Ted Bell - Tsar

“Say again,” she called out.

C realized his mistake and made his way toward the stern, where they wouldn’t have to shout. There might be guards posted on Nonsuch, and sound carried so clearly across open water, especially on a quiet, nearly windless night like tonight.

It was a dark night as well, no moon and few stars, but the woman at the helm knew these waters by heart, and C was not overly worried about navigation.

“All’s well?” he asked, standing atop the cabin house.

“No worries, David,” she said, as the former hero of the Falklands War stepped down into her cockpit. Diana kept one eye on the dimly lit fathometer mounted on the aft bulkhead of the low cabin house. She was on a starboard tack and still had a good twenty feet of water beneath her keel. “Do you want to circumnavigate the island, David? I think I could manage that, now that the tide is fully in.”

“I don’t think we’ll need to, dear. We can see the layout of the island pretty well from here. I’ve been examining it through the glasses. There seems to be some kind of settlement in the interior, located out there near the southern end of the island. See the lights, winking through the trees?”

“Yes. Deep-water cove just to the west of there,” Diana said, pointing toward it. “There are caves along in there, deep ones. Said to be pirate lairs back in the eighteenth century. I could get us in fairly close over there, if you wish.”

“Yes, let’s do that. What’s the shoal situation around here? Do you need to tack, or could you just fall off the wind a few degrees?”

“I can fall off to port. There’s a break in the reef right off my port bow there, known locally as the Devil’s Arsehole, pardon my French. We can slip in and out of there fairly easily. You can use the dinghy on the stern davits. It’s got a small outboard, but you should probably row. That motor’s noisy.”

“Fall off, then. And let’s extinguish all our running lights, shall we, Diana? No need to alert anyone on shore to our presence. I’ll shout a warning if Ambrose or I see any activity we don’t like. I’ve got a sidearm, but I’d rather not use it. I just want to have a quick look around.”

“Hard a’lee,” Diana Mars said, and eased the tiller to starboard, falling off the wind ten degrees and heading straight toward the island’s midsection.

Sir David made his way forward and rejoined his comrade at the bow.

“Anything interesting?” he said under his breath.

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” Ambrose said, not removing the binoculars from his eyes. “A launch. Approaching at idle speed from the west. He’s running without his navigation lights on, which is a bit odd.”

“Forgot to turn them on?”

“Possible. Or, like us, he simply doesn’t want to be noticed.”

“Where’s he headed?”

“He seems to be headed for that dock. I just picked him up a few minutes ago. But that seems to be his course.”

“I’ve a thought, Ambrose. Diana says she can nip into a deep-water cove there on the lee shore. We’re headed there now. What say we drop anchor inside, near the shoreline? You and I could row the dinghy ashore, then make our way along the coast on foot to the southern tip. See what we can see.”

“Are you armed?”

“Of course.”

“I think it’s a splendid idea. Something about that pristine white launch piques my curiosity. It’s all spit and polish. I can’t imagine what business a vessel like that would have with the type of chaps who inhabit this rock.”

“I agree. I’ll go astern and tell her the plan.”

It was rough going when they finally moored the dinghy and scrambled ashore. After shedding their jackets and shoes and tossing them into the dinghy, the two men sat on a fallen palm tree to roll up the legs of their trousers. Sir David had a pistol shoved into the waistband of his white trousers. It was an old Colt Python.357 Magnum revolver, the only weapon he’d owned since leaving the Navy.

“I’m ashamed to admit this to you, Ambrose,” Trulove said, hefting the Colt in his right hand, “but this is the most fun I’ve had in bloody years.”

“You should get out in the field more often, David,” Ambrose said, grinning at the director of British intelligence.

“I may never go back,” C said with a wry smile, getting to his feet. “Let’s go, shall we?”

The vegetation grew right down to the water’s edge, and swarming clouds of mosquitoes seemed to dog their every step. The slippery shoreline rocks and mangrove roots underfoot also made it difficult for the two men to work their way south along the island’s perimeter. You had to hold on to the topmost branches of the mangroves to keep yourself from splashing into the sea, and Ambrose found himself wading through pools of water that rose above his knees.

So far, they’d seen or heard nothing that could be construed as threatening. No guards, although the sound of dogs barking could be heard coming from somewhere inside the dense interior. More than one dog? Yes. Guard dogs? Possibly. On this moonless night, the jungly place seemed forbidding and hostile. By day, sailing idly by, Nonsuch Island probably looked like an idyllic spot for a family picnic.

Finally, they reached the cove’s southernmost point. The vegetation had retreated here, leaving a finger of white sandy beach protruding into the shallows. Ambrose looked back at Swagman, riding easily at anchor in the dark blue water of the cove. He saw Diana’s silhouette, motionless; she appeared to be standing on the bow, watching their progress through binoculars.

From this sandy spit of land to their left, they could easily see the old wooden dock protruding into the water. A half-submerged shipwreck lay alongside the dock and looked as if it had been there for decades.

At the landward end of the pier, he saw what looked to be an abandoned village of small huts and shacks. No lights at all.

Deserted?

The white launch was now tied up alongside the crumbling pier. No one was aboard, as far as they could tell, though there was a small cuddy forward. Whoever had been at the helm had disappeared into the island’s dark interior whilst they had been making their way along the coast.

“Let’s go have a closer look at that launch, shall we?” C said, already moving quickly across the sugary soft sand.

“Wait for me,” Ambrose said, quickening his pace. Running in soft sand had never held any great appeal for him. Running anywhere on any surface at all, to be honest, was not his idea of fun.

The village, or what was left of it, looked overgrown, nearly absorbed by the lush green jungle creeping in from all sides. It looked as if it had been uninhabited for aeons. The dock, too, was in a grave state of disrepair, with the odd missing plank, but it looked usable if you minded your step.

Making their way out along the rotted wooden structure, they glanced at the two fishing boats. Small, with inboard diesels, the kind typically used by one-man commercial operations, each with a little square pilothouse amidships and a mess of netting piled in the stern. One had the name Santa Maria painted on her flank, the other had the rather amusing name Jaws II.

The snappy twenty-six-foot launch was tied up near the end of the dock and looked completely out of place in this gloomy backwater. She had an inboard engine, a gleaming white hull, varnished mahogany trim, and beautifully polished brass handrails built waist high around the cockpit. Her name was in machined gold leaf on the stern. She was called Powder Hill.

Trulove said, “She’s got cargo aboard, Ambrose. Let’s take a look, shall we?”

Ambrose gazed down inside the deep hull. A white canvas tarp covered what appeared to be rectangular boxes, stacked high in the stern. Trulove and then Ambrose stepped aboard. The tarp was lashed down but came away easily as the two men worked to see what secrets Powder Hill contained. Ambrose pulled back the canvas. There were six wooden cases, roughly five feet long by two feet wide, neatly stacked and lashed down with bungee cords.