Thunder Point Part 29

"And then what will you do?" she asked.

Dillon kissed her briefly on the cheek. "Jesus, girl, will you give a man a chance to draw breath?"

He took the Belgian semi-automatic out of his pocket. "Put that in your purse and don't tell me you don't know what to do with it. Just pull the slider, point and fire."

She took it reluctantly. "You think this is necessary?"

"You never can tell. Santiago has been ahead of us too many times. When you get back to the bar you'll find that Billy and Mary intend to spend the night with you."

"You think of everything, don't you?"

"I try to. It would take a good man to mess with Billy."

He stepped on board and Carney looked down at them from the flying bridge. "Cast off for us, Jenny."

He switched on the engines, she untied the stern line and handed it to Dillon, went and did the same with the other. The boat drifted out, then started to turn away.

"Take care, my dear," Ferguson called.

She raised an arm as Sea Raider Sea Raider moved out to sea. Dillon looked back at her, standing there under the light at the end of the dock, and then she turned and walked away. moved out to sea. Dillon looked back at her, standing there under the light at the end of the dock, and then she turned and walked away.

She went past the bar and the shop, and started up the path past the Sugar Mill Restaurant to the car park where the taxis waited. Algaro and Guerra had watched the departure from the shadows and now they followed her.

"What shall we do?" Guerra whispered.

"She's bound to go home sooner or later," Algaro said. "The best place to deal with her, all nice and quiet and we don't even need to follow her."

Jenny got into her jeep and started the engine and they waited until she was driving away before moving toward their own vehicle.

There were still a few people in the bar when she went in and Mary was helping one of the waitresses to clear the tables. She came to the end of the bar and Billy joined them.

"They got off all right then?" Billy asked.

"That's right."

"Are we going to be told what they're up to, Miss Jenny? Everyone is sure acting mighty mysterious."

"Maybe one of these days, Billy, but not right now."

She yawned, feeling very tired, and Mary said, "Don't you hold her up with any d.a.m.n fool questions, she needs her sleep." She turned to Jenny. "Mr. Dillon asked us to spend the night with you and that's what we're going to do."

"All right," Jenny said. "I'll go on up to the house."

"Maybe you should wait for us, Miss Jenny," Billy told her. "It will only take us five minutes to close."

She opened her purse and took out the Belgian semi-automatic. "I've got this, Billy, and I know how to use it. I'll be fine. I'll see you soon."

She'd parked the jeep right outside at the bottom of the steps and she slid behind the wheel, turned on the engine and drove away, so tired that for a moment she forgot to switch on the lights. The streets were reasonably quiet now as she drove out toward Gallows Point and she was at the house in five minutes. She parked in the driveway, went up the steps, found her key and unlocked the front door. She switched on the porch light, then went in.

G.o.d, but she was tired, more tired than she had ever been, and she mounted the stairs wearily, opened her bedroom door and switched on the light. It was hot, very hot in spite of the ceiling fan, and she crossed to the French windows leading to the balcony and opened them. There were a few heavy spots of rain and then a sudden rush, the kind of thing that happened at night at that time of year. She stood there for a moment enjoying the coolness, then turned and found Algaro and Guerra standing just inside the room.

It was as if she was dreaming, but that terrible face told her otherwise, the cropped hair, the scar from the eye to the mouth. He laughed suddenly and said to Guerra in Spanish, "This could prove interesting."

And Jenny, in spite of her tiredness, surprised even herself by darting forward and around them to the door, almost made it, and it was Guerra who caught her right wrist and swung her around. Algaro struck her heavily across the face, then hurled her back on the bed. She tried to pull the gun from her purse. He took it from her, turned her on her face, pulling her left arm up, twisted and applied some special kind of leverage. The pain was terrible and she cried out.

"You like that, eh?" Algaro was enjoying himself and tossed the gun across the room. "Let's try some more."

And this time, the pain was the worst thing she'd ever known and she screamed at the top of her voice. He turned her over, slapped her heavily again and took a flick knife from his pocket. When he jumped the blade she saw that it was razor sharp. He grabbed a handful of her hair.

"Now I'm going to ask you some questions." He stroked the blade across her cheek and p.r.i.c.ked it gently with the needle point so that blood came. "If you refuse to answer, I'll slit your nose and that's just for starters."

She was only human and terrified out of her mind. "Anything," she pleaded.

"Right. Where would we find the wreck of U180?"

"Thunder Point," she gasped.

"And where would that be?"

"It's on the chart. About ten or twelve miles south of St. John. That's all I know."

"Dillon, the Brigadier and Carney, we saw them leave from the dock at Caneel Bay. They've gone to Thunder Point to dive on the U-boat, is that right?" She hesitated and he slapped her again. "Is that right?"

"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 gra.s.s. "My G.o.d." 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 G.o.d, she's alive. You carry her inside and I'll phone for the doctor," and she ran up the steps into the house.

14.

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, Senor." 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, Senor, and that's open sea out there. They'd see the Maria Blanco Maria Blanco coming for miles." 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, Senor?"

"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 b.a.s.t.a.r.ds 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 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." 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." 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. "h.e.l.l, 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 a.s.sistant, the one he borrowed from Special Branch, Detective Inspector Lane?"