Алистер Маклин - The Golden Rendezvous

I said nothing, and he went on: “Please tell me exactly what is going on?”

For the next five minutes, while I kept watch through that crack in the doorway, Dr. Caroline plied me with questions and I answered them as quickly and briefly as I could. He had a highly intelligent, incisive mind, which I found vaguely surprising which in turn was a stupid reaction on my part: you don’t pick a dim-wit as the chief of development for a new atomic weapon. I supposed his rather comical-sounding name and the brief glimpse I’d had of him the previous night – a man bound hand and foot to a four-poster and looking into a torch beam with wide and staring eyes looks something less than his best – had unconsciously given me the wrong impression entirely. At the end of the five minutes he knew as much about the past developments as I did myself: what he didn’t know was what was to come, for I hadn’t the heart to tell him. He was giving me some details of the kidnap when Carreras and his companion appeared.

They replaced battens, tied the tarpaulins and went for’ard without any delay. That meant, I supposed, that the fusing of the auxiliary time-bombs in the other two coffins were complete. I unwrapped the torch from its oilskin covering, looked around the store, picked up a few tools and switched off the light.

“Right,” I said to Caroline. “Come on.”

“Where?” He wasn’t keen to go anywhere, and after what he’d been through I didn’t blame him.

“Back down that hold. Hurry. We may have little enough time.”

Two minutes later, with the battens and tarpaulins as well pulled back into place as possible above us, we were on the floor of the hold. I needn’t have bothered bringing any tools, Carreras had left his behind him, scattered carelessly around. Understandably he hadn’t bothered to remove them: he would never be using these tools again.

I gave Caroline the torch to hold, selected a screwdriver and started on the lid of the brass-plaqued coffin.

“What are you going to do?” Caroline asked nervously.

“You can see what I’m doing.”

“For pity’s sake be careful! That weapon is armed!”

“So it’s armed. It’s not due to go off until when?”

“Seven o’clock. But it’s highly unsafe, highly unsafe. It’s as unstable as hell. Good God, Carter, I know. I know!” His unsteady hand went on my arm, his face contorted with anxiety. “The development of this missile wasn’t fully completed when it was stolen. The fuse mechanism was only in an untried experimental state, and tests showed that the retaining spring on the trembler switch is far too weak. The Twister is dead safe normally, but this trembler switch is brought into circuit as soon as it is armed.”

“And?”

“A jar, a knock, the slightest fall – anything could overcome the tension of the spring and short-circuit the firing mechanism. Fifteen seconds later the bomb goes up.”

I hadn’t noticed until then, but it was much warmer down in that hold than it had been on deck. I raised a soaking sleeve in a half-witted attempt to wipe some sweat off my forehead.

“Have you told Carreras this?” The warmth was also affecting my voice, bringing it out as a harsh strained croak.

“I told him. He won’t listen. I think – I think Carreras is a little mad. More than a little. He seems perfectly prepared to take a chance. And he has the Twister tightly packed in cotton wool and blankets to eliminate the possibility of a jar.”

I gazed at him for a long moment without really seeing him, then got on with the next screw. It seemed much stiffer than the last one but it was just possible that I wasn’t applying so much pressure as I had been before. For all that, I had all the screws undone inside three minutes. Gently I slid off the lid, placed it to one side, slowly peeled back a couple of blankets and there lay the Twister. It looked more evil than ever.

“Of course.”

“There are your tools. Disarm the bloody thing.”

He stared at me, his face suddenly empty of expression. “That’s why we’re here?”

“Why else? Surely it was obvious? Get on with it.”

“It can’t be done.”

“It can’t be done?” I caught him by the arm, not gently. “Look friend, you armed the damn’ thing. Just reverse the process, that’s all.”

“Impossible.” Finality in the voice. “When it’s armed, the mechanism is locked in position. With a key. The key is in Carreras’s pocket.”

The weakness in my left leg, a near paralysing weakness, hit me all of a sudden and I had to sit down on the baffle and hang on to the ladder for support. I gazed at the Twister. For a long time I gazed down at it, with bitter eyes: then I stirred and looked at Dr. Caroline.

“Would you mind repeating that?”

He repeated it. “I’m terribly sorry, Carter, but there you have it. The Twister can’t be rendered safe without the key. And Carreras has the key.”

I thought of all the impossible solutions to this one and recognised them at once for what they were – impossible. I knew what had to be done now, the only thing that could be done. I said tiredly: “Do you know, Dr. Caroline, that you’ve just condemned forty people to certain death?”

“I have done that?”

“Well, Carreras. When he put that key in his pocket he was condemning himself and all his men to death just as surely as the man who pulls the switch for the electric chair. And what am I worrying about, anyway? Death’s the only certain and permanent cure for scourges like Carreras and the people who associate with him. As for Lord Dexter, he’s rolling in the stuff. He can always build another Campari .”

“What are you talking about, Mr. Carter?” There was apprehension in his face as he looked at me, more than apprehension, fear. “Are you feeling all right, Carter?”

“Of course I’m all right,” I said irritably. “Everybody’s always asking the same stupid questions.” I stooped, picked up the rope grommet and Haltrac midget hoist I’d taken from the bo’sun’s store, then rose wearily to my feet. “Come on, Doctor, give me a hand with this.”

“Give you a hand with what?” He knew damn’ well what I meant but the fear in his mind wouldn’t let him believe it.

“The Twister, of course,” I said impatiently. “I want to get it over to the port side, hidden in the tarpaulins behind the baffle.”

“Are you crazy?” he whispered. “Are you quite crazy? Did you hear what I said? You’re going to lift it out of its coffin with – with that? One little slip, the tiniest jar–”

“Are you going to help me?”

He shook his head, shuddered and turned away. I hooked the hoist on to a head-high rung of the ladder, pulled the lower block until it hung just above the Twister, picked up the grommet and moved around to the tail of the weapon. I was stooping low over it when I heard a quick footstep behind me and a pair of arms locked themselves around my body, arms informed with all the strength of fear and desperation. I struggled briefly to free myself but I might as well have tried to shrug off the tentacles of a squid. I tried to stamp on his instep but all I did was hurt my heel: I’d forgotten that I wasn’t wearing shoes.

“Let go!” I said savagely. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m not going to let you do it! I’m not going to let you do it!” He was panting, his voice low and hoarse and desperate. “I’m not going to let you kill us all!”

There are certain people in certain situations with whom there is no arguing. This was such a situation and Caroline such a person. I half turned, thrust backwards with all the power of my good leg and heard him gasp as his back struck heavily against the ship’s side. A momentary loosening of his grip, a wrench and I was free. I picked up the big marline-spike and showed it to him in the light of the torch.