Thunder Point (26 page)

The Brigadier had the AK out of the holdall, was wrestling with it when Carney came down the ladder, his hands sliding on the guard rails. “I know how those things work, you don’t, Brigadier.”

He put it on full automatic, fired a burst over the launch. Serra was wrestling with Algaro now and Noval and Pinto had hit the deck. Carney fired another careful burst that ripped up some decking in the prow. By that time Dillon had disappeared and Serra had taken over the wheel. He turned in a wide circle and took off at full speed.

Ferguson surveyed the area anxiously. “Has he gone?”

Dillon surfaced some little distance away and Carney put down the AK, went into the lower wheelhouse and took the boat toward him. Dillon came in at the stern and Carney hurried back to relieve him of his jacket and tank.

“Jesus, but that was lively,” Dillon said when he reached the deck. “What happened?”

“Algaro decided to run you down,” the Brigadier told him.

Dillon reached for a towel and saw the AK. “I thought I heard a little gunfire.” He looked up at Carney. “You?”

“Hell, they made me mad,” Carney said. “You still want to try South Drop?”

“Why not?” Ferguson looked at the dwindling launch. “I don’t think they’ll be bothering us again.”

“Not likely.” Carney pointed south. “Rain squall rolling in and that’s good because I know where I’m going and they don’t,” and he went up the ladder to the flying bridge.

The launch slowed half a mile away and Serra raised the glasses to his eyes and watched
Sea Raider
disappear into the curtain of rain and mist. He checked the screen. “They’re moving south.”

“Where are they going? Any ideas?” Algaro asked.

Serra took the dive-site handbook from a shelf, opened it and checked the map. “That was French Cap. The only one marked here further out is called South Drop.” He riffled through the pages. “Here we are. There’s a ridge at about seventy feet, around a hundred and sixty or seventy on one side, then it just drops on the other, all the way to the bottom. Maybe two thousand.”

“Could that be it?”

“I doubt it. The very fact that it’s in the handbook means it’s dived reasonably frequently.”

Noval said, “The way it works is simple. Dive masters only bring clients this far out in good weather. Any other kind and the trip is too long and rough, people get sick.” He shrugged. “So a place like South Drop wouldn’t get dived as often, but Captain Serra is right. The fact that it’s in the handbook at all makes it very unlikely the U-boat is there. Somebody would have spotted it years ago.”

“And that’s a professional’s opinion,” Serra said. “I think Señor Santiago is right. Carney doesn’t know anything. He’s just taking them to one or two far-out places for want of something better to do. Señor Santiago thinks the girl is our only chance, so it’s a question of waiting for her return.”

“I’d still like to teach those swine a lesson,” Algaro told him.

“And get shot at again.”

“That was an AK Carney was firing, I recognized the sound. He could have knocked us all off.” Algaro shrugged. “He didn’t and he won’t now.”

Pinto was reading the section on South Drop in the site guide. “It sounds a good dive,” he said to Noval, “except for one thing. It says here that black tip reef sharks have been noted.”

“Are they dangerous?” Algaro demanded.

“Depends on the situation. If they get stirred up the wrong way, they can be a real threat.”

Algaro’s smile was unholy. “Have we still got any of that filthy stuff left you had in the bucket when you were fishing from the launch yesterday?” he asked Noval.

“You mean the bait we were using?” Noval turned to Pinto. “Is there any left?”

Pinto moved to the stern, found a large plastic bucket and took the lid off. The smell was appalling. There were all kinds of cut-up fish in there, mingled with intestines, rotting meat and oil.

“I bet the sharks would like that,” Algaro said. “That would bring them in from miles around.”

Noval looked horrified. “It would drive them crazy.”

“Good, then this is what we do.” Algaro turned to Serra. “Once they’ve stopped, we close in through the rain nice and quietly. We’re bound to home in on them with that electronic gadget, am I right?”

Serra looked troubled. “Yes, but . . .”

“I don’t want to hear any buts. We wait, give them time to go down, then we go in very fast, dump this shit over the side and get the hell out of it.” There was a smile of pure joy on his face. “With any kind of luck Dillon could lose a leg.”

The
Sea Raider
was at anchor, lifting in a heavy, rolling swell. Ferguson sat in the deckhouse watching as the other two got ready. Carney opened the deck locker and took out a long tube with a handle at one end.

“Is that what they call an underwater spear gun?” Ferguson asked.

“No, it’s a power gun.” Carney opened a box of ammunition. “What we call a power-head. Some people use a shotgun cartridge. Me, I prefer a .45ACP. Slide it on the rear chamber here, close her up nice and tight. There’s a firing pin in the base. When I jab it against the target, the cartridge is fired, the bullet goes through but the gases blast a hole the size of your hand.”

“And good night, Vienna.” Dillon pulled on his jacket and tank. “You’re going fishing this time?”

“Not exactly. When I was out here last there were reef sharks about and one of them got kind of heavy. I’m just being careful.”

Dillon went in first, falling back off the diving platform, swam to the line and went down very quickly. He turned at the anchor and saw Carney following, the power-head in his left hand. He hovered about fifteen feet above Dillon, beckoned and started along the ridge, pausing on the edge of the drop.

The water was gin clear and Dillon could see a long way, the cliff vanishing way below. Carney beckoned again and turned to cross the reef to the shallower side. There was an eagle ray passing in slow motion in the far distance and suddenly a reef shark crossed its path and passed not too far from them. Carney turned, made a dismissive gesture and Dillon followed him to the other side.

Ferguson, aware of the rain in the wind, moved into the deckhouse, found the thermos flask that was full of hot coffee and poured himself a cup. He seemed to hear something, a muted throbbing, moved to the stern and stood there listening. There was a sudden roar as Serra pushed his engine up to full speed. The launch broke from the curtain of rain and cut across
Sea Raider’
s prow. Ferguson swore, dropped the thermos flask and started for the AK in the holdall in the deckhouse, aware of the men on the deck of the launch, the bucket emptying into the water. By the time he had the AK out they were gone, the sound of the engine rapidly disappearing into the rain.

Dillon was aware of something overhead, glanced up and saw the keel of the launch moving fast and then the bait drifting down into the water. He hovered there, watching as a barracuda went in like lightning, tearing at a piece of meat.

He was aware of a tug at his ankle, glanced down and saw Carney gesturing for him to descend. The American was flat on the bottom when Dillon reached him, and above them, there was a sudden turbulence in the water and a shark went in like a torpedo. Dillon lay on his back like Carney, looking up as another shark swerved in, jaws open. And then, to his horror, a third flashed in overhead. They seemed to be fighting amongst themselves and one of them snapped at the barracuda, taking its entire body, leaving only the head to float down.

Carney turned to Dillon, pointed across the ridge to the anchor line, motioned to keep low and led the way. Dillon followed, aware of the fierce turbulence, glanced back and saw them circling each other now and most of the bait had gone. He kept right behind Carney and so low that his stomach scraped the bottom, only starting to rise as they reached the anchor.

Something knocked him to one side with tremendous force, he bounced around as one of the sharks brushed past. It turned and started in again and Carney, above him, a hand on the line, jabbed the power-head. There was an explosion, the shark twisted away, leaving a trail of blood.

The other two sharks circled it, then one went in, jaws open. Carney tugged at Dillon’s arm and started up the line. About halfway up Dillon looked down. The third shark had joined in now, tearing at the wounded one, blood in the water like a cloud. Dillon didn’t look back after that, surfaced at the dive platform beside Carney and hauled himself on board, tank and all.

He sat on deck, laughing shakily. “Does that happen often?”

“There’s a first time for everything.” Carney took his tank off. “Nobody tried to do that to me before.” He turned to Ferguson. “Presumably that was the launch? I expect the bastard came in on low power, then went up to full speed at the last minute.”

“That’s it exactly. By the time I got to the AK they were away,” Ferguson said.

Carney dried himself and put on a tee-shirt. “I’d sure like to know how they managed to follow us though, especially in this rain and mist.”

He went and hauled in the anchor and Dillon said, “I should have told you, Brigadier, I have my ace-in-the-hole stowed under here. Maybe you could have got to it faster.”

He ran his hand under the instrument panel to find it and his fingers brushed against the bug. He detached it and held it out to Ferguson in the palm of his hand. “Well, now,” Ferguson said, “we’re into electronic wizardry, are we?”

“What in the hell have you got there?” Carney demanded as he came round from the prow.

Dillon held it out. “Stuck under the instrument panel on a magnet. We’ve been bugged, my old son, no wonder they were able to keep track of us so easily. They probably did the same thing to
Privateer
in case we used that.”

“But she stayed close inshore this morning.”

“Exactly, otherwise they might have got confused.”

Carney shook his head. “You know I’m really going to have to do something about these people,” and he went up the ladder to the flying bridge.

On the way back to St. John there was a break in the weather, another rain squall sweeping across the water. The launch was well ahead of it, pulled in beside the
Maria Blanco
, and Serra and Algaro went up the ladder and found Santiago in the stern under the awning.

“You look pleased with yourself,” he said to Algaro. “Have you been killing people again?”

“I hope so.” Algaro related the morning’s events.

When he finished, Santiago shook his head. “I doubt whether Dillon sustained any lasting damage, this Carney man knows his business too well.” He sighed. “We’re wasting our time. There’s nothing to be done until the girl returns. We’ll run over to Samson Cay, I’m tired of this place. How long will it take, Serra?”

“Two hours, Señor, maybe less. There’s a squall out there off Pillsbury Sound, but it’s only temporary.”

“Good, we’ll leave at once. Let Prieto know we’re coming.” Serra turned away and Santiago said, “Oh, and by the way, phone up one of your fishermen friends in Cruz Bay. I want to know the instant that girl turns up.”

The squall was quite ferocious, driving rain before it in a heavy curtain, but having a curious smoothing effect on the surface of the sea. Carney switched off the engines and came down the ladder and joined Ferguson and Dillon in the deckhouse.

“Best to ride this out. It won’t last long.” He grinned. “Normally I wouldn’t carry alcohol, but this being a private charter.”

He opened the plastic icebox and came up with three cans of beer. “Accepted gratefully.” Ferguson pulled the tab and drank some down. “God, but that’s good.”

“There are times when an ice-cold beer is the only thing,” Carney said. “Once in Vietnam I was in a unit that got mortared real bad. In fact, I’ve still got fragments in both arms and legs too small to be worth fishing out. I sat on a box in the rain, eating a sandwich while a Corpsman stitched me up and he was out of morphine. I was so glad to be alive I didn’t feel a thing. Then someone gave me a can of beer, warm beer, mind you.”

“But nothing ever tasted as good?” Dillon said.

“Until the smoke cleared and I saw a guy sitting against a tree with both legs gone.” Carney shook his head. “God, how I came to hate that war. After my time I went to Georgia State on the Marines. When Nixon came and the police turned up to beat up the antiwar demonstrators all us veterans wore white tee-shirts with our medals pinned to them to shame them.”

He laughed and Ferguson said, “The Hook in Korea was just like that. More bodies than you could count, absolute hell, and you ended up wondering what you were doing there.”

“Heidegger once said that for authentic living what is necessary is the resolute confrontation of death,” Dillon told them.

Carney laughed harshly. “I know the works of Heidegger, I took a Bachelor of Philosophy degree at Georgia State and I’ll tell you this. I bet Heidegger was seated at his desk in the study when he wrote that.”

Ferguson laughed. “Well said.”

“Anyway, Dillon, what do you know about it? Which was your war?” Carney asked.

Dillon said calmly, “I’ve been at war all my life.” He stood up, lit a cigarette and went up the ladder to the flying bridge.

Carney said, “Hey, wait a minute, Brigadier, that discussion we had about the Irish army last night at Jenny’s Place when I made a remark about the IRA? Is that what he is, one of those gunmen you read about?”

“That’s what he used to be, though they like to call themselves soldiers of the Irish Republican Army. His father was killed accidentally in crossfire by British soldiers in Belfast when he was quite young so he joined the glorious cause.”

“And now?”

“I get the impression that his sympathy for the glorious cause of the IRA has dwindled somewhat. Let’s be polite and say he’s become a kind of mercenary and leave it at that.”

“I’d say that’s a waste of a good man.”

“It’s his life,” Ferguson said.

“I suppose so.” Carney stood up. “Clearing now. We’d better go.”