Alistair MacLean - Fear is the Key

"Killing gives me no pleasure," Royale put in softly. It was a simple statement of fact and I stared at him, temporarily off-balance by the preposterousness of it.

"Did I hear what I thought I heard?" I asked slowly.

"Ever hear of a ditch-digger digging ditches for pleasure, Talbot?"

"I think I see your point." I stared at him for a long moment, he was even more inhuman than I had ever imagined. "Anyway, Vyland, now that I'm going to live I have a different outlook on things. The sooner this business is over, the sooner I'll be away from you and your cosy little pals. And then, I think, I could put the touch on the general for a few thousand. T hardly think he would like it known that he had been aiding and abetting criminal activities on a grand scale."

"You mean — you mean you'd put the black on the man who saved your life?" Apparently some things were still capable of astonishing Vyland. "God, you're as bad as any of us. Worse."

"I never said I wasn't," I said indifferently. "These are hard times, Vyland. A man must live. And I'm in a hurry. That's why I suggest I come along. Oh, I admit a child could steer and lower and raise the bathyscaphe once he'd read the instructions, but salvage is no job for amateurs. Believe me, Vyland, I know, and it's not. You're amateurs. I'm an expert. It's the one thing I'm really good at. So I come, eh?"

Vyland looked at me long and consideringly, then he said softly: "I just wouldn't dream of going along without you, Talbot."

He turned, opened the door and gestured to me to precede him. He and Royale came out behind me and as we walked along the passage we could hear Cibatti slamming home a heavy bolt and turning a key in the lock. Which made it as safe as the Bank of England, except for one thing: in the Bank of England a code knock does not automatically open the door to the vaults. But it opened doors here, and I had remembered it: and even had I forgotten it, it would have come back there and then for Vyland was using it again on a door about fifteen yards along the passage.

The door was opened by Cibatti's opposite number. The compartment beyond wasn't as bleakly furnished as the one we had just left, but it was- a near thing. It had no wall coverings, no floor coverings, it didn't even have a table: but it did have a padded bench along one wall, and on this the general and Mary were sitting. Kennedy was sitting very straight on a wooden chair in a corner and Larry, his big pistol out, Ms eyes twitching away as feverishly as ever, was pacing up and down, doing his big watch-dog act. I scowled at them all impartially.

The general was his usual erect, impassive self, all his thoughts and emotions under the usual impeccable control, but there were dark half-moons under his eyes that hadn't been there a couple of days ago. His daughter's eyes, too, were smudged with blue, her face was pale and though it was composed enough she didn't have the iron in her that her father had; the droop of the slender shoulders, slight though it was, was there for all to see. Myself, I didn't go much for iron women at any time; there was nothing I would have liked better than to put an arm round those self-same shoulders, but the time and the place were wrong, the reactions anyway unpredictable. Kennedy was just Kennedy, his good-looking hard face a smooth brown mask, and he wasn't worried about anything: I noticed that his maroon uniform fitted him better than ever; it wasn't that he had been to see his tailor, someone had taken his gun from him and now there wasn't even the suspicion of a bulge to mar the smooth perfection of the uniform.

As the door closed behind us, Mary Ruthven rose to her feet. There was an angry glint in her eye, maybe there was more iron to her than I had supposed. She gestured towards Larry without looking at him.

"Is all this really necessary, Mr. Vyland?" she asked coldly. "Am I to assume that we have now arrived at the stage of being treated like criminals — like criminals under an armed guard?"

"You don't want to pay any attention to our little pal here," I put in soothingly. "The heater in his hand doesn't mean a thing. He's just whistling in the dark. All those snow-birds are as jittery and nervous as this, just looking at the gun gives him confidence: his next shot's overdue, but when he gets it he'll be ten feet tall."

Larry took a couple of quick steps forward and jammed the gun into my stomach. He wasn't any too gentle about it. His eyes were glazed, there were a couple of burning spots high up in the dead-white cheeks and his breath was a harsh and hissing half-whistle through bared and clenched teeth.

"I told you, Talbot," he whispered. "I told you not to ride me any more. That's the last time—"

I glanced over his shoulder then smiled at him.

"Look behind you, sucker," I said softly. As I spoke I again shifted my gaze over his shoulder and nodded slightly.

He was too hopped up and unbalanced not to fall for it. So sure was I that he would fall for it that my right hand was reaching for his gun even as he started to turn and by the time his head was twisted all the way round I had my hand locked over his and the gun pointing sideways and downwards where it would do no harm to anybody if it went off. No direct harm, that was: I couldn't speak for the power and direction of the ricochet off steel decks and bulkheads.

Larry swung round, his face an ugly and contorted mask of fury and hate, swearing softly, vilely, continuously. He reached down with his free hand to try to wrench the pistol clear, but the hardest work Larry had ever done was pushing down the plunger of a hypodermic syringe and he was just wasting his time. I wrenched the gun away, stepped back, stiff-armed him joltingly with the heel of my palm as he tried to come after me, broke open the automatic, ejected the magazine and sent it clattering into one corner while the gun went into another. Larry half-stood, half-crouched against the far wall where my push had sent him, blood trickling from his nose and tears of rage and frustration and pain running down both cheeks. Just to look at him made me sick and cold.

"All right, Royale," I said without turning my head. "You can put your gun away. The show's over."

But the show wasn't over. A hard voice said: "Go pick up that gun, Talbot. And the clip. Put the clip in the gun and give it back to Larry."

I turned round slowly. Vyland had a gun in his hand and I didn't care very much for the whiteness of the knuckle of the trigger finger. He looked his usual polished urbane self, but the rigidity of his gun hand and the ever so slightly too fast rate of breathing gave him away. It didn't make sense. Men like Vyland never allowed themselves to become emotionally involved, far less so concerned over what happened to a punk like Larry.

"How would you like to go up top and take a walk over the side?" I asked.

"I'll give you till I count five."

"And then what?"

"Then I'll shoot."

"You wouldn't dare," I said contemptuously. "You're not the type to pull triggers, Vyland. That's why you employ this big bad hatchetman here. Besides, who would fix up the bathyscaphe then?"

"I'm counting, Talbot." As far as I was concerned he'd gone nuts. "One… two—"

"O.K., O.K.," I interrupted, "so you can count. You're a swell counter. I bet you can even count up to ten. But I bet you can't count up to all those millions you're going to lose just because I don't feel like picking up a gun."

"I can get other people to fix up that bathyscaphe."

"Not this side of the Atlantic, you won't. And you haven't all that much time to play around with, have you, Vyland. What's the betting a planeload of the F.B.I, aren't already on the way to Marble Springs to investigate that curious telegram Jablonsky sent? What's the betting they aren't already there? What's the betting they aren't knocking on the door of the general's villa right now, saying, 'Where's the general?' and the butler saying, 'Why the general's just gone out to the rig, gentlemen,' and then the F.B.I, saying, 'We must call upon the general immediately. We have important things to discuss with him.' And they will call, Vyland, just as soon as this storm blows over."