Thunder Point (32 page)

“Yes,” she said. “They’re diving at first light.”

He patted her face, closed the knife and turned to Guerra. “Lock the door.”

Guerra seemed bewildered. “Why?”

“I said lock the door, idiot.” Algaro walked past him and swung it shut, turning the key. He turned and his smile was the cruellest thing Jenny had ever seen in her life. “You did say you’d do anything?” and he started to take his jacket off.

She screamed again, totally hysterical now, jumped to her feet, turned and ran headlong through the open French windows on to the balcony in total panic, hit the railings and went over, plunging down through the heavy rain to the garden below.

Guerra knelt beside her in the rain and felt for a pulse. He shook his head. “She looks dead to me.”

“Right, leave her there,” Algaro said. “That way it looks like an accident. Now let’s get out of here.”

The sound of their jeep’s engine faded into the night and Jenny lay there, rain falling on her face. It was only five minutes later that Billy and Mary Jones turned into the drive in their jeep and found her at once, lying half across a path, half on grass. “My God.” Mary dropped to her knees and touched Jenny’s face. “She’s cold as ice.”

“Looks like she fell from the balcony,” Billy said.

At that moment Jenny groaned and moved her head slightly. Mary said, “Thank God, she’s alive. You carry her inside and I’ll phone for the doctor,” and she ran up the steps into the house.

Algaro spoke to Santiago from a public telephone on the waterfront. Santiago listened intently to what he had to say. “So, the girl is dead? That’s unfortunate.”

“No sweat,” Algaro told him. “Just an accident, that’s how it will look. What happens now?”

“Stay where you are and phone me back in five minutes.”

Santiago put the phone down and turned to Serra. “Thunder Point, about ten or twelve miles south of St. John.”

“We’ll have a look on the chart, Señor.” Santiago followed him along to the bridge and Serra switched on the light over the chart table. “Ah, yes, here we are.”

Santiago had a look, frowning slightly. “Dillon and company are on their way there now. They intend to dive at first light. Is there any way we could beat them to it if we left now?”

“I doubt it, Señor, and that’s open sea out there. They’d see the
Maria Blanco
coming for miles.”

“I take your point,” Santiago said, “and, as we learned the other day, they’re armed.” He examined the chart again and nodded. “No, I think we’ll let them do all the work for us. If they succeed, it will make them feel good. They’ll sail back to St. John happy, maybe even slightly off-guard because they will think they have won the game.”

“And then, Señor?”

“We’ll descend on them when they return to Caneel, possibly at the cottage. We’ll see.”

“So, what are your orders?”

“We’ll sail back to St. John and anchor off Paradise Beach again.” The phone was ringing in the radio room. “That will be Algaro calling back,” and Santiago went to answer it.

Algaro replaced the phone and turned to Guerra. “They intend to let those bastards get on with it and do all the work. We’ll hit them when they get back.”

“What, just you and me?”

“No, stupid, the
Maria Blanco
will be back off Paradise Beach in the morning. We’ll rendezvous with her then. In the meantime, we’ll go back to the launch and try to catch a little shut-eye.”

Jenny’s head, resting on the pillow, was turned to one side. She looked very pale, made no movement even as the doctor gave her an injection. Mary said, “What do you think, Doctor?”

He shook his head. “Not possible to make a proper diagnosis at this stage. The fact that she’s not regained consciousness is not necessarily bad. No overt signs of broken bones, but hairline fractures are always possible. We’ll see how she is in the morning. Hopefully she’ll have regained consciousness by then.” He shook his head. “That was a long fall. I’ll have her transferred to St. Thomas Hospital. She can have a scan there. You’ll stay with her tonight?”

“Me and Billy won’t move an inch,” Mary told him.

“Good.” The doctor closed his bag. “The slightest change, call me.”

Billy saw him out, then came back up to the bedroom. “Can I get you anything, honey?”

“No, you go and lie down, Billy, I’ll just sit here with her,” Mary said.

“As you say.”

Billy went out and Mary put a chair by the bed, sat down and held Jenny’s hand. “You’ll be fine, baby,” she said softly. “Just fine. Mary’s here.”

At three o’clock they ran into a heavy squall, rain driving in under the canopy over the flying bridge, stinging like bullets. Carney switched off the engine. “We’ll be better off below for a while.”

Dillon followed him down the ladder and they went into the deckhouse where Ferguson lay stretched out on one of the benches, his head propped up against the holdall. He yawned and sat up. “Is there a problem?”

Sea Raider
swung to port, buffeted by the wind and rain. “Only a squall,” Carney said. “It’ll blow itself out in half an hour. I could do with a coffee break anyway.”

“A splendid idea.”

Dillon found the thermos and some mugs and Carney produced a plastic box containing ham and cheese sandwiches. They sat in companionable silence for a while eating them, the rain drumming against the roof.

“It’s maybe time we discussed how we’re going to do this thing,” Carney said to Dillon. “For a no-decompression dive at eighty feet, we’re good for forty minutes.”

“So a second dive would be the problem?”

Ferguson said, “I don’t understand the technicalities, would someone explain?”

“The air we breathe is part oxygen, part nitrogen,” Carney told him. “When you dive, the pressure causes nitrogen to be absorbed by the body tissues. The deeper you go, the increase in pressure causes more nitrogen to be absorbed. If you’re down too long or come up too quickly, it can form bubbles in your blood vessels and tissues, just like shaking a bottle of club soda. The end result is decompression sickness.”

“And how can you avoid that?”

“First of all by limiting the time we’re down there, particularly on the first dive. Second time around, we might need a safety stop at fifteen feet.”

“And what does that entail?” Ferguson asked.

“We rise to that depth and just stay there for a while, decompressing slowly.”

“How long for?”

“That depends.”

Dillon lit a cigarette, the Zippo flaring in the gloom. “What we’re really going to have to do is find that submarine fast.”

“And lay the charge on the first dive down,” Carney said.

“Baker did say it was lying on a ledge on the east face.”

Carney nodded. “I figure that to be the big drop side so we won’t waste time going anywhere else.” He swallowed his coffee and got up. “If we had the luck, went straight down, got in the control room and laid that Semtex . . .” He grinned. “Hell, we could be in like Flynn and out and back up top in twenty minutes.”

“That would make a big difference to the second dive,” Dillon said.

“It surely would.” The rain had stopped, the sea was calm again now and Carney glanced at his watch. “Time to get moving, gents,” and he went back up the ladder to the flying bridge.

In London it was nine o’clock in the morning and Francis Pamer was just finishing a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon which his housekeeper had prepared when the phone rang. He picked it up. “Pamer here.”

“Simon Carter.”

“Morning, Simon,” Pamer said, “any word from Ferguson?”

“No, but something rather shocking which affects Ferguson has happened.”

“What would that be?”

“You know his assistant, the one he borrowed from Special Branch, Detective Inspector Lane?”

Pamer almost choked on the piece of toast he was eating. “Yes, of course I do,” he managed to say.

“Killed last night when he was leaving the Ministry of Defence around midnight. Hit and run. Stolen car apparently, which the police have recovered.”

“How terrible.”

“Thing is, Special Branch aren’t too happy about it. It seems the preliminary medical report indicates that he was hit twice. Of course, that could simply mean the driver panicked and reversed or something. On the other hand, Lane sent a lot of men to prison. There must be many who bore him a grudge.”

“I see,” Pamer said. “So Special Branch are investigating?”

“Oh, yes, you know what the police are like when one of their own gets hit. Free for lunch, Francis?”

“Yes,” Pamer said. “But it would have to be at the House. I’m taking part in the debate on the crisis in Croatia.”

“That’s all right. I’ll see you on the Terrace at twelve-thirty.”

Pamer put the phone down, his hand shaking, and looked at his watch. No sense in ringing Santiago now, it would be four in the morning over there. It would have to wait. He pushed his plate with the rest of his breakfast on it away from him, suddenly revolted, bile rising in his throat. The truth was he had never been so frightened in his life.

Way over toward the east the sun was rising as
Sea Raider
crept in toward Thunder Point, Carney checking the fathometer. “There it is,” he said as he saw the yellow ridged lines on the black screen. “You get to the anchor,” he told Dillon. “I’ll have to do some maneuvering so you can hit that ridge at seventy feet.”

There was a heavy swell, the boat, with the engines throttled back, just about holding her own. Dillon felt the anchor bite satisfactorily, called up to Carney on the flying bridge and the American switched off the engines.

Carney came down the ladder and looked over the side. “There’s a rough old current running here. Could be three knots at least.”

Ferguson said, “I must say the water seems exceptionally clear. I can see right down to the reef.”

“That’s because we’re so far from the mainland,” Carney said. “It means there is very little particulate matter in the water. In fact, it gives me an idea.”

“What’s that?” Dillon asked.

Carney took off his jeans and tee-shirt. “This water is so clear, I’m going to go trolling. That means I’ll stay at less than ten feet, work my way across and locate the edge of the cliff. If I’m lucky and the water down there is as clear as it looks, I might manage to pinpoint the U-boat.”

He zipped up his diving suit and Dillon helped him into his tank. “Do you want a line?”

Carney shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

He pulled on his mask, sat on the high thwart, waited for the swell to rise high and went over backwards. The water was so clear that they could mark his progress for a while.

“What’s the point of all this?” Ferguson asked.

“Well, by staying at such a shallow depth, it will have no effect on the diving later. It could save time, and time is crucial on this one, Brigadier. If we use too much of it, we just wouldn’t be able to dive again, perhaps for many hours.”

Carney surfaced a hundred yards away and waved his arms. Ferguson got out the old binoculars and focused them. “He’s beckoning.”

Carney’s voice echoed faintly. “Over here.”

Dillon switched on the engines by the deckhouse wheel and throttled down. “Try and get the anchor up, Brigadier, I’ll do my best to give you a bit of movement.”

Ferguson went round to the prow and got to work, while Dillon tried to give him some slack. Finally, it worked, the Brigadier shouted in triumph and hauled in. Dillon throttled down and coasted toward Carney.

When they came alongside, the American called, “Drop the hook right here.”

Ferguson complied, Dillon switched off the engine, Carney swam around to the dive platform, slipped off his jacket and climbed aboard.

“Clearest I’ve ever seen,” he said. “We’re right on the edge of the cliff. There’s been a lot of coral damage recently, maybe because of the hurricane, but I swear I can see something sticking out over a ledge.”

“You’re sure?” Ferguson demanded.

“Hell, nothing’s certain in this life, Brigadier, but if it is the U-boat, we can go straight down and be inside in a matter of minutes. Could make all the difference. Now let’s see what you’ve got in the bag, Dillon.”

Dillon produced the Semtex. “It’ll work better if it’s rolled into a rope and placed around the outer circle of the hatch.”

“You would know, would you?” Carney asked.

“I’ve used the stuff before.”

“Okay, let’s have a look at those chemical detonating fuses.” Dillon passed them to him and Carney examined them. “These are good. I’ve used them before. Ten- or thirty-minute delay. We’ll use a ten.”

Dillon was already into his diving suit and now he sliced a large section off the block of Semtex and first kneaded it, then rolled it between his hands into several long sausages. He put it into his dive bag with the detonating fuses.

“I’m ready when you are.”

Carney helped him on with his gear, then handed him an underwater spot lamp. “I’ll see you at the anchor and remember, Dillon, speed is everything, and be prepared for that current.”

Dillon nodded and did what Carney had done, simply sat on the thwart, waited until the swell lifted and went in backwards.

The water was astonishingly clear and very blue, the ridge below covered with elkhorn coral and large basket sponges in muted shades of orange. As he waited at the anchor, a school of barracuda-like fish called sennet moved past him and when he looked up, there were a number of large jacks overhead.

The current was strong, so fierce that when he held on to the anchor chain his body was extended to one side. He glanced up again and Carney came down toward him, paused for a moment, already drifting sideways, and gestured. Dillon went after him, checking his dive computer, noting that he was at sixty-five feet, followed Carney over the edge of the cliff, looking down into the blue infinity below and saw, to the left, the great scar where the coral had broken away, the bulk of U180, the prow sticking out from the ledge.