Donald Hamilton - The Intriguers

He must have been aiming well ahead of me, giving plenty of lead to allow for the forward motion of the boat. It wasn't a long shot, only a little over a hundred yards, but even loafing along as she was, the boat was doing at least twenty miles per hour-close to thirty feet per second-and rifle bullets do not travel with the speed of light, although people keep trying to make them. When the hidden marksman's projectile reached the spot where he'd expected me to be, I wasn't there. My sharp turn away from him had thrown his calculations off just enough for a clean miss, but not enough that I didn't hear the bullet go past or catch a glimpse of the characteristic dimpled splash off to the left-excuse me, to port.

I suppose it's a reflection on my life style, as it's currently known, that even before I heard the report of the rifle from the rocks behind me, I didn't doubt that what had passed me was a bullet, not a suicidal bird or bumblebee; and that somebody was trying to kill me. I checked the impulse to dodge left. He'd be anticipating that. The standard naval routine is to chase the splashes made by the enemy's shells in the hope of confusing his attempts to correct his aim. Instead, I kept the wheel hard right, holding the tight turn I'd started through a full hundred and eighty degrees and ninety degrees more. For a moment that aimed me straight at the shore and the hidden rifleman, who wouldn't be expecting me, I hoped, to charge straight at him.

Another bullet cracked past, off to port again. He'd gambled that I'd straighten the boat out the instant she was heading back out to sea and safety, instead of continuing the turn. He'd lost, but all it had cost him was a cartridge worth a few dimes or pesos, depending on nationality. If I lost, I'd have a large hole in my anatomy.

At the shot, I spun the wheel hard left, chasing the splash at last, hoping he wouldn't be ready for it now. He wasn't. A third bullet slapped the water well off to starboard. I caught a glint of glass up among the rocks: a telescopic sight. Well, that figured. It was time to try something new before I got too clever and dodged right into one of his shots. Heading out to sea again wasn't too bad an idea. Under the new circumstances, the weather was by far the least of my worries. When the bow had swung back far enough, I checked the turn and slammed the throttle clear up to the stop. Eighty-five horsepower came in with a roar. The instant acceleration threw me back onto the helmsman's seat, actually the built-in battery box with a cushion on top.

Then my borrowed little seagoing bomb was screaming over the water, practically airborne. I thought I heard a bullet snap past just behind me, as if the would-be assassin, establishing a lead for a target speed of some twenty miles per hour, had been caught flatfooted by the sudden jump to forty and over, but I couldn't be sure because of the racket. Some seconds passed, and it was time to dodge again before he came up with the proper correction, but I didn't dare. We were going too fast. I'd never before held this boat at full throttle for any length of time; I'd never before hit this speed in any boat. I wasn't at all certain she wouldn't just flip if I tried to turn her.

I consoled myself that a high-speed angling target is something few riflemen can hit, and the range was getting longer by the second. I didn't look shorewards; I didn't dare take my attention off the boat that long. She felt very squirrelly indeed at this velocity, and if she started to go haywire I wanted to be ready for her. I did risk a glance at the instruments. The tachometer was right at the 5500 rpm redline; the speedometer wasn't registering at all. Apparently, skimming the surface at this speed, the boat rode so high that the little Pitot tube, or sending unit, attached to the lower edge of the transom, off to one side, was practically clear of the water, with nothing to work on but spray.

Concentrating on keeping the flying little vessel under control, I hadn't realized that we were already getting out beyond the shelter of the point. Suddenly, the smooth surface across which we were racing broke up into hills and valleys of tumbling water. A cresting wave came at us, and the boat smashed into it and was hurled skywards. I managed to get the throttle back while she was still aloft. She hit with a shattering crash ad plowed headlong into the next wave, which broke green over the bow. At the same time, the wake caught up with us and came surging into the self-bailing splashwell just ahead of the motor, with enough momentum to carry a lot of it over the bulkhead and into the cockpit-a planing boat doesn't go very far when the power quits; she just squats and stops.

For a moment I thought we were swamped; then I sat, still clinging to the wheel, with water around my ankles and the motor idling softly behind me. Another wave came at us, no tidal wave or tsunami, but plenty high enough to impress a shorebody like me. The boat rose to it nicely, however, and the wave passed underneath, sending only a ripple of spray aboard. I heard a humming sound and looked astern to see a steady stream of water being ejected by the automatic bilge pump. Already, the cockpit was almost clear as the water we'd shipped streamed aft to the sump in the stern.

She was quite a little ship. I paid my silent respects to the unknown fellow-agent who'd selected the pieces and put them together. He'd probably saved my life. I shoved the lever forward cautiously to get us moving again, working to windward slowly through the confused seas off the point. Glancing towards the rocks to starboard, I saw that we were still within long rifle range, but it didn't matter. We'd turned the corner, so to speak, and this seaward face was too steep for a man to cling to, let alone shoot from. Anyway, at three hundred yards, nobody's going to hit a target bobbing erratically in six-foot waves.

One of the big party boats I'd seen at the island earlier that morning passed a quarter-mile to seaward, rolling heavily, with an imperturbable Mexican skipper at the helm, and a bunch of seasick Yankee fishermen in the cockpit. Making the turn into the bay, they stared at the crazy jerk in the fifteen-foot motorized bathtub who didn't have sense enough to come in out of the spray, but this close to harbor the wind didn't bother me. I knew I could make it in from here, but there was something I had to do first. There was something I had to find.

Then I saw it on the beach at the head of the smaller bay that had opened up beyond the point: a small white boat pulled up on the sand. He'd have conic by water, of course. He wouldn't have risked being seen and remembered as he carried that scope-sighted rifle through the hills from the nearest road, A conventional plastic case designed for a couple of husky salt-water fishing rods would, with a little modification, easily accommodate a long gun, and it could be loaded into a boat right at the dock without causing any comment whatever.

I got out the binoculars I'd been using on sea lions, whales, porpoises, and sea birds, and checked the beached craft as carefully as the distance and the motion of my boat would permit. It was a light aluminum skiff with a small motor, probably around ten horsepower. Although only a foot or so shorter than my fiberglass job, it was much narrower, shallower, and lighter; probably less than one-third the weight, with less than one-eighth the horsepower. He might have me outgunned, but I had him out-boated.

It took me a while to set it up. First I had to get back into San Carlos Bay, working on the assumption that he'd left from the same marina as I had-there weren't too many to choose from in that corner of Mexico- and would be coming back there eventually. I went far offshore and swung very wide around the point, this time, to emphasize how gun-shy I'd become. Then I had to find a place to lie in wait for him.