Hamilton, Donald - Matt Helm 14 (25 page)

           
I guess I'd known it was coming, as
Mac must have known it was coming when he gave me a gun capable of shooting
through a bull moose lengthwise. The heavy,
souped
-up
rifle was as good as a written order. It said clearly: You will carry out your
mission disregarding anything, or anybody, that may stand in your way.

           
Well, it wasn't the first time I'd
had this decision to make, and had made it: and this time it wasn't even very
hard. I mean, the girl really meant very little to me. I find it very easy to
control my passion for cocky, treacherous young ladies who make it clear that
they consider me a lecherous idiot, ready to park my brains behind the door at
the sight of any willing female body.

           
It was like watching a bad movie the
second or third time, with the same old beautiful-female-hostage scene coming
up. They always try it, figuring, I guess, that what works on the screen ought
to work in real life. I eased the rifle forward cautiously so I'd be ready to
take a clear shot if Leonard gave me the chance, but he was careful not to. He
was bright enough to know that he'd been decoyed here for some purpose, and he
wasn't about to expose himself until he learned what it was. That's what he'd
saved the girl for, instead of having her shot at once when he learned that her
information had led him to an empty cabin.

           
Sitting in the boat, he'd given me
no target, and he offered none as he came ashore, carefully sheltering himself
behind the boat's windshield pillars and a dock piling. Then he had the girl in
front of him. The whole procession was moving
shorewards
along the catwalk. I drew a long breath. With a rifle I'd sighted in myself,
and with a steady rest, I'd have tried to slip one past the girl's head into
the head of the man; but this gun could be six or eight inches off at this
range, and I couldn't call my shots that well from my rickety perch, anyway.

           
I had no choice. I rose up
deliberately and placed the black crosshairs carefully on Martha Borden's body,
a little to one side, figuring the angle that would center the bullet in the
body behind her. They came on, still unsuspecting. I placed my finger on the
trigger, and my mind gave the order to the appropriate muscles, and nothing
happened. I take no credit for humanitarianism. In my mind, the girl was dead.
So sorry. If you don't betray people, sweetheart, you don't get shot. if you
do, you do. Goodbye, Martha Borden....

           
But she was still coming, and so was
the man behind her, and my sentimental fingertip simply wouldn't move the
necessary fraction of an inch. Then there was a sudden flurry of movement down
there. The girl threw herself back against Leonard, knocking him off balance,
and jumped. She landed in six inches of mud, almost fell but caught herself,
and started floundering diagonally towards shore. Leonard, recovering, spoke
sharply to the ex-bullhorn-artist, who raised his current instrument, the
machine pistol. It was a setup shot. With an automatic weapon like that, he
couldn't possibly miss the girl struggling shore-wards only twenty yards
away-but Leonard was standing unprotected at last, wide open, as fine a target
as any marksman could wish for.

           
My finger finally decided to obey
the urgent orders from my brain. The big rifle roared, and recoiled violently
against my shoulder. The man with the squirt gun, as I like to call them, dropped
his weapon unfired into the low-tide mud below the dock and followed it limply,
dead before he hit.

           
As an exhibition of unprofessional
idiocy, it would be hard to beat. It was exactly the kind of mushy behavior
that makes me cringe and snap off the TV set when I see it on the screen: a
supposedly trained and dedicated man with a job to do upon which the fate of
millions supposedly depends, turning aside from his clear duty to perform
heroic rescues of totally irrelevant young ladies.

           
By the time I'd recovered from the
outsized kick of the rifle, worked the bolt, and swung the crosshairs to where
I'd last seen Herbert Leonard, he was not, of course, there any longer. The man
was catching on. His behavior this morning, unlike that of some people, had
been thoroughly professional. The fact that somebody might have thought him
afraid, hiding behind a woman, hadn't bothered him in the least. Now, at the
sound of the shot, he'd jettisoned his dignity without an instant's hesitation,
throwing himself into the muck on the far side of the dock and flopping out of
sight behind one of the pilings.

           
The youth with the pipe and the
yachting cap had taken refuge in the bottom of the boat. I had a great big
rifle and nothing to shoot at; then a man rose out of the brush with another
squirt gun-Leonard seemed to pass them around like visiting cards-and took aim
at the girl as she gained the swampy shore. I dropped him neatly: another good
shot wasted on a totally unimportant mark.

           
The flimsy blind was kind of
disintegrating from the jolting of the Magnum rifle, getting shakier by the
minute. It was time to go, anyway, before the college commandos got zeroed in
on my position. I wedged the gun into the fork of a tree limb, dropped to the
ground, and reached back up for it-climbing around in trees with loaded guns
isn't considered proper firearms etiquette. I'd barely got it loose when at
least three automatic weapons started drilling holes in the blind and the
deserted osprey's nest above it, showering me with twigs and leaves and
splinters.

           
I moved off a little ways, and
crouched to listen, taking the opportunity to replace the two cartridges I'd
fired. Listening wasn't much good. Every man on the island was now, it seemed,
busily hosing down my recent hiding place with full-automatic fire. It sounded
like 9mm stuff.

           
The .45's used in the old Thompson
choppers had had a heavier and more authoritative way of hammering at the ears.
Nevertheless, the noise was impressive, and didn't give me much chance to
listen for rustling leaves or stealthy footsteps.

           
I moved cautiously towards the
landing place, stalling, hoping the girl would hold a reasonably straight line
through the thick cover: she'd been aimed in roughly the right direction when
she came ashore. I caught a flash of blue among the trees, and there she was. I
stepped out into a small opening. She saw me, veered towards me, and stumbled
up to me, muddy and breathless.

           
"Matt, I-"

           
"Down to the shore and straight
out into the water," I said, pointing. "Take the first streetcar that
comes along. You'll recognize the conductor."

           
"Matt-"

           
"Sweetie, you're a sneaky,
slimy little bitch-Judas, and we'll discuss it later, if we live that long. Get
going!"

           
It took them a while to reach me, as
I followed her deliberately, covering our back trail.

           
They'd heard two shots fired and
seen two men fall. It was making them cautious. They were probably brave enough
to charge headlong into haphazard machine-gun fire; but this kind of selective,
precision marksmanship-one bullet per body-has a way of slowing down a lot of
would-be heroes. I was counting on that.

           
One more should make the point
perfectly clear, I figured, giving us time to get away. I couldn't afford to
miss, however. That would spoil the psychological effect. I passed up a
fleeting target on the left, therefore, and waited until a gent in the center
gave me a sure shot, in a little sunlit space he'd undoubtedly have detoured if
he hadn't felt obliged to show his fellow-agents and his chief what a truly
courageous fellow he was. He gave a very satisfactory scream as he went down.
That should hold them for a little. I turned and ran.

           
Down at the water, when I got there,
everything was developing well. The boat, with
Jarrel
at the helm, was racing in on schedule, making a fine dramatic picture and
producing a spectacular wake. The girl was wading out towards it. I sloshed
after her, gaining by virtue of my longer legs.
Jarrel
held his speed until I thought he'd run us down, but when he chopped the
throttle, the boat dropped off plane and squished to a stop right beside us.
Jarrel
checked the last of its forward motion with a touch
of reverse, and jumped to the side to help Martha aboard. I was reaching for
the gunwale when the black man, glancing
shorewards
,
said quietly, "Better give that feller some discouragement,
cap'n
."

           
I pivoted, lifting the rifle, and
fired as the crosshairs ,found a man on the shore, taking aim with a chopper.
He went down, but at the same instant another submachine-gun opened up to the
right among the mangroves. I slammed in a fresh 'cartridge and swung that way.
The scope showed a face among the leaves, and a stuttering weapon. The nasty
little jacketed pistol bullets seemed to be whistling and cracking and glancing
off the water all around us; then my big rifle went off again, with its usual
end-of-the-world bellow and kick. The face disappeared and the squirt gun fell
silent. I turned, reached over the rail to lay the gun carefully in the
cockpit-you don't toss around weapons that you may need again shortly-and kind
of hauled and rolled myself aboard.

           
"Take her away!" I panted,
but the boat didn't move.

           
There was no time to investigate. I
just snatched up the rifle and threw it to my shoulder as I rose, aiming
blindly at the shore. I had them well-trained by now. Three of them, all about
to open up on the drifting boat, dropped flat, each one thinking the muzzle of
the big Magnum was looking right down his throat.

           
"Matt," the girl wailed,
"Matt, it's
Jarrel
-"

           
"Get us out of here!" I
snapped without looking aside.

           
"But his face. . . he's
bleeding. . .

           
"Jesus Christ!" I
exploded. "We'll all be bleeding in about three seconds if you don't hit
that goddamn throttle, now!"

           
I heard her scramble behind the wheel.
I had the cross-hairs on a man who was beginning to show himself at the bow of
the beached rowboat used by the attacking force, when the big motor opened up
and our boat shot forward, throwing me off balance. I managed to get my finger
off the trigger and set the safety, even while I was being shoved inexorably
towards the stern by the thrust of all those horsepower. Something stopped my
slide: a man's body.

           
"Zigzag!" I yelled over
the screaming motor, as I crouched beside
Jarrel
White. There was a lot of gunfire astern. "Hard right rudder. Now left.
Keep it up, but for God's sake don't run us aground. Here come the boys in the
black hats, galloping in wild pursuit." The yellow runabout had just come
into view around the island, throwing a wake like a junior-grade destroyer.
"How fast is that bucket?" I asked.

           
Martha threw a glance over her
shoulder. "It's fast," she shouted. "It's good for thirty-five,
I think, maybe even forty."

           
"We can beat that, I
hope," I said. "Hold it straight now; we're out of range. Open her up
all the way, but watch it. You've got more power than you think. Let me get
this tub trimmed right now. . .

           
With the weight of two men
concentrated to port, the little boat was racing along awkwardly with a strong
list in that direction. I dragged
Jarrel
into the
center of the cockpit forward of the steering console and everything leveled
off nicely. I looked astern. The yellow boat wasn't gaining, but it wasn't
falling back much, either.

           
"Have you got her wide
open?" I yelled at Martha, who nodded. "Then that's a faster boat
back there than you thought, damn it. We should be doing well over forty-five,
unless

           
I looked down at
Jarrel
White. He was quite dead, and had been from the instant the bullet had struck
him just below the right eye. His dead eyes, open, looked up at me calmly. I
take my sports out and bring them back, he'd said-and he'd have done it, too,
if he'd lived. A good man.

           
He would understand that I meant no
disrespect by what I was about to do. I picked him up and dropped him over the
side.

           
I was thrown off-balance once more
as the boat slowed abruptly. The girl was staring at me, making some loud,
outraged sounds. It was hard to believe she was Mac's daughter. Maybe her
mother had slipped out one evening to daily with the executive director of the
local SPCA- but of course there were those eyebrows. Well, a dog-breeder had
once told me there were weak strains in all bloodlines that should be culled as
they crop out. I'd had a good opportunity to cull this one, but I'd passed it
up for sentimental reasons that were looking less and less valid.

           
The yellow boat was coming up fast.
The pipe-sucking youth was at the wheel, his yachting cap shoved back from his
forehead. Leonard had the other forward seat. There was mud in his disheveled
white hair. He was holding something in front of his face. I didn't have time
to determine what it was or what it signified. There were two men aft with the
usual portable automatic firepower. They were getting ready to bring it into
action as the range closed.

           
I grabbed Martha's bare arm, yanked
the girl out from behind the controls, and slung her forward. I hit the
throttle lever a reckless swipe, and grabbed the wheel one-handed, barely in
time to keep from being left behind as the boat took off again like a dragster
burning rubber at the start of the quarter-mile strip. 1 spent a moment or two
pulling myself into place behind the console, fighting the impressive forces of
acceleration; then 1 risked a glance over my shoulder.

           
Leonard's rear-seat passengers had
lowered their weapons; the range wasn't closing any more. As I watched,
briefly, I saw the yellow boat begin to fall back.
Jarrel's
weight had made the difference. According to a boat book I'd read, boning up on
my borrowed vessel, the speed of a
planing
hull
depends mostly on just two factors: the horsepower and the load. A
hundred-and-fifty-odd pounds lighter, my little craft was now a knot or two
faster, enough to give us the necessary edge.

           
I looked ahead. We were rushing down
a fairly wide, mangrove-lined channel, two waterborne projectiles churning up
the calm brown surface, but ahead the fairway broke into three passages. I had
no idea which one to take. Then a large white cottage came racing into sight
around a slow bend in the middle passage, far ahead. At least that was what it
looked like-a white summer cottage perched on top of a blunt blue scow-but it
was coming towards us doing at least thirty miles per hour. I realized that
what Leonard had been holding had been a microphone. He'd got in touch with his
communications ship, the houseboat the admiral had told me about. It was moving
in to cut us off, following radio instructions, showing a nice turn of speed
for such a clumsy-looking craft. The questions were: which of us would reach
the crossroads first; and if I beat them to it, which way should I turn when I
got there?

           
The girl was huddled in the cockpit
forward. I didn't even bother to ask her. With her crazy reactions, she'd be
just as likely to give me the wrong answer as the right one. As I stared ahead,
searching for a clue, I saw something glistening white, a dead fish perhaps,
drifting slowly out of the left-hand passage towards us. I remembered
Jarrel's
words: Remember the tide,
cap'n
.
Man can always find his way out if he remembers the tide.

           
The tide, that had been ebbing last
night, would be flooding now, moving in from the sea.

           
All I had to do was run against it
when in doubt, and with a little luck I'd be in open water eventually. I could
see that I was going to beat the houseboat to the turn by a good margin, and
the yellow runabout was by now a couple of hundred yards astern. I had it made.
Pretty soon I'd have lead enough, and time enough, to start firing off white
flares, bringing the Boston Whaler in to meet me with a crew of armed men.