John Gardner - Seafire

"A hard taskmaster," Leiter muttered.

"Oh, the hardest," Ms. Motley replied, with wise nods from her two colleagues. "But you'll have to come aboard and see our laboratory, Mare Nostrum . It's an incredible ship. Quite the last word."

Last word is probably right, Bond considered. Aloud, he said, "We'd love to. How about tomorrow night?"

"An old Texas cowhand," Bond all but sneered. "Old Texas cowhand, my backside."

"Don't be horrible to Felix, now, James. He did get us a lot of information," Flicka chided.

It was late afternoon, and the day had provided more information, none of it comforting. Now they stood on the topmost platform of El Morro, looking out across the harbor.

The banter between Bond and his old friend had begun early that morning when they left the hotel to drive across the island to the town of Ponce. Felix, it appeared, had thought of everything, including hiring the car which he could drive with the advanced prosthetics he now used, but Bond took over with both Flicka and Felix as navigators. Not that there was much navigation to do, for the roads were straightforward, taking them across the breadth of the island from the Atlantic to the Caribbean sides, touching the coastal towns of Salinas and Santa Isabel.

"You're quite a well-read little devil for an American," Bond began.

"It's all the time I've had lying in hospital beds and hippety-hopping around."

"Yes, but to recognize a couple of obscure scientists was quite a feat."

"Not really. I already knew who they were."

"You did?"

"I've been here for a couple of days, and those three are almost permanent fixtures in the hotel bar. A word here and a word there: you know how we glean information, James. At least you used to know."

"Fraud," Bond muttered.

"No, just checking out the opposition. Those three are in some danger, but I don't need to tell you that; you've been up against their boss in person. Don't you think we should warn them?"

"They're innocents as far as Tarn's concerned. Won't know what hit them when he does arrive. Yes, I had thought of giving them most of the information tonight. I'll suggest that they whiz their floating lab off to one of the other islands, or set a course for Florida.

"You've spent your time checking up on the trio of scientists, Felix. What are they up to on Max Tarn's behalf?"

"What are they doing? Well, it's difficult to explain. In fact, even if they do explain the scientific bits to us, we'll probably be none the wiser. I gather it's something to do with an antipollution device. That's the talk in the local bars and bistros. They're trying to produce a substance that will nullify the effects of oil spills."

"That would be handy."

"It's only talk, but I've seen Mare Nostrum from a distance. She has these pipes, like mortars, set at angles all around her outer deck. The locals say that they would spray a kind of foam on oil spills – rather like dowsing a fire. The difference is that this foam would suck up the oil and purify the water at the same time, but you heard what they said last night. The thing doesn't work."

"Tarn's not going to like that. When he puts money into something, he always counts on a return. Like as not, he'll expect the thing to work."

Flicka stirred in the back. "Like as not, he'll demand it to work. The man's a loony."

"A loony and his money are not easily parted, either," Bond said without any humor in his tone. "But we all know he's damned dangerous and, I suspect, is getting more dangerous by the day."

Presently, Flicka asked Leiter if he had visited any of the caves. "This guidebook says Puerto Rico has the third-largest underground river in the world, and there is a network of caves and caverns along the Atlantic side."

"Haven't had the time, but I gather the entire coastline – Atlantic and Caribbean – has caves, though the largest ones are on the San Juan side."

"What're you thinking about, Flick?" Bond asked.

"Nothing in particular, only it struck me that if there really is a submarine out here, one of these caves would make a good pen for it."

"Submarine!" Leiter's jaw dropped. "What submarine?"

"We know Tarn has one – an old Russian boat. I think World War II vintage, or just after, but he could've been feeding us a line, so I suppose the real thing might even be a modern boat." Bond's thoughts were already way ahead of Flicka's. "He gave us some cock-and-bull story that it was for a military museum he was going to set up on one of the deserted islands he owns. Planned to have his cruise ships visit the place. None of it rang true."

"That's all we need, a rogue submarine prowling around these waters."

Flicka launched into the story of their cruise and the damage done to Caribbean Prince . "The U.S. Navy square searched the whole area after that. Found nothing, so he must've squirreled it away somewhere. If we were, in fact, torpedoed."

They stopped for coffee in the little town of Santa Isabel, with its view of the Caribbean and the long, broken reefs of rocks. Before going on their way, Bond and Flicka bought the wet suits they might need, considering they would pay probably twice the price in San Juan.

The sun shone, sparkling off the emerald sea, and the sky was clear but for a few high cirrus clouds as they drove on. Felix made a remark about Tarn certainly picking a nice spot. "It's only a few miles up here to Ponce, and his place is a couple of miles up the coast. Those rocks down there look like a lunar landscape."

"It all looks volcanic to me." Bond glanced down toward the beach.

Minutes later they reached the turn, and traveled on a bumpy track leading uphill in a series of sharp bends. Ahead there was a small wooded area. "You can just get into the trees," Felix told him. "Then we have to walk."

It was some kind of picnic area, deserted at the moment, and Felix soon led them from the car along a winding footpath that took them to the edge of the trees.

Below them was a long, low oblong building, the four sides enclosing a garden with a swimming pool, similar to the architecture of El Convento. The house, with its many arches, was painted a light blue, the whole surrounded by a wall. On the outer perimeter they could see tennis courts and a parking area.

"Nice little place for weekends." Felix handed Bond a pair of binoculars and he scanned the house, which was perched above a rocky incline leading to the sea. There were two cars in the lot, and several people worked in the central garden or could be seen moving along the cloisters. Of Tarn and his closest colleagues there was no sign.

"Doesn't look as though the master's arrived yet, does it?" Leiter asked.

"No, but there are several men down there who look as though they're guests." He had picked out a group of eleven or twelve men sitting under one of the cloisterlike arches, drinking. He sharpened the focus of the binoculars, trying to make out faces, but he recognized none of them.

He was just going to hand the glasses back to Felix when one of the group, a tall and graying bearded man, pushed back his chair and spoke to the others, who began readying themselves to leave.

"Watch this." He realized that the illusion of the group's proximity made him whisper. "They're off to do something."

"I hope it's not a little stroll up here," murmured Flicka. "Some of those, people look nasty."

"I'd forgotten your exceptional eyesight."

"It's my youth, darling. Seriously, from here they look like hoodlums."

"Or sailors," added Felix.

The group straggled through the cloister and disappeared into the house, emerging seconds later outside, walking down the metaled driveway that ended at a pair of stout iron gates exiting onto the road.