Brett Halliday - Mike Shayne's Torrid Twelve

“Never had to use them,” Tolliver said. “But I was ready. Now let’s see about that grub.”

Captain Tolliver had coffee, eggs, ham and toast ready and still Sandra Ames had not come up.

“Might as well eat,” he said. “No telling how long she’ll stay down there. Kind of a strange world, under the ocean is. You ought to take up skin-diving. You’d like it.”

“I will, one of these days,” Shayne said. He took the plate and steaming coffee cup Tolliver handed him and sat down on deck. The grizzled little man sat opposite him. The sun was still not much more than an hour high in the sky, the ocean was calm, a few gulls soared in the distance. It might have been a morning at the dawn of time.

“Looks like a quiet trip,” Tolliver said thoughtfully as they ate. “I been thinking some about that fellow last night who killed Shorty and Whitey. If he was just settling a feud with them, it was mighty providential for me. But if he was really interested in me, I reckon we shook him off. If nobody’s followed us up to now, they ain’t a-going to.”

“Looks that way, Captain,” Shayne agreed. He’d been giving some thought also to last night’s killer. But so far it did look as if he’d just been settling some personal quarrel with Whitey and Shorty.

With a small splash, Sandra Ames surfaced close beside them. She waved, swam to the ladder, and pulled herself aboard. The redhead helped her over the rail. She came aboard dripping, a lovely mermaid encumbered by rubber flippers, oxygen tanks, face plate and rubber tubing.

She pushed the face plate up and looked at him with eyes that glowed with the fire of excitement.

“It’s there, Mike!” she cried. “That enormous submarine lying there on the coral reefs, with seaweed growing over it now, and fish swimming around it. It’s a wonderful, fantastic world down there and in the middle of it the submarine just waiting for us to take all that money from it.”

She drew a deep breath. “I’ll go dress,” she said, slipping out of her skin-diving outfit and letting Captain Tolliver take it. “Now I’m hungry.”

She ran down the companionway, and the leathery old captain shrugged.

“There’s plenty of headaches ahead,” he said. “I’m kind of glad they ain’t my headaches any more. Let someone else take the risks. Me, I’m suited to be out of it.”

The detective started to answer, and stopped. They both stiffened and turned their heads to look up. Winging toward them from the north at an elevation of a thousand feet was a helicopter, moving sedately through the sky.

“Coast Guard!” Tolliver exclaimed. “Looking us over to make sure we’re in no trouble. Come on, start fishing.”

He grabbed a couple of old rods, stuck one in Shayne’s hands, and they both sat back, letting the rods project over the side of the boat while they watched the oncoming whirly-bird.

It was definitely interested in them, for it dropped swiftly to an altitude of three hundred feet and circled them.

“That’s no Coast Guard plane,” Michael Shayne said tersely. “No markings.”

“Nope, it’s a private plane,” Tolliver grunted. “Looks like one of them sightseeing planes the news service has. Sit tight, they may be just curious about us.”

But the helicopter, after circling them, paused, hanging in the air like a monster humming-bird. They saw a door in the side open and something came tumbling out. It hit the water with a splash, vanished, then bobbed to the surface again. It was an iron buoy, painted bright yellow and red, seeming anchored by a long length of chain.

“By grab, they’re marking this spot!” Tolliver yelled, his blue eyes blazing. “They know what we’re here for. But they don’t know they’re tangling with Tod Tolliver now.”

He threw down the fishing rod and scrambled to his chest of special supplies. He came out with the automatic rifle, checked it, and while the helicopter still hovered let go a burst at the bobbing buoy. The shots ripped the mooring open; the buoy began to sink.

“That’ll show ’em!” Tolliver said with satisfaction. He stood looking upward. The hovering helicopter turned, and the door in the cabin opened again. Shayne guessed what was coming — too late.

“Captain! Duck!” he yelled, but the sound of a machine gun chattering three hundred feet above them drowned him out. Bullets splashed in the water astern of them and then stitched a seam up the middle of the Golden Girl. Tod Tolliver was in the middle of the seam.

He grunted and crumpled to the deck, dropping the automatic rifle.

The lines of bullets came back and methodically crisscrossed the old cruiser. Shayne scrambled to Tolliver’s side and grabbed up the rifle. Kneeling, he put it to his shoulder, aimed upward at the hovering helicopter, and let go a burst directly into the cabin.

The firing stopped. The automatic rifle ran out its clip and while he was looking in the chest for another the helicopter soared abruptly upward. As Sandra Ames came stumbling out on deck, breathless, it began to wing northward at a thousand feet or more.

“What—” she began, and saw Tolliver. “He’s hurt!” she cried in alarm. “What happened?”

The detective jerked his head toward the disappearing helicopter.

“Friends dropped in for tea and games,” he growled, stooping over the old man. Painfully, Tod Tolliver opened his eyes as Shayne found a spot on his neck and pressed against the artery there. The blood spurting from his shoulder close to the neck, eased but did not stop.

“Thanks, Mike,” Tolliver whispered. “Guess I talked too soon. They followed me. Dunno how, but they did.”

“Mike, look!” the girl cried. The redhead looked up. Five miles or more away, the helicopter was just a dot in the sky. The dot became an exclamation mark as a long plume of smoke poured from it. The aircraft began to tumble like a falling leaf. It went down, out of their sight, leaving a trail of smoke that quickly thinned and vanished.

Captain Tolliver was trying to speak. Shayne turned back to him. The old man’s lips worked for a moment before the words came.

“Leave me here, Mike,” he said. “Get yourself and the girl back safe. Swing the deal — see those orphans get theirs.”

“I’ll do my damndest,” Shayne promised.

Tolliver’s breathing grew more difficult. With every breath a bubbling sound came from his throat.

He opened his mouth to say something — but the words were never uttered. His mouth stayed open and his head lolled sideways. Tod Tolliver wasn’t there any more.

The Golden Girl was going down swiftly, but on an even keel. For a moment Sandra Ames seemed unable to grasp their danger.

“They killed him!” she said. “They tried to kill all of us!”

“They tried. They didn’t do it. I think we finished them off, instead. Now come on. There’s a rubber life raft here. We’ve got to get it into the water.”

But without answering the girl ducked back down into the cabin. Michael Shayne jerked out the carefully packed rubber raft and punctured the inflator cartridge. The raft uncoiled like something living as it filled out, and he tossed it over the side, holding it with a rope. Sandra came back, wearing her light coat and carrying an overnight bag.

“Here, hold this rope!” Shayne said. She took it. He scooped up Captain Tolliver’s light body and ducked down into the cabin. The water was knee deep. He put Tolliver into a bunk and left him. Only when he was back on deck did he remember that he’d left his jacket, with his gun and wallet, back in the cabin. It was too late now to get them.

In the galley he found a loaf of bread and some bacon. He snatched up a jug of water, tumbled the supplies into a dish towel, and dropped them onto the raft.