James Bond - Seafire Part 18

"No, just checking out the opposition. Those three are in some danger, but I don't need to tell you that; you've been up against their boss in person. Don't you think we should warn them?"

"They're innocents as far as Tarn's concerned. Won't know what hit them when he does arrive. Yes, I had thought of giving them most of the information tonight. I'll suggest that they whiz their floating lab off to one of the other islands, or set a course for Florida.

"You've spent your time checking up on the trio of scientists, Felix. What are they up to on Max Tarn's behalf?"

"What are they doing? Well, it's difficult to explain. In fact, even if they do explain the scientific bits to us, we'll probably be none the wiser. I gather it's something to do with an antipollution device. That's the talk in the local bars and bistros. They're trying to produce a substance that will nullify the effects of oil spills."

"That would be handy."

"It's only talk, but I've seen Mare Nostrum from a distance. She has these pipes, like mortars, set at angles all around her outer deck. The locals say that they would spray a kind of foam on oil spills - rather like dowsing a fire. The difference is that this foam would suck up the oil and purify the water at the same time, but you heard what they said last night. The thing doesn't work."

"Tarn's not going to like that. When he puts money into something, he always counts on a return. Like as not, he'll expect the thing to work."

Flicka stirred in the back. "Like as not, he'll demand it to work. The man's a loony."

"A loony and his money are not easily parted, either," Bond said without any humor in his tone. "But we all know he's d.a.m.ned dangerous and, I suspect, is getting more dangerous by the day."

Presently, Flicka asked Leiter if he had visited any of the caves. "This guidebook says Puerto Rico has the third-largest underground river in the world, and there is a network of caves and caverns along the Atlantic side."

"Haven't had the time, but I gather the entire coastline - Atlantic and Caribbean - has caves, though the largest ones are on the San Juan side."

"What're you thinking about, Flick?" Bond asked.

"Nothing in particular, only it struck me that if there really is a submarine out here, one of these caves would make a good pen for it."

"Submarine!" Leiter's jaw dropped. "What submarine?"

"We know Tarn has one - an old Russian boat. I think World War II vintage, or just after, but he could've been feeding us a line, so I suppose the real thing might even be a modern boat." Bond's thoughts were already way ahead of Flicka's. "He gave us some c.o.c.k-and-bull story that it was for a military museum he was going to set up on one of the deserted islands he owns. Planned to have his cruise ships visit the place. None of it rang true."

"That's all we need, a rogue submarine prowling around these waters."

Flicka launched into the story of their cruise and the damage done to Caribbean Prince. "The U.S. Navy square searched the whole area after that. Found nothing, so he must've squirreled it away somewhere. If we were, in fact, torpedoed."

They stopped for coffee in the little town of Santa Isabel, with its view of the Caribbean and the long, broken reefs of rocks. Before going on their way, Bond and Flicka bought the wet suits they might need, considering they would pay probably twice the price in San Juan.

The sun shone, sparkling off the emerald sea, and the sky was clear but for a few high cirrus clouds as they drove on. Felix made a remark about Tarn certainly picking a nice spot. "It's only a few miles up here to Ponce, and his place is a couple of miles up the coast. Those rocks down there look like a lunar landscape."

"It all looks volcanic to me." Bond glanced down toward the beach.

Minutes later they reached the turn, and traveled on a b.u.mpy track leading uphill in a series of sharp bends. Ahead there was a small wooded area. "You can just get into the trees," Felix told him. "Then we have to walk."

It was some kind of picnic area, deserted at the moment, and Felix soon led them from the car along a winding footpath that took them to the edge of the trees.

Below them was a long, low oblong building, the four sides enclosing a garden with a swimming pool, similar to the architecture of El Convento. The house, with its many arches, was painted a light blue, the whole surrounded by a wall. On the outer perimeter they could see tennis courts and a parking area.

"Nice little place for weekends." Felix handed Bond a pair of binoculars and he scanned the house, which was perched above a rocky incline leading to the sea. There were two cars in the lot, and several people worked in the central garden or could be seen moving along the cloisters. Of Tarn and his closest colleagues there was no sign.

"Doesn't look as though the master's arrived yet, does it?" Leiter asked.

"No, but there are several men down there who look as though they're guests." He had picked out a group of eleven or twelve men sitting under one of the cloisterlike arches, drinking. He sharpened the focus of the binoculars, trying to make out faces, but he recognized none of them.

He was just going to hand the gla.s.ses back to Felix when one of the group, a tall and graying bearded man, pushed back his chair and spoke to the others, who began readying themselves to leave.

"Watch this." He realized that the illusion of the group's proximity made him whisper. "They're off to do something."

"I hope it's not a little stroll up here," murmured Flicka. "Some of those, people look nasty."

"I'd forgotten your exceptional eyesight."

"It's my youth, darling. Seriously, from here they look like hoodlums."

"Or sailors," added Felix.

The group straggled through the cloister and disappeared into the house, emerging seconds later outside, walking down the metaled driveway that ended at a pair of stout iron gates exiting onto the road.

"Wait!" Bond had the binoculars focused on one figure - an unusually tall man with a slow and lumbering gait. "I know one of them. He d.a.m.ned nearly killed me in Wa.s.serburg. He's a half-witted man mountain disguised as one of Tarn's lawyers. Name of Kurt Rollen."

As they watched, the gates swung open and the men crossed the road, two of them waiting while a tourist bus went by. At the edge of the cliff, each man seemed to disappear, as though there were some route down to the rocks and the sea below. Within a few minutes they had all pa.s.sed out of sight.

"I'm going to take a look down there." Bond's hand moved to his jacket, as though rea.s.suring himself that he was armed.

"Take care, James. You want me . . . ?"

"No. Stay here with Flicka. If I'm not back in an hour, you can come looking." He stood up, stepping from the treeline to start walking, zigzagging his way down the steep slope, keeping well to the left of the house and its perimeter walls. It took almost fifteen minutes to reach the road, with the house and walls still on his right.

Crossing the road, he glanced up to the trees above Tarn's house and could just make out the two figures of Felix and Flicka. He then headed directly toward the point where the men had disappeared.

As he had guessed, there was a way down, a series of steps cut into the rock, dropping at a steep angle. There was also a large red sign that carried a warning legend of skull and crossed bones, below which were the words "Private and Dangerous. Only authorized personnel beyond this point. Danger of Death" in four different languages.

Slowly, Bond made his way down the first few steps, then stopped to listen. There was no sound of voices, only the crashing of the surf against the rocks below, though he could see even from here that a wide channel ran from the cliffs between two reefs: enough room for a ship to get through.

The steps became slick with water as he neared the bottom, which was a wide concrete platform fashioned around rocks. Once on the platform, his sneakers were soaked with the spray that burst regularly over the platform. Inching his way along the concrete with his back to the natural rock, Bond could clearly see the beginning of an opening in the cliff - a great arched entrance to a cavern. The noise of the sea abated as the surf was sucked back, and for the first time he heard voices, and a Scottish accent speaking loudly enough for him to hear the words "Come on . . . Only about twenty-four hours . . . h.e.l.l to pay if we're not ready for him."

He leaned out to take a quick look inside the cave, only to find that the entire entrance was screened by a thick mesh curtain camouflaged in the colors of the surrounding rock. Gently he caught hold of the edge of the netting and pulled it back. Though he allowed himself only a few seconds, it was enough to take in the long concrete walkways and the sinister prow and sail of a black, rust-encrusted submarine nestling within the cave while a dozen or so men climbed over her. He had seen much bigger, nuclear boats being prepared for the sea, and he had no doubt that they were going through the preliminaries.

The ascent back up the rock face took much longer than the descent, and the climb up the gra.s.sy incline to the wood almost winded him.

"You want to inform your people or the local authorities?" he asked Felix Leiter after he had apprised them of what lay at the bottom of the cliff.

Leiter frowned. Then: "I don't think so. It would be much better if we caught them in the act, don't you think?"

"Certainly, Felix. Certainly much better, but I think the prudent way would be to get the U.S. Navy here as quickly as we can."

"Plenty of time for that when we see what the timetable's like. Let's talk to the scientific trio and give them the option."

After returning to San Juan, they strolled through the narrow, gaudy streets of the old town, the shops dispensing garish souvenirs. Finally, at the end of their long day out, they stood on the top gun platform of El Morro, having seen everything else within the ma.s.sive thick stone walls. The fortress still had about it an atmosphere of unreality, for it was built at the far promontory entrance to the harbor, rising up several levels and sweeping down to the sea itself.

Its strategic position, coupled with the amazing ingenuity of its construction, had made this place impregnable. Even Drake had been unable to conquer it, and others who tried had always been beaten back.

The secret was in its layered construction, coupled with the masterly design that had enabled great cannons to be let down or winched up steep cobbled ramps, so that the lowest emplacements - only feet away from the rocks and sea - could cut down any men who happened to get a toehold on land. Above this the gun positions were set in higher, serrated walls that allowed them to fire with accuracy on the old big men-of-war, cutting the masts and crippling the ships with ease.

Here, at the highest elevation, the large cannon, still in position, would fire heated cannonb.a.l.l.s down into the ships. When Drake had tried to take the place in the 1590s, he had finally been dissuaded when one of the heavy red-hot b.a.l.l.s had crashed into the stern of his ship, through his personal cabin window.

They made their way down to the so-called patio, really the parade ground, living quarters, and storehouses. It also contained a big water cistern, the chapel of Santa Barbara, and the old center of all social life within the castle.

"Now, this place is haunted." Flicka was at the guidebook again. "A lady walks around at night searching for her lost love, and sometimes soldiers appear, sitting around and talking."

Felix sniffed the air. "You know, I wouldn't be surprised if the place is haunted. n.o.body stays here at night, you know. These Historic Park Rangers all pack up and go home when they close."

They walked back to El Convento to change for dinner, then set off to the harbor. Rexinus had given them explicit directions as to where Mare Nostrum was tied up. "You can't miss her," he had said, rightly, because n.o.body could possibly have missed the exotic-looking ship.

That she had been purpose-built was obvious. This sleek 250-foot, seagoing motorized yacht still had the patina of newness on her. She also looked like the kind of craft you saw only on cla.s.sified doc.u.ments. The mortarlike tubes, about which Felix had told them, poked into the air at forty-five-degree angles, but it was the superstructure that immediately caught the eye. Aft of the wheelhouse was a long, square Plexiglas framework that looked like a modern greenhouse. It climbed higher than the wheelhouse, and the edges along the top were curved, giving it the look of something from science fiction.

Rex Rexinus stood by the gangway, his infectious laugh splitting the air.

"You found us, then."

"How could we miss you, Dr. Rexinus?" Flicka had already said that she would handle Rexinus should he get difficult when they laid the news on him.

The marine biologist welcomed them on board, saying that he would take them on a tour of the ship after dinner. "Poor Vesta doesn't get to entertain very often. She's provided only a cold supper, but it seems to have taken her all day." He turned and laughed again as though this were a great joke.

Bond was finding his laughter a little hard to bear.

Belowdecks the quarters were more palatial than they expected: a wide and high oblong, oak-paneled living area had been arranged as a dining room, complete with a long adjustable table that was laid out with plates of cold meats and salads of every possible variety. There were crystal gla.s.ses and bottles of both a good claret and a somewhat fine Chablis.

"What's through there?" Bond asked immediately, nodding to the closed door at the far end. He always liked to know the quickest exit when he arrived in a new environment "Our modest sleeping quarters." Fritz had the distinct trace of a squashed mid-European accent.

"Modest indeed." Vesta Motley came forward to greet them. "I have the best bedroom I've ever had in the whole of my life. I do hope you don't mind this buffet thing I've thrown together." The cut-gla.s.s British accent clashed heavily with Rexinus's American.

"Just what we'd have chosen for ourselves," Bond said gallantly. In the depth of his heart he could have done with a really good dinner tonight, but he figured that beggars could not be choosers.

Vesta Motley did not appear to have any of the social graces. They had hardly entered the living quarters when she started to pour wine and asked them to "Dig in, chaps," which made Bond wince and Flicka stifle a snort of laughter.

While they moved around, eating and drinking, they tried to chip away at the job the trio of scientists were doing for Max Tarn. To give credit, Rexinus himself tried to explain the theory behind what he referred to as "an automatic anti-oil pollution system - AAOPS for short," but the concept was daunting, and they really were none the wiser by the time he had finished.

Eventually, Bond nodded to Felix, who, they had agreed, would set things in motion. "Well, folks," he began, using the same old Texas cowboy manner that he had kept up all evening. "I fear we've brought you some disturbing and almost certainly dangerous news."

The three scientists looked at him as though he were quite mad.

"What kind of news?" Rexinus did not laugh.

"You haven't yet been able to get any instructions from Tarn International in London?"

"We told you that last night. Since Sir Max's death we aren't getting any answers at all. It's like the whole organization has died with him."

"Max Tarn isn't dead." It was Bond who exploded the bombsh.e.l.l.

"Isn't . . . But . . . ?"

"Worse still to come," Flicka said softly.

"The man is wanted for a number of quite heinous crimes, I fear." Back to Felix. "Murder is probably the least important. He's wanted for weapons running on a huge scale. I don't mink we need to go into the complete story now, but you have to believe us, he's very dangerous, has firepower of his own - they travel with him usually - and we expect him in Puerto Rico any day."

Flicka finished it off: "The really amusing thing about him is that he thinks he's the n.a.z.i Messiah, and it appears that a zillion or so German far-right groups believe him."

"Oh, my G.o.d!" from Vesta.

"Who the h.e.l.l are you, with these idiotic stories?" Rexinus had possibly given up laughing for a long time, and his face became even more grave as Felix showed them his own credentials and introduced Bond and Flicka in their true ident.i.ties.

"We're going to suggest that you pull out of Puerto Rico tonight," Bond told them. "You can always make for Miami or somewhere, and Felix can organize protection for you. Really you are in the gravest danger. Max Tarn will brook no explanations. I doubt if he'll even listen when you tell him the AAOPS won't work. The man thinks he's above any laws, natural, man-made, or scientific. Tell him your original concept doesn't work and he'll tell you that's nonsense. Also, we believe that he's all set to show your invention off to the world, and we think his planned display will cause many problems - including death on a fairly grand scale."

"I don't believe it." Rexinus seemed to be standing his ground. "This is some kind of trick."

"Wish it were, friend," from Felix.

"Rex." Flicka dropped her voice slightly, an old artifice used to gain everyone's attention. "Rex, please, listen to us. Max Tarn is very dangerous, and when he gets here he'll bring some of his playmates. They're an ugly bunch. I'm pleading with you. Get out while there's time. Let us deal with him. Us and the local authorities."

"You mean this, don't you?" Vesta looked quite bewildered.

"I've never been so certain of anything in my life. These are truly perilous people."

Suddenly, Bond quietly called for silence.

"What . . . ?" Rexinus began, then they heard the call from above.

"Ahoy there. Ahoy, Dr. Rexinus. Permission to come aboard. It's your admiral. Where the devil are you?"

They all recognized the voice. Max Tarn called again, "I'm coming on board. Rexinus! Fritz! Ms. Motley! I've brought a few friends to see how you're getting on."

"Out," Bond whispered. "Grab your plates and get through into the sleeping quarters." He was talking to Felix and Flicka. "Keep him out of the for'ard part of the ship, and don't commit yourselves to anything." He opened the door, and Flicka was close behind him. Felix stayed where he was.

"Felix. Quickly, man."

"Thought I'd stay on and see if I can talk any sense into the man." His eyes were hard, and Bond knew there was no way he could even begin to argue with the American.

"Permission to come aboard, d.a.m.n you, Rexinus." Tarn was at the top of the companion way. As he began to descend, Flicka closed the door behind her and slipped the lock.

21 - Briefing

They leaned against the door, hardly daring to breathe, listening intently to the conversation from the main cabin.

"Ah, so there you are, Dr. Rex. I've been calling for what seems like hours, but no harm done. Brought some friends to meet you."