that puts the CIA to shame!" he mimicked savagely.

           
"Hell, if she hasn't got the
CIA, it's about the only intelligence, security, and investigating agency in
the country she hasn't got. At least she's got access to their files-and it
looks as if just about all of them have been spending less time and money
defending the country from danger than snooping into the private affairs of a
lot of private, and public, citizens. All the damned woman has to do is call up
her tame chief of national security, or whatever he calls himself, Leonard, and
tell him to get her something quick on Senator Snodgrass or Congressman
Cartwheel-"

           
"Or Congressman Priest," I
said.

           
He grimaced. "That's right. I
was a damned fool, a preoccupied damned fool; and all she had to do was turn
Leonard and his computers loose on me and there it was, all neatly stored in
one of his agencies' memory banks or whatever you call them! And if you want to
know something ironical, son, I voted for the damned reorganization bill that
put him into power. I thought it was time for a little efficiency.
Efficiency!" He shrugged grimly. "Of course I should have checked
with Arthur, but it seemed like an innocuous and straightforward proposal, just
a little streamlining of a lot of overlapping undercover empires wasting the
taxpayers' money by doing the same thing twice. . .

           
When he stopped, I asked, "What
does Mrs. Love want you to do?"

           
"Support her nomination at the
convention next week, naturally. After she's got that-and the way she's going,
she'll get it, all right-she'll undoubtedly think of other little political
chores for us to do, if she isn't stopped and stopped soon." He drew a
long breath, remembered something, and looked around. "
Jarrel
said you brought Marty along to listen. I don't know as that was such a good
idea, considering that there are some doubts as to the young lady's reliability."

           
"No, sir," I said.

           
"What?"

           
"There are no doubts," I
said. "Not any longer."

           
He regarded me sharply. "What
do you mean?"

           
"You can rest easy, sir. She
didn't stay long enough to hear anything interesting," I said. "I
think she wanted to, but apparently she was running short of time, so she just
stuck me with my own hypodermic, stole your little boat, and disappeared."

           
His first concern, not surprisingly,
was for his boat rather than my health. He looked quickly towards the dock.
"She took the Whaler?" Then he frowned quickly. "If she was
going to steal a boat, why didn't she take yours? It's bigger and faster."

           
I said, "You don't see it down
there, do you, sir? I didn't bring it. I didn't figure I wanted to lose it,
after hauling it clear across the country, so I came by car."

           
He started to speak angrily. Then he
checked himself and drew another long breath. "Arthur said you were
clever. And conscienceless."

           
"I had a good teacher in both
subjects, sir."

           
"You seem to be in reasonable
shape for a man who's had a hypodermic needle poked into his hide."

           
"There was plain water in the
hypo," I said. "I emptied the vial yesterday-there wasn't much
left-and put in half a cc, enough for one dose, from the tap. One clear,
colorless liquid looks pretty much like another."

           
He said rather grimly, "You had
it all figured out, did you, Helm?"

           
"Pretty, close, I hope. She's a
fairly predictable girl in some respects," I said. "She had three
problems. The first was obtaining a certain vital piece of information. Well,
we fed her that this morning, according to instructions. Your timing was very
good, sir, and she couldn't possibly have missed overhearing our little
discussion over the chart, although of course she had to go through the motions
of pretending that she still had no idea where her daddy was hiding and it was
mean and suspicious of me not to tell her. Her second problem was how to slip
away from me so she could convey this information to her new friends."

           
"You're certain she's in touch
with Leonard?"

           
"Yes, sir," I said.
"She called a certain number in Washington a few days ago. Obviously, she
made some kind of deal with
Herbie
, and obviously he
told her to stick with me and play it cagey until she'd learned exactly where
the hideout was located down here. Having got the information this morning, she
then had to keep me happy and unsuspicious until she could put me out of action
long enough to give herself a good running start. I was sticking too close for
her just to walk out the door; I'd have been on the trail too soon."

           
"How did you know she'd use the
drug on you, instead of something more drastic and permanent?"

           
I shrugged. "I've just been
through a crash course in Martha Borden, sir. I ought to be able to guess her
reactions by this time. She could have tried to steal my gun or borrow one from
Leonard, of course, but she doesn't believe in shooting people, and guns are
pretty noisy, anyway. She could have got the
billy
I've been using in the boat to keep big fish from flopping all over the
cockpit, but knocking a man on the head would be, I figured, another act of
violence against her principles. She'd seen me use the drug kit twice. She'd
seen me put it away in a secret compartment in my suitcase. There really wasn't
much doubt about what weapon she'd pick if 1 made it easy for her. Her final
problem was transportation. I gave her a choice between my car and your boat.
She picked the boat. That means her rendezvous with Leonard is close to the
water or on it; perhaps another boat. Unless she sinks the Whaler-"

           
"She'd have to fill it with
rocks. They're practically unsinkable."

           
"Then by this time-she's been
gone a couple of hours already-it's probably drifting or anchored or pulled up
on shore somewhere not too far away. You shouldn't have too much trouble
finding it."

           
"And Marty? Does your crystal
ball tell you where she is, Helm?"

           
He wasn't liking me much; he wasn't
calling me "son" any more. I said, "I'd guess she's with Leonard
and his undercover army-well, navy-on the way to Cutlass Key, sir."

           
"Not in the dark. She knows
these waters pretty well, but not well enough to run them at night."

           
"If you're sure of that, sir,
we've got more time than I figured. I was worried that they were getting too
much of a start on us."

           
"Well, she's been in there, but
not recently, and it's not an easy area to navigate from memory. In daylight,
she should be able to make it if she takes her time and kind of feels her way,
but at night she'll run them aground for sure, or get them good and lost in
that labyrinth of islands. I think she's smart enough to know it." Priest
hesitated. "Do you really believe she'll take them there, son?"

           
I was back in favor again.
"Yes, sir," I said.

           
"I can't believe she'd betray
her own father!"

           
I said, "You don't understand
idealism as practiced currently, sir. Personal loyalties and relationships
simply don't count, when you're saving humanity as a whole from evil men like
Mac and me and from the callous and ruthless philosophy of violence we represent."

           
"What about Leonard's callous
and ruthless philosophy?"

           
"That's the big flaw in their
idealistic reasoning," I said grimly. "They invariably seem to figure
that if one side is bad, the other must be good. Well, we'll have to see if we
can't demonstrate to Miss Borden that we're all equally dreadful in this
horrible world." I drew a long breath. "Where's
Jarrel
White, and what kind of equipment have you got for me?"

           
Priest said, "There's a rifle,
some cartridges, and an aerosol can of insect repellant. I can lend you a
flashlight if you need it."

           
"There's one on the boat. Is
the rifle more or less sighted in, I hope? Never mind, it's bound to be. Mac
would know I wouldn't be able to do any last-minute target shooting around
here." I grimaced. "There's nothing I love like taking off on a job
in the dark, with a strange guide, and an unfamiliar weapon that's been
adjusted by somebody else!"

           
"I can tell you one thing, son;
no matter how much shooting you do with the gun, you'll do more with the spray
can. At night, the bugs will eat you alive. I'll get Jarrell and the
gear."

           
For a mild-looking, middle-aged
gent,
Jarrel
White had some fairly violent and
youthful
speedboating
ideas. He took us out through
the pass as if our little boat were an unlimited hydroplane racing for the Gold
Cup on Lake
Havasu
, if I have the hardware and
location right, which I probably don't.

           
I couldn't see all the tide-rips in
the dark, but I could feel every one of them through the cushioned bench on which
I sat, just forward of the steering console. When we reached open water, the
black man rammed the throttle all the way forward. Fortunately, it was a calm
night.

           
Even so, I had the impression that
we only hit the water every fifty yards or so, and that when we did, it was
hard as rock. The running lights went out.

           
"Shouldn't be nobody to see us
without legal lights out here except the folks we're after, this time of
night,"
Jarrel
yelled over the roar of the
motor, when I looked around questioningly.

           
"You still figure they're way
ahead of us?"

           
"They had a couple of hours'
start," I shouted back, "but Captain Priest doesn't seem to think
they'll head into the mangroves until they've got daylight to navigate
by."

           
"We'll go well offshore so they
don't hear us passing; then we'll swing down south and come in by the back
door, so to speak." He patted the steering wheel approvingly. "Don't
hold much with boats looking like guided missiles, but she handles nice. Wish
she wasn't quite so deep, though. Tide's ebbing; we'll maybe have to lift the
motor and pole through a couple shallow spots. Well, we'll see,
cap'n
; we'll see."

           
The title was, I knew, not a
military rank. It was merely a mark of respect, indicating that I was a friend
of Hank Priest, who'd given me a good buildup. There was no more conversation
for a long time; just the high scream of the motor and the harsh hammering of
water against the fiberglass hull. I could make out nothing but ocean-well,
Gulf of Mexico-around us. Either the coast to port had dropped below the dark
horizon, or it was uninhabited, or the inhabitants were sound asleep with all
lights out. At last I picked up a flash off the bow. I looked up once more at
Jarrel
, standing at the helm behind me.

           
"
Tortuga
Light,
cap'n
," he said. "Off
Tortuga
Pass. We'd head in there if we wanted to get where
we're going the quickest way. They're probably lying in there right now,
waiting for light. We'll try Redfish Pass fifteen miles south. No light there,
and it's not anything you'd want to tackle in bad weather, but a nice night
like this we'll make it fine.
Tortuga
, that's turtle,
cap'n
.
Redfish, that's what you maybe call drum or channel bass. . . ."

           
Gradually, the flashing light drew
abeam and fell astern. We ran on through the night. At last we swung east
towards the coast, but it seemed a very long time until we picked it up.
Jarrel
had pulled the throttle back to half-speed before I
saw the loom of two islands ahead, low dark shadows off either bow, with what
looked like an unbroken light sandbar between them.

           
Jarrel
throttled back still more, so that the boat ceased
planing
over the water and, settling heavily, started plowing through it instead.
Suddenly I was aware of something to starboard that wasn't water: a glistening
mud bank barely uncovered by the dropping tide. The boat began to shimmy and
sideslip in erratic eddies and whirlpools of current. There seemed to be all
kinds of channels ahead in the darkness, a wilderness of mud and water, with
patches of white here and there where the
outrushing
tidal waters broke in the shallows.
Jarrel
was
dodging obstructions I couldn't see. He spoke quite calmly.

           
"Always remember the tide,
cap'n
, when you're in among the islands. Man can always
find his way out if he remembers the tide. Hold on tight, now."

           
I saw the opening in the seemingly
solid bar, but it didn't look like anything you'd want to take a boat through:
a wide, angling gap of seething water moving inexorably out to sea. I felt the
beat of the engine pick up as
Jarrel
opened the
throttle once more. We hung in the entrance while he studied the situation
ahead; then the rumbling vibration increased as more horsepower came into play,
and we started to gain, the boat rising and
planing
once more, skittering over the disturbed surface, bounced and buffeted by the
crazy currents. A cresting wave dropped into my lap from nowhere. The sand slid
by, sometimes close enough that I could have jumped ashore. At last we broke
free of the tide race and gained speed in the still, black water inside the
bar.

           
"Used to take sailing boats
through there when I was a boy,"
Jarrel
said.
"Course we had to wait for the right tide and a good westerly wind. You
better use that Flit gun on your face and hands,
cap'n
.
Like to be a few mosquitoes inshore here."

           
I sprayed myself and offered the
aerosol can to him, but he shook his head. Apparently he was
biteproof
like many old-timers. I put the can away, got out
my handkerchief, and dried the rifle lying across my knees. I didn't even try
to memorize our route. In the dark, with one island looking exactly like the
next, black and formless, it was hopeless.

           
There were wide, gleaming estuaries
that we traversed at high speed, and slim dark passages through which we
crawled with the mangroves brushing the boat and the insects attacking in
force. Once I was told to stand by with the boathook, ready to pole vigorously,
while
Jarrel
tilted up the motor until the propeller
was barely submerged and worked us over some shallow flats, disturbing a number
of birds roosting on a nearby islet. Several times there were heavy splashes
close to the bank as we approached; perhaps fish, perhaps alligators. I didn't
ask. I didn't really want to know.

           
We came around a long bend, buzzed
across some open water-a kind of tidal lake-and
Jarrel
cut the power and laid us alongside an ancient, rickety dock thrusting out from
the swampy point at the end of an island that looked just like all the rest. An
uneven, narrow, sagging wooden catwalk on posts led ashore over the reeds and
mud.

           
"Cutlass Key,
cap'n
,"
Jarrel
said, over
the sound of the softly idling motor. "There's a deserted cabin off to the
left a hit, in among the trees; nobody's used it for years. Water's low right
now, but there's six feet off the end of the pier. Time they arrive, in
daylight,
tide'll
be starting to turn. At high water,
that
mud'll
be covered clear to the shore, but likely
they won't be that late."

           
"We hope," I said,
slapping a mosquito, "or the bugs will have sucked me dry."

           
Grasping the rifle, I started to
rise, but
Jarrel
shook his head. "Not here,
cap'n
. You don't want to go leaving sign where they can see
it. There's a place around the bend of the island, to the right there, where I
can put her pretty close to the bank. I'll set you ashore there, and pick you
up when you're through."

           
I liked the casual way he said it.
It was going to be the usual, beautifully planned mission, I could see, with
everything figured out to the last detail-up to the point where, having
finished his job, the agent tries to get clear after kicking over the hornet's
nest.

           
"Where'll you be?" I
asked.

           
"There's a good hiding place
for the boat alongside a little island down that way a quarter-mile," he
said. "You can see it from where I'll leave you, and I can see you; but
they can't see it from here. That's the point. Time they hear me coming, I'll
have you back on board and be heading out again at forty-five knots."

           
"With bullets whistling around
your ears and mine," I said sourly. "Or between them."

           
"Been shot at before,
cap'n
,"
Jarrel
said.
"Figure you have, too."

           
I said, "That doesn't mean I
like it." I grimaced, studying the dark mass of the island.

           
"Where will I wait?"

           
"Look up in the trees to the
right. You'll see a kind of lump, that's an old osprey's nest. Birds haven't
come back last two, three years, but the nest is still there. You'll be right
under it, almost. It's a hundred and fifteen yards from your blind to the end
of the dock here. Figure you'll want to let them come a little way towards you
along the boardwalk, just to be sure, but that's your business."

           
"Yes," I said.
"That's my business."