Алистер Маклин - The Golden Rendezvous

“From the very beginning it was with the one and only purpose of blowing the Fort Ticonderoga to kingdom come. So that there would be no possibility of any come-back, everything hinged on the total destruction of the Ticonderoga and everyone aboard it, including passengers and crew of the Campari . Maybe Carreras’s two fake radio men could have smuggled some explosives aboard – but it would be quite impossible to smuggle enough to ensure complete destruction. Hundreds of tons of high explosives in the magazines of a British battle-cruiser blew up in the last war – but still there were survivors. He couldn’t sink it by gunfire – a couple of shots from a moderately heavy gun and the Campari ’s decks would be so buckled that the guns would be useless – and even then there would be bound to be survivors. But with the Twister there will be no chances of survival. None in the world.”

“Carreras’s men,” she said slowly. “They killed the guards in the atomic research establishment.”

“What else? And then forced Dr. Caroline to drive out through the gates with themselves and the Twister in the back. The Twister was probably en route to their island, by air, inside the hour, but someone drove the brake wagon down to Savannah before abandoning it. No doubt to throw suspicion on the Campari , which they knew was leaving Savannah that morning. I’m not sure why, but I would take long odds it was because Carreras, knowing the Campari was bound for the Caribbean, was reasonably sure that she would be searched at her first port of call, giving him his opportunity to introduce his bogus Marconi-man aboard.”

While I had been talking I’d been studying two circular dials inset in the panel on the Twister. Now I spread the rug back in position with all the loving care of a father smoothing out the bedcover over his youngest son and started to screw the coffin lid back in position. For a time Susan watched me in silence, then said wonderingly: “Mr. Cerdan. Dr. Caroline. The same person. It has to be the same person. I remember now. At the time of the disappearance of the Twister it was mentioned that only one or two people so far know how to arm the Twister.”

“He was just as important to their plans as the Twister. Without him, it was useless. Poor old Doc Caroline has had a rough passage, I’m afraid. Not only kidnapped and forced to do as ordered, but knocked about by us also, the only people who could have saved him. Under constant guard by those two thugs disguised as nurses. He bawled me out of his cabin first time I saw him, but only because he knew that his devoted nurse, sitting beside him with her dear little knitting bag on her lap, had a sub-machine-gun inside it.”

“But – but why the wheel-chair? Was it necessary to take such elaborate–”

“Of course it was. They couldn’t have him mingling with the passengers, communicating with them. It helped conceal his unusual height. And it also gave them a perfect reason to keep a non-stop radio watch on incoming messages. He came to your father’s cocktail party because he was told to – the coup was planned for that evening and it suited Carreras to have his two armed nurses there to help in the take-over. Poor old Caroline. That dive he tried to make from his wheel-chair when I showed him the earphones wasn’t made with the intention of getting at me at all: he was trying to get at the nurse with the sub-machine-gun, but Captain Bullen didn’t know that, so he laid him out.” I tightened the last of the screws and said: “Don’t breathe a word of this back in the sick-bay – the old man talks non-stop in his sleep – or anywhere else. Not even to your parents. Come on. That sentry may come to any minute.”

“You – you’re going to leave that thing here?” She stared at me in disbelief. “You must get rid of it – you must !”

“How? Carry it up a vertical ladder over my shoulder. That thing weighs about 350 lb. altogether, including the coffin. And what happens if I do get rid of it? Carreras finds out within hours. Whether or not he finds out or guesses who took it doesn’t matter: what does matter is that he’ll know he can no longer depend on the Twister to get rid of all the inconvenient witnesses on the Campari . What then? My guess is that not one member of the crew or passengers will have more than a few hours to live. He would have to kill us then – no question of trans-shipping us to the Ticonderoga . As for the Ticonderoga , he would have to board it, kill all the crew and open the seacocks. That might take hours and would inconvenience him dangerously, might wreck all his plans. But he would have to do it. The point is that getting rid of the Twister is not going to save any lives at all, all it would accomplish is the certain death of all of us.”

“What are we going to do?” Her voice was strained and shaky, her face a pale blur in the reflected light. “Oh, Johnny, what are we going to do?”

“I’m going back to bed.” Heaven only knew I felt like it. “Then I’ll waste my time trying to figure out how to save Dr. Caroline.”

“Dr. Caroline? I don’t see – why Dr. Caroline?”

“Because he’s number one for the high-jump, as things stand. Long before the rest of us. Because he’s the man who’s going to arm the Twister,” I said patiently. “Do you think they’ll transfer him to the Ticonderoga and let him acquaint the captain with the fact that the coffin he’s taking back to the states contains not Senator Hoskins but an armed and ticking atom bomb?”

“Where’s it all going to end?” There was panic, open panic in her voice now, a near hysteria. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. It’s like some dark nightmare.” She had her hands twisted in my lapels, her face buried in my jacket – well, anyway, her old man’s jacket – and her voice was muffled. “Oh, Johnny, where’s it all going to end?”

“A touching scene, a most touching scene,” a mocking voice said from close behind me. “It all ends here and now. This moment.”

I whirled round, or at least I tried to whirl round, but I couldn’t even do that properly. What with disengaging Susan’s grip, the weakness of my leg, and the lurching of the ship, the sudden turn threw me completely off balance and I stumbled and fell against the ship’s side. A powerful light switched on, blinding me, and in black silhouette against the light I could see the snub barrel of an automatic.

“On your feet, Carter.” There was no mistaking the voice. Tony Carreras’s, no longer pleasant and affable, but cold, hard, vicious, the real Tony Carreras at last. “I want to see you fall when this slug hits you. Clever-clever Carter. Or so you thought. On your feet, I said! Or you’d rather take it lying there? Suit yourself.”

The gun lifted a trifle. The direct no-nonsense type, he didn’t believe in fancy farewell speeches. Shoot them and be done with it. I could believe now that he was his father’s son. My bad leg was under me and I couldn’t get up. I stared into the beam of light, into the black muzzle of the gun. I stopped breathing and tensed myself. Tensing yourself against a .38 fired from a distance of five feet is a great help but I wasn’t feeling very logical at the moment.

“Don’t shoot!” Susan screamed. “Don’t kill him or we’ll all die.”

The torch beam wavered, then steadied again. It steadied on me. And the gun hadn’t shifted any that I could see.

Susan took a couple of steps towards him, but he fended her off, stiff-armed.

“Out of my way, lady.” I’d never in my life heard such concentrated venom and malignance. I’d misjudged young Carreras all right. And her words hadn’t even begun to register on him, so implacable was his intention. I still wasn’t breathing and my mouth was dry as a kiln.